Heather Graham - Sacred Evil

“So you believe that by renting the location for your film shoot you awakened the ghost of Jack the Ripper—or Jack the Ripper himself,” Jude said, trying very hard to keep his tone low and even.

Angus Avery shook his head unhappily. “We were finished with the site after that day’s shoot—we’d broken down. We were already planning on moving. But I called off all shooting for today—everywhere in the city. Can you even begin to imagine what that will do to my budget?”

“What made you choose the location?” Jude asked.

“Ah, well, the real shots we could get. And the fact that the financial district is actually shaped more like the Five Points that once was than the area that was Five Points! The movie takes place in the late eighteen hundreds. Shooting there, we could use the streets with some editing and CGI. And I had a great, almost barren landscape for the set designers to create facades. You’d be surprised at what you have when you black out modern additions to downtown.”

“There’s a giant pit at the location—dangerous,” Jude said.

Avery waved a hand in the air. “We had it barricaded during the filming, and all kinds of people keeping watch. Production assistants and city engineers. We had a permit that included working a large section of Broadway,” Avery said. “I knew about the location, but, as I said, I thought it was all a bunch of hogwash.”

“And right next door, you had Blair House. It’s pristine—you could have done some great shooting there,”

Whitney said. “I—”

Jude squeezed her hand beneath the table; he didn’t want her announcing that the team was staying at Blair House. Especially since the team wasn’t all here yet. As the day went by, he found himself more concerned that they had Whitney Tremont housed at Blair House—alone—for tonight.

“Blair House is under federal jurisdiction at the moment. I don’t know exactly which historical association is in charge, but it’s on the national list of historic places. I don’t believe that a permit would have been given out for the use of it right now, no matter what was promised to the city,” he said.

“Precisely,” Avery said with a sigh. He brightened. “But, we did get some great footage of the facade. In fact, the Blair House facade—cleaned up, CGI—will be the house of ill repute where our movie prostitutes were settled.”

“Just what was the movie you were making?” Jude asked.

“Am making. O’Leary’s. I’m afraid the loss of an extra doesn’t stop the giant wheels of a movie turning forever. And don’t think badly of me, please. Movies have been completed when the featured stars have died. Everyone can’t take the hit. Lord knows, in this country, we have to keep people employed and the money moving these days.”

“You’re a humanitarian,” Jude said.

Whitney kicked his ankle.

“And the movie is?” Jude asked.

“A love story,” Avery said. “A love story set amidst the squalor of the final days of the Five Points region of New York City. I mean, seriously, it’s hard to imagine what it was like. Tenements were so crowded that the living often walked over the dead. Gangs were kings … politics were crooked. Sewage was a real killer—disease ran rampant. My movie, O’Leary’s, is about two young people who rise above the horror and corruption to make it to the top.”

“Ah. They moved to Gramercy Park!” Jude said.

Finally, he’d managed something that the filmmaker could seize upon. “Precisely!” Avery said with pleasure.

“Mr. Avery, what time did you leave the set yesterday?” Jude asked him.

Avery was thoughtful. Many people immediately shrank suspiciously from the question, aware that it was not harmless. But the man seemed to be remembering his day. “I left by five. One of my assistant directors worked on a few last shots with the prostitutes. I headed to midtown. I gave a speech to a class from the fashion institute at their dinner at six.”

Jude didn’t ask Avery if there were witnesses; he’d check on it himself.

“Mr. Avery, we have a witness who saw a man in costume on the street—a nineteenth-century cloak and tall hat, like a stovepipe hat,” Jude said.

“Was your witness a wino living on the streets? Or was your witness the killer?” Avery asked.

“You have nineteenth-century costuming on your cast, Mr. Avery,” Whitney said. “Perhaps the killer is stealing from your wardrobe department?”

Avery shook his head. “You may speak to my costume designer and the wardrobe mistress. I insist on all costumes being returned at the end of the day. If a costume wasn’t returned, I’d have known it. I might be making a movie, but any half-baked costume shop in town might have a cloak and a stovepipe hat! Look, please, check my alibi—and check my work record. It couldn’t have been me, and I guarantee you, my wardrobe mistress would have been fired if there had been anything missing.”

Avery’s alibi didn’t actually clear him. He might have given a speech—and returned, Jude thought. New York traffic—always a major “if” factor in the city. And, still, by the time Virginia Rockford had been killed, there had been very little traffic downtown. Avery could have well done everything exactly as he had said—and still arrived back on Broadway in time to commit murder.

“How well did you know Miss Rockford?” Jude asked.

“Know her? I didn’t know her at all,” Avery said. “But she was working on your film,” Jude said. “Directors seldom hire the extras,” Whitney said quietly.

“Oh, right, well, of course not,” Jude said.

“Her death, however, devastates me,” Avery said.

A waitress stopped by their table; Jude ordered coffee and Whitney did the same. Avery already had a cup before him.

When she was gone, Avery became businesslike. “I’ve asked my office to make sure that your fellow officer—Detective Sayer—has a list of everyone associated with the film, and what their position is. Except for poor Miss Rockford, of course.”

“Of course,” Whitney murmured.

“Do you have an idea of anyone else who might have stayed behind last night?”

“We have a guard who stays on until the last actor, costumer, production assistant— even caterer —has left the set for the day. Last night that would have been a fellow named Samuel Vintner. My offices have given Detective Sayer everything he could possibly need—phone numbers, addresses, even social security numbers. We desperately want to see this murder solved.”

“Thank you for your help,” Jude told him.

Angus Avery wagged a finger in the air again, directed at them both. “You mark my words. It’s evil land. I think that they were burying people in the walls and foundations. I think that you’ll find that Jack the Ripper—the real Ripper—is buried somewhere on that location. You have to find the corpse and burn it and say lots of prayers. Maybe that will stop this.”

“We’re hoping to catch a flesh-and-blood killer before anyone else dies,” Jude said.

“Mr. Avery, there might have been someone—someone working on your movie—who had a grudge against Virginia Rockford,” Jude said.

“There might have been. I told you, I didn’t know the girl,” Avery said, sounding impatient at last. “You have the names and office address of the casting directors. Madison and May Casting—they’re actually on Madison. They can tell you all about the extras.” He stood. “If there’s nothing else, I have a date with a bottle of blended scotch whiskey and a friend. This is becoming a nightmare, what with my actors in a stew and the press all over everything in the world … forgive me. Order dinner on my tab, if you like. I need to go now.”