Shooting on Location (Lisa Chance Cozy Mysteries Book 2)

by Estelle Richards

  Lisa shook her head with a chuckle. “No, I actually wanted to ask you a question, if you don’t mind. I mean, I did have fun, but…”

  Ruby crossed her muscular arms and gave Lisa a skeptical look. “What kind of question? If it’s about a firearm recommendation, I’ve got you covered.”

  “Did Kaden Nicolini ever come into the store?” Lisa blurted out.

  Ruby barked a laugh. “That dead movie star, come in here? No, but if he had, I would have shown him how to hold a gun properly.” She shook her head. “All the money they spend on special effects, and they can’t make sure they hire someone who knows how to hold a gun.”

  Lisa laughed, too. “Hollywood is a strange place.”

  “Now, didn’t you move out there? You and that Dylan kid?”

  Lisa blinked. “Um, yes.” She gave Ruby an inquisitive stare.

  Ruby shrugged as if to imply that in a town the size of Moss Creek of course everyone knew who Lisa’s ex-boyfriend she’d moved to Hollywood with was.

  “Now, he knows how to hold a firearm,” Ruby said. “Didn’t look like he’d forgotten any of it.”

  Lisa’s heart sank. “Oh,” she said, trying to sound casual. “When did you see him?”

  “Dunno. Maybe Tuesday or Wednesday last week.” Ruby closed her ledger. “I hate to rush you, but I need to close up and get home. Don’t want to miss CSI: Boston.”

  “Of course.” Lisa gave her a little wave and drifted out to her car.

  She drove back to the Folly feeling stunned. When Dylan had asked her for help proving his innocence, he hadn’t mentioned his little trip to the gun shop. Was his plea for help just a smokescreen to cover up guilt?

  Chapter 17

  Gavin and his cinematographer strolled up to the craft service table. The cinematographer was talking about light and angles. Gavin held up a finger to him to pause.

  “Bottled water, please,” he said, wearing his friendly face.

  Lisa told herself to be brave. “Can I ask you a question?” she said, handing him the bottle.

  He opened the bottle and took a drink. “Shoot.”

  “Who was that at your hotel room the other night? Big ugly guy, pounded on everyone’s doors.”

  He blinked at her twice, then took another drink. “What’s that got to do with craft service?”

  “Nothing, I guess.”

  “Anyway, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He turned back to the cinematographer to resume their conversation.

  “Was he threatening you?” she called after him.

  Gavin turned back and gave her a long look. “Nobody threatened me.” He sent the cinematographer on without him and walked back to Lisa’s side.

  “What’s going on here, Lisa?”

  “Oh, um...” Lisa swallowed.

  Gavin’s glasses magnified his eyes, turning them into small moons in the empty sky of his face.

  “I just heard something about someone bothering you at the hotel. I didn’t want you to get the wrong idea about Moss Creek,” she stammered. It sounded ridiculous to her as she said it. Lisa tried not to cringe.

  He stared at her for a long second, then burst into laughter. “You should see your face!” he crowed. “So, seriously. Don’t worry, it was nothing. Just a birthday prank.”

  She gave a small chuckle, drawn out of her as though by the force of his will. “Birthday prank?”

  “Friends from film school. Every year it’s something.” He shook his head and barked another laugh. “Those guys are something else. But you see? Nothing to worry about. Ok?”

  Lisa nodded. “Ok.”

  “Ok, then. Good talk.” Gavin strode away to catch up with his cinematographer.

  Lisa thought about what it would be like to have that kind of friends, friends who would carry out such an elaborate prank. She shook her head. Film school must be a strange place. The prank must have been convincing, to fool Tyrone that way. Unless Tyrone had been hiding something from her.

  *

  Tyrone approached the table. He was bundled in a quilted down parka and had a colorful scarf wrapped around his neck. Lisa smiled at him and gestured toward the coffee. He shook his head.

  Gavin called “Cut!” and they were free to speak again.

  “Still not feeling the coffee?” Lisa said.

  Tyrone rubbed his stomach. “Not feeling much of anything yet. But I’ll take a water.”

  She handed him a bottle.

  “I just wanted to say again how sweet you were for coming to see me in the hospital,” he said.

