Chapter Nine #3
“You know what I mean,” Maureen said. “She’s taught a college criminology class. It would be foolhardy not to use all your resources, and sometimes those resources are differing opinions. That’s probably what Lieutenant Caceras wants from us.”
The server brought out two trays and set my salad before me and a burger in front of Seth, followed by Mort’s and Maureen’s sandwiches.
As soon as she left, Howard pulled up an extra chair and sat down with his fountain drink. “That looks delicious,” he said to Mort and Maureen. “What did you order?”
“It was a tough decision,” Maureen said. “We wanted to try everything, so Mort got the onion stack burger and I picked the Southwest chicken wrap, and we’ll split both between us. There, uh, will probably be more than enough if you’d like to share.”
“Ah, no,” Howard said. “I got a chili dog on the way.” He turned to the rest of us. “So, did you figure out which detectives had offices at Century Plaza Towers?”
“We were just discussing Moonlighting,” I said.
“Nice start,” Howard said. “That’s one of them, although I believe the towers were just shown in the opening credits. The other series used exterior shots more often.”
“My wife thinks she knows.” Mort punctuated that sentence by tossing a fry into his mouth.
“I do,” Maureen said. “It’s another of my favorite boy-girl detective shows, as you like to call them.”
“Let me guess, the male detective was hot?” Mort said.
“Aww, don’t start being jealous. I ended up with the hottest detective of them all.” She kissed his cheek, then slid half of her wrap onto his plate. “Then again, that television detective did have an English accent, and you know how I go for a man with an accent.”
“A bit of Irish in there too,” I said.
“Ah, so Jessica thinks she knows now, do you lass?” Howard said in a regrettable attempt at an Irish accent.
I rolled my eyes, hoping he wouldn’t be auditioning for an Irish character anytime soon. “Indeed, it’s Remington Steele.”
“Yes!” Howard said, thankfully leaving the accent behind. “Can’t you see Mildred coming down here to pick up some lunch?”
“Didn’t Steele start out as some kind of con man?” Mort asked.
“He’d probably prefer the term ‘gentleman thief,’ ” I said, thinking of my friend Dennis Stanton, who had a similar background before he turned his talents to the greater good.
“I remember he loved old movies,” Seth said.
“That’s right,” Maureen said. “They’d be in the middle of a case, and all of a sudden, he’d say something like, ‘Sister Act, Whoopi Goldberg, Maggie Smith, Touchstone Pictures, 1992.’ And then he’d explain how their case was like the movie.
Sometimes he’d even be right.” Her face froze, her mouth slightly open, her eyes looking at the towers through the window, but her focus not quite fixed.
“Maureen?” I asked.
“What if…?” she started.
I paused. As a writer, I know some of the most important questions start with What if.
She twisted her neck, then bit her lower lip before finally saying, “No, probably not.”
“What if what, Maureen?” I pressed. “Remember the value in diverging opinions.”
“Well”—she let out a breath—“I was just thinking that Ray was the audio guy. With a click of a mouse or a flip of a switch or whatever, he could hear what anyone who was miked up was saying. So I wondered if, like Whoopi Goldberg’s character in Sister Act, he was targeted because of something he witnessed.
But then, I don’t know what it would have to do with Bobby Brandon being threatened. ”
“You mean, something he overheard accidentally…” Mort began.
“Or purposely,” I added, finally spearing a particularly stubborn kale leaf.
Mort leaned his forearms on the table. “I suppose it’s something to consider, even if we can’t make an immediate connection. Maybe if Caceras gets those recordings Mrs. F. asked for, the answer will be there.”
“You mean it’s a good idea?” Maureen asked.
“I’d say it’s worth looking into,” Mort said.
“It’s a fine idea, Maureen,” I said. “Nice job.”
“I can’t take all the credit though.” She picked up her half of the burger. “Some of it should go to Remington Steele.” She took a big bite. “Mmm.”
Seth laughed. “Amen to that.”
* * *
Seth wasn’t the only one to seek out a late afternoon nap when we returned to the mansion.
I’d changed into a comfortable sweat suit and shut the room-darkening drapes, and I didn’t even set an alarm, which explained my temporary disorientation when I awoke in the darkened room with no sense of how much time I’d slept away.
I checked my cell phone and two hours had elapsed.
I sat on the edge of the bed for a moment to shake off the fogginess, then freshened up, splashing water on my face and running a brush through my hair.
After I’d made my way downstairs, I followed the sound of voices to the theater room.
Lieutenant Caceras, Howard, and a young man I didn’t recognize were working together to connect a computer to a projector.
Maureen stood next to a commercial-style popcorn machine, which was in the process of popping, sending the appealing aroma of melted butter into the air.
Mort was seated on a large gray sectional sofa and conversing with Danielle Gray, who had been removed from her wheelchair and bundled up into blankets. I presumed Seth was still napping.
“Jessica!” Caceras said when he looked up. “Guess what I was able to get for you.”
I walked over to where he and Howard were working.
“The tapes from Day One, I presume.”
