Innocent Conspiracy_A Sam Prichard Mystery

by David Archer

  “So the cue sheet would have said that camera 4C was going to be on the curtain for the winner of the big award at the end of the show, right?”

  “Yeah, of course. That’s so the booth can make sure the camera is positioned where they want it before the shot begins.”

  “So it all works pretty much the same way it did when you were in the porn business, right?”

  “Yeah, pretty…” His eyes went wide, and he stared at Sam. “What? I don’t know what you mean.”

  8

  “Oh, come on, Goodie,” Sam said. “Did you really think you could keep that a secret? It wasn’t even hard for us to find out about it.”

  “I just—look, that was all a long time ago, and I really…”

  “It was a long time ago, until you decided to start taking in some outside work again. I’m sure it’s a nice little side income, Charlie, but it’s probably not something you’d want your bosses here to know about, am I right?”

  Charlie licked his lips, but seemed afraid to say anything more.

  “Charlie, I don’t care what you’re into,” Sam said. “What I do care about is finding out how the shooter knew that camera 4C was going to be the one pointed straight at the winner when he came out from behind the curtain. From what you’re telling me, he had to have gotten hold of a copy of that cue sheet. Now, from what I’ve read in the past, most video productions keep everything a secret. So you tell me, Charlie, how did somebody get hold of that cue sheet?”

  “Well, how the hell should I know? I didn’t give it to anybody. There’s thirty-seven people in the production department, why don’t you go talk to the rest of them?”

  “I probably will before this is over,” Sam said. “At the moment, though, I’m talking to you. And you just happen to be the one man in the video department who would probably do just about anything to keep a nasty secret from coming to light. So, tell me, Charlie,” Sam went on. “Who was it that wanted the cue sheet, and threatened to out your little secret if you didn’t give it to them?”

  Charlie’s eyes couldn’t have gotten any wider, but Sam would have sworn they did anyway. “Nobody! I swear, I don’t know what you’re talking about. As far as I know, nobody here even knows about any of that.”

  “I’m not worried about somebody here,” Sam said, getting to his feet and leaning over Charlie. “I’m concerned about somebody who wanted to set up a gun with a remote control trigger, and needed to know exactly what camera would be pointed in the exact direction of the winner of that award at what moment. Now, anybody who’s willing to shoot a young kid like Max Petrelli isn’t going to bat an eye at blackmailing you or anybody else for that information. So, tell me, Charlie, who wanted it? Who came to you and said that if you didn’t cooperate, they were going to make sure your bosses find out all about Goodie Barr and his past?”

  Charlie’s face was flushed, and his mouth was opening and closing, but no words were coming out. Darren leaned close.

  “Charlie,” he said softly, “look, man, we know you didn’t intend to be involved in this thing. You just wanted to keep the past in the past, right? We understand that, we really do. We don’t even have a problem with that, but whoever you gave that cue sheet to has shot that poor kid and hurt your company even worse than your secret getting out could do. You don’t want to let them get away with that, do you?”

  “But I don’t know,” Charlie said. “I swear to you, I don’t have any idea how this happened. I didn’t give the cue sheet to anybody, not to anybody. If I did that, I could lose my job.”

  “Yeah?” Sam asked. “And what do you think would happen if the blackmailer went to John and Annie? Do you think you would have been able to keep your job if they found out what you used to do, what you’ve been doing again? They pride themselves on being a family-friendly company, so how do you think they’d feel about knowing their main producer was taking on side work making porn movies?”

  “Charlie,” Darren said, still speaking softly, “look, man, it’s written all over your face. I told you, we know this is not your fault, and you’re not going to be in any trouble over it, as long as you tell us what happened. If you don’t, and it all comes out like it’s bound to do, then you could be charged as an accessory to attempted murder. That would be the end of your entire career, wouldn’t it?”

  Charlie’s mouth was working again, but tears had started running down his cheeks. He finally closed his mouth and took a deep breath, then looked directly into Darren’s eyes.

