Killer Ratings: A Susan Kaplan Mystery Read online

  “Sherman?”

  He looked up, tried to grin at me, but failed.

  “Hey, Susan,” he said.

  “Sherman, how long have you been in here?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t know. What time is it?”

  I looked at my watch. It was ten o’clock (only ten o’clock?), and I told him so.

  “Do the police know you’re here?” I asked.

  He nodded. “That detective … Lu, was it? He asked me a lot of questions.”

  “So, how did it go?” I asked. It was a rhetorical question. As soon as I saw his hunched figure sitting behind his desk, I knew how it had gone.

  “I found cocaine in her office a couple weeks ago,” he said, sounding tired. “And I was stupid enough to tell them about it.”

  5.

  “She had a baggie of the stuff right on top of her desk,” Sherman said, sitting at the cafeteria table next to Jennifer and across from Sandy and me. I had convinced him to join us, hoping that our company would make him feel better, knowing his company made me feel better. “I was cleaning her office after she left for the night. It was underneath one of the scripts, and her big mirror was sitting flat on the desk, with a little powder still stuck to it.”

  I knew that wall mirror. It usually hung above the credenza behind her desk, really just a face mirror, bordered with some sort of yellow, flowery stripe, and at the bottom, in flowing script, were the words, “Smile. You look gorgeous.” I always thought Rebecca kept it to tell her who “the fairest of them all” was. I never dreamed she used it as a surface to snort cocaine.

  “When was this?” Jennifer asked.

  Sherman shrugged. “A couple of weeks ago. Maybe last month.”

  “What did you do?” I asked.

  “I thought about throwing the stuff out and letting her stew about it. But then I thought she’d blame me for taking it, so I left her a note instead.” He smiled grimly at the memory. “I wrote it on one of those little yellow stick-on pads. Basically I said, ‘If you don’t want me calling the cops, find someone else to clean up after yourself.’ I stuck it on the baggie and left. She never said a word and I never went into her office again. Until this morning.”

  “You told the cops this?” Jennifer asked, bug-eyed.

  Sherman nodded. “When the detective asked me if I knew anyone who wanted to kill her, I must’ve had some kind of giveaway reaction. He was all over me after that.”

  “Why?” I asked. “Just because she snorted coke?”

  “Because maybe he thought I was her dealer,” he said bitterly. “And killed her over drugs.”

  “Why would he think that?” Sandy said.

  Sherman’s eyes narrowed and his lips flattened into a thin, straight line. Suddenly, I was staring into the face of a stranger. “Baby, they see a black man, they hear about drugs, they see motive and opportunity.”

  Sandy spoke into the appalled silence that followed. “Sherman, that’s your perception. It’s not necessarily theirs. They won’t send you to prison just because you knew about the cocaine.”

  Sherman was bitter. “Were you ever stoppped by the police because of your skin color?” Into the silence, Sherman added, “Welcome to my world.”

  How does an “I’m sorry” even adequately make up for the pain and bitterness I saw on Sherman’s face? Jennifer turned to me.

  “Susan, did you ever see anything in her office?”

  I shook my head. “Before our lunch, I didn’t even know I was supposed to be working for her. I rarely went in.” I looked at Sherman. “I’m sorry.”

  “Not your fault, Susan.” Sherman gave me a faint smile.

  “I wouldn’t be surprised if others knew about her … little hobby,” Sandy said.

  “Did Ray know?” I asked.

  Sandy made a face. “He hated that stuff. He may have known what she was up to, but he probably overlooked it. She was too valuable in other ways.”

  “Yeah, like flat on her back,” Jennifer said.

  “Jennifer, I don’t think we should be talking about this right now,” Sandy said.

  “That would explain her promotion,” I said. I thought of Ray Goldfarb’s wife, Winifred McCauley, and how clearly she detested Rebecca. What if Winifred found out about Ray and Rebecca? Certainly, she had an excellent motive for murder.

  Jennifer said, “And then Ray and Rebecca broke it off and Rebecca moved on to her next conquest.

  “Zack,” I said.

  Sandy hid her face in her hands, as if disavowing all of us.

