Patterson Array: NYPD Red

“Bob, there are a thousand people wandering around here,” I said. “You can’t be responsible for all of them. How can you blame yourself?”

“Zach, I’m head of security, which includes firearms safety,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if I blame myself or not. Somebody will. This is show business. Shit floats up.”

I’ve been hanging around soundstages ever since I was a kid. My mom was a makeup artist, and there were a couple of years when I decided I was too old to need a babysitter and she decided I was too young to be left home alone, so after school I’d meet her on the set of a commercial, music video, or feature.

Early on she taught me everything I needed to know to understand people in show business. “They think their poo smells like sugar cookies,” she said. “It doesn’t. But it makes them feel good if you pretend it does.”

Working for NYPD Red, I meet a lot of people who are convinced they’re God’s gift to the world. I can smell their shit a mile away, but Mom’s advice helps make my job a lot easier.

Kylie, Bob, and I walked through the stage doors of Studio X, which is about a city block long and almost as wide-no big deal in Hollywood, but pretty impressive by New York standards.

There were about forty people behind the camera, all of whom eyed us carefully as we navigated our way around cables, light stands, and sound carts. We stopped at the edge of the set, a banquet hall, where a semicircle of tables was decked out with fine china, crystal stemware, and exotic flowers. At least that’s what they’d look like on film. In reality they were all plastic. At the center of the main table sat an ornately decorated five-tiered wedding cake, which I knew would be Styrofoam, because buttercream would never hold up under the hot lights.

“Come meet the groom,” Bob said. “He’s on the dance floor.”

About a hundred extras, all in black tie and long gowns, had been talking as we showed up. The chatter died down to a whisper as we slipped on paper booties and trod carefully between the pools of blood.

Ian Stewart was on his back, the final emotion that had surged through his brain frozen on his face. It appeared to be a combination of OMG and WTF, but I might have been reading too much into it. Dead is dead, and Ian was very.

There was a different CSI waiting for us. Maggie Arnold is younger, prettier, and much friendlier than Chuck Dryden. We’d flirted at past crime scenes, and she gave me a big smile when she saw me. I introduced her to Kylie and asked for a top line.

“Top line is pretty much going to be the same as the bottom line,” she said. “He took two nine-millimeter rounds, one to the chest, one to the neck. Bled out fast.”

“The armorer says he loaded the magazine with blanks,” Kylie said.

“I believe him,” Maggie said. “We dusted the gun. The outside is covered with prints, which will probably match up with the prints we get from the armorer and the shooter, Edie Coburn. But the magazine and the rest of the bullets have all been wiped clean. If the armorer was the last one to handle the gun, his prints would be there.”

“So Dave is telling the truth,” Bob said. “Somebody swapped mags.”

“And that somebody could still be here,” I said. “How soon after the shooting did you seal off the studio?”

“Not soon enough,” Bob said. “First there was chaos. Then they called 911. It was nearly ten minutes before I got the call on my walkie and ordered a total lockdown. The guy we’re looking for had plenty of time to slip out.”

“I’m not really sure it makes a difference,” I said. “Whoever switched mags could have left long before the shooting.”

“I doubt it,” Kylie said.

“Why’s that?” I said.

“Look at this,” she said, sweeping her hand around the elaborately decorated room, past the hundred dressed-to-the-teeth extras, finally letting it come to rest with one finger pointing down at the blood-drenched body. “This is classic cinematic drama. It’s too big a spectacle to miss. I’ll bet you five bucks that whoever put real bullets in that gun stayed to watch Ian Stewart die.”

I didn’t take the bet. One thing I learned about betting with Kylie over the years: she almost always wins.

Dave West had kind eyes. He was about fifty, an African-American with a thin wisp of a mustache and even less hair on his head. He had a soft, round face that I’m sure lit up when he laughed, and brown eyes that were tinged with sadness and bewilderment. But the kindness came through still.

I offered Kylie a shot at taking the lead, but she passed.

“Not here,” she said. “Not now.”

West was sitting at a table at the rear of the studio, an untouched cup of coffee in front of him.

Kylie and I introduced ourselves, and I sat down across from him. She stood to the side.

“I know you’re upset,” I said. “Can we talk?”

“It’s my fault,” he said. “I screwed up.”

“Dave!” It was Reitzfeld.

I threw him a look. He held up both hands. “Sorry. I just can’t let him incriminate himself.”

“Mr. West,” I said. “Just answer the questions as I ask them. How long have you been an armorer?”

“I got my BFA license twenty-three years ago last month.”

“BFA?”

“Blank Fire Adapted,” he said. “There’s prop guns and real guns. The props are harmless, but not too authentic. So most directors like to use a real gun that fires blanks.”

“And you supply the guns?”

“Sometimes yes, sometimes no. But I have total control over all BFA guns on the set, and I have the absolute final say on whether a gun is safe to use in a scene or not.”

“And what happened today?”

“It was a nine-millimeter SIG Pro. The movie takes place in the forties, and I needed a period piece. The gun’s got some years on it, but it’s in mint condition. I cleaned it and loaded the magazine with blanks.”

“Sorry to interrupt,” I said, “but you’re sure they were blanks.”

A hint of a sad smile. “Yeah. Like I said, I’ve been a gun wrangler for twenty-three years. It’s hard to confuse blank cartridges with real bullets. You’re a cop. You ought to know. Blanks have no lead at the tip. The ones I used had a red cotton wad inside the casing. Totally harmless, unless you fire the gun at extremely close range, but I met with the director, and I knew Edie would be a good ten feet away.”

“What time did you put the blanks in the magazine?” I said.

“I guess about nine, nine fifteen. We were supposed to shoot at nine thirty, but something happened with Edie and we wound up sitting around for a couple of hours.”

“And where was the gun during that time?”

He hesitated. “There’s a lockbox.”

“Did you lock it up?”

His bottom lip trembled and his eyes watered up. “I set it down on the prop table. I kept thinking we were going to roll camera any minute.”

“Could somebody have come in here and tampered with the gun?”

He nodded. “Look at this place,” he said. “They call it the prop room, but it’s not a room. There are no walls, no doors-it’s all open, and it’s twenty feet from the craft table. Anybody could walk over and tamper with anything, but I was sitting right-” He stopped, and it wasn’t hard to figure out why.

“Was the gun ever out of your sight?” I said.

“Two, three…maybe five minutes.”

“How long would it take to switch the magazines?”

“Five seconds. But why would anybody do that?”

“Let’s say somebody did,” I said. “How would they know in advance to have the right magazine-one that fits the gun you were using.”