JASPER’S EYES MET mine through the glass. “I’ve never told that story before.”
“I know,” I said. “There is almost nothing about your past out there.”
“I’m a private person.” He smiled. “Nothing happened to me, of course. Martino was a very nice man.”
“Martino?” I asked.
Jasper’s lips thinned. He broke eye contact with me. “He was a friend of my—”
“Time,” the guard announced.
Jasper stopped midsentence. A raptor’s focus returned to his eyes. He muttered to himself, words I could just make out.
“Patience, planning, purpose.”
It sounded like the mantra of a madman. But I wasn’t ready for the interview to end. I leaned forward. As much as I needed him to tell his story in his own way, I needed to know.
“Jasper,” I said, as he rose from his chair. “How did they finally catch you? What happened that night on the beach?”
He had already turned away from me, but he spun back, very slowly. The focus left his expression, as if he was searching the past for an answer to my question.
“It was a miracle,” he said, and that childlike look flashed in his eyes once again.
The next day, Tuesday, I was up by four o’clock. Truthfully, I’m not sure I slept at all that night. I took the subway to the Hungry Ghost, pushing the door open almost two hours before I was scheduled to meet Zora. Bypassing the brighter corners of the shop, with its French white and black floor tiles and patisserie seating, I chose a dark corner, one surrounded by rich wood paneling and a New York City sense of privacy. Taking the seat facing the entrance, I spent my time trying to find some trace of the man Jasper had mentioned, Martino.
I found nothing. Normally, that would set off a red flag. To be honest, though, I was distracted. Nervous. And I knew it. My past still haunted me often then. And the idea of meeting Zora brought me back to why I’d left Hollywood in the first place. How quickly the mighty can fall.
In the moment, I didn’t even realize that my fame had reached its peak. It was the night of The Basement’s premiere. Through the window of the Town Car, I stared ahead, up Hollywood Boulevard. At the crowd held back by lush velvet ropes. The eyes turning, staring hungrily. I could hear their voices rising up. And above it all, I saw my name in lights—THEO SNYDER. I couldn’t believe it. It felt like a dream.
“Theo,” my date, Veronique, whispered in awe. “They’re calling out your name!”
I couldn’t even say anything. I just stared out the window, a stupid smile on my face. And a raging torrent of emotions burning inside my chest. I had dreamt of this moment since I was six. Made my first movie on a refurbished Super 8 when I was eleven. Lost over fifty film competitions by the time I was fifteen. I’d been rejected over a hundred times by age seventeen. Moving out to Hollywood six years before that night, I’d begged, groveled, and kissed the ass of what felt like everyone in that town. I’d left my close-knit family behind. I had three nephews and a niece back in Virginia who I’d never even met. All for that moment. My dreams miraculously come true.
“This is so hot,” she said, more to herself.
The driver eased us to the curb outside the massive sandstone columns lining the entrance to Grauman’s Egyptian Theatre. An usher dressed in a vintage uniform opened our door. I let Veronique get out first. Flashbulbs popped. A reporter beckoned to her. After a pause, I followed her. And everything went nuts.
“Theo!”
“Over here.”
“How does it feel?”
The voices all mingled into a rush of heart-stopping intensity. I felt a hand touch my shoulder and turned to find my publicist, Frankie, smiling like he couldn’t believe it any more than I could.
“Come on,” he said. “You need to talk to E.”
I grabbed his sleeve. “This is crazy!”
“What?” he said, unable to hear me over the crowd.
I leaned closer. “This is crazy.”
“I know,” he said. “Variety ran your distribution deal with Netflix this morning. And Hanks mentioned you on the Tonight show last night.”
My eyes widened. “Tom Hanks?”
Frankie nodded. “We sent him a screener last week.”
“Of The Basement?” I asked.
He laughed. “Of course, Theo. And you need to look like you’ve been here before. Get used to this. You’re A-list, buddy.”
I swear my feet floated off the concrete. I did a short interview with E! Entertainment. After that, three big-league producers sought me out. They all filled my head with gushing compliments.
“The Basement is a classic, Snyder.”
“How did you get that ending, man. Blew my mind.”
“Call me.”
“Let’s do lunch.”
