“Just coffee for me,” Coop says.
“I’ll stick with this,” I say, holding up my glass. “I’m not eating.”
Coop smiles. “I am. Small Caesar salad and sausage and peppers over angel hair.”
“Very good.”
“Oh, one other thing. Could you send the manager to our table?”
The waiter hesitates for just a moment. “Of course,” he rushes off.
“Might as well get this over first,” Coop says. He sips his water and looks around. “Popular place.”
“Here we go.” A short stocky man with graying hair, wearing an expensive-looking sports jacket approaches our booth and gives us a well-practiced smile.
“I trust everything is okay?” He looks from me to Coop, his hands clasped in front of him. “Anthony Torino at your service.”
“Just fine,” Coop says. “I just need a word with you. Say, I like your jacket. Is that Armani? Why don’t you sit down for a minute.”
Torino almost smirks. “Hardly. It’s a knockoff. I hope you’re not the fashion police.” He makes a show of buttoning the jacket.
Coop takes out his badge. “No, we’re the real police. Lieutenant Cooper, Santa Monica Division. I’m hoping you can help me out.”
Coop slides around to make room. Torino’s expression quickly changes. He glances over his shoulder and sits down, eyeing Coop warily. “I hope there’s nothing wrong.”
“No, nothing to worry about, just routine. Do you know Ryan Stiles and Grant Robbins?”
“Yes, of course. Mr. Robbins is one of our regular customers. Why?”
“They had dinner here the other night, with a tall stunning blonde.”
Torino smiles. “Yes, the lovely Miss Hammond.” His eyes flick to me then back to Coop.
“I bet you attended to them personally.”
“Yes, I did. As I always do. Mr. Robbins is an old friend.”
“Do you remember what time their reservation was for?”
“I believe it was seven o’clock. I could check to make sure.”
“I’d appreciate that,” Coop says. “While you’re at it, any chance you have a record of their visit, who paid, a credit card slip, maybe?”
“Yes, certainly, just give me a minute.” He gets up and scurries off just as Coop’s salad and a small plate of bread sticks arrives.
“I like it when people are cooperative.” He starts on the salad.
Five minutes later, Torino returns with a stack of credit card slips. He sits down and flips through them quickly, then pulls one out and hands it to Coop, who glances at it quickly, then lays it on the table next to his plate.
“I’ll need to take this with me. Thanks so much. That’s all I need.”
Torino gets up, a little puzzled. “Please enjoy your dinner. If you need anything else, please let me know.”
Coop continues with his salad and slides the slip across to me. It’s for a Visa card with a date and time stamp showing 8:20 pm in the amount of $138.72. Coop doesn’t even look up.
“He didn’t stay long, did he?” Coop takes the last bite of salad and pushes his plate away. “Charlie Farrell says the Medical Examiner estimates time of death sometime between nine and midnight, give or take.”
“Plenty of time for Robbins to take care of things. Fuller’s trailer is not far from here.”
“I did note that. When we leave here, we can drive over and see how long it takes.”
While Coop wolfs down the sausage and pasta, I give him a shortened version of Ryan’s confession to me. He listens, nods at the appropriate places, then pushes his plate aside, pats his stomach, and signals a waiter for more coffee.
“How’s Andie doing on the internet search?”
“She’s working on it now. She hadn’t found anything when I left.”
“If she does, with this credit card slip, Robbins will have some explaining to do.”
“I’ve been thinking. Even with this, it just seems too pat, too easy.”
“Don’t complain. Sometimes that’s how it works. There are plenty of tough ones.”
As we leave the restaurant, I spot Torino on the phone at the reservations desk. When he see us he gives a little wave, then turns away and cups his hand over the mouthpiece.
“I wonder who he’s talking to,” Coop says.
“Probably some big Hollywood player.”
Coop drops me off at the hotel after we drive from Mario’s to Jerry Fuller’s trailer. It takes all of seventeen minutes.
“So what’s next?”
“I’m going to take another run at Charlie Farrell, and see if he’ll let me have another look in Fuller’s trailer. Want to join me?”
“What are you looking for?”
“I’m not sure yet. I’ll know when I find it.”
I get out of the car. “I’ll let you know if Andie finds anything.”
“Do that,” Coop says. He smiles.
“What?”
“I was just thinking. It’ll be kind of strange if my employer is arrested for murder.”
“Even stranger if you make the arrest.”
“No, that’ll be Charlie Farrell’s collar.”
I go up to my room. There’s a tray with a plate and the remnants of a hamburger and fries on the floor by the door. Inside, I find Andie sprawled on the bed in her robe, watching
China Town
. I slip off my shoes and stretch out alongside her.
She yawns and curls up against me. “How was Mario’s?”
