Two Cooks A-Killing (11 page)

At eight o'clock, Tarleton met Rhonda and Bart in the foyer. Angie had waited in the darkened kitchen and now crept into the butler's pantry. The dining room lights were off, the doors to the foyer open. She crept closer.

The double doors leading into the living room were closed, as expected, but the actors stood in the foyer.

“Is this necessary, Tarleton?” Bart asked, taking a seat on the stairs. “Today was supposed to be for getting fitted. Didn't that shrew Donna Heinz put me through enough grief for one day?”

“No sense wasting time,” Tarleton said.

“I don't like it.” Rhonda murmured absently, twisting a strand of hair around her finger.

“What are we waiting for?” Bart said. “Let's go in and get this show on the road.”

“We need Gwen and Kyle.” Tarleton glared at him.

“Oh, them.” Bart sneered.

Sterling and Serefina tried to join the group.
When Tarleton asked them to leave, Sterling marched from the house in a huff, taking Serefina with him. Angie wondered where they were going this time. As much as she told herself not to worry, she felt like a parent with a wayward teenager. She was sure she'd be watching the clock until her mother returned.

Screenwriter Camille Spentworth showed up next. Right behind her, the last two stars walked in, laughing, their faces ruddy.

“Ready?” Tarleton asked.

The others stared at him as if bored. He opened the double doors to the living room with a flourish.

Angie crept into the dark dining room, the need to see the reading overcoming caution. She gasped, and then nearly screamed as someone tapped her on the shoulder.

Digger!

Instead of tossing him from the house, she pointed toward the living room.

The elegant, lush decorations were gone and had been replaced with a white-and-gold horror. Gold ornaments, bows, and tinsel filled the tree, long gold filigree cloth was draped over the top and sides of the mantel, gold streamers hung from drapery rods, and gold garlands crisscrossed the ceiling. Stacks of gold presents filled the floor under the tree.

Angie had seen the room decorated that way before. Her mind raced…

“These decorations look familiar,” Gwen said, letting Kyle remove her mink jacket. “Haven't I seen them before?”

“They were used in the past,” Tarleton replied.

When?
Angie nearly shouted.

“So that's why they look so outdated,” Bart said. “I think the other was prettier. You didn't change it all because of the missing Little Drummer Boy, did you?”

“What missing boy?” Kyle asked.

“It's what the audience wants. Trust me in this,” Tarleton said.

I remember now!
Angie thought, a sudden wariness running though her. What were Tarleton and Mariah up to?

“They go back to the show when Cliff and Leona were lovers.” Gwen frowned at Tarleton. “Surely we aren't going to drag that old storyline out again.”

“We're not.” Tarleton replied.

“Thank God,” Gwen murmured. She patted Kyle's face as if to show he was her preferred love interest. At least for now.

“Something else went on that season,” Rhonda said slowly. “It was the year Brittany died.”

Finally! Angie exhaled. Why had Tarleton wanted the room decorated that way? His decision to have her cook the same Christmas dinner as served on Julia Parker's last show was eerily similar. Why was he so interested in that time?

A bad feeling crept along her spine.

Digger inched closer. He gave her a questioning look, and she nodded.

“I think you're wrong about that, sweet thing,” Bart said, with a loud, out-of-place laugh. “No one would have the bad taste to bring that up again.”

“Here we go.” Tarleton handed them copies of the script. “This is short. It's the ending segment of the show. I haven't read the beginning yet, but I'm sure Miss Spentworth did a fine job with it.”

Camille smiled sourly. She stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame. As long as she was there, Angie thought, they might leave the doors open.

“How the hell do you know how something ends if you don't know how it starts?” Bart asked.

“This is a special ending,” Tarleton explained. “It's a take-off on
A Christmas Carol,
but in reverse. We'll start out with the Ghost of Christmas Future.”

“Goddamn, Em, you can't show it in reverse,” Bart cried. “The audience is going to think we're ass backward.”

“We are,” Kyle offered. The actors sat down and began flipping through the pages. Probably counting their lines, Angie thought.

“We'll read the parts together,” Tarleton said, “and go through it all, piece by piece.”

“I like to read it to myself first,” Bart said.

“You don't need to. It's easy enough,” Tarleton offered. “It begins with Cliff sitting at the dining room table, a Christmas feast in front of him. Natalie is behind him. There's no place setting for her.”

