MD03 - Criminal Intent

by Sheldon Siegel

“To Danny, life is an ongoing frat party. He had a few beers and loved the movie. He was the only person who was laughing in the screening room.”

  “I thought you said it’s a drama.”

  “It is. Danny thinks everything is funny.”

  I ask, “What about his wife?”

  “She wasn’t laughing.” He holds up a menacing index finger and says, “There is nothing funny about Cheryl Springer. All business. An ice queen.”

  Do I sense hostility?

  “She made Danny Crown. She has only two things on her mind: keeping Danny off drugs and making sure his movies are released on time. She’s prepared to do anything to get The Return of the Master into the theaters.”

  I’ll keep that in mind. “How did she like the movie?”

  “She said she loved it.”

  “Do you believe her?”

  “It doesn’t matter. We still owe Danny some of his money.” He glances at his watch and stands up.

  “What are you going to do about the movie?” I ask.

  “I’m going to do everything in my power to release it on time. Then I’ll be able to focus on the China Basin project.” He gives me a knowing look and adds, “If you can get the right result, there will be a modest gratuity in it for you.”

  I catch Rosie’s eye. She says, “We’ll just bill our client by the hour. We’ll leave it up to you whether you’d like to make a contribution to her defense fund. ”

  “Fine. I’ll let you know. I hope you’re successful. It’s a lot easier to fix real estate deals than murder trials.”

  Interesting choice of words. Coincidentally, he’s absolutely right.

  *****

  Chapter 19

  “Never Let the Truth Get in the Way of a Perfectly Good Story”

  “Insiders reported serious problems on the set of Return of the Master.”

  — Los Angeles Times. Sunday, June 6.

  “What did you think?” I ask Rosie. It’s a few minutes after ten. We’re on the Army Street off ramp heading toward Sylvia’s house to pick up Grace. Summer vacation will be starting soon. This will help. The practice of law often presents unique challenges for your parenting skills. It would be nice to coach Grace’s Little League team before she goes to college. I may need to make some lifestyle adjustments before I’ll have the chance.

  Rosie yawns. “I think it’s past Grace’s bedtime,” she says. “She’s going to be crabby.”

  “So will I.” I turn onto Bryant and try again. “What about Dom?”

  “He seems like a pleasant enough fellow. Especially if you like arrogant weasels who talk out of both sides of their mouths.”

  Don’t sugarcoat it, Rosie. “I can see how he became the head of a movie studio. Actually, I thought he was pretty forthright at times.”

  “When was that?”

  “When he wasn’t talking.”

  Rosie smiles. “Maybe we’re being unfair to him. He was nice enough to tell us about his warm and fuzzy relationship with his grandchildren.”

  Papa Dom. “And he admitted he hired Kaela Joy Gullion to watch the MacArthurs.”

  She turns serious and says, “We should get to her right away.”

  “He’s probably already written a script for her.”

  “I don’t think so. She kicked the crap out of her ex-husband in the middle of Bourbon Street. He outweighed her by two hundred pounds. I don’t think anybody tells her what to say.”

  “You may be right, but we shouldn’t underestimate Petrillo. You can be sure he has his own agenda.”

  “Indeed. He wouldn’t have talked to us unless he thought there was something in it for him. The hard part is sorting through the bullshit.”

  “He told us more about the studio than I would have thought.”

  “It was a good performance, but he didn’t tell us anything that won’t become a matter of public record. The redevelopment agency will get to approve any changes in the deal. I’m sure there were elements of truth in everything he said. On a scale of one to ten, I’d probably give him about a seven.” She reflects and adds, “I wouldn’t want to be in Little Richard’s shoes.”

  “Why?”

  “If he wants to stay in the deal, he’s going to take a big haircut. He’s going to have to put up more money and collateral. It wouldn’t surprise me if they try to squeeze him out. It was one thing for Petrillo to get in bed with Big Dick, who had some legitimate directing talent. It’s another thing to deal with his son. MacArthur Films is bringing a lot less to the party.”

  “Do you think they’ll be able to get approval?”

  Rosie is practical. “The redevelopment agency has been working on this for years. They don’t want to start over. At the end of the day, if Petrillo and Ellis can come up with a restructured deal that makes economic sense, they’ll get the approvals.” She looks out her window and asks, “What did you think of his version of the screening the other night?”

  “It was a lot different than Angel’s. I thought it was an Oscar-winning performance.”

  “How so?”

  “He covered all the bases. First, he took care of himself. He made it clear that he and Ellis can alibi each other. Then he swore he’d like to see Angel exonerated. Then he gave us motives for Kent and Little Richard.”

