Deception on the Set (6 page)

I poured on the speed as Joe pulled away. He darted into another alley to try to lose me. I kept up and followed him down a short passageway, which dumped onto a busy street downtown. At the very end, he turned left.

“Ahhhhhhhh!” screamed a blond girl with earsplitting intensity.

I skidded to a stop as the sidewalk's pedestrians turned to gawk at me. Some screamed, some backed away, and some
moved closer. I guess they were shocked to see a zombie in broad daylight in the middle of downtown nowhere near Halloween.

“Ah, excuse me,” I said as I tried to politely push through the pack.

Unfortunately, it didn't work. No one was frightened anymore; instead they were opting to crowd around for a closer look.

“Can you take a picture with me?” asked a female voice. I glanced down to see it was the same girl who had screamed at first. Now she smiled and held up her phone.

“Maybe thome other thime,” I mumbled through my zombie teeth. I was getting better at speaking with the prosthetics in my mouth.

I gazed over the crowd and could see my brother getting away, running down the sidewalk. He turned down Wilson Avenue and disappeared. It was no use trying to catch him; even if I could push through the horde, he had too big a lead on me.

I spun around to get out of there and back to the set. That's when I ran straight into . . . Joe!

“Whoa! Watch where you're going, undead dude,” he said. I noticed he wasn't wearing the overalls anymore.

I pulled the teeth out of my mouth. “How did you get here?”

Joe cut his eyes to the left. “Uh . . . I walked.” He looked over the gathering crowd. “They said you spazzed and ran
this way.” He glanced back at me. “What—are you signing autographs or something?”

I grabbed Joe's arm and pulled him into the alley with me. “I was chasing you,” I whispered.

“What?” he asked.

I explained how I had seen him fooling around with the huge light and had chased after him.

My brother smiled. “Ah,” he said. “That's why I came looking for you. Believe it or not, that all makes perfect sense.”

T
HAT WAS VERY UNPROFESSIONAL,”
scolded Josh. He and Bill glared at Frank after my brother had apologized for what seemed like the millionth time.

“I know, sir. And again, I'm very sorry,” said Frank. “I just thought I saw . . .” He glanced at me and then turned his attention back to the director. “I thought I saw someone messing with that big light over there.”

Bill held his radio up to his mouth. “Barry, check on that 12K, will you?”

“Copy that,” replied a man's voice on the tiny speaker.

Josh rubbed his eyes. “Luckily, we can use one of the earlier takes. We're setting up for the next shot now.” He
grimaced at Frank. “I was going to fire you, but Chelsea reminded me about how you saved her life yesterday.”

Josh said “saved her life” a little too sarcastically for my taste.

“Either way, you're done for the day,” Josh continued. “If you promise not to rush off again during a take, you can continue your run as a zombie later.”

“I appreciate that, sir,” said Frank. “Thanks.”

Josh and Bill walked back to video village, and Frank glanced around the set. “I should apologize to Chelsea,” he said.

“Later,” I said, tugging his tattered sleeve. “You should get out of your makeup. And after that, I have something important to show you.”

We made our way to the makeup trailer and stepped inside, only to be met by ourselves! Well, almost ourselves. Both Frank's and my life casts sat on the counter, staring toward the door. They were stark white and would've looked like Greek busts of us except that they were bald and their eyes were closed.

Frank jumped when he saw them. “Very funny,” he muttered.

I laughed. “I'm not punking you, bro.” I pointed to the life casts. “This is what I wanted to show you.”

“Yeah, I saw them the first time,” said Frank. He turned to Meredith. “Will you remove my makeup, please?”

“Sure will,” she replied. “But first let me show you what
we found.” She waved Frank closer. “Remember I told you how we made your zombie masks?”

“Yeah,” replied Frank. “You sculpted the zombie faces with clay and then took molds of those, right?”

“Right,” said Meredith. “But you don't see any clay on them anymore, right?”

Even through Frank's zombie mask, I could tell he seemed a bit confused. “Right . . . so . . .”

