A Knife to Remember jj-5

by Jill Churchill

  “Do you think we could watch a little?" Shelley asked. "If we stayed out of everybody's way?"

  “I imagine so. As long as Cavagnari doesn't notice you," Maisie said. "What you need to do is find the biggest, ugliest piece of equipment you can find and glue yourselves to it. If it's big, they won't want to move it capriciously or let it be in a scene.”

  They followed her advice and furtively perched on a big orange thing they decided might be a generator. It wasn't operating, so they felt it was safe to climb onto it. But they were disappointed at how little they could really see of the production, even from what should have been a good vantage point. There was a fairly large group in the scene. Lynette, George, and at least a dozen extras. But between Jane and Shelley and the actual scene were cameras, cameramen, reflectors, lighting equipment, sound equipment, and at least fifty technical people who were either standing around to watch or prepared to exercise their particular skills.

  There was a lot of movement, but no distinguishable sounds from this distance; just a jumble of voices with the occasional sentence sticking out.

  “Get that track back about a foot."

  “Don't take it so fast. Stroll, don't walk!" "That baby spot's flickering."

  “I'm picking up a siren from someplace." "Shit! A jet-trail."

  “Oh, God! Get wardrobe! Her skirt's torn!" "I don't know where I'm supposed to stand." "A little louder, please."

  “You're killing me, baby."

  “Put a clamp on that thing."

  “Can't do it that way. There's a telephone pole in the frame.”

  For all the hurry to get to work, it was at least a half hour before any noticeable — to Jane's eyes — progress was made. A production assistant said, "Rehearsing!" into a bullhorn and the technical people froze in place while the actors and extras walked through the scene. And walked through again.

  And again. And again.

  Cavagnari charged here and there, giving instructions, berating extras and crew members, dragging people to different positions, trying it out in various ways like a demented choreographer. When he had the movement of the scene down to his satisfaction, he started working on the lines and the timing of them.

  Finally, the bullhorn voice said, "Quiet on the set!" and a moment later, "Rolling!" and they started to film. And it was as tedious and repetitive as the rehearsal. They did the whole scene with a camera at the left end and another in front of the principal actors. They did it again with a camera at the right end. Somebody flubbed a line. They did it again. Then they did the whole scene, which was quite a long one, with the camera running slowly along a track at the back of the set.

  Twice during filming, a plane went over with a low hum that wouldn't have been noticeable otherwise and the sound people shouted, "Incoming!" and halted production.

  Finally some of the extras on the fringes of the scene were released and they started filming it all over again close-up. They'd focus each camera on one person while the entire scene was played out, just getting the appropriate reactions on faces.

  But Jane and Shelley couldn't hear a word of dialogue except for the one place where Lynette shouted, "But I trusted you!" Then she lowered her voice again. They heard this one line so many times that Jane finally couldn't stand it anymore. "I'm going back to my yard," she whispered to Shelley. "The kids ought to be home pretty soon.”

  Shelley nodded her agreement, and when they stopped filming the next time, the two women made a quiet, hasty retreat. Jane's backyard was still nearly deserted, but a couple of extras were standing by the big coffee urn. "So one actor says to another, 'How are things?' " one of the extras was saying, "And the other actor says, 'Oh, just awful. My agent came to my house and he raped my wife and killed my children and then burned my house down.' Andthe first actor says, 'Your agent came to your house?' “

  They were still laughing as Jane went inside.

  She quickly stirred up a premixed batch of brownies and set bananas and milk out on the kitchen table. She checked the mail, gave Willard a big pet and tried to explain to him why he couldn't go outside just now, and got the kitchen floor hastily mopped while the brownies were cooking. Just as she opened the oven door to remove them the kids started arriving, with Mike home first.

  She was once again struck with how resilient kids are. As resilient as they are vulnerable. Mike had dealt with his distress of the day before and was back to being his normal self.

  “Scott and I want to go to the library. Can I have the car for an hour?" he said, juggling a brownie that was still too hot to eat.

  “I've never known you to be so eager to study," Jane said.

