Killer Ratings: A Susan Kaplan Mystery

by Lisa Seidman

  Lily sat back, smiled. “Good. Thanks.”

  She didn’t look like she was about to say anymore, so I prompted, “About Rebecca?” I hoped Lily wasn’t going to wait and spill until after I passed on her headshot. Fortunately, that apparently wasn’t the deal because Lily said, “I had an affair with her ex-husband.”

  Thud. That was the sound of my jaw hitting the table. Lily smiled wryly, amused by the impact her revelation had on me.

  I stuttered, “What? When? Rebecca was married?”

  Lily took a long sip from her soda before answering. “Years ago. They came out to L.A. together. From the Midwest. Ohio, I think. He wanted to be an actor. She a singer.”

  Rebecca could sing? Who was this woman?

  “Anyway, Rebecca told me she decided she’d rather be in the audience listening than on stage performing. I think it was the lie she told people instead of admitting she didn’t have enough talent to make it big. She got a job working for Ray Goldfarb, as his personal assistant, and never looked back.”

  “What about her husband?”

  “Ex. He did some modeling but never really succeeded.”

  “So how did you and he …?”

  “Hook up?”

  “Get together.”

  She smiled, flicking back a dark curl from her face. “He came by the office once. Looking for Rebecca. She was at lunch so he hung around, we got to talking …”

  “But where were Jennifer and Sandy? They never said a word.”

  “They didn’t know. The show wasn’t in production yet, so we all had offices at Romulus. It must’ve been a day when they were at the warehouse getting it ready for all of us to move in.”

  The Romulus office was in West LA, near where the 405 and 10 freeways connected. I had worked there as a temp before being hired to replace Lily. By then, the show was in production and the staff had moved permanently to the studio downtown.

  “You met him once and started dating him?”

  Lily laughed. “I don’t know if what Kelly and I did could be called dating. We were attracted to one another. And it wasn’t like he was still married to Rebecca.”

  “Are you still seeing him?”

  She shook her head. “Rebecca found out. That put an end to his ardor.”

  “Why? Was he still in love with her?”

  “I think he was in love with how he could use her. I wasn’t the only one who wanted an acting job on B&B.”

  “So how did she find out?”

  Lily shrugged. “Nothing huge like walking in on us while we were doing it. She heard me flirting with Kelly on the phone, got suspicious. She confronted him and he gave it up.”

  “And she fired you?”

  “Well, that was the problem. I mainly worked for Peggy and Zack. So, she couldn’t fire me without telling them why she wanted to fire me. And she wasn’t about to do that.”

  “So, what happened?” No wonder daytime soaps are going off the air. Who needs their daily dose of Sturm und Drang when you’re living it?

  “Rebecca called me into her office, basically told me she’d poison any chance I had at an acting career if I didn’t quit. She had already sabotaged my chance at a B&B audition.” Lily’s mouth twisted and I saw the hurt in her eyes. But, really, was she living in that much of a fantasy world? What else did she expect?

  I said, “And, so, Rebecca hates me, Sandy, and Jennifer because she thinks we’re going to sleep with her ex-husband? I haven’t even met the guy!”

  “I guess he’s steered clear of the warehouse since our little debacle.” She finished her soda, pushed the empty cup away. “You worked with Rebecca for how long? Two months?” I nodded. “Didn’t you see how insecure she was? She didn’t have the talent to make it as a singer. And no one had any respect for her as an associate producer, and she knew it. Jennifer is gorgeous, Sandy is very good at her job, and you … What are you out here for?”

  “I want to be a TV writer.”

  Lily nodded as if she had already figured that out. “And I bet you’re good.”

  I blushed. “Charles liked my spec for Dress Blue, thought it might lead to a writing assignment on B&B.”

  “There you go. So Rebecca was sharing office space with three women who were competing with her on some level. She couldn’t let any of you screw her over like I did.”

  “She seemed to get along with Peggy …”

  “Oh, I’m sure she found some subtle way to stab Peggy in the back.”

  “I think she was having an affair with Zack.”

  The corner of Lily’s mouth quirked. “Need I say more?”

