A Mint Condition Corpse, page 20
part #1 of Kirby Baxter Series
"All this consultant of yours is doing," said Thurston "is slandering my client with innuendos and outrageous conspiracy theories."
"What went wrong?" asked Kirby, his eyes burning a hole into Cooperman's. "Were you planning to kill her all along, and Laval got the timing wrong? Did she see or hear something she shouldn't have?"
"You don't know what you're talking about," hissed Cooperman.
"Laval is a career criminal, he knows the score," said Kirby, "he'll save his own bacon from a life sentence before falling on his sword to save you."
"You fucking piece of shit!" bellowed Cooperman as he leaped to his feet, only to have Gustav's massive hand clamp down on his shoulder.
"I need some time to talk to my client!" cried out Thurston, leaping to his own feet and throwing an arm across Cooperman's chest.
"Sure," said Darling. "We need to talk to Laval again anyway."
Gustav had only just closed the door behind them when two tall men in matching haircuts and dark blue suits intercepted them in the hallway.
"Sergeant Darling?" asked one of the men, his voice with a subtle Georgia drawl. "We need to speak to you, as well as Mr. Baxter and Mr. Gustav?"
"You're FBI," said Kirby.
"Wow," said the FBI man, "you're living up to your reputation. How did you know?"
"Your accent," said Kirby, "is from Virginia, plus you have a little FBI crest on your tie clip."
"Oh, well if you haven't already deduced my name, I'm Special Agent Stewart Granger," said the FBI showing them his ID card and badge, "this is Staff Sergeant Bentley Fraser, of the RCMP."
"Pleased to meet you," said Fraser. "Can you come with us to the conference room?"
"All right," said Darling, "but we are in the middle of a murder investigation."
"We're actually here to help," said Granger. "Keep you from chasing red herrings up a blind alley."
"Or mixing metaphors," added Kirby.
"Just come with us," said Fraser. "He's in the conference room."
"Who is he?" asked Darling, getting an answer when the door opened.
Karl Weatherby sat at the table sipping a cup of coffee.
"Hello Sergeant Darling, Mr. Baxter," said Weatherby.
"Why is my suspect here?" asked Darling.
"Because he's been working for them all along," said Kirby.
"Our mutual friend from Scotland Yard was right," said Granger, "you do seem to read minds."
"Just an educated guess," said Kirby, taking a seat across from Weatherby. "I wouldn't mind hearing the whole story."
Granger nodded to Weatherby, who sighed with the inevitability.
"My family's bank is heavily invested in MaxCo Films," explained Weatherby. "We own some shares but our biggest investment is that we hold most of the company's debt. Recently we got worried that Cooperman was playing fast and loose with the numbers, and I'm talking way beyond the usual Hollywood accounting games. Production budgets didn't make any sense, he'd overspend on buying independent movies, then he wouldn't release them, but he'd still claim them as collateral for more loans."
"Let me guess," said Kirby, "he'd claim that the high price he paid was the real value of these movies?"
"Exactly," said Weatherby. "Put that with the company's inability to release a movie people might actually pay money to see, and it was a recipe for disaster. We decided to protect ourselves."
"You went undercover, so to speak," said Darling.
"Getting a job as Cooperman's assistant was easy," said Weatherby. "Before me he went through assistants like Kleenex. Staying his assistant was trickier, despite him owning my family a fortune; I still had to eat a lot of shit."
"You also got the police involved?" asked Kirby.
"I managed to look at some of MaxCo's finances," said Weatherby, "and it scared the hell out of me. I think just looking at them counted as a felony. I talked it over with my family, and our attorneys, and we decided to get the FBI involved."
"I'm with the interstate fraud division," added Special Agent Granger, "and since a lot of Cooperman's movies were shot here in Canada we called in the RCMP."
"I soon realized that Cooperman had no intention of finishing The Vengeance Sisters. He was arranging for something to happen during the second day of principal photography. It turned out to be a bombing by Laval, and Cooperman was hoping to frame the unions for it. In fact, he was deliberately picking fights with the unions to throw suspicion their way."
