Patterson Array - NYPD Red

“Son of a bitch,” Trager said. “Are we talking about a serial killer?”

“Not yet,” I said. “There’s no pattern. Except for the fact that both men were in show business, there’s no link between the two of them. We have to investigate each case separately.”

“Which means we have to talk to Edie Coburn,” Kylie said.

“Give her a break,” Shelley said. “She’s in shock.”

“That’s what happens to people who witness a murder,” Kylie said. “We know how to talk to her.”

“She’s in her trailer,” Trager said. “I’ll take you there.”

Edie Coburn was in a lot less shock than advertised. She was smoking a cigarette and sipping clear liquid out of a tall water tumbler. I doubted it was Evian. Shelley introduced us as Detectives Jordan and MacDonald from NYPD, but he left out the part about his connection to Kylie through Spence Harrington. He told her we had a few questions about the “unfortunate accident.”

“I didn’t know the gun was loaded,” she said. Actually, she didn’t just say it. She delivered it. It was like she’d rehearsed the line all afternoon, and the camera started rolling as soon as the cops walked in.

“You know that’s a line from a song,” Trager said.

She smiled. Of course she knew.

“We’re sorry for your loss, Ms. Coburn,” I said. “Can you talk about what happened on the set?”

“Let’s not pretend,” she said. “I was a naughty girl. I held up production all morning because I was furious at Ian. He’s a serial adulterer. I ought to know-the first time I slept with him he was married to someone else. So I married him with my eyes wide open. He cheats; I look the other way. But this one was too much. Did he really have to fuck the girl the two of us would be doing a scene with? And worse than that, the bitch told everybody. All proud of herself, like it was some sort of big conquest, like Ian was the Holy Grail.”

She took a swig from the tumbler. “I knew how important this scene was to Ian, so I went into my diva act and refused to come out. I decided to let him sweat for a while.”

“What motivated you to finally do the scene?” Kylie said.

“Oh, you’re cute,” Edie said. “You wouldn’t ask that question if you didn’t already know the answer. The director came to my trailer. Let’s just say he’s very persuasive. He convinced me.” Another gulp from the glass. “Convinced the hell out of me.”

“And when you got to the stage, were you still angry at your husband?” Kylie said.

“What do you think?”

“And were you uncomfortable with the fact that a lot of people on the set knew he was having an affair with Devon Whitaker?”

“No, sweetie. I’m uncomfortable when my panty hose ride up. When I walked out on that stage in front of all those gossiping extras, I was mortified. But how I felt and what I did are two different things. The prop guy gave me the gun. I didn’t know there were any real bullets in it. If I did, I would have fired the two blanks at Ian and put the entire clip into Devon Whitaker. She’s the one who told the cast and crew that she was screwing my husband.”

“Thank you for talking with us,” I said. “Again, we’re sorry for your loss.”

“I called Ian’s brother Sebastian in London,” she said. “They agreed to let us have a memorial service in New York for his fans. Then they want his body sent back home as soon as possible.”

“The medical examiner should be finished with the autopsy by tomorrow or Wednesday,” I said. “The family can claim his remains after that.”

“Thank you,” she said, draining what was left in her glass. “Shelley, would you mind staying after the detectives leave.”

Kylie and I took our cue and exited the trailer.

“If we’re looking for someone with a motive,” I said, “she’s got one with a capital M.”

“She’s a bitch,” Kylie said, “but she’s innocent. Ian Stewart was a world-class skirt chaser, and Edie knew it. He’d cheated on her before, and she figured he’d cheat on her again. I’m sure she wanted payback, but more on the order of a nice little bauble in a robin’s-egg blue Tiffany box, not a dead husband. She didn’t do it. She didn’t set it up.”

“You sure?” I said. “Whatever happened to ‘hell hath no fury like a woman scorned’?”

“It doesn’t apply here,” Kylie said. “A lot of these people sleep around, but in show business, adultery isn’t a motive for murder; it’s a lifestyle.”

The Chameleon wanted to scream. It had all been going so well, and suddenly the two detectives had pulled the rug out from under him.

His cell phone vibrated. Another text from Lexi: Ian is a trending topic on Twitter. Congrats. UR242.

He hated all that childish text lingo. He’d mastered ROTFLMAO and a few others, but this was a new one. It took him a while to parse this one out: you are two for two.

He was, but he wasn’t happy. He had switched magazines on the SIG Pro-as writ. The armorer gave the loaded gun to Edie Coburn-as writ. Ian Stewart was lying in a pool of blood-as writ.

But the next scene was the one he’d been waiting for all day. It was a turning point in his script.

INT. SOUNDSTAGE-SILVERCUP STUDIOS-DAY

The Chameleon waits his turn as the detectives interview the extras. He knows all about the elite task force they call NYPD Red. He was looking forward to jousting with them. They’d try to trip him up a hundred different ways, but he was ready. They were smart. But he was smarter.

When he wrote the script, The Chameleon had no idea who the lead detectives would be. All he knew was that there would be a dead man on the floor, he was the killer, and he would be standing face-to-face with two of NYPD’s smartest cops. Staring them down. Dodging their obvious trick questions. It was great theater.

But it wasn’t happening.

The two detectives talked to the whacked-out director, then they walked off with Shelley Trager. Walked off. He wanted to scream out at them, I’m the killer! Grill me. Suspect me. The audience will love it. It’s fucking drama, you assholes.

But no, they simply left the studio-disappeared-leaving him to answer dumb questions from a bunch of unsophisticated, low-level bozos in blue uniforms. They would lump him in with ninety-nine other extras, none of whom were worth two seconds of screen time.

His cell vibrated again. He read the text: Jonesing 4 ice cream. Bring home sum Rocky Road. Luv u. CU46.

He smiled. CU46. His favorite text of them all: See you for sex. It would have to be fast. He was only 242. If Lexi paid a little more attention to the script, she’d know that by the end of the day he was planning on being 343.

“Effective Immediately, and until further notice, the entire unit is operating RTC,” Captain Cates said. “Repeat-all of NYPD Red is on duty round the clock. You can shower in the gym, and if you insist on getting any sleep, we’re setting up cots on the fourth floor.”

It was 5:00 p.m., and we were all back in the briefing room. The mood was a lot more somber than it had been nine hours ago.

“Since this morning we’ve had two high-profile homicides,” she said. “Sid Roth, an LA producer in town for Hollywood week, collapsed and died at breakfast at the Regency Hotel. The lab found traces of sodium fluoroacetate in Roth’s juice glass, and the ME just confirmed that the same poison was found in much greater quantities in Mr. Roth. We have a primary person of interest-a male, Latino, about thirty, who was dressed as a busboy. That’s a vague enough description to start, and because the suspect was in disguise, it’s also possible he was using theatrical makeup to cover up the fact that he’s white. There were no prints on the carafes that were handled by the suspect, and the only prints on the glass belonged to the victim.