Killer Ratings: A Susan Kaplan Mystery

by Lisa Seidman

  Maybe I could rationalize her sending the death threats. Hadn’t I, after all, wanted to send Rebecca threats when I saw her kissing Zack in the parking lot? But hadn’t I also been thoroughly disgusted with myself for even thinking those thoughts? Jennifer had acted on her impulses, had even enjoyed doing so. Wasn’t that crossing the line between sanity and psychopathy? Unable to figure out a way to forgive Jennifer, I turned on the radio as loud as I could and headed home.

  10.

  Starting in high school, when boys became more interesting than just those pains in the neck who knocked your books from your arms in middle school, my friends and I made a vow that we would deal with the opposite sex as straightforwardly as possible. “No game playing,” we solemnly promised ourselves; we would not be like Bobbie Walz, head cheerleader, who flirted with every guy on the football team, or Caryn Panzarino, who made a career out of playing hard to get when the reality was anyone who wanted her could have her.

  Since boys never seemed to show much of an interest in me, game playing was not too difficult for me to avoid. But most men, at least on a superficial level, I felt, really liked the games, the flirtation, the hard-to-getness, the reassurance that their opinions were more important than mine. I had decided that in order to get the information I needed to solve both Rebecca’s and Zack’s murders, I was going to have to start learning to play that game. So, Friday morning found me studying the clothes in my closet, choosing the shortest skirt, the highest heels, the sheer black stockings and a seductively unbuttoned blouse. May Gloria Steinem forgive me, I prayed to my feminist God, as I surveyed myself in the full-length mirror behind my bathroom door. Pretty Woman I wasn’t: the skirt not being all that short, the heels not really that high (since I was unable to walk gracefully even in sneakers) and the blouse, after cowardly consideration, not too far unbuttoned. But it was also a far cry from the khaki pants and tailored shirts of my normal self, and I hoped that the change would be enough to get the answers I needed.

  I drove into the warehouse parking lot around eight that morning knowing that the construction workers would have been there since seven. I examined myself in the rearview mirror, brushing my wind-blown hair back into place, reapplying my lipstick, and smoothing out the blush on my cheeks. I stepped out of my car, unobtrusively straightening my skirt, and teetered on my heels over to the foreman’s shack in the hopes of finding Ted Lombardi alone and willing to talk.

  Unfortunately, he was not alone. Three sets of male eyes stared up at me from a plan of the warehouse lying spread out on a table, as I quietly entered and shut the door behind me.

  “Can I help you?” Lombardi asked politely, almost indifferently, as the other men silently dissected me. Clearly, the foreman didn’t remember me.

  “I work on the show,” I told him, my gaze sliding to the other two men. They wore jeans and work shirts, although I didn’t recognize them from the site. “I need to talk to you about some insurance information for Michael Keller. In private.” I smiled shyly to show that I was a sweet, harmless young thing just doing her job.

  Lombardi didn’t look too thrilled with my request, and if he decided to call Bob Berg for confirmation, I was in trouble.

  Nevertheless he nodded curtly and turned back to the other two men.

  “Why don’t you start and we’ll get back to this later?”

  The men nodded and moved past me to the door while Lombardi rolled up the warehouse blueprints and set them aside. He didn’t ask me to sit down. The trailer smelled of cigarette smoke, but the weather had turned cool and fallish overnight, and the air wasn’t too stale and stifling.

  “What do you need to know?” he asked, barely looking at me. I sat down on a metal chair next to the table, pretending not to notice his obvious reluctance to deal with me.

  “It’s for the production company,” I repeated, trying to make him understand that this had nothing to do with me. “They need a record of Michael Keller’s last day of work.”

  “I don’t keep records of Keller’s hours,” Lombardi said. “He wasn’t on the company payroll.”

  “I know. I was with those two detectives when they questioned you about him.”

  Lombardi looked at me more closely. “Oh, yeah,” he said. Then, almost as an afterthought, “Sorry.”

