The Devil's Cinema Read online

  JOSS DIDN’T WANT TO spill the story on Twitchell. After all, he believed the man would make him millions and their film ideas were going to be hits. Already investors were handing over thousands to finance Day Players. Joss and his family had even put up $30,000 of their own money for the film. But the detective pressed on and Joss finally complied: he told the detective he had removed the Mazda’s licence plate and cleaned the car “a little,” but then he left it alone, parked in the driveway of his parents’ house. Twitchell had the key. Joss remembered the day Twitchell had called him to help move the Mazda quite clearly. He had been at work on the afternoon of Friday, October 17.

  Another detail then came back to Joss that he thought the police may want to know about. His grandfather was a retired cop so Joss respected the law. About a month ago, he said, Twitchell had asked him to be a reference on a new purchase that required a bit of paperwork. And Joss didn’t mind.

  Twitchell, for an unknown reason, had suddenly expressed interest in buying a gun.

  THE METAL DOOR TO the soft room clinked open. Twitchell, appearing tired, turned to see Clark shuffle back inside the interview room, legal pad in hand.

  “Mark, you remember what I mentioned to you earlier?” Clark pushed the door shut behind him, making sure the latch had closed. “About, uh, contacting a lawyer?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “That still holds true, okay? Just so you’re aware. If at any time we’re talking and you wanna contact a lawyer, you can do so. I’ll take you to a phone.” Clark sneaked a quick downward glace at his notepad. “There’s something else I wanna tell you … Mark.”

  Twitchell was hunched over, holding his chin up with one hand.

  Clark dropped his papers on the table and turned to face him. He took a quick breath, then launched in. “There’s absolutely no doubt in my mind that you’re involved in the disappearance of John Altinger.” He chopped each word with his hands like he was lecturing Twitchell, towering over top of him.

  Twitchell blinked rapidly, looking up at Clark in sudden shock. His eyes flared as he locked on to Clark’s gaze.

  Thirteen seconds passed in silence as they stared at each other.

  Twitchell slowly leaned back into the couch, his fleece jacket rustling against it. He dropped his hands between his knees and tried to regain his composure.

  Clark raised his voice again. “No doubt in my mind at all, Mark.” He was nearly shouting.

  Twitchell looked stunned. He opened up his hands to Clark like he was pleading for scraps of food before finally responding. “Uh, wha, why?”

  Clark shuffled backwards to take a seat, ignoring the question, realizing he was now in for a marathon. Twitchell had become a prime suspect. He dropped down on the edge of the chair, his elbows resting on his thighs, opening up his body language. “As I said, Mark …” He shook his head, lowering his voice. “There’s no doubt in my mind that you’re involved in this disappearance.”

  Twitchell exhaled in a heavy sigh that seemed to empty his lungs. His body deflated. He collapsed and buried his face in his hands, gasping for a breath. Rubbing his forehead hard, he stared down at the office carpet, avoiding the detective’s probing stare.

  But Clark kept hammering away. “I just wanna get to the bottom of this because this is not gonna go away. It’s not gonna leave you, Mark.”

  Twitchell drummed his forehead with his fingers, hiding half his face. “I, I don’t understand.”

  “I’m gonna explain some of the reasons to you,” Clark said, pausing for effect. “But you do understand.”

  Twitchell sat up straight, squinted, and clasped his hands together again. He listened closely, expressionless.

  “You’re involved in this and unfortunately …” Clark shrugged his shoulders. “Something got carried away. Something got carried away with this guy.” He kept nodding as he changed his tone to that of a father-confessor. “I mean, talking to you here tonight, you seem like a decent guy. And I think that something happened that night that maybe you just didn’t have total control of. And I’m here to get to the bottom of it. Because it’s not gonna go away. This is gonna stay with you …”

  Twitchell shook his head, staring at his palms as he sighed yet again.

  “We need to clear this up here and now. We need to clear this up tonight.”

  Twitchell shook his head in defiance.

