Jinxed

by Kathryn Leigh Scott

  I watch for a few minutes, then walk across the park to take a closer look at the offerings. Are these tributes from friends, fans or just kind strangers saddened by a shocking act of violence? I flash on the unlikely possibility that whoever killed her might’ve left a brazen, perhaps even remorseful note that could provide a clue. I sprint across the street, dodging a slow-moving car full of looky-loos.

  Stooping down to read the messages, some hastily scrawled on the backs of envelopes and tucked under candles, I make a show of rearranging bouquets for the benefit of anyone observing me as they drive by.

  As it turns out, someone does recognize me and calls my name. I turn around and see Corky Shaw, camera in hand, hanging out the window of a car driven by his mother, Julia. “Hey, it’s me! We’ll pull over.”

  As Julia maneuvers the Honda to the curb, I walk over. “Hey, buddy, how’s it going?”

  “Good, really good.” He nods vigorously, then, remembering, says, “Hey, sorry about your friend. She was Chelsea Horne’s mother, right?”

  “Yes, she was.”

  “Poor Chelsea. How’s she doing?”

  “As well as can be expected.” I see no reason to reveal that Chelsea has disappeared. I reach through the window to shake hands with his mother. “Hi, Julia. I see he’s got you driving the camera truck again.”

  “I should join the Teamsters,” she says, rolling her lively brown eyes. “My condolences. So sad. Do the police have any idea who did it?”

  “No, not according to the detectives I talked to this morning.”

  “Wow,” Corky says, his eyes alight. “What’s that like? I mean, are you a suspect and everything?”

  “Corky!” Julia knocks his elbow with her plump arm. “Mind your manners!” She looks at me and shakes her head, her dark brown curls framing a face that closely resembles her son’s. “You live around here, don’t you?”

  “I told you already, Ma!” Corky says loudly. “You don’t listen. She lives behind that gate down the street.” He turns back to me. “Did you see it happen?”

  Mother and son look at me expectantly, their curiosity palpable. “No, I was still up at the house. By the way, Corky, you were filming the other day when Chelsea was here in the park. Did you save whatever you recorded?”

  “Oh, yeah. You want to see it? I could also show you the trailer. I just finished it.”

  “It looks great,” Julia says. “Come on over to the house anytime.”

  “Thanks, how about today?” I check my watch and see that I’ll have plenty of time to go back to Donna’s to change clothes before meeting Jack later. “Maybe in a couple hours? Want me to call first?”

  “No, just come on over,” Julia says.

  “See you later,” Corky says as the car pulls away from the curb.

  I glance back at the scene around the fire hydrant as a middle-aged woman climbs out of a red compact carrying a spray of gladiolas. She steps up onto the curb and turns to face a man sitting behind the wheel of the car and focusing his cellphone on her.

  “Take it vertical, too,” she calls out, “so you can see the house up there in the back.”

  I look up the hill above the hedge lining the high wrought-iron fencing, aware for the first time that, from this angle, the mansard roof of Donna’s house is visible. I can also make out a sliver of the portico, front door and my upstairs window through the trees. From my perspective inside the house, I feel completely hidden from view even though I can see the street. How strange that it hadn’t occurred to me that if I could see people in Holmby Park, someone could see me as well.

  I look back at the middle-aged woman climbing into the passenger seat of the red compact, the gladiolas still in her arms. Chances are their next stop is the house nearby on Carolwood Drive where Michael Jackson died, still a ghoulish must-see on the celebrity-homes route.

  I retrace my steps, then stop at the oak tree to look back at the scene from my viewpoint last night. As I do so, I see the gates to Donna’s house swing open and watch Dirck drive out, turning toward Sunset Boulevard. He drives slowly past the shrine to Elaine and doesn’t see me standing in the park.

  All clear. I walk back to my car, assured that I won’t bump into Dirck. Donna’s Mercedes isn’t parked in the garage, either. I set the hamper down in the pantry and pass through the kitchen, somewhat regretting that I’ll miss out on bouillabaisse. But in Dirck’s absence I have the pool to myself to swim a few laps and lie in the sun before showering and changing for tonight.

