Authors: Perfect
She loved him with a fierce protectiveness that made her feel strong and wise and maternal; she loved him with a desperation that made her feel helpless and fragile and under his control.
And she loved all those feelings, every single nerve-racking one.
The future was an uncharted path filled with danger and censure. Julie felt utterly at peace and in perfect harmony with the entire universe.
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Laying her hand against his race, she cradled him protectively close to her heart and touched her lips to his dark hair. "I love you," she whispered.
Seated on the floor beside the coffee table with her legs curled beneath her, a pencil in her hand, and a small stack of index cards she'd found in a desk at her elbow, Julie studied the list Zack had made out of
everyone who'd been on the set of
Destiny
the day his wife was murdered. Beside each person's name, he'd put their job on the film crew, and she was copying each name and the person's job title onto a separate index card so she'd be able to jot notes about the individual when Zack began talking.
Zack sat on the sofa beside her, watching her and carefully suppressing his smile at the absurd notion of
Julie being able to succeed where his team of expensive criminal attorneys and professional investigators
had failed. Clad in cherry wool slacks and a matching bulky knit sweater, with her long hair gathered at
the nape and bound with a jaunty red and yellow scarf, she looked more like an enchanting high school
girl than a teacher, and she bore absolutely no resemblance whatsoever to any detective, real or imaginary. Sunlight streamed in from the windows behind her, gilding her shiny hair with russet and gold,
highlighting her glowing skin and vivid coloring.
She interrupted his pleasurable contemplation of her profile by turning her sapphire eyes up to his and saying in a puzzled voice, "I saw
Destiny,
although they
had re-shot the ending with stand-ins. Somehow, I thought there would have been lots more people involved in making a movie like that."
"There were dozens more, but they weren't in Dallas," Zack said, reluctantly turning his attention to the
business at hand. "When a big picture is going to be shot on several different locations, it's more efficient to divide a large film crew into several units and assign each to a particular location. That way, they've
already made whatever preparations are necessary before the cast and primary crew arrives. The people listed on that sheet were part of the Dallas unit.
There were others who'd been in Dallas for an earlier segment of the filming. They aren't on that list because I'd already sent them home."
"Why did you do that?"
"Because the picture was millions of dollars over budget, and I was trying to cut corners. We were nearly finished shooting, I wasn't anticipating any need for extra hands, so I kept only the primary crew with me."
She was listening to him with an expression of such rapt fascination that a smile tugged at his lips. "Any other general questions before I tell you what happened that day?"
"Several questions," Julie said with great feeling, glancing at the titles beside the names on his list.
"What
is a best boy anyway? I've wondered about that every time I watch movie credits."
"A best boy is a gaffer's first assistant."
She rolled her eyes at him, trying to tease him and ease him into the discussion about the murder, which she knew he was dreading. She also thought it wise to learn all the details she could even if they seemed unimportant at the moment. "That's very informative, Mr. Benedict. Now, what's a gaffer?"
Her ploy worked, because he chuckled at her expression. "The head gaffer is both the creative and
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physical right-hand man of the director of photography. He's in charge of all the electricians on the set
and their placement of lights for color intensity, overall values—all that."
"What's a grip?"
"Grips handle props and anything else that needs moving. A key grip also has a best boy."
"Don't, please, tell me a key grip is in charge of moving keys?" she joked.
Zack smiled at the way her romantic mouth tilted up at the corners and at the successful effort she was making to keep the discussion on a lighthearted level. "A key grip is in charge of the other grips."
"What's a production assistant?"
"A gofer, basically, who runs errands and reports to the assistant directors."
Julie nodded. "What's a producer?"
"A pain in the ass."
Her laughter sounded like bells to him, and he found himself grinning at her as she said, "Is the director of photography also a cameraman, or is he a
supervisor?"
"He can be both. A good one is involved in all the elements of set design. He and the set dressers translate a director's ideas for a scene into reality and frequently improve on the original ideas."
Julie glanced at her list, found the man he'd named as the director of photography on
Destiny
and reluctantly embarked on specifics: "Was Sam Hudgins a good one?"
"One of the best. We'd worked together on several films, and I specifically asked for him on
Destiny.
In fact, I'd specified all the key crew members because we'd worked well together as a team before, and I knew I could count on them." Her smooth forehead furrowed into a frown, and he said, "What's wrong?"
"I was just wondering why anyone you'd worked with in the past would suddenly decide to frame you for murder."
"It doesn't sound very likely," Zack agreed, a little astonished—and impressed—that she'd arrived at the same conclusion his attorneys and professional investigators had and with such quick ease.
"Could you have done or said anything just before the murder to make one of them hate you so much they wanted revenge?"
"What exactly does someone do to warrant a revenge like that?" Zack countered dryly.
"You're right," she said with a quick nod of her head.
"Also keep in mind that the target wasn't really me, it was either Austin or Rachel. I was simply the patsy
who went to prison for it."
Julie drew a long breath and said quietly, "Tell me exactly what happened that day. No, start with the day you found…" She hesitated and rephrased the question, trying to be delicate: "As I said, I was in
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Europe when the murder happened, but I remember seeing magazine headlines at a newsstand that said…"
When she trailed off into awkward silence, Zack bluntly finished the sentence for her: "Headlines that said my wife was screwing our costar and I walked in on them in the middle of it."
Julie winced at the thought of that, but she didn't look away. "Tell me everything you can remember, and
go slowly so I can make notes."
Based on former experience, Zack expected the discussion that followed to be difficult and demeaning
at best and infuriating at worst, but in the past he'd always been questioned by people who interrogated him either out of doubt or curiosity. Recounting the details of Rachel's murder to Julie, who believed utterly in him and in what he said, was a new and even cathartic experience, and by the time he was finished, he felt strangely unburdened.
