Phyllis looked around and saw Deanne Wilkes standing beside the table. Eve said, “No, of course not,” and waved to the empty space beside her on the bench. “Are you all right, Deanne?”
The woman managed a smile as she sat down and said, “You mean, after that humiliating debacle earlier this morning that was all Jason’s fault? Sure, I’m fine. I’m used to it by now, or at least I should be.”
“Mr. Fremont does have a temper, all right,” Eve said.
Deanne shook her head. “I was talking about Jason screwing something up and getting us in trouble. That’s happening all the time lately. He’s . . . distracted.”
Phyllis wondered if that distraction was in the form of a certain dark-haired production assistant with a Brooklyn accent.
Deanne went on, “I’m working on getting some projects of my own lined up. You don’t have any other novels in the works, do you, Eve?”
“I’ve been thinking about a sequel,” Eve admitted. “I don’t particularly want to be known as a one-book author.”
Deanne shook her head. “No, you need to write something a lot darker and grittier. A psychological thriller. Have you read any books by those Scandinavian authors? They have complex plots, but there’s lot of brooding and depression, too.”
Carolyn said, “If I lived somewhere it was always gloomy and snowing, I’d be depressed, too.”
As if she hadn’t heard the comment, Deanne went on, “You caught lightning in a bottle with your first book, Eve, but there’s no guarantee you could do it again. That’s why you have to study the market and write what people want.”
Phyllis thought that if she ever sat down to write a book, she wouldn’t put in so much hard work unless she was writing what she wanted to, and then she would worry about trying to sell it, just as Eve had done the first time around. But that was just her, she told herself. It was entirely up to Eve what she did next.
“I’ll think about it,” Eve promised.
Deanne nodded. “And see if you can come up with something that has the word ‘girl’ in the title. In fact, maybe we should brainstorm and come up with a good marketable title, and then you can figure out the book that goes with it.”
“That’s a good idea,” Eve said, but Phyllis could tell that her friend wasn’t all that enthusiastic about it.
“I’ll think about it and email you,” Deanne said.
Earl Thorpe walked by, looking quickly from side to side as if he were searching for someone. He confirmed that by stopping and asking, “Have any of you ladies seen Lawrence?”
Phyllis thought about it and said, “Not since before lunch, actually.”
“I’ve been avoiding him,” Deanne said.
Thorpe grunted. “I don’t blame you.” He looked at Carolyn and Eve, and they shook their heads.
“We’ve been right here with Phyllis,” Carolyn said. “Mr. Fremont hasn’t come around.”
Thorpe frowned and said, “Nobody saw him come to the craft services table for lunch, either. He might have gone back to his motor home and fallen asleep, but that wouldn’t be like him.” He sighed. “Guess I’ll have to go and check, though. We’re ready to shoot the scene with the scarecrow, down there at the cabin, and that’s important enough he’s not gonna want anybody else doing that.”
Thorpe hurried toward the road and the motor homes parked on the other side. Deanne watched him go and said, “I feel sorry for Earl. He’s a talented guy and deserves more credit than he gets for working with Lawrence. If you ask me, he should be the one to direct The Bancroft Inheritance.”
“What’s that?” Phyllis asked.
“Lawrence’s next movie. Not from a script that Jason and I wrote, by the way.” Deanne stood up. “I suppose I should go find Jason. I’ve been avoiding him, too. He’s probably huddled in a corner somewhere sulking, the poor baby, instead of trying to fix the things in the script that had Lawrence so upset.” As she walked off, she looked over her shoulder and added, “I’ll email you about those ideas, Eve.”
Once Deanne was out of earshot, Carolyn shook her head and said, “I don’t believe that marriage is going to last.”
“I hate to say it, but I agree with you,” Eve said. “They weren’t really that well-matched to start with, I suppose, and the pressures of living and working in Hollywood are an awful lot for any couple to cope with, even the good ones.”