  “You need to tell me the truth about what’s going on,” Clark stressed. “What happened … with this fella?”

  But the room was silent. The low hum of fluorescent lights droned on as the clock ticked past five in the morning. Twitchell did not respond. Clark, speaking slowly as his fatigue settled in, reached for an explanation. “I mean, did this happen because of the movie thing? … Something that went too far?”

  Twitchell fell back into the couch and threw his hands up in the air. “I have no idea what the hell is going on,” he said, his voice quivering.

  But Clark was relentless. “You do have an idea,” he said, staring him down. “You have a very good idea, Mark, about what’s going on. You know exactly what happened there that night.”

  Twitchell clutched his forehead again, sighed, and dropped his head into his hands. He refused to open up.

  Clark pressed on, scolding the filmmaker for more than an hour. He probed for a weak spot, circling back repeatedly to Twitchell’s wife, Jess, and his baby, Chloe. Think of your family. Clark repeated it. What are they going to do? What are you going to tell your wife? He laid on the guilt, then built him up with praise. You’re a smart guy. Decent guy. Have a conscience. He seized on anything that might get Twitchell to talk, anything to pry him open and unburden himself, get him to spill the story.

  Twitchell looked rattled. “This can’t be,” he peeped. “I don’t –” His whole body language had changed. Clark saw his posture close in on him like he had become a shamed man, lost, powerless, and under attack. “I just don’t understand,” Twitchell whimpered.

  Clark reached for his notes. The case wasn’t too difficult, he explained: a guy was missing, the police knew he had gone to Twitchell’s garage, and he had already admitted in the interview that the missing man’s licence plate and keys were in his own car. On top of that, here he was with a ludicrous story that he had bought the missing man’s vehicle for only forty dollars with no bill of sale from a mystery man with a Celtic knot tattoo. Twitchell had said repeatedly that he bought the car on October 15. But having checked in on the rest of the police team during the break earlier in the night, Clark knew Joss had already revealed how Twitchell had called him to move the car on October 17, while a neighbour had spotted the Mazda parked at the garage on October 14. And Twitchell’s version of events had changed repeatedly. It had changed from the previous night’s interview, changed from his written statement, and continued to change even while he was talking with Clark. The detective knew Twitchell was lying about the padlock and was suspicious about the barrel. The jerry can in his trunk made no sense either. Who buys a can of gas for a lawn mower they don’t own? Nothing was adding up. It was time to fess up.

  “You’ve changed your whole story. Told all kinds of different lies.”

  As Clark picked off the list of inconsistencies, Twitchell hid his face with his hands and avoided looking at him. He stroked the bridge of his nose with his index finger, sighing repeatedly.

  “What happened to John, Mark? What did you do to him?”

  “I’m done,” Twitchell said. Clenching his first, he pressed his knuckles against his temples. He wanted out. “I’m just not talkin’ anymore.… This is ridiculous.”

  Clark didn’t budge. “Well, what is your explanation? You haven’t answered any of the questions! If you didn’t do anything wrong, why wouldn’t you answer those questions?”

  He stopped the interrogation briefly and tried to engage Twitchell as a friend.

  “What drove you to this? Obviously there’s something going on behind the scenes that I don’t know about. You seem l
ike a decent guy that, hell, I’d even go have a beer with.”

  Twitchell looked up for a second and then furrowed his brow, deep in concentration.

  “That’s the type of guy you come across as being,” Clark added, smiling. “Yet, you’re involved over your head in this.”

  Twitchell had seen this good cop, bad cop routine before and called Clark out on it: “Is anything that you’re saying genuine or is this some sort of tactic?”

  “You gotta get away from the acting part, Mark, and listen to what I’m saying.” Clark turned aggressive. “You have told me nothing but lies. An innocent man does not come in here and tell lies. That’s genuine, Mark.… Everything I’m telling you in here is genuine.” He stopped for a second to let it sink in. “So get outta your film producer mode and the facade of thinking that everyone’s an actor.”

