Cherry Cheesecake Murder (28 page)

“Only if you have dinner with me out at the inn tonight.”

Hannah laughed. “That’s extortion.”

“No, it’s desperation. I need to spend time with someone who doesn’t have a personal agenda and who isn’t directly involved with the movie.”

“In other words, you need a friend?” Hannah guessed, reading between the lines.

“That’s exactly right. Ask Winnie if I can meet her at her house in an hour with the money and the release form. I’ll hang on.”

“Ross wants to know if he can meet you in an hour at your place with the money and the papers,” Hannah reported, covering the phone with her hand.

“Fine by me, but tell him to bring Connor along. I don’t know this feller you’re sweet on, but I spent a lot of time with Connor when he was trying to get me to sign that paper. He was as polite as he could be and he ate three slices of my gooseberry pie. Haven’t seen anybody do that since my second-to-the-last husband died.”

Michelle rushed into The Cookie Jar at eleven-thirty, right before the noon rush, and handed Hannah a package. “Here,” she said, puffing a little. “Clark showed us how to make a copy of the important footage and we left on the time codes.”

“Thanks, Michelle. I’ll go over to Andrea’s and watch it.”

“Better not. Dean’s murder is on the tape, and it’s not something Tracey should see.”

“Okay. I guess I’ll have to run home after lunch then.”

Michelle shook her head. “I’ve got a better idea. Why don’t you use Dean’s trailer? I’ve got a key and you can use his screening room…unless that’ll creep you out?”

“It won’t creep me out,” Hannah said, jumping at the chance to get a better look at Dean’s trailer. If she had time, she might even do a little snooping to see if she could find any other motives for his murder.

“Well, it would creep me out, especially if I had to go in alone. But I won’t be alone. You’ll be with me.”

“You want to watch the tape again?”

“No, that’s just an excuse. I want to help you do what you’re really going to do in Dean’s trailer.”

“You mean…”

“That’s right,” Michelle interrupted her. “I want to help you snoop through Mr. Big Shot Director’s things.”

Hannah glanced around uneasily as they ducked through the trees in the vacant lot and emerged in front of Dean’s Winnebago. She tried to squelch the feeling, but it wouldn’t go away.

“What’s the matter?” Michelle asked, noticing her big sister’s nervous expression. “You look jumpy.”

“I am. And I don’t know why.”

“Is it because we’re going to snoop?”

“I don’t think so. Heaven knows I’ve snooped before! Maybe it’s because we don’t have to break in and it’s not the middle of the night.”

Michelle laughed as she climbed the steps and unlocked the door. “Come on, Hannah. I’ve got a perfect right to be here. Ross asked me to pick up Dean’s shooting script and look for any changes he indicated for the skating scene we’re shooting tomorrow afternoon. Frances was supposed to drive over here to get it, but Lynne needed her for something else.”

Hannah stood back as Michelle opened the door, and then the two sisters stepped inside. The interior smelled musty, as if the owner had left it untouched for an extended period, but Hannah figured that was all in her imagination.

“It smells funny in here,” Michelle said, echoing what Hannah was thinking. “I wonder what it is.”

“This could have something to do with it.” Hannah plucked a crumpled sock from the top of a bookcase and held it up for Michelle’s inspection.

“Dean’s. I recognize the pattern. It looks like argyle, but it’s really his initials arranged in a design all over. His wife told me she gets them from a place in Beverly Hills that makes socks to order.”

“Dean might have been a genius, but his personal habits could have used some work.” Hannah picked up the other sock, which was lying smack dab in the middle of the aisle that led down the center of the trailer. She put both socks in a plastic bag she found on top of his desk and turned to her youngest sister. “Do you think we should save these for Sharyn?”

“It seems a little silly now that he’s dead. I mean, what’s she going to do with them? And it’s not like she doesn’t have a whole drawer full of others just like them at home. Let’s toss them. It’s quicker and easier.” Michelle used two fingers to gingerly pick up a grungy handkerchief from the desk chair. “And let’s add this to the bag.”

Once Hannah had relegated the bag to the wastebasket next to Dean’s desk, she followed Michelle down the hallway toward the rear of the trailer. As they progressed, the bad smell grew stronger and Hannah coughed slightly.

