Killer Ambition

24

We were able to eliminate others just as easily-Vera, the cook, who basically only spoke Hungarian, and had been busy in her wing of the house all day and well into the evening; Annabelle, the “interior plant designer”-I kid you not-who maintained the indoor flora on Tuesdays and Fridays; and Dani’s personal trainer/yoga instructor, Shakti, who had taken Monday off to do a spiritual cleansing. Call me a skeptic, I just don’t believe someone whose last name is Schwartz had “Shakti” on her birth certificate.

After about half an hour, I noticed that the Antonoviches took their air-conditioning seriously. It’d crept up on me and I didn’t realize I was cold until I found myself suppressing shivers. So when Eric called during our interview with Annabelle to tell me we had the all clear to go after the major players, I used it as an excuse to step outside. I took an extra five minutes after ending the call to work the bluish tinge out of my fingers.

But now, just twenty minutes later, I was freezing again. I wanted to go out and take another sun break, but Russell chose that moment to show up with his manager, Ian Powers, and their respective assistants, Uma and Sean. The director rolled in with an earpiece in his ear, a cell phone in his hand, and his assistant glued to his side, monitoring the conversation on her own cell while scribbling notes on a small pad. When Russell ended the call and gave us a curt nod, I could see he looked haggard, but he radiated even more nervous energy than I remembered from our last visit. I guessed he was coping by staying busy. Bailey told him why we were there and said we’d start by talking to Uma. He sat down on the nearest couch, leaned back, and folded his arms across his chest. “Okay.”

“Separately,” I said.

Ian, who’d remained standing, examined me coldly, as though I’d just told him I had a screenplay I wanted to send him. “Why’s that?”

I wasn’t obligated to explain it to him, but Ian had been Russell’s manager for over ten years and was used to standing between Russell and all things unpleasant. So I chalked up his attitude to protective habit and told him. “We need to make sure that each witness gives us his or her best memory without being influenced by anyone else’s opinion or recollection.”

Russell’s features tightened, a mixture of confusion and irritation. “But what is there for anyone to remember? I was the one who got all the messages. They won’t know anything.”

Since I had no intention of telling him what we suspected, I breezed by the meat of the question. “We just have to follow procedures and cover all the bases, Russell. If they have nothing to say, we’ll be done pretty quick.”

My tone was polite but unmistakably firm. Russell gave a loud, exasperated sigh. “Fine. But I’ve got sensitive materials for my next film in the study, so you’ll have to use the guest room.”

Oh heavens, no, not the guest room. “That’ll be fine. Uma, can you lead the way?”

She dipped her head and cast a baleful look at Russell, like a chastened pet, and led us down the hallway to a large bedroom decorated in hues of forest green and ecru. It had French doors that opened onto a courtyard featuring a waterfall fountain made of a dark slate-type stone and a black marble Buddha. Very feng shui.

Uma gestured to a corner near the French doors where a love seat faced two wingback chairs. Bailey and I took the chairs, and Uma, who I could now see habitually curved her head and shoulders down, like a walking comma, scurried onto the love seat. Had working for Russell bent her into this obsequious posture, or had she always been this way? Bailey tried to put her at ease, explaining that we didn’t suspect her of anything and just needed to gather information. Uma dipped her head a couple of times. “I get it, not a problem.”

“Can you give me a rundown of what you did on Monday?” Bailey asked.

Uma recounted their day at the studio: meetings and more meetings, phone calls and more phone calls with producers, writers, agents, casting directors. At about six o’clock, they came back to the house.

“Do you always ride home with Russell?”

“Yeah, pretty much. He rolls calls on the way home and he prefers if I’m in the car with him while I listen in.”

“Listen in?” Bailey asked.

Oh, poor naive Bailey, who didn’t know the ways of Hollywood. All assistants listened in on their bosses’ phone calls. Though it was never announced and the uninitiated might never know unless the boss, in the middle of the phone call, told the assistant to make a note of something. The benign reason for this systematic eavesdropping is so the assistant can take notes and keep the “to do” list up to date. The not so benign reason is to protect the boss in case the actor/producer/writer/agent later claimed something was promised that hadn’t been. Uma gave Bailey the former reason. Of course.

“So you listen and take notes while Russell drives?” Bailey asked.

A perplexed look from Uma. “Um, Russell doesn’t usually drive.”

Of course not. He has a driver.

“And his driver’s name is?”

“Lee. He dropped us here but then he left, so he never came in the house.”

“But you did, right?” I asked.

“Yeah. And I remember that after we got home, Russell said he couldn’t find his private cell phone, hadn’t seen it all day. I found it for him. He’d accidentally left it in the car.”

“And it’s unusual for him to forget his phone somewhere?” I asked.

“No, not really. He’s got so much going on.” Uma licked her lips nervously. “I just remember that because when he checked the phone, he looked really weird.”

“Weird?”

“Um…upset?” Uma paused. “Shocked, kind of.”

“Did he tell you what was in the message?”

“No. I mean, I know now, but at the time, I didn’t.”

“Who else was around?” I asked.

Uma frowned. “I’m pretty sure Angie was here-”

Angie, assistant to Russell’s wife, Dani. “So Dani must’ve been here,” I said.

“Yeah. I don’t remember seeing her, but she was probably around somewhere. She usually takes Angie with her if she goes out.”

That Russell would have an assistant-or even more than one-made sense, given his workload. But it was hard to fathom what his wife would need one for. I supposed it was something everyone who was anyone had to have-like a Prada purse.

“Anybody else?” Bailey asked.

“Maybe Jeff? Yeah, I’m pretty sure Jeff was here.”

Jeff, yet another of Russell’s assistants. But one step below Uma, the main assistant. This assistant business was complicated.

“Did you see Russell again after he went into his study?” I asked.

Uma looked off to the right. Supposedly an eye shift to the right is a sign of truthfulness. Assuming the person being evaluated doesn’t already know about those “secret” cues.

She slowly replayed the events in her mind. “Yeah. But it was later. He said he had to go out for a little bit and asked me to stay with Dani.”

“Did he tell you where he was going?” Bailey asked.

“No.”

“Did you see him leave?” she asked.

Uma paused for a moment. “I didn’t see him walk out the door, but I didn’t see him around the house for about an hour. Maybe a little more.”

“And when Russell got back, how did he look?” Bailey asked.

“Kind of tired. Depressed.”

“Did he say where he’d been?” I asked.

“No. He just went back in his study and closed the door. I wanted to ask him if I could leave, but he was in a bad mood and sort of out of it, so I decided it’d be better to wait. And I’ve crashed here before, so…”

“When did you see him again?” I asked.

“Maybe an hour before you guys got here. I guess Dani had been in the study with him, because they both came out and she was crying and he was wired, like he wanted to jump out of his skin. He’d sit down, then jump up, pace around, and leave the room. He couldn’t sit still.”

“Did he say anything to you?” Bailey asked.

“He asked all of us if we’d seen Hayley since Thursday.”

“And had you?” Bailey asked.

“No. None of us had.”

“Do you remember anything else he said? Or that Dani said?” I asked.

Uma shook her head. “I don’t remember Dani saying anything to us. She just kept telling Russell to call, and I could tell she was upset with him but, like, trying not to show it. Because he was already such a mess.”

“Who’d she want him to call?” Bailey asked.

“I guess the police. Because the next thing I remember is you guys showing up.”

It seemed a fair guess. And a pretty complete rendition from Uma’s point of view. We thanked her and let her go. After she’d left, I suggested we go fetch our next victim.