by Alan Russell
“You are a piece of shit,” said the voice. “You pretend that you’re special, but all you are is a waste. A trailer-park slut. I want to hear you say that. I want you to confess that to me with your legs spread. I want you to feel your body the way I felt it. Now strip out of that body bag you’re wearing!”
Heather made no move to take off her clothing.
“Don’t fuck with me!” The bass must have been turned to maximum. His curse was thunderous, and brutal enough to make Heather flinch.
“You try and act all prim and proper, but that’s not what you are. You groaned when I did you. You wanted it.”
“I was unconscious when you raped me.”
“That’s not what your body said. It welcomed me inside of you. It showed what a whore you are.”
“You drugged me and raped me.”
Heather didn’t want to be afraid, but she was. The burka kept him from seeing that she was trembling.
“Worship me now and I might spare you. Beg for your life. And you’d better be creative.”
She wasn’t sure what to say. She was afraid of her voice failing her. “It’s h-hard for me to think right now after being d-doped up.” Her breaths were hurried, but the oxygen didn’t seem to be reaching her.
The voice changed, taking on a sibilant, oily quality. “Maybe you need an incentive. Is that what you want? You’d make good target practice. You want an apple, Eve? I could put one on your head and try and shoot it off.”
And then the voice changed again, into an accent that sounded as if it came from the Middle East: “Or is it death by stoning that you want? It happens more often and in more places than you would think. Whole villages like to join in. Everyone from elders to boys take part. That’s the price paid for disobedience. That’s what happens to whores. Maybe we should play sticks and stones? Is it time to break your bones? Bitch!”
He spat out the last word.
“And don’t think if I choose sticks instead of stones you’ll get off lightly. I will light the sticks on fire before tossing them.” His accent changed again; now he sounded Indian. “You ever hear of bride burning? It’s been going on in India for some time. When a husband isn’t happy with the dowry that’s paid, he decides to get rid of his wife. His family helps with the fun. They douse the wife with kerosene and then set her on fire. And then she’s an ex-wife.”
Emilio had come from an Old World family, Heather knew. His mother had always waited upon his father. But as Heather had explained to him on numerous occasions, she worked a demanding job. Emilio’s mother hadn’t worked outside the home.
“And it’s only a matter of time before the world rediscovers suttee. What an enlightened insurance policy that was. The husband didn’t have to worry about his wife plotting against him, because when he died, his wife burned with him. ‘Until death do us part.’ Didn’t you say those words, bitch?”
“Why are you doing this to me?” she cried.
The voice changed again. Now it sounded like an atonal robot. “Are you ready to play sticks and stones? I think I’ll warm up with a few fast ones. Maybe you’ll catch one in the eye. That mutt of yours got one there, didn’t she? You can be just like her. That’s what the two of you are good for: target practice.”
The voice shifter couldn’t hide his anger. Heather could hear it even through the electronic distortion. Who other than Emilio would know about Angie’s having been maimed by a rock? A lump rose in her throat. Angie had learned to love and trust her, but if she didn’t come back, Angie would think she’d abandoned her.
“It’s up to you. Do we play sticks and stones? Or do you perform a striptease for me? And in the end, emphasis on the end, I want you to present to me like one of those apes in heat. I want you to show me what you really are.”
Life or death, Heather decided. That was her choice. She felt sick. She could either buy time or give up. How much more could she take?
Emilio had always said he wasn’t a brute. But maybe she’d misjudged him. What if that was just the tip of the iceberg? What if he was a monster?
With trembling fingers, Heather began removing her burka.
CHAPTER 24
SOMETHING IS ROTTEN IN THE STATE OF DENMARK
My sneakers made squishing noises as I walked to my car. Over their sounds I listened to a message Katie Rivera had left on my cell. She spoke in a hushed voice, making it difficult to hear.
