Who Killed Rudy Rio? Read online

  My defining moment began with the first questions. Question One: "My friends see me as: (A) Tough; (B) Average; (C) Weak and subservient."

  Get out of here, Barnicut! Did you think I'd pick C?

  Question two. "I think of myself as: (A) Self-confident; (B) Adequate; (C) A victim.

  "A" again. But "victim" set sirens screaming in my head. Was I a victim? How had I come across in my interview just now? I wanted to appear tough and self-confident, and probably had, on the outside. But inside where it counts? I thought about it. The good news was I'd been grandly assertive about giving the polygraph test to Rudy Rio. The bad news? When I filled out that application, I got all teary. My spine turned to marshmallows.

  Casablanca. Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman at the airport saying goodbye. "We'll always have Paris." Did Humphrey cry? Did Humphrey wish he could afford a shrink?

  At that instant I decided that the vestiges of my boo-hoo, poor-little-me act had to go. My defining moment. I didn't have a husband to rely on anymore. I wasn't Daddy's little girl anymore, either. From now on, no matter what, I would have emotions of steel. I would be strong, inside and out, and I wouldn't be a victim. If that meant I ended up collecting cans down on the mall it could be no worse a fate than groveling for the sake of a job with slime bag Barnicut. In the future, I would cut him no slack.

  At least the test kept me occupied. I was getting increasingly jumpy. Barnicut was right about P.I.'s swarming the streets. I'd danced a waltz with nearly every agency in town already, to the tune of "Don't call us, we'll call you." Now I had a chance.

  Tish Regillis looked impressed when I handed her the test, along with my resume. "Wow," she said, "how come you decided to be a private investigator?"

  "I like it and the money's good—sometimes." Someday, if I knew her well enough, I would tell her about those last miserable years with Tom, when I knew the marriage was over, when I vowed I wouldn't work 8-to-5 for some heartless corporation until I ended up a moldy old lady. That's when I decided to get myself in gear and be a P.I.

  Tish asked, "When did you learn to do polygraphs?"

  "When I worked for Sandy Wells. She showed me how. Right away I got hooked and signed up for Polygraph school. Not everyone can give a Polygraph. You need a lot of training to be any good. Even then, it's not that simple. You've got to know people—be a good psychologist."

  Tish made a face. "Yeah, but the trouble is, you can't use a lie detector test in court."

  "Not in California, but in some states you can. Don't believe all that negative garbage. Polygraphs are so accurate it's scary."

  "Hey, you don't have to convince me," Tish said. "I've seen Gil do his stuff. He's good."

  "Who exactly is Gil?"

  "Guillermo Rivera Perez." I noticed how she rolled the name lovingly off her tongue. "He could get the truth out of the devil." Tish sliced an envelope open with extra vigor and lowered her voice to a whisper. "He's the other partner, the good one." She jerked her head towards Barnicut's office. "As opposed to numb nuts in there. Gil's crazy, but he's okay, if you know what I mean."

  No, I didn't know, and didn't have time to find out because just then the outer door opened and a man's bald head peered in. "Barnicut & Perez?" he asked in a tentative voice.

  "Yes, sir," Tish answered brightly, "come in."

  A dapper little man in his fifties stepped cautiously inside. He wore neat gray slacks, a green open-collared shirt, and a natty tweed sports jacket. A diamond big enough to cover a couple of mortgage payments flashed on his pinky. He was maybe five feet five, with a tough, street-wise face and wary eyes. He hitched up his trousers and gazed suspiciously around, kind of like he expected an ambush. "I'm Rudy Rio." His accent hinted Chicago.

  This was a night watchman? So much for stereotypes. I'd expected some slump-shouldered old guy in khaki work clothes with shuffling steps, a flashlight, and a bunch of keys dangling from his belt. Rudy Rio was none of the above. Instead, he had a gambler's look about him, like a race track tout about to slip you a hot tip out of the corner of his mouth.

  I turned on my Mizz-professional-but-friendly demeanor and held out my hand. "Mr. Rio! We've been expecting you."

  He took my hand reluctantly, glared up at me, way up, and scowled. "I'm getting a raw deal here. I don't need a lie detector test."

