alt.sherlock.holmes

by Gini Koch

  I jumped out of the car and ran after him. I heard the screech of tires, so presumed Sherlock was driving to head him off somewhere.

  He zigged and zagged where he could, but the buildings here were all basic rectangles. He was faster than me, but I kept him in sight, and eventually he headed for a street.

  Sherlock pulled up in front of him, and he spun around and ran back towards me. I decided I’d had enough and tackled him. There was a brief struggle, but I was a combat trained veteran and he, clearly, was not. I flipped him onto his stomach and pulled his hands back behind him, keeping my knee in the small of his back.

  “Let me go!” the man shouted.

  “I’m sorry, Mister Smithee,” Sherlock said, as she ran up to us and handed me a set of handcuffs. “Or shall we use your real name, Andrew Pfeiffer? Either way, you’re wanted for questioning regarding the murder of Dawn Niles.”

  “What?” Pfeiffer shouted. “What do you mean, Dawn’s dead?”

  “As if you didn’t know,” I snarled at him as I slapped the cuffs on him. My leg hurt from the chase, and I leaned on him a bit more.

  “Get him off me! I’m not a murderer!”

  “Then what’s in your pocket?” I reached in and pulled out the contents. “Plastic bags?”

  “I was going to the market.”

  “Maybe you were. However, innocent people don’t run, Mister Pfeiffer,” Sherlock said. “And the only reason you’d have to recognize my car is that you’d broken into it earlier today.”

  “Look, it’s not what you think. I didn’t murder anyone. Are you serious that Dawn is dead?”

  “Dead serious,” I snarled.

  He stopped struggling. “You’re not cops. Look, let me get up and I’ll tell you what I did.”

  “Why should we listen?” I asked.

  “Because if Dawn’s dead, I know who killed her.”

  SHERLOCK HAD ACTUALLY found a decent parking place, which put her in a good mood for some reason. Then she’d examined his car. It was definitely the car from the surveillance tape, right down to the muddy license plates.

  Now we were in Andy Pfeiffer’s small studio apartment. It was tidy and didn’t smell, but otherwise, I wouldn’t want to live in it. It was so small as to make me nostalgic for my visiting professor’s room at New London.

  “It’s all I can afford,” he said defensively, as I cuffed him to his chair, arms still behind him. Apparently my dislike had shown on my face. Meaning I’d let my guard down. That had to stop. “I need to be close to the studios.”

  “Why? You were fired from Glitterazzi,” Sherlock pointed out.

  “Wrongfully. And that’s why...”

  “Why you killed Dawn?” I asked, snarling a tad more than I’d intended.

  “No! I keep on telling you, I didn’t kill anyone.” He heaved a sigh. “I took stuff, okay? To sell.”

  “You mean you stole props?” Sherlock didn’t sound surprised.

  He nodded. “Props, clothes, set stuff. You’d be amazed at what crap like that sells for on eBay.”

  “Not really. The need for the public to have a piece of their idols isn’t an unknown phenomenon. How in the world did you think you wouldn’t be caught?”

  He shrugged. “They’re badly run. No one has a clear idea of how much of anything they have.”

  “That makes no sense,” I said as Sherlock showed me an eBay page on her phone. Pfeiffer wasn’t trying to hide that he had Glitterazzi items for sale, though the seller was listed as Mr. Hollywood. And he had a high approval rating. My bet was that this wasn’t the first set he’d stolen from. “They run a huge number of successful shows. You don’t become successful by not keeping track of your inventory.”

  “Some do, but you’re right. On the reality shows, they’re on top of things. They’re really out of their element with Glitterazzi, though. And they know it, so it’s made them all defensive and a lot less careful about little details. I got fired because I was trying to explain to Cliff that you can’t direct the actors in the same way on a scripted show as you do on reality.”

  “He wanted to let them leave the script?” Sherlock asked.

  “Sometimes. He wanted too much of their input, though, all the time. And not just Dawn’s. All of them. He wanted a collaborative show. But scripted TV doesn’t work like that. For an occasional movie? Sure, if your name is Robert Altman. But otherwise? It’s a terrible idea. But Cliff was set on it. That’s what we fought about, daily. That and the terrible script.”