  Twitchell made a face and adjusted his feet.

  “This is real life, all right? Real life. If you were telling me the truth, you would have one story. One story that would flow from beginning to end.” Clark waved his hand from right to left. “And you could repeat that story one hundred times with no changes.” He snapped his fingers. “Yours is soooo bad.”

  Twitchell remained silent, thinking, before finally responding. “I, I just … I know we’re not sitting in a movie, but it’s the cop thing.”

  “This is real-life stuff,” Clark said. “You gotta get away from the movies.”

  “Yeah, I know.” He sighed.

  “That’s the problem here.” Clark pushed one last time. “You’re not gonna be able to live with yourself, with this, for the rest of your life.”

  Twitchell crossed his legs, tucked his head into his shoulder, and spoke softly: “You’d be surprised with what I can live with.”

  Clark thought he had hit on something. He wanted a confession and moved in. “It’s gonna eat at you and eat at you. It’s gonna affect your family because it’s affecting you. So let’s get to the truth and then we can end this. The problem is you don’t wanna tell me the truth.” He hit him with a rapid series of questions. “Why don’t you wanna tell me the truth? Can you answer that question, Mark?”

  Twitchell’s armour split open. “Because I’m scared,” he stammered. “I always have this instinct to wanna be able to try to hold on to …” He let it trail off. “I don’t even know what.”

  Clark tried to reassure him, comfort him, get him to keep talking. “That’s a perfectly natural feeling at this time. What’s going through your mind right now, Mark?”

  Twitchell was frowning. “Almost nothing. Anything I try to push out is like … What’s it like? … It’s like skating uphill.” He gave up. He reached for a tissue off the side table and blew his nose. “I’m too tired to formulate thought anymore.”

  “I don’t think you need to formulate thought. What I think you need to formulate is the truth. There’s two sides to every story.”

  “Yeah, but stories come with questions.” Twitchell grabbed another tissue. “And more answers and more stories …” He was shutting down again.

  Clark was losing him. It was after six now. Twitchell was rubbing his eyes. “Life goes on,” Clark offered gently, “and we deal with those mistakes.”

  “Well …” Twitchell looked miserable. “I guess my marriage is over now so I don’t really have to worry about protecting her anymore.” He was ripping tiny pieces off the corner of the tissue.

  “Your daughter will be taken care of.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Your wife’s here, your mother and father. Your parents are in Edmonton, are they not?”

  Twitchell mumbled yes, biting his lip.

  “I can see this is eating you up.” Clark stopped and tried again. “What happened between you and John, Mark?”

  Twitchell was silent. He looked down at the tissue and started twirling it in his fingers. “Ahhhh,” he groaned. “I can’t even get there right now.” He turned to Clark to offer him a solution. “I wanna get to the finish line, but at the same time I think consulting with a lawyer is gonna be really important.”

  “You can do that at any time you want. I told you that right from the start.”

  Twitchell stretched out his arm across the back of the couch and seemed to open up again. “Do you have any idea what it’s like living with constant apprehension?”

  “Can’t say that I do.”

  “I’d like to not feel that anymore,” he muttered, then exhaled.

  “Well, this is your chance to get rid of that feeling.”

  “Oh, but it brings on a whole new type.” He shot back to life with a sudden burst of energy and pulled a pen and paper off the couch cushion beside him. He slapped the paper down on a binder and placed it on his lap. “Wh, wha, okay. What’s the steps in getting a lawyer because I don’t have one?”

  He had lost him. Clark knew it was over. Twitchell had lawyered up.

  The interview trailed on for a further half-hour, but Clark couldn’t get his suspect back on point. It was all pleasantries.

  Clark watched as Twitchell walked out of the interview room, spoke to a lawyer on the phone down the hallway, and then decided to leave. Clark jumped to his feet and followed, escorting him out of the building. Murphy stayed behind and looked over his notes.

