“It’s true,” she moaned. “I’m in way over my head.” The bad dialogue was coming back. I needed to refocus her.
“How did you get involved to start?” I asked.
“I got asked to play a sort of crazy fan stalker. You know, the kind who really thinks she’s got some connection to the big star and doesn’t realize he has, you know, a wife and everything. So she sends him emails and she gets his phone number and she’s all over him on Facebook. Next thing you know she’s actually on the set and she thinks they’re in this wild love affair when the guy doesn’t even know what’s going on.”
“Who asked you?”
Patty, who had shaken her attempt at crying and was now being very confidential with us, seemed surprised by the question. “Who asked me what?”
“You said you were asked to play a fan stalker. Who asked you to do that?”
“I knew a guy who knew a guy who knew a guy, you know?” she said.
“What guy did you know? Who was your contact on Dead City?”
Patty chewed her bottom lip. “I’m not supposed to say.”
“Were they supposed to set you up as a murder suspect? You don’t owe anybody anything.”
“It’s true. The guy I knew on set was Harve Lembeck. You know, the assistant director. I worked with him on an Internet thing once.” Ask an actor a question and you’ll get a résumé and head shots.
That figured. Harve had been involved in getting the gun into Dray’s trailer and was afraid of the police. You had to know he’d be involved if there was something shady going on.
“Did Harve say why they wanted you to do all this?” I asked.
“He didn’t even say who wanted me to do it,” Patty told me. “But he said it could lead to a recurring role on another show, so that was something. All I was supposed to do was stir up some stories about Dray and then recant it all in the end. He gets to look like a hero, I work under an assumed name, and nobody gets seriously hurt.”
“Except then Dray Mattone was murdered,” Consuelo pointed out. “Why didn’t you tell the police what was going on after that?”
“First, I was terrified, but it wasn’t that,” Patty said after a moment. She looked away, like she was embarrassed. “The fact is, it didn’t occur to me that any of this had anything to do with Dray’s murder. So I didn’t say anything because I wanted the job on that new show and I didn’t think I had anything important to tell the police.”
“And when they brought you in for questioning?” I asked.
“Well, then I figured I was in all kinds of trouble because they’d found that phony letter I’d written, and it was even in my handwriting.” Patty looked over at Barney, who appeared unconcerned with her dilemma, pecking at a piece of stone wedged in the bars near his perch. “If I told them this insane story then, they’d figure they definitely had their killer and that she was completely nuts. I haven’t been able to find Harve since before the police came to my door and I doubt he’d back me up anyway.” She looked at me and whispered, “He has a record.”
“I know,” I told her. “Patty, what was the new show they were promising you?”
“Something called Dead Beat,” she said. “It was going to be a spin-off of Dead City, with more of a focus on the cops.”
“So another Les Mannix show,” I mused aloud. That might cast Les as the man behind Harve’s approach to Patty. “But remember now, your best defense is the truth, and you should have at least told Jamie and me before.”
“I should have,” she agreed. “But I’m telling you now. Can you help me if they decide I’m the one who shot Dray?”
“I wish Jamie were here,” I said. “But I’ll tell him everything you said and then he’ll be the one to get back to you. I’m just…”
“The parrot’s agent, I know.” Patty looked at Barney again and smiled. “I think they chose me because I have the background with birds. The old bird had died and they were looking for a new one. That part was real. But I thought all those phrases I was teaching Barney were supposed to be just to scare Dray, not to cover up his murder by framing me.” She closed her eyes again and put her head in her hands. “I have been so stupid.”
Even I was going to have trouble arguing with that, but I patted her on the shoulder and said, “We’ll work it out. In the meantime, don’t ever lie to me or Jamie again, and definitely don’t lie to the police. They hate that. Okay?”
Patty’s shoulders quivered a little, but she nodded. “I promise.” She stood up and walked over to the cage. “Do you think it’s okay for me to take Barney?”