  “That’s okay.” I waved away his offhand apology. “You see, I remember you told the police that Mr. Keller didn’t show up for work the day after Rebecca Saunders’ death. The insurance company needs something more specific than that.”

  I smiled my own apology as if to say I was sorry for wasting his time over this but what can I do? I crossed my legs and stifled an impulse to yank the skirt down over my knees. Lombardi didn’t even look, and I supposed it served me right.

  “Look, Keller came and went. Romulus hired him, let them worry about the insurance.”

  “They are. That’s why I’m here,” I said pleasantly. “You’re sure you don’t remember whether Keller disappeared on Monday or Tuesday?” To jog his memory, I added, “On Thursday the water pipe broke in the bullpen.”

  Lombardi’s face cleared. “Was that when it happened?” I nodded. “Okay. Then it was Thursday. Because Keller’s job was to check on the sprinkler system in the attic. He’s probably the reason why the pipe burst in the first place.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He was up there. You had your flood. I went to talk to him about it and couldn’t find him. Haven’t seen him since.”

  “Do you think it was his fault the pipe burst?”

  “Probably. Keller shouldn’t be in construction. I doubt he even knows how to change a light bulb.”

  “Then why did you let him work on the sprinkler system in the first place?”

  “The orders didn’t come from me,” said Lombardi. “Keller said the boss asked him to check them out.”

  He didn’t have anything else to add, not knowing whether the boss meant Bob Berg or someone else. Normally, I wouldn’t be surprised if Keller had meant Rebecca, since she threw her weight around like a boss. But Rebecca had died on Tuesday, and I couldn’t imagine why she would order her ex-husband to check out the sprinkler system before she got her head bashed in. I thanked Lombardi for his time and returned to the warehouse, more confused than ever.

  I had a particular reason for wanting to know Keller’s whereabouts around the time of Rebecca’s death. Since Rebecca had been expecting a visitor who clearly did not have a key to the front door, the most logical person had to be Michael Keller.

  If he had killed her, he might have taken off Tuesday night and not come into work on Wednesday, knowing the police would be after him. But the foreman’s remarks had only served to muddy my thinking. If Keller had killed Rebecca, why would he come in two days later claiming someone had ordered him to look at the sprinkler system? Unless he hadn’t killed Rebecca after all. Maybe he had truly disappeared, at least at first, because he screwed up on the job.

  I called Bob’s assistant, Estelle, as soon as I got back to my desk. Even though most employees didn’t show up until nine-thirty, I knew Estelle—a brusque, flinty-eyed older woman who’d been with Bob for years—would be at her desk, trying, like Bob, to think of new ways to slash money from the various Romulus budgets. Sandy had once told me that it had been Estelle’s idea not to authorize money for toilet paper for the construction workers during the show’s hiatus last spring. As a result, the men used anything they could get their hands on, clogging the toilets and costing the company more to fix the plumbing than it would have cost them in toilet paper. Way to go, Estelle!

  She answered on the third ring, sounding her usual grouchy and impatient self. “Bob Berg’s office,” she said, and I could hear her unspoken thought, “What do you want, and this better be good.”

  “Hi, Estelle, it’s Susan Kaplan at Babbitt & Brooks.

  There was a pause as Estelle tried to place my name with a face. “Yes?” she replied in a neutral, although no less gruff, tone.

>   “We’re trying to get a fix on who broke the water pipe in the warehouse.”

  “Oh, yes.” Estelle sounded more perky. Fixing the pipe had cost the company major bucks, and Estelle wasn’t going to quickly forget it.

  “Anyway, I was just talking to the foreman of the construction company and he thought that maybe Bob had ordered one of the workers to take a look at it before it broke.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Estelle said. “Bob had nothing to do with that.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Of course I am. What does Bob know about water pipes?”

