“Do you want us to contact him for you, have him come and get you?”
Eyes welling again, Lola nodded.
“Give me his contact information. We’ll take care of it. I’m going to have the officer take you out to the lobby, stay with you.”
“Will you talk to me again? When you know … when you know, will you tell me?”
“Yes. And if you think of anything else, you contact me.” Eve reached into her own pocket—almost surprised to actually produce cards. Gave one to Lola.
Eve called the uniform back, gave her the friend’s contact information. Then turned her attention to the three people across the theater.
She chose one at random, sat down beside him. “I’m Lieutenant Dallas.”
“Um. Mark Snyder.”
“You came to the vid alone, Mr. Snyder?”
“Yeah. I wanted to absorb it, without distractions. I’m a film student. I, ah …” He clasped his hands together, stared at the blank screen. “I’m working on my master’s at NYU. Oh boy, this is really, really real.”
Though she’d run him, Eve judged him to be in his early twenties, a young black man with wild and improbably red dreads, a bar stud through his left eyebrow.
“Why this vid?”
“Hitchcock. I’m doing a paper on Hitchcock, and this particular work is a major part of the paper. But I, but I—Sorry.”
He pressed a hand to his stomach, spent a couple of seconds breathing. “I—I love film. I want to direct. The classics are a particular inspiration to me. I come here a lot. The classics, at least two or three times a month and, in general, probably twice that. It’s a different, ah, experience watching in a theater than on a home screen or a mobile.”
“Where were you sitting?”
“In the same row as … the same row. In the center seat. We were the only ones in the row. I like to sit alone as much as I can, but I sort of knew them—the women. I mean, I’d seen them here off and on, and I knew they’d be quiet. Not talking during the vid or being distracting, so I sat in the center seat.”
“Tell me what happened.”
“It was—it was right after Bates cleans up the bathroom, after the shower scene. He’s going to wrap Marion’s body in the shower curtain, put her and her luggage and the money she stole and wrapped in newspaper in her car and sink it in the swamp. Perkins is amazing, he’s perfect. You believe him. You believe he’s horrified, panicked, protecting his crazy mother. I was studying the work, his expressions, his body language, and she started screaming.”
He took a moment to swallow. “The woman on the aisle, I mean. It jerked me out, pulled me out of the story. I was annoyed for a second, but then I realized it was one of the women in the row, the ones I sort of knew. So I knew something was really wrong, because they’re respectful. And the way she was screaming—I’m sorry, I don’t know her name. The one with the darker hair. I stood up. I could see something was wrong with the other woman. The blond woman. I thought she’d gotten sick or something. I started over, and the couple there?”
He gestured to the man and woman seated in another section. “They started over, too. From the other side. They were together on the other side, so we got there, and … there was blood, and the screaming, and they said—the other couple—to go for help, to get the lights on while they laid down the one with the blood in the aisle. I ran out, and part of me—in my head—kept running. Like a vid in my head. But I grabbed somebody from the lobby, and told him somebody in number three was hurt really bad. We needed an ambulance. They needed to turn on the houselights. She was bleeding really bad.
“I don’t know why I went back in, because in my head I was running away. The woman of the couple—not the one with the, with the one who got hurt, but the couple who tried to help. She’s a—God, I can’t find my words. A physician assistant. She said that, and she had blood on her, and she told people to stay back. I sat down, I just sat down because I didn’t think I could stand up. And then the police came.”
“Did you notice anyone sitting in the row behind you?”
“Not behind me, but behind them. At the end of the row. I really didn’t want anyone in my box, if you know what I mean. Within my area. In front, beside, behind. And there were lots of empty spots. I saw somebody slide into the row behind right after the houselights went down, and would’ve moved if he’d come toward the center. But he just sat behind them.”
“A man.”
“I … I don’t know. I didn’t look so much as sense. The houselights were down, and the opening credits starting to roll. I hate people who come in late, so I sensed the movement, figured I’d just move if he came into my box, but he didn’t. Or she. Honestly, it was dark, and it didn’t matter if it was a man or a woman to me. It was a corner-of-the-eye sort of thing.”
“Was he or she there when you heard and reacted to the screams?”
“I don’t know.”
“You stood up, started across the row. Was there anyone behind the women?”