  “Oh, it was nothing.”

  “I mean it. That place gets lonely.”

  She nodded. “Yeah. I believe it.” She leaned closer. “I asked Gavin about the big ugly guy that was knocking on the doors and making threats.”

  “You did? Girl, what did he say?”

  “Brushed it off like he didn’t know what I was talking about.”

  At that moment, Sam called out for “Quiet on the set!”

  Lisa and Tyrone snapped their mouths closed, too experienced with on-set protocol to risk making noise during filming, even in the face of juicy gossip. Tyrone stayed close to the table, watching Lisa with eyes shining with curiosity.

  After an age, Gavin called “Cut!”

  “Well?” Tyrone said. “What did he say?”

  “He said it was a birthday prank by some film school friends.” Lisa shook her head. “I don’t know, something about it just seemed strange.”

  “Oh, I got my phone back, finally,” Tyrone said. “Kari grabbed it for me. Why that girl couldn’t drop it off to keep me from dying of boredom, I don’t know. Well, I do know, but I shouldn’t say.”

  “Oh, yes, you should,” Lisa whispered.

  “Honey, you know that girl stays up all night doing lines and sewing costumes.”

  Lisa’s eyes got round. “I had no idea.”

  Tyrone nodded and sipped his water. “Wardrobe is not a healthy line of work.” He chuckled. “Says the man who just got out of the hospital.”

  Lisa sobered. “Neither is acting, these days,” she said, thinking of Kaden.

  Tyrone gave her a knowing smile, then fiddled with his phone. A second later Lisa’s phone buzzed on her hip, with a new krumb from Tyrone. She opened it and found a picture of a man she would agree was both big and ugly. The view was from the side, and he was partly in profile, standing outside a hotel room door at the Lucky Horseshoe.

  Lisa smiled at Tyrone. “It’s so good having you back. You wouldn’t believe how boring it is without you.”

  ‘Girl, I would absolutely believe it.” He sipped his coffee and leaned in. “Now tell me, what’s been happening while I was away?”

  “Hmm, not too much,” she said. “Oh, there was a moment when I thought Kari was going to lose it.”

  “Do tell.”

  “She called Gavin a cheap son of a you-know-what and said that if he didn’t stop slow-paying, she would take all the costumes and set them on fire.”

  Tyrone put a hand on the side of his handsome face. “Mmm-mmm. But that’s cokeheads for you.”

  Lisa raised an eyebrow at that, but went on. “And then an iPad disappeared.” She looked at him carefully. “Have you had anything go missing from set?”

  “Who, me?” He laughed nervously.

  “Any props grow legs and walk away?” she pressed.

  He put a hand on his hip. “Sounds like the secret’s already out. Yes. One of the prop pistols disappeared from inventory. Who told you?”

  Lisa raised an eyebrow. “Who knows about it?”

  “Mmm, let’s see. Me, of course. And Gavin, because you have to tell the director. Sam, because he’s the AD.” He gave a tinkling laugh. “And the thief. Was it the thief who told you? I’d love to get my hands on them, whoever it was.”

  “Wait, Gavin knew about it?”

  Tyrone nodded. “Honey, of course. I asked Sam for an insurance claim form, and he said I’d have to get one from Gavin. But th
en, oh, my.”

  “What happened?”

  He leaned in and whispered, “He said to leave it to him, but between you and me, something was fishy there. I think the insurance policy isn’t paid up.”

  “What? But that’s insane. What if something happened?”

  “Girl, did you forget? Something did happen.”

  “Oh. Right.”

  “Anyway, when it was clear he was just going to sit on it, I took care of it.”

  “Took care of it how?”

  “I replaced it myself.”

  “But how? I don’t think there are any prop houses in northern Arizona.”

  He sighed. “With a real gun. I went and bought the cheapest one they had on hand, and some blanks, and voila. The real thing, almost as good as the fake thing.”

  “But Tyrone!”

  “What was I supposed to do? Tell Ralphie to point his finger and thumb and say ‘bang bang’? This movie is on the tightest budget I’ve ever seen for anything with even a smidgen of action, and I wasn’t about to let Gavin down.”