“Yuck,” Michelle commented as she passed a closed door. “That smell seems to be coming from the bathroom.”

“Maybe I’d better check it out,” Hannah offered. Her mother had accused her of being a dead body locator and she didn’t want Michelle to share that reputation. And while it didn’t exactly smell as if anyone had died in the Winnebago water closet, something definitely reeked.

“Go ahead, Hannah.” Michelle agreed so fast, Hannah knew her youngest sister had hoped she wouldn’t have to step into the small, smelly room. “Just holler if you need me. I’ll be right out here.”

Hannah put her hand on the doorknob and hesitated. The smell was familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it. She had just turned the handle and was getting ready to inch open the door when the reels spinning in her memory banks came up with triple red sevens. “Skunk!” she exclaimed.

“Skunk?”

“Definitely skunk. Is there a window in the bathroom?”

“I’m almost sure there is.”

“Then it must have crawled in through the bathroom window.”

“Do you think it’s still in there?”

“I don’t know,” Hannah said with a shrug.

“Do you think we should try to rescue it?”

“Absolutely not, if we want to have anything to do with people for the rest of the day. I’m fresh out of tomato juice at The Cookie Jar.”

Michelle looked confused. “What does tomato juice have to do with it?”

“If you pour it all over, it’s supposed to get rid of the skunk smell.”

“Does it work?”

“I don’t know and I really don’t want to try it…at least not now. Let’s keep the door closed and count ourselves lucky.”

“But…how about the skunk? What if it’s stuck? And scared?”

Hannah turned to smile at her sister. Michelle was a true animal lover. “When we’re through here, you go out the back way and prop open the door. I’ll hold my nose, open the bathroom door, and run outside.”

“And we’ll leave the back door open so it can get out?”

“Absolutely. We can have someone come over here to check later, after the smell dissipates.”

“That sounds like a plan. You know, now that I know for sure that the smell is skunk, it doesn’t bother me quite so much.” Michelle stopped and started to frown. “I wonder why Frances didn’t mention it.”

“Mention what?”

“The skunk smell. I guess she didn’t come in to clean this morning, now that Dean is dead.”

“Are you talking about the Frances I know?”

“That’s right, Frances Newman. She cleaned up in here every morning before Dean came in.”

“But…Frances told me that she was the script girl. And when I asked her what she did she said she was in charge of continuity on the set, and noting little differences between the takes so the editor would know which one the director liked best, and…”

“That’s all true,” Michelle interrupted, “but they don’t call them script girls anymore. The real title, the one on the credits, is Continuity Coordinator.”

“Then why did Frances tell me she was a script girl?”

“Because that’s what it was called when she started in the biz, and she still thinks of herself that way.”

“How about cleaning Dean’s Winnebago? That isn’t part of her job description, is it?”

“No. It was an extra job Frances took on when Dean asked if anyone wanted to make a little money on the side. He paid her twenty-five dollars a day to make sure his trailer looked good when he came in every morning. She said it never took her more than an hour and Dean paid her in cash.”

Hannah thought about that for a moment. “I should probably talk to Frances. She might know more about Dean’s life than anyone else in the company.”

“I’m sure she does. From what I understand, she’s been cleaning for him since they started filming two months ago.”

Hannah had an unwelcome thought. “There wasn’t anything personal going on between Frances and Dean, was there?”

“I don’t think so. And even if there was, Frances couldn’t have killed him. I saw her take up her position by the door, and the only time she left it was when Dean called her over to give her a note. She didn’t go anywhere near the desk, Hannah. I know that for a fact.”

“Okay, that leaves her in the clear,” Hannah said, putting a mental line through Frances’s name only seconds after she’d imagined writing it on the roster of suspects she kept in her head.

“This way,” Michelle said, leading Hannah down the center hallway of the trailer and opening the door to a room just beyond Dean’s office. “This is the screening room. Take a chair and I’ll put in the tape.”