“Very Italian. Robbins’ reservation was for seven, and the time stamp on the credit card slip was eight twenty. It takes seventeen minutes to drive from Mario’s to Fuller’s trailer park. We timed it. Time of death was between nine and midnight according to the Medical Examiner.”
“So Robbins is looking better all the time.”
“Yeah, but like I told Coop, it just seems all too perfect, too pat. Robbins is a lawyer, a smart guy, a major Hollywood player. Unless there’s something else about him we don’t know, I’m just not sure.”
Andie sits up and throws one leg over me and straddles my waist. “Maybe we should look into Robbins’ background, see if there’s something that would explain a motive.” Her robe has fallen open a bit. I reach up and pull it closed. “I need to concentrate. Find anything?”
“In a word, no. I’ve been through every story and there’s no mention of a camera strap, much less a brand name.”
I’m not that surprised. I can’t remember a single news story or television report about a murder with that kind of detail. They never say the victim was shot with a Glock 9 mm or stabbed with a Shinzu knife. Later maybe, if the victim was famous, or a long magazine article is done months or years after the death.
“We could check local TV news but I don’t think there’s anything,” Andie says. “The window on this is closing fast. Fuller was not famous. The interest is already waning. Another week and it’ll be, ‘who was Jerry Fuller?’”
“I think you’re right. I’m tired of thinking about it.”
“Good. You’ve still got some music to compose.” She leans down and lightly kisses me. “All through concentrating?” She sits up and pulls her robe open.
“I am now.”
Monday morning, I drop Andie at Burbank Airport. “I’ll try to do a little digging on Grant Robbins,” she says, getting out of the car. She drags her carry-on bag around to the driver’s side, and leans in to kiss me. “Good luck on the music. I don’t know how you do it with all this other stuff going on.” She studies me for a moment as people rush past the car. “Even more, I don’t know why you’re doing it.”
I don’t have an answer for that, and Andie doesn’t expect one. She turns, waves once, and then slips into the terminal.
I head out of the airport, back to the Ventura Freeway and on to Skip Porter’s. He had called earlier to confirm we were going to spend most of the day looking at new film. Traffic is still heavy so I have a lot of time to think as I remember Andie’s comment. It is getting increasingly difficult to shift gears from a murder investigation that clearly might involve the very people I’m working for, and composing music and learning the ins and out of scoring a film. I’ve all but eliminated Ryan Stiles from the mix, but Grant Robbins is another story.
I can’t reconcile his money, position, and status with a premeditated murder of someone I doubt he even knew. What could have been his motive? If it was to protect Ryan and the progress of the film, then he had to know about Jerry Fuller, and the only way he could know was if Ryan told him the whole story.
I have to remind myself that Ryan’s the actor, not Robbins. In his office, when I’d got Ryan to admit he’d hired Fuller to check on me, Robbins had been genuinely surprised and angry at Ryan for doing it. Ryan’s confession on the beach also seemed genuine. I knew him well enough to know the pain on his face as he unburdened himself was real, so that left Robbins who, maybe even more than Ryan, needed the film to go well. He had to answer to those investors who’d put up millions, and I’d bet Robbins had some of his own money in this project. Is that enough motive? That’s one I don’t have to answer. People had killed for far less.
But my mind keeps going back to Robbins’ remark about the Nikon camera strap. Where had that come from? That’s what I had to find out. If not Robbins, then who else? Melanie? No way. Somebody I hadn’t thought of at all?
I’m still lost in thought when the car behind me honks. The heavy traffic is finally breaking up. I pull ahead and exit at the next off-ramp and wind my way to Skip Porter’s. I park in the driveway and light a cigarette, trying to get focused on music, not Grant Robbins or Jerry Fuller’s murder, but it only lasts for as long as it takes me to walk into Skip’s house.
“Hey,” he says. “Ready to go to work?”
“Very. Let’s get to it.”
“We’ll have a visitor later. Grant Robbins called. He’s coming by to see how it’s going.”
Perfect,
I think as we start to work by going over the list of music cues. Some are brief motifs that last only a few seconds, some are more complete and last a few minutes, depending on the length of the scene. Skip plays them all and we watch as they match the on-screen action.
“Looks and sounds good to me,” Skip says. “Got something in mind for the closing credits?”
I’d thought about that a lot. These days, nearly every movie ends with a complete song, while all the credits from the star to the catering truck driver scrolls by slowly on a black screen. I thought I had the perfect way to close out
Murder in Blue.
“I’m thinking of a Chet Baker recording of ‘My Foolish Heart.’ Kind of fits with the story.”
Skip grins. “Yeah, that would be perfect.” He scrolls through a music database and pulls up several versions of the song. “Got a preference for year?”
“Yes, a later recording, something in his later years.”
