High Fall (7 page)

“Dolly!” Bleeker exclaimed, “I didn’t expect—”

“You didn’t expect me here when we could get slapped with a wrongful death? When I was down here anyway?” She flopped into a seat in the front and plopped the rest of the food into her mouth.

“We’re not liable,” Bleeker insisted in a voice so unsure of itself that it halfway belied his words.

“Sweetie, we’re always liable if they can prove negligence.”

“Dolly, the scene was scripted to end at the bluff. The girl did the fall on her own. We took every precaution possible. We had a catcher strong enough to stop a meteor, with a Porta Pit deep enough for her to have smothered in. She tested everything.”

“Cary, Cary, such an innocent boy. Now let’s see that footage.”

“Tom, cue up the fall sequence,” Bleeker called.

The room remained dark; no introductions were made. Kiernan wished she knew whether it was because they all knew each other or because Dolly Whoever was so important no one else mattered. Whatever the reason, she was relieved.

The film started. It moved at normal speed, but the room seemed to have slipped into slow motion. Kiernan felt as if she could see the breaks between the frames of film.

Lark Sondervoil stood, the lights shining on her long blond hair, on that blue leotard that would soon be the focus of the ambulance crew and Life Flight medics on the beach.
Nineteen years old!
Kiernan thought.
When I was nineteen, I was planning for medical school, sure that I had the Answers by the tail, just waiting for me to learn enough to reel them in. It never occurred to me I wouldn’t Know, much less that I could die.

The camera was behind Lark, not beside her where the onlookers had been. It showed her racing straight forward over the warning rope. The explosion seemed disconnected from the action. But the double flip of the Gaige Move was perfect. The second explosion was off too.

Kiernan’s chest went cold. The Move was perfect. It could have been done by Greg Gaige! Her fingers dug into the armrests; her whole body was icy. She
was
the Baltimore teenager again, watching film of Greg over and over again, alive with adoration, with dreams of emulating him that she couldn’t admit were built on nightmares of failure.

Lark staggered back—for the first time the camera caught her face. The focus was cloudy, but Lark’s expression of panic was clear enough to be almost real.
Could they use that? With the cloudy focus, Lark might look enough like the actress she was doubling. With all the publicity they’d get, would they care?

Lark took another step back. The edge of the bluff was less than a yard behind her.
How could she have done anything so dangerous?
The instant the thought was words, Kiernan knew the answer. It was the same answer she would have given twenty-five years ago: “I know what I’m doing.” She’d have tossed her head defiantly. “If I die it will be worth it; I’ll be as good as Greg Gaige!”

Another step. Lark wavered. Her arms jutted out to the sides. She was off-balance. The expression of phony panic vanished, replaced by all-too-real concentration. Her head jerked forward.
Braking the back-motion.
Her foot slipped. She thrust both arms forward.
Save it! Save it!
She jolted down a foot. Her concentration vanished. Terror filled her eyes. She clawed at the air. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out. She slipped over the edge.

The film stopped.

No one spoke. Only Dolly groaned. “Christ, half of it’s out of focus.”

The film started. “Same scene. Crane shot.” Bleeker’s voice was shaking.

When that take ended, Dolly cleared her throat. “She’s running parallel to the inner cordon. Was that the way it was planned?” There was no hesitancy in her voice.

“Yeah,” Bleeker said. “Now C camera three, on the platform over the bluff.”

“Over
the bluff? Why was that one running at all on this scene, if she wasn’t expected to go over?” a male voice asked.

“The light would be failing fast. We decided not to take time between the Gaige Move and the high fall to lower the camera crew down there. So we got them there before. And since they were there, why not? I figured I might get a cover shot out of it. Roll it, Tom.”

The camera focused on the beach. Dots moved.
People.
It panned up the side of the bluff. Wind fluttered the small, scrappy leaves of whatever it was that survived there. Hard brown stems moved grudgingly. A spray of dirt spat from one rough promontory. Spears of sandstone thrust up like stalagmites, only to be topped by the ever-climbing hard, dry wall. The ascent seemed endless.

