Mary, Mary

managed to interview Tom Cruise on the record at an industry party. Two years ago, the
L.A. Times
had wooed him away with an offer for his own column, “Behind the Screens.” His reputation in the business, he told me, was for “insider” Hollywood stories and “edgy” reviews. He obviously had a very high opinion of himself.
    I hadn’t found any further links, between Griner and either of the murders outside of the movie-industry connection. Still, I wasn’t prepared to believe that he’d been randomly selected to receive Mary Smith’s e-mails.
    Griner didn’t seem inclined to believe it either. His focus was all over the place, though, and he’d been peppering me with questions since we started.
    I finally sat down close to him. “Mr. Griner—will you relax? Please.”
    “Pretty easy for you to say,” he shot back, and then almost immediately said, “Sorry. Sorry.” He put two fingers to his forehead and rubbed between his eyes. “I’m high-strung to begin with. Ever since I was a kid growing up in Greenwich.”
    I’d seen this kind of reaction—a mix of paranoia and anger that comes from getting blindsided the way Arnold Griner had been. When I spoke again, I kept my voice just low enough that he’d have to concentrate to hear me.
    “I know you’ve already gone over this, but can you think of any reason you might be receiving these messages? Let’s start with any prior contact you’ve had with Patsy Bennett, Antonia Schifman, or even the limo driver, Bruno Capaletti.”
    He shrugged, rolled his eyes, tried desperately to catch his breath. “We might have been at some of the same parties, at least the two women. I’ve certainly reviewed their movies. The last was one of Antonia’s,
Canterbury Road,
which I hated, I’m sorry to say, but I loved her in it and said so in the piece.
    “Do you think that could be the connection? Maybe the killer reads my stuff. I mean, she must, right? This is so incredibly bizarre. How could I possibly fit into an insane murder scheme?”
    Before I could say anything at all, he threw out another of his rapid-fire questions.
    “Do you think Antonia’s driver was incidental? In the e-mail it seems like he was just . . .
in the way.”
    Griner was obviously hungry for information, both personally and professionally. He was a reporter, after all, and already reasonably powerful in Hollywood circles. So I gave him my stock reporter’s response.
    “It’s too early to say. What about Patsy Bennett?” I asked. “Do you remember the last time you wrote about one of her films? Something she produced? She still produced films occasionally, right?”
    Griner nodded; then he sighed loudly, almost theatrically. “Do you think I should discontinue my column for now? I should, shouldn’t I? Maybe I better.”
    The interview was like a Ping-Pong match against a kid with ADD. I eventually managed to get through all my questions, but it took almost twice as long as I thought it would when I had arrived at the
Times
. Griner constantly needed reassurance, and I tried to give it to him without being completely dishonest. He
was
in danger, after all.
    “One last thing,” Griner said just before I left him. “Do you think I should write a book about this? Is that a little sick?”
    I didn’t bother to answer either question. He went to Yale—he should be able to figure it out.

Chapter 16
    AFTER THE INTERVIEW, I slouched out to Arnold Griner’s desk to touch base with Paul Lebleau, the LAPD tech in charge of tracing Mary Smith’s e-mails.
    He tapped away on the keyboard of Griner’s computer while he spoke to me in a rapid-fire patter. “Two e-mails came through two different proxy servers. First one originated from a cybercafe in Santa Monica. That means Mary Smith could be one of a few hundred people. She’s got
two
different addresses. So far. Both just generic Hotmail accounts, which tells us nothing really, except we do know that she signed up for the first one from the library at USC. Day before the first message.”
    I had to concentrate just to follow Lebleau. Did everybody out here have ADD? “What about the second e-mail?” I asked him.
    “Transmission didn’t originate in the same place as the first one. That much I can tell you.”
    “Did it come from the L.A. area? Can you tell me that?”
    “Don’t know yet.”
    “When will you know?”
    “Probably end of the day, not that it’s going to be much help.” He leaned forward and squinted