Dead Famous aka The Jury Must Die

by Carol O'Connell

  "Yeah, and that's why your friend never would've made the cut for Special Crimes. I was a better detective."

  Jo's head lifted slightly, and he could read her thoughts. Though she would never voice this aloud, she clearly had a higher opinion of the murdered agent's brains and talent.

  "I didn't say I was smarter, Jo. But I was better. No tricks, no flimflam. I was the genuine article – a cop. I don't need to look at your hair and your clothes to tell where you've been and where you're going. I only had to read your notes on Agent Kidd and the liquor store."

  And now those notes were ashes in his fireplace, along with the paper trail for her wine.

  She started to rise. He put one hand on her arm to keep her with him. "You think you were close enough to that poor dead bastard to crawl inside his skin. You collect the Reaper's favorite wine because that's what crazy Timothy Kidd would've done. And that's why you only cleaned homicide crime scenes. It made you feel closer to his job, his life. You're actually hunting the freak who killed him. You're not a woman in hiding. That hotel is a damn goldfish bowl. It must drive the feds crazy trying to protect you, covering foot traffic and all the exits. And now you're really good at ditching those bodyguards whenever you like. You've been practicing that, too. Think you can actually finish Kidd's job for him? Am I close, Jo? I think I am – because you won't even look at me."

  And here the conversation ended. Jo was done with him. She slid off the bar stool and moved toward the door, donning her jacket on the fly, long legs carrying her out to the street and away.

  His gut was tied in knots. Prior to meeting Jo, he had no idea that it could physically hurt him to lose a woman's company. This was not the way he had wanted the evening to end. If he could have been any crazier about Jo, he would have shot her in the leg to prevent her from leaving him tonight.

  And me without my gun.

  Once the door had closed on Johanna Apollo, the bar became a desolate place. And then he remembered that she had worn lipstick – perfume, too. That fed him awhile as he followed her away from the bar. And down the deserted street they went, twenty yards between them, heading toward the glowing green balls that lighted the way down to the underground station. During the subway ride, he kept her in sight through the window of a trailing train car. And though he was right behind her as she made her way up the stairs to the Chelsea sidewalk, she had no clue that he was there and watching over her. He stayed with her as far as the hotel, where a nervous FBI agent was pacing before the front door. And then, sadly, Riker turned around and left, for his job was done; he had seen the lady home.

  Chapter 10

  Ian zachary was thoroughly pleased with the young investigator from Highland Security. The tall blonde was beyond cool – sunglasses at night. Ah, but were those Armani shades a disguise or an affectation? His lawyers had warned him that he trod a fine line between freedom of speech and felony entertainment. The authorities would always be close by, waiting for him to trip over FCC regulations and federal laws.

  However, this woman was not from any tribe of bureaucrats and hardly the type for undercover police work. Days ago, her bad attitude had made an excellent first impression. The expression of ennui, her tone of voice and stance, all said to him at their first encounter, You're a cockroach. You know it, and I know it. Now, that had attracted him to her, but it was the fabulous black leather coat that had actually sold him. On this criterion alone, he placed her at the top of her profession. The other investigators, hired and fired in quick succession, had been discount shoppers, every one. He also admired the more mundane aspects of his lovely private cop. From the dangerous bulge in the tailored line of her cashmere blazer, he knew that she carried a very large weapon. And he had sexual fantasies about this woman in handcuffs, but in all the most realistic scenarios, he was the one who wore them.

  The investigator entered his studio while he was racking up a pretaped interview for his audience, not trusting his insane engineer to do this right. He leaned into a stationary microphone, saying, "Crazy Bitch, take a break." And now that they were guaranteed some privacy, he turned to the blonde from Highland Security. Wasting no time on civility, she handed him a fat manila envelope that bore the name of Johanna Apollo's employer, an ex-detective from Special Crimes Unit.

  Over the past few months, her predecessors had failed to turn up anything in Riker's habits or his history that was even mildly dishonest. As Zachary perused her paperwork, he smiled, liking what he saw, the evidence of a man living beyond his means. And that would explain why NYPD had gotten rid of Detective Sergeant Riker.