The afternoon’s activities had started off at a rather frantic pace, which seemed to be par for the course when it came to movie-making, but now they slowed and an air of anticipation settled over the park. Phyllis wondered if that was because the scarecrow scene was an important one, and it couldn’t proceed until Lawrence Fremont showed up. She looked around for Becca Peterson but didn’t see the striking actress anywhere. Maybe Fremont was in his motor home with her. If that was the case, he wouldn’t appreciate having Earl Thorpe knock on his door. They might be on the verge of another blow-up.
Melissa and Julie walked over to the picnic table. Both of them looked impatient. Melissa said, “I really shouldn’t be surprised, but I can’t believe Lawrence is making us all stand around and wait like this.”
“He probably thinks it’s funny,” Julie said. “You know how he is. And then if anybody says anything to him about it, he’ll fly off the handle.”
“Good grief!” Carolyn said. “If he’s always so much trouble, why does anyone hire him to direct a movie?”
“Because they make money,” Melissa said, “and because they usually get good reviews and get talked about when awards season comes around. It’s a bottom-line business, but it’s fueled by egos, too, and Lawrence’s pictures hit both of those marks . . . no matter how much of an ass he is.”
Julie said, “Alan’s about to have a stroke. If Lawrence doesn’t turn up soon, he’s going to order Earl to go ahead and direct the scene. Then things will really hit the fan when Lawrence finds out about it.”
Eve shook her head and said, “I’m glad my part in this is long since over with.”
Melissa smiled. “Hey, what would a movie location be without some drama, right?”
Phyllis looked past the two actresses and saw Earl Thorpe and Alan Sammons coming toward them. She said, “I think something is about to happen.”
Melissa looked over her shoulder and said, “Uh-oh. You’re right.”
The two men came up to the table. Sammons announced heavily, “Lawrence isn’t in his motor home, and we can’t find him. So we’re going to go ahead and shoot the scarecrow scene since everything is ready. Earl will handle it.”
“You know he’s not going to like that,” Melissa said.
Sammons nodded. “I know. But I’ll take full responsibility. Are the two of you ready?”
“Sure,” Julie said. “We’re just waiting for somebody to say ‘action’.”
“I’ll do that,” Thorpe said grimly.
“Wish us luck,” Melissa said to Phyllis, Carolyn, and Eve. “You want to come along and get a closer look?”
“Not at all,” Carolyn replied without hesitation. “We saw the real thing, remember?”
“And in close-up,” Phyllis added. “But good luck.”
The group walked off, and Eve said, “Should we have told them to break a leg? Or is that only in the theater?”
“I don’t know,” Phyllis said. She thought she could look it up on her phone, then decided not to. It was all right not to know everything, after all.
From where they were sitting, they could see into the dogtrot where the hay bales were arranged, but the angle was such that they couldn’t see the prop scarecrow itself, only the top of its head in a battered old hat sticking up over one of the bales. Phyllis’s eyes were drawn to that despite the bad memories that kept trying to float to the surface of her thoughts.
She wasn’t the only one. “I can’t stop looking down there,” Carolyn murmured.
“Neither can I,” Eve said. “Honestly, that scene in the book creeped me out a little when I wrote it. I’m g
lad I didn’t have to . . . well, live it.”
“This shouldn’t take long,” Phyllis said. “We know that Mr. Thorpe won’t make them do it over and over again like Mr. Fremont might have. And then they’ll move on to something else.”
“Fine with me,” Carolyn said.
Phyllis watched as Thorpe, Melissa, and Julie stood at one side of the dogtrot. Thorpe gestured as he talked to the two women. He was explaining to them how he wanted them to walk into the scene and what to do next, Phyllis could tell that much. Melissa and Julie nodded. Thorpe went to the far side of the dogtrot where the camera and lights were set up. Melissa and Julie moved back so they would be out of the shot when the camera began rolling.
The second assistant director slated the shot. Everyone had fallen silent now, so the sharp noise of the clapper coming down on the slate could be heard throughout the park. Phyllis heard Thorpe call, “Action.”
