Undercover in High Heels

by Gemma Halliday

  I complied, feeling like those guys on COPS right before they get the handcuffs and the “watch your head” speech.

  “Turn around.”

  I did, trying my best to hold on to some shred of dignity as the line at the metal detector grew to include two minor sitcom actors and a pair of grips who were smirking in my direction.

  And just when I thought I was topping out on the embarrassment scale, I hit whole a new high.

  Queen Latifah waved the wand over my breasts and the damn thing beeped like a car alarm going off.

  The grips snickered out loud.

  Latifah raised an eyebrow at me. She moved the wand away, then back to my barely Bs.

  Beep, beep, beep!

  My face went Lava Girl and I felt myself go into stammer-and-stumble mode. “Underwire!” I shouted out, as much to the snickering grips as the security guard (who looked slightly less bored with her job now). “It’s the underwire, okay? I have to wear a lot of wire to make it look like I have any cleavage at all. I’m a B. We Bs have to go to extraordinary measures to fill out a shirt. And I know someone as well-endowed as you might not understand…”

  She raised the other eyebrow at me.

  “…but it’s very, very important for us little girls to push that support up. I swear it’s not a gun. I’m just wearing underwire!”

  By now even the sitcom stars were barely concealing their laughter.

  Luckily, Latifah took pity on me. “You’re cleared, ” she said. Then she covered a snort with another bubblegum pop.

  Sure that my cheeks now matched my slingbacks, I ducked my head down, grabbed Dana by the arm, and hauled ass out of there. Thankful that only about five hundred people had witnessed my boobs-of-steel moment.

  “Ashley, the results don’t matter. You know I’ll love her even if she’s Blake’s baby.”

  “Oh, Chad, I don’t deserve you.”

  “What you don’t deserve is that husband of yours ruining our lives. Please just divorce him.”

  “But, Chad, he’s still in a coma! I can’t be that cruel.”

  “Miss Culver?”

  “Yes, Nurse Nan.”

  “I have the paternity results.”

  I shoved a fingernail into my mouth to keep from gasping out loud. I was watching from the wings as Ashley, Chad, and Nurse Nan stood in the three-walled hospital waiting room (which the set dresser told me had also doubled as Blake’s office last year before the coma), hanging on every word of dialogue as we shot the scene of the season. Bright lights shone down from the exposed rafters, and a guy with a huge fuzzy microphone on the end of a boom stood just outside of the shot. Behind Ashley, Dana sat at the reception desk, dressed in scrubs, silently pretending to answer the phones and trying (mostly successfully) not to ogle Ricky’s tush, as camera one zoomed in to catch Chad’s reaction.

  “Chad, hold my hand.”

  “Of course, Ashley.”

  “Okay, Nurse Nan, we’re ready. Who’s the father?”

  “Cut!” Steinman yelled.

  A collective groan went up from the crew assembled in the wings.

  “Ricky, you’re too far away from Mia. We can’t get both of you in the shot like that, ” Stienman said, stomping onto the set. Carl Stienman was six-four with the body of an ex-football player, and the booming voice to match. I put him somewhere in his fifties, just starting to go salt-and-pepper at the temples, and in need of thick wire-rimmed glasses, probably from too many late nights squinting at the dailies on his monitor. “Move closer together, ” he directed, moving Ricky toward Mia.

  “She keeps pushing me out, ” Ricky protested.

  “I do not!” Mia yelled. “You’re in my light. Hey, you!” Mia pointed to one of the grips. “What the hell is wrong with you? Don’t you know how to properly backlight someone?”

  “The light is fine, Mia, ” Stienman said.

  “Oh, sure. No one wants to see my face in this scene anyway, ” Mia retorted, laying on the sarcasm. “And you.” She spun around, pointing at Dana.

  Uh-oh.

  Dana popped her head up, looking like a deer caught in the headlights.

  “Yes?”

  “I can hear you shuffling papers back there. I can’t concentrate on my lines!”

  Dana nodded, doing a zipping-it-shut-and-throwing-away-the-key thing.

  “Oh, please, ” Margo cut in, fiddling with the lapels of her nurse scrubs. “It’s not her fault you haven’t studied your script.”