  "I've got another job for you. Can you stick around a few minutes?"

  Just the barest inclination of her head passed for a nod.

  He turned another page of the dossier. "My God, this is what he pays for rent? His apartment must be a palace. And what's the deal with Riker's first name?"

  "He doesn't have one," she said. "I checked his birth certificate. Just the initial P. And it cost you five hundred dollars to have me wait in line for his records. You want to waste more money on that?"

  "No, this is fine." There was contempt in everything she said to him, and he loved it.

  She stared at the lighted screen of his laptop computer. "So this is your database?" Even that sounded like an insult.

  "Yes, that's it," he said. "Couldn't play the game without it. Are you any good with computers?"

  Without bothering to answer him, she sat down at his console and tapped the laptop keyboard, creating split screens to view two files at once. He watched all these images quickly flicker and change as she scanned his entire repository of fan sightings and personal information on the twelve jurors, living and dead.

  "All the easy ones have been murdered," he said. "Those were the idiots who gave television interviews. So my fans had their names and photographs."

  "I'm sure your lawyers had all the background stats on your jury. Addresses, too, right? So why didn't you give the fans – "

  "I couldn't." He paused, wondering if he had just admitted to a crime. Legally, he had not been entitled to any of that information. "My lawyers wont let me. It's a technicality." He watched the file change to the related murder of Agent Timothy Kidd. Next, she scrolled the file on a national hunt for a major player. The Chelsea Hotel was the only highlighted address out of hundreds on the screen.

  The investigator glanced in his direction. "So your fans located Dr. Apollo, but you never mentioned her on the air."

  "She used to be in a witness protection program. The FBI got a gag order from a federal judge. If I just say her name on the air, I'm toast and the station loses its license. So I screen out all the hunchback calls."

  "That's why you want her to do an interview? You think Dr. Apollo's going to expose herself on national radio?" Unspoken were the words you fool.

  "You underestimate me," he said.

  Her mouth dipped on one side to tell him that this was not possible.

  "Next job." He handed her a sheaf of papers with the name and last known address of a surviving juror as well as drawings of the man's face. "I bought those sketches from a courtroom artist. I want you to find information on this man, but don't tell anyone the sketches came from me."

  "Your attorneys wouldn't like that, would they? Cause and effect that ties back to you."

  "Just a minor departure from the game format," he said. "The fans are a bit slow in developing solid leads. I want your report in the form of anonymous e-mail. And for God's sake, don't use a computer from Highland Security." His lawyers would go into cardiac arrest if they knew he was stepping outside the rules and gathering his own data.

  She pocketed the papers, never taking her eyes off the screen and the latest sightings for fresh victims. "How stupid are your fans? You think they know what they're doing?"

  "Well, it's pretty basic," he said, "tracking down helpless people so they can get their throats slit. But I don't think my fans give it that much thought. They call in a sighting, a
juror drops dead. They never connect those two events. It's only a game, right? Now here's where I part company with the Reaper. He hates imbeciles, but not me. Without all these morons, I'd have no show. But the game's getting unwieldy – way too much information on the players. I can't tell good data from bogus."

  "You're not really into computers, are you?" Her head turned his way, but the glasses were so dark, he could never be certain that her eyes were on him.

  "I can open my e-mail," he said. "What more do I need?"

  "More sophisticated software." She closed his laptop. "If I cross-index the fan reports by geography, date and time, I might get a line on the juror. But first I need to install my own programs." And now she was leaving – with his computer under her arm.

  "Wait! You can do the installation here."

  Her head slowly turned in his direction, dark glasses giving away nothing as she patiently waited for him to realize that they were going to do this her way.

