“Not soon enough,” Bob said. “First there was chaos. Then they called 911. It was nearly ten minutes before I got the call on my walkie and ordered a total lockdown. The guy we’re looking for had plenty of time to slip out.”
“I’m not really sure it makes a difference,” I said. “Whoever switched mags could have left long before the shooting.”
“I doubt it,” Kylie said.
“Why’s that?” I said.
“Look at this,” she said, sweeping her hand around the elaborately decorated room, past the hundred dressed-to-the-teeth extras, finally letting it come to rest with one finger pointing down at the blood-drenched body. “This is classic cinematic drama. It’s too big a spectacle to miss. I’ll bet you five bucks that whoever put real bullets in that gun stayed to watch Ian Stewart die.”
I didn’t take the bet. One thing I learned about betting with Kylie over the years: she almost always wins.
Chapter 15
DAVE WEST HAD kind eyes. He was about fifty, an African-American with a thin wisp of a mustache and even less hair on his head. He had a soft, round face that I’m sure lit up when he laughed, and brown eyes that were tinged with sadness and bewilderment. But the kindness came through still.
I offered Kylie a shot at taking the lead, but she passed.
“Not here,” she said. “Not now.”
West was sitting at a table at the rear of the studio, an untouched cup of coffee in front of him.
Kylie and I introduced ourselves, and I sat down across from him. She stood to the side.
“I know you’re upset,” I said. “Can we talk?”
“It’s my fault,” he said. “I screwed up.”
“Dave!” It was Reitzfeld.
I threw him a look. He held up both hands. “Sorry. I just can’t let him incriminate himself.”
“Mr. West,” I said. “Just answer the questions as I ask them. How long have you been an armorer?”
“I got my BFA license twenty-three years ago last month.”
“BFA?”
“Blank Fire Adapted,” he said. “There’s prop guns and real guns. The props are harmless, but not too authentic. So most directors like to use a real gun that fires blanks.”
“And you supply the guns?”
“Sometimes yes, sometimes no. But I have total control over all BFA guns on the set, and I have the absolute final say on whether a gun is safe to use in a scene or not.”
“And what happened today?”
“It was a nine-millimeter SIG Pro. The movie takes place in the forties, and I needed a period piece. The gun’s got some years on it, but it’s in mint condition. I cleaned it and loaded the magazine with blanks.”
“Sorry to interrupt,” I said, “but you’re sure they were blanks.”
A hint of a sad smile. “Yeah. Like I said, I’ve been a gun wrangler for twenty-three years. It’s hard to confuse blank cartridges with real bullets. You’re a cop. You ought to know. Blanks have no lead at the tip. The ones I used had a red cotton wad inside the casing. Totally harmless, unless you fire the gun at extremely close range, but I met with the director, and I knew Edie would be a good ten feet away.”
“What time did you put the blanks in the magazine?” I said.
“I guess about nine, nine fifteen. We were supposed to shoot at nine thirty, but something happened with Edie and we wound up sitting around for a couple of hours.”
“And where was the gun during that time?”
He hesitated. “There’s a lockbox.”
“Did you lock it up?”
His bottom lip trembled and his eyes watered up. “I set it down on the prop table. I kept thinking we were going to roll camera any minute.”
“Could somebody have come in here and tampered with the gun?”
He nodded. “Look at this place,” he said. “They call it the prop room, but it’s not a room. There are no walls, no doors—it’s all open, and it’s twenty feet from the craft table. Anybody could walk over and tamper with anything, but I was sitting right—” He stopped, and it wasn’t hard to figure out why.
“Was the gun ever out of your sight?” I said.
“Two, three…maybe five minutes.”
“How long would it take to switch the magazines?”
“Five seconds. But why would anybody do that?”
“Let’s say somebody did,” I said. “How would they know in advance to have the right magazine—one that fits the gun you were using.”
“Production notes,” he said. “Everything we do is documented on paper and distributed all over the place. The SIG Pro was on the prop list since way back in preproduction. Anybody could’ve seen it.”