thirty-four

Nigel and I had just returned to our hotel room, when my cell phone rang. It was Marcy. “What’s up?” I said.

“Hi, Nic,” she said, her voice tight.

An uneasy sensation slid down my spine. “I know that tone,” I said. “That’s your bad news tone. What’s happened?”

Marcy let out a sigh and then lowered her voice. “You’re not going to like it, but we got a copy of the security footage from Dan’s apartment building.”

I sat down in the desk chair. Skippy came over and put his head in my lap. I began to robotically stroke his fur. “Okay. What did you find?”

“Your friend Harper was lying when she said that she’d never been to his apartment,” Marcy said. “She went there the Friday before he was killed.”

I closed my eyes in frustration. I had told Harper to tell the police everything. Apparently she hadn’t listened. I let out a sigh. “Damn it,” I said. “What else was on the tape? Did anyone else visit Dan?”

“Actually, yes. Seems he was quite popular,” Marcy said. “Well, until someone killed him, that is.”

“Yes, I guess that could be seen as a turning point. So who else paid him a visit?”

I heard a paper rustle as Marcy looked for the names. “Let’s see,” she said. “Zack Weems was a frequent visitor. But we knew about him already. He was working with Dan on the manuscript.”

“Right. Did you find it?”

“That’s another reason I wanted to call you. I didn’t find a manuscript,” she said.

I frowned. “What do you mean, you didn’t find it?”

“I mean, there wasn’t any manuscript in the apartment. I even went back and double-checked myself. There’s nothing. And when I say, ‘nothing,’ I actually mean ‘nothing.’”

“I’m not following you,” I admitted.

“It’s just that for a so-called ‘work apartment,’ there was a strange paucity of work. As in, there was nothing work-related there at all. No files, no plays, no reviews, no correspondence, and definitely no manuscript.

“Have you interviewed Zack yet? What did he say about it?” I asked.

“He says he dropped off the latest copy of the manuscript on Thursday night, which checks with the security footage. He seemed pretty surprised that it wasn’t there. He wondered if perhaps Dan had brought it home,” she said.

“I’ll ask Harper,” I said.

“I already did,” Marcy said with a half laugh. “She said there is no copy at the house. I gather that Dan planned on including certain stories about various celebrities in his book. According to Zack, some of them bordered on libelous. He had been trying to convince Dan not to include them in the final copy. I think he was afraid of the blowback and being tarnished with guilt by association.”

“Zack told me that as well,” I said. “Dan had heard some gossip about Brooke Casey that Zack didn’t want included. I got the impression it wasn’t so much that he thought it was morally wrong, as that he has a crush on Brooke.”

Marcy laughed. “Yeah. I got that impression, too. So after Zack, we have Jeremy Hamlin. He visited Dan on Wednesday.”

“Did he say why?” I asked.

“Mr. Hamlin indicated that it was a business meeting to discuss a play that Dan was producing,” said Marcy. She paused.

“What aren’t you telling me?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. “He was very forthcoming when we interviewed him, but when we first told him about the security tape, I got the impression he had no idea what we were talking about.”

“As in he didn’t know what a security tape was?” I asked.

“No, more like he didn’t remember going to Dan’s in the first place,” said Marcy. “He claimed that the shock of Dan’s murder had rattled him and it was all very believable, but …” Marcy trailed off.

“But what?” I prompted.

“But the guy is an actor, after all,” she explained. “It just made me wonder.”

“Okay,” I said. “Anyone else?”

“Yes, Nina Durand visited Dan twice that week. Once on Tuesday and once on Thursday.”

I sat up a bit straighter. “Well, that’s interesting. I wonder if Nina is our tea drinker?”

“She is,” Marcy said. “She was completely upfront about their relationship when we interviewed her. Said that it was a brief fling but that it had ended amicably.”

“And you believed her?” I asked.

Marcy paused. “I think so?”

“Are you asking me?”

Marcy let out a sigh. “I believe her and I don’t. I honestly didn’t get the sense that she was pining over the man. But I do think there’s something she’s not telling us.”

“Anything else?”

“There is, but I’m not sure if it’s connected to the murder,” said Marcy. “Around three a.m. on the day of the murder, a cloaked figure entered the building. Couldn’t tell if it was male or female. But whoever it was wasn’t buzzed in. They punched in the building code, so it could have been one of the other tenants. About a half hour later, the same figure exited the building. We’ve interviewed all the tenants, and so far no one has come forward to say it was them.”

“Curious,” I said.

“I thought so,” said Marcy. “Of course, one of the tenants could have had a visitor that they didn’t want anyone to know about. It could be completely unrelated to the murder.”

“It could be, but that’s a hell of a coincidence, don’t you think?”

“I do,” agreed Marcy.

I was silent for a moment. “So in addition to Harper, Zack, Nina, and Jeremy visited Dan’s apartment.”

“Right, but only Harper lied about it. That’s the problem,” Marcy said. “Brian is convinced that she’s guilty.”

“And what about you?”

She sighed. “I don’t agree with him. I think we’re still missing something.”

“Well, that’s a good thing, right?”

“Not really,” she said. “Brian made his case to the Captain and he agrees.”

“Put it in English for me, Marcy.”

She sighed. “The judge just granted a warrant for Harper’s arrest.”

“What?” I yelled. “Seriously? When?” I abruptly stood up, knocking Skippy’s head off my lap in the process. He shot me a baleful stare.

“A half hour ago,” Marcy said apologetically. “It’s happening now.”

“Shit,” I said, closing my eyes.

“Listen, Nic, I’m not saying that I think she’s innocent, but I will admit that my gut is telling me I’m missing something.”

I rubbed my hand over my face. “Damn it. She didn’t do it,” I said, more to myself than her. “Okay. Anything else?”

“Well, I’m not sure if this is anything important,” she said, “but we did find an interesting contact on Dan’s phone.”

“Yeah? Who?”

“Frank Little,” she said.

“Seriously?” I said. “Dan was in touch with our favorite sociopathic loan shark?”

“It would seem so,” Marcy said.

“Are he and Danny still running Little’s Vittles?” I asked.

“As far as I know the Board of Health hasn’t shut it down,” said Marcy. “I shudder to think how bad a restaurant has to be before they take action.”

“I think I might be in the mood for some bad Italian food,” I said after a minute.

“I figured as much,” Marcy said in a resigned voice. “Just promise me you’ll be careful.”

“About the food or the servers?” I asked.

“Both.”

“Don’t worry, I promise to be careful,” I said.

Marcy let out a dubious sigh. “I know. I just worry that one day it’ll be a promise you can’t keep.”