  “Why, you old cow.” Mia lunged toward Margo, but Steinman was faster, positioning himself between them. I suddenly saw where his linebacker physique came in handy.

  “Ladies, ” he coaxed. “Shall we try to get this shot before end of day?”

  Mia stepped back, still glaring at Margo. Margo gave her a self-satisfied smirk.

  “Okay, let’s take it back a line, ” Steinman shouted, taking his place behind the monitor again.

  I shoved that fingernail back into my mouth, trying not to fidget as I waited for the revelation of who-shot-J.R. proportions.

  A PA with an electronic clapboard stood in front of the camera. “Speed. And…rolling!”

  “Okay, Nurse Nan, we’re ready. Who’s the father?” Mia repeated.

  “I’m sorry to tell you that the results aren’t what we were hoping for.”

  “What?”

  “What do you mean, not what we’d hoped for?” Ricky asked, taking a step closer.

  “Dammit, Carl, he’s in my light again!”

  “Cut!” Steinman yelled, rubbing one hand over his eyes. “Would someone get another spotlight in here, please? Everyone else, take five.”

  Walkie-talkies buzzed to life, and two PAs took off, scurrying. The makeup woman descended upon Margo, dusting and powdering her forehead, and Mia stalked off to her trailer.

  “Isn’t this exciting?” Dana asked, skipping over to me.

  “I think I’m going to pop a blood vessel if someone doesn’t tell me who the father is soon.”

  “No kidding. Ohmigod, I hope it’s Chad’s. That man is H-A-W-T, hawt!” she spelled. She glanced behind me. “Hey, where’s your purple-haired friend today?”

  “Dusty took a personal day.” At least, that was what they’d told me when I’d finally made my way onto the set that morning. Apparently she was still shaken up after being the one to find Veronika’s body. I didn’t blame her. After just finding a squirrel’s body, I’d been ready to spend the day in bed.

  As it turned out, it was a good thing I hadn’t, because with Dusty gone there was no one else. Nurse Nan might very well have still been wearing the gaudy Day-Glo orange wool scarf and Crocs she’d been in when I’d arrived on set.

  “Dana, ” the AD called her, “could you stand in for lighting?”

  Dana did a little happy squeal before skipping over to a mark in front of the camera where the new spotlight had arrived.

  I left her having a starlet moment and went in search of that Starbucks carafe.

  Apparently I wasn’t the only one in need of an afternoon pick-me-up. As I approached the Craft service table, I spied Ricky pouring himself a steaming cup of coffee.

  “Want some?” he asked, the carafe hovering over a fresh paper cup.

  I nodded. “Please.”

  I tried not to stare at the play of muscles beneath his too-tight T-shirt as he poured me a cup—tried being the key word here. Holy cow, the guy was built. And, I had to admit, up close he was even hotter than on TV. I touched a hand to the corner of my mouth to make sure I wasn’t drooling as I accepted the cup Ricky handed to me.

  “Wild day yesterday, huh?” he said.

  “Very. I’m so sorry about Veronika. Did you know her well?”

  Ricky shrugged, then got kind of a sad look in his baby blues. “We went out a couple of times when she first started working on the show.”

  I felt my internal radar pick up. “Really?What happened?”

  Ricky shrugged again. “Nothin’ much. We saw a movie ou
t in West Hills, near where she lives. But, you know, we just didn’t really hit it off.”

  Despite my earlier decision to leave it alone, I couldn’t help asking, “How about Mia? Do you know if she’s seeing anyone?”

  Ricky shrugged. “I dunno.” Then he paused, his eyebrows puckering together. “Why?”

  “It’s possible the killer mistook Veronika for Mia, ” I said slowly, watching his reaction. “She was in Mia’s trailer, after all.”

  Ricky’s eyes went big, his mouth dropping open. “Wow. Heavy.” He paused, churning this bit of info over in his head. “Well, I don’t know if Mia’s with anyone now, but a while back she was dating Blake.”

  I took a sip of my coffee to cover my surprise. Nervous Blake was the last person I’d expect a control freak like Mia to be attracted to. “Really? Any idea why she stopped seeing him?”

  Ricky shook his head. “Nope. But I know that it was right before Blake checked himself into the hospital. And when he came back, Mia had convinced the producers to put him in a coma.”

