“Ms. Thorne?” asked the Latina maid wearing a light-pink dress who answered the door. “Stay here,” she harshly ordered. Iris obeyed and remained standing in the foyer while the maid walked on rubber-soled shoes down the hallway and turned through a side door. Her dark braid, long enough for her to sit on, swung as she walked.
Iris casually roamed through the two-story-tall foyer of the brand-spanking-new house that had been constructed to resemble a French château. She tapped a fingernail against what appeared to be gray stone that formed an arch over a doorway. It returned a hollow sound. She did the same thing to the front door that looked like a massive block of carved wood. It was hollow as well. The whole place was as substantial as a movie set.
The huge house was located in Calabasas, a thirty-mile trek northwest from downtown Los Angeles. Calabasas prided itself on its western heritage and had a couple of good cantinas that drew lively crowds on Saturday nights. Over the past fifteen years, L.A.’s urban sprawl had gradually reached out here.
In addition to the Southwestern-inspired tract homes and mission-style strip malls endemic to L.A.’s newer suburban neighborhoods, a curious thing happened in Calabasas. Nouveaux millionaires fleeing L.A. began building fairy-tale mansions in the hills. Where once there were dirt, hills, and an occasional horse, now there were dirt, mansions, an army of sports utility vehicles, and an occasional horse. The homes were mostly owned by people in the business. There were many businesses in L.A., but when people referred to the business, they were talking about movies and TV.
The maid returned. “Please come.” Iris followed her down a domed hallway inlaid with faux stone and out a door at the back that led to a lush garden. A marble fountain—or what looked like marble—in the middle of the garden babbled pleasantly. Sprinklers aggressively hissed water in a struggle repeated across Southern California as residents fought daily battles in the losing war to turn a desert into a verdant landscape.
“I’ll be out on the six-o’clock.” Jim Platt was pacing around the fountain as he talked into a cellular phone. He wore faded, button-front Levi’s, a white, knit, collared shirt with the Polo logo on the breast, and worn leather Top-Siders without socks. His hair was wavy, thick, and as unruly as a young boy’s. He’d just turned twenty-seven and was one of the hottest directors in town based upon an oeuvre of two stylistically unique, ultraviolent films. He glanced at Iris, frowned, and continued pacing and talking. “He’s driving. You know he refuses to fly. That was before he became a star. Now he won’t fly. Ciao.”
He clicked off the phone, set it on a stone bench next to the fountain, and again looked at Iris as he might a trail of ants invading his Froot Loops. She was glad she wasn’t there to ask him for a job. She suspected he’d forgotten she’d called earlier about coming over.
“I’m Iris Thorne. I called—”
He stopped her with a wave of his hand. “Yeah, yeah.... Look, I don’t have any information.” He spoke in staccato bursts. “The police have been over and over this. Alexa didn’t have any enemies. You should have known that. You said you were friends with her. She hadn’t been receiving threats.” He raised his hands, shoulders, and eyebrows at her. “Okay?”
“What’s your theory about what happened?”
“My theory about what happened,” he repeated dully. “Okay,” he said as if he’d decided to humor her. “After she left Bridget and Brianna, some unknown creep, some stranger danger, pulled her back into the park, smashed her head with a rock, and she fell into the ravine. The only person the police know for sure was around was this groundskeeper guy, but there’s no evidence linking him—or anyone else—to the murder.”
“Apparently, there wasn’t a struggle,” Iris said. “If there had been, trace evidence would have been transferred to Alexa. It’s as if she was killed by someone she knew, someone she felt comfortable turning her back on.”
Platt shook his fist. “If only she’d scratched him or pulled his hair or something. I get pissed at Alexa when I think about it. I’m like, ‘Come on, Lexi! Be a wild woman. I know you can do it.’” He stared into the fountain. The bluster momentarily left and Iris sensed that Pratt was in deep mourning. After a while, he said, “What she and I had, most people never touch, you know?”
Iris sat on a stone bench. “I’m very sorry.”
Platt again twisted his upper lip into what appeared to be a well-practiced disdainful look. “Yeah, whatever.”
Iris was surprised at how quickly his attitude had changed. She suspected the vulnerable side she’d glimpsed was kept tightly under wraps. “My understanding is that Alexa left Pandora on good terms.”
