Murder Take Two (5 page)

Charged-up attitudes. Uh-huh. How much do we place on that, coming from a kid who didn't seem quick to pick up nuances? “How long has this been going on?”

“From the start.”

“Why were they fighting?”

Robin propped an ankle on the opposite knee and held on to it with both hands. “Sheri, I guess. Sheri with-an-I Lloyd.”

“Who is she?”

“Another actor. There was a rumor going she thought she had a shot at the role.”

“The role Laura's playing.”

“Yeah. Laura had something else going and wasn't available. Then all of a sudden, she was available. Sheri gets offered a nothing part. ‘Supporting role,'” he stated in a passing good imitation of Fifer's clipped, staccato enthusiasm. “‘Very important. Pivotal. Only you can do it justice.'”

“Mr. Fifer wanted Ms. Edwards for the starring role?”

“Damn straight. Fifer wants a hit. Better get one. His last two bombed. He's counting on Laura to pull him out of the toilet. Sheri sure couldn't do it. Your name doesn't last long if you have a couple of losers under it. Especially multimillion-dollar losers.”

“How does Sheri feel about this?”

“What do you think? She's not real smart or she'd never of believed she'd had a chance in the first place.”

“What does that have to do with Nick Logan?”

“Well, the great romance wasn't so great after he started snuggling with Sheri.”

So what have we got here? Kay Bender dead, maybe in mistake for Laura Edwards. So far—and we've only just begun—no known reason for anyone wanting to harm Kay Bender. Laura Edwards, on the other hand, seemed to bring out motives. Another actress who'd hoped to snag the role. Nick Logan, co-star, finding love and romance, not with the star but with the starlet.

This was beginning to sound like a soap opera. Did Sheri try to kill Laura to obtain the starring role? (Would that happen if Laura were gone?) Was Nick Logan, handsome, sexy co-star, tired of Laura? Was Laura not letting go and needed to be gotten rid of? Tune in tomorrow. Maybe somebody's evil twin will show up. Susan looked at Parkhurst to see if he had a question, a comment, an expression. He looked impassively back in true Parkhurst style. She told Robin McCormack she had no further questions at this time.

He lit out, but before she could get to Parkhurst about this wife business, Yancy had Nick Logan coming in. The actor stood in the living-room area of the trailer, taking up too much space, smelling of expensive aftershave and cigarette smoke. And somehow, she didn't know quite how, he brought with him an air of California. Maybe it was the suntan, or the sun-streaked light hair. Whatever, it made her homesick. For San Francisco, that is. This man—denim shirt unbuttoned halfway, gold chain with some kind of medal hidden in chest hair, denim pants, thongs on his feet—was strictly Los Angeles and never the twain shall meet. But still, California is California.

Rugged in appearance rather than handsome. Coarse features, questing hazel eyes that examined her, moved on to Parkhurst, and stayed there taking in some inventory. Logan then quirked a famous eyebrow and waited. Despite her preset notion that he was going to be a self-centered, arrogant pain in the butt, she found she liked him.

“Please, sit down, Mr. Logan.” She indicated the couch and he flip-flopped over to it, waited until she seated herself on the other couch, then settled in with an elbow crooked along the back, a hand on his thigh. There were fine lines around his eyes and down a path from nose to mouth. Early forties, she thought.

“Call me Nick.” Low gravelly voice, but not grating to the ear. He twisted his head and looked at Parkhurst sitting unobtrusively in the kitchen area. “Don't I know you from someplace?”

“I doubt it,” Parkhurst said.

Nick looked unconvinced.

“We're investigating the fatality that happened this afternoon,” Susan said.

Nick nodded. “Making a film seems frivolous in this context, doesn't it?”

“You were in the barn this morning. Is that correct? Scenes were filmed.”

“Right.” He stuck thumb and forefinger into his shirt pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. “May I?”

“I don't mind. Laura Edwards might. It's her trailer.”

Nick stretched out a leg, stuck his hand in his pants pocket, and fished out a lighter. He flicked it and inhaled deeply, tipped back his head and blew smoke at the ceiling.

