“Yes.”
“Would you like me to take the rest of this tree down?”
“No.”
“All right, then.” He pulled a card, bent at one corner, from his back pocket. “There’s my phone and e-mail. If you change your mind, let me know. If you don’t, well, I understand how you might be pissed, seeing as I didn’t check that this lady was the owner, and didn’t get any paperwork, and I apologize, I just…” He couldn’t find a way to end his sentence. “I apologize,” he said again, and held out his hand. Kick shook it. Such small hands.
“It’s not you I blame,” she said, and Guttersen was wise enough to simply pick up his saw and leave. Thirty seconds later, the truck ground its gears and eased out of the drive. She turned to me. “I don’t want to hear anything you have to say. Not a thing. Not one word. I want you to leave. And if you send me flowers I will kill you. Do you even know what you’ve done?”
I paused, one hand on the gate, not sure if I was supposed to answer that or not. Not, I decided, and left her there, still holding her grocery bag.
TURTLEDOVE CALLED me just as the Fairmont parking valet drove off with my car.
“Mackie’s real name is Jim Eddard. He has a string of juvenile arrests, everything from vandalism to petty dealing and minor assault. The last arresting officer thinks he was also involved in an arson eighteen months ago, but there wasn’t enough evidence to charge him.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m on the set. He’s not here.”
“Do you have an address?”
“We have two possibles.”
“Is Finkel Junior there?”
“Who?”
“Bri. Mackie’s young friend.” I’d hung tags on both of them.
“One moment.” After a twenty-second pause he said, “He’s here.”
“Then stay there. Keep your eye on him. If Mackie comes in, watch him. If you have to choose, go with Mackie. I’ll be there as soon as I can. Less than twenty minutes. Meanwhile, start going through all the employee records.”
“Philippa started on that as soon as we saw Eddard’s sheet.”
“If you need to use staff for the record scrutiny, hire a couple of people.”
“We should be okay.”
“Good.” I shivered. It was cool in the shadow of the hotel. “For now, let’s not bother Finkel and Rusen or anyone else on set with this.”
“Of course.”
I folded the phone and waited for the car valet to come back.
"HELLO, BRI,” I said.
He straightened from the box of metal scaffolding connectors. “Hi?” He had a spray of pimples on one side of his mouth.
“I can’t find Mackie.” Or Peg, or Joel, or Dornan. “Do you know when he’ll be in?”
“He said he’d be here before lunch?” He twitched, as though he really wanted to get back to his box but knew it wasn’t polite.
It was close to noon now. “What time’s lunch, do you think?”
“About now. Or twelve-thirty?”
I nodded. Turtledove was watching from the door. I held up my wrist, made a half-dial motion, waited until he nodded he understood, then turned back to Bri, who smiled uncertainly. “Do you know who I am?”
His nod was jerky, too.
“Then you know I was one of the people you poisoned.”
He smiled wider and he locked eyes with me. Like a puppy that thumps its tail and cringes at the same time. “I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did. You and Mackie.”
“No.”
“Yes. You were at the coffee urn just before I drank. Mackie was laughing. ” I was certain now. Adolescents love to hero-worship.
Something of my certainty must have penetrated his adolescent dimness. Like a lot of teens, he was unpracticed in the subtleties of lying. He couldn’t equivocate. He flipped, suddenly eager to please.
“It was supposed to be a joke! Mackie said it would be funny.”
“Was it?”
He didn’t know whether he was supposed to nod or shake his head.
Mackie could be here any minute. I needed to shortcut this process. “Are you hungry, Bri, or thirsty? No? Because I am. Let’s go sit down out of the way, have a little chat.” He followed me, sneakers squeaking on the concrete floor, to the craft-services table, where dozens of plastic-wrapped bottles of water were lined up with military precision, along with packets of crisps and pretzels. Rusen, or Joel. Kick wouldn’t organize things that way, nor would Dornan. I put them from my mind.
I pulled a bottle from its plastic and sat on the other side of the table, gestured for Bri to join me. He twisted his head to and fro.
“Mackie’s not here. Your father isn’t here. Even if he were, he couldn’t save you. Maybe he wouldn’t want to. You’re sixteen, Bri, not twelve. You know what Mackie’s like.”
“No.” But he did.
“Sit.” He sat. He didn’t know what else to do. “You know that it’s not smart to put drugs in anyone’s food or coffee. What did you think would happen?”
He stared at the floor. It was tempting to force him to respond, but I didn’t know how long we had.
“But it was all Mackie’s idea, right?”
He muttered something.
“I can’t hear you.”
“Yes.”
“All right. Tell me what else was his idea.”
“What do you mean?” He looked up at me from behind his flopping hair. I had lost count of the number of adolescent suspects who had given me that look, thinking maybe that now they’d admitted something, maybe they could skate a little.
“Let’s just do this, Brian. Tell me about the film, and the lights, and the lab, and the drugs. Let’s start at the beginning.”
“My dad won’t let you do anything to me. Mackie says I’m too young to be prosecuted.”
“Maybe not.” He was of an age to be legally responsible for his actions, but knowing that would only discourage him from admitting guilt. “But I could tell Mackie you told me everything, because I know a lot of the details, even though I don’t have proof, and he won’t care about the fine print. He’ll just beat you into the dirt.” I flexed my hands: If he doesn’t, I will. “And he’ll turn on you in a second. So here’s your chance to tell your story and score some points. Tell me. From the beginning.”
He was sixteen, and not bright. I would give him a minute or so to work out where his best interests lay.
He took forty seconds. “The film stock? He said he’d buy me a beer if I swapped it out for some other film? And, y’know, it wasn’t like it would hurt anyone or anything. I mean, it’s just film. Right?” I nodded. “Right. And it’s not like my dad is broke or anything. So I said okay.”
“How did you do it without anyone seeing?”
“Oh, man, it was so easy. I didn’t have to swap the film, Mackie doesn’t know anything. I just changed the exposures. Like, thirty seconds’ work.”
“Pretty good, wasting thirty thousand dollars in half a minute. What does that work out to an hour?” He was getting uncertain again, which would just waste time. I gave him my best smile. “So you’re pretty smart. Smarter than Mackie, I’ll bet. The drugs were your idea?”
“Nah, they were his. He was like, We can get them so totally fucked up! and I’m like, Okay, all right, so he goes, I’ll get the stuff and we’ll, like, do it right now. So I said okay.”
“So he had the drugs with him, even before you discussed it.”
He thought about it. “I guess.”
“So when did you do it?”
“You were there. That night. We just dumped the baggie in the pot. You were macking on the craft-services girl, and she was, like, ignoring you so hard she wouldn’t have noticed if I took a dump in the food. So I held up the lid and Mackie shook out the baggie into the coffee, and then stirred it with a wrench.”