“They loved her. She hated to go and they hated to lose her. She said that Kip could be a pain in the ass, but, you know, he’s a genius and all that. She thought that Bridget had made him. Taken Kip’s raw talent and molded it. Alexa always liked being around brilliant people. Being challenged in that way.” He shrugged self-importantly. “Anyway, the police have already milked the Kip Cross connection.”
“Do you know whether Kip and Alexa had an affair?”
He looked affronted. “Of course not. She thought he was an asshole.”
Iris silently reflected on the irony of his comment.
He impatiently glanced at his watch. “Look, I’m realistic about this. I think there’s a good chance we’ll never know what happened to Alexa. Sorry about Bridget, but—” Platt again looked at his watch.
“I think there’s an angle the police haven’t looked at.”
Platt began quickly pacing back and forth, four steps in each direction. “What angle?”
“I believe there’s a connection between your wife’s murder and Bridget Cross’s. I’d hoped we could sort of…brainstorm.”
He stopped pacing. “I don’t have time to brain…storm.” He sarcastically elongated the word.
“Don’t you want to find out who murdered your wife?”
Platt raised one side of his upper lip. “Of course I do. What kind of man do you think I am?”
“A smart man. A man who can put together ideas and make connections that everyone else has missed.” She stoked the fires of his big ego. It might not help, but it sure wouldn’t hurt. “I have a theory that Alexa’s and Bridget’s murders are somehow related to the businesses they’re in.”
Platt found this interesting. “How so?”
“Both Bridget and Alexa were in the business of depicting violence. Some would argue, glamorizing it.”
Platt bristled. “It’s a chicken-and-egg thing. The violence came first. Artists simply reflect what’s going on in their world.”
“And what’s going on is a source of concern for a lot of people. Open any newspaper and you can read about outrage over sex and violence in movies and TV and the misogynistic and anti-police lyrics in gangsta rap records. People are upset over the availability of pornography and hate literature on the Internet, how one can meet pedophiles or find formulas to make bombs.”
Platt grabbed his index finger with his other hand. “First, no one has proven that a normal kid, after seeing something of a sexual or violent nature on TV or in a movie, is then more likely to go out and imitate it. The hair-trigger whackos out there are probably going to do what they’re going to do anyway.” He grabbed his middle finger. “Second, isn’t it the parents’ job to monitor what their kids are doing? Hell, now they’ve got the V-chip to help them. Movies have been rated for years. They’ve got blocking software on the Internet—Net Nanny, Cybersitter—there’s a bunch of them. So what’s the big deal?”
Iris nodded. “The problem is, any young hacker worth his salt can get around blocking software or password access. If a V-chip is installed on one home’s TV, odds are there’s another house in the neighborhood that doesn’t have it. And in terms of the movie-rating system, I went into R-rated movies when I was younger than sixteen and I’m sure you did too.”
“What’s your point—censorship? Freedom of expression is our constitutional right, at least it was the last time I checked.”
“There are people out there who don’t think it’s enough for the entertainment industry to monitor itself or to provide tools to block materials they deem objectionable. To them, the mere existence of these materials indicates a level of societal decline that can’t be tolerated. Pandora’s name frequently comes up in these discussions—as does yours.”
Pratt finally stopped pacing and sat on a stone bench facing Iris. He rubbed his chin. “I see where you’re going, but it doesn’t follow. Why Alexa and Bridget and not me and Kip, or all four of us?”
“Don’t forget that Kip is convinced he was framed. If the murder charge had stuck, Pandora would have been sunk for sure. In your case, perhaps the thinking was you’d likely tone down your work after suffering the effects of violence in your own family.”
“Shouldn’t Alexa’s and Bridget’s murders have been preceded by some sort of threat?”
Iris shook her head. “Too overt. Wouldn’t it be more effective to infiltrate the offending organizations and exert pressure from the inside? Or better yet, take them over and dismantle them?”
“Go on.”
“You’ve had people invest in your movies.”
“Of course. Even low-budget films can cost a couple of million.”
“You ever take any money from T. Duke Sawyer or an outfit called USA Assets?”
“T. Duke Sawyer… I’ll have to get back to you on that. He invested in Pandora?”
“Yes. And in another computer-games company, 3-D Dimensions. It was owned by a guy named Harry Hagopian—a computer programmer and game geek. He designed this game called Fate—”
“Sure, I’ve heard of it.”
