Phyllis, Carolyn, and Sam sat down at the table as well, and now that the four of them were alone, the sense of camaraderie in the kitchen was strong and comforting. Phyllis was a little troubled, though, so after a moment’s hesitation she said, “I know this means a lot to you, Eve.”
“Well, of course it does. I mean, they’re making a movie out of my book! Just writing a book was more than I ever thought I’d accomplish, let alone selling it and then having a movie made from it.”
“And your accomplishment will always be every bit as remarkable and worthwhile, no matter what else happens.”
“What in the world does that mean?” Carolyn said.
“Yeah, you sound like you’re a mite worried about something,” Sam added.
Eve frowned and leaned forward. “Is something wrong, dear?” she asked Phyllis. “Why would anything happen that might cause problems for the movie? That’s what you’re talking about, isn’t it?”
“It’s just that movie people are, well, undependable, aren’t they?”
“No more so than anybody else. If you’re concerned about the friction between Deanne and Jason, don’t be. There’s a shooting script that everyone has signed off on, and they’re professional enough to work together and make any necessary revisions, no matter if they are having marital problems—”
“They are?” Carolyn interrupted.
“They were fussin’ some in the bathroom earlier,” Sam told her.
“Oh. I missed that. But I was enjoying talking to that Julie Cordell. I liked her a lot more than I thought I would at first.”
So had Phyllis, but that wasn’t really what they were talking about at the moment. Now that the subject had been broached, she knew Eve would worry if she refused to say anything else, so she said, “I could tell that Melissa and Mr. Harkness don’t really like each other.”
“Oh, they hate each other,” Eve said. “I know that. Everybody in Hollywood knows that.”
That statement made Phyllis blink. “They do?”
“Yes. I don’t know what it’s about, but they don’t care for each other at all.”
“Then how are they going to play people who do care for each other?” Phyllis looked across the table at Sam, and he looked back with a twinkle in his eye.
“They’re professionals, like Jason and Deanne. They know how to do their jobs, regardless of any personal feelings they may have. That’s a tradition that goes ’way back in Hollywood.”
“Yeah, I remember readin’ about some couple who were supposed to be in love on screen—Fredric March and Veronica Lake, maybe—who hated each other so much they pulled all sorts of tricks to ruin each other’s performances,” Sam said. “I don’t think Bob Harkness would do that. He struck me as a pretty decent sort of fella.”
“Melissa seemed the same way to me,” Phyllis admitted. “So maybe I was just worrying too much about the way they feel about each other.”
Eve put her hands on the table and said, “Well, if that’s all—”
“Earl Thorpe told me some things about Mr. Fremont. Things that are more serious.”
Sam said, “Now that Fremont fella . . . I never could quite warm up to him.”
“For once we’re in complete agreement, Sam,” Carolyn said.
“What’s wrong with Lawrence Fremont?” Eve asked, and now she was starting to sound a little annoyed. “He’s a very respected director.”
“For the films he makes, maybe, but there are rumors he takes advantage of young actresses who work for him.”
Sam’s hands tightened on the edge of the table. “That son of a . . . and Ronnie wants to be in that movie . . . Wait a minute.” He frowned. “It was Mr. Sammons who asked Ronnie if she wanted to be an extra or even have a little speakin’ part. And he’s the producer. Those fellas are the ones who usually get too forward with the gals, aren’t they? Fremont didn’t seem to care one way or the other whether Ronnie was in the movie.”
“I know,” Phyllis said, “but that’s what Mr. Thorpe told me. I get the feeling that Mr. Sammons may be a bit, well, sleazy, but he doesn’t actually do anything. Fremont does, though, and again according to Mr. Thorpe, he has something going on with one of the actresses working on this film. And she’s talking about accusing him of inappropriate behavior, which as we all know would result in a great deal of bad publicity these days.”
“A ton of it,” Sam muttered.
“Would that be enough to ruin the movie?” Carolyn asked.
