Margin of Error

by Edna Buchanan

  “Let’s stay up here overnight,” Lance whispered in the cab to the airport. “We can go to that new hotel at Disney World.”

  “Can’t. Have to go back and write the story.”

  He put his hand on my knee and nibbled at my ear. “Call it in.”

  “Van Ness and Wendy don’t even know you’re out of town.”

  “They’d be pissed if they knew,” he acknowledged, and stopped nibbling.

  We discussed Darnell and Angel for the remainder of the ride.

  “When you dig a grave for somebody else,” Lance said, “you always wind up falling into it.”

  “Amen.” Niko nodded.

  “Great line,” I said. “I’d love to use it in my story. Is that original, or dialogue from one of your movies?”

  Lance thought about it. “Don’t know. Niko?”

  Niko screwed up his face. “Maybe. Sounds familiar.”

  “Think it coulda been Ground Zero?” Lance said.

  “I was thinking maybe Dead by Sundown.”

  “No, no,” Lance said. Both were lost in thought.

  “Never mind,” I said. “I won’t use it.”

  The sexual tension sparked in the surveillance van was electric. We could not keep our hands off each other. After two glasses of champagne I checked out the rest room. Pretty small on a Boeing 727, and Lance was a big man, but maybe.

  I returned to my seat. “I’ve always heard about the mile high club,” I whispered. There were only a few other passengers in first class. The entire plane was nearly empty, due to the fire. Nobody was going to Miami unless they had to.

  I went first. Lance casually meandered up the aisle and joined me a minute later.

  “Where have you been?” I said, when he opened the door.

  There was little room to maneuver. I wound up with one foot in the sink, then sitting in it. “This is never going to work,” I panted.

  “We can make it work.” He grunted, breathing hard. “I’ve been wanting to bite you all week.”

  “Ouch,” I said. The faucet jabbed the small of my back. “How do people do this?”

  Just when it seemed we might be getting somewhere, a cheerful voice advised that all passengers should return to their seats; we were about to land in Miami.

  When we ignored it, the flight attendant tapped on the door.

  “We’re busted,” I said.

  “We can do this,” he said urgently, “but not on this plane. I can lease a private jet.”

  Jammed face to face, we struggled to open the door. What madman designed this bathroom? I wondered bitterly. Who on earth would put a soap dispenser in a place like that?

  I stepped out first, avoiding the eyes of the flight attendants, already buckled in their jump seats right outside the rest room. By the time Lance joined me, I could see the wildfire from the air, as we swept in over the Everglades. “Look at that,” I said. “It looks worse.”

  I was right. The pilot announced that the raging fire had affected the power lines along U.S. 1. The entire Upper Keys were blacked out.

  18

  I went straight to the paper to write for the final.

  Bobby Tubbs, working the night slot, complained about a flood of calls, including Van Ness, Wendy, the production’s publicist, and Wallace Atwater, all looking for Lance. The former were worried about him showing up for work and the last was concerned about the benefit. Channel 7’s entertainment reporter had announced on the news at six that “the final blow may have come to the beleaguered Margin of Error production” with unconfirmed reports that the star had packed up and left town. Somebody must have spotted Lance at the airport.

  “That’s ridiculous. He’s right here in Miami,” I said truthfully.

  The stack of messages awaiting me included one from the National Enquirer. I shoved them aside and called Angel for a quote for my story. “Now the children and I can go on with our lives,” she said demurely.

  “Well, keep your head down and stay out of your old neighborhood until the cops pick up the kids who shot at us. I’m serious,” I warned. “As far as they know, nothing has changed. You don’t want to wind up in their gun sights again.”

  The irony of the story was that the same cops who originally arrested Angel had probably saved her life.

  “They were wonderful,” she said. “Did you notice that lieutenant’s beautiful blue eyes?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I noticed.”

  Her current boyfriend, she said, was in the Navy. Once everything was straightened out and he was home on leave, they planned to marry.

  It would be nice, I thought, if the wedding date arrived before the new baby.