  He rolled his eyes. "Mom, there's a new girl working there. We've just got to check her out. Check her out. . get it?" He roared with laughter, exhaling brownie crumbs which Willard got before they hit the floor.

  “Okay with the car, but stop and get some orange juice while you're out." Jane fished some cash out of her purse and gave it to him.

  “Wow! Brownies! Cool, Mom!" Todd said a moment later as he dumped his backpack on the floor.

  “Take that upstairs first," Jane said, holding the brownie pan out of his reach.

  “Aw, Mom. In a minute. I'm starving. Hey. Elliot's uncle gave him his old stamp collection Elliot says some of them are pretty cool. Can I gc over there?"

  “If you're home by five. Hey! Leave some brownies for Katie. Eat a banana."

  “Katie's dieting," Todd said.

  “I'll drop you off at Elliot's," Mike offered. They each knocked back a glass of milk and grabbed a banana as they left.

  Katie came in a minute later. The overdone makeup she'd started out with had smudged, making her look more raccoonish than ever.

  “Did you have your picture taken early in the day? I hope," Jane asked.

  Katie was startled. "How'd you know about the pictures? Oh, good. Brownies," she added, giving the lie to Todd's idea of her diet.

  “I just know these things," Jane said. Better to let Katie think she'd known all along and had generously let her exercise her own judgment. Since it was too late to do anything about it anyway.

  “Did they do anything neat out there today?" Katie asked.

  “They might have, but I didn't see it. It's all really tedious and boring to watch."

  “Well, I wouldn't know, would I?" Katie said archly. "Since I'm not allowed to set foot in my own backyard."

  “I guess you could go out there for a while. As long as you don't go any farther than our yard.”

  This was more tolerance than Katie really wanted. "Oh, never mind. I'm going to Jenny's. Okay?""Back by five," Jane said.

  As the door slammed, Jane leaned down and petted Willard. "Why," she asked the big dog, "do I sometimes feel like the desk clerk at a Holiday Inn? And the janitorial service," she added, looking at Todd's backpack on the floor where he'd dropped it.

  Willard wagged his tail and drooled happily.

  She put together a tuna casserole, crumbling potato chips on the top the way the kids liked it, slid it in the oven, and set the timer — which sometimes worked. She leaned down and listened. Yes, it was making the clicking noise that meant it was going to function. Probably. She got a package of green beans out to thaw, checked that she had what she needed for salad and cornbread. Too much starch for one meal, especially on top of brownies, but they wouldn't die from malnutrition. And as long as tuna wasn't still politically incorrect with Katie, nobody'd complain.

  When Jane got outside, people were drifting into the yard and cruising the snack table. The same two extras who'd been telling jokes earlier were still there. "How many writers does it take to change a light bulb?" one asked. "The answer is NO CHANGES! NO CHANGES!"

  “Move it or lose it!" Butch Kowalski said to them, lunging for a bag of Doritos.

  “How did it go?" Jane asked him.

  “Perfect! Primo-exacto-perfecto!" Butch said, grinning and popping a chip in his mouth victoriously. "Everything was great. Jake woulda
been proud of me. And that Harwell dame, well… she was great! I don't usually pay much attention to what the actors are doing, but you couldn't help but watch her.”

  When George Abington came along a few minutes later, he echoed Butch's sentiments. "You know, I don't mind being acted right off the set for something that good. I hate to say it about Lynette, but that was an Oscar scene. She ought to just retire right this minute so she doesn't screw it up.”

  Everybody was talking about Lynette's performance. "I'm ashamed to say it, but I got teary on the first take," one wizened extra said. "Ain't cried on a set for thirty years."

  “Was she wonderful or what!" another chimed in.

  “Someday we can all say we were here today," a breathless girl in a hobble skirt and picture hat said. "Just like the old fogeys say about being on the last scene of Gone With the Wind. I'll never forget it.”

  Cavagnari arrived, looking exhausted. He'd shed his poncho and had sweated through his shirt. He took up the same theme as the extras, but predictably, in a more flamboyant manner.

