Diagnosis Murder 3 - The Shooting Script

by Lee Goldberg

  "What gate?" Mark asked Morgan.

  "They're checking to see if there's a hair or lint or anything where the film moves past the lens of the camera," Morgan said. "If there is, they've got to reshoot the scene."

  Lacey approached Mark and Steve, the bat still in her hand.

  "Good evening, Detective," Lacey said to Steve, then glanced at Mark. "And Detective's Daddy. Are you making any progress with your investigation?"

  "I think so," Steve replied. "You have a minute to talk?"

  "Sure," she said, effortlessly twirling her bat again. "They've got to relight for the coverage."

  "The coverage?" Mark asked.

  "The same shot you just saw but from other angles," she replied. "What we just did was the master, the wide-angle view of the scene. Now we're going to spend the night doing the whole scene again and again and again in different pieces."

  "I see," Mark said. "So that's why you could slip out of the scene and your stunt double could slip in. You'll just cut around that moment with the other footage. The action will move so fast, from so many different angles, that no one will ever know you didn't beat up those guys yourself."

  "That's movie magic," she said, suddenly whirling around and striking the director across the knees with her bat. Mark caught his breath, but the director didn't even flinch.

  "Great scene, Lacey," the director said. "You're Eastwood in a Wonderbra."

  'What makes you think he doesn't wear one, too?" Lacey said, then tossed the bat to Mark, who caught it.

  The bat was made of rubber.

  "I hope I haven't shattered all your illusions," she said to Mark with a mischievous grin.

  "Not at all," Mark said. "Seeing through illusions is something of a hobby for me."

  "Is that so?" She cocked an eyebrow. "Are we playing cat and mouse, Dr. Sloan?"

  "I don't think so," Mark said. "Are we?"

  "Why waste the energy?" Steve said, "There's no mystery about who killed Cleve Kershaw and Amy Butler."

  "That's good to know," Lacey said, heading for her mo bile home, Mark and Steve keeping pace on either side of her. "Who did it?"

  "You," Steve said.

  She didn't break her stride. "Then why aren't you reading me my rights?"

  "I thought you might try to convince me I'm wrong first," Steve said.

  "You're wrong," she said.

  "Is that the best you can do?" Steve said.

  "I don't need to do more," she said, turning to face them as she reached her trailer. "I didn't do it."

  "All the evidence says you did," Steve said. "You've also got motive, means, and opportunity, which, according to the detective handbook, makes you the killer."

  "I feel like I'm doing the same scene I've already shot, only from another angle," she said. "We had this conversation. The Mob killed my ex-husband, Lt. Sloan. Not me."

  "He's already an ex-husband?" Steve said. "You don't waste any time, do you?"

  "No, I don't," she said. "So, if you're not going to arrest me, we're done."

  "Let me see." Steve glanced at his watch and sighed. "Oh hell, if I arrest you now, I'm going to be up all night filling out reports and fielding questions from the media. I really need my sleep. Tell you what, maybe we'll do it tomorrow. How's that?"

  And with that, Lacey McClure went into her mobile home and closed the door on them.

  Steve looked at his dad. "Was that interesting enough for you?"

  Mark nodded. "Very."

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Steve dropped Mark off at the beach house and continued on to Barbeque Bob's, where he would stay until closing, serving food, ringing up checks, and managing the books.

  There was a grocery bag waiting for Mark on his door step containing DVDs of Lacey's movies and a note from Jesse, saying he'd ordered her home video at great personal peril and that it would be arriving in a few days.

  Mark decided the movies could wait for a while. He made himself some hot tea, settled into his recliner, and started, reading through the articles about Lacey McClure that Amy Butler had collected.

  He learned all about Lacey's beauty secrets ("Keep your lips moist with ChapStick morning, noon, and night!"), diet tips ("Say no to carbs and trans-fatty acids!") and exercise advice ("you don't need fancy gym equipment—your own staircase can be your StairMaster!").

  He read dozens of different retellings of her rather ordinary childhood in Indianapolis before she moved to New York to become an actress. Her parents divorced when she was young and, as she recounted tearfully in many interviews, she grew estranged from them both because they were "emotionally cold" and "emotionally abusive."