“I don’t know,” Eve said, “but it might be. It would be a terrible thing to happen.” She sat back and looked distraught. “And now I’m feeling like a terrible person because I don’t know what to hope for. If Mr. Fremont really has been doing something like that, then his behavior deserves to be exposed and he ought to take whatever consequences he has coming to him. The women he took advantage of deserve justice as well.” She shook her head. “But couldn’t it all wait until after my movie comes out?” The question was practically a wail of despair. “And that’s why I feel like a terrible person, because I’m so conflicted!”
“What if that fellow Thorpe is lying?” Carolyn asked. “Maybe he made up the whole thing.”
Phyllis said, “He seemed sincere enough when he told me about it. On the other hand, it was sort of a revelation out of the blue.”
“Could be he’s tryin’ to stir up trouble,” Sam suggested.
“Why would he do that?”
“Fremont’s the director, Thorpe’s the assistant director. Sometimes the number two man gets ambitious.”
“And Mr. Thorpe does a lot of the work on the picture,” Phyllis mused. “If he was going to spread rumors in hopes of causing trouble for Mr. Fremont, though, why tell me? I don’t have anything to do with the production.”
“It seems to me like an awful lot of backstage drama,” Carolyn said.
“That’s right,” Eve said, seizing on the idea. “No production as big and complicated and expensive as a movie ever runs completely smoothly. It couldn’t. I’m sure these sorts of things go on all the time, it’s just that normal people like us aren’t aware of them. We just go to the theaters and watch the movies and don’t think about what goes into them.”
“Like eatin’ sausage,” Sam said.
“I haven’t seen a movie in a theater in fifteen years or more,” Carolyn put in. “I’d rather watch them here on our own TV.”
“Well, there’s nothing we can do about any of those problems,” Phyllis said. “The people who are actually involved with them will have to sort them out. We’ll watch them shooting at the park tomorrow, and if everything goes according to schedule, they’ll head back down to Austin to finish the movie. It’s out of our hands, so we should just hope for the best.”
“I wish I knew what that was,” Eve said with a sad little smile on her face, and not for the first time in her life, Phyllis thought that she should have kept what she knew to herself.
Chapter 7
Phyllis was up early the next morning, before anyone else in the house. She enjoyed the peace and quiet, the little respite before the day really began. Although, with everything she had to do today, she didn’t really have time for relaxing. Wearing her pajamas and robe, she opened the back door to let Buck in, and while he curled up in a corner, Phyllis got busy mixing the ingredients for another pecan pie.
Carolyn appeared a while later and poured herself a cup of the coffee Phyllis had started brewing. She carried it to the other end of the counter and looked at the pie crust dough Phyllis was gently laying into a clean pie plate from the dishwasher.
“Show me again what you were talking about on the crimping,” Phyllis said.
Carolyn set the cup down and demonstrated. “Like this.” Her fingers deftly pinched the dough around the plate’s rim using the curve of her finger laid sideways to pinch the dough around. The result was a large crimp. Then she took a knife from the drawer and used it to etch a pattern in the dough along the rim.
“I l
ike that,” Phyllis said. “It’s very distinctive.”
“I saw one once where someone had taken a toothpick and actually drawn little floral designs in the edge of the crust. I’m afraid my eyes aren’t good enough to do such close, intricate work.”
“Mine, either,” Phyllis replied with a shake of her head. She took the knife from Carolyn. “Let me give this a try, though.”
They worked together in companionable fashion until the crust’s rim looked satisfactory. Phyllis was eager to see what it would look like once it was baked. She reached for the bowl with the filling, poured it into the crust, scraped out the last of it with a spatula, then used it to smooth the filling before flipping the pecan halves that were upside down. She had baked so many pecan pies over the years that her movements were automatic. She didn’t have to think about what she was doing as she hummed softly to herself under her breath.
“Leave the oven on, I’ll put some bacon in, and then whip up some omelets,” Carolyn said. She opened the refrigerator and took out the bacon, eggs, mushrooms, spinach, peppers, and a block of white cheddar cheese.
