The Devil's Cinema

by Steve Lillebuen

  INCONVENIENT ERRANDS

  IT WAS FRIDAY, OCTOBER 17, when Twitchell returned to his garage once again. He had run out of ideas on how to solve a remaining problem that had emerged exactly one week earlier. In a sigh, he pulled out his cell phone and called Joss.

  His friend picked up after a few rings, taking a break from pulling security system wiring through an under-construction electronics store. Twitchell tried to sound upbeat as he shared the exciting news: he had been at a gas station recently and randomly met a guy who was moving to the Caribbean with his sugar momma and trying to get rid of his stuff for whatever he could get. Twitchell explained with glee how he had bought the man’s red Mazda 3 for only forty dollars.

  “Wow!” Joss said. “Sounds like one of those deals that’s too good to be true.”

  “Yeah, I thought so too,” Twitchell replied, “but I have all of the papers for it and I got a bill of sale.” He asked him if he knew where the nearest registry office was located so he could fill out the ownership paperwork and sell it right away.

  “Why not keep it?” Joss offered. “It’s a nice car.”

  “It’s a standard. I can’t drive it.” Twitchell asked Joss for a favour: would he come over to the garage right away and drive the Mazda 3 for him to his home in St. Albert?

  Joss looked at the clock. It was shortly after 3:30 p.m. He told Twitchell he didn’t have time to drive to St. Albert that day because he had to meet someone at 4:00 p.m. “How ’bout I park it in the driveway at my house?” The garage was only a few blocks away from where Joss lived with his parents. Joss would just have to check with his dad, but he didn’t think it would be a problem.

  Twitchell accepted the compromise but didn’t explain to his friend why he had to move a car that was already parked in a garage. Joss didn’t think to ask.

  They met at the rental property a few minutes later. Twitchell watched as Joss examined the car in astonishment. It looked to be in such great condition for only forty dollars. Joss drove it over to his parents’ house and Twitchell followed, collecting the licence plate and keys.

  Over the weekend, Twitchell received several phone calls from Joss about the car, offering to buy it for much more than he had spent. But Twitchell always politely declined, saying he’d have to think about it. Joss thought his friend had all the luck. Talking about the car purchase with his own family, Joss kept shaking his head, thinking it was like Twitchell was born with a horseshoe up his ass.

  If only Joss had examined the car’s exterior more closely, he would have noticed a strange stain that blended into the glossy red paint on the Mazda 3’s back bumper. The red liquid had dried in a flow pattern, pointing from the bumper back into the trunk. Opening the trunk would have revealed further stains soaked into the trunk carpet and dripping into the spare tire below.

  At a glance, anyone passing by might have just assumed that someone had been loading and unloading leaky garbage bags into the trunk of the car, spilling some of their contents with every messy trip.

  INVESTIGATION

  THE DISCOVERY OF JOHNNY’S passport was a vindication of Dale Smith’s concerns. He knew the police couldn’t ignore him now. And the back-and-forth of messages between Johnny’s Facebook friends had uncovered that he had emailed one of his co-workers, Willy, the directions he had received from his Friday-night date. Everything was coming together.

  With this newly gathered information, a phone call to the police finally resulted in action. Officers acknowledged there was a potential crime worth investigating, especially with a passport located for a man supposedly on vacation overseas.

  A missing persons report was filed and a case number assigned. Two constables coming on night shift were handed the file. Exactly one week since he was last seen, a patrol car started driving to a rented garage, following the very same path Johnny had taken.

  JOHNNY’S FRIENDS CONTINUED TO expand their search for the latest information, even after the police became involved. The creation of the “Find Johnny Altinger” group page on Facebook allowed them to share stories and photos, as well as theories on his whereabouts. In Vancouver, Marie was startled to receive an invitation to join such a group and to discover that the old friend she had just visited in the summer had vanished. “I hope this isn’t true,” she wrote.

  Dozens of people, in fact, had been caught off guard when they received the same invites to join the group. Johnny’s closest friends had never stopped spreading the word of their suspicions behind Johnny’s Caribbean vacation, which surprised many who had assumed his status updates were legitimate. Family members across the world were soon told the news.

