Director's Cut (16 page)

“Let me take you,” I said. “It will be fun. I can sit in the corner and be as quiet as a mouse.” I didn't want her to be alone. The more I watched her, the more fragile she seemed.

“But what about your work?”

“The day is fairly light, and Floyd can rearrange things. There's no problem.”

She gave a barely perceptible nod.

West said, “I suggest that you stay with Maddy for a while, or at least stay away from your home.”

I squashed a smile. Judson West seldom used my first name, let alone my nickname, when others were present. “I know it's still early in the investigation, but have you learned anything yet?”

“A few things, but not much. We're facing a difficult situation because the house and grounds are so new. We found footprints outside, but there were dozens of them. So many workers, especially landscapers, have been over that dirt that identifying which sole print doesn't belong is going to be tough. Most impressions were left by work boots, but there are at least four sets of prints made by sneakers. We've taken casts of the impressions and plan on comparing them to as many workers as we can find, but that is going to take some time. And we can't dismiss the work boot prints either. For all we know, the killer wore work boots. Or the killer may be one of the workers.”

“You went to the autopsy today, right?” I asked.

“Yeah. It was pretty straightforward. One shot to the head with a .38 caliber Glaser blue-tip, close range. The victim died quickly.”

“What's a Glaser blue-tip?” I asked, uncertain I wanted to know.

“It's a bullet filled with metal fragments. Once it enters the victim, the fragments scatter causing all kinds of damage. It's called a blue-tip because the end of the bullet is blue.”

Catherine made a noise and raised a hand to her mouth.

“I think I'm done asking questions,” I said.

“We're running a DRUGFIRE search on the blue-tip copper jacket.” West must have seen my blank stare. He explained. “DRUG-FIRE is to ballistics what AFIS is to fingerprints.”

That didn't help.

“AFIS is the Automated Fingerprint Identification System. It's a national database of fingerprints. We can electronically trace a fingerprint of a criminal, victim, or whomever. DRUGFIRE does the same thing with ballistics. So a bullet removed from a murder victim in Florida can be matched to one found in a victim in Oregon. You get the idea.”

I got it and Catherine's face said she got it too.

He slipped from the booth, taking the script with him. “I need to get going. I'll keep you posted on what I find out about the script.”

I thanked him and watched him leave. The moment he was out of the dining area, Franco scooted to our booth.

“What did he want?” he asked.

Catherine looked at him, then at me. “I think I'm ready to go,” she said. The words were just a few decibels above a whisper.

“Wait,” Franco said. “I want to know what he said.”

“With all due respect, Mr. Zamboni-” I started.

“Zambonelli.”

“Sorry. Mr. Zambonelli. With all due respect, if Detective West wanted you in on the conversation, he would have invited you.” I worked my way around the booth until I was standing next to the publicist. Catherine did the same.

“Look, lady, I don't know who you think you are—”

“I know exactly who I am, Mr. Zambonelli-and it's not ‘lady,'
it's Mayor Glenn.”

He laughed. “You may think you're something special, lady, but I deal with the biggest names in Hollywood and New York. I bring down more money than you can count in that pretty little head of yours—”

“Franco?” Catherine said.

“Yeah, baby?”

“Shut up. Go home. I'll let you know if I need you.”

“Oh, come on, Catherine. I'm just looking out for your interests.”

“I'm leaving now, Franco. I'm going home with Maddy and getting a good night's sleep. Tomorrow she will take me to the script meeting, then we'll come back and have a great opening night here.”

“Catherine—”

She didn't wait for the rest of the sentence. Instead, she walked to the long table, whispered something in her director's ear, said a few good-byes, then started for the door.

I motioned for Floyd to follow, and we left the Curtain Call behind.

Chapter 15

W
e dropped Floyd off in the city hall parking lot, and I began the drive home. I was looking forward to being in familiar surroundings, wrapped in familiar smells, and cocooning myself away from the outside world. Catherine sat like a stone in the passenger seat.

