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

Chapter Five

Hugo Quintana, the burly security guard who admitted him into Touchstone’s towering thirty-four-story, luxury, glass-and-steel apartment complex, clearly thought Jason was up to no good.

Even after a quick conference with the onsite manager, Hugo insisted on accompanying Jason to the thirty-first floor, watching in grim silence as Jason unlocked the apartment formerly occupied by Georgette Ono. It was a keyless entry. Jason typed in the pin, pushed the door open, nodded pleasantly, and shut the door in Quintana’s face.

He turned the deadbolt—it seemed Ono had not placed all her faith in technology— which slid home with a satisfying clunk.

Hefty security hardware and the presence of hypervigilant security seemed to answer one question.

Fourteen hundred square feet, floor-to-ceiling windows, premium wood-style plank flooring, a gourmet kitchen with custom Italian cabinetry, and state-of-the-art appliances answered another.

Jason had no idea what film studies professors earned, but an apartment at Touchstone went for anything from $4,000 (a broom closet maybe?) to $30,000 a month. Outside the budget of most college professors, surely. Most FBI agents too. But Professor Ono’s apartment had been leased by her family, and it was through arrangement with the family that Jason was to occupy Ono’s rooms while he worked her case.

Ono’s papers, books, and personal effects were supposed to be preserved and waiting for him, and fingers crossed that was true. Families had a way of “editing” the historical record of any information they deemed unflattering to themselves or their loved ones. Which just went to prove that for some people there really was a fate worse than death.

Anyway, it was a nice place—bigger than his little bungalow—with lots of light and inspirational views of the ocean and mountains. There was patio access from both bedrooms and the living room. Tall glass doors led out onto a long, expansive balcony that allowed in a cool ocean breeze too high and refined to carry any whiff of smog.

The walk-in closets in the silver-and-white master bedroom still held Ono’s clothes—and hats. A whole row of fedoras and felt hats in different colors were posed on blank-faced mannequin heads on the top shelf of her closet.

Now there was a door you’d want to keep shut at night.

The built-in shelves still held her photos and knickknacks. Not many of either.

Whoever had cleaned up the crime scene—if crime it was—had done an impressive job. Other than the fact that the queen-size bed with its upholstered white-leather, geometric headboard was missing its mattress and bedding, there was no sign anyone had ever stepped inside that silver-and-white, pristine space-capsule of a room, let alone died there.

Jason had seen the police-cam footage, however, and there was no forgetting those images.

The shelves in Ono’s office were crowded with books and a few more bibelots. There were framed detective film posters on the walls and a weighty replica (presumably a replica) of the Maltese falcon statue from the film with Bogart and Bacall. A computer sat on the desk, but according to his notes, it was brand-new and Ono had not finished setting it up at the time of her death. LAPD had examined Ono’s phone and laptop, but found nothing of interest and returned them to the family. Jason had a copy of the computer forensic analysis of Ono’s electronics and had to agree with the conclusion that there wasn’t anything useful to be found. No threatening emails. No sinister meet-me-at-midnight texts.

If, after a full and thorough investigation, LAPD had failed to find anything suspicious, how likely was it Jason was going to stumble over a convenient clue, especially when the FBI did not, typically, investigate homicides.

Or at least, the homicides the Bureau concerned itself with tended to be those that threatened society as a whole: serial killers, for example, or hate crimes, or murder on federal property, or the murder of an elected or appointed federal official, like a senator. The murder of a retired senator’s granddaughter was stretching things, but that was the way of the world. Exceptions could always be made for the rich, the famous, the powerful, or the lucky-enough-to-know-someones.

Which didn’t alter the fact that Jason didn’t work a lot of homicides. Granted, he’d been involved in more homicide cases since he’d met Sam, but his ordinary workday didn’t involve much whodunit. He was grateful for this case, grateful for the chance to redeem himself in his superiors’ eyes, but he couldn’t help wondering if he’d been handed this one in an effort to keep him out of further trouble.

Or, possibly, punishment for getting into trouble in the first place.

Long-lost detective films notwithstanding, there really wasn’t a lot to support the claim that LAPD had rushed, let alone botched, the investigation into Georgette Ono’s death.

Did Senator Ono’s insistence on foul play in the death of his granddaughter stem from his own feelings of guilt for not paying closer attention to what had been going on with her? Jason wasn’t sure. If the coroner’s office had ruled suicide, he could have better understood Ono’s insistence that the case be reopened, but the family had been thrown a bone with that accidental-death verdict.

Maybe Ono knew something nobody else did? More than once during their interview, Jason had the feeling the senator was withholding information. But he’d also suspected that, in his grief, Ono was grasping at straws.

The challenge was always to separate what had happened from what people thought had happened. Witness testimony was famously unreliable, and one of the main reasons for that had to do with the limitations of memory. Memories could fade, degrade, yes. But memory also had a way of evolving to accommodate new information. Georgette Ono had died six months earlier, so it was safe to assume both erosion and embellishment in the memories of all who’d known her. Certainly, half a year ago there had been no mention of legendary lost films or sinister cinephiles.

Jason didn’t discount anything he’d learned from Senator Ono, but he had a whole hell of a lot of verifying to do, and not a lot of time in which to do it.

He was shaving his head in the spa-like master bathroom when Sam phoned.

Jason put down the razor and answered his cell. “Hey. What’s up?” Sam didn’t typically phone during the workday, but every so often their cases intersected.

“How was your flight?”

“Not bad.” They had been in touch, of course, but had spoken less frequently while Jason had been out of the country. Even then, Sam had probably learned way more about Dutch museums than he’d ever wanted to know.

“And the meeting with de Haan’s girlfriend?”

Honestly, Jason was surprised Sam even remembered he’d been meeting with Anna the day before. Then again, not many things slipped Sam’s mind.

“Sad. She’s brokenhearted. But I’m glad I went. She didn’t know that Hans planned to ask her to marry him or that he’d made up his mind to take a leave of absence.”

In fact, at first Jason wasn’t sure it had been a good idea to tell Anna any of that. But after she’d stopped crying, she’d insisted she was glad to know de Haan’s plans. She had struck him as a realist. She understood the choices de Haan had made, disastrous as they had proved.

“Good. Glad it was successful.” Sam sounded preoccupied. Jason could hear the soft click of computer keys in the background. “How’s the case?”

“Early days, but…interesting.”

“Are you getting settled in?”

Not that Jason wasn’t happy to hear from Sam, but this was kind of strange. Sam wasn’t one for chitchat. Or at least not workday chitchat. He wondered uneasily if there was another reason for this call, something Sam wasn’t looking forward to telling him.

“Yep. Staying in Ono’s apartment is a useful setup. Is everything okay?”

Did Sam hesitate? His “Yes” was firm enough.

Jason steeled himself to ask. “Is there any update on Kyser?”

The soft clicking stopped. Jason heard the squeak of Sam’s chair. “No. I’m sorry. Nothing so far.”

“Nothing to be sorry for. It’s not your fault.”

“We’re going to get him. It’s just a matter of time.”

Jason managed a brisk, “Yep. I know.”

“In the meantime, you’re off the grid. You’ve got some room to breathe.”

“Right. Yes.” Not for the first time, Jason wondered if the Ono case had deliberately been pitched to him as a softball. He considered. If the purpose of this call wasn’t to bring him up to speed, then Sam wanted to talk for another reason.

Jason asked. “How are things there?”