Two Cooks A-Killing

by Joanne Pence

  “Here’s our Christmas cook. Angie, come and meet Miss Manning.”

  Rhonda flashed a smile as phony as the snow and said, “Hello. How lovely to meet you.” It sounded like a child reciting a nursery rhyme—singsong and meaningless.

  Before Angie could reply, Rhonda turned back to Tarleton, showing Angie what it felt like to be part of a “crew” and not an individual. She didn’t care for the feeling. She reached up to give her hair an arrogant flick, and felt a twig. Nothing like oak leaves and hiking boots to ruin one’s image.

  At that moment, Bart Farrell swaggered into the room, his head high and his chest puffed out. The years had not been kind to him.

  Farrell was wearing a Western-style leather sport coat with a fringe. His brown hair flowed back from his brow, and the gray at the temples was distinguished, but his facelift was so tight she wondered if he could shut his eyes to go to sleep. If he was one of Dr. Waterfield’s customers, he wasn’t a good advertisement.

  His stomach protruded way too far, and his eyes were bloodshot.

  So much for the heroes of our youth, she thought with disappointment.

  “What are we drinking?” His voice boomed across the room, assuring all attention was on him. Then, he laughed loud, exactly the way Cliff Roxbury would do.

  His gaze met Rhonda’s and held. A sudden softening gentleness came over his features. Angie wasn’t sure whether she was seeing Bart’s regard for Rhonda, or Cliff’s for Natalie.

  “How good to see you, Rhonda.” He walked toward his TV spouse with his hands extended. She reached out and grasped them. “You look more beautiful than ever.” He sounded like a bad movie script even as he kissed her cheek.

  “Bart, hello,” she replied, in that husky little-girl voice with a twinge of the South that made Natalie such an endearing character—tough, yet vulnerable; bitchy, yet easily hurt. Angie felt a tingle just hearing that particular inflection. Her disappointment vanished and she sighed dreamily. Cliff and Natalie, together again.

  “I’ve missed you,” Farrell said, his voice deep and rumbling. Tarleton cleared his throat.

  Farrell dropped Rhonda’s hands. With a lazy grin, he slapped Tarleton on the back. “But not this slave driver! How ya’ doin’?” Tarleton greeted him quietly.

  “Doesn’t Rhonda look great?” Farrell said. “Why is it she looks younger, and you and I just look older?” His gaze captured Rhonda’s again, as if Tarleton had vanished into thin air. “How have you been?”

  Her eyes darted from side to side, as if she needed to get away. Not looking at either man, Rhonda replied, “Fine. I’ve been just fine.”

  A question marred Farrell’s brow. Angie wondered, too, what was wrong with Rhonda.

  “Say, you haven’t met our cook yet,” Tarleton interjected, as if needing to ease the sudden charge in the air. “This is Angie Amalfi.”

  “Please excuse my appearance, Mr. Farrell,” Angie said after introductions. “I took a walk in the hills behind Eagle Crest and managed to slip. I didn’t think that was supposed to happen with boots like this.”

  His gaze slowly drifted over her body, then lifted to meet her eyes. He smiled approvingly, and she felt a “zing,” just like when she was a kid watching Cliff Roxbury charm and seduce women on the soap. He might be too old and too overweight and too much work had been done on his face, but still he had that indescribable something that separated sexy stars from mere mortals.

  “It’s all right, Angie,” he said, “as long as you don’t get any of that St. Helena clay into our meals, that’s all we ask.”

  She was too tongue-tied to reply. Though she knew she must look like an idiot standing there grinning at the man, she couldn’t help herself.

  “My God!” Tarleton cried. “Where’d it go?” His eyes raked the group. “Who took it?”

  Mariah lightly placed her hand on his back. “What is it?” She moved close, and somehow, her body language wasn’t that of an employee.

  “There.” He pointed toward the mantel—the empty spot where the drummer boy had been.

  “We’ll find something else to put there,” Mariah said. “It’s not a problem.”

  “I want the music box,” Tarleton shouted. “It was special!”

  “Special? I thought it was a studio prop.” Mariah looked from one person to the other, confusion on her face.