Skip nods, punches in the title, and downloads the track and then hits the “play” button. Chet Baker’s airy tone fills the speakers and we both listen in silence to the emotional version that still gives me chills. I don’t have to wonder about the choice. I just add it to the cue sheet.
“We’ll have to get permissions, of course, but that shouldn’t be a problem with this budget,” Skip says. He saves the track and adds it to the master recording when my phone rings. I don’t recognize the number. “Hello.”
“Evan? It’s Melanie. I’m so glad I caught you.”
“What is it? Something wrong?”
“I’m not sure. Grant mentioned that you asked me about Mario’s, you know, the restaurant where Ryan and I had dinner with him.”
“Yeah. Melanie I didn’t mean to put you in the middle of this.”
“I didn’t know what he meant at first. I tried to cover but I don’t think I was very convincing.”
“It’s all right, Melanie. Don’t worry about it.”
She pauses. “That was the night Jerry Fuller was killed. Are you checking on Grant? Did he—”
“No, Melanie. It’s just routine. I’m kind of helping out my friend Danny Cooper to establish where everyone was that night. Did Ryan talk to you about it?”
“No, I mean, very little. He said he knew Fuller, but he didn’t say much. Do the police suspect Ryan?”
“No, not at all. I’m sure Ryan had nothing to do with it. He was with you, right?”
“Well, yeah. We stayed around after Grant left.”
“When Grant left, what did he say?”
“He got a phone call and went outside to take it. When he came back, he apologized, said something had come up and he had to go.”
“That was all?”
“Yes. God, Evan, is Grant a suspect?”
“I really don’t know.”
“I’m scared, Evan.”
“Don’t be. I’m sure Ryan had nothing to do with it. On an investigation like this the police routinely check out anybody the victim might have known, that’s all.”
I know she’s not convinced. “Okay, but would you do me a favor? Let me know if you find out anything I should know about.”
“Sure, no problem.”
“All right. Well thanks. I should go. Ryan will be back soon. Goodbye.”
“Bye, Melanie.” I close my eyes and sigh, then notice Skip has taken off the phones and is looking at me.
“You okay, man?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” We both look up then as the doorbell rings.
“That’s probably our guest.” He gets up and goes to the door. He returns in a minute with Grant Robbins in tow.
“Hello, Evan. Hope I’m not interrupting the flow. Just thought I’d stop by and see how things are going.” He looks at the monitor and the array of equipment. “Quite a setup you have here, Skip.”
“Yeah, we do it all here. Want to see a few of the scenes? Evan’s written some killer stuff.”
Robbins looks at me and smiles. “I’m sure he has. That’s why we hired him. Can we go outside for a minute, Evan? There’s a couple of contract details I need to go over with you.”
“Sure, I could use a smoke.” I follow Robbins outside, leaving Skip a little confused.
Outside, Robbins gets right to it. “I mentioned to Melanie you had asked her about Mario’s. I really don’t think she knew what I was talking about.”
I light a cigarette, trying to gather my thoughts. Robbins unbuttons his suit coat and fixes his gaze on me. “Maybe she forgot,” is the best I can come up with.
“Evan, let’s not play games. You and Cooper went there to check on me. Tony Torino already called me and said Cooper took the credit card slip with the time and date stamp. I told you I had pull with the manager.”
“Look, Grant. I was with Coop, but as far as I know, it was just routine. Coop is helping out the investigating detective.”
“Why? Be straight with me. Am I a suspect?”
“I don’t know. Suspect is a little strong. Person of interest is more like it. You’d have to ask the police. If you were, they would already have questioned you.”
“Detective Farrell did and I told him I was having dinner with Ryan and Melanie. Wasn’t that enough?”
I shrug. “It must have been. He hasn’t contacted you again, has he?”
“No, but I just want to know where I stand. I think I’m entitled to that.”
“I’m not the one to tell you that. Detective Farrell hasn’t shared his thoughts with me.”
Robbins looks away, clearly annoyed. “We’re almost finished with this film. I don’t need anything hanging over us now. We’re too close. I don’t know anything about Jerry Fuller.”
It takes all my will power to not ask him about the camera strap right then. “Well then, you have nothing to worry about.”
“Okay, we’ll leave it at that for now,” he says. He glances at his watch. “I have to go. Tell Skip I think you’re both doing a great job.” He puts on sunglasses that probably cost more than the clothes I’m wearing. He turns then, walks to his car, gets in, and drives away.
Before I can go back inside, my phone rings. It’s Coop.
“Hey, I’ve got some big news.”
“So do I. Grant Robbins was just here, asking me if he was a suspect.”
“Shit. What did he say?”
“I’ll tell you later. We need to talk.”
“Yes, we do. I have to be in court in Santa Monica at two but I can meet you some place at, say, four.”