  Her marriage to Cleve Kershaw was repeatedly described as "one of the great Hollywood love stories" with Lacey frequently referring to their relationship as a "perfect partnership," and praising her husband's creativity, business sense, and "incredible sensitivity." She also referred to him as "a very sexy, masculine man."

  She talked tearfully, and at great length, about how he stood by her, providing "enormous emotional support," during her "harrowing cancer ordeal," when a small tumor called a lipoma was removed from her shoulder. The articles, and Lacey herself, described the experience like it was brain cancer when, in fact, Mark knew that a lipoma was merely a common benign fatty tumor beneath the skin, easily excised by laser, cautery, or an incision on an outpatient basis.

  But it made good press, allowing her interviewers to portray her heroically as a "courageous cancer survivor" and Lacey to reveal how the crisis "strengthened our marriage" and made them "appreciate each other, and the blessings we have, even more."

  She unabashedly compared their romance to such legendary Hollywood couples as Gable and Lombard, Bogart and Bacall, Tracy and Hepburn. And yet, at the same time, she called their relationship "a typical, American marriage," and their lives as "down to earth" and "refreshingly un-Hollywood." They were "just a normal couple" who happened to be incredibly talented, wealthy, famous, and attractive.

  The articles that preceded the release of each of her movies were virtually the same. All her films "redefined the action genre" and made "amazing strides for women in Hollywood," putting Lacey at the forefront of "a sexual revolution in the movie industry." Every role she played was a character of "enormous depth and originality" that allowed her to challenge herself and "explore her incredible range as an actress," taking her skills to "astonishing new levels:'

  Mark finished the magazines knowing nothing more about Lacey than he did before, though he did wonder why people bothered reading celebrity interviews. There were no insights to be gained, no wisdom revealed, nothing new to be learned about anything. Celebrity interviews were the intellectual equivalent of olestra, passing through the mind and leaving nothing to digest.

  He wondered what knowledge about stardom, acting, or Cleve Kershaw that Amy Butler had possibly hoped to glean from these vapid articles. Perhaps she had been as disappointed by them as Mark was.

  Having read so much about Lacey McClure, Mark was ready to see her movies, and her amazing strides for women, for himself. Ten minutes into Bloodbath Day Camp for Girls he hit the FAST-FORWARD button, stopping only occasionally to hear a few lines of Lacey's insipid dialogue. The movie told the story of several sexually adventurous, and barely clothed, young girls terrorized by a disfigured, psychopathic man who systematically killed them with various power tools. Lacey McClure played one of the early victims, who was eviscerated in bloody detail with a pair of electric

  shears.

  Bloodbath Day Camp For Girls was easily the most offensive movie Mark had ever seen or, more accurately, fast-forwarded through. He couldn't understand what the entertainment value was in watching people being tortured and killed in the most horrific ways imaginable, nor what the artistic interest was in writing, directing, or acting in such a film.

  Then again, it was the movie that launched Lacey McClure's career, and as she'd said in one of the interviews he'd read, she had no more regrets about
doing it than Renée Zellwegger had about doing The Return of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Johnny Depp had about being in A Nightmare on Elm Street.

  Mark took Bloodbath Day Camp for Girls from the DVD player and, withstanding the sudden urge to disinfect his hands, placed Good Morning, Miss Killer into the machine in its place.

  The main titles were just beginning when Steve came home. Seeing what was on, he immediately settled down on the couch to watch.

  The movie was just a series of elaborately choreographed fights and fiery explosions, strung together with a few lines of dialogue and an occasional sex scene. Mark tuned out early on, more interested in Steve's reaction to the movie than in the movie itself.

  Steve was completely absorbed—laughing, smiling and, during the action sequences, leaning forward in his seat, eyes fixed on the screen.

  When it was over, Steve became aware of Mark staring at him.

  "What's wrong?" Steve asked. "It's a great movie."

  "But you've met Lacey McClure, you know what she's really like, and you're convinced that she's a murderer," Mark said. "How can you believe her in a role or find her entertaining after that?"

