by Sam Christer
‘You’re a star, buddy. I’ve got some cops in Robbery doing a little phone-bashing for me. I’ll get them to hit rental companies first, run down new Lexus hybrids or ones with tyre changes in the last month. I owe you.’
‘I’ll hold you to it. You fixed your leaving drinks yet?’
It’s something Nic hasn’t even thought about. ‘TBA. I’ll come back to you.’
Peach laughs. ‘Better still, I’ll call Mitzi. Take care, man.’
‘You too.’ Nic hangs up and stares at Geagea, who’s still there.
‘Sorry, Detective,’ the press officer points to the quiz-a-day calendar. ‘Before I go, give me the answer will you? Otherwise, it’ll eat me all day.’
‘Okay. All the words hide countries – Chairwoman contains Oman, Peruse Peru, Anomalies Mali and Antiperspirant …?’ He pauses to give the hack one last chance to grab a little respect.
Geagea looks blank.
Nic shakes his head. ‘It’s your part of the world, buddy. Iran. As in Ante-persp-Iran-t. Now get out of here.’
25
ANTERONUS FILMS, CULVER CITY
Sarah Kenny makes her wisest decision of the day. She takes Mitzi to a quiet corner of Plunge, an in-studio coffee franchise, where she starts to spill the beans on The Shroud. ‘Tamara was very secretive about the script. Not even Mr Svenson knew what the ending would be.’
‘How can that be?’ Mitzi looks confused. ‘I mean, the actors have to know, don’t they? How can they play their parts unless they have the lines to learn?’
‘They were all given an outline script—’
‘Which I’m still to get a copy of by the way.’
Sarah ignores the pointed remark. ‘All the cast were warned the ending would be rewritten. They were told it was so secret a copy wouldn’t be circulated until the day before the shoot and even then only to the few actors taking part.’
‘Why? What’s all the fuss about?’
She scans the coffee shop nervously. ‘Tamara had a contact in Turin in Italy – someone called R. Craxi and he’d given her certain facts about the Shroud that have never been disclosed publically.’
‘And this film discloses them?’
‘The studio’s marketing department expects all the film’s final publicity to be driven by public disclosure.’
‘Disclosure of what? What are the certain facts you mentioned?’
‘I really don’t know. I haven’t seen anything scientific of any kind. I guess they’re to do with the authenticity of the Shroud.’
‘The ending that was circulated – what did it say about the Shroud?’
‘It didn’t commit. The whole modern-day section – the reveal, if you like, was missing. I heard Tamara telling Mr Svenson he would need a scientific setting, a CSI-style lab for some scenes.’
‘For carbon dating or DNA testing?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe both.’
‘But there were no results in the script?’
‘Not in any version I’ve seen.’
Mitzi thinks it through. The best outcome for the writer would be the most shocking. So Jacobs’s new ending would have had to be explosive – something that rocked church or country to the core. Which is fine – providing it’s only fiction. But what if it was based on fact? That would be different. Totally different.
Suddenly, the death of Tamara Jacobs starts to make some sense.
26
77TH STREET STATION, LOS ANGELES
The sixty-year-old estranged husband of the dead writer is dressed in a black suit with white shirt and neatly fastened black tie. Dylan Jacobs’s hair is silver and cut elegantly short and despite crossing continents, he is clean-shaven and alert. His partner Viktor is sat beside him in the police reception area reading a day-old newspaper. He is wearing cream jeans, a glittering Dolce and Gabbana T-shirt and gold silk jacket.
Nic clicks open the security door and looks across to them. ‘Mr Jacobs?’
Tamara’s husband rises wearily to his feet. ‘Yes.’
‘Nic Karakandez.’ He extends a hand. ‘My sympathies for your loss.’
‘Thank you.’ Jacobs shakes and motions to the man next to him. ‘This is Viktor. I believe you spoke on the phone?’
‘We did. Please both come through.’
They follow him up a couple of sets of stairs and into a dull interview room that has a table, six chairs and a wall bearing a large blue LAPD crest, complete with American flag, scales of justice and the motto ‘To Protect and to Serve.’