The picture shook, as if an earthquake were jolting the camera platform. Kiernan’s breath caught. The camera jerked upward, catching Lark feet first as she plunged over the edge of the bluff, arms flailing uselessly, head bobbing forward in vain. She fell straight down. The big white cocoon blocked her from view. She hit the wall and bounced out into nothingness. The camera lost her, momentarily focusing on the spot where she had been, then jerked down to catch the electric-blue leotard as it dropped and hit and scraped down the sandstone, bounced and dropped again and again, to a spot hidden by an outcropping on the beach.

No one spoke. It wasn’t until she heard breath let out ahead that Kiernan realized they’d all been too tense to breathe.

“Omigod,” Bleeker said slowly, his voice was barely discernible. “Surely, she wasn’t conscious …”

“If we’d known she was going to go over ten feet from the catcher, we could have saved a bundle and had a great shot to boot.” It sounded like the bushy-haired guy. No one laughed.

It was a full minute before Dolly said, “The whole damned thing’s out of focus. How … wait, she went off the wrong rise, didn’t she! How the hell—”

“It’s not like she hadn’t run through the whole routine ten times,” Bleeker insisted.

The room was still dark. Kiernan hesitated, balancing her advantage of eavesdropping against demanding an answer. But it was the woman next to Bleeker who voiced her question for her: “I heard a rumor that someone had moved the marker, so she went for the wrong pick point—her point, not the camera markers.”

“Who?” Dolly and Bleeker demanded.

“I don’t know. I can’t even remember who told me. There was so much going on by then. But she ran straight down by the cordon. The cordon had to be the mark she was using, right?”

Bleeker groaned.

“Well, who the hell would move a marker?” Dolly asked. “A—we’d better hope that rumor doesn’t spread. Well, fat chance, right? In this business, rumor is truth. So then, B—we’d better hope if there was a mover, it wasn’t one of our grips. It wasn’t, was it, Cary?”

“No,” Bleeker forced out. “No, of course not,” he added with surprising conviction. Kiernan discounted that hard-hatched assurance as she was sure everyone else did. Confronting Dolly with corporate culpability now would require the steadfastness of an oak. Bleeker was more akin to a willow.

“C,” Dolly continued, “we continue to tell the press when they ask—and we’re damned lucky they’re not outside already—”

“I got use of this place through a friend,” Bleeker put in quickly.

“C—we tell the press we are distressed and horrified. ‘Of course, we’re cooperating with any investigation,’ blah blah blah. Nothing more. Got that?”

The murmurs of agreement seemed hesitant.

The actual markers that the camera crew had placed on the ground wouldn’t be on the film, of course, Kiernan realized. So if you didn’t realize why the focus was off, you wouldn’t see the evidence here.

It was a moment before the bushy-haired one said, “And the studio does—?”

In the semidark Dolly stood up. She turned to the group and took a deep breath, and Kiernan waited for her to explain.

“Cary,” she said, “where are the fucking lights?”

Kiernan moved next to the door, ready to bolt before they had time to remember she was here. Bleeker started for the door and stopped halfway, clearly unwilling to miss the vital bit of information. “Tom,” he called loudly, “get the lights on.”

Kiernan reached for the door.

“What we will do …” Dolly said softly.

Kiernan stayed put.

The lights came on. All eyes were on Dolly. Kiernan remembered seeing her with Bleeker on the set. She’d looked out of place there, but here—if appearances told the tale, Dolly could have been expected to carry a mop and pail. She was squat, middle-aged, devoid of makeup, and dressed in expensive brown slacks and a well-worn sweater, but no one who saw the well-creased line of her jaw and the intensity of her dark eyes would have mistaken her power. Or passed up the chance to hear her decisive pronouncement on handling Lark Sondervoil’s death.

“We will leak the word about Lark’s drug problem.”

“Drugs?” Bleeker was torn, but he was alone in that. The other four sighed.
With relief? Or admiration?

Kiernan held her breath, waiting for one of them to object. Or even question. But apparently no one was willing to risk dislodging their deliverance.

“Hold it right there!” Kiernan demanded. “Lark Sondervoil did the Gaige Move. No one’s been able to do that since Greg Gaige died. No
woman’s
ever mastered it. It takes control worthy of a gymnast of Greg Gaige’s caliber to do that move. Who’s going to see that and then believe that she was on drugs?”

As one, the group turned toward her, their faces unified in shock and fear. Bleeker looked as if the rug had been pulled out from beneath him and he was embarked on a fall that he’d always known would be inevitable. Only Dolly seemed unperturbed. If anything, she looked more determined than before.

