Killer Ratings: A Susan Kaplan Mystery Read online

Returning from lunch, I followed Rebecca up the narrow cement stairs to the peeling white warehouse which served as the Babbitt & Brooks’s offices and entered the unlocked door. Walking rapidly ahead of me, she slipped into her office at the end of the dark, musty hall. A door on my right suddenly opened and Sandy Martin, the executive producer’s assistant, took a step toward me.

  “Get in here!” she hissed, and before I could respond, she grabbed my arm and yanked me into the room, firmly shutting the door behind her.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, rubbing my arm. “What did I do?”

  Sandy stood stiffly in front of the closed plywood door, her arms crossed against her almost nonexistent chest. She reminded me of a skinny version of those red-and-black uniformed Beefeaters who stood guarding the entrance to Buckingham Palace. Only she wasn’t preventing me from going in somewhere; she was keeping me from leaving.

  “What did Rebecca talk to you about at lunch?” In her early thirties, from England, she had an accent that spoke of years spent in tony public schools and Cambridge University.

  “How did you know we were having lunch?” Belatedly, I remembered Rebecca telling me how there were no secrets in the office.

  Sandy ran a hand through her short brown curls and began pacing her small, windowless office. “Rebecca came to me wanting to fire you. I told her to take you to lunch and explain her problems to you instead.”

  “She wanted to fire me?” My stomach did a somersault, and I could taste chicken and cashews in the back of my mouth. “Why? I didn’t even know I was supposed to be working for her.” Queasy, I sank into Sandy’s desk chair. It was the only piece of furniture not covered with scripts, memos, or files.

  “You weren’t. Most associate producers don’t have secretaries.” She absently pulled on her upper lip, a nasty habit that drew attention to her small, crooked teeth. The British could invent DNA profiling but they couldn’t seem to produce decent dentists. I looked away from her mouth to study the memos on her desk.

  “So why is Rebecca so privileged?” I asked. Sandy sat on the edge of her desk, blocking my view of the memos.

  “Never mind that. What did she say to you?” Totally thrown by the absence of her usually reserved, stiff-upper-lip demeanor, I answered in spite of myself. “Rebecca wants me to take the blame for her mistakes.” I briefly summed up our conversation at lunch.

  Sandy stared at me in shock. “You’re joking.”

  “I wish.”

  “No, really. Why do you always have to exaggerate things?”

  I stared at her defiantly, angry over not being believed. “I’m not exaggerating. You know her. You don’t think she’s capable of saying stuff like that?”

  Sandy paused then managed an apologetic smile, immediately backing down. “Sorry, luv, I don’t mean to sound like Attila the Hun. I was just worried for you.”

  But her normally cool green eyes darted away from mine, reminding me of Rebecca’s secretive behavior at lunch. Wanting something from me but without having to tell me why.

  “Do I still have a job?” I asked, dreading her answer.

  “I don’t know. I mean, Peggy and Zack think highly of you. They’ve told me how much they like you and what a good job you’re doing for them.”

  “So, why are you freaking me out?”

  “Because Rebecca has a lot of power. At least she thinks she does. And if she complained to Ray about you …”

  I filled in the blanks. “He would fire me? Even though Peggy and Zack like me? Don’t they have more of a say in this?”

  Ray Goldfarb, Sandy’s boss, was Babbitt & Brooks’ showrunner. A writer who toiled in the trenches of one-hour dramatic television for years, he created the series, sold it to Romulus and became its executive producer. As showrunner and EP, Ray made the final script and production decisions, including hiring and firing.

  Sandy paused. “I thought Rebecca might tell you …” She trailed off.

  “Tell me what?” Instead of answering, she stood and began gathering up assorted scripts scattered on her desk, her mouth a thin, prim line.

  I stretched out a hand, stopping her. “You’re not being fair. This is my job we’re talking about. My career, if Charles likes my script. At least let me know if I need to update my resume.”

  I hoped I didn’t have to. I needed to keep my job at B&B since I doubted that any other producer would be as generous as Charles Green was when his assistant, Jennifer, raved about my script to him and he offered to read it and give me notes. Notes I was anxiously waiting to receive that afternoon.

