Lights! Camera! Puzzles!

by Parnell Hall

  “The bodyguard. Sandy must have been billing him as a production expense. Howard said no way, and Sandy didn’t want to pay for it himself.”

  “You think so?”

  “Bet you a nickel.”

  “Too rich for my blood.” Crowley went over and leaned in to Sandy. “Where’s the gofer girl?”

  Sandy shrugged. “I just got here myself.”

  “You told her to be here?’

  “I told Betsy. I’m sure she took care of it.”

  The script supervisor was sitting in her usual position in the row in front of Sandy where he could tap her on the shoulder with notes. Crowley bent down next to her. “Where’s the gofer girl?”

  She looked around. “She’s not here yet?”

  “No. Did you tell her to be here?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “When did you see her?”

  “I called her. I spoke to her. She’s still running errands. She’s just running late.”

  Cora squeezed in. “Listen. About Fred.”

  Betsy shook her head. “Terrible thing.”

  “Yes, it is. You knew him before?”

  She frowned. “Before what?”

  “Before this movie.”

  “No.”

  “Then why’d you get him an audition?”

  “I didn’t get him an audition.”

  “You didn’t recommend him to Sandy?”

  “No. I never heard of him until he showed up on the set.”

  “He said you helped him get an audition.”

  “Well, I didn’t.”

  Cora and Crowley went out and waited in the hall.

  “You think she’s telling the truth?” Cora said.

  “Why would she lie?”

  “She’s in show business.”

  Crowley gave her a look. “What kind of an answer is that?”

  “It’s the one I keep getting. It’s the movies. Nothing is real. Everything is hype. Just because someone tells you something doesn’t mean it has anything to do with what is actually happening.”

  In the screening room the lights went out and the film started rolling.

  “You wanna watch?” Cora said.

  “Sure. We’ll stand by the door and see her come in.”

  Cora and Crowley slipped in quietly and watched from the doorway.

  The footage rolled. It was EXT: PENTHOUSE–DAY, the Walk of Shame scene they’d shot the day before. Somehow that seemed a long time ago. Of course they’d gone through today’s shooting of the Copacabana, and watched the dailies of the top of the Empire State Building and Fred in front of the Hyatt. Which was the way of the movies. Nothing was in sequence, and time was out of joint.

  Fifteen minutes later Cora had had it. She slipped in next to the script supervisor. “You called the girl?”

  Betsy was annoyed to be approached during dailies. “Yes,” she hissed.

  “Call her again.”

  “Not now.”

  “Right now.”

  Betsy looked over her shoulder at Sandy. He came to her rescue. “Whatever you want can wait,” he told Cora. “We’re watching dailies.”

  “Go ahead and watch ’em. I need her to make a call.”

  Betsy was in a helpless position. She whipped out her cell phone and punched in the girl’s number, hoping to get her on the line and hand the phone to Cora.

  After a moment she looked up. “It went to voicemail.”

  Cora grabbed Betsy by the arm, yanked her out of her seat, and dragged her into the hall.

  Crowley followed them out. “What the hell?”

  “The girl’s phone goes to voicemail.”

  Crowley whipped out his own cell phone. “Perkins. Put out an A.P.B. on Melinda Fisher. Her cell phone goes to voicemail. She’s driving a . . .” He gestured to the script supervisor. “What’s she driving?”

  “A production car. They rented some for the picture.”

  “She’s driving a rental from the Puzzle Lady picture. Find the girl, find the phone, find the car.” Crowley snapped the phone shut.

  “You didn’t give him much to go on,” Cora said

  “Like what?”

  “The girl’s phone number. The company that rented the car.”

  “Wouldn’t want to insult his intelligence.”

  Perkins called back five minutes later. Crowley said “Okay,” hung up, and turned to Cora.

  “He says they got an A.P.B. out on the car’s license plate number. Her phone is pinging about a hundred yards west of Eighteenth Street and the West Side Highway. Either on a boat or at the bottom on the Hudson River.”

  “That’s not good,” Cora said.

  “No. But it doesn’t mean she’s there, it just means her phone is.”

  “That’s not good either.”

  It wasn’t.

  Perkins called again. Crowley listened, said, “Be right there.” He hung up, shook his head. “The girl’s car’s on Seventeenth Street between Ninth and Tenth.”

  “Why so grim?”

  “She’s in it.”

  53

  The dead gofer girl was slumped down in the front seat of the car. Cora realized she’d have to call her Melinda now, to differentiate her from the other dead gofer girl.

  Perkins had done a good job. By the time Crowley and Cora got there, the car was already being processed by a crime scene unit, and the medical examiner was on the scene.

  He rose from the front seat and shook a gloomy head. “Dead all right. Appears to have been strangled. Fairly recently. As soon as you release the body, I’ll get her to the morgue.”

  “Five minutes,” Perkins said.

  The crime scene unit moved into the front seat.

  “When you say recently . . . ?” Crowley said.

  The medical examiner shrugged. “Within the last couple of hours. The body’s still warm. The car’s in a tow-away zone, and hasn’t even been tagged.”

  Crowley grinned. “That a medical factor, doc?”

