A Mint Condition Corpse, page 19
part #1 of Kirby Baxter Series
"He's not a studio guard," said Arthur.
"What do you mean?" asked Kirby.
"Only six guys work directly for this facility," explained Arthur as he stepped out of the booth. "We just make sure no one enters the studio complex. The producers using the individual sound stages are in charge of their own security. They either bring in their own people, or they subcontract to a local security firm."
"Do you at least have a record of him coming in and out of here?"
"Sure," said Arthur, reaching into his booth and pulling out a clipboard. "Do you know what company he works for?"
"MaxCo Films," said Kirby, "he's working on The Vengeance Sisters movie."
"That narrows it down," said Arthur flipping through the pages. "According to this, he's on duty right now at sound stage thirty. You just go straight down there, and turn left. It's the big grey building with the number thirty painted on it in big red letters."
"Thank you," said Darling.
"So let me get this straight," said Darling as they got out of the car in front of the massive grey block of a building with the number thirty painted on the side in massive red letters. "Max Cooperman could actually make money if this film doesn't get made?"
"If he times everything just right," said Kirby, "he could cash in the insurance and retain control of the Atlantic Comics characters, even if he never actually finishes making the film."
"The movie business doesn't make any sense," said Darling.
"You're preaching to the choir," said Kirby.
"Do you think he's willing to kill to get this scam to work?" asked Darling as they walked to the door.
Kirby shrugged.
"The timing is all off," he answered. "None of the things he needs to happen will go into effect until Monday at the earliest when shooting is supposed to begin."
Darling tried the door.
"It's locked," she said. "Do you think we should knock, or should we keep our element of surprise?"
"I'm all for surprise," said Kirby. "Can you claim exigent circumstances since we have a potential murder suspect inside?"
"I'm sure we can justify popping the door," said Darling, "but it's steel and I don't think the studio's owners will appreciate me using a battering ram."
"Battering rams are unnecessary," said Kirby. "We can be subtle."
"How subtle?"
"Gustav," asked Kirby, "do you think you can handle this?"
The big man nodded, positioned himself in front of the door, knelt and took a small black package out of his jacket, and from that package he took out a small thin metal tool. He slipped it into the lock, turned it, and it clicked." Gustav smiled, put his tool back in its package, and put that back into his jacket pocket.
"What do you know," explained Kirby, "the door just spontaneously unlocked itself, thank you for discovering that Gustav."
Gustav nodded and stepped back from the door.
"Ladies first," said Kirby, "since you are the designated cop."
Darling drew her pistol, Gustav followed suit and gestured for Kirby to get behind him. Kirby obeyed and slipped behind the big man, after his rough encounter with Tanzerian he remembered that he preferred to illustrate heroes rather than be one.
Darling entered the sound stage.
"Pierre Laval," she ordered, "Toronto Police. Come out with your hands up."
No answer, Darling cocked her head to signal Gustav and Kirby to follow her.
"Now I know this movie is bullshit," said Kirby after seeing the inside of the sound stage.
"What do you mean?" asked Darling.
"Look around," said Kirby. Darling looked around, to her it looked like a cave decked out like a mad scientist's lair. Various strange machines and metallic scaffolding lined the faux rock walls, and a massive metallic V stood in the centre of it all. "Can you see all that's wrong here?"
"It looks like the Batcave from the old TV show," said Darling.
"Exactly," said Kirby, "it's supposed to be The Vengeance Sisters headquarters, but their headquarters is on the top of a tower overlooking the city. Trust me; the fans are militant nitpickers about such stuff. When I drew a crossover issue with my Shadowknight book, I got all kinds of snark in the fan forums about getting the shape of the windows wrong. The fanboys are going to look at this and carve this movie a new one before it's even released."
"Will that affect the box office?" asked Darling, re-holstering her pistol at no sign of Pierre Laval.
"If the book's core fans are doing nothing but crapping on a movie," said Kirby, "the general audience is going to be turned off from wanting to see it. The moment pictures of this set get on the internet, the movie's going to be branded a turkey before it's even released."
Gustav touched a wall, and it started to rock.
"I know that movie sets aren't supposed to be very substantial," asked Darling, "but I don't think the walls are supposed to rock like that."
"Especially when the trades are saying MaxCo spent over two million on this set alone," said Kirby. Then he froze.
"What?"
Kirby put a finger to his lips. Darling held her breath and heard footsteps in the distance, footsteps that were coming from behind a fake rock wall.
Darling drew her gun, and cocked her head to signal Gustav to follow her. Gustav drew his own pistol and stepped in behind her.
They walked in silence along the edge of the set. Carefully treading on the concrete floor to avoid making any noise. The trio approached a door marked STAGE OFFICE. Light seeped out from under the door, and Kirby could see the shadows of moving feet, and hear something coming from inside.
"Do you hear it?" asked Kirby from behind the wall otherwise known as Gustav, which experience taught him was the safest place to be.
"Sounds like someone talking."
"Singing," corrected Kirby. "I think it's ABBA."
Darling touched the doorknob, it was unlocked, and she swung open the door and stepped inside.
