Dead Last Read online

  For Evelyn, always

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  First and foremost, I want to thank Matt Schudel, whose masterful obituaries for The Washington Post inspired me to write this novel, and who answered my questions with the same grace and insight that characterizes all his writing. And I’d like to thank Terry Miller for giving me access to the set and actors and crew members of one of the best shows on TV. Terry, a friend for many years, has risen to the top in a challenging business without ever losing his good humor and charm and creative vision, skills that help him command the respect of his talented and motley crew. And to Al Hallonquist for his professional and no-nonsense assistance with the police procedures he knows so well.

  I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.

  —Romans 7:18–19

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Epigraph

  Teaser

  Act One: Slipping into Second Person

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Act Two: Purple Baseball Hat

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Act Three: Huge

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Act Four: At Sea

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Also by James W. Hall

  About the Author

  Copyright

  TEASER

  THE INTRUDER IS WEARING A blue stretchy catsuit that covers every inch of flesh as if he’d been dipped in indigo wax. He’s tall, slender, with wide shoulders and narrow hips—an elfin creature slipping down the murky hallway.

  The bodysuit’s slippery sheen plays tricks with the frail light, making the prowler appear and disappear like a bashful spirit as he steals through the shadows, moving down the corridor past one shut door after another.

  This could be a shabby hotel, or some other failed institution—a VA hospital, a public housing project gone to seed. The ceilings are high, the plaster walls pitted and peeling. Mounted high on the walls, brass sconces cast gloomy light toward the ceiling.

  When the intruder reaches a large mirror hanging on the wall, he halts and seems captivated by his own shadowy reflection. He reaches toward the mirror, a finger extended. He touches the glass, tip meeting tip.

  A breeze, salt-heavy and breathless, moans through the building.

  The blue man breaks away from his reflection and moves on. Somewhere down the hall a television is playing—a cop show with gunfire and sirens. Overheated dialogue punctuated with the yelps and cries of an actress simulating mortal danger.

  In his left hand the blue man carries a slip of paper the size of a dinner check. His other hand is empty.

  Halfway down the corridor the blue man stops before a shut door and leans close to examine the card fixed to it—the name of the occupant.

  William Slattery

  The blue man gathers himself, then opens the door and slides into the room. Several night-lights illuminate the room. Their yellow light glints off the guardrails of the bed and gives the room a sickly cast.

  The blue man, sleek and lithe, draws close to the bed and looks down at the codger lying there. The sheets are drawn to his throat. Spun white hair halos his head. His face is wan. Dark splotches on his cheeks and forehead. His eyes are shut.

  Blue Man places the paper on the bedside table, then takes a cautious grip of the pillow beneath Slattery’s head. He tightens his Lycra fingers and snatches the pillow free.

  Slattery blinks and stares up at the faceless man.

  The intruder holds the pillow to his chest and is silent while the old man blinks again to clear his vision. Is he still asleep? Is this a dream? Then he cracks a toothless smile.

  “Hey, buddy, why so blue?”

  Maybe Slattery’s old and frail, but he’s still a joker.

  When the blue man does not reply, the old guy’s eyes tighten, the humor drains away. He turns to his bedside table and sees the clipping. The blue man holds still.

  “Aw, cripes, you’re the obituary guy. Fuck me if you aren’t.”

  Blue Man is silent, unmoving.

  “You gotta be joking. Old fart like me? Come on, kid, why bother? Cancer’s taking me down soon enough.”

  Is that a noise in the hallway? The blue man looks at the door. But after a moment he seems satisfied it’s nothing and turns back to Slattery.

  “Listen, sonny, you won’t believe this, but just today I was talking about you. I was saying to my buddies what you need is a first-rate PR guy. And hey, guess what? Just so happens I was in that racket for fifty years. Here in Miami. Promoted some big names out on the beach. Godfrey, Sullivan, hell, I got the Beatles their first stateside gig. You heard of them, right? The Beatles?”

  Now the blue man seems to be listening, which emboldens Slattery.

  “Like I say, you got the goods, this act, you could parlay this into something big. It’s creepy shtick, leaving an obit at each scene, taunting the cops. Got the FBI and the TV talking heads lathered up over what the hell the obits mean.

  “That’s flair, buddy, but hell, you’re not reaching your full potential. Keeping it in South Florida, hey, that’s penny ante, if you’ll pardon my candor. What you need, you need to make a splash. Put yourself on the big stage, go national, make your mark in Chicago, Dallas, L.A. You’re a hustler, right? You want money, notoriety, whatever. We’re all hustlers, right?”

  The blue man is finished listening and he raises the pillow.

  Slattery stiffens, saying, “Come on, let’s work this through. I’m being frank. You got something going, a gift for the ghoulish. No offense, Mr. Blue, you aren’t getting the audience you deserve.”

  When he sees what’s coming, Slattery starts to yell for help, but the pillow crushes against his face, cutting him off, and the blue man leans his weight into it.

  The sheets bulge and ripple. The old man’s hands break free and he flails his skinny arms, clawing wildly. He’s a fighter, but no match for the blue man, who bears down until Slattery’s arms slow, and finally drift back to the sheets.

