Diagnosis Murder 3 - The Shooting Script

by Lee Goldberg

  There was an excited, girlish bounce to her step as she hurried to the room and knocked on the door. It was opened an instant later by a man in his late twenties with the chiseled, blow-dried good looks of an aftershave model.

  The man swept Lacey up in his arms, lifting her off her feet as they embraced in a deep, passionate kiss. She wrapped her legs around him and they tumbled back into the room, the man closing the door with a swift kick.

  There was a quick cut in the film, and then they saw the motel from a different angle. The cameraman was on a hill side at the end of the building, looking down on the back window of the last room on the end. The shades were half-drawn, leaving just enough of the window open to see Lacey, her naked back to the camera, straddling her lover on the bed and grinding rhythmically against him. When she bent over to kiss him, her body resembled the poised tail of the scorpion that was tattooed on her lower back.

  The time was 3:47 P.M.

  There was another cut, and then the motel room was seen from the front again, only from an angle that also showed the gas station across the Pacific Coast Highway and an LAPD patrol car speeding past, lights flashing.

  Lacey emerged from the motel room, gave her lover a long, languorous kiss, then got into her car and drove off. The time stamp was 4:35.

  The tape ended. Mark stared at the blank screen as if he still saw images flickering past. He was replaying the video again in his mind, time stamps and all. Steve studied the rigid expression on his father's face. It was an expression Steve had seen many times before. His father had become a guided missile locking on to its target. The only way to stop him now would be if he self-destructed.

  "Now I know Lacey McClure killed Cleve Kershaw and Amy Butler," Mark said.

  "Why are you so certain?"

  "Because now confusing facts of the murder make perfect sense," Mark said. "It was all contrived to give her this airtight alibi."

  "This video doesn't prove anything. Whoever made this could have stamped any time and date on there if he wanted," Steve said. "It could have been taken two days, two months, or two years ago."

  Mark shook his head. "The time and date are accurate, I guarantee it. You'll be able to corroborate everything. I'd start by checking the number of the patrol car we saw going by. I'll bet it was the two officers responding to my 911 call."

  "If you're right, and the time stamp on this video is accurate, then there's no way Lacey McClure could have fired the shots you heard," Steve said. "Or even the shots you didn't hear an hour earlier."

  "That's why there's no question she did it."

  Steve stared at his father. "I'm not sure that's the best argument to make in front of a jury, assuming this case ever gets that far."

  "It will," Mark said, his eyes blazing with determination. "I'd like a copy of that tape."

  "No problem," Steve said. "You think she arranged everything at the pier today to get this tape into our hands?"

  "Not directly, but I'm sure she manipulated events to her advantage," Mark said. "Lacey McClure is very shrewd, Steve. It would be a big mistake for either one of us to underestimate her intelligence."

  "Then let's start with Nick Stryker," Steve said. "Maybe we'll learn something from him that will help us crack her."

  "Who's Nick Stryker?"

  "The guy who supposedly tried to shake down Lacey at the pier with this video," Steve said, tossing an evidence baggie onto the table containing Stryker's driver's license and other ID. "He's a licensed private detective."

  "I should have guessed from the name," Mark said, examining the IDs.

  "Maybe that's why he picked it," Steve said. "Somehow Zanley Rosencrantz doesn't evoke the same rugged image, does it?"

  Nick Stryker looked a lot healthier without the wig and false teeth. His tall, lanky frame fit uneasily into the rigid metal chair he was sitting in, prompting him to shift constantly in a futile effort to get comfortable.

  The fact was, nobody could get comfortable in the seat. It was designed that way. One leg was also shorter than the other, to keep whoever was sitting in the seat off balance throughout their interview.

  The seat was also positioned so that Stryker was forced to look at his own reflection in the mirror, which hid observers on the other side. It had been crafted, like a funhouse mirror, to narrow and stretch his face, to make him appear to himself as weak and sickly.

  Changing his seat to one of the two across from him wasn't an option. He was handcuffed to the armrest.

