The Unholy

“I don’t want to try getting down to the basement yet. I’m going to ask if anyone’s checked it out. For now, we’ll stay clear until the crime scene units have gotten what they need.”

Upstairs, the basic floor design was the same. They passed by a circle of prop creatures and came to Eddie’s office—home to several charming little gnomelike beings from a children’s fantasy movie—and then moved on to the large office occupied by Mike Greenwood, managing artist of the studio. Mike liked aliens, and his office was filled with sci-fi and space creatures and miniatures of a spaceship that appeared several stories tall on film.

A window in the back of his office looked over the rear of the property; it was high enough that the cemetery in back with its historic family vaults and funerary art could easily be seen. Sean paused there, gazing out.

“Peace Cemetery,” he murmured, glancing at her. “Did it ever disturb you to work in the midst of a cemetery?”

“No,” she said curtly, perhaps too curtly.

“That’s an old, old place.”

“And still accepting burials,” Madison said. “I think Eddie loves that it’s there. He says it’s a place where history and contemporary life meet.” She hesitated a moment. Eddie knew she had a sixth sense, as he called it, because of the cemetery, because of the times they’d walked there together—and the day he’d caught her talking to a ghost. “There are dozens of stories about the cemetery, secret burials and, of course, ghosts. Naturally, it’s got a reputation for being haunted.”

“Most cemeteries do,” Sean said. “Eddie told me once that if he ever had time between the projects that paid the bills, he’d love to do a documentary on the cemetery.” She had the uneasy feeling that he was looking inside her soul. Good Lord, Eddie hadn’t told him she was some kind of a freak who talked to ghosts, had he?

“Does it mean anything to you?” she asked. “The cemetery being there?”

He shrugged. “Right now? I see it as a place where a killer could escape—that’s what I see. Let’s keep going, shall we?”

They returned to the first floor and stopped at Bailey’s station. Sean thanked him and asked, “You’re not working around the clock now, are you?”

“No, but I’ve always taken on the Sunday evening shift. You know how Eddie Archer loves his cinema. And it’s not even like we have break-ins or anything of the kind, but I take over for Winston Nash at five in the afternoon on Sundays and work until morning. Today I’m in because I was already here, and because I’d do whatever I could for Eddie Archer.”

“And Nash didn’t report anything?”

“No, Nash said it was quiet as a tomb all day. I saw Alistair when he went into the Black Box.”

“Did you see when Ms. Henderson showed up?” Sean asked.

Bailey flushed. He shook his head. “But she knew I was here. Even if I weren’t, there’d still be a guard watching over the place. I think she parked on the other side of the cemetery—well, that’s where they found her car—and came around through the graveyard. The front of the cemetery is only on the one side, but the graves stretch around to the back. I assume she slipped around the building. We must’ve caught her entry on the security cameras, but I admit I wasn’t watching that screen when she got in. From what I understand, Alistair told his father that Jenny Henderson said he’d forgotten to lock the front door.”

“And had he forgotten?” Sean asked.

“I haven’t talked to Alistair since I raced over to the Black Box when he came for me. He was…he was crazy, hysterical, when I saw him. He was screaming that a monster killed Jenny. I went back to the tunnel with him…” He shook his head. “It was a pure zoo here last night! When Alistair ran up to this door it was as if he was being pursued by demons. I saw the blood on him and hit the call button for the police, and they were here within minutes. I tried to calm Alistair down enough to talk, but he just kept screaming about the priest and the mummies.”

“Did you go down to the tunnel?”

“Yes. I walked in, saw Jenny Henderson and the blood and walked out again. But I had to check it out because he was so hysterical. It’s my job.”

Sean was thoughtful. Silent.

Bailey continued. “It was a slip-and-slide of blood down there. A slip and slide. When I saw the way the girl was lying there…. Well, I knew she was dead. I backed out, not wanting to mess anything up for the police.”

“That was the right thing to do, Colin.”

“I never had anything that resembled a coherent talk with Alistair. He was in shock. And then the police got here—and Eddie. Eddie seemed to be in shock, too, and they arrested Alistair. Eddie told me not to leave my post, and it’s been a long time now, but I haven’t left,” Bailey said, nodding with determined loyalty. “I haven’t left,” he repeated doggedly.

