The Burning Plain

by Michael Nava

  It was the perfect crime. Only Richie and I knew the motive and identity of the real killer, and our proof was mostly conjecture and the most tenuous of circumstantial evidence. But wait, I thought, we weren’t the only ones who knew the truth about the murders. There were two others. Asuras and Donati. Nick had to have known. He was my way to Asuras, but I had to have something solid with which to approach him.

  I began at the beginning. I had my investigator, Freeman Vidor, look into the firebombing of Alex’s car. He reported to me that the car had been leased for Alex by a company called Samsara. When he went to the dealership to determine who had signed the lease on behalf of Samsara, the dealer refused to give him the information. So, instead, he followed the other line, back to Samsara.

  “Samsara had a phone number and a mail box at an answering service in Beverly Hills,” he reported back to me.

  “Had,” I repeated. “Past tense.”

  “It was canceled about six months ago. I bribed the girl at the counter to give a copy of the contract.”

  “Who signed it for Samsara?”

  “Josephine Walsh,” he said.

  “That name doesn’t mean anything to me.”

  “No? She listed a number, and when I called it, I got Nick Donati’s office at Parnassus Studio. Walsh was his paralegal.”

  “Fax me the contract.”

  “Will do,” he said.

  “And, Freeman, I have another little job for you.”

  “Shoot.”

  “I want you to get Alex Amerian’s phone records for the months of May and June.”

  “That’s going to cost you.”

  “Spend whatever it takes,” I said.

  “Music to my ears,” he said.

  The contract came over the fax and I recognized Donati’s number beneath the prim signature of Josephine Walsh. That connection made, I thought about others as I searched through my Travis files and came across the name Joanne Schilling. The eleventh-hour eyewitness whom Gaitan had procured. I had obtained her number from Serena Dance but after Travis’s death, an interview seemed pointless. I remembered Serena had told me that Schilling gave her a description of the cab driver that matched the one she’d given Gaitan almost verbatim. I thought he might have coached her. I dialed her number.

  A woman answered. “Hello.”

  “Hi,” I said. “May I speak to Joanne?”

  There was a pause. “Who?”

  “Joanne Schilling,” I said.

  “I’m sorry,” the woman said quickly. “She doesn’t live here anymore.”

  “It’s very important that I talk to her,” I said. “My name is Rios and I’m a lawyer. Ms. Schilling was a witness in a murder case. The victim’s family is considering a civil suit and they’ve hired me to represent them. Do you know where I can reach her?”

  “No, no, I don’t,” the woman said nervously. “Sorry, but I’ve got to go.”

  “Do you know where she works?”

  “I can’t help you,” she said, and hung up.

  I waited a half hour and then called back. I reached an answering machine.

  “Hi, this is Josey, and I can’t come to the phone right now but if you leave a message I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

  Josey. Josephine.

  “Good morning, Parnassus Studio. How may I direct your call?”

  “Josey Walsh, please?”

  “One moment.”

  “Hello, this is Miss Walsh’s office.”

  “Nick Donati,” I growled.

  “Oh, let me get her, Mr. Donati.”

  “Hi, Nick? Are you returning my call from yesterday or the day before …”

  She had the same voice as the woman I’d spoken to when I dialed Joanne Schilling’s number. I hung up, phoned Richie, asked him to do me a favor and waited for his return call. It came fifteen minutes later.

  “Josey Walsh is a producer at Parnassus,” he said.

  “Six months ago she was Donati’s paralegal,” I said. “Is that typical lateral movement at a studio?”

  “Paralegal to producer? It’s a stretch.”

  “But it is a promotion.”

  “Obviously. Henry, what is this all about?” When I hesitated, he said, “Look, honey, if you’re going to play Hollywood, you’ll need a guide.”

  “I don’t exactly trust you, Richie.”

  “Can I buy your trust?”

  “Huh.”

  “Do you want to know who blew up Alex’s car?”

  “It was Asuras.”

  “He didn’t set the bomb himself, Henry,” Richie replied impatiently.

  “You know who did?”

  “I looked into the bombing for the piece on Duke, but in the end I decided the article was too long and I didn’t use it.”

  “Use what, Richie?”

  “You have to remember that Duke makes movies, he thinks in movies. If he’s going to blow up a car, he’s going to use a special-effects guy. The Industry’s got all these little specialties where you go to one guy if you want a building blown up, another for a boat, and then there are guys who spend their entire lives blowing up cars.”

  “You have a name?”

  “You go first,” he said. “What are you up to?”

  “I’m looking for a woman named Joanne Schilling.”

  “Joanne Schilling,” he laughed. “I can tell you how to find Joanne Schilling. Call the Screen Actors Guild.”

  “She’s an actor?”

  “Never much more than an extra,” he said. “She worked a lot in the seventies in those big-budget disaster movies. She was the girl with tits who got killed off by the second reel, drowned, burned, dropped off skyscrapers, swallowed up by the earth, boobies jiggling like a Greek chorus.”

  “Trust you to remember.”

  “I see her on sitcoms now and then. Not the quality ones. I’m talking Fox. UPN.”