“Do we need to swing by your house for anything?” I asked. It was my third attempt to start a conversation.

“No. I brought a few extra things last night.” She gazed out the window. “I don't feel good about going to the house.”

I guess not.
“You're welcome to stay with me as long as you like.”

“I suppose I'll have to face it someday.”

“Living in your new home? Yes, you will and you'll handle it just fine. The key is not to rush things.” To avoid traffic I steered the car along the surface streets. I wanted the decompression time for me as well as for Catherine.

“Maybe,” she said. “Maybe I should just sell it. I can't get the image of Ed's body out of my mind and now knowing that someone was listening to us—it creeps me out big time.”

“Well, it's good to know you're normal. If you felt any other way, I'd be worried about you.”

“I'm not so sure normal is all that good.”

“I think it is.” I glanced at her. She was holding up, but looked as if she were standing on the precipice of a breakdown. A murder at her home, being spied upon, tormented in a script, opening a new play in a day, and getting ready for a big Hollywood movie—she had every right to teeter.

“Dr. Jerry Thomas is coming over tonight.”

“I don't need a doctor,” she said.

I laughed, and she tossed me an annoyed look. “I'm sorry. I'm not laughing at you. Jerry's a dear friend. We go way back. We were friends in high school. He's a pediatrician, so even if you did need a doctor, he wouldn't be the one to call.”

“Oh,” she said and returned her gaze out the window. “Is he your boyfriend?”

I paused on that question. I had lived alone so long and put off Jerry's advances so many times I found it difficult to own up to our relationship. “Yeah, I guess you could say that. How'd you figure that out?”

“Your eyes light up when you talk about him.”

“I didn't know I was that obvious.”

“Detective West's eyes light up the same way when he talks to you. I think he has a thing for you.”

She was perceptive; I had to give her that. “He does, but I don't think it could work out. We're very different people.”

“Is that bad?”

“No, I suppose not. It's odd, really.”

She looked at me again. “What's odd? Having men interested in you? You're a catch, Maddy.”

“So is a catfish,” I said with a smile. “I meant the whole thing with Jerry and West is odd. West is the dashing one, but Jerry is steady. Both are brave. You'd expect that from a detective but not a pediatrician.” My thoughts drifted back to January when Jerry risked his life to save mine.

“Life is full of surprises.” Her words were morose. I couldn't disagree.

“Tell me about scripts,” I said, as I pulled to a stop at one of the many stoplights that dot our city. “How could someone change pages like that?”

“I don't know.”

“Tell me how the system works,” I insisted.

“A script is bought or a writer is hired to produce a script,” she said. “Some scripts are adaptations of books, others are original. Once the script is finished, revisions begin. Some writers hate Hollywood. In college, a successful screenwriter spoke to our drama class. He said the biggest mistake a writer could make is falling in love with his own work.”

“Because it's going to get changed?”

“Yes. Sometimes the screenplay will be given to another writer who then reworks the whole thing only to have some other writer rework that. The screenwriter called it writing by committee. He said the first thing they do is tell you how wonderful you are, then how fabulous the work is, then they begin to pick it apart, page by page.”

“That's why there were so many revisions listed on the title page,” I said.

“That was nothing. My last picture had fifteen revisions in the last three months. I imagine this script will be changed at least a half-dozen times.”

“So, there are lots of scripts of a movie floating around.”

“Not floating around. The production companies like to keep scripts a secret until the movie comes out. They like to know where every script is. These things have a tendency to end up on the Internet. That's why I was so upset when mine went missing.”

This was too weird and weird worried me. Someone had broken into Catherine's house, despite a state-of-the-art security system, and stolen a script, forcing her to request another, then somehow, changed the contents to reflect events and conversation that happened the day before as well as kill someone. How could that be done? No wonder West's first suspicion fell on the delivery boy.