"Toronto Police!" she barked.
Kirby looked around Gustav and peeked into the room. Laval was sitting at a table, his back to Darling, a pair of chunky old school headphones on his head. That same head was bobbing up and down as he tunelessly sang along to his favourite Swedish pop quartet. He was working on something, Kirby could smell a soldering iron, and he assumed it was something to do with wiring.
Darling reached up and yanked off Laval's headphones. The man leaped to his feet, his old school portable CD player fell to the floor with a clatter.
"Toronto Police!" Darling yelled as she swung him around and slammed him against the wall.
"Tabernac!" barked Laval as he hit the wall.
"Pierre Laval, you're wanted for questioning in the murder of Erica Cross," declared Darling as she handcuffed Laval. She then turned to Kirby. "You can be subtle when you have to be, and I can be rough when I have to."
"Uh," said Kirby staring at table, "Houston, I think we have a problem."
"What problem?" asked Darling turning to look at the table. In the centre of the table was a contraption of metal pipes, wires and a digital clock. Something from inside the mass of wires was emitting a strange blue smoke. "That's a bomb."
"I suggest running," said Kirby.
"Good suggestion," said Darling, passing off Laval to Gustav, who more or less tucked the handcuffed man under one arm, and all four of them ran like hell for the exit.
"I think diving in the grass was a little excessive," said Darling. "The bomb hasn't even gone off."
"Damn," said Kirby from his spot on the grassy verge on the edge of the parking lot, "I was sort of going for the 'leaping away from the fireball action star' look."
Laval was cursing in French from his position pinned between Gustav's arm and the trunk of Darling's car.
Kirby sat up. "That had to be a bomb. I haven't seen many bombs in my life, but that sure looked like one."
"I'm calling the bomb squad," said Darling, pulling out her cell phone. "We better not take a chance."
Kirby stood up, brushed the grass from his jeans, and realized that he forgot his jacket at the police station.
"This is Sergeant Darling," she said, "We need the bomb squad at Northern Star Studios. We have a possible explosive device."
BOOM!
Kirby felt the shock wave tackle him across his chest and toss him like a four-hundred-pound linebacker in mid-steroid rage. The world spun, and he saw his sneakers backed by a clear blue sky. Then he felt pavement slam into his back, and the air stampede from his lungs. Everything went grey for a second. He waited for the roar to fade before he attempted to sit up.
"Is everyone okay?" he asked.
Darling sat up and nodded. Gustav gave them the thumbs up as he rose from the asphalt, Laval, who was beneath him, just cursed some more in French.
"It's not a possible explosive device," he said before coughing, "it's a definite." Kirby looked and saw that the rear half of the sound stage was now a heap of smoking shattered concrete.
"Now you'll never get your chance to try out your action star leap," said Darling.
"Definitely," answered Kirby. "Reality has terrible timing."
VOLUME THREE
THE DORK KNIGHT RISES
ISSUE #14
BUSTED / FLUSHED
"I want a lawyer," grunted Laval from his chair in Interrogation Room One, "and I want another doctor."
"Another doctor?" asked Darling. They had only just got back to the station after getting the 'all-clear' at the Emergency Room. Aside from a few bruises and scrapes to their bodies and egos they were all deemed fit for duty.
"I think that goon," growled Laval pointing at Gustav in the corner, his accent making it sound like 'I dink dat goon,' "cracked one of my ribs."
"He did save you from the explosion," said Darling.
"I got nothing to say about no explosion," said Laval.
"Fine," said Darling, "you know the drill. A lawyer will be obtained for you but remember, you were caught in the act of making a bomb. We can make a case for terrorism."
Kirby watched Laval's eyes widen in surprise.
"What are you talking about?"
"As far as we know," added Kirby, catching the hint and playing along, "you could be working for Al Qaeda, ISIS, or maybe the FLQ is making a comeback."
"Bullshit," muttered Laval, sounding like 'bool-sheet.'
"It's your funeral," said Darling, rising from her chair. "The crime scene unit called me from the scene while we were at the Emergency Room. The collapse of the building buried a lot of evidence, but buried evidence is pretty easy to dig up. They've already found a lot of bomb-making materials–"
"That's just common household stuff," said Laval with a shrug.
"The jury isn't going to hear that," said Darling, "not after months of the press calling your little back room a 'terrorist bomb factory.'"
Darling sat back, Kirby saw that it was his turn to talk.
"Do you know what catches people who make bombs?" asked Kirby.
Laval just shrugged.
"They get sloppy covering their tracks," said Kirby. "If they do it enough times they start to assume that all the evidence, like fingerprints and DNA are just going to be burnt up or blown up. The problem is that the labs these days have caught up to all that."
"But that's just small change really," said Darling.
"That's right," added Kirby, focusing on Laval's eyes, "there is the murder charge."
"What murder charge?" asked Laval. "Nobody got killed by that bomb! That's bullshit!"
"We're talking about Erica Cross," said Darling.
"Who the hell is that?" asked Laval.
"She's the young woman you murdered," declared Kirby.
"I have nothing to say without a lawyer," said Laval.
