Jaine Austen 2 - Last Writes (22 page)

“I think we can sell it to Fox.” Good heavens, it sounded like she meant it. “I’ll call you and we’ll do lunch.”

Then she blew him a kiss and headed back to the director.

I didn’t know what to be more flabbergasted over: the fact that she actually liked Lance’s shoe saga, or the fact that she didn’t seem to give a damn that her husband was festering in jail, a confessed murderer.

But I didn’t have time to stay flabbergasted for long, because just then, the warm-up guy announced that the taping of “Cinderella Muffy” was about to begin.

I’m happy to report that Act One zipped by without a single dead body cropping up on stage.

What’s more, the Mormons were wonderful! Yes, those delightful people laughed at all my jokes—and some of the straight lines, too. I guess after being holed up in Bible Camp, they were ready to laugh at anything. Or maybe they were simply discerning connoisseurs of comedy. All I know is that they were a fabulous audience, and the next time they show up on my doorstep wanting to discuss the Bible, I’m going to ask them in for coffee and danish.

My spirits were lifting. Judging from the response of my darling Mormons, it looked like I had a lucrative career as a sitcom writer ahead of me.

The warm-up guy was back on stage, doing some magic tricks, waiting for the crew to set up for Act Two. Unlike his jokes, his magic tricks were pretty good. I watched as he took a quarter from a church elder’s hairy ear. It really did look like the coin was coming out from the guy’s ear. Magicians are amazing, I thought, in their ability to fool the eye.

And then I remembered:

Wells had been a magician.

Just last night, in his scrapbook, I’d seen a picture of him as “Dumont the Great.”

And suddenly I knew how Wells had killed Quinn.

Everyone assumed the donut had been poisoned in the prop room. But what if the fatal dose of poison had been sprinkled
on stage
, with a magician’s sleight of hand, in full view of the entire audience?

When Quinn had offered Wells the box of donuts, the audience saw him waving it away. What they didn’t see was Wells sprinkling rat poison into the box. And with the raised lid of the box facing Quinn, he wouldn’t have noticed either. That, I was certain, was how Wells had killed Quinn Kirkland.

The rest of the taping went by in a blur. I simply couldn’t concentrate on the script. All I could think about was Wells. I told myself I was being foolish. After all, Stan had confessed to the crime. Wells was a lonely old man with good hair and bad feet; why couldn’t I leave the poor guy alone? He was simply the latest in a long line of my Suspects du Jour. I really had to forget about Quinn’s death. I had a whole new career ahead of me, and I couldn’t afford to blow it over some cockamamie murder theory.

Before I knew it, the taping was over. The Mormons were filing out of the soundstage, still chuckling at Muffy’s zany adventures.

That’s where my future was, I told myself—in laughs, not deaths. After such a positive audience response, Audrey was sure to offer me a staff job.

Which is why I was optimistic when Audrey called the cast and crew together.

“People,” she said, “I’ve got an announcement to make.”

Could it be? Was she going to thank me for a wonderful script and offer me a staff job right here in front of everybody?

“The show’s been cancelled,” she said.

Apparently not.

Gasps of disappointment and surprise filled the air.

“The network just called. Too much negative publicity. First the murder, and then the incident with the overhead light.” She eyed me balefully, as if blaming me for almost getting my head bashed in.

“Well, that’s it,” she said, showing about as much emotion as a paperweight. “Better pack up and clear out tonight. The party’s over.”

So much for my budding sitcom career.

But here’s the crazy part: I didn’t care. So what if I wasn’t exactly Sherlock Holmes? I
liked
being a detective. If truth be told, I liked it a lot more than I liked writing sitcoms. And right now, I had a case to solve. I was convinced that Wells was Quinn’s killer.

Now all I had to do was get him to confess.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

“D
amnphooeyfuckshit! Now I’ll have to go back to writing for the cockroach.”

We were back in our office and Kandi was stretched out on the sofa, staring morosely into space, bemoaning her fate. What with
Muffy ’n Me
cancelled, she’d be forced to go back to her old job writing for
Beanie & The Cockroach
.

“Do you know what it’s like spending your days writing cockroach jokes?” She sighed with great drama.

