“Are you wavering about it being suicide?" Shelley asked.
“Not at all. Just telling you the impression it's giving everybody else.”
They were quiet for a moment while the waitress refilled their cups. Jane wondered again why she hadn't just put on a skirt and blouse this morning instead of the baggy outfit she'd chosen without any thought.
“Anything else of significance in the dressing room?" Jane asked. "Oh! We forgot to ask you. Did you really find a press release saying who the producers were?"
“Yes. How did you know about that?"
“George Abington told us."
“I wish you two wouldn't meddle in this. I appreciate having someone to talk to about cases, but it scares the stuffing out of me when you two start doing your 'junior detective' stuff.”
Shelley ignored the warning. "Do you think there's a connection? Between the murders and the secret about the producers, I mean."
“There might be, but I'm damned if I can see what it is. I'll admit, though, that I'm beginning to wonder if the blackmail had anything at all to do with either murder."
“Why is that?" Jane asked.
“Well, think about it," Mel said, leaning forward. "It was over something so trivial. Jake just wanted Angela to get a little part. I'll grant you, I don't know much about the movie business, but that's still a stupid reason. It wasn't a big part. I've studied the script. It was a few lines that were only designed to give the main character someone to talk to. The character part didn't even have a name. It was just `farm girl,' and she said things like, 'What do you mean?' so that Harwell's character could go off into a monologue. I can see how Angela would have liked to have the part, but if she'd gotten it and donethe greatest acting in history, it wouldn't have done her much good. I'm finding it hard to believe that two people could have met their deaths because of something that insignificant."
“Maybe Jake was really blackmailing them about something else entirely," Shelley suggested.
“Or maybe it had nothing to do with the blackmail," Mel repeated. "It doesn't make sense."
“But it does, in a way," Jane said. "I can't claim to have known Jake very well, but from what everybody's said, it would have been like him to go overboard and use a sledgehammer to kill a gnat. Everybody says he was great with objects and lousy with people. He apparently had no sense of proportion in relationships. I can imagine him deciding there was something he wanted and just using the first tool at hand, which was blackmail, instead of something appropriate, like simply asking that Angela be given consideration for the part.”
Mel shrugged. "I guess there are people like that. I'm glad I don't know any of them personally.”
The waitress drifted by again, giving Mel a melting smile which Jane was extremely glad to see that he didn't return or even acknowledge.
“There's something else—" he said. "There was a religious medallion on the sink in the bathroom." "Not Lynette's?"
“Nope."
“Whose?" Jane asked.
“Butch Kowalski's, I'm afraid.”
Jane shivered. "Certainly not?"
“It had his name engraved on the back. It didn't take a lot of 'detecting' to figure it out."
“You've talked to him about it?" Shelley asked.
Mel nodded. "He just says he doesn't know how it got there. He wore it on a chain around his neck, but the chain broke a couple days ago and he stuffed it in his pocket. He claims that he took it out at some point to see if he could fix the chain, but can't remember where he put it next."
“And you think that sounds fishy?" Jane asked.
Mel laughed. "I don't think 'fishy' is the word I'd have used, but it is pretty thin."
“It could be the truth," Jane said.
“Sure it could. But is it?" Mel replied.
“Did anybody see him around the dressing room trailer at the relevant time?" Shelley asked. "What is the relevant time anyway?"
“Sometime after five and before nine. The pathology people wouldn't give me anything better than that until they've done all their magic. But Olive saw her at five. Harwell asked her to take a dress that needed mending to wardrobe, and not to come back because she was going to rest for an hour. Olive took the five-thirty van without seeing her again."
“And do you know where Angela and Butch were during that time?"
“We know where they say they were. Angela was three different places; makeup, wardrobe, and at craft services making a phone call to a dry cleaners who'd lost something of hers. The dry cleaners confirm the call. Various people saw her at all three places, but it would have taken only a few minutes to slip into the trailer along the way and dump the contents of the capsules into Harwell's tea."
“But wouldn't Harwell have thought that was a little odd? Somebody ducking in her trailer and messing around with her stuff?" Jane asked.
“Not if she was taking a nap like she told Olive," Shelley said.
“Or if she'd left the trailer for a minute," Mel added.
“But this foul-tasting tea would have been cold by that time."
“Longabach said she usually drank it lukewarm," Mel said. "That it hurt her teeth if it was hot."
“What about Butch? Where was he after five?" Jane asked.
“Same story. All over the place. Putting away props. Nobody was with him the whole time. He and the assistant went back and forth from the set to the prop trailer. Passed each other a couple times, but the same time element applies to him. He had his own car since he's local. He says he left the set at six. No real alibi."
“But Mel, I don't want Butch to be the murderer," Jane said.
“I'm sorry, but that's not exactly a consideration," Mel answered. "Since you two have been snooping, you might tell me what, if anything, you've learned. What are people talking about this morning?"
“About Lynette's death, mainly," Shelley said. "I guess you'll be glad to hear that most of the crew doesn't believe it was suicide either."
“Everybody's relieved that it didn't happen before the filming finished, naturally," Jane added. "More than relieved. They seem to be stuck in a groove about how ironic and fitting it was that she managed to give the performance of her life only hours before she died. The 'out in a blaze of glory' theme is getting a lot of play."
