Killer Ratings: A Susan Kaplan Mystery Read online

  “I’m coming, too,” she said. Her short, golden-blond hair shimmered in the afternoon sun.

  Ray nodded and waited for her as she joined him and Tabby. Gail was dressed in a flowered Japanese silk robe and fluffy pink slippers. She took Ray’s right arm, Tabitha took the left, and off they went. I brought up the rear, and if any of them noticed me, they made no sign of it.

  The security guard tipped his hat at all of us, but only I smiled and nodded back. We continued past the pool area and entered the lobby as Carrie Benson, the second assistant director, came rushing up to us.

  “The scene’s not ready yet,” she told Ray in near-panic. “They’re still lighting.”

  “Don’t worry,” Ray said. “I need to make an announcement. And I’d appreciate it if you could get everyone to stop working and come over here.”

  Carrie looked at him blankly for a second, blinking rapidly, then nodded. I assumed she knew what the announcement was about because she calmed down and said, “Sure. Okay. No problem.” She disappeared into the crowd and I could hear her yell, “Hey, everyone. Ray has an announcement to make. People! Please be quiet! Ray needs to speak.”

  Poor Carrie. The second AD’s job was probably the worst in show business. After taking a rigorous test given by the Directors Guild, the second AD started off as a trainee, working his or her way up the ladder to first AD, some becoming UPMs like Patrick, others—with a bit of luck—branching into directing or producing. Carrie, with her thin blond hair and watery pale blue eyes, always seemed on the verge of panic, and Jennifer told me Babbitt & Brooks lost as many second ADs as they did assistants for Rebecca.

  But gradually Carrie got the place calmed down and managed to direct everyone’s attention toward Ray and the two actresses.

  Ray was a tall man, and Gail and Tabitha seemed dwarfed next to him. He had his arm draped protectively around Gail’s shoulders as she took a last nervous drag on her cigarette and ground it into the carpet with her bedroom slipper. As if demanding equal attention, Tabitha (Sandy said working out their billing for the opening credits had been a producer’s nightmare) reached out a thin, blue-veined arm to Mack Daniels, who had worked his way up to the head of the crowd. He clasped her fragile hand in his huge paw, then enfolded her comfortingly in his arms. I was sure the crew, which held its collective breath waiting for Ray to speak, feared Armageddon: cancellation.

  Ray, in command, head held firm, eyes steady, addressed the fifty or so people who had gathered around him with a clear, deep voice.

  “I’m afraid I have some bad news to share with you,” he said, and you would’ve been able to hear a pin drop if it had fallen from the wardrobe mistress’s pocket to the floor. Beyond the lobby doors, on Wilshire, we could hear cars whooshing past, the occasional shout of a kid on a skateboard, a car honking. It seemed like another world, another lifetime.

  “I’m sure you’ve heard the rumors.” Several crew members nodded. “Late last night, after everyone had gone home for the day (Everyone? Or did you wait in your office, biding your time for the right moment, Ray?), our associate producer, Rebecca Saunders, was killed in her office—we think by a thief.” Who just happened to send her two death threats in advance?

  Someone gasped. All eyes remained concentrated on Ray, but the atmosphere was no longer filled with tense expectancy. We weren’t being cancelled. That was the most important thing.

  “I know you were on location yesterday,” Ray continued. “But if any of you have any information pertaining to Rebecca’s murder, please speak to me or the detectives in charge of the case. Call my assistant, Sandy, or talk to Susan over here.” He nodded in my direction. “They have the names and numbers of the detectives in charge.”

  “Will the police want to question us?” asked an older woman with cropped grey hair. I had seen her earlier, sitting in a beach chair, reading a magazine, a hand mirror lying on top of a makeup case next to her. For some reason she looked nervously at Gail when she spoke, although Gail avoided her glance and seemed to shrink further into Ray’s embrace.

  Ray noticed and held Gail tighter as he answered the makeup artist. “Not at the moment, Irene,” he said. “The case seems pretty cut and dried.” It does?? Where were you when Rebecca was murdered, Ray? “However, I think we should all be available for questioning if the police need us, and if you are called in, Romulus will provide legal counsel to accompany you.”

