by Denise Dietz
Three jury members nodded.
Benton snapped his suspenders. “Mrs. Flory, you called Miss Diamond both Pandora and Delly.”
“That’s right. One’s her TV name and—”
“Did she ever call herself Pandora?”
Joe and Kathy had both told Anissa not to underestimate Rusty Benton. “He’s a snake,” said Kathy, “hiding behind a pile of rocks, ready to strike, to rattle you. If you need time to think, have him repeat the question.”
“Could you repeat the question, please?”
“Of course.” Benton grinned at the jury. “Let me clarify. Did Delly Diamond ever call herself Pandora outside the Morning Star studios?”
“We all do that. I mean, we all call ourselves by our stage names . . .”
“Yes?”
“That’s all.”
“I’m not an actor, Mrs. Flory, but I don’t go around calling myself F. Lee Bailey. Isn’t that unusual?”
“No, sir. I’ve starred in two Tennessee Williams plays. Everyone, including me, called me by my stage names, Blanche and Laura, off stage and on, the whole run of the play. They were crazy, too.”
“Who?”
“My stage characters. Laura wasn’t crazy, more like naïve, but Blanche went bonkers. The end of the play has her heading for a mental institution. It doesn’t mean I’m insane, just because I acted the role.”
“Was I suggesting that Miss Diamond is insane?”
“You bet! I could see by your questions—”
“Did Miss Diamond act insane when she wasn’t on the set?”
“No, sir.”
“You’re under oath, Mrs. Flory.”
“Define insane. Delly sometimes retreated into her character. I’ve known many performers who do that.”
Benton smiled. “I’ll change my question. Did Miss Diamond act strange?”
“Not as strange as half the actors in this town.”
“Did she sometimes suck her thumb like an infant?”
“I . . . yes.”
“Did she call her rag doll her baby?”
“Yes.”
“Did she refer to herself as Pandora, or Panda, in third person?”
“Yes, but—”
“That’s not strange?”
“She didn’t do it all the time. It’s called ‘staying in character.’ By the way, I often call myself Charl and my husband refers to himself as Cal.”
Benton snapped his suspenders. Aware that the gesture meant a change of subject, Anissa tensed.
“Mrs. Flory, please tell us how Miss Diamond felt about her producer, Maxine Graham.”
“Delly respected Maxine. We all did. She was responsible for our high ratings and high salaries, for our jobs.”
“She was also responsible for Miss Diamond’s lack of a job and salary.”
“That’s one of the risks of playing a part on daytime drama, Mr. Benton. There’s always a chance you’ll be written out of the script. Contracts are renewed every thirteen weeks.” Anissa sneaked a peek at the jury. Two men looked appalled, one sympathetic.
“I understand your writers liked Pandora very much,” Benton said. “They even enlarged her role.”
“Yes, that’s true. Pandora was popular with the viewers.”
“So Maxine Graham was directly responsible for dropping the role of Pandora.”
Anissa slowly counted to ten. “That question calls for speculation on the part of the witness,” she said.
Benton chuckled. “We’re not in court, Mrs. Flory. I just wanted your opinion.”
“I can’t answer you, sir. I don’t know what Maxine was thinking. If you do, you’re Houdini.”
Benton snapped his suspenders. “Another performer, a Miss Fitzgerald, says Delly Diamond was very vocal in her dislike of Maxine Graham.”
“That’s a lie!” What the hell is Scottie doing in Hollywood?
“I suppose Miss Diamond was vocal in her praise for the woman who had her fired,” Benton said sarcastically.
“How many times do I have to tell you? Delly wasn’t fired. Maxine made Delly nervous, all of us nervous, but if anybody hated Maxine, it was Christopher Coombs and Scottie Fitzgerald. They were washed up, not Delly.”
Snap.
“Did you attend a dinner party the night before the murder?”
“Who said Maxine’s death was murder?”
Benton laughed. “Objection sustained. Did you attend a party at the Sawmill restaurant the night before Maxine Graham died in a studio fire?”
“Yes.”
“Other cast members were present at the event, a goodbye party for Miss Diamond.” Benton paused. “That’s a question,” he added.
