“And. .?"
“And she's amazing. Amazing.." Shelley's voice trailed off as if she were remembering a horrible event from the distant past. Like the Black Plague.
“Shelley, get a grip!"
“Yes, yes. She ought to be institutionalized. She's not quite human. Jane, she knows and cares about positively nothing but herself.
Nothing,
I tell you! I asked her about other people in the cast and she quite honestly didn't seem to know who I meant. She seemed to dimly remember George Abington. Not because she was once married to him, mind you, but because she had some scenes with him.
I'm not kidding! George only exists, in her mind, to fill in spaces in the script with talk so that the camera can focus on her reactions.”
Shelley was hanging onto Jane's arm, as if it were her last link with the real world.
“What about Jake?"
“She didn't seem to really know quite who he was. I asked her if she'd ever worked on a set with him before and she looked at me as if I were crazy to expect her to remember anybody she's ever worked with. Her only interest in Jake was that he 'got himself killed'—that I assure you is a direct quote — and has perpetuated the myth about her being bad luck on a set."
“No!"
“By that time I was so fascinated, that I asked her what she knew about his death and she knew nothing. Not that he was stabbed, or where or when it happened. I tried to make her speculate on who did it and she just said, 'Well, I didn't.' Understand this, Jane, that wasn't a denial of guilt, it was a statement that if
she
didn't do it, who could possibly have any interest in who did? Amazing."
“That all fits with what George Abington said about her. I'll tell you about my conversation with him in a minute. So you're pretty sure she was telling the truth? About not killing Jake?"
“Positive. When she ran out of self-praise for a second, I quickly asked her if Jake had been blackmailing her and she was genuinely astonished at the question. Blackmail, she explained rather patiently to me, requires that a person has done something wrong. She — it should have gonewithout saying — had never done anything wrong." "But she was in drug rehab, wasn't she? Why didn't you bring that up?"
“Oh, I didn't need to. She did. She was put in some kind of institution. She went on about it until I was ready to throttle her," Shelley said. "I didn't exactly get the idea it was to do with drugs, but it was hard to tell. She's worked it around in her mind that she was merely there to brighten the days of the patients and staff. A charitable act, don't you see? She likened it to Dorothy Lamour handing out coffee and donuts at the U.S.O. during World War II. Although she didn't mention the war itself. I don't think she knows there was one. She hadn't been born yet, so what could there have been for people to fight about!"
“Shelley, if your voice gets any higher, only dogs and bats will be able to hear you! Calm down.”
She sighed heavily. "I know. You think I'm exaggerating, but I'm not. All of this" — Shelley waved wildly, a gesture encompassing the whole set—"all of this is a waste of money. I tell you, that one good performance she gave so many years ago
was
a fluke. This is going to be a bomb of a movie. What I don't get is why anybody cast her in a supposedly good role. It couldn't have been anyone who ever spent five minutes with her. No wonder the producers are hiding! They must be the stupidest people in the world."
“But Shelley, when I overheard her talking to Mike, she was talking
about
him, not herself."
“No, Jane. She was talking about him in order to seduce him into thinking
she
was wonderful."
“True, I guess."
“And even when she was talking about your husband, she was trying to make herself look like a tragic heroine, but still generous and capable of recognizing talent. Think back, Jane. Wasn't that the case?”
Jane shuddered. "I don't want to think back on that conversation. Ever. Shelley, do you think maybe she's really crazy enough to have killed Jake and, well — not remember it?"
“Oh, I guess it's barely possible," Shelley said with resignation. "She's so far beyond my range of human experience, I couldn't even guess. For all I know, she's been knocking people off right and left and has justified it as Lady Bountiful sparing them the pain and indignity of growing old. .”
Her voice trailed away and her eyes grew very wide again.
“Will you just look at
that!"
Shelley exclaimed.
16
“Good Lord!" Jane exclaimed. "Isn't that Jennifer Fortin? And we were just talking about her yesterday!”
