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  “Yeah. That’s him.”

  “Looks like an asshole.”

  “It’s an occupational hazard.”

  MacAullif looked at me. “You don’t like the guy?”

  “He hired me six months ago. At the time I was grateful.”

  “You’re really writing the guy’s movie?”

  “That’s debatable.”

  “Oh?”

  “Sometimes I feel like I’m hired as a typist. He tells me what he wants and I type it.”

  “Is that true?”

  “No.”

  “Then how is it?”

  I took a breath. “He tells me what he wants, and it’s so fucking stupid I can’t imagine it. But I got twenty-four hours to figure out how to make it work and stick it in the script. If I can,he’s a genius. If I can’t, I fucked up.”

  “Shit. Makes ambulance chasing sound almost respectable.”

  “Did you come here to discuss my screen career?”

  “I came here because I thought there was a problem. Apparently, there’s not.”

  What MacAullif was referring to was the fact the dead body had turned out to be a John Doe. A derelict dressed in rags with no identification on him. Obviously a homeless man who’d somehow wandered into the building and expired. While violence hadn’t been ruled out, the man hadn’t been shot or stabbed, so it was possible his demise had been from natural causes. At any rate, the man appeared to be associated with the building rather than the movie crew, which made him less of a priority.

  “If there’s really no problem,” I said, “why are you pissed off?”

  “It’s no problem for you,” MacAullif said. “ For me, it’s still a potential homicide. One I wouldn’t have caught if you hadn’t called.”

  “You saying I shouldn’t have called?”

  “No, damn it,” MacAullif said. He grimaced, shook his head. “See, that’s where you piss me off. You put me in a no-win situation. Here’s a piece-of-shit case you saddled me with, and you get to be a wise ass and say, ‘Well, would you rather I didn’t tell you?’”

  “Well, would you?”

  “Fuck you.”

  “I’m sorry, MacAullif. But how was I to know it was a John Doe?”

  “Does the guy look like a bank president to you?”

  I let my eyes widen. “What’s that? Are you saying the poor don’t have the same rights as the rich?”

  “What was that you asked me before? Why you pissed me off?”

  “Guilty as charged,” I said. “Look, if this is really routine, you ‘ wanna let the crew go before they get testy?”

  MacAullif looked over at where the officers were holding the crew, then back at me. “They were born testy. What the fuck do you care?”

  “Hey,” I said. “I suggested to them that I call you. They’ll be pissed at me if it turns out to have been a bad idea.”

  “Well, I certainly wouldn’t want anyone else pissed at you.”

  “Come on. I didn’t hit you over the head and say come down here. I apprised you of the situation. I considered it almost a courtesy.”

  “You’re a regular Emily Post.” MacAullif sighed and shook his head. “All right, I’ll cut you a break. Let’s have ’em one at a time and I’ll let ’em go.”

  MacAullif looked at me, rubbed his hands together.

  “Okay. Bring on the whiz kid.”

  4.

  SIDNEY GARFELLOW ACTED AS IF he were in charge, as if it were still his show.

  “Thanks for coming, Sergeant,” he said. “I really appreciate it.”

  MacAullif blinked. I could practically see his mind going, trying to choose an adequate response—the number of devastating rejoinders that sprang to mind must have been overwhelming.

  He opted to ignore it. “You’re the producer-director?” he said.

  “That’s right. Sidney Garfellow.”

  MacAullif jerked his thumb. “Then you can thank this guy for calling me for you. I’ll try to make this as painless as possible and get you out of here. If these questions sound stupid, they’re just routine. You’ll find it’s a lot faster to just answer them than get all huffy and want to know why the fuck I’m askin’.”

  Sidney Garfellow smiled. “Well put, Sergeant. What do you need to know?”

  “This warehouse—you ever been here before?”

  “No.”

  “You’re renting it for the movie?”

  “No. We were looking at it to see if we wanted to rent it.”

  “You came here this afternoon to look at it?”

  “That’s right.”

  “You all came together?”

  “That’s right. All of us. Oh.” Sidney nodded to me. “Except him.”

  “He met you here?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Who came first?”

  “He did.”

  “How’s that?”

  “When we drove up, he was here.”

  “Where’s here?”

  “Right out front.”

  “The main door?”

  “Yes. If that’s the main door. It’s the only door I know.”

  “The door was locked?”

  “Yes, it was.”

  “How?”

  “With a chain and padlock.”

  “Was that the only lock?”

  “Actually, I think the door was locked too. You’d have to ask Jake.”

  “Jake?”

  “Jake Decker. The production manager. He opened the door.”

  “He had the keys?”

  “Yes.” Sidney smiled. “Well, if you want to be technically correct, Sergeant, I didn’t see the keys. But I assume he had them, since he opened the door.”

  “Which one is Jake?”

  “You can’t miss him. He’s the size of a small truck.”

  “Right,” MacAullif said. “So he opened the door and you all went in?”

  “That’s right.”

  “What happened then?”

