Margin of Error

by Edna Buchanan

  Twice, Angel carried the baby to the clinic, taking two buses to get there. Each time, her records could not be located in the computer. Each time, she was referred back to the hospital, two more bus rides away, where clerks shook their heads, told her she was in the wrong place, and sent her back to the clinic.

  Both sides told Judge Let-’em-go Joe Turrell that after examining her medical history, they now concurred. Baby Cynthia would have died anyway, even with professional care; in fact, she did well to survive fifteen months. All agreed that the manslaughter charge should be reduced to a single count of child neglect.

  Angel pleaded no contest in exchange for six months probation. A social worker would visit and report to the court on the well-being of the other children. I found myself hoping that someone would tip her off to bring something for Harry. For the first time, I was not incensed by one of Let-’em-go Joe’s rulings. Obviously relieved, Angel practically skipped out of the courtroom. So did I, relieved that after this story, Angel was out of my life for good.

  As I drove back to the office it occurred to me that lately nobody was really what he or she first seemed to be. Not Angel, not Darnell, not even Lance. The man I expected to be arrogant and shallow when we met was somebody I could actually love, if only I didn’t feel so damn numb all the time.

  Back at the office I made the mistake of answering the phone before finishing my story about Angel’s day in court.

  “How high were those strappy high-heeled sandals you wore in Hollywood?” the caller breathed. “Three and a half inches?”

  I was about to hang up when he said, “Do you change your shoes when you drive? You ever drive that flashy T-Bird barefoot?”

  How did he know what I drove?

  “Saw your pictures in the tabloids,” he said. “The one in your car didn’t show your feet.”

  Urgent sounds resonated in the background.

  “You’re watching X-rated cable, aren’t you?” I said accusingly.

  He hesitated. “Not exactly.”

  “Well, what is that?”

  “I don’t subscribe,” he said defensively. “It’s scrambled. It’s better that way, just glimpses, little flashes, a thigh here, a foot there. It’s more exciting,” he confided. “More like real life. I don’t pay for it.”

  Nice, I thought, and slammed down the phone. Now this sicko knew what I looked like and the model car I drove.

  The final scene at the paper was shot in the pressroom that night. I stayed to watch the villains pursue Gardiner Bowles and Cassie Malone in a deadly game of hide-and-seek, down into the pressroom where huge rolls of newsprint weigh 2,000 pounds and giant ink drums measure four feet around. Shot and wounded during a knock-’em-down drag-’em-out fight, Gardiner is hurled back onto the web, his bleeding body moving inevitably toward the press. Cassie struggles bravely with the last bad guy still standing. The villain breaks away and flees, as she scrambles to hit the emergency STOP button. The machinery slows down, then cuts off, just in time. Cassie cradles Gardiner in her arms, weeping, “Don’t die! Don’t die!”

  The scene gave me the creeps, as they shot it again and again.

  Lexie had to clean up and change clothes for each take because of the fake blood gushing from Gardiner’s gaping bullet wounds, courtesy of Ziff, who once more outdid himself in the gore department. Wardrobe worked fast on Cassie’s four identical dresses. By the time Lance bled all over the fourth, the first was again fresh, quick cleaned and pressed.

  The final take was the best, Lance’s face so etched in agony, his moans so real, that I nearly wept. He really is good, I thought, and wondered if he was thinking of Niko.

  “You were amazing in that last take,” I said, as Pauli drove us back to Star Island. “Anyone would swear you were really in pain.”

  “I was,” he said. “Lexie was digging her fingernails into the back of my neck.” He touched the area just below his hairline and winced. “Think she drew blood. She always liked to do that.”

  The man really did have claw marks deep in the back of his neck.

  Pauli turned down the street to Lance’s house. A party was winding down at a neighbor’s home. A number of cars and a catering truck still remained.

  Still wide awake and restless, we strolled out to the pool deck overlooking the bay. It was windy and cool in the dark, about a half hour till dawn.

