Fixed in Blood Page 24

Lydia forced herself to breathe. This isn’t justice, she thought. This is regulated bullshit. This is the kind of bureaucratic nit-picking that lets children die. That leaves people to suffer and mourn while the savages roam free. A low-pitched whistle burrowed in her ears. Her jaw churned with words she dared not speak.

  Mort’s phone rang. Lydia and Micki turned to watch his face as he answered.

  “Got it,” was all he said before he hung up. “The warrants are out for Anthony Feldoni, Ben Verte, and Eddie Yavornitzky.” Mort turned to his right. “Micki, you stay here. Coordinate with Jimmy when he brings in Tom Lightfoot. Do what you need to find Jennifer. Whatever manpower or firepower it takes, bring her in. Maybe we’ll get lucky and she’ll be with Delbe. If she isn’t, get her to tell you what she knows. Then go get Delbe. Keep me posted every step.”

  Lydia held her breath. She didn’t know in that moment which she wanted more, to be there when Mort arrested the man in the snuff films or to be free to go search for Delbe herself. She needed to do something.

  Mort nodded as though he’d read her thoughts. “Liddy, you’re with me.”

  Chapter 39

  Mort kept one eye on the road and the other on the woman sitting next to him. Lydia stared straight ahead as he zoomed down I-5, the lights and siren mounted on the roof of his Subaru clearing a path through midafternoon drivers. He’d asked Lydia to trust the system and feared what could happen if that system failed.

  Mort turned off the interstate and made quick time on the side roads and gravel climb leading to their destination. He might have shown the discretion of turning off the lights and siren as he approached the closed movie set, but he wasn’t in the mood for subtlety. Hollywood needed to know they were here.

  “Hang tough, Lydia.” Mort pulled his car into the same parking area and cut the engine. “We’re almost there.”

  She turned toward him with cold eyes, then got out of the car.

  River Leaf was the first to run up to them. This time her blond pixie cut was lit up with streaks of pink.

  “Hold on there, Sheriff,” she said. “What’s with the drama? Ben’s going to have your hide. It was all-quiet-on-the-set time and here you come, sounding like the town’s on fire. You ruined his shot. He is definitely not going to be happy.”

  Mort and Lydia ignored her and walked toward a knot of cameras. All eyes were on them as they passed by extras and support crew. Mort remembered Anthony Feldoni’s rant about no one having access to cellphones. He smiled to think of the fading actor’s reaction to the dozen or so people recording every one of Mort and Lydia’s determined steps.

  Ben Verte walked toward them, his anger evident. Behind him trotted Anthony Feldoni, still sporting the prizefighter-ready-to-spar costume he’d worn during their last visit.

  Right down to the taped hands.

  Ben got to them first and launched into his rant. Mort wondered if it was in spite or for the benefit of the scores of people watching.

  “What the hell?” The director reached up to yank off his Nothing but Money baseball cap. He again wore the fingerless gloves he’d said helped him grip the cameras. “I was twelve minutes into a thirteen-minute shot. You assholes ruined it all with that damned siren. I made myself perfectly clear, didn’t I? You were to call. Now get off my lot.”

  Feldoni caught up with him, huffing from the jog across the field. “The fuck you doin’ here?” His attention to Lydia was particularly foul. “You think you’re gonna trick me again or something? That’s what you think, you fucking cunt? No way in hell I’m letting you or anybody botch my movie. You understand?”

  Mort glanced over to see Lydia unmoved by Feldoni’s threats. “Anthony Feldoni, Benjamin Verte,” he said, adding volume to his voice. He wanted anyone filming this mid-field encounter to have some audio to go along with it. He pulled two folded sheets of paper out of his jacket. “I have warrants authorizing the examination of your persons. You have the option of participating in said examination at the precinct, in a local hospital, in your attorney’s office, or we can do it right here.”

  Ben Verte looked dazed. “An examination of our persons? What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Yeah.” Feldoni puffed his chest out and looked around to see who was listening. “What’s this about, anyway?”

  Mort kept his volume high and his words clear. “I am authorized to examine your hands. Right and left. Top and palm. I am authorized to remove any makeup that may be on those hands and to take photos.”