  Sherman yawned. I raised my eyebrows in surprise. My first thought was the man’s just told us he thinks he’s being implicated in Rebecca’s murder and now he’s yawning? Then I thought, of course he’s yawning, he’s been up all night. That’s his job. Which led me to speak my third thought out loud.

  “You were here when Rebecca was killed.”

  Jennifer and Sandy looked at me in astonishment. Then they looked at Sherman. I think we all felt stupid for not remembering this in the first place.

  Jennifer asked him, “Did you hear anything?”

  Quickly followed by Sandy’s, “Maybe you know something you don’t realize you know.”

  Sherman said, “The cop asked me that first thing. ‘What did you see? What did you hear?’” He shrugged. “I was in my office all night. I didn’t hear or see anything.”

  Which wasn’t surprising. Although sound traveled easily in the bullpen, with its thin wood walls and open areas, it would have to travel through the corridor and along the vast basketball-sized court in order for Sherman, back in his office, to hear even something as loud as a shout or a scream. The three of us slumped in disappointment.

  I had one more question to ask, and I debated whether to voice it in front of Sandy and Jennifer. I hadn’t said anything to Detective Wagner, not wanting to get Sherman in trouble, but I knew it was going to come out eventually. I tried to look and sound as non-threatening as possible as I turned to him and asked, “Did you lock the front door last night? When I got in this morning, it was open.”

  As I said earlier, we each had our own keys, but Sherman’s job was to lock up after eight o’clock at night, no matter who was still left in the building. If he had locked up, the murderer would have to have his own key. If he hadn’t, the police—and Romulus Television—might decide Sherman was responsible for Rebecca’s death, even if he hadn’t been the one wielding her Women in Television Award.

  But Sherman didn’t seem to take offense, much to my relief. “I already told the police about that,” he said. The three of us looked at him expectantly. “Rebecca told me to keep the door unlocked. She said she was expecting someone. But I don’t know who.”

  6.

  The lawyer from the Romulus legal department finally arrived close to lunchtime. On the way over, he’d given his okay from his cell phone for all of us to be fingerprinted so the cops could compare our prints against the ones in Rebecca’s office. (Though we did find out that the Women in Television Award had been wiped clean—surprise, surprise.) The writers and producers were herded into the main area along with Sandy, Jennifer, Sherman, and myself. Zack looked desperately ill; his eyes were red, his face white and puffy, and even his brown hair seemed thinner, as if Rebecca’s death was responsible for his encroaching baldness.

  Peggy didn’t look much better. She hovered around Zack, who, shocked and grieving, didn’t seem to notice. Ray, when he finally made his appearance, was even more remote and imposing than usual. He chomped on an unlit cigar, absently fingering the bright red suspenders that held up his baggy khakis, standing at the head of the table, and looking down on the rest of us like Captain Ahab scoping out Moby Dick.

  “It’s important that you do not say anything more to the police until Ed Gruzcak arrives,” Ray told us. A uniformed cop watched dispassionately, perhaps making sure we didn’t hatch a plan that would destroy any evidence—or maybe even hoping one of us would say something that would give us away. “I’m cert
ain this was a burglary gone tragically wrong, and I want to ensure everyone’s safety and peace of mind as much as possible.”

  Our “protector,” the Romulus lawyer Ed Gruzcak, was not one to inspire hope. Short, balding, with thin arms and legs and a paunchy stomach, he was the complete opposite of those dynamic and sleek TV attorneys seen on any given night during the ten-to-eleven time slot. Another romantic fantasy goes down the drain, I thought, as I sat in the wooden, straight-backed visitor’s chair in Sherman’s office. Gruzcak took a seat across from me, behind the desk.

  Gruzcak, chin down, eyes focused on me over his large bifocals, had me tell him everything I could remember about my conversation with Wagner. He listened to my recitation in silence, and when I finished, he passed his hand over his forehead, as if brushing back nonexistent hair. He had probably not yet adjusted to the fact that he was going bald.

  “Truthfully, Susan, I don’t think the detectives consider you a person of interest. Despite what Rebecca wrote about your script, she …,” he paused, as if unsure whether to continue, “she had problems. Problems that had nothing to do with you.” I nodded. “So, relax a little. I’ll give you a heads-up if I hear the police are looking at you more closely.” Gruzcak must have seen the relief in my face because he squeezed my shoulder in support before leaving the office.