  “Well, you see, Bob hired Michael Keller to work with the construction crew and since it was Keller who might have broken the pipe in the first place …”

  Estelle cut me off. “Bob hired him as a favor to Rebecca. That’s all. Bob would not make it his business to tell him what to fix. That’s for the construction company to decide.”

  “Okay, Estelle,” I said meekly. “I was just checking. According to the foreman, Keller told him the boss gave him orders to take a look at it, and I naturally thought …”

  “It wasn’t Bob,” Estelle said firmly. “And, besides, he and Keller never even met. This man had no reason to call Bob the boss. Is there anything else you wanted to know?” Her tone implied there better not be.

  “No, that’s all,” I assured her. “Thanks for your help.”

  Estelle muttered something that sounded like “Hmph” before hanging up the phone. I hung up more slowly, feeling like I was back at square one.

  Who else would Michael Keller call the boss? Ray came to mind first, but why would he care about the sprinkler system or have anything to do with Keller? Charles could also logically be considered a boss, but the same question arose: Why would he ask Keller to check on anything? Of course, Charles could have been Rebecca’s visitor—arriving after Ray’s visit. But what did that have to do with the burst water pipe? Were Rebecca’s death and the flood connected? But how? Did the murderer think the flood would somehow destroy evidence not already discovered by the police? And not realize that Keller in his incompetence would accidentally destroy the bullpen, instead of Rebecca’s office? But what would that evidence be? I had already been in Rebecca’s office and had found nothing of interest. Or had I missed something? I was halfway out of my chair to check again when the phone rang. Lainie Abbott was on the phone with last night’s show’s overnight ratings.

  The housewives-turned-prostitutes episode of Babbitt & Brooks had aired the night before, and I watched it in my apartment with Craig, having given him a murder update during the commercial breaks. Craig, initially sympathetic regarding l’affaire Jennifer, became angry when I relayed the Michael Keller escapade. Which made me decide not to tell him that I planned to talk with Keller’s foreman the next day, not wanting to completely jeopardize my chances of receiving another goodnight kiss.

  The episode, written by Zack, was only so-so. The story, about bored housewives who turned tricks for extra spending money, had been based on an article Ray read in a magazine. Zack hadn’t wanted to write it, and as a result his efforts were mediocre. Ray hated the final cut as well and had strongly recommended the episode be buried in the middle of the season. But since Rebecca’s death had generated so much publicity for the show, the network thought it would be a good audience grabber and decided to air it early.

  At the end of the episode, as the screen faded to black, the words “In Memory of Zachary North” appeared where only the week before Rebecca’s memorial had been placed.

  “I feel like I’m watching a jinxed show,” said Craig, as the words slowly faded to be replaced by “Executive Producer, Raymond Goldfarb.” “Who’s going to die next week?”

  “Don’t even think that.” I shuddered. “Not that anyone feels the way you do—especially agents.”

  Ever since the press had reported Zack’s death, agents had been calling, recommending their writer clients to fill his slot. It reminded me of living in New York, where people combed the obituaries looking to see who died and left a desirable apartment behind. But, true to his word, Ray was not rushing into anything. Appointments were made to meet various writers, and in the meantime Peggy and Charles continued to shoulder the writing burden.

  Either the networks had made a wise decision, or Rebecca’s and Zack’s deaths continued to keep the audience tuned in. Lainie’s breathy voice informed me that the overnights were just as strong as the ones from the week before. The show was assured of another twenty-five share — and a first-place ratings finish.

  As a result, I didn’t have much time to worry over the identity of Keller’s anonymous boss or how I was going to behave around Jennifer. The phone rang continually with a mixture of congratulations and crank calls, and Jennifer and I were too busy to deal with the awkwardness of our own situation.

  Although Ray, Charles, and Peggy all looked pleased with the ratings, their faces did not reflect the elated happiness of the week before. I couldn’t help remembering Jennifer’s earlier comment about Ray hiring a hit man to keep the ratings up, and I’m sure everyone was aware that the ratings were more a product of Zack’s death than of a natural interest in a quality show.