“I’m not sure if I should be bothering you with this,” she said, “and you can’t attribute it to me, but I just heard that Heather had been inquiring into a situation where potential embezzling occurred. She was questioning charges submitted by a producer who worked for us. I can’t say any more because I’m here at work, but if you call me on my cell, I’ll fill you in on what details I have.”
I reached for the car’s door handle and opened it. Before taking a seat, I waited for some of the pent-up hot air to escape. I poured some water for Sirius and drank some myself before getting in the car.
My call to Katie Rivera went directly to her voice mail. I told her I was available to talk, and asked her to call whenever it was convenient for her.
On went the AC. It brought relief from the heat but not from what ailed me. The weight I’d tried to ignore all day was back. The Heather Moreland clock was ticking. I wanted to believe she was still alive, and had to operate on that premise. Langston Walker was now an additional weight, but without the time crunch. He had already met his fate. His answers could come in their own time.
I heard back from Katie right before reaching the turnoff for the Garden of Angels, a unique cemetery for abandoned babies. The timing of Katie’s call saved me from having to dwell on baby Rose and her burial plot. If not for Rose, I probably would never have gotten together with Lisbet. I owed that poor little one a debt I could never pay. I could only try and pay it forward with the quick and the dead.
“Is it safe for you to talk?” I asked Katie.
“I hope so. Look, this may be nothing, but I heard this morning that Heather might have caught someone with his hand in the cookie jar.”
“I’m surprised she never mentioned that to you.”
“It was business, not personal. And she was supposedly sworn to secrecy under penalty of death.”
Katie gave a little gasp. “That was a bad choice of words. What I meant to say was that there might have been severe repercussions for her had word of the embezzlement gotten out. Movie studios are famous for hushing up anything that might make them look bad.”
“And how did you hear about Heather’s involvement in this?”
“I’d rather not say. But I do know for a fact that only a few people are even aware of this situation. I can’t even tell you how it’s being dealt with. Maybe there’s already been a resolution. Or maybe everything was swept under the rug.”
“Do you know when Heather became aware of this questionable activity?”
“I’m pretty sure it was recently, like in the last week. In our office Heather is referred to as ‘the IRS.’ Part of her job is going over invoices and receipts associated with our corporate accounts.”
Over the years I knew of several prominent examples of embezzlement in Hollywood. Columbia Pictures president David Begelman had been caught forging checks. And recently, a case of purported embezzling at Paramount Pictures had made headlines.
“So you think this unnamed producer might have been involved in Heather’s disappearance?”
“I’m told he was upset by her inquiries and that he threatened to have her fired. But I suppose it does sound ridiculous that he’d be involved with her vanishing.”
“I wish it did sound ridiculous. What other specifics can you give me?”
“If you come at him, he’ll probably demand that a witch hunt take place here to try to find whoever leaked his name. And everyone knows how close Heather and I are.”
“I’ll cite an anonymous source, and then throw out lots of misdirection. But in order to do that, I’ll need to k
now everything you know.”
Katie sighed. “If this was anyone but Heather, I never would have called you.”
“I know that.”
She sighed again, and then told me what she’d heard, who might be involved, and what she suspected.
Paul Grauer’s assistant carried on a conversation between the two of us. Grauer was the producer whose invoices Heather Moreland had red-flagged, and he was proving an apparent master in self-preservation. When I got tired of the proxy stonewalling, I told the middleman that without Grauer’s cooperation, I would be forced to contact the Department of Justice and pass on what information I had. Immediately after that, Grauer agreed to a six o’clock meeting.
His offices were in Studio City, about five miles from my house. My hope was that I’d have time to go home and change into my standard uniform of a blue blazer and gray pants, but heavy traffic nixed those plans. As it was, I arrived ten minutes late, wearing my hiking outfit of basketball shoes, jeans, and a T-shirt. I tried unsuccessfully to make myself presentable, but half the trail seemed to have attached itself to my clothing. I’d gotten too much sun during my hike, a no-no for burn victims who’ve had skin grafts. I looked in the rearview mirror and did my best to wipe away the dirt. My face was red, my skin was already chafing, and the keloid scarring on my face looked that much more pronounced.