“Thank you, sir,” Sean said. He handed Colin Bailey a card. “If you think of anything—even something that might seem unimportant, will you call me?”

“You bet, Sean. You know the police interviewed me for more than an hour. I think I said everything. But, Sean, yeah, you bet. I’ll call you.”

They walked out into the dying sunlight. Sean paused. Some of the police cars were gone; they could see that Benny Knox was still standing outside the entrance to the Black Box Cinema, like a sentinel.

“I’m going in,” Sean said. “They should have finished up with the crime scene evidence by now.” He turned to her. “There’s no reason for you to come.”

Yes, there is. The reason Eddie picked me to be with you.

She studied him, wondering how to explain that she somehow knew it was important that she go in without sounding like a fool. She didn’t want to say she might get some kind of feeling from the place. He’d probably look at her as if she should be committed if she said, “There’s a slim possibility that there’s a ghost in there now, and that she might talk to me.”

What would happen? This man wouldn’t really react. He’d hold his thoughts, be polite—and then see that she was committed.

“I really love Eddie Archer,” she began. “He gave me my life. I want to go in, I don’t know if it’ll help, but maybe…”

“I think it’s a mistake,” he said. He might be a legend, but she sensed that to him she was just the guide. No real help, just the guide.

“Eddie asked me to be here. I feel I should go in,” she said stubbornly.

He knew she resented him at that moment and maybe he resented her back. He was the man in charge, so she understood.

“All right,” he said. “I just wanted to know what we were doing before I challenged the buzzard.”

“The buzzard?”

“Detective Knox,” he said, rolling his eyes toward the entrance—and the man in question.

He didn’t say any more as he headed toward the Black Box. Benny Knox had already been standing in a ramrod-stiff position, but his whole body seemed to straighten further as they approached.

“You going in now?” Knox asked.

“Yes,” Sean said.

“You wait here, miss,” Knox ordered.

“She’s working with me, Detective,” Sean said. “She’ll be with my people on this.” He kept speaking even though Knox’s frown made it apparent that he planned to argue. “This case is looking more and more like an in-house situation, Detective. Madison knows all the players on the stage now, and I may not. She probably knows the killer, and I would say fairly well.”

“In-house,” Knox muttered. “The Archer kid was the only one here, Agent Cameron. Yeah, I guess you’d call that in-house.”

“Come on, Knox,” Sean said. “You’re a good detective or you wouldn’t be on this. And you know as well as I do that what’s most obvious isn’t always the truth.”

“In this case? I don’t know. I really don’t.” Knox wasn’t being a wiseass, Madison thought; he was serious. The subdued way he spoke scared her for Eddie more than anything else.

Sean said, “We’re not going with obvious. We’re investigating. Madison is familiar with the working of this studio and the cinema, inside and out. She’s with me.” The last was quiet and firm.

Madison watched Knox’s inner struggle. His longing to argue was clearly there, but he didn’t persist. She wondered what kind of power Sean and his people had—exactly who they were, she wasn’t sure.

Knox nodded. “Hands gloved, feet bagged,” he said.

“Of course,” Sean agreed.

At the entry there was a box of supplies. Madison followed suit as Sean put plastic covers over his shoes and pulled latex gloves on his hands. She fumbled awkwardly as she tried to get the gloves on, perhaps because Knox was behind them, watching her every move.

The three of them went inside.

A tech in a jumpsuit was leaving, a plastic box filled with vials in his arms. He nodded. As they headed through the theater, she saw that Sean looked at everything, from the Art Deco popcorn stand to the rugs, the cinema itself—and the office. As they reached the tunnel, she heard two of the techs talking.

“Hazmat will have fun with this one,” someone said.

“This is nothing! You should’ve seen that murder site up on the hill. The killer wrote in blood everywhere. Wonder if that place will ever sell,” another voice responded.

“This is Hollywood—you can sell anything,” the first man said. “Let’s finish up here. I’m ready for a drink.”

The techs nodded as they passed Knox, Sean and Madison.

“Your team’s covered everything?” Knox asked.

“Sir, if we covered any more, we’d have to take the walls,” the man said.

“Good.”