  Sandy put down the scripts she was holding, pulling on her lip. “You’re right, luv. I’m sorry. It’s just that I’m not supposed to tell anyone. Not until it becomes official.”

  “Until what becomes official?”

  “Promise not to tell anyone.”

  “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

  Sandy reached across her desk and plucked a piece of paper from the pile of memos she had been guarding. She handed it to me in silence.

  It was a memo printed on Babbitt & Brooks stationery, dated that day, from Ray Goldfarb to the writing staff; Cliff Rosen, the president of Romulus Television; and Bob Berg, the executive in charge of production (the Romulus budget man), notifying everyone that as of October 7th (the next day), Rebecca Saunders was being promoted from associate producer to co-producer with all its attendant responsibilities, including at least two Babbitt & Brooks script assignments.

  “It’s going out tonight,” Sandy said. “After Ray leaves for the day. He’s too cowardly to deal with the reaction. He’s hoping everyone will cool off overnight.”

  “Does she know how to write?” was all I could think of to ask. “Does she have a spec script?” Speculation (“spec” for short) scripts were written by beginning writers like myself. They were samples of our work, either based on shows already on the air or written as original screenplays. Spec meant you didn’t get paid to write the script.

  Sandy removed the memo from my fingers. “I don’t think so.”

  “Then how could she be allowed to write scripts for the show?”

  “I think you’re missing the point, Susan.” But I wasn’t missing the point; I was deliberately avoiding it. As associate producer, Rebecca wasn’t high enough on the pecking order to fire me. As co-producer, she would be. I tapped the memo Sandy still held in her hands. “This is why she wanted to talk to me.”

  Sandy nodded. “As co-producer Rebecca is entitled to her own assistant. But the budget can’t afford another secretary. So she has to work with you.”

  “She was marking her territory,” I said. “Peeing on me at lunch.”

  Sandy wrinkled her nose. “Not quite the way I’d put it.”

  “You weren’t at lunch.” I kneaded the crease in my khaki pants. “Why does she hate me so much?”

  Sandy said, “Hate is a strong word.”

  I shrugged. “Okay. Dislike. Even when I wasn’t officially working for her, I worked for her. Maybe not in the capacity she wants me to now, but I never blew off her requests.”

  Sandy said, “I don’t know, Susan. All I can say is I don’t think she likes any of us very much. She’s always after me for not doing as good a job as she did when she was Ray’s assistant.”

  “But she’s not trying to fire you.”

  “Maybe she is, and I’m just not aware of it. I honestly don’t know what makes that woman tick. I wish I did. It would make all our lives easier.”

  I nodded then thought of something. “There is one thing I didn’t tell you.” Sandy looked at me expectantly. “Rebecca’s afraid. And she was drinking to hide it.”

  Sandy dropped the memo back on her desk as if it were burning her fingers. “Of course she is. Rebecca’s not qualified to be co-producer. She’s not even qualified to be associate producer. She was Ray’s secretary before Babbitt & Brooks got on the air. Once this memo is released, the entire writing staff is going to explode. And Rebecca knows it.”

&
nbsp; “So why is Ray promoting her?”

  Sandy merely looked at me.

  “Is it true then? About their sleeping together?”

  Sandy’s voice was sharp. “Who told you? No, you don’t have to say anything. It was Jennifer.”

  She was right but I only asked again, “Is it true?”

  “Maybe. In the past. I don’t think so now.”

  “Ray’s married,” I said.

  “When does that have to do with anything?” Sandy replied.

  True. “Is my job really safe? Or am I going to come in tomorrow and find my desk packed up?”

  “I don’t know, luv. All I can tell you is that once the memo is officially released, the shit—as you Yanks so quaintly put it—is going to hit the fan.”

  And, as if to emphasize Sandy’s statement, a cry of rage and fear barreled down the hall, through the walls of Sandy’s small office.

  “Susan, get in here. Now!”

  Rebecca.

  I raced to her office, barely aware of Sandy pounding down the short hall behind me. Jennifer Bardos, the supervising producer’s assistant, joined us from the bullpen around the corner. The three of us wedged in her doorway and stared at Rebecca, who stood behind her desk, holding a sheet of paper between two fingers.

