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

Margot laughed and waved away his identification. “You’re too young to know what that is. You must watch a lot of movies.”

“More than I used to,” he admitted, putting his wallet away.

She led the way into a bright and airy white living room with glossy wooden floors and lots of windows looking onto the pretty garden. Despite the extensive—and no doubt expensive—renovations, the house still retained that vintage Hollywood charm. Or maybe the vintage Hollywood charm was coming from the room’s inhabitants. An elderly man and two ladies of a certain age were seated on the comfortable, “modern cottage” furniture.

Jason didn’t recognize the women, but the man was a crinkled-parchment version of Joe North.

North rose—still tall and straight-shouldered—and Jason shook hands. “Thanks for seeing me, Mr. North.”

A tiny, elegant African American lady of about seventy, said, “You should have arrested him years ago. I would have thought Heavy Evil was sufficient grounds.”

They all laughed, and Jason knew it was going to be a very long afternoon.

In fact, it was one of the easiest interviews of his career.

Typically, he wasn’t fed lunch, let alone information, on china plates or in crystal glasses. But Joe North and company loved to eat, loved to drink, loved to talk, and loved visitors, even those carrying badges.

Granted, not everyone who had something to hide realized they had something to hide. Just look at Don Miller. That would be Don Miller the amateur archaeologist, not Don Miller the serial killer. Presumably, Don the serial killer had known he had something to hide. Over the course of his lifetime, Don the amateur archaeologist had amassed a treasure trove of thousands of artifacts, some legally, some illegally purchased. All were summarily confiscated by the government, which would probably spend the next fifty years trying to sort out which was which.

“That limey movie gets all the credit, but we were actually the first to use the word homosexual in an English-language film,” North said over the chicken à la king. “That’s to say, the word was on a book my character finds in the Doyle character’s apartment.” He took a sip of white wine, nodded to Margot, the silver-haired woman who had answered the door, and said, “Nice bouquet on this chardonnay. There’s a subtle citrus undernote.”

“Lovely peach aroma,” agreed Margot.

North must have been a better actor than Jason realized because the majority of his roles had been handsome tough guys who mostly thought with their fists and almost always got the girl—barring those rare occasions he had to send her up the river. The reality was this genial, chatty old gentleman.

“You were married when you filmed Snowball in Hell, weren’t you?” Jason asked.

“He was always married,” Mary Beth, the small African American lady, commented, and once again the others laughed in chorus.

“I didn’t know I had a choice,” North said. “We didn’t, really. Not back then. Not if you wanted a real career. I warned David plenty of times. He was a much better actor than me, but he just couldn’t play the game.”

“He was born into the wrong century,” Lulubelle said sadly.

Lulubelle was the youngest of the group. She looked to be in her late fifties-early sixties, a curvaceous, aging, blonde bombshell who, apparently, was an aspiring writer of thrillers. She had already interrogated Jason about firearms training, profiling terrorists, and crimes on the high seas. Though saddened to learn that most of his cases involved trying to recover objects of cultural value, she was still making the most of her chance to grill a real live FBI agent.

“Were you and David Aubrey close?” Jason asked North.

“Not really.” North winked. “Not as close as we’d have been if his pasty-faced boyfriend hadn’t been hanging around all the time.”

Margot said, “The movie was supposed to be inspired by real events, wasn’t it? There really was a Doyle at the Tribune-Herald?”

North snorted. “That’s what they said. Of course, they said that about a lot of films back then. Based on a true story!” His tone was mocking. “Anyway, they wouldn’t have used his real name. You’d have lawsuits up the yin-yang.”

“True.” Lulubelle spoke with the authority of all aspiring authors. “Nothing ruins a career faster than a defamation lawsuit.”

“I’m glad the film’s getting a second chance at life, though. I did some of my best work in that picture. Aubrey thought it was going to be his big breakthrough.”

Jason cautioned, “I’m not sure how much of a revival the film’s going to have if a complete print can’t be found. You were my best hope.”

North shook his head regretfully. “It wouldn’t have occurred to me to try to get a print of any film I was in. It’s not like they handed ’em out as souvenirs. What would I have done with it? It wasn’t like it is now days. Back then, you didn’t pop a tape in a VCR if you wanted to see one of your old movies. I’d have had to stay up past my bedtime and watch it on late-night TV between all the porno commercials, like everybody else.” He gave that croaky-frog laugh. “Anyway, I can’t stand to watch myself. Never could.”

“Joey has one of the original movie posters framed in the family room,” Lulubelle said.

“I’d love to see it,” Jason replied.

Accordingly, they moved the party into the spacious family room, and Jason admired North’s vintage movie poster collection.

“Most of the times the posters were better than the movies,” North admitted. “I used to look at those posters and wish I could be in that movie.”

The artwork for Snowball in Hell was especially nice. The vibrant red-and-black representational style looked like the work of Reynold Brown or, more likely, an imitator.

The tag line across the bottom read: We all have our stories, Mr. Doyle. Don’t we?

North said suddenly, “You know who did have a print? Of the film, I mean. Aubrey. Of course, by the time he died, he might have sold it for another hypo full of dreams.”

“David Aubrey had a complete print of Snowball in Hell?”

“He said he did. I don’t know why he’d lie about it. I don’t know what good that does you either. He died a long time ago.”

“1967.” A decade after the movie had been made. And yes, that was a long time to hang on to a tin of film nobody else wanted.

“What about the boyfriend?” Lulubelle, the would-be crime writer, put in, and it was a good question. “Were they still together when Aubrey died?”

“I don’t know if there’s room for a third party in a junkie’s life,” North said. “I will say, that kid was crazy about Aubrey. Never took his eyes off him all the time we were shooting.”

“I wouldn’t either with you on the scene,” teased Mary Beth.

Jason couldn’t quite get a fix on this household. The women all seemed to have worked for various studios at various times, so was that the connection? Were they all simply good pals and roommates? Nobody appeared to be a blood relation. Lulubelle and Mary Beth seemed like they might be a couple, but all four of them were extremely comfortable, even cozy. It was nice, but puzzling.

“How old was he? Aubrey’s boyfriend?”