  It’s been way too long since Jack and I had some time together. Even though we’ll be walking on the beach and having dinner in a ramshackle dive, I want to look my best. From my limited wardrobe, I manage to produce a pair of cropped pants and a flattering boat-necked jersey that I wear with sandals and a lightweight jacket. My less-is-more living arrangement has its advantages: fewer decisions and less bother. I look just fine without having tried on an assortment of outfits. By the time I head out to the Shaw home two hours later, neither Dirck nor Donna has returned.

  The flip side of Donna’s multimillion-dollar estate is the Shaw residence, a gray stucco tract house south of the airport, built at a time when much of Los Angeles was still orange groves and bean fields. The trim two-bedroom houses with single-car garages and small backyards catered to the post-war flood of GIs settling in Southern California, looking for sunshine and security. Nearly seventy years later, the once identical bungalows have taken on some individual character, but the neighborhoods, squeezed between freeways and giant box stores, look run-down, some with junk-strewn front yards.

  On an otherwise unremarkable street of houses with peeling paint and broken sidewalks, the Shaw home is an exception. The lawn is green and freshly mowed. A neat canvas awning shades the picture window, the white trim looks freshly painted, and a basket of petunias hangs on a hook next to the front door. I park directly in front of the house as Julia opens the screen door and waves.

  “Good timing!” she says as I head up a walkway lined with more petunias. “Howard just got home, and Joe’s here, too. We’re all in the backyard.”

  I follow Julia through the small living room and adjacent dining room, both choked with large pieces of good quality furniture better suited to a more spacious home. The kitchen is a ’40s relic with original tile, a Hotpoint fridge and matching white enamel range. A window over the sink looks out on the backyard, where Corky’s father and Uncle Joe are seated in metal lawn chairs, both men smoking cigars.

  Julia picks up a pitcher of lemonade and a plate of homemade sugar cookies from the counter. For a moment I’m transported back to my own mother’s old-fashioned kitchen in rural Nebraska.

  “Come on out and say hi before looking at the trailer. Corky’s in his room still making some changes to it.”

  “I can’t wait to see what he’s come up with. I’m sure you’re both happy to have the garage back.”

  “For the time being,” Julia laughs. “He’ll be back in there next week doing some more reshoots.”

  The moment I emerge from the kitchen, Joe and Howard both rise, holding their cigars behind their backs.

  “Please don’t mind me,” I say with a big smile as I walk across a small patch of lawn to a cement patio. “I love the smell of cigars.” The fact is, I do like the pungent aroma of a good cigar, but both men look at me suspiciously. “Really, I mean it.”

  “Normally women can’t abide the smell,” Howard says, with a glance toward Julia. Neither man extends a hand for me to shake. As jovial and open as Julia is, her husband and brother-in-law seem more reserved, perhaps a shared family characteristic. But since I’ve met each of them just once before, perhaps they’re only guarded around relative newcomers.

  “Outside is fine,” Julia says, standing at a picnic table, pouring lemonade into tall plastic glasses. “Smoking cigars inside is a no-no.”

  “I’m sorry to hear about your colleague,” Howard says abruptly. “It’s been on the news, of course. One has to be s
o careful on the streets at night.”

  “Indeed, such a terrible thing to happen,” Joe says. He’s the taller of the two, and a few years younger than his brother, but still has the unhealthy pallor that I’d assumed was Corky’s attempt at makeup the other day. “My condolences, Miss Barnes.”

  “Thank you. Actually, I hadn’t seen Elaine in many years, but I’d been working with her daughter.”

  “Who was studying acting with your former husband,” Julia says, handing me a glass of lemonade. “He gave Chelsea her start.”

  “How did you know that?”

  “I heard him on the radio this morning. He was talking about all of you getting together for dinner last night.”

  I might’ve known Dirck couldn’t resist trumpeting his insider status. I take a gulp of lemonade, wondering what else he might have said.

  “It’s a complete tragedy and they have no idea who killed her mother or why. Meg was interviewed by detectives this morning.”

  “Really? They don’t suspect you, do they?” Joe asks.

  “Of course not,” Julia answers for me, “but she was one of the last to see her.”

