Shock Treatment (26 page)

“Long enough to conspire to kill Matt Novak?”

“And get back at Jill at the same time,” Catherine speculated. “Settling two scores with one unfortunate ‘misunderstanding.'”

“Possible,” Brass said. “Nasty, but possible.”

Was Debra capable of such a heartless stunt? Catherine decided Jill's number-one frenemy deserved
a closer look. Noting a link to Debra's personal web page, she clicked over to check it out.

A dark violet background, adorned with black orchids, betrayed a more gothic side to the seemingly innocuous copywriter, as well as more literary ambitions. Catherine skimmed the website, surfing through pages and pages of purple poetry and prose written in flowery cursive type. “Looks like Debra fancies herself an author of sorts . . . of more than advertising copy, that is.”

“What?” Brass asked sarcastically. “Hyping new brands of toothpaste doesn't satisfy her creatively?”

“Yeah. Imagine that.” Catherine scrolled through Debra's online literary output. “Hmm. She seems to have a distinct taste for the macabre. Get a load of some of these titles.
Ode to a Demon Lover. Graveyard Tryst. Deliver Me to Evil
. . . .”

Brass rolled his eyes. “Slasher movies.
Shock Treatment.
Creepy poetry. Doesn't anybody just watch sports anymore?”

“Debra doesn't look like much of an ESPN fan to me,” Catherine said. “But, judging from this, she might be the kind of girl who would be into playing trick-or-treat in bed.”

She mentally compared Debra's photos to the unnamed zombie girl in the sex video. A biometric comparison of the
Shock Treatment
footage and the sex tape, conducted by Archie, had confirmed that Jill was not the woman in the zombie mask, but Debra . . . ?
It could be her,
Catherine thought.
Under the mask.

Brass nodded. “I think we need to have another talk with Ms. Lusky.”

“Before or after we show her a movie?”

T
HE DEAD SNAKE
wasn't going anywhere.

Fully extended, it occupied a tray on the light table in the layout room. Color photos of the snake, including close-ups of its scarred hide, were mounted on the wall. Its abdomen had been stitched back up following the necropsy. Colored dyes had been employed to trace the depth and contours of the wounds. Leaning over the specimen, Ray gently double-checked the distance between the wounds with a caliper. Magnifying lenses were clipped over his regular reading classes. Concentration showed upon his face. The more he examined the scratches, the less he believed that they had been caused by another snake or a rough set of tongs.

“Spending some quality time with Coral?”

He looked up to see Sara enter the room. Like Ray, she had shown up early this afternoon to get a head start on the next round of their investigation.
If they were lucky, maybe they could squeeze in dinner before their next shift officially began. “Coral?”

“Feels odd calling a snake ‘Jane Doe,'” she explained. “Coral seemed like a good nickname.”

“Except that the necropsy indicated that this snake was a male.” Sexing a snake was a tricky business, especially when it was alive, but dissection had cleared up that mystery. A full copy of the necropsy report was spread out on the table next to the specimen. Ray flicked the magnifying lenses up away from his eyes. “Doc Robbins evicted ‘Coral' from the morgue. Says he needed the biers for human casualties.”

Sara nodded. “So where you keeping her . . . I mean, him?”

“The fridge in the break room,” he confessed. “So far, nobody has complained.” The snake was still cold to the touch. “Did you know some snake handlers refrigerate live snakes before displaying them? The cold makes them sluggish and easier to handle.”

Sara shot Ray a look. “Brian Yun has a fridge in his office.”

“Yes,” he said. “For his ‘private stash' of Snapples. It would have been the perfect place to store Coral until everyone else went home. He could have brought it to work in a cooled thermos bottle or some other container.”

Fang Santana had picked Yun's photo out of a line-up, identifying the assistant manager as the individual who had illegally obtained a coral snake from him. Santana was hardly a reliable witness, however, and a good defense attorney could easily
make the case that his testimony had been coerced, so Vartann was reluctant to pick Yun up just yet. Questioning Yun now would only alert him that they were onto him. More conclusive proof was required to get a conviction.