  Still the blue man applies pressure. Seconds pass and Slattery’s body relaxes against the mattress.

  The blue man raises the pillow and drops it at the foot of the bed. He stands still for a moment surveying his work, then picks up the paper from the bedside table and tacks it to the corkboard on the wall beside Slattery’s bed. It’s a newspaper clipping with jagged edges like the blade of a circular saw.

  He turns to leave, but something in the bed catches his attention. A noise? Movement? The blue man returns to his victim’s side and bends low, presses a Lycra finger to Slattery’s throat. Could he be alive? Was he faking?

  He tips his head down to peer into the dead man’s face.

  Slattery erupts. He’s upright, huffing, lashing his right hand, then his left, a cat
fighter with his claws out. He snatches at the blue man’s face. Stuns him momentarily, then the blue man punches Slattery flat in the nose, but the blow only revs the old man’s thrashing hands.

  The blue man draws back his fist for another strike, Slattery slapping and slashing, when one of the old man’s fingers snags the seam at the blue man’s throat—where hood meets bodysuit.

  Slattery freezes. Weighing the consequences.

  It’s a standoff, neither moving. Then, slowly, the blue man raises a hand and takes hold of Slattery’s frail wrist, and begins to pry the man’s hand away.

  But no. With a wild grunt, Slattery strips off the hood.

  Revealing a woman with short platinum hair.

  Slattery slumps back. Breathing hard, nothing left.

  The woman has winter-gray eyes, skin as pale as sun-bleached bone. She has a high forehead, arched eyebrows, severe cheekbones, and swollen lips. She’s exotic, a stunner with the dramatic bone structure and imperious bearing of a runway goddess who has grown immune to cameras, harsh lights, and prying stares.

  She lets Slattery drink her in. He’s shocked, too exhausted to speak.

  She moves her blue hands to his throat and closes her fingers.

  “It’s all right,” she says in a soothing voice. “I’ll be gentle.”

  Her hands tighten and the old guy makes a feeble swat at her arms, but he’s got nothing left. As the seconds count away, his eyes close. The vigor drains from his features.

  When the woman is done, she settles Slattery’s head on the pillow. Just so. Arranging him to look as serene as a strangled man can appear.

  She straightens his hair with a gentle blue hand. There’s a postcoital poignancy to her gestures, as if the intimacy they shared has touched her.

  Finished, she pulls the hood back on and tugs it into place.

  She turns to the corkboard and straightens the page, admires it.

  It’s an obituary from the newspaper, a three-paragraph summary of the life of some girl named Annie Woodburne. The headline reads

  Molecular Biology Student, Planned to Teach

  The woman in blue turns from the obituary and walks from the room. The door closes. Slattery is motionless. His expression flat.

  A beat, another beat.

  “And cut!”

  Gus Dollimore rose from his canvas chair, pulled off his earphones, draped them around his neck, and looked around at the assembled cast and crew, then raised his fist and pumped it twice.

  “Terrific stuff. A real nut-grabber. You guys killed it.”

  Sawyer Moss held back a smile. Gus was hamming it up for their visitor—the guy sitting next to Sawyer with this week’s script open in his lap.

  The usual turmoil resumed. Two dozen crew members hustling and bustling, making ready for the next scene. The unit production manager was on his handheld radio barking orders, first assistant director on the cell with some off-site problem. Grips, gaffer, camera guys, the cable draggers and equipment haulers, the makeup and hair assistants, the stand-ins, assorted construction men and prop people. Guys taking down the lights, carrying off the bounce boards.

  The DP, Bernie Bernard, consulted with Mills, who was still strapped in the leather harness carrying the weight of the Steadicam. It was Mills, head cameraman, who’d trailed the killer down the hallway, staying tight on the blue suit, playing with the shadows.

  Bernie and Mills huddled at the monitor, studying the playback of the last few seconds. The hand-fighting, hood ripped off, the actors’ expressions.

  “Tell me we got it, Bernie,” Dollimore said. “Tell me it’s perfect.”

  “Could’ve opened the lens half a crack more. A few shadows I don’t like. But it’s decent. Good enough for cable TV.”

  Mills chuckled; the best boy and one of the electricians hid their smiles in deference to the outsider.

  Sawyer unfolded his call sheet to check the next setup. A dozen more scenes to shoot before they punched out tonight. Next up was an exterior in the courtyard—murder aftermath, patrol cars and EMTs arriving, Miami patrol officers, then the homicide guys shuffling in, rumpled, with their thimbles of Cuban coffee. Some dialogue with the owner of the nursing home—she’s horrified at Slattery’s death. Nothing dramatic, but a necessary bridge.

  Sawyer Moss rose from the canvas chair where he’d watched the scene play out. To his left their visitor stayed put.

  Everybody else on the set, men and women, were dressed in cargo shorts or ratty jeans, T-shirts, running shoes, lots of baseball hats, as scruffy as a bunch of carneys at the county fair.

  But not their visitor, who was decked out in beige slacks, shiny loafers, a teal guayabera embroidered with palm trees, and Louis Vuitton shades cocked up into his curly black hair. A California dork’s notion of Miami chic.

