She clicked on each of his projects and pulled up the complete cast and crew, then ran her eyes down the list of names, looking for familiar ones.
Not every murder had its roots in the past. Sometimes a killing took place almost immediately after whatever incident motivated it. But Phyllis was convinced that Lawrence Fremont’s death was a result, at least indirectly, of something had happened years or even decades earlier. Usually, it took a long time to build up enough hate to end another person’s life.
She didn’t just pay attention to the actors but studied the various writers and producers who had worked with Fremont as well, and on through the lists of all the craft and technical members of the crew. She came across a number of well-known names, of course. Fremont had worked with the elite of Hollywood, including many award-winning actors and actresses.
Fairly early on in Phyllis’s search, she found Melissa’s name with her photo next to it. That listing was on the page for the early feature where she had played a small supporting part. Phyllis didn’t recall ever seeing the movie, so she scrolled down to the synopsis.
The movie was a domestic drama set in a small Kansas farming town. Melissa had played a schoolteacher. Something they had in common, Phyllis told herself with a faint smile. Melissa had been quite beautiful in those days, Phyllis saw when she checked out the gallery of photos from the movie. It wasn’t surprising that she had caught Lawrence Fremont’s eye.
Her curiosity satisfied, Phyllis clicked back to resume her investigation into Fremont’s career. Julie Cordell had appeared in two or three of his pictures. Melissa’s name showed up again in several other roles, as she had mentioned. Alan Sammons was listed as an associate producer on several features, then as producer or executive producer on others as his own power and influence in Hollywood grew. Jason Wilkes had written the screenplays for two of Fremont’s films, both of them action/adventure movies. Those weren’t collaborations with Deanne, and judging by the dates they had been made before she came to California and met and married Jason. Phyllis was a little surprised to see that Earl Thorpe had been either the first or second assistant director on nearly a dozen of Fremont’s movies, dating back some fifteen years. Fremont must have liked working with Thorpe and had made sure he was part of the crew on those pictures.
And why wouldn’t he like working with Thorpe, she asked herself, when it was clear that Thorpe was willing to do more than his share of the work and let Fremont take the credit for it?
A growing sense of frustration crept into Phyllis’s mind as she clicked and scrolled, clicked and scrolled, through page after page of movie information, drawing steadily closer to the present day.
Eventually she found herself on the page for Fresh Baked Death and smiled as she saw Eve’s name listed in the credits as the author of the source novel. No matter what else happened, nobody could ever take this bit of movie immortality away from Eve, and Phyllis was glad for her old friend. She scanned the cast and crew list, since she didn’t know the names of most of the people involved in the production, only the ones who had come to dinner at her house a couple of nights earlier. Just like with Fremont’s earlier movies, she didn’t find a thing that seemed like it might have any bearing on the case.
Maybe her hunch that she would find the motive for the murder in Lawrence Fremont’s career was wrong. Some of her theories had been proven wrong in the past. In one especially tricky instance, she had been convinced three times that she had solved the case, only to have her theories collapse. Of course, in the end she had identified the real killer, but she was hardly infallible.
Fremont had another picture lined up to shoot next, Phyllis recalled. What was the title of it? She frowned as she tried to remember, and she had just come up with The Bancroft Inheritance when she realized that the website would have that information easily accessible at the click of a mouse. She didn’t want to rely on the Internet for everything, though. Her brain still worked and could make connections that no computer could.
At least she hoped that was true. But as she studied the page that was already in place for Lawrence Fremont’s next movie, she wasn’t so sure. A number of the cast members were already lined up, and although Phyllis saw some familiar names, none of them were in this movie. The producer was different, and the script was by someone she had never heard of, based on a legal thriller novel she had never read, written by someone else she had never heard of. Talk about a dead end!
And yet, as Phyllis looked at the screen, her eyes narrowed. Something was there. She just wasn’t seeing it. She looked down the list of cast members again. A handsome leading man and a beautiful leading lady, playing lawyers—and lovers—who wind up on opposite sides of a big case. A hulking criminal who admits to all his other misdeeds but steadfastly maintains his innocence in this case. A perky, pretty young paralegal who stumbles across the truth and finds herself targeted by killers. It didn’t sound like a movie Phyllis would rush to watch, although it might be a decent enough way to spend a couple of idle hours.
So what in the world was it that struck her as being so familiar? She stared at the screen until her eyes ached, and it was there but remained frustratingly out of reach.
“What’s that?” Sam asked from behind her.
She looked around and saw that he was holding a plate with a sandwich on it. The sandwich contained two thick slices of ham, plus cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, and pickles.
“Good grief,” Phyllis said. “How can you be hungry enough to eat something like that?”
“Well, we’ve been home from the festival for a while,” Sam said as if that explained everything. “A couple of hours, at least.”
“Really? It’s been that long?” Phyllis had been lost in her research and hadn’t paid any attention to the time.
“Yep.” Sam gestured toward the sandwich. “You want some? I’d be happy to go cut it in two.”
“No, that’s all right. I’m still not very hungry. I’ve been trying to figure out why Lawrence Fremont was murdered.”
