Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
It kept getting stranger. The next thing I knew, I was riding back from location in one of the limousines, and with me were Greenblatt, Perkins, and Mann. Nobody else. Even Robinson went in the other limo. And we were going to the airport.
I didn’t know why I was asked to come. But Greenblatt told me to get in the limousine. The trip started and Mann said, “No way, no way you can stick that on me, no way.” And as we pulled out, Greenblatt told Perkins to explain everything.
“Perhaps it is best to work backward,” Perkins said. “Mr. Mann was trying to kill the stuntman.”
“You’ll never stick me with that,” Mann said.
“We can easily stick you with that, if it comes to a legal procedure. We have thirty-six photographs taken at high speed with a motorized Nikon and a five-hundred-millimeter telephoto lens that shows detail extremely well. It shows you adjusting both the throw and the pressure settings on the nitrogen ram. It shows the rest of the company out in the street, preparing for the shot.”
“I was just checking. I didn’t touch anything.”
“You have motive,” Perkins said. “Chadney will probably testify to that.”
“What was the motive?” Greenblatt said.
“Blackmail. Chadney was blackmailing Mr. Mann for his involvement in the death of Mr. McDougall. Mr. Mann naturally wanted to get rid of the blackmailer.”
Greenblatt said, “Did he kill McDougall?” Greenblatt was talking as if Mann weren’t in the car with them.
“That’s the funny thing,” Perkins said. “I was puzzled about that for some time. Here is the reconstruction of events . . . Clete Williams and McDougall fight in the bar over Miss Conrad’s reputation.
McDougall then goes upstairs and berates Miss Conrad in person.
Williams arrives and throws him out. Then there is further argument in the corridor, and Mr. Mann comes along and breaks it up. That was easy enough to determine.”
“Go on.”
“Well, the next thing we know is that Mr. Mann is down in the bar, asking for a bottle of J&B Scotch, presumably for Mr. McDougall. And we also know that Mr. Mann was supplying McDougall with opium, which he got from Mr. Chadney.”
“This is getting complicated,” Greenblatt said. “McDougall used opium?”
“Yes. He smoked it in his pipes. His pipes, I might remind you, were never found in his room.”
I was sitting there with my mouth open. I knew about the opium, but I also knew Chadney’s girl hadn’t told Perkins about it.
How did Perkins find out?
“From all accounts,” Perkins said, “Mr. McDougall and Mr. Mann had a difficult relationship. McDougall thought he had Mann over a barrel, and he played it that way. He was petty, demanding, and insolent. Mr. Mann didn’t have the nerve to do what he should have done, which was fire him long ago.
Instead, he became an errand boy for McDougall. He didn’t like it, but he did it.”
Greenblatt nodded thoughtfully.
“Mr. Mann’s relationship with Mr. McDougall deteriorated markedly that Tuesday.
By then, it came to his attention that Sally had been to bed with Mr. McDougall.
Sally is, of course, obviously an ambulatory schizophrenic.
She is a very disturbed young woman. She has been to bed with many people in the production, and Mann knew about it.
He could do nothing about Clete Williams, for instance, or about Tom Franklin, the director.
But when McDougall went to bed with her, that was the last straw.
He hated McDougall. He wanted to kill him.
His rage must have been extreme when he was publicly humiliated by having McDougall toying with Sally on the set. ”
“The missing film . . .”
“Yes,” Perkins said. “That is important, because it shows that by early evening on Tuesday, Mr. Mann was already not functioning well. He heard about the funny business during the morning. He wanted to get rid of the film that recorded it. He didn’t know that Franklin, in his usual diplomatic way, had arranged to scratch the setup and not print anything from that sequence in order to keep Mann from being embarrassed among his friends at the studio. ”
Greenblatt shot a glance at Mann for the first time. He shook his head.
“Franklin had already taken care of it, but Mann didn’t know that.
He thought he’d better destroy the film.
He rode to the airport, and while the chauffeur was in the bathroom, he opened the trunk and discarded what he thought was the correct film.
But he chose the wrong magazine. That was why he was so startled the next evening, when he saw dailies. ”
I remembered. Mann had said, “What?” in an astonished way, and then covered with some silly remark about lighting.
“We recovered that film, as you know,” Perkins said.
“But its importance is to indicate Mr. Mann’s state of mind, which was panicked and angry and confused.
Now, that evening, McDougall begins ordering him around, sending him downstairs for a bottle of Scotch, treating him like a delivery boy.
Mann complies. He also sends out for some opium later in the night. Mann again delivers.”
“How do you know that?” I asked.
“Sally told me. I had a long conversation with her. McDougall called about three in the morning for opium. Mann took it to him.”
“Go on,” Greenblatt said.
“Well, the next event of significance is the discovery of the body about two hours later. Mann finds that the hated person is indeed dead. Mann wanted him dead, and now he’s dead.
The wish has come true. But Mann didn’t kill him—it was, actually, an accident—but he is overcome with guilt.
He feels he will be implicated, so he removes the traces of his association. ”
“You’re crazy,” Mann said. “You’re out of your mind.”
