Shooting for the Stars (4 page)

Chapter
5

T
HE
article I wrote about Abbie Kincaid's show for the next day's paper stuck pretty close to the basic instructions I'd gotten from Stacy—Abbie was going to break a big exclusive about the long-ago forgotten Laura Marlowe murder on
The Prime Time Files
this week.

I used a bunch of teaser quotes from Abbie about how the story would shock viewers with the disclosures and generate big news about the infamous case.

I also included a lot of the background material on Laura Marlowe and her death that I'd researched since it had all happened so long ago.

I did not write that Abbie would reveal evidence showing authorities might have blamed the wrong man for the murder.

Or that there might have been subsequent murders carried out by the same killer after Laura Marlowe's death.

Or that Abbie had been dating the son of New York City mob boss Thomas Rizzo.

She had shared most of this information with me off-the-record. And I honored that commitment. I didn't even tell Stacy about it. Partly because I take my “off-the-record” vows very seriously as a journalist. But also because . . . well, I liked Abbie Kincaid, and I
didn't like Stacy. So I kept all the secrets she had told me that day out of the article.

I sure was looking forward to hearing what more she had to say on the TV show though.

That “wrong man” blockbuster was pretty much all I'd gotten out of Abbie on the Laura Marlowe case. I think she probably realized she'd already told me too much after she said it. I wondered if she'd planned to be that open with me before the interview. Maybe she was just in an emotional state because of the fight with the boyfriend, Rizzo. Maybe she'd taken something in the bathroom that relaxed her enough to let her guard down momentarily. Maybe it was because I was such a friendly, likeable guy who people just wanted to pour their hearts out to. Or maybe it was a combination of all of those things.

At one point, I'd asked her about the gun in her jacket.

“How did you know about that?” she asked.

“I'm a hotshot investigative reporter, remember?”

She smiled.

“Why do you need a gun?”

“In case I have to shoot somebody.”

“Seriously.”

“No reason.”

“There's always a reason for a gun.”

“It's no big deal. I just have it in case there's ever any trouble.”

Abbie talked more about Laura Marlowe's background, expanding on some of the things I'd read in the bio clips. She told me things she'd uncovered about:

Laura's mother and how she'd pushed Laura to become an actress since childhood.

Her father, who ran out on the family when Laura was a little
girl and then came back to try and cash in on her success after she became rich and famous.

Laura's first agent, who had stood by her during the struggling early years of trying to make it in show business—a woman who had almost become a surrogate mother to Laura—but then was abruptly fired by the mother as soon as Laura hit it big.

And how Laura—like something out of a real-life Hollywood fairy tale—inexplicably emerged from obscurity to land the part in
Lucky Lady
that made her an overnight sensation and the biggest movie star in America.

Abbie shook her head at the incongruity of it all.

“Did you ever hear the quote from Lauren Bacall about what it takes to become a big star? Bacall said, ‘Stardom isn't a profession. It's an accident.' That's what happened to Laura Marlowe. Hell, that's probably the way it happens for most of the people in this business.” She shrugged. “Maybe even me.”

I tried to push her more on the serial killer angle she'd been talking about, and how it might connect to the Laura Marlowe murder. But she didn't divulge any more details. The same when I asked her for more details about why she thought Ray Janson didn't kill Laura and if she had any idea who might have been responsible.

“I'm just curious,” I said to her at one point. “Why did you start investigating the Laura Marlowe case again?”

“It's a good story.”

“But why now after thirty years?”

“I obtained some new information.”

“How?”

“I can't tell you that.”

“Will you do it on the show?”

“Not this show. Maybe eventually . . .”

“And you won't tell me who your source was? Even off-the-record?”

“A good reporter never reveals a source, Gil,” she said. “You should know that better than anyone.”

It wasn't until the end of the interview that she opened up to me again in a genuine way like she did at the beginning.

“I really enjoyed talking with you, Gil,” she said as she walked me to the door of her office.

“Me too,” I said.

“We should do this again.”

“Do what?”

“Talk.”

“Do you mean another interview?”

“No, I mean we could just talk sometime. Like over a drink. Or dinner.”

“You and me?”

“Yes,” she laughed, “that would be the pairing.”

I was having trouble grasping all of this. It seemed as if she was asking me out. On a date. Or something like a date. But that couldn't be right. I mean she was Abbie Kincaid, the big TV star. She wouldn't ever want to spend time with a guy like me, would she? Well, apparently she did.

