Killer Ratings: A Susan Kaplan Mystery

by Lisa Seidman

  “Debra Chandler, Channel Eight News. Is it true, Mr. Goldfarb, the deceased was your associate producer?”

  “No comment,” growled Ray as he opened his door and slammed it into someone’s knees. Debra Chandler must’ve adroitly stepped aside because the “Fuck” I heard in response was distinctly male.

  “Did you work with the deceased?” a hair-sprayed Anderson Cooper wannabe asked me, a microphone swooping into my line of sight so quickly I reared back for fear it would knock my teeth out.

  I don’t know if I would’ve answered his question under other circumstances, but I had forgotten the location of the door handle and was preoccupied with groping around for it.

  “Do you work here?” the Anderson clone persisted. “Do you know anything about the murder?”

  Ray was already out of the car and heading for the front entrance, a pack of reporters baying close at his heels. He either had forgotten about me or assumed I could make it on my own because he flung himself up the steps and through the door without looking back.

  With Ray gone, the reporters again fell on me, firing questions like the rat-a-tat-tat of machine guns.

  “What’s your name?” “What’s your connection with the murdered woman?” “Do you work for Romulus Television?” “What is your relationship to Ray Goldfarb?”

  I was so angry at Ray I was tempted to grab a microphone and announce to the six o’clock news that Ray and I were lovers and had been since I was thirteen.

  Suddenly, a hand reached into the car and I drew back with a gasp. I stared helplessly as it reached for the door handle, pulled it up, and opened the door—or at least as far as it would open with a horde of reporters crowding around it.

  “Come on, Suze, let’s get you out of here.”

  I looked up. Sherman held his hand out to me, and I gratefully grabbed it as he practically dragged me from the car.

  The reporters, of course, now spotted fresh meat, and went after both Sherman and me with renewed enthusiasm. Sherman put a protective arm around me, and we zigzagged through the melee, Sherman swinging open the door and steering me inside.

  I paused, trying to catch my breath. Sherman and I both ignored the reporters who continued to shout questions at us through the door.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  I nodded, unable to speak for a moment.

  Sherman looked like he wanted to take me in his arms and murmur, “There, there.” But if he did, I knew I’d start bawling, so instead I turned away from him and started walking down the hall to the bullpen. “If they’re still here when you’re ready to leave,” he said following me, “I’ll sneak you out the back way.”

  I nodded my thanks, still trying to catch my breath.

  “You know, I always believed in free press and freedom of speech and all that jazz, but this is ridiculous.” Sherman smiled, trying to cheer me up. I smiled back weakly.

  “After all,” I said, “does Rebecca really deserve all this attention? She wasn’t the nicest person in the world.”

  “Should I go back out there and tell them that?”

  “I don’t think her parents would appreciate it,” I said.

  “Or Ray.”

  Speaking of Ray, where was he? Sherman and I were standing right outside his office, and I feared Ray had overheard every word we said.

  “He’s in the men’s room,” Sherman said, reading my mind. “I saw him come blasting across the room, cursing about the media. I went to take a look and saw you still in the car.”

  “Thanks for rescuing me,” I said. “You are truly my hero.”

  “Anytime.”

  “Have you heard any more from the cops?” I asked as Sherman walked with me back to my desk.

  “Nothing. Though I wouldn’t be surprised if they checked around my apartment building, looking for Rebecca’s car.”

  “No! You really don’t think—” I started to say, but stopped as Ray strode into the room.

  “Susan, good,” he said. “You made it all right.”

  No thanks to you, bud. Out loud I told him, “Sherman rescued me from the devouring hordes.”

  Ray nodded, his mind already moving on to other things. “Check for messages. I’ll return the most urgent calls and then we can get out of here.”

  I stared after him as he turned the corner and went into his office. We still had to work? After the day we just had? The man must be out of his mind!

  Sherman patted me on the shoulder. “You want me to kill him for you?”

  “That’s not funny,” I said, sounding sharper than I meant to. I was immediately contrite. “I’m sorry.”