  “But her hatred seemed so …”

  “Out there? Unreasonable?” I nodded. Lily continued, “The one thing I knew about Rebecca is she was all about control. I’m sorry if my fling with her ex caused you and the other two girls so much pain. But when Rebecca felt like she was losing control, she fought back viciously. She wanted to inflict triple the pain she felt she was caused.”

  On the drive over Coldwater Canyon back to my apartment, Lily’s headshot on the seat next to me, I thought of her words. Yes, Rebecca was vicious. Unreasonably so. And maybe that caused one of her victims to fight back, equally unreasonably. A stupid, dangerous game where control freak Rebecca ultimately and irrevocably lost control.

  Five minutes after I arrived home Craig arrived at my doorstep, holding a large, take-out pizza box. I could smell cheese and tomato sauce, and my stomach grumbled in response.

  “We may have to warm it up,” he said. “You got home later than usual. But I had a feeling you’d had another tough day.”

  “It could have been better,” I said. I decided not to tell him about my ex getting married to the girl he was sleeping with while living with me. Instead, I said, “You were right. I ended up calling Wagner about Ray’s alibi and he was singularly unimpressed. But I found out some other stuff about Rebecca that’s kind of interesting.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “Sure.” I smiled at Craig, pleased he had come by again, bearing gifts, no less. In jeans and striped rugby shirt, he looked damn cute.

  “Can we talk about it now?” Craig said. “My hand’s getting stuck to the cardboard.”

  “Oops. Sorry.” I opened the door and let him pass. Craig’s hair was damp and he smelled of soap and shampoo. I took in a deep breath of him, trying not to look obvious. He placed the box on my kitchen counter and opened the lid with a “Voila!” gesture. I looked inside. Pepperoni and black olives. My favorite.

  “You have just made a bad day good,” I said.

  Babbitt & Brooks aired that night, and while waiting for the show to start, I filled Craig in on new suspect Michael Keller, my calling Wagner about Ray’s alibi, as well as former assistant Lily’s affair with Rebecca’s ex-husband.

  Craig swallowed a mouthful of crust and cheese. “Whoa. Let’s start with your call to the cops. Did Ray find out you told them?”

  “I don’t know. If he did, he didn’t confront me about it. And Sandy said Wagner never called him. So maybe it doesn’t matter. Not if Keller is now the prime suspect.”

  “Get real, Susan,” Craig said. “Ray’s gonna find out. And whether he’s guilty or not, he’s gonna get back at you for telling tales about him.” He turned toward the TV set and my shoulders sagged. He was disappointed in me. I could’ve kicked myself for caring so much about what he thought. I conjured up a mental image of my heart and hardened it. All I got in return was heartburn.

  But as I silently kissed off any possibility of a romantic relationship, Craig turned back to me.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “But at the risk of sounding like your parents, I’m worried about you. I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

  I smiled, pleased by his concern, but before I could respond, Babbitt & Brooks’s upbeat yet serious theme song began playing over Gail and Tabby arguing in court, ordering hot dogs from a street vendor, pacing in their law office, Gail looking elegant in an evening
gown, Tabby laughing at the dinner table with her family, and ending with the two women, having won their case in court, jumping in the air and slapping their palms in a high five.

  Peggy had written the script, which was about Tabitha Wentworth’s character, Hank Babbitt, being held hostage in her office by the brother of a client whose case she had lost. The word floating around the office was that the show had turned out incredibly well.

  “This is the episode that could win us the Emmy next year,” Ray had said after he, Charles, Zack, Peggy, and Rebecca had returned from watching a rough screening. Peggy looked pleased, and I remember Rebecca squeezing her arm and congratulating her. Maybe that was when Rebecca decided to steal Zack. If Peggy had the Emmy for comfort, then Rebecca could have her boyfriend. Too bad Emmy nominations for this season weren’t announced until the following August. That was a long time to wait for substitute comfort.

  The episode was different from what the show usually did. Ray liked to occasionally break away from the issue of the week to explore major personal crises. The story this time was about how two women, who were best friends as well as law partners, each dealt with a horrific crisis from different perspectives. It was a terrific episode, and I hoped people would remember it eight months from now when it was time to nominate shows for Emmy consideration.