  “We have witnessed a miracle!" he pronounced. "An historic moment in film! Olive! Olive, tell Miss Harwell that all of us salute her!”

  Olive Longabach, filling a coffee cup, looked surprised and embarrassed at being singled out, but she still glowed in Lynette's reflected glory. "I will," she mumbled, ducking her head and scurrying off.

  “Where is she?" Cavagnari called after her. "Resting in her dressing room," Olive said, barely slowing down.

  “And she deserves to rest. She must be drained! Emotionally spent! Such a performance! Such talent," Cavagnari raved on at Olive's retreating form.

  For some reason, his frenzied tone put Jane over the edge. She was suddenly sick of dramatics — fed up with everyone's histrionics, smothered in theatrics. She turned away quickly and went inside. This experience had been interesting, but she was tired of it. She wanted her yard back, her ordinary life back. She wanted to smell her tuna casserole cooking and turn her cats loose and return to normal.

  She wanted Jake's murder solved so she could have her weekend with Mel.

  18

  She pulled the curtains on the living room windows so she wouldn't even be tempted to look outside and, on a whim, got out a long-forgotten project. Last year Todd had made a Christmas tree ornament in Cub Scouts that really took her fancy. It was a toy soldier made out of a roundheaded clothespin. She had liked it so well that she'd bought clothespins, assembled all the interesting loose scraps of fabric and trim in her sewing room, and found glue, glitter, acrylic paints, pipe cleaners, and yarn to make more of the dolls. But something had interrupted the project before she got started and she'd put it all away last January. She went searching for the almost-forgotten box, brought it down to the dining room, and laid it all out.

  This was the ticket! Something creative and solitary and peaceful that had nothing to do with movies or actors. She had promised, months ago, to come up with an idea for something "different" in the way of refrigerator magnets to sell at the next PTA carnival and these little dolls would do fine.

  She'd painted faces and made little tutus in different colors for three ballerinas when Katie gothome. "Oh, Mom. That's cute," Katie said. "What are you going to use for hair?"

  “I don't know. I guess I can't leave them bald. Maybe they could be wearing turbans of the same fabric."

  “No, there's something. ." she closed her eyes for a minute, then dashed off to come back a moment later with a yellow-and-brown sweater with a ripped sleeve. "See? The yarn's all wiggly from being knitted and if you fray it a little, you have hair! Blondes and brunettes.”

  Jane made another dancer while Katie made and applied hair to the others. Then she disappeared again and returned with a wad of Play-Doh. "What's that for?" Jane asked.

  “Boobs."

  “Ballerinas don't have boobs."

  “This one's going to. She'll be a failure as a ballerina because of them, but will later make a good living modeling underwear for J. C. Penney's ads," Katie said.

  Katie got so caught up in the clothespin dolls that she voluntarily helped Jane get dinner on and later cleared so they could go back to them. By eight o'clock that evening, they had a startling array of little people. Soldiers, dancers, a grayish one that Katie maintained was a mailman and Jane said was a Confederate soldier, girls in frilly long dresses, a bride and two matched bridesmaids, and a gypsy with hair from a black sweater Jane had always hated and was happy to sacrifice to the cause.

  Jane kept thinking about Shelley's wanting to preserve her daughter in amber at age ten. This is the evening I want preserved in amber, Jane thought as they started putting away the fabric and glue and paints.

  The doorbell rang and Katie went to let Shelley in. "Jane, I'm glad you're remembering to lock up well. Oh! How darling!" Shelley exclaimed when she saw the dolls.

  “They all have life histories. Katie can tell you about them," Jane said. "This one, for example, was a drummer boy from Georgia during the Civil War and was reincarnated as a mailman."

  “I'll tell you about the rest of them later, okay? I've got a biology assignment," Katie said. "Good night, Mrs. Nowack.”

  Shelley sat down looking troubled and waited until Katie was well out of hearing range. "I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but have you looked out your back window lately?" she asked quietly. "There are police all over the place again. And an ambulance just pulled away. Without the lights flashing. You know what that means.”

  Jane just stared at her friend for a long moment, then got up and went to the living room window. As she parted the curtains and looked out, she saw Mel coming across the backyard. She and Shelley met him at her kitchen door.