“Why me?” I blurted out.

“I need someone to talk to.”

“You must have a lot of people around you that would love to spend time talking with Abbie Kincaid.”

“Most of the people I deal with are jerks.”

“I know that feeling too.”

“I like you, Gil Malloy. You seem like a stand up guy. Someone I can trust. I don't have a lot of people in my life that I can trust right now.”

She opened the door, gave me a big hug that lasted for a long
time—and then finally turned around and went back into her office.

The big security guard was still there. He glared at me with his arms folded impassively as I walked to the elevator. Dressed from head to toe in black, he reminded me a bit of Darth Vader in the
Star Wars
movies.

“How ya doing?” I said.

He didn't move or say anything.

“Catch any bad guys lately?” I asked.

Still no response.

“Hey, any possibility you could tell me where to get a cool
The Prime Time Files
T-shirt like that?”

My elevator was here now, and I got on. The big security guard watched me intently. He folded his arms again and glared some more. The more I thought about it, he really did look a bit like Darth Vader.

“May the force be with you,” I said.

Then the elevator doors closed and I rode back down to the lobby. There was still plenty of heavy security down there too. I thought about it all: the gun in her pocket, the security, the mobster kid boyfriend. Of course, all of this had absolutely nothing to do with me. No connection whatsoever to the story I was supposed to be doing about her and the show.

Nope, whatever was going on in Abbie Kincaid's life, it was none of my business at all.

Chapter
6

T
HE
closest police precinct to
The Prime Time Files
studios was the 19th, which is on 67th Street near Third Avenue. I took a cab up there to see if I could find a friendly face to talk to. What I found was Lt. Frank Wohlers. I wasn't sure if he was friendly or not. I'd worked a lot with him a few years back when I was an ace reporter, breaking big crime stories on Page One all the time. Not so much anymore. But I still remembered the way I used to get information out of him.

“I was just in the neighborhood,” I said. “I thought I'd drop by and bring you a sandwich to eat.”

I handed him a bag of food. He opened it.

“A corned beef sandwich,” he said.

“Uh-huh.”

“My favorite.”

“Yum-yum,” I said.

Wohlers was a large man, probably close to 250 pounds, and I knew that food meant more to him than life itself, as the saying goes.

It was a few minutes later—and several bites into the corned beef—before he came up for air.

“So what story are you looking for some information on?”

“What makes you think I'm looking for information on a story?”

“The corned beef cost eighteen dollars.”

“You know, this is a pretty sad state of affairs,” I said, “when a person can't bring another person something without being accused of having an ulterior motive. Whatever happened to friendship? Whatever happened to brotherhood? Whatever happened to simple acts of human kindness?”

Wohlers took another bite of the sandwich and belched loudly.

“Beats me,” he said.

He looked at me across his desk.

“Abbie Kincaid,” I told him.

“The TV star?”

“The one and only.”

“What about her?”

“I went to her studio this morning and they had more security there than in Times Square on New Year's Eve. A personal security guard who's with her all the time. And the lady keeps a loaded gun in her jacket pocket. Not exactly my idea of the glitzy, carefree life of a big TV star.”

“So?”

“I figured if this had anything to do with the police, you'd know about it. Do you?”

Wohlers didn't say anything for a few seconds. I wasn't sure if he was going to or not. In the past, sometimes he told me things and sometimes he didn't. It was hard to tell how much a corned beef sandwich was going to buy me now.

“The Kincaid woman's been getting some threats,” he said.

“What kind of threats?”

“Death threats.”

“How do they come?”

“Phone calls. Emails. A lot of them recently.”

“Any reason the person making the threats says they want her dead?”

“Not specifically. Some of the communications talk about stories she's done or stories she's working on. Some of it sounds personal, like she had some kind of relationship with the person in the past—real or imagined—who is sending the threats. And some of it just sounds like obsessive fan stuff, the crazy rants from the kind of star-struck people who get off on that crazy love-hate worship of a celebrity like Abbie Kincaid. Most of it is gibberish.”

Wohlers reached into a drawer of his desk, pulled out a file folder, and slid a couple sheets of paper from it across his desk to me. They were printouts of emails. He said the
Prime Time
security people had sent some of them over as samples of the kind of messages Abbie was getting.

The first one said: “From the world of darkness I will loose demons and devils in the form of scorpions to torment you.” Another was: “Death is the greatest form of love, Abbie. And I have chosen to love you.” Also: “Don't try to make sense out of your imminent death, Abbie Kincaid. There is no sense to it. But no sense makes sense.” And one of the emails simply consisted of a single phrase: “Beware the Z.”