“Dress for success,” I muttered.
Sirius was snoring in the backseat, which was reason enough for me to let sleeping dogs lie. He doesn’t like Hollywood meetings anyway. I suspect that’s because only three dogs—Lassie, Rin Tin Tin, and Strongheart—have been awarded stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. That’s right, no Toto or Beethoven or Marley. And no Pluto either, I thought, thinking of Angie and Heather Moreland.
It was a secure office building, and I had to check in with a guard before being allowed access to the elevators. Grauer’s production company took up much of the tenth floor. As I walked the halls, I could see that most employees had gone home for the day.
A familiar voice greeted me: “Detective Gideon?”
Grauer’s assistant was a midtwenties male fashion plate. Suddenly I felt even more underdressed than I was. He didn’t extend a hand, perhaps afraid that I might take the gleam out of his manicure. “Please follow me,” he said.
He led me through an office into a meeting room, gestured for me to go inside, and said, “Mr. Grauer will be joining you shortly.”
Fifteen minutes passed before Grauer joined me, and he didn’t come alone. Two men entered the meeting room. Only one of them shook my hand, and only one of them spoke.
“Detective Gideon?” asked the older man. “I’m Saul Levine, Mr. Grauer’s attorney.”
Levine was around sixty. He sported a skunk-stripe hairdo that reminded me of Paulie Walnuts in The Sopranos. His shark eyes also reminded me of Paulie.
Grauer took a seat across and away from where I had been seated. He made sure Levine was situated between the two of us. His disapproval of me was apparent by his folded arms and frown. He was forty, but trying to look thirty with his stylish clothes and hipster haircut. James Dean had been dead for more than sixty years, but he still had his imitators.
“As I understand it, Detective Gideon,” said Levine, “you are looking into the disappearance of a Disney employee named Heather Moreland.”
“Correct,” I said. I felt as if I was in the presence of a ventriloquist, but I refrained from asking if I should direct my comments to Jeff Dunham or to his dummy, Walter.
“And for some reason you want to question Mr. Grauer about this disappearance?”
“It’s my understanding that Ms. Moreland identified suspicious invoices and billing statements submitted by Mr. Grauer.”
“And how did you come by this information?”
“It turned up in the course of my investigation.”
“So what you have is hearsay?”
“I prefer to categorize it as a potential lead.”
“It sounds like you’re grasping for straws. And your claims come close to constituting defamation of character.”
“Are you denying that Heather Moreland found irregularities in Mr. Grauer’s billing? And are you contesting that she brought these questionable invoices to her superior?”
“There was a misunderstanding. In case you were wondering, Disney has not filed charges against Mr. Grauer, nor do they intend to.”
“I happen to know your client threatened Heather Moreland. He said he would make her ‘pay’ if word of her findings circulated beyond those she had already made aware.”
Grauer whispered in Levine’s ear, who nodded. “My client was just trying to impress upon Ms. Moreland the gravity of the situation and the need to keep matters private.”
I decided to give Grauer my full attention, staring him down while I talked. “He scared an employee who was just trying to do her job. He dropped the F-bomb repeatedly during his tirade, and did his best to intimidate her. He threatened retaliation, and left it to her imagination as to what that might entail. Bullying isn’t a crime, but criminal intent might be. Did you follow through on the threats you made to Ms. Moreland?”
My eyes said what my words couldn’t: you’re an asshole. I tempered my speech, not wanting another complaint in my jacket. But Grauer knew exactly what I was thinking, and because of that he looked away.
“I am sure my client regrets upsetting Ms. Moreland,” said Levine. “But as I said, she didn’t know the full picture. When her superiors were apprised of the situation, the matter was dropped. And while Ms. Moreland should be commended for a job well done, the matter in question was above her pay grade.”