“You’ve got no shortage of suspects, that’s for sure.”
“That’s why I’ve been concentrating on possible motives, instead.”
“By looking up his old movies?”
“That’s right. I was hoping I could spot some connection I hadn’t found yet.” Phyllis shook her head. “But no such luck. I feel like it’s right in front of me and I just can’t see it.”
“You will,” Sam told her. “You always do.”
Phyllis smiled and said, “I appreciate the vote of confidence.”
“That’s one thing I’ve always got.”
“That, and a big sandwich.”
“Well . . . yeah,” Sam said.
Chapter 22
Eventually, Phyllis gave up searching the Internet and put the question of motive out of her mind for the time being. Ronnie was late enough coming in that Sam got worried for a while, but then she showed up, apologizing for not letting him know that she had gone shopping with her friends after they left the festival. Sam accepted the apology but told her to text him next time she did something like that.
Later, after Ronnie had gone upstairs, he said to Phyllis, “You think she was tellin’ the truth about goin’ shoppin’, or was she up to mischief somewhere, maybe with some boy?”
“I believe she was telling the truth, but it comes down to the fact that you either trust her or you don’t.”
“Oh, I trust her,” Sam said. “But I also figure I’m a pretty trustworthy sort of fella myself, and when I was growin’ up, I didn’t always tell my folks the truth about where I was or what I was doin’. No teenager’s a hundred per cent honest.”
Phyllis said, “No child is ever a hundred per cent honest with a parent, no matter how old they are. I think it’s just human nature to, well, shade the truth a little now and then. Just like it’s human nature for a parent to always worry about a child, regardless of how old and responsible that child may be. Ronnie’s your granddaughter, but right
now you’re acting as her parent, so you’re going to be more concerned than normal.”
“And she’s gonna fib to me now and then.”
Phyllis shrugged. “I’m afraid it’s unavoidable. But for what it’s worth, she’s a good kid. I don’t think she’s going to deliberately get into a lot of trouble.”
“I’ll keep my fingers crossed,” Sam said. “You want to watch a movie?”
“Do you think we could find that one Melissa made with Lawrence Fremont when she was young? The first one of his pictures she was in? I don’t remember ever seeing it.”
“We’ll take a look,” Sam said.
As it turned out, the whole movie wasn’t available anywhere on-line, but there was a trailer for it on YouTube. Phyllis and Sam watched that, and Phyllis was struck again by how young and attractive Melissa was.
“You know, at this age she really reminds me of someone else,” Phyllis commented.
“You?” Sam suggested.
“Oh, goodness no. I was never that pretty.”
“We’ll have to agree to disagree about that. I’ve seen plenty of pictures of you from back then, and you were ’way prettier. Still are, comes down to that.”
“That’s just your opinion.”
“And I’m stickin’ to it,” he said.
They wound up watching a different movie directed by Lawrence Fremont from a few years earlier, the one with Robert Harkness in it that had prompted the clash between Harkness and Fremont. The picture was a drama set on a military base in the deep South during World War II. Harkness’s Southern accent was a little shaky, Phyllis thought, with hints of his true Australian accent sneaking in now and then, as Melissa had mentioned, but Phyllis wondered if she just picked up on that because she was aware of the background. A regular viewer who didn’t know any better might not have noticed a thing.
By the time the movie was over, Phyllis was ready to turn in. The last two days had been exhausting, and she was tired in both brain and body. She had learned some things today and theorized others, but the pieces didn’t fit together to form a complete picture yet. She sensed that she was still missing something.
But maybe a good night’s sleep would allow the answer she needed to bubble to the surface of her thoughts.
◄♦►
Or maybe it wouldn’t, because when Phyllis woke up the next morning she knew she was still as far away from the truth as she had been when she went to bed the night before.
That was frustrating, but she wasn’t going to let herself brood over it. The world had plenty of angst in it without that. Instead she went downstairs to the kitchen and started thinking about breakfast. She’d come across a new recipe for gluten-free pancakes that sounded like it might be good. Carolyn liked to avoid gluten for the most part because too much of it made her rheumatoid arthritis worse, although she risked it now and then, such as eating small slices of the pies Phyllis had made and the cherry pie Sam had bought at the festival the day before. Carolyn usually left some or all of the crust uneaten, though.
That wouldn’t have helped Lawrence Fremont, since the deadly cyanide had been in the pecan pie filling.
Phyllis had the ingredients she needed for the pancakes, so she got to work on them. Carolyn came in a short time later, realized immediately what Phyllis was doing, and said, “How thoughtful. I appreciate you looking out for my health this way, Phyllis.”
“That’s what friends are for,” Phyllis said. “And for getting the coffee started.”
“I can certainly do that!”
It was Sunday and all of them were fairly regular church-goers, but Phyllis wasn’t sure she felt up to it today. Not only was she still tired from walking around the park most of the day on Saturday, but the case was still weighing her down as well. She said, “I feel bad about it, but I may skip services this morning.”
“I was just thinking the same thing,” Carolyn admitted.
