The Movie-Town Murders (The Art of Murder 5)

“I don’t know. She didn’t share the title. She did say it was a crime film from the 1950s and that it was listed on the…the lost film list.”

Ah yes. The famous Lost Film List.

Jason liked movies—who didn’t?—and he’d been part of a few investigations involving film piracy. The making and selling of bootleg films continued to be a booming business: the movie and TV industry projected $51.6 billion in losses to online piracy that year. Despite living next door to Hollywood, the movie biz was not his area of expertise, but he knew from his own experience within the art world that if Georgette Ono really had located a print of a much-sought-after rare or lost film, someone might have been willing to kill her to get their hands on it. Fanatical collecting was not limited to any one art form. Hell, there were people willing to shoot each other over trading cards in a Target.

He said, “That’s very helpful. Thank you, sir. Is there anyone else you feel I should take a particularly close look at?”

Ask and ye shall receive. Ono launched into a list of possible suspects and potential enemies that rivaled the Hollywood blacklists of the ’40s and ’50s. Soup to nuts, students to night watchman, in Ono’s opinion, no one had played too small a role in his granddaughter’s life to escape special scrutiny.

Or at least, no one in Georgette Ono’s personal and professional life. Unsurprisingly, the senator did not consider anyone closer to home a suspect, and it probably went without saying that he wouldn’t appreciate Jason doing so. But according to the Bureau’s latest homicide statistics, the vast majority—a staggering fifty-eight percent—of murdered women and girls were killed by intimate partners or other family members.

Given that his prime directive seemed to be to appease the former senator, Jason listened attentively, took notes, and kept his mouth shut. But while he was not going to upset the old man unnecessarily, he was also not going to allow him to limit the scope of this investigation. Kapszukiewicz had said that “the family” had trouble accepting the accidental-death verdict, but as far as Jason could tell, the only family member calling for further investigation was Ono. He found that interesting.

When the interview concluded, the slim, silent housekeeper reappeared to see Jason to the front door. He left Senator Ono drinking brandy and staring somberly at his portrait over the fireplace.