  “He loves kids,” she was saying.

  Lucky for him, I thought.

  “Once my charges are cleared up,” she said, “we’ll have a normal life.”

  “I’ve been wanting to talk to you about your case,” I said. “What is the current status? Is there a trial date? Are you negotiating a plea?”

  “No plea,” she said firmly. “There’s another hearing in two weeks. My lawyer said not to talk to you about it until then.”

  I took his number and left a message on his machine.

  Before going home, I watched the eleven o’clock news. Renee Westfell appeared on all three local stations, a tape from that afternoon, speaking in front of a crowd of Earth Screamers that had been picketing the Margin of Error production office. Their numbers seemed to be growing, despite a judge’s ruling that, though they had the right to demonstrate, they could not continue to disrupt filming with their air horns. Some carried signs saying REMEMBER SNOWFLAKE. There was even a Cuban contingent waving signs that said ¡COMMUNISTA! I turned up the sound.

  “Hollywood must be made to realize,” Renee was saying, “that making a movie is not the end of the world. Taking care of people and the planet is what counts.” Who could argue with that?

  The camera panned the crowd. Seated at my desk watching the monitor, I could have sworn that for a split second I saw Stephanie’s face among them. I sprang to my feet, staring. Too late. No way to be sure. It infuriated me that I had to drive home watching the rearview and wondering.

  My restless half-sleep was interrupted in the middle of the night by the pounding and the wet kiss of rain. The winter wind blew so hard that a fine spray cascaded through the screens over my bed, and I had to get up to close the windows. Torrential rains still fell at dawn, a blessing for exhausted firefighters and all of us. By late afternoon, the smoke had cleared enough to reopen the road to the Keys, and the island chain was reconnected to the mainland. All told, the fire had consumed more than 3,900 acres.

  Uncharacteristically gray skies leaked chilly rain for three days straight.

  Now that the fire was out, forestry personnel had a chance to go back and investigate. They can look at a burn and see how it started. That was not difficult in this case. They found what set it, and it was not a Marlboro. It was a fuel can, commonly called a drip torch. Firefighters use them to set backfires on the ground. When it is tipped, a thin stream of fuel flows over a built-in wick and ignites the ground. The drip torch was marked, owned by the Forestry Service, one of two stolen from the back of a four-wheel drive at the ranger station nearest the nuclear reactor.

  Oddly enough, even when reporting that Lance had been vindicated, that smoking was not the cause, the TV news still ran the same clip over and over, of him carelessly flinging away a cigarette just before pulling his gun.

  I expected the rain to make everybody happy, but even the downpour seemed part of a grand conspiracy designed to further frustrate and delay the film crew. The day it began they had planned to shoot several rain scenes, including a provocative sequence with Lance and Lexie soaked to the skin, she wearing a skimpy little dress, him in his tight jeans. Perfect, I thought. But no. Real rain, I learned, does not photograph well. The only rain realistic enough for movies is spewed from rain machines operated
in clear weather. Go figure.

  Not only did they have to wait for the rain to stop so they could shoot the rain scene, the deluge also delayed construction of the new reactor. A developer, clearing land for a west Broward amusement park, leased the film company the property at exorbitant rates. He also insisted that the new reactor be a permanent structure he could later use as a tourist attraction; therefore it had to meet the tough new hurricane code and required architectural renderings, permits, and a licensed general contractor. Both the developer and the county required the filmmakers to provide huge bonds and private twenty-four-hour security.

  Van Ness and Wendy were frantic, fielding daily calls from Cappleman’s office. Originally budgeted at $60 million, the cost of the film had already skyrocketed to $100 million, and a half dozen lawsuits were pending, including a wrongful death action filed by Trent Talon’s ex-wife in Seattle, on behalf of their three minor children.

  The lone bright spot on the horizon was the AIDS benefit at Lance’s Star Island home. The cause was good, and whatever positive publicity it generated was sorely needed. Response was excellent. Those who did not buy tables because of Lance’s star appeal bought them because everybody runs to see a disaster. At least that was his theory.

