Killer Ratings: A Susan Kaplan Mystery Read online

  Television ratings points are equivalent to the number of households with television sets that are turned on. One ratings point represents one million homes.

  The share is a percentage of all households in America with television sets who are watching a particular show.

  The highest rated broadcast in television history is the final episode of M*A*S*H which earned a seventy-seven share.

  People have killed and subsequently gotten good ratings. But no one has deliberately killed to get good ratings.

  At least not yet.

  Praise for

  Killer Ratings

  “Lisa Seidman weaves together vivid characters, delightful mystery, and the wry wit of a true TV insider to create a delicious tale of reckless ambition and literal and figurative backstabbing that will not only entertain you, but change your relationship with your television forever.”

  —Sheryl J. Anderson, author of Killer Heels

  “In Killer Ratings, Lisa Seidman, a television writer herself, provides a thrill ride through the ambition-ridden and ego-saturated world of TV production, where there is more death and drama behind the camera than in front of it.

  —Sue Ann Jaffarian, author of the Odelia Grey mysteries and the Ghost of Granny Apples mysteries

  “Take an edgy TV production team, add a sprinkling of fierce ambition, and finish off with a large handful of paranoia and you have the perfect setting for murder. TV writer Lisa Seidman, who’s been on that set, skillfully does it all in Killer Ratings.”

  —Annette Meyers, author of the Smith and Wetzon series

  “Fascinating. Fast-paced. Fun. Emmy-winning scriptwriter Lisa Seidman’s debut mystery goes backstage at a TV production company where pride, passion, and peril lead to Killer Ratings. A Killer Mystery!”

  —Carolyn Hart, author of the Death on Demand series

  “Lisa Seidman’s page-turning whodunit, Killer Ratings, perfectly captures the backstage world of a struggling TV series where appearances are deliberately deceiving and ambition can be absolutely criminal.”

  —Mimi Leahey, script editor, All My Children

  “The drama going on behind the scenes at a TV show is always juicier than what’s on the screen, and Lisa Seidman masterfully combines three of my favorite things: TV, mystery, and a good story well told.”

  —Paula Cwikly, writer, The Young and the Restless

  Killer Ratings

  Killer Ratings

  Lisa Seidman

  Killer Ratings

  Ignition Books

  Published by arrangement with the author.

  Copyright © 2012 by Lisa Seidman.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical (including photocopying, recording, or information storage and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher. For information please contact: [email protected] or by writing Endpapers Press, 4653 Carmel Mountain Road, Suite 308 PMB 212, San Diego, CA 92130-6650.

  eISBN: 978-1-937868-12-3

  Cover design by Allan Palor.

  Cover Image: Image Copyright © 2012 by RTImages, used under license from

  Shutterstock.com.

  Visit our website at:

  www.endpaperspress.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, or events either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, corporations, or other entities, is entirely coincidental.

  Ignition Books are published by Endpapers Press,

  a division of Author Coach, LLC.

  The Ignition Books logo featuring a flaming “O” is a trademark ™ of Author Coach,

  LLC.

  For my teachers,

  Louis E. Catron

  Fran Kohn

  Sandy Pinsker

  Joe Voelker

  Gordon Wickstrom

  And the best teachers of them all,

  Mona and Howard Seidman

  Teaser

  1.

  “Your job,” said Rebecca Saunders, after taking a sip from her Vodka Collins “is to take the blame for my mistakes.” She was gripping the glass so tightly, her knuckles were turning white.

  I was so astonished the chunk of cashew chicken I was chewing got stuck in the back of my throat. I started coughing.

  Rebecca’s baby blues widened. “Are you all right?” she asked in faux concern.

  I nodded as I reached for my glass of water, swallowed. “I’m fine,” I gasped, still a bit short of breath, due more to her pronouncement than the piece of chicken that was still wedged in my throat. Rebecca’s feigned concern evaporated, and she continued as if I wasn’t about to asphyxiate in the middle of the Plum Tree Inn dining room.

