by Harper Lin
I smiled. “Yes, dear. Yes it is.”
We set to work.
Chapter Thirteen
The next day, I arrived at the movie set with my very own fake nurse.
Liz had done herself up in a nurse’s uniform, complete with an ID from the Nurse’s Union and a medical letter saying that I had a chronic heart condition. Because of the shock from the bomb, I was in danger of heart failure and needed to be monitored. She had even brought along a defibrillator.
It was impressed by how quickly she got all that stuff together. I bet it was even all legit. It only confirmed my suspicions that she was far more than a clever veteran who liked to play nude volleyball in her off hours.
We were, of course, stopped at the perimeter. Grimal’s police officers gave us trouble until Vance Randolph, who was monitoring who came in for the day, intervened.
“The old woman is all right,” he told them. “She wasn’t even in the cast when Bert got killed. And she chased after the guy when Randy was murdered.”
They let “the old woman” and her nurse in. The director inquired about my health, no doubt more out of fear of losing another Old Widow Margaret Goode than any solicitude about my safety. Liz reassured him.
“As long as she doesn’t have any sudden shocks she should be fine. Also, when she’s not on camera it would be best for her to get away from the set. All the lights and hustle and bustle will stress her.”
Vance Randolph quickly agreed to that and back to checking on the others coming through the police cordon.
Clever girl. She had just given us the right to snoop.
And snoop we did. After checking in with a hung-over Harvey to discover that my next scene, a crowd scene in the town square, wasn’t scheduled to shoot for another two hours, we took the opportunity to have a look around.
One disadvantage was that our cover story limited us to sticking together. This meant we could only cover half the ground we should have been able to, and there was a lot of ground to cover. The sets and trailers sprawled through the center of Cheerville like a town within a town. I couldn’t even begin to count the places where the murderer might choose to strike next.
We started with the electrical facilities. The first murder attempt, the one that caught poor Bert in the crossfire, had been done with considerable technological savvy. And the incident last night had raised my suspicions. Had that cable connected to the generator been ready to splice into the artificial fire like the script coach had suspected? It had been proven that William wasn’t the murder (unless he was part of a conspiracy) but that didn’t mean the cable had just been lying there all sweet and innocent. Movie sets seemed chaotic on the surface, but people knew their work and did it. A potentially hazardous cable wouldn’t be sitting like a venomous snake right next to a set.
So we wandered around, peeking into vans equipped with expensive computers and tables covered in electronic equipment I couldn’t even name, let alone discern the use of. Everything seemed in order, at least as far as we could tell. We saw no suspicious activity. On the other hand, so much of what they were doing was so unclear to us that it was hard to know what was suspicious and what was normal.
It was a frustrating search, that is until we came across two technicians rushing into and out of a trailer, carting out small wheeled platforms that had racks of metal tubes on them. They looked for all the world like mortar tubes from the Army, except each platform had about fifty of them. Electrical connections were attached to each one, and another wheeled platform carried an electronic control panel. A truck backed up and a teamster began loading the racks of tubes into the back.
When one of the technicians came out again and turned to say something to the teamster, I saw the back of his shirt was emblazoned with the words, “Big Bang Fireworks Company: Creating A Universe of Color.”
After giving the teamster some instructions on how to load everything, he went back into the trailer, only to emerge with his colleague a minute later. Both carried large boxes labeled “Explosive: Handle with Care.”
We had just turned to continue our search when we heard the technician say, “Well, they got to be somewhere. Look again!”
Liz and I exchanged glances. The two men disappeared into the trailer. There was some discussion inside. The teamster was out of sight, moving things around in the back of the truck, so we crept closer to the trailer.
“There are supposed to be eight crates,” we heard the technician say. “There’s only seven. Where the other one?”
“How the hell am I supposed to know? Maybe they never delivered it.”
“We’ll deal with this later. We’re late enough as it is. The shoot only needed four crates anyway. Let’s just hope they don’t ask for another take.”
We lingered around for a minute, but heard nothing else. Then one of the men emerged and spotted us.
“Can I help you?” he challenged.
“Oh, no,” I said in my sweet grandma voice. “I’m just resting here out of the sun. It’s ever so tiring to be in a movie.”
He softened at that.
“All right,” he said. “But you’re going to have to rest somewhere else. This is where we keep the fireworks and only qualified personnel can de around here.”
I was tempted to ask if having blown up bridges in Latin America made me “qualified personnel”. Instead I smiled and we moved on.
“Some explosives are missing. That’s bad news,” Liz said in a low voice as we moved off.
She didn’t say “fireworks”, so she knew the potential of this situation. Fireworks are, of course, explosives. They can be cut open and the explosive chemical compounds removed and put together to make a crude bomb. All it would need was a fuse and a source of fire. The fireworks themselves each had a fuse, and they could be ignited in any number of ways—such as an electric charge or even a simple cigarette lighter.
Someone had just stolen bomb-making supplies. I put a call in to Grimal, but found he was out. I instructed the officer who answered my call to relay my message immediately.
I’d warn the security here myself.
