by Paul Heald
Her ex-husband’s reaction to her analysis reminded her why they had divorced. Nothing kills a relationship as quickly as contempt, she thought. What was the point of being so resentful of the inevitable muddiness of reality?
* * *
Angela held the long box of dark red roses in her arms and decided it would be extravagant to throw them in the trash with no one around to witness the gesture. Besides, the flowers had worked, at least a little bit, and she was no longer quite so angry. The attached card read: Don’t worry. Everything will be alright. I love you! She was still worried sick, but it softened her heart to know that her husband was thinking about her, even in the midst of his idiotic windmill tilting. She was arranging the blossoms in a vase when the phone rang.
“Oh hey, Nanci.” Her friend and fellow realtor had already heard the story of her trip to Los Angeles. They traded pleasantries for a couple of minutes before Nanci came to the point of her call.
“I’ve decided to have a pool party a week from Friday,” she explained. “Summer’s here, and I’m afraid we can’t wait for your husband to come home before we have some fun. Promise me you’ll make it?”
She did not feel like socializing in the slightest, but her friend continued to pressure her. Nanci had been very understanding, almost too understanding, since she had gotten back to Illinois. Once she had sensed Angela’s frustration, she had taken her side against Stanley, enthusiastically seconding all of her emotional attacks on her husband. Nanci was divorced, and she seemed to think that separation was the natural result of conflict. What the young writer wanted to hear was that she was blowing things out of proportion and that everything would be alright.
“Just because Stanley’s in Los Angeles hanging out with porn stars doesn’t mean that you can’t party a little,” Nanci insisted. “Besides, everybody wants to see you. You’ve developed quite a mysterious cachet.”
“Yeah, that’s me alright,” Angela laughed. “An alluring enigma.”
“Hey,” Nanci replied, “I don’t know anyone else who hangs out in sleazy hotel rooms with her husband and adult movie stars! Inquiring minds want to know! And beyond that, you’ll have an opportunity to lobby Max on Stanley’s behalf. He’s already RSVP’d.”
She thought for a moment. She had no desire to talk to anyone about what had happened in Los Angeles, but if there were anyone who could salvage Stanley’s career, it was Max. Anger welled up inside her again. Why did she have to protect her husband as if he were some sort of wayward child? “Alright, I’ll come. What do you want me to bring?”
* * *
The professor arrived at the county jail two hours before his meeting with Stuart McCaffrey. He had wanted to spend some time with the accused murderer, but ended up twiddling his thumbs in an empty interview room for almost an hour. A taciturn guard finally pushed the handcuffed prisoner into a seat across from him with no explanation for the delay. Stanley waited for him to leave before saying anything, and after the usual warning against physical contact, the door slammed shut.
He was dismayed at how the days in jail had started to wear on Johansson. The clean-shaven, confident theologian of porn was fading away, and in his place sat a scared, middle-aged man who looked like he had not slept in days. Regardless of what the man had done, he cut a pitiable figure, and he immediately inquired whether any progress had been made.
“I think so.” Stanley decided to lead with the most hopeful line of inquiry. “Chance Geary is looking more and more like a prime suspect. It seems he was conspiring with Milton Barkley to get Jade to move back to Chimera, and at the same time Jade was planning to dump him as her agent and presumably as her boyfriend, which might explain why Barkley took her to the party.”
“He took her to the party?” Don looked stricken. The thought of Jade on the arm of his chief rival was a bitter pill to swallow. “I saw them walk in at the same time,” he said, his voice cracking, “but I didn’t know they were together.”
Stanley reached over, touched his friend’s forearm, and tried to emphasize the positive side of the revelation. “Jade’s screwing Geary over gives him a serious motive. Until now, we’ve been wondering why he would kill his best and only client. Jealousy and anger are pretty powerful motives.”
“But he wasn’t at the party.”
Stanley explained that the office window had been left open and the killer could easily have slipped in. He watched hope and confusion creep into the prisoner’s face.
“You mean he could have hid in the office without anyone knowing?” Don looked up and truly engaged his investigator for the first time. “But how would he know that Jade would come there?”
Stanley then reconstructed the murder scenario he and Janet had spun out the day before. “He could have been waiting to crash the party when you and Jade just stumbled in.”
“So, he was there when I passed out?”
“Maybe.”
“Jesus.”
Stanley let him digest the information. It was pure speculation, but Don looked like he had seen a ray of hope. One nagging question needed answering, however. The director had never explained why he had called his favorite star into his office in the middle of the dinner party. Stanley posed the question as nonchalantly as possible.
“It was the next movie,” Johansson replied. “I wanted to show her the script for Toys in Babeland II and promise her a cut of the profits once it was released.”
An ugly thought crept into the professor’s head. If Don had spoken to Jade in the office about the sequel, she might have told him that she was leaving Eden for a rival company. Not welcome news to get at a celebratory banquet. “You didn’t tell McCaffrey this, did you?” It would not take the detective long to put two and two together and find a motive in Jade’s rejection.
“Nah,” Don smiled weakly. “I advised myself to plead the Fifth Amendment.”
