Done to Death (14 page)

Through the small windows on the side of the door Lil saw their across-the-walk neighbor Bernice Framm holding a tray of cookies.
What now?
she wondered. She opened the door. ‘Hi Bernice.'

‘Lil.' Bernice held out the cookies. ‘I saw the light on and thought I'd bring these over.'

‘Thanks, Bernice.' Lil accepted the tray, noting at least four types of home-made treats through the cellophane wrap. On the best of days, Bernice was barely civil to Lil, but baked goods? This was unprecedented.

‘My pleasure,' Bernice said, giving Aaron a tight smile and looking expectantly down the hall.

Lil felt trapped. The cookies were clearly a ploy to get the two things Bernice lived for − information and power. As the secretary to Grenville's mayors for over three decades, Bernice had reveled in her role as gatekeeper. It was well known that, if she didn't like you, applications, building permits, variances and various other bits of small-town commerce could become lost. As one of the seven members of the Pilgrim's Progress Owners' Association, Bernice had again worked her way into a position of local power.

‘These look delicious,' Lil said, weighing the pros and cons. ‘Would you like to come in for some coffee?'

Bernice hesitated, her attention pulled by unfamiliar voices coming from over the crest of the steep walk that led to their cluster of condos. ‘It's getting busy around here,' she remarked. ‘Are you really going to be on TV?' she asked, keeping her voice low.

‘Ada is,' Lil said, realizing that Bernice's curiosity was at war with her fear of being associated with her and Ada.

‘It's very exciting. Can you talk about it?'

Lil glanced behind Bernice as Melanie Taft appeared, one hand holding her cell and her other pulling a wheeled legal-style briefcase. ‘I'm right outside your condo,' she said into the phone. ‘Hi Lil.' She glanced at Bernice. ‘Hi, I'm Melanie Taft.'

‘Bernice Framm, I'm Lil and Ada's neighbor.'

‘Fantastic! This whole town.'

Lil stared at the perky assistant producer. It was getting on to ten p.m. and the young woman's eyes were wide and bright.

‘We like it,' Bernice said, her body positioned between the door and Melanie.

‘Lil,' Melanie said, ‘I've got a stack of headshots, I was hoping you and Ada could talk me through them. You know who's for real and who we maybe shouldn't waste our time on.'

‘You're with the TV show,' Bernice said. ‘I saw that ad in the paper. You mean people have already responded?'

Melanie laughed. ‘Cookies! I love cookies.'

‘I made them,' Bernice said, taking the plate from Lil and pulling off the wrap. ‘Here, help yourself.'

Melanie shoved her cell into a pocket and snatched one of Bernice's oatmeal raisin cookies. ‘Love these! So good. And yeah, I grabbed a stack off the fax. Would you mind, Lil? I know it's late, but if we can go through this batch it'll give us a jump in the morning. I was hoping maybe to pick a few and do some tests.'

‘Sure,' Lil said.

Oblivious to tension or any past history between Lil and Bernice, Melanie grabbed a brownie and a shortbread and wheeled her case into Lil's condo.

Bernice's curiosity won the day and she followed, as though popping into Lil and Ada's home was something she did all the time. ‘I might be able to help,' she added. ‘I was the mayor's secretary forever.'

‘Awesome,' Melanie said. ‘Hi Ada, sorry to do this, and I want you to get as much rest as possible. And I have to say,' she glanced at Rose, Aaron and their half-eaten dinner, ‘the scenes we shot this morning were awesome.'

Like some overwound toy, she jogged to the table. ‘Hi, I'm Melanie,' and she introduced herself to Ada's mother and grandson. ‘So, where can we work?' She opened the oversized briefcase and pulled out stacks of faxed headshots and résumés.

Aaron cleared away the dishes.

‘What are we doing?' Rose asked, buzzed on sherry and ready for the evening's entertainment.

‘Looking for talent,' Melanie said, dropping a stack on to the dining room table. ‘I figured you'd know who some of these were.'

The phone rang. Lil scanned the caller ID. ‘This is crazy.'

‘Who is it?' Ada asked.

‘The Greenery,' she said.

‘Makes sense,' Ada replied. ‘The Auchinstrasses.'

Bernice rolled her eyes. ‘I bet it's Frieda trying to get the inside track.' She turned to Melanie. ‘They're not real Grenville. But they want everyone to think they go back to the Pilgrims.'