“We need to tie this snake directly to Yun,” Sara said, thinking aloud. She walked over to the board and examined the photos. X-ray and fluoroscope images looked beneath the snake's scaly hide. “Any progress?”

Ray grinned. “Maybe. The placement of these scratches, as well as their depth, suggest that they may have been made by extendable claws. I'm waiting for confirmation now.” He took out his cell phone and dialed the morgue. “Let me check on that.”

David Phillips picked up on the second ring. “Hi, Professor,” he greeted Ray. “I was just going to call you.”

“Did you get those results yet?” Ray asked.

“Yep,” David said. “And you were right on target. The tissue samples from the wounds tested positive for
Bartonella
.”

That was bad news for Brian Yun. Ray gave Sara an encouraging nod. “Thanks, David. I appreciate you getting right on that.”

“No problem, Prof,” the assistant coroner replied. “Hope this helps.”

“I'll let you know.” Ray wrapped up the call, while Sara waited curiously. “That was David,” he informed her. “Coral was infected with
Bartonella.
”

The name drew a blank with her. She was a scientist, not an M.D. “Which is?”

“The bacteria responsible for cat scratch disease,” he explained. “Fairly common in the feline population.” Ray had treated more than a few cases of CSD over the years, mostly in small children. “The cats themselves are usually asymptomatic, but can pass the bacteria on via bites or scratches.”

Sara glanced at the scarred snake carcass. “Coral was scratched by a cat?”

“From the looks of things, he had a nasty tussle with a feline not long before he ended up in the spa.” Ray recalled a framed photo of a scowling Persian cat. “Brian Yun's cat died recently.”

He didn't need to spell it out for her. Sara grinned back at him.

“We're going to need a warrant,” she said.

“T
O BE HONEST
, I'm not sure what I can tell you that you don't already know,” Debra Lusky said. “This whole episode has been a nightmare, but I told you before how it happened.”

Brass and Catherine faced her across the glass-topped table in the interrogation suite. If Debra really had conspired against Jill Wooten, the intimidating environment might sweat the truth out of her. Or so he hoped.

“Just the same,” he said gravely, “we'd like to go over it one more time. Frankly, there are still some details that strike us as a little fishy.”

Debra squirmed nervously in her seat. Like Jill, she had dressed conservatively for her visit to the police station. A mustard pantsuit gave her a distinctly professional appearance, quite unlike the naked zombie girl in the video. “Like what?”

“Take the gun for instance,” Brass began. “As Jill's former roommate, didn't you know she had a gun?”

“That was over a year ago,” Debra protested, “back when she was having all that trouble with Craig. It was ancient history. Besides, how was I supposed to know that she would take a gun to a job interview? Seriously, who does that?”

“Jill, apparently.” Brass jotted down Debra's response on a notepad. The session was being taped, of course, but he liked to keep his own records for easy reference. “So why didn't you mention the gun, or Jill's stalker ex-boyfriend, to the crew at
Shock Treatment
?”

“Like I said, that was ages ago. It didn't even occur to me.” She sighed ruefully, a contrite expression on her face. “In retrospect, obviously, I should have remembered about the gun. I'm going to regret that till the day I die. But it honestly never crossed my mind. I didn't even realize she still had the gun, let alone that she'd be carrying it around like that.”

“Too bad for Matt Novak,” Brass said.

“Trust me, I feel terrible about this.” She looked anxiously at Brass and Catherine. “Have you spoken to Jill? How is she holding up? I've tried to talk to her, but she's not taking my calls.”

“Imagine that,” Brass said.

Debra bristled at his tone. “Look, I know I screwed up. There's no need to rub it in. You can't make me feel any worse than I already do.” She scooted her chair back. “If you're just going to give me attitude, maybe I'm wasting my time here.”

“Let's change the subject then,” Catherine said, before Debra could get up and leave. A laptop rested on the tabletop in front of her. She lifted its lid. “There's something we'd like to show you.”

Debra eyed the computer apprehensively. “Is this the hidden-camera footage from that night? Because I'm not sure I want to see that again.” A shudder worked its way down her all-too-average frame. “Once was enough.”