I looked at Consuelo, my moral compass, and she shook her head negatively. “I think now that we know he’s not really your parrot we should hang on to him a little while longer,” I said. “Who supplied Barney?”
“Harve was my contact. He was the only one I ever talked to. I don’t think Barney is his bird, but he never told me where they found Barney. And that’s the truth.” She looked into the cage. “You take care, Barney. I’m going to miss you.”
“Patty,” I said as she shuffled toward the door, her bearing far different from when she had entered. “Who do you think killed Dray?”
She stopped and regarded me carefully. “I honestly have no idea.” She continued on toward the door.
But Patty stopped again when Consuelo asked, “By the way, what’s your real name?”
Patty moved her lips back and forth on her teeth like she was trying to clean them. “I promised not to lie to you, so for right now, I think we’ll leave it at Patty, okay?”
That didn’t bode well. “I’d really prefer we know who you are,” I said.
She thought that over and nodded. “Patrice Columbo,” she said and walked out the door.
“Nice to meet you,” Consuelo said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
It took a long time to relay all that had happened to Jamie. I was sort of sorry we hadn’t planned the conversation as a FaceTime chat because I’m sure his expression was priceless. But I have to admit the whole story was starting to give me serious butterflies in my stomach. Which is not nearly as nice a sensation as it sounds like it should be.
“That’s a lot to deal with,” he said finally. “It opens up more questions than it answers. I mean, it establishes a certain rationale behind Patty’s—Patrice’s—behavior, but it’s so loony I’m not sure that helps.”
“I don’t make the news, I just report it,” I told him. “So can I quit now? I’d like to go back to my day job and let you do the criminal stuff if that’s all right with you.”
“Sure. I’ll call you if anything comes up. I just have one question for you.”
I braced myself. Consuelo, watching me like a hawk, looked concerned. Barney, watching me like a parrot, seemed impassive. “What?” I asked Jamie.
“Do you believe her?”
Wow. “Honestly, I don’t know,” I said. “Les Mannix might have had a reason to kill Dray, but it looks like Denise Barnaby didn’t.”
“Denise doesn’t appear to know that.”
I saw where that was going. “Feel free to tell her whenever you like,” I said. “Patty—and I’m going to keep calling her Patty—didn’t swear me to secrecy.”
“I’m not asking you for anything else yet,” Jamie assured me. I wasn’t crazy about the yet, but I got over it. “I’m just saying that Denise didn’t know her husband wasn’t having an affair with Patty because Patty was apparently being paid to pretend she was a deluded fan.”
Hearing it out loud from someone other than Patty made it sound even crazier. “I also saw a gun in Heather Alizondo’s purse,” I said.
“So what? There’s a gun in my glove compartment. I drive in some sketchy areas and I have a perfectly legal permit.” I was starting to think everybody had a gun except me. Maybe I was meant to live in Belgium.
“Fine, be that way,” I told Jamie. “Go off and prepare a defense. I have a dog getting ready for his breakthrough role.” We ended the call and I ch
ecked my email for the paperwork on Bagels’s part, but it wasn’t there. I asked Consuelo to call Giant again and she said she would.
She sat behind her desk not doing that, though. Instead she was chewing the end of a pen and twitching her mouth back and forth as if auditioning for the role of Samantha in a revival of Bewitched. “Here’s what bothers me,” she said finally.
I was back at my desk dealing with an orange calico cat who wanted to be the voice of an animated character. It’s a living. For a cat. “What?” I asked.
“Why would Patty make up a nutty story like that? Couldn’t she come up with a more plausible lie?” Consuelo was thinking hard and she is very smart, so it was worth considering.
“We’re the parrot’s agents,” I said.
“I know, but aren’t you curious? Don’t you want to figure out who killed Dray Mattone?”
“Not especially. That’s what the police are for.” But I did find myself over the next hour or so wandering to the topic in my head. When I finally looked over at Consuelo again, it was like we’d never paused. “So you’re saying you believe Patty?” I asked.