“Heather Moreland is missing,” I said. “That’s what I care about. I couldn’t care less about her supposed pay grade or mine. I need to be satisfied that Mr. Grauer isn’t involved in some way in her disappearance, and the only way that’s going to happen is if you tell me what occurred to provoke his malice.”
The two men looked at each other and seemed to come to an understanding.
“I am going to offer a hypothetical situation,” said Levine. “As you know, public relations are very important in this business. But there is a thin line between what is acceptable and what might be construed as a bribe.
“The film awards season runs from October to the end of February, but the jockeying begins early in the year. In order to have your picture considered for nominations, it’s often necessary to plant the seeds early. And how do you do that? Maybe a star agrees to make appearances, or say something, or write something. Handwritten notes from the right person can be a very effective tool. And while this star is sincere about what he or she thinks, their approbation is an investment in time. Sometimes priming the pump is necessary. Rewarding these efforts is a way of making sure they get done. For the sake of appearances, though, these business expenses can’t be directly linked to the promotion of one particular picture.”
“Caesar’s wife,” I said.
The mouthpiece didn’t get my reference. I tried another. “The Golden Bribes,” I said.
“These were not bribes,” said Levine. “I strongly object to that categorization.”
“Isn’t that what they used to call the Golden Globes?” I asked.
“I hope you’re not implying my client in any way targeted the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, because he most certainly did not.”
Just about everyone in Hollywood believed the fix was in when Pia Zadora was awarded a “best new actress” Golden Globe in 1982 for her role in Butterfly, beating out such actresses as Kathleen Turner in Body Heat and Elizabeth McGovern in Ragtime. It was commonly thought that Zadora’s moviemaker husband, Meshulam Riklis, essentially bought the award. As for her acting, Zadora was also awarded two Golden Raspberries, also known as Razzies, for “worst new star” and “worst actress.”
That was the nadir for the Golden Globes. In the years since, they’d changed their ways and mended their reputation.
If I cou
ld believe Levine’s double-talk, Grauer had been trying to create early buzz for his picture. What he’d done was probably not illegal, but neither he nor his clients wanted details of his payola reported in Variety, TMZ, or the Hollywood Reporter.
I had a smoking gun, but not the gun I wanted. I stood up and said to Grauer, “It’s been a real pleasure talking to you.”
CHAPTER 25
LOOKING FOR SMOKE SIGNALS
Lisbet had left on my front-porch light. It was nice not coming home to a dark, empty house. I sat in my car for a few moments, pretending I was decompressing in a hyperbaric chamber. I breathed in and out, trying to put the disappointments of the day behind me. It wouldn’t do to inflict my mood upon Lisbet.
The aroma of chicken greeted me as I stepped into the house. A second greeting was the sound of Ed Sheeran’s “Thinking Out Loud.” Lisbet and I haven’t decided upon “our song,” but that’s definitely a contender. The third greeting was Lisbet. She emerged from the kitchen and offered a hug.
“Glass of wine?” she asked.
“That would be great,” I said. “Just let me change out of these clothes.”
I went to my bedroom, stripped out of everything, and then put on my most comfortable sweatpants and one of my haiku shirts. Lisbet could only blame herself. She’s the one who’s been supplying me with the haiku T-shirts. This one read:
This is my haiku
You can call me Ishmael
Radioactive
“I like your shirt,” said Lisbet, handing me a glass of white wine.
In the background Ed Sheeran sang of falling in love and staying in love. We both took seats on the couch. Sirius joined us, curling up at our feet.
“I’m not sure about the shirt’s last line,” I said. “I mean, if you’re going for a five-syllable word and a non sequitur, couldn’t you come up with something better than ‘radioactive’?”
“How could you improve upon ‘radioactive’?”
I took a sip of wine and thought about it. “That’s el-e-men-tar-y, my dear Watson.”