  Lottie planned to wear her green velvet, so striking with her fiery hair, and I had a wonderful winter white dress with a low-cut back and a shawl of velvet over silk with a lavishly embroidered border, an au courant ensemble coordinated by my mother. She was undecided about her own attire: a black velvet evening suit if the night was cold, shimmery gold silk if the weather was hot. She looked beautiful in both.

  She had an escort, a nice man named Jules, a widowed cosmetics company executive who had come to Miami to play golf. She was doing much better since the shooting that had solved the mystery of my father’s death. For months afterward she had grieved like a new widow. Now, at age fifty-three, a new woman seemed to be emerging. I wished I could say the same for myself.

  I had good reason to look forward to the big night. Lance and I had had no time together since the Orlando flight.

  “You realize our last big date was Darnell’s arrest?” he said by phone the morning of the benefit. “I’m looking forward to tonight. I’m hoping you leave your beeper home and bring your nightie.”

  “What would you say if I left them both at home?”

  He said he’d think about it—all afternoon.

  Lottie was worked up into a lather herself, that afternoon. The rain had signaled a significant change in the weather. People up north, from Maine to the Carolinas, were digging out after a blizzard, and the first major cold front of the year had rolled into South Florida. Her green velvet would be perfect. She took the afternoon off to have her hair done, but then Gretchen beeped her and insisted she take an assignment. Photo was short-staffed, and somebody had to go out and shoot art to go with the weather story. There were fears that the tomato, snap bean, and strawberry blooms would be damaged and the citrus crop endangered. Farmers were fighting the freeze by sprinkling insulating water onto their plants.

  “It’s already after five o’clock,” Lottie wailed over the phone. “Bad enough I have to work tomorrow. She knows I’m going to the benefit tonight. She’s doing this deliberately, that bitch. Cocktails are at seven. By the time I go out and find some cold-weather art and shoot it, take it back in and soup it, write the captions and get outa here—then go home, get dressed, and drive over to Star Island—I’m gonna miss most a the evening.”

  “Look,” I said. “Gretchen’s jealous because you’re going and she’s not. Don’t let her make you crazy. Just do it. Fast. Then get out. Don’t go far. Don’t go all the way down to farm country. Pick someplace close. How about over on the Beach, down by Lummus Park? Find some chilly senior citizen bundled up in a winter coat, collar turned up, some old lady in a fur or some—”

  “Yeah,” she interrupted. “I have an idea. I’ve got it. See you later.”

  I arrived an hour early. Lance was gorgeous in a tuxedo.

  He opened the door himself. The house looked stunning. He looked stricken. “You look beautiful.” He kissed my cheek. “Bad news.”

  “What else?”

  “Actually,” he said, shamefaced, “it’s good news, bad news.”

  “Good news first.”

  “Renee let the kids come over to spend a few days.”

  “Great. That’s also the bad news?”

  He nodded. “They’re here now.”

  A sleep-over was obviously out of the question. I sighed, then laughed in resignation. “That’s good. You’ll get a chance to play dad.”

  “But that’s not the role I planned for tonight.”

  Candlelit tables with crystal bowls of flowers, ornate silver wine goblets, and exquisite linens were everywhere. I had thought it too cold to party outside, but outdoor heaters had been installed at strategic spots, including under the tables around the pool. An elegant uniformed chef, the glistening bay and a sparkling nighttime view of the skyline behind him, presided over a huge cast-iron skillet as big as my car. The paella had been simmering over hot coals all day. The house and grounds easily accommodated the tables, the guests, and the Peter Duchin Orchestra, leaving ample room for dancing. Not only were there full-service bars indoors and out, there was a third tucked into a poolside courtyard facing the bay, beside a seafood bar with shrimp, oysters, and stone crabs. Nearby, yet another chef grilled tiny potato crepes, serving them up with flourishes of caviar.

  Security was tight as a drum. The guest list was checked at the guardhouse entrance, again at the gate, and a third time at the door, with extra security bolstered by off-duty cops.