A crowd of people were surrounding the willowy blond actress who had just arrived in Jane's backyard and was dispensing waves and smiles like royalty. "What's
she
doing here?" Jane asked.
“Just throwing a little shit at the fan," Maisie said from behind them. She pulled a chair up and sat down with a wicked glint in her eye. "I heard she was in town, but I never thought she'd show up here. What superb timing. She must have a mole on the set."
“What
are
you talking about?" Jane asked.
“You must not be up on your movie gossip," Maisie said, shaking her head. "Jennifer was rumored to want this role badly. And Cavagnari wanted her too, by all accounts. But Harwell got it, which must have made Fortin crazy. Fortin's gotten a little testy when interviewers have compared her performances to Harwell's one great one. I wouldn't think Harwell much likes it either, especially when the movie rags talk about how Fortin looks so much like a young Harwell. So here's Fortin, on the very day Harwell
has
to do her best work or write her career off. Dear Lynette is going to go haywire when she learns who's hanging around the set watching her today.”
Jennifer Fortin was moving out of sight, surrounded by crew members and the
People Weekly
staff.
“How long has she been in town?" Jane asked.
“A couple days, I think. Why?" Maisie asked.
“Did she have any connection with Jake Elder?"
“Oh, I doubt—" Maisie started, then stopped abruptly. "Now that you mention it, it was Jake who said she was in town. The first day we were here. He was talking to somebody about having had dinner with her the night before.”
Shelley looked grieved. "I sure wish you hadn't said that. All we need now is another suspect.”
Mel Van Dyne looked like he'd been dragged through a hedge backward. It wasn't so much the physical appearance of his clothes or hair as a frenzied look in his eye.
“These people are nuts!" he said with disgust. "That — that
director,
the one wearing the green `thing,' just snatched somebody I was questioning right away from me. Literally grabbed the guy's arm and took him off mid-sentence. We were playing tug-of-war with him!"
“Want to go inside and neck?" Jane asked. It accomplished what she hoped.
He whooped with laughter. "I'd take you up on that any other time!" he said. "God! You're right.
I'm letting them get to me too much. I'm losing it. I would like to go inside. I need to use your phone if I could.”
Jane tactfully disappeared into the basement to check that the cats hadn't found anything important to damage while Mel reported in to his office. Max and Meow were outraged at their confinement, but had done nothing worse than kick the kitty litter around the floor in a pretty wide circle.
When she came back up a few minutes later, she found Mel standing by the windows of her living room, staring at the scene behind the house and shaking his head.
“How's it going?" she asked.
He made a helpless gesture. "Miserably, if you really have to know. I've managed to find at least twelve people with seventeen motives. Some of them happily handed me two or three reasons they might have wanted to kill him — like they were giving me little presents. None of them very convincing reasons at that. I've never heard anything like it. And at least fifty people had the opportunity to kill him."
“I guess this means you're not going to have it all cleared up by Friday," Jane said wistfully.
“I don't often feel stumped, Janey, and I don't handle it well. Now they're all wound up like tops about other things and I can't seem to hammer through to anybody that there's been a goddamned murder here and it has to be solved!"
“What other things?”
Mel jammed his hands into his pockets glumly. "Oh, somebody had a lot of money stolen this morning. God knows why the idiot had all that cash—"
“How much?"
“Over a thousand dollars. In a canvas bag, left hung over a chair. Jeez! Stupid! Anyway, it turned up. But only after I had to divert two of my officers to look for it."
“Where did it turn up?"
“Rolled up in an empty coffee cup in the makeup trailer. Naturally, practically everybody in the cast and crew cheerfully admitted having been in the makeup trailer during the relevant times."
“The money was in plain sight?"
“Yes," he snapped. "In plain sight. Why?"
“No reason. It just sounds like somebody wanted to be sure it was found. It's strange."
“Strange? Strange! Have you personally seen or heard anything
normal
from these people?”