It was now time for my next scene and I figured I could go there and tell the first security officer I saw. Harvey had told me we were shooting next to Cheerville’s old one-room schoolhouse. No one seemed to mind that it dated to almost a century after the American Revolution. I suppose the average moviegoer isn’t an expert on historical one-room schoolhouse architecture.
The schoolhouse is a small stone building next to the town square. The front door opens onto the green. Cameras had been set up in a half circle facing the door. As we gathered, Vance Randolph shouted to us through his megaphone from atop his little perch.
“Okay, this is one of the finale scenes. The British have been defeated and America has won her freedom. This is a big triumphant scene where school has reopened. The kids are running out the front door into the arms of their loving parents. General Slaughter has just been teaching them a lesson about freedom, and will stride out in front of them. In the background we’re going to have a bunch of fireworks going off. Don’t be distracted by all those. Just look at your children and lift them up in your arms when they get to you.”
My heart turned to ice. Fireworks. I turned to Liz and saw her thinking the same thing.
Frantically I looked around and spotted my son Frederick standing on the other side of the crowd, nearly a hundred yards away to my left. My grandson Martin was not with him.
Of course he wasn’t. He was in the schoolhouse with Cliff Armstrong, the walking target.
And they’d be running straight into a fusillade of fireworks.
But wait, the fireworks were set up behind the schoolhouse. They couldn’t fire at the entrance.
Unless the killer had already cut them open and made a bomb with them.
Frantically I looked at the ground between us and the schoolhouse, wondering if the killer had made some sort of crude landmine. I didn’t see any disturbed earth and soon d
iscarded the idea. Planting it would have been too conspicuous.
Unless …
“Liz, we have to find that—”
Vance Randolph’s booming voice cut me off. “Okay, positions everybody.”
Liz caught my meaning. Both of us scanned the crowd.
“Quiet on the set! Ready …”
“There!” I said, pointing to a spot in the crowd about fifty yards to the right of us.
A man in the shabby clothing of a poor peddler stood behind an apple cart. The cart was the only thing in view that could hide a bomb, and it was right in front of the crowd. There was nothing between it and the front door of the schoolhouse except a few yards of open space.
Then I realized it wasn’t a bomb at all, but one of those fireworks launchers hidden under the cart. A thin sheet hung around all the sides. The peddler was just lifting it up to reveal the launcher, clamped to the bottom of the cart, its tubes pointing not up, but toward the schoolhouse.
And something about the man looked familiar. He had a shapeless felt hat slouched low over his face, so it took a second, but then I recognized him.
Gary, the other electrician from the shoot last night. He had been on the scene, close to the cable.
“Stop Gary! He’s the murderer!” I shouted.
My voice got drowned out by Vance Randolph’s megaphone.
“Roll ‘em!”
The door to the schoolhouse opened and Cliff Armstrong strode out. Just behind him I could see a crowd of children.
Martin was right in front.
Liz was already running for the apple cart. I ran after her, with the horrible knowledge that my sore ankles and knees would not get me there in time.
As if in slow motion, I saw fireworks rise up from behind the schoolhouse, sending fiery red, white, and blue trails up into the sky and end by bursting into giant rosettes. Gary bent down behind the apple cart, his hand turning something. He looked back at Cliff Armstrong and the children running out of the school and closed one eye.
As if he was aiming.
That’s when Liz hit him.
More accurately, she hit the cart, a full on body slam that sent the cart tipping over backwards. Apples cascaded off, making Gary stagger back.
The next moment there was a blinding flash as dozens of fireworks shot out from the side of the cart and roared into the air.
My eardrums throbbed and my eyes stung. I blinked and brought up my hands, unable to see for the dazzling light.
But I kept running.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
One by one the fireworks went off. Trailers of flame arched over us, blotting out the sky with a multicolored canopy of flame.
It would have been beautiful if it hadn’t almost burnt my grandson into cinders.
I kept running, the screams of the parting crowd jabbing my ringing ears.
I came to the apple cart to find Liz curled up in a ball next to it. She didn’t look hurt, but lying right next to the launch point she much of been deafened, blinded, and a bit singed. She wouldn’t be any help for the moment.
And I needed help. Through the haze of acrid smoke, I saw Gary staggering away. He had one hand clutched to his face and I suspected he wasn’t much better off than Liz. The rest of the crowd was running away too, and I feared that he’d get lost in the muddle.
I went after him.
As I said, I am not terribly fast on my feet anymore, but Gary was stumbling and seemed dazed and I gained ground on him. Obviously he had been standing too close to the launch of the fireworks. Hadn’t he thought of this when he set up his attack? Was I dealing with a madman?
Mad or no, he had twenty inches and at least a hundred pounds on me, so I decided to get this over quickly. Running up behind him, I kicked him with the flat of my foot right behind the knee.
He never heard me coming. With that blast of fireworks right next to him I could have been Hannibal chasing him with a herd of elephants and he wouldn’t have heard me.
My kick landed perfectly and down he went. My next kick was to the kneecap to keep him there.
He squalled. I circled around him so I could give him a kick to the head. Not terribly ladylike, I know, but he had tried to hurt my family.