“Hey,” I said. “Do you know how many people slinging fries at McDonald’s would kill for a job as an animation writer? What happened to your vow to never again sweat the small stuff if only God would get you off the hook for murder?”

She had the grace to look somewhat abashed.

“You’re right,” she said, sitting up. “I’m being very spoiled-brattish. Just yesterday I thought I’d be spending the rest of my life in jail fighting off advances from women with mustaches. What’s wrong with me, anyway? I have absolutely no sense of perspective. So what if I have to write jokes for a household pest? So what if the only people who see my name on the credits have Cream of Wheat dribbling onto their bibs? So what if I have to go groveling back to my old boss, the one who told me,
You’ll come groveling back to me, just wait and see
.

“Oh, hell,” she said, suddenly back in the valley of depression. “I need a drink.”

“Congratulations. You managed to keep things in perspective for a whole four and a half seconds.”

“What can I say?” she shrugged. “I’m hopeless.”

She went to her desk and fished a bottle of tequila from the bottom drawer.

“Cocktail time,” she said, holding it aloft.

We managed to find some orange juice in the office refrigerator and made ourselves makeshift Tequila Sunrises, a normally festive drink that seems a lot less festive when you’re drinking it out of a
Muffy ’n Me
coffee mug.

Back in our office, we spent several companionable moments sipping our Tequila Sunrises and watching the transvestites strut their stuff on Santa Monica Boulevard.

A muscular man in stiletto heels, fishnet stockings, and a Tina Turner wig was leaning into the open window of a Mercedes to negotiate a price for his services. His black leather skirt was cut so tight, you could practically read the label on his jockstrap.

Starting next week, the guy would be making more money than me.

“Well,” Kandi said, draining the last of her Tequila Sunrise, “I guess it’s time to get packing.”

We tossed most of her
Muffy ’n Me
scripts in the trash.

“No need to save them for posterity,” she sighed.

Then we wrapped her personal belongings in our chair towels and carried them out to her car, hobo style. There wasn’t much to carry. When we were through loading her trunk, I took what would surely be my last look around the Miracle lot.

“Good-bye, hookers!” I said, saluting the gang on Santa Monica Boulevard. “Good-bye rubber sandwiches at the commissary. Good-bye, Haunted House. Good-bye, roller coaster—”

And as I turned to salute the roller coaster, I saw someone standing at the ride’s control box. A man with silvery hair that glinted in the moonlight.

“Hey. Isn’t that Wells?”

“Yeah,” Kandi said. “I think it is.”

“Wait a minute. I’ll be right back.”

I hurried over to the roller coaster. Sure enough, it was Wells. He was bent over the control box, trying to pry it open with a crowbar.

“Wells! What’s going on?”

He looked up and smiled calmly, as if he always went around prying roller coaster controls open with a crowbar.

“Jaine, my dear. What a lovely surprise.”

“What are you doing?”

“Taking a roller coaster ride.”

His eyes sparkled with a slightly maniacal glint.

“Look, Wells,” I said. “This is really awkward, and I don’t know how to put it, but I was wondering…”

“Yes?”

“Did you…uh…happen to kill Quinn?”

Good heavens. I really had to work on my detective patter.

“As a matter of fact, my dear, I did.”

He grunted with the effort of maneuvering the crowbar. The control box was big, and the metal door was heavy.

“After all,” he said, “Quinn was responsible for Jessica’s death. I couldn’t let him get away with murder, could I?”

His brow glistened with sweat as he worked the crowbar back and forth. Somehow he’d tapped into a hidden reserve of strength. It was like one of those stories where a ninety-eight-pound mother lifts a truck to save her baby.

“It was really quite easy. I hid the vial of poison up my sleeve. No one ever suspected. Dumont the Great performing his finest feat of magic.”

He gave one final heave to the crowbar, and the metal door sprang open.

“Aha!” He grinned like a kid breaking into his piggy bank.

“And the klieg light,” I said. “Are you the one who tried to drop it on me?”

He blinked in surprise.

“Of course not, my dear. I’d never dream of hurting you. I have no idea who was responsible for that dastardly deed.”