Melissa and Julie walked toward the bales. Phyllis could hear them saying their lines to each other, although she couldn’t make out all the words. Honestly, she didn’t remember what she and Carolyn had said on that day. They had been talking about the festival, she recalled, but Eve had made up their dialogue when writing the book and then that dialogue had been adapted further in the script by Jason and Deanne Wilkes, so it wasn’t exactly like it had been in real life.
There were other differences as well, Phyllis realized. She frowned and said, “The scarecrow was standing up when it happened, with a pole through his clothes to keep him upright. That’s the way you wrote it in the book, Eve.”
“Yes, but it’s easier to film with him sitting down,” Eve said. “That’s what Jason and Deanne told me. They change a lot of things in a movie because it’s easier.”
“I suppose,” Phyllis said. She knew logically that it didn’t matter. The scene would still be very dramatic.
Down in the dogtrot, Melissa and Julie turned to the scarecrow, and Melissa reached out to adjust the way the prop was sitting. Phyllis leaned forward, knowing this was when “Peggy Nelson” would discover the scarecrow was really a corpse.
Suddenly, Melissa leaped backward. A scream ripped from her mouth.
“Goodness!” Carolyn exclaimed. “She’s really putting a lot into it.”
Phyllis caught her breath as Melissa continued to scream. She backpedaled away from the scarecrow so fast she stumbled, lost her balance, and sat down hard on the ground.
And all the time she was still screaming . . .
Phyllis, Carolyn, and Eve were on their feet without even thinking about it. Down in the cabin, Earl Thorpe rushed into the dogtrot, caught hold of Melissa, and pulled her up. She buried her face against his chest, but Phyllis could still hear her screams as other members of the cast and crew swarmed around the dogtrot.
“Something’s actually wrong down there,” Carolyn said.
Phyllis agreed . . . and she had a sinking feeling that she knew what it was.
Chapter 11
Phyllis’s next thought was to look around for Sam and Ronnie. She didn’t know where they had been when Melissa started screaming. She had no reason to think that they weren’t all right, but she wanted to see them with her own eyes and be sure.
Within seconds, she spotted Sam and his granddaughter hurrying toward them. Sam had hold of Ronnie’s hand so he wouldn’t get separated from her as the crowd in the park began panicking.
Not everyone reacted that way, of course. During the morning’s shooting, pretend panic had been common, and clearly some of the extras believed this was just more of the same. They just looked curiously toward the log cabins, trying to see what was going on.
But there was something so real about Melissa’s screams, so filled with dread, that the feeling proved contagious and a good number of the people crowded into the park started trying to get out of there as quickly as possible.
“What in blazes happened?” Sam asked as he and Ronnie joined Phyllis, Carolyn, and Eve beside the picnic table.
“We couldn’t see what was going on from where we were,” Ronnie added.
“I don’t know,” Phyllis said. “Melissa and Julie were doing their scene with the scarecrow when Melissa jumped back, fell down, and started screaming.”
Carolyn said, “I know what it means. There’s been a murder. I’m sure of it.”
Eve stared at her. “In the same place? Involving a scarecrow again? That’s insane!”
“Think about it,” Carolyn said grimly. “What else can it be?”
Phyllis was very much afraid that her old friend was probably right. It didn’t pay to ignore the lessons of history . . . and as a retired history teacher, Phyllis knew that better than most!
“Well, I’m gonna go down there and find out,” Sam said. “Ronnie, you stay here.”
“Sam, wait a minute,” Phyllis said. She had seen Alan Sammons hurry up to the dogtrot and wave his arms around wildly, and now several burly men in windbreakers appeared as if out of nowhere and took up positions around the cabin. Phyllis saw the word SECURITY on the back of the windbreakers. She didn’t know where these men had been all day—she hadn’t noticed them around the park—but they must have been here, keeping a low profile. You couldn’t shoot a movie with a lot of stars and expensive equipment and not have security around, she realized. The company’s insurance policy would have required that.
She went on, “They’re not going to let anyone get too close to . . . whatever it is . . . and that’s a good thing. I’m sure someone has called the police by now.”