By the time Sam walked into the kitchen, the sun was up and the room was filled with delicious aromas. He stopped just inside the door, closed his eyes, and drew in a deep, appreciative breath.
“I tell you, if wakin’ up in the mornin’ and knowin’ the Good Lord’s given you another day to make use of wasn’t enough of a reward by its own self, takin’ a good whiff of that will sure make you give thanks. Praise the Lord and pass the silverware.”
“The bacon isn’t ready yet,” Phyllis told him, “and the pie is going to the park for the movie people.” She paused and frowned. “I should have made one for the crew, too. I wonder if there’s still time . . .”
Ronnie hurried into the kitchen with an excited look on her face. It was rare to see her up this early on a day when there was no school. Classes had been dismissed early the day before, giving the students Friday off leading into fall break the next week, which included Thanksgiving.
“I just got a call from Mr. Thorpe,” she said, holding up her cell phone. “He asked me for my number last night so he could let me know when to be at the park today. Shooting is supposed to start at ten o’clock, but the extras need to be there at nine.”
Sam glanced at the clock on the microwave and said, “We can head over in plenty of time to get you there by then.”
“I don’t want to be late. They might not use me if I am.”
“We won’t be late,” Sam assured her.
Phyllis knew from talking to him later the previous night that Vanessa and Phil, Ronnie’s parents, had agreed to her being in the movie, although they had displayed some reluctance at first. The relationship between them and Ronnie was still fragile enough that they hadn’t wanted to dig in their heels too much, Phyllis suspected. And honestly, no matter what gossip she had heard, with Sam there to keep an eye on things she wasn’t too worried about Ronnie.
Carolyn took the pan of bacon out of the oven and said, “Give me a minute to plate all of this.”
Phyllis’s pecan pie was already cooling, having come out of the oven a short time earlier. She’d set out a plastic pie container to put it in when it was ready.
Eve was a notoriously late sleeper, but the prospect of watching the movie based on her book being shot had her excited enough that she rose and joined the others in the kitchen a short time later. They all sat down and ate breakfast together, something that Phyllis always enjoyed. The atmosphere in the room was even brighter and more excited than usual this morning. It was going to be a big day in Weatherford.
Phyllis had checked the weather forecast the night before, because rain would have ruined the movie company’s planned shoot. Nature had cooperated, delivering a crisp, cool, clear autumn day to north central Texas, including plenty of sunshine. This was one of Phyllis’s favorite times of year, although its duration was usually too short, Texas weather being in the habit of going from oppressively hot to freezing cold seemingly in the blink of an eye. A beautiful day like this was to be relished and enjoyed while it was here.
Sam and Ronnie left the house first, heading for Holland Lake Park in Sam’s pickup. Phyllis, Carolyn, and Eve would come along a little later in Phyllis’s Lincoln, arriving at the park closer to the time when shooting actually would begin. Carolyn was adamant that she didn’t want to appear on-screen.
“I don’t need any of that nonsense,” she said as Phyllis was putting the pie into the plastic container. “My ego doesn’t require any stroking.”
“I’ll take all the ego-stroking I can get,” Eve countered. “I don’t believe there are many writers who wouldn’t.”
“Yes, I imagine that’s true of anyone who would make up a huge pack of lies and believe that people would actually want to read them.”
Eve laughed. Phyllis knew her friend had been around Carolyn ’way too long to be offended by any of her blunt statements like that.
“That’s exactly what fiction writers are,” Eve declared. “Professional liars. The only profession other than politics where one can make a living at it.”
Phyllis sealed down the lid on the pie container and said, “All right, I’ll go get dressed, and then we’ll be ready to go.”
