The detectives asked him all the questions he’d known they’d ask. Questions about describing what he saw—was it a man? Could he describe him? What was the person wearing? Which way did they run?
A flash of white.That’s it. I’m sorry.Maybe a white t-shirt …? I honestly don’t know.
The detectives had just nodded, taking notes. Pete was surprised they weren’t grilling him harder or trying to make him uncomfortable. He almost felt dismissed from the experience, as if he was someone just passing by and saw something suspicious, rather than a man who had found one of Hollywood’s biggest female stars dead in her trailer. “Can I ask you … how did she die? I hate to suggest anything, but I noticed the pills in there…”
The larger of the two detectives put his notepad away, took out a handkerchief, and blew his nose loudly. The other detective, a wiry bald man with intense eyes, answered.
“We think she was suffocated,” he said abruptly, as if distracted by the question.
Pete nodded, remembering Jimmy’s words. I’m sorry …. She woke up.
“We’ll do all the forensics, and we’ll need some things from you,” the larger detective said, tucking away his handkerchief. “Another statement, your fingerprints, since you were in the trailer, and we’ll want you to come into the station tomorrow so we can go over all this again. We’ll talk to your boss, as well. So, nothing else you can remember?”
Pete felt the roll of money pressing into his thigh. He turned and saw Marco standing by, waiting to have his own Q&A with his employee. Someone nearby was crying. And yet, somehow, some way …
Pete felt an incredible calm. More than that, he felt like a victim himself. And he knew, in his heart, that he was innocent, and that he was helping as much as he could. All the other details seemed to burn up inside him, to ash, and drift away on a warm breeze. He was at peace.
“Nothing,” he said, and shook his head, as if upset.
6
“WHERE DO YOU WANT TO sit?”
Pete scanned the half-empty theater and shrugged. “I don’t really care. This is your idea.”
Noemi rolled her eyes and pushed past him up the aisle. She planted herself at the end of a row about halfway up the red-carpeted stairs. Pete shuffled in next to her holding a medium-sized popcorn and a tub of Diet Coke. He sat heavily, feeling sick.
“I don’t know why we’re doing this,” he said.
“Baby, I know it’s weird. But you have to face what happened. Face it and move on. You’ve been going crazy this past year, don’t think I haven’t noticed.” She dropped her voice, her eyes. Left so much unsaid. “But you have to get past the guilt.” She took his hand, still slick and cold from holding the soda, and squeezed. She looked him in the eye. “You’ve done nothing wrong, Pete.”
Pete nodded, tried to smile.
It had been ten months since the night he’d found Holly Pages dead in her trailer.
Hard months.
He’d quit his job, not wanting to ever spend a single night on a movie set, alone and responsible, waiting for a dirty white hood to emerge from the shadows, the face hidden, a small favor on its lips.
He’d found work as a bouncer, something he’d done in his younger years. Something he thought he’d never have to do again. Repeated nights of getting his shoes puked on, of bruising and bloodying his knuckles on every tough guy that came at him after too many drinks, too much coke snorted up in the filthy restroom.
The truck he’d purchased with Jimmy’s (blood) money turned out to be a lemon, the seven-grand reduced to a few hundred he got for scrap after the engine blew.
He never did get Gina the laptop.
Pete sighed, appreciating Noemi trying to soothe him, erase his guilt. If only she really knew. He tried to smile again and was more successful the second time. He didn’t feel any better but as the theater began to fill, he found himself distracted by a sliver of curiosity, a tingling interest for how the film had turned out.
He’d always gotten a kick out of seeing the movies he worked on. Pointing out the building he stood watch over, or a one-line actor he’d shared a smoke with. He was proud of the movies and television shows he was part of, even if he was just the guy who watched the equipment or made sure no one messed with a set.
But this was different. This was the last movie Holly Pages ever made, the one she died on while filming. Her final role. He’d read they CGI’d her face onto a body double for a couple scenes, the scant few that hadn’t already been shot at the time of her murder. The box office had been far better than expected. People came out in droves to see Abaddon on its opening weekend, curious to see Holly alive once more, paying their respects to a star they loved. Or, more cynically, rubberneckers rolling by a highway accident, surveying the carnage for signs of a lifeless body, a splash of blood on the junk-strewn concrete.
The lights dimmed and Pete settled back, tried to relax. He felt like he needed to go to the bathroom but forced himself to grit it out. His hands were clenched into fists as he waited for the first of what was sure to be several previews.
WHEN HOLLY FIRST APPEARED ON the screen—playing the role of a gritty young lawyer who loses a son and husband in a horrible automobile accident while prosecuting the case of her life—Pete found himself incredibly, intensely, relieved.
That’s her? He almost laughed. That wasn’t the woman he found dead in her trailer, murdered by the man Pete had sold her out to. That was some hot-shit lawyer from Chicago with emotional baggage and a bitchy mother who couldn’t understand how she could possibly continue to work at a time like this. Et cetera.
Pete’s thoughts flickered momentarily to that night, as if his battered conscious felt him drifting away and was demanding his focus, his attention. Pete had never been a suspect in her death. In some ways, guards were like police. Vetted men and women who had been proven trustworthy, had dealt with issues and violence, and were seen (albeit on a much more minor scale) as representatives of the law. The murder had never been solved, and Jimmy had vanished, never to resurface. The homicide detectives found Jimmy’s fingerprints in the trailer, and on the murder weapon: a decorative throw pillow. His prints on one side, her saliva on another. Probably her muffled screams as well.
Pete shook off the darkening thoughts, the memories. It was all behind him now. Jimmy was long-gone, most likely spending his money on a tropical island somewhere. Pete had deleted his number—the first thing he’d done after calling nine-one-one the night of the murder. Right along with deleting the text messages, the call history. He didn’t know if the cops ever pulled his phone records, but if they did, nothing was ever said.
It was like the whole thing just went away. Except ….
Except for the nightmares.
Horrible dreams that woke him in the middle of the night, a scream stuck in his throat. Sweating, breathing heavy, he’d look around, panicked. His blood would freeze at the looming shadows in the corners of the bedroom. Shaken, he’d get out of bed, retreat to the living room and turn on all the lights. Fix himself a drink.
After a particularly bad nightmare, he’d sometimes find himself in Gina’s bedroom. He’d sit against the wall in the dark and watch her sleep. Her beauty and innocence were so peaceful to him, so soothing. Part of him felt like a poisoned animal lurking in the shadows of her room, and he’d wonder if maybe that’s what he really feared—finding another version of himself waiting in the dark. A vicious self. A self that would condone murder, that would sell his soul.
Noemi’s warm hand squeezed his once more. The audience gasped at something on the screen, and Pete felt some of the tension drain from his body and was soon lost in the plot of the film, almost forgetting his fear … and the actions that haunted his past. He dipped his hand in the popcorn bucket on Noemi’s lap, could see her smile out of the corner of his eye.