  Hank Babbitt was finally rescued with a lot of help and planning from Alexandra Brooks. As the police led the crazed kidnapper off, the two women looked at one another, and Hank said something witty to Alexandra to show that she was perfectly fine; then, just as you thought, that’s that, Hank broke down in tears, and Alexandra took her in her arms. Could there be a hint of lesbian lust in that embrace, I wondered, as the frame froze then faded to black. Over black, the words, “In memory of Rebecca Saunders” appeared, held, then faded for “Executive Producer, Raymond Goldfarb.”

  I felt a twinge of sadness. Rebecca’s assistant carried on with her ex behind her back, she lost her promotion, then her life. Why didn’t I take the time to understand her? Why was I so quick to judge her? “It sucks,” I said. Craig grabbed the remote and turned off the set, an ancient Sony portable inherited from my parents. “What do you mean? I thought it was a good show.”

  “It was. I’m talking about Rebecca. Her death.”

  “Feeling sorry for her, Susan?”

  “I treated her like she was Stalin. But in the scheme of things, she just wanted what we all wanted. To feel good about herself.”

  Craig smiled at me, squeezing my knee before standing and stretching. Sitting next to him for an hour on my sofa-bed, wondering if he was going to make a move, had taken half my concentration away from the show. Watching his shirt ride up over his flat stomach took away the last half.

  “The show was still good,” he said. “Your ratings will go through the roof.” He grinned at me. “Maybe Ray’ll feel so good about it he’ll let you write a script even if you do put him in prison.”

  Well, a person could dream, but I doubted Ray would give me a script from his prison cell or that the ratings would be as big as Craig predicted. Therefore, I was stunned to come into work the next morning to find the phone ringing off the hook with amazing news.

  “Are you ready to hear something incredible?” breathed the voice of Lainie Abbott, our publicist’s assistant. Babbitt & Brooks used a public relations firm to handle its publicity needs. One of Lainie’s jobs was to call me the day after the show aired to dictate the ratings. The ratings we received first thing in the morning were called overnights and represented seventeen cities, among them New York, Los Angeles, Boston, and Chicago. Later in the day Lainie called with the nationals, which represented the entire country. B&B always did better in the overnights since urbanites seemed to like the show more than Ma and Pa Kettle in Paducah, Kentucky (at least that was the expression Lainie used). We usually came in third to a reality series and sitcom, respectively, barely beating the fourth-place show, which was a news program along the lines of 60 Minutes.

  “Yeah, I’m ready for some incredible news,” I told Lainie, still not believing it would really be that amazing.

  “Okay. Get this.” I found a pen and pad of paper. “Chicago, fifteen rating, twenty share.”

  “What? You’re putting me on.” Only shows in the top ten got ratings like that, and lately even that had become rarer and rarer.

  “I haven’t finished yet,” Lainie said, and I could hear the huge smile in her voice. “Los Angeles, eighteen rating, twenty-two share.”

  “Lainie, dream on. What is it really?”

  “New York, twenty rating, twenty-five share.”

  And so on, and so on. Between Rebecca’s death and Gail’s lesbian allegations, everybody had decided to tune in to Babbitt & Brooks to see what this den of iniquity was all about.

  The network—and Romulus—would be ecstatic. Fifteen years ago ninety percent of America watched network shows; now, with the advent of cable, syndication, satellite dishes, Netflix and the Internet, that figure was down to only fifty-five percent. To have snared twenty percent of that audience was to have obtained a sort of Nirvana known only to shows like the final episode of M*A*S*H and the “Who Shot J.R.?” episode of Dallas.

  When the nationals came in everyone let out a gasp of pure disbelief. Babbitt & Brooks had garnered twenty-five percent of the audience across America. That was the highest rating a primetime network show had received in years. We were an overnight hit, rescued from anonymity by Rebecca’s murder and the Scoop’s accusations. There was absolutely no doubt in anyone’s mind that when the weekly rankings came out the following Tuesday, Babbitt & Brooks would be the number one show in the country. B&B was a show the critics loved, labeled by TV Guide as “the best show you’re not watching.” Well, now it appeared that we were watching—a truly remarkable feat.