  “No, you’re right. Especially if the cops bugged this place. Which wouldn’t surprise me.” On that comforting thought, he left.

  I typed up a list of the messages left on voicemail and took it with me into Ray’s office. Larger than the others, the room was also windowless. The teak furniture was new and the paneled walls were covered with framed photos of Ray’s other television credits. The digital clock on the DVD player blinked 12:00, 12:00, 12:00, and the TV stand was surprisingly clear of the usual stack of dailies and directors’ reels.

  Ray sat behind his desk, talking into the speakerphone, simultaneously checking his e-mail on his iPhone. I hesitated in the doorway, but Ray nodded to a black-cushioned chair in front of his desk. I sat down.

  “No, it was definitely a robbery,” Ray was saying. “Her car’s gone; so is her purse.”

  “What happened to the night watchman? Isn’t he supposed to keep the doors locked?” I recognized Cliff Rosen. The president of Romulus Television’s voice sounded tinny and distant on the speakerphone.

  “He’s supposed to,” said Ray. “But he didn’t.”

  Because Rebecca told him not to, I wanted to shout at the two men. I knew I couldn’t do that; Ray would be furious and Cliff would be offended that Ray had put him on the speakerphone while someone else was listening in.

  “Damn shame,” said Cliff. In the meantime, I had grabbed a pad of paper and started scribbling a note.

  “I know.” Ray sounded sad, serious, and there was a moment of silence between the two men. I pushed my note over to Ray. It said, “Rebecca told Sherman not to lock up.” Ray read it, nodded, then crumpled it in his hand.

  “So,” Cliff spoke up again. “What should we do about production? Are the ladies willing to go on?”

  “They’re holding up like troupers. They say we should keep going.”

  “You crunch numbers with Patrick if we closed down for a week?”

  Ray nodded at the speakerphone. Wasn’t he going to tell Cliff about my note? “We lose a hundred thou a day for every day we’re not filming.”

  Silence so thick you could poke holes through it.

  “Then I think we should keep going,” Cliff said. “It’s what Rebecca would’ve wanted.”

  “I agree,” said Ray. I tried not to laugh. What did Cliff Rosen know about what Rebecca would’ve wanted? Rebecca would’ve wanted the show closed down permanently as an eternal memorial to her. I remember Sandy telling me that Cliff fought bitterly against Rebecca’s promotion to associate producer, forced to hire a post-production supervisor to do the work Rebecca’s secretarial background had not trained her for. Her death would save him quite a lot of money—which made me wonder if Cliff had an alibi for the night of Rebecca’s murder.

  “Okay, so we’ll just keep on rolling. You want to make a statement to the media or shall I?”

  “I’ll do it,” said Ray. “They’re waiting outside right now. Might as well give them something for the six o’clock news.” He had the nerve to wink at me. Did he think we were compatriots because we battled the media blitz together? Remind me not to share a foxhole with this man during the next world war.

  Cliff and Ray exchanged closing pleasantries then hung up. Once they had made their decision that the show must go on, neither seemed too concerned about keeping up the pretense about caring for Rebecca or her fate. Ray even sm
iled at me as he said, “Get me Patrick Hager at location.”

  “But, Ray, what about Sherman?”

  “What about him?”

  “Rebecca told him to leave the door open. So it wasn’t his fault that she got killed.”

  “We’ll see,” was all Ray would say.

  I remained sitting in Ray’s office while he spoke with Patrick and told him that production would keep filming. I worried about Sherman. Should I warn him about the misconceptions floating around the office? Would it only serve to make him more angry, or would he be able to constructively use that anger to defend himself? I didn’t know, and I was still gnawing away at it when Charles appeared in the doorway.

  “Ray, we need to talk.” Ray looked up from the phone in annoyance. “Now.” Charles’s face was paper white, his fists clenching and unclenching at his sides.

  Ray spoke into the phone. “Patrick, we’ll continue this later. Something’s come up.” He hung up the phone and stared at Charles.