  “It wasn’t like that,” he said. “It was about six weeks ago when they came to me. They never mentioned the porn work in the past, they just threatened to tell on me for doing some side jobs lately. I mean, it shook me up so bad I quit, I’m not doing that anymore, I swear. I just needed a little extra money, so I took a couple of jobs for one of the companies I used to work for. I shouldn’t have, and I wish I never did, but it’s too late to change it now.”

  “And all you had to do was give them a copy of the cue sheet?” Darren asked.

  Charlie nodded. “Yeah, that and the security code for the back door. I swear, I didn’t have a clue what they were trying to do, I never would have gone along with it if I had. They said they were reporters, just trying to scoop everyone else on the awards. I never would have gone along if I’d known what they were really doing, I swear that.”

  “Charlie,” Sam said, “who was it? Who did you give the cue sheet to?”

  “I don’t know,” Charlie said. “I never seen them before, or since. It was a man and a woman, both of them fairly young. The only one I talked to was the woman; she’s the one who approached me, and I only ever seen him sitting in the car.”

  “Can you describe them? And what about the car?”

  Charlie swallowed. “The girl, she’s maybe twenty-five or so, about my height and pretty thin. Might weigh a hundred pounds if she was soaking wet, I guess. Blonde hair and dark eyes, kinda cute but not pretty. The guy, I never got a real good look at him. He was taller than me by a couple inches, probably, and had his head shaved bald. Never saw his eyes, never got that close to him.”

  “What about the car? Do you know what kind it was, what color?”

  “It was a new one,” Charlie said. “One of those little ones, the hybrid thing. Prius, that’s what it was. Toyota Prius, sort of a dark red.” He was looking at the floor, but he raised his eyes up to look into Sam’s. “Am I in trouble?”

  “That isn’t up to me,” Sam said. “I can tell you that you should have come forward, even after the shooting happened. If you had come forward then, you probably would not be in any real trouble at all. Now, I don’t know. It all depends on the prosecutor.”

  “Are you going to tell John and Annie?” Charlie looked like he was about to collapse.

  “Charlie, I’m afraid I don’t have any choice.”

  Charlie leaned back on his chair and began to cry. Sam sat and watched him for a moment, then took out his phone and called Karen Parks. It took him a moment to explain to her what was happening, and she told him she’d be right there.

  Sam left Darren with Charlie and walked out of the room, then returned ten minutes later with John Morton. Charlie started bawling like a baby when John walked in, but he didn’t try to deny anything when Sam explained what they had learned.

  “Charlie,” John said, “you could’ve come to me. I might not have been happy about you doing that kind of stuff, but I wouldn’t have fired you over it. If you had only come to me, we could’ve caught these people before anyone got hurt. Now, we’ve got a boy in the hospital who almost died, and that looks bad on all of us. He was our responsibility while he was on the show, and we let him down.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Charlie sobbed. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I know you must be,” Morton said, “but I’m afraid it’s too late for that. Charlie, I’m gonna have to let you go. This is going to come out, now, and I can’t afford to let it look like we’re protecting you. I’m sorry, Charlie, bu
t you’re fired.”

  Charlie sobbed a moment more, then started to get up from his chair.

  “Not yet,” Sam said. “A police detective is on the way, and you’re going to have to go downtown and answer questions again. After that, they’ll decide whether there are any charges to be filed against you.”

  Karen arrived a short time later and Sam repeated what they had learned to her with Charlie sitting there. She kept her face impassive through it all, but then she had a uniformed officer take Charlie back to her own office for further questioning.

  Once he was gone, she and Sam both turned to John Morton. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to him,” Sam said, “but the story is going to hit the news. His past, and even the things he’s doing lately, are going to be public knowledge by the end of the day. You did the right thing by letting him go, but you might want to start working on a press release.”

  John nodded. “Yeah, I guess so. Is this going to help you get to the bottom of it?”

