“I was pissed, man, that’s all. Doesn’t mean I’m out to get them, or that I even remember what they looked like. They were just twelve dumb sheep who fell for the prosecution’s bullshit.” Flushing with anger, he raised his voice enough to get a cautionary look from the guard, who took one step forward. Aldridge dialed it down, but still tried hard to convince Ray. “If I wanted to get back at anybody, it would be that hard-ass judge for throwing the book at me, or the narcs who busted me, or that scumbag who fingered me to get himself a better deal. Trust me, if I was out for revenge, the damn jury would be at the bottom of my list. A whole lot of other people are responsible for me being in here.”
Ray was inclined to believe him. Aldridge was just a small-time pot dealer with no violent crimes on his record. He didn’t seem the type to hatch an elaborate revenge scheme from behind bars. Still, Ray’s gaze was drawn back to the coiled serpent on the convict’s neck.
“Nice tattoo,” he commented.
“You like it?” Aldridge said proudly. “I’m going to get a bigger one on my back.”
“Another snake?”
“Nah, I’m thinking of a flaming skull this time. Or maybe a dragon.” He cast a furtive look at the guard before lowering his voice once more. “So, anyway, about that prescription?”
“Don’t count on it,” Ray said.
14
“OKAY, THE CHUPACABRAS clip is a must,” Park said. “But what do you think of the necrophilia bit? Would that be inappropriate in a tribute reel?”
Three days after the shooting, WaxWorkZ remained a closed crime scene, but the TV crew had been allowed back into the trailers in the parking lot. Catherine and Greg found Roger Park in a private editing bay in his trailer, looking over the shoulder of a scruffy guy wearing a baseball cap and a military-surplus jacket. On the screen of an expensive-looking monitor, a scaly, green-skinned monster, sporting large red eyes and yellow tusks, burst out of a cage, startling a teenage girl in a zoo uniform. Was that Matt Novak playing the monster? Catherine suspected as much.
“Mr. Park?” an assistant interrupted. “These people are here to see you.”
The producer looked up from his work. “Ms. Willows. Catherine. What a pleasure to see you again.”
Thankfully, he didn’t offer a sweaty palm again. “Thank you. This is my colleague, Greg Sanders.” She resisted the temptation to introduce Greg as the show’s biggest fan. “I hope we’re not interrupting you.”
“Not at all,” he said amiably. “We’re just putting together a salute to ‘The Best of Matt Novak’ for a special episode—or maybe just a bonus feature on the DVD. That’s yet to be determined.” He shrugged. “It seemed like the least we could do.”
“I’m sure it’s how he’d like to be remembered,” Catherine said with a straight face. She didn’t mention that Novak had been giving the camera the finger right before he died. “Any decision yet on the future of the show?”
“I wish!” Park rolled his eyes. “Shock Treatment is still in limbo, pending the results of an internal review.” He fished a roll of Tums from his pocket and chomped down on one. “So, may I ask how your own investigation is proceeding?”
“We’re making progress,” she replied, “but I’m not at liberty to discuss the details.”
“Of course. I should have realized.” Park didn’t press the issue. “So what brings you here today?”
She got straight to the point. “We need to search your trailer.”
“This trailer?” He reacted in surprise. “Why is that?”
Catherine was hoping to find the disposable cell phone that had been used to threaten Jill Wooten, or anything else that might link the show to her or Craig Gonch. “We’re just being thorough,” she said vaguely. “In light of new evidence, I want to give the set and the trailers a closer look.”
“But the shooting took place in the club,” he protested. “Not here.”
Catherine didn’t back down. “Like I said, we’re being thorough.”
“I don’t know.” Park frowned, his cooperative facade slipping. “Do you have a warrant?”
“Do we need one?” Catherine asked. Whether the trailers in the parking lot could be legally considered part of the crime scene was a gray area. She was willing to make a case for the search to a judge, but she was hoping she wouldn’t have to. “You promised us your full cooperation, remember?”
Park looked like he was regretting his words. “It just seems like overkill.”
