Box Office Poison (Linnet Ellery)

by Bornikova, Phillipa

  The one certain thing I had learned during that summer was that the likelihood of prosecution and jail time was a direct function of class and race. I never met any affluent whites at the morning arraignments where the shuffling men stank of stale booze, sweat, and vomit after a night in the drunk tank. The white guys from Temple or Crowne got escorted home, or if they did get arrested they got bailed out in a hurry because they could afford the bond. Which was why I was uncomfortable with the death penalty.

  I had found the entire experience unsettling, and had rejected job offers from both the Public Defender’s Office and the District Attorney. Partly because my vampire foster father and Shade, one of the senior partners, had pretty much prepared a place for me at IMG, but also because I wanted the dry, unemotional aspect of corporate law well away from these uncomfortable thoughts about social inequity. It was hard to face that about myself, and I was grateful when the guard spoke up, pulling me out of my naval gazing.

  “Do not approach within two feet of the prisoner, and no physical contact. Got it?”

  “Well, that’s going to be a little tough, given the cell,” Chris said and her tone was pure acid. “The only static place is the bunk and the john, and I don’t think all of us are going to fit on the john.”

  The guard looked confused. “Uh … yeah, right. Guess that’s true. Well, do what you need to do.”

  He led us to the final cell at the end. This one didn’t offer a view through bars. There was an actual steel door with a small, mesh-reinforced window set into the metal. He inserted the key and swung open the door.

  I found myself staring at a blank metal wall that was sliding past. It moved in a track with a high-pitched whine that was almost painful to the ears. It seemed like we waited for a long time before we saw an opening. Then Chris darted through. I was rooted to the spot, trying to understand what I was seeing. The guard put a hand between my shoulder blades, and gave me a small push.

  “Move! While you’ve got the chance.”

  I rushed in to find Chris seated next to Kerrinan on the bunk. “Sit down. Quick!” she ordered.

  I realized another wall was moving and it was going to intersect with my position. I leaped to the bunk and sat down on the other side of the Álfar actor. He looked haggard. Álfar are like Teflon. It seems like no dirt ever sticks to them. Their features are so regular that some modeling agencies described them as walking mannequins, but there is something in the eyes that is tremendously alluring to humans. That ability seemed beyond Kerrinan this day. Despite the unusual color of his eyes, pale gray flecked with purple, they had the flat, uncomprehending stare of the eyes in a stuffed animal head.

  I could tell that concentrating with the constant mechanical whine of the moving walls was not going to be easy. Another one was cutting on a diagonal across the cell. That’s when I figured out the purpose of the moving walls.

  I didn’t understand the physics behind it—nobody did—but apparently Fey was sort of overlaid on top or maybe beneath our world. Geography was the same, but somehow buildings changed or vanished, Álfar vehicles both motorized and horse-drawn didn’t intersect with our vehicles, and humans and Álfar in the same building didn’t see each other. John’s mother and now John lived in the Dakota.

  For a moment I reflected that it must be torture for John to know he was a shadow veil away from the human world he loved. Or maybe not. Maybe when she’d driven that sliver of ice deep into his eye it had somehow broken his connection to the world where he’d grown up. Whatever she had done, it was Álfar magic, and it had worked.

  Well, the same thing was now being applied to Kerrinan, but in the other direction. Humans couldn’t use some kind of magical whammy to keep him in our reality. So we had fallen back on science, which was something humans did pretty well. I had a feeling the constant changing geometry of the room made it impossible for Kerrinan to get a fix on the Álfar world and thus kept him trapped in his cell. I wondered how they avoided having a pattern emerge that would enable a determined prisoner to escape? I concluded it was probably computer-controlled and the movement was being randomized. I couldn’t imagine how much that was costing the county of Los Angeles.

  “Kerrinan, this is Linnet Ellery,” Chris said. “She wanted to ask you some questions.”