Susan took a deep lungful of secondhand smoke and wondered why she'd quit. She got up and found a saucer in the kitchen that she handed to Nick in lieu of an ashtray.

“You don't care,” she said as she sat back down, “if Ms. Edwards gets upset, or are you deliberately trying to annoy her?”

Nick smiled and Susan realized the smile came from somewhere deep inside; he'd switched something on and the muscles around his eyes created a smile that gave out warmth. It had made him famous, also made him a megabucks star and she could see why; he exuded sensitivity and understanding and, being big and strong, gave the impression he could take care of any threatening dangers.

“She won't mind,” he said with a touch of malice, suggesting Ms. Edwards would mind very much.

The first lie, she thought. “Where were you during the lunch break?”

“In my trailer.”

“The entire time?”

“Most of the time.”

“When you weren't in your trailer, where were you?”

With a thumb, he flicked the end of the cigarette to get rid of ashes. “Uh—the caterer's truck, wandering around to work the kinks out. Uh—I don't know. Around.”

“How well did you know Kay Bender?”

“Not at all.”

“She worked on this movie.”

“Yes, but we did no—socializing.”

“Did you ever talk with her?”

“Maybe.”

“What did you talk about?”

He didn't have his mind on Susan or her questions, or even on his answers; he kept craning his head to flick glances at Parkhurst. Parkhurst made a lot of people nervous, especially if he was behind them just out of their range of vision, but Nick didn't seem nervous.

“You know,” he said after a moment's thought. “I don't believe I ever did talk with her.”

“Tell me what you know about her.”

He puffed on the cigarette. “Nothing. I didn't know anything about her.” There was surprise and sadness in his voice. “Who said no man is an island?”

“Who went into the barn during the lunch break?”

“Oh, hell, I don't know. People might have been in and out. They're always in and out.”

“You?”

“No.”

“Who wanted to hurt Kay?”

Nick again focused attention on Susan. “I thought the fall was an accident.”

Lie number two. She'd questioned too many suspects to miss the slight rise of shoulder muscles. “That's what we're trying to determine. Who had problems with her?”

“Nobody that I know of. You have to understand, I really had nothing to do with the girl. She did her work, doubling for Laura, and that was it. I mean, she must have been around, but—” He shrugged. “Sorry. We have dividing lines here just like every place else.”

“Were you aware a pitchfork was on the set?”

“Sure.”

“When did you last see it?”

“This morning. I used it in one of those cutesy bits where city slicker male ineptly spreads around straw.” Engaging self-deprecating smile.

“What happened to it then?”

“I don't know, the prop man would take it.”

“And do what with it?”

“Put it in the prop truck, most likely.”

This was said with such offhand sincerity that Susan didn't know whether it was lie or truth.

She glanced at Parkhurst over Nick's shoulder and gave him a nod. Let's see how Nick Logan responded to Parkhurst. Moving fluidly, like one of the big cats, Parkhurst slid from the padded bench and came around where Nick could see him, then took a step closer, forcing Nick to look up at him.

“What's the conflict between you and Laura Edwards?”

Nick stubbed out his cigarette. “Conflict?”

“Love gone sour?”

Nick paused. “What does that have to do with Kay?”

“What do you know about her death?”

“Nothing.”

“You didn't find her attractive?”

Nick answered that with a look of “come on, you can do better than that.”

“You only interested in actresses?”

“What does that mean?”

“Sheri Lloyd.”

“I see you've been picking up the on-site gossip.”

“You're sleeping with Ms. Lloyd. How does Ms. Edwards feel about that?”

Susan wondered what Parkhurst felt about this whole tangle of lovers and ex-lovers. His face gave nothing away, it was cold and hard.

“That,” Nick said, “is none of your business.”

“Wrong, Mr. Logan.” Parkhurst backed off and slid a haunch on an end table. “A young woman was killed. That makes it our business.”

“The two aren't connected.”

“Ms. Edwards was supposed to be on the railing when it went down. Figure it out, Mr. Logan.”

He already had, Susan thought.