“Who are you?” she demanded.

“SAG.”

“Out!”

“The operative point is”—she stepped toward Dolly—“I’m the one here representing our interests. And I have never heard word one about Lark Sondervoil and drugs.”

Dolly smiled, pausing long enough to savor her victory. “Well, sweetie, I can’t speak to your information network. But if you want the official word on Lark and her drugs, you can check with the California Highway Patrol. They nabbed her last week, got a urine sample—her choice—and bingo—opiates.”

Swallowing her shock, Kiernan thrust her hands on her hips. “Last week could have been last year. That says nothing about today.”

“In the media it’s everything,” the bushy one said. “Once a junkie, always suspect.”

“We’re clear,” Bleeker murmured.

“What kind of opiates? How much?” Kiernan demanded.

“Sweetie, we’ve been more than open with you,” Dolly said, turning away from her as she spoke. “But we’ve got business now. So, out!”

“That’s okay. Our lawyers are outraged. I’ve got calls to make.” Leaving the threat dangling, Kiernan stalked out. It took her half the distance to the Jeep to shake the union rep persona. She loved being that in-your-face. And the final threat—she’d just added that for the hell of it. Bastards let a woman die and come up with this cockamamie story about opiates. Well, let them sweat a little. Dammit, she’d have them sweating until they were begging for offices in the deep freeze. She’d ...

She climbed into the Jeep and rested her hands on the wheel. The first thing was to find out who Dolly was. Yarrow could tell her that. Whoever she was, she had so much authority that in the land where beauty is power, she dressed like a hag. And without a second thought, she’d admitted her oversight in allowing a stranger in the room too long. What would it take to unsettle her?

It was going to be a damned hard case, but there was one good thing. Going face to face with Dolly—well, Kiernan was going to enjoy that.

D
OLLY
U
BERHAZY TAPPED A
short thick finger against her arm. “Cary, get Archie Lesher on the line”

Bleeker flushed. He wasn’t a flunky. Goddamned studio production executives had armies of flunkies. Was she treating him like a production assistant, like some nephew of some has-been, some kid right out of college, to humiliate him in front of the others? Or was there more to it than that? Was she signaling them that he was going to take the fall for whatever came out of Sondervoil’s death? Oh, God, of course. Of course. But he couldn’t deal with that now. Now the question was how to handle this order. He shrugged. “Sure. I’ve got his number back at the trailer. Do you have it with you?” He held his breath. Make her root through her purse—that’d slice the feet off her image. Only the illusion, of course; he knew it and Dolly knew it. But the rest of them weren’t worrying about that now, and when they recalled this meeting, at least they wouldn’t think of him as a gofer.

Dolly pulled out a plastic-covered notepad. Bleeker glanced up at the projection booth to cover his reaction. Wouldn’t you know she’d have a dime store pad; the woman never missed a chance to remind them that she was too secure to bother with image. She handed him the pad. “In here, under the L’s. I’m just doing this to cover bases, Cary. If that woman is representing Archie Lesher, I’m a flying turtle.”

Cary dialed and waited. Should he handle the phone or give it to her? “Archie, Cary Bleeker here. I’m at the screening— Yeah, we are devastated about Lark Sondervoil. Overwhelmed. Such a talent, and a sweetheart. Dolly’s here, and Edgar, Sally, and Max.” He didn’t ask about the O’Shaughnessy bitch. It was a gamble; he was holding his breath. He exhaled in relief and said, “Yeah, terrible about Lark. We’re all distraught. Look, Arch, we just wanted to let you know that there’s a woman passing herself off as your stand-in.”

He exchanged glances with Dolly. The woman could give approval with less muscle work than anyone on the West Coast. And she was impressed. If he played his cards right, he could come out of this smelling like a rose—instead of stinking up the place. “I figured you’d want to know, Arch.” He kept himself from taking another look at Dolly’s face. Had he gone too far with the “I figured”? “No, of course, Archie, we didn’t deal with the woman. I don’t know who she was. Probably a groupie in here for a thrill.” He didn’t buy that for a minute; neither did Lesher, he was sure. He’d worry about who she was later; so would Lesher. But they weren’t about to do their worrying together. “Yeah, man, we’ll see you.”