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

Joe North, on the other hand, had married three times and had a long list of film and TV credits, which just went to prove how little time Jason spent at the movies. North’s last TV appearance had been in 1990. Jason couldn’t find an obituary, so it was possible North was still out there somewhere. Which meant it was possible North was the source of this alleged print of Snowball in Hell.

There were other possibilities, including everyone in the cast and crew of Snowball in Hell. There were also plenty of other ways a film could fall into unauthorized hands.

While Snowball in Hell did not appear to have been widely distributed, release prints had been made and provided to theaters. Projectionists were often a source of pirated films. But hell, random citizens were known to discover lost works, like the eBay buyer who’d purchased a can of nitrate film and discovered Chaplin’s Zepped. Or the lost 1962 Chinese film Big and Little Wong Tin Bar,which had been found on YouTube in 2016. So.

Was it likely a complete print of Snowball in Hell was floating out there on eBay or YouTube or in somebody’s great-uncle’s attic? No. But it was possible. Georgie Ono was a naturally suspicious person. If she’d been trying to get the money together to purchase the print, she had to have seen something that convinced her the film existed. Something more than the bits and pieces Jason had so far uncovered.

Had Georgie’s interest in Snowball in Hell predated being approached by a seller? Or had the opportunity of purchasing the film sparked her obsession? The question was important because if her hunt for the film predated being approached by a possible seller—if her interest was widely known in the cinephile community—it was possible she had been the target of a well-thought-out scam.

Which might explain why the “seller”—after getting to know Georgie a bit better—had reconsidered making her his next victim.

But if the film did exist, if the attempt to sell had been sincere (even if there had been second thoughts), then there was a more than decent chance the print had come from a private collection or the estate of someone involved in the film’s production.

Since his hunt had to begin somewhere, tracking down the cast and crew was as good a place to start as any.

It was nearly five when Jason returned from showing The Birds to students in the Hitchcock and His Influence class. Halfway through the film, he’d realized Dahle’s notes were actually for an older Hitchcock film called Blackmail, so he’d had to resort to bluffing his way through the thirty minutes of discussion that followed. He could only imagine his next batch of Rate My Professor’s Substitute scores.

To add to his chagrin, Sam had still not returned his phone calls.

This time Jason called Jonnie despite the fact that it was nearly eight on the East Coast and he’d probably be disturbing her at home.

The phone rang a couple of times, and then Jonnie answered with, “Hey. I was trying to decide whether to call you. Have you heard from Sam?”