  “The script was getting rewritten,” I pointed out.

  “Yes, and every version was worse. Collin was doing all he could, but Cliff and the others wanted to keep their stamp on it.”

  “Was the original script poor?” Sherlock asked.

  Pfeiffer shrugged. “It was okay. I can see why you’d look at it and think it could be turned into something good. The overall plotline was strong. But they tried to rewrite it for their cast, instead of finding the cast to fit the script.”

  “According to everyone, they had a brand new script that’s disappeared,” Sherlock said. “It was supposed to be far better.”

  “If that’s the case then they must have let Collin do what he wanted.”

  “What was that?” I asked.

  “Bring on another writer,” Pfeiffer replied. “Collin said he had someone who could fix things up fast.”

  “Who?” Sherlock asked.

  “No idea. I was fired, remember?”

  “And yet you know all of this, and you’ve been sneaking onto that set regularly to steal things,” Sherlock pointed out. “Here’s a script for you—a disgruntled employee steals from his former employer. One day he’s caught by a young actress. Rather than face the charges he knows his former employer will bring against him, he murders the actress, then runs off.”

  “I didn’t kill anyone, least of all Dawn!”

  “You were spotted leaving the set right after she was murdered,” Sherlock said as she pointed to the Spider-Man backpack sitting on his bed. “You have motive, means, and opportunity. The police are going to love you.”

  I put evidence gloves on again, thankful that we carried a large box of them, and opened the backpack. It was stuffed with what truly looked like junk. “Should I empty it out?” I asked. Sherlock nodded.

  “I didn’t kill Dawn,” Pfeiffer said again. “You have to believe me. Besides, I have an alibi.”

  “How so?”

  “I don’t work alone. I have someone on the inside who lets me know when to come and covers for me while I’m there. That’s who tells me what’s going on as well.”

  “We need a name,” Sherlock said

  As I looked at a set of jewelry I’d already had described to me today—a set made of chunky black jet, obsidian, and black diamonds—I knew who Pfeiffer was going to name before he said it.

  “Avery Parker.”

  I LOOKED UP. This wasn’t the name I was expecting. I pointed to the jewelry, Sherlock nodded.

  “So, why would Avery help you steal from the set?” she asked.

  Pfeiffer sighed. “He’s my friend, and he knew I was wrongfully terminated. He also knew that this was a win-win. The production company is covered for a certain level of theft. Avery would tell me what to take, who’d worn it or used it, and so forth. I’d sneak in when he told me to, take what he’d identified, and then sell it.”

  “And no one from the production company or the insurance company noticed this?” I asked. I pulled out the jeweler’s loop and looked at the diamonds in the jewelry. I wasn’t as good as Sherlock, but I was fairly sure they were fakes.

  “No, not yet. They haven’t had time to really inventory, because of all the scripting issues. By the time they noticed, I’d have closed that eBay account and the amount I’ve taken is just small enough that they won’t care enough to pursue with the police. The insurance company pays them for theft, I get what I should have in terms of salary, and Andenson gets to feel like they’re not cheating assho
les.”

  I managed not to say that it sounded like he’d done this before.

  “People get fired all the time,” Sherlock pointed out.

  “You’re not supposed to get fired for doing your job.”

  “They’ve barely done any filming, too,” I said. “So sooner rather than later someone was going to notice what you’d taken.”

  “No. They’ve filmed a lot.”

  “We were told they were to begin filming today,” Sherlock said.

  “The new script, yeah, that was the plan. Trust me, there’s been plenty of film wasted. But they’re not using any of the footage because they keep on changing the script. So, what I’ve taken has been removed from the scripts and won’t be used, and yes, that includes clothing and props. Besides, it didn’t have to last much longer. I’ve almost made enough to match what my promised salary would have been through the end of pilot season. That’s all I wanted.”

  “Speaking of the missing script,” Sherlock said, “did you happen to lift one?”