  “I hope so,” Sam said. “At least we’ve got some general information. We got descriptions of the two people involved, and we know they were driving a Prius, which was most likely a rental car. That may give us a name, but I suspect it won’t be genuine.”

  “All right,” John said. “I better go and let Annie know what happened.”

  He walked away, and Karen looked at Sam. “Don’t beat yourself up,” she said. “That fellow had plenty of chances to come forward and do the right thing.”

  Sam looked at her, confused. “Beat myself up? Hey, I’m not the least bit worried about Charlie Barr, he made his own bed and he can darn well lay in it. I’m just feeling a little bad for John and Annie, because this is going to be more mud splashed on them. Coming right on top of the shooting, it could do them some serious damage right now.”

  Karen shrugged. “But it also shows that they really are doing all they can to find out what happened. If he words his press release properly, there’s a good chance they could get another popularity boost out of this.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” Sam said. He turned to Darren. “Good work in there,” he said. “You caught me off guard when you started talking to him, because he just about had me convinced he didn’t know anything at all. What gave it away?”

  “His left pinky,” Darren said. “He started digging the nail of his pinky into his palm. It’s something I’ve seen people do, a way to keep themselves from thinking about the fact that they’re telling a lie, thereby avoiding the normal telltale signs. There was a survivalist writer, guy named Kurt Saxon, he wrote this series of books called The Poor Man’s James Bond, and that was one of the tricks he promoted. It doesn’t really work, but an awful lot of people read those books.”

  Sam blinked. “I’d never heard of that one,” he said. “Does it really work?”

  “Not very well. Especially if your interrogator knows about it.”

  “I guess I learn something new every day,” he said. He glanced at the clock on the wall. “We’ve still got some time. Let’s go and talk to Patricia LeClair.”

  The receptionist brought Patricia in, and she took the same chair Charlie had occupied. She seemed nervous, so Sam gave her a smile. “Patricia, thanks for coming,” he said. “I’m Sam Prichard and this is Darren Beecher, we are investigators with Windlass Security. We’re trying to find out just what happened to Max Petrelli, and that led us to some questions we wanted to ask you.”

  “Okay,” the young woman said. “I’m pretty sure I don’t know anything, but whatever I can do to help.”

  “Well, in particular,” Sam began, “we were wondering if anyone has approached you lately to ask for information about the national awards show. Have you had any kind of unusual contacts, maybe somebody asking you about the itinerary for the program?”

  Patricia’s eyebrows narrowed. “No,” he said. “I don’t really have much to do with the show, as far as putting it together, I mean. All I do is make some of the announcements, and I do some of the commercials for it.”

  “Okay, but this is very important. Has anybody asked you any kind of unusual questions about the show, or about the company, in the last few months? Has anybody tried to pressure you into giving them information?”

  Her nervousness seemed to increase. “No, I told you,” she said. “Nobody’s asked me anything like that. Why are you asking that?”

  Sam leaned forward and looked her in the eye. “Patricia, somebody got some pretty serious inside information about how the program was going to be run. We already know that one other employee, Mr. Barr, was actually blackmailed, so we’re looking at other employees who might be vulnerable to that kind of pressure.”

  Patricia swallowed. “But what would that have to do with me?”

  “As I said,” Sam went on, “we’re looking at people who might be susceptible to blackmail. I think that could describe you, couldn’t it, Ms. Stubblefield?”

  Patricia’s eyes went wide, and her mouth opened and closed a couple of times with nothing coming out. After a few seconds, she closed her mouth and then the tears began to stream down her cheeks.

  “Yes, we know who you are,” Sam said. “Unfortunately, people with skeletons like yours rattling around in their closets sometimes feel that they have to do whatever it takes to keep their secret. If we can find out about you, so could someone else, so I’m going to ask you one more time. Has anyone tried to pressure you for information or cooperation that might have helped them to accomplish the shooting that happened the other night?”