  “Have you been here all this time?”

  “It doesn’t matter where I’ve been.” Charles stepped further into the office. “Susan, please excuse us.”

  I looked at Ray, who nodded. I got up and walked past Charles; I could almost feel the heat of his anger pulsing from his body. I exited the office, deliberately leaving Ray’s door open. If something interesting was about to take place, I wanted to hear every word of it. Unfortunately, Charles closed the door firmly behind me. Rats.

  In resignation I checked my computer for messages. I needed to distribute copies of yesterday’s production report and tomorrow’s call sheet, which listed the scenes being shot, their locations, the number of pages per scene, the actors needed for the day, and what times they had to be in makeup. I placed copies of both the production report and the call sheet in Zack’s and Peggy’s offices, noticing that the production coordinator who emailed them to me had already deleted Rebecca’s name from the distribution list.

  I sat back at my desk, straining to catch something—anything—from Ray’s office, but could only hear Ray’s and Charles’s muffled voices. I picked up my copy of the production report for lack of something better to do. It listed the minutiae of the day’s production: when shooting started and stopped, how many feet of film was used, how many camera set-ups were needed, and the times of the actors’ arrival and departure from the set. Gail was right, production had wrapped at seven forty-five. I looked down at her initials, placed next to the time she had finished for the day. Then did a double-take. Gail had signed out at seven-fifteen, thirty minutes before filming had wrapped.

  Had Gail lied to me? I tried to remember what I had asked her. We were talking about Charles and when he had left the set. Gail said she didn’t know, but she did know, rather promptly, what time the day’s shooting had ended. I had just assumed she wrapped when production did. Gail hadn’t exactly lied to me, but I had the distinct feeling she purposely misled me. I remembered how she didn’t like my asking her questions about when Charles had left. Could it be she didn’t know because she already had gone herself? But why not tell me the truth? Why act like she had something to hide?

  Maybe Gail did have something to hide. Or maybe I was making mountains out of molehills. I had asked Gail when production wrapped and she had told me. But how would she know if she had left beforehand? Easy. She looked at the production report just like I was doing now. But why would she care when production wrapped, especially after she had already gone for the day? Or had she really gone? Had she stayed? And if she had, so what?

  I shook my head, trying to convince myself none of this was important. But my instincts were telling me otherwise. I remembered Irene the makeup lady asking Ray if they were to be questioned by the police—and looking at Gail when she asked it. Did Gail have something to hide and the makeup lady knew it? Was she afraid she was going to have to lie to the police on Gail’s behalf?

  Did Gail leave at seven-fifteen, come here and kill Rebecca? Then learn what time production wrapped to mislead the cops? But they could read the production report as clearly as I could. I stared at Gail’s hastily scrawled initials. Tell me what’s going on, I begged the silent letters. But they remained obstinately mute.

  “That’s bullshit!” Charles suddenly shouted, and I jumped six feet out of my chair, swiveling my head in the direction of Ray’s office door. “She was blackmailing you!”

  “The hell she was!” Now Ray was shouting. “How dare you come in here and dictate to me!”

  Charles’s voice dropped again, much to my disappointment, and all I could hear was, “… you and Rebecca.”

  Ray’s voice grew equally muffled; I heard a vehement, “That’s not true,” and then nothing.

  Charles said something I couldn’t make out, then the door flew open and he stormed out of the office. He looked neither right nor left, and if he knew I was at my desk, he made no acknowledgment of it. He turned the corner and left the building. Rebecca’s office across from Ray’s stood silent witness, the yellow police tape glowing like an eerie grin, the nameplate on her door, a single, blind, metal eye.

