Patterson Array: NYPD Red

“Production notes,” he said. “Everything we do is documented on paper and distributed all over the place. The SIG Pro was on the prop list since way back in preproduction. Anybody could’ve seen it.”

“At what point did you give Edie Coburn the gun?” I asked.

“Eleven thirty, I think.”

“Did you check to see that it was the right gun?”

“Yeah. I looked at the serial number, and then I took out the magazine and checked that too, but-”

He picked up the cold coffee from the table in front of him and took a sip.

“But what?” I asked.

“This mag for the SIG Pro-you can only see the top two cartridges. I looked in and saw two red tips. How was I supposed to know the rest would be live? But I was stupid. I was too trusting.”

“When Ms. Coburn fired the gun, what happened?”

“She took two shots at Devon Whitaker, the bride,” he said. “That’s what was in the script. Bang, bang. So Devon got the blanks. Her blood squibs go off and down she went. Then Edie fired two more at Ian. Soon as I heard it, I knew. Blanks don’t reverb like that. I froze in my seat. Luckily, Alan, the special effects guy, ran over and wrestled the gun from Edie’s hand, but by then…” He buried his face in his palms and his body shook as he wept quietly.

One thing was clear. Dave West wasn’t a killer. He was a patsy and he was about to take the fall for a sadistic killer. Reitzfeld had said that Dave’s wife was sick. But not once did he whine about her or use her illness as an excuse. He had taken his mind off his life-or-death job, and he was willing to own his mistake and suffer the consequences.

He stopped sobbing and looked me square in the eye.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Go ahead,” he said and put both hands behind his back. “It’s your job.”

“Dave West, you’re under arrest for negligent homicide in the death of Ian Stewart,” I said.

I read him his Miranda rights while Kylie and Bob Reitzfeld looked on.

I’ve never felt so bad about arresting anyone. And then something happened that made it even worse. It hit me in the pit of my stomach. Kylie was right. The shooting of Ian Stewart was too big a spectacle to walk out on. And whoever switched the harmless blanks for deadly bullets was in this room right now, silently watching me slap a pair of handcuffs on an innocent man.

You might think that a wide-eyed, superalert, extremely talkative person would be an ideal witness to interview. Not when all that hyperactivity is induced by cocaine.

Henry Muhlenberg, the young hotshot director, was useless. Even if we’d missed the dilated pupils and the runny nose, all it took was one question to realize he was too coked up to help.

The question was “Can you tell us what happened?”

“What happened was somebody put real bullets in the gun,” he said, talking at race-car speed. “Bang. Edie shoots Ian. He’s dead. I’m dead. You know what I mean when I say I’m dead? She might as well have pointed the gun at me, because I’m finished. Over. Kaput.”

We couldn’t shut him up, so we sat him down and walked out of earshot.

“He wasn’t nearly this whacked-out when I first got here,” Reitzfeld told us. “He probably decided to get rid of whatever blow he had on him before the cops showed up, and why waste it by flushing it down the toilet?”

“Forget about him,” Kylie said. “Here comes the real boss.”

Shelley Trager strode through the doors of Studio X. He’s that rare breed of producer who’s made it big in New York. A scrappy Jewish kid who used his fists growing up in the rough-and-tumble Irish neighborhood of Hell’s Kitchen and his brains navigating the ego-driven world of show business.

“The only difference,” he’s fond of saying, “is that in Hell’s Kitchen, they stab you in the front.”

He was strikingly handsome in his prime, but now, closing in on sixty, he’s fighting a losing battle with both his waistline and his hairline. But time has only improved his reputation. He’s one of the acknowledged good guys in the entertainment business, and his company, Noo Yawk Films, has provided jobs for tens of thousands of actors, writers, and production people who would otherwise be waiting on tables.

A longtime friend of the mayor, Trager is one of the biggest supporters of bringing more of LA’s film business to the city. And since he owns a piece of Silvercup Studios, what’s good for New York is good for Shelley.

“Zach,” he said when he saw me.

I met him a year ago when I put away a wacko who was stalking one of his young stars. It came as no surprise that he remembered exactly who I was.

Kylie, of course, knows him personally, but there were no hugs, no air kisses-just a brief exchange of head tilts, and Trager got right down to business.

“How can I help?” he said.

“The armorer says somebody got to the gun and switched the blanks for live ammo,” I said. “For starters, we’ll need the names of everyone on the set. And I know they’re on the clock, but I’ll have to ask you not to release anybody till we get statements from every one of them.”

“Done,” he said immediately. “What else?”

“We’re told the shooting was all caught on film,” Kylie said. “We need to see it.”

He took a little longer on this one. Finally, he said, “Under one condition. NYPD and nobody else. When you’re done, I want the footage locked up. God forbid it should show up on YouTube.”

“Thank you,” Kylie said.

“I heard you arrested Dave West,” Shelley said. “Is it really necessary? The poor guy’s got a sick wife.”

“We had to,” I said. “I doubt if the DA will be tough on him, but it would help if he had a lawyer.”

“I’ve already hired one,” Shelley said. “Perry Keziah-you know him?”

I nodded. Everybody knew Perry Keziah. He wasn’t just a lawyer; he was the best of the best. Dave would be home in time for dinner.

“Excuse me,” Trager said.

He walked onto the set and stood over Ian Stewart’s body. Everything else stopped. Nobody on the stage moved. Nobody talked. All eyes were on him.

He lowered his head and mouthed a silent prayer.

Then he walked back and stood face-to-face with Kylie and me.

“This is a tragedy,” he said. “But if what they’re saying about the death of Sid Roth is true…” He paused, as if speaking the words out loud would make them real. “If what they’re saying about the death of Sid Roth is true,” he said, dropping his voice to a whisper, “then it’s a conspiracy.”

Kylie and I stood there and let Trager’s words sink in. A major producer is found dead in the morning-probable homicide. An above-the-title actor is shot a few hours later-probable homicide. It’s a pretty big coincidence, and homicide detectives don’t believe in coincidences.

“I hit a hot button, didn’t I?” Trager said.

Kylie stared at him. “What do you mean?”

“You’re both lousy poker players. I can tell by looking at the two of you that Sid Roth, who was ten years younger and in ten times better shape than I am, did not suddenly keel over and die of a heart attack on the first day of Hollywood on the Hudson. The rumors are true. He was poisoned, wasn’t he?”

“Shelley, you know we can’t answer that,” Kylie said.

“Fine. The mayor can. I’m the guy who helped him deliver a thousand Hollywood big hitters to New York. I’m the first guy he’ll call if he thinks the other nine hundred and ninety-eight are at risk.” He took out his cell phone.

“Put it away,” Kylie said. “We’re waiting for the lab results, but it looks like Sid Roth was poisoned.”