  “Look at this!” she screamed at me. “Look at this!”

  She shoved the paper in my face, and, having no choice, I reluctantly took it from her. It was plain white bond, the kind we used for our company stationery, only minus the Babbitt & Brooks logo in blue script on top.

  “Read it,” Rebecca ordered unnecessarily since I had already begun scanning the words, which were cut out from various newspaper headlines and then pasted on the page:

  Scotch-taped underneath the words was a squashed cockroach, rust-colored stains of dried blood circling it. I could almost hear the sickening crunch it must’ve made as it was ground under the heel of the psycho’s shoe. I shuddered.

  Jennifer, reading over my shoulder, took a step back.

  “Oh, gross.”

  I dropped the paper on the desk in disgust, wiping my hands against my pants as if to erase any germs connected with my proximity to the ugly words and dead roach. As long as I wasn’t looking at the letter, the crunching sounds in my mind stayed quiet.

  “I tried to be nice,” said Rebecca, her voice shaking. “I tried to be helpful. No more. You either explain yourself right now. Or I’m calling the police and pressing charges against you.”

  I looked at her in shock. She was staring straight at me.

  END OF TEASER

  ACT ONE

  1.

  “I don’t know who you think I am,” I told Rebecca, my face flaming with anger. “But I’m not some lunatic who cuts out threats from a newspaper.”

  “What a joke,” said Jennifer. “You’re just looking for an excuse to fire Susan.”

  “I don’t need an excuse,” said Rebecca, her voice suddenly shrill. “Who else would do something like this to me?”

  I ignored the frisson of fear that rippled down my spine, threatening to replace the anger. Inexplicably, I thought of my grandmother, my Buby, who at age nineteen, fought and killed Nazis in the last days of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. She eventually escaped under the sewers with her thirteen-year-old sister, my Aunt Rosie. Buby stole food from bakeries, hopped trains like a hobo, and hid from the Nazis, eventually managing to acquire two passenger tickets to America under false identities. I would be ashamed to call myself her granddaughter if I backed down now.

  “Why do you think it was me?” I asked. “How could you even think I was capable of doing something like this?”

  “Yeah. Why are you blaming Susan?” said Jennifer. “What did she ever do to you?” Originally her surfer girl blond looks and body had intimidated me. Now I flashed her a smile of gratitude.

  Rebecca’s eyes ping-ponged from Jennifer to me. “Maybe you were in this together.”

  Jennifer snorted. “Yeah. Me. Susan. The CIA and Lee Harvey Oswald.”

  A small muscle spasmed along Rebecca’s jawline. I jumped in before she could reply.

  “Now I know why you wanted me to open your mail. This isn’t the first threat you’ve received, is it?”

  Sandy and Jennifer, their faces almost comical due to the similarity of their stunned expressions, stared first at me, then Rebecca.

  Rebecca glanced at her top drawer then looked away.

  “But why didn’t you wait to let me open this one?” I continued, nodding to the nasty looking note on her desk. “You were curious, weren’t you? You just had to see what it said.”

  Rebecca slapped her palms against her scratched metal desk with a resounding thwack, her face flushed with rage.

  “Enough!” she yelled. My shoulders twitched, but I held my ground, trying to keep a diplomatic smile on my face. Rebecca, of course, completely misread my expression.

  “You think this is funny? Why don’t I call the police and see if they think it’s as funny as you do?”

  I was flabbergasted. I took a step away from her desk, as if to distance myself from her irrational anger. Sandy, fortunately, came to my rescue. She took a step forward, a placating hand held out before her.

  “Rebecca, perhaps you should call the police. But I’d want to more carefully examine my reasons for blaming Susan before doing so. There are other people, with better reasons, who might want to upset you.”

  If my mouth wasn’t frozen in place, I would’ve laughed at Sandy’s masterful use of understatement. Instead, I stayed silent, watching the look that passed between Sandy and Rebecca. I wondered if those other people, with better reasons, had anything to do with Rebecca’s upcoming promotion. Rebecca might have thought so, too, because she was the first to turn away.