“Yes. Other cast members were present.”
“Do you recall how Miss Diamond felt about Maxine Graham that night?”
“What do you mean?”
“Was she angry?”
“No. She was resigned, maybe a little sad.”
“Some of the cast members recall her saying, ‘I’ll kill our Max off.’ Does that sound like resigned and sad?”
“Delly didn’t say that. In fact, another actress did. Echo Foster.”
“Well, then, I apologize. I misunderstood. What did Miss Diamond say?”
“She said lots of things. We all did. It was a party.”
“Wasn’t there a discussion about murdering your producer, the same woman responsible for your astronomical salaries?”
“I didn’t say astronomical.”
“I suppose you get paid the same amount as a schoolteacher.”
“No. Do you?” Anissa turned toward the jury members. “The district attorney’s making a big deal over a joke, gentleman. We were all joking. Every person at our table talked about ways to murder Maxine Graham. Echo Foster said she’d sabotage Maxine’s sound booth. Someone suggested strangling her with wires from the set. Someone else mentioned Topher cutting off her, uh, body parts. It got wilder, more and more inventive. We were drinking cham—”
“What was Miss Diamond’s plan for Maxine Graham’s demise?” Benton’s voice cut across Anissa’s plea.
“I’m not sure I remember.”
“You’re under oath, Mrs. Flory, and you’ve just demonstrated an excellent memory, even corrected my impression that it was Miss Diamond who wanted to ‘kill our Max off.’ What did Miss Diamond say that night?”
A snake. A fucking snake.
“We’re waiting, Mrs. Flory. Do you need the question repeated?”
“No, sir. Maxine was a chain smoker. She lit one cigarette from another, never stopped.”
“What did Delly Diamond say the night before your producer was murdered . . . sorry, before she burned to death in a studio fire?”
“We were drinking champagne and kidding around. Delly made the biggest joke of all. She wasn’t serious. We laughed.”
“The biggest joke of all,” Benton repeated. “Murder is the biggest joke of all.” He shook his head. “Go on, please.”
“Maxine was a chain-smoker. Delly said . . . she didn’t mean it, of course . . . she said Maxine should die by fire . . . go up in smoke. That a cigarette . . . the ash from her cigarette . . . should ignite her office and . . . don’t you see? The others will tell you the same thing. It was a stupid joke. You can’t pin a murder rap on someone who makes a stupid joke.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Flory,” Benton said. “That will be all.”
* * * * *
“It was a joke,” Anissa said, tossing the L.A. Times across the room. “If I told you guys I wanted to strangle our district attorney with his suspenders and then he choked to death, I’d be charged with first-degree murder.”
“It’s not your fault,” Maryl soothed. “You didn’t know what Benton planned to ask. Anyway, you couldn’t lie under oath.”
“I got emotional and talked too much. That’s one of the things Joe and Kathy warned me about. At the end I sounded as if I wanted to avoid answering. It made Delly seem twice as guilty. If I’d only
answered Benton’s question calmly, given the jury a shrug and a smile. Damn!”
“Easy,” said Drew. “Think about Bugs. The baby will feel your stress.”
“Really! You had a fine time with the reporters while I was getting grilled.”
“Be fair, Anissa, that was our game plan.”
“Fair, hah! How did those newshounds gather secret information about secret events inside the Grand Jury room? Isn’t there a penalty for spilling the beans?”
“Sure. But the reporters aren’t penalized. I imagine the leak came from Benton’s office. Or it could have come from cast members. The newspapers said ‘reliable source.’ ”
“The district attorney showed video tapes to the jury, Maryl. Tapes of Delly as Pandora setting the hospital fire on Morning Star.” Anissa gestured toward the spilled pages. “It’s all there, in the paper, from another reliable source. And the paper said Benton had two witnesses who partied with Delly and Judith, and Delly quoted the ladybug jingle, you know, the one that goes ‘your house on fire, your children will burn’? Both witnesses said Delly threatened to burn Maxine.”
“I’m hungry,” Maryl said.
