Decker sat next to Sophia. “This isn’t going to work,” he told her quietly.
“I apologize in advance for having to run out of here,” Jules told them, “but I have a meeting downtown. I’m sure you’re eager to hear about the ballistics report.” He passed several copies of the document around. “Yes, yes, and yes. It’s the same gun that killed ADA Ben Chertok in Idaho—a Remington rifle, model 700P, reportedly stolen in 1999 from a Davis T. Carter, who was living at the time in Seattle, Washington.”
Decker flipped through the report. There were no surprises in it.
“There were no fingerprints on the shell casing, which was exactly what we’d expected,” Jules continued. “The note left at the crime scene was printed with an older model ink-jet printer. The paper is as of yet untraceable. I doubt we’ll get much from that—it’s pretty standard twenty-pound-weight copy paper. No watermarks, no chocolate-doughnut fingerprint upon it. There were no prints in the house that the shooter broke into, either. So much for a quick and easy end to the case.”
Sophia reached to take the report from Decker so she could look at it. She smelled impossibly good. “Murphy’s my friend, too,” she said quietly.
“What do we know?” Jane asked Jules.
He sighed. “Well, we know that whoever he is, he had or has access to your soundstage at HeartBeat, so we have his name or alias on one of our lists of cast, crew, and studio employees who’ve been past the front gate within the last few weeks. Unfortunately, there are thousands of names on that list.
“We’re pretty sure he’s good with computers—but these days that doesn’t make him anything special.
“We’re also pretty sure that, considering his ability to shoot,” Jules continued, “—and he’s either very highly skilled or a lucky novice—he’s been practicing. A lot. We’re compiling a list of visitors to local firing ranges, both regulars and out-of-towners. Of course, we’re cross-referencing every list of potential suspects with our main list from HeartBeat. And we may find nothing if he’s driving out to do his target practice in the desert.” He paused. “We also know that you should not go anywhere, Jane, until we catch this guy. And you should stay away from your windows, too.”
“So, what?” Jane was not happy. “I hide inside while he shoots my security team? Or my friends? Or my cast, or—”
“I’d like to suggest,” Tom interrupted, “that we move you to a different location. One that’s not just safer for you, but for the team as well. A hotel, for example, where we can monitor everyone coming onto or off of a floor.”
“An alternative,” Jules suggested, “might be for you to leave the area—the country, even. Temporarily, of course.”
As Decker watched, Jane shook her head. “No. I’ll go to a hotel if you really think that’ll keep the security team safe. Although I have to be honest, at this point all my money is in the movie. I don’t have the funds for much more than a Motel Six.”
“I’ll put in a request to HeartBeat,” Tom said, “of course.”
“Yeah,” Jane said. “About that. I didn’t get a chance to tell you last night, but yesterday HeartBeat was making noise about dumping me, just completely pulling all financing.”
Tom sat back in his chair. “Why would they do that?”
“They want me to cut the movie out of my movie,” Jane replied. “I haven’t heard anything from them today, though, so . . .”
Tom nodded. “Well, we’re not leaving you hanging. We’re in this to the end, whether they pay us or not.” He smiled ruefully at Jane. “Please don’t let HeartBeat know that.”
This was supposed to be easy money. The irony here was very intense.
Jane was clearly deeply moved. “Thank you,” she whispered.
“At the very least, sir, let’s bring all security inside,” Cosmo suggested. “We can watch the roads and the grounds from the attic windows, but we won’t be such obvious targets.”
“Good. And eyes open,” Tom told them all. “Stay alert, even after your shift ends. Take the long route home. Let’s make sure our families are safe.”
If Murphy had been paying attention when he left Jane’s house yesterday morning, he might have noticed that he was being followed. As team leader, Decker should have reminded him. God damn it.
Sophia handed him back the ballistics report. Somehow she knew exactly what he was thinking. “It’s not your fault, Deck.”
He just shook his head.
Jules’ phone rang. “Excuse me, I have to take this,” he said, standing up and moving out into the hall.
“It’s not,” Sophia persisted. But then she laughed softly. “You blame yourself for everything, don’t you?”
He couldn’t look at her. Goddamn it, Cassidy, get back in here and get this meeting moving again . . .
“You shouldn’t,” Sophia said. “What happened between us—”
“Should never have happened,” he cut her off, forcing himself to meet her gaze. Jesus, he dreamed about those eyes, her face. . . .
That mouth.
She’d been living on the street in a third-world country, hiding from a war lord who’d put a price on her head. She’d used sex to try to distract him, fearful he was some kind of bounty hunter who would turn her in.
Usually utterly non-distractible, Decker had let things go much too far.
“It wasn’t real,” she told him now, her eyes so earnest as she gazed at him. “Deck, really. You’ve got to let it go. It didn’t mean anything.”
It didn’t mean anything.
She had no freaking clue.
