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

Joe found this in a folder with some old contracts. Second from the left is David Aubrey’s boyfriend. Marty? Hope this helps.

M.

Heart beating in anticipation, Jason downloaded and clicked on the black-and-white photo. Four men on a film set. He easily identified Aubrey and North; both were in costume. He was pretty sure the man to the right of North was director Henry Walsh. Jason turned his attention to the fourth man. Slim and pretty in a waifish way. Also very young. This would be Marty, the teenaged hustler, and Aubrey’s boyfriend. Marty had pale hair, horn-rimmed eyeglasses, and gave the impression of watching Aubrey even when he wasn’t looking at him.

Was he familiar? Jason tipped his head from left to right, trying to get a better angle. Do I know you, Marty? He zoomed in on the photo, zoomed in on Marty’s pouty mouth and big, colorless eyes.

“Gotcha.” Jason sat back in triumph. He felt validated but also a little shocked as he gazed at Marty AKA Martin MacIntyre AKA Pop. Former guardian and now the ghost of the archives.

An hour later, Jason was still a little shocked.

According to Campus Human Resources, each department was responsible for the maintenance of personnel records for staff employees in accordance with the provisions set forth in UC-PPSM 80, blah, blah, blah.

According to the Campus Security Authority, Martin MacIntyre had retired in 2015.

2015.

That would have been around the time the archives had been moved to Santa Clarita. Around the same time, Tim Pearce, Chair of the Department of Film, Television, and Digital Media—and Aric Bern’s predecessor—had also retired.

Was it that simple? Had Pop continued to come to work for the next seven years and no one noticed?

Granted, Pop had an uncanny ability to make himself scarce when he wanted to. Like now, when he was nowhere to be found.

Jason called around until he was able to locate Aric Bern at brunch with friends. Bern freely admitted he had no idea of Pop’s work schedule. In fact, he was grateful for Pop’s devotion to duty. Bern had figured Pop was close to retirement, but had been hoping he might hang on for another year or two.

“C-c-close to retirement!” Jason spluttered. “The guy’s gotta be in his eighties.”

“Some people don’t age well,” Bern retorted.

After that, Jason spent some time trying to track where Pop lived. Assuming it was not in a cleaning closet somewhere on campus.

Campus Security’s last known address turned out to be a dud. The apartment complex had been torn down three years prior to make way for a shopping complex. Jason managed to find another address through the Social Security Administration. That turned out to be a post-office box at Mail and More in Hollywood.

Progress. Sort of.

From there he turned to the DMV. The DMV had the same address for Martin MacIntyre as the Social Security Administration. Also of interest: they listed MacIntyre as the registered owner of a 1962 gold Chevy Impala. It got better. In 1966, the car’s registration had been transferred from a David Aubrey to MacIntyre.

Jason absorbed that information with little surprise. By now, he thought he had a pretty good picture of how Professor Georgette Ono had come to learn about what was perhaps the only existing copy of Snowball in Hell—and why that knowledge had proved fatal.

But why the hell would Pop have gone so far as to kill Ono? She couldn’t have forced him to give the film to her.

Did Pop understand that?

Ono was not good at taking no for an answer. Had she threatened him?

With what?

Jason sat up straight and stared at the scratched and battered door of his temporary office. Had Ono, naturally suspicious and perhaps looking for leverage, done a little looking into Pop’s background? Perhaps his employment record? Had she discovered Pop’s secret? Had she threatened him with exposure?

You didn’t have to be Sam Kennedy to understand how Pop would react to losing his—imaginary—position at UCLA.

Nor was it hard to believe that one person Ono would open her door to, no matter what the hour, no matter what she was doing, was the person in possession of Snowball in Hell.

Nor did Pop need to know anything about Ono’s sexual habits in advance. Suppose, after he’d killed her, he walked into her bedroom, and saw what she’d been up to? You wouldn’t have to be a master criminal to recognize the advantage of using existing props in order to rearrange the scene to look like suicide.

Case closed?

Well, no, not really. But yes. Kind of.

Since no federal crime had been committed—no piracy, no copyright infringement, no art moved across state lines or sold internationally—no federal statute applied, so Jason would be handing everything he had over to LAPD. Assuming their findings matched his own, it would be up to the local Assistant District Attorney to prosecute.

All that remained was for Jason to finish his report, phone Kapszukiewicz and, with her permission, contact Senator Ono.

By the time Jason left UCLA, it was after five.

The blue sky was fading, and the late-afternoon sun cast a hazy golden sheen over the trees and towers growing small in his rearview mirror. The traffic was light, and he was content.