  “Who else is there?” I asked, as we gazed out over the water. “Who else wants you dead?”

  He looked at me oddly. “How romantic.”

  “Just in case it isn’t Stephanie,” I said. “What if it wasn’t her?”

  “Since when are you Stephanie’s new best friend?”

  “Just humor me. I’m trying to figure this out.”

  He leaned against the wrought-iron railing, his back to the lights dancing on the water. “Well, let’s see. You could start with everybody who paid to see my last picture.”

  “Be serious.” I made a face and stuck out my tongue.

  “Don’t point that thing at me unless you intend to use it.” He reached for me, but I eluded his grasp and slipped into a comfortable lounge chair.

  “This could be important.”

  He sighed and sat in the chair next to mine. “There’s both my ex-wives … your ex-boyfriend, the cop.”

  “Who else? Somebody obviously doesn’t want to see this movie finished. What would happen?”

  “The studio would collect the insurance.”

  “How much?”

  “At this point, with all the cost overruns, they might barely break even.”

  “How much do they stand to make if it’s released?”

  “The way it stands now?” He paused and gazed out at the misty skyline. “It’s got to be a blockbuster to do more than break even.”

  “And if it flops?”

  “If it’s a disaster, the studio could be in trouble.”

  “How bad?”

  He shrugged. “If Carolco could go belly up, anything can happen. They’ve been on shaky financial ground since the summer disasters last year. Overhead is huge. Cappleman has padded the payroll with all kinds of friends and relatives. There are more big budget productions these days, and marketing costs are on the rise. It’s tough for any studio to make the money back, and this one’s had a string of box office bombs.”

  “Is there anybody else out there that you’re worth more to dead than alive?”

  He turned to face me, the chair creaking under his weight. “You’re suggesting that the studio might decide it’s cheaper to kill me for the insurance money than risk a major financial disaster if Margin of Error flops?”

  “I’m not saying they held a stockholders’ meeting and took a vote, but maybe somebody … people get killed for a lot less every day. Look at Darnell Oliver, hiring those kids to waste Angel. I’m just thinking out loud, considering the possibilities.”

  “With any luck,” he said, leaning forward, elbows on his knees, expression thoughtful, “we should wrap soon. Only a few days of shooting left.”

  “Are the scenes critical? Could the movie be released without them?”

  He thought about it. “Hard to say, at this point, what could be done in editing.”

  Dogs started to raise hell somewhere close by, their barks carrying over the water. The all-night partyers must finally be going home. I shivered, and Lance leaned over to put his arms around me.

  “Want to go inside?”

  “No, I want to see the dawn.”

  “But you’re so cold.” He eased off his lounge chair onto mine, cuddled me close to his chest, and began unfastening my skirt. Slipping it off as I raised my hips, he drew it down over my feet, then straddled me and began unbuttoning my blouse as he nuzzled my neck and began rocking against me.

  “I’m beginning to feel warmer.” I forgot the topic of our discussion, until I heard sudden thrashing in the shrubbery.

  The dogs we just heard must be running
loose, I told myself. But my heart beat wildly. “Lance, what is that?”

  “Let’s go in the house.” He pulled me to my feet, peering into the dark.

  I snatched up my skirt and hoisted my blouse, which had been pulled down off one shoulder.

  “Nooooooh!” A woman’s high-pitched howl of panic. A gunshot rang out a split second later and the leg of my lounge chair splintered. We were no longer using it; we were halfway to the house.

  Lance was shouting for Pauli to bring a gun, and call the cops.

  Pauli stumbled out the French doors. He must have been dozing. He looked dazed and held a handgun. Dave appeared a moment later, hair in his eyes, shirtless, wearing only undershorts. He was in excellent shape.

  “Who was screaming?” he demanded. “Was that you, Britt?”

  “No, son of a bitch! It’s her, it’s her!” Lance said. “Goddammit! Give me the gun. The bitch tried to shoot me! Give me the gun!”