Jules came back in, pocketing his phone, saving Decker’s ass. “Sorry about that. Where were we?”
“Nash and I are willing to move in here for the duration,” Tess volunteered. “Dave and Decker, too. There’s plenty of room.” She turned to Jane. “If that’s okay with you.”
Jane nodded. “This is going to sound so Charlie’s Angels, but can’t we catch this guy by setting a trap? By using me as, well, bait?”
“We’ve already started thinking about that possibility,” Jules said. He looked at Cosmo. “Easy there, you. We wouldn’t use you, Jane, but rather someone who looks like you. A trained FBI agent wearing your clothes and a wig—”
Jane was already shaking her head. “That’s unacceptable. I don’t want to do that. If anyone’s going to be bait, it’s going to be me.”
“And that’s unacceptable to us,” Jules told her, rummaging in his briefcase again. “I’m sorry, gang, I have to go. Obviously we’re still plugging away, cross-referencing all our databases, as well as creating lists of people our analysts feel might warrant an interview.”
An interview. They were going to talk to the people on that list, one by one. Knock on their front doors and ask to be allowed inside.
The FBI had to follow the rules. Warrants were necessary before houses could be searched.
But the members of TS Inc. didn’t have to follow those rules. As civilians, they could use their . . . special skills to get inside houses and look for the killer. Of course, another name for “getting inside houses” was breaking and entering.
Because of that, the TS Inc. team also needed to use their “special skills” to keep from getting caught.
Jules took a file from his briefcase. “I have a list of every actor, extra, or studio employee who ever lived within fifty miles of Seattle, where the weapon used to shoot Murph and Angelina was stolen. A list of every actor, extra, etc., who ever registered a weapon.” He tossed each list onto the table after he read its heading. “A list of every actor, et cetera, who has ever served in the military. A sublist of former military personnel who had sharpshooting or marksman training. And, just for shits and giggles, a list of every actor or extra who filled out costume information and claims to own their own Nazi uniform.”
“What?” Tom couldn’t believe that.
“Yeah,” Jules said. “Does it mean anything? I don’t know. I suppose owning one might come in handy if you do
a lot of work in World War Two films. It doesn’t necessarily mean that you goose-step in your basement or invite friends over regularly to read aloud from Mein Kampf. However, it did seem like something that might warrant some attention.”
Cosmo was already over at the table, flipping through the pages of each of those reports. “You got a list of everyone who appears on two or more of these lists?” he asked.
“No,” Jules said, “but I will absolutely get that for you. That’s a good idea. I do, however, for you, Cosmo, darling-sweetie-cupcake, have two other lists—actors, extras, and studio employees who own white older model cars with a black soft-top, similar to your Pontiac mystery vehicle, as well as a list of actors, et cetera, who own a dark-colored truck with a number six in its license plate. Frankly, after your Pontiac surfaced in Malibu, I’m not sure why you’re still interested in the truck, but from now on, if you want something, I’m making it a priority.” He looked around at the Troubleshooters team. “No more jokes about Cosmo’s mystery car or the endless search for that bullet, is that clear? In fact, I think we all owe Chief Richter a very humble apology.”
He snapped his briefcase shut. “With that, I must run.”
“Deck.” Tom had noticed him sitting near Sophia. “Sorry, I should have mentioned Sophia’s request to help out. To fill in for—”
“I’m sorry, sir. That doesn’t work for me,” Decker said. “Unless you insist.”
Tom was surprised, but he quickly recovered. “Of course not. You’re the team leader.”
Sophia wasn’t happy. But before she could say anything, Decker excused himself and got the hell out of there.
Cosmo’s favorite time of day for a well-executed B&E was late morning, when most people were at work and the kids were in school. But early afternoon worked well, too.
If the lock on the front door was too challenging, he’d drop through an open bathroom window, take a quick cruise around the house.
Looking for something that didn’t sit right.
Searching for hiding places—good locations to stash a stolen Remington rifle and ammunition. Everything from the traditional—a loose floorboard beneath which was a hidey-hole—to the more creative—false backs built into closets—to the literary—a hole in the drywall hidden behind a poster of Sarah Michelle Gellar or Jennifer Aniston, à la Stephen King’s Shawshank Redemption.
He was going down the list Jules Cassidy had given them—extras who owned Nazi uniforms.
It seemed as good a place to start as any. And it was significantly shorter than the other lists.
He was up to L—Carl Linderman. A good German name, but it had nothing on Richter.
Carl lived in an apartment on the first floor of an older house that was perched on a postage stamp–size lot in a neighborhood where the houses were ridiculously close together. It had been easy to get inside. The lock on his door was one that could have been compromised by a kindergartner.
Carl lived in one-bedroom, stale-aired squalor. A card table was set up in the dining area off the kitchen, along with a pair of folding chairs. A tattered sleeping bag was open on an air mattress in front of a small television set, but that was it for the furniture in the living room. In the bedroom there was another air mattress, another sleeping bag.