"Have it your way," said Darling, "the clock is ticking." Then she and Kirby rose from their seats, Kirby signalling Gustav to join them.
As they reached the door Kirby turned and asked: "Do you think a rich, pampered, Hollywood producer like Max Cooperman is going to be as tough as you under questioning?"
Laval folded his arms and lowered his head. It was an attempt at defiance, but Kirby knew he had him.
As the door clicked shut behind him Kirby said.
"He'll be ready to make a deal on the bomb, but I don't think he killed Erica."
"Did you read his mind?"
"Don't be silly," said Kirby, "it's just that all of his cues show guilt toward the bomb, and some shady business with Cooperman, but things were totally different when we mentioned Erica's murder. All of his little signals showed that he really didn't know who she was or what we were talking about."
"Not knowing who she was doesn't get him completely off the hook," explained Darling.
"Good point," said Kirby. "There is room for error, and there could be a whole unrelated reason for him to have done it."
"Excuse me," said a man with grey hair in the uniform of a police captain. "Sergeant Darling, can I have a word with you in private?"
Darling gave Kirby a signal to 'hold that thought,' and followed the captain around a corner. Kirby pricked up his ears, hoping to catch something, but all he got was some low muttering, then a very audible "What the hell?" from Darling, followed by something akin to a snake hissing.
Darling returned.
"My captain told me to take you back to your hotel and tell you to stay out of the investigation," said Darling.
"You did explain my status as a consultant to him?" asked Kirby.
"He knows all about it," said Darling, "but the explosion at the studio has made him worry about the optics of the situation."
"I've been almost killed twice today," said Kirby, "if anyone should want out, it should be me."
"Let me get to the end of my story," said Darling, "Because the captain told me something else."
"What?"
"Tanzerian escaped," answered Darling.
"How the hell does someone escape from a police station?" asked Kirby.
"It looks like he got the cop watching him to leave the room for a little over a minute, in that time he picked his handcuffs and walked out wearing your jacket."
"The bastard," said Kirby, "I loved that jacket."
"The captain became more reasonable about your involvement when I told him how certain members of my family wouldn't be too happy to hear over Sunday dinner tomorrow about a murder suspect escaping under his watch."
"Tanzerian isn't a murder suspect anymore."
"You know that, I know that, but the captain doesn't."
"Who is in your family to scare him so much?"
"I thought you'd have figured all that out already?"
"Even I have limitations," answered Kirby.
"You were right with that thing about my family; my dad retired a deputy chief, but his younger brother, my uncle, is the current deputy chief in charge of personnel," answered Darling. "The sort of person who would bust a captain down to meter maid for letting a prisoner escape."
"I like your style," said Kirby. "Oh, I should call Molly, make up some story about being nowhere near the explosion before it hits the news, or you'll have another murder to investigate."
"I'll warm up Cooperman for you," said Darling. "He's already got a lawyer."
"Good," said Kirby, as he took out his cell phone, "keep him and Weatherby separate this time. There's something there I can't quite put my finger on, and I need to keep them apart."
"No problem."
"Oh," said Cooperman looking Kirby over as he walked in the door of the interrogation room, "it's you."
"Yes," answered Kirby as he took a seat opposite Cooperman, "it's me."
"You brought your gorilla with you too," snarled Cooperman.
"My client was only calling your...uh...associate, a gorilla in the spirit of good humour," said Thurston, Cooperman's lawyer. "He means no offence."
Kirby looked over to Gustav, and the big man gave him a slight nod.
"I can speak for Gustav and say that none was taken," said Kirby.
"Mr. Cooperman was just telling us his theory on Mr. Laval," said Darling.
"Really," said Kirby, "why don't you tell it to me?"
"You're not really a cop," said Cooperman, "but you can consult on this. It's all about the unions."
"The unions?"
"Yeah," said Cooperman. "I'm doing The Vengeance Sisters movie without them and they got all pissy about it."
"Pissy enough to blow up the studio?"
"That's what I've been telling Sergeant Preston of the Yukon here," declared Cooperman. "They've been threatening me and the production since day one."
"But there's nothing in Laval's record to show that he works for any of the film related unions," said Kirby.
"The guy's probably a goon for hire," explained Cooperman.
"We can provide you with some emails and recorded phone messages that clearly illustrate union members threatening my client," added Thurston.
"The problem I have with your theory," said Kirby, "is that the union gets nothing from shutting down your production. Meanwhile you get quite a lot if something were to happen. Something like, let's say, that bomb going off on Tuesday, possibly in the wee hours of the morning before the day's work begins."
"What are you accusing me of?" asked Cooperman, his eyes narrowing to little black dots.
"You did tell Laval that it had to be Tuesday," stated Kirby as he watched Cooperman's left eyebrow twitch.
"My client doesn't know how to answer that question."
"If that bomb went off on Tuesday, the second day of shooting," said Kirby, studying the volcano bubbling beneath Cooperman's skin, "then you could shut down the production, collect the insurance, and blackmail Continental Pictures and Atlantic Comics into getting you and your company out of debt by rebuying the movie rights to The Vengeance Sisters and all the other Atlantic Comics characters."