Just as I pulled my leg back to clock him in the temple and knock him out, he pulled a box cutter from his pocket, pushed on the release, and deployed a nasty razor-sharp blade.
I backpedaled. There was a time when I would have kicked it right out of his hand, breaking his fingers in the process. That time had long passed.
He staggered to his feet, favoring his uninjured leg. His face was burned, one eye shut, the other bugging out wildly.
He lunged with the box cutter. I just managed to dodge out of the way, circling to his weak side.
Then I had to back off again and he swung his long arm, the razor blade gleaming in the light as it missed me by an inch.
I backed off again. His one eye, bloodshot and livid, fixed me with a hungry glare.
And I knew I was too slow to get out of this one.
Chapter Fourteen
The box cutter swung at me. I ducked, always a good tactic when you’re a short person fighting a tall one, and punched him in the ribs.
That barely elicited a grunt from my opponent, and I pulled back again, knuckles smarting.
“Huzzah!” someone shouted. A golden blur flew through the air and an eighteenth-century boot smacked Gary in the jaw. The madman pirouetted, falling to the ground.
Cliff Armstrong stood over him.
“Unhand that fair maiden, you varlet!”
“Wrong century,” I said as the movie star of my dreams put one knee on Gary’s chest and started punching him with a meaty fist.
Gary struggled but could not get free. His hands flopped over the grass, then found the box cutter. His fingers wrapped around it, muscles tense, ready to gut Cliff Armstrong.
So I kicked Gary in the head. Like I said, not very ladylike, but this isn’t the Girl Scouts.
I got him right in the temple and he went out like a light.
Cliff Armstrong looked up at me in wonder.
“Huzzah?” I asked, arching one eyebrow.
He shrugged. “It sounded like the proper thing to say.” He stood. “And to you, fair lady, I say thank you.”
He stood, took me in his arms, and gave me a kiss.
On the lips.
Things got a bit hazy after that. I was floating on a dreamy cloud of adrenaline and fulfilled fantasy. I remember a big crowd gathering. The police who were supposed to be watching over Cliff Armstrong (who still had his beefy, perfectly proportioned arm around my shoulder, helping to keep me from keeling over while simultaneously giving me a reason to) finally showed up and cuffed Gary.
“Why did you do it?” Vance Randolph asked. Gary had come to, although he still looked a bit groggy thanks to the pummeling we had given him.
Gary only sneered.
The police read him his rights. The director and several others crowding around pestered him with questions, but Gary looked like he was going to use his right to remain silent.
I looked up at Cliff Armstrong and, I must admit, snuggled a bit closer to him.
“Why would he want to kill you?” I asked.
The movie star slowly shook his head. “I have no idea. I don’t think I’ve ever spoken to him.”
Liz staggered up to me. She looked as dazed as I felt.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“My ears are ringing so much I didn’t hear what you just said. If you’re asking if I’m okay, the answer is yes. Well, I will be after a long nap and a couple of beers. You?”
I nodded and gave her a thumb’s up.
My son and grandson pushed through the crowd. That snapped me out of my dreamy fog of movie star kisses.
Martin gave me a big hug.
“You’re a hero, grandma!” He lowered his voice. “You were being a deputy, just like last time, right?”
I smiled down at
him, basking in the approval. Nodding, I put my finger to my lips. It was our little secret. He beamed a smile at me. There had been a time, not too long ago, when he had been too cool to hang out with his grandmother. Luckily we had gotten over that hurdle.
“She sure is!” Cliff Armstrong boomed. “I think we need to rewrite the script to give a bigger role to Old Widow Margaret Goode.”
More scenes with Cliff Armstrong? Be still my heart!
“We don’t have the time to rewrite the script,” Vance Randolph objected. “We’re behind enough as it is.”
Cliff Armstrong grew red. “You ungrateful idiot. She just saved me and every kid on this cast, not to mention your lousy picture! You’re going to deny her a few extra lines just because of some schedule? I’m so sick of selfish amateurs like you.”
Amateur? Vance Randolph had won an Oscar for Best Director and three for Best Picture.
I put a hand on Cliff Armstrong’s chest. It felt like I was touching a Greek statue. A Greek statue that felt warm and had an intoxicating masculine scent.
“You need to be more patient with your coworkers. You’re all on the same team.”
Cliff Armstrong looked chastened. He turned back to the director.
“Sorry I snapped at you, Mr. Randolph.”
The director’s jaw dropped with shock. Actually, everyone’s did.
“Well … I … um, I guess we could put her in some of the lobby cards and promotional material,” Vance Randolph sputtered.
Cliff Armstrong flashed a grin. “That would be great. Thanks!”
That got another shocked reaction from the cast and crew.
Mary Ellworth pushed through the crowd, an open script in her hand.
“Actually, there are a few spots where we could slip her in. Look here.”
She pushed the script forward. Cliff Armstrong moved closer, craning his neck to look at the lines.
And something he had said in his trailer shot through my mind.
Something his co-star Gwendolyn Parker had told him.
“You’re too good for all those extras and script coaches.”
I leaped forward, bringing up my hand to slap the script away.