As they made their way down, Madison felt as if the place was closing in on them. It was actually a broad throughway, maybe fifty feet in width and a hundred and fifty in length.

When they reached the tunnel, she felt dizzy. The smell of blood was overwhelming.

The museum in the tunnel had always been fascinating. It was an homage to a bygone era of film, one that played an important role in the evolution of movies. Although Madison preferred romantic comedy, fantasy, adventure and horror, she loved the feel of the little museum. She’d learned new respect for film noir because of it, and she was impressed by the accuracy and detail of the old tableaux.

Today, it was different. The artistry seemed to be gone; it was merely a tunnel with props and policemen. There were little plastic clips with numbers, a photographer was still snapping photos and tape outlined the place where the body had fallen. The last tableau at the rear, the Sam Stone movie scene, was out of kilter. It had been photographed, fingerprinted and invaded.

Madison focused on that tableau, not wanting to see the blood on the floor.

It wasn’t prop blood. It wasn’t chocolate, as Hitchcock had used for the black-and-white murder scene in Psycho. It was real blood, and the person who’d shed that blood was now dead.

Thankfully, the body had been taken to the morgue. Despite what Madison had said, and despite all the time she spent creating creatures that were sometimes heroic and most often terrible, she felt somewhat squeamish about being down here. She wondered if she’d ever be able to come to the museum again without thinking about what had happened last night.

She’d come for a reason! she reminded herself. She had to be here.

She stood several feet from the tape that marked the position of the body and tried not to see the remaining techs or pay attention to Sean Cameron as he moved about the room. Eventually he came to the marked-out tape line.

She realized that he was standing as still as she was, as if he felt the air and was waiting for some kind of message that would speak to him in silence from the tunnel.

The photographer packed up his equipment and told Knox he was done. Soon the other techs left, too, and then there were just the three of them. For a moment, the silence around them seemed…unnatural.

“Sam Stone and the Curious Case of the Egyptian Museum.” Sean was looking at the tableau. “And Alistair Archer swears that someone—something—came out of that tableau and attacked Jenny Henderson.”

“The priest—Amun Mopat, I understand,” Madison said.

“Indeed, the priest. And he’s still wearing his robe.”

“There’s something missing—something off in the scene,” Madison said as she studied the tableau.

“I have that feeling, too. But what?” Sean asked. He stared at it, frowning.

Madison continued to study it, as well. Mannequins, snakes and the items in the “Egyptian Museum” had been moved by the police and put back, but they weren’t experts on how the display had been set up. There was something wrong, but she couldn’t pin it down.

Sam Stone was entering, ready to wrest the priest, Amun Mopat, away from Dianna Breen. The sarcophagus, the mummy fallen to the floor, the stand with the canopic jars—all still there. So was the statue of the ancient Egyptian warrior, tilted to the wrong side, and the jackal and the sphinx.

“I wish I knew this place as well as Alistair does,” Sean said.

Madison watched in silence as Sean noted where the body had been and he walked to the tableau, not touching the velvet cord that separated the scene from the hall passage. He stepped over the cord. There wasn’t much he could do to mess up what had been a perfect recreation, since the police and the techs had already been through the entire place. She found it oddly disturbing, as if the characters were now out of focus, and far more haunting than the ferocious and bloody scenes in the studio.

Madison tried to shut herself off, tried to focus on the victim.

Jenny?

But she didn’t feel the presence of anyone near her. She stood there alone in her little world, frozen. She could envision Alistair and Jenny coming here, Alistair walking ahead, Jenny sensing someone at her back, crying out desperately for help….

And then feeling a knife cut through her throat.

Madison gave herself a furious mental shake. She was in the tunnel; the murder had happened only a few feet from where she was standing.

But there was nothing here that wasn’t solid and real.

Jenny Henderson’s body was at the morgue. If she was hanging around the place she’d been murdered, hoping to communicate, Madison could feel no impression of her.

She walked a step closer to the blood, hoping that didn’t make her ghoulish. She closed her eyes and tried to imagine the scene. Jenny must have coerced Alistair into bringing her to the studio. Jenny was an actress, a budding actress who needed every possible opportunity. No casting was done at the studio, but she probably believed she could learn something that might give her an edge when they were casting bit parts.