From the doorway between the hall and the kitchen, Sam said, “If there were any mountains close by, we could go out and do some worshippin’ in God’s natural church, like ol’ Hipshot Percussion did in the comic strips.”
“Goodness, I didn’t know you were up,” Phyllis said.
“I guess I sneaked up on you.”
“And I probably haven’t thought about Hipshot Percussion in forty years!”
Eve showed up in the kitchen a few minutes later. The pancakes were good, especially after Phyllis topped them with a little whipped cream and added some bacon on the side, the coffee was very good as always, and the company was excellent. It would be difficult to improve on her life, Phyllis mused as she sat at the table with her friends, or at least it would be if people would just stop getting murdered around her!
Everyone lazed around for the morning, and by the middle of the day Phyllis felt almost completely recovered from the strain of the past 72 hours. She and Carolyn prepared a light lunch using the leftovers. Sam had football to watch, and Phyllis was undecided whether to read or to try her hand at researching more of Lawrence Fremont’s life. She already felt as if she knew the man better than she ever would have wanted to.
Before she could make up her mind, her phone rang and decided things for her.
“Hey, Phyllis, it’s Melissa. I hope I didn’t catch you at a bad time.”
“No, not at all. We were just taking it easy today.”
“I was wondering if maybe you’d meet me at the park in a little while. I’ve had some more thoughts about the case, and I want to take a look around the place while it’s not full of people.”
Phyllis glanced out the living room window. The day had turned rather blustery, with a thick gray overcast. This time of year, cold fronts blew through fairly often, and she could tell by looking at the way the mostly bare tree branches swayed that a chilly wind was blowing. Not only that, but she had wanted to get away from the case for the day, too.
On the other hand, she was curious what Melissa wanted to tell her. She asked, “You’re not doing the last of that filming at the park today?”
“No, we’re supposed to do that tomorrow. It’s good that it worked out that way, too, because the weather isn’t as nice and sunny today as it was on Friday and we need that to match, at least to a certain extent. The forecast says it’ll be better tomorrow.”
Phyllis thought for a second, then said, “I suppose I could go over there for a while.”
“That’s great. I’ll meet you in, say, fifteen minutes?”
“I’ll be there,” Phyllis said.
Sam already had a football game on the TV, but he had muted the sound when Phyllis’s phone rang. As she ended the connection with Melissa, she told him, “You didn’t have to turn the sound off.”
“The day I need some talkin’ head to tell me what’s goin’ on in a game, that’s the day I’ll quit watchin’ sports. I can follow along just fine on my own.”
Since he had coached various sports for years during his teaching career, she knew he was right.
“Was that Melissa?” he asked.
“That’s right. How did you know?”
“Just by the way you were talkin’. The two of you get along pretty well. Reckon that’s because you’re so much alike.”
“I wouldn’t say that,” Phyllis responded. “But she asked me to meet her down at the park in a few minutes. She has some more ideas about Fremont’s murder.”
“That gal’s just full of ideas.”
“She is,” Phyllis agreed. “She really seems to be enjoying playing detective.”
“Want me to come with you?”
Phyllis thought about it for a moment, then said, “I hate to take you away from your game . . .”
“Oh, that’s no problem,” Sam said as he got to his feet. He pulled his phone from his pocket and held it up. “I’ve got an app that keeps me up to date on everything that’s goin’ on in the game.”
“Well, if you really don’t mind, I’d be happy to have the company.”
“Glad t
o do it. Want to take my pickup?”
Phyllis thought about it for a second, then said, “No, I’ll drive this time.”
She went upstairs and got a jacket thick enough to stand up to the wind. As she came out of her bedroom, she met Carolyn in the hall.
“Where are you going?”
“Down to the park to meet Melissa and talk about the case.”
“Your new best friend,” Carolyn said.
“Hardly. But I’m curious to know what she has to say.”
“Well, I suppose it might turn out to be helpful, although it might not. When are they going back to Austin?”
“They’re supposed to finish their shooting at the park tomorrow, weather permitting,” Phyllis said. “I suppose they’ll probably go back to Austin the day after that.”
“Having those Hollywood people around has been . . . an interesting experience. I’m afraid I never could get used to such decadent lifestyles. I know someone who would fit right in out there, though.”
Carolyn looked pointedly at the closed door of Eve’s room.
“She’s part of movie history now,” Phyllis said, “and always will be. That’s actually quite an accomplishment.”
“I suppose.”
Phyllis went on downstairs and out through the kitchen where Sam was waiting to the garage. On a Sunday afternoon, especially a blustery autumn Sunday during football season, Weatherford’s streets weren’t as busy as usual, although there was some traffic, of course. She made good time, and when she pulled into the parking lot, her Lincoln was the only vehicle in sight.
That didn’t last long, though, because Melissa’s rental car turned in just a few minutes later and came to a stop not far from the Lincoln.
As it did, Phyllis heard Sam’s phone buzz. “Is that your football app?”
Sam took out the phone and checked the screen. “Yep. Looks like Dallas is tryin’ to stage a comeback. I didn’t expect that to happen.”
Death Bakes a Pecan Pie Page 17