  "Two seconds into the movie she just stopped being Lacey McClure to me," Steve said. "She became an ordinary suburban housewife who discovers she's actually an international spy with amnesia."

  "It couldn't have been the acting that convinced you," Mark said. "She's not that good."

  "It's not about the acting," Steve said. "I grew up watching TV, you didn't. I've been conditioned to immediately suspend my disbelief when looking at something on-screen. It's become an instinct."

  Mark thought about that for a moment and decided there might be some truth to it. "Do you think even after you've proven she's a killer and she's been sentenced to prison, you'll still be able to enjoy her movies?"

  "Probably," Steve said, then motioned to the TV. "Put .357 Vigilante in, it's her best."

  Mark put in the DVD and hit PLAY. "Perhaps you'd be interested in reading about some of her health and beauty tips, too?"

  "No thanks," Steve said. "I may be screwed up, but I'm not insane."

  At ten the next morning, Steve Sloan was in District Attorney Neil Burnside's office, making his case for the immediate arrest of Lacey McClure for the murders of her husband and his mistress. Burnside wasn't paying much attention. The DA quickly got the gist of Steve's argument, so his thoughts drifted to figuring out which assistant district attorney he should sacrifice on this career-ruining prosecution.

  Although it sounded to Burnside like Steve had a solid circumstantial case, the DA also knew how a skilled defense attorney like Arthur Tyrell could turn the evidence into an indictment of the LAPD and, by association, the prosecutors. And if it wasn't Tyrell doing the spinning, it would be some other grotesquely overcompensated, well-tailored lawyer up against Burnside's obscenely underpaid, off-the-rack civil servant.

  Whoever Burnside picked to be outmatched in the court room had to have a strong personality, somebody who would become so inextricably associated with the case that the DA wouldn't be blamed by the public if the prosecution lost. Conversely, it had to be somebody who, if the prosecution succeeded, could be easily marginalized so Burnside, and his office, could take all the glory.

  Burnside was scribbling a shortlist of five names on his notepad as Steve finished his presentation. The DA looked up at Steve and, for a moment, pictured him in the Wal-Mart security guard uniform he'd be wearing when this trial, win or lose, was over.

  "You make a good case, Detective," Burnside said, "Just not good enough."

  "You don't think she's guilty?" Steve asked.

  "It's not what I think, it's what I can prove," Burnside said. "Before I'll sign off on an arrest, why don't you spend a day or two proving she's innocent."

  "I thought that was her defense attorney's job," Steve said.

  "But if we travel the road first, we'll find the potholes in our case." Burnside smiled, pleased with his metaphor. He wrote it down on a notepad, beneath his shortlist of names. Someday, when he was Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, quotes like that from his early years in law would be come priceless. He had boxes of papers in his garage full of just that sort of invaluable wisdom, waiting for his day to come. "Start by assuming she's right, that this double murder was a Mob hit."

  "Do you know anybody who can open some doors for me with the FBI's organized crime unit?" Steve asked.

  Burnside got another piece of notepaper, scrawled a name and a phone number, and handed it to Steve. "Special Agent Larry Bedard, out in West LA. He's coordinating a joint Justice Department, FBI, LAPD passive surveillance operation, monitoring standing wiretaps on key organized-crime figures. Visit him. Maybe he's picked up some useful chatter."

  Steve stuck the paper in his breast pocket and studied Burnside for a moment. He knew that Burnside wouldn't be risking his own political capital on this case. The trim, fit, purposely photogenic forty-one-year-old DA didn't try very hard to hide his aspirations to either a higher office or a higher court.

  "Who'll be running point for you on this?" Steve asked.

  Good question, Burnside thought, glancing again at his shortlist. He did a quick mental calculation of the pros and cons of each candidate, weighing the value they posed as friends and the risk they posed as enemies, before settling on the sacrificial lamb.

  "Karen Cross," Burnside said. "A dogged prosecutor. She's perfect for this case."

  Steve nodded and walked out, wondering what Karen Cross had done to deserve such a grim fate.

  The Los Angeles field office of the Joint Organized Crime Task Force was a tiny room in the basement of the Federal Building, a white concrete monolith rising like a giant tombstone in a patch of dried grass at the junction of Wilshire Boulevard and the San Diego Freeway.