  “You didn’t expect him to point the finger at himself, did you?”

  “No. I take it Angel never mentioned any of the outbursts he described?”

  “Nope. She spun the story away from her.”

  Just like everybody else who was there. “Who do you believe?”

  “I’m not sure.” She thinks and says, “Parts of Petrillo’s story may help us. Kent and Little Richard were both still there after Petrillo and Ellis left. Now we know they were angry.”

  “You don’t think they would have killed him over a real estate deal, do you?”

  “I don’t know. It’s all we have for now. Kent isn’t around to defend himself.”

  No he isn’t. We cross Twenty-sixth and head north past the tightly-packed bungalows not far from where my parents grew up. I say, “I noticed he didn’t point a finger at Daniel Crown.”

  “It’s bad publicity if either of the stars is in jail. It’s better for him if they find a way to blame it all on Little Richard or Kent.”

  “Unless he wants to take advantage of the publicity that would follow from his arrest.”

  Rosie grins. “Cynic.”

  “Guilty.” I glance out the window and say, “What about the China Basin project? If they pin the murder on Little Richard, the deal is dead.”

  “Not necessarily. They can find another tenant and get another investor. Maybe Petrillo wants to kill the China Basin project. Maybe he’s decided it doesn’t pencil out. You can bet he’ll figure out a way to rearrange the financing if he has to.”

  “Are you suggesting Petrillo might have killed Big Dick so he could restructure or maybe even terminate the China Basin project?”

  “Maybe that was the whole idea,” Rosie says.

  Seems like a stretch. “There isn’t a shred of evidence pointing in Petrillo’s direction. Big Dick was still alive when he left with Ellis at one forty-five.”

  “So he says. Maybe he came back.”

  “There is no evidence that he did.”

  “That’s why we have to talk to the limo driver and the people at the Ritz.”

  “And his PI,” I add.

  Rosie nods. “Especially his PI. She may have been the only person who was there when everything happened—other than Little Richard and Kent.”

  I add, “And Angel.” We’re still grasping. I ask, “If you’re Petrillo and you want to try to blame somebody else, who do you like the best?”

  “I think Marty Kent is Petrillo’s best choice. He can release the movie on time and still build the studio. He gets everything he wants. So does Ellis. For that matter, so do Angel and Little Richard. She gets to star in a movie and he gets to run a production company. It’s the perfect result f
or everybody—a complete win-win.”

  “You seem to have this all worked out.”

  She gives me a serious look and says, “Petrillo makes movies. He gets people to invest large sums to finance productions that are often little more than a concept. He’s sunk a ton of money into a movie that may not be released and a studio that may not be built. He’s doing exactly what you’d expect: damage control. First he made sure Ellis would alibi him. Now he’s going to try to salvage the movie and the business park, along with his ass. Somebody involved in the China Basin project has already demonstrated a willingness to dole out a few selectively-placed bribes to grease the approval process.”

  “We don’t know if it was Petrillo,” I interject.

  “That’s true. It could have been Kent or Ellis. It could have been the MacArthurs. Either way, somebody is worried about this project and wants it to move forward. If Petrillo needs to bend the truth a little bit to obtain the approvals he needs or to point the finger toward Marty Kent—or anybody else, for that matter—you can bet he’ll do it. Never let the truth get in the way of a perfectly good story—especially if your money and your ass are on the line.”

  “Have you always been this cynical?”

  She smiles. “Only since I started working with you.”

  “Let’s assume you’re right. Play it out. Pretend you’re Petrillo and you want to finger Kent. How do you explain it? Tell me how Kent would have done it.”

  “Easy. You take Little Richard at his word that he left before Kent. That means Kent was the only one still there. He killed Big Dick with the Oscar, put it in the trunk of the car, put Angel in the car and drove over to the bridge. They even found his fingerprints on the steering wheel. Maybe he drugged Angel.”

  “You forgot about the nightgown.”

  “That’s easy, too. He changed her clothes before he put her in the car. He took the nightgown with him. He parked at the bridge, moved Angel into the driver’s seat, and then jumped off the bridge, nightgown and all.”

  “Come on. Why did he change her clothes?”

  “There was no blood on the nightgown. It would have been obvious to the police that she hadn’t hit him.”

  I don’t know about that. “Why didn’t he get rid of the Oscar, too?”

  “Then there would have been nothing to connect Angel to the murder weapon.”

  “And his motive for killing Dick?”

  “Financial problems. Stress. Disagreements about the movie and the China Basin project.”

  “You think he was pissed off enough to kill him?”