Sergeant Darling shrugged, "You're not exactly convincing us that Cooperman didn't have Erica Cross killed."
"We're getting to that," said Fraser. "Mr. Weatherby wore a wire, and arranged for us to tap Mr. Cooperman's phones as well as bug his hotel room."
"You had him under surveillance at the time of the murder?" asked Kirby.
"He was on the phone with his brother in Hollywood between one and one fifty-five on the night of the murder," answered Fraser. "They were laying out plans to extort money from Atlantic Comics and Continental Pictures and then hide it from their shareholders and creditors."
"At the same time Laval was caught on camera shoplifting junk food from an all night grocery store," added Granger, "and Mr. Weatherby was with us, being debriefed on the situation."
"They all have alibis?" asked Kirby.
Granger nodded.
"Could they have involved someone else?" asked Darling.
"Not without popping up on one of our tapes," answered Granger. "We had Cooperman and his associates pretty well wired for the past year."
Kirby rubbed his eyes, and cursed to himself.
"Back to square one."
Kirby scratched "What do I know?" on the white expanse of his sketch pad. The hustle and bustle of the detective squad room was just a low hum to him now. All of his attention was on that damn blank white page. His pencil touched paper, but instead of drawing he made a list.
1. The killer murdered Erica Cross with cyanide. (Autopsy should confirm it)
2. The scream puts the time of Erica Cross' death at approximately 1:35 a.m. Friday night.
Who are the suspects:
1. Armand Tanzerian – Scumbag paparazzi. Unlikely killer.
2. Max Cooperman – Alibi – Planning another crime.
3. Karl Weatherby – Alibi – Ratting out Cooperman at time of murder.
4. Chaz Healey – Ex boyfriend. Alibi – Too dumb to use cyanide.
5. Pierre Laval – Alibi – Committing another crime at time of the murder.
Kirby tapped his chin with the eraser end of his pencil.
Unanswered questions:
Killer may have made cyanide from apple seeds.
1. What does that person need to know in order to do that?
2. Why did they go to so much effort?
3. Who is Erica's stalker?
4. Where is the stalker?
5. Is the stalker even involved?
6. What if everything I think I know is wrong?
Kirby slumped in his seat and rested his head on Darling's desk. For a moment, doubt started to nibble at the edges of his confidence. What if I was all wrong? What if I didn't really smell cyanide on Erica's body? Darling was using all of her connections to get the autopsy and toxicology tests rushed through, and there was the very definite possibility that first impressions were right after all. Erica Cross may have really tripped, fallen, and somehow trapped herself in the freezer full of dry ice. It could all be just an insane Wile E. Coyote style accident after all. That could be the reason why Kirby was finding all sorts of crimes, but so far, no murderer, and maybe not even a murder.
"You cocksucker!" bellowed a voice from across the room.
Kirby looked up and saw Max Cooperman charging across the squad room like an enraged rhino, his arms outstretched, and his hands ready to strangle Karl Weatherby who retreated, leaping over a detective's desk like a terrified lemur. Half a dozen cops, both plainclothes and uniformed leaped in to tackle the charging Cooperman. Gustav put himself between Kirby and the chaos, blocking his view of the fracas.
Kirby could hear Cooperman let out a combination howl of rage and anguish, while his lawyer yipped and yapped about police brutality, only to have a policemen tell him to shut it. Gustav stepped aside and Kirby saw a flurry of heads, arms and legs, heading toward the holding cells.
"You don't see that every day," said Kirby.
"Are you all right?" asked Darling, her hair a bit disheveled from the fracas.
"Yeah," said Kirby. "I think I need to call it a night. Go back to the hotel, get some dinner and maybe some peace and quiet."
"Sounds like a good idea," said Darling.