All of that, and I barely heard a word. I couldn’t comprehend it. The entire moment was surreal.
Before I entered the theater, I got a text from my mother. My sister, Michelle, had shared the clip from the Tonight show with her. She was so excited. So proud. Her words full of love. I read the text. It touched me. It really did. But, in all the excitement, I forgot to respond.
Eventually, my posse appeared. Mikey and Dale, both filmmakers. Eric the actor. Mel and Steph, my manager and agent. Everyone surrounded me. Pumping me full of light and love and drinks. For one night, I was the talk of the town. The hottest ticket in Hollywood.
Two years later, on a rare rainy day in June, I walked down that same street. Past that same theater. I was alone. My phone was silent. I hadn’t seen Mikey or Dale in months. Eric had just been the source of yet another scathing online interview about my scandal. Mel had moved on. My mind spun out of control, trying to figure out how it all went so wrong. Wondering if I could even fix it if I tried. And I heard someone call out my name.
My head whipped around. For a torturous moment, I was back at the premiere of The Basement. The lights were popping. The compliments flowing. I was trending on Netflix. And, as in life, a single blink of the eye, one very bad decision that I just can’t talk about, and it was gone again. A heartbreaking tease from the past.
A group of three people stood by the entrance to the theater, two guys and a woman. All about my age. I got the sense, right away, that they were with the media. Something about the glint in their eyes. Like a pack of lionesses spotting a newborn wildebeest.
“Theo Snyder,” one of the guys said. “It’s you, isn’t it?”
I lowered my head and kept walking. I heard the slap of his Toms catching up to me from behind.
“Come on, buddy,” he said. “Let me ask you a few questions. You got the time.”
“Fuck you,” I muttered.
He heard me. His tone got even more predatory.
“Come on, Theo. Have you talked to Pepper? Are you still seeing that Bender lady? How’s the lawsuit? Come on.”
My teeth grinding together, I shook my head. My pace quickened. And it was in that moment that I knew I had to get the hell out of that town.
Sitting in the café, I lost track of time. I was still daydreaming when she walked in. Zora Monroe could not be missed. She had to be about six feet tall, because when I shook off the malaise and stood to give her a quick hug, I had to look up. Her height was one thing, but her eyes were something else. Hooded in a way that made me assume she’d grown up in some charming southern town, they could change on a dime. One second, you might wonder if she was even paying attention. The next, she was picking at your soul with a pair of sharpened tweezers.
Otherwise, she fit the place. Her bleached dreads rose in a haphazard knot atop her head, adding even more to her imposing height. She wore the effortless style of an unpretentious hipster, the kind of clothing that rose above brand names and magazine ads, a disheveled perfection. Swinging her pack onto the table top, she sat, stretching her long legs across to my side of the table. I shifted, making room, deciding that Brooklyn had definitely been the right choice.
“I thought you were someone else,” she said.
“What?”
“When Kent mentioned you, I thought you were that other guy. The one that did the one about the drunk aunt.”
“Grey? Really?”
“Yeah,” she said.
It was strange. Unlike with Jasper, I sensed no intention behind her slight. I have to say, though, that I felt it nonetheless.
“Anyway,” I said. “Let’s get started.”
Since our first call, we had been digging. I’d amassed three boxes of files back in my tiny apartment. For her part, Zora had located Jasper’s surviving victim, Barbara Yost.
“A friend of mine helped me track her down through her cell.”
I squinted. “A friend?”
“Yeah, he works for one of the big carriers.”
“Is that legal?”
She rolled her eyes and I let it drop.
“Have you reached out to her?” I asked.
“Left two messages.”
“Hopefully she’ll call back. I’ve dug up background on all the victims. But I’m hitting a wall on Jasper. He told me a little about his childhood, but there is nothing out there.”
Zora nodded. “I know; that’s part of what interests me. I want to dive deep. I’ll find something, or find out why there isn’t anything to find.”
“He told me he is a private person.” My eyebrows lowered. “But he mentioned a man named Martino. I couldn’t find—”
“I got that,” she said. “You stick to making your movie.”
I couldn’t tell if she was kidding. Either way, my gut told me it was right. That the two of us working together would lead to something truly special. For the second time since the scandal broke, I found my old self. My mouth opened and I got lost in the story.