“I’m saying it would have been easier to get us to believe her if she’d said she was blackmailing Dray or that she really did think he was the father of her child. Is she even really pregnant?”
I shrugged. “I don’t think so. I think that was part of the role. Later on I imagine she would have revealed that she wasn’t really having a baby, maybe after there was some tabloid coverage, and they’d send her in for rehab or something. The thing that I don’t understand is who would have thought that was a good idea. Who wanted to stir up a fake scandal about Dray so soon after he’d gone through his own rehab for drugs?”
“Well, you said the producer guy had some problems with Dray when they were negotiating his new contract,” Consuelo pointed out. “Maybe he thought it would be good to make Dray look bad in the paper, lower his value or something.”
“That doesn’t really make sense. The last thing a showrunner needs is to have his star less popular to the viewing public, even if it will make his price lower.” I stood up so I could pace, which is how I do my best thinking. “No, if we believe Patty, someone put together a really elaborate plan to discredit Dray. Or did they?” I stopped pacing.
Consuelo’s eyes narrowed. “What?” she asked.
“Maybe the idea was to make Dray look sympathetic. This crazy fan was harassing him, claiming he was the father of her unborn child when he wasn’t, making trouble for him. When it was discovered at the end—or even all the way along, if Patty played the part big enough—the public would feel like poor Dray had been victimized and he’d been even more popular than ever. That’s the backstory, anyway. That’s how they’d sell it to Patty. The real motive was to provide an easy mark once Dray had been shot, someone who could be blamed, tried, and convicted as a distraction from the person who really shot Dray. It’s sort of genius.”
Consuelo took a moment to absorb that brilliant observation, then sat back and laughed once. “That’s insane,” she said.
“Yeah, but it’s showbiz, Consuelo. Publicists can talk actors into anything. Look, someone talked Patty into essentially becoming a target of the tabloids and TV by convincing her there was a part in it for her down the road. If you’re going to be an agent, you have to understand that nobody in this business can see past their own career.”
“So what does that mean?” Consuelo asked. “That someone wanted to kill Dray and they set Patty up as the fall guy? Who had the motive to do that?”
I sighed. “It’s a good question. I’ll have to ask Harve Lembeck.”
* * *
I spent the night with my parents talking about everything except the Dray Mattone murder because I was murder-ed out. And throughout the conversation even as we put on The Sunshine Boys for Dad to get ideas, I kept getting the impression that my mother had no burning desire to leave their dual act but that she somehow expected my father to know that.
Dad doesn’t like to walk the dogs far—he has had a knee replacement and it gets cranky on him, especially since he’s leery of getting the procedure done on the other knee—so it was hard to get him alone for a significant period of time. But luckily Mom likes to go to bed early, so as soon as the movie was done, she said her good-nights and went into their bedroom. I pretended to be cleaning up the kitchen from dinner, although we’d done that already. Really all I was doing was getting ready to run the dishwasher. But I asked Dad to keep me company, so he came in and sat at the kitchen table.
“How’s the market for a solo act going?” I asked.
Dad grimaced. I’d gotten the impression he was having trouble marketing himself alone. In recent years it had been tougher even with Mom in the act, but they had a reputation and could always bank on it, and in performance they were always terrific because they’re pros and they love each other, which came across onstage. Don’t underestimate the idea that audiences want to believe in the illusion they are being shown. If it happens to be real, that’s even better.
“I’ll find something,” he said. “I haven’t hit the right hook with the act yet, so I haven’t really been able to pitch it as new and different. The usual bookings on cruise ships and some of the smaller casinos aren’t coming across because they don’t know me just by myself yet. Don’t you worry, Kay, it’ll happen.”
I walked over and put a hand on his shoulder. “I know. I was just asking.” I gave Dad a hug and he looked less grumpy. “How are you changing the act besides taking Mom out of it? It’s hard to do sketches when you’re by yourself.”