“Nah,” Brass assured her. “This is something else. A different kind of candid camera.”

Catherine fired up the sex tape and rotated the laptop to face Debra. Brass couldn't see the screen himself, but that didn't matter. The CSIs had already shown him the video before. Right now he was more interested in watching Debra's reaction.

Which was impressive. Her eyes widened in shock. The color drained from her face as her jaw dropped open. Was she just reacting to the explicit nature of the video, he wondered, or to something more?

It was hard to tell. He trusted his gut, but he had also been a cop long enough to know that people could always surprise you. A grieving widower could turn out to be a cold-blooded killer. A slimy creep could prove to be innocent. He was a detective, not a mind reader. He had been fooled before.

Still, in his expert opinion, Debra looked more alarmed than embarrassed by the tape. And was that a flicker of fear in her eyes?

Or guilt?

She watched for less than a minute before looking away. Averting her gaze, she reached out and closed the laptop so she couldn't see the monitor anymore.

“I don't understand,” she said, visibly shaken. A tremor rattled her voice. “Why would you show me that?”

Brass raised the screen back into the position. “Do you recognize the man in the video?”

Grimacing, she forced herself to watch some more of the tape. She strained to maintain a neutral expression. Her jaw looked tight enough to grind her teeth to gravel. “Is . . . is that Roger Park? From the TV show?”

“Got it the first time,” Catherine said. “How long have you known Mr. Park?”

“I don't really know him at all,” Debra insisted. “We met once to plan the wax museum hoax, and then again the night of the shooting, but I don't know anything about his . . . his personal life. Why should I? And what's that got to do with anything?” Her eyes widened again. “Wait a second. You don't think that's Jill in the video, do you?”

“No,” Brass said. “Not Jill.”

A pointed look got his implication across.

“What? You think that's
me
?” She sputtered in indignation. “You can't be serious!” She leaned forward, trying to convince him. “Look, I applied for the show the same way everyone else does, by volunteering at their website. They got in touch with me, told me they were going to be filming several episodes in Vegas, and we took things from there.” She pointed at the erotic antics on the computer screen. “There was certainly nothing like
that
involved!”

Brass wasn't sure he bought her show of offense. Debra's pupils were dilated, a sure sign of dismay. She chewed nervously at her nails. Brass had interviewed a lot of guilty customers in this room. Debra looked like maybe she was on the verge of cracking.

He kept the pressure up. “What about Matt Novak? The man who died? Did you know him before that night?”

“No! Absolutely not.”

“Do you know why anyone would want him dead?”

“Of course not. Don't you get it? It was an accident. A stupid, tragic accident.”

“Are you sure about that?” he pressed. “Or was the whole thing a set-up to get Novak killed?”

“That's ridiculous,” she protested. “Why would I do something like that? I keep telling you, I didn't know that actor . . . and I did
not
have sex with Roger Park.”

Catherine weighed in. “Okay, what about you and Jill? We understand that there have been some hard feelings between you two in the past. Maybe enough to want to get her into trouble?”

“Jill is my friend,” Debra insisted.

“That's not the way she tells it,” Catherine said. “She says you were always jealous of her.”

Debra scoffed at the notion. “That was all in her head. Look, I like Jill, but she can be a little . . . volatile sometimes. Paranoid even.” Calming down a little, she settled back into her seat to explain her side of the story. “There was this one time, back before she and Craig broke up, when she got up from a nap and found Craig and I watching some old monster movie on TV. It was completely innocent, but she was convinced that we had been making out on the couch, that I was trying to steal her boyfriend or something.”

“And were you?” Catherine asked.

“Not at all. But that's Jill for you. She can read
too much into things sometimes. She has a tendency to overreact to the littlest things. Kind of high maintenance, if you know what I mean.” Debra looked to Brass for confirmation. “Remember how she came at me the other day, outside WaxWorkZ?”

“And yet,” Catherine persisted, “you thought it was a good idea to subject your volatile, high-maintenance friend to a little
Shock Treatment
?”