  At one, Winifred arrived to take Ray out to lunch. Peggy and Charles had disappeared into Charles’s office to work on the rewrite of Zack’s script; Ray must’ve figured he had some time to spare.

  Winifred didn’t look all that well: her face seemed thinner, and she had lost some of that haughty self-assurance I remembered from the first time I met her. Ray looked equally tired and unhappy, which I had chalked up to overwork, but wondered now if it had to do with juggling his affair with Gail and his marriage to Winifred. Before leaving Sandy’s apartment the night before, I had asked her why Ray didn’t simply get a divorce from his wife to marry Gail. Sandy shook her head and smiled at me as if she couldn’t believe my naiveté.

  “Community property,” she told me. “It’ll kill him.”

  “But they haven’t been married that long. How bad can it be?”

  Jennifer answered for her. “Ray owns a piece of the show. Winifred helped put the deal together. If “Broads with Balls” continues as the number one show, or even manages to remain in the top ten, that could be a hefty chunk of change. Ray probably doesn’t want to part with any of it, even if it means sneaking around behind Winifred’s back.”

  The phone calls petered out during the lunch hour, and Jennifer and I contemplated each other from across our desks.

  “I tried calling you last night,” she finally said. “You didn’t pick up the phone.”

  “I know.” I had let her calls fall into voicemail, not knowing how to deal with her.

  “Are you going to hate me for the rest of your life?” she asked.

  “I don’t hate you,” I said. “I just …” I trailed off, wearily shaking my head.

  “How many times do I have to say I’m sorry?” Her voice broke, and for a horrified moment I thought she was going to cry.

  “Jennifer—” I half rose from my chair.

  She rose, too, holding up a hand as if to ward me off. “Just stay the fuck away from me.” She ran out of the room just as Sandy entered.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked. “What happened?”

  I didn’t know how to answer around the lump in my throat. It felt like granite.

  Sandy looked at me more carefully. “Susan, did you two have a fight?”

  “I don’t know what we had,” I said. I didn’t know whether to tell Sandy about Jennifer’s and my aborted dinner the night before. Would telling her about Jennifer sending the death threats be appropriate? Or would it just label me a gossip?

  Sandy looked at me strangely. I couldn’t blame her. My face must’ve looked as confused as I felt. But all she said was, “I’ll be in my office if you need to talk.”

  Jennifer slid into her chair as soon as Sandy disappeared in the opposite direction. “Why didn’t you tell her?” she asked.


  I looked at her in surprise. “You were listening?”

  Jennifer nodded. “I wanted to hear what you’d say. But you didn’t say anything. Why?”

  I shrugged. “Got me. It’s hard to stop liking you, I guess.”

  Jennifer grinned. “I know. It’s that ol’ black magic.”

  I grinned back. But inside I still didn’t know how I felt.

  “Let’s have lunch to celebrate the renewal of our friendship vows,” she said.

  But I couldn’t. One of us had to stay and answer the phones. “You go,” I said. “I brown-bagged it today. Another time.”

  “Promise?”

  I nodded. “I promise.” But I didn’t know if that was a promise I could, or wanted to, keep.

  11.

  When Jennifer returned from lunch, I decided to share my new knowledge of Michael Keller and the burst water pipe with her. I needed to talk to someone and thought confiding in her would bring me a step closer to seeing her, once again, as a friend.

  But Jennifer only shook her head in despair at my determination to get to the bottom of the murders, although she did react with interest when I told her about Keller referring to the person who gave him the orders as “the boss.”

  “It has to be Ray,” she said after I told her Estelle denied Bob Berg’s involvement.

  “But why would Ray want him to mess with the water pipes?”

  “You know Ray. He walks around here like he owns this place. He must’ve known Keller’s connection to Rebecca and asked him to do a little handiwork on the side.”

  “I don’t know,” I said.