“—that took off like wildfire. It was an ultraviolent action game that had a major influence on Kip Cross when he designed the first Slade Slayer game. Anyway, Harry became rich. T. Duke came knocking. My research assistant contacted a programmer who worked on Fate. He said that Harry was basically jerking T. Duke around, that he didn’t have any interest in selling the company. Lo and behold, poor Harry dies in a solo spinout one dark night on the Fifteen in the Mojave Desert just outside Baker, California.”
Pratt finished the story. “And the heirs sell the company to T. Duke.”
“You got it.”
“Next, you’re going to tell me that T. Duke made an offer on Pandora which the Crosses turned down. But anyone who knows anything about Kip Cross knows that he would never sell. He couldn’t work for anybody else.”
“But he might have to sell, if he were defending a murder rap.”
Pratt grinned. “The plot thickens. Wouldn’t it have been easier to just kill both Crosses?”
“Too hard to explain. It was well-known that Kip and Bridget were having problems.”
“Alexa told me something about that.”
Iris crossed her legs. “Disgruntled husbands kill their wives all the time, no news there. T. Duke figured it was enough to get Bridget out of the way. She was the one who built Pandora and was its guiding force. He knew without her, Kip would falter, as he has. But whoever murdered Bridget and set up Kip didn’t expect that the police wouldn’t press charges against him.”
“The murder frame-up was imperfect.”
“They also didn’t realize that Bridget wasn’t leaving her sixty percent ownership of Pandora to her husband. She left it in trust to her daughter and named me the administrator of the trust.”
“You?” Pratt said with amusement. “Are you afraid?”
“I was born and raised in L.A. I’m always afraid.”
He chuckled. “What’s the connection between T. Duke and the antiviolence mongers?”
“I think he’s a member of the Trust Makers, but I haven’t confirmed it.”
Pratt nodded. “Heard about them.”
“In any of your movies, was anyone bludgeoned to death with a rock, the same way that Alexa was murdered?”
“Actually, yeah. I did that in my second film. Gave me the creeps when I realized it. But I’ve had characters shot, beheaded, stabbed, garroted, run over by cars…” He searched his mind for more. “Thrown from a window.” He frowned. “I haven’t had anybody drowned or hanged.” He scratched his chin as if making a mental note, then looked again at Iris. “In Bridget’s murder, there was the slingshot, which directly tied in with Kip’s work.”
“And the murderer was wearing a Slade Slayer mask.”
“Interesting.” He again stared into the fountain. “Supposedly, now I’m going to be so horrified by my wife being a victim of the same type of violence I depict in my films that I’ll turn over a new leaf and start making romantic comedies starring Julia Roberts. And investors will start tightening the purse strings to make sure it happens.”
“I admit it’s far-fetched.”
“It’s a lot simpler to accuse Kip Cross.”
“That’s what the police think, too.”
“So, what’s the problem?”
“Kip Cross didn’t murder his wife.”
“You’re positive?”
Her faith in Kip’s innocence had wavered, but Pratt didn’t need to know that. “Absolutely. In Pandora’s files there are letters from people protesting the violent and sexual content of the Slade Slayer games. Have you received letters like that?”
“All the time. I’m always pissing somebody off.” He grinned again. It pleased him to be a bad boy.
“I’m particularly interested in any letters from the Trust Makers.”
“I’m going on location for three months in South Dakota. I’ll have someone look through the files. The studio handles all my correspondence.”
Iris fished a business card from her purse and handed it to him.
Pratt slipped the card into a back pocket of his jeans.
Iris stood and draped the strap of her purse over her shoulder. “Thanks. Like I said, it’s a long shot.”
“If it in any way helps to find Alexa’s murderer, I’m happy to do it. It’s a good story, in any event.” Pratt started walking toward the house. Iris followed.
He opened the front door for her. “Ozzie Levinson told me his wife, Liz, works for you.”
“Yes, she does. I have to thank Ozzie for arranging this meeting.”
“My finances are a mess. I’ve got money rolling in, rolling out, who knows where it goes? Is Liz really as good as people say?”
“The best. You have my business card. Give us a call.”
“I’ll do that.”
“Thanks for seeing me. You have a lovely home.”
He rapped his knuckles against the faux stone arch. “Fiberglass,” he said proudly. “Molded in a single piece. You’d be nuts to install real stone in L.A. Besides, why bother with real when fake looks as good and is more practical? It’s not going to crush you in a quake.”