  “I’m so sorry. Being interviewed by the police can’t be pleasant,” Joe says.

  “It’s their job. Anything to help,” I respond, trying to be noncommittal. The police can’t be too happy about Dirck’s interview, either.

  “It was probably a carjacking attempt,” Howard says. “Completely random. We should all be very careful.”

  “Hey, Meg!” Corky bounds out of the kitchen, letting the screen door slam behind him. “It’s done! Come and take a look at it.” He grabs a handful of cookies and a glass of lemonade.

  “Thanks, I will,” I respond, grateful to avoid any further conversation about Elaine’s death. “Nice to see you again,” I say to the brothers before going back into the house with Corky.

  It does not feel at all cool to follow a sixteen-year-old kid to his bedroom in his parents’ house, especially a man/boy such as Corky, who exhibits at once both virile manhood and brash adolescence. I’m even less thrilled when I enter a cramped, cluttered room with the curtains drawn and see that there’s no place to sit except on an unmade twin bed shoved against the wall. The space is crammed with action figures, posters, DVDs and bunched-up tube socks.

  “My room,” Corky says, spreading his arms wide and grinning. “Just push stuff aside and sit.”

  I leave the door open and decide to remain standing, keeping a respectable distance.

  Corky plops down onto a swivel chair in front of a bank of computer equipment. “Uncle Joe works in a print shop and did these up for free,” he says, handing me a color flyer from a stack on the floor.

  The artwork for Corky’s film, Forsaken, consists of a photoshopped image of my face tacked onto a seductively posed female body with breasts heaving out of a tight-fitting, shimmering red dress. The design is ’40s lurid pulp, with an overlay of a spider’s web and a knife-wielding figure seen in silhouette. “Nice,” I say, “but this looks somehow familiar.”

  “Wow, good eye,” he says, pulling up another image of a woman in a red satin dress, but with Ida Lupino’s head, not mine. “Works, doesn’t it? I found it on the Internet. You’re so like her!”

  “Thanks,” I say, dubious about any resemblance at all between the 1940s film siren and me. “But can you do that? I mean, just use it?”

  “It’s a ‘homage,’” he says, pronouncing the H. “Besides, I don’t have much of a budget. If I pick up a distributor, that’ll all change.” He busily taps the keyboard, opening a file with the teaser he’s been working on. “I’ve almost got the music right. I need to hear what you think.”

  What I hear is more “homage” ripped from the soundtrack of another old film, but it’s evocative and suits the mood of Forsaken. What’s enthralling is Corky’s inventive use of backgrounds he’s filmed around the city, including train tracks, old Hollywood bungalows and creepy industrial sites. Scenes that seemed so static when we shot in front of blue drapes hung in the Shaws’ garage are transformed when set against the underpinnings of an old bridge with people moving around in the background.

  Despite his bumptious childlike demeanor in person, Corky shows a surprising degree of sophistication in his composition and editing. The kid clearly has talent as a director, and the fact that he can write a good screenplay is a huge bonus.

  “Well done, Corky! Nicely cut together.”

  “Would you mind doing some narration? It’s the only thing missing.”

  “Sure. Why not?”

  “I figured you’d be okay with it, so I’m all set up.” He grins, handing me a sheet of paper he whips from the printer. He shuts the door and hands me a mic while I review the text. We do several takes, alternating phrases and changing the tone, until Corky is satisfied.

  “Now, let me see what you shot the other day.”

  I kneel in front of the computer to get a better view of Corky’s scenes recorded around Holmby Park, including a shot of Uncle Joe seated on a bench, wearing his fedora. There are also shots zooming in on Donna’s house and the old Spelling mansion. Finally I see the segments with Chelsea arriving in the red convertible. I smile at her gyrations, but also try to focus on the man behind the wheel, who I’d assumed was Jeremy. Having now met Chelsea’s boyfriend, I have my doubts that he was the driver.

  I have Corky run the piece three times, enlarging images as much as possible. I jot down the license number, but can’t get a good fix on the man behind the wheel, whose face is shadowed by sun-dappled leaves.