“I can’t stop,” I said. “The scenes just keep falling together in my head. Act one can open with a shot of Jasper walking up to our interview. The gray walls. The orange jumpsuit hanging on his tiny frame. The score rumbles. Something dark but strong. Something Hitchcockian. He’ll start his story, and as his voice chills the audience, the shot changes. We cut to that cabin where they rescued the Yost woman. Those trees, like the devil’s fingers pointing up at an ominous sky. Then back to him. Smiling. Picking at the stubble of his eyebrow. Then right to a still of one of his victims.”
Zora watched me as I spoke. Nodding along. Tilting her head.
“Nice,” she said. “I get it now.”
“The film?” I asked.
“No, you,” she said.
I might have blushed, but Kent’s words rang in my head. She should be wondering if you’d work with her.
“Okay, then, let’s get to work,” I said. “The more we find out about this guy, the more I’m sure about this. I keep going through the victims’ names. Where they were from. Trying to find a pattern. But … it’s strange. All of them are from the same place. All were found along a twenty-mile stretch of the coast in Delaware. I’ve never seen anything like it. How could he have gotten away with doing the same thing again and again and again?”
“They weren’t all the same,” Zora said.
“I don’t know. There was the first one. It was different. In fact, it wasn’t until his sixteenth confirmed murder that they attributed her death to him. What was her name? I can’t …”
I pulled out my phone and skimmed through my emails, looking at an article I’d breezed past earlier.
“Theo,” Zora said.
I looked up. “Yeah.”
“I need to get going,” she said. “Where do you want me to start?”
“Barbara Yost,” I said. “We need to find her. And maybe that Martino guy he mentioned. Set up some interviews.”
“Excellent,” she said.
Zora started to stand up, but I kept going.
“That last thing he said. When I asked him how they caught him. He said it was a miracle.”
She paused. “He’s a megalomaniac, like all the rest.”
“Didn’t you hear it? The way he said miracle?”
“No, I didn’t.”
I ignored her. Instead, I just heard the word repeating in my head, in the Halo Killer’s unsettling voice.
“There’s something there. I’m sure of it.”
“Maybe,” Zora said, openly assessing me. “But I need to go. I’ll call you when I get something.”
“Of course,” I said. Then I squinted, noticing a look on her face. The way her eyes left mine as she spoke about her next steps. “This is personal to you.”
Zora’s eyes widened. I saw it, but she recovered almost immediately.
“This case?” she said. “I don’t know—”
“No, I mean your job. You became an investigator for a reason. Something happened to you. Did you lose someone?”
She scoffed. “Not exactly.”
“Was your father a cop? No, that’s not it. Too obvious.” I nodded, my interest hooked. “It’s something, though. Tell me.”
Zora smiled for the first time. Her head shook.
“Wow, they told me you could sniff a story out. But I really need to go.”
“Next time,” I said.
“Maybe.”
“No, promise me,” I insisted. “Next time.”
She laughed. “Okay, okay. You are an interesting one, Theo Snyder.”
And she got up and walked away.
Walking back to my place after the meeting with Zora, I questioned everything. I think it was the first time, really. I found myself thinking back, again, about who I was prior to The Basement, before my fame. I’d heard so many people in Hollywood say that they always knew. That they were born with the knack. That by their third birthdays, their mothers had noticed. Had enrolled them in acting class or some movie club at the local library. Neighbors commented on their coming greatness, as if success had been preordained.
Was it true?
When I asked myself that question, I wasn’t talking about their stories. I could never know their truths. What troubled me, though, was that I couldn’t easily provide my own answer. Sure, I watched a lot of TV. And, at least before the whole Bender thing, my mom liked to tell everyone who would listen that she knew I’d make it. That I had been driven. Gifted.
Nearing my apartment, thinking once again about how I ran away from Los Angeles, I couldn’t just accept that. I worked hard, definitely. But I’d gotten lucky, too. Early in my time out west, I met Kent. I think he might have had a crush on me. Whatever it was, he took a liking. He looked out for me. Introduced me to some amazingly connected people. He paved the way for The Basement to reach development.
