Guardians of the Night (A Gideon and Sirius Novel)

by Alan Russell

  Elle nodded. Grief seemed to become her. She had undeniable physical beauty.

  When she was seated and looking at me, I said, “Today I wanted to meet with you for the purpose of having you confess to the murder of Drew Corde.”

  Her eyes widened in surprise. Whatever she was expecting, this wasn’t it. It seemed to be the accepted opinion of everyone and everything, including law enforcement, that Drew Corde had killed himself.

  “Is this a joke?” she asked.

  “It is anything but a joke. If you confess to the murder, I am sure you and your lawyer can come up with some heart-wrenching explanation as to what drove you to such an act. You’ll serve time, but among your fan base I am sure your sympathy quotient will go through the roof. It’s even possible you’ll be out of prison in time to resurrect your film career.

  “In the court of public opinion, something you care very much about, you could potentially end up in good standing. Should you not choose to confess, I will have to charge you with other crimes, and I fear those subsequent revelations would forever turn that court of public opinion against you.”

  “What are these imaginary crimes?”

  I ignored her question. It had taken me ten days of nonstop work to get to this point. Most homicide investigations proceed at a glacial pace. I had gone for light speed, but I was gambling on this meeting, and this moment.

  “During the last two weeks I’ve learned everything I can about your life. I am sure even your most ardent fans don’t know more about you than I do.”

  “I am honored,” she said, her words laced with sarcasm.

  “You never did a remake of The Philadelphia Story,” I said.

  “I don’t remember ever saying that I did.”

  Her reply was measured, and it was pitch-perfect, but as much as she tried to hide her sudden fear, I could sense its presence.

  “Your former fiancé said it, though. That’s how your manager and publicist now refer to Corde, don’t they? He said it in response to your chiding him about what went on in the Bunker. Corde always liked to have the upper hand when it came to your relationship, so his rejoinder to your remark was that the Bunker was a perfect place to watch a screening of you in The Philadelphia Story.”

  “You must have misheard.”

  I shook my head. “That’s what he said. But why would he say such a thing?”

  “He must have been mistaken.”

  “I don’t think so. Corde was speaking in code to you, but I didn’t get his reference at the time. ‘The Philadelphia Story’ is how the two of you cryptically referred to the film Corde was holding over you, wasn’t it?”

  She opened her mouth, but I didn’t give her time to deny or to lie.

  “The nickname for Philadelphia is ‘the City of Brotherly Love.’ I guess it would have been too obvious for the two of you to refer to your private film as ‘Chinatown.’ ”

  Elle got my incest reference. In all the magazine articles on Elle that I had gleaned, in all the interviews, her beautiful indigo-colored eyes were always mentioned. No one had ever written how cold they could also look.

  “I suppose I should have known something was up when I quoted my favorite Hepburn line from The Philadelphia Story, and you didn’t react. That’s because you didn’t know the movie, or at least that screen version of it. You had your own version.

  “You and your brother had a miserable upbringing. Your father abandoned the two of you when you were young. Your father had demons of his own, but they didn’t compare to your mother’s. I sympathize for Elle Browning, the girl. I know your mother’s schizophrenia made your life a living hell.

  “I was abandoned by my own mother when I was a newborn. That was never easy for me to accept, but over time I’ve come to realize I was lucky. I was raised by a loving family. It’s possible your mother loved you—somehow she did keep you and your brother together—but I’m sure the two of you would have been better served by being removed from that household. In interviews you’ve only hinted at how difficult it was, and you’ve tried to put a positive spin on your circumstances, saying you learned at a very young age how to be an actress. It was your coping mechanism for a mother who terrorized you and your brother. There was little stability in your life and scant comfort from the nightmare who was your mother. You and your brother feared for your lives.