A couple of duffel bags were filled, but only with clothes. Standard jeans, cargo pants, T-shirts. This guy dressed a lot like him. Only there were two different sizes of clothing—one set quite a bit larger than the other. There were two people living here.
The Nazi uniform in question was cut to fit the smaller of the two. It hung in the closet, under dry cleaner’s plastic. There were several other recently cleaned suits hanging there, too.
Pizza boxes, fast-food and candy wrappers, beer cans, overflowing ashtrays, and dirty laundry were everywhere.
There was nothing hidden—at least not that Cosmo found.
A telephone wire led from the outlet on the kitchen wall to the card table, as if someone had sat there using a laptop computer, accessing a dial-up Internet connection.
A copy of the shooting script to American Hero was on the kitchen counter, but that was it. There were no books, no magazines, no photographs, no personal items at all.
It was as if this apartment were being used only as a place to eat and sleep.
Which wasn’t really that strange—lots of people came to Hollywood to become actors. They spent all their time auditioning or doing extra work, or working some pathetic low-paying day job to cover their rent.
Before he let himself out the door, Cosmo looked out the window to make sure no one was outside—that the inhabitants of the upstairs apartment hadn’t just come home. Movement from behind what looked like a kitchen window in the house next door made him pause. But a closer look revealed that the window was open and what he’d seen was a curtain moving behind the screen.
He slipped out of the front door, locking it behind him.
“Who are you?” an elderly-sounding voice came from that open window. Shit. It had been more than a curtain moving in the breeze that he’d seen. “What are you doing here?”
One option was to run. Just book it out of there.
Another was to take advantage of someone who probably spent a lot of time noticing what went on outside of her kitchen window.
He turned to face the old woman, arranging his face in a smile. “Carl lost his script—you know, for the movie he’s in? He asked me to come by and see if he’d left it here.” He held out his empty hands as he shrugged. “No luck.”
“Carl,” the woman repeated. “That the fat one or the skinny one?”
This was definitely a test that he had a fifty-fifty chance of failing. “Skinny,” he guessed, remembering that uniform hanging in the closet.
She seemed satisfied and opened up her back door to peer out at him. “Who are you?”
“Name’s Percy,” he told her. “Me and Carl go way back. In fact, I came out to L.A. on his recommendation. He says he’s doing real well, but you’d think if that was the case, he’d be able to afford some furniture. Dude lives like a nomad. Has he been in this place for long?”
“Just a few weeks,” she told him.
“Ah, maybe that’s it,” Cosmo said. “No time to furniture shop. Nice meeting you, ma’am.” He turned away, but turned back. “Hey, you wouldn’t happen to know if he’s still driving this big ol’ Pontiac battle cruiser?”
She shook her head. “He’s got a truck.”
“Black?” he asked.
“Red,” she said.
“Have a nice day,” he told her. So much for that.
On to the next.
Robin sat at the bar, squinting into his seventh drink. Or was it his eighth?
He was at that point in the evening where counting became irrelevant.
“I thought I’d find you here.”
Adam. Of course. Just his luck. He was still wearing his hair like young Jack’s, which was disconcerting to the bit of Hal that lingered inside of Robin.
It was hard to be someone else for hours and hours and then just expect to return to normal when shooting wrapped. Robin didn’t understand how some actors could just snap their fingers, reclaim their bodies, and go home after a hard day’s shoot.
He needed a good six, seven drinks to calm down both himself and whoever was rattling around inside his head this month.
In this case, Harold Lord. This role was either going to kill him or bring him everything he’d always wanted.
Now, if only he could figure out just what that was. Fortune and fame as Hollywood’s “hottest rising star”? Or . . .
“I’ve already seen way too much of you today,” Robin told Adam, working hard not to slur his speech. He was good at that—not sounding drunk when he was toasted.
Adam laughed, his pretty eyes dancing. More than his hair was Jack’s. Instead of his usual tight jeans and gleaming white T, he was wearing military-style pants and an army-green shirt. He balanced himself on the brass f
oot rail, but his boots were slippery, and he slid off, bumping into Robin. Obviously intentionally. He caught himself with a hand on Robin’s leg, then draped his arm around his shoulders. “I haven’t seen quite enough of you, so where does that leave us?”
“It creeps me out when you say things like that.” Robin pushed him away. Although the part of Robin that was still Hal kept him from pushing Adam too hard.
“Pretend I’m Jack and you’re Hal.”
“No.”
“I know—pretend I’m Jules.”
“Leave me the fuck alone.” Robin ignored Hal, pushed Adam harder.
The bartender scowled at them. “Take it outside or in the back. Fight or fuck, but don’t do either while you’re sitting here.”
Troubleshooters 09 Hot Target Page 39