  “I took one of every iteration everyone got, yeah. They’re worth a hell of a lot. But I don’t have any of them up for sale yet. It’s too soon for scripts.”

  “Even the most recent one? The one that was supposed to be good? Did you take that one as well?”

  I looked up to see his expression. He was grinning. “Yeah, I did. When Avery told me it was the only one they had, I was going to offer it back to Collin, so that he could be the hero, but he hasn’t returned my calls.”

  “You weren’t planning to sell it to the highest bidder on eBay or elsewhere?” Sherlock asked.

  “No, not once I realized that I’d taken the only copy. That kind of thing can blow back on you.”

  “So, where is it?” I asked, refraining from comment about blowback and how Pfeiffer was probably about to learn what that was really like.

  “I put it somewhere safe.”

  “Where?” Sherlock asked.

  He shook his head. “That may be the only thing I have to offer to get Andenson to drop charges. I’ll tell you anything else, but not that.”

  “Fine. You said you knew who’d murdered Dawn,” Sherlock reminded him. “Let’s see who you’re going to suggest.”

  “I was supposed to grab a couple things from her dressing room the afternoon that Cliff disappeared. I went over, but I guess because Cliff hadn’t come back, she was still in her dressing room instead of on set. And I didn’t get caught by her because she was fighting with someone and I heard them before I opened the door.”

  “Fighting with whom?”

  “A man. His voice was sorta familiar; I’m sure I’ve heard it before, but I couldn’t say who it was. The door muffled things a bit—I wouldn’t have been sure it was Dawn if he hadn’t used her name. But he was threatening her. He said that if she told anyone, they’d make her pay.”

  “They? They who?” Sherlock didn’t sound like she was buying this story.

  “He didn’t say. Dawn was crying. Whoever the man was, he’s someone on the set, because Dawn said that she’d just get Cliff to fire him. And then he laughed and said he didn’t think Cliff was going to be a problem.”

  “ALRIGHT,” SHERLOCK SAID slowly. “Let’s say that I believe you. Tell me what your relationship with Irene Adler is.”

  “Irene?” Pfeiffer seemed thrown. “Ah, I have no relationship with her.”

  “That’s not true,” Sherlock purred. “You were the production assistant on not one but two of the failed pilots she was in. You know her.”

  “Well, sure, of course I know her, but I don’t have a relationship with her. Besides, I’ve worked with a lot of the same people, some of whom, like Avery, are working on Glitterazzi. It’s not as big an industry as everyone thinks.”

  “So, how long have you and she been dating?”

  “Not at all. I don’t have enough money for her. She’s got her sights set on landing a producer of some kind, more power to her.”

  I kept my face turned, looking at the things Pfeiffer had stolen. So what if Irene was aiming for someone with money? That didn’t mean she wasn’t still interested in me.

  “What about Collin Toohey? What’s your relationship with him?”

  “Collin I’d heard of but I only met him on this set. I liked him, that’s why I was going to offer the script to him. He’s pretty new in town, but he’s got a good reputation as a script fixer. It wasn’t really working for Glitterazzi, though. Honestly, from what I’ve heard about him, Collin should have fixed everything up in the first week.”

  “He’s that good?” Sherlock asked.

  “That’s what they say. Nice enough guy. A little jumpy and not someone who wants to socialize with anyone on or off the set, but otherwise, fine.”

  “What about Frank Lawson?”

  “Who?”

  “From craft services.”

  “Oh, that Frank. He makes great baked stuff.”

  “Your relationship with him is?”

  “Limited to eating his food.”

  “Has he caught you sneaking in or out?”

  “Not that I know of. What does he have to do with any of this? Was Dawn poisoned?”

  “Not that we know of, but cause of death is still being determined.”

  “Well, the guy said that they was going to end her just like her grandmother, which makes no sense because Dawn’s grandmother died of a stroke at ninety or something.”

  Sherlock and I exchanged a look. “Did he say anything else you can recall?” she asked.

  Pfeiffer’s brow furrowed. “Yeah. One other thing I heard before I got out of there—I think he was heading for the door when he said it, which is why I took off. He said that starlets were a dime a dozen, but true stars were made, not born. It was a weird thing to end on, really, considering.”