While Hannah was waiting for her sister to ready the electronic equipment, she took note of her surroundings. The room was messy and that substantiated her belief that Dean had been a slob. There were paper plates on the coffee table from the cheesecake he’d served to whoever had screened footage with him, and no one had bothered to put them in the wastebasket. That wasn’t so bad, but Hannah spotted one of her distinctive bakery boxes and she was sure there was part of a cheesecake inside. By now it would be twenty-four hours old and it had been sitting out all this time. Hannah felt like putting it in Dean’s refrigerator, but it seemed silly since he was no longer around to eat it.

“Okay. We’re all set.” Michelle grabbed the remote control and took the chair next to Hannah. “Here we go.”

Hannah stared at the big-screen television as the tape began to run. She saw Mike check the gun—they’d even captured that on tape—and she saw Burke walk over to the desk. Burke pulled out the drawer, made sure the gun was inside, and walked away. Several other people milled around in that area, but as far as Hannah could see, no one else touched the drawer except Lloyd, the prop man, who came over to check it after Burke.

Hannah made a mental note to quiz Lloyd to see if he’d noticed anything unusual about the gun in the drawer. He hadn’t taken it out to check the firing pin, but there might have been something not quite right, something that hadn’t made him suspicious until now, in retrospect.

One other person was a possibility and that was Jared, the set decorator. He’d gone over to straighten the flowers that sat on the desk and stood in front of it, effectively blocking the camera’s view of the drawer. Perhaps he hadn’t touched the drawer. Hannah had no way of knowing, but he’d had the opportunity and that was enough to make him a suspect.

Hannah watched as Lynne took her place in the desk chair and Burke entered the scene. The first take was awful, as were the second and the third. It was exactly the way Dean had described. Burke couldn’t act his way out of a paper bag. Hannah knew Burke’s character was supposed to be drunk, but Burke slipped several times and forgot to slur his words. He also looked more pained than guilty and Hannah remembered that he’d said his back was hurting him.

“Brace yourself,” Michelle said as Dean started to demonstrate the scene. “Camera two does a close-up and it’s not fun to watch.”

It was a clear warning from the baby sister who hadn’t minded watching an autopsy on educational television. Hannah took it to heart and did what she always did when a particularly frightening or gory scene appeared on television or in the movies. She peeked through her fingers.

This whole device of peeking through her fingers might look silly to other people, but it worked for Hannah. Just seeing her own fingers in front of the scene was a constant reminder that it wasn’t really happening and she was really in a movie theater or in her own living room. Of course in this case, it had really happened. And her fingers didn’t work quite so well.

When the scene was over, Hannah drew a deep breath and looked over at her sister. Michelle was just lowering her hand and she gave a sheepish smile. “Sorry. You told me to do that when I was a kid, and I still do it.”

“So do I,” Hannah admitted, and then she got back to business. “Okay, who did you notice?”

Michelle ticked them off on her fingers. “Lynne, but she didn’t touch the drawer, at least not when the camera was running. Burke, who did touch the drawer and even pulled it out to make sure the prop gun was there.”

“If it was the prop gun when he checked,” Hannah pointed out.

“Yes. I should probably ask around and find out if Burke has any background with revolvers.”

“Good idea. Who else?”

“Lloyd. He checked the drawer before filming started.”

“Was that part of his job?”

“Yes. He always checks a scene right before they shoot it to make sure the important props are in the correct position.”

“Anyone else?”

“Only one and that’s not for sure. Jared went over to rearrange the bouquet on the desk. He stood in front of the drawer and he could have pulled it out without us noticing.”

“Very good!” Hannah said, smiling at her baby sister. “And that’s it?”

“That’s all I saw.

“Me too, except for me.”

“You?”

“Dean had me replace the tray of mini cherry cheesecakes right before the final take. I blocked the drawer with my body, and I could have switched the revolvers without anyone noticing.”

“But you didn’t!”

“Of course not. The important thing is that I could have. You didn’t even notice me because you didn’t suspect me. What you have to remember is that when you’re working on a crime like this, you can’t overlook anybody.”

Michelle sighed deeply. “You’re right. I should have mentioned you even though I knew you didn’t do it. I guess that’s why I’m the helper and you’re the detective.”

“I’m not a detective. I’m a snoop.” Hannah reached out to give her sister a pat on the shoulder. “And speaking of snooping…let’s go through Dean’s things and see what we can dig up.”