“Not very helpful." Mel glanced at his watch. "I've got to get back."
“What are you going to do next?" Shelley asked.
“God knows," he said glumly.
2 3
When Jane got home the cats were being so pathetic about their long incarceration that she decided to let them outside. So what if they wandered through a scene? It would just add a touch of realism, she decided.
She opened the kitchen door and Max streaked out like a lightning bolt, got about ten feet before he noticed the crowd, then whirled and streaked back. "You thought they'd gone?" she asked him. "Or had your little kitty brain forgotten that they were ever here? I wish I could forget this." She held the door open patiently while he made a second, more cautious exit with Meow creeping along behind him. They stretched their necks, taking in the unfamiliar smells for a bit before they headed for the foundation plantings and disappeared.
Butch Kowalski had been watching this performance and approached her. "Poor things," he said, smiling as Max reemerged briefly to arch his back for a pet. "I'll bet you'll all be glad to have your yard back to yourselves."
“It's not so much the yard as far as they're concerned. It's the field. That's their hunting ground.
They think they're wild cats when they're prowling out there."
“No cat food bushes, though. Well, it'll be trampled for a while, but all the equipment will be gone by tomorrow night. Some of it will be moved out by tonight. Are you coming to the wrap party?"
“Am I invited?" Jane asked to avoid giving a direct answer. The last thing in the world she wanted to do was draw out her relationship with most of these people. No, that wasn't fair, she chided herself. Some of
them were quite likable. Butch, for one.
“Sure you're invited," Butch said. "I wish you'd come. It would be nice to have at least one friendly face there."
“What do you mean by that?"
“Come on. You've heard the gossip about me, haven't you? Everybody's treating me like Jack the Ripper. Sure, it was my boss who died, but I don't get anything out of it. I'd be stupid to off Jake. He was my paycheck. Besides — I really kinda liked the guy."
“You did?"
“I know. He was a real jerk about a lot of things. But he treated me good enough. Took me on when I didn't know shit about the business, and took a lot of time teaching me stuff. Everything I know was because of him. If it wasn't for him, I'd still be driving a delivery van with no damned future at all." His face was getting red.
“What's your future now, Butch?"
“I guess I gotta set out on my own. And it's not gonna be easy. I talked to Roberto — before Miss Harwell died — and he said he'd put me intouch with a guy who does a lot of commercials around here. I'm gonna have to start pretty well down the ladder on my own. No movies, but I might get commercial jobs and work back up to movies. Don't you see? If Jake was still alive, I could have gotten a lot more credits and contacts with the big-time people before I went on my own. I wouldn't kill him off. Mrs. Kowalski didn't raise no stupid kids."
“What about your medallion?" Jane decided to ask since Butch was being so frank.
He didn't seem surprised that she knew about the medallion. He assumed that everybody on the set knew about it, which was probably true. "I don't know! I just can't figure that. 1 had it in my pocket 'cause the chain busted. I got a free minute somewhere along the line, and I remember getting it out to see if I could fix it, but then somebody needed me for something and I guess I just put it down. I just can't remember. It wasn't important at the time."
“Was this yesterday?"
“I think so. I got the feeling it was in the morning sometime, but like I say, it wasn't that important and I'm not sure."
“And you were never in Miss Harwell's dressing room?"
“Are you kidding? A slob like me? Hanging around the likes of her?"
“Do you think somebody put it there on purpose to implicate you?"
“I dunno. Maybe. Or maybe she found it wherever I left it and just set it out meaning to ask whose it was and forgot. Or somebody else picked it up and left it there by accident. The police asked me all this and seemed real pissed that I didn't have any good ideas about it."
“Butch, I'm really sorry about this. It's not fair to you."
“Yeah, but Jake woulda said, 'You ain't got Fair in your contract.' He had a lot of stuff like that he said. I'm really gonna miss him. That's why it makes me so mad, people acting like I killed him. And then thinking I mighta done anything bad to Miss Harwell — that's crazy! Did you watch that scene yesterday?"
“Only from a distance."
“Well, let me tell you, she was—" he groped around, trying to come up with the right word, and finally produced one that surprised Jane. "Stunning. She was stunning."
“Let's sit down a minute, Butch. You haven't got a cigarette on you, have you? I left mine inside."
“God, no. I had to give up smoking when I started working for Jake."
“Oh, yeah. There's no worse crusader than an ex-smoker, is there?"
“What do you mean? Jake never smoked." "Oh? I thought he did—" something clicked in the back of Jane's brain.
“Naw, his mom died of lung cancer when he was a kid. He never smoked and never let anybody who worked for him smoke either."
“But why did I think—?"
“Quiet on the set!" someone behind Jane bellowed.
At the same moment, the intern came plunging through between the pieces of scenery and said, "Butch—"
“Rolling," the bullhorn announced.
The set was utterly silent. The intern froze in place and gestured to Butch. Butch responded with a quick movement of his fingers.
