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

Chapter Ten

Calida Lois was a small, stocky Blasian woman in a tight black skirt, white tube top, and a black hat with ball fringe. She had spectacular teeth, which she brandished at Jason in a not-exactly-a-smile, and eyeliner Cleopatra would have envied. But then she was what was still known in SoCal as in the business. The business being movie making. People in the business were never off, which was probably why they were meeting in trendy, glam Intercrew versus somewhere they could actually talk.

Or maybe not talking was the point.

Ormaybe Lois just really liked the Anejo honey sour cocktails.

“You’re late,” she informed Jason.

It was exactly one minute to eight, but Jason said, “Thank you so much for waiting.” He took a chair across the table from the blue banquette where she sat.

The restaurant was huge. A sobriety test of a marble staircase led down to a moodily lit maze of low couches and tables and chairs. Chandeliers that looked like deadly ice sculptures hung from towering ceilings. The music—K-Pop—was deafening. Every seat in the place was taken.

Lois extended a small hand with long pearl-colored nails. It was not in greeting. “Credentials.”

Jason handed over his credentials, and Lois spent a full minute studying his ID. At last, she handed back the leather badge holder. “You don’t look like an FBI agent.”

“We don’t all look alike.”

Lois’s eyes narrowed, but then she laughed. It was an attention-grabbing laugh, but seemed genuine.

“That’s a good one. Let’s order because it can take forever when they’re busy—and they’re always busy.”

“Sure.”

Their server appeared right on cue, and Lois started with the Astrea caviar at one hundred and forty-five dollars a pop and a bottle of Red Car Estate chardonnay at one hundred and twenty-three. Jason pictured what George Potts would have to say about his expense report and ordered a Kamikaze.

Under the mellowing effect of good wine and caviar served on toasted baguettes with sunshine eggs and crème fraîche, Lois unbent a little.

“So, in answer to your question, no, I did not kill Georgie.”

“That wasn’t my question,” Jason said. “Professor Ono’s death was ruled accidental.”

“Yeah, and I’m up for an Academy Award. I know exactly what you’re about, Mr. F. B. I.”

About three hundred dollars including tax, and they still hadn’t ordered dinner.

Jason tried to reassure her. “Professor Ono’s family is having trouble coming to terms with her death. I’m hoping I can bring a little closure by helping them understand what happened.”

Lois arched against the back of the blue banquette, cackling. “Right. They just can’t figure it out! Like they don’t have any part in this.”

“You think it was suicide?”

“It sure as hell wasn’t accidental. My girl never had an accident in her life.”

“I spo—”

Lois cut in, “And she sure as fuck didn’t accidentally strangubate herself.”

“Okay. You knew her. Why would she kill herself?”

Lois raised her chin, said haughtily, “Maybe she killed herself over me.”

“Did she?”

“No.” She reached for her wineglass. Her smile was odd. “She wasn’t that invested. Not in me. Not in anyone else either.”

“Then, again, why would she kill herself?”

Lois swallowed a mouthful of wine, considered, said, “Whilst the balance of her mind was disturbed. That’s what they say in those old movies, right?”

“I guess so. But what would have disturbed the balance of her mind to such an extent? The argument with you?”

Lois laughed, but this time it was quiet and a little bitter. “No. I was the one trying to get back together that night. She didn’t care. I was crying, and she was bored. That’s why—” She cut herself off.

Jason said, “The discussion turned physical?”

She curled her lip. “Turned physical. You could call it that. Have you ever sobbed your heart out to someone and had them sit there like a stone, like they’re wondering if they remembered to set the DVR?”

It hadn’t been quite that bad, but Jason could relate. There was no one stonier than Sam when he shut off. He made a noncommittal noise.

“I wanted to shake her into showing she felt something. But I just scared her.” Lois said wearily, “I scared myself.”

Jason began, “She had a lot of bad news in a short amount of time—” but was interrupted by the server arriving to take entrée orders.

Lois ordered the Australian Wagyu Tomahawk—on-the-bone ribeye steak imported from Japan—with romesco and horseradish cream, and priced at a gulp-inducing two hundred and seventy dollars. Jason went for the spicy Sichuan fried chicken and summoned another Kamikaze posthaste.

As their server vanished into the crowd, Lois said, “Not getting tenure was bullshit. She was right to take that personally because that was absolutely payback.”

“Payback for what?”

“The previous year she’d filed a complaint with the administration, stating she’d experienced chronic operational and procedural problems amid a contentious and distrustful work environment. You can imagine how much that was appreciated.”

“I’m guessing things got a little awkward?” Jason suggested.

“To say the least. But before you discount what I’m telling you because other people are telling you how difficult Georgie was, she wasn’t alone in her feelings. That film school is famous for low morale among its faculty, staff, and students.”

“Is it?”

“It is. And she wasn’t the first to try to bring the situation to the administration’s attention. Or the last. When the school’s Academic Senate concluded their eight-year review, they noted serious grievances coming from the student body as well. The dog-eat-dog attitude in the faculty ranks is an open secret.”

“So, you believe the unfairness of the administration’s decision drove Georgie to take her own life?”

Lois hesitated, admitted, “It wouldn’t have been that alone.”

Alex’s theory on why Ono had not received tenure boiled down to squeamishness on the part of the administration following a high-profile lawsuit. He wasn’t sure if Lois’s hypothesis was the more likely. In fact, he suspected these things combined had factored against Ono.

“When you heard the accidental-death verdict, what was your first thought?”

“No way.”

“You thought suicide made more sense?”

“No. No way.”

Jason opened his mouth, but Lois broke in with a heartfelt, “Neither makes sense. But the alternative doesn’t make sense either. Georgie would never open her door to a stranger.”

It wouldn’t have been a stranger, of course. It would have been someone who knew Ono. Knew her well enough to set her death scene with those particular props. Someone who knew her intimately. Someone she trusted.

As if reading his thoughts, Lois said, “Anyway, there are security cameras all over that building, so if they didn’t capture anyone…”

“Because of a perceived lack of available storage space, at that time Touchstone’s video surveillance system only archived for forty-eight hours. Georgie’s body wasn’t discovered until the relevant footage had been recorded over.”

“I didn’t know that. Oh my God.” Lois’s hand shook as she refilled her wineglass. “Have you spoken to Bardolf?”

“Not yet.”

“You need to talk to him. But don’t believe anything he tells you.”

Jason raised his brows. “Everything I hear, I take with a grain of salt.”

For instance, Lois had begun their conversation by denying her own involvement in Ono’s possible homicide, throwing shade on Ono’s family, then suggesting factors including run-ins with the administration might have led to suicide, and now, finally, she was hinting that her romantic rival, Professor Bardolf, might hold the answers.

The only thing Jason was sure of was that Lois’s feelings for Georgette Ono were possessive and passionate and had led to at least one physical altercation.

He asked, “Did Georgie tell you she believed she’d discovered a possibly valuable lost film?”

Lois frowned. “That fell through.”