  I noticed his hand was clammy, probably from nervousness, so I backed off a little. No sense towering over him like a lady Rambo. "I know exactly what you mean. Come on in my office, and I'll tell you what we're going to do."

  He stood his ground. "I didn't have anything to do with any trailers getting stolen."

  "Then you have nothing to worry about." I tried to sound as non-threatening as I could. "Most people think all a polygraph test does is prove you're lying. That's not so. You have to look at the other side. It can prove you're telling the truth."

  "Then how come she's not sending anyone else to take the test?" Under his breath he muttered, "Bitches."

  "Bitches?"

  "Doris Trusdale and Mrs. Champion." Nervously, he moistened his lips. "They're both out to get me."

  "There's no law that says you have to take the test. Nobody can force you. But let's talk a minute."

  Silently he glared at me. He was having none of it, but when I motioned at him, he followed me docilely into Gil Perez's office. I seated myself at the battered desk, trying to look at ease, as if I'd spent thousands of hours there. Across from me, Rudy chose the chair closest to the exit and sat gingerly down, nearly on the edge, moving the chair so that his toes pointed towards the door. "I'm innocent," he said, shifting his eyes to the right, and down.

  Poor little guy. He didn't know it, but he'd just sent out a pack of signals that he was about to tell some big, whopping lies.

  Get a hundred polygraphers together and you will get one hundred different theories on how to give a lie detector test. On one thing they all agree: you have to ask control questions—the kind of questions where you know your subject will lie.

  Take a question like "Have you ever cheated the IRS?" You are fairly certain your subject will lie because who among us has never fudged at least a little on his income tax return? So when your subject answers, "No," which he probably will, you check how the pens swing, and you know how his body responds when he lies. Then, if your next question is, "Did you murder your wife last Tuesday?" and the pens show he's responding the same way he did to the tax question, you know he's guilty because that's his response when he lies. If those pens don't swing as much, he's probably innocent.

  People can't sit too long with the blood pressure cuff tight around their arm, so the test itself is short, just a dozen questions or so. The set-up takes the time. I spent nearly an hour with Rudy before I finally had him sitting in the polygraph chair ready for the test. He had signed the release form and filled in the questionnaire. I'd gone over the questions I would ask, making the whole scene as friendly and informal as possible.

  Most people don't mind talking about themselves, but Rudy was tight-mouthed. I had to work to get the facts, but finally gained his confidence. I guessed correctly—he was born and raised in Chicago. Then he moved to L.A. where he was "in the movie business for a while"—he was vague about that—and he "spent a lot of time in Reno and Vegas." He worked for a while at Caesar's Palace, but was vague about that, too.

  "Are you clear on it now, Rudy? There won't be any surprises, I promise, just the questions we've discussed."

  "Okay, okay," he answered, looser now, jacket off, relaxed and a lot more trusting.

  I hooked Rudy to the polygraph: a soft rubber tube across his chest to record his breathing; a blood pressure cuff around his arm to record his heart beat; an electrode attached to the ends of two fingers to test his sweating response, and another soft rubber tube across his abdomen to further check his breathing.

  One more thing I had to do. "Be right back." I left the polygraph room and shut the door. Sure enough, Barnicut had planted himself outside,
right where I wanted him, the Harley picture removed so he could peer through the one-way window. "So you're watching," I said.

  "Wouldn't miss it." He gave me his superior, pointy-lipped smile, as if he knew for sure I was going to botch the test.

  Back inside, I shut the door, careful not to glance at the picture painted on the glass that backed the Harley—a Yankee Clipper under full sail, skimming across a stained-glass indigo sea. "All right, I'm starting the test now." I switched on the machine. Four pens started squiggling lines back and forth across a moving roll of graph paper. Not just ordinary lines, but black, green, red and blue lines. Very fancy. I'd only worked with black ink before.

  "Feel comfortable, Rudy?"

  "Yeah, yeah."

  "We'll run through these questions once. Then we'll take a little break. Then I'll ask you the same questions again. Remember, just say yes or no." I held a marker in my hand. As we went along, I would number the response to each question on the moving paper, to correspond with the list of questions on the desk in front of me.

  "Is today Thursday?" I began.