  Steve came in alone, careful to take a seat that wouldn't obscure Mark's view of Stryker from the observation room.

  "How you doing, Zanley?" Steve asked.

  "The name is Stryker, Nick Stryker. And I don't appreciate being handcuffed to this chair."

  "Lacey McClure doesn't appreciate being blackmailed," Steve said.

  Stryker snorted with derision. "Blackmail is the extortion of money or something of value from a person by threatening to expose embarrassing information or criminal acts. I didn't make any threats. Therefore, I didn't commit blackmail. Therefore, you got nothing on me."

  "Then what would you call demanding $300,000 in cash for that video?"

  "A bargain price," Stryker said. "I could have sold it to the tabloids for twice as much. But I felt I owed her first crack at it."

  "Why's that?"

  "Out of respect for Cleve. He was the one who hired me to follow her. He suspected she was having an affair. Ironic, huh?" Stryker said. "Cleve is banging some bimbo and he's worried his wife isn't being faithful."

  "I thought they were separated."

  "If they were, why would he care who she was boinking?"

  "They weren't living apart?"

  "He went home every night," Stryker said. "And so did she, except when she was shooting a movie someplace else."

  "So how is it you're respecting Cleve Kershaw by selling Lacey the video you made of her cheating on him?"

  "She's his next of kin," Stryker said. "I'm making sure the dirty laundry I found for him is staying in his family. I'm being discreet, ergo, respectful."

  "As long as you're being so respectful, why not just give the tape to her?"

  "There's a matter of my fee," Stryker said. "Cleve got killed before he could pay me. I incurred expenses."

  "Three hundred thousand dollars' worth?"

  "You keep talking like I did something wrong," Stryker said. "I conducted an investigation and uncovered information that was of value. I'm exchanging it for something of equal or greater value. That's business."

  "If this was all so innocent, why were you wearing the Halloween costume?"

  "I'm known as a master of disguise," he said.

  "You aren't known at all, Zanley."

  "Not outside the trade, so to speak. To the criminal element, and the general public, I'm invisible. It's why I'm so good. So obviously, I didn't want her to know who I was," Stryker said. "I felt if she knew my identity, it might compromise my future investigations."

  "There won't be any future investigations," Steve said. "Your license is being shredded, ergo, you're out of business."

  "C'mon, Lieutenant, let's be reasonable," Stryker said. "You see me lawyering up? No. Why's that? Because I want to be cooperative with my colleagues in law enforcement. You tell me what I need to do to keep this amicable between us and I'll do it."

  "You can start by giving me a full, signed statement repeating everything you told me today. Then I want all the material you gathered during your investigation for Cleve. Videos, photos, reports, invoices, the works," Steve said. "Then, maybe, we'll talk again about your license."

  Steve got up and walked out.

  "Hey," Stryker called after him, "What about these handcuffs?"

  Steve closed the door, pretending not to hear him, and went into the observation room, where Mark was watching the private eye stew.

  "What do you think?" Steve asked.

  "It explains how he got Lacey's private number and how he knew she had that swe
atshirt."

  "Do you believe Cleve hired him?"

  Mark nodded. "I also believe Lacey knew she was being watched and used it to her advantage. Proving it is going to be another matter."

  "Ready to talk to her?" Steve asked.

  "Not as ready as she is to talk to us," Mark said, frowning. "Lacey is still directing this show. We're simply actors in her movie, following a script she wrote a long time ago."

  "At least now we know it," Steve said, opening the door and leading Mark into the squad room, where Lacey was sitting at his desk, pretending not to notice the sideways stares she was getting from starstruck detectives.

  Steve took a seat at his desk and made a show of going over her signed statement. Mark pulled a chair over and sat next to Lacey.

  "Why didn't you tell us you had an alibi?" Mark asked. "It would have saved us all a lot of trouble."

  "I wasn't interested in your trouble or mine," Lacey said. "My concern was sparing Titus a lot of unnecessary embarrassment and attention."

  "Titus?" Steve asked. "I take it he's the boy toy in the motel."