I chewed on those thoughts as I pulled into the garage. Two minutes later we were in the house, and I was glad for it.

Jerry arrived just before eight. A tweed sport coat with patches on the sleeves had replaced the doctor's smock. He looked positively professorial. I greeted him with a kiss to the cheek and a wide-open door, something I closed and locked once he was inside. I introduced him to Catherine, who was seated on my sofa. We had been drinking tea and watching wood burn in the fireplace. I had turned on an easy jazz station and a miasma of music wafted through the living room. Jerry was carrying a pink box with the words Benny's Bakery.

“Thanks for picking this up,” I said as I took the box.

“When you invited me for pie, I didn't know I'd have to buy it.” He looked tired. The skin beneath his eyes was dark, his lids drooped as if he was ready to doze off on his feet, and his shoulders were rounder than normal.

“At least I didn't ask you to bake it,” I said. I walked into the kitchen.

“What, you don't think they taught me basic baking in med school?”

There was an image: med students in smocks, stethoscopes around their necks, dipping a thermometer into a cherry pie. I opened the box and found a brown pumpkin pie staring back. October was a good month for pumpkin pie. I served up three pieces on plates, set them on a serving tray, and returned to the living room.

“What can I get you to drink, Jerry? I can make coffee.”

“No coffee for me. I'm beat, and I don't want anything to interfere with my eight hours of coma. How about some milk?”

I retrieved it and returned to my seat on the sofa. Jerry dug into his pie as if it was the first food he had had all day. Catherine held the plate in her hand and cut off a tiny morsel with her fork. She raised it to her mouth and gently pulled it from the fork, making certain her teeth didn't touch the metal. I caught Jerry watching her.

“How's the little boy?”

Jerry gave a weary frown. “The same. He spiked a fever so we started another course of antibiotics. Tonight will be crucial. His parents are beside themselves. No parent should have to go through this.”

“Boy?” Catherine said.

“One of Jerry's patients was hit by a car this morning. He's . . . did you say seven?”

“Six. He's busted up pretty bad.” I saw his eyes mist. “But enough of that. He's in good hands for the evening. Tomorrow should be better. I checked on Doug.”

I hoped he had. “Good news?”

“No change. He's still stable, but his doctors are remaining noncommittal. They're doing everything they can but there are limits. His editor came by today. I happened to be in ICU when he showed up.”

I poked at my pie and tried to spin the news into something good. No change meant he hadn't gotten worse and hope was still alive. I thought of him lying alone in a hospital bed, oblivious—I hoped—to pain and the danger he was in. I thought of the injured child Jerry was helping treat and of Ed Lowe dead in a pool and of a script altered with the clear intent of terrifying—it was an evil world. That thought chewed on me like I had been chewing on the pie. I'm an optimist confined in a straightjacket of reality. I tend to see the good in people and in situations, but I am also quick to recognize darkness. I tried to stay away from the latter. Negative thoughts stick in my mind longer than I like. Yet here I sat, stewing in the knowledge that Doug Turner hovered over the pit of death because someone thought it would be humorous to remove a roadside guardrail.

My fledgling faith had caused me to look at life differently. At first, it changed the way I saw myself. I was no longer just one drop of female humanity in a sea of people; I was a child of God. It was still a difficult concept for me to embrace. I had never been opposed to faith; never argued against any religion; never considered the needs of my own soul. Truth is, I just never thought about it, not even after two carjackers killed my husband. Peter's death had crushed me like a soda can under the grinding tracks of a tank, but I had consoled myself with the knowledge that people endured such things every day; that it was the way the world was and no one could do anything about it. It wasn't much consolation.

“What kind of accident?” Catherine set down her pie plate. Half of the slice remained untouched. “The boy, I mean. You said he was hit by a car?”

“Yes,” Jerry said. “He was walking to school. A car ran a stop sign and hit him. To make things all the more poignant, the woman who hit him was taking her children to school. Her kids saw everything.”