  “Fortunately, I rarely make mistakes, so you won’t be working too hard in that department.” She offered up a light, tinkly laugh, hoping, I was sure, to sound like wind chimes but reminding me, instead, of shattered glass.

  I could only stare at her in silence, not wanting to make a scene in the elegant, pink-damasked restaurant by writhing on the floor, slowly choking on cashew chicken and her insincerity.

  Rebecca, however, must have mistaken my oxygen-deprived bug eyes for disbelief because her smile disappeared, and she abruptly pushed aside her mostly untouched steamed vegetable plate. She leaned across the table, looking earnest.

  “All kidding aside, you really do have to take better care of me. If I need you to pick up my clothes from the cleaners, you’ll do it. If I’m working through lunch, you’ll take my lunch order, get the food, and bring it to me. Everything you do for Peggy and Zack, you’ll now do for me. And you’ll make coffee for me each morning—decaf—and you’ll wash out all my mugs and utensils at the end of the day.”

  If I had been able to get air into my lungs, I would’ve told her that I didn’t know how to make coffee. It was a skill I had never mastered in spite of two years of all-nighters in graduate school.

  Rebecca continued, oblivious to my distress. Did the woman not notice I was turning blue? “Oh. One more thing. You’ll straighten out my desk each morning before I arrive. Put the colored pages into my scripts. File memos.” She paused. “And open my mail.” She said the last somewhat portentously, studying my reaction, seeming to think opening her mail—and who gets mail anymore anyway?—should have a deeper meaning for me than it did.

  I could hold out no longer. My chest spasmed, and a giant cough erupted out of my throat, dislodging the chunk of chicken and sending it flying across the table … straight onto Rebecca’s gray silk blouse.

  We both stared at the morsel as a tiny piece of half-chewed cashew slid off the meat and into Rebecca’s lap. Rebecca glared at me, her blue eyes narrowed and calculating. She reminded me of Mrs. Virgin Mary, the sleek and spoiled Siamese cat owned by the Covellos, my next door neighbors back home on Long Island. Mrs. Virgin Mary, so named by the youngest—and brattiest—Covello, Anne-Marie, had all the sensitivity of a sociopath.

  Staring into Rebecca’s glittering blue eyes, I could almost hear the snick-snick of Mrs. Virgin Mary’s claws flicking open in anticipation of my sockless ankle or unwary bare hand. Although Rebecca was not a Mrs. and she was certainly no virgin, I instinctively moved my hands into my lap and out of her sight.

  “I thought I was supposed to work with the two producers,” I said, hoping that if I ignored the little faux pas on Rebecca’s chest, she would, too.

  Rebecca smiled through clenched jaw muscles. She took her napkin and daintily removed the chicken from her blouse, placing it on my side of the table, next to my plate.

  “
You work for all three of us,” she said. “You work with anyone who needs you. That’s what television production is all about. Teamwork.”

  She stole a sip of vodka, as if rationing each swallow.

  “Listen, Susan, I like you. I really do. But you’re an assistant. Which is only a glorified name for ‘secretary.’ And secretaries work for whomever their bosses tell them to.”

  Whomever. I was impressed. I had been a straight-A student in college. I had a Master’s Degree in English Literature from an Ivy League school. I had even won the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for Creative Writing. So I liked the whomever. But it didn’t mean I liked taking the blame for a woman who, in the past two months I had known her, had mistakenly omitted some of the crew’s names on title cards, given the post-production supervisor the wrong dates for dubbing sessions, and forgotten to distribute the network’s air date schedules to the writing staff.

  As if sensing my reluctance, Rebecca tried a softer tack. “Look, I know you don’t want to be an assistant for the rest of your life. In fact, I heard you’ve written a spec script. I can get it read—maybe get you an assignment on the show. But you have to help me here. We have to help each other.”