  “The coma was Mia’s idea?”

  “That’s what Blake told me. He was kind of ticked off because it’s cut his screen time in half.”

  Iiiiinteresting. I sipped my coffee again, wondering if being in a coma were enough motive to want Mia out of the picture. I’ll admit, I had a hard time picturing the shaky Blake actually strangling a woman without having a panic attack, but stranger things have happened.

  A PA with a headset glued to his ear ducked his head around the corner. “Maddie?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You’re wanted back in wardrobe.”

  Great, what now? I had a terrible vision of Margo bargaining to put the Crocs back on again. “Be right there.”

  I gulped down the rest of my coffee, praying that it was just a loose seam. Of course, the fact that I haven’t been to Mass since my Irish Catholic grand-mother dragged me to the midnight all-you-can-pray Christmas Eve service was probably why God ignored this request. Instead, I could almost hear him giggling at his own private joke as I walked through the door of the wardrobe room to find two uniformed officers going through the racks as a guy in a rumpled suit with a gun bulge at his hip looked on.

  And, in the corner, arms crossed over his chest, Bad Cop face firmly in place, Ramirez.

  I made a mental note to go to Mass more often.

  Taking a deep breath, I did a little one-finger wave in his direction.

  No reaction. Oh boy.

  “Miss Springer, would you please have a seat?” The guy with the gun bulge indicated a folding chair beside him. He had graying hair and a face that looked like it had been left out on the Venice boardwalk during a heat wave—tan, wrinkled, and in serious need of some moisturizer.

  I sat down, giving a tentative glance to Ramirez. Still no reaction.

  “I’m Detective Rodgers, ” Prune Face said. “I’d like to ask you some questions about the events of the last few days.”

  I nodded, gulping down a dry lump.

  “Where were you between midnight and 3:00 A.M. the night of the thirteenth?”

  The night Veronika had been killed. That lump grew, and I nervously cleared my throat.

  “We have to ask all the cast and crew, ” Rodgers reassured me, a fatherly smile parting his wrinkles. Though I watched enough Law & Order to wonder whether it was sincere.

  “So, you think the killer was someone on the set?” I asked.

  Ramirez narrowed his eyes at me, his jaw doing that jutting, granite thing again.

  “Please, just answer the question, Miss Springer, ” Rodgers said.

  I gulped. “Right.”

  “Where were you on the night of the thirteenth?”

  “Sleeping.”

  “Alone?”

  I glanced at Ramirez. “Very alone.”

  He pretended not to notice.

  “Can anyone verify this?”

  Wait, what did he mean, verify? “Am I a suspect here?”

  “Please just answer the question.”

  I turned to Ramirez. “You can’t possibly think I’m a suspect here.”

  “Maddie, ” he warned, his voice tightly restrained.

  “Like I said, we’re asking everyone, ” Rodgers repeated.

  “Then why are they going through the clothes?” I asked, gesturing to the uniforms.

  “The nylons came from the wardrobe room, ” Ramirez said.

  Rodgers shot him a look that clearly said, “Ix-nay on the info-ay to the uspect-say.”

  “Well, anyone could have walked in and taken them. The room’s not locked during the day.”

  “What about at night?” Rodgers asked, flipping open a notebook and jotting something down.

  “Yes, it’s locked. But I don’t even have a key!” I sputtered. “I’m just the assistant.”

  “Who does?”

  I paused. “Dusty.”

  The detective exchanged a glance with Ramirez.

  “But she wouldn’t do this!” I protested.

  “How well do you know Dusty?”

  “Semi-well, ” I hedged.

  Another glance exchange.

  “But I’m telling you, she wouldn’t do this. She’s my college roommate’s best friend’s cousin! Plus, her best friend’s ex-boyfriend’s mother plays canasta with the producer’s aunt!”

  Rodgers gave me a blank look. “Isn’t it true that she and Mia had an altercation yesterday? Over the color of her shirt?”

  I leaned forward. “So, you think Mia was the target?”

  “Just answer the question!” Rodgers had dropped the fatherly tone, doing a full-on exasperated-cop thing now—a routine that, thanks to Ramirez, I was all too familiar with.

  “Mia has altercations with lots of people. Just now she had one with Margo, Ricky, and Steinman.”