He held up a hand. “Oh, it can be done, trust me. But I’m thinking it’s more in the area of monologues, maybe reminiscences about the stars I’ve worked with over the years. I don’t really want to get nostalgic about your mother because then people will think there’s another reason she’s not there and I’ll get emotional onstage. Last thing you want.” He did not want audiences to mistakenly believe he was mourning his wife when she was at home giving piano lessons and relaxing by the pool. Which is over at the Holiday Inn a couple of miles from here. But you can pay them by the season for access.
“You want to show me what you’ve got in mind?” I asked. Dad had always acted out the scenes and given Mom and me an idea of the songs he had in mind when he was concocting a new act. I gestured toward the living room where he’d have more space to work.
“Oh, I don’t want to make noise and keep your mom awake,” Dad said, shaking his head.
That was unusual. Dad is a natural performer; he’d almost never give up the opportunity to show off to any audience, even if it was just me. And Mom could sleep through an attack by the Saracens if they happen to drop by, so he was dodging the chance to show off his act.
“You don’t have an act yet, do you?” I asked.
Dad looked away. “Not technically.”
I sat down at the table next to him and looked him in the eye. “Dad, you really don’t want to go out and work without Mom anymore, do you?”
He continued to stare at Bruno, who was fast asleep in a corner of the kitchen floor. Eydie, not quite as unconscious, was eyeing Bruno, whom she still saw as an interloper, if a benign one. Dad coughed theatrically (what other way is there?) into his hand.
“It’s not my first choice,” he said.
This was the time to make my play. “Well, guess what,” I said. “If I’m reading Mom right, it’s not her first choice either.”
Dad looked up, startled. “What makes you think that?”
“Just the way she’s been acting. I think maybe she’s a little tired of the cruise ships, more than you are anyway, but I don’t think she wants to retire and she’s definitely not looking forward to spending all that time away from you.”
My father shook his head. “No, that’s not what she told me. Said she’s had it with being in front of an audience and having to be onstage every night. She doesn’t like mingling with the audience all day and then do
ing the act at night. We’re old, she’s tired, I get that. But we never planned all that great for retirement, so we need the money, and besides, I like to get out there. You know how I am, honey. If I stay off the stage too long I get antsy. Mom’s not like that.”
“I think it’s something else,” I told him. This was tricky; I wanted to lead Dad to a conclusion without saying it myself simply because it wouldn’t work if he didn’t make the mental connection himself. Not to mention that people don’t really like to be told something; they want to think their own thought processes were what brought them to this conclusion. They look upon the outcome more fondly and consider it more satisfactory. “I think maybe Mom is just feeling a little insecure and needs to be convinced she shouldn’t be.”
“Insecure?” Dad looked genuinely lost. “What has your mom got to be insecure about? She’s the best singer out of the three of us. She’s funny and audiences absolutely love her. If it was Mom who was going out on her own, there wouldn’t be much of a problem getting her gigs.”
“Well, she doesn’t see it that way,” I said. “Maybe she really is tired and she just doesn’t feel like someone who sings well and can be entertaining. Because she herself doesn’t feel all that confident anymore.”
A switch flipped in my father’s eyes. “She needs to be wooed,” he said. “She needs someone to tell her how good she is and how necessary she is to the act. That would get her back into the mood, don’t you think?”
Inwardly I was smiling from ear to ear; Dad had gotten the message in his own process. “I definitely do,” I told him.
“Yeah.” Dad stood up and started rubbing his hands together, not in a sinister way but to indicate he was thinking fast now. “She needs to hear it from someone she respects, someone whose opinion means something to her.” He was on his way in his head and had to walk through it to get to the end. He turned. “You.”
Huh? “Me, what?” I asked.
“You. You should talk to your mother about coming back to the act. She knows you love and respect her, and she loves you and respects your opinion. She’ll listen to you.” Dad’s face was lighting up like a jack-o’-lantern, but not one of the scary ones.
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