Nic motions to the seats. ‘Can I get you drinks? Coffee, soda, water?’
‘Black coffee, thanks,’ Dylan Jacobs settles in a chair with his back to the crest.
Viktor takes a seat alongside him and holds his hand under the table. ‘Just water, please.’
Nic ducks outside for drinks then returns and shuts the door. Hands out the coffee and water. ‘When did you get into town?’
‘Yesterday.’ Dylan rests his elbows on the table and rubs tired eyes. ‘We went to the morgue and then finalised the funeral arrangements. We’re told Tamara’s body can be released now.’
‘That’s right. The ME has concluded her examinations.’
Jacobs grimaces. ‘We’ve fixed a cremation service for next week—’
‘I didn’t go to see her,’ interrupts Viktor. ‘Tamara and I didn’t get along that well. I don’t think she approved of me.’
Nic can’t begin to think how she possibly could have. ‘Mr Jacobs, we’re trying to pin down a reason for your wife’s murder. Is there anything you can tell us that may be of assistance?’
He looks a little confused. ‘She was a writer, Detective – not a gangster or a drug dealer. Tammy mixed with good people, mainly of our age and of artistic and gentle natures.’
‘Good people sometimes carry grudges or harbour hatred. Rich, educated people are every bit as capable of doing bad as poor, uneducated ones. It’s usually just a question of motivation, morality and means.’
‘I take your point but I’m sorry, I can’t think of any reason why anyone would want to hurt her.’ Jacobs suddenly looks much older than his sixty years. His voice breaks a little. ‘Tammy’s face was partly covered when I saw her and the medical examiner said she’d suffered some deep wounds. What had been done to her?’
It’s the kind of question only innocent men ask. Nic measures his answer carefully. ‘We’re not certain, Mr Jacobs. We’re still piecing things together.’
‘But you must have some idea, something to go on?’
‘We’re working hard on that. What I can tell you is that your wife was not randomly murdered. She was deliberately targeted.’
Dylan Jacobs looks from the cop to the table, then down to the floor. He can’t help but imagine Tammy in her open-plan kitchen with its black granite tops and biscuit-coloured wood units. He can see her cooking her favourite salmon and linguini, a glass of crisp white wine at hand and piano jazz playing from her favourite radio station.
He looks up and his eyes are wet. Viktor takes his hand and holds it openly on the table now. ‘Thanks,’ Jacobs says and pats the comforting hand. He looks at Nic. ‘My life is with Viktor now but Tammy and I were once very close. We spent fifteen years together as man and wife, trying to make things work. Even when it didn’t, we remained good friends, the very best of friends. She was a wonderful, kind and loving woman. Even when we split up, she tried to be understanding.’ He looks at the wall, remembering for a second when he told her he was leaving her not for another woman but for a man. ‘I think she knew about my homosexuality even before I did. She had an instinct, a way of picking up on things. I guess that’s what made her such a good writer.’ He manages a half-laugh. ‘Of course, all her compassion didn’t stop her and her lawyers taking me for a fortune.’
‘You paid her too much,’ interjects his new soul mate. ‘Much more than you needed to.’
‘It’s only money, Viktor, only money.’
Nic takes a sip of coffee. ‘M
r Jacobs, if you and Viktor could take some time and list your wife’s acquaintances for me – maybe with a short note saying how long she’d known them and how she was connected to them – that would be a real help.’
‘Now?’ Jacobs looks troubled.
‘No, not now, but it would be good to have it some time tomorrow. Do you know anything about this movie that Tamara was working on, The Shroud?’
‘Oh, that thing?’ says Viktor, his tone sniffy. ‘Is that what she was in the middle of?’ He gives Jacobs a strained look.
‘Yes, I think she was,’ Dylan answers, wearily.
Nic spots the tension between them. ‘What about it, Viktor?’
He hesitates.
‘Go on,’ says Jacobs. ‘You might as well say it.’
‘Well, it was asking for trouble, wasn’t it?’ He lets go of Dylan’s hand and becomes animated. ‘I mean, suggesting that the Shroud didn’t come from Jesus, it’s bound to upset all those extreme groups in the church, isn’t it? It’s blasphemous really.’
