CHAPTER TWELVE
“What made you guess it was Telford?” McMahon asked. Casey sat, uncomfortable and wanting to be anywhere else, in the production chief’s living room. He had been appalled, the last time he sat in this room, at how cold-bloodedly it seemed a Hollywood studio could move to protect its interests. Now he was seeing the truth behind his supposition, and it was worse than he’d imagined.
Desiree sat as far away from him as possible. She hadn’t spoken a word to him since he’d blown up all over her at Long Beach. Nor had she spoken to Neal, or anyone else. It had worked out just as she’d threatened.
Neal had arrived at the crash scene only shortly after the local police, and well before Grey, the district attorney’s investigator, had showed with a squad of Los Angeles police. By the time it had emerged that Telford had likely been Lily Cross’s murderer, Neal had configured the story in such a way as to shut down all but the most cursory interrogation of Casey and Desiree before they were pronounced free to go. Desiree’s silence was explained as being the result of shock. Which might well have been true, Casey thought, stealing a look at her. Her eyes didn’t look right, notwithstanding the buffeting they’d taken during the chase.
"It was a guess," Casey said, turning to look at McMahon. “But it was a pretty solid one, I thought.”
He adjusted the ice-bag against his throbbing head. The hammer-blow that had been Telford’s final gift to him made it hard to think. “It was Hogan’s film case that made me see what had been right in front of me all along. The police and the coroner thought that Lily had been both strangled and beaten. That always bothered me, but I just figured that it was a sign of some sort of mental sickness on the part of the killer. Since Hollywood has such a scandalous reputation, I thought it might be true in this case.
“Until I saw how badly beaten up that film case was after falling from a plane. And it suddenly occurred to me that what the coroner thought was a beating, or the result of being thrown from a car that nobody has been able to identify, might have been caused by her body being dumped from an airplane.”
“But why Telford? Any number of planes use Glendale field.”
“True. But none of them was up on Sunday morning. Remember: Lily was thrown into the river before noon on Sunday. Maybe Telford was counting on there being nobody at the airport then and that’s why he chose Sunday. But I was sleeping at the airfield because I couldn’t afford to—well, the reasons I was there don’t matter. What matters is that I was there. And the only plane I heard early on Sunday was Telford’s. That Gnome engine can’t be mistaken for any other.”
“Why dump her body so close to the airfield?” Neal asked. “Why not dump her into the ocean? For that matter, wasn’t Telford in Mexico Saturday night? How’d he find the time to come back, grab Lily, kill her, and then dump her body where it was sure to be found?”
“That I don’t know,” Casey admitted. “But since he was in Mexico on illegal business, it wasn’t as if he was following a schedule that anyone could check. If he’d wanted to murder Lily, he could easily have flown back Saturday evening, so long as he landed at one of the other fields in the area.”
He got to his feet. “That still doesn’t answer the question of why he did it. Hal Telford wasn’t an especially good man, I guess, but the man I knew wasn’t the sort to kill women.”
“It doesn’t matter,” McMahon said. “This is probably the best resolution we could hope for.”
“What?” Casey asked.
“The killer’s dead,” Neal said. “He was a hanger-on, a low-life drunk. The cops have solved their case, and nobody at the studio has to be involved. At worst, the papers can criticize Straebo for lousy judgment in hiring his flunkies. I’d second that criticism, too.” He glared at the director, who flushed angrily but did not get a chance to reply.
“I think,” McMahon said over Straebo’s attempted objection, “that Jerry has suffered enough already.”
The phone rang. Neal grabbed it.
When he hung up a minute later, he smiled at Casey. “You’ll be happy to know,” he said, “that your pal Tillman is out of the woods. He’s awake and talking in hospital. Not only that, but he was close enough to hear your little conversation with Loopy Telford. He confirms Telford admitting killing the girl. That pretty much wraps it up, right boss?”
“I’m happy, yes.”
“So we probably won’t be needing Casey anymore, right?”
McMahon rubbed his hands together gently. “Not really, no.” He turned to Casey, still rubbing his hands. He’s washing his hands of me, Casey thought. “Thank you for all your help, Mr. Casey,” he said. “But you should consider this notice of the termination of your contract. I’ll see that you get a little something extra in your pay packet tomorrow, for all of your trouble.”
“Now, wait a minute.” Casey turned; the objector was the last person Casey would have predicted. “I need this man tomorrow,” Straebo said. “I have a part for him in the movie.”
“I know all about that,” McMahon said. “I am certain that Mr. Casey’s presence or absence will not have any impact on the finished product.” He walked over to the director.
“If you’ll recall, Jerry,” McMahon said, “last week I gave you until today to wrap your picture. This morning’s crash was, I believe, the last shot for the aerial unit. You now have all of the footage you need to cut the picture together.
“Howard Hughes is back in production, and we can expect to see Hell’s Angels in another couple of months. Hughes will probably start his promotion campaign in six weeks, maybe less. I want High Risk ready for release when Hughes starts that campaign. So filming on High Risk is officially wrapped as of now.”
“Fine,” Straebo said. “I’m sick of the picture anyway. But I was going to use Casey in my next production. I think he’s got potential. I strongly advise against—”
“Applesauce,” McMahon said. “I’ve seen his screen test, Jerry. The man couldn’t play dead.”
Casey got to his feet. They were talking about him as if he wasn’t even there. So perhaps I shouldn’t be. “Looks like the joke’s on me.” He took a deep breath. “All this time I was trying to persuade myself that I was all wet because I didn’t trust you.” Keep breathing, he reminded himself. The world wouldn’t spin so much if he could keep his breathing under control. “I was worried you’d hired me just to be able to keep your eye on me until you found out if it really was me who killed Lily Cross. Serves me right for not paying attention to my instincts.” He held his arms rigid against his sides, fists clenched.
“If you don’t mind”—he walked to the door—“this sap will see himself out.” He bit the words short, the way he would have bitten into McMahon if he’d thought he could get away with it.
As he suffered the butler to lead him to the front door, Casey heard an explosion of sound behind him. Desiree, it appeared, had finally broken her silence.
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