  Verte looked at Feldoni, who looked back over his shoulder to a foursome of actors coming up behind them. They were costumed like Feldoni. Mort remembered Feldoni saying his character was a retired heavyweight who had a business training young fighters.

  “And I am further authorized to take action as I deem prudent following said examination.”

  “This is an outrage.” Ben Verte looked like a balloon with too much air in it, ready to pop. “I’ve got a movie to finish. The studio attorneys are going to have a field day—”

  “Hold on a minute.” Anthony Feldoni held up a taped hand. He yelled for makeup and two young women ran toward them. They each wore aprons with multiple pockets. Brushes, sticks, packets, cans, and tubes Mort couldn’t identify poked out of them.

  “What the hell are you doing, Tony?” Verte asked. “Let’s get our lawyers on this.”

  Feldoni shook his head. “Like you said, we got a movie to finish. Let’s get this gumshoe…” He turned again to Lydia. “…and whatever the fuck you are, out of our hair and get back to it. They wanna see our hands, let’s show ’em our hands. Simple as that.”

  Verte bounced his gaze between Feldoni and Mort. “I don’t like this. They’re looking for something. We should have representation.”

  Feldoni chuckled. “What is this? Contract negotiations? They wanna see our hands.” He tilted his head to the young women in the aprons. “The gals can have us back to normal in no time. This thing with the cops goes away.” He looked at Mort through droopy eyes. “Who you want first? It matter?”

  Mort didn’t know what Feldoni was up to, but was willing to see what came next.

  “I’ll go.” Feldoni held out his hands to the makeup assistant closest to him. “How about it, doll? Chi Chi, am I right?”

  The pretty brunette shook her head. “My name is Willa.”

  Feldoni laughed out loud. “Well, you look like a Chi Chi to me. Got your scissors, Willow? How about you cut me out of this tape and let the detective get an eyeful.”

  Willa pulled blunt-edged scissors from her apron. Mort saw Lydia take in every move. Ten seconds later Anthony Feldoni’s hands were free of the tape. Mort was surprised to see the amount of makeup revealed.

  “I need ’em clean.” Mort turned to the makeup assistant. “Is that something you can do, Willa?”

  “I got wipes right here.” Willa pulled a foil packet from another pocket. “This stuff will wipe the paint off a wall.”

  Feldoni smirked. “By all means. Wipe away.”

  Anthony Feldoni stared at Lydia while Willa cleaned the actor’s hands. First the right, then the left. Lydia and Mort watched as each swipe revealed more of the actor’s actual skin. Willa used four presaturated wipes to remove all the stage makeup. She ran one last swipe over Feldoni’s palms before turning to Mort. “Squeaky clean.”

  Mort saw pale skin, veins, and age spots. He held his disappointment in check. “Dr. Corriger, could you examine?” He hoped using her honorific would up the tension in the two men.

  Lydia reached out to take Feldoni’s right hand in hers.

  “A doctor, huh?” Feldoni’s tone was dialed to full swagger. “I usually don’t go for smart broads. Too much trouble. But a doctor. I guess you know all about how to make a body hum, am I right?” He looked over his shoulder again, grinning to the actors behind him. “Maybe exceptions could be made.”

  Lydia leaned in close, seeming to examine every pore. She ran her own hands over Feldoni’s, as though feel
ing for residual scarring. In the end she turned to Mort and shook her head.

  Feldoni rolled his shoulders and played to the crowd. “We gonna take pictures now? You two a couple of pervs who get off on photographs of movie stars’ hands?”

  Mort ignored him and turned to Verte. “You’re up. Don’t ruin my hope for California by telling me you have makeup on your hands.”

  “I don’t like this,” Verte said. “I feel like I’m walking into something I shouldn’t be. Why don’t you just tell us what you’re looking for?”

  “I made myself pretty clear,” Mort said. “I’m looking at your hands.”

  “Do it, Director Man.” Feldoni was holding out his arms again. The assistant who wasn’t Willa was reapplying coats of tinted cream to the actor’s hands. “Patty here…it’s Patty, am I right?”

  The young woman didn’t look up. “I’m Elaine.”

