“Donna never lets me eat this stuff,” he said, taking a bite of buttered toast. “I’ll be back on oatmeal and raisins tomorrow.”
“In that case, I won’t reveal your secret,” I said.
“Oh, she’ll know anyway. She says she can smell the bacon on my clothes. Find out anything yet?”
I shook my head. “I spoke with Mort Metzger this morning. He has a call in to some colleagues up north, but nothing so far. For good measure, I also called Detective Christian Marshall. I met him in British Columbia when I rode the Whistler Northwind train.”
“That’s pretty far away, don’t you think?”
“You never know where people have connections. I thought it was worth a call.”
“Look who’s here,” Grady said, indicating a couple who’d entered the room carrying plates.
Cookie spotted us and had a brief intense discussion with Jimbo before coming to our table. She sat next to Grady and batted her eyelashes at him. “Hiya, handsome.”
He smiled, evidently used to her teasing now. “How are you this morning, Mrs. Bedford?”
“Mrs. Bedford,” she mocked. “So formal. Well, I guess everyone is a little strange this morning, doncha think? To be back here after the murder. Gives me the willies, I tell you.”
“Is Jimbo joining us?” I asked.
“Oh, him. He must’ve had a fight with his wife on the phone. He’s been sniping at me all morning. Must’ve made me go over that script a hundred times. I’ll be reciting Permezzo in my dreams. ‘I won’t be embarrassed again,’ he says. As if Betsy yelled at him instead-a me.” She leaned over the table, her eyes shifting right and left, then whispered, “Not to speak ill of the dead, but it’ll be a lot easier today without her giving me the evil eye, if you know what I mean.”
“When are you scheduled to shoot your spot?” I asked.
“Oh, listen to her. You got the lingo down pat, now, don’t you? Ah’m not sure exactly. I have to go see those little girls in the production office. They’ll tell me. But I wanted to eat. That’s why Jimbo was annoyed with me. He wanted me to go there first. But they had grits this morning. Did y’all see that? Ah couldn’t skip breakfast when they had grits. I got a great recipe for fried grits with onions and cheddar cheese. You will just die.” She covered her mouth with her hand. “Oops, I better not talk that way today.” She scooped up a forkful of grits.
“I think someone’s looking for you, Aunt Jess,” Grady said.
I followed his gaze to see Detective Chesny eyeing the crowd at breakfast. I raised my hand and he beckoned to me.
“Well, I have to see a man about a dog,” I said, getting up. “Please excuse me. I’ll see you later.”
“Is she buying a dog?” I heard Cookie ask Grady as I walked away.
“I think she’s getting a Chihuahua.”
“Oh, they’re so cute.”
Detective Chesny escorted me to an empty office that must have accommodated small meetings when the office building had served its original purpose. There was a good-sized table surrounded by gray swivel chairs, and nothing else in the room except a whiteboard on the wall. Chesny’s tape recorder was already set up. Also on the table was a laptop computer, a stack of lined pads, and a scattering of pens and pencils. At the far end was one of those new boxes that hold coffee, a sleeve of hot cups, a package of napkins, and next to that a box of doughnuts.
“Can I get you anything, Mrs. Fletcher?” he asked, waving at the coffee.
“No, thanks. I had my tea this morning.” I pulled out a chair and sat, reaching for one of the pads and a pen.
He poured himself a cup and took a chair around the corner of the table from mine. “You have quite a few friends in law enforcement,” he said mildly.
“I hope you weren’t offended by their calls,” I said. “I just wanted to communicate my credentials, and I also asked for a little help on one matter. How much or even if we work together is completely your call. I understand that.”
“I hope you also understand that whatever evidence or information you’ve accumulated in the time since the murder is to be turned over to the department without any guarantee of a quid pro quo. I owe you nothing, and you owe me everything you have that pertains to this case. Do you accept that?”
“I’m disappointed,” I said, “but if that’s your preference, of course. I’ll tell you everything I know.”
He grunted. “Before we start, I have one question.”
“What’s that?”
“How is Frank doing?”
Chapter Twenty
Forty minutes later, Detective Chesny knew everything that I knew, and I knew a little more than when we’d started. I told him about the woman who pretended to be Betsy’s sister. He consulted his list of Betsy’s belongings and noted that it did not include keys. We were in agreement that her bag should stay in the cubicle in the event that whoever lifted the keys made an attempt to return them.
Setting up a hidden camera was too cumbersome and would draw too much attention for the limited time we had remaining. I suggested instead that Susan be designated to monitor activity in the cubicle by keeping a list of who came and went during the day. When Chesny hesitated about bringing the producers into our confidence, I reminded him that Susan, Jennifer, and Lily had alibis for the time when Betsy was killed; they’d been in the production office working on arrangements for the next commercial shoot. Cell phone records could confirm this. When I added that women who could be entrusted with Cookie’s diamonds were not likely to be security risks, he acquiesced. But only for Susan. Jennifer and Lily were to remain in the dark.