And I believed him.

“And now,” he said, “if you’ll excuse me, it’s time to say
adieu.
Not
au revoir,
but
adieu
. I trust you know the difference.”

He trusted wrong. I had no idea what the heck he was trying to say. I don’t exactly run around with a French–English dictionary in my purse. But if I did, I would have known that
au revoir
means
till next we meet
, and
adieu
means
Farewell Forever, Ta-ta Tootsie, The End, Fini, Don’t Bother to Write
. Or words to that effect.

He pulled a lever and the ancient motor groaned to life.

“What are you doing?” I called out as he headed for the roller coaster.

“I’m going to kill myself, of course.”

“What?”

“I can’t let Stan go to jail for a murder he didn’t commit. I’ve got a suicide note right here,” he said, patting his shirt pocket. “A short but succinct document wherein I confess my sins.”

He looked up to the top of the roller coaster, which suddenly seemed awfully high to me.

“And in case my note gets…uh…messy, I left a copy on my bureau. Right next to my blood pressure medication. Make sure the police see it, will you, my dear?”

And with that he leaped into one of the carts.

Oh, God. He was going to jump. I’d once read a story in the paper about a teenager who’d tried to jump to his death from a ride at Disneyland. And now Wells was about to do the same thing.

The roller coaster began its slow ascent up the first steep hill.

And then I did something incredibly stupid. Something I surely wouldn’t have done if I hadn’t just polished off a Tequila Sunrise. The roller coaster had begun moving, but the last cart was still on level ground. Call me crazy, but I climbed on board. I just couldn’t let the poor old guy kill himself.

Wells was up front in the first cart, reciting what I could only assume was Shakespeare:

I have liv’d long enough. My way of life

Is fallen into the sere, the yellow leaf;

And that which should accompany old age,

As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends,

I must not look to have.

“Don’t jump, Wells!” I shouted.

But he didn’t hear me over the din of the grinding cables.

Somehow I’d have to manage to get into Wells’s cart. Forcing myself not to look down, I climbed out from my cart and into the one in front of me. Which wasn’t easy with that damn wrap skirt of mine flapping in the breeze. I repeated this utterly terrifying process until I was at last in the cart behind him.

“Don’t do it, Wells!”

He turned around and saw me for the first time.

“Get off!” he shouted angrily. “Get off!”

“You mustn’t kill yourself, Wells. With a good attorney and a sympathetic jury, you could be free in a few years.”

He laughed bitterly.

“Free? Free to do what? Free to come home to an empty house night after night? Free to play small parts in pathetic sitcoms? Free to spend the rest of my life watching my body fall apart? No, my dear. It’s time for me to go. I’ve been planning this for a long time. No clichéd death with sleeping pills for me. I’m going to go out fighting, like my beloved Macbeth.”

“No!” I shouted, as I climbed into his cart and held down the safety bar. “I can’t let you jump.”

His eyes widened in surprise.

“Jump?” he said. “Who said anything about jumping? I cut one of the cables.”

“What?”

“As soon as we reach the top of the hill, we’re going to crash to our deaths.”

Oh, damn! NOW he tells me!

By now we were just a few feet away from the crest. I scrambled desperately to get out of the cart and grab hold of the wooden siding. But I couldn’t reach it.

“You’ll have to stand on the edge of the cart,” Wells said. “Don’t worry. I’ll hold you.”

And he did. In a final act of chivalry, he kept my legs braced while I reached out for the elusive wooden siding. Finally I was able to grab hold of it. Then he let go of my legs, and I managed to get a toehold to safety.

Wells Dumont may have killed Quinn Kirkland, but that night he saved my life.

“
Adieu,
my dear,” he said blowing me a kiss. “Don’t be sad. This is the way I want it.”

Then he sat back down in the cart, his spine straight, his eyes bright with anticipation, as if riding a horse to battle.

The roller coaster reached the crest.

“Lay on, Macduff!” he shouted, brandishing an invisible sword. “And damn’d be him that first cries ‘Hold, enough!’”

And then, before my eyes, Wells Dumont plummeted to his death.

Chapter Twenty-Nine