Footsteps in the Dark

by Josh Lanyon

  Not true.

  But Paul thought it was gospel.

  Detective Grey had felt it was a likely scenario too.

  It wasn’t. I was certain. But for now, having near a hundred folks think it was self-inflicted was better than them realizing a murderer worked alongside them.

  “Who’s saying that?” I asked.

  Paul shrugged. “I dunno. Everyone.”

  “I see.”

  “It’s a hell of a way to call it quits,” Paul said sadly.

  “Rory!” I looked ahead and toward the left. John was sitting in his chair, phone to one ear, waving for me to come hither.

  “I’ll be right back,” I said, patting Paul’s shoulder. I sidestepped a few crew members and frowned as I approached John. “What’s wrong?”

  He put a hand over the phone’s mouthpiece and whisper-spoke, “I need you to do me a quick favor.”

  “John.”

  “I know, I know. You’re an I not an A,” he said. “But we’re really scrambling today.”

  I crossed my arms and begrudgingly asked, “What do you need?”

  “What?” John returned his focus to his phone call, leaving me hanging. “No, no. Meredith… When the NYPD storms the house and shuts production down… Hopes and dreams aren’t a practical insurance.”

  While waiting for John to tear himself away from the argument he was getting into over money, time, contracts, and whatever other problems producers got paid big bucks to untangle, I shot the actors a quick look. Costar James had taken a seat and accepted a water bottle from someone nearby. A makeup artist joined him to do light touch-ups after the hot and heavy kissing between him and—

  I spun around where I stood, looking for Marion. He wasn’t standing in Tommy O’Sullivan’s parlor, and he wasn’t seated with James, who was clearly waiting on the technical setup. I uncrossed my arms, took a few steps backward, and caught Marion speaking with Ethan farther away on the stage. He looked upset—pleading, even. Ethan dug his phone out of a pocket, turned the screen toward Marion, and the younger man sobered considerably at whatever he was staring at. He straightened his shoulders, nodded minutely, and started walking toward the side door.

  “Striking!” a big guy’s voice bellowed from nearby, and then a massive light turned on and completely blinded me. “PA! Don’t look at the light when we call that.”

  “Yeah,” I answered gruffly, blinking away the spots.

  John grabbed my arm, another one of those not so subtle bicep appreciation squeezes. “My planner,” he murmured, pulling the phone away from his ear very briefly. “On my desk.”

  With that dismissal from John, I picked my way around people and equipment and left the set. I made a quick detour, turned right, and slipped down the dressing-rooms hallway. I stopped outside Marion’s door and knocked gently.

  No response.

  “Marion?” I called.

  Nothing.

  I tried the knob, found it unlocked, and the door swung open.

  Empty.

  Strange. I couldn’t imagine he’d go anywhere else when taking the side exit, but maybe he was in the bathroom down the main corridor. Or even sneaked down to the loading dock for a smoke. Either seemed likely, considering the emotional high he’d been on, followed by yet another spat with Herr Director, so I shut the door and continued toward the production office.

  “Randy,” Laura stated as I entered.

  “Rory,” I corrected again, not stopping for any handout this time.

  “Can I send you on a run?”

  “I’m actually doing one for John at the moment, but I’ll swing back in a bit,” I replied.

  Davey’s death had really gotten me thinking. The lack of any real crossover between set and office—and what did exist with PAs, Davey and Laura had dissolved by relegating them to one location or the other—suggested to me that his killer worked with him.

  That it’d be someone from set.

  And that if his death and the missing script were indeed related, the killer could very likely be the thief.

  Laura was one of my first suspects. She was higher up than Davey. She hadn’t liked him. And her petty jealousy of even his lowly set position had been brought to my attention. But she wasn’t a cold-blooded killer. That was simply not in her makeup as a human being. And yesterday morning she had only just arrived for the workday when we crossed paths. Her cheeks had still been flushed from the cold, for God’s sake. There hadn’t been time to overpower a bigger man and strangle him to death.