  The forensics team and detectives were gone when I returned to the bullpen. Yellow crime scene tape slashed across the door of Rebecca’s office. There was no sign of Jennifer.

  Thinking she might be with Sandy, I walked around the corner, and saw Ray, sitting behind his desk. He looked up and our eyes locked. He blinked at me in surprise.

  “Susan, you’re still here.”

  “Where is everyone?” I asked.

  “I sent them home,” he said. “I didn’t think we’d get much work done today. I’m going out on location. I need to talk to the cast and crew about Rebecca’s passing before the media does.”

  “I’d like to go with you,” I said. “Maybe I could help.”

  Ray considered then said, “Fine. I might need you to make calls for me on the way.”

  The heat felt good for the first five minutes as it baked out the basement-like chill of the warehouse, and I took a moment to enjoy it before joining Ray as he headed for his yellow, SL-Class Mercedes convertible parked in the lot.

  The sun was warm on my skin and the air smelled of fried beans, cooking oil, and cilantro from the corner taco stand. Ray drove in a casual, reckless manner, his right arm lightly guiding the steering wheel, his left resting on the driver’s side door, doing fifty in a thirty-mph zone. Although he was practically bald, the fringe around his head was a dusty red, and I noticed his arms had a redhead’s freckled complexion. The hairs on his arm were golden and he had strong, long-fingered hands.

  Ray was quiet, apparently, not needing me to make calls for him after all. To fill the silence, I asked, “Do the police have any idea who might have killed Rebecca?”

  He stared out the window. We had crossed above the sluggish, metal-colored Los Angeles River and were heading south on Broadway into Chinatown. “It’s obvious, isn’t it?” he said. “A mugger. One of those crazies that hang out on street corners looking for easy cash.”

  He glanced at me, perhaps looking for agreement. When I didn’t respond, his voice softened.

  “I’m sorry you were the one to find her.”

  I shrugged. “It wasn’t that bad.” Liar, liar, pants on fire.

  “You came in early this morning?”

  Traffic stalled as a vehicle signaling left in the middle of the intersection held up cars in our lane. The signs on the elaborately ornamented buildings were written in Chinese characters, and the few gawking, camera-snapping tourists stood out like aliens among the predominantly Asian inhabitants.

  “I came in at eight this morning,” I finally said, tearing my gaze away from a grocery store that displayed what looked like giant chickens’ feet in a tray in the window. There was no way I was going to tell him I arrived early to see who else’s career Rebecca was deep-sixing so I lied. “I needed to update the website.”

  “What about last night?” he asked. “I didn’t see you when I left.”

  In spite of his casual tone the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. I started to feel kind of weird, sitting in Ray’s Mercedes, driving through Chinatown. Maybe it was his lack of emotion with regard to Rebecca’s death. Especially if he had been her lover. Or was Ray just putting on an act for my benefit? Was he actually shattered with grief and successfully hiding it? Somehow, I couldn’t believe Ray was that good an actor.

  I said, “Rebecca sent me home before you left. Your wife had just arrived to pick you up.”

  Ray looked vastly relieved and I wondered why. Certainly, he and Winifred hadn’t ganged up on Rebecca and bashed her head in, had they? I tried to imagine the two of them, expressions frozen in a rictus of hate, and I wanted to laugh at the ludicrousness of it. But then again, whoever killed Rebecca must’ve hated her as much as my imagination portrayed him—or her. Maybe even more. It was not a pleasant thought and I shuddered as I stared out the windshield while we crossed over the 101 freeway into downtown L.A., wondering how I could find out what Ray did last night without making him suspicious.

  Ray and I both jumped when his cell phone started ringing, playing the Babbitt & Brooks theme song.

  Ray put the phone to his ear, ignoring the fact that hands-free devices were the law in California.

  “Hello,” he barked. If it had been me on the other end, I would’ve hung up in fright. The other person was braver because after a pause, Ray, still sounding unhappy, said, “Winnie, what do you want?”