  “What about a BB gun? Or a squirt gun and then paint it? Something that couldn’t have actually killed anyone.”

  Tyrone pursed his lips. “Hindsight is twenty-twenty,” he said. He picked up his coffee cup, turned on his heel, and left.

  *

  The sun was still up when Lisa collected the carafes and the muffin basket from set and drove them back to the Folly. She parked in the courtyard and lugged her gear inside. A last customer or two were still enjoying muffins in the front parlor.

  “Hi, Lisa,” one of them said as she went by.

  “Afternoon,” she responded with a nod. “Good to see you.”

  Jan was cleaning the kitchen. The floor mats were stacked in one corner as she swept. The mop bucket was full of soapy water with a wisp of steam rising from its surface.

  “Lisa, I’m so glad you’re here,” Jan said, pausing mid-sweep.

  “Oh?” Lisa said. As a boss, she was beginning to find that an employee who was too eager to talk to her was an alarming proposition. “What’s up?”

  “Is it ok if I leave early the day after tomorrow? I have a dentist appointment. I know I was supposed to close again, but they had an opening for after school lets out, so Annette should be able to cover for me.”

  “Hmm,” Lisa said.

  “Sorry, I should have talked to you first, I know. It’s just, I have this tooth that’s been bothering me, and they weren’t going to be able to see me until the first of March, but they had a cancellation.”

  Lisa winced in sympathetic pain. A bad tooth could be the cause of serious misery. “Sure, of course,” she said.

  Jan let out a giant sigh and went back to sweeping. “Thanks. It’s at a quarter to four.”

  “Got it.” Lisa went back to the car for the rest of the gear. She didn’t know how she was going to cover Jan’s afternoon. Annette had quit, and Lisa herself would be expected on set to pick up her gear at the end of the day’s shooting. She’d meant to hire an additional barista, but the movie production had taken the extra time she would have used for applications and interviews. Or, if she was honest with herself, the movie production had let her put off adding anyone else to the payroll.

  The sky was turning a streaky pink as the sun went down. Lisa looked at her watch. If she hurried, she could go speak to Annette’s mother before it was rudely late, and she would still have time to make it to Carly’s to sort baby clothes.

  She carried the last carafe into the kitchen and made up her mind.

  “Jan, I need to run an errand. I’ll help finish with closing if I’m back in time, but otherwise just do your thing.”

  Lisa drove to the MacLean house and parked on the street outside. The picture window in the front still had open curtains, and she could see inside to the living room. Annette’s little sister was sitting in front of the TV with a textbook open on the coffee table in front of her. The light was on in the dining room and kitchen. After a moment, she saw Annette’s mother carry a stack of plates in and set them on the table. Lisa steeled her nerve and opened the car door.

  She stood at the front door with her hand poised to knock. She didn’t know Mrs. MacLean well, only to say hello to in public, really. The thought of going in and having a talk with her, adult to adult, was intimidating.

  Lisa thought of her promise to Annette and made herself knock. A moment later the door opened, and Mrs. MacLean stood in the doorway with a surprised expression on her face.

  “Hi,” Lisa said. “I don’t know if you remember me. I’m Lisa Chance. I run Lisa’s Last Chance Café, where Annette has been working after school.”

  “I know who you are,” Mrs. MacLean said.

  “Um, may I come in?” Lisa said, rubbing her hands together to stay warm.

  “I suppose.” She opened the door wider. “I’m in the middle of making dinner.”

  Lisa followed her through to the kitchen. Annette’s mother gestured at a stool at the bar and Lisa sat. She watched as her hostess returned to chopping and stirring.

  After a moment, Mrs. MacLean said, “Are you going to sit there all night or are we going to talk?”

  “Sorry. I guess I’m not sure where to start. Annette is a great kid. She’s smart and hard-working. She’s been doing a good job at the café. And I think she’s been keeping up with her schoolwork, too.”

  Lisa waited a moment for a response. When none came, she continued. “I know that having her on set when Kaden Nicolini had his accident was upsetting. But I really think Annette will handle it better if she can stick to her routine. School, home, family, and work.”

  Mrs. MacLean looked up from her chopping board. “Upsetting? No, I’ll tell you what’s upsetting. It’s having a sixteen-year-old watching videos glorifying suicide, made by a man who coincidentally was killed right in front of her.”