  “Everyone always hears the saying that misery loves company. You lived that. Your brother, Robert, was only a year older than you. But he took his older brother role seriously. He protected you as best he could, and each of you comforted the other. There came a time when the two of you crossed a line, but your upbringing was so neglectful and haphazard, the two of you probably didn’t even know it.”

  “How dare you imply—”

  I spoke over her false umbrage. “When I went to talk to you at St. Vincent’s, I got a look at your brother, but I didn’t know it at the time. Others were similarly misled. In interviews you always said your brother was an accountant living a quiet life and had no interest in the limelight. I saw a man bringing you tea and just assumed he was your personal assistant. As it turns out, that’s what everyone believed, even your closest companions. Later that day, I saw him opening doors for you. That’s what personal assistants do, isn’t it? But there was something about his protectiveness that should have made it clear to me that it wasn’t just a job for him. He didn’t like me because I was making you upset. No one ever suspected that your personal assistant, Joe Valentine, was really Robert Browning. I saw him looking out for you as an older and protective brother might, but it was even more than that, wasn’t it?”

  I hadn’t understood why there was something about Caine Pullman’s forbidden love that kept tugging at me. Some loves are the most forbidden of all.

  “Corde and Novak uncovered the story behind your relationship with Robert. My guess is that Corde was fixated on you before the two of you ever met, and he had the resources to be a most unusual stalker. With Novak’s help, the two of them used one of their flying toys to spy on you. I imagine you weren’t the first star they targeted. Corde was twisted. It doesn’t surprise me that he was a pervert and a Peeping Tom. Maybe he and Novak had that in common. I suppose they considered their actions just another form of hunting. The two of them used a UAV to spy on you at your Malibu house and were able to shoot intimate footage. I’m sure Corde didn’t know at first that your personal assistant was actually your brother. Novak probably did a search on your lover and discovered his background. And with his Philadelphia story, Corde blackmailed you.

  “From what I know of Corde, he didn’t have a conscience. He always just took what he wanted. But ultimately he wasn’t the only one doing the using. Corde got his beautiful star, and you got your Tony Stark boyfriend. It was a mutual lie, but then it was a relationship built on lies.”

  I didn’t think it possible, but Elle’s face had turned ugly. “It’s your vile conjecture that has been built on lies,” she hissed. “You haven’t a shred of evidence to back up your disgusting stories.”

  “I have your brother,” I said. “He’s the mysterious man on the scooter. My eyewitness saw him, even though we didn’t make the connection at the time. My eyewitness identified his scooter. Robert disabled my car. He was part of the conspiracy to try and have me killed. He communicated with the hired assassin who was supposed to run me down; he gave him the all-clear signal.

  “Corde was going to give Robert up to me for a price. I suspect he told you his plan and tried to convince you that your brother would ultimately walk and that you needn’t worry. But just as Robert is protective of you, so you are of him. You were afraid of the consequences of him being arrested because you knew your brother would be the primary suspect in Novak’s murder.”

  “Bobby had nothing to do with that!”

  “Who did?”

  “I swear Bobby is innocent. You don’
t know him. He’s gentle. He’s compassionate. He only agreed to be involved in this because of me. But he would never murder.”

  “Even if your brother didn’t fry Novak, he’s still a coconspirator.”

  “He only did what Novak ordered him to do.”

  “Is that your excuse?” I asked. “You helped set me up. From the first you made me think Corde and his drones were omnipresent. When we had our silent interview at the hospital, you blamed the situation on the paparazzi, but at the same time you made me think Corde had surveillance everywhere. I think the real truth is you didn’t want your brother overhearing us talk.

  “You played me like a pro. When I asked you questions about angels, you knew it was personal to me and pretended you knew things. I’m pretty sure that’s one thing that Corde didn’t share with you. When you mentioned hearing him say something about a ‘seraph’s last tariff,’ you made that up. Corde wasn’t poetic that way. It was Corde’s and Novak’s secret. Maybe even they knew there were limits to a hunt, even if it doesn’t seem that way.

