Eleventh Hour

There were boos and hisses from the cops. A couple of inspectors threw some peanuts.

Before Dane left, Delion motioned him aside to tell him that Nick’s fingerprints weren’t on file.

“Hey, at least we know she’s not a criminal.”

“I already came to that conclusion for myself,” Dane said.

SEVENTEEN

LOS ANGELES

Jon Franken, assistant director of The Consultant, said, “We couldn’t find any photos, but as I told you on the phone, Inspector Delion, we did find something every bit as good.” He flipped a switch on the video feed and pointed. “That’s Weldon—second guy on the left, the one just standing off to the side, arms crossed over his chest, watching everyone be idiots. He watches a whole lot, just stands back in the shadows, claims it gives him ideas. Whatever, he does have brilliant ideas.”

“Freeze it,” Dane said and looked at Nick as the screen held the image. The fact was she already looked frozen. She had to be afraid, looking at the man who very possibly hired Milton McGuffey to murder her, the man who might have killed his brother. Dane lightly touched his fingers to her forearm. “Nick?”

“I don’t know, I just don’t know.” She turned to look up at Dane. “Maybe the bone structure is similar.” She shrugged. “It’s pretty scary.”

“I know. Now, Nick, I want you to forget the hair, the tan, the eyes—it could all be cosmetic alterations. Study his face, the way he moves, how he talks using his hands.”

She said finally, “Maybe, I just don’t know. I just can’t be sure. He looks so different.”

Delion said, “Milton McGuffey—would you have spotted him if he hadn’t shot you?”

“You want brutal honesty here? The answer is I’m just not sure. Probably. Yes, I probably would have said something.”

Flynn said, “From everything you’ve told me, the reason our perp selected McGuffey is because of the way he looks—that is, he looks a lot like him. Now, Mr. Franken, you still don’t have a clue where Weldon DeLoach is.”

Franken shook his head. “Sorry, like I already told you, he’ll be here when he wants to be here. If he’s in LA, he’ll be coming around. Weldon is a man of very set habits.”

“Mr. Franken,” Nick said, “has Mr. DeLoach always looked like this? Darkly tanned, really light hair?”

“Why, yes,” Franken said. “As long as I’ve known him. And that’s about eight years now. Why do you ask?”

Dane said to Nick, “If our guy is DeLoach, then when you saw him, he was most certainly wearing a wig, contacts. As for losing the tan, I’m not sure how that would be done except with makeup.”

“But why would he bother?” Nick said. “He sure didn’t expect me to be sitting in the church.”

“Yeah, but he would have seen a lot of people while he was in San Francisco. Maybe the disguise was for any- and everyone.”

Franken said, rubbing his elegant long fingers over his chin, “I don’t think Weldon DeLoach is the murderer. He—he’s just not the type to kill anyone. As I told you before, it’s just not in him.”

Dane remembered Wolfinger had called DeLoach a weenie. “You mean you believe he’s a coward?”

“No, nothing like that. It’s just—no, not Weldon.”

Nick said, “The killer wanted McGuffey to look like him, Dane, and that’s why he hired McGuffey to kill me. So he has to be dark and really pale-skinned.”

“You’re probably right, Nick.” Dane asked them to zoom in to get a close-up of Weldon DeLoach, which Franken did. Wolfinger had said DeLoach was around thirty. Well, he didn’t look thirty. He looked forty, maybe more. He looked like he’d lived hard, that, or certainly a lot of stress. According to other writers interviewed, he wasn’t a cocaine neophyte. “But those years are over,” one of the lighting guys had told them. “Weldon hasn’t done bad stuff in a long time. He’s been really straight.”

DeLoach’s dark tan really stood out against his white shirt and white pants. His eyes were a pale blue. He had thinning hair—nearly white it was so blond.

Dane said, “Do you have anything with Weldon DeLoach speaking?”

“Why?” Delion said. “Nick never heard him speak.”

“Maybe she’ll recognize some of the moves he makes when he’s animated and speaking. Besides, I want to hear his voice, too.”

When Franken ran some more footage, there was Weldon DeLoach at a birthday party being held on a set, giving a toast. He had the softest voice Nick had ever heard, soft and soothing, without much expression or accent. She studied him carefully—the way his arms moved, his hands clenched and unclenched around a cup of booze he held aloft as he spoke, the way he held his head.