“So Nick is very good at cleaning off the life casts when we're finished.” She wiped a finger over my life cast. “These are still slimy with release agent.”

“That's the stuff you use to keep the silicone molds from sticking to them, right?” asked Frank.

“Give that zombie a prize!” I joked.

Frank shook his head. “So what does it mean?”

“It means that someone else took molds of these after we did our thing,” explained Meredith. “
Without
the zombie sculpts.”

“So, if someone came in and took molds of just our faces . . . ,” Frank began.

“I see a lightbulb going on in that undead brain of yours,” I said.

Meredith smiled. “Someone could have easily made Frank and Joe Hardy masks.”

Frank didn't speak as he took in the revelation. He glanced at Meredith, then at me. “So . . . you're saying that someone in the makeup department is the saboteur?”

“What?” asked Meredith. “No, not my people.”

I held up both hands. “I already thought of that.” I turned to Meredith. “No offense.” I looked back to Frank. “Everyone here is clean. In fact, the whole makeup crew was here while you were busy chasing . . . me,” I explained. “Or the guy wearing the
me
mask.”

“So, where does that leave us?” asked Frank.

“It could be anyone on the crew, really,” explained Meredith. “You'd be surprised at how many movie people change departments. I started in props. Nick was in production, like Hugo.” She shrugged. “Any member of the crew could've learned mold making at some point. And we have all the chemicals here to do it.”

Frank and I looked at each other. “There are a lot of people on the crew,” I said.

Just then the door opened and Hugo poked his head in. “There you are,” he said. “After you get cleaned up, Mr. Kavner wants to talk to you.”

“Who's that?” I asked.

“Steve Kavner is the producer,” Meredith answered. “The big cheese.”

“Uh-oh,” I mumbled.

Meredith removed Frank's zombie face. Once he changed out of his tattered costume, Hugo led us past the long line of trailers to an abandoned office building. At least, it was abandoned before the film crew came to town. Now it served as the production headquarters for the movie. The lobby was
full of people, and the walls were decorated with actor head shots, storyboards, and production schedules.

Hugo led us to one of the larger offices in the back. He rapped on the open door and showed us inside, where a man in a blue blazer sat behind a large desk.

“Have a seat, boys,” he said without looking up from his computer.

Frank and I sat in the two chairs opposite the desk. Hugo backed out, closing the door behind him.

After a short time, Mr. Kavner closed his laptop and looked us over. He removed his glasses and ran a hand through his dark hair. “So, you're the Hardy brothers I've heard so much about.”

“That's us,” said Frank.

I laughed nervously. “I guess that depends who you heard it from.”

Kavner grinned. “Chief Olaf.”

“In that case, maybe it's not us,” I joked.

The producer stood and walked to the front of his desk. “No, I think you're just the guys I need to see. I had a very interesting conversation with your chief of police. He'd asked if I had met a couple of movie extras named Frank and Joe Hardy. I told him that I haven't met everyone involved with my picture, certainly not the extras. And then he asked me a very strange question. Any idea what it was?”

Frank and I glanced at each other and shook our heads.

“He asked if either of these Hardy boys had offered to
solve our little movie mystery,” Kavner explained. “And when I wondered why in the world you would do such a thing, he told me that you fancy yourselves fledgling detectives.”

“We are exceptional detectives,” I protested.

“Joe,” Frank said.

“We've probably solved more cases than Olaf has in his entire career,” I continued.

“Joe,” Frank repeated.

“We've solved dozens of Olaf's own cases for him,” I added.

I opened my mouth to continue but felt a stab of pain in my ankle. Frank had kicked me.

Frank shrugged. “We dabble,” he said modestly.

“Well, maybe you can help me out,” Mr. Kavner said. “I know that you've heard about some of the shenanigans that have been going on during this production. And I know that you know about them because the chief mentioned that one of you, I forget which one, was a suspect for a short time.”

“I had an alibi,” Frank put in.