  “Mel! What is it?"

  “Lynette Harwell is dead. Suicide," he said. "No!" Shelley exclaimed. "No! Absolutely not.

  She might be dead, but it wasn't suicide."

  "I know it's hard to believe, but—"

  “Not hard to believe. Impossible."

  “Except that there was no note, it was a classic suicide," Mel explained patiently. "She'd put on her best clothes, done her hair and makeup, took a huge dose of tranquilizers or something, and laid herself out on the couch in her dressing room. She looked like a queen lying in state.”

  Shelley kept shaking her head. "Not suicide, I tell you. She wouldn't do that. She was the center of the universe. She wouldn't even consider it."

  “What happened?" Jane asked. "How did she get away from her keeper long enough for anything to happen to her?"

  “It was the keep er, Miss Longabach, who sent us here. There was some kind of mix-up about the transportation. You see, the stars and the directors have their own limos and drivers to take them back to the hotel downtown where everybody stays. The rest of the out-of-town cast and crew go in vans. Apparently Miss Longabach wasn't allowed to ride with Miss Harwell in the limo—"

  “Doesn't that just figure!" Shelley said.

  Mel went on, "She went back to wait at the hotel for her. When she didn't come, Miss Longabach assumed she had a dinner engagement and just hadn't mentioned it. After a while, though, she got worried and called Miss Harwell's driver to ask where he'd taken her and with whom. He said he hadn't taken her anyplace, he'd found a note on the front seat of the limo saying she didn't need a ride tonight. That's when Longabach got panicked. She called me. She'd kept my card when I interviewed her earlier. She was embarrassed, said she knew it was just confusion of plans, but to be sure, could I check the set?"

  “Why didn't she send somebody from the crew?" Jane asked.

  “They don't have cars of their own here, and she said the man in charge of local transportation had gone out for the evening."

  “And you found her?" Jane asked.

  “In her dressing room in that fancy trailer." "What about the security people on the set? Don't they leave somebody there all the time?"

  “Two men, yes. But they just patrol, looking for intruders or anything out of
the ordinary."

  “Was her dressing room locked with her inside?" Jane asked.

  “No. Unlocked. One of the security men had tested the door and noticed that it was unlocked, but he said it usually was. She either didn't keep any valuables in it or she was too dim to remember to lock up."

  “What about the note the driver found in the limo? Did he keep it?"

  “He had no reason to. He threw it out in a gas station trash can when he stopped to put some oil in the car and empty the ashtray. He can't remember which station it was, but he's trying to find the receipt. The trash is probably long gone by now.”

  Shelley had been silent during this exchange. Now she spoke firmly. "Look, Mel. I know you think I'm crazy, but I'd stake my life on the fact that she did not commit suicide. The woman was pure ego. But besides that, Jane and I were on the set this afternoon and everybody — even thepeople who hated her the most — said she'd given the performance of her life today. Nobody could say enough good things about it."

  “That's true," Jane said.

  Shelley went on, "After years and years of wallowing in mediocrity, she'd finally shined again. Today was, well… a springboard to glory. She'd reestablished her talent and celebrity. She had everything to live for and believe me, she'd have wanted to revel in every gratifying second of it. She positively wouldn't have given it up.”

  Mel looked thoughtful, but said nothing for a long moment. Then, "Jane, do you agree?”

  Jane didn't hesitate. "I didn't talk to her much, but if Shelley feels this strongly, I have to agree.”

  He walked across the kitchen and looked longingly at the coffeemaker. Jane handed him a cup, which he filled and sipped at for a minute. It was the dregs of the pot and must have tasted foul, but he made no sign of distaste, not even a slight flinch, which was a measure of his preoccupation.

  Finally he said, "So do I. Agree with Shelley, that is. There's no proof in the world — yet — but my instinct tells me somebody killed her.”

  19

  “They have to be connected," Shelley said when Mel had gone back outside to oversee the police examination of the dressing room trailer. "Two people in the same production don't get killed for entirely different reasons by different people."