“Let us worry about that,” Catherine said. “Better safe than sorry.”
“Do it for Matt’s sake,” Greg added, speaking up for the first time. He nodded at the tusked monster on the video screen, who was currently chasing the terrified zoo employee around a cage. “Besides, the sooner we wrap up our investigation, the sooner you might be back on the air.”
Park sighed. “Fine. Go ahead. We have nothing to hide.” His oozy charm reasserted itself. “I don’t mean to be difficult. It just seems like a waste of time.” He gestured toward the editing equipment. “Any chance we can keep working while you’re here? I promise to keep out of the way.”
“Sorry.” She wondered if he really just wanted to keep an eye on their investigation. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to clear out until we’re finished.”
“I see.” An almost subliminal scowl came and went upon his face. “In the meantime, before we go, do you think we’ll be able to move these trailers soon? We start shooting on the Zombie Heat pilot this weekend. Just outside the city.”
As before, Catherine refused to let herself get pinned to any specific deadline. She had no intention of rushing her investigation to accommodate Park’s shooting schedule. “Like I explained the other day, that depends on what we find.”
“I know, I know,” he said impatiently. “But any more delays will cost us money.”
She had heard the same complaint from countless casino owners, shopkeepers, and long-distance truckers. She gave Park the same answer she always did.
“I appreciate your situation. We’ll do our best not to inconvenience you any longer than necessary.”
Park knew better than to push her any harder. “All right. I understand. I wasn’t bullshitting you the other day when I said that I have tremendous respect for people in your line of work.” He moved away from the editing bay. “You know, we’re going to need an expert consultant on the Zombie Heat show, to make sure we get all the police stuff right.” He looked over Catherine and Greg with a speculative eye. “Maybe one of you might be interested?”
Greg stepped forward, a little too quickly. “Seriously?”
“Thanks for the offer,” Catherine said quickly, shutting that pipe dream down before it got too far. “But our investigation is our only priority right now.” She gave Greg a pointed glance. “And we can’t have any conflicts of interest.”
Greg got the message. “Absolutely,” he agreed hastily. “We’re all about just doing our job here.”
That’s more like it, Catherine thought, grateful that Hodges was nowhere around. The vainglorious lab rat would have been practically salivating over the producer’s offer. She still remembered the time that Hard Crime, a cable documentary series, had followed them around on a case. Hodges had shamelessly played to the cameras, trying to milk his fifteen minutes of fame for all it was worth. She, on the other hand, had let out a sigh of relief when the intrusive TV crew had finally moved on to some other poor, unsuspecting police department. Park’s proposition had no appeal to her.
If I had wanted the spotlight, I would have stuck with stripping.
“Sorry,” Park said. “I didn’t think of the conflict of interest thing. I was just speaking hypothetically.”
“Well, hypothetically, no thanks.” She wondered about Park’s motives. Had his offer been some sort of veiled bribe or attempt to curry favor? Or was everything just about producing his shows with him? He wouldn’t be the first big shot wheeler and dealer she’d met who had a one-track mind
where his business was concerned. Her own father had been like that. “Now, if you don’t mind, we’d like to get to work.”
Greg herded Park and the editor guy out of the trailer, then locked the door so he and Catherine wouldn’t be disturbed. Finally getting the place to themselves, they started their search with a quick walk-through of the entire mobile palace, which proved to be even more opulent than she had imagined. Besides the reception area and editing bay, she counted at least four entertainment centers, three computers, two bathrooms, a fully equipped kitchen with marble floors and a walk-in pantry, a pinball machine, a pool table, and a master bedroom that put her own digs to shame. All that was missing was a swimming pool, sauna, and eighteen-hole golf course.
Maybe that’s on the roof, she thought.
“Whoa,” Greg said, taking in the lavish setting. “I will never make fun of trailer parks again.” He kept his hands in his pockets to avoid contaminating any possible evidence. “How much you think a trailer like this costs?”