  “It wasn’t.” Tarleton shook his head and turned back to Bart and Rhonda. “I’m sorry.”

  Angie gaped at him, then to Farrell and Manning with equal confusion.

  She excused herself and left the room.

  Wearing a simple Vera Wang black sheath and Sergio Rossi heels, Angie glided into the family room.

  It was empty.

  She hadn’t been gone that long, although she had phoned Paavo to tell him all about meeting Bart Farrell—he didn’t seem to share her excitement—and about Rebecca’s visit. She left out Rebecca’s little gifts to the set. She also took a quick shower, practicing “Don’t Cry For Me, Argentina” the whole time. It would show off her singing range to Tarleton in case he had any openings in his upcoming musical. All she did after that was to dry her hair, get dressed, and hurry downstairs to join Tarleton and the celebrities.

  How had she missed them?

  Mariah, her coat on, was on her way out the front door.

  “Wait,” Angie called. “Where is everyone?”

  “Gone,” Mariah said.

  “What do you mean, gone? I’ve got to talk to Tarleton about the menu he wants me to cook, and…and stuff.”

  “You can forget about it tonight. He took Farrell and Manning out to dinner.” She didn’t look happy to have been left behind. “They’ll probably go out drinking afterward, maybe dancing, and come back too sloshed to do anything.”

  “Great,” she said dejectedly. “That means I’ve wasted a whole day and accomplished absolutely nothing.”

  “Get used to it,” Mariah said.

  “Where are you going?” Angie asked.

  “I’m hungry. The caterer’s truck came by not long ago.”

  All dressed up with no place to go…except the crew’s mess. Angie threw on a coat and crossed the snowy driveway to the trailers. As her nice shoes stayed clean and dry, she understood why plastic was the snow of choice for this situation.

  Although the trailers were still in place, many of the cars were gone, and only a couple of people walked around. Donna Heinz from wardrobe sat alone smoking a cigarette, an empty plate in front of her.

  “Where is everyone?” Angie asked.

  “Most of them have finished setting up and won’t be needed again until it’s time to shoot. They took off this afternoon. Beautiful dress, by the way. But a little elegant for trailer dining, I’d say.”

  “I wasn’t heading this way when I put it on. Speaking of trailers, doesn’t the cast usually stay in them? They’ve been given rooms in the house.”

  “This will be a short shoot. A few times in the past, they’ve stayed in the house for short shoots. In many ways, they preferred it. The house is sure as hell big enough for them, and comfortable. The catered food will be sent there, I suppose. Can’t have them walk all this way, can we?”

  “I see.”

  “For a few of the crew, like me and my assistants, our work begins now that the talent is arriving. I just hope they haven’t gained too much weight over these past ten years or I’m going to have to do a lot more alterations than I’d expected.”

  Angie thought about Farrell’s waistline. “Have you seen Bart Farrell yet?”

  “No. Just a glimpse of Manning. Why?”

  “Nothing.” Let the woman enjoy her evening. She’d find out soon enough. “It was fun for me to see them together. In real life, they seem like Cliff and Natalie—kind of in love, yet troubled.”

  “You noticed that already, did you?” Donna said, taking a puff. “I’d have thought that’d be over by now.”

  “You mean there was something between them?”

&nbs
p; “They tried to keep it hidden. Didn’t work. She had her hands full, though. He was quite the ladies’ man in those days.”

  “Was she jealous?”

  Donna gave a raspy laugh. “Sometimes, when Natalie bashed Cliff with a book or vase, she did it hard enough we were sure she was getting even for something.”

  “Farrell didn’t mess around with other women on the set, did he?”

  “Is a lemon yellow?”

  “Gwen Hagen?”

  “She was more interested in Kyle O’Rourke, if you ask me, but that didn’t stop Farrell from trying.”

  “What about Brittany, or was she too young for him?”

  “Nobody was too young for Farrell. And Brittany was twenty-three when she died. She wasn’t all that innocent.”

  “I still can’t get over Brittany dying on this set,” Angie said, spearing some asparagus. “How did you cope?”

