Jordan knelt down and locked eyes with Hal Greenwood. “I’m going to dispense with the usual questioning because it’s pretty clear what happened here. I’m charging you with attempted murder for starters, then we’ll be adding more as we go. Now, I’m going to remove this tape so my officers can read you your rights, and let me stress, one of those rights is for you to remain silent, and I would strongly suggest you pay close attention to that one.”
Hal glared at him defiantly.
Detective Jordan reached out with his fingers, got ahold of the duct tape, and then roughly ripped it off, causing Hal to wince and yelp. Since Hal was not a dumb man, he wisely chose to follow Jordan’s advice and kept his mouth shut. A female officer, African American, husky build, stepped forward as Sam untied the power cords.
“Stand up, please, sir,” she ordered.
Hal had trouble lifting his bulk off the chair, but no one made a move to assist him. He didn’t seem to have any fans in the room.
The officer had a blasé, seen-it-all-before look on her face as she slapped a pair of handcuffs around Hal’s thick wrists. She began reading him his rights as she and two of the other officers escorted him out of the house to the squad car.
“He’s the Pillow Talk Killer,” Poppy exclaimed breathlessly to Detective Jordan. “The original, the one who started it all back in the nineteen eighties.”
Jordan stared at her, surprised. “Are you serious?”
Poppy nodded. “He confessed to me and I’m willing to testify to that fact.”
“But you don’t think he had anything to do with the current murders?” Jordan asked.
Poppy shook her head. “There’s no way.”
“Maybe he’s working with someone new,” Jordan suggested. “Someone he’s taken under his wing, a protégé who he has trained to do his dirty work for him.”
“I suppose that’s possible, but I’m not inclined to believe it,” Poppy said. “Why would a killer prefer to just live vicariously through someone else instead of committing the murders himself? It doesn’t make sense he would outsource his own violent behavior.”
“Okay, what about Chase Ehrens? He’s a dangerous guy with a volatile temper, he had a motive for Danika’s murder, she dumped him, he got fired from her movie, and the good news is, we already have him in custody,” Jordan said.
“Chase is a vile human being, and he should be in jail for a long time, but I’m just not certain he was the one who suffocated Danika, not without concrete evidence, and even if he did kill her, then who drowned Fabian Granger? There is so much more we don’t know.”
Jordan sighed, frustrated. He stayed another half hour taking statements from both Poppy and Sam. After finally ushering the detective out, Poppy turned to Sam. “You should be in bed.”
“Are you kidding? After all that excitement, I feel like a new man,” Sam said, grinning. “It’s the first time I’ve felt this alive in a long time,” Sam said, pounding his chest.
“Well, Tarzan, Jane here is very grateful for you swinging in on your vine to rescue me from the evil animal poacher, but now it’s time for you to go back to the tree house with Cheetah and get some rest.”
“Oh, come on,” Sam scoffed. “Let’s stay up and have a celebratory drink. Together we got the despicable Hal Greenwood off the streets.”
Poppy knew it was a lost cause battling the overpowering charm of Sam Emerson. She was never going to win. She just threw her hands up in the air. “One drink!”
Chapter 47
“And . . . cut!” Trent called out in his haughty, superior-sounding British accent. “Thank you, everyone. That’s a wrap here in Joshua Tree.”
Matt bounded up to Poppy and gave her a hug. “Congratulations! You made it through. We both did.”
“I can’t say I’m not happy that my brief return to acting is over,” Poppy chuckled. “You certainly seemed to have a much better time at this than I did.”
“What can I say, I got the bug!” Matt said with a bright smile.
They had both just completed their final scene on the film, a simple group shot for the last big sequence in the movie; neither of them had any dialogue. It was customary for the director to announce an actor’s completion on the film followed by applause from the rest of the cast and crew, but Trent had forgotten or willfully declined to mention Poppy and Matt. There would be no cake or tearful good-byes, and Poppy was fine with that. She did not relish any further attention on herself. She was eager to put this whole experience behind her, and prayed she did not embarrass herself in the final product, which would be released later in the year on Netflix.
The crew got to work breaking down the set. Although the company was done shooting in Joshua Tree, the production was now scheduled to move back to the resort with Joselyn to reshoot Danika’s scenes that were already in the can.
The last twenty-four hours had been a whirlwind. Word of Hal Greenwood’s arrest had leaked almost instantly, and headlines around the world blared that the infamous Pillow Talk Killer had finally been caught after almost forty years. Some less judicious reporters failed to mention that Greenwood had an alibi for the recent Danika Delgado murder, preferring to ignore the facts and pin the blame directly on him despite the lack of evidence. It was a better headline. CRAZED HOLLYWOOD SERIAL KILLER BROUGHT DOWN AFTER STAGING COMEBACK!
Despite the police stressing that they believed a killer was still at large, Hal Greenwood became the face of the new devil of the moment like Charles Manson. He was everywhere on TV and online. His lawyers cried, “Fake news!” But nobody really listened because Hal Greenwood looked the part of a depraved, privileged monster who felt entitled to prey upon those young women who