I knew I’d made a good movie. That the ending was something special. But so many great projects never make it. And most of the ones that do don’t go viral like my film did. For whatever reason, people started talking about it. Word spread. It was almost a hive-like phenomenon. Like the greater public deemed my story to be the “it” thing. So much of it was luck. I knew that, though fame certainly fills your head with delusions of grandeur.
By the time I reached the elevator, the question in my mind had changed. I wondered what it was that I really wanted. Was it just the fame? Had it always been that simple? Or could it be something more, some need to validate my existence? Some misguided effort to fill a hole in my psyche? Something more insidious?
“God,” I muttered, rubbing my eyes.
When I got like that, there was only one way to break the cycle. I needed to get back to work.
Once I got inside, I went straight to the makeshift work space that was my kitchen counter. As I sat down, I grabbed a stack of reports. Turning on a small desk lamp, I hunched over them, picking through each sheet like I expected an answer to jump off the page. Frustrated, I kicked one of the three cardboard boxes on the floor, each filled with more paper.
“I need to get organized,” I said out loud.
I got up and walked over to my bed. Pulling it away from the wall, I slid the giant corkboard I used as a headboard out into the room. In LA, before I lost the house in the hills, it had hung on the wall in my study. In Hell’s Kitchen, I had no choice but to lean it against my one window, turning the apartment into a prison. Sort of like Jasper’s.
As the day turned to night, I got to work. In a case like this, I needed to study the victims. Understand each crime. As I found the files I’d arranged, I felt like I was piecing together a jigsaw puzzle. The names started to meld together as I thumbtacked photos to the board—Jennifer Moffa, Lori Grant. But the faces stared back at me, an unspoken accusation behind each unmoving eye.
What do you want? they asked.
Who are you? I asked in turn. Why did he choose you?
Time slipped by. Eventually, I made it to the Jane Does. In Jasper Ross-Johnson’s case, there were eight. Eight human beings who slipped away in crushing silence. Eight humans who no one looked for. Who no one missed.
The phone woke me up. When my eyes opened, I found myself prone on the floor. A police report stuck to my elbow as I reached for the cell. I answered without looking, for some reason expecting it to be Zora.
“Hey,” I said.
“A collect call from Jasper Ross-Johnson, an inmate at the Howard R. Young Correctional Institution. Call forwarding is unauthorized and may result in disciplinary action to the inmate. To accept charges, press five now.”
Shocked, I fumbled with the screen, trying to bring up the number pad and hit five before I lost the call. For a second I thought I was too late. Then the automated voice spoke again.
“Thank you for using the Secura prepaid system. Your call can begin now.”
My hands shook like mad and I held my breath. The line remained silent.
“Jasper?”
I heard breathing then. Waiting, I stood up, trying not to step on any of the files littering the ground. My eyes caught on the faces covering my corkboard. A sudden wave of sadness swept through me, and I had to sit down heavily on the edge of the bed.
“Ja—”
“Did you believe me?” he asked, his voice flat and soft.
“About your childhood? Of course I did. Why would you—?”
“Some people don’t. I imagine when you visit subjects like me, they claim their innocence.” He laughed. “I imagine they tell you that the system abused them. That the deck was stacked.”
“Sometimes,” I said. “Definitely. Do you mind if I record this conversation?”
“Sure,” he said, distracted. “I did it. I killed all of them. And I pled guilty to every charge. I put up no defense. In the end, the state will end my life, like I ended theirs. It will come full circle. Nothing could ever change that.”
“Why did you—?”
“I’m sorry. I just needed to ask you that one question.”
“Whether I believed you?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I need to know who you are. I agree to be in your documentary. I will give you every answer I have. When it’s all done, I’m going to ask one thing of you. Do we have a deal?”
“I … yes, definitely,” I said, before I had time to really consider what I was getting into.
“Excellent. Then I will let you get on with your day.”
“Wait,” I blurted out. “When we spoke yesterday. What was the miracle?”
He laughed. “You’re asking the wrong question.”
“What do you—?”
He cleared his throat. “It’s not what was the miracle, Theodore. It’s who is the miracle.”
The line clicked. The automated voice returned, telling me how much my credit card would be charged. And I knew that somehow, I’d just taken an incredible leap forward.