Harris ran his finger down the list for effect but spoke from memory. “No sign of the missing Arriflex.” He looked up from the folder. “If that’s what you’re after.”
Larry kept his tone calm and even. “What about his cell?”
Harris sat up straight. “Ah, so that’s what you’re looking for. Now what are we going to find on his phone that you’re so interested in?”
Larry repaid Harris’s sarcasm with a healthy dose of his own. “His mother’s number, if you want a relative.” He tapped a finger on the desk. “Otherwise that’s privileged information. Belonging to Titanic Productions. And by extension, me.”
Harris closed the folder. He looked at the producer then turned to McNulty. “Well, privilege this. He didn’t have his phone on him when he died. Unless you’re not the only person interested, and that’s why he was killed.”
McNulty wasn’t intimidated. “You know why he was killed. He filmed the gunman and tried to sell the footage. Not the smartest move he ever made.”
Harris looked at McNulty. “Smart moves being your forte.”
They sat in McNulty’s car but he didn’t start the engine. Larry was quiet as he decompressed after confronting a seasoned detective. McNulty was deep in thought. He hadn’t learned anything he didn’t already suspect; whoever killed Severino had searched him the same as his room and if he was looking for something small enough to fit in the spine of a Bible then he would certainly have taken his phone.
“When did Severino last submit any photos?”
Larry thought about that for a moment. “Day before the shooting.”
McNulty turned in his seat. “Do they delete off his phone after he’s submitted them?”
Larry turned to face McNulty. “We don’t take them off his phone. They’re stored in the cloud. We download them every few days.”
McNulty thought about his recording of Jon Harris last night. He could delete it off his phone, but it was automatically backed up in the cloud. He’d forgotten about that. And the cloud accounts were all through Titanic Productions’s master account.
“Jesus H. Christ.” Whatever photos Severino took on the day of the shooting were sitting up there in the cloud, waiting to be downloaded. “Holy shit on a stick.”
THIRTY-THREE
The production office was in the vacant lot next to the Crescent Motel along with the storage containers and location vehicles. Catering and equipment transport were still outside The Chateau on School Street. The compound was empty apart from a couple of carpenters carving wood and an electrician repairing one of the arc lights. McNulty parked on the street and followed Larry into the port-a-cabin.
“Mind your head.” Larry indicated for McNulty to duck through his office door at the end of the corridor. The offices along the hallways had standard-height doors, but Larry’s had originally served as the mailroom and had a shorter door with a delivery hatch. McNulty was always forgetting and bumping his head. He wasn’t worried about his head today.
Larry sat at his desk and opened the laptop. The screen came to life and prompted him to log in. McNulty closed the door and pulled up a chair. Adrenaline made it hard for him to sit still.
The connection was slow. A circle twirled in the middle of the screen. Larry started fidgeting. McNulty drummed impatient fingers on the desk. The circle kept twirling then it froze. It twirled again. After what seemed like an age the Titanic Productions logo appeared, then a grid of icons filled the screen. He was about to click on one of them when a big grey square opened, prompting Larry to update his edition of “Final Draft.” Two smaller squares appeared inside the main one, offering two choices:
Update Now
Remind Me Later
Larry clicked on Remind Me Later and the boxes disappeared, then he clicked on his personal icon and a fresh screen appeared with a different selection of icons. He found the one he wanted and clicked on Titanic’s cloud account. The circle began twirling again with a message beneath it.
Connecting
The carpenters hammered away outside. The electrician cursed when he stabbed himself with a piece of wire. Larry’s feet started tapping on the floor. The circle kept twirling. It disappeared and a new box opened.
Connection Failed
There were two more options beneath it.
Try Again
Cancel
Larry clicked on Try Again and the circle returned. It kept twirling. And kept twirling. Larry’s feet were doing Riverdance. McNulty stopped drumming his fingers and slammed the desk. The circle disappeared and opened the master account. McNulty looked at Larry and shrugged. They were in.
There were listings for everyone who had been given an official phone, tablet or laptop. Larry had access to uploads from all of them. He scrolled down the list until he found Randy Severino then clicked again. A thumbnail portrait of the First AC opened in one corner of a window that took up half the screen. A menu down one side listed,
All My Files
Documents
Movies
Music
Pictures
McNulty leaned forward and pointed at the screen. “He recorded movies as well?”
Larry moved the cursor over, Movies. “Sometimes. Behind the scenes. Kind of thing that ends up on the DVD.”
“Every day?”
“At his discretion. In between his main job, which was the Arriflex.”
“Let’s see.”
Larry left-clicked and another list appeared in date order. A note beside each date indicated whether the movie had been viewed. McNulty tried to remember the date as his eyes scrolled down the list. There was nothing on the day of the shooting, but there was one item the day after. The day he was killed. McNulty jabbed a finger at the screen.
“That one.”
Larry clicked on the link, sweat beading on his forehead. “He recorded his own death?”
McNulty focused on the video window that opened on the laptop. “I recorded the other night at the courthouse set. Maybe he was doing the same. For protection.”