Stanley then summarized the interviews with the rival studio heads and with Chance Geary. The prisoner nodded as he listened, plainly appreciative of all the leg work done on his behalf. Don agreed that neither Mulkahey nor Matteson made very good suspects. When Stanley mentioned his meeting with William Walker, the prisoner interrupted.
“You talked to Jade’s ex-husband? How did you find him?”
“He was listed as her emergency contact on the proof of age form Janet Stephens and I found in your office. The cops had taken her personnel file, but Janet suggested we look in your legal records.” He paused. “Did you know that Jade was still married?”
“She told me she was divorced.” He spoke quietly while he scuffed at a crack in the yellowed linoleum floor and then looked up at Stanley as something registered in his mind. “Did you say Janet Stephens was in my office with you?” Stanley explained the role she had been playing in the investigation.
“And she’s been helpful?” Don asked doubtfully.
Stanley described her role the previous day, and Don started to say something, but thought the better of it. “I’m glad she’s decided to help. She’s one of the smartest people in the business, and she knows everybody.” He took a deep breath and his voice caught. “You’ve done a lot in a short period of time, Stan. I really appreciate it. I don’t know what I would do without you.”
Uncomfortable with his friend’s display of emotion, Stanley plowed ahead and asked how well Don trusted his secretary. The professor felt like every question was stripping his friend bare of those he had trusted, but he couldn’t help it. It wasn’t his fault that Jade was a turncoat and a liar and that Miriam was probably ripping him off. He laid out what he had seen: the nighttime video shipments and the cash payments she was making to the kid in the back room. He also recounted her late night visit to Don’s office.
“She went into my office at midnight and took a file? Are you sure?” Don looked incredulous. “That’s totally bizarre. I did tell her to keep filling orders. That income is the only thing keeping the creditors at bay, but there’s nothing in my files she needs to see. Al
l she’s supposed to do is take the orders, fill them, and keep sale and inventory records.”
“Did you tell her to make it a cash operation? Could she be skimming something off the top and doctoring the records? That’s what occurred to me when the kid told me she was paying him in cash every night. She might be disgruntled enough to skim some cream.” He wished he could think of some way to tie her to the murder. Jade Delilah’s spectacular death at the party had effectively finished off Eden Studio as a player in the adult video world. The judgmental secretary would not mourn the demise of the porn factory, but that did not seem sufficient motive for a murder that would cost her a job.
“Miriam is so straight laced, I have a hard time seeing her stealing from me. But you never know, I suppose.” He closed his eyes and slumped back in his chair. “Nothing makes much sense since they threw me in here.”
“You mean captivity hasn’t been spiritually enlightening?” Stanley queried with a grim smile. He could not avoid feeling a wave of affection for his embattled friend. He was convinced that even if Don had killed Jade, it was a barely conscious act spurred by drugs and alcohol, an act inimical to his true nature. The thought of McCaffrey asking for the death penalty was outrageous.
“No,” Don shook his head. “I’m afraid it hasn’t.” He gave his friend a thoughtful shake of the head. “The Apostle Peter and Dietrich Bonhoeffer managed to turn incarceration into a religious experience. Hard times brought them closer to God, but I haven’t learned the trick yet. I’m still in the scared and bitter stage.” He managed a smile as the guard entered and put an end to the interview. “But then again, Saint Peter never had a skinhead for a roommate.”
* * *
Stuart McCaffrey stood waiting in a small office outside the jail’s confinement area. He made a point of checking his watch as the clueless academic entered the room. He was not really late, but the detective liked to rattle the enemy whenever possible. He asked the young man to sit down in the only chair in the room, while he perched on the edge of a battered wooden desk looking down from above. “What do you want?”
“Did you ask about the office window?”
“Yeah.” The detective had talked to the team on the scene, as well as the forensic specialists, and was surprised that the professor had discovered something of possible consequence not listed in the official report. “The window was unlocked when the first officers arrived on the scene.”
“So, someone could have gotten in without showing up on the surveillance record?”
“It’s theoretically possible.” He shrugged his shoulders, minimizing the finding’s significance. “If someone had wanted to sneak into the room, kill the victim, frame her not-so-secret admirer and then escape unseen, he might have been able to do it. Do you have someone in mind, professor?”
“How about Chance Geary?” Stanley charted out the drug dealer’s possible motives and opportunity. “He was losing Jade to Milton Barkley at Chimera Studios and was enraged over her betrayal.”
This was, in fact, interesting news. McCaffrey nodded his head as if he had heard it all before, while making a mental note to follow up. Geary’s meth-head alibi witness was not quite ironclad. “Then why not kill Barkley,” he queried, “if he’s the one stealing Geary’s girlfriend.”
“The goal was to punish Jade. I think Don just came in handy as someone to pin the murder on.”
“And you’ve got some proof of this?”
“Your report mentions fibers found by the window. Why don’t you get samples from Geary’s clothes and run some tests?” The expression on the supplicant’s face was earnest and expectant. Fuck me, thought McCaffrey, this guy believes that the police are at his beck and call. The same suggestion from a real lawyer or investigator might have lit the fuse of his quick temper, but he let the poor guy down easily.