  “Is she part of my defense team?” the Álfar asked. “Because if she’s not, perhaps I shouldn’t be talking with her.” The mellifluous voice that had set a generation of women to swooning in movie theaters around the world was now ragged and harsh. He gave a cough. “Sorry, not sleeping. When I’m fatigued it always shows up in my voice first.”

  Chris and I exchanged a glance. We had already discussed this earlier and found a solution. I was just surprised that Kerrinan had been this astute. According to John, the Álfar weren’t known for their logic and caution. He had described them as a species of raging ids.

  “Chris has hired me as a researcher, which means the same rules of client confidentiality apply to me as to her,” I said.

  “I take it this is a dodge from the way she introduced you.”

  “A little bit. Look, I think something strange is happening with regard to the Álfar, and I need more information than I can get from the newspapers,” I said. “I’ll understand if you’re not comfortable with this, and I’ll leave, but I think your people are being…” I hesitated, not wanting to put voice to it because it did sound kind of crazy.

  “What?” Kerrinan prodded.

  “Okay, this is going to sound really melodramatic, but I think you’re being targeted.”

  “Me?”

  “Well, not you specifically. The Álfar.”

  He was frowning, marring the smooth perfection of that handsome face. “Has something else happened?”

  I closed my eyes briefly. “Yeah, you could say that.”

  I gave him an abbreviated version of what had happened the day before on the Warner lot.

  Kerrinan was shaking his head. “This is crazy. I know Jondin. She’s a ditz but never a diva,” Kerrinan said.

  “I’d say this goes a little past diva, Kerrinan, and straight to crazy mass murderer,” Chris Valada said in her usual dry way.

  “Will you tell me what happened? The day your wife died,” I asked. The actor looked at me in confusion. “Look, bear with me. I want to see if there are any similarities to what Jondin is telling the authorities.”

  “Like what?” Kerrinan asked.

  I shook my head. “No, I don’t want to lead you or suggest anything. Just tell me about the day.”

  The eyes that met mine were shadowed, haunted by doubt and fear. “I want you to know, I loved Michelle. More than anything. More than life. I would have done anything for her, and I would never have hurt her. But…” Kerrinan’s voice trailed away. The question hung in the silence. But what if I did? Chris gave his arm a quick squeeze.

  “Let’s start at the beginning. Walk me through the whole day. Try to remember everything. Even if it seems trivial it might be important,” I said.

  He closed his eyes briefly, gathering his thoughts. “We got up early, and we worked out together.”

  “Did you go to a gym?” I asked, looking up from the pad where I was taking notes.

  “No, we have a full gym at the house.”

  “Okay, go on.”

  “We went out for breakfast at Mary’s Lamb. Michelle liked the orange-pecan muffins…” His voice broke. If this was an act, I thought, he should win an Oscar. “I dropped her off back at the house around eleven and went to a photo shoot for GQ”

  “Anything unusual happen there?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “Who was there?”

  “Guillermo, he’s the photographer, and a couple of assistants to set the lights. I don’t know their names.”

  “All of them human?” He nodded. “Okay, go on.”

  “That lasted until around one thirty. I was hungry so I took myself to lunch at Terra Sushi.”

  “By yourself?”
Chris asked.

  “Yeah, sometimes it’s nice to just be alone.”

  “I can’t believe you got to sit and eat and nobody approached you,” Chris said. “Terra Sushi’s in Studio City along Sushi Row. Very trendy.”

  “I signed an autograph for my waitress, but there weren’t a lot of ordinary people there … fans, I mean.”

  “Why is that?” I asked.

  “Most of the tables were industry people. A bunch of agents.”

  “You didn’t tell me that. You just told me where you had lunch. Was it an office party?” Chris asked.

  “No, they were from a lot of different agencies. It was sort of like a little mini-conference. There was another Álfar there, a really old guy who is on the Council.”

  “Did you speak to him?” I asked.

  “Yeah, briefly. He just introduced himself and said he liked my work. After that I left.”

  “After lunch?” Chris prompted.