Kirby was glad to see Molly waiting for him in the lobby of the Waterloo as he and Gustav entered. He was glad to take a second to ponder how cute she looked in the black minidress with the white polka dots, even though when she drew closer he could see that the white polka dots were, in fact, little cartoon skulls. He was even glad to see Mitch rising from his lounge chair, even though part of him was tempted to clip him on the ear. Molly just silently hugged him, but Mitch had to say something.
"When Molly told me about you getting blown up," said Mitch, "I thought you got lucky in a completely different way."
Kirby gave into temptation and swung for Mitch's ear, but the little man was quick and all Kirby got was some air.
"Are you finally done with this business?" asked Molly.
"I think I'm done," said Kirby. "I think I did enough damage."
"I'll say," said Mitch, "you got to blow up a building."
"I didn't blow it up," said Kirby. "That was done by a malfunctioning bomb. I didn't even get a chance to do my action star leap."
"Do you think Cooperman and the goon killed Erica?" asked Molly.
"I don't know what to think now," answered Kirby. "In fact the only thing I do know is that I'm tired, I'm hungry–"
"Your jacket's missing," added Mitch.
"It got stolen in the middle of a police station if you can believe that," said Kirby. "I say that we go back to the suite, have some room service and raid the minibar."
"I can support that," said Molly, finally letting Kirby go.
"Damn straight," said Mitch.
"I think we should avoid the convention floor," added Molly, "there are reporters sniffing around, looking for you."
"Crap," muttered Kirby, as he turned to the elevators, his arm draped on Molly's shoulder.
"Now Gustav," said Molly, "I want you to promise me that Kirby will stay out of trouble from now on."
Gustav shrugged.
"Gustav knows that he can't make those kinds of promises," said Kirby as he hit the elevator call button. "But we'll definitely try."
"I guess that's the best I can ask for," said Molly. "I don't have to like it, but it'll do."
The elevator chimed, and Kirby heard: "Hold that elevator, please!"
Kirby looked over his shoulder, and saw Henry Hack and his wife Andi crossing the lobby and waving to them. Gustav put his hand in the door, keeping it open while they rushed in.
"Thank you," said Henry.
"You're a lifesaver," added Andi.
"What's up?" asked Mitch.
"We just couldn't stand being cooped up in our suite all day," said Andi as the door slid shut.
"And I couldn't do anything since my entire show is currently locked up as a crime scene," said Henry, patting the camera case slung across his neck, "so we went out and tried to play tourist for the day. Hopefully put some the past few days behind us, if only for a little while."
"Didn't really work," said Andi. "Did we hear right that you're helping the police?"
Kirby shrugged. "I got kind of roped into it because of some stuff that happened in Europe."
"He just helped them bust Max Cooperman," piped in Mitch.
"Cooperman killed Erica?" asked Andi.
Kirby shook his head. "Fraud," he answered. "It looks like the entire Vengeance Sisters movie was just one big scam."
"Ashmore will be happy," said Molly, "he's now free from that contract and can sell the company."
"But who killed Erica?" asked Henry.
Kirby shrugged. "I really can't comment on that part of the investigation."
"Yeah," said Andi, "I understand. I've seen enough detective shows."
The elevator chimed, the door slid open and they were home, more or less, on the Excelsior floor. "Perhaps you'd like to join us for dinner?" asked Kirby.
"I think we need some time alone together," said Andi, wrapping a delicate arm around her husband before they stepped out onto the floor, "but thanks for the offer."
Molly screamed.
Kirby turned to see a dead body wearing a Blue Jays baseball cap and Kirby's army jacket. The body was flat on the floor in front of the door of Kirby's suite, two bullet holes in the back of the jacket.
"Tanzerian?" asked Kirby, already knowing the answer.
ISSUE #15
OTHER VOICES OTHER ROOMS
Kirby felt Molly tremble in his arms. Though he had known her for years, he never really saw her as fragile. Her personality always made her seem bigger beyond her mere physical presence, but right now she seemed small, and scared. Gustav had put himself between them and the cluster of crime scene technicians at work down the hall, being better as a sheltering wall than as a window.