"Could it possibly have been a freak accident—a mistake?" Julie said when he'd finally told her everything. "I mean, what if the man who was supposed to put blanks in the gun—Andy Stemple—
put
the hollow-point shells in it by mistake and was too much of a coward to admit it?"
Zack propped his elbows on his knees and shook his head. "Stemple didn't make a mistake, he was a firearms specialist. After a disaster during the filming of
Twilight Zone, The Movie,
the Directors Guild
started requiring that specially trained pyrotechnics people, like Stemple, be put in charge of any firearms
being used in a picture. Stemple was qualified and in charge of the gun, but because it was the only weapon being used, and because we were short-handed, he was also filling in as a grip. He'd checked the gun and loaded the clip with blanks himself that morning. Besides, those hollow-point shells didn't get
in there by accident. The gun had been wiped clean of all fingerprints before it was put on the table," he reminded her. That little detail is one of the things that sent me to prison."
"But if you'd wiped the gun clean you wouldn't have been stupid enough to leave a fingerprint on it."
"It wasn't a full print, it was a smudge of my forefinger on the very bottom of the gun's butt. The prosecutor convinced the jury I'd overlooked that part of the gun when I wiped it clean."
"But," she mused, "the fingerprint actually got there when you shoved the gun a little forward on the table
so it wouldn't be so visible to the camera."
It wasn't a question, she was merely restating what he'd told her as if it was gospel fact, and Zack adored her for her trust. "It wouldn't have mattered if the gun hadn't been wiped clean or if my prints weren't found on it. They'd have said I wore gloves.
If I hadn't changed my mind during that last scene and Austin had been shot instead of Rachel, they'd have still said I did it. Because the fact was, and is, that
I
was the only one with a strong enough motive to murder Austin or Rachel." Zack watched her struggle to keep her expressive features from showing her sympathy and ire, and he tried to smile reassuringly at her as he said, "Have you had enough frustration for one day? Can we stop now and enjoy what's left of it? It's after five o'clock."
"I know," Julie said in a preoccupied voice. She'd spread all the index cards out across the coffee table, but it was the four cards in the bottom row, closest to her, that identified the people she was still interested in—or suspicious of. "Just a few minutes more?" she asked, and when he opened his mouth to object, she said desperately, "Zack, one of the cards on this table identifies whoever committed murder and then stood by while you went to prison for it!"
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Zack was well aware of that fact, but he didn't have the heart to deny her, so he squelched his frustration and waited patiently for her to finish.
"I don't feel right about Diana Copeland," Julie began, gazing past him, lost in thought. "I think she was in
love with you."
"What in God's name would give you that idea?" he replied, caught between amusement and
exasperation.
"It's fairly obvious." Propping her elbow on the table and her chin on her hand, she explained, "You said she was supposed to have left for Los Angeles on the morning of the murder, but she stayed in Dallas and came out to the set instead. She told you herself that she stayed because she'd heard about what happened in the hotel room the night before and she wanted to be there in case you needed moral support. I think she was in love with you, so she decided to kill Rachel."
"And let the man she supposedly loved take the rap for it? I don't think so," he mocked. "Besides, there's virtually no chance Diana knew I intended to have Tony fire that shot instead of Rachel.
Furthermore," he said, "you have an absurdly naive view of love and Hollywood relationships. The reality
is that actresses are desperately in need of constant reinforcement that they're loved by
everybody.
They don't fall in love and give up everything for some man, let alone commit murder for him. They're interested in what a relationship can give
them.
They're emotionally needy, wildly ambitious, and thoroughly egocentric."
"There must be exceptions."
"I wouldn't know from personal experience," he said curtly.
"That was some great world you lived in," she countered, "if it turned you into such a cynic about people
and especially women."
"I'm not cynical," Zack retorted, irrationally stung by her obvious disapproval. "I'm realistic! You, on the other hand, are absurdly naive about relationships between the sexes."
Instead of flaring at him, she studied him with eyes like deep blue crystals. "Am I really, Zack?" she asked softly.
Whenever she said his name, his heart seemed to lunge for his ribs, and to compound his discomfiture, he was discovering that the "absurdly naive" girl seated at his feet could make him repent and recant merely by looking up at him through her lashes, as she was now. "One of us is," he said irritably, and when she continued to look at him, he relented even further. "I was probably a cynic before I made my first picture." With an exasperated grin at his inability to withstand the sweet, silent pressure she was
putting on him, he added, "Now, stop looking at me like you expect me to admit that I was talking like an ass before, and ask your next question. Who's your next suspect?"
Her infectious smile was his reward, then she obediently complied with his order to continue:
"Tommy Newton," she said, after glancing at one of the cards.
"Why in hell would Tommy want to kill Rachel or Austin?"
"Maybe he wanted to get rid of you permanently, and that was just a means to an end. You said yourself
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he'd worked with you as an assistant director on several films. Maybe he was tired of playing second fiddle and always being overshadowed by the great Zachary Benedict."
"Julie," Zack said patiently, "in the first place, Tommy had a brilliant career as a director ahead of him
and he knew it then. So did I. He was eager to work with me on
Destiny."
"But—"
"In the second place," Zack finished dryly, "he was also in love with the potential victim of that gunshot, so he wouldn't have switched the shells in the gun."
"But that could make a difference! You didn't tell me he was in love with Rachel—"
"He wasn't."
"But you just said—"
"He was in love with Austin."
"Excuse me?"
"Tommy's gay."
She gaped at him for a moment and then pointedly picked up the card belonging to her third suspect without commenting. "Emily McDaniels. You said she felt deeply indebted to you for reviving her career