Angie's ears perked up at the words “Christmas feast.”

Rhonda began to read.
“I am the Ghost of Christmas Future, and I'm here to show you your future, Cliff Roxbury.”

Bart scowled in confusion.
“What do you mean, you're a ghost? You're my wife!”
He looked at Tarleton and laughed. “Hey, that's exactly what I was thinking.”

“No, not for many years,”
Rhonda/Natalie continued.
“I grew tired of your philandering ways, Cliff. I finally left you. Everyone left you.”

“Well”
—he laughed—
“that didn't work out so well for you, did it? You're dead, Natalie, but I'm still alive.”

“You are alive, but you aren't living. You're alone, Cliff. Everyone's gone. You're nothing but a lonely, ugly old man. The people who know you are all waiting for you to die.”

“No. My son loves me. Jon Royce doesn't want me to die.”

“Your son hates you for driving away his mother. He's no longer in Eagle Crest.”

“Jon Royce is gone?”
Bart/Cliff sounded truly shocked and sad.
“What about Adrian and Leona? They're here. They wouldn't go.”

“They realized that to save their marriage, they had to leave Eagle Crest. And they did. It was worth it to Adrian to give up the wealth he had. The future he shares with Leona—their love—is much more valuable.”

“Love? Those two? No way. This is ridiculous. I'm not alone. You're lying.”

“Look into your future, Cliff, look at yourself in another five years.”

“Stop there,” Tarleton said. “At this point, we'll have make-up give Bart long white hair and gaunt gray skin. He'll be in bed alone. He'll ring the bell
for the butler to come to help, but no one will. He'll call out, but no one will hear. Then he'll die.”

“I'll die?” Bart asked with sudden enthusiasm.

Tarleton nodded.

“Wow!” Bart said. “I've never had a role where I got to die before. It'll be sad, won't it? I mean, I'd like to make the audience cry for once. Usually they just boo and hiss at my roles.”

Gwen snorted, “After what Cliff's done, nobody's going to shed tears for you, and you know it.”

Bart spun toward the director. “Damn it, Tarleton, if I'm going to die, it's going to be sad. Do you hear? Or I'm not going to do it. Look, it's the end of an era—the death of Cliff Roxbury. We've got to play it big time. I think it should be last, not first! We need to end with it. My death scene. Just like…
Hamlet. ‘Tomorrow and tomorrow and—'”

“That's
Macbeth
!” Tarleton shouted, quivering with rage. He tried to calm himself. “We've got to continue. You're right about it being the end of an era, but keep in mind, it isn't the end of the story. We're doing Christmas Future
first
, and that's final.”

Rhonda rolled her eyes and walked away, and Bart scratched his head, perplexed. Angie had to admit, she was with Bart. Why mess up a classic?

“Now,” Tarleton said, “we're going to go into the Ghost of Christmas Present.”

“Hey, I must be missing some pages,” Bart bellowed. “I don't see any lines for me in this section.”

“There aren't any.” Tarleton's teeth were clenched. “It starts with Adrian looking into the
dining room and seeing Cliff at the head of the table, a Christmas feast before him, and Natalie sitting at the opposite end, looking drunk and completely out of it.”

Angie wondered if this would be the same meal as the one she'd need to prepare for the earlier scene. If it was up to her, she'd show a different meal, although that'd be a lot more work.

“Do we need to go into the dining room?” Bart asked, circling toward it. Angie and Digger, who had crept closer, tiptoed backward toward the butler's pantry.

“No need. We'll just read the parts for now,” Tarleton said. “An empty place setting is at the table. It's Adrian's. Cliff and Natalie are waiting for him. He stops at the door and doesn't enter.”

Tarleton himself picked up the script and read,
“I am the Ghost of Christmas Present.”

The actors all looked at each other. Tarleton nodded at Kyle, who began to read Adrian Roxbury's role.

“Where's Leona?”
Kyle/Adrian read.
“I don't want Christmas dinner without Leona.”

“You have no choice, Adrian,”
Gwen read in Leona's little girl voice.
“You're all alone now.”

“Alone? You're my wife.”

