JM03 — Red Cat
“Apparently not for Holly, either.”
Werner’s sculpted brows furrowed. “Come again?”
“I’ve seen her videos, Gene.” Werner straightened, but said nothing. “I understand you have too, and that they took you by surprise.”
He pursed his lips and toyed with the small gold hoop in his ear. “They’d surprise anybody,” he said slowly.
“Sure,” I said. “And you had no idea-”
“Of how fucking crazy she was? No, I didn’t. It was a bolt from the goddamn blue.”
“I heard you were upset. It must’ve felt like a real betrayal.”
“Heard from who?” he asked. “Who are these people?”
“Friends of Holly. How upset were you?”
Werner took a deep breath and ambled to a chair. He settled in it with elaborate nonchalance, and pulled off the rubber band that held his little ponytail. He ran his hands over his shiny hair, and put a smile on his face. It looked uneasy there.
“I was…” Werner looked away from me, and back again, with eyes wide. “Those videos were a shock, it’s true, but they were also a wake-up call. Holly has always had issues, but this was another story entirely. You know what she looks like- stunning, incredibly…excitingbut even so, after seeing those things, it was too much. I was sick, and I wanted no part of her. That’s why I broke things off.”
I kept my voice even and my face still. “You broke things off with her?”
Werner touched his goatee and showed his big teeth. “I only have so much energy, and it frankly wasn’t enough to deal with Holly’s craziness. It was upsetting, but I got some perspective on it soon enough. And like I said, it was never that big a deal- not for me, at least.”
I nodded. “But you were pretty pissed off at the time, right? I heard you guys went at it hammer and tongs last fall.”
Werner leaned forward and pointed at me. “You’re talking to that old man, aren’t you- her fucking neighbor?”
I shook my head. “I haven’t met the guy, but back to my question: Were you two fighting a lot last fall?”
“We were both unhappy then.”
“Unhappy- like it was the end of more than just a casual thing?”
Werner stood and swept his hair behind him and wrapped it again in his rubber band. He sighed deeply and put on a grave expression. “All that time, and I never knew: it was like she’d lied to me every one of those days. So I was upset- we both were. We yelled, we slammed doors, we said things we regretted later- okay? It wasn’t pleasant and I’m not particularly proud of it, but it is what it is.”
I tried to look sympathetic, but it was hard work. Werner paced around the living room and I let him, and let him think we were moving on to something else. After a minute or so, I shook him up some more. “I heard it was more than just cruel words and slammed doors, Gene. I heard you hit her.”
Werner spun around. There was anger in his face, and maybe a little fear. “Where the fuck did that come from? Because that’s bullshit! Sure, we fought, but I never once laid hands on her. It’s crap, and I’d be careful about spreading it around.”
“I hear you kind of stalked her for a while too, followed her around-”
“Pure crap! Have you been talking to Krug? Because that old queen has always had it in for me, and I’ve never even met the bastard.”
“Imagine,” I said. “But I wonder why people thought you were knocking her around.”
“How the hell should I know? Maybe if you told me where you heard this garbage-”
“People saw bruises on her, Gene, and she was upset. You know her, or at least, you did back then- where else could she have gotten those bruises? Who else might have upset her?”
“Fuck if I know. Anything could’ve happened to her in those hotel rooms.”
I sighed and let the silence percolate. “Sure,” I said finally. “But you don’t know any names.”
A cunning light came up in Werner’s dark eyes. “There was one guy… She hung with him over the summer, and after we ended things, I think she started seeing him. But he’s a real psycho, a muscle-man type, a bouncer, if you can believe it. Anyway, I think she finally realized what a nasty piece of work he was and wanted to break it off. But she was scared of him- scared of what he might do.”
“And this guy would be Jamie Coyle?”
Werner nodded vigorously. “Jamie, yeah, that’s him- a real lowlife. You know about him?”
“A little. When did Holly tell you all this?”
“I don’t know…whenever I saw her last.”
“Which was when?”
“A while ago- a month at least.”
“And you haven’t been in touch since?” He shook his head. “Not last week?” Another shake. “Not the week before?”
“I told you- it was a couple of months ago.” I nodded slowly and Werner leaned on the mantel again and looked at me. “Now, if you’re through with your questions-”
“Almost. You said that Holly had issues. What kind of issues?”
Werner looked surprised. “Family issues,” he said. “Daddy issues. Christ, it’s all she ever wrote about. I don’t know the details, but her family was screwed up, more than the usual amount. I gather when she was a kid her father chased anything in skirts, and didn’t bother to hide it. Now, if that’s it…”
“One more thing. How well do you know Jamie Coyle?”
He squinted, even more confused. “I don’t- not really. I met him a couple of times last summer, at a club Holly went to. He worked there. But I don’t think I said ten words to him.”
I raised my eyebrows. “No? Then can you think of a reason why he’d be hanging around outside your apartment building?”
Werner went pale, and his casual elbow slipped from the mantel.
22
“All in all, it’s good he gave up the acting,” I said.
Mike Metz chuckled. Over the phone I heard him pouring something, and I heard NPR in the background: Weekend Edition. It was Sunday morning, and drops of snowmelt fell glittering past my window.
“He was that bad?” Mike asked.
“Worse. Or maybe it’s just that he can’t improvise. That stuff about his relationship with Holly being no big deal, and that he broke things off with her- it was utter crap.”
“What about the business with Jamie Coyle?”
“About Holly being afraid of him? I guess it’s possible- Jamie is a scary guy- but I take what Werner says with lots of salt. About the only thing I’m sure of about him is that he’s scared himself.”
“Scared of whom- Coyle?”
“Him, certainly. Werner nearly wet his pants when I told him that Coyle had had his place staked out. But it’s not just Coyle; he was nervous from the start. He clearly didn’t want to talk to me, and he could’ve thrown me out anytime, but he didn’t. He was worried enough about something- what I knew, maybe, or what I wanted to know, or who I was working for- that he let me keep talking.”
“You think he knows Holly’s dead?” Mike said around a mouthful of something.
“That’s the question, isn’t it? If he saw the pictures in the newspaper, he would’ve recognized the tattoo, but it’s possible he didn’t see them. The weather’s pushed that and every other story to the back of the paper for the past few days, and it never got much TV time. Of course, it’s possible that he knows without having seen the papers.”
“Because he killed her.”
“That would also explain the worry, though just seeing the pictures in the paper, knowing Holly is dead, might
