Death of a Blue Movie Star

She felt her legs weaken as she kept the camera on the door, trying hard for a steady shot-the matter-of-fact attendants wheeling Tommy's body down from the apartment.

A grim, moving end to the film.

And Shelly Lowe's murderer died just the same way he had killed-violently. It is a fitting epitaph from the Bible-fitting for someone who concocted religious fanatics to cover up his crimes: He who lives by the sword dies by the sword…

The image through the viewfinder went black as a figure from the crowd walked up to her.

Rune looked up.

Sam Healy said softly, "I'm sorry."

"Sorry?"

"We didn't make it in time."

Rune didn't understand. "You mean to get a confession?"

But?-" Rune nodded with her head toward the back of the ambulance.

"Tommy was gone when they got here, Rune. Thats… Nicole's body."

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Another cop stood next to Healy. He wore a light suit that was mostly polyester, and he stood with the tired, unrushed posture of a government worker. Thin, humorless. His eyelids were heavy from fatigue and boredom.

Heavy from years of interviewing reluctant witnesses.

From years of kneeling over bodies in their graves of gutters and car seats and SRO hotels.

From seeing what he'd witnessed upstairs.

Rune whispered, "She's dead?"

The other cop was answering, but to Healy. "DCDS."

"What?" Rune asked.

Healy said, "Deceased confirmed dead at scene."

Deceased.

The cop kept speaking to Healy as though Rune weren't there. She thought maybe Healy had introduced her to this somber man. She wasn't sure. She thought she'd heard a name but all she remembered was Homicide. "Looks like torture, strangulation, then mutilation. There was some dismemberment." He shook his head and finally showed some emotion. "What that goddamn business does to people. Porn… Like any other addiction. Keep having to go for more and more to get a high."

Then Homicide turned to Rune. "Could you tell us what you know, miss?"

A rambling explanation. She did her best and the man's narrow fingers wrote quickly in a small, dime-store notebook. But she stopped quite a bit and had to throw in a lot of "uh's" and "No, waits." She thought she knew the story of Nicole D'Orleans better than this. But a distraction kept intruding.

It was an image of Nicole. There was somedismemberment… She told him about her film, how she'd known Shelly, about the film company. Then about how Tommy had been in love with Shelly and she'd dumped him and moved to New York and how he'd been a demolition expert and had stolen explosives from the army-Healy had broken in here with details. And how he must have been so furious at Shelly for leaving him, and so crazy, that he had contrived the idea of the Sword of Jesus and the bombings to cover up his murder. He'd probably figured Shelly and Nicole were lovers and picked her to ritually murder-again from jealousy.

Rune finished the story and gave him a description of Tommy.

The detective's cheap pen danced in blotching ink over the paper. He took it all down, in sweeping handwriting, a man who didn't understand a thing about her documentary, about Nicole, about Shelly, about the movies they made. He wrote without a flicker of emotion on his thin, gray, inflexible face. He wrote down her answers, then looked around.

Homicide waved to a scrawny Hispanic-looking wreck of a man wearing a blue headband to keep his black curls at bay.

Healy asked, "ACU?"

"He was working the crowd. Didn't know we had a positive suspect. I'll send him back with a description."

Homicide nodded to Rune. He walked to the ACU man and they began talking, their heads bent toward the ground. Neither looked in the other's eyes as they spoke.

"He's a cop?" Rune asked, staring at him.

"He's anticrime unit. Undercover. Today's ACU color is blue-see his headband? They wear that so we know he's one of us. After a murder they go into the crowd and eavesdrop, ask questions. Now that we know the suspect's ID, though, he'll just show his shield and interview them."

"Yo, bus is coming through!" a voice shouted. The EMS ambulance eased forward. Healy stepped aside. Rune shouldered the Sony and taped the boxy orange-and-blue truck as it wound through the crowd, carrying Nicole's body to the morgue.

Healy walked with her to the corner. She leaned against an express mailbox and squeezed her eyes shut.

"We were talking together, Tommy and me. I was two feet away from him. As close as you and me… A man like that, a killer. And he seemed so normal."

Healy was silent, looking back at the revolving lights. Though he wasn't as calm as Homicide had been, not at all. He'd seen her, Nicole, and it shook him. It occurred to Rune that one of the advantages of bomb detail was that you dealt with machines and chemicals more than people.

In a soft voice Rune said, "I was supposed to be there tonight. He wanted me to come too."

"You?"

"He said he was making a film. A legitimate film. Christ, Sam, why did he do it? I just don't understand."