“Like you said, they all sound pretty crazy,” I told Wohlers.

“Some of them are actually stuff that was once said by Charles Manson. When he and his followers killed that actress Sharon Tate and a bunch of other people back in the '60s. Real quotes from back then, or expanded versions of things he said that have been updated with references to things happening now.”

“Isn't Manson in jail for like a million years?”

“Since 1969.”

“So this is probably not him then.”

“Yeah, we deduced that answer even without your help, Malloy. But thanks anyway for the keen insight.”

“Could be one of his followers.”

“Most of them are dead or in jail or very old by now.”

“What does ‘Beware the Z' mean?”

“I have no idea.”

“Might be a clue,” I pointed out.

Wohlers shrugged. “There's a lot of nuts out there.”

I handed the printouts back to him.

“Were there any references to Laura Marlowe, the dead movie actress, in the other stuff you got?”

“Why do you ask that?”

“Because Abbie is working on a big exclusive about Laura Marlowe's murder for her TV show. Plus, the Charles Manson references and the fact that Manson's most famous victim was Sharon Tate, another big Hollywood actress. It just seems likely there might be some kind of crazy connection in the mind of whoever is making these threats.”

Wohlers nodded. “There's a bunch of references to Laura Marlowe. Some of them warned the Kincaid woman not to do the Marlowe story. Others say she'll wind up dead the same way. But that still doesn't take us anywhere. We have no idea who's behind all this.”

“Can't you track the phone calls or emails some way?”

“Not in this age of social media and disposable cell phones. Everyone's anonymous if they want to be.”

“So what are you doing?”

“Not much we can do in this kind of case. Not unless somebody actually does something besides write anonymous threats. Most of the time, that never happens . . . the threats are all bullshit, not real. Besides, as you say, they've got lots of security of their own around her over there.”

“Did you meet her personal security guard?”

“The big guy with the ponytail?”

“Yes.”

“His name is Vincent D'Nolfo.”

“What's his story?”

“Ex-prizefighter. Ex–Army Ranger. Was in both Iraq and ­Afghanistan, they tell me.”

“D'Nolfo sounds like a tough guy.”

“I sure wouldn't want to get on the wrong side of him.”

“Good advice, albeit a bit too late.”

“The two of you didn't get along?”

“I don't think he likes me.”

“How could anyone not like you?”

“I made some mild criticisms of his wardrobe, people skills, and overall job demeanor.”

Wohlers sighed and finished off the corned beef sandwich. There was something else I wanted to ask him.

“Do you know much about Tommy Rizzo?” I asked.

“Thomas Rizzo's kid.”

“I met him this afternoon.”

“Lucky you. What did you think?”

“He seemed like a troubled young man.”

“His father is a thug, a drug pusher, he traffics in human flesh, he extorts money and—oh, yes—he kills people.”

“Maybe that's why his son is so troubled,” I suggested.

“Where did you see the kid?”

“At Abbie Kincaid's office.”

“What the hell was the Rizzo kid doing there?”

“They had some kind of romantic relationship for a while.”

“Well, there's no law against a woman making a mess out of her life by falling in love with the wrong man.”

“I certainly hope not,” I agreed.

Wohlers belched loudly. I wasn't sure of the exact etiquette on how to respond in a situation like this. Should I assume it to be a
thank you
for my sandwich and tell him
you're welcome
? Did I say
God bless you
like you did when someone sneezed? Did I suggest
to him delicately that belching at the meal table was frowned on by Emily Post, Miss Manners, and pretty much everybody in civilized society? Or did I just ignore it and pretend I never heard the belch? I opted for ignoring it.

“C'mon, Malloy, you did alright for yourself,” he said. “More than alright. You married that hotshot lady from the DA's office. I've seen her a few times in court. Beauty, brains—she's got everything. How did you ever manage to pull that off?”

“Actually, we got divorced.”

“God, that sucks. I'm sorry to hear it.”

“Imagine how I felt,” I told him.

“Well, these things happen, I guess.”

“Yeah, the truth is the marriage has been over for a while now.”

“So you're okay about it?”

“Fine.”

“You're sure.”

“Absolutely.

“Glad to hear it.”

“Like you said, these things happen.”

“I guess time does have a way of healing this kind of thing, huh?”

“I've moved on with my life,” I said.