  “No, but I ain’t in court.”

  “Is the phone still pinging?” Cora asked.

  “Yes, it is,” Perkins said.

  “How can you tell?”

  “Girl had an iPad in her backpack. Find-my-phone feature says it’s in the Hudson.”

  “You send divers down?” Crowley said.

  “Not yet.”

  “You’re slipping, Perkins.”

  54

  How long are these guys going to take?” Cora grumbled.

  Cora and Crowley were standing on the pier watching the divers search the river for the gofer girl’s missing cell phone. It was after dark, so they couldn’t see much.

  Neither could the divers. Cora could occasionally see the glimmer of their lights under the surface.

  “They’re good men. They’ll find it.”

  “This year? I got a picture to make.”

  “That depends who I arrest,” Crowley said.

  Perkins and his men were busy interrogating everyone on the picture who knew Melinda Fisher, Dead Gofer Girl #2. There were a lot of them and they’d all gone home, since filming was over for the day. Crowley had been getting updates, none of them particularly helpful, but apparently one of the gofers had supplied a list of people on the picture Melinda had worked closely with. Predictably, they were mostly actors and production people.

  So far the interviews had yielded nothing, which was why Crowley was pinning his hopes on the cell phone. A voicemail or text message seemed too much to hope for, but perhaps there was a recent phone number.

  The pinging iPad was a help. It would have been more so if the divers could have taken it underwater.

  “One good thing,” Cora said.

  “What’s that?”

  “We know the shot of the gofer girl—this gofer girl, Melinda Fisher—we know the shot of her when the light fell meant something. It had to mean something because she’s dead. We saw her in the shot. We planned to show her the shot and ask her about it. Before we coul
d do that she’s dead. So she’s working with the killer. She knew the killer tried to kill Sandy. The killer knew we were going to bring her to the dailies and ask her about it. So the killer made sure she didn’t talk.”

  “We’d already asked her about it.”

  “And she lied. She told the killer we asked and she lied, the killer didn’t think she’d hold up if we asked her again.”

  “It’s a good theory.”

  “A good theory? Give me another one.”

  “I don’t have one,” Crowley said. “Unfortunately, I’m not allowed to rush to judgement, I have to wait for evidence.”

  “I don’t recall you waiting for evidence when you arrested me.”

  “You looked incredibly guilty.”

  “I knew I didn’t do it. You should have asked me.”

  “I did ask you.”

  “What did I say?”

  “You said you didn’t do it.”

  “There you are.”

  A diver bobbed up to the surface. Metal glinted off something in his hand. “Found it!”

  55

  cora got home after midnight.

  Sherry was still up. “Want some coffee?”

  “With caffeine?”

  “After midnight?”

  “You think I’m going to sleep?” Cora flung herself down in a kitchen chair. Sherry busied herself with the coffeepot.

  “Where’s Aaron?”

  “Aaron filed his story and went to sleep. He figured you wouldn’t give him anything worth rushing back to the paper and getting out an extra.”

  “He got that right.”

  “So who did it?”

  “That is the bone of contention?”

  “All right, who didn’t do it?”

  “Well, I didn’t.”

  “That hardly narrows the field.”

  “It seems to me there were some other innocent people, but I can’t remember who they are.”

  “Have some coffee.”

  Sherry slid a cup in front of her, along with a carton of milk from the refrigerator and a bowl of sugar.

  Cora dumped in milk and sugar haphazardly without looking, stirred the coffee around, and took a sip.

  “That’ll help,” Cora said. “This crime on the other hand . . .”

  Sherry poured herself a cup and sat at the table. “Tell me about it.”

  “It couldn’t be worse. Well, I suppose it could have been the movie star instead of the gofer girl. Is that terrible to say?”

  “Would that stop you from saying it?”

  “Good point. The girl was killed between five and seven. The movie wrapped at four thirty. Which means anyone could have done it. At least, from my point of view. Many people alibi each other. Unless we have a conspiracy theory, some of those alibis are valid.

  “Angela Broadbent’s got no alibi, not that she needs one. After filming she went back to her hotel room, lay down, and fell asleep. Not that unusual on a movie set. These actors have early calls. They’re on all day, burn themselves out.

  “Same with the costar. Not that he fell asleep. He went back to his hotel, ordered from room service, and watched TV.

  “The director was having dinner with the producer. At Sardi’s, no less. They had a reservation for five-thirty, which gives them a narrow window of opportunity.”

  “Either of them late?”

  “They’re checking on it. I hope to know something by tomorrow.”

  “They’re letting you shoot tomorrow?”

  “Damn right, they are. This has nothing to do with the movie. A girl was killed on the streets of Manhattan. That type of thing happens every day.”

  “She worked on the movie.”

  “A lot of people work on the movie.”

  “They’re not all dead.”

  “More than you think.”

  “There are no leads at all?” Sherry asked.

  “We got the girl’s cell phone. The techies are working on it now. Crowley’s hoping they’ll find something that will help.”

  “And if it’s someone on the movie?”

  “We solve the case. And we can get on with the filming.”

  “Unless it’s someone you need,” Sherry said.