  The video follows Chelsea sauntering toward us, then abruptly cuts to her close-up, looking directly into camera. “That’s when she told me to stop filming,” Corky says, blushing. “Said it was pervy.”

  “I remember. But then you drove by later when we were going up to Donna’s house. Could I see that?”

  “Actually, I kind of sneaked some more filming before getting into the car.”

  He plays another clip, this one a sequence, shot at some distance, of Chelsea and me, completely unaware we’re being photographed. We look chummy, gesturing animatedly while walking toward a picnic table. We’re about the same height and coloring, both of us in jeans and tee shirts. Chelsea is thinner and a little taller, but our age difference is not as apparent in the long shot. I can’t help but wonder how much of me Doug saw in Chelsea when he and Ed Ackerman cast her as Jinx.

  The video ends abruptly, just after I pop my top hat open and set it on the picnic table. “That was when Uncle Joe told me to stop filming and get in the car,” Corky says. “Man, if only I had my own wheels! I really wanted to film the two of you working together.”

  “I’m glad you got this much. What about the next bit?”

  “It’s just you,” Corky says. “Chelsea had already left.”

  The strip is brief, catching me at Donna’s gate as I turn to see Corky filming from the blue Honda. I flip the top hat onto my head, pose, then laugh as he strains to film me from the accelerating car.

  But then I hear the distant sound of a man’s voice say, “ . . . disrespectful! No good can come of it.” Corky abruptly freezes the film on me waving to him.

  I look at Corky’s flustered face and ask, “What was that? It sounded like Uncle Joe.”

  “Sorry, it was. I accidentally flicked the sound on when I was shooting.” He grips his knees with the palms of his hands, his pale face growing pink. “Sorry you heard that. It’s not you, really, it’s, um . . . they don’t think I should be doing what I’m doing.”

  “You mean they want you to do something more respectable than making movies, right?” I take his hands in mine, looking him in the eye. “You’ve been at this since you were a kid. I thought your parents were behind you, especially your mother. She seems very supportive.”

  “She is, they are . . . but it’s just that—”

  “Wait a minute. Is it me? I hope your folks aren’t upset that I’m encouraging you.”

&nbs
p; There’s a swift rap on the door that coincides with it opening wide. The timing could not be worse.

  “Oh, dear,” Julia says, wearing a look of surprise as she sees me on my knees holding her son’s hands. Uncle Joe is behind her, his face a mask of revulsion.

  “Ma, don’t just barge in!” Corky bellows.

  “Hey, hey, it’s okay, Corky. That’s enough rehearsal. We got it.” I smile as I slowly rise to my feet, the thought occurring to me, perhaps for the first time, that Julia and I are around the same age. Still smiling, I turn to her and say, “The nice thing about working with your son is that he’s so open to rewriting and reshooting if I don’t like something. We were just going over a scene that wasn’t working.”

  “Oh, of course,” she says, glancing at the grinning image of me in a top hat on the computer screen. She looks uncertainly from me to Corky and back again. “I just wanted to say that I’m dropping Joe off at the bus stop. Be back soon.”

  “I’m leaving, too.” I reach for the door knob. “I’m off to meet a friend for dinner. You want me to drop you off, Joe? Or I could take you wherever it is you need to go.”

  Instead of answering, Joe turns on his heel and walks down the hallway. Julia watches him leave, then turns to me. “Don’t mind Joe. He and Howard had a bit of a squabble, as usual. They seldom see eye to eye on anything.”

  “I’m really sorry. I hope it’s not because I’ve intruded here.”

  She gives Corky a quick look, then says, “Of course not. And I hope no one’s given you that impression. We’re just so grateful you’ve taken Corky under your wing. It means a lot to have someone like you go out of their way for a kid just starting out.”

  “I’m learning a lot from him, too. Wait, I’ll walk out with you.” I turn back to Corky. “Good work, pardner. As soon as you have a rough cut together, I want to see it.”

  “Oh, yeah. Hey, thanks!” He rocks from one foot to the other with an expression teetering between blissed out and mortified.

  “So you have nice plans for tonight?” Julia asks as we walk to the door, where Joe is waiting.

  “Yes, actually, a date with a man I’ve been seeing for a while.”