  “Oh, I went over to that little driving range just down Ventura from the restaurant and hit a bucket of balls. One of the employees must have called the press because there were a few cameras when I came out, and my fan club got the Tweet so there were maybe fourteen, fifteen fans looking for autographs. Oh, and a couple of crazy people.”

  “Crazy people?” Chris and I said in concert.

  “Well, maybe that’s a little harsh, but the guy really was nutso. He waved a Bible in my face and said I was an abomination, or something. The woman, this skinny old broad with a tan so dark she looked like jerky was shouting at me about how I was just an empty suit and a no-talent. There were some others, just yelling. I couldn’t really make out what they were saying. My fans chased them off. I have great fans.” A smile flickered briefly.

  “And then?”

  “Haircut in Beverly Hills. I got out of there around six.”

  “Nothing unusual happened at the barbershop?” Both Chris and Kerrinan were giving me strangest looks. “What?” I asked.

  Chris shook her head. “Yeah, you are not from around here. Actors like Kerrinan don’t go to barbershops. They go to a salon and have a designer. The only way they’d go to a barbershop is if it was some kind of new place that was so retro it was hip and therefore trendy, and George Clooney decided to go there first.”

  “Okay, even New York isn’t that bad.”

  “Welcome to Tinsel Town,” Kerrinan said, then sighed and continued. “And what do you mean … unusual?”

  “Nobody took some of your hair or something.” I was groping and it showed.

  He shook his head. “No.”

  “Okay, go on.”

  “Michelle and I didn’t have plans that night. We were going to eat at home. Watch a little TV.” He fell silent and started to shake. So hard that I could feel it through a bunk bolted to a cinderblock wall.

  My muscles were tight with tension, and a headache was starting to climb up over my head to lodge just over my brows. I realized it was because of that constant, horrible screeeee as the metal walls slid in their tracks. Kerrinan had to listen to it 24/7, and if he was convicted of murdering his wife he would be listening to it for the rest of his very long Álfar life.

  I realized we had all been silent for a long time. It was Chris who prodded this time. “Go on, Kerrinan, finish it.”

  He gulped down a sob, a harsh, guttural sound, and said, “We were watching a DVD of Moulin Rouge. Michelle got up and went into the kitchen to make us some popcorn. I love popcorn when I watch a movie. Then blackness. I don’t remember anything else until I could see again and I was in the kitchen, and my hand was all sticky, and I was holding … holding…”

  “Michelle?” Chris asked.

  There was a confused moment where he first shook his head, then nodded and said, “I was holding her in my left arm, but there was a … knife in my right hand.”

  “You didn’t tell me that before!” Chris said. “You just said you were holding her.”

  “I … I was scared to. Afraid you wouldn’t defend me.” Tears rolled down his face. He drew an arm across his eyes and pulled in a shuddering breath.

  Chris was staring at him in frustration, but she was clearly worried. I stepped in. “If he had a traumatic blackout from the shock of finding her body he could have knelt down, gathered up Michelle, and then picked up the knife.”

  “Yeah, and the DA is going to say he came out of a blinding, killing rage and that’s why he was holding a knife. Also, why didn’t he hear her screaming if he blacked out when he found the body? She didn’t die from the first stab wound, and she had defensive cuts all over her hands.” Kerrinan moaned and leaned forward, holding his gut. “I know you haven’t done a lot of courtroom work, I can tell you that juries believe the theory that’s the easiest to understand. In this case that’s the one that has Kerrinan butchering Michelle.”

  That did it. Kerrinan hurled, vomit spewing across the bare concrete floor.

  12

  I found Qwendar just where he’d said he would be, in the interior courtyard of the Getty Museum. The elderly Álfar had suggested the venue. I had done a quick Google search and discovered that the Getty was a completely and perfectly reconstructed Roman villa built by J. Paul Getty to house his collection of antiquities. Another oddity in the enigma that was California.