  There seemed to be nothing to say to this. But there was one question we hadn’t asked. “Why did you steal those papers and put them into Sherlock’s car?”

  “Ah...” Now Pfeiffer looked guilty.

  “Who asked you to do it?” Sherlock asked. “Right now, the best you’re looking at is a long stint in prison for theft and possibly going down for a murder rap, so I truly recommend you share everything in the hopes that it gives me enough to work on to find the real killers.”

  “You believe me?”

  “More than I believe some people. Again, who asked you to take those papers and put them in my car?”

  He looked down. “Irene. She caught me sneaking in today and put two and two together. Accused me of the thefts. I was caught red-handed with some jewelry she’d worn the week prior, so it wasn’t like I could lie my way out of it. She thought it was funny, honestly, that I was doing this and that Avery was helping me. She said she wanted to prank Joey and my helping her would be my payment for her silence. Told me to take the papers and put them into your car.”

  “How did you know it was Sherlock’s car?”

  “I didn’t. Irene told me it was hers. She gave me a key to use and everything.”

  “Did you remove anything from the stacks? Your personnel file, for example?” she asked.

  “No. Irene said it was a prank, that Joey would be freaked out looking for that stuff, then get a laugh when he found it, that’s all.”

  “Why did you run?” I asked.

  “Because it was the car I’d broken into and you both looked pissed.”

  “And you’re a thief,” I pointed out.

  “True. What happened to the key?” Sherlock asked.

  “It’s still in my pocket.”

  I fished it out. It was a key fob like Sherlock’s, but without the Aston Martin branding. That the remote entry fob had been cloned seemed certain.

  “When did you take what’s in your backpack?” I asked.

  “All that’s from today. Why?”

  I didn’t say why out loud—Irene had asked Sherlock to find the jewelry before it had been stolen.

  SHERLOCK HAD CALLED Straude, of course,
and he and Saunders arrived to take Pfeiffer into custody. He was still protesting his innocence as Saunders took him to their sedan in police handcuffs.

  “I think he may be telling the truth,” Sherlock said to Straude as she put our handcuffs back into the duffel. “And while they’re both clearly complicit, I’d like to keep Avery Parker and The Woman unaware of the fact that they’re part of Pfeiffer’s alibi, such as it is.”

  “Sherlock, if either one of them is the murderer I need to act quickly.”

  Sherlock shook her head. “I’m not sure what she’s guilty of, Lee, just that it’s something. And while Avery’s guilty of stupidity in support of a friend and collusion to commit a felony, that doesn’t mean he’s a murderer. Keep tabs on them, but I’d prefer that they not know they’re suspects. There are other avenues to be followed, first. Besides, if you arrest The Woman, she’ll turn it into a circus immediately, and if we don’t have ironclad evidence—and we don’t—she’ll find a way to embarrass the L.A.P.D.”

  Straude didn’t like it, but he grudgingly agreed to hold off on arresting either Avery or my date for the evening.

  Sherlock and I got into her car, but we didn’t drive off. “Why aren’t you ready to arrest Irene? Or Avery, for that matter?”

  She drummed her thumbs on the steering wheel. “Because I feel, more and more, that the elusive ‘better script’ is truly at the center of all of this. Let’s take what Pfeiffer says as true for the time being.”

  “If you insist.”

  “I do. That means that there was another writer Collin Toohey wanted to bring in. Perhaps Cliff was meeting with this person, which would be why he didn’t want Dawn there. Jackson thought that Cliff had the new script with him when he disappeared, but Pfeiffer says he’d already lifted it. So what script did Cliff have, then? And what if the missing script was better? Maybe Cliff was planning to have this other writer take a look and see what he or she thought could be or should be improved.”

  “None of that sounds disappearance- or murder-worthy.”

  “No, it doesn’t.” Sherlock put the car in gear and headed off. “Which is why we’re going to go visit the jumpy and antisocial Mister Toohey and see what he has to say.”