Jane put a hand over her mouth to keep from exclaiming. Hand signals! Signing! That's why she thought Jake was an ex-smoker. The way his hand kept fidgeting at lunch. But it wasn't nerves. It was signing! In complete silence, he'd been "talking" to someone.
The next couple of minutes seemed to last for hours. Jane's mind lurched and wheeled, circling memories, picking some, rejecting others, fitting pieces together, trying to make pieces fit that refused to.
“Cut!”
Without another word to Butch, Jane leaped out of her lawn chair and sprinted to where she thought she'd seen Shelley standing a few minutes before. But Shelley was gone. "Maisie!" Jane said, spotting a familiar face. "Have you seen Shelley?"
“I think she's talking to somebody over by the props truck.”
Jane headed that way and met Shelley coming back. "Quick! We have to find Mel and talk to him. I just realized something!"
“He's at the dressing room trailer.”
He was interviewing someone and they had to wait a few minutes. "What is this?" Shelley asked in a whisper.
“Not here," Jane said. "Inside. Privately.”
An electrician emerged from the trailer and Jane darted inside. "Mel, I've got to talk to you. At my house where nobody else can hear us.”
She all but dragged him across the field.
Once they were all inside and well away from anyone who might overhear, Jane explained. "I don't know if anybody mentioned this to you, Mel, but Jake made his workers all learn to sign."
“You hauled me in here to tell me that?"
“Yes. It's important. He was doing it at that lunch the day he was killed. I noticed, but then I forgot about it. It was after he'd finished eating and he kept fidgeting his fingers, as if he were antsy for a cigarette to handle. I just figured he was a recently reformed smoker and didn't give it any more thought. But you see? He was giving someone a message!”
Mel wasn't convinced. "What if he was? We'll never know what it was. I don't see how it helps us—”
Jane had suddenly stepped back, her eyes wide! "But we might—! The tape!"
“Jane, have you gone over the edge," Shelley said. "What are you babbling about? What tape?"
“Somebody was taping the lunch! Roberto found out about it and had a fit. He ripped the tape out of the camcorder and gave it to me to throw away!"
“What did you do with it?" Mel asked, getting interested.
“I have no idea! Oh, hell! What did I do with it?"
“Don't get hysterical," Mel said sharply. "Just calm down and think it through. He handed you the tape and—?"
“He didn't really hand it to me, he sort of threw it at me. And I–I stuffed it into the big front pocket of the sweatshirt I was wearing. Then — then Lynette started that horrible story about her and Steve! I just don't know! Maybe I dropped it.”
She closed her eyes, trying to bring back the terrible memory of the next few minutes. "I came inside. Upstairs. I tried to talk to Mike, but he was mad and stomped out. I went in my room—”
She opened her eyes again and without a word turned and ran upstairs. A few seconds later, she came running back down with the tape cassette held high. "I kicked it under the bed. Shelley, turn on the television.”
She shoved the tape into the maw of the VCR. The three of them leaned forward, nearly ear to ear, watching as the luncheon replayed. It seemed endless. People came and went, passed the camera, blotting out the people at the table momentarily. Roberto's endless story went on and on.
“Fast forward the thing," Mel ordered. "No. Stop! There.”
The photographer had a good long shot of the table. Jake's hand was clearly visible.
“That's signing, all right," Mel said. "Hold it, I've got to call the office." He returned a minute later. "One of the secretaries signs. She's on her way over. You haven't cleaned your kitchen real well lately, have you?”
Jane looked at him with surprise. "Mel, I've got dust bunnies so old they're collecting
social security. Of course I haven't cleaned my kitchen 'real well' lately. Why?"
“Because this tape may explain who was in your house and why."
“I don't get—"
“They were looking for this tape, Jane. Somebody knew what Jake had said and didn't want a record of it. They must have left fingerprints when they wrecked the place hunting."
“Or maybe Jake himself wanted it," Shelley said.
“Whoever it was, I'm going to have to fingerprint the kitchen and then start fingerprinting everybody out there. We hadn't done that because there weren't prints on the knife to compare to and the only ones on the tea mug were Harwell's and Longabach's, which were supposed to be on it. It's going to be a long afternoon, ladies. And we don't yet know if this damned tape will be any help at all.”
24
They ran the tape several times. The secretary Mel had summoned translated for them.
“He's talking to Lynette, of course," Jane said. "They go way back together and he must have known she had a brother who was deaf and assumed she'd understand the signing. It certainly explains Butch's medallion, doesn't it?"
“It might," Mel said. "But we can't be sure. It's not proof. Conjecture won't get me anyplace except pointed in the right direction."
“But you can find out whether what he was say- ing is true, can't you? Subpoena records—?" Jane asked.
Mel nodded. "But even then — maybe nobody cared that much if it was known."
“It doesn't look to me as if she's registering any acknowledgment of what he's saying," Shelley said.
“She was an actress. Putting expression in her face was her life's work. Maybe she's just as good at keeping it out," Jane replied.
“Maybe she didn't understand," Shelley said quietly. "Would someone that self-absorbed bother to 195 learn signing just so she could talk to her little brother? He probably lip-read, too.”
Jane looked at her. "I think you're probably right, Shelley. So, if she didn't get it, who did?"
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