  She was barefoot, and her feet were dirty. At first, Riker had mistaken the strange young woman for one of the homeless insane. Her clothes were soiled, her hair was matted, and the odor of unchanged underwear was pungent. Yet she had identified herself as the sound engineer and personal assistant of the hottest radio star in America. As he trailed her through a maze of hallways, she said, "Everyone calls me Crazy Bitch." This nationally known victim of verbal torture and humiliation was the first show-business celebrity he had ever met.

  "You're really mad, aren't you? Yeah," she said, "Zack told me you'd be mad."

  "Lady, you've got a gift for understatement."

  Crazy Bitch suddenly flattened against a wall, giving Riker a clear view of the tall blonde in sunglasses striding down the narrow corridor. He followed the example of his guide and joined up with the wall, for Kathy Mallory was not losing any momentum. This was why civilians always moved aside for her; she assumed they would want to save themselves before she could walk over them or through them. Riker had sometimes taken advantage of that, wading through crowds in her wake. Now she passed him by, never even glancing his way, as if they had never met.

  "She's from Highland Security," said Crazy Bitch. "They cater to celebrities." The sound engineer continued down the hall, then stood to one side and gestured toward a doorway. "This is my booth." She nodded toward an adjacent door with a formidable lock. "And that one leads to the studio. Zack's just signing off. He'll buzz you in when the delivery guy leaves."

  Riker walked into her own domain, a claustrophobic space of electronics and blinking telephone lights. On the other side of a plate-glass window, Ian Zachary was seated before a desk of dials and levers and one clear space for his catered meal. An apron-clad delivery boy laid out a late supper that no steak-and-potatoes man could identify: slimy round things covered with white sauce and garnished with the leaves of alien vegetables. Bubbling designer water was poured into a wineglass. For that alone, Riker would have disliked the man, but he had larger issues tonight – a message left on his answering machine in Zachary's voice and the words, So what's it like to screw a hunchback?

  The radio host flashed a smile at the uninvited guest in the sound-booth window. Riker wondered if this man knew him on sight, or was he simply anticipating a fast reaction to his telephone message? Zachary tapped a button on his console. After the loud buzz, Riker entered the studio and slammed the door behind him. That made the other man jump, perhaps believing that his visitor was homicidally angry. He had no way to know that Riker slammed all the doors in the world all the time. "Pull up a chair, babe. Make yourself at home."

  Riker preferred to stand. He hoped his clenched fists would impart a strong desire to break the Englishman in half.

  Unfortunately, Zachary was smiling again and taking no offense, "Have I got a deal for you – a fortune in free advertising."

  "I don't give a shit about the advertising. Go fuck yourself."

  "If that was possible," said Crazy Bitch, "he would've done it already. That's his big dream."

  Ian Zachary stared at the woman walking toward him from the far side of the room. "I didn't buzz you in. How did you get past the lock?"

  "Feeling a little less secure?" She leaned over the dinner tray and picked up a knife that was only good for slicing butter. After scrutinizing it, she pronounced it "Too dull." She picked up the fork and nodded her approval as she held it out to Riker. "Try this. Go for the throat."

  "I think I might be in love," said Riker. "Are you married?"

  "We're pretty sure she's a lesbian," said Zachary.

  Riker shrugged. "I can work around that."

  The woman bowed low over the dinner plate and deposited a glob of mucus on the food.

  Her boss merely glanced at his ruined supper, then pushed it to one side. "Well, Riker, you might have some reservations about her table manners. You can't take her anywhere." He watched his assistant stalk out of the room, her bare feet slapping the floor. "She's totally nuts. How did she get past the lock?"

  "Does it matter?" Riker had watched her jam the lock with a toothpick after the delivery man had departed, but he elected not to share this information. "If she wants to hurt you, she will. Just get used to the idea. But I'm first."

  "I have a business deal for you. If the hunchback won't come on the – "

  "She's never coming on your show."

  "I think I guessed that. Now I want you, Riker. You could work with me on the Reaper murders, keep the show from getting stale. You probably wonder why I'd help that freak hunt down the people who set me free. You think I'm an ungrateful bastard, and you're right about that."

  "No, I'm thinking you're a moron."