  “First we couldn’t find the lights. Then someone turned them on.”

  “Who?”

  “The production assistant. I don’t know his name.”

  “He found the lights?”

  “Yeah.”

  MacAullif jerked his thumb. “Which one is he?”

  Sidney looked, said, “Oh, actually, he isn’t here.”

  “Oh?”

  “I sent him outside to wait in the car. In this neighborhood, you know.”

  “Right,” MacAullif said. “Anyway, you got the lights on. What happened then?”

  “So we looked around.”

  “What were you looking for?”

  “Shooting space. We were looking to rent this place for a movie studio. Build sets in. Shoot scenes in.”

  “I see,” MacAullif said. “Now, that was downstairs. Why’d you come up here?”

  “The wood floor.”

  MacAullif frowned. “What?”

  “The floor downstairs is concrete. You can’t hammer into it. You’re building sets, you want to hammer into the floor. Now, we can lay down a floor, but it costs money. But up here’s wood.”

  MacAullif nodded. “I see. Did you know that?”

  Sidney frowned. “What?”

  “When you came—did you know the floor up here was wood?”

  “No, I didn’t, actually,” Sidney said. He added, “Not my business to know. In fact, I thought the space downstairs looked pretty good, before Jake told me up here was wood.”

  “Jake?”

  “Yeah. Like I said, the production manager.”

  “He told you this was wood?”

  “Yeah.”

  “While you were still downstairs?”

  “Yeah. That’s why we came up here.”

  “I see,” MacAullif said. “And how did you get up here?”

  “The stairs.”

  “And who found the stairs?”

  “I don’t know. I think it was Jake. It wasn’t important at the time. Is it important now?”


  MacAullif shrugged. “Too early to tell what’s important and what isn’t.”

  “Then you’ll have to ask Jake.”

  “Don’t worry, I will,” MacAullif said. “So you got up here, and what happened?”

  “We looked for the lights. That took a while. I don’t remember who finally turned ’em on. Then we looked around.” Sidney broke off, put up his hand, and looked at MacAullif. “The place is perfect for filming. I know this is terrible to say, Sergeant. But I’d really hate to lose this space. I know you have a dead man here, and it’s tragic and all that. But I hope it’s not gonna shut down this building.”

  “I don’t see why it should,” MacAullif said. “Go on. You were saying. You got the lights on, you looked around.”

  “I think there was some discussion of where we could shoot. Some scenes I want Stanley to write. The acoustics, and running power upstairs. And how we’re going to get the equipment in. And that’s when we went to check out the elevator.”

  “You all went to check it out?”

  “Oh, sure. All together.”

  “And what happened?”

  “Well, we all went over there. And someone, I think Jake, pressed the button, and the elevator came down.” Sidney shrugged. “And there he was.”

  “Right there in the elevator?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Right where we found him?”

  “Absolutely. Right like that.”

  “Did anyone go in the elevator?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely. Actually, someone tried to and he stopped ’em.”

  I tried to look modest.

  Sergeant MacAullif wasn’t impressed. “So no one actually went in?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Because he stopped you?”

  “Not me personally. He just stopped anyone from going in there.”

  “Right,” MacAullif said. “Of course, he was the one called and got me over here.”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “So what about then? Who kept people out of the elevator then?”

  “I did,” Sidney said.

  “You’ll vouch for the fact no one went near the body during the time Stanley wasn’t present?”

  “Absolutely,” Sidney said. “No one went near it.”

  “Glad to hear it,” MacAullif said. “And the dead man—had you ever seen him before?”

  “No, of course not. Why would I?”

  “Why, indeed?” MacAullif said. “Okay, that will do for now. Stanley, you wanna run him over there and bring me that, what’s his name, the giant?”

  “You want me to stick around, Sergeant?” Sidney said. “In case his recollection needs prompting.”

  “Thanks all the same,” MacAullif said. “In these cases we prefer independent testimony.”

  “You’re letting him stay,” Sidney said, indicating me.

  “He’s a detective,” MacAullif said, as if that was any explanation.

  It wasn’t, but Sidney accepted it as such and said, “Suit yourself.”

  I figured Sidney Garfellow would be pissed off by MacAullif’s attitude. But as I led him back over to the others to fetch the production manager, he tugged at my arm, jerked his thumb in MacAullif’s direction, and said, “I like him.”

  5.

  SEEING JAKE DECKER NEXT to Sergeant MacAullif was the first time I realized just how huge the production manager actually was. MacAullif was a big, beefy cop. But next to Jake Decker he looked small.

  “Now, then,” MacAullif said. “Your name is?”

  “Jake Decker.”

  “You’re the production manager?”

  “That’s right.”

  “As I understand it, you came with the others, you all came together except him, when you got here he was waiting outside and the door to the warehouse was locked?”

  “That’s right.”

  “How was it locked?”

  “With a chain and padlock. Also, the door was locked with a regular lock and a police lock.”

  “You had keys to those locks?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Where’d you get ’em?”