  Not the warmest greeting to one’s wife. Ray moved his left arm to the steering wheel and cradled the phone with his right.

  I could see his profile but I could still tell Ray was not a happy camper. Because he didn’t want to speak to his wife or because I was in the car listening to every word?

  “Winifred, I really can’t talk now. Susan and I are driving to location.” A pause. “Susan Kaplan, one of the writers’ assistants.”

  Another pause. “She works—worked—for Rebecca.” He stole a sidelong glance at me, but I was pretending deafness as I stared out of the car.

  “You did? Already? Well, I’m not surprised. I’m sure it’s all over the company by now.” Ray paused. “Look, Win, I can’t really talk about this. I’ll call you when I get back from location … I don’t know when.” He moved the cell a couple of inches away from his ear as if to let his wife rant without his having to listen. We were at another stoplight, and I could hear, quite plainly, Winifred saying, “Do the police know you didn’t come home with me last night?” With a startled glance at me, Ray jammed his cell back to his ear.

  It took every ounce of self-control not to whip my head around and stare at Ray. I kept looking out the window, pretending I was engrossed in the movie theater across the street. “Girls! Girls! Girls!” read the marquee. In a perfect world, I would’ve changed it to “Women! Women! Women!”

  “Winifred, we will talk about this tonight. I promise. I have to go. Good-bye.”

  The light changed and he stamped on the gas pedal so hard I thought I’d get whiplash.

  So Ray hadn’t left with Winifred last night. But, then, where was he? Shtupping Rebecca? No, he couldn’t have. Sandy had returned at seven-thirty and heard Zack talking with her. Had Ray made a quick escape? Or was he just biding his time in his office, sitting silently while Zack and Rebecca thrashed out their relationship, waiting for an opportunity to shtup Rebecca—or maybe even kill her? Or did Ray hear Zack kill her? If so, why wouldn’t he tell the police? Did that mean Ray murdered Rebecca? Was I sitting in a two-seater Mercedes convertible with a murderer? No way! Not Ray. Then I asked myself, Why not? I shivered despite the heat.

  “You know,” Ray said, his sudden intrusion into my clandestine thoughts almost causing me to leap out of the car in shock
, “Charles told me you wrote a pretty good Dress Blue spec script.”

  I looked at Ray in surprise. Aiming for casual, I shrugged. “He seemed to like it.”

  “He liked it enough to recommend you for an assignment.”

  I uttered a silent thank you to Charles. “He’s a great guy.”

  Ray nodded. “We prefer working with people we know. It would be nice to give someone like you a script.”

  Since when? Since Rebecca died? Since you suddenly have no alibi? Since you probably lied to the police about it? And since only your wife and I now know the truth—and your wife can’t be forced to testify against you, but I can? Couldn’t you have done this with a little more finesse, Ray? I couldn’t help myself: I had to yank his chain for being such a slimebag. “But Charles told me you didn’t like the script.”

  Ray blinked, confirming what I suspected. He hadn’t read it, had just given it straight to Rebecca.

  “Well,” he said, “I’m not too crazy about Dress Blue and I read your script superficially, with all my prejudices intact. Let me read it again. I respect Charles’s taste. If he says you’re talented, the least I can do is give your script a second chance.”

  Why did I have a feeling my spec script could be worse than Attack of the Killer Tomatoes and Ray would still give me an assignment? The question was, how badly did I want my shot at fame and fortune? Badly enough to accept the script assignment and look the other way with regard to Ray’s alibi? What if Ray had killed Rebecca? Was it worth his going free just so I had a great script credit and thirty-five thousand dollars in the bank? Would my whole future now depend on telling a lie?

  Now I could be a mensch and tell Ray to screw his script. In that case, I was going to the police. Or—a nasty little voice whispered—I could take the money, write the best damn Babbitt & Brooks of my life, and forget what I heard Winifred say on the phone. To survive, that voice told me, I had to play by Ray’s rules. But to live with myself, I knew, I had to play by mine. I felt like I had a white-robed angel sitting on one shoulder and a red, fork-tailed devil sitting on the other. Both were persuasive, but by the time Ray drove up to location, I still hadn’t made up my mind which one to listen to.