  “Bite your tongue.”

  “Does Angela have a motive?”

  “Not on your life. Angela doesn’t know the girl. Has nothing to do with the girl. Couldn’t care less about the girl. No one has the slightest idea that Angela has anything to do with it.”

  “They checked her alibi.”

  “They’re cops. That’s what they do.”

  “You’re getting excited.”

  The phone rang. Sherry scooped it off the wall. “Hello?” she held it out to Cora. “It’s Crowley.”

  Cora took the phone. “What you got?”

  “The techies traced the phone.”

  “And?”

  “It belongs to Claude Jones, a tourist from Iowa who accidently dropped it over the rail of the Circle Line on a cruise around Manhattan sometime last summer.”

  56

  It rained the next day so they shot on the cover set, INT: CORA & MELVIN’S APT–DAY, built on a soundstage in Astoria, Queens. The recreation of the five-and-a-half-room Park Avenue apartment where Cora and Melvin lived for most of their contentious, no-holds barred marriage was extensive, meticulous, and wonderfully accurate, if not to their actual apartment, surely to someone’s.

  That was from the inside. From the outside it was all wood and sheetrock, and any wall of any room could be pulled off at a moment’s notice to allow for easy shooting. This was particularly useful for special effects where the camera panned through the wall to show simultaneous action in adjoining rooms, such as Cora in one bedroom and Melvin in another, a natural consequence of one of their frequent fights.

  Today they were filming the fight that led to such a scene, and Angela and Steve were in their element, sparring away at each other like light heavyweights dancing in to land an occasional punch and skipping away unscathed.

  It was a whole day of shooting with Angela, keeping her on schedule, so nothing much was lost except for the production manager’s nearly obsessive drive to cross another exterior location off the list.

  It was great for Sergeant Crowley too. It put all of his suspects under one roof. He had commandeered a folding table, and had Perkins’s notes spread out in front of him. He was pawing through them making notes of his own.

  Cora peered over his shoulder. “What are you doing?”

  “Grocery list,” Crowley said. “Otherwise I get in the supermarket and keep forgetting things.”

  “Whoa. What did I do to deserve that?” Cora said.

  “You didn’t do anything. This damn case is beating me up. Here I am on the scene. Not only am I no closer to solving the crime, but murders keep happening under my nose. I called Stephanie last night.”

  “Did you now?”

  “She told me to call you.”

  “You didn’t.”

  “I’d already called you.”

  “About the phone. That wasn’t what she meant.”

  “It was two in the morning. You were in Bakerhaven.”

  “You called Stephanie at two in the morning? When they film your life, Sergeant, it’s going to be a blockbuster. I take it they didn’t find the right cell phone?”

  “Good guess. Divers are still down. I don’t know how long they’ll let me keep them. It’s not like they’re looking for a body.”

  “You think it’s important?”

  “Something has to be.”

  “What did you find in the notes?”

  “Nothing. As expected. Anything important Perkins flags. You know the last time he missed something?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Neither do I. The guy’s meticulous.”

  “Then why are you going over them?”

  “That’s my job.”

  “And if you didn’t do it, you’d have to choose somebody to interview.”


  “There’s always that.”

  Max the gofer went by.

  Crowley stopped him. “Max.”

  Max was clearly on his way somewhere. “Yeah.”

  “Got a minute?”

  “Not really. What do you need?”

  “Can I talk to you?”

  “Be right back.”

  Max hurried away in the direction of the dressing rooms. Angela and Steve had their own. There was a third one for featured players, and a larger makeup room for extras. Max stuck his head in the door of the featured actors room, then hurried by them back to the set.

  “You’re losing your clout, Crowley. You tell a guy you want to talk to him and he walks right by you.”

  Max was back a minute later.

  “What’d you blow him off for?” Cora said.

  “I had to go check on the actress. It’s the second A.D.’s job, but he’s busy with the principals. I like to do A.D.’s work. It’s more important.”

  “I see.”

  “So, what did you want to know?”

  “About the girl. Melinda Fisher. You weren’t her boyfriend, were you?”

  “A P.A.? Not hardly.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “She wouldn’t waste her time with a P.A. A.D.s, sure, but they didn’t come on till the shoot started, and none of them had time for her.”

  “So she didn’t have a relationship with anyone on the movie?”

  “Relationship? I don’t know what you mean, relationship. She didn’t have relationships, but she slept with anyone who could help her.”

  “You know that for a fact?”

  “Well, I wasn’t there watching. But yeah.”

  “Who?”

  “Well, I know one for sure.”

  “Who was that?”

  “Howard.”

  “The producer? She was sleeping with him while we were shooting?”

  “No. She didn’t waste any time. That was before we were shooting. We were just getting started.”

  “Anyone else?”

  “Melvin.”

  “Are you kidding me?” Cora said.

  “No. She must have thought he could help her. She dropped him when she found out he doesn’t have any clout.”

  “None at all,” Cora said. “He’s just a smooth-talking son of a bitch.”

  “Are you sure it was him?” Crowley said.

  “Oh, yeah. Cause I thought it was funny.”