Neither stated the obvious, that it hadn’t worked. A solid black rectangle appeared but there were no play or pause buttons. The circle did its thing. It kept on twirling. The rectangle stayed blank until the circle disappeared.
Upload Failed
McNulty slammed the desk but it didn’t work this time. The video screen remained blank. Larry went back to the menu screen and they both knew what to look at next. He clicked on “Pictures” and the familiar drop-down list appeared. This one said “Downloaded” beside each date that had been viewed. Larry had been right: everything had been downloaded up to the day before the shooting. There was only one date left unseen.
Larry’s feet stopped tapping. McNulty held his breath and nodded. Larry clicked on “Download” and the circle began twirling again. McNulty crossed his fingers and breathed slowly. The circle stopped twirling and a dozen thumbnail images appeared.
THIRTY-FOUR
There is a terrible feeling in the pit of your stomach when you can see the car crash coming but can do nothing to stop it. No matter how bad you know it’s going to be you can’t take your eyes off the tragedy. McNulty felt like that when Larry double-clicked on the first image and the courtroom filled the screen.
Image 1
The courtroom viewed from just in front of the judge’s bench. Background extras are milling about near the open double doors at the back of the room. Lighting technicians help the gaffer and the best boy adjust the lights and reflectors. F.K. Parenteau is standing next to the main camera, resting one hand on the tripod. All is calm. Nothing untoward.
Image 2
Same angle but slightly to the right, catching the court clerk’s desk and the edge of the judge’s bench. Amy Moore is applying makeup to the actor playing the judge. The court clerk is blowing his nose, eyes squeezed shut.
Image 3
A selfie of Randy Severino with the Arriflex on
one shoulder. The judge’s bench is in the background with a set dresser adjusting the Stars and Stripes. Still calm. Still nothing untoward.
Image 4
A blurred image that would have been a whip pan if it had been a video instead of a still photograph. The vague color scheme and lines of the courtroom are visible, but smeared across the image like passing scenery through a train window. Moving from right to left. Toward the double doors at the back, which can be seen as a distorted rectangle of light.
Images 5 thru 12
Burst mode of continuous images. Everybody is in motion. The background extras are scattering, mouths open in silent screams. F.K. is diving to one side. A man is standing in the doorway, one hand blurred as it begins to come up. With each image the hand moves six inches, the extras move to the right away from the gunman, and the arm slows and sharpens. The gun is clear and focussed. It spits fire in the last two images. Then there is nothing.
“Oh my God.”
Larry looked pale and sickly. McNulty knew how he felt. As a cop he’d often attended violent crime scenes but had rarely witnessed violent death. He came along afterward or gave chase to the offender. Seeing the car crash was different. A cold sweat broke out on the back of his neck, and he felt sick. He rested a gentle hand on Larry’s shoulder. The producer got up and left the room. McNulty took his place at the keyboard. It was time to get up close and personal.
McNulty ignored images 1 to 4 and went straight to the first picture of the gunman in the doorway. Severino had managed to get the double doors in the center of the frame, but the phone’s wide-angle lens meant they were just a white square taking up a quarter of the screen. He looked at the photo editing tools and clicked enlarge several times until the double doors filled the frame.
The gunman was a silhouette against the daylight coming from the lobby outside the courtroom. The background was burned out because the camera had automatically set the exposure for the interior. At least the image was sharp and focused, apart from the blurred movement of the gun hand. The man appeared to be wearing black, although the silhouette made it hard to be certain. Dark clothing, anyway. He was taller than the witness descriptions, and slim and toned. There was no slouch in his stance. He had a strong upright posture with his feet planted shoulder-width apart. A good firing position. His head was turned slightly to look along his arm, once it was raised. The face was strong and square-jawed in outline, but dark because of the backlighting.
McNulty lowered the contrast and turned up the brightness. The background outside the room vanished but some facial features appeared. A straight nose, arched eyebrows and thin lips. The eyes were just pools of blackness above the high cheekbones. The hair in silhouette was neat and cut short.
He concentrated on the clothes. With the adjustment in contrast and brightness, more detail came out of the shadows. The man was wearing some kind of all-in-one coverall similar to those worn by police SWAT teams or military assault teams. A black zippered jacket flapped open as he raised his arm. There appeared to be some kind of utility belt, but there wasn’t enough detail to be certain. The shooter’s feet weren’t in the shot.
McNulty resized and centered the image so he could see the entire doorframe. The adjustments he’d made to be able to see the figure had burned out the exterior, but there was some kind of smudge that looked nearer than the deep background. He altered the brightness and definition to enhance the highlights instead of the shadows. The smudge became a figure. Behind the second figure, beyond the glass doors of the main entrance, a slice of the grey van poked into the frame. An indistinct shape sat behind the wheel. The getaway driver. The figure behind the gunman was looking at one of his own hands with his thumb sticking up—standard shape of a man clicking a stopwatch.
McNulty sat back and blew out his cheeks. This wasn’t a lone gunman with a getaway driver; it was a three-man team moving with military precision.