  “You strung me along with that story about the friendly cop protecting you from your mother. And when you pretended that I was the kind of good man you were always hoping to find, I couldn’t help but be flattered. I’m glad I didn’t get caught up in the fantasy you were offering. I’m lucky I have a girlfriend who I didn’t want to disappoint any more than I already do. I’d certainly be dead if I had paid attention to your charms. I suspect that was Corde’s mistake in the end. On his last night alive, I think you convinced him that you really loved him.”

  She shook her head back and forth. “All of your wild theories add up to nothing. Everything you’ve said is guesswork.”

  “And here’s a little more of that guesswork: Novak’s death played perfectly into your hands. Novak was Corde’s hunting partner, and he carried out all his dirty work. With Novak gone, Corde panicked. I’m sure you spurred his fears. Corde told me, off the record, that he had destroyed all evidence that could implicate him. I’m certain he even got rid of your Philadelphia story. After all, that videotape had been obtained illegally, and was a piece of evidence that could help take him down. I’m sure that is what concerned him much more than the content of the tape. His consideration wasn’t that the tape could destroy your career, but that it could hurt him. In Corde’s world he was the only thing that mattered.

  “Where he miscalculated was in how you would respond to his plans. If he hadn’t threatened your brother, I doubt you would have acted as you did, but I’m sure you saw your opportunity as well. Novak was already dead, and Corde had destroyed your blackmail tape. You knew Corde’s death would spare your brother from being investigated. And maybe there was a part of you that wanted revenge on him for what he had done and for all of his manipulations.”

  “Did I miss something in the coroner’s report?” Elle asked. “Has your Scientific Investigative Division found any physical evidence that contradicts my story of Drew’s suicide? Because my lawyer told me today that your department’s forensics supports everything I said.”

  “It was a good story,” I admitted. “It stayed very close to the truth. I’m sure you practiced the part for days. You choreographed where Corde would be, how he would be holding his gun, and the angle of the bullet. By factoring in the struggle, you were able to account for how the blood splatter would strike you. Your crime scene was staged pretty much to perfection.”

  “So you’re admitting there is no evidence to convict me?”

  “I thought I made that clear at the onset of our meeting. That’s the reason I’m going to need you to confess to murdering Corde.”

  She was smiling now, although a bit incredulously. “You have just told me a good story, Detective. But you had better never even hint at your wild theories outside of this room. If you do, you will be in litigation hell for the rest of your life.”

  “You still don’t understand,” I said. “I have no interest in telling the sordid story behind Corde’s death. My only interest is in your confessing to his murder. And I really don’t even care how you and your lawyer spin that story. What I’m doing here is giving you a window of opportunity to confess. If you don’t, you will end up facing that which you most fear—the court of public opinion.”

  Her face was chalky white, from fear or anger, or both. “I won’t submit to your blackmail. If you try to slander me regarding my relationship with my brother, I will bring every resource at my disposal to crush you.”

  “I am not Drew Corde. Your privacy should never have been violated and exploited. I will not use your relationship as a bargaining chip.”

  Elle’s face showed her confusion. “But what?” she asked. “I don’t understand any of this.”

  “I can’t let you get away with murder.”

  “But you just said you weren’t charging me.”

  “If you don’t confess to the shooting, I will see that you’re arrested for another crime.”

  Elle closed her eyes, and it was a second before she opened them again. In the space of that long blink I could see the realization had come over her.

  “The first time I met Corde, he took me to his trophy room and told me that hunting was in his DNA. He was proud of all those dead animals. It didn’t matter to him that some of them were endangered. That’s why I became convinced that, given the opportunity, he was the kind of man who would hunt down and kill an angel with no qualms. For him, the sport of it would trump any ethical concerns. I don’t know if he ever did that. I’m beginning to doubt I will ever know. But given the opportunity, it’s something he would have done.