“But you didn't trust me enough to make me a partner as well as a wife. You learned too well from Cliff. I couldn't take all the lies, the suspicion, and the deceit, and so I left you. I'd made mistakes, but in time I came to love you, Adrian. Not Cliff, or Arthur, or John, or Graham, or…well, enough of that. You didn't love me back!”
She began to cry.

Ham, Angie thought.

“I do love you, Leona! I've put Natalie out of my head. Along with Julia, Charlotte, Kathy, Beatrice—”

“Beatrice? That tub!”

“Forget Beatrice. I don't want to be here without you.”

“You should have thought of that a long time ago. Good-bye, Adrian.”
Gwen/Leona cried harder.

“Don't go! What shall I do?”
Kyle/Adrian wailed.
“How can I win her back? What shall I do?”

“Hey,” shouted Bart. “That doesn't make any sense. We know from the previous scene that Adrian does go away with Leona, so her statement about leaving him alone isn't true.”

“No—it would have been true,” Tarleton explained, “except that Adrian changed his fate. We can all change our fate. The viewer will remember the last scene, and know that Leona took Adrian back and the two are happy together.”

“Ow! My head is hurting now,” Bart whined. “No audience will understand it! Where's the scriptwriter?”

“And now, the Ghost of Christmas Past,” Tarleton announced, ignoring the protest. “We've got a new member of the cast, plus an old one who returned especially for this scene. It takes place at the Christmas dining table—”

Angie had to cover her mouth to suppress a groan.
Three
big meals? He couldn't want three separate meals, could he?

“—Cliff, Natalie, Adrian, and Leona are seated…”

“Where's Jon Royce?” Rhonda asked. “Wouldn't our son be with us at Christmas?”

“He's…in the army,” Tarleton said. “Quiet
everyone. Let's begin.” He looked toward the doorway and waved his arm.

Rudolf Goetring, wearing a Santa Claus mask and red cap over his white chef's smock, stepped slowly into the room. The expressionless mask, with its fake, jolly smile, slowly focused on one actor then the other, brown eyes peering out at them. They shrank back. “
I am the ghost of Christmas Past.”
He read, the words with a low reverberation in his voice.
“I am here, Cliff Roxbury, to help you remember why your present and your future are so lonely, and so wretched. Be silent, and you shall learn!”

The room was silent as the actors looked at each other, waiting for someone to begin reading. No one did.

A young woman entered, a sheer white veil draped over her from head to toe. Her hair was straight and blond, she wore tight pink jeans, a fringed shorty top and high-heeled strappy white sandals. She was the ghost of Julia Parker, looking much as she had when she rode by in the truck.

Rhonda half stood, then dropped back down in her chair. Bart clutched her hand.

The chef read,
“Julia Parker, the time has come for you to speak. Your death is a cancer eating away the hearts of everyone in this family. You will have justice; you will have revenge, and only then will eternal rest be yours.”

“I was told Julia wasn't part of this story,” Camille said. Tarleton shushed her.

“Be thankful you didn't write that,” Gwen nattered. “It's so hokey, my teeth ache.”

“Hokey? It's claptrap,” Kyle roared. “We already ended that storyline! Julia was killed when she walked out on her boyfriend to go to a cheap bar and let herself be picked up. A transient killed her. Everyone was speculating that it was Cliff, then up popped the real culprit and Cliff spent the next few episodes getting even with everyone who'd called him a murderer.”

“This is horrible,” Rhonda moaned, hands on her cheeks. She was pale beneath her make-up,
and her eyes were dilated. “It looks like you're capitalizing once more on the death of that poor young girl. Wasn't one season enough?”

Tarleton strode back and forth, glaring at the four actors. The chef and Julia's ghost hovered near the doorway. “What did we learn during that season?” Tarleton asked. “Nothing.”

“We learned that life has no value,” Kyle tossed his script aside. “And its only use is to extend the storyline. It made me sick.”

“Hey,” Bart said, flipping through the script. “I don't have any lines in this segment, either.”

Rhonda spun toward him. “Can't you tell this is a little beyond your lousy lines, you idiot!”

The Julia figure raised her arms and threw back her head.
“Murderer! You will pay for your sins. You will pay…for killing me!”
Then she ran down the hall toward the family room.

“Who was she talking to?” Bart demanded. He jumped up. “Me?”

Rhonda was on her feet, too. “I'm leaving. This is a travesty.”