  This didn’t seem to make people feel any better, and they shifted uneasily, looking like they were ready to break ranks and relocate to Wyoming. I noticed Jesse Mendez standing at the head of the crowd, head up, ears practically twitching, as he stared at Ray. I wondered if his intensity had more to do with figuring out the best way to approach Ray for a continuing part than it did about the murder.

  “Are there any more questions?” Ray asked. One of the electricians, a fat guy with a skull and crossbones tattoo on his right arm, spoke up. “Is production gonna shut down because of this?”

  Murmured conversation ceased as everyone stared tensely at Ray.

  “I don’t know,” Ray said. “Gail and Tabitha have expressed a willingness to finish filming for the day.”

  Tabitha put on a brave smile as if waiting for applause to follow this noble gesture, while Gail stared blindly over everyone’s heads, looking like she needed a cigarette. “I’ve been on the phone with Cliff Rosen, and we’ll decide about further filming later this afternoon. You’ll all know for sure before we wrap tonight.”

  I had a feeling that whatever decision the president of Romulus Television and Ray came to would be based on the good of the show, rather than out of respect for Rebecca.

  “Well, if you don’t have any more questions, why don’t we try to wrap this sucker so we can go home to our families?”

  Ray was sounding a little “Let’s win won for the Gipper”-ish, but he didn’t get any corresponding cheers or high-fives. The crowd slowly broke up and returned to their jobs. Tabitha moved off, still clutching Mack. Patrick hovered nearby, and Ray turned to him. “You and I need to talk in case we shut down.”

  Patrick nodded. Ray turned to Gail, his voice gentle.

  “Why don’t you go back to your trailer? It’s going to be a while.” Gail nodded, but didn’t move from under Ray’s arm. “Would you prefer some company?” he asked her. She nodded again, blue eyes staring vacantly over his shoulder, and Ray caught my eye.

  “Susan, go back with Gail. Whatever she needs, take care of it for her.”

  I looked at him for a second. Was he really asking me to take care of Gail Neely? And would Gail Neely really want me to take care of her?

  Gail didn’t seem to mind one way or the other, because she moved out from under Ray’s arm and shuffled off like an old lady, heading back outside to her trailer. I started off after her. She crossed from the pool area to the parking lot, walked up the stairs to her trailer, opened the screen door, and stepped inside. I hesitated at the bottom of the steps, took a deep breath, then followed her in.

  The trailer was gorgeous. Everything was decorated in pinks, greens, and yellows. A double bed covered in a rose-patterned Ralph Lauren quilt took up the far left end of the room; a fully-equipped, galley-sized kitchen took up the right. In the middle was a half-opened door that led to the bathroom as well as an open closet filled with clothes. I thought of my dreary studio apartment and practically drooled in envy.

  Gail was at the narrow kitchen counter, fumbling for her Winstons, yanking out a cigarette, and lighting it with shaky fingers. Was she really that affected by Rebecca’s death? Or was she playing the role of bereaved coworker for my—and the crew’s—benefit?

  “Can I get you anything?” I asked, still not convinced she wanted me in her trailer.

  “A scotch would be nice,” she said, taking a deep drag off her cigarette and sinking into one of the chairs next to a table by the counter. “No ice.”

  She leaned her head back against the window and blew smoke into the air above her. �
�Bottle’s in the cabinet above the sink.”

  I walked into the galley kitchen and reached for the cabinet above the sink. Gail seemed to have every kind of liquor ever invented, and it was amazing to me that she could drink all this and still get up at four o’clock each morning to be at the makeup trailer by five, to look as elegant and beautiful and sophisticated as she did in front of the camera.

  I snuck a glance at Gail, who still sat at the table, smoking and staring into space. “Glasses are in the cabinet next to the booze,” she said, without looking at me.

  I reached for the Johnnie Walker Black, grabbed a glass and poured the golden liquid halfway full.

  I handed her the drink and hovered nearby while she flicked ash from her cigarette into a crystal ashtray before taking a sip from her glass. She nodded at the chair opposite the table from her.

  “Have a seat.”