  “In college I took a humanities course on nineteenth-century colonialism. I remember very little about that class other than one quote that stayed with me. My professor said Cecil Rhodes and others of his ilk could be summed up in something Rhodes said.

  “ ‘If I could annex the planets,’ Rhodes said, ‘I would.’ That’s how much Rhodes believed in British colonialism, and that’s how Corde was when it came to hunting. There was nothing he didn’t want to take for his own. I was slow to make the connection, but I finally did. I should have seen why Corde was trying to make a deal with me and put an end to my investigation. It should have been clear to me there was an ulterior motive for his willingness to give up your brother. Corde knew I was still hunting him, and he knew I already had him dead to rights even if I didn’t know it at the time.”

  The truth had come out in my cryptic dreams, and in the echoes I could not quite hear, and in my thoughts, but it was a matter of my connecting everything and finally seeing it.

  I laid down the photo so that Elle could get a good look at it.

  “I’m sure either you or Corde destroyed the copy of this picture in the trophy room,” I said. “RHD tells me that when they went through Corde’s house, all the pictures were gone. But this particular photo was different from most of the others. There’s no dead animal on display and no sign of a triumphant hunt.”

  The picture showed Corde’s yacht, the Wizard of OZ, out on the open sea. Three men were staring into a monitor. Corde, Novak, and Neal Bass were watching what was happening. Elle was away from the others, sitting by herself.

  “Corde gave Neal Bass a picture from that night,” I said. “It was Corde’s way of making Bass a secret sharer. Their mutual guilt had each of them watching the other’s back. Bass said the outing had been planned for weeks. Special work had been done on the yacht in preparation for the trip. It needed a particular kind of launching pad that wouldn’t destroy the yacht. I was able to obtain some of the work invoices.”

  I placed the paperwork in front of Elle, but she didn’t look at it. She was staring at the meeting room wall, but looking far beyond it.

  “I have the signed statement of Neal Bass. It details how everyone knew the purpose of the voyage, including you.”

  Elle didn’t look at that paperwork either.r />
  “I have also compiled documentation that shows the night the yacht sailed and the morning that it returned. There are statements, pictures, and fueling records that corroborate the time frame.”

  I gave Elle a chance to speak, but when she didn’t, I said, “Bass said everything was documented in video taken by the UAV. He said a few days after your voyage Corde showed all of you the footage in the Bunker. All of you understood the need for secrecy.

  “On the night it happened, Bass said champagne was uncorked and fireworks were shot. If you look closely at the picture, you can actually see a few of those opened bottles on the deck. Bass said you were drinking along with everyone else.”

  “Wouldn’t you?” she asked, finally breaking her silence. “I just wanted to dull my mind.”

  “The ship traveled some fifteen miles offshore. According to Bass, there were no other ships visible in any direction and nothing on the radar. But you weren’t alone by any means. All around you were blue whales.

  “They are called living monuments, you know. They are the largest animals to have ever lived on our planet. Their majesty is unparalleled. We are lucky to have them still swimming our oceans. Somehow, someway, we had enough restraint not to kill off their species. The entire world now recognizes the magnificence of blue whales, and because their numbers have been so reduced, everyone knows they are sacrosanct and untouchable. They are living treasures beyond measure.

  “But one man didn’t recognize this. Corde had to get his leviathan. Once he heard about blue whales being off the coast, he felt compelled to act. He was more obsessed than Ahab. He had this compulsion to kill something that was bigger than twenty elephants combined. The nighttime was perfect for his purposes. That’s when blue whales come up to feed. Apparently it didn’t matter to Corde that these gentle giants only eat krill, sea life smaller than shrimp.

  “Bass thinks the missile strike killed the blue whale instantly. He said the videotape all of you watched made it look that way. I hope he’s right in that. Blue whales are known for their vocalizations. Their songs aren’t as haunting as those of the humpback whales, but they communicate with one another from incredibly long distances. I hope this one died before he had a chance to voice his anguish.