“Sit down!” Tarleton ordered. “We aren't through. We haven't talked about the most important thing. Who killed Brittany?”

“Brittany?” Bart looked from Tarleton to Rhonda, confused. After a second's hesitation, he and Rhonda sat. “Don't you mean Julia?”

“What are you saying?” Rhonda sounded strangled.

“Hold it,” Kyle said, arms out, palms down as if trying to calm everyone. “We don't need this. Not again.”

“If anyone killed Brittany,” Bart shouted at Tar
leton, “it would have been you! God knows, your directing nearly killed her career!”

“Somebody killed her,” Goetring announced behind the laughing Santa mask. The others stopped bickering at once. He continued. “Two women were heard arguing right before she died.”

“Two women?” Bart's brow furrowed. “I never heard that. How would you know? Who are you?”

“Who cares?” Kyle fumed. “Brittany's door was locked from the
inside
with an old-fashioned sliding bolt. If anyone was in the bedroom with her, they couldn't have gotten out. Brittany was alone and fell.”

“Maybe someone broke through the door lock,” the chef suggested.

“If so, that person would have had a very sore shoulder,” Kyle countered.

“Is that so?” The Santa mask pivoted, the eyes focusing on the actors one by one. “How's your bursitis, Rhonda? Still have those shoulder pains?”

She stared at him a long moment, then grabbed Bart's hand. “I don't know what he's saying. What he's talking about. Take me away from this!”

“You know!” the chef shouted. His holly jolly mask seemed to broaden its smile. Bart's eyes were wide. He seemed unable to move.

Rhonda looked faint. “Who are you?” she screamed.

“The ghost of Christmas past, present and fu
ture,” he said, and headed toward the dining room.

Seeing him approach, Angie and Digger scrambled through the kitchen and breakfast room to the courtyard, nearly tripping over each other.

“Did that make sense to you?” Angie asked. They hurled themselves at a nearby table and chairs. Angie sat back, legs casually crossed, and Digger lit a cigarette with an equally peaceful demeanor. Inside, she was quaking, expecting someone to dash out and accuse her of spying.

Digger pondered Angie's question. “Unfortunately, it made a lot of sense,” he said.

“Let's meander into the family room,” Angie suggested. “If anyone sees us, they'll think we were outside the whole time. I don't want to miss any more than we have to.”

“Good idea.”

They casually strolled back into the house through the patio doors. The family room was empty. They continued down the hall to the foyer to find the living and dining rooms now empty as well.

That was when Angie realized what had been bothering her the entire evening. Why everything seemed slightly out of kilter.

Someone had unplugged the foyer Christmas tree. It no longer twirled and was now absolutely silent.

 

Angie and Digger walked around the house to the front drive. “What happened in there?” Angie asked. “Did I dream it?”

“And where did this latest Julia disappear to?” Digger asked. If it was a dream, he'd had the same one. Their search had led them outside the house.

Angie rubbed her arms from the chill. It wasn't from the outside temperature. “Good question—and who was she?”

“You don't know?” Digger asked. “Wasn't she part of the cast? No wonder they looked so shocked.”

“I wish I knew what was going on with Tarleton,” Angie said. “Everyone knew Rudolf Goetring was his chef. It's clear now that Tarleton brought him here to put a scare into everyone. To read those lines about the Julia–Brittany death or murder.”

“True, but even he looked shocked when the chef talked about Rhonda's sore shoulder.”

The front drive was also empty. Everyone must have immediately gone up to their rooms. Angie looked at the house, bright and cheerful with Christmas lights, wreaths, and ornaments, and wondered what secrets had been buried there.

“I don't get it,” she murmured. “They said Brittany's door was locked with a slide bolt from the inside. The door is the only way into and out of that bedroom, and yet it looks as if none of them thought Brittany's death was an accident.”

“You noticed that, too, did you?” Digger said. “My nose told me there was a story here. Damn, I'm good! I'll be back tomorrow.”

“Where are you going?”

“I'm a journalist. Who knows?”

 

Angie called Paavo and filled him in on this latest weirdness.

“The chef all but accused Rhonda?” he asked.

“I don't think anyone actually murdered Brittany,” she said. “But Rhonda—or someone—might have driven her to jump. I'd say the others suspect it as well.”

“Angie,” Paavo said, “come home.”