  Lance and I greeted guests at the door. His little girl Shelley, age twelve, joined us. Polite, quiet, and well mannered, she was dressed in green taffeta, a ribbon around her slim waist and a big lace collar. She seemed almost shy until she spotted Monica Atwater sporting a big black bow in her hair and a full-length chinchilla cape. Withdrawing her hand, the child looked up sweetly and said disdainfully, “Fur is dead.” I could like this kid, I thought. Brendan preferred trailing around after Niko, apparently an old chum.

  I thought my mother would swoon when she arrived and found me, not only well dressed but in such a lavish setting. She had to think she was hallucinating.

  “I turn into a pumpkin, it all goes away at midnight,” I whispered, then introduced her and her date to Lance.

  The matinee idol was on, his claymore smile exploding in 180-degree arcs, knocking out everybody for a hundred and fifty meters. No one would ever guess at the demons haunting the movie set.

  Lottie was smashing in her own tall, tomboy way. “See, I knew you could do it,” I murmured. “You’re not even late.” Lance greeted her with a hug, turning heads. Even Lexie, with Van Ness, Hodges, and Wendy, arched her neck and stared. Stunning, in a sparkly silver sheath, Lexie’s eyes roved the house, as though trying to spot anything she might have missed in the divorce settlement. It surprised me to see her, but the event was positive and the studio wanted the Margin of Error principals to make a good showing.

  Cameras from ET and Extra taped arriving guests, conducted brief interviews with Lance, and spoke to celebrities outside the door, but no camera crews were permitted inside to disrupt the evening.

  Everybody was there: The Estefans, Madonna and Carlos, Jon Secada, Julio Iglesias, Stallone, even Oprah, who is new to the neighborhood. The Atwaters were positively beside themselves. Lance, the perfect host, moved from table to table between courses, circulating among his guests.

  During the second course, I saw Niko step through a side door and scan the crowd. His look was urgent. He found Lance, then whispered in his ear. They high-fived, then Lance turned, did a thumbs-up, excused himself, came to the table, and spoke in my ear.

  “More good news. Miami P.D. just picked up Stephanie on the causeway. All dressed up with someplace to go. Looks like she was about to join us. Ha
d an invitation in her purse and was dressed to kill, they said.”

  We touched our champagne glasses. What a relief. The news that Stephanie was out of circulation added to the celebratory mood. Giddy, I wished more than ever that Lance and I could be alone.

  Instead I indulged in the dessert, white chocolate pianos with dark chocolate keys, their open lids filled with red and golden raspberries drenched in zambione sauce. Absolutely decadent. I spotted Lottie laughing with Stallone. Turned out he remembered her and the magazine photos she had shot of him. He said they were among the best he’d ever had taken.

  All in all, it was a swell night, a huge success that raised tons of money. Guests began to depart shortly after midnight. Most were gone by one. Saying good night to my mother and Jules, I said, “Call me tomorrow.”

  Uncertain, she looked around me. “Where?” she whispered.

  “At home, Mom. At home,” I said angelically.

  We wound up in the kitchen as the caterers cleared away the tables. Lance and I sipped more Cristal rose champagne, eyeing each other as the kids devoured countless white chocolate pianos. They had enormous staying power. I would have thought they would have gone to bed hours ago. Niko was hauling huge trays of leftover food out a side door to the garage. “Taking it over to the food bank at the homeless shelter,” he explained.

  The homeless would dine well. “Nice idea,” I said. “But why not wait till morning? Surely you don’t want to drive around that neighborhood at this hour.”

  He shrugged, unknotting his tie. “Might spoil. I already told ‘em I was on the way, and I’m armed and dangerous. No problem.” He grinned. “Stephanie’s in jail.”

  “Stephanie’s in jail,” I echoed, relishing the words. Sounded good to me.

  There was no escaping the kids. They even tagged along when Lance walked me out to my car to say good night. Brendan looked so much like Lance, it was scary. They eyed me suspiciously as he kissed my cheek and helped me into the T-Bird.