“You accusing me of trying to kill Laura?” There was something wrong about the way he said that. No explosive anger, the way an innocent man would normally respond.

“Why would you harm Ms. Edwards?”

Parkhurst's questioning differed greatly from Susan's soft-voiced, “Let's find out what happened here.” He dripped disbelief and made suspects so angry they got tangled up in explanations and said things they didn't mean to.

There was none of the laid-back California slouch about Nick Logan now, he was paying close attention, but if he was angry he was keeping a lid on it.

“I wouldn't harm a hair on her head.”

“Who wants her dead?”

“No one that I know of.” Nick swallowed.

The third lie. A suspect often swallows when he lies.

“Guess. Give me names.”

“Laura's a beautiful woman,” Nick began.

Parkhurst waited, the panther in the brush patiently waiting for the right moment.

“She raises passions…”

“Names.” Parkhurst waited a little less patiently, the panther flicking the tip of his tail.

“I don't have names,” Nick said. “You have to understand a lot of emotions run around on location. It comes from being so close together and being focused on the film. I don't know of any anger or hatred toward Laura, but that doesn't mean there isn't any. The costumer because Laura always slumps during fittings? The script writer because she transposes two words of his dialogue? None of that means anything and it's all forgotten when the director calls a wrap.”

“What part do you play?”

“What?”

“Part,” Parkhurst said slowly and distinctly, “as in role. In the movie.”

“The hero,” Nick said dryly. “I play a cop.”

“Uh-huh. That's all for now, Mr. Logan. You're free to go.”

Nick remained seated, took a breath, opened his mouth to ask a question, then changed his mind and got to his feet. He nodded and strode firmly—even in thongs—out. Hero exits trailer.

“Got a little carried away, didn't you?” Susan rose, stood behind Parkhurst in the doorway, and watched Nick Logan's back.

“He was using me.”

“Using you?”

“Research for his role. I thought I'd show him how a hick cop conducts an interrogation.” Parkhurst smiled, the panther seeing the antelope stumble. “Before I'm done, I may show him a thing or two he's never seen before.”

5

Where the hell was Clem Jones? Yancy was worried about her. He hadn't seen the director's assistant since she'd upchucked on the barn floor. She didn't have sense enough to take care of herself, he'd known smarter geese. With her pink hair she wasn't easy to miss, so how come he hadn't spotted her anywhere, in his sheepdog missions to separate one individual and herd him along to the Edwards trailer? The director, Hayden Fifer, took some nipping at the heels to keep moving.

“This is wasting time,” Fifer said.

He wasn't a large man, but he had a large voice. It must come from all that commanding of actors, the power went to his head. It sure didn't go to his heart, that was black like his hair. Black hair threaded with gray, gray beard and eyes the color of slate. Or flint maybe, the state of his heart. He had a good line in scowls, one of which he was using on Yancy. Yancy ignored it. You wouldn't pick him out of a crowd as the great Hollywood director. No jodhpurs, no beret, no long cigarette holder. Plain jeans—they did have somebody's fancy name on them, but jeans nevertheless—and a plain white T-shirt. Not even a smart-ass message. His forehead was sunburned and so were his arms.

Just as they reached the trailer, Nick Logan opened the door. Fifer barely waited for his male star to clear the doorway before he barreled in. Logan took a side jump off the trailer steps and raised a puff of dust and pollen from the dried grass. With a mock salute to Parkhurst, he strode off.

“How long are you going to hold me up?” Yancy heard Fifer say as the trailer door closed.

“I'm sorry to keep you waiting,” Susan said. And she was, too.

Hayden Fifer was tightly wrapped, either worry about his movie or maybe just plain irritation that someone else was calling the shots. “Please sit down, Mr. Fifer. We'll try not to keep you long.” No longer than necessary and she intended to pour deferential regard all over him, soothe his ego, and anything else that needed doing so he wouldn't get in her way while she did her job.

“I can't sit around wasting time.”

“Just a few questions,” Susan said.

Fifer slid onto one of the couches, sat with his hands on his knees, ready to get this nonsense over and get back to the important substance of life.