  I complied, still not believing I was now sitting in Gail Neely’s trailer. Gail and Tabitha usually shared a personal assistant, grudgingly paid for by Romulus. The assistant was invariably fresh off the farm, starry-eyed and young, who cheerfully accepted the minimum wage salary for the privilege of working with two television stars. However, when the assistant discovered that the job was more about getting Tabitha’s sunglasses fixed or picking up Gail’s sweaters from the dry cleaners, she would immediately quit and go in search of better paying and more glamorous jobs. Their last assistant had left two weeks ago and Gail and Tabitha had not yet been able to find a replacement. As excited as I was about sitting in Gail’s trailer, I wouldn’t want to be doing it for the rest of my life. Especially since working for her also seemed to entail breathing Gail’s cigarette smoke fourteen hours a day.

  “Ray tells me you found her body,” Gail said without any conversational preliminaries.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “She was a good person. A good friend,” Gail said, sounding like she meant it.

  She stared at the smoke that rose to the ceiling, clinging there like a thin, white fog. The trailer smelled more like a sleazy cocktail lounge than it did an actor’s dressing room, but then again, how would I know what an actor’s dressing room smelled like? This was the first one I’d ever been in.

  “Do you think she suffered much?” Gail asked.

  “I don’t know,” I lied. Of course she suffered. The woman had her head bashed in repeatedly by a crystal, rectangular object, not Monty Python’s Spanish Inquisition soft pillow. Hadn’t Ray given her any of the details?

  “It was nice having a woman of some power on the show,” Gail said. “Men write the scripts. What do they know about women?”

  I kind of agreed with her but had to be fair. “Peggy’s on the show,” I said.

  “Yeah, but she’s completely intimidated by Ray. She does whatever he asks her to do.”

  I didn’t know if that was true or not, but even if it was, it didn’t stop Peggy from being a good writer. But I wasn’t about to get into an argument with one of the stars of the show.

  “That’s too bad,” was my noncommittal response.

  “And Charles,” Gail made a face, mashing her cigarette in the ashtray. “He knows fucking diddlysquat.”

  Now we were getting into dangerous territory. Not only was Charles my champion, but I truly thought he was the best writer on staff.

  “Don’t you think he’s a good writer?” I asked.

  Gail laughed. It was not a pleasant sound.

  “I’d love to know where Ray dug him up. Do you know that Rebecca and I used to go through all his scripts line by line? She could really point out the groaners. Like yesterday’s scene. With me and that judge in front of City Hall? I made Charles come to location and rewrite it.”

  I flashed back to yesterday when I had returned from my car to find Charles on the phone at Jennifer’s desk, talking to Gail about her scene.

  “Did Charles know Rebecca went over his script with you?”

  “You better believe it, kid,” Gail nodded, smiling grimly. “Hand me those cigarettes, will you?”

  I moved to the counter where her pack of Winstons lay. But as I grabbed them, I was remembering Charles throwing an angry look in the direction of Rebecca’s office. Maybe it hadn’t been her laughter that was bothering him; maybe it was the fact that he had just learned Rebecca was egging Gail on over his writing.

  I handed the cigarettes and book of matches to Gail and sat down again.

  “I bet he wasn’t too happy about it,” I said.

  “Who frigging cares whether he was happy or not? I’m the star of the show … not him or his sexist writing.”

  I suspected Tabitha Wentworth would have something to say about that, but I kept my mouth shut. And Charles’s writing wasn’t sexist by any stretch of the imagination. If Gail thought it was, I wondered if it was because Rebecca had planted that notion in her head. Rebecca … It looked like mine wasn’t the only career she was trying to sabotage. If Charles knew that, would he have come back to the warehouse to have it out with her? Was he the visitor Rebecca was expecting last night?

  “What time did Charles leave location yesterday?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “What does it matter?” She paused, looking at me strangely. “You think he left here and killed Rebecca?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I can’t really picture Charles as a murderer.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Gail said, lighting another cigarette. I was never going to get the stench of cigarette smoke out of my clothes. “He’s a man. And men are capable of doing anything. No exceptions.”