The wail of a siren not too far away followed her words by a matter of seconds, confirming what she’d said. Now things would fall into an all too familiar pattern: uniformed officers would arrive at the park, followed soon by detectives and crime scene techs and probably the chief of police himself, since this was destined to be a high-profile case.
She was just assuming that Carolyn was right and that someone had been murdered, she told herself. But the same thought had occurred to her before Carolyn ever gave voice to it.
By now the idea that something bad actually had happened had spread throughout the park. The ominous presence of the security personnel around the log cabin must have convinced everyone who didn’t believe it at first. And as the frantic mass exodus continued, Carolyn muttered, “I’ll bet the killer is getting away right now in all this confusion.”
“Could be, but there’s too many people here to keep ’em corraled,” Sam said.
“We shouldn’t leave, should we?” Ronnie asked.
Phyllis said, “No, we’ll stay right here so we can cooperate with the investigation. Not that there’ll much we can do to help. I don’t know where you and Sam were, but the three of us were sitting here a good fifty yards away.”
“We were over by that old wagon,” Ronnie said.
Sam added, “When the second AD called for everybody to be quiet, we just stayed right there where we were and watched what we could, which wasn’t much.”
Flashing lights appeared in the parking lot as a couple of police cruisers pulled in. A pair of uniformed officers got out of each car and trotted down through the park toward the log cabin. Alan Sammons met them, talking quickly and pointing back toward the dogtrot. He was clearly upset and kept stopping to scrub a hand over his face. He looked like he wanted to start pulling his hair out.
Melissa wasn’t screaming anymore. Phyllis tried to look past the security guards to see if she could spot the actress. She thought she saw Melissa standing with Julie Cordell and Earl Thorpe near the log cabin, but with such a crowd around, she couldn’t be sure.
Then a couple of the security men stepped aside to let Sammons and two of the police officers past, and Phyllis got a good look at Melissa. She was pale and obviously shaken, but she seemed to be in control of herself again. Julie stood beside her with an arm around her shoulders in support, as Carolyn would have been if it were the two of them down there.
“Who do you think got murdered?” Ronnie asked
in a hushed voice.
“We don’t know that anyone did,” Eve pointed out.
Carolyn’s dismissive snort made it clear what she thought about that statement.
Phyllis said, “We don’t really know anything, but I’m sure we’ll find out eventually. When the detectives get here, they’ll start canvassing the crowd. They’ll talk to us sooner or later.”
“You know all of them, don’t you?” Ronnie said.
Phyllis shook her head. “Hardly. I’ve had dealings with a few of them, that’s all.”
She had annoyed the police detectives by getting involved in murder cases, then aggravated those feelings by figuring out who the killers were before the authorities were able to. Those were the ‘dealings’ she referred to.
“Too bad this isn’t in the sheriff’s jurisdiction. Mike could fill us in, I’ll bet.”
Phyllis’s son Mike was a Parker County sheriff’s deputy and had risked his job on numerous occasions in the past to help her get to the bottom of some murder. She was just as glad that Mike wouldn’t be involved in this case.
And there was no real reason for her to be, either, she reminded herself, except as a witness . . . and a very minor one at that. Whichever detective wound up questioning her, she could lay out everything she knew in a matter of a few minutes.
More police cruisers showed up. Uniformed officers established a perimeter around the park. Dozens of people who had been here when the trouble broke out had already left, but at least a hundred were still on hand and the police had no intention of letting them go until they had been questioned. The rest of the afternoon would be busy indeed.
“We might as well sit down,” Phyllis told the others. “It’s probably going to be a while before they get around to us.”
They hadn’t been waiting long when Phyllis saw a tall, dark-haired woman enter the park. She thought for a second the woman was Becca Peterson, who she had seen with Lawrence Fremont earlier in the day. Then she realized that this woman was dressed in jeans and a black double rider leather jacket and had shorter hair. This was a case of life imitating art instead of the other way around. Detective Isabel Largo strode along one of the winding concrete walks toward the log cabin.
Death Bakes a Pecan Pie Page 8