Action! (2 page)

“Hiring locals like you and Harold helps,” Hannah added. “He doesn’t have to pay you two the same type of salary that Hollywood actors would demand.”

A pang of nervousness shot through me again. That was just the problem! Morris, the director, had hired a couple of nonactors to play two of the historically important parts. I didn’t know how Mr. Safer felt about it, but I was terrified! Morris had already encountered so many difficulties in trying to make his movie. The last thing I wanted to do was to add to his problems.

The phone rang, making me jump. Dad picked it up. “Drew residence,” he said. He listened for a moment, his brow furrowing in concentration. “Sure, Peter,” he replied to the caller. “Why don’t you come by this afternoon and we can discuss it?”

I took a deep breath and forced myself to finish my waffles as Dad wrapped up the phone call. I had to stop thinking about how nervous I was, because thinking about it only made me more nervous!

“One of your clients?” I asked Dad when he hung up.

He nodded. “A new client, Peter Wyszinski.”

I could tell Dad was distracted. Mr. Wyszinski must have given him bad news. “He’s the new CFO of Rackham Industries, isn’t he?” I asked. I always take an interest in Dad’s work. Sometimes I even help his clients solve mysteries of their own.

“That’s right,” Dad replied.

“Is there some kind of problem?” I asked. I knew
it was a big deal for Dad to be representing Rackham Industries. It was the largest company in the whole city of River Heights. So I was hoping that nothing would go wrong.

“It seems there
is
a problem,” Dad told me. “Peter didn’t want to discuss it over the phone, so I guess I’ll have to wait until this afternoon to find out what it is.”

“Finished, Nancy?” Hannah asked, nodding toward my almost-empty plate. I snatched up the last piece of bacon and ate it. “I am now,” I said, pushing back my chair. I carried my dirty dishes into the kitchen while Hannah wiped the table. I would have been happy to discuss Dad’s new client more, but I was feeling antsy. All of my big scenes were being filmed in the next few days, and I had to be ready.

I ran up to my room, brushed my teeth, slipped on my sneakers, and ran back down to the front door. I was just about to leave when I realized I’d left my car keys on my dresser. With a sigh I headed back upstairs to get them.

On the way back down, I stuck my head into the dining room. “’Bye, Dad,” I said. He glanced up from his coffee. “Break a leg, sweetheart,” he told me.

I smiled and continued on to the door. “Nancy, wait!” Hannah cried. “Don’t forget your script.” She bustled in from the kitchen and handed me the pages I’d left lying on the counter.

“Thanks, Hannah,” I said. “I’m forgetting everything this morning.” I pulled open the door, but Hannah pushed it closed again.

“There’s one more thing you forgot,” she said with a grin.

“What?”

Hannah nodded toward the antique mirror that hung in the foyer. One glance showed me that I’d entirely forgotten to brush my hair this morning. It was a mess, with one strawberry blond cowlick standing straight out from my head like an alien’s antenna. “Yikes!” I cried, mashing it down.

Hannah chuckled, but I wasn’t amused. I couldn’t even remember to do the most basic things this morning. How was I ever going to remember my lines for the movie?

History or Mystery?

W
hen I got to
the production site, I was surprised to discover that I was the first one there. I checked my watch. It was nine o’clock. I checked my call sheet, the piece of paper that listed all the scenes being shot today along with the time that each person was scheduled to arrive. My call time was ten fifteen. I sighed. I’d been so anxious about doing a good job on my scenes that I’d forgotten even to check my own schedule.

I should have called one of my two best friends, Bess Marvin and George Fayne. During the course of my last mystery, I’d gotten both of them jobs here on the movie set. George was in charge of all the computers being used for the production, and Bess ran the construction crew. They both loved their
jobs, and, unlike me, they weren’t so nervous that they’d forget what time to show up in the morning. But it hadn’t occurred to me to check with them, so it looked as if I was on my own until the rest of the crew showed up in an hour or so.

“At least I’ll have more time to get into character,” I whispered to myself. I was pretty sure I knew my lines, but that didn’t mean I’d be able to say them in the way my character would have. If I wanted to be convincing as Esther Rackham, I would have to try to
think
like Esther Rackham.

I made my way over to the trailer I was going to share with Mr. Safer and the two actors playing the Rackham boys, Ben and Luke Alvarez. I knew that on the sets of big Hollywood movies, each actor got his own trailer. The trailer is like a private little living room where actors can go between takes if they want some time alone to prepare for their roles. But this was such a low-budget movie that all the actors had to share trailers in order to save money. I didn’t mind. I had known Mr. Safer for years, and I liked the Alvarez brothers.

The door of the trailer was marked with the names of our characters: Esther Rackham, Ethan Mahoney, and John and Ross Rackham. I went inside and sank down onto the tiny couch. There was also a kitchenette, a small table, and a bathroom. It
was fine for one person, but if all of us happened to be there at once, we’d have a hard time fitting inside.

I had only been assigned to this trailer since the production started up again after the sabotage. Morris Dunnowitz had closed everything down for four days and worked with the new continuity chief, Kevin Kelley, to reorganize the movie shoot. Kevin and Morris wanted to make sure the entire production was planned around spending as little money as possible.

I pulled out my script and began flipping through it. I knew my own scenes, but I figured that it wouldn’t hurt to remind myself of what was happening in the rest of the movie. Morris had given me a crash course in filmmaking when I first began working with him on the movie. One of the things that surprised me is that the scenes of a film aren’t shot in the order that they’re written. Instead, the scenes are shot according to where they’re set. That means that every scene that takes place in a certain location will be filmed on the same day, even if those scenes are supposed to take place days or months apart in the finished movie. By doing this, the film crew saves money. They only have to rent a location for a day or two. Sometimes the crew will build a set inside a big warehouse called a soundstage. That set stays up for as long as it’s needed. Usually those sets are the ones that will be used most often.