  “I’m only interested in the one she had with Dusty the day Veronika was killed. Did Mia threaten Dusty’s job?”

  I bit my lip. “Um, I’m not really…I mean…”

  “Well?”

  I looked to Ramirez for help. Nothing. It was starting to piss me off that he was just standing there, letting this guy grill his almost-girlfriend.

  Clearly I was on my own here.

  I crossed my arms and puffed out my chest as far as it would go (which, sadly, wasn’t very far). “I don’t think I want to answer any more questions without an attorney present.”

  Ramirez lifted one eyebrow, then muttered, “Jesus, ” under his breath.

  Rodgers gave me a hard stare and flipped his notebook shut with an audible thud. “Fine. We’ll be in touch.”

  “So I can go?”

  He nodded. Then to Ramirez, “Escort her back to the set.”

  “I don’t need an escort.”

  Ramirez stood up and grabbed my arm. Hard. “Oh, yes, you do, ” he said under his breath.

  Ramirez steered me out the door and down the hallway. “This is police brutality, ” I hissed as his grip on my arm tightened. He opened a door and pulled me into an empty storage room. Then he spun me around with enough force that I feared whiplash.

  “Ow!”

  “What the hell was that in there?” he asked, his dark eyes blazing.

  I froze. I’d never seen him like this before. Sure, I’d seen him exasperated, frustrated, even a little peeved with me at times. But this was different. This was downright angry. There was no hint of humor glinting behind the fire in his eyes. This time he was serious.

  I bit my lip to stave off the unpleasant emotion bubbling up inside me. If I had to put a name to it, I’d say it was somewhere between anxiety and all-out dread.

  “You just don’t get it, do you, Maddie?” he continued. “This is a homicide investigation. And that was a homicide detective. This guy isn’t playing around.”

  “But you’re a homicide detective, too, ” I squeaked out.

  Again his eyes blazed, only this time I could see the exhaustion of the past week creeping into them. “No, I used
to be a homicide detective. Now I’m a glorified security guard.”

  “Thanks to me, right?” I finished for him. The dread was bubbling up so far it was stinging the backs of my eyes now.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You didn’t have to.”

  “Jesus, Maddie.” Ramirez ran a hand through his hair. “Why didn’t you just tell Rodgers what you knew? Then you could have gotten the hell out of here.”

  “They think Dusty did it!”

  “Yeah, and now he thinks you’re covering for her. Does the word accomplice mean anything to you?”

  Does the word girlfriend mean anything to you? I longed to retort back. But I was suddenly too afraid of the answer. Instead, I let out a feeble, “Dusty’s innocent.”

  “Maybe.”

  I shook my head. “No, you don’t know Dusty.”

  “Do you?”

  I bit my lip. “Maybe not. But why would she do this?”

  “What about the argument she had with Mia?”

  I shook my head again. “Dusty wouldn’t kill over that. Besides, Dusty must have known Mia was right. With her coloring, she really is a Spring.”

  Ramirez narrowed his eyes at me. “That’s it? You believe her because some woman is a season?” He shook his head. “Jesus, Maddie, I don’t get you.”

  “No, you don’t, ” I said, realizing just how true that was. Damn. The stinging was getting worse. Another minute of this and my mascara would be toast. “Look, Dusty’s my friend, and I know she’s innocent. And if you or your law-and-order posse have any more questions for me, you can ask them through my lawyer.”

  I turned and tried to stalk out of the room, making a really dramatic exit. But the stinging behind my eyes had morphed into tears that were suddenly blurring my vision. I kind of stumbled instead, half running, half tripping down the hall and out the back exit onto the lot. I blindly ran through the Sunset city, not caring where I was going, just wanting to get away. Away from the accusations, away from the chaos of the set, and, most of all, away from the man who, instead of comforting me, was interrogating me!

  Sure, Ramirez and I had had our ups and downs in the past. But this felt different. This felt like only downs. Where were our ups? Were we ever going to have one again? Not likely, the way things were going. Maybe Ramirez had been right all along—maybe we just weren’t relationship material. I’d known from the beginning that Ramirez was a cop first. But somehow in the back of my mind I’d always hoped that he’d wake up one day and realize how much he wanted to put me first.