“So you listen and take notes while Russell drives?” Bailey asked.
A perplexed look from Uma. “Um, Russell doesn’t usually drive.”
Of course not. He has a driver.
“And his driver’s name is?”
“Lee. He dropped us here but then he left, so he never came in the house.”
“But you did, right?” I asked.
“Yeah. And I remember that after we got home, Russell said he couldn’t find his private cell phone, hadn’t seen it all day. I found it for him. He’d accidentally left it in the car.”
“And it’s unusual for him to forget his phone somewhere?” I asked.
“No, not really. He’s got so much going on.” Uma licked her lips nervously. “I just remember that because when he checked the phone, he looked really weird.”
“Weird?”
“Um…upset?” Uma paused. “Shocked, kind of.”
“Did he tell you what was in the message?”
“No. I mean, I know now, but at the time, I didn’t.”
“Who else was around?” I asked.
Uma frowned. “I’m pretty sure Angie was here-”
Angie, assistant to Russell’s wife, Dani. “So Dani must’ve been here,” I said.
“Yeah. I don’t remember seeing her, but she was probably around somewhere. She usually takes Angie with her if she goes out.”
That Russell would have an assistant-or even more than one-made sense, given his workload. But it was hard to fathom what his wife would need one for. I supposed it was something everyone who was anyone had to have-like a Prada purse.
“Anybody else?” Bailey asked.
“Maybe Jeff? Yeah, I’m pretty sure Jeff was here.”
Jeff, yet another of Russell’s assistants. But one step below Uma, the main assistant. This assistant business was complicated.
“Did you see Russell again after he went into his study?” I asked.
Uma looked off to the right. Supposedly an eye shift to the right is a sign of truthfulness. Assuming the person being evaluated doesn’t already know about those “secret” cues.
She slowly replayed the events in her mind. “Yeah. But it was later. He said he had to go out for a little bit and asked me to stay with Dani.”
“Did he tell you where he was going?” Bailey asked.
“No.”
“Did you see him leave?” she asked.
Uma paused for a moment. “I didn’t see him walk out the door, but I didn’t see him around the house for about an hour. Maybe a little more.”
“And when Russell got back, how did he look?” Bailey asked.
“Kind of tired. Depressed.”
“Did he say where he’d been?” I asked.
“No. He just went back in his study and closed the door. I wanted to ask him if I could leave, but he was in a bad mood and sort of out of it, so I decided it’d be better to wait. And I’ve crashed here before, so…”
“When did you see him again?” I asked.
“Maybe an hour before you guys got here. I guess Dani had been in the study with him, because they both came out and she was crying and he was wired, like he wanted to jump out of his skin. He’d sit down, then jump up, pace around, and leave the room. He couldn’t sit still.”
“Did he say anything to you?” Bailey asked.
“He asked all of us if we’d seen Hayley since Thursday.”
“And had you?” Bailey asked.
“No. None of us had.”
“Do you remember anything else he said? Or that Dani said?” I asked.
Uma shook her head. “I don’t remember Dani saying anything to us. She just kept telling Russell to call, and I could tell she was upset with him but, like, trying not to show it. Because he was already such a mess.”
“Who’d she want him to call?” Bailey asked.
“I guess the police. Because the next thing I remember is you guys showing up.”
It seemed a fair guess. And a pretty complete rendition from Uma’s point of view. We thanked her and let her go. After she’d left, I suggested we go fetch our next victim.
25
Russell’s assistant Jeff was really just a lowly runner-a gofer’s gofer, who occasionally got to do the work of an assistant-but I could see that he had much bigger aspirations. He was a xeroxed copy of Russell. Same faded jeans, same baggy T-shirt, and the same worn-out baseball cap, emblazoned with the name of the same team: the Oakland A’s. Jeff even walked with the same bouncing stride. And more important, he was almost an inch shorter than Russell. Clearly he was destined for greatness.
He even flopped down on the couch just like Russell.
“What time did you get here on Monday?” I asked.
“Let’s see…I left the studio at six forty-five, so I had to have gotten here by seven thirty.”
He enunciated with gusto, every word uttered as though he were savoring a new, delicious piece of chocolate, and he had one of those loud, booming voices that so often seem to come from small men. A six forty-five departure would put him out of the running, since Russell read the first kidnap message around six o’clock, and the ransom message came in not too long after that. But it was an easy enough thing to check studio records. I tossed out a question that would give me an idea right now whether he was telling the truth.
“You have security at the studio, some kind of log that says when you come in and when you leave, right?”
Jeff’s eyebrows took wing. “You don’t believe me? Why would I lie?”
You tell me, Jeff. But I restrained my Dragnet impulses. “I’m not saying I don’t believe you. We’re talking to a lot of people, and when you mentioned the studio, I wondered about security, that’s all. Take a pill, Jeff. It’s just a question.”
He looked rattled, but he didn’t dare refuse to answer. “We have security that logs us in and out. I know when I left because I had to pick up a package from Mila to bring to Russell.”
“Mila?”
“A producer. It was a script.”
Better and better. Now we could confirm Jeff’s alibi with Mila. He didn’t have any more information to add to what Uma had told us about the events later that evening, so we let him go. I was tempted to tell him to surrender his passport and stay close just as a joke, but I thought he might stroke out.
“A little high-strung, no?” I said after he’d left.
“He was practically playing a tune he was vibrating so fast. But I’d say he’s off the list.”
“Agreed. Time to move up the food chain.”
Ian Powers affected an exaggeratedly imperious bearing that made me think of “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” He walked in slowly, with a studied casualness, then calmly settled into the love seat. The way he leaned back and spread his arms across the top of the sofa said “lord of the manor.” I wondered whether the posturing was partly an unconscious effort to counteract the shadow of the “little Mattie” persona. Powers confirmed that he had indeed been Russell’s manager since Russell was a co-producer on Brittany’s show, Circle of Friends.
“Then you were representing Russell when Tommy Maher accused him of stealing his screenplay,” I said.
Ian leaned forward, and for just a brief second, his features darkened. But just as quickly, they rearranged themselves into an expression of mild irritation. “It was tragic, really. I would’ve been glad to listen if Tommy had any proof to back up his claim-hell, I would’ve taken him on as a client.” Ian gave a short bark of a laugh at his own semi-joke. “But he didn’t. Just a lot of wind and noise. If you ask me, he saw his career tanking and got desperate, so he tried to horn in on Russell’s screenplay. Maybe he thought Russell would pay him off with nuisance money. I don’t know. But obviously, he was unhinged. You know he committed suicide-”