“Tapes would be too easy,” he said. “All the files are stored digitally, and while the studio said I could have them—they gave them to me on a couple of high-capacity thumb drives—they’re hard to access without the special software the studio uses.
The good news is I figured out that my son—Mateo, come over here and say hi to Mrs. Fletcher—he’s got this garage band, experimental stuff, and they do music videos they upload to TikTok or whatever app the kids are using these days, and he’s got a switching program on his laptop that’ll access them. He says you can use it for the week.”
I reached out and shook Mateo’s hand. “That’s very generous of you, Mateo.”
“No problem,” he said. “Pop said he’d upgrade my laptop, so I guess it’s a win for both of us.”
“For school.” Caceras shook a finger at him. “Not just for band stuff.”
“Sure,” Mateo said unconvincingly, and went back to his laptop.
“Gabe,” I said, “it seems like just yesterday you were getting married. I can’t believe this strapping young man is your son!”
“Hold on, Jessica.” He lowered his voice. “He’s actually my stepson, but we’re close and we just leave out the ‘step.’ He’s a great kid, although I wish he’d put as much effort into his studies as he does into that music of his.”
“I think we got it,” Howard said, and the projector whirred to life.
Lieutenant Caceras glanced at his watch. “I’ve got to get back to work, but I’m going to leave Mateo with you for a few hours, just to make sure Howard here knows how to use the software. He seems like a quick study though. Let me know if you have any breakthroughs, okay?”
“Will do,” I said.
Maureen handed me a box of popcorn. “Care for a soda from the minifridge, Jess?”
“Maybe a mineral water, if there is one.” I found a spot on the sectional as the lights dimmed.
“How do you want to do this, Aunt Jess?” Howard asked. “Anything you want to see first?”
“I don’t think we need to watch the questions reread,” I said. “Can we jump to the deliberation section?”
“It looks like they have three cameras focused on the contestants, split between six teams,” Mateo said. “You okay with a split screen of all the camera views?”
“Yes, that would be fine,” I said. “I suppose if we see something, we can just ask you to focus in on one particular camera.”
Mateo didn’t respond, but a minute later, the screen went live with three images. “There are a lot of audio tracks,” he said. “If I play them all at once, it’s just going to be a jumbled mess.”
“Can we do one table at a time?” I asked. “Maybe from their lapel mics?”
“If someone can help me figure out who’s at each table,” Mateo said.
“I think I can.” Howard leaned over the laptop.
After a few minutes, the voices of Curt, Bert, and their wives started their deliberations.
I found the screen that bore their images.
Even before they got into any animated discussions, both twins’ faces were red as they sat across from each other.
Fingers tapped on the tabletop, jaws clenched.
They reminded me of two attack dogs straining at their leashes to get at each other.
“This oughta be good.” Mort leaned forward, his forearms on his thighs.
Seth arrived and took a seat next to me. He wiped his glasses on his shirt, then dug into my popcorn box for a handful as he watched. “I still don’t like their color, and look how much they’re sweating.”
The camera swung and took in our table for a moment, and I caught Maureen cringe out of the corner of my eye. Seeing oneself on camera is something that takes a little getting used to.
Even as the camera focused on us, the audio continued from the Bakersfield Brainiacs, and as their voices raised, the camera shifted back to them.
The question where they nearly came to blows was the same one that had stymied us on the first day: the winner of the table tennis Olympic gold medal.
Here, neither man proposed an answer, rather they just debated which of them was supposed to study the medal winners.
It took the diligent efforts of both their wives over several minutes to settle them down and remind them that there was a running clock and they needed to move on to the next question.
“Their poor parents,” Maureen observed.
The screens went black one by one as the other teams finished their deliberations, and there was no further conflict to catch.
Finally, when the Brainiacs also finished, the last camera swung away and went black, but not before catching a few out-of-focus seconds of the dimly lit console area where Ray sat.
“Stop!” I called out, and the video froze.
I jumped up and pointed to the screen where I’d seen Ray. “Can we zoom in on just this screen, and go back to just before they started moving the camera?”
“Sure,” Mateo said.
The frozen camera view was expanded to take up the whole screen, and the images raced backward, until the final seconds they had been focused on the Brainiacs.
“You want it in slow motion?” Mateo asked.
“Can we do that?” I asked.
“I can,” Mateo said.
I remained standing to the side of the screen and watched as the camera swung back to Ray.
“Freeze,” I said.
As the image froze, I could just make out the burly man sitting at his console, a large coffee cup propped beside him. Did it already contain the cyanide?
Seth was leaning forward.
“How does he look to you there?” I asked him.
“Seems okay,” he said. “There are no lights on him, so I can’t really tell anything about his color.”
I looked back to Mateo. “Okay.”
The video crawled forward, and we watched as the woman seated next to him, one of the writers, if I recalled correctly, tapped him on the arm and leaned close to whisper something in his ear. He turned abruptly and said something to her, then spun back to his console.
“Freeze,” I said again.
“Well, look at that,” Mort said. “I know that expression.”
There was no mistaking the facial signs: the furrowed brow, the clenched jaw, the narrowed eyes, the tight lips. “Anger,” I said.