  The building, gleaming white in the sunshine, sat on a hill overlooking the Pacific Coast Highway and the majesty of the Pacific beyond the asphalt and passing cars. My research revealed that entrance to the Getty was free, but you had to reserve a time and pay for parking. It was also on the outskirts of Malibu, and I hoped I’d have time to drive through that famous locale before meeting Merlin and his brother for dinner. Then I walked through the museum in search of the courtyard, saw the quality of the collection, and decided I really needed to tour the museum instead. Malibu could wait.

  A friendly docent had directed me toward the courtyard. I stepped out of the shady interior, blinked in the sudden glare and spotted Qwendar seated on a marble bench, surrounded by lush vegetation and contemplating a long, narrow marble pool filled with very blue water. Bronze statues stood on the edge of the pool, also seeming to contemplate the water. “Thank you for agreeing to meet me,” I said as I walked up.

  Qwendar looked up. “I was intrigued by your phone call.”

  I looked around at the white pillars supporting an overhanging porch on all four sides and the bright red tile roof, listened to the distant pound and whoosh of waves, and felt tension melting out of my back and shoulders. “And thank you for suggesting we meet here. I would never have found it, and it’s … remarkable.”

  “Yes, humans did have a great capacity for beauty.”

  “But no longer?” I asked.

  His arms swept out in an encompassing wave. “Consider the rest of Los Angeles.”

  “That’s a little unfair. Comparing a city to a garden at a museum.”

  “Perhaps you are right. But there are profound differences between Álfar and human tastes.” He stood and straightened his suit coat. “There is a place in the gardens that offers a lovely view of the ocean and is fairly private. Madam, will you walk?” He gave a funny little half bow and offered his arm.

  Touched and faintly amused by the old-fashioned courtesy, I laid the tips of my fingers on his forearm, and we moved away in stately dignity.

  “You’re amused,” he said, with uncanny perspicacity.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be insulting. I just thought it was mostly vampires who went in for the whole manners as—” I broke off realizing I was about to sound insulting again.

  “As what?” Qwendar asked.

  I threw caution to the winds and decided to give it straight. “As a form of one-upmanship. A way to do interpersonal warfare.”

  “You are a most perceptive young woman.”

  “Not really. I just grew up with them.” I paused, then added, “So how do the Álfar use manners?”

  “Without any agenda beyond our desire to play t
he leading role in our own personal drama.”

  “Okay, that fits with what John told me,” I said.

  “Ah, yes, John.”

  We had reached a stone-paved veranda edged with a stone wall. I leaned my elbows on the wall and let my eyes trail across the expanse of lawn and the windswept California pines. Across the highway the Pacific rolled and rumbled. Gulls and pelicans swooped and spun like white kites over the water.

  “Your phone call implied this was about more than one changeling brought back to the fold.”

  “I’ll dispute your characterization of what happened to John in a minute. What I wanted to discuss was what’s been happening with your people.”

  Qwendar became very still, his body almost rigid. “I’m listening.”

  “I interviewed Kerrinan yesterday.”

  “Ah.”

  “Kerrinan said there was an older Álfar at the restaurant where he had lunch. Was that you?”

  “Yes.”

  “So you saw him on the day of the killing.”

  “I suppose I did. I hadn’t really put that together.”

  “How did he seem to you?” I asked.

  “Fine. He was dining alone, so I took the liberty of speaking to him,” Qwendar added.

  “What did you talk about?”

  “I complimented him on his movies. Then I returned to my luncheon party.” I sat silent for a few moments, flicking at a few loose chips of rock with my forefinger. “Is this going someplace?” Qwendar finally prodded.

  “I don’t want you to think I’m some kind of conspiracy nut.” Drawing in a steadying breath I turned to face him straight on. “I think there’s something strange going on. I think Kerrinan killed his wife, but I also don’t think he wanted to kill his wife. I also don’t think Jondin was in her right mind, though I haven’t been able to talk to her. I also think the narrative of Álfar as dangerous killers of humans is certainly happening at a most convenient time for Human First.”