Had Jenny and Alistair paused to look at the tableaux? Or had Jenny’s mind been on her agenda—and Alistair’s mind on Jenny?

She took note of where the body had lain. There was a distance of perhaps twenty feet to the door. Alistair had walked ahead….

“All right,” Sean said, startling her. “Here’s how I heard the story from Eddie—how it was told to him by Alistair. Jenny convinced him to bring her over—she wanted to get into the studio, see the costumes and the Egyptian creatures. Or the mythical creatures the Egyptian priest, Amun Mopat, brought to life. And according to Alistair—” Sean paused, approaching the door that separated the tunnel from the studio “—he came this way, and turned.”

“And saw a monster—or the priest,” Madison said.

“Which means—” Sean paused again, walking to the display “—that the killer was in the tableau. As soon as Alistair passed by, the killer came down.” Sean moved up to the display, then got down, his movements silent. “The robed figure left his position and crawled over the velvet cord and attacked Jenny Henderson. He’d left Sam Stone and his femme fatale where they belonged as he stepped down to seize Jenny, and cut her throat.”

Sean was suddenly standing behind Madison.

For a moment, she could feel the fear, feel as if the killer’s breath touched her….

She felt his hands on her shoulders, and the other girl’s fear seemed to fill her. She could practically see—feel, touch!—what had happened.

Her throat closed; she could barely scream.

Alistair!

The sound didn’t leave her lips. She managed to step forward before she began trembling noticeably.

She almost slipped on the blood.

Deep in his own thoughts, Sean hardly noticed her.

“This place, the movie—they have everything to do with the murder,” he said, repeating what he’d told her before. “Everything.”

4

Madison stared at Sean Cameron, feeling frozen at first, and completely lost. There was nothing she could do here. She’d hoped there would be, but she felt nothing except cold and fear and dread. She could picture what had happened but she couldn’t see a face. She imagined the mannequin of the priest moving, saw him walking swiftly….

Saw him kill.

“Poor girl, poor Jenny Henderson—and poor Alistair,” he murmured.

“Alistair didn’t do it,” Madison said. Her voice was low, but her words were passionate. “It happened just the way you reenacted it. He was ahead of her and then he got to the door. Someone was already in here, waiting. Someone who knew that Alistair came to see the noir movies on Sundays, and someone who also knew about Jenny. Yes, it was taking a chance that Jenny would show up and that Alistair would fall in with her plans, but it wasn’t really that big a chance.”

“Someone—or the kid. The kid does tell it your way. But there’s nothing to exonerate him.”

Madison was startled by the voice of Benny Knox. He’d come in behind them. She’d been concentrating so hard, she’d forgotten he was with them.

“Yep, according to the kid, he walked to the door—and the thing came out of the tableau. I don’t know what the kid was on, but temporary insanity or whatever is probably going to be his best defense,” Knox went on.

“If he says that’s what happened, it’s what happened. Alistair isn’t on drugs, and he doesn’t drink. He’s a good kid—which is pretty amazing when you realize the money he has access to and how everyone tries to suck up to him because of what his father might be able to do for them!” Madison said angrily.

“Whoa.” Knox lifted a hand and took a step back in mock-horror. “Well, when they need character witnesses, they can call you to the stand.”

Madison tried to check her temper, but he continued quickly, “Look, I’m sorry. We are going to investigate. If the L.A. police weren’t determined on that, you can guarantee the FBI would be. But you’ve got to understand—you’re looking at a locked-room mystery here, and the thing is, if a room is really locked, the people in that room are the suspects. Nine times out of ten what you see is what you get.”

“What you see is a kid in shock and a brutally murdered young woman,” Sean Cameron said. “And I wouldn’t go counting on there being no other answer. For one thing, a costume is missing from the studio.”

“Missing?” Knox asked sharply.

“It’s not on the mannequin,” Madison said, “where it should be—where it was before I left the studio on Friday.”

“So it may just be somewhere else?”

“It’s the robe the priest wears,” Sean said. “That’s definitely worth investigating.”