  “Forget it,” she finally said, sinking into her chair. “Just get rid of … that.” She waved at the letter in distaste.

  “Don’t you want to keep it as evidence?” I asked, hoping the question would prove I had nothing to hide.

  “No. Dump it.” She lit a cigarette with shaking hands.

  The thought of touching that letter again made me cringe. I looked at Sandy for help. She read the plea in my eyes and picked up the letter, holding it away from her body. As I turned to leave, Rebecca swiveled toward me.

  “Maybe you didn’t write the letter,” she said, exhaling smoke from her nostrils in a dragon-like gesture, daring me to complain about her smoking inside the office. “But for the sake of your job, Susan, you better find out who did.”

  I left her office before I lost my temper completely and said something I really would regret.

  Jennifer caught up with me in the ladies’ room where I had gone to kick a few stall doors while Sandy disappeared into her office with the letter.

  “What’s going on with that woman? Why does she hate me so much?” I raged, gripping the edge of the porcelain sink with both hands.

  “She’s a nutjob,” Jennifer said, her blue eyes sympathetic as she rubbed my arm in support and comfort. “You might recall I got caught in the crossfire. She’s an equal-opportunity paranoid.”

  “But why?”

  “If someone was sending you death threats, wouldn’t you feel the same way?”

  “Just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean someone’s not out to get you,” I said wryly.

  “Exactly.”

  “But who could’ve sent it?” I asked as Sandy entered.

  The door to the ladies’ room opened again behind her, and the three of us tensed. Peggy Stevens, one of the show’s writer-producers, popped her head in.

  “There you are,” she said to me, shoving a mass of dark hair off her face. “Charles is looking for you.” I hesitated, thinking Rebecca had sicced the cops on me anyway, using Peggy to lure me into their clutches. She noticed my wild eyes, the shredded toilet paper. “Is everything all right?” Her dark brown eyes widened in concern.

  “Everything’s fine,” Sandy answered for me. She gave me a sma
ll push toward the door. “Go see Charles, luv. Jennifer and I will hold down the fort.”

  Peggy held the door open for me, a small, puzzled smile pulling at the corners of her mouth. As I preceded her out of the bathroom, I looked over my shoulder. Jennifer grinned and gave me a thumbs-up in support. But Sandy had already turned away, tugging at her upper lip, looking thoughtful—and concerned.

  2.

  “Nice script,” said Charles Green, casually flipping through the dog-eared pages of my Dress Blue spec script. “Of course you make some choices that aren’t necessarily the ones I’d make, but even still …” He looked me in the eye and smiled. “I’m impressed.”

  I could count on one hand the number of times I’ve been at a loss for words. This was one of them. I stood awkwardly in front of Charles’s battered metal desk while he sucked on the stem of his unlit pipe. At forty-two, with thick, dark hair graying at the temples, pipe, and faded corduroy blazer, Charles looked more like my favorite college English professor than the supervising producer of a well-respected—even if low-rated and therefore low-budget—television show.

  “If you don’t mind, I’m going to give this to Ray. I think he’ll like it, too.”

  I reeled from the news. Charles liked it! He was giving it to Ray! The executive producer of Babbitt & Brooks. Our king of kings. Prince among men. If Charles liked my script enough to give it to Ray Goldfarb, I’d be rich and famous by the end of the year. I was ready to kiss Charles’s feet and give him my firstborn child. And second. Maybe even third.

  But all I could croak out was, “It doesn’t matter that it’s Dress Blue—not Babbitt & Brooks?” Dress Blue was a popular TV series about the daily lives of cops working in a nameless Midwestern city. I had written the script out of love for the show my last semester at Columbia instead of a term paper on William Dean Howells and turn-of-the-century New York society.

  Charles put his pipe in the misshapen ceramic ashtray his six-year-old son had made for him. “A good script is a good script,” he said in his gentle, soft-spoken voice. “I don’t think it matters what show it’s written for. If you stick with it, you might have a nice little career ahead of you.” He moved the script to an uncluttered corner of his desk. “Congratulations, Susan. Maybe you’ll get an assignment out of this.”