Chapter 120 Dumpster Diver
The two officers weren’t alone when they arrived. They had several uniformed officers with them, too, and someone who looked like he must be from forensics. “Has anyone touched anything since the fall?” Officer Gonzalez asked, eyeing the scene of the “accident”—if that’s what it was.
“I sent my engineering team in, and one of them brought this down with him,” Cam said, handing the officer the piece of wood.
Officer Gonzalez called one of the uniformed police officers over, and she ran the part of the crow’s nest over to the officer running the investigation, the one that Andrea thought looked like he must be from forensics. She noted Officer Gonzalez had called him Officer Parsons.
“We’ll do a thorough check and determine whether or not further steps need to be made,” Officer Buress assured Cam. “In the meantime, you’ll have to keep your people away from the set.”
“But… we have a movie to shoot,” Cam reminded her. “We have to stay on schedule.”
“You can use other parts of the set, but the boat itself, including the part where the stuntwoman fell, will have to be untampered with until we can determine whether or not a crime has taken place.”
Cam didn’t like that answer, but he nodded. “All right, I guess I may as well send everyone home for the day until we figure out a new schedule.”
“We will need to interview everyone to see what they witnessed,” Officer Gonzalez reminded him. “Once we’re done talking to everyone, they can go.”
Andrea saw that many of the uniformed officers were already taking notes from members of the crew while a few of them worked with Officer Parsons.
“Of course,” Cam said. It was evident he was a little flustered. Sweat was beginning to drip from his hairline.
Studying him, Andrea was a little confused. She could see why he would be upset that he had to stop filming and that someone was hurt on set—again—but why was that making him sweat?
“Ms. Sparks, we have another matter to discuss with you. Is there somewhere we can talk in private?”
Her heart in her throat, Andrea looked around the soundstage. Most of it was open, but there was the conference room where they’d had their script reading at the beginning.
“Go ahead,” Cam said, seeing her eyeing the private space.
“Thanks.”
Andrea gestured for the officers to follow her, and the three of them walked into the office space and closed the door. She took a seat and waited for both of the officers to settle as well. They exchanged quick looks, and Andrea imagined they’d been working together long enough that they knew what such a rushed exchange of expressions meant.
Officer Buress began, her voice a little softer than normal. “Ms. Sparks, we’ve located Sven. His real name is Jan Hoegert.”
“Did you arrest him?” Andrea asked, holding her breath as she waited for the answer.
Once again, the officers were looking at each other. When Officer Gonzalez conceded that he’d be the one to talk, his face was grim. “He’s dead.”
“What?” Andrea could hardly believe her ears. “What are you talking about? How is that possible?”
“His body was found in a dumpster downtown this morning. It hadn’t been there long. Whoever put him there had to be pretty strong. That was a big guy. We’re looking into it, but right now, we have no leads.” Officer Buress shook her head and looked down at the table.
Andrea felt tears stinging her eyes, but she wasn’t sure why. Of course, she’d wanted Sven—Jan—to pay for what he’d tried to do to her, but she didn’t want him dead. “Do you think his death was related to what happened to me? Someone trying to cover their tracks?”
“It’s hard to say,” Office Gonzalez replied. “We’ll be looking into the possibility. In the meantime, we have no link between Jan and your half-sister, Sarah Lockton. However, we did recover a smashed cell phone in the dumpster where we found his body. If it was his, that might be helpful.”
“If it’s smashed, how can that help?” Andrea wanted to know.
“Just because it’s smashed, that doesn’t mean we can’t figure out the phone number associated with it and request call records both to and from the phone,” Officer Buress explained. “If we can find evidence that your sister was called or called into that number, there’s a good chance we can follow that to her relationship with Hoegert.”
Andrea’s head was spinning. There wasn’t much else she could say other than, “Okay.”
The officers rose, and Andrea did the same, following them to the door. “We’re doing everything we can to find out who did this,” Officer Gonzalez assured her.
“I know you are. Thank you.” She dried her eyes and took some deep breaths.
“We’ll get an officer over to interview about what happened today so you can head home and get some rest.” Officer Buress gave her a sympathetic look, and then the two detectives walked over to one of the uniformed police officers and said something, gesturing at Andrea. The woman nodded and said something that Andrea interpreted to mean she’d be with her as soon as she was done with the interview she was doing at the moment.
Her knees felt weak, so Andrea sat back down, leaving the door open so the police woman could come in when she was ready. Thoughts of the bulky body of the diver lying in the dumpster came to mind, and Andrea had to push them away or else she’d start crying again. How was she ever going to forgive Sarah for this if she had something to do with his demise? Some things were forgivable, but murder wasn’t one of them.
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