Jane didn't smile, but it hurt not to. She'd never seen him unravel like this, and while she was sympathetic, she was also pleased. Mel was always just a shade cooler and more composed than she might have wished. A tiny, unwanted element in their relationship was her constant feeling of ever-soslight intimidation in the face of his careful self-control.
“Now—" he continued his litany of grievances, "they're gearing up for something terribly important this afternoon. Important to them, that is. It's just a movie, Janey! Don't any of them understand that?”
Jane thought about pointing out to him that it was their whole reason for being, just as solvingcrimes was his, but wisely refrained from making this observation. She also curbed her inclination to ask him again whether there was the slightest chance that they'd manage to get away for their weekend in New York. That wasn't going to happen.
Unless she and Shelley could figure out who killed Jake Elder.
She pushed the thought aside. For all her unofficial snooping, she wasn't any farther ahead than Mel and his staff. With some reluctance, she mentioned to him Jennifer Fortin's arrival on the set. "She knew Jake, too. Apparently had dinner with him the night before they started work here."
“Oh, great. ." he said dismally.
When Jane got back outside, the same table was being set up in her backyard for luncheon. This time she avoided sitting at it, but instead she and Shelley took up a listening post nearby. A moment later Cavagnari swept into the area with Jennifer Fortin on his arm. They were both smiling and gently pawing each other. Jennifer hung on his arm, giving it little squeezes and hugs and he kept patting her cheek and making what he probably imagined were seductive expressions. In Jane's view, the green velvet poncho detracted considerably from his effort.
“If that isn't a love feast, I don't know one when I see one," Shelley murmured. Cavagnari and Fortin had seated themselves practically on the same chair and were feeding each other little tidbits of cheese cubes from a tray that had been set on the table.
Jane just shook her head in wonder at the spectacle.
“What has Mel found out?" Shelley asked quietly. "I saw you snag him and take him inside."
“Nothing. Poor Mel is going nuts. He's not cut out to deal with the artistic temperament."
“Who is?"
“Oh, you and I are much better equipped than he is. Anybody who's trying to raise teenagers without going to jail or the loony bin isn't too surprised by anything."
“I guess you know that the junior high was taking school pictures today," Shelley said.
Jane knew exactly what this seeming
non sequitur
meant. "Oh, no! That explains why Katie was made up like a floozy raccoon this morning. I wondered. What do you think would happen if I ran up to school, dashed into her math class, and washed her face?"
“She'd hate you," Shelley said simply. "I made Denise kill the hairdo this morning. She was wild. She had her bangs moussed into a three-inch crewcut. It was appalling. I tried to make her understand that school pictures are forever. They come back and haunt you when you're thirty-five. You know, sometimes I get tired of being a warden. I can't wait for her to grow up and get to be my friend. Do you think it will ever happen?”
Jane shrugged. "My mother always said that when your kids grow up they just get scarier, more expensive problems. Of course, she had to cope with my sister Marty marrying that jerk. "
“It's so frustrating, having Denise known far and wide for absurd hair, when she has so many good qualities I'd like to see immortalized instead. Maybe I could make her wear a placard around her neck that says, 'I'm very tidy and get straight A's.' Do you think people might read it instead of falling back in horror at her bozo hair?"
“Probably not."
“She was so cute when she was ten," Shelley mused. "I wish I could have kept her that way. Locked in amber or something. Her school picture that year was darling, she still liked me and her father. She even got along with her brother at that age. She didn't care about money yet. It was the last good year. ." she said in a voice of doom.
Jane nudged Shelley out of her grim reverie.
“Uh-oh," Shelley said, the gloom deepening.
Lynette Harwell had just come through the break in the scenery and was taking in the spectacle of Jennifer Fortin and Roberto Cavagnari all but locked in a cheesy embrace. Her lovely face was suddenly transformed into a mask of anger, and just as quickly became bland. Her sense of theater, or self-glorification, came back. She might not have any real intelligence, but she knew better than to cast herself in a bad light.