Aubrey’s office was on West 17th Street in the Flatiron district near Union Square. A squad car was parked outside. The directory in the lobby said Davenport Films, 303. We took the elevator to the third floor and found a uniformed officer standing outside the door.
“Officer Hairston,” I said, reading her name tag. “You were here when the assistant showed up?”
“Yes, sir. He wanted to know what was going on, so my partner and I told him that his boss was found dead. Was that okay?”
It wasn’t, but I decided to let it go. Kylie, on the other hand, is a lot less forgiving.
“No, it’s not okay,” she snapped. “Detectives can learn a lot just by watching how people react when they’re told someone is dead. Now we have to rely on secondhand information. How’d he take the news?”
“He freaked out.”
“People freak out when they hit the lottery, officer. If you’re going to play detective, do a better job of it.”
“Sorry, ma’am. He was all broke up when we told him. Not crying, but very upset. Devastated. Heartbroken.”
“Heartbroken like he was banging her?”
“No, ma’am. More like his boss was dead, and he’s out of a job. He kept saying, ‘What am I going to do now?’ Anyway, I doubt if he was banging her. He’s gay.”
“Oh really?” Kylie said. “And how did you jump to that conclusion?”
“He asked if he could call his fiancé for moral support, and we said yes. The fiancé turns out to be another dude. It came up gay in my book.”
It was a small victory for Hairston, and to her credit, she kept a straight face. She opened the office door, gestured for her partner to step out, and Kylie and I stepped in.
Except for a few light stands and a twenty-foot roll of seamless background paper covering one wall, the room was nothing more than a wide-open, high-ceilinged photo studio. There were two desks, a makeup vanity with a lighted mirror, a stylist’s chair, and a kitchenette where two men in their early thirties were sitting at a table, each with a coffee mug in front of him.
They say opposites attract, but not in this case. The two men looked a lot alike. Each was slender with a patch of thinning dark hair on his head and the dark shadow of designer stubble on his face. One was wearing a blue shirt; the other one was in yellow.
Blue shirt stood up. “I’m Troy Marschand, Aubrey’s assistant. Do you know who killed her?”
“Not yet, but we’re working on it.” I turned to yellow shirt. “And what’s your name, sir?”
“Dylan Freemont. I didn’t know her. I mean, I met her a few times, but that’s all. I’m just here to help Troy get through this. Hey, can I ask you a question?”
“It works better when we ask the questions,” Kylie said.
“Yeah, I watch a lot of cop shows. But I just want to know: is it true what they’re saying about Aubrey on the Web?”
“What are they saying?”
“Some real kinky shit was going on before she got killed.”
“And where did you hear that?”
“As soon as Troy called me, I did a search for Aubrey’s name on social media and a couple of those celebrity news feeds. They say she was found at some haunted house on Roosevelt Island, and that there was some weird sex going on before she died. Is it true?”
“NYPD doesn’t comment on internet gossip,” Kylie said.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if it was true,” Troy said. “All her life, Aubrey was obsessed with two things: sex and filmmaking. How ironic if that’s how she died.”
“Gentlemen,” Kylie said, “we’re trying to catch a killer, and you’re wasting valuable time. Mr. Marschand, the first thing we need from you is your boss’s computer. You can either give it to us or we can get a court order.”
“I’d give it to you if I had it, but I don’t. Aubrey always had her laptop with her. It’s probably in her apartment.”
“It’s not. Can you think of anybody who might be holding it for her? We really need to get a look at all her files.”
Troy shook his head. “Aubrey wouldn’t trust anybody with her computer. Maybe it’s in the trunk of her car.”
“It’s not,” Kylie repeated.
“It doesn’t matter,” Troy said. “She backed everything up religiously. I can retrieve the files from the cloud. It’ll take me a couple of hours.”
“Thank you,” Kylie said. “When you’re done, give them to the two officers outside. They’ll get it to us. We also need to look at her camera equipment.”
“This way,” he said, walking us toward the rear of the studio. “It’s not very impressive. It’s mostly old crap that she can’t throw away. If she’s shooting anything important, she rents.”
He unlocked a closet door. Inside there were metal storage racks cluttered with cameras, lenses, cases, and, most promising of all, tripods.
“Lock it up,” I said. “We’ll send a team to go over it. Who else besides you has a key?”
“Just Aubrey.”
“How about her cameraman?”
Troy made a face. “Janek? Hell, no. This stuff may not be worth a lot, but give him a key, and it would wind up on Craigslist.”
“You don’t think highly of Mr. Hoffmann?”
“The guy’s a loser. I never understood what she was doing with him. He’s probably the one who—”
My cell rang, and he stopped. I recognized the number on caller ID. The phone rang a second time, but I didn’t pick up. “Go ahead, Mr. Marschand.”
“Don’t you have to answer that?”
“It can wait. Finish your thought, please.”
“Janek Hoffmann is a brute, an addict with a violent temper. He always scared the shit out of me. I’m not saying he killed her, but if it turns out he did, I wouldn’t exactly be surprised.”
I nodded and mentally added Troy Marschand’s name to the list of witnesses for the prosecution. Then I turned away and answered the phone on the fourth ring.
“Madam Mayor,” I said, trying to sound as upbeat as I could. “And how are you this fine morning?”