  "Yes."

  "Did you participate in the theft of six trailers at Champion's Commercial Trailer Sales last night?"

  "No."

  Bingo. The pens were dancing. "Were you born in Chicago?"

  "Yes."

  "Over the past ten years have you ever deliberately cheated the government on your income tax?"

  "No."

  Oh, sure, Rudy, and cows fly. "Regarding the trailers that were stolen from Champion's, do you know where they were taken?"

  "No."

  Bingo again. "Other than your job, is there anything else you are afraid I will ask you a question about?"

  "No."

  Interesting. The pens went crazy on that one. "Is your name Rudy Rio?"

  "Yes."

  "Between high school and now have you ever stolen anything worth more than ten dollars?"

  "No."

  "Do you know who stole the trailers?"

  "No."

  "That's it, Rudy." I turned the machine off and loosened the cuff on his arm. "Rest a minute. You're doing fine."

  Rudy squirmed in his chair—he was getting increasingly squirmy—and peered back over his shoulder at the paper. "So how'd I do?"

  I made a pretense of reviewing the printout, but I already knew what it said. The lines rose to mountain peaks on numbers two, five, and nine—the questions about the trailers. What they said was that Rudy Rio was guilty—not just maybe guilty, but so guilty he might as well paste a big red “G” to the middle of his forehead. I'd nailed Rudy for sure, and fought the impulse to flash an I-told-you-so glance in the direction of the Yankee Clipper.

  What made me curious, though, was Rudy's response to number six, the one where I asked if he was worried I would question him about something else. The pens created Mt. Everest on that one, gyrating like crazy. No doubt Rudy had been involved in a lot of sleazy stuff, but this was something from his past that really bothered him—something pressing on his conscience like a ton of steel.

  Time to go again. I inflated the cuff and asked, "Okay? Ready?"

  "Yeah, yeah, let's get it over with." Rudy's voice rose higher. His hands twitched. Tiny beads of sweat broke out along his brows. I could tell just the thought of number six scared him silly.

  I looked him in the eye. "Is anything wrong?"

  "Nah," he exclaimed, a little too fast, a little too hearty, carefully avoiding my gaze. I had the feeling he was about to leap from his chair and rush from the room. Maybe I should postpone the second questioning, but no, we needed to finish. I turned the machine back on.

  "Is today Thursday?"

  "Yes."

  "Did you participate...?" As I went on, he got edgier, his foot tapping faster, his face reflecting growing fear. We reached number six. "Other than your job, is there anything else you're afraid I will ask you a question about?"

  The blood drained from Rudy's face. He gripped the arms of his chair. "Yes, yes, yes!" he blurted. He buried his head in his hands and started to sob. "Oh, God!"

  "Rudy, what is it?" I dropped my marker and turned off the machine.

  His head jerked up. Like a trapped animal he stared at me, eyes wide with horror. "I saw a girl get clipped. I was there." He started to sob again and his head dipped to his chest. "I saw it, I saw it!"

  "Clipped? You mean—?"

  "Murdered." In a rising wail, he added, "They offed her."

  "Oh, Rudy," I said, my heart going out to this pitiful little man. I came around the desk and quickly freed him from the tubes, cuff, and electrodes. I pulled up another chair, and sat facing him. "Can you tell me about it?"

  He grabbed my hands, as if they were the last lifeline before he was swept out to sea. "What am I going to do? Ohhhh..." The half-wail, half-moan that emitted from his throat came out eerie, and infinitely sad. It had the sound of a man in torment, a man possessed by a haunting, evil memory that would never fade. It sent chills up my spine. He let go my hands and wrapped his arms around himself, rocked back and forth, sobbing and moaning, as if he were in terrible pain.

  For a few moments, I was at a loss. This particular situation had not been covered in the curriculum of The Exeter Polygraph School. I didn't dare look at the clipper ship. After this debacle, my chances for a job were probably down the tube. With a jolt I realized this man was talking about a murder. I had an obligation to find out as much as I could. "Can you tell me where it happened?"

  I waited silently until Rudy started to talk again, the words tumbling out as if he could hardly wait to cleanse his soul. "It was up at Huntington Lake where we went to shoot," he said.