Mr. Kavner nodded. “Quite right. Well, maybe you can do some sleuthing for me and find out who has it in for this movie.”

I wanted to tell him that we'd already made some progress on the case, but something told me to hold back. Instead I said, “Uh . . . we could do that.”

Kavner threw up his hands and shook his head. “This
is unofficial, understand? I can't have anyone thinking that these accidents are anything but . . . accidents.”

“Yes, sir,” said Frank. I could tell by his clipped tone that he was picking up the same weird vibe as I was.

Mr. Kavner crossed his arms. “You know, if I were an unscrupulous man, I would
want
this production to shut down. My investors and I have this thing so well insured that we would probably make more money if this movie
didn't
get finished.” Kavner laughed. “An unscrupulous man might even pay the saboteur or saboteurs handsomely for stopping this picture.”

He stared at Frank, then at me, then back at Frank. He did this for an uncomfortably long time. Neither Frank nor I said a word.

Then Kavner laughed again. “But not me. I just want to find out who's responsible so we can stop them and finish this movie.” He extended a hand to Frank. “Do we have a deal?”

Frank shook his hand. “Uh . . . yes, sir. We'll let you know if we find anything.”

Then I shook hands with Mr. Kavner. “You'll be the first to know.”

“Good, good,” said the producer. “And make it quick, would you? I've already lost a stunt team over this.”

“I thought Cody Langstrom wasn't seriously hurt,” said Frank.

Kavner smiled. “I didn't mean
lose
, lose them, as if they're
dead and gone. I mean that they quit. And I have a couple other departments threatening to walk off this movie as well.”

Frank and I left his office and walked through the production headquarters without a word between us. Once outside, however . . .

“Was that strange, or what?” Frank asked.

“Too weird,” I agreed. Then I pointed to my brother. “Dude, he
so
thinks you did it. He practically bribed you to sabotage more stuff.”

“Could be,” admitted Frank. “Or maybe it was some sort of test.”

“What? He thought we would cop to it that easily if we were the culprits?” I asked. “I think he's been watching too many of his own movies.”

Frank stopped. “Either way, we're officially on the case now.”

“And if you ask me,” I said, “Mr. If-I-Were-an-Unscrupulous-Man just made it to the top of the suspect list.”

M
ICHAEL ELLIOTT,” I SAID. “HE'S
the sound mixer.”

Joe tapped the virtual keys on his tablet, entering the name. He searched a couple of websites that listed all the crew members from different movies and TV shows. “Nope,” said Joe. “He's just done sound.”

I scratched Mr. Elliott's name off the list.

It was the following day, and neither one of us had any scenes in the movie. But that didn't stop us from working. This time we played the roles we knew all too well—detectives.

We began our investigation with a visit to the production offices, where we grabbed a crew list, and then headed out
to the lunch tent. We sat down and began scanning the list for anyone who had experience working in makeup effects, specifically mold making. This method wasn't foolproof, but it was sure to eliminate most crew members.

“Barry Smith,” I said. “He's the gaffer.”

“What's a gaffer?” Joe asked as he typed in the name.

“The person in charge of lighting,” I replied.

Joe searched the Internet for Barry's past screen credits. “No on him, too. He's just worked in electric and lighting.”

I scratched Mr. Smith's name from the list.

We went through the entire list and ended up with only a handful of possible suspects. There was Bob Trevino, the special effects coordinator. At first he was near the top of the list, because he had tons of credits in prop building. Meredith had told us that prop builders make molds of things all the time. Add that to the fact that Trevino was an adamant eyewitness against Frank.

“I don't know, dude,” said Joe. “He seemed pretty sincere when we talked to him.”

“He didn't like anyone calling him a liar,” I agreed. “What about his assistant, Chuck? He had the same brown overalls as you—or
fake
you—were wearing.”

“That's a good point. But I've seen tons of crew members wearing those things,” Joe explained. “The painters, some of the makeup crew . . . those overalls are everywhere.”