The call with Kapszukiewicz had gone well. Even better than he’d hoped. He felt…redeemed. More importantly, Kapszukiewicz seemed to believe he was redeemed—or that her faith in him was redeemed. Either way, a weight he had not been aware of fell from his shoulders.

The call with Senator Ono had not gone as well. Or, at least, the old man had cried, and that had been hard to listen to. But Ono had insisted he was glad to know the truth, and Jason believed him. Sometimes the truth was all there was to give.

As he drove, he kept an eye out for the gold Chevy Impala, but there was no sign he was being followed. If Pop had any sense… Well, given the things Pop had done—done and gotten away with—there was no predicting.

And sure enough, when Jason reached Carroll Canal and Court D, he spotted the Impala several houses down, partially concealed behind large green and blue trash barrels.

It seemed he hadn’t been the only one spending the day doing research. Although in Pop’s case it looked more like reconnaissance. Jason found his phone, dialed 911, provided his badge number, and reported the situation to the Venice Beach substation. He gave the dispatcher a description of the Impala, a description of Pop, and warned that he too would be on scene and armed. Getting shot by local law enforcement would not be much of an improvement over getting shot by Pop.

Not that Pop was necessarily armed. He seemed to favor improvising with whatever was at hand. However, trying to overpower Jason would not be like overpowering a small, unprepared woman. Pop had presumably planned for tackling Jason.

Parking several houses down in the opposite direction from the Impala, Jason got out and jogged back down the secluded alleyway to his bungalow, keeping beneath decks and overhangs, staying in the shadows as much as possible. He was on high alert, his heart pounding, but he kept his weapon low, braced for running into someone walking their dog or carrying the trash out. It was dinnertime, and his neighbors seemed to be busy preparing their meals. He could hear the clink of glasses and laughter from porches. Delicious aromas of cooking food mingled with summer flowers and the ripe and dusty scent of the alley. His stomach growled. There hadn’t been time for breakfast, and he hadn’t stopped for lunch.

Jason reached his side gate. He took a couple of deep, steadying breaths. He did not want to get ambushed.

Was it possible Horace’s presence might have scared Pop off?

Or was Horace also wandering around armed and ready to shoot at the snap of a twig?

Jason swore softly. His gaze fell on the FOR RENT sign on the house next door.

He crossed the garage beneath the two-story, vaulted the low iron gate, and moved silently—as silently as he could through dead leaves—along the side of the house. He noticed the trash bins against the wooden fence were filled with garbage, which was odd, given the house had been empty for at least a month.

As he moved down the length of the tall wooden fence, he listened closely for sounds of approaching sirens or movement from his own yard. No sirens. He could hear the chimes on the pergola over his walkway, skateboarders on the sidewalk across the canal, a plane droning overhead.

The fence provided more privacy than he’d realized. The best view into his own property would be from the upstairs deck of this house.

Where the hell were the cops?

In fairness, it had probably been no more than four minutes since he’d phoned for assistance. Four excruciatingly long minutes.

There were floor-to-ceiling windows all along the side of the house, but they were fixed picture windows. Jason rounded the corner, followed the hedge-lined walkway to a small wooden deck with a firepit. He crossed the deck, tried the tall glass doors, and was not entirely surprised when they slid soundlessly open.

His heart was hammering against his collarbone as he traveled down the long, unfurnished room. He noted an open-hearth fireplace, built-ins, wooden floors. No sign that anyone had been there in weeks. He ran up the wide, open slat staircase, reached the top level, weapon at ready.

There’s no one here. The house is empty.

The house felt empty. But the sense of looming menace only grew stronger with each step.

Now Jason could hear the wail of sirens approaching. Far from reassuring, that high howl seemed to spiral with his ever-rising anxiety. He felt like he was moving in slow motion through a nightmare as he crossed the landing into the primary bedroom.

Absently, he was aware of more built-ins, another fireplace, more windows, glass doors leading out onto a balcony.

The scream of sirens echoed off the walls and pavement of the alley behind the house. He registered the pound of boots, the clunk of body armor, the crackle of radios—and the smash of his wooden gate going down.

And, more distantly, he heard someone shouting for help.

A thin, hoarse voice crying out from the canal.

“Help! Murder! Help!”

Now what?

Jason pushed out through the glass doors. Something hard and small rolled beneath the sole of his boot. A pebble? He picked it up automatically, strode onto the balcony deck with its picturesque vista of the canal and the expensive homes across the water