“First,” Perkins said, “he takes the sock from the bathroom floor and wipes everything of fingerprints. It never occurs to him that should his fingerprints be found in the apartment, nobody would ever question it. He feels guilty, and he acts guilty. He wipes exposed surfaces and drops the sock near the door. Then he removes the bottle of J&B, which was very foolish. He probably takes it away because he knows Ben will associate him with the bottle. But he was foolish because Millie Pink has already seen the bottle on the table. She has, of course, now gone to call the police.”
Perkins paused and looked at Mann, who was shaking his head again.
“The opium is next. It was probably sitting there on the table with the script and his pipes. Mann takes the pipes and cleans up the table. Here is another mistake. He arranges everything for a left-handed person—pencils and pens neatly set out on the left, and so on. He forgets that McDougall is right-handed.”
Greenblatt lit a cigarette. “You’re sure he’s left-handed?”
“Are you left-handed, Mr. Mann?” Perkins said.
“Maybe I am,” Mann sputtered, “but that doesn’t—”
“He carries all this material back to his room, all this incriminating evidence of his association to the apparent murder. And then he thinks of the autopsy. The autopsy will show narcotics. So Mann goes back and puts down a razor blade and a rolled dollar bill, evidence of cocaine use. You see, he assumes, along with ninety-nine percent of the rest of the world, that cocaine is a narcotic. Which of course it is not.”
“It’s not?” Greenblatt said.
“In no way. Technically, narcotic means something that puts you to sleep, which cocaine isn’t.
But in general usage, narcotic means a derivative of the poppy—namely, opium, heroin, or morphine.
Cocaine is a derivative of the cocoa leaf and is an entirely different substance chemically.
It is a stimulant, not a depressant, with a completely different effect on the metabolism.
The autopsy report clearly differentiated the matter—evidence of morphine compounds, and no cocaine traces or its by-products.
“Now, when I arrived at the scene, I felt that there had to have been a murder, because the room had been so carefully staged. I mean wiping fingerprints, removing the pipes, straightening the desk, and so on. But you see, the staging didn’t make sense.
It didn’t make the crime perfect. It made it irrational and messy.
That, coupled with Mr. Mann’s extraordinary desire to get rid of the film magazine earlier in the night, suggested to me that it was guilt that had provoked the cover-up.
He felt he had to hide his wish to kill McDougall, even though he didn’t actually kill him. ”
“So how does Chadney fit in?” Greenblatt asked.
“Once I knew that Mann had gone back to McDougall’s room, I began to wonder if there were any witnesses.
The Holiday Inn is shaped like an L, and that means that one wing can look at the corridor of the other.
Anybody in the short wing of the L could see people coming and going in the corridor.
Of course, most people would be asleep and not looking out their windows.
But I thought somebody might be too nervous to sleep.
I checked the schedule for the next day, and sure enough, a stunt was scheduled.
“Chadney’s room was looking out on the corridor.
He was, according to his girlfriend, jumping out of bed to look out the window every few minutes, all night long.
He saw Mann coming and going. The next morning, McDougall is found dead, and Chadney puts two and two together.
He knows, for instance, that he’s been supplying opium, but there’s no opium in McDougall’s room at the time the body is discovered.
So he puts the squeeze on Mann. And it works. ”
“That little son of a bitch . . .”
“Suddenly you were faced with the fact that by cleaning up a death you had nothing to do with,” Perkins said, “you were in reality very vulnerable to an investigation. It would look bad because you were acting guilty. You had visited McDougall’s room at three a.m., and you had cleaned up the mess around five forty-five.
You were in real trouble. Chadney had you over a barrel, just as McDougall had had you over a barrel.
Only this time you were going to fight back. ”
“He wanted a hundred thousand dollars,” Mann said, his voice so low that we could hardly hear it. “The bastard thought he could stick it to me.”
“And so you changed the settings on the nitrogen ram,” Perkins said.
Mann kept his head down and didn’t answer.
Up ahead, I saw the airport. Greenblatt glanced at his watch. “I’ll just make my plane,” he said. And then to Perkins, he added, “By the way, do you have any idea how far behind Bloodrock is now?”
“I’d say eleven days and five hundred thousand dollars.”
Greenblatt nodded. “I think this will all work out,” he said.
The limousine pulled up in front of the airport. Greenblatt got out. Perkins got out. I stayed in the limo with Mann. Greenblatt leaned in and said, “I’ll call you later in the day, Charles. We’ll figure out how to handle this.”
Mann looked up at him, surprised. In that moment, I saw the glimmer of hope in his eyes.
And I realized, because this man lived in a world full of money and top-shelf lawyers—and because the fate of the movie might ultimately mean more to the men in charge than the administration of justice—there was a very good chance he could walk away from this without ever being officially charged with attempted murder.
As I looked over at Perkins, I wondered what he was thinking.
Surely he must have come to the same realization I had concerning the ultimate fate of Charles Mann.
So yes, I thought. You succeeded in your mission.
You brilliantly cracked the case. But are you satisfied? I couldn’t read the answer on his face.
The limousine driver turned back to look at us and said, “Where to now, gentlemen?”