‘You might want to turn off the ringer,' Melanie suggested. ‘And I'd recommend keeping your cell number just for family, and for me and Barry, of course. And trust me, after this week we'll be like family. So, let's look at some pictures.'

Lil, whose family did go back generations, and Bernice, who had intimate knowledge of most of the antique dealers, helped whittle Melanie's pile down.

Bernice was in her element as she picked up picture after picture, dropping tantalizing bits of small-town gossip. ‘Ugh. You don't want this one,' she said, holding the résumé of one of the higher end dealers in town.

‘Why?' Lil asked, having known the man for decades.

‘I don't like to speak bad about people … big lush.'

‘Don't need that,' Melanie said. ‘How about this one?' holding up a photo of a handsome man with thick blond hair and an angular face. She read the name off the résumé she'd clipped to the back. ‘Harrison Baker.'

‘He must be new,' Bernice said. ‘Does it say where his shop is?'

‘Four two two Main Street.'

‘The Brixton Building,' Bernice said. ‘There's three shops in there, and one's a multi-dealer. He's probably in that.'

‘He's cute,' Aaron said.

Bernice looked at Ada's grandson. She shook her head.

Ada chuckled. ‘Yes, Bernice, everyone is gay.'

‘I'm not,' Rose said.

‘I am,' offered Melanie.

Bernice looked at the attractive young woman with her short hair and tattooed arms. ‘I didn't say a thing.'

‘No,' Ada said, ‘but you thought it.'

‘So how many of these do you think you're going to get?' Aaron asked, trying to step in between his grandmother and Bernice.

‘Thousands,' Melanie said, putting the photo and résumé of Harrison Baker into the small stack of possibles. ‘And normally it's not something the producers, or assistant producers, get into. LPP has on-staff casting agents for this. But since we're moving at warp speed to get something taped, today I am a casting agent. I do have the credential, so if anyone wants to make a stink, we're covered.'

‘But there aren't nearly that many dealers in town,' Ada said.

‘Doesn't matter,' Melanie said. ‘I can tell you that back at the hotel there's probably three hundred more of these on the fax. It'll be over a thousand by the morning. Half of them from people who don't even come close to what we're looking for. They'll all think that we're going to make an exception because they're so special, and we just need to give them a shot. The reality … they go straight into the trash.'

‘That's harsh,' Aaron said.

‘It's a harsh business, Aaron.' Melanie said. ‘It still amazes me how brutal it gets. End of the day, it's a waste of precious time returning their calls.'

‘You OK?' Ada asked her. ‘You must be ready to drop.'

‘I'm fine,' Melanie said, pulling photo after photo and dropping them into the discard pile as she kept a running commentary. ‘Too old; too weird-looking; who the hell thought this was a good picture?'

By midnight Melanie's stack was down to less than two dozen, all Grenville dealers. ‘Ladies,' and, looking across at Aaron, ‘and gentleman, I think we're done.'

‘And we'll get to the other few hundred in the morning?' Aaron asked.

‘Goddess, no,' she said.

‘What happens to them?' Lil asked.

‘We hold on to them until we're sure we've got what we need, and then we dump 'em.'

‘But what if there's someone better in that stack?' Bernice asked.

Before Melanie could answer, her cell buzzed. ‘It's Barry.' She took the call.

‘You sitting down?' he asked.

‘Oh crap,' she said. ‘They pulled the plug. What are we going to do?'

‘Melanie. Listen. Richard Parks is dead. They've taken Rachel into custody.'

‘Oh, God! What? How?' She stared at Ada and then at the others. ‘This is horrible! So, we're done then.'

Barry paused. ‘No. Go ahead with the auditions. We've come this far. If someone wants to pull the plug, they're going to have to come down here and do it themselves.'

R
achel stared at her hands, and then at the clock sunk into the cinderblock wall of her cell. It was two a.m. ‘This is a police station,' she said aloud, the reality of her voice the only thing keeping her from completely losing it. ‘This is not a hospital.'
Because if this were a hospital
, she reasoned,
I'd be in a gown and not an orange jumpsuit.
She looked at the dome camera overhead.
Maybe it is a hospital.
It was impossible to focus. ‘Someone needs to call my brother,' she shouted, knowing that was the thing to do. She screamed, ‘Call my brother!' She rattled off his cell from memory. They had to call Richard; he'd figure this out. ‘How much did you drink?'
But you didn't
…
you're not drinking. Why is that? You like to drink
…
maybe that's what happened. But pregnant women don't drink, don't smoke. Where's Richard?