“Give me a sec, okay?” He shut his eyes. “I’m going to visualize it. I don’t want to, but I will. I’m watching Anthony Perkins embody Norman Bates, because he does. He becomes and you as the audience believe. And she screams. To my right, she screams. The really, really pretty blonde is slumped over the brunette with the soft eyes. The brunette’s screaming, struggling to lift her friend. And I know something’s very wrong. Very wrong, so I stand up. Some people are yelling for her to shut up, but I know something’s just wrong, so I start over, and see the man and woman start over from the other section. And …
“No.” He opened his eyes. “Nobody was sitting behind them when I stood up. The whole row behind was empty.”
“Okay, Mark, that’s very helpful.” Eve dug in her pocket to give him a card. “If you think of anything else, if you get a better sense of the person who sat behind them, contact me. Do you need a ride home?”
“I think I want to walk. I think I need to walk.” He got up when Eve did. “You think the person who sat behind them killed her.”
“I need to find out.”
“I wish I’d looked. I wish I’d just turned my head a couple inches to the right and looked. I have good visual skills. If I’d looked, I’d be able to tell you what the person looked like. But I didn’t look. I just thought: Good, not going to push into my box, and the vid’s starting. Then I was inside the vid until the screams. Forty-five seconds.”
“What’s forty-five seconds?”
“Sorry, the shower scene. It runs for forty-five brilliant, terrifying seconds. I just wonder if the last thing she saw before … if the last thing she saw was murder.”
Forty-five seconds, Eve thought when he walked away.
More than enough time to kill.
2
While sweepers in their white suits sucked and brushed and tweezed and collected, Eve sat at the back of the crime scene working on her notes.
The scene itself, the witness statements, the timing, and what she knew about the victim already told her a great deal.
When McNab bounced in on his plaid airboots, the symphony of hoops on his earlobe glinting in the bright houselights, she paused in her work.
“Reviewed the feed straight through from the time the vic came in—that’s seventeen-forty-eight—until the first responders entered. Eighteen-thirty-nine. Nobody left through the lobby or using emergency exits from your TOD until the show let out in number one at eighteen-thirty-five. Then you’ve got maybe a hundred and fifty, and at least forty percent of them under twelve, streaming out.”
“Odds are he walked out with that group.” Eve looked down to row twenty-eight. “He kills her, slips out of here, walks down to the other theater. Just has to hang there for a few minutes, then stroll out with a bunch of kids.
“We need to look for people coming in earlier, hanging out in the lobby. Anyone who moved toward the theaters when the vic did. And anyone who came in directly after her. Most probably solos. See who we can match with the group leaving from one.”
“I can cover that.” He slipped his hands into two of the half dozen pockets in his atomic-blue baggies. “You ever see it? Psycho?”
“Yeah. It’s in Roarke’s collection. He’s a fan of the Hitchdick.”
“The what?”
“The director guy.”
“Is that really his name?”
“Something like that.”
“Huh. So really creepy vid. Seriously old and creepy. Maybe it’s not just chance, right? Maybe some psycho picked Psycho, and the vic? Wrong place, wrong time.”
“Nope. Specific target.” Eve rose as Peabody came in. “The vic’s friend and vid mate’s a vet. On call for emergency detail tonight. And she happens to get a nine-one-one from the clinic that takes her out of the theater right before the vic’s jabbed. Plus it’s looking bogus.”
“The friend didn’t get the tag?” Peabody asked.
“No, she got it. The clinic got it. Some guy claiming his dog got run over and—”
“Oh, poor doggie!”
Eve sent Peabody a sour look. “There was no dog. The dog was bullshit, a ploy to remove Lola Kawaski and give the killer a clear shot at Chanel Rylan.
“Timed it,” Eve continued. “The timing’s perfect. And so’s the research. The killer knew Rylan would be here, knew Kawaski was on call, knew when the big shower scene would hit, and anybody who’d shelled out to see this vid would be focused on the screen.”
“Or covering their eyes.” McNab wagged his thumb at Peabody.
“I did … so,” Peabody admitted. “None of the people I talked to saw anything. One guy thinks maybe he noticed somebody leaving, but it’s an indefinite maybe. He was in the back, watching the slice and dice with his date’s face buried in his shoulder.”