“Okay, I can get away by then. Working on the music here. Let’s make it my hotel then. Andie’s gone back to San Francisco.”
Back inside, Skip is confused when I tell him Robbins has gone. “He said something came up and to tell you he trusts your judgment.”
“Nice if he could tell me himself.” Skip sits down and pops open a beer.
“How well do you know Robbins?”
Skip shrugs. “Not well. Limited contact on a couple of movies. Why?”
“Just curious.” Skip looks like he’s going to say more.
“Maybe just rumor, but the word on the street is he’s having money troubles. Bad investments, taxes, that kind of thing.”
I nod, making a mental note to have Andie or Coop to look into the producer’s financial background if they can.
We work a couple of more hours, and despite all the distractions of the past few days, we have things under control. More importantly, I like what I’ve written. I have to admit, seeing, hearing how the music fits with the film is a very satisfying feeling.
“I’ll get this to Sandy Simmons,” Skip says. “As director he has final say, but I think he’s going to like every note.”
***
Coop is still in a coat and tie from his court appearance. He takes them both off and heads for the mini-bar, grabs a beer, and settles in one of the easy chairs. He pulls out a small, spiral bound notebook, and flips through the pages.
“You’re going to love this,” he begins. “Charlie Farrell let me see the ME’s report on Fuller. Guess what cause of death was.”
“We already know, don’t we? He was strangled with a camera strap.”
Coop studies me for a moment. “You were only in the trailer briefly. Besides Fuller’s body, do you remember what was in the bedroom?”
I think for a minute, trying to picture the cramped bedroom. “The bed of course, small dresser, a chair, and a filing cabinet.”
“Exactly. A tall, four-drawer, metal file cabinet.”
“So what are you saying?”
“The crime techies found blood on a corner of the file cabinet. Pretty sharp corner, but that’s not all. They determined the cause of death was the head wound.”
“What? I don’t understand. That means—”
“What the ME calls postmortem. When that camera strap was wrapped around Jerry Fuller’s neck, he was already dead.”
I stare at Coop for a moment, and sit down on the bed, trying to take this in. “Are they sure?”
“Oh yeah, there’s no question. Charlie Farrell thinks there was a struggle, Fuller was pushed, fell back against the file cabinet, hit his head, and that was it. Most likely an accident. Certainly not premeditation. Then, the body was moved to the bed and made to look like he was strangled.”
“But why? That makes no sense.”
“That, my friend, is the big question. Maybe to complicate the crime scene. If you plan to kill somebody, you don’t push them into something with a sharp corner and hope for the best. No, I think it was accidental, too, a argument, a struggle that got out of hand. The killer panics when he realizes Fuller is dead, but it was an accident. Depending on who it was, natural instinct would be to call 911, wait for the police to arrive, and accept the consequences. Lots of questions, like what was he doing there. There’d be an investigation, a trial, the whole process, which could mean going to jail.”
Coop gets up and paces around. “Or, if it were a different kind of person, one who wants to avoid publicity and has a multi-million dollar project going, get out of there as fast as he can.”
“Or he could have said, he came to see Fuller and found him dead.”
Coop shakes his head. “But he didn’t. Even if he had, there would still be a lot of questions to answer, and a headline like ‘Hollywood producer found at death scene.’ The press would start digging into Fuller’s background and eventually make the connection to Stiles.”
“Okay, so why didn’t he just run?”
Coop presses on as if he hasn’t heard me. “Instead, he moves the body to the bed, looks around, grabs the first thing he sees—a camera strap—tries to make it look planned, something nobody would think this person, whoever he is, would be capable of.”
“Making him the least likely suspect.”
“Exactly.”
I pace around the room trying to digest Coop’s theory, the ME’s report. “I don’t know, Coop, that’s a big stretch isn’t it?”
“For now, a big stretch is all there is.”
“So where does that leave Robbins?” He might have killed Fuller accidentally, but there was still the mention of the camera strap. “By the way he knows we were at Mario’s. Torino told him. Robbins came out to see me today, to let me know that he knows you got the time stamp on the credit card slip from their dinner.”
“Doesn’t really matter,” Coop says.
“Why not?”
“When Robbins left Mario’s, he had some kind of alleged car trouble, and of course he didn’t want to get his hands dirty or muss his expensive suit, so he called Torino, who called a garage. It’s all documented by the tow truck driver.”
“Farrell verified all this?” Coop looks up at me and raises his eyebrows. “Okay, of course he did. It’s just that—”
“It’s too well-covered?”
“Yes.” I sit down again. “I can see Robbins confronting Fuller, pushing him, cracking his head on the file cabinet. But moving the body, trying to make it look like Fuller had been murdered? I don’t buy it.”