11th hour

Chapter 25

Blayney immediately recognized the man heading up the gangway to his yacht wearing denim and walking with a swagger. It was a thrill to actually put his eyes on the actor in real time, real size, the man whose face had been ubiquitous on Court TV for almost two years, a guy who possibly had killed his wife and gotten away with it.

Blayney wanted an interview with Chandler as much as he had ever wanted anything in his life. He pointed his camera and took another couple of shots, then called out, “Mr. Chandler.”

Chandler turned to face him, taking a solid stance on the dock. His hands were curled into fists.

“Yes?”

Blayney opened the unlocked metal gate, said, “Mr. Chandler, I’m Jason Blayney, with the San Francisco Post. I’d like to talk to you.”

“You’re a reporter?”

“How do you do, sir? Mr. Chandler, I’m wondering if you can tell me what’s going on at your house on Vallejo? I’d like to be your advocate, Mr. Chandler. Help you get your side of the story out — ”

“Get off this dock. This is private property.”

Chandler pulled his phone out of his hip pocket, called a number, and said, “This is Harry Chandler. I need security.”

“What I’ve heard is that a number of human skulls have been exhumed from your backyard, Mr. Chandler. Would you care to make a comment?”

Chandler said, “Don’t point that camera at me. I have no comment on or off the record, you get me?”

Blayney moved closer to show that he wasn’t backing down. “Did you kill your wife ten years ago, Mr. Chandler? Did you bury her in your garden? Are any of your past girlfriends buried there too, sir?”

Chandler reached out and grabbed Blayney by the front of his shirt and back-walked him to the edge of the dock. Holding the reporter, Chandler almost pushed Blayney off, then jerked him back to safety, looked down at the collapsed shoulder, and said, “Don’t ever come here again.”

“You’re acting like you have something to hide, Mr. Chandler,” Blayney said, stumbling and pressing forward at the same time.

Chandler said, “Wow, are you stupid.”

The actor shoved the reporter toward the edge again, still holding on to the front of his shirt.

“Don’t do it, Mr. Chandler. My camera. It cost me two thousand dollars.”

Chandler snatched the camera off Blayney’s neck, then pushed the reporter into the water.

The water was shocking, but Blayney was loving this encounter. He spat water, then started laughing. He popped his shoulder back in, then swam to one of the davits and wrapped both arms around it. A life preserver splashed into the water and Blayney grabbed it.

He was still laughing when he called out, “I like how you express yourself, Mr. Chandler. Illegal actions are better than a quote.”

Blayney found a rung of a rope ladder and hauled himself out of the bay, thinking, Oh man, how great is this? Harry Chandler had assaulted him.

He would have given a year’s salary for a picture or a witness. But anyway, the entire incident confirmed the monster quotient of this story.

He picked his camera up off the dock, snapped off some shots of Harry Chandler’s back. Life was good.