A Knife to Remember (15 page)

She'd painted faces and made little tutus in different colors for three ballerinas when Katie gothome. "Oh, Mom. That's cute," Katie said. "What are you going to use for hair?"

“I don't know. I guess I can't leave them bald. Maybe they could be wearing turbans of the same fabric."

“No, there's something. ." she closed her eyes for a minute, then dashed off to come back a moment later with a yellow-and-brown sweater with a ripped sleeve. "See? The yarn's all wiggly from being knitted and if you fray it a little, you have hair! Blondes and brunettes.”

Jane made another dancer while Katie made and applied hair to the others. Then she disappeared again and returned with a wad of Play-Doh. "What's that for?" Jane asked.

“Boobs."

“Ballerinas don't have boobs."

“This one's going to. She'll be a failure as a ballerina because of them, but will later make a good living modeling underwear for J. C. Penney's ads," Katie said.

Katie got so caught up in the clothespin dolls that she voluntarily helped Jane get dinner on and later cleared so they could go back to them. By eight o'clock that evening, they had a startling array of little people. Soldiers, dancers, a grayish one that Katie maintained was a mailman and Jane said was a Confederate soldier, girls in frilly long dresses, a bride and two matched bridesmaids, and a gypsy with hair from a black sweater Jane had always hated and was happy to sacrifice to the cause.

Jane kept thinking about Shelley's wanting to preserve her daughter in amber at age ten.
This is the evening I want preserved in amber,
Jane thought as they started putting away the fabric and glue and paints.

The doorbell rang and Katie went to let Shelley in. "Jane, I'm glad you're remembering to lock up well. Oh! How darling!" Shelley exclaimed when she saw the dolls.

“They all have life histories. Katie can tell you about them," Jane said. "This one, for example, was a drummer boy from Georgia during the Civil War and was reincarnated as a mailman."

“I'll tell you about the rest of them later, okay? I've got a biology assignment," Katie said. "Good night, Mrs. Nowack.”

Shelley sat down looking troubled and waited until Katie was well out of hearing range. "I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings, but have you looked out your back window lately?" she asked quietly. "There are police all over the place again. And an ambulance just pulled away.
Without
the lights flashing. You know what that means.”

Jane just stared at her friend for a long moment, then got up and went to the living room window. As she parted the curtains and looked out, she saw Mel coming across the backyard. She and Shelley met him at her kitchen door.

“Mel! What is it?"

“Lynette Harwell is dead. Suicide," he said. "No!" Shelley exclaimed. "No! Absolutely not.

She might be dead, but it wasn't suicide."

"I know it's hard to believe, but—"

“Not hard to believe. Impossible."

“Except that there was no note, it was a classic suicide," Mel explained patiently. "She'd put on her best clothes, done her hair and makeup, took a huge dose of tranquilizers or something, and laid herself out on the couch in her dressing room. She looked like a queen lying in state.”

Shelley kept shaking her head. "Not suicide, I tell you. She wouldn't do that. She was the center of the universe. She wouldn't even consider it."

“What happened?" Jane asked. "How did she get away from her keeper long enough for anything to happen to her?"

“It was the keep er, Miss Longabach, who sent us here. There was some kind of mix-up about the transportation. You see, the stars and the directors have their own limos and drivers to take them back to the hotel downtown where everybody stays. The rest of the out-of-town cast and crew go in vans. Apparently Miss Longabach wasn't allowed to ride with Miss Harwell in the limo—"

“Doesn't that just figure!" Shelley said.

Mel went on, "She went back to wait at the hotel for her. When she didn't come, Miss Longabach assumed she had a dinner engagement and just hadn't mentioned it. After a while, though, she got worried and called Miss Harwell's driver to ask where he'd taken her and with whom. He said he hadn't taken her anyplace, he'd found a note on the front seat of the limo saying she didn't need a ride tonight. That's when Longabach got panicked. She called me. She'd kept my card when I interviewed her earlier. She was embarrassed, said she knew it was just confusion of plans, but to be sure, could I check the set?"