  No. It wasn’t her.

  Both events originated with someone on set. I’d stake my reputation on it.

  “How many people does John need doing errands for him?” she asked with a shake of her head.

  I started to consider that muttered question, but as I stopped outside of John’s office and opened the door, the words crumbled like ash from the tip of a cigarette.

  Marion jerked his head up. He shut the bottom drawer of John’s desk and quickly stood. “R-Rory.”

  Had he—?

  Was he—?

  “Wh-what are you doing here?” he stuttered.

  I let go of the doorknob.

  “Wait. It’s not what you think.” Marion moved around the desk to stop me from leaving.

  I took a step back.

  “Rory, please.” Marion was following me out of the office.

  I glanced over my shoulder, and a few of the staffers were looking up from their desks at us. Taking Marion by the arm, I quickly led him away from the open area, past Laura and the conference room, down the hall, and back to staging.

  “Would you let go of me?” Marion protested.

  “No.” My voice shook with even that one word as I tried to tamp down the rage boiling inside me. I could barely breathe the rest of the walk to his dressing room, which upon reaching, I shoved Marion inside and slammed the door shut behind us. “It was you this entire time?”

  Marion swallowed hard and vehemently shook his head. “It wasn’t. I swear to God.”

  “Where’s the script, Marion?”

  “I don’t know!” he cried.

  “Then why the hell were you in John’s office?” I retorted. I’d been hurt in the past, but this betrayal was akin to my heart being torn from my chest. I was shaking with a mixture of fury and anguish and adrenaline. How could I be so stupid.

  “It— I was— Because of Ethan,” he said, voice trembling and lip quivering. Marion looked as if he were about to pass out. “I let him take…pictures. When we were dating.”

  “What kind of pictures?” I demanded.

  Marion looked up. “The kind you blackmail someone over.” He wiped angrily at his eyes. “He’s refused to delete them, and now he’s threatening to give them to tabloids if I don’t steal John’s script for him.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “No!”

  “I have one rule,” I started, and my voice caught again. “I told you that.”

  “I never lied. I didn’t tell you about… Those pictures are humiliating and embarrassing, and I’m trying to deal with the fallout of a bad breakup while working with my ex on a project that means more to me than the air in my lungs. I can’t be faulted for that.”

  “If Ethan has the script—”

  “He doesn’t, Rory,” Marion shouted. “You said the script was already stolen. And I told you last night, if it’s gone, Ethan doesn’t have it. And I know that because he’s forcing me to do his bidding. He doesn’t know it’s already gone.”

  I stared at Marion for an intensely long, unnerving moment. “But you know it’s gone.”

  He nodded weakly.

  “Why are you bothering to raid John’s private office?”

  “For a copy,” he admitted. “Or—or anything I could give Ethan to get him to back off. I’m desperate to save my career.” Tears slipped down his face. “I want to be a man that younger people can look up to. And I can’t do that while being plastered on grocery-store tabloids. I can’t be
ar being the face of homophobic jokes and stereotypes.” He wiped at his face again with the sleeve of his suit coat. “I’m worth a lot in the industry right now. Ethan wants to be attached to whatever project I take next. I kept telling him no. I wasn’t going to abuse John’s trust. I wasn’t going to be Ethan’s ticket to the top. But…”

  I took a deep breath, distancing myself from Marion’s grief. “Who has the script?”

  “I don’t know,” he said again. “I’m telling you the truth. Until you told me yesterday, I assumed John was still fiddling away at it.” Marion reached out, but I stepped back. “Rory—please.”

  “You’ve got to do better than that,” I answered. “What about Davey?”

  Marion’s brows knitted together. “What about him?”

  “Who killed him?”

  “Killed? But I heard…people…they’re saying he hanged—”

  I shook my head.

  Marion put a hand over his mouth. He turned quickly, knelt in front of a small desk overlooking the window, and was sick into the trash bin. Instinct took over hurt, and my need to ease Marion’s discomfort forced my deadened feet to step forward. I crouched and put a hand on his back, soothing up and down. He wiped his mouth with a shaking hand before gripping the bin again like he feared there’d be a round two.