  Lisa opened and closed her mouth, not sure what to say. “Videos?” she finally said, her voice thick in her ear. “The one on the news?”

  Mrs. MacLean slammed her knife down into the cutting board and pointed a finger at Lisa. “You and that café are a bad influence. I don’t want that kind of thing in my daughter’s life.”

  “A bad influence? But I—”

  “You can see yourself out.”

  Lisa stood up. “Please, can we just have one more—”

  “Leave. Now.” Mrs. MacLean pointed the knife, dripping with tomato guts, at Lisa.

  Lisa got the message and left. She sat in her car for a minute, her hands shaking. She took a few deep breaths of the cold air to calm herself. When she felt steadier, she started the car.

  What had Mrs. MacLean meant by videos glorifying suicide, if she didn’t mean the one on the news? And why hadn’t Annette told her about whatever it was? The girl was definitely keeping something secret, and Lisa meant to find out what it was.

  Lisa drove to Carly’s house, questions swirling in her mind. When she pulled up to the curb, she saw that Gideon’s truck was in the driveway.

  She knocked on the front door. After a minute, Gideon opened the door. Carly’s cat, Mr. Purrkins, poked his head between Gideon’s legs and greeted Lisa with a soft meow.

  “Hi, Lisa,” Gideon whispered.

  “Hey. I’m supposed to hang out with Carly tonight.”

  “Oh, um, I don’t know,” he said. He glanced over his shoulder into the silent house. “She fell asleep right after she ate dinner. I made her cream of chicken soup with fluffy dumplings.”

  Lisa smiled. The soup was one of Carly’s favorite childhood comfort foods. “Is she feeling sick?”

  “No, just tired.” He shrugged. “Pregnancy.”

  “Oh, ok. Well, maybe we should reschedule.”

  “Yeah, she needs her rest. That class of hers is running her ragged this year.”

  Lisa chuckled. “Some classes are like that. Remember the class two years ahead of us, how teachers kept retiring after they had them?”

  Gideon shook
his head. “It was funnier then, but watching Carly deal with those kids, especially when she’s already tired, I tell you… Sometimes I want to go down to that school and put a scare into them.”

  “You wouldn’t do that—scare little kids.”

  He laughed. “No, that’s Carly’s job.”

  “Yeah. Speaking of scares, are you still going to come by and do my closet?” Having someone go into her upstairs apartment while the café was open had scared Lisa, and then Kaden’s death on set had made her even more aware of how insecure her set-up was.

  “Sure. Want me to build you some gun racks while I’m there?”

  She shook her head. “No, I’m not interested in keeping rifles with my clothes. I just want to be able to lock up my laptop, jewelry—not that I have much jewelry but I do have a couple of pieces I would miss for sentimental reasons. Stuff like that.”

  “You got it.”

  They stood for a moment, nodding at each other amiably. Mr. Purrkins meowed again.

  “Still hungry?” Gideon said to the cat.

  “Well, I’d better let you go. Tell Carly to call me and we’ll reschedule.”

  Back in her car, Lisa realized she had a whole evening with no plans. With Carly bowing out to get some sleep and her movie night with her mother put off, she could do whatever she wanted.

  The thought of her mother’s cancellation rankled a bit. She imagined Penny getting dressed up to have dinner with Jake Peterman, real estate developer and lover of ugly condos. Lisa scowled. She had hoped that, somehow, her mother would decide to forgive Lou and give him a second chance. But why would she, when he’d cheated on her with her own sister? Penny had asked whether Lisa would give Dylan a second chance if he asked, and her answer was no, of course not. Being with Mo, feeling the warmth of his gentle nature every time they met, had showed her what she really wanted in a relationship, what had been missing in her relationship with Dylan. But if she hadn’t met Mo, hadn’t felt that warmth, perhaps she would still think Dylan was the best she could do. She thought of her mother’s date and scowled. Peterman was no Mo.

  Lisa started the car and drove toward the center of town. She could go to Nero’s and enjoy some of his divine spaghettini with lemon. Oh, but what if Penny and Peterman were there? Her mother would think she was spying on her. No good.