  “From the rental agent.”

  “When did you get ’em?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “Yesterday?”

  “Yes. Yesterday afternoon.”

  “How’d you get ’em.”

  “Actually, I sent a gofer for ’em.”

  “Gofer?”

  “Production assistant. Kid who drives the car. I called up the rental agent, told ’em we wanted to see the place, they should give me the keys. I sent the kid over to get ’em.”

  “They just gave you the keys?”

  “Sure.”

  “Why didn’t they show you the place themselves?”

  “They wanted to. I said no. I don’t like those guys around when I’m lookin’ at property. It inhibits discussion. So I told ’em to give me the keys.”

  “And they gave ’em to you?”

  “Sure.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Hey, it’s not like I asked if I could have the keys. I told ’em I wanted ’em.”

  “Yeah,” MacAullif said. “But it’s not standard procedure for a real-estate agent to just give out the keys.”

  Jake what’s-his-name looked at MacAullif as if he were a total idiot. “Sergeant,” he said. “We’re the movies.”

  Funny. It was just like MacAullif’s explanation to Sidney Garfellow about me being a detective. Except that explanation was bullshit and this one meant something. Jake was right. We were the movies, and people do things for movie people they wouldn’t ordinarily do for anybody else. And even MacAullif, who’d never worked in the movies, took that as an explanation.

  He nodded. “Right,” he said. “So they gave you the keys. Now, this production assistant you sent for them—is that the same one who’s here today? The gofer?”

  “Oh, yeah. It was Dan.”

  “Dan is the production assistant? Do you know his last name?”

  “Not offhand.”

  “Anyway, you sent him for the keys, he brought them back, he gave them to you when?”

  “Yesterday afternoon.”

  “What time was that?”

  Jake frowned. “Is it important?”

  “Well, now,” MacAullif said. “I’m just starting this investigation, so I don’t know what’s important and what isn’t. So I have to ask my questions in order to find that out.”

  “Right. Well, it happens I was out yesterday afternoon. So I didn’t actually get the keys till about six o’clock.”

  “When you got back to the office?”

  “Right.”

  “This production assistant gave them to you?”

  “No. He wasn’t there.”

  “Then how’d you get the keys?”

  “He left them on my desk.”

  MacAullif s eyes narrowed. “Oh, yeah? Is that what you told him to do?”

  “No, but I wasn’t around, so that’s what he did.”

  “And you just happened to look on your desk and found the keys.”

  “No. I got back to the office and said, ‘Where’s Dan?’ And the girl there, the secretary who runs the office—Grace, her name is—said he went out but he left the keys on my desk.”

  “She knew about the keys?”

  “Of course. She works there. She made some of the calls to the rental agent for me.”

  “I see. And do you remember what time it was when you asked Dan to get the keys for you?”

  “Not really. It was earlier that day. I think right after lunch.”

  “So he went and got the keys. When he came back and dropped them off you were out. He left them on your desk, and they sat there until six o’clock when you came back and picked them up? Do you have any idea when it was he left them on your desk?”

  The production manager blinked. He cocked his head, squinted sid
eways at MacAullif. “Do you mean to imply that yesterday afternoon someone took those keys from my desk so they could get in here and kill that bum?”

  MacAullif sighed. “I don’t mean to imply anything. I just gotta get my facts straight. So I’m wondering how long those keys were lying on your desk.”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  “At any rate, you picked them up around six o’clock last night?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Did you come over here then?”

  “Certainly not.”

  “How about this morning? Did you come over here this morning?

  “No, I did not.”

  “You didn’t decide to scout out the place on your own ahead of the crew?”

  “No.”

  “Why not? Wouldn’t that be a help? To know where things are. To anticipate their questions. Wouldn’t that save time?”

  Jake nodded approvingly. “You’re good. I like the way you think.”

  “That makes sense to you?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “But you didn’t do that?”

  “No. In a perfect world, I would. But this is a skeleton crew. A three-week preproduction schedule. You ever work in the movies, Sergeant?”

  “No.”

  “Well, trust me, that’s short. There’s a million things gotta be done in those three weeks, and I got no one to help me do them. No unit manager, no location manager. None of the people you’d have on a big-budget movie crew. Independent low-budget means you do a lot of stuff yourself. So I don’t have time to prescout locations. I got the girl in the office calling around for me lining things up, and I go out and see ’em with everybody else.”

  “So this was the first time you’d ever been here, the first time you’d seen the place?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And the dead man-—that was the first time you’d ever seen him too?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “You have no idea who he is?”

  “No, I do not. If you want a theory, I’d assume he’s a homeless guy broke in here looking for a place to sleep, and was unlucky enough to drop dead in the elevator.” Jake shrugged. “But that’s just how it looks to me.”

  I had a feeling that was how it looked to MacAullif too, but he just nodded and said, “Thank you, Mr. Decker. Now this production assistant—the gofer—I believe he’s waiting outside in the car?”

  “He should be.”