  I wanted to get out of the building and I wanted to get out right then and there. But Ray was still in his office, although I heard neither the rattle of paper nor his voice on the phone. The bullpen seemed suffocating and claustrophobic as night descended, and the overhead fluorescent lights flickered and fizzled. I squelched my rising panic and turned back to the work on my desk. I picked up the production report, which I had thrown atop my desk calendar when I heard Charles shouting. I glanced at the calendar as I shoved the papers into some sort of pile to file at a later date. Something gnawed at the back of my brain—like the name of a movie I wanted to recommend to a friend but couldn’t remember, seeing images, seeing the actors, while the name itself slipped elusively from the clutches of my memory. What was it? What was wrong?

  Then Ray exited his office, and I lost the thought completely. His face was gray, eyes sunken.

  “Go home, Susan,” he said. “I’ll deal with the phone calls tomorrow.”

  Without waiting for my answer, he started to turn back inside, pausing as his eyes swept past the door of Rebecca’s office. After a momentary hesitation, he re-entered his office and quietly shut the door.

  10.

  I refused to check my messages while driving home, a firm believer that if anyone were to get mowed down by a 12-ton tractor trailer on the Santa Monica Freeway while texting it would be me. Peter used to joke that I was an old lady living in a young woman’s body. Maybe that’s why he slept with Casey Bitterman, a young woman in a young woman’s body, instead.

  With superhuman effort, I did not go on my Facebook page to see what Peter had posted about him and Casey today (yes, they were still together) and instead played back my phone messages. Twelve new messages. A new world record for my voicemail, which was used to getting one message a week and that from my mother who always sounded tense and nervous as if waiting for my smartphone to somehow reach through the digital miles and bite her. All my friends, of course, texted me or wrote me on Facebook.

  “Hi, Susie-Q.” My mother. Sounding cheerful, nervous, and concerned, all at the same time. “Daddy and I just heard on the news about your boss. Just want to make sure you’re all right. Give us a call when you get a chance. Love.”

  Well, Mom, I wasn’t all right. I found my boss’s dead body. Maybe I’m a suspect, maybe I’m not, and several colleagues seem to have a secret about the night of Rebecca’s murder. But to tell her or my father any of that was simply not part of the game plan.

  “Susan, it’s Grandmom. I heard on the news that someone on your show got killed. I called your mother and she told me the same thing. Call me and let me know you’re all right. Bye.”

  Good old Grandmom. I pictured her, sitting on her peach-and-green couch in West Palm Beach, eating leftover chicken from some Early Bird special while watching Brian Williams talk about Rebecca’s murder. A wave of nostalgia and a sudden lo
nging for her comforting presence washed over me.

  “Hello? Susan? Are you there?” A pause. I recognized the Yiddish-accented voice immediately. My Fascist-fighting Buby, who lived in a one-bedroom apartment in Queens, over the candy store she and my many-years-deceased grandfather used to own. “Hello?” Another beat. She sounded sadder. “You’re not home. Call me, honey.”

  Buby rarely called me in L.A., relying on my parents to catch her up on my news. So I knew the murder had her worried, too.

  The rest of the calls were from various friends in New York and from college and grad school. I half-hoped Peter would call; even if he didn’t read about Rebecca’s murder on the Internet, our social grapevine would’ve kept him informed. But there was no, “My God, Suze, I heard what happened. Are you all right? I love you, I miss you. I dumped Casey Bitterman, please take me back!” issuing from my phone. I heated up a pot of Campbell’s chicken noodle soup, and, after taking three deep breaths, called my parents.

  “Susan.” My mother didn’t even say hello first. “What happened?”

  “Someone killed Rebecca. They think it was a burglar or a homeless person.” Best to start planting that in their minds early.

  “Oh, my God. Brian Williams said it happened at work. You weren’t there, were you?”

  “No, Ma,” I said. “I had already gone home for the day.”

  “Why can’t they film at a regular studio?” my father wanted to know. “Why does it have to be in some dangerous part of town in the middle of nowhere?”

  This was a recurring discussion with my father, who had dreams of my waving good morning to the guard at the Paramount studio gate each day.

  “You think they’ll move you to one of the studios now?” Dad continued. “Maybe you could go to some place like Universal and get the tour for free.”