  The pair took the elevator to the ground floor in silence. Clark was fuming. He had thrown everything at the guy all night and he didn’t get a confession. As the elevator doors opened, Clark turned to Twitchell. “I know you killed that guy,” he spat. “And I’m coming to get you. It’s just a matter of time.”

  Twitchell stared back blankly. They walked out the main door together with wheels turning in both of their heads.

  It was a chilly dawn on a Monday morning.

  Clark could see his breath. “Is that your car right there?” He pointed at the Pontiac Grand Am parked on the west end of the parking lot.

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m seizing your car.”

  Twitchell’s face went pale.

  Clark beamed. After all, Twitchell had given him ample justification: he admitted to having Johnny’s keys in the vehicle during the interview. “I’m seizing your car and I’m taking it right now.”

  “I just need to get something out of my car.”

  “You’re getting fuck-all out of that car.”

  “I just wanna get my cell phone.”

  “You get nothing.” Clark was smug. He was planning on getting a search warrant and he’d have the forensics team comb through everything inside. “You can either give me the keys or I will just call a tow truck down and we’ll break in. Either way, it’s gone.”

  Twitchell dug the keys out of his pocket, slapped them into Clark’s hands, and stormed off down the street. Clark stood there for a moment and watched him hurry toward City Hall and the downtown core.

  Clark jumped in the maroon vehicle. It was a mess and smelled like gas, but he had to leave the detailed search for his colleagues in forensics. He drove the car to the police warehouse two blocks away to keep it secure.

  Clark was getting a second wind. His heart was pumping. Fresh ideas rushed into his head with the crisp outside air. He was thinking twenty-four-hour surveillance. His gut was telling him this file was something big.

  Another thought had him break into a dead run back to police headquarters. Clark wanted to drive up to St. Albert and seize Twitchell’s house too. With a story this fishy, Clark believed his new suspect would probably be racing back there right now, planning to burn or destroy evidence as fast as he could.

  ON THE ROAD

  AT THE START Of his early Monday morning shift, Acting Detective Dale Johnson passed Clark in the hallway as he walked to his desk on the other side of homicide. Clark double-backed and tapped him on the shoulder. They were in his car and speeding off to St. Albert before Johnson even had a chance to check his email.

  Hungry and grumpy, hands on the wheel, Clark talked fast as Johnson listened. He was in his thirties and six mo
nths into the homicide beat, though he was coming off a stint in the gang unit, so he was no rookie. Relatively young compared to the rest of the team, Johnson had yet to develop the gruff attitude and sly expressions veteran cops like Clark liked to slide into their conversations. He was pale white and skinny, still sporting a head of red-brown hair that had begun receding on his temples. And while Clark was known for speaking his mind, sometimes even getting in trouble for it, Johnson was part of the next generation of city detectives who were far more measured in their public speaking. He was neatly dressed, wore glasses, looked far more book smarts than street smarts, more middle class than working class. But the pair shared one thing in common at this moment: both of them were excited, feeding off the energy of a new file. These were moments homicide detectives lived for.

  Their car sped in the direction opposite the Monday morning traffic, weaving through each lane. By 7:45, they were pulling up to 30 Dayton Crescent on the north side of St. Albert. Clark rang the doorbell, then peeked through a window. It was a tiny home of bricks and blue siding on a corner lot. Seeing nobody inside, Clark rang the doorbell again and knocked. Johnson stood beside him, adjusting his glasses.

  Finally, Clark saw movement through the curtains. A young woman with light brown hair came down the stairs and opened the front door a crack. Standing before them in pyjamas and a housecoat, Twitchell’s wife, Jess, seemed hesitant.

  Clark could hear a baby inside. “Oh, I apologize for that,” he said.

  Jess opened the door a bit more and gave him a look.

  “I’m Detective Bill Clark.” There was no easy way to say it. “We’re investigating a disappearance and your husband’s name has come up.”

  “My husband has already called me.” She was abrupt and looking annoyed.

  Clark bit his lip. “Oh, really?”