  Ray was overjoyed. The numbers even seemed to thaw the feud between him and Charles, Charles happily accepting one of the cigars Ray was passing out, and Ray slapping him on the back like he was the prodigal son. Baskets of flowers, exotic fruit, and expensive wines arrived from Romulus and the network for the actresses and the writing staff. Peggy seemed to glow in the center of all the congratulatory hugs and kisses she received. Deep down, everyone knew the real reason behind the ratings, but no one was going to admit it. As far as Ray and Romulus were concerned, Peggy had written a superb episode in which Gail and Tabitha shone.

  The writers huddled in Ray’s office for the rest of the day. Even I was getting concerned that I had seen neither hide nor hair of the rest of Zack’s script. Miranda’s repeated phone calls were driving me bananas.

  “They’re changing it around,” Sandy told me when I complained to her. “Beefing it up.”

  “Sleazing it up, you mean,” said Jennifer. “Now that we have an audience we have to worry about keeping them.”

  Sandy didn’t deny this. “I overheard Ray talking with the network,” she said. “They want to switch next week’s teenage pregnancy episode with the housewives turned prostitutes one.”

  “But Ray hated that episode,” I said. “I thought he was going to air it opposite the Super Bowl or something.”

  “Okay, a) the Super Bowl is on Sunday and b) the network loves it,” Sandy replied. “They think it’ll be more interesting to our audience than teenage pregnancy. They think that’s too depressing.”

  Jennifer made a rude sound. “And housewives who become prostitutes isn’t? This show is going to lose every ounce of integrity it has.”

  “I wonder if they’ll start showing the actresses’ bare bottoms,” I mused. “Maybe throw in a couple of curse words.”

  “The only way this show is going to hold on to those ratings,” said Jennifer, ignoring me, “is if someone gets killed every week. And you better believe that once Romulus realizes this, they’re going to be hiring a hit man.”

  6.

  On Saturday morning I put on a black skirt and white silk blouse to attend Rebecca’s memorial service. The medical
examiner had concluded that Rebecca had died due to repeated blows to the head that had resulted in severe injury to the brain. Which I did not see splattered on her office walls. I did not.

  The service was postponed, according to Sandy, who got stuck making the arrangements, so that Rebecca’s parents could fly in from Michigan. But she confided in Jennifer and me later, when no one else was around, that the real reason was so we wouldn’t have to close production for even one morning to attend. I debated asking Craig to come with me, but I didn’t want him to think I was asking him out on a date—even if it was to a funeral—so I decided against saying anything and to go alone.

  Perhaps it was hypocritical of me to want to attend the service, but it was an opportunity to see Ray, Zack, and Gail in a setting outside production. Would all three act grief-stricken? Or would Ray and Gail, at least, tone it down in deference to his wife and the Scoop, respectively? I had thought Gail genuinely mourned Rebecca when we had talked about the latter’s death in the trailer. But Gail wasn’t an Emmy-nominated actress for nothing, and it was possible she was playing a role for me so I wouldn’t question the difference between the time production closed and the time she actually left location. I wondered what kind of role she would play for the Scoop and Rebecca’s mourners, and whether it would be as convincing for them as it had been for me.

  I also wondered if Michael Keller would show up. Was it de rigueur for one’s drug dealer to appear at one’s funeral? (If he was her drug dealer. But I had already convinced myself that he was.) Or had the police already arrested him for Rebecca’s murder? I didn’t think so. With all the media attention her death had been getting, his arrest would’ve made the nightly news. So, I figured the cops had suspicions, but no proof.

  The service was held at the Hollywood United Methodist Church, where there seemed to be more media present than actual mourners. As I got out of my car, I noticed Ray exiting a limo with both Winifred and Gail in tow. The women were dressed almost identically in simple black dresses and pearls, although Gail wore sunglasses and a huge black hat that made her look more conspicuous than if she had gone bareheaded. The press fell on her as she, Ray, and Winifred neared the front entrance. Several clean-cut men dressed in black arrived on the scene to firmly, but courteously, keep the media away.