  Pauli ignored him and charged past us, followed by Dave and Frank. A1 was on the stairs. He had a shotgun.

  I dialed 911, while trying to hang onto Lance. “Don’t go out there! She’s got a gun!”

  “I can’t live this way,” he muttered, slamming his fist against the wall. “No more. I can’t live like this. I hope they kill her.”

  23

  Cries, sobs, and shouts sounded in the night. Some were mine, as I struggled to keep Lance from rushing out into the dark.

  “They’ve got her! They’ve got her!” I peered through the mullioned windows. Stephanie was being dragged unceremoniously through the shrubbery, toward the house, as a faint blush of dawn streaked the eastern horizon. Pauli had forced her right wrist down until it was just a few feet off the ground. Her left wrist was grasped in Al’s big fist, over his head, nearly lifting her off her feet, as though announcing the winner in a prizefight. He held his shotgun high in the other hand. Stumbling, struggling, stretched between them, Stephanie was screaming at the top of her lungs. Dave and Frank marched behind them, the latter with a handgun.

  Police cars howled across the bridge.

  “Lance! Lance!” Stephanie shrieked hysterically. “Are you all right? Lance! Are you hurt?”

  Lordy, I thought, the neighbors must be so sick of this. I knew I was. The police should build a substation here. They would save the gas spent speeding to the scene of the crimes.

  They had not found Stephanie’s gun by midmorning, despite police divers, a metal detector, and a dog. The theory was that she had either stashed it among the trees and the lush foliage on the west side of the house, tossed it into the bay, or pitched it up onto the roof of the cabana, the boathouse, or the main house itself.

  Lance ignored her frantic pleas to see him. His only revenge was to deny her what she wanted most.

  He sent her a message instead, instructing the cops to tell her that if he ever had the chance he would put a bullet in her head himself. I was sure he meant it.

  He remained agitated and reluctant to even talk to Lieutenant Wallace, who showed up about an hour after Stephanie was taken to headquarters, paraded before a gauntlet of photographers and TV news cameras.

  “I don’t like that son of a bitch,” Lance muttered. “He’s the one who said Niko was ‘just some guy who worked for me.’”

  “I had hoped you missed that,” I said. “Sure, he’s insensitive, but he doesn’t mean it. He’s just been on the job too long.”

  The morning glare was hard on our eyes after being awake all night. We talked to Wallace in the great room, over a pot of coffee with the blinds closed.

  “Either of you see or hear anybody else out there when this all went down?”

  The answer was no. Neither had Lance’s bodyguards.

  “Here’s what we get from Stephanie.” Wallace spoke directly to Lance, ignoring me. “She’s itching to tell you her story, that she didn’t do any of these things she’s accused of. So she comes over here last night Sees you come home. She waits, hoping to catch you alone, when she sees somebody in the shadows at the side of the house. She thinks it might be you and follows him back behind the pool bar. She hears voices, which hadda be you and Britt, here. The guy she followed is watching you.”

  My face must have reddened at this point.

  Wallace’s eyes lingered on me speculatively before he went on.

  “Then she sees this guy try to pop a cap at you. She panics, yells at ‘im, and grabs for the gun. It goes off, he smacks her up the side of the head, knocks her down, and hits the wind. By the time she’s back on her feet your guys are all over her.”

  “Did she recognize the man with the gun?” I asked.

  Lance frowned, with an expression of disbelief.

  “Says it was too dark. She was more interested in watching what he was watching until he pulls the gun and tries to smoke you.”

  Lance did a double take. “You’re not buying that’s. In other words, she’s saying she deserves a medal, that she saved us from some imaginary intruder? Bullshit. That’s like the crazies who torch buildings so they can rescue the victims, play hero, and get their pictures in the newspaper.”

  “That’s her story.” Wallace shrugged. “She tells it well.”

  “She always does.” I remembered our first meeting just outside this very room. “She can be very convincing.”