"Two goddamn bodies," she muttered, her head pressed against his chest. "Two goddamn dead people."
"This is officially the worst convention ever," said Mitch. "Cons aren't supposed to have body counts."
Kirby nodded in agreement.
"I mean sure I tapped a Hollywood starlet," said Mitch, "but all these murders, attempted murders and explosions are really going to put a cramp in my future bragging."
"One second," whispered Kirby to Molly, before letting her go just long enough to flick Mitch across the ear.
"Ouch!" Mitch winced. "Was it something I said?"
"Silence is golden," said Kirby, holding Molly tighter.
"Excuse me," said Mitch. "Not everyone gets to be the hero you know. Some of us have to settle for what they have."
"You call sleeping with a Hollywood star 'settling?"'
"I wouldn't use that term," replied Mitch, "we didn't sleep at all. Ouch!!" After that second flicking, Mitch stepped a couple of paces out of range.
A moment passed with only the shuffling and murmuring of the crime scene techs down the hall to keep them from total silence.
"So," said Mitch.
"So what?" asked Kirby.
"Who do you think will play us in the movie about all this?" asked Mitch.
"They'll never make a movie out of this," said Kirby. "It's all comic book characters now."
"We have comic book characters involved," said Mitch.
"Yeah," said Kirby, "but it's about people who make or buy comic book characters. That's boring business crap, movie studios want superheroes tossing buses at each other and tearing down buildings. Not a bunch of geeks stumbling around like idiots."
"Knowing our luck it'll probably end up a TV movie," said Mitch.
"A cable TV movie," pondered Kirby aloud. "Maybe on Lifetime."
"That channel will replace you with a plucky female reporter," continued Mitch, "who is always in peril until rescued by a square jawed detective who doesn't shave but never gets beyond a day's growth for some unexplained reason."
Kirby suppressed the urge to laugh.
"That would probably be my luck," said Kirby.
"Amanda Seyfried," said Molly.
"What?" asked Kirby.
"I want Amanda Seyfried to play me in the movie," said Molly.
"Why her?" asked Mitch.
"Why are you asking why?" asked Molly, annoyed at the question.
"Well," said Kirby, "she's a lot taller, blonder, and...um..." Kirby wanted to find a way to say 'bigger breasted' in a way that wouldn't result in him having a tiny fist slamming into his jaw.
"That's why I want her to play me," answered Molly, "I want my self-delusion on the screen, not reality."
"Can't argue with that logic," said Kirby, "at least you're not going to be replaced by a plucky female reporter." He then turned to Mitch and asked: "Why was I replaced by a plucky female reporter in peril anyway?"
"You're a very hard role to cast," answered Mitch.
"Why do you say that?"
"Face facts," said Mitch, "you're no George Clooney, and I think Thom Bray is retired from acting."
"Thom Bray?" asked Molly.
"He played a nerdy scientist on the show Riptide," said Mitch. "It was a PI show from the eighties, you can catch the reruns on cable sometimes."
"I remember him," said Kirby, "but that's only because I have an eidetic memory and I remember everything, even reruns I saw on Croatian television."
"You don't remember to call your friends sometimes," said Molly while pinching Kirby's side.
"Ow," said Kirby, "I said I was sorry and moved you into the most expensive suite in the hotel. Is that not enough penance for you?"
"A suite with a dead body by the front door," said Molly.
"That wasn't in the brochure when I booked the room," said Kirby. "I can't win with you people. You're a rampant perfectionist, and Mitch is digging deep into the black hole of pop culture to insult me."
"I did not insult you," said Mitch, "I merely brought up an actor that you might possibly resemble."
"And he was the best actor you could come up with to play me?" asked Kirby.
"No," said Mitch. "The best I could come up with was a plucky female reporter in peril."
"You could have picked that kid from Freaks & Geeks," suggested Molly.
"Why does it have to be someone who was in Freaks & Geeks?" asked Kirby. "Why can't I have my self-delusion fantasy version of myself cast in this movie like Molly?"