“You’re always hungry, Miss Scarlett,” Drew said in a non-Southern, Clark Gable drawl. Then he turned on the TV and punctuated the remote with his thumb until he found Jonah’s show.
Ushering Anissa toward the kitchen, Maryl said, “Need anything, Drew?”
“A beer. No hurry.”
Maryl opened the refrigerator. “While you were having that horrible experience inside the jury room, I was sleuthing.”
Seated at the kitchen table, Anissa patted her belly. “Drew’s right. Bugs is stressed. But your kid’s overfed.”
“I can’t stop myself,” said Maryl, munching on rare roast beef. At the same time, she spread a slice of seeded rye with mayonnaise. “Just like I couldn’t stop myself from questioning the darling Fire Chief. He was ever so helpful.”
“Was he?” Anissa watched her sister-in-law add lettuce, tomato, cheese, and three sweet pickles to her sandwich. “What did he tell you?”
“Are you finished feeling sorry for yourself?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Good. I’ll skip the chief’s marital problems. I won’t bore you with the flaws in Irwin Allen’s film. As far as I’m concerned, if a movie has Paul Newman, there are no flaws.”
“Maryl!”
“The bottom line is that if gas or lighter fluid has been poured on the floor, the fumes would float toward any air space, say the cracks under a door. If someone put a lit cigarette into a box of matches and left that on the floor, fumes would eventually reach the matches. Are you following?”
“Absolutely.”
“This is the way I picture it. You said that Delly had a box of matches from the Sawmill, and that she took tranquilizers. We know she fell asleep. Let’s assume she left her purse on the floor. Our friendly arsonist finds the purse and steals the lighter fluid, her cigarettes and her matches. Then he lights a cigarette and props it inside the box of matches.” Digging her fingers into a jar, Maryl fished for another pickle.
“Hey, don’t stop now.”
“Okay.” Maryl wiped her fingers on a dish towel. “Our perpetrator hurries from the building. The cigarette burns slowly until it ignites the matches. Abracadabra. Studio fire.”
“Holy smoke. And I don’t mean that as a pun.”
“Due to the delay, allowing fumes to drift under the door, and the time it took the cigarette to burn down to the matches, our clever arsonist could have been far away from the studio when the fire started.”
“What the hell’s going on?” Drew stood in the kitchen doorway.
“Hi, big brother. Would you like half my sandwich?”
“I’d like half your idiotic head. I caught the end of your story. Where did you get that information about fires?”
“From a ‘reliable source.’ I thought you were watching Jonah’s show.”
“Jonah’s show has more commercials than show, so I decided to fetch my own beer. Would you like to explain what you’ve been doing in your spare time?”
“You can’t intimidate me, Florentino. I’ve seen you run through the sprinkler, butt-naked, your tiny quick swinging in the breeze. Starve me, pull out my fingernails, I’ll never tell.”
“Yes, you will.”
“What are you doing?”
“Calling Jonah’s studio. I’ll leave an urgent message, scare the shit out of him.”
“That’s not fair, Drew.”
“Talk!”
“We drove to the deli, planning to track down the delivery kid,” Maryl began. Then she related the details of their search for Jake Smith, ending with her classified ad idea.
Drew hit his head with the heel of his hand. “Yesterday Charl ad-libbed something about a classified ad. Then she said ‘Everything’s okay, Cal, it’s jake.’ Twice. I didn’t mention it because I thought she was bird-brained from her pregnancy. I should have known better. She’s never bird-brained.”
“Thank you, honey.” Anissa smiled.
“Don’t ‘thank you’ me, you—”
“Fairy Godmother. Just call me Fairy Godmother. Betsy Crown said she met Jake outside the studio. On the off chance that he might be an actor, I checked with Vance. The file cabinet didn’t burn in the fire, so he went through the ‘S’ drawer. But he couldn’t find an application or photo and he didn’t remember a Jake Smith. Don’t you see, Drew? If this Jake is an obsessed fan, rather than an actor, he’ll set up a meeting with Charl.”
“That’s a big if. On the other hand, he could be the one who set the fire.”