  “Why not? Work with me on this, Mike.”

  I’m not buying it just yet. “Nope. Why go to all the trouble of framing her just so he could jump off the bridge a few minutes later?”

  “Guilt. Maybe he didn’t decide to jump until after he got to the bridge.”

  “You’re stretching.”

  “You got any better ideas?”

  “Not at the moment. Have you concocted a similar scenario for Little Richard?”

  “Of course. Let’s assume he lied about his departure and Kent left first.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “Little Richard was the last one there. He killed his father. He changed Angel’s clothes and put her in the car. He drove her to the bridge. Then he went up to Napa.”

  “Where was Kent while all of this was happening?”

  “He’d already left. He went to the bridge.”

  I point out that Kent’s car was still parked at Big Dick’s house. “How did he get to the bridge?”

  “The old-fashioned way: he walked. It’s less than a mile.”

  “And why did he jump?”

  “Same reasons. Stress. Financial problems. He was unhappy about the deal.”

  “We have no hard evidence of any stress or financial problems.”

  “We have Petrillo’s word.”

  “You believe him?”

  “It’s just a theory. That’s why we need to talk to Kent’s son.”

  I’m not convinced. “Have you concocted a motive for Little Richard?”

  “Money. He stood to inherit half of his father’s fortune. If he could have shifted the blame to Angel, he might have been able to get even more—maybe the whole thing. Besides, he and his father didn’t get along. He was mad about the movie and the studio. He was tired of playing second fiddle. The casting of Angel in the lead was the final straw.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Why not? It’s possible.”

  “You haven’t connected him to the Oscar or his father’s car,” I say.

  “We will.” She reminds me that Nicole Ward told us earlier they found four unidentified sets of fingerprints on the Oscar.

  “You still haven’t shown he was in his father’s car.”

  “That’s tougher. We’ll have to find something in the police reports.”

  We’ll see. “And the nightgown?”

  “There was no blood on it. He changed Angel’s clothes when he put her in the car. He got rid of it on the way to the bridge.”

  “You think young Richard was smart enough to think of that?”

  She doesn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

  There are too many holes. It’s all speculation. I ask, “How did he get to Napa?”

  “He drove his own car.”

  He couldn’t have driven two cars at once. “How did he get his car if he drove Angel to the bridge in his father’s car?”

  “The same way Kent got to the bridge. He walked back home and got the car.”

  “You think he had the presence of mind to do this in the middle of the night after he had just murdered his father?”

  “Sure. It was dark. Nobody would have seen him. The drive to Napa was an attempt to create a better alibi.”

  We have no evidence that any of this happened.

  Rosie’s wheels are still turning. “There’s another possibility,” she says. “Somebody could have picked him up at the bridge.”

  “Who?

  “Maybe Kent. Maybe Ellis. Maybe Crown and/or his wife.”

  “You think there was a conspiracy? There’s no way they could have planned it all out.”

  “I don’t think we should rule out the possibility.”

  “I don’t think we should count on it.”

  “You got any other ideas?”

  I pull into Rosie’s mother’s narrow driveway and pause to think. Who else was there? Who else would have known that Little Richard was at his father’s house? Who else might he have called? Rosie and I look at each other and say simultaneously: “Eve.”

  I say, “He said he went to Napa by himself.”

  “Why should we believe him?”

  “We shouldn’t.”

  “She could have picked him up.” she says.

  “There’s no evidence that she did.”

  “We need to subpoena his cell phone records.”

  “And Eve’s,” I say. “We need to talk to her.”

  “And Kent’s son,” Rosie says. “We need to find out if his father was the cool cucumber Angel described or the depressed psychotic Petrillo said he was.”

  I see Grace come out the front door. She walks down the steps and knocks on the window. “Are you going to stay in the car all night?” she asks.

  Rosie opens her door and says, “Go get your things together, honey. We’ll be right up.”

  As we get out of the car, I look over at Rosie and ask, “How are you holding up?”

  “Fair.”

  “Any word from Dr. Urbach?”

  A shrug. “Later this week.” She leans back and says, “What’s up with you and Leslie?”

  “I’ll find out in a little while.”

  “You got a date?”

  “I hope so.”

  # # #

  “I want to come to the arraignment,” Theresa tells us. She’s sitting on her mother’s sofa with her arms folded. Her mother, Sylvia, is sitting next to her. Tony is leaning against the
fireplace.

  Grace is standing by the door holding her backpack. “Can we go now, Mommy?” she asks.

  “Soon, honey,” Rosie says. “Why don’t you wait out on the porch with Uncle Tony?”