  Lacey gave Steve a cold look. "It's that kind of attitude that kept me from telling the truth. I wanted to keep his name out of this. He shouldn't have to lose his privacy, and become the butt of jokes, because he made the mistake of loving me."

  Steve winced. "That's worse than the dialogue in one of your movies—not that anyone actually cares what's being said."

  "Titus Carville," Lacey said.

  "Who started cheating on whom first?" Mark asked. "You or Cleve?"

  "We were separated, Dr. Sloan," Lacey said. "But we still had needs."

  Steve looked at her skeptically. "Your husband didn't tell Nick Stryker you were separated."

  "Who's he?" she asked.

  'The guy who tried to shake you down today," Steve said. "He's a private eye your husband hired to find out if you were cheating on him with some boy toy with a ridiculous name like Brock or Thor or Titus."

  "I told you, we were keeping our separation a secret until the movie came out," she said. "It's probably the same reason he didn't tell this so-called private eye."

  "So why did Cleve care who you were sleeping with?"

  "I don't know," Lacey said.

  "We're going to have to talk to Titus," Steve said. "I'll need his address and phone number."

  He passed her a paper and pencil. While she wrote out the information, she said, "Do you really have to involve Titus in all this, or are you just doing it out of prurient interest?"

  "My prurient interests were satisfied by that tape," Steve said.

  Mark knew his son was being purposely offensive to spark a revealing reaction from Lacey. But she wasn't taking the bait.

  "If that's what you get off on, I've shown more and done more in my movies. I'm sure the camera work and lighting are better, too." She rose from her seat. "I trust you'll make sure I don't see that tape on TV tonight or the Internet tomorrow?"

  "You won't see this one," Steve said, patting his breast pocket. "But I don't know how many copies Stryker made. And let's face it, Lacey, the man is pissed off after what you did to him today. There's no telling what he might do to get back at you and make a little money."

  "You could stop him," she said.

  Steve shrugged.

  Lacey gave Steve a long look. "I can see you're going to make this difficult."

  "As difficult as I can," Steve said.

  "Even though that tape proves I'm innocent," she said.

  "Does it?" he replied.

  "It's a good thing you have that restaurant, Detective," she said. "At least you'll still have one job when this is over. Now where can I find my bag of spare change?"

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  "What they had wasn't a marriage," Titus Carville said, dabbing the sweat off his face with a towel. "It was a business relationship masquerading as love. It was never really love. What we have, that's true love."

  Titus was shirtless and sweaty. He'd been working out with his weight set in the living room of his Venice bungalow when Mark and Steve arrived. Even though Lacey had called ahead to warn him they were coming, he apparently didn't see any reason to interrupt his workout and get dressed.

  "Oh yeah, that's what people go to the Slumberland Motel for," Steve said. "True love."

  "You don't think Lacey and Cleve ever loved each other?" Mark asked Titus.

  "I think they loved what they could do for each other. I think they loved the success they were having," Titus said. "But that was as far as the love went."

  "Is that what she told you?" Mark said.

  "She didn't have to," Titus said. "Anybody could see it if they spent any real time with them."

  "And you spent real time with them?" Steve asked, throwing a casual glance over at his father. With that look, Steve conveyed a message. He'd keep asking questions and occupying Titus' attention, freeing Mark to roam around largely unobserved, gathering whatever clues he could.

  "Cleve hired me as her personal trainer," Titus said, tossing the town aside and moving to his treadmill. "then my job naturally evolved into being her personal assistant, too."

  "Naturally," Steve said.

  "I saw how they talked, how they looked at each other, how they touched. I could see there was no love between them," Titus said. "It was obvious."

  "But not to Lacey."

  Titus turned on the treadmill, set the program, and started running.

  "She came to realize it through my little acts of devotion," Titus said, a comment that gave Steve an unsettling feeling in the pit of his stomach. This guy was sounding more and more like a stalker with every word.