Larry came back in carrying two paper cups from the water cooler. He saw the image on the screen but didn’t understand the significance. McNulty took the offered cup and drank it down. He crushed the cup and tossed it into the wastebasket. Larry pointed at the smudged figure. “Is he one of ours?”
“No.”
McNulty clicked through the next few images until the gun hand was raised and the camera had stopped. The image was sharper. He made the same adjustments and concentrated on the second figure. He was also tall and erect and strong. The hand stayed in the same position, but the thumb pressed down. It was definitely a stopwatch. Larry leaned closer to the screen.
“What’s he doing?”
McNulty was running several scenarios through his head. “Timing it.”
Larry took a sip of water. “Like when they rob a bank and know the police response time?”
McNulty clicked through to the last image. “Exactly like that.”
The flash of the gun threw light onto the face. Not a lot but enough to see the steely look in the eyes. Hard and focused, and completely merciless. McNulty was thinking of John Wayne, not his face but his fighting technique. And misdirection. From one angle it looked like a perfect punch. From another it was something else entirely.
PART THREE
“Easy doesn’t get it done. Getting down and dirty is what you need.”
—Vince McNulty
THIRTY-FIVE
For once McNulty and Larry agreed. They had to tell the police. No matter what else was running through McNulty’s mind, thoughts about what, where and who, he had to go see Harris. Larry nodded for McNulty to go and waited in the production office. This was one discussion best had by one cop to another, even though McNulty wasn’t a cop anymore.
The evening traffic was beginning to ease but there were still plenty of pedestrians walking home. McNulty drove slow and easy, replaying his suspicions all the way and trying not to run anybody over. Too many people had died already. And he was right; it was nothing like the movies.
McNulty’s first thought had been, if the shooting was a distraction what was it a distraction for? Where was John Wayne’s punch really intended to land? He followed the standard inquiry model and started close to home. The shootings had targeted the fake judge in the fake courthouse just down the road from the real judge and real courthouse. Was that far enough to be a distraction? No. All that did was focus police attention on Judge Reynolds and the porn trial, so that wasn’t the real target.
Next, the Arriflex, its footage, and the cameraman had all disappeared. Getting rid of them could have been nothing more than the gunman’s reaction to Severino’s trying to sell the Zapruder film. But there was also another possibility. What if the gunman had himself put that story out there? Knowing that Severino had been filming reverse angles was a good reason to take both him and the film. Starting the rumor would be easy in Waltham. Everyone seemed to know everything about everybody. Finding out about the memory card once they’d killed Severino forced a search of his room. McNulty’s chasing the burglar across the bridge had set up the perfect place to dump the body. All of which focused police attention on the missing film and the murdered cameraman.
Distraction. Everything pointing away from…What?
As likely or unlikely as all that sounded, it was still only speculation. That’s what all police investigations are. During his police service McNulty had learned that the only way to be certain was to catch the villains in the act. Apart from that, it was about piecing together the evidence or asking the bad guys when you caught them. Even then that presumed they’d tell you the truth. Right now McNulty hadn’t caught them in the act or taken them into custody. There was nobody to tell him the truth, so it was all speculation and educated guesswork.
Ninety percent of all crime is theft in one form or another. Burglary, robbery, fraud and shoplifting. Taking cars. Stealing ideas. It was all about taking something that didn’t belong to you. Most of it was petty crime. Some of it was worth millions. Only a small percentage involved killi
ng people, but if you’re going to kill, then the prize had better be worth it. If you mug a little old lady and she falls and bangs her head that’s one thing; if you go onto a movie set and shoot five people, that’s something else entirely.
Robbery. Al Pacino and Robert De Niro. Heat.
McNulty remembered seeing the movie poster in the cabin under the overpass. The Cloverleaf Boys might not have been the sharpest knives in the box but they were dangerous enough to shoot rats in a barrel. Or let the rats kill themselves. What better distraction than to serve up four unwitting patsies when all this was over? The grey van being sprayed red at an off-the-books auto body shop. A family known to the police as being unstable. Lovers of robbery and violence and death, even if it was only rats.
Distraction. Robbery. Misdirection. Get the police looking one way. Strike somewhere else. Set the Cloverleaf Boys up to take the fall. McNulty swung the car into Lexington Street and headed toward Police Headquarters. His head was full of ideas but none of them would coalesce. If the shooting was the distraction, what was the real target? Waltham wasn’t big enough to carry serious money.
In the end, that was a matter for the police. All he had to do was present the evidence and let the real cops do the work. He parked in a visitors’ space and turned off the engine. Evening sun slanted across the parking lot as he headed inside.
“Robbery? Where the fuck you get that idea?”
McNulty didn’t even have a chance to explain before Harris vented his frustration at the movie man’s interference. The detective had been called down to the front desk and this time didn’t invite McNulty up to his office. He stood in the waiting room doorway and raised his voice right away. The desk sergeant went into the back room to give them some privacy. Cops don’t like witnesses when they tear a strip off members of the public. McNulty had to remember he was only a member of the public.
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