  If the building was a tombstone, then the windowless pit Steve entered had to be the coffin. The room was lit with strips of fluorescent light that hummed and flickered, casting a sickly yellow glow over the gunmetal grey shelves that were crammed with CD-ROMs, audio tapes, videos, and bulging binders stuffed with papers. A single fan, placed on a stack of phone books, struggled to circulate the hot, heavy air, the dust and dirt clinging like algae to the metal mesh that enclosed the spinning blades.

  In one corner of the room, Special Agent Larry Bedard sat in his shirt sleeves, facing three computer monitors, each showing an EKG-like graphic display of voices being recorded. Bedard looked like a garden gnome disguised as an FBI agent. He was a squat man with a big round face, big round eyes, and a big round body.

  "Agent Bedard?" Steve asked.

  Bedard spun around in his seat and smiled cheerfully at Steve.

  "Detective Sloan, welcome! Welcome!" Bedard said, jumping out of his chair and waving Steve in. "Call me Larry. Sit down; make yourself comfortable."

  Bedard motioned to the seat he'd just vacated. There were no other chairs in the room.

  "That's okay," Steve said. "I've been stuck in traffic all morning. It's nice to be standing."

  "Very well.." Bedard plopped back down in his seat. "You must have powerful friends."

  "Why do you say that?"

  "This is a very hush-hush, vacuum-sealed operation," Bedard said. "You're the first visitor I've had down here in two years."

  "What exactly are you doing down here, Larry?"

  "Me personally?" Bedard asked, "Or are you asking about the investigative mandate of the JOCTF?"

  "How about both?"

  "We're maintaining standing remote audio and visual surveillance of key organized crime figures in specified locations within the boundaries set by warrants issued pursuant to several ongoing investigations." Bedard took a breath. "In other words, Steve, we've stuck a buttload of voice-activated listening devices and motion-sensitive hidden cameras in every place these goombahs hang out. We digitally record everything they say, transcribe and index the conversation, then stick the printouts in binders until the powers that be a
re ready to hand down indictments."

  "And what do you do?"

  "I'm the tech-head traffic cop," Bedard said. "I coordinate the recording operation. I can come and go as I please, dress the way I want, and nobody bugs me. No more sitting in some cramped surveillance van for days on end, eating fast food and pissing into a Porta-Potty. This is my domain."

  Bedard held out his hands expansively, as if they were in an opulent penthouse instead of an airless room three floors below the Federal Building.

  "You've got it made," Steve said.

  "I do indeed, Steve. Though, truth be told, I still use the Porta-Potty on occasion," Bedard said. "The heat in this room makes you drink a lot. It's six flights of stairs to the bathroom and all that stomping up steps on a full bladder really—"

  "I get the picture," Steve interrupted. "Almost too well."

  "I'm guessing you didn't come all the way down here just to admire what a sweet deal I've got going."

  "I came to request the impossible," Steve said. "To be honest, I'm almost embarrassed to ask." Though after the Porta-Potty story Bedard just told, Steve wasn't too concerned about his own embarrassment anymore.

  "I'm looking for two names that might have come up in any of the thousands of conversations you've got here," Steve said. "I can't tell you who was involved in the conversations or when or where the conversations—if they even happened—took place."

  "No problem," Bedard said.

  "No problem?" Steve asked incredulously.

  "Just give me the names."

  "Lacey McClure and Cleve Kershaw," Steve said.

  "Ah yes," Bedard said. "The movie star and the Mob groupie."

  "You're familiar with them?"

  "I do get out of this basement some times," Bedard said. "I do see her movies. I am a man."

  "I never doubted it for a moment," Steve said. "Why did you call Kershaw a Mob groupie?"

  "Kershaw grew up in New Jersey; he's really into the whole 'mobster chic' thing," Bedard said. "He loves to hang out anyplace you can find pasta and lots of guys wearing gold jewelry."

  Bedard typed Lacey McClure and Cleve Kershaw into one of his computers. A new window opened in the middle of the digital recording display on one of the screens, and a list of names and dates scrolled by. One of the listings was highlighted.