  I made a note. “Okay, Richie, the car bomber?”

  “The best car bomber in Hollywood is a guy named Jim Harley.”

  “How can you be sure he was the one who blew up Alex’s car?”

  “Because, Henry, he’s the best, and Duke would only use the best.”

  “He would commit a felony for Duke Asuras.”

  “Honey, there are people who would slaughter their firstborn for Duke Asuras. This is Hollywood, Henry. There are maybe six people in town who can greenlight a picture. Duke is one of them, and his pictures make money. If you plan to work, you stay on his good side.”

  “Do you have a picture of Jim Harley?”

  “In my files somewhere. Why?”

  “This has gone beyond amateur hour. I need official help.”

  “You’re not going to go to the police.”

  “The DA’s office,” I said. “Serena Dance.” And maybe, I thought, Odell.

  “The dyke, no?”

  “Lesbian, Richie.”

  “Henry, they like being called dykes. They call themselves dykes.”

  “Not with the sneer I hear in your voice.”

  “Sneer, schmeer, what can she do?”

  “She was in charge of the task force. Maybe I can talk her into reopening the case.”

  “Then you’ll have to quit playing Nancy Drew.”

  “That would be fine by me.”

  Later that day, Freeman Vidor delivered copies of Alex Amerian’s phone bills for May and June. There were two things of particular interest. The first was that on the day he was killed, he had made a call to a number I recognized from looking through my Travis files. It was Travis’s number. Earlier that same day he’d made a call to another familiar number. Donati’s office. I fully intended to turn my findings over to Serena, but I couldn’t resist finding out from Donati what he and Alex had talked about for ten minutes on the morning of the last day of Alex’s life.

  Nick seemed glad to hear from me: “Henry, I’ve been meaning to call you.” He was too busy to get together for dinner, but he could manage a drink. Not tomorrow, the next
day. My house.

  Chapter 18

  THE NEXT EVENING, Donati showed up at my house in black-tie. I answered the door in gray sweatpants and a button-down shirt. He followed me into the living room, discreetly taking inventory. I saw through his eyes the mismatched furniture, faded Oriental carpet, scuffed floor. There were ashes in the fireplace from the previous winter, a pair of loafers beneath the dusty glass-topped coffee table, a bundle of dry cleaning on an armchair, a scattering of used coffee cups.

  “Excuse the mess,” I said. “You want a drink?”

  He smiled. “I thought you didn’t drink, Henry?”

  “My lover kept a bottle of scotch under the sink,” I said. “It’s probably still there.”

  “Scotch is great,” he said, then, gesturing toward the deck. “Nice view. Mind if I go out?”

  In the kitchen, I scoured beneath the sink for Josh’s bottle of Glenlivet. I poured some into a tumbler over ice, remembering the once familiar routine. Ice, glass, bottle. On a typical night I was good for a fifth of Jack Daniels. I grabbed a Coke and carried the drinks out to the deck, where Donati was standing at the railing, looking at the sky. It was filled with the fantastic colors of sunset in Los Angeles, neon pinks and screeching oranges, reds that throbbed like open wounds; the palette of pollution. A dry wind crept through the thick canyon undergrowth with a sound like an old man clearing his voice. Donati took a quick shot from his drink and emitted a deep, reflexive noise halfway between a sigh and a shudder. I remembered that sound from my own drinking days; the groan of addiction with which the body gratefully received the first drink of the day.

  “You must worry about fires up here,” he said.

  “Fires in the summer and autumn,” I replied. “Mudslides in the winter, earthquakes all year long.”

  “Tell me about it,” he said, knocking back half his remaining drink. “You couldn’t have planned a worse place to put a city than LA.”

  “You’re not native?”

  “I grew up outside of Boston,” he said. “I miss the East. There’s history there. Out here, it’s all landscape.” He finished his drink “Mind if I have a refill?”

  “The bottle’s in the kitchen. Knock yourself out.”

  He looked at me strangely, but the lure of scotch was greater than any umbrage. When he returned to the deck, I noticed he’d removed the ice from his glass.

  “You’re all dressed up,” I said.

  “The gay archive’s having a big fund-raiser tonight at the Century Plaza,” he said. “I’m surprised you’re not going.”

  “I’m surprised you are.”

  “It’s business,” he said. “An important producer is on the board of directors. We bought a table to show respect.”

  “Asuras going?”

  He glanced at me sharply. “No, I’m representing him.”

  “That seems to be one of your jobs.”

  He put his drink on the railing. “Is there something I can do for you, Henry?”

  “The question is whether there’s something I can do for you and Duke.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Travis told me something the day he died I thought might be of interest to you.”

  He sipped his drink. “What was that?”

  “He said Asuras killed those boys.”

  Donati had been looking out over the canyon. Now he turned to face me. “Jesus Christ, Henry, you dragged me up here for this?” He set the drink down. “You’ve been spending too much time with Richie. I’ve got to go.”

  “He gave me a manuscript,” I said, to Donati’s back. “He said Alex Amerian left it in his car the night he drove him up to Asuras’s house. It describes some pretty rough sexual stuff between Alex and Asuras.”