“Why didn't she send somebody from the crew?" Jane asked.

“They don't have cars of their own here, and she said the man in charge of local transportation had gone out for the evening."

“And you found her?" Jane asked.

“In her dressing room in that fancy trailer." "What about the security people on the set? Don't they leave somebody there all the time?"

“Two men, yes. But they just patrol, looking for intruders or anything out of the ordinary."

“Was her dressing room locked with her inside?" Jane asked.

“No. Unlocked. One of the security men had tested the door and noticed that it was unlocked, but he said it usually was. She either didn't keep any valuables in it or she was too dim to remember to lock up."

“What about the note the driver found in the limo? Did he keep it?"

“He had no reason to. He threw it out in a gas station trash can when he stopped to put some oil in the car and empty the ashtray. He can't remember which station it was, but he's trying to find the receipt. The trash is probably long gone by now.”

Shelley had been silent during this exchange. Now she spoke firmly. "Look, Mel. I know you think I'm crazy, but I'd stake my life on the fact that she did
not
commit suicide. The woman was pure ego. But besides that, Jane and I were on the set this afternoon and everybody — even thepeople who hated her the most — said she'd given the performance of her life today. Nobody could say enough good things about it."

“That's true," Jane said.

Shelley went on, "After years and years of wallowing in mediocrity, she'd finally shined again. Today was, well… a springboard to glory. She'd reestablished her talent and celebrity. She had everything to live for and believe me, she'd have wanted to revel in every gratifying second of it. She positively wouldn't have given it up.”

Mel looked thoughtful, but said nothing for a long moment. Then, "Jane, do you agree?”

Jane didn't hesitate. "I didn't talk to her much, but if Shelley feels this strongly, I have to agree.”

He walked across the kitchen and looked longingly at the coffeemaker. Jane handed him a cup, which he filled and sipped at for a minute. It was the dregs of the pot and must have tasted foul, but he made no sign of distaste, not even a slight flinch, which was a measure of his preoccupation.

Finally he said, "So do I. Agree with Shelley, that is. There's no proof in the world — yet — but my instinct tells me somebody killed her.”

19

“They have to be connected," Shelley said when Mel had gone back outside to oversee the police examination of the dressing room trailer. "Two people in the same production don't get killed for entirely different reasons by different people."

“How do we know that? I mean it, Shelley. There are more than a hundred people out there every day. Any six of them could be potential mass murderers."

“You're suggesting that six out of a hundred is some kind of national average? You know perfectly well you don't believe that."

“I didn't say I believed it. But it
is
possible."

“But it's more probable that it's one person."

“As far as I'm concerned, they can all kill each other off, so long as they go away. Sorry. I don't mean it. But I do wish they'd go away.".

“Jane, you're not thinking very clearly here. They're supposed to be finished tomorrow afternoon and have a wrap party tomorrow night—"

“Surely they'll call
that
off."

“Want to bet?"

“No, I don't think so. But what difference does it make?"

“Jane, Mel could be tied up investigating this thing for months! He can't keep the whole production in town. They're going to scatter like milkweed fluff by Saturday morning."

“Oh. I see what you mean. My weekend with him might be sometime next year."

“Right. And what you said about understanding their motives is dead-on, if you'll excuse the phrase. He looks on all those people as 'foreigners.' Almost 'aliens.' You and I don't understand them a whole lot better, but we're not thrown for quite such a loop as he is."

“I don't know, Shelley. I'd really rather stay out of it, I think. The police can't keep Mel chained to his desk forever."

“Jane…" Shelley began in a strained voice. "You can't stay out of this."

“I certainly can. I'm not terminally nosy, you know."

“That's not what I meant, exactly.”

Jane picked up the now empty coffee carafe and started rinsing it out. "What do you mean?" She put a hearty scoop of coffee into the basket.

Shelley didn't answer right away. "Well — I don't quite know how to say this, but there's something you're overlooking."

“Probably dozens of things, but what did you have in mind?" Jane poured cold water in the coffeemaker and pushed the button to start it brewing before she sat back down across from Shelley at the kitchen table.