  Johnny’s mother, Elfriede, called his phone while she was in Mexico on vacation, but her calls were always diverted to his voicemail. In her sadness and confusion, she found she started calling just to hear the comforting recorded voice of her son on the other end.

  It was a habit that would consume her for years.

  EARLY TROUBLE

  ON THE NIGHT OF Saturday, October 18, Twitchell’s cell phone rang as he sat at home with Jess and the baby. He had been fiddling on his laptop earlier and wasn’t expecting any calls. He picked up and to his surprise, a police officer was on the other end.

  Constable Christopher Maxwell was sitting in his police cruiser, parked on a road not far from his southwest division station. Talking into his cell phone, Maxwell wanted to confirm Twitchell was the rental tenant occupying a garage on the south side of the city. He had been given Twitchell’s name by the property manager, who had a signed lease at the ready with his contact details.

  “Yes, I am,” Twitchell replied, feeling his anxiety rise.

  Maxwell began running through a series of questions. “When was the last time that you were at the garage?”

  “It would have been Friday on the 10th of October.”

  “Do you remember someone showing up there on Friday, around 6:00 p.m.?”

  “No.”

  “Okay,” Maxwell continued. “Do you remember a red car being at your garage?”

  “No.”

  “Did you know of any women meeting a guy at the garage?”

  “No.”

  Maxwell noted how Twitchell’s answers were all very short. He had driven to the garage the night before with another officer, but it was locked up and the house tenants knew nothing. “Listen, would you mind coming down to the garage? We’re dealing with a missing person and we just want to have a quick look.”

  Twitchell sounded surprised. “That’s fine,” he said.

  Hanging up the phone, Twitchell headed out the door without giving Jess much of an explanation about what was going on. He was quick to phone Joss, however, to let him know the police had just called. “It sounds like there’s been a break-in at the garage,” he said. “I’m on my way down.”

  TWITCHELL’S GRAND AM RUMBLED down the alley, headlights cutting through the darkness. As he pulled in near the garage he could see the outline of two uniformed officers. Their patrol cars were parked nearby. He shut the engine off and got out of the car.

  He was met by Constable Maxwell, who had a shaved head and a soft voice. He was standing beside a taller officer, a young woman with high cheekbones who Twitchell didn’t realize was Maxwell’s superior, a temporary acting sergeant brought down to help the constable follow up on the missing persons complaint.

  Maxwell did all the talking. “I’m the guy you just talked to on the phone,” he said to Twitchell. “We just want to make sure everything is okay and just rule out that the missing man isn’t inside.”

  Twitchell appeared happy to help. “Sure. Okay.”

  The trio walked together, squeezing in beside the garage and the fence shared with the next-door neighbour. As they rounded the corner and reached the back door, Twitchell stopped in his tracks. “That’s not my lock.” He scratched his head, looking at the door to the garage in disbelief. “Mine’s silver with black.”

  Maxwell took a closer look. Whoever installed the
metal latch had drilled the screws in from the outside. Anyone with a screwdriver could easily remove it, defeating the purpose of the padlock. He grabbed a utility knife from his belt and started undoing the screws.

  “I haven’t been back here since October 10,” Twitchell repeated. “Maybe somebody changed the lock when I wasn’t here?”

  The padlock popped off. Twitchell used his key to open the deadbolt and Maxwell stepped forward. “Here, let me go in first.” The back door creaked open. As Maxwell entered, his sergeant right behind him, both caught a whiff of gasoline and the escaping smells of burnt materials. A dim light was glowing inside.

  Twitchell stepped through the doorway to join them.

  “Just stay where you are,” Maxwell urged. The officer scanned the room, stepping forward slowly. The space was fairly empty. The air hung thick with a burning smell. He saw an oil drum placed to the side, near a large metal table and chair. Used cleaning supplies were piled up on a small wooden table by the door. Maxwell leaned in to his sergeant’s ear. “Take a look at that.” Her eyes dropped to the wooden table, where there was a receipt from a hardware store. The customer had paid with a MasterCard for plastic sheeting, rubber gloves, paper towels, and a bottle of heavy-duty cleaner. The purchase was dated October 15. She noted the last four digits of the credit card, which hadn’t been blacked out.

