“When did you see him again?” I asked.
“Maybe an hour before you guys got here. I guess Dani had been in the study with him, because they both came out and she was crying and he was wired, like he wanted to jump out of his skin. He’d sit down, then jump up, pace around, and leave the room. He couldn’t sit still.”
“Did he say anything to you?” Bailey asked.
“He asked all of us if we’d seen Hayley since Thursday.”
“And had you?” Bailey asked.
“No. None of us had.”
“Do you remember anything else he said? Or that Dani said?” I asked.
Uma shook her head. “I don’t remember Dani saying anything to us. She just kept telling Russell to call, and I could tell she was upset with him but, like, trying not to show it. Because he was already such a mess.”
“Who’d she want him to call?” Bailey asked.
“I guess the police. Because the next thing I remember is you guys showing up.”
It seemed a fair guess. And a pretty complete rendition from Uma’s point of view. We thanked her and let her go. After she’d left, I suggested we go fetch our next victim.
Russell’s assistant Jeff was really just a lowly runner-a gofer’s gofer, who occasionally got to do the work of an assistant-but I could see that he had much bigger aspirations. He was a xeroxed copy of Russell. Same faded jeans, same baggy T-shirt, and the same worn-out baseball cap, emblazoned with the name of the same team: the Oakland A’s. Jeff even walked with the same bouncing stride. And more important, he was almost an inch shorter than Russell. Clearly he was destined for greatness.
He even flopped down on the couch just like Russell.
“What time did you get here on Monday?” I asked.
“Let’s see…I left the studio at six forty-five, so I had to have gotten here by seven thirty.”
He enunciated with gusto, every word uttered as though he were savoring a new, delicious piece of chocolate, and he had one of those loud, booming voices that so often seem to come from small men. A six forty-five departure would put him out of the running, since Russell read the first kidnap message around six o’clock, and the ransom message came in not too long after that. But it was an easy enough thing to check studio records. I tossed out a question that would give me an idea right now whether he was telling the truth.
“You have security at the studio, some kind of log that says when you come in and when you leave, right?”
Jeff’s eyebrows took wing. “You don’t believe me? Why would I lie?”