  “Finding the damn gun would help us a lot,” Wallace said. “We’re having no luck so far, but that’s not unusual because of all the silt on the bottom of the bay. She is all bruised up,” he added.

  “From my guys when they tackled her! Here’s what really happened,” Lance said. “She cried out in protest when she saw us—” He hesitated.

  “Displaying affection,” I said.

  “Right,” Lance said. “That’s when she shot at us.”

  Made sense. But what if … “Did security at the gate see anybody else leave?”

  Wallace shrugged and shook his head. Any other night at that hour, the guard might have noticed. But cars were leaving the neighbor’s party. Nobody scrutinizes departing motorists. For them, the gate opens automatically.

  “This fucking woman has made my life miserable for years.” Lance paced the room, eyes exhausted. “New York, LA, now here.” He turned to the detective. “Isn’t there a test to see if she fired a gun? That would settle it.”

  “Right,” Wallace said. He closed his notebook and got to his feet.

  “I never want her to see daylight again,” Lance told the departing cop, who turned at the door.

  “Oh, she won’t be going anywhere for a long time,” he said. “I can guarantee you that.”

  Go to jail and you are entitled to a phone call. That’s singular. So how did Stephanie manage to call me four times that day? Most were messages.

  “I warned you,” I said, when we finally connected. “Everybody warned you, Stephanie. You wouldn’t listen to me then, so I won’t listen to you now.”

  “But somebody is trying to kill Lance,” she protested. “You have to stop him.”

  Was she a split personality, a multiple personality, or what? Nobody was buying her story. I wouldn’t either, except … if only they would find her damn gun.

  “What did you do with it, Stephanie? Is it the same gun you used to kill Niko?”

  “I hated Niko. He was trying to keep me and Lance apart. But I never would have killed him. I wouldn’t physically harm another human being.”

  “Maybe from outside on the balcony you thought he was Lance.”

  “It wasn’t me, but somebody did. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. You have to listen to me. Somebody is trying to kill Lance!”

  “Would you be willing to take a polygraph test?”

  “Of course. Absolutely.” She showed no hesitation. I had only asked to see her response. The tests are notoriously unreliable on the medicated or mentally deranged.

  The GSR test, gunshot residue, came back inconclusive that afternoon. Ste
rile swabs, used on different parts of her hand, had been analyzed for gunpowder. Traces were present, according to the lab, but not enough to be conclusive. What was found could have been sustained while struggling with a gunman as his weapon fired.

  What if she was telling the truth? The existence of a more deadly stalker was a long shot. But if there was one, Lance remained in danger and a killer was still free.

  Stephanie called again, and I told her to put me on her visitor list.

  The noise and chaos of the women’s lockup unleashed a rush of bad memories. They took my bag, patted me down, and checked my tape recorder. Stephanie looked pale and disheveled, and a large bruise had purpled the side of her face. She wore no pearls this time. We talked into microphones, heavy plate glass between us.

  “Is Lance all right? Is he very upset?” Despite all the trouble she was in, she still obsessed over Lance.

  “Of course he’s upset. He’s been shot at and missed, two friends are dead, his neighbors want to lynch him, and all this has totally disrupted his life, the movie, and maybe his entire career. Other than that, he’s swell.”

  She bombarded me with questions about him. Where he was, what he was doing, wearing. What did he say about her?

  The less we discussed Lance, the better, I thought.

  “I just haven’t had any messages,” she said fretfully.

  “You mean from the TV?”

  “No. Phone messages.”

  “Well, this may come as news to you, Stephanie, but you can’t take calls in here.”

  “I pick up the messages about Lance. I’ve called and called, but there are none.”

  “What are you talking about? Where do you call?”

  “My service. I had it transferred down here.”

  “What kind of messages? Who leaves them?”

  She shrugged, with more than a trace of self-importance. “Lance, or whomever he has call me with the things I need to know. Where he’ll be. Where he’s staying.” She paused and smiled fondly. “Who he’s with, where he wants me to be. Sometimes he sends kisses.”