  Feldoni blinked in confusion. “My bad. Anyway, show your hands, Ben. I promise it don’t hurt. Ellie here’s gonna get me all trussed up and maybe we’ll be able to reshoot this scene in time for me to get home to bath time with my kid.” He gave another lecherous leer to Lydia. “Family’s everything, am I right?”

  Ben hesitated.

  “You want me to count to ten, then haul you down to the station?” Mort asked.

  Ben Verte gave an exaggerated shake of his head. He mumbled something about human rights while he ripped open the Velcro on his gloves. He pulled off the right, then the left and held his hands up. Turning them this way and that for inspection.

  “You satisfied?” he asked.

  “Willa, wipe him down, please,” Mort said.

  “Mr. Verte doesn’t get made up,” Willa said. “He’s the director. He’s always behind camera.”

  “Humor me, Willa.”

  The assistant pulled a fresh wipe out of its foil wrap. She used just one to swipe his hands. She held up the cloth for Mort. “See?”

  Another wave of disappointment surged through him. Verte’s hands were smooth. His nails trimmed and buffed to a satin shine. His hands were tanned, but from where Mort stood, that was it. He saw no flaking, no discoloration.

  No psoriasis. No scarring.

  One glance to Lydia showed she saw the same thing he did. Still, she asked the director if she could touch him. Verte agreed and Lydia inched her hands over his, rubbing, probing, sensing. Again, she turned to Mort and shook her head.

  “Are we done here, Detective?” Verte asked.

  Mort sensed they weren’t. The cameras used to film Crystal’s and Francie’s deaths came from this lot. The cameraman who had them last was missing. Mort turned to the makeup assistants.

  “You two know Eddie Yavornitzky?” he asked.

  The two women looked at each other with vacant expressions.

  “Eddie Yaz,” Lydia said. “He’s a cameraman.”

  “Oh, Eddie Yaz.” Elaine pointed a makeup brush toward her colleague. “You know who they’re talking about. That great-looking guy with that fabulous hair. Always asking questions. Curious about how everything works.”

  “You mean the guy with the limo?” Willa asked. “Yeah, we know him. Everybody on the set knows Eddie Yaz. I mean, what techie comes to work with a car and driver? Daddy’s money is what I heard. Handsome enough to be on the other side of the camera. Charming, too. But he’s got the attention span of a squirrel. Shoves his way into conversations. Wanting to know stuff. Kind of not respecting boundaries, you know?” She waved a finger back and forth. “I always say that much cash is bound to ruin people.”

  “Seen him lately?” Mort asked.

  Both women shook their heads.

  “You ever notice his hands?”

  “Don’t answer that,” Ben Verte barked. He leveled a glare at Mort. “We’re running a movie set here, not a fishing expedition. You want to talk to anyone on this set, you get another warrant. Or you take the whole group of us downtown, I don’t fucking care. Everyone here watched us comply with your requests. In good faith. Without complaint. Now I suggest you leave before I ask all the ways the studio attorneys can spell ‘harassment.’ I’d love the publicity. Maybe it’ll get some people in to see this fiasco of a vanity project.”

  “Hey!” Feldoni shouted.

  “Leave now, Detective.” Verte bent down, picked up his baseball cap, and pulled it back on his head. “I’ve got a movie to wrap up.”

  Chapter 40

  “Our killer is on that set,” she said. “I’m going to find him.”

  “You’re not going to do anything, Lydia.” He regretted the sharpness of his words even as he was saying them. “The Fixer is dead, you got that? We’ll find Delbe. And the bastard who killed Crystal and Francie, too. But if I have to worry about you putting us both at risk by resurrecting histories better left buried, I swear to God I’ll put you under house arrest with three armed guards until this whole damned thing is over.”

  She kept her eyes on the cars around them as Mort turned into the precinct parking lot. “If it was your life’s goal to see me in a jail, you could have done that a couple of years ago.”

  Mort pulled into his parking stall, killed the engine, and turned to her. “I need you to hear me, Lydia. I’ve got you. I’ve got your back. I’ve got you covered. I’m in your corner.” He threw his hands up in frustration. “I’m running out of clichés here. No one will ever learn about The Fixer from me. You and I are the only ones who know what we did.” He’d sacrificed too much of his own integrity to risk that she’d crumble now. They’d both end up locked in a cage forever.

