Patterson Array - NYPD Red

“And?”

“Gunshot wound to the chest at close range. The Crime Scene Unit isn’t here yet to make the call, but I know dead, and this guy definitely is. There’s also a safe in there-door wide open. I didn’t check it out, but I figure if the door is open, whatever was in it is gone.”

“Who called 911?” Kylie asked.

“His name is Michael Jackman. Said he’s the assistant director. He didn’t see or hear anything. He came over for a meeting with the victim and found the body. He’s sitting in the back of our unit with my partner.”

“Keep him there,” I said. “We’re going to take a look at the scene.”

Fitzhugh was slumped in a desk chair, his gray T-shirt stained dark brown from the collar to the waist. There was a fresh bloody gash on his right cheek.

“Pistol-whipped,” Kylie said.

I shined a light inside the open safe. “The uni called it on the safe. It’s empty.”

“Except for the movie connection, this doesn’t feel like any of the other homicides,” she said.

“I had the same gut reaction,” I said. “The other three murders were planned out, artful almost. This just looks like a robbery gone bad. Vic working at his desk, perp walks in and says open the safe. Fitzhugh says no; perp gives him a convincer with the gun butt. Fitzhugh opens it, and the perp pockets the cash.”

“That’s a robbery gone good,” Kylie said. “If the perp got the money, why did he shoot Fitzhugh? Why up the ante from robbery to murder?”

“Fitzhugh recognized him,” I said.

“There’s only one hiccup, Zach. The man we’re looking for is a master of disguise. We have him on video, and we can’t even ID him.”

“So if it’s impossible to recognize this guy,” I said, “why’d he pop Fitzhugh?”

“That’s the question I just asked you.”

“In that case, it’s unanimous,” I said. “We’re both clueless.”

We backed out of the trailer and walked over to the squad car where Rankin’s partner, Robin Gallagher, was waiting for us.

“Mike Jackman, the guy who found the body, is all shook up,” she said. “He not only worked with the victim, he’s his brother-in-law.”

“Did he say anything worth repeating?” Kylie asked.

“‘Who’s going to tell my sister and the kids?’” Gallagher said. “Which you kind of expect. And one other thing which you wouldn’t.”

“What’s that?” I said.

“‘Fucking Levinson.’ He said it maybe half a dozen times.”

“Did he say who fucking Levinson is?”

“No, sir,” she said.

“Ask Mr. Jackman to step out of the car, Officer. If he’s up to it, we’d like to ask him a couple of questions.”

The CSU wagon pulled up. I was hoping I’d get to see the enticing Maggie Arnold two days in a row.

No such luck. The driver’s side door opened and out stepped the humorless Chuck Dryden.

“Hello again, Chuck,” I said. “You remember my partner Kylie MacDonald, don’t you?”

“Where’s the body?” he said.

I pointed, and he lumbered toward the trailer.

“What a pill,” Kylie said.

“Hey,” I said, “you’re lucky you didn’t know him before the department sent him to charm school.”

The Chameleon slept for three hours.

When he woke up, Lexi was in the kitchen.

“What’s for breakfast?” he called out.

“It’s too late for breakfast!” she yelled back. “We’re having brunch. Pancakes. The real kind, not the frozen crap. And I went out and bought fresh raspberries. We can afford them now.”

He padded to the kitchen, still naked. “What do you mean ‘we can afford them now’?”

“I counted the money. There was forty-five thousand dollars. Can you believe he was going to give it all to a drug dealer? I hate drugs. I don’t understand why people do them.”

“You sure it was forty-five thousand?” he asked.

“Three bundles of Benjamins worth fifteen thousand each. I counted it twice. Pancakes in five minutes.”

He showered, slowly turning the water from warm to hot to excruciating. The remorse was overwhelming. He had killed two, maybe three people yesterday, and he would happily kill them all over again today without batting an eye.

But Jimmy Fitzhugh was different. Jimmy was one of the good guys.

Please don’t shoot. I got two kids.

I know, I know. Tracy and Jim Jr. But what was I supposed to do once Lexi blurted out my name? I had no choice.

Bullshit, Gabe-she didn’t pull the trigger. You did.

He edged the water up even hotter. The pain helped.

I’m sorry, Jimmy. Really sorry.

The pancakes were excellent-real butter, fresh fat raspberries, thick Vermont maple syrup-and so was the steaming hot coffee. If he had needed a domestic scene in his movie, this could have been it.

“You sure I yelled out your name?” she said. “I swear, if I did, I didn’t even know it.”

“You said, ‘Gabe, hurry up.’ That’s all it took.”

“Fitzhugh should have pretended not to hear me. If he’d ignored it, you’d have thought he didn’t hear what I said, and you wouldn’t have killed him. It’s just as much his fault that he got shot as mine.”

“No,” Gabe said. “Bottom line, it’s my fault. I’m the director, I’m the producer-I put too much pressure on you. It was too big a part. We didn’t rehearse. I shouldn’t have put you on the hook for such a big role.”

“It’ll never happen again,” Lexi said. “I promise.”

“Just to be on the safe side, I think you should stay behind the scenes for a while.”

“I’m fired from the production?”

“No. No. Just the opposite. I really want you to be my coproducer. We’ve got a new scene or two to write. I need you now more than ever.”

“What new scene?”

“I’m not sure yet, but we netted forty-five thousand, and we only need thirty, so I thought maybe we could come up with a couple of cool new scenes and buy some more of Mickey’s pyrotechnics. We have fifteen thousand dollars to play with.”

“Fourteen thousand, nine hundred and ninety-four,” Lexi said. “The raspberries cost six bucks.”

Mike Jackman was tall with broad shoulders, warm brown eyes, and an air of intelligence about him. On a good day he was probably just the kind of guy you’d want on your crew. But this was not a good day, and Mike looked like Bambi staring down the barrel of a shotgun.

“Did the lady cop tell you that Jimmy Fitzhugh is my brother-in-law?” he said.

“Yes, sir, and we’re sorry for your family’s loss. I’m Detective Jordan, and this is my partner, Detective MacDonald. With your help we can find the man who killed your brother-in-law. What can you tell us?”

“Nothing,” Jackman said. “Fitz and I meet first thing every morning to go over production notes for the day. I’m the AD; he’s the line producer. He always shows up before I do, so as soon as I got here, I went straight to his trailer. The safe was wide open. Fitz was dead in his chair. I called 911.”

“What was in the safe?” Kylie asked.

“Not my job to know.”

“Did you and Jimmy have a good relationship?” she asked.

“We were best friends. More like brothers than in-laws.”

“So your best friend, the guy you sat down with over coffee every morning, never gave you a clue about what might be in the safe worth killing him for?”

“No.”

“Maybe your sister knows. When we break the bad news to her that her husband is dead, we’ll ask her.”

“Don’t. She has no idea…”

“Sounds like maybe you do,” Kylie said.

“Mike,” I said. “You seem like the kind of true friend who would hold back information because you think it will protect Jimmy. But the truth is, you’re protecting his killer. Why don’t you tell us what you know? We won’t use it against Jimmy.”