Reel Murder (19 page)

“Stay with the image, Nadine,” Dr. Grayson said. “Get right back into the picture. You’re with Russell Crowe and Hugh Jackman, and you’re inside. I wonder where you are?”

“It’s somewhere very cold; I can feel goose bumps on my arm. It’s so cold, I’m shaking a little. I have chills running up and down my spine. I may never be warm again.”

“Heck, if I was out with Hugh Jackman and Russell Crowe, I’d be shaking, too,” Vera Mae chortled. “That Russell Crowe is something else. Those eyes and that sexy accent. He can put his shoes under my bed anytime.” I shot her a dark look and she clamped her mouth shut.

“Nadine, the fact that you have chills and a feeling that your temperature is dropping is significant. It could be from tension or excitement.” Dr. Grayson leaned into the mike. “Sometimes the autonomic nervous system takes over as a form of repression.”

Ouch. She was too close to the mike. The “p” sound in “repression” bounced through the studio like someone had tossed a handful of marbles against the walls.

“Repression? What’s that?” Vera Mae looked baffled, one hand on her hip.

Dr. Grayson thinned her lips and bared her teeth, reverting to rat-terrier mode. “Repression is a common defense mechanism. There are several possibilities. Perhaps Nadine doesn’t want to let certain images into her conscious mind, so she is withholding them, repressing them. All on an unconscious level, of course.”

“Interesting,” I said. Not the world’s most intelligent remark, but I couldn’t think of anything else to say. I was distracted by Vera Mae, who was holding up a sign. She’d angled it toward me, so my guest wouldn’t see it.

PHUDNICK. I bit my cheek to keep from laughing. Phudnick is Vera Mae’s name for a really stupid person who is well educated. A nudnick with a PhD is called a Phudnick.

In other words, the esteemed Dr. Grayson was a classic Phudnick.

“Yeah, and the picture’s getting real clear. It’s very cold, so cold I can almost see my breath. And there’s a little frost on the glass.”

“Ah-ha!” Dr. Grayson licked her lips with excitement. “Frost on the glass. Do you see the imagery here?” She gave me a wild-eyed look; she was buzzing with energy. “From a psychodynamic point of view, the symbolism is quite fascinating.”

“Fascinating,” I echoed, only because she was staring at me, waiting for me to say something.

“What’s so darn fascinating?” Vera Mae asked from the control room.

She was looking at me, but Dr. Grayson took over. “The frosted glass symbolizes Nadine’s ego. The fact that it’s frosted”—she allowed herself a small chuckle—“well, I hardly need to tell you what
that
means, Maggie.” She raised her eyebrows in a perfect arch. “The interpretation is crystal clear.”

“Oh absolutely,” I chimed in. “It’s as clear as . . . Crystal Geyser,” I said, in a burst of inspiration. (Proving once again that I specialize in moronic comments.) Dr. Grayson’s mouth twisted in a frown and her beady eyes narrowed. I took a deep breath. Okay, truth time. I had no idea what she was talking about. And from the little smirk on her face, I had the sinking feeling she was on to me.

“Well, one of you better explain it to me,” Nadine piped up.

“And to me,” Vera Mae added. “And do it quick, because we’re going to a commercial in thirty seconds.”

“I can hardly explain psychodynamic theory in thirty seconds. Maybe you’d like to tackle this one,
Dr.
Maggie?” There was a tiny edge to the word “doctor,” as if she was putting air quotes around it.

Vera Mae was twirling her index finger in the air in a let’s-wrap-it-up motion.

“No, you do it. Just give us the CliffsNotes version,” I urged. “Please!”

“All right.” She flashed a brief, triumphant smile. “The glass represents Nadine’s conscious mind; the frost represents the unconscious part of her mind. The frost is blocking our view. That tells me she may be hiding her most secret desires from us, and maybe even from herself.”

She waited a beat to let the significance of this sink in, and I put on my best “interested” look.

“That’s intriguing,” I piped up. And to be honest, it might have been intriguing if only I had some clue as to what she was talking about.

Dr. Grayson rewarded me with a thin smile before turning back to the caller. “Tell me, Nadine: is the frost covering all the characters in your dream, or just covering you?”

“The frost? Oh, it’s just over the frozen vegetables,” Nadine said earnestly.

Dead silence. Vera Mae and I stared at each other.
Frozen vegetables? Whoa!!

“The frozen vegetables?” Dr. Grayson faltered. “I’m afraid I’ve lost you. Where exactly does this dream take place?”

“I finally recognized the location.” Nadine sounded almost giddy with happiness. “I’m standing in the frozen vegetable aisle at Winn-Dixie . . .”

“Winn-Dixie? You’re telling me you’re in a supermarket?” Dr. Grayson’s voice ratcheted up an entire octave.

“Yes, I am. And here’s the exciting part. Russell Crowe and Hugh Jackman are pushing a shopping cart toward me. I’m reaching into the frozen food case for a package of frozen peas and it’s all chilly and frosty in there; you know? And I’m looking at them through the frosty glass. I still have the door to the freezer open and the cold air is blasting me in the face.”

“You’re looking into the freezer compartment?” I asked.

“Sounds like you’ve got quite a dream on your hands, Nadine,” Vera Mae boomed. “Just hold that thought, honey. We’ll come right back to it after this word from Gus’s Body Shop.
” Dead crows and dreams about frozen vegetables?

No wonder my show had a minus number in Arbitron.

“Your momma called during the break, sugar,” Vera Mae said. The show had just ended and the always-delightful Dr. Grayson was ushered out of the studio. From the murderous look on her face, it seemed doubtful she’d ever agree to be a guest on my show again. At least not in this lifetime.

So every cloud really does have a silver lining, as Lola always tells me.