  She smiled again, but it didn’t reach her eyes. She took another swallow of her drink, started to call the waiter over for a refill, caught me looking at her and waved him away instead.

  “Who told you about my spec script?” I tried to keep the fear out of my voice. If Rebecca found out that my script was already in the hands of one of the show’s producers, I had no doubt she’d make sure my dream of becoming a television writer would remain just that—a dream.

  “There are no secrets in the office,” she said. But her eyes shifted away from mine and I knew she wasn’t telling me the entire truth.

  She reached for her glass, realized it was empty, and used her hand instead to cover mine, which had accidentally crept out of my lap and back onto the table. I tried not to show my distaste. Her hand was cold and clammy and felt like the skin of the pet salamander my brother Larry and I kept when we were kids. I noticed that she had chewed her nails through the coral pink polish.

  “Working for me isn’t as bad as it sounds,” she said. “I did the same things for my boss when I first started out. Now look where I am. You could be me one of these days.”

  God forbid. I slid my hand from hers and reached for my glass of 7-Up. I wasn’t thirsty, but I didn’t want her to feel my skin contracting at her touch. “But the job description said …”

  “Fuck the job description!” she shouted so suddenly, I jumped in my seat. “You work for me or not at all.” Her hand shook as she lifted her glass, remembered yet again it was empty and abruptly put it down on the table. “Are we clear?”

  I stared blindly at the other diners, suddenly feeling five instead of twenty-five. I mentally recited the opening stanza of “Dancing Queen” by Abba, my favorite song by my favorite group, until the urge to inflict physical damage on Rebecca had passed. The other diners, who had paused to stare at us, resumed their conversations. At that moment, I wished I had never moved to L.A.

  It’s not that I didn’t want to work hard for my bosses. But when Linda Ramsay, the office manager at Romulus Television, hired me she explained I’d be the writers’ assistant, working solely for the two writer-producers on the show. When Rebecca, the associate producer, started giving me tasks, I did them as a courtesy and not because she was my boss. That, however, was obviously changing. And I doubted a salary increase would follow.

  Stalling for a reply, I reached again for my 7-Up and wondered with dread how long it would be before I, too, was sucking down vodkas like water. How badly did I want to be a television writer? Badly enough to put up with Rebecca and her petty needs and phony smiles? I thought of returning to New York with my tail between my legs, the pitying looks on my parents’ faces as they tried not to say, “I told you so.” If I couldn’t handle one measly associate producer with a Napoleon complex, then how was I going to survive executive producers and studio executives with God complexes? I could handle Rebecca. I had to handle Rebecca. I just didn’t have to become her.

  My spine stiffened. As did my resolution. “Yes, we’re clear,” I said, looking her straight in the eye. “I’m sorry about the attitude. I guess I didn’t understand what I was supposed to do.”

  “Good.” She relaxed back into her chair, the anger dissipating. “I knew an open and honest conversation would clear the air.” She patted her hair as she admired her reflection in the mirrored wall next to our table. Rebecca had a lot to admire. At thirty-five, she could still pass for twenty-five, with a clear complexion and thick, light-brown hair that curled at her shoulders. I, on the other hand, had a redhead’s fair complexion, even though my own straight, shoulder-length hair had more brown in it than red. I freckled violently in the summer, and knew, if I lived in L.A. for any length of time, I’d soon be using sunblock year-round.

  Rebecca reluctantly turned away from the mirror. “I can understand things may not have been made clear to you when you first started working for us,” she said, the “us” meaning the writing staff of Babbitt & Brooks, a moderately successful hour-long drama series about two women lawyers. “But it’s been two months already and you need to realize working in television is not as glamorous as most people think it is.”

  “The glamour was gone for me the minute I received my first paycheck,” I said, surprised I could still joke.

  Rebecca refused to smile. “No one understands it’s a privilege to work in television. You all think jobs should be handed to you on a silver platter. But TV jobs are hard to get—and in this economy almost impossible. I fought tooth and nail to become associate producer—but I deserved the job. No one worked harder than I did to get it. I paid my dues. Just like you have to if you want to get ahead.”