She put on jeans, a long-sleeved shirt, and a light jacket, then got the pie container from the kitchen counter as she led Carolyn and Eve out to the garage. They headed down South Main toward the park, and as she did every time she ventured in this direction, Phyllis lamented the huge increase in traffic over the past decade. Weatherford was no longer the little country town that had been her home for so long. It wasn’t as congested as Fort Worth or Dallas, but someday it might get there. Of course, by that time those big cities would be even worse, and anyway, that would be after her time, Phyllis mused, so she wouldn’t have to worry about it.
Holland Lake Park was located in a thickly wooded area a short distance off South Main, with a smaller road that circled the park and made a loop back to the thoroughfare. The lake was more of a pond built on a creek that ran through weedy marshes above and below the impoundment. Picnic tables could be found on both sides of the lake, but the north side was more developed, with playground equipment, restrooms, and two old, authentic log cabins that had been brought into town from out to the west in Parker County.
Those cabins had some historical significance, being two of the oldest buildings in the county, and had belonged to early pioneers. Constructed in the dogtrot style, with separate rooms on either side of a roofed, open area in the center, they had been furnished to look like that had in those olden days, with spinning wheels, antique tables and chairs, and four-poster beds with handmade quilts. The cabins weren’t open to the public, but Phyllis always enjoyed peering through the windows into them.
The park held other memories that weren’t so pleasant. A few years earlier, hay bales had been stacked up in one of the dogtrots so that a scarecrow could be arranged sitting on them as a decoration for that year’s Harvest Festival. The scarecrow was there, all right . . . but Phyllis and Carolyn had discovered that instead of straw, inside the old clothes was the body of a murder victim!
That grim turn of events had plunged Phyllis into the middle of a complex investigation that resulted in the killer’s arrest. Phyllis could take some satisfaction from that, but the initial discovery had been such a shock that she would never forget it.
When she reached the turn for the smaller road that would take them down to the park, she was surprised to see that a police car was angled across the road in such a manner that while it was possible for other cars to get past, they couldn’t do so easily without stopping first. Phyllis made the turn and eased the Lincoln to a halt.
A uniformed officer walked over as Phyllis rolled the driver’s window down. Her heart had started to beat faster. Were the police here because something was wrong? Sam and Ronnie had been headed here when they left the house. A pang of worry for their safety went through Ph
yllis.
“What in the world?” Carolyn said, sounding concerned, too.
The officer nodded to Phyllis. He didn’t appear to be upset about anything, so she took that as a good sign. He said, “Morning, ma’am. The park’s closed to the public today. There’s a movie crew doing some filming in there.”
Relief flooded through Phyllis. Of course, that made perfect sense. The movie people had a permit to shoot here and part of their arrangements with the city probably included closing the park for the day, or at least as long as the shooting was going on. They had to control who had access, so that nobody wandered into a shot and ruined it.
“We’re supposed to be here,” Phyllis said. “We were invited.”
“You’re some of the extras? They’re assembling on the other side of the park, so you’ll need to drive around to the other entrance and there’ll be somebody there to tell you where to go.”
Eve was in the back seat. She leaned forward and said, “The movie they’re making is based on my novel. The producer and director and stars were at my friend’s house for dinner last night. Mr. Sammons is the one who invited us to come and watch the filming today.”
“Oh, why didn’t you say so?” the officer asked.
“She just did,” Carolyn said.
To head off any hard feelings, Phyllis went on quickly, “My name is Phyllis Newsom. My friends are Eve Turner and Carolyn Wilbarger. You probably have our names on a list . . .”
“Sure, of course. I remember seeing them. You can go on in. Sorry, Miz Newsom.”
“That’s all right. You’re just doing your job.”
Phyllis smiled at the man, took her foot off the brake, and carefully drove around the police car. She followed the smaller road past some Little League baseball fields and then the park came into view.
Half a dozen good-sized trucks were parked in the asphalt-paved lot, as well as some SUVs and expensive cars. Lined up on the other side of the street were half a dozen large motor homes. Phyllis wondered if they were used as dressing rooms for the stars. She got the last available place in the lot for the Lincoln.
Death Bakes a Pecan Pie Page 5