  “It wasn’t easy, but you’ve heard the old adage the show must go on. That’s what we told each other. We all felt her loss, though. She was…a presence.”

  “And Farrell had an affair with her.”

  “Suspected, not proven.”

  Angie nodded, trying to get a handle on all these people and their relationships. She was having a hard time. “Rhonda was in love with Bart, but he played around with others in the cast, including Gwen and Brittany, right?”

  Donna eyed her curiously, then nodded.

  “Gwen was having an affair with Kyle, who might also have been having an affair with Brittany.”

  “And don’t forget Emery Tarleton,” Donna said. “He isn’t the first director to fall in love with his stars.” She snuffed out her cigarette and stood. “Can’t smoke in my trailer,” she announced, as if purposefully changing the subject. “The smell will get on the clothes, and Rhonda will have a conniption. Goodnight, Angie.”

  With that, she went into her trailer and shut the door.

  Chapter 11

  Angie wondered if she was alone in the house. Aside from the plinking xylophone sounds of “We Wish You a Merry Christmas,” all was quiet and still. She wondered if Sterling and Silver had gone out for dinner. And she still hadn’t seen Junior.

  As she headed up the stairs, curiosity about the second floor struck. It had two wings. She’d seen Sterling turn left at the top of the stairs. If that was where the family’s bedrooms were, the guests’ rooms were most likely to the right.

  That was the direction she turned toward.

  She knocked on the first door. After waiting a moment, she eased the door open to find a large bedroom. A beautiful floral display stood on a desk, and beside it were pictures of Kyle O’Rourke and his family. She neared the flowers and sniffed the air. Nothing. As usual.

  Angie had never quite made up her mind about Adrian Roxbury. He was such a nice person, yet he had let himself be swindled out of half the brewery. Angie wanted to give him a good kick just to wise him up. Naïveté in the face of corruption was no virtue in her book.

  She also didn’t like the fact that he still carried a torch for his former girlfriend, even after she married Cliff. After all, he’d married the dark, sexy Leona. Angie wanted to tell him to get over it already! To have married Leona, feeling as he did about another woman, was wrong.

  Angie hurried out of the room. What was wrong with her? They were just fictional characters, for Pete’s sake, and she was carrying on as if what they did mattered!

  Across the hall was another door. After another knock-and-wait, Angie entered. It, too, was large and airy and adorned with candles—at least they had a scent—silk flowers, a full-length dressing mirror, and pictures of Gwen Hagen made up to look like Leona.

  Angie had always despised Leona. Everyone did. The woman was cold and calculating. She would have been a good match for Cliff.

  As Angie turned to leave, she noticed a doll atop the pillows by the headboard. How sweet, she thought, crossing the room to see it better.

  She gasped, put her hands to her mouth, and ran into the hall.

  She reached the stairs just as Silver stepped out of a room in the family wing. “What’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” he said.

  “No. A doll.” She took quick breaths. “In Leona’s—I mean, Gwen Hagen’s—room. It has long, curly black hair, just like Leona, but it has a knife sticking out of it, and blood all over its stomach.”

  “Blood? Are you sure it wasn’t catsup? It’s got to be a joke,” he said.

  “If it was, it’s not funny,” Angie said. “Who would have done such a thing?”

  “I have no idea,” Silver replied. “If it’s as bad as you say, we’d better remove it before Gwen gets here. If she leaves, the show will be canceled faster than a ninety-ninth-rated pilot.”

  It was catsup, as Silver had guessed. They removed the doll as well as the pillow sham. The incident added to Angie’s unease. Something about the house and the people in it bothered her, though she couldn’t pinpoint anything exact.

  Nonetheless, she was ready to go home. Tomorrow, she’d have to get Tarleton’s final decision on the menu—she remembered the kinds of traditional meals they’d served on Eagle Crest and had a good idea of what the one presented the night Julia died had consisted of—then she’d order any food supplies she needed, test a few recipes, and go back to San Francisco and Paavo until it was time to cook the actual Christmas feast.

  Being here was far less a thrill than she’d imagined.