  You couldn’t fake this sort of response.

  “Would Ethan kill someone?” I asked in a quiet tone. “Even if by accident?” Not that Davey’s death was anything but intentional.

  Marion didn’t immediately respond, his silence speaking volumes more than his eventual words. “I don’t…” He spit into the trash. “I’m not sure.”

  “Babe.”

  Marion looked at me again.

  “What about James?”

  “He’d be the last to steal a script. I’m serious. He’s done with the industry. He wants to go into construction. Work for his brother’s company.”

  “Then could someone else have overheard your conversations with Ethan? When he’s been pressuring you to take the script?”

  “No. We spoke in private.”

  “On set?” I clarified.

  “Well, yes, I don’t see him anywhere else. But no one would have heard—”

  And it was like both of us came to the same startling conclusion at once.

  I held my breath.

  Marion snapped his mouth shut. He reached to his chest and very delicately touched his tie.

  The microphone.

  He reached around his back to unclasp the transmitter worn under his coat, which sent the audio wirelessly to Paul’s receivers on the sound cart. Marion stared at the buttons for a moment, but I guess after having been wearing the gear for so many years, he knew how to turn them on and off.

  “Could Paul have picked up our conversation this far from set?” I asked.

  “Yeah, maybe,” Marion said with a grimace. He glanced up from the device. “Sound recordists are supposed to turn our mics down between takes—no eavesdropping.”

  “But?”

  “Paul’s forgotten in the past. People make mistakes. I thought nothing of it,” Marion explained.

  I recalled the intense disagreement between Marion and Ethan I’d overheard through headphones the other day, regarding his costar’s performance. If what Marion said was true, Paul should have known better then. He should have turned the mics off, especially if Marion had caught him previously doing no such thing. So how often did he listen in on conversations he shouldn’t have been privy to?

  Had he overheard Ethan’s demands for the script? And while Marion was dragging his feet, refusing to act despite the threat to his future, had Paul made a move?

  “What would Paul have to gain from stealing a script?” I asked Marion.

  “The same thing Ethan wants, I guess,” Marion said shakily. “Fame. It is a good concept. A really good one, in fact.”

  “Would Paul have any reason to blackmail or coerce you into taking on the project with him in some capacity?”

  Marion’s expression darkened. “I haven’t slept with Paul.”

  “That’s not what I mean.”

  Marion reached up and tugged at his hair. “I think John told me, even though he was drunk, because he wants me to seriously consider the script. Projects I want get well funded. They get noticed. I’m not being egotistical. That’s the truth. I know that’s Ethan’s plan, at least—if he can rip that idea out from underneath John’s feet—to ride my coattails to the top.” He motioned with his hand. “Maybe Paul would do the same.”

  I stood, took Marion’s hand, and hauled him to his feet. I reached into my pocket and handed him my tin of Altoids. “Here.”

  He smiled a little, almost like that simple gesture was going to undo him. “Thanks.” He tapped a few mints out and popped them into his mouth.

  “Come with me.” I took his hand and led him out of the dressing room.

  “Where are— Rory, where are we going now?”

  “If Paul’s overheard our conversation, he’s going to pack up and hightail it out of here.” I led the way through staging and toward the far corner where crew kept their belongings in assigned lockers. “I need some kind of tangible evidence that proves Paul stole the script, if not the script itself among his belongings.”

  “He wouldn’t be stupid enough to keep it here, would he?” Marion asked, now willingly following instead of trying to pull away. His hand changed grip, moved to thread his fingers between mine.

  “Sometimes hiding a hot item in plain sight is the smartest thing to do,” I murmured as we passed the art department and kept walking.

  Marion came to a halt outside the lockers. He was frowning deeply. “How would the evidence be viable if you obtained it without permission?”