‘Viktor was brought up a Catholic,’ explains Jacobs, patiently. ‘He reads too many mystery books and imagines hooded killers are running around everywhere.’
‘They are,’ he insists.
‘Not in Hollywood, Viktor, not in Hollywood.’ Jacobs pats his hand. ‘Isn’t that so, Detective Karakandez?’
‘Well,’ says Nic. ‘I’ve seen plenty of hooded killers, but they were interested in drugs, guns and two-hundred-dollar sneakers, never religion.’
Dylan Jacobs manages a smile. ‘Find him, Detective. Please give me your word that you’ll catch whoever did this.’
Not likely.
The detective doesn’t say it, but it’s the truth. Because a month from now he won’t even be around to take a progress call. Instead, he does what he’s always done, what he’s always delivered on. ‘I give you my word, Mr Jacobs. I’ll find him.’
27
Captain Deke Matthews isn’t the kind of cop you want to keep waiting. He’s a big guy in every sense of the word. Big physically. Big in the department. Big on making his detectives’ lives hurt. He sits behind his office desk waiting impatiently for Fallon and Karakandez, his barrel stomach wrapped in a blue shirt battened down with braces as red as his jowly face.
‘Sorry boss.’ Mitzi breezes in with Nic in tow.
‘Fifteen minutes late, Lieutenant. D’you have any idea how burned good food can get in nine hundred seconds? How mad Mrs Matthews will be if I am the reason said good food is burned?’
‘I get the message, boss.’
The captain drums all ten of his chubby fingers on his desk, like he’s waiting for a plate at Thanksgiving. ‘So what have you got? Let’s be having it, with luck I may still make it before the charring starts.’
Mitzi thumps down a thick wad of folders and pulls out some photographs. ‘Tamara Jacobs, screenwriter, mid-fifties, found dead in the water at Manhattan Beach. Unsub had tortured her – taken out her left eye and some teeth, ligature marks around the wrists. To finish, he cut her throat. Kill scene seems to be her home, nice spread in Beverly.’
‘Why so?’
‘Forensics matched blood spatters on the living room ceiling to the victim.’
Matthews glances at the post-mortem pictures then picks one up between finger and thumb like he doesn’t want to be dirtied by what’s on it. ‘What we have here, lady and gentleman, is something straight from the sewers.’ He slaps it down on his desktop. ‘Why didn’t the perp leave the old girl in her own home after he’d killed her? Why drive out to the beach and dump her in the ocean?’
‘Buying himself time.’ Nic slides over a pack of surveillance-camera shots from the beach. ‘He was most probably an out-of-towner and the driver of this rented Lexus.’
‘This one of those 4×4s?’
‘Yeah, pricey metal, a hybrid.’
‘Nice.’ He takes the photograph. ‘What pins your guy to this car?’
‘Tyre treads in sand on the pier match those of one rented from LAX. Could be he flew in for the hit then flew straight out again.’ Nic gets out the documents his helpers from Robbery traced.
‘Our flyer got a name?’
‘Agne.’ He passes over a rental agreement.
Matthews frowns. ‘Agnes – a girl?’
‘No, Agne – that’s the last name the driver entered on the paperwork. First name “Abderus”. Take a look.’
‘Abderus?’ He stares down at the photocopy. ‘This for real?’
‘Probably not. I Googled both names. They’re Greek and common. Abderus was an ancient hero, of dubious parentage.’
‘It figures.’ Matthews pushes the copy back. ‘Nothing good came from the Greeks. Their economy is down the pan. Their food is crap. There’s a reason you don’t see Italians smashing plates at the end of meals.’
‘Civilisation?’ suggests Mitzi. They both frown at her. ‘I hear rumours that came from the Greeks.’
He ignores her. ‘So we got a Greek hitman – possibly flying in to torture and kill a writer from LA. This make any sense to you two dinner-spoilers?’
Mitzi pushes over a copy of the script she finally prised from Sarah Kenny. ‘This is the movie Jacobs was working on. It’s about the Turin Shroud and we believe it makes some startling claims about whether it really was the burial cloth of Christ.’