  Murray Danson had flown in last night from L.A. to watch them shoot the tenth episode. The studio’s rep, Danson was there to go over the books, but mainly to deliver a face-to-face update. Where the ratings stood, what the sponsors were saying, how much longer Gus Dollimore and his merry band had left before cancellation.

  Not long, is what Sawyer Moss guessed, seeing Danson’s grim look.

  Sawyer was head writer for Miami Ops. His break into the film biz was less than a year old and already it was in serious danger. A nasty black mark about to be entered on his permanent record. The writer of a flop.

  The season’s main storyline was Sawyer’s invention: A killer has a fanatical obsession with The Miami Herald’s female obituary writer, whom he considers his personal oracle. Apparently he’s found secret codes hidden in her obits, codes he uses as blueprints for his killings.

  The Miami homicide detectives investigating the killings are stumped, and the geniuses at the FBI put only one guy on the obit case, some old schlub who’s counting the days till retirement.

  Meanwhile, the killer is wicked smart, leaving behind at each scene the very obit that guided him to this particular victim. No one’s managed to find the link between the obits and the victims. Even the two crack Miami Ops agents can’t figure out what’s steering the killer. Every trap they set has failed, every lead dead-ended. In the four episodes aired so far, the Ops team has wrapped up a dozen flamboyant criminal enterprises, the usual whacked-out Miami bullshit, but their ongoing investigation of the obit killer has them stymied.

  They always seem to be two steps behind. The guy’s onto their every move. Naturally they suspect a leak. But where?

  This week’s big reveal was that hood coming off. The killer’s identity exposed. Badda-bing. First of all it’s a she. And second, this particular she is Valerie, the blond twin of Madeline Braun, one of the two Ops agents. Identical twin. Two gorgeous Brauns, one dark haired, one blond, one good, one evil. There’s your leak. And a juicy twist.

  A year ago when Sawyer pitched the obit plot, the studio bright boys were unmoved, and Gus was only lukewarm, saying, “Serial killers are boring, an exhausted vein, clichéd, done to death.” But pigheaded Sawyer believed he’d found a new angle and fought for the concept and kept tweaking, adding the bodysuit and some kinky sex, until finally Gus came around and convinced the faint-hearts at the Expo Channel.

  To pinch pennies, they made Gus show runner, executive producer, and full-time director. Gus Dollimore, man for all seasons. If the show’s a hit, Gus is superman. If it fails, good luck finding work in the TV biz anytime soon.

  Season starts, they’re cruising. Gus is all in, the actors are digging their parts, crew’s onboard, then pow! Day after the premiere, the critics let loose. Reviews ranged from brutal to bloodthirsty, and the ratings flatlined. Last week in its Thursday time slot the show was running dead last. And against the other three TV series shot in Miami, same thing. Dead last.

  Today, July 1, with the fifth episode airing tonight and four more already shot, edited, and in the can, there was no turning back on the storyline. Episode ten, the one they were shooting this week, would air in five weeks. If it sucked, it suck
ed. But they were locked in to the obit plot.

  Oh, sure, Sawyer could fine-tune the four season-ending scripts, amp up the sex, flash some bare ass, blow some shit up, but with the breakneck pace of production, shooting an episode a week while prepping for the coming week’s shoot, there wasn’t time for major course corrections.

  And now, after having a long look at Murray Danson, the guy’s humorless L.A. face, Sawyer thought, Shit, this was what doom looked like. Sawyer’s film career was about to crash and burn.

  Danson stood up, yawned like he was bored silly, then flicked his hand at Dollimore. Outside. They needed to talk.

  The big moment coming.

  Sawyer waited for Gus to wave him over to join in, but he didn’t. The two left the room, disappeared down the hallway.

  Dee Dee walked up, still in the blue Lycra, hood off, blond wig gone, finger-combing her short black hair. Scrubbed of makeup and without the lighting effects, Dee Dee was no longer a brutally gorgeous goddess. She was back to being simply a svelte hottie with an edgy vibe.

  “That was cute,” she said. “Slattery’s line about the killer not getting the audience he deserved. A nod to our shitty ratings.”

  “Glad somebody noticed. Gus didn’t say a word.”

  “Gus has more on his mind than navel gazing.”

  Smiling at him while she gave him shit. She could get away with it, being one of the show’s stars and because, okay, Dee Dee was also Sawyer’s erotically gifted girl. Not to mention Gus Dollimore’s precious daughter. Yeah, yeah, Sawyer knew that all added up to a risky incestuous stew. But hell, in the last few years complicated relationships had become his specialty.

  “Slattery’s speech,” Dee Dee said, “it runs long. Felt padded.”

  “I thought it had a nice rhythm. Guy’s trying to talk his way out of getting iced, using the only skill he has. But the huckster’s lost his magic.”

  “I was tapping my foot. It took forever.”

  “You could’ve said something on one of the early takes.”

  “In front of Danson? Come on.”

  “Well, we can’t reshoot.” Sawyer glanced at the empty door. “We’re two thousand over budget for the week, with all that overtime last night.”