“If we have a reason to suspect Geary beyond his charming personality, we may be able to get a warrant to search his house. But right now, we don’t have shit to take to a judge. You’re going to have to find something yourself.” He savored the look of frustration on the amateur’s face. “Is that all you’ve got?” He looked at his watch, pushed himself off the desk and walked toward the door. “Because I need to talk to your friend for a bit.”
“Have you ever heard of William Walker?” Stanley blurted out. “Did you even know that Jade Delilah was married?”
Score one for the professor, McCaffrey mentally chalked up a point. The detective had been planning to spring the news later, but now was as good a time as ever to wind up the defense. “Sure. He’s another turd pancake. He used to be with the LAPD until he got caught beating a gang-banger to death with a baseball bat. He should have gotten a medal for that one, but instead he was forced to resign and got picked up by San Bernardino.” He could not resist exiting with a sly wink and a mock home run swing. “Now Walker’s someone you might think about looking at.”
Stanley sat in the small room alone, pondering the detective’s hint that Walker might be a viable suspect. He knew that the police needed some sort of individualized suspicion before they could conduct a search, but he dearly wished that the full wardrobes of Chance Geary and William Walker, and for that matter those of Miriam Wilhoit and Milton Barkley, could be checked against the fibers found on the window. Don was probably the only person whose clothes had been analyzed, and he gave himself a mental kick for not asking if the fibers mentioned in the report had come from the prisoner’s clothing. He tried to disentangle the evidence he had already collected from the evidence he still needed to obtain. The last thing he needed was one more suspect, but he resolved to check out William Walker further, even if the detective was just waving a red herring.
Stanley had forgotten about his meeting with Janet, but she came up to him immediately after he exited the back of the jail. She was wearing a light-colored chemise, and he could just make out the outlines of a black bra underneath. She moved as fast as her tight miniskirt would permit and grabbed his arm. Before he could ask her about the morning interviews, she pulled him close and whispered in his ear as a small crowd gathered around them.
“The press has been waiting for you to come out. I overheard one of the cameramen say that they got a tip you were here.” He looked at her with alarm. A press interview was the last thing he needed, but when they turned the corner, at least three cameras were pointed directly at him.
“Professor Hopkins, how is your investigation going?” A young man in a dark suit shoved a microphone under his chin. “Could you give us an update?” When he did not respond, a young Asian woman pressed him further. “Do you have any evidence that Donald Johansson is not the killer?”
“Would you like to make an announcement to our viewers? Twenty million people will be seeing this tonight.” He looked at the identification badge of the energetic woman who had just spoken and saw the logo of one of the major news networks. He searched for an escape route, but he and Janet were being squeezed together in a dense knot of reporters and cameramen. With no way out, he offered a curt response in the hope they would then disperse.
“Neither I nor my client have any comment at this point in time. We do not want to jeopardize our investigation.” He tried to make eye contact with as many people as possible. “We have no comment.” But before he could push his way through the crowd, a burly cameraman whispered to one of the reporters.
“Professor Hopkins!” the reporter shouted. “Is it true that you are dating Janet Stephens, the famous porn star?” Suddenly everyone was pressing in even closer as the cameraman confirmed that the stunning woman at his side was the star of over one hundred adult videos.
“No!” He stared into the hungry faces and realized that he would have to violate his short-lived “no comment” policy. He spoke in firm voice. “Ms. Stephens is aiding me in the investigation. No one knows the adult film industry as well as she does—” this claim drew some snickers “—and her help is invaluable in tracking down leads.”
Before h
e could stop her, Janet interjected, “Don Johansson has been a close friend for years, and there’s no way he committed this crime. We’re going to prove he’s innocent.”
A flurry of questions followed, but Stanley refused to comment. He put his arm around Janet, ducked his head, and bulled his way through the crowd and toward the parking garage. They were dogged with questions all the way back to his car, and he did not feel they had escaped until he slammed the Taurus’ door in the face of a particularly persistent woman from the LA Times and had put several blocks between themselves and the courthouse.
“Shit!” he shouted as he pounded his hand against the steering wheel. “Shit, fucking shit!” Janet straightened her hair in the visor mirror and then glanced at Stanley who was still chanting. “Ho-ly fuck-ing shit.”
“That was annoying,” she agreed and flipped the visor back in place, “but it wasn’t that bad, was it?”
“You don’t understand,” he replied with another slap to the wheel. “If anyone at my university sees this, a truckload of shit is going to hit a massive turbine fan.” He shook his head and imagined Max Kurland and the University president reviewing a recording of the interview. How long would it be, he wondered, before he got a call ordering him to come back to BFU?
“I don’t understand. You sounded fine.” She smiled and patted him on the thigh. “You’ve got a nice face for television.”
“That’s not it,” he explained. “The University doesn’t want to be associated with this stuff. They don’t want the publicity, and they’ve already yanked the funding for my research. They don’t want to sponsor porn star interviews, much less an investigation of a porn star murder. I’m basically fucked.”