“One point nine million,” she said. “I looked it up.” Having scoped out the layout, she settled on a plan of attack. “Why don’t we start at opposite ends and work toward the middle?”
“Whatever you say, boss.” He started toward the back, then paused and turned back to her. He lowered his head sheepishly. “Say, Catherine?”
“Yes?”
“You know, right, that I wasn’t really interested in that consulting gig?” He seemed embarrassed by his gaffe before. “I was just being polite.”
“Uh-huh.” She had heard more believable excuses from mass murderers. She knew that Greg had creative ambitions beyond the crime lab. In his spare time, he was even writing a book on the history of crime in Las Vegas. She decided to chalk the incident off to a momentary lapse. “Just don’t get too polite, okay?”
“I hear you, loud and clear.” Smirking, he took a moment to admire the Zombie Heat poster over the bar. “Still, you’ve got to admit, it did sound kind of cool.”
She grinned back at him. “I’ll stick with real dead people, thank you very much.”
Getting to work, she pulled on some latex gloves. Her eyes scanned the furnished reception area as she weighed their odds of finding anything useful. Locating the guilty cell phone was a long shot. It was probably history by now. But maybe they could find something else that linked the production to the threats against Jill, just in case her ex-boyfriend wasn’t responsible. Catherine still found the “coincidental” timing of the anonymous calls more than a little suspicious. She couldn’t help suspecting that there had to be some sort of connection between the calls and what happened later.
She was also hoping to find a motive for arranging Matt Novak’s death, aside from the fact that he’d had delusions of grandeur on the set. Nick had shown her screen shots of Novak’s final moments and she had agreed with him that the dying man’s furious reaction didn’t exactly jibe with an accidental shooting. She sensed that there was more to the story. Something about this shooting just didn’t smell right, and over the years Catherine had learned to trust her instincts.
Now then, she mused. If I was a missing cell phone, where would I be?
She thought back to all the times she had helped Lindsey track down her phone, which had a remarkable ability to go astray whenever it wasn’t near-surgically attached to the girl’s ear. Catherine winced at the memory of their last phone bill, then started probing all the obvious places. She checked the drawers and cupboards. She flipped over the seat cushions. She searched the bar. After about thirty minutes, however, she had found nothing more incriminating than a couple of spare bottles of Tums and a marked-up script titled Zombie Heat: “Pilot.”
The latter was labeled CONFIDENTIAL, NOT TO BE CIRCULATED. Park’s name was printed on every page of the script to ensure that its provenance could be traced should a copy turn up where it didn’t belong. Catherine guessed that its contents would probably be a hot ticket on the internet.
She wasn’t even tempted to take a peek.
Moving on to the bedroom, she wondered why Park even bothered to book a suite at Caesars. The king-sized bed was large enough to host a three-some with room to spare. A polished cherrywood cabinet held a deluxe entertainment system. Shuttered windows kept out the daylight. Before turning on the overhead lights, she swept the room with her flashlight. She often found that an oblique beam brought stray objects into view by creating visible shadows. It was a good way to pick up details she might have overlooked otherwise.
The beam turned up nothing on the bed and carpet, but when she ran it across the high ceiling, she noticed a glint of light near the smoke detector. Her mind raced back to the hidden cameras in Wax-WorkZ. In particular, the one in the ceiling.
“Well, well,” she said aloud. “What have we here?”
Greg poked his head in. “You find something?”
“Maybe,” she said. “Not the mystery cell phone, but get a load of this.” She climbed onto the bed to get a closer look. The beam from her flashlight bounced off what appeared to be a pin-sized camera lens, hidden in the shadow of the smoke detector. “It looks like Park’s predilection for hidden camera hijinks extends to his private life.”
Greg chuckled, turning his own beam on the camera. “Perhaps he’s planning an X-rated spin-off?”
“You still interested in a consulting gig?” she teased him. “I wonder if Park’s bed partners knew about the camera?” She took it for granted that the camera wasn’t aimed at the bed for security purposes. “Not to mention his high-powered Hollywood executive wife?”