  Apparently, Zachary enjoyed being insulted. Grinning, he held up a manila envelope with Riker's name printed in Mallory's neat block letters. "I know a lot about you." He dropped the envelope on the desk and pushed it in Riker's direction. "That's your dossier. No ordinary detective. I understand that Special Crimes Unit is an elite squad, and my fans just love hero cops with multiple gunshot wounds. I think we can work together. I'll give you access to everything I've got on the Reaper, and, babe, I've got plenty. My fans can get me anything I want."

  "Your fans are squirrels," said Riker. "You've got nothing." He was leafing through Mallory's background report, a pack of lies. "And it would be a big mistake to call me babe one more time." Mallory's dossier had given him massive debts and a heavy mortgage for a summer house on Shelter Island, a place that he had never even visited. On the next page, she had jacked up his apartment rent to an amount that only a cop on the take could afford, thus painting him as a shady, money-hungry man with great bribe potential. He rolled the sheets into a paper truncheon. "I've got no idea why the feds don't shut you down."

  "They tried. In fact, the FCC did suspend me for a few nights. Then a pack of ACLU lawyers beat up their lawyers on the issue of free speech. Oh, and then – you'll love this part – an idiot judge lifted my suspension before the matter even went to a hearing. I'm betting the Reaper kills the last juror before the government gets my case into court. Bless the morons. And back to my job offer. In addition to all that free advertising, you get paid a bundle just for – " "No deal."

  "Not so fast, Riker. I know what you do for a living these days. You clean crime scenes. That's a joke job. And I know you need money." He nodded to the dossier. "I have very good sources."

  "So do I. The jury verdict was a farce. The Chicago cops say you committed murder. No mistake, hard evidence and eyewitnesses. And it was real cold."

  "Well, this is what they didn't tell you – because they didn't know." Zachary flipped a lever on his console. "Listen. This tape was never been played on the air." And now the speakers carried the sound of breaking glass and a woman's voice screaming obscenities. "I recorded this in my old Chicago studio – the first time she tried to kill me. She broke the window on her sound booth to get at me."

  Riker listened to the recorded voice of the shock-jock describing a woman who had gone mad, cr
unching broken glass underfoot as she rushed toward him with a broken shard in her hand. He even described a cut to his chest when she opened his skin.

  Zachary turned off the machine, then unbuttoned his shirt to display a jagged scar. "It wasn't deep, not as bad as it looks. The station manager called in a doctor. I gave him a lame story about an accident. The woman was never charged. So you can't say I never gave her a break. They just took her off to a hospital. Ten days later, she was released from the psycho ward. That's when she started following me around. Have you ever been stalked?"

  Riker nodded. It was a rare day when he did not have someone following him around, though sometimes it was only a feeling.

  "Well, she came after me again on the day she died. I ran into that building to get away from her, but she caught up to me on the roof. It was a construction site, lots of workmen standing around. I'm guessing the sling blade belonged to one of them. Wicked-looking knife. It was in her hand when she backed me up to the wall. Then she rushed me. So, yes, I pushed her off that roof. I stepped to one side and helped her right over the wall. The knife dropped with her, but the police never found it, and the workmen didn't see it in her hand."

  "And none of this came out in your trial?"

  "I wouldn't let my attorneys use the tape. Incidentally, the prosecutor had her psychiatric history – years of voluntary hospital stays. She was always unstable, but the district attorney neglected to share that with my defense team. It would've ruined the case against me. You see, I wasn't the first man she tried to kill. So I had more than enough grounds for a new trial if the verdict didn't go my way."

  "If all this is true," and Riker was skeptical, "why didn't you plead self-defense?"

  Zachary leaned forward, smiling. "Tell me, Riker, what's more intriguing – a radio personality who killed a woman to save his own sorry ass – or a man who got away with cold-blooded murder?" He smiled. "Point taken? Good. After my acquittal, I was back on the air and my ratings were the highest in the history of Chicago radio. And then the major networks were calling me. New York City, every jock's dream, and national syndication."