‘I want my brother!' she screamed at the tiny wire-laced window in the steel door. ‘I want Richard!'

She heard a door open. Richard would come, and he'd take care of this. It was what he did. Maybe because she'd been such a bitch to him he'd keep her waiting. She deserved that. Her thoughts touched something dangerous. She stared at her hands.
Why are my nails clipped so short?
The edges of her fingers felt raw; someone had clipped her nails, and the pads were sticky.

Voices were coming closer.

‘Richard?'

She heard a woman on the other side, and a man. She couldn't make out their words. ‘Please,' she cried out, ‘get Richard!'

The door opened.

Rachel looked up to see a short woman with tightly curled salt-and-pepper hair;
like a poodle
, she thought. Behind her stood a tall woman, her reddish-gold hair in a ponytail, and next to her a pudgy man with sparse blond hair and a shiny pink scalp. They were staring at her.

‘Where's Richard? Have you called him?' She smiled. ‘Whatever I did, he'll fix it.'
Why are they staring?

The woman with the poodle hair came in. She settled next to Rachel on the edge of the platform bed. ‘Ms Parks, my name is Detective Perez. I'm with the state's major crime division. That's my partner, Detective Jamie Plank. You don't have to say anything, Rachel. Your lawyer will be here soon.'

She remembered someone reciting the Miranda Warning. It wasn't the first time she'd heard it.

‘Why did they cut my nails?' she asked, looking into poodle woman's dark eyes. ‘What's happening? Why can't I remember?'

The woman looked skeptical. She shook her head and turned back to the two standing in the door. ‘Chief Simpson, I'd strongly recommend placing someone outside her door.'

‘We've got her on video,' the heavyset man replied.

‘Don't risk it.'

‘You think she'll hurt herself?' he asked.

‘I'm not suicidal,' Rachel said. ‘Not right now.'
Maybe that's what this was about. It looks like a jail but maybe it is a hospital and they just want me to say that I won't hurt myself, and they'll let me go. And why isn't Richard here? Is he that mad at me? I'll make it up to him. I shouldn't have told him like that. What is wrong with me? Why do I always fuck things up?
‘Have you called my brother?' she asked. ‘Do you need his number?'

‘Rachel.' The poodle-haired woman was speaking.

Why is she looking at me that way? She's going to say something bad. I won't listen. I can't hear this.

‘Rachel,' she repeated. ‘Your brother is dead. You called nine one one a little after eleven p.m. Do you remember that? Do you remember calling? On the phone you told the operator it was your fault. Do you remember?'

I can't hear this. I won't listen. I'll go away.
Like a turtle into its shell, she drew a wall around herself. Richard called it her armor; no one and nothing could get through. Dr Ebert said it was a dissociative state. He said she was good at it, the best he'd ever seen. Not her mother's criticism, or the paralyzing fear that now surrounded her, could pierce her shell. The poodle lady was gone and there was only fuzz. She closed her eyes.
Richard will come
, she told herself.
He always does.

Detective Mattie Perez stared at Rachel Parks. The girl was shutting down in a way she'd seen before with rape victims and others who'd been through severe trauma. And Mattie hadn't missed the scars on the undersides of Rachel's wrists.

Yet facts were facts: the girl had been found with her brother Richard, his blood on her hands, and there was a small caliber pistol, quite possibly the same one used to kill Lenore Parks, in the dead man's bedroom. As with Lenore, it had been a single bullet, but this time at close range from the front. He'd been shot in the heart.

There was ample motive and means. It could be a slam dunk. Not to mention the possible nine one one confession:
‘My brother's been shot! It's my fault. It's all my fault.'
Unless … she stared at the blonde, her hair like a curtain over her face, her body curled tight. Was this the opening salvo in a not-guilty-by-reason-of-mental-defect defense? From what little she knew of Rachel Parks − wealthy, privileged, disturbed and a first year pre-law student − she didn't want to jump to conclusions. The girl had brains, and if you want to off your mother and brother and do a minimum of time …
Is she that good an actress?
Maybe not a slam dunk.