“Hold that thought about Vancouver. Please find Fielding. Or do whatever you have to do, but someone needs to pick up Michael Bell for questioning. Michael Bell. Marti Lowenstein-Bell’s husband.”
“What?” Jeanne sounded incredulous. Then Page swore, obviously muffling the receiver.
I gave them a very quick rundown of my last two days up here, then finally the names on the visitor log at the state hospital.
“He knows Mary Constantine. He’s visited her here in Vermont before. Several times, actually.”
“And what? He’s been setting her up? How would he even know she was in L.A.?”
“I don’t know everything yet. Maybe she looked him up when she got there; maybe they corresponded. If he wanted her story, it would have been worth something. I think he did want it, just not for a movie.”
“You think it was a cover, maybe to kill his own wife? That’s a big-ass coverup, Alex.”
“Sure is. It’s an incredible story, too. Page, are you getting this?”
“Got it. And I like it. Finally, something makes some sense to me.”
“Good. Then do a direct cross-reference—Michael Bell and anyone else connected to this case. I wonder if he had a bigger agenda than just his wife. Find out anything you can, surfer boy. All we need for now is enough to justify holding him once LAPD gets him into custody.
“Jeanne, listen, please. If I’m wrong, I’m wrong. I say figure it out later and get a cruiser over to Michael Bell’s house. Now. And, Jeanne.”
“What?”
“Don’t go over there by yourself. I’m pretty sure that Bell is our killer.”
Chapter 116
SUDDENLY THE WHOLE CASE was on fire again.
About ten miles from the hospital, I pulled over at the first gas station I saw, an ancient Texaco with a flying A over the roof. A Ford F-150 pulled in after me, but the only other building in sight was a darkened sugarhouse in a field directly across the road. I could see a couple of Holsteins grazing in the field.
I called Karl Page again from another pay phone. I needed to hear what he’d found out about Michael Bell.
At this late hour, catching a flight out of Burlington seemed unlikely; I wanted to stay updated all the same, and was concerned for Page and Jeanne Galletta. Who knew what Bell was up to in L.A.?
“What have you got so far?” I asked him.
“Amazing what you find when you look in the right place,” he said. “Before she died, Marti Lowenstein-Bell had just sold her own show to HBO. She was hotter than a fifty-dollar pistol. On the other hand, Michael Bell’s last three solo projects went nowhere. His only big successes had been with her, and it looked like she was checking out. She was divorcing him, Alex. They hadn’t yet filed, but a friend of hers knew it was coming.”
“What did you say to me once? Cha-ching?”
“Yeah, and the hits keep coming. LAPD checked Bell’s alibis all right, but they all revolved around his being seen at work, or occasionally at home. Alex, the alibis aren’t going to hold up. And listen to this, Arnold Griner seriously trashed more than one of Bell’s movies when he wrote for Variety. Griner actually called him ‘Michael Bomb’ in one column, that kind of thing. Of course, in Griner’s case it might be justifiable homicide. Antonia Schifman? She backed out of a project that Bell was financing himself last year. Apparently after she gave him a verbal promise, which seems to mean next to nothing out here. The whole thing fell apart, and he lost a half million in development.”
I could hear the adrenaline in Page’s voice. He was like a greyhound at the gate. “I’ll bet anything there’s more,” he said. “Bell’s career was headed down the crapper, and he was going to bring everyone down with him.”
“Keep digging,” I said. “Great work, too. Any more word from LAPD? Jeanne?”
“A cruiser went by the Bell house. No answer.”
“Did they go inside?”
“No. But they were pretty sure nobody was home. The house is under surveillance.”
“All right. I’ll call when I stop again. Probably out near the airport. Unfortunately, I think I’m stuck here for the night.”
I didn’t want to spend the night in Vermont, especially now, but it didn’t look as though I had much of a choice. I thought about stopping into the small store at the gas station, buying something awful like chocolate cupcakes, or M&M’s with peanuts, but I mustered all of my willpower against it. God, I am impressive occasionally.
I turned toward the rented car and started to walk with my head down against the wind. It was getting nippy up here. A few feet away from the car, I looked up and stopped dead in my tracks.