“That’s even better. Then we’ll catch him and the whole mess will be over and Delly will be safe.”
“What makes you think you’d be safe?”
In the silence that followed, they could all hear the TV. Tennis star Chris Evert’s voice came through loud and clear. “Men playing women? I hope it never comes. Everyone knows that the number one woman can’t beat the number thirty man. That would be the battle of the sexes, and everybody would become masculine.”
Jonah’s voice: “Do you have anything to add, Joe Kapp, before we say goodbye?”
“Well,” replied the Minnesota Vikings quarterback, “I’ve always wondered, is it normal to wake up in the morning in a sweat because you can’t wait to beat another human’s guts out?”
“Tune in tomorrow,” said Jonah. “We’re planning a rematch between Pat Huxley and Samantha Gold. Talk about spilling one’s guts.”
Applause sounded.
Anissa gave a mock sigh. “Have you ever flirted from the neck up, Maryl?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever flirted. Why?”
“Before she died, Maxine asked Judith to write a new plot treatment. Charl, already bored with marriage, has begun to flirt with Dr. Ron. But they’re trying to hide my belly bulge, so I’ll have to flirt from the neck up.”
Drew said, “Are you bored with marriage, my love?”
“No, never!” She sped forward and buried her face against his chest.
“Has my brother named your breasts yet, Anissa?”
“What?”
“Drew likes to make mountains out of molehills,” Maryl said. “For example, my breasts are named Gweneth and Heather.”
During the teasing conversation that followed, no one mentioned the classified ad. Or Jake Smith.
Intermezzo
While he had been cruising the streets in his black Dodge, the maid had changed the sheets. The maid’s name was Margarita, like the song.
He scribbled a note and placed it on top of the VCR.
Margarita. This is for you. Thanx.
Ordinarily he didn’t give gifts, but he had laid the maid twice and he didn’t need the VCR anymore. Soon he’d have the real Charl.
“Wasting away again in Cally-forny-ville, laid the maid—”
Abruptly, he stopped singing and glanced around the motel room.
His weights were in the trunk of the Dodge, and his hair dye, minus his fingerprints, had been trashed. He wasn’t tall, but he looked like Drew Flory; muscles and dark, almost-black hair. She’d like that.
The Morning Star tapes were packed, along with his clothes and bathroom junk. He hadn’t stole a towel because he was a killer, not a thief.
Well, he’d stolen from Betsy, but that didn’t count. He’d taught Betsy a lot. Jesus would pay, too.
Only one piece of clothing hung inside the closet, his outfit for tomorrow, so there was nothing to link him to Jake Smith. He’d even handed the motel manager cash every week.
The perfect crime.
He could drive away and never get caught. Shit, he could fly anywhere, using his real name or his fake I.D.
Margarita had a cousin named Popeye, who’d forged a drivers license for “Jake Smith.” Popeye bragged about how he’d once killed a man with an ice pick, and “Jake” had been royally pissed. Because it was “Jake,” not Popeye, who’d committed the perfect crime. Two perfect crimes. He’d almost forgotten Jane Doe.
“How come you never got caught, huh Popeye?” he’d asked.
“I stole some stuff so’s it would look like a robbery. Then I wiped away the blood and fingerprints. Then I stuffed David’s body inside the trunk of his car and ditched the car in San Francisco.”
Yeah. Sure. Popeye watched too much TV.
Speaking of TV, Jonah Wiggins was wrapping up his show. Jake aimed his gun at Wiggins and said, “Bang, bang, you asshole.”
Thank God he hadn’t pulled the trigger the night of the fire. Thank God the TV had cut in with a news bulletin.
Maxine Graham, deader than a doornail!
He remembered screwing Maxine’s brains out. She had called the shots and he didn’t like that, but she was a big shot so he had no choice. She’d even promised him the job of security guard. As a security guard, Charl would have to notice him. But the Graham bitch lied. She deserved to burn.
“Burn, baby, burn!”
He wished Betsy-Wetsy Crown was with him tonight. He had such a hard-on. But he could wait. He’d waited such a long, long time. Tomorrow he’d call Charl and visit the studio.