Knox didn’t dismiss his words, but he didn’t seem too impressed, either. “That studio is filled with shelves and desks and nooks and crannies and…stuff. The robe may turn up easily. Yes, we’ll investigate—I’m sure you will, too, Agent Cameron,” he said to Sean. “I intend to go through all the steps on my end. I’m just telling you it isn’t looking good for young Archer. When you show me another way in and out of this locked room, I’ll be happy to reexamine the evidence.” He pointed to the tableau. “As you can see, those mannequins just stand there—they don’t move around. They don’t speak, argue or step down to commit murder. But you’re right. We have all kinds of hairs and fibers and plenty of blood. In fact, we’ve got forensics up the wazoo. We’ve checked the locks, we’ve gone over the security footage…and nada. So when you find something, let me know.”

As he finished speaking, they were all shocked by a noise from the tableau. Some piece of the little scenario had shifted. The three of them immediately looked over at the characters. There was Sam Stone, ready to race across the room to save his femme fatale. And there was the man in the robe, his fingers twined around the terrified woman’s neck. There was the sarcophagus and the snakes—cobras posed moving across the floor and in strike mode.

The scene had shifted, of course, because the crime scene techs had been up there, photographing, fingerprinting, moving things around. That obviously explained the odd, off-kilter look of the tableau. And yet…

Madison swallowed uncomfortably. Dianna Breen seemed to be gazing not at the mysterious man in the robes about to strangle her—but at Madison. Huge blue glass eyes seemed to stare across time and space.

For a moment—just for a moment!—she thought there’d been another presence in the tunnel.

Sean Cameron walked back toward and through the tableau. “Gravity, I guess. Something shifted from being handled by the crime scene techs.”

“Of course,” Knox said. His voice was harsh, and Madison looked over at him. Maybe the hard-boiled just-the-facts detective was a little on edge himself.

Madison tried to define exactly how the tableau had changed. The police and technicians apparently hadn’t uncovered anything they considered evidence; they’d left the scene almost as they’d found it. But it had changed. And Dianna Breen still seemed to be staring at her with horrified eyes.

Last night, those realistic glass eyes had witnessed a murder.

“No sign of the weapon yet, right?” Sean asked.

“No. Before you arrived today, two dozen of our guys—the best at their jobs—went through the studio. We needed that many, which won’t surprise you. The place is a hotbed of fake weapons and fake blood and fake—well, you name it.” He shook his head. “But no, we don’t have the weapon yet.”

“So, how are you figuring that Alistair murdered the girl, fell in the blood, passed out, came to and got emergency help and somehow hid the weapon?” Sean asked him.

“Here’s the thing, Agent Cameron. The kid was here alone. We have experts still going through all the surveillance. He claims he raced toward Ms. Henderson and the ‘thing’ killing her and that he fell in the blood, went down and passed out. According to him, he regained consciousness, called the security guard and came back with him when the guard rushed in, followed by the cops. He claims he passed out. God knows what he was really doing or what really happened. And if someone else was here, why kill the girl and not him?”

“How can you have a scapegoat if you kill everyone?” Sean asked reasonably.

“That’s right,” Madison said. “If Alistair had been killed as well, he couldn’t have been blamed for the murders.”

Knox was quiet a moment. “I’m not discounting any possibilities. I’m just not emotionally involved. Are you done here for the day? We’re closing up until tomorrow and—”

“What about Colin Bailey?” Sean broke in. “Did you confirm that he was in the studio, in the security station, watching the cameras the whole time?”

“Bailey was the only other person on the property at all,” Knox said. “Everything pans out—and, of course, we verified his background. His record is clean as a whistle, he’s worked here twenty years and his story checks out. We’re not stupid local dicks, Agent Cameron. So, are you done here?”

“Yes, thanks, Detective Knox. Can one of your guys give us a ride to Archer’s place?”

“Sure. Go on out. There’s a fellow named Duffy in his car.”

“Madison?”

She nodded, said thank you to Knox, then followed Sean out. She noticed that Knox was behind them and had to wonder if he—hard-boiled L.A. detective—didn’t want to be in the tunnel alone.

“You’re going to Archer’s house?” Madison asked Sean. Her part was finished for today, wasn’t it? She felt as if she were in limbo. She had no idea what was happening with the studio the next day. Were they all on hold?