  “I’m not the one who hurt you all those years ago,” he told her. “I’m not going to be held hostage to whatever dark demon you’ve got lurking inside you.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “It means I’ve been watching you.” He looked out the closed window. No one was in the lot. “I don’t know if we can ever really leave the past behind. Hell, I think about Edie, Allie. All the mistakes I’ve made. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to really get past them. But I’m going to try. I’m going to do what I can, right here, right now, to do the right thing.”

  “And I’m not?”

  “I don’t know what the hell you’re doing.” His frustration was morphing into something he couldn’t name. “This look comes over you. It scares me. It makes me wonder if The Fixer is roaming around, getting all heated up. We’ll find Delbe. The right way. Micki, Jimmy, me. We find bad guys. And you can either help us or I can put you in a corner somewhere until this is all over.”

  Her eyes were cold blue ice. “You think you can do that, Mort?”

  He stared at her for several seconds. “Don’t make us find out.” His phone rang before she could respond. He looked at the screen. “It’s Jimmy.” Mort hit the speaker button and held the phone between them.

  “Tom Lightfoot’s dead. I just got back from his place. No sign of Jennifer.”

  “What happened?” Mort and Lydia both released their seatbelts and got out of the car. “Where are you?”

  “I just left the scene. Micki’s there with a team. Looks like a bullet straight to the head.”

  Mort was furious. “Who was watching the house? Who let the killer walk right past them?”

  Lydia matched him step for step. They entered the back door of the police station, striding past uniforms making the shift change. They each focused on Mort’s phone.

  “Doesn’t look like that’s how it went down,” Jim said. “Tom Lighthouse decided to make Jennifer an orphan all by himself. Pulled himself into his dress blues and dusted off his Marine-issued service revolver.”

  “Suicide?” Mort said as they reached the elevator. The door opened; he was glad to see it empty. He and Lydia boarded and he punched the number for his office floor. “He leave a note?”

  “He did, indeed. Said to tell Jennifer he was sorry. Wants her to be brave. Says he can’t wait to be with Mary. Asks to be cremated and have his ashes spread across the Quinoc reserva
tion.”

  The elevator doors opened and Mort and Lydia headed down the corridor. “And no one heard anything.”

  “You were on his street, Mort. It’s not exactly Shady Lane. Cars and buses all the time. I know where you’re at. I want to bust a few heads myself. But he was in the back bedroom. Caliber was just the right size to kill him without making a big boom doing it. No way my guys could have heard it.”

  Mort swore under his breath and unlocked his office door. “I want Doc Conner on the autopsy. Tell him to look for anything that might indicate this wasn’t a suicide.”

  “I hear you, partner. But sometimes trains are on their own track. This is gonna turn out to be one of those times.”

  Mort didn’t want to hear one more word about destiny. He turned to Lydia. “We needed what Tom Lightfoot knew to come out on top.”

  “You’re in the murder business.” She sounded weary. “You win when you catch the bad guy. But someone’s still dead. There’s no coming out on top.”

  Mort looked at his whiteboard. “We need Jennifer…Delbe…Eddie Yaz. Hell, I’ll take the tattoo artist. Any one of those will lead us to Charlie Fellow.”

  “Or…”

  He turned back to her. “There’s no ‘or,’ Lydia. We’re going to get this. All we need is one more link.”

  “Dad?”

  Mort and Lydia turned in unison to the office door. There stood Robbie, holding a large box.

  “Hey, Robbie.” Mort shifted his tone from angry frustration to as near a semblance of welcome as he could muster. “Good to see you, son.” He pointed to Lydia. “You’ve met.”

  Robbie headed to Mort’s desk, but kept his attention on Lydia. “You on the payroll now? It’s good to see you again.”

  Lydia nodded and said the same.

  “She’s pitching in on a case. Giving us some psychological insight.”

  “Like profiling?” Robbie asked. “Hey, maybe you’d let me pick your brain sometime. Dad tell you about what I’m working on?”

  “No, he hasn’t. Last I knew, you were touring the world promoting your book on The Cleaner.”