  There was an edge to her voice, a defensiveness that I had noticed throughout lunch. She looked at her empty glass, said, “To hell with it,” and held it up high to catch our waiter’s attention.

  When he returned with a new Vodka Collins, Rebecca winked at me before taking a sip. “Our little secret, okay?”

  I nodded as I watched her take another sip, her hand shaking. She tried to steady it with the other, and her eyes slid toward mine to see if I noticed. I looked away, pretending ignorance. For a moment I had caught a furtive, hunted look in her eyes, and I realized Rebecca wasn’t shaky, defensive, or edgy because she needed a drink. Rebecca was shaky, defensive, and edgy because she was afraid.

  2.

  Rebecca’s fear surprised and puzzled me. She was the associate producer of a primetime, award-winning television series and made a good living, and while she wasn’t the easiest person to work with, Ray Goldfarb, the executive producer, seemed fond of her and not likely to fire her. If anyone should be afraid, shouldn’t it be me?

  I was raised in the middle class town of Cohasset, in Long Island, New York, the daughter of two elementary school teachers who made it clear they wanted me to follow in their footsteps. But I was making up my own stories before I learned how to read, grabbing books out of my dad’s hands as he read to my brother and me at night, insisting that I would tell the story, and then promptly doing just that. In my versions, however, the princesses were the ones fighting dragons to rescue their imprisoned princes. (How my brother, Larry, hated that!) When I was old enough, I’d scribble down stories in black-and-white composition books, then on my computer: talking dogs, kids who grew twenty feet tall, people who lived on the moon. Walking to school with my best friend, Nancy Shilay, I’d relate my stories to her and she’d reply with disapproval, “You have such an imagination,” like that was a bad thing.

  Television was always a part of my life. I’d watch movies with my mom on the cable channels, and to get my brother and me out of the way during her and dad’s infrequent dinner parties, she’d go through TV Guide and suggest shows we could watch. Friends. Beverly Hills 90210. Home Improvement. At night I’d d
ream about my favorite shows, coming up with my own stories to fit the characters and premise. And when I’d wake up, I’d think, Why can’t I do that for a living? Why can’t I write for the TV shows I love so much?

  When I told my high school guidance counselor, Mr. Workman, that I wanted to write for television, he discreetly paused, then pointed out several good liberal arts colleges. And my parents made it very clear they were not going to pay the money to send me to film school.

  But I never stopped writing, and when a professor in graduate school bragged about his student who was currently writing for a successful show in Los Angeles, I showed him my spec scripts and he became my mentor. Seeing that I was determined to go to Los Angeles, my parents gave in and Mom flew with me to L.A. and helped me find an apartment. After a year of temping at various companies, I landed at Romulus Television, doing secretarial work for a writer developing TV pilots he and Romulus hoped to sell to a network or cable channel. Linda Ramsay, the office manager, took a liking to me, and when the assistant’s job opened up at Babbitt & Brooks, she made sure I was the only qualified candidate to be interviewed. I was still poor, still making spaghetti sauce with cans of tomato soup and eating ramen noodles every other night, but I was working full-time for a TV series. I was on the bottom rung of the ladder, but at least I was on the ladder.

  Romulus Television, which produced Babbitt & Brooks, was an independent production company not associated with any of the major studios like Paramount, Warner Bros., or Universal. The show was filmed in a warehouse in downtown L.A., a few miles north of Chinatown, in a no-man’s land of littered streets, abandoned warehouses, and greasy taco stands. Although not the lowest-rated series on television, the show wasn’t a huge hit, so it was made for as little money as possible, with the exteriors of downtown L.A. used as substitutes for New York City, where the series supposedly took place. Not quite the glamorous movie studio location I had hoped for, but it was better than working as an office temp for an auto paint firm, which had been my first job when I moved to L.A.