  Still crying, she began shaking her head. “No, I swear,” she said. “Nobody knows. I don’t know how you found out, but I was careful, I made sure nobody could ever connect me to my past.” She sniffled a couple of times. “What’s—what’s going to happen now?”

  “Well, your home state has decided they’re not interested in prosecuting you for skipping out on your parole, so you’re not in any direct legal trouble. I’m not sure what’s going to happen when Mr. Morton and Ms. Porter find out, but I’m afraid we have no choice but to tell them the truth.” He glanced at Darren. “Darren, would you mind to ask them to come down?”

  “No problem,” Darren said. He got up and walked out of the room.

  “That’s not who I am, not anymore,” Patricia said. “Look, Mr. Prichard, I was young and stupid and I thought I was in love. When Bernie was arrested, he swore up and down he was innocent and I believed him. I tried to help him, I said he was with me, but too many people knew I was lying. I was arrested for perjury and obstruction of justice, and I pled guilty. I did my time, I paid my debt to society, and then I just wanted to start over.” She laughed, but there was irony in it. “You know who told me how to do it? It was my parole officer. She said she wanted to give me a break, but I think it was just because she didn’t want to have to do a lot of paperwork on me every month. She knew I didn’t have any family, so she told me how to change my name and start over. I just happened to pick Denver to come to, and I was looking for a job when I heard about auditions for this one. I came to the audition and nobody was more surprised than me when I got hired.”

  “Patricia,” Sam said, “I’m not going to say I don’t feel sympathetic, because I do. The only thing I can tell you is that secrets almost always blow up in your face. If you had taken some opportunity over the last few years to tell your boss the truth, it’s possible they would’ve been willing to help you keep the secret, but keeping it from them is what made you a liability that we had to explore.”

  Darren came back in, with John Morton and Annie Porter right behind him.

  “Mr. Prichard?” John asked. “Mr. Beecher said you needed to speak to us again.”

  Sam looked up at them, then turned his eyes back to Patricia. “Ms. LeClair actually has something she needs to talk to you about. Like Mr. Barr, she had a secret that could have allowed someone to blackmail her, and could have put your company at risk. She swears that no one has approached her, and I think she’s telling the truth. H
owever, I think it’s necessary for her to tell you what she’s been keeping from you.”

  Annie sat down on the arm of the chair and put an arm around Patricia. “Pat? What is it?”

  The whole story came out, and Patricia explained to them the same way she had tried to explain to Sam. She had made a mistake when she was young, had paid the price for it, and was only trying to start over.

  John shook his head. “Pat, it would’ve been better if you had come to us about this back when you were hired. I realize that might’ve been scary, but if there’s one thing Annie and I have come to understand, it’s that everybody makes mistakes. I’m pretty sure we would’ve been willing to accept you, even then.” He looked at Annie and raised his eyebrows.

  “Pat,” Annie said, “is there anything else you’ve been keeping from us? Any other secrets we need to know about?”

  “No, no, I swear,” Patricia said. “This has been the best thing that ever happened to me, working for you. I would rather die than do anything to hurt you or the company. I don’t have any other secrets, I swear I don’t.”

  Annie nodded, then looked back at John. He seemed to read something in her eyes, because he turned back to Patricia with a smile.

  “Then we’ll say no more about this. On the other hand, if anyone ever does find out about it and try to pressure you, you will come straight to us, right?”

  Patricia started bawling, and Annie pulled her close. “I will,” Patricia said between her sobs. “I swear I will.”

  John leaned over and patted her shoulder, then motioned with his head for Annie to take Patricia out of the room. When they were gone, he turned to Sam.

  “Like I told her,” he said, “everybody makes mistakes. If you look back at when I was a teenager, you’ll find an incident where two kids died while riding in the car I was driving. We were hit by a drunk driver, but I almost went to jail over it because one of those kids was only fifteen and was out after curfew. I was sixteen at the time, and the district attorney wanted to charge me as an accessory to manslaughter. I got lucky and the court threw it out, but it left me unwilling to judge other people.”