  Mark felt the same uneasiness, only much more acutely. At the moment Titus made that comment, Mark stepped into what he thought, at first, was a teenage boy's bedroom. A teenage boy with a healthy, adolescent interest in scantily clad women. But all the posters and pictures on the wall were of just one scantily clad woman: Lacey McClure. There were filing cabinets, stacks of DVDs and videos of Lacey's movies, pile of scripts, and desktop computer with a large monitor with bikini-clad Lacey McClure as a screen saver.

  "I made sure she got her Glacier Peak water, her 600-thread-count sheets, her special vitamins, her ChapStick—whatever she needed or wanted, before she knew she needed or wanted it," Titus said, as the treadmill slowly sped up. "I managed her needs because I cared about her needs. Not as a job, as a calling, the way it should be when you're in love."

  Mark tapped the space bar on the computer. The screen saver blinked off and the "Official Lacey McClure Home Page" appeared, framed within a window of a website administration program. Titus apparently was her webmaster, as well.

  "Don't take this the wrong way," Steve said, moving in front of the treadmill. "But you sound like one of those obsessed, lunatic stalkers, the kind of whackos who camp out side a star's house hoping to get a glimpse of them, or, failing that, steal a whiff of their garbage."

  Mark smiled when he heard that. Steve often said what others only thought, and it frequently got him in trouble. But it was also a good technique for unnerving witnesses and suspects.

  "I won't take offense at that," Titus said, "because it's a very thin line between devotion to someone you love and obsession. I've seen her stalkers. I've talked to them. And, in a few cases, I've had to hurt them."

  "So you're also her personal bodyguard?"

  "I'm everything to her I can be," Titus said, beginning to breathe hard now, the treadmill simulating a steep hill. "I run her website, answer her fan mail, and coordinate her personal appearances."

  "Like the one she made at the Slumberland Motel?" Steve asked.

  "That's a cheap shot," Titus said.

  "It's a cheap motel," Steve said.

  Titus' bedroom was spare, but neat, lit with pinpoint halogen lights, his clothes crisply folded on open shelves, almost as decoration. The bed minimalist, merely a mattress on a box spring, no headboard, runners, or footboard. Mark untucked a corn
er of the bed and ran the edge of the top sheet between his fingers.

  "The paparazzi watch the big, five-star hotels, waiting to see stars. They don't wait outside places like the Slumberland," Titus said. "Lacey wanted to keep her marital problems quiet until her new movie was out for a while; that's why we were there."

  "You could have gone to her house," Steve said.

  "There are paparazzi camped outside there, too," Titus said.

  "What's the big deal?" Steve asked. "You're her personal trainer and personal assistant, wouldn't you be expected to come and go?"

  "She also has a cook, a housekeeper, a gardener... Where do you think the rags get all their information? We were being discreet."

  "Not discreet enough," Steve said.

  Mark stepped into the hallway and opened the linen closet. There were some towels, an extra blanket, and two extra sets of sheets. He felt those, too.

  "How long have you and Lacey been lovers?" Steve asked.

  "A few weeks. But we didn't consummate our love until she and Cleve were separated, if that's what you're asking," Titus said, struggling up the imaginary hill his treadmill was simulating. "This isn't a sleazy affair. Lacey is as devoted to me as I am to her."

  "Is she fetching your water now and counting the threads in your sheets?"

  "She wants me to take over as her manager and producer. She knows I won't betray her the way Cleve did. I'm doing this for love, not money."

  "Uh-huh," Steve said. "So let me see if I've got this straight. Cleve was only in it for the bucks. And Lacey, she got swept up in her own success and went along for the ride. What you and Lacey have, that's true love. You take care of everything for her out of genuine devotion."

  "Is that so hard to understand?" Titus asked.

  "No, I think I understand," Steve said. "You insinuated yourself into Lacey's life and seduced her. Now, with Cleve dead, you get his woman and his job. Sounds to me like a motive for murder."

  Titus was huffing now, hands on the rails of his treadmill. "I suppose it's a good thing I have an alibi."

  "Same one as Lacey's, as a matter of fact," Steve said, as his father returned to the living room. "Funny how that worked out. Whose idea was it to go to the Slumberland Motel that day?"