  Donati stopped, turned back. “You have it?”

  “Come inside,” I said. “Don’t forget your drink.”

  I told him to make himself comfortable while I got the manuscript from my office. He took me at my word. When I came back to the living room, the bottle of Glenlivet was on the coffee table beside his glass.

  “Here,” I said, tossing him the manuscript. “A copy. I’m keeping the original at another location.”

  He skimmed it and announced, “This is garbage.”

  “Travis was convinced it was the real thing. He said Asuras is into some serious kink.”

  Donati gave me a long, searching look. “Why didn’t you say anything about this before?”

  “A hundred thou only goes so far, Nick. My lover, my late lover, he died of AIDS. He was sick for nearly two years, without health insurance. I’m sure you know what treatment costs. My house is in foreclosure. I’m facing bankruptcy.”

  For a moment, he looked astonished, disbelieving, but then his face hardened. “And you want to improve your financial situation with blackmail.”

  I shrugged. “Maybe you should go, Nick. Obviously I’m talking to the wrong person. I owe Asuras a call anyway, to thank him for the video.”

  “What video?”

  “Letters? You must’ve seen it, since it’s one of your movies,” I said. “About a killer who covers his tracks by making his intended victim seem like part of a serial killer’s rampage?”

  “He sent you that?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, out of the blue.”

  Donati picked up the manuscript. “You say Alex left this in the cab?”

  “Cab? I didn’t say cab. I said Bob’s car.”

  Donati shrugged. “Car. Cab. Whatever. Have you ever talked to a woman named Josephine Walsh?”

  “Walsh? No, I don’t think so.” I said.

  “You’re sure about that?”

  “Positive.”

  He stood up. “What are you going to do with the manuscript?”

  “I don’t know. What do you think?”

  “I think you should wait to hear from me.”

  “Okay.”

  “Thanks for the drink,” he said. “Goodnight.”

  I had harbored a grain of doubt that Donati was in on the murders, but now I was certain of his involvement. He could only have known I’d called Josephine Walsh if she had told him and she wouldn’t have told him without also telling him I was looking for Joanne Schilling, the mystery witness. I knew he didn’t believe me when I denied making the call. It was also clear when he pretended to read Alex’s manuscript that he was familiar with its contents. Most damning of all, he let slip that Bob was driving the Lucky cab when he took Alex to Asuras’s house. He couldn’t have known that detail without being deeply involved. It explained why he had searched and then cleaned the cab. He wasn’t trying to protect Travis, he was trying to protect Asuras. And himself.

  I had counted on Donati being so imbued with Hollywood cynicism that he would buy me as a blackmailer without batting an eye, but it still disappointed me a little that he hadn’t even seemed surprised. I thought there was more to him than the price of his suits. I kept seeing him with his dogs the night Travis died, lost and exposed, croaking in his deepest voice like a little boy fending off the monsters that he fears lurk beneath his bed or in his closet. I rinsed his glass, certain that he would soon call with either a bribe or a threat, either of which would show, as the law so elegantly put it, “consciousness of guilt.” Now that the pieces were falling together, it was time to talk to Serena Dance.

  Serena emerged cautiously from her office to the lobby, where I’d arrived without an appointment and asked to see her. She greeted me with a puzzled, doubtful grin.

  “Hello, Henry. What can I do for you?”

  I glanced at the marshal who guarded the eighteenth floor. “Could we talk privately?”

  Reluctantly, she jutted her chin toward the door. “Come on, but I can only give you a few minutes.”

  In a corner of her office was a stack of cardboard boxes, all labeled West Hollywood lnves. Her radio was tuned to NPR, where a Chardonnay-voiced newscaster chuckled at his own mirth. There was a new picture on the wall, a child’s drawing of a house with two
women and a little boy standing outside of it. In the corner of the picture was a carefully written “Jesse, 5.”

  “So talk,” she said, crisply, planting herself behind her desk.

  “I have new information on the West Hollywood murders,” I said.

  I expected dismissal or disbelief, but instead there was a neutral, “Uh-huh.”

  I opened my briefcase and handed her copies of Alex’s manuscript and the contract from the answering service signed by Josey Walsh. I launched into my story about Asuras and Alex, the Samsara connection to Parnassus via Josey Walsh, the possibility that the car bomb had been set by a special effects expert named Jim Harley, and the odd coincidence that Joanne Schilling and Josey Walsh had been roommates.

  “Are you accusing me of suborning perjury?” she asked, when I finished.

  “What?”

  “You’re implying that Joanne Schilling was going to give false evidence against Travis.”

  “I’m not implying that you knew about it.”

  “So I was duped?”

  “Serena, if any of this is provable, we were both duped.”

  She pushed the papers across the desk and said, unconvincingly, “We had hard evidence on Travis.”

  “I’m not claiming he wasn’t involved,” I said.

  She drummed her fingers softly on her desk. “I thought you had come here to gloat.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Odell told me you were right that Gaitan planted evidence in the cab,” she said. “Ironic, isn’t it, Henry? You were sure Gaitan was trying to frame Travis because he was gay, and now you’re telling me Travis was guilty all along.”