  The officers whispered again, then slowly backed out of the garage, closing the door behind them. The sergeant walked to her patrol car and called the station while Maxwell took Twitchell back to his cruiser.

  Sitting inside the vehicle, they made small talk as Twitchell filled out a written witness statement. Maxwell continued the conversation with a question his sergeant had wanted him to ask. “Mr. Twitchell, would you mind showing me your MasterCard?”

  Twitchell lifted his eyes off the statement he was writing, looking puzzled, hesitating.

  “Can I please see your MasterCard?”

  Twitchell didn’t move.

  “Sir, can I see your MasterCard?”

  Twitchell finally pulled out his wallet and lightly fanned the cards inside like there was nothing of interest to see. Maxwell leaned over from the driver’s seat and pointed to the wallet’s pouches. “No, in there.” Twitchell gave up and slid out a MasterCard from one pouch and handed it to Maxwell, who checked the number. The last four digits were the same as those on the receipt found in the garage.

  The officers had discovered that Twitchell had lied about the last time he was at the property. The receipt easily proved he had been inside the garage with cleaning supplies five days later than he had claimed. But why?

  Thinking of this new development, Maxwell felt a bad feeling take hold as he sat in his patrol car next to Twitchell. He feared there was something suspicious behind the man’s lie. Maxwell knew a detective would have to be called in to help sort this mess out – and he’d have no problem sharing his suspicions with detectives if the case ever took on a more sinister dimension.

  STICKY SCENARIOS

  BOBBING HIS HEAD, TWITCHELL could not stop talking as his laughs and smiles spilled sideways from his mouth. The fact that he was sitting across from a detective at the southwest police station at three in the morning seemed to have little impact on his elevated mood. He let his wife’s calls go straight to his cell phone voicemail, motoring through a rundown of his search for investors, securing A-list acting talent and his history in film and sales jobs. “Don’t get me started on this stuff,” he chuckled, settling into the round table crammed into the corner of a police interview room. “I could go for hours.”

  For the moment, Detective Mike Tabler sat quietly across the table from him, resting his head into his palm, listening to Twitchell babble on. The banter was clearly one-sided. The veteran cop with grey-blond hair let Twitchell keep going until the steam ran out and he sputtered and coughed. That’s when he’d reach in and slowly direct him back to the basics of why he was there.

  The detective’s tall and thin stature was largely hidden as he listened in his chair, a pen resting unused beside his notepad on the white table. Tabler’s silence also hid his booming baritone voice, which, when projected, could rumble until it filled the room. Years of smoking had given him a raspy bass undertone.

  Tabler asked about the last time Twitchell was at the garage, which prompted the filmmaker to start talking about his cleaning supplies, clarifying that he actually meant October 15 was the last day he was at the property. He leaned back in his chair. “When you do anything that’s this involving, like suspense thrillers or anything like that, you want to have something that looks like blood on the screen.”

  Tabler feigned enthusiasm as Twitchell described how to make and clean up a fake blood mix of corn syrup and food colouring.

  “It looks really good on camera,” said Twitchell. “But it’s sticky as hell. It gets everywhere and it’s a nightmare.” He swallowed, catching his breath. “And last time? It got all over the chair, got all over the floor.” He chuckled again. “It’s like … ridiculous.“

  “Sounds kinda unique,” Tabler offered.

  “But it’s a huge mess too, like dripping stuff everywhere.” Twitchell explained how one scene involved thrusting a sword through a fake torso, fake blood pouring out of its back.

  Tabler finally interjected, shifting his weight as he raised his low-pitched voice. “I’m just thinking about this.” He waved his hand as his thoughts came to him. “I mean, it’s kinda odd that you’re filming that kind of thing and we end up going to that garage because of a missing person, who supposedly went there.”

