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

“LAPD wanted to write the victim off as a suicide. UCLA’s PD couldn’t sign off on that. The ME couldn’t determine either way because the victim wasn’t found for four days and had been in a physical altercation on the evening death likely occurred. So, in consideration of the family—meaning a former senator—the case was closed as accidental death possible suicide.”

Sam made a noncommittal hm.

“The family is struggling with the accidental-death verdict, let alone possible suicide. Her grandfather insists she was murdered. She does seem to have had a problematic personality.”

“Would you like me to—”

“No, no,” Jason said quickly. “I’m just thinking out loud. I was viewing this more as a diplomatic mission, but there might actually be a case worth investigating. How’s it going there?”

“The usual bureaucratic bullshit.”

“Right. I meant with the Roadside Ripper case. The possibility that Berkle might have had an accomplice.”

It wasn’t like Jason hadn’t realized the personal implications for Sam in the news that Berkle might have had an accomplice. Obviously, Sam would have feelings about the possibility Berkle hadn’t acted alone. Given Sam’s belief that Ethan, his college boyfriend, had fallen prey to the Roadside Ripper, he had to be experiencing a painful mix of emotions.

But Sam said crisply, “As of now, that’s all it is. A possibility. A theory.”

And there was the catch-22. Emotionalism—his own or anyone else’s—made Sam uncomfortable. Which in turn inhibited Jason’s natural, quick sympathy. He knew Sam sometimes found his reactions a little “operatic.” The trick was finding the balance between supportive and, er, startling.

When Sam had phoned earlier that afternoon, he’d seemed to think the theory of Berkle’s accomplice was credible, and his instinct had been to talk to Jason. To turn to Jason. But that impulse had passed.

“Right. Well.”

At the same time, Sam said, “I just wanted to touch base. Make sure you were…”

Alive? He’d have known if Jason wasn’t. If that plane had hit Touchstone, it would have been all over the news. This was probably another instance of WWWD. Sam doing what he figured Jason would do, what Jason would expect. Which didn’t make it any less heartfelt on Sam’s end—or gratifying on Jason’s.

He missed Sam. He would have given a lot just to spend tonight together at home—either of their homes, or hell, even a hotel room—just sharing a meal and talking.

Jason smiled. “Thanks. It’s always nice hearing your voice.”

Sam said sardonically, “I know. I get that a lot.”

And people said Kennedy had no sense of humor.

Jason chuckled, and Sam said in that softer voice he typically reserved for late night calls, “Have a good night, West. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

Jason spent the rest of the evening going through Professor Ono’s desk and papers.

He found a printed manuscript titled Hollywood Detour and the accompanying rejection letter.

He glanced through the pages, read a little of the introduction.

Lost films have a resonance beyond film history. They can help correct the historical record. They offer scholars an opportunity to see historical figures like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle or Teddy Roosevelt in action. They frequently feature real settings, forever preserving fragments of the past in amber: a detail of fashion, a type of automobile, a shot of a long-gone street. They help the contemporary viewer better understand how those who came before us lived, laughed, loved—and, in the case of crime films, died.

Granted, you could say that about all art, but film had the advantage of showing people in motion, and people in motion were awkward and vulnerable and human in a way people in a portrait were not.

He wondered what had attracted Ono to detective films specifically. It seemed a safe deduction given the Maltese falcon statue, the closet full of fedoras, and the movies posters of Chinatown, The Big Sleep, and The Long Goodbye.

Maybe it was in keeping with her inner control freak, as Detective Child had put it. Mystery movies explored the dark side of the human psyche, but detective films did more. They not only tried to explain the often inexplicable; they tried to bring resolution, even deliver justice.

What mysteries had Ono struggled to make sense of? What injustices had she wished to see remedied?

From the rejection letter, it was clear Ono’s agent had still been one hundred percent behind the project, still been confident they would place the manuscript at a publishing house, although it was looking more and more like it would be a smaller university press.

Since the objective for a professor seeking tenure would be publication with any reputable publishing house, it seemed to Jason that this motive for suicide could safely be scratched.

By then it was pretty late, and he turned to Professor Dahle’s notes and lesson plans. Dahle, a first-year assistant professor, was enjoying a few weeks of paid sick leave while Jason “covered” his classes. Jason’s plan had simply been to show movies and lecture rooms full of the most likely suspects on the fallacy of piracy as a victimless crime, but it seemed Dahle had higher ambitions for them both. After spending an hour trying to decipher pages and pages of Dahle’s microscopic scratchings, he turned to Ono’s bookshelves for both relief and inspiration.

Ono had about thirty books on film studies. More books on film theory, acting, directing, and several books on film preservation. And entire shelf was devoted to film noir.

He selected Queer Images: A History of Gay and Lesbian Film in America as his bedtime reading, and headed for the guest room.

Like the rest of the apartment, the decor was stylishly nondescript. Gray and white walls, gray and white bedding, silver-framed mirrors, and white built-ins. A dead African violet sat on one mirrored quatrefoil nightstand. A clock that had missed a time change or two sat on the other.

It was unexpectedly quiet up here with the clouds and stars—and despite the occasional plane. The Touchstone architects had invested in some serious noise reduction.

Jason undressed, washed up, and walked to the floor-to-ceiling glass doors, gazing out at the panoramic view of the tops of other sky-rises and busy city streets. Professor Ono had literally lived in an ivory tower. Okay, well, the tower wasn’t literally ivory, but the architectural attitude was.

Ono had spent her days trying to teach kids who didn’t like her about the value of a rapidly changing medium that recorded a world no longer in existence. And at night she sat up here, gazing down at buildings and streets filled with people going about their lives—from a perspective so removed, she might as well have been watching ants chasing breadcrumbs.

Or a movie from a distance?

What did you want?