Since the filming was done out of order, it was difficult to keep track of where in the story my character was. So reading the script from start to finish would help me figure out how Esther would be feeling in my scenes for today.

I flipped through until I reached my favorite part of the story: the part where Ethan Mahoney, the owner of the Mahoney Anvil Company, wakes up in his riverboat office to find that the Rackham boys have set it on fire. They’d knocked Mr. Mahoney unconscious and left him there to die. But Mahoney had the last laugh. He woke up sooner than they’d expected, doused the fire in his office, and tracked the Rackham boys out to a cave by the river. He almost caught them too. Unfortunately he was attacked by a mountain lion inside the cave. The lion mauled him, leaving him too badly injured to walk. He scared off the beast, but had no way to summon help. Out in the wilderness, alone and bleeding, Ethan Mahoney surely would have died if not for my character, Esther Rackham.

Esther’s brothers were the ones who had stolen Ethan’s money and set his office on fire. So it was especially sweet that Esther was the one to find the ailing Ethan in the cave and save his life. It must have been love at first sight. After he regained his health, Ethan and Esther were married.

No one had ever known exactly why Esther happened to be near the cave that day. After she and Ethan married, they lived in seclusion, rarely speaking to anyone. When Esther died, the reason she had been at the cave died with her. In fact, the question of why Esther was there to save Ethan had been one of the first mysteries to intrigue me back when I learned the story in first grade.

Maybe if I try to put myself in Esther’s position, I’ll be able to figure out how she was feeling that day, I thought. If I can do that, I’ll be able to give a terrific performance! I let the script drop onto my lap, put my head back against the couch, and closed my eyes. I tried to imagine how it would feel to be Esther Rackham. What reaction must she have had to finding a badly wounded man out in the middle of nowhere?

Esther’s brothers were infamous criminals, two young men known as the Rackham Gang. I was never sure why they were called a gang, since there was just two of them. And criminals or not, Esther must have loved them. Did she know they were going to pull off the heist at the Mahoney Anvil Company? Was she planning to meet them somewhere out near the cave? Or maybe she’d gone there to try to stop them ….

I let out a sigh. It was no use. I was supposed to be trying to think of Esther’s feelings, and instead I was thinking of the mystery!

“Sleeping on the job, Nancy?” A voice interrupted my thoughts.

I opened my eyes with a start. In the door of my trailer stood Luther Eldridge, the historian Morris Dunnowitz had hired as an advisor on the movie, and a close friend of mine. Luther knew everything about the history of River Heights. He was the perfect person to help Morris make sure the story of the movie was as authentic as possible. And on a personal note, I was thrilled that Luther had agreed to take part in the production. He’d been grieving for years over the loss of his family in a terrible car accident. Ever since they died, Luther had kept to himself, rarely even leaving his house. His daughter, Melissa, had been one of my close friends when we were kids. I still missed her, and I did whatever I could to help out her father. But I wasn’t sure that Luther would ever get over his broken heart. It made me smile to see him out and about on the movie set.

“I’m not asleep,” I told him. “Just concentrating. I’m trying to make myself feel the way Esther Rackham would’ve felt.”

“Ah,” Luther said. “You’re becoming a method actor.”

I pushed my hair back off my face and looked up at him. “A what?” I asked.

“It’s a technique of acting,” Luther explained. “It
means that you try to apply your own feelings and reactions to the situation that your character is in.”

“Well, I don’t think it’s working,” I admitted. “All I can think about is the mystery of Esther Rackham’s life.”

He nodded. “You may be playing a role in a movie, but you’ll always be a detective first,” he teased me.

“I know,” I said. “But Morris is counting on me. Everyone involved in the film is counting on me. And the production has already been hit with so many problems that I couldn’t bear to make it any worse.”

Luther studied my face. “You’re really worried about this, aren’t you?” he asked.

I nodded. “I just can’t figure out how to act like Esther.”

He sat down next to me. “There’s still some time before everyone else gets here. I’d be happy to help you if I can.”

“That would be great,” I said. “If there’s anyone in town who has insight into who Esther Rackham was, it’s you.”

“I’m not sure even I can be too helpful on that subject,” Luther said. “No one knew much about Esther.”

“But what about her diary?” I pressed. “In the
script it says that Esther wrote down tons of details every day in her journal.”

“It’s true. In fact, most of what we know about the River Heist comes from Esther’s diary,” Luther said. “She was a very detailed writer. She kept track of everything that happened to her from the time she was ten years old.”

“Then I can just read her original diary, and she’ll tell me
herself
what she was thinking when she went out to that cave!” I said, smiling. I’d heard about Esther’s diary before, of course, but I’d never read it. The diary was kept in the town hall in an airtight container to make sure that the old paper didn’t disintegrate with time. “Do you think the mayor would give me permission?” I asked. “Or maybe there’s a transcript of it somewhere ….”

“It wouldn’t help,” Luther told me. “In fact, I got the mayor’s permission to go through the diary again and transcribe it for this movie. Althea came with me. She was fascinated when I told her about the diary.” Luther blushed a tiny bit when he mentioned Althea Waters, the screenwriter. I suspected that there might be a romance brewing between Luther and Althea. “At the production meeting today, Althea and I are going to ask Morris to insert a few scenes of Esther writing in her diary,” Luther went on. “I think it will make the script much more authentic.”

And it would give me even more scenes to perform in. Ugh.

“But the diary doesn’t answer your questions,” Luther went on. “Because there are no entries for the day when Esther found Ethan Mahoney in the cave, or for the day before that.”