  “These aren’t secured,” I said, glancing at Marion briefly. “The lockers don’t belong to any one individual. And John gave me all the permission I need.” I popped open the first one and took a peek inside.

  “I don’t know which one is Paul’s,” Marion said. He crouched to check the lower level. “But he wears a green ski coat.”

  “That’s good,” I answered, moving from door to door as quickly as possible.

  Marion opened another locker and swore as a pile of loose paperwork spilled out across the floor. He scrambled to collect all the sheets, then audibly gasped.

  “What is it?” I bent down beside him.

  Marion nodded his chin at the locker. “This is Ethan’s. I’d know that stupid leather jacket anywhere. But look at this.” He sifted through what were clearly disorganized script pages, before he found the title cover. “Sunrise,” he read aloud. “By…hold on…Davey Heller?” Marion looked at me. “Why would Ethan have a script written by Davey?”

  The broken photocopier.

  Building construction—tarps and buckets.

  A vacant and unlit hallway.

  Drywall dust.

  “Davey was making copies of his script,” I said in a drawn-out, almost thoughtful tone. “But he used the copier in the vacant office space to hide the fact that he was using supplies for personal gain. Ethan saw him carrying this.” I took the stack of loose paper from Marion and held it up. “A script. And Davey’s acting squirrely. Ethan suspects Davey has somehow found out about John’s script and is trying to sneak off with it. He surprises Davey in the empty hall, tries to forcefully take it. Davey fights him, protective of his own intellectual property. There was a struggle, and it escalated.”

  Marion’s mismatched eyes were wide with horror and grief. “But—”

  “Ethan had something on his pant leg yesterday morning. I didn’t think much of it.” I handed Marion back the papers. “But if he’d been crouched behind Davey, a knee on the floor as he wrapped a cord around his neck…” I demonstrated. “His pant leg would pick up what was on the floor.”

  “And what was that?”

  “White dust—drywall dust. From the construction. Ethan must have run with the script, but by the time he
got to staging, realized this script had nothing to do with John. He hid it in his locker, then went to your dressing room while I was with you.”

  Marion looked down at the crumpled pages, absently smoothing down creases. “Poor Davey… Now what?”

  INT. CHAPTER TEN – DAY

  Working until lunch break had been…troubling. Marion hadn’t wanted to return to set, not after the likely truth of his murderous ex-boyfriend had come to light in the spilled pages of a script never destined for the camera. And I couldn’t blame him. I didn’t want Marion within a hundred feet of that rat bastard Ethan. I didn’t want anyone around Ethan.

  But I couldn’t make my move yet. The minute I phoned Detective Grey, my cover would be blown. I had nothing on Paul but Marion’s sureness that the sound recordist had been listening in on private conversations. And only wishy-washy, circumstantial evidence against Ethan, which might be just enough for Grey to receive a search warrant for the dust-coated jeans of yesterday. So if I was going to call the police to back me up after having reached the limits of my investigative license, I’d be damned if I’d settle for anything less than Ethan in handcuffs and Paul at John’s mercy.

  “Rory!”

  I came to an abrupt stop outside the big, open door leading to the set. I looked over my shoulder and felt myself relax as Marion rushed across staging. His costume shoes tap, tap tapped the entire way. “Go back to lunch,” I insisted. “Safety in numbers.”

  “Says the man wandering around production alone.” Marion came to a stop beside me. “What are you doing?”

  “I need to scope out the set for more evidence. There’s a lot of equipment right in the open.”

  Marion blinked a few times as he caught on. “But because union guidelines don’t allow departments to touch one another’s gear…hiding in plain sight.”

  “Right.”

  “I’ll help.”

  I quickly put a hand on his chest to stop him. “We can’t allow Paul to see us both absent. It’s too obvious.”

  “I rarely stay for the entire meal,” he answered.

  I moved my hand up and cupped Marion’s jaw. “I’ve been doing this since you were in junior high. Trust me.” I kissed his mouth lightly and took a step through the doorway.