  Silver took the doll, saying he’d dispose of it, while Angie carried the stained pillow sham to the laundry room. They reconnoitered in the family room.

  Silver had a black leather jacket over his arm. “Want to join me in St. Helena for dinner? They have some nice restaurants, and you’re certainly dressed for it.”

  “I’ve already eaten, but I’ll join you for dessert. I’m feeling a little stir-crazy in this house, especially since I haven’t done anything I’d intended since I arrived.”

  “Get used to it,” Silver said.

  “So I’ve been told.”

  They rode in Silver’s brand new silver Aston Martin convertible. All his cars were appropriately silver. It was starting to shower. Angie pitied the poor crew, or what was left of it, who would have to freshen the outdoor props and scenery.

  Silver chose a small French café on Main Street. He ordered veal medallions, and for Angie, a small Crab Louis just to have something to play with while he ate.

  “I’ve been talking to people about Brittany,” Angie said after a while.

  “Brittany? Why?” he asked.

  She explained how she’d been given Brittany’s room, and the more she heard about the girl’s death, the more uneasy she felt about it.

  “She fell, that’s all,” Silver said.

  The waiter brought a bottle of Beringer Brothers sauvignon blanc. Silver tasted it and nodded.

  “You don’t think her death had anything to do with the doll in Gwen’s room?”

  He looked at her as if she’d be talking about New World Order conspiracies next. “You’re joking, right?”

  “Well…” Now she hesitated to say what she was thinking. “Somebody left it. I’d like to know who. Bart or Rhonda might have, or Tarleton, plus the crew go in and out all day long.”

  “Don’t forget Mariah, Tarleton’s assistant—and more—from what I’ve heard,” he said with a wink.

  She wondered if he was laughing at her. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I saw her coming out of his bedroom in the middle of the night, and the way they act when they think they’re alone.” He added more salt to his veal.

  Putting this news together with Donna’s gossip, Angie was beginning to feel she was living in the midst of the soap opera.

  “What about Bart or Rhonda?” she asked after sipping some wine. Silver had chosen an excellent wine for this meal. She wondered how he felt about having his name associated with wine that tasted like it should come out of a screw-top jug. “There’s probably no l
ove lost between them and Gwen since she’s become a star and they’re has-beens.”

  “Ouch! Never utter that anywhere near those two if you want to live!” He shuddered.

  “It’s true,” she insisted.

  He put down his fork, finally ready to pay serious attention to her concerns. “All right, I agree. On the other hand, I expect Tarleton, Mariah, or my dad has been with them from the minute they walked in the door.”

  “Do all the actors stay in the same part of the house?”

  He explained, as Angie had seen, that the second floor was separated into two wings. At the end of the hall in the left wing was Sterling’s room, then Silver’s, and a couple of guest rooms. Tarleton used one of them. The opposite wing had four more guest rooms, now used by the four lead actors. The third floor, where Angie was staying, was once an attic. Some years back, a crew converted it into four additional bedrooms for stars like Brittany Keegan as the Eagle Crest cast grew.

  “You haven’t mentioned Junior,” Angie said.

  “The maid’s quarters off the kitchen is like an apartment. Junior took it over since our housekeeper lives in town with her husband. Junior doesn’t care for these people and tries to stay as far from them as possible.”

  “I’ve wondered why I haven’t seen him.”

  “You’ll see him if he wants you to. Only then.”

  Angie didn’t know if she liked that. “So, if Rhonda, Bart, and Mariah didn’t leave the doll, did one of the crew?”

  “It was a bad joke, that’s all. Nothing to worry about.”

  “Tarleton wouldn’t want to upset his star,” Angie continued. “So I’d rule him out.”

  “And I haven’t seen Gwen Hagen for ten years, you’ve never met her, and my dad wants the actors ecstatic to be here, not scared,” Silver said, “which leaves exactly no one.”

  “Not so. There’s the cook, Rudolf Goetring. He’s a weird fellow and I haven’t seen any evidence he can cook,” Angie said. “Frankly, I’m not sure why Tarleton hired him.”

  Silver shook his head. “I’ll agree that his presence is strange, but I don’t know if he’s that weird.”