  Normally, I would’ve agreed with her; however, I liked Charles. But was I defending him because I thought he was incapable of murder or because he tried to get me a script assignment?

  “So what time did he leave last night?” I asked.

  “I told you—I don’t know,” Gail said, suddenly sounding edgy. “We worked on my scene, made some changes. I don’t remember seeing him after that.”

  “Do you think he hung around to watch the scene being shot?”

  I could see Gail was not thrilled with my persistence, but I couldn’t understand why. The question had nothing to do with her, and if it got Charles in trouble (which I most certainly hoped it didn’t), wouldn’t she be that much more eager to answer? Instead, Gail looked annoyed and flustered, as if she were suddenly handed a new script which she hadn’t memorized yet.

  “Look, sometimes the writers hang around to make sure we say the lines the way they wrote them. And sometimes they don’t. I got the changes I wanted, I said them word perfect, and that was the end of it. He didn’t come up to me and say, ‘Nice job, Gail,’ so maybe he did leave, I don’t know.”

  “What time did filming wrap last night?” I asked, trying to see if the timing would have fit.

  “Seven forty-five,” was Gail’s prompt reply. Well, it was perfect timing. Sandy had left, Zack had probably left, Charles would have reached the warehouse around eight just when Sherman would usually be locking the door. Sherman wouldn’t have needed to keep the door open for him because Charles had a key. Except he was notorious for losing his keys. Not only had Jennifer told me that, but I’d seen Charles turn his office inside out looking for his car keys on more than one occasion. If he couldn’t find the key to the office, had he called Rebecca and told her he was coming and ask that the front door be kept unlocked? If Gail had made his life miserable on the set, and I suspected she probably had, Charles may have been out for Rebecca’s blood. Literally. The only problem was I didn’t want to believe he had killed her.

  “He’s a patronizing son of a bitch,” Gail suddenly spoke up. “Thinking I don’t know what’s best for my character. Let’s see him put on those goddamn heels and walk around in them all day.”

  Gail sounded more concerned over Charles’s inability to write for her than she did over the possibility of his having killed one of her best friends. Jennifer would roll her eyes and call that typical. I was beginning to understand why productio
n people referred to actors as children or cattle. They really did seem to operate on a different wavelength from the rest of us. Unless, deep down, Gail knew Charles wasn’t the murderer. But that’s ridiculous, I told myself. How would she know that?

  There was a brief rap on the screen door, and then Ray walked in. I sat up straighter and Gail set down her cigarette, looking at him expectantly.

  “They’re ready to shoot the scene,” Ray told her.

  Gail nodded. “And I’m ready to be shot.” She stood up and shrugged off the housecoat. Underneath she wore a beautifully tailored aquamarine suit that complimented her blue eyes and made her blond hair shine. She reached under the table, brought out a pair of blue suede high heels and put them on. Standing before me was the sophisticated and stunning Alexandra Brooks.

  Gail noticed me staring at her, and she winked at me.

  “Hard to believe, isn’t it, kid?” she said as she started to walk toward the door. She passed Ray and patted him on the cheek. Ray caught her hand, staring at her in concern.

  “You gonna be all right?”

  She took a deep breath, smiled and nodded. “I’ll be fine,” she said, then stepped out the door.

  “Let’s make some magic here!” she shouted as I watched her move to a hovering Carrie and sling an arm around the surprised second AD’s shoulder. Ray and I stood by the screen door and watched as Gail crossed the parking lot, suddenly surrounded by people fixing her hair, retouching her makeup, brushing the lint off her suit. Gail paused, eyes closed, face turned toward the sun, patiently holding still during these ministrations, acting like they were her due.

  9.

  The media was waiting for us by the time Ray and I returned to the warehouse.

  “Damn,” Ray muttered, as he signaled a turn into the parking lot. We could see them jostling for room by the gate leading to the lot entrance, their camera trucks and vans lined on both sides of the narrow street. As soon as they saw us, they came running over, and I think Ray would’ve spun the wheel and raced out, but they were already hanging over the car, shoving microphones and cameras into our faces. Ray had no choice but to pull into the first available space he could find, both of us trapped in the roofless car as the reporters pelted us with questions.