“We were at a red light,” he said. “Two guys with guns came out of nowhere. They forced the driver to roll down the windows, and one of them pointed his gun at Elena. I’m sure she would have given him the necklace if he asked, but no — he had to dig his fingers into her chest and yank it off. The bastard drew blood. He hurt her, and she screamed. That’s what set me off — the scream.”
“What do you mean, set you off?” Kylie asked.
“I snapped. I went for his gun. I know they tell you not to, but you don’t think when the adrenaline kicks in like that. I had one hand on his wrist, and I was about to punch him with the other when the gun went off.”
I’d heard it before. A man, armed with nothing more than an overabundance of testosterone, decides to try his luck at hand-to-gun combat. It might work for Jackie Chan in the movies, but it failed for Craig Jeffers in real life.
“And then what?” Kylie asked.
“He fired another shot. I found out later that it hit the driver. But everything else is a blur. All I could focus on was Elena.”
“Can you describe the two men?” Kylie asked.
“They had their faces covered with green surgical masks, and they were wearing black knit caps. The one who reached in the back wasn’t wearing gloves, so I could see his hands. He was white.”
“What was your relationship with Elena Travers?” I asked.
“I loved her.”
“You were also her personal trainer?”
“That’s how it started, but six months ago I asked her out on a date. I never thought it would go anywhere, but it did. I couldn’t believe it. Elena could have had any guy in Hollywood, but she only wanted to be with me. I was ready to spend the rest of my life with her. And now...”
He shook his head. The interview was over, but Kylie and I gave the man a few moments to reflect on his loss.
The three of us stood there in the vast open space of the Ziegfeld lobby, red carpet beneath us, crystal chandeliers glittering above, half a dozen larger-than-life-size pictures of Elena Travers assaulting our senses from every angle. Finally, Jeffers broke the silence.
“It’s all my fault,” he said. “If Elena had gone with Leo like she was supposed to, she would still be alive.”
And just like that, the interview was no longer over.
“Who is Leo?” I asked.
Chapter 3
Leo, it turned out, was someone Kylie had met.
“I doubt if he’d remember me,” she said when we were back in the car.
“How is that possible? You’re the most unforgettable cop on the force.”
“I wasn’t a cop that night. It was an industry party, and I was there as Mrs. Spence Harrington. Leo was so starstruck he barely said hello to me. People like him don’t waste their time talking to the wives of people who make movies.”
We found Bassett’s number in Elena Travers’s cell phone. I called him and told him we had a few questions.
“My brother and I have some questions of our own,” he said. “Can you meet us at our place?”
By the time we got there, the street was clogged with news trucks, paparazzi, and the usual assortment of homicide junkies. Two squad cars and a pair of traffic agents wearing Day-Glo yellow vests had been dispatched to the scene to help maintain sanity.
Working for Red, I get a firsthand look at how the other half lives. Of course, the Bassett brothers weren’t exactly the other half. They were more like the 1 percent of the 1 percent, and their “place” was more like a palace.
Back when New York was in its industrial heyday, lower Manhattan was peppered with loft buildings intended for commercial or manufacturing use but off-limits for residential. In the early eighties, the law changed, and the smart money gobbled up the cold, bleak, rat-infested buildings for next to nothing.
The Bassetts got in early and transformed a six-story warehouse on West 21st Street into two spectacular triplex apartments. Leo occupied the lower half of the building, and Kylie and I took the elevator to the third floor.
The door opened into a vast room with vaulted ceilings, massive windows, and museum-quality furniture. The two men who were waiting for us looked nothing like brothers.
One was big and burly, with a smoky-gray beard and icy blue eyes. He was wearing faded jeans and a nondescript T-shirt. “Max Bassett,” he said.
The other was short, with soft, doughy features and inkblack hair that could only have come from a bottle. His outfit, a red smoking jacket over deep-purple silk pajamas, looked like it was right out of Hugh Hefner’s closet.
“I’m Leo,” he said. “Thank you for coming. We are devastated, and there’s no real information on television. Please tell us what happened.”
We sat down, and I gave them the highlights.
“I don’t understand,” Leo said. “We’ve been robbed before. Jewel thieves almost never get violent. Why did they have to shoot her?”
“You’re not listening,” Max said. “They shot her because her idiot boyfriend grabbed for the gun.”
Leo lashed out. “So you’re saying it’s all my fault?”
Max came right back at him. “Jesus, Leo, how the hell did you manage to make this about you?”
“Because I was the one who was supposed to go with her. If someone stuck a gun in my face, I’d have said, ‘Take the necklace, take my wallet, take what you want — just don’t hurt us.’ But I didn’t go, and now she’s dead.”
“Why didn’t you go?” I asked.
“It was a stupid accident,” Leo said. “I was—”
“More like a stupid decision,” Max said. “He didn’t go because he got cocktail sauce on his jacket. Elena didn’t care. She asked him to go anyway. But he said no.”
Leo stood up. “Thank you, Max. Because I didn’t feel bad enough as it is.” He turned to me. “I’m not feeling well. If you have any more questions for me, I’ll be happy to talk to you in the morning. Alone.”
He didn’t wait for an answer. He just turned and walked out of the room.
“There you have it, Detectives,” Max said. “My brother’s MO. Grand entrances and even grander exits. He’s a total drama queen even when the drama isn’t about him. This is a terrible tragedy. How can I help you find the people who killed Elena?”
“Can you describe the necklace?” I said.
“Seeing as I designed it, yes. There are twenty emeralds — absolutely superbly matched stones, four carats apiece. Each one is surrounded by a cluster of round and pear-shaped diamonds. They’re tiny, five points each, but the effect was dazzling. She looked gorgeous.”
“Who knew she’d be wearing the necklace?” I asked.
Max shook his head. “Everybody. It was one of Leo’s misguided publicity initiatives.”
“It sounds like you don’t see eye to eye with your brother,” Kylie said.
“Not remotely. Maybe once upon a time you could trot Marilyn Monroe or Elizabeth Taylor down the red carpet wearing an eight-million-dollar necklace and hope that the stunt would cast some kind of magic halo effect over the brand. But not anymore. I told Leo he was still living in the second half of the twentieth century. The hype would be all about Elena, and no one would even remember she was wearing an original Max Bassett. Well, I was wrong. Now everyone will remember me as the man who designed the necklace Elena Travers died for.”
“Mr. Bassett, whoever took the necklace is going to try to sell it,” Kylie said. “We need to get pictures and laser inscriptions to the JSA and the FBI as soon as possible.”