  Twitchell jumped in quickly. “Yeah, that’s really freaky too. As soon as they called me on the phone and said this is what’s going on, I got this weird chill.” He expressed concerns about who else knew about the garage, pointing out that Mike and Jay also had a key.

  But Tabler knew it wasn’t adding up. The story about the mystery padlock was suspicious. For one, it didn’t explain how someone else could gain entry because the door deadbolt was still locked. The detective finally swung the conversation to the main point of the case. “So, now you’ve been told that we’re looking for a missing man.”

  “Uh-huh.” Twitchell nodded.

  “Have you been told his name?”

  “No.”

  “The name is John.” Tabler paused, looking at the filmmaker. “Altinger.”

  “Okay,” Twitchell said, his smile fading.

  “Does that name ring a bell for you?”

  “No.”

  “Never heard it before?”

  “No,” he repeated, shaking his head.

  “He’s nobody who you’d been using as an actor?”

  “No, I don’t think so.” Twitchell frowned, shrugging it off. “I don’t know if Mike or Jay know him, but nothing in terms of casting or production crew or anything like that.”

  Tabler looked down at his notes, figuring out what to cover off next. He went over how the police already knew Johnny had driven to the garage. “But the girl wasn’t there.” He raised his hand up. “Met a guy in the garage.”

  “In the garage!?”

  “Apparently.” Tabler slapped his palm on his notes. “And that’s where the trail goes cold.”

  Twitchell slid back in his seat. Hands clasped on the table in front of him, he looked as baffled as can be. “Okay, let me get this straight.” Twitchell went over the story of the missing man Tabler had just told him. The detective asked again: “Now does that sound like anything that you know about?”

  “Not at all,” said Twitchell, expressionless.

  “Does it sound like anything that could be related in any way to any movie sort of stuff you’re doing?”

  “Not that I’m aware of.”

  Tabler kept prodding. Twitchell insisted he had never heard of a woman named Jen and descended into a long rant about distrusting the garage deadbolt, leading to his padlock purchase, as if to repair this hole in his story. As the detective was about to wind up th
e ninety-minute interview, Twitchell explained he had been writing an article about online dating, but that was the full extent of his knowledge about such websites. He did not frequent them otherwise.

  Tabler thanked him for his insight and allowed him to leave. He thought they had developed a good rapport. Twitchell had been cool, calm, and confident. No stammering. But what the detective had just witnessed had also been incredibly strange. Could it just be a coincidence that a missing man’s last known location happened to be the site of a blood-soaked horror film? There was really no other choice but to take it up the chain, to the division’s staff sergeant. The homicide unit would likely have to be consulted, maybe a couple of detectives brought in to make the call on what to do next – and to sort out fact from fiction.

  But it was now early Sunday morning, nearing five, and Tabler was heading home from his extended late shift. This was someone else’s battle, not his.

  TWITCHELL FLIPPED OUT HIS cell phone and dialled Joss again as he hurried from the police station. His friend jolted awake, a ring tone blaring through his bedroom at 5:00 a.m., and he picked up to hear Twitchell speaking in a slight panic. “I’m really stressed out.”

  Joss tried to wake up, rubbing his face, breathing in deeply as Twitchell complained of being at the garage all night and facing questions from police.

  “It was weird in the garage,” he continued quickly. “Stuff had been moved around. The police had to unscrew a bolt to get in. They kept asking me questions accounting for all my time at the garage. And they had questions about a missing person.”

  Joss tried to be reassuring. “Well, if the garage has been broken into, it’s a good thing we moved that car the other day and it wasn’t stolen too.”

  “Oh. I forgot about the car.”

  “Wait a second,” said Joss in confusion. “The police are asking about the garage and you forgot about what could potentially be a stolen car that was just there a day or two ago?”

  “I must have just blanked,” he sighed, starting to ramble again. “You don’t think the car and the missing person could have any connection, do you? This could have been a setup. If it was setup, I must have been followed to the garage. And if they followed me, what about my wife and daughter? Oh God!”