“Jane, sooner or later — God, I hate to say this! Sooner or later Mel is going to question everyone about every conversation they heard Lynette Harwell have on this set.”

A faint alarm bell went off in the dim recesses of Jane's mind. "Yes?" she said warily.

“And one of her more 'public' conversations was with you and your son about her having had an affair with your husband. Lots of people might have overheard it. You and Mike both went off obviously upset, I assume. All of that is going to be in the record, from interviews with other people.”

Jane gulped. "But. . but. ." she sputtered. "I already told him all about it. And about Steve's leaving me. It's got nothing to do with all this."

“Before Lynette was murdered it didn't. But now it's theoretical motive for you to kill her. She did something awful to your child. Told him something you didn't want him to know."

“Mel wouldn't suspect me!"

“Mel-the-guy-you're-dating wouldn't suspect you, but I'm not talking about that person. Detective Mel Van Dyne would have to. At least 'officially.' Now, he'd be hard-pressed to take off a couple extra days to jaunt off with a suspect in an unsolved case."

“But nobody who knows me could think—"

“It's not a question of people who know you. It's the people who don't. Like Mel's boss, whoever that is."

“Oh, hell," Jane murmured. "You're right." "What's the matter, Mom?" Todd said from the doorway.

Jane smiled automatically. "Nothing at all, honey."

“You got any more of those brownies?"

“I've got another package of mix, if you can wait about twenty minutes," she said. "I'll call you when they're ready.”

She flung together a bowl of brownie mix while saying to Shelley, "Okay, let's think sensibly about this. General to the specific, I believe. So, what's a good reason for murdering somebody?"

“There isn't one."

“Not to us. But in theory."

“Okay. Greed comes to mind. Hate. Revenge. Fear. Jealousy. Ambition—"

“Whoa! One at a time, so we can eliminate the most unlikely. Hold it." She spritzed cooking oil on a glass baking dish and hastily dumped the mixture in. Once it was in the oven, she poured them fresh coffee and sat down.

“This is decaf, isn't it?" Shelley asked.

“Of course. If I drank the real stuff this late, I'd be cleaning the oven at four in the morning."

“You can't fool me, Jane. You wouldn't clean an oven if somebody held a gun to your head."

“Maybe not. Okay, I think we can eliminate hate as a motive."

“You do? I'd have put it top on the list. They all seem to hate each other."

“But that's just it. Hate and jealousy both seem natural to most of the people we've gotten to know out there. Cavagnari hates Lynette, so much so that he also hates George Abington for giving her up to him, but he literally works himself into a sweat directing her in a great performance. Lynette hates George Abington, but is convincingly madly in love with him when the camera is rolling. Everybody hates Jake, but speaks well of his particular skills. Likewise everybody seems to hate Lynette, but they fall down praising her when she gives a good performance. It looks to me like hate and jealousy are somehow natural parts of the process. Maybe even necessary parts. An element of emotional 'pumping up' or something."

“Okay, I'll accept all that. Cross off garden-variety hatred. Tentatively. The one I'd eliminate is greed. At least in the case of the principal suspects. They must all have lots of money and I can't imagine how any of them would benefit from either Jake's death or Lynette's."

“Theoretically Butch might have benefited by Jake's death," Jane said.

“Not really. All Jake's props probably belong to his heir now. And that's not likely to be Butch. All Butch has from Jake is the credit that accrued to him from being assistant to a master. That's his whether Jake is alive or dead."

“I don't think for a minute that Butch could have killed anybody, but just for the sake of argument, Jake could have been getting ready to fire him or bad-mouth him. I think we talked about this before. But supposing the same person murdered both of them, what possible reason could Butch have for getting rid of Lynette Harwell?"

“None that I can see," Shelley agreed. "The onetime I saw him speak to her, it was all 'yes, Miss Harwell, no, Miss Harwell, ma'am.' He all but held his hand over his heart and swooned because she'd deigned to speak to him."