Matthews glances at the clock. ‘Do people really give a shit about this?’ The comment stuns his detectives. ‘I mean, have you even seen a good movie with religion in it?’
‘The Exorcist,’ says Nic.
‘Bruce Almighty?’ suggests Mitzi. They both frown at her. ‘That was sort of religious.’
The captain shakes his head. ‘Okay, I concede God can be box office. But tell me, who in real life cares so much about this Shroud? Catholics? Greeks?’
‘Them and maybe others.’ Mitzi sifts through the stack of folders as she talks. ‘An assistant at the studio we spoke to said Jacobs paid researchers in Italy to work for her – maybe provided data on the Shroud.’
‘What data?’
‘Can’t be sure. There was going to be a lab scene, so perhaps scientists do carbon dating or take DNA from blood on the Shroud. Maybe they come up with proof of whose body was under it.’
The captain wags a finger at the files she’s still rifling through. ‘Are you just spitballing or is there something in there that makes you look smart?’
She finally finds the papers she’s looking for. ‘These are copies of confidentiality agreements that everyone working on the film had to sign.’ She passes several over. ‘And here’s a copy of a memo from the publicity department to Tamara Jacobs, asking if she wanted New Scientist and National Geographic added to the press day launch. These kind of publications would never normally be at a movie bash.’ She opens another folder. ‘And here’s an IBAN number of the bank account of an Italian Tamara was paying in Turin. It belongs to an R. Craxi.’
‘Excellenti, it sounds like you have several leads already.’ Matthews pushes his chair back and glances again at the clock as he walks to his jacket hung behind the door. ‘I’m off for dinner. You two had better get yourselves to the canteen – you’ve got a long night ahead.’
28
Dust motes billow in the yellow light from the desk lamp as Crime Scene Investigator Tom Hix drops his report on Mitzi’s block of wood in Homicide. He’s just heading back out as she and Nic roll in from Matthews’s office. ‘Little treat,’ he says, as she approaches.
‘What’s that, Tom?’
‘The vet finished examining the Persian cat from the Jacobs house. Kitty scratched someone deep and it’s not her owner’s flesh.’
‘Really?’ Mitzi reaches for the file.
‘He found traces on the left claw and ran DNA. It’s definitely not from Tamara Jacobs.’
Nic asks the obvious question: ‘So who is it from?’
‘The eponymous Unsub. Nothing on Profiler or the other databases. Whoever the cat clawed doesn’t have a
record.’
‘At least not in the US,’ Nic qualifies. ‘We linked the perp to a rental car from LAX.’
‘Driver hired it under a Greek name,’ adds Mitzi, ‘and there are Italian connections too. We’ll check international record systems.’
Hix takes this as a good moment to exit, ‘All yours now.’ He musters a fresh smile for Mitzi. ‘If you want to grab coffee and talk about the case, you know where to find me.’
‘I sure do.’
They watch him leave. Nic gives her a knowing look. ‘You do realise that coffee is not all he wants you to grab?’
‘Shut up! He’s harmless. Besides, a little attention never hurt anyone.’
‘So, how are we going to divide the pain? You do forensics, I chase down Tamara’s family and friends – see if there are skeletons in the closet?’
‘Deal.’ She flips open the report that Hix just left her. ‘You think the killer is European? Flew in, flew out – left us with only a false name and a speck of DNA that doesn’t ring bells in any law-enforcement office on the planet.’
Nic lets out a long sigh. ‘We’re in trouble if he is.’ He corrects himself. ‘You’re in trouble, that would make for a really long job – and I’ll be long gone.’
She tries not to think about him leaving and focuses on her growing hunch. ‘Makes sense, though. Kill and run. Cross a continent and just vanish.’ She looks up from the DNA report. ‘You think Matthews would sanction a trip to Italy to find this guy Craxi, the researcher getting wired money from our dead lady? He always says that if there’s money involved in a murder, you should chase the dollars.’
Nic muses on it. ‘Clear-up rate is down. He needs a result on a high-profile case like this. Why, d’you fancy a trip?’
She shakes her head. ‘No. But you do.’