He told me that the medical examiner had estimated the time of Betsy’s death at around an hour or two before the body was discovered. That placed it directly during the filming of my commercial. Apparently, that news had served as exculpating evidence for Grady and Frank, since many people witnessed them in attendance during my shoot. The majority of the crew had been on hand as well, with the exception of those in the production office, and those charged with packing up any equipment or supplies that would not be left on the location for the next day’s work.
According to Kevin Prendergast, Lance Sevenson and his assistant, Lena, had been in and out of video village, the conference room that held a bank of monitors that allowed those not on the set to keep track of the filming. Kevin claimed that he and Anne Tripper had been there all afternoon. Although they provided an alibi for each other, no one else could vouch for their continued presence in the room.
“Were you able to confirm that the murder weapon was the nail gun?” I asked.
Chesny nodded. “The murder weapon was a nail gun. The nail pierced her heart. Must’ve died instantly. Whether it was that particular nail gun remains to be seen. We haven’t gotten the forensics back on it, but our tech said the safety mechanism was broken.”
“Is that significant?”
“Depends on when it happened. You said your nephew threw it out of the equipment cart. It could have been damaged then.”
“Have you checked with whoever may have used it that day?”
“Patience, Mrs. Fletcher. That’s what we’re here for today. My team has been compiling a list of questions. When we get the answers, we’ll have a clearer picture of how Miss Archibald died.”
“And why.”
“Yes. And why. Manner and motive,” he said, referring to the key elements police look for in a murder investigation, the manner in which the victim died—how he or she was killed—and the motive for the murder.
“Is your staff conducting background checks on anyone?”
“We checked on the victim, of course.”
“Anyone else?”
An ironic smile crossed his lips. “We checked on you, Mrs. Fletcher.”
Cookie was sitting in the makeup chair when I left my meeting with the detective.
“Ah’m gonna see if Maya can come work on my show. Look how pretty she made me look, Jessica.”
Maya flashe
d a smile at me, then focused on adding blush to Cookie’s cheeks. “You’re pretty to begin with,” Maya said. “It’s easy when I have someone with such wonderful bone structure. I’m just gilding the lily.”
“Ain’t she sweet? Ah can’t see without my glasses.” Cookie raised a hand mirror so that she could examine the results up close. “Ooh! You’re so good. But will it stay? Last time, under all those hot lights, I was afraid my face would melt.”
Maya laughed. “I wouldn’t have let that happen, Mrs. Bedford. I was right there in case we needed to powder your nose or fix your hair. I’ll be there again today.”
“Through the whole shoot?”
“Yes. Through the whole shoot, just as I did for Mrs. Fletcher.”
“You did? That’s just wonderful. Isn’t she wonderful, Jessica?”
“She is,” I said, remembering Maya had sprayed almost a can of lacquer onto my hair. “She won’t let one lock of hair escape her notice.”
“Gotta keep you looking perfect,” Maya said, stepping back from Cookie to scrutinize her living canvas. She picked up a lipstick brush and chose a tube of lip gloss in a soft peach.
“By the way, Maya, did you ever find the wig you were missing the other day?” I asked.
Her eyes met mine. “I did. Funny you remembered. Lena brought it down this morning. You know, Mr. Sevenson’s assistant? She said she found it upstairs on one of the sets. I can’t imagine how it got there.”
“Which one of these was it?” I asked, referring to the three Styrofoam head forms that stood on the table, each bearing a wig.
“The red one,” Maya said without looking up from her task.
“May I look at it?” I asked.
“Help yourself.”
Dave Fitzpatrick arrived to accompany Cookie to her set. “Whenever you’re ready,” he said.
“Two seconds more,” Maya said, picking up the can of hair spray.
“Ah don’t see you as a redhead, Jessica,” Cookie said to me, shielding her face from the spray with her hands. “Ah like you as a blonde.”
I took the wig from the stand and turned it over. There were several bobby pins attached to the webbing inside, used to secure the wig to its wearer. One of the pins had caught some strands of hair. I turned away from Maya and Cookie, took a tissue from my pocket, used it to pull the hair from the bobby pin, and put the folded tissue back in my pocket. “I think you’re right, Cookie,” I said, returning the wig to the form. “I’ll stay blond for now.”
“Psst! Mrs. Fletcher.”
“You’re Ricky, aren’t you?”
“Yeah. How’s the kid? How’s Frank?” Ricky was a muscular fellow with a buzz cut and thick horn-rimmed glasses. Despite the chilly weather, he wore cargo shorts and a T-shirt, which showed off his tattooed arms.
“He’s fine, thanks. He’s back in school today.”
“Your call scared the life out of me the other night,” he said. “I swear to you, I never knew he was in that truck. I’m really sorry. He’d been talking about goin’ to watch the shoot. When I didn’t see him, that’s where I figured he’d gone.”
“Well, everything turned out all right in the end. He doesn’t seem much worse for the experience, but I was told that he shouldn’t have been helping you.”
“I know. I know. Believe me, I got reamed out but good. But you know. . . . Stuff is going on. . . . You get distracted.”
I tilted my head. “What stuff was going on?”
“Oh, no.” He put his hands up in defense. “I don’t know nothin’ about that agency lady. Don’t look at me. My time is all accounted for. I just meant, you know, our equipment, deciding which to pack, which to leave for the next day, just that kind of stuff. I had it all organized before lunch—this room to stay, this room to pack, this room to clear so I could clean it up—and then someone went and shoved it all in one room.”