  "To shoot? Like in guns?"

  "No, no, no—we went on a shoot—for a movie, you know?"

  "Oh, a movie," I said. "I never heard of any movies filmed at Huntington Lake."

  "You wouldn't have heard of this one." He reached in his pocket for a handkerchief and mopped his face. "You're a nice lady, Miss—?"

  "Call me Holly."

  "Yeah, well, this isn't the kind of movie you would see at the Towne Center 8. This was a porn flick. X-rated stuff, you know what I mean?"

  "I have an idea." Tom rented one once, back when the marriage was rosy, on a champagne-and-hot-tub Saturday night. It was stupid. I hadn't liked it very well.

  "I was a grip," Rudy continued, "a kind of a jack-of-all trades, you might say. Handled the lights—went out for sandwiches—that type of thing."

  "So what went on up at Huntington?"

  The horror returned to his face. "This one they were calling Virgin in the Pines. They've got a girl named Delphine. I never knew her last name. She's got real white skin and long black hair, all dressed up like her first communion, you know? In a long white dress with a veil. She's real good looking, skinny but stacked, with a pretty face and a nose that sort of tilted up—cute, you know what I mean? She looked sixteen, but I knew she was older, maybe twenty-four, twenty-five. She's at this kind of outdoor cathedral, with pine trees all around. First, she's dancing around, picking flowers. There's a long low altar with fancy candles burning on it, and pretty soon she's kneeling in front of it praying. Then these three guys ride up on their motorcycles. They're Hell's Angels types, dressed in black leather with red scarves around their heads. The biggest guy has got a mask on—-you know what I mean?"

  He didn't care if I knew what he meant, but I nodded anyway.

  "Well, right away Delphine acts scared, see—I mean, that's the plot. She tries to run away, and there's this big scene where they grab her and rip her clothes off, and she's screaming and such, and then they knock the candles off the altar, throw her on it, pull her legs apart, and—you know."

  Yes, I knew. I nodded again.

  "Well, it wasn't that. She was an actress, and you knew it was all pretend, and that none of this bothered her at all, even if she was screaming. I talked to her before we started shooting. She told me she'd made a few porn flicks, so she knew
what she was doing. But then…but then..."

  Rudy stopped and choked up again. I waited a few seconds before I said, "Go on."

  "...then the guy with the mask reached into his boot and took out a knife, a big knife. Jesus, that mother was huge. He was a-straddle of her, right there on the altar, and he brought the knife up over his head, holding it up with both hands. Ready to stab her, you know? But even then, it didn't worry me. I just thought, you know, that it wasn't for real."

  "What did she think?"

  "She must have known right away. All at once I could tell she wasn't acting anymore. She started screaming, 'No, Randy, no!' and begging him not to do it, and holding her hands up to stop him, but he just laughed. Then he brought the knife down and—"

  Rudy stopped and shuddered. "The guy slit her throat," he whispered. "Oh, my God, he really slit her throat. I couldn't believe it." He looked at me with eyes that pleaded for help. "She let out one god-awful scream, then she kind of gurgled for a while. Blood was squirting out of her, all over her white skin. All over everything."

  Rudy covered his face with his hands and slumped in his chair. "And then she died, with the cameras turning and everyone just standing there looking... She died."

  A shudder ran through me. I was so shocked I didn't know what to say. Finally I managed, "What are you saying? That they really killed her and they filmed it?"

  Rudy looked up at me. "You've heard of snuff movies, haven't you? They're called slashers sometimes."

  "You mean where someone really gets killed?"

  "Yeah. They made a bunch of them down in South America a few years back, where they killed young girls. Then they had them coming out of Texas. There's big money in slashers. Big money."

  "Did you know this girl?"

  "They said she made a couple of movies in Hollywood, but I'd been in the porn business for years and never heard of her. Also I'd seen her in Vegas a couple of times, but I don't know what she was doing there."

  "But who would kill a person just for a movie?"

  As Rudy started to speak, the door opened. Almost simultaneously Rudy's mouth snapped shut. Barnicut beckoned to me from the doorway. "May I have a word with you, Mizz Keene? Outside?" His voice carried the charm of a rusted piece of barbwire.