“Tricia Grantley, right?” Greg sounded impressed. “She’s made the Entertainment Weekly ‘Power List’ for five years running.”
Figures he knows that, Catherine thought. She glanced down at the high-quality mink blankets beneath her feet. She didn’t want to think about how much discarded DNA she was standing on. “Not that his personal life is any of our business, I guess. Unless he was sleeping with Jill Wooten and so far there’s absolutely no evidence to support that.”
She was tempted to confiscate the bed sheets, but couldn’t figure out a way to justify it. Not on the basis of a vague feeling. She didn’t even have a working hypothesis at present, just a sense that they were still missing a few key pieces of the puzzle.
We’re stumbling around in the dark here. Like one of the victims on Park’s show.
She hopped off the bed, hoping that Greg had turned up more than just a kinky spy-cam. “You find anything yet?”
“Not really.” He poked around at the foot of the bed, then bent to pick something up with a pair of sterile tweezers. “I just keep finding these tiny little rubber bands tucked away in the corners.” He held the tiny elastic band, which was maybe .3 centimeters in diameter, up for her inspection. “Not sure what they’re for. Maybe some sort of TV thing?”
Catherine chuckled. “Clearly you haven’t subsidized enough orthodontists in your life. Those are dental elastics, to be worn with braces.” She remembered them well from Lindsey’s adolescence. “Trust me, those things get everywhere. I’m still finding them behind the bathroom sink and under the couch.”
She had noticed a few elastics beneath the seat cushions in the trailer’s reception area as well, but hadn’t thought anything of it until now. “Funny, I don’t remember seeing anyone with braces among the crew. And Park didn’t mention any kids.”
“Maybe his shiny incisors got straightened at some point?” Greg suggested. “Along with the obvious plastic surgery.”
“Probably. Or maybe those elastics belonged to someone else.” She thought it over. “What the hell. Bag it.”
They didn’t have a search warrant, but, in a pinch, she could always argue that the production trailer was part of the crime scene. It would be a stretch, but the tiny elastic was a lot easier to confiscate than, say, the sheets. More important, Park had already given them permission to search the trailer.
“Okay.” Greg popped it into a small brown-paper bind
le. “How come?”
Catherine shrugged. “Just covering the bases.”
A phone rang beneath her jacket. It wasn’t the phone she was looking for, but she answered it anyway. Caller ID flashed BRASS.
“Excuse me,” she told Greg, stepping away to take the call. “Willows here. What you got, Jim?”
A short conversation later, she put away the phone.
“That was Brass,” she told Greg. “He’s tracked down Craig Gonch’s current address.”
Jill Wooten’s stalker ex-boyfriend had a lot of explaining to do.
The sooner, the better.
15
“YOU EVER PERFORM an autopsy on a snake before?”
“Necropsy,” Albert Robbins corrected Ray. “A postmortem examination of a human being is an autopsy. With an animal, it’s a necropsy.”
“You’re right,” Ray recalled. He blamed the lapse on loss of sleep. He and Sara had been working long hours working the snakebite case. “I stand corrected.”
Doc Robbins shrugged. Blue surgical scrubs protected the stout, middle-aged medical examiner from the inherent messiness of death. A metal crutch provided his prosthetic legs with additional support. His trim white beard gave him an avuncular appearance. “Just a semantic distinction. To answer your question, this is indeed a first. Although remind me to tell you sometime about the night a living rat burst from the abdomen of a drowning victim. Next to that, a dead snake is nothing.”
The euthanized coral snake was stretched out atop the stainless steel operating table in the center of the morgue. Built to accommodate human cadavers, the table easily held the snake, which Ray estimated to be approximately twenty-four inches in length. Lidless eyes stared glassily into oblivion. The snake’s round pupils were fixed and unmoving.
Robbins began the examination by dictating into a handheld digital recorder. “The specimen appears to be an adult coral snake, of the species Micrurus tener.” He clicked off the recorder long enough to fix Ray in his sights. “I believe I am looking at the cause of death.”