“Where were you working after lunch?”
“On your set. I did all your green-screen setup. The key grip can tell you. You were getting your hair touched up, so you probably didn’t notice. I got a theory, though.”
“You do?”
He looked left and right to make sure no one was listening to our conversation. “Yeah.” He dropped his voice. “Check out Howerstein.”
“The producer.”
“He wasn’t on your set. I didn’t see him all afternoon. What I want to know is, where was he?”
“You’re sure you aren’t just angry with him because he said you can’t work on Mindbenders’ commercials anymore?”
“That’s only one agency. There are hundreds of them, maybe thousands. I’m in the union. They’re not going to blackball me.”
I opened the door to the production office. “Is Daniel in here?” I asked Susan.
“He was here before, Mrs. Fletcher. But I think he’s on Mrs. Bedford’s set, or else Mr. Sevenson’s by now.”
“Are you alone?”
“Yep. Just me. Lily went on a Starbucks run. Jen went to talk with the location scout about next week’s shoot.”
“Anyone on your list?” I whispered, although no one else was in the office.
“Just one.” She pulled a sheet of paper from beneath a folder and held it up for me.
“Put me down as the second visitor,” I said, going to the cubicle and peering into Betsy’s bag.
“I hear you’ve been looking for me, Mrs. Fletcher.”
“Yes, Daniel. I wondered where you were yesterday afternoon. I didn’t see you at my shoot.”
“You didn’t see me because I was looking for Betsy. We needed to clear an extra day for the location and I wanted her approval of the overage. Obviously, I never got to ask her.”
“Did anyone see you while you were looking for her?”
“Lots of people. As I told the detective, I was in the production office part of the time. You can check with the girls. I got the cost approval from Kevin Prendergast—just ask him. Then I was out in the lot when they were packing the trucks.”
“Ricky Pepper said he didn’t see you all afternoon.”
“Ricky can’t see the broad side of a barn even with his glasses. If he wasn’t in the union, he’d never get a job in production.”
“Returning to the scene of the crime, Mrs. Fletcher?”
Kevin Prendergast stood in the doorway of the carpentry room. The burned-out fluorescent bulb in the ceiling fixture had not been replaced and the single tube remaining cast a harsh light on his angular face.
“I could say the same to you,” I said.
I’d wanted to revisit the room where Betsy died to try to reconstruct what might have happened. Why had she come in here? Had someone lured her to this room? Was there an argument that culminated in an angry explosion and a vicious attack with the only weapon at hand? Or had the murder been premeditated, by someone with a grudge against her whose solution was to get rid of its source, and cover up the crime to delay discovery of the body until he—or she—could get away?
The carts had been moved out, most of the equipment in use or more readily accessed in areas closer to the sets. The room was empty except for a few stray light stands, and an outline in orange paint on the floor where Betsy’s body had lain.
“Why don’t you mind your own business and let the police do their job?” Kevin said.
“If I can help them uncover whoever killed Betsy, I intend to do it.”
Kevin moved into the room, closing the door behind him. “Look, Mrs. Fletcher, Jessica. I’m interested in finding Betsy’s murderer as much as you are, maybe more, but you’ve been poking your nose into my business. I don’t like it.”
“What don’t you like, Kevin?”
“I don’t like that you sneaked into my office when I wasn’t there. You didn’t think you could get away with that without me finding out, did you?” He moved close to one of the light stands, his fingers curling around the pole. “I’m warning you, stay out of my business.”
“I wasn’t sneaking around,”
I said. “I went to Mindbenders looking for you.”
“How convenient that I wasn’t there.”
“I didn’t know that in advance. When I didn’t find you there, I went to your home.”
“And neglected to mention that you’d been to the agency and questioned my staff. That particular art director will never talk to you again—or anyone else outside the office—if he wants to keep his job.”
“Is there something you’re trying to hide, Kevin? If so, it’s too late.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I already know that Betsy was planning to open her own agency.”
“So what? People do that every day. That’s how most agencies get started. The creative directors leave and establish their own shops.”
“How many of Mindbenders’ clients was she planning to take with her?”
“She wouldn’t have gotten any of them.”
“Are you sure? Antonio was considering it.”
“You’re guessing,” he said.
“You said at dinner that you wanted to send her to Italy. Wasn’t that because Antonio was smitten with her? You used his infatuation to gain his business. How difficult would it have been for her to use that same attraction to draw him away from Mindbenders and into her own firm, Archibald Advertising?” I moved toward the door, uneasy at being closed in with him.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Kevin said.
“Did you kill her, Kevin? You and Anne Tripper?”
“Leave Anne out of this,” he growled, advancing toward me.
“Why should I leave her out of this?” I asked, backing up. “Her opal ring—the one she claims was lost or stolen—was found right here in this room.”
Even in the dim light, I could see the surprise in Kevin’s face. He grabbed my shoulders and shook me, knocking my head against the wall. “She was with me the whole afternoon, I tell you. She never left my side.”
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