“What’s up?” I asked, taking a quick look at my listener mail. I noticed the pet psychologist had sparked some interest in animal shows and loads of listeners were angling to get their pets on the air. I decided to sort through them later, and was just about to toss them aside, when one envelope caught my eye.

My name was written in block capitals and I felt a funny little blip in the pit of my stomach as I ripped open the envelope. The message was short and sweet. Just two words.

“BACK OFF.”

Back off?
Someone had cut the letters out of magazines and pasted them on the page, like they’d read too many noir mystery novels. I felt a chill, almost like a breath of frost, on the back of my neck. They meant back off from the murder investigation, right? What else could it be?

“Lola wants you to pick her up at the set,” Vera Mae said, breaking into my thoughts. “I really think she wants you to watch some of the filming.” She must have noticed the stricken expression on my face because she put her hand on my arm. “What’s wrong, sugar?”

I handed her the letter and her eyes widened as she scanned it. “This is someone’s idea of a joke, right?” I gave a nervous laugh, hoping she’d agree with me.

“I’m not sure,” she said slowly. “What do you think it means? Something to do with Adriana would be my guess.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.” I thought for a moment, my mind scrambling for a different explanation. “We haven’t aired any shows lately that were really controversial, have we?”

Every once in a while we do a show that causes a rash of “negative audience feedback,” as Cyrus likes to call it, and we try to analyze what went wrong. But lately all the show topics and guests had been as bland as baby oatmeal. No drama, no controversy.

Vera Mae scrunched up her face, considering. “There was that cooking show you did last month. Remember the big debate on fried okra versus sauteed tofu cubes? As I remember, that got kind of heated and there were some raised voices. Might have been some hurt feelings; that’s all I can think of.”

I shuddered, remembering that train wreck of a show. Cyrus had been awed by the success of
A Chef’s Table
, a popular PBS radio cooking show, and he’d decided that WYME could do a copycat version. Except it hadn’t turned out that way.

“I don’t think anyone would get upset enough over fried okra to send me this,” I said.

Vera Mae nodded, her beehive bobbing up and down. “You may be right. It’s hard to imagine anyone getting all fired up over okra. Now if they were complaining about the tofu, that would be another story,” she teased me. “Remember the time you wanted me to try tofu? I nearly threatened to kill you myself.”

Vera Mae and I have finally reached a detente about vegetarianism. When I tried to bring her a tofu burger for lunch one day, she made the sign of the cross with her fingers and waved me away, like Father Merrin in
The Exorcist
. Since then, I’ve let her eat her turkey burgers in peace while I chow down on Linda McCartney frozen dinners.

She studied the note. “I think we should give this to Cyrus, just in case somebody really has it in for you. He keeps a file of letters like these. That way, if you end up in pieces in three different Hefty bags, we’ll know where to start looking. Kidding!” She gave me a big grin.

“A file? You mean I’m not the only one who gets hate mail?”

Vera Mae leaned close. “Big Jim gets a bundle, because he always screws up the scores at the football games. This is just between us, but I think he takes a little nip of Jack when he’s in the bleachers on cold days; you know?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised.” I looked at my watch. “What time does Lola want me on the set?”

“Now sugar, right now! You go on and I’ll take care of this; don’t you worry about a thing.”

 

“Over here, sweetie!” Lola called to me from across the set. “I want you to meet someone special.” She was standing next to a blond bombshell, early twenties, who had the kind of chiseled cheekbones and pouty lips that you see on the all the
Cosmo
covers. She even had long flowing
Cosmo
hair with caramel-colored highlights, very Sienna Miller (before Sienna Miller caught Jude Law cheating and pulled a Mia Farrow, chopping off her golden tresses).

I stepped over a tangled mass of cables and picked my way past a throng of gawking extras to reach them. “Who is she?” someone asked in a loud whisper. “Is she an actress? Is she anybody?”

“Afraid not,” I tossed over my shoulder.

I noticed that the extras were kept well away from the stars by a rope line. There’s no democracy on a movie set and extras are instructed not to talk to the stars, ask them for autographs, or beg them to pose for pictures.

It’s a case of the haves and the have-nots. The extras eat the same Craft Services food as the stars but they eat separately. It’s pretty much a below-deck, above-deck pecking order, just like on the
Titanic
. If you’re an extra, you’re considered steerage.

“This is my daughter, Maggie,” Lola said with a wide smile. “Maggie, meet Tammilynne Cole, the star of
Death Watch
.”

Tammilynne looked supremely bored, gave me a full body scan, and then offered a limp fish handshake. She was wearing an outfit I recognized, a top and skirt from Kate Moss’s new line for Topshop. Very hot, very L.A. via London. She’d paired a navy-and-white pinstriped hitched-hem skirt with an ivory silk spaghetti strap T. Just a hint of a black lace bra showed, and I had the feeling that it was deliberate.

“Isn’t she gorgeous?” Mom was beaming.

“Gorgeous,” I agreed.

Tammilynne had a figure to die for. She looked like she might be a size 00 with a tiny waist and impossibly long legs like a gazelle’s, but she managed to look fragile and voluptuous at the same time. I could see Lola was trying not to be too envious or at least not to let it show.

A grip stopped to stare at Tammilynne with a wistful look, as if she was a slice of key lime pie and he’d just signed up for a year on Atkins. She gave him an “in your dreams” glare and he turned away.

“So . . . it must be exciting starring in your very first movie,” I said, when it became obvious that she wasn’t going to bother making small talk with me.

Tammilynne opened her mouth, popped a huge pink bubble, and snapped it shut like a turtle.

“Kind of.”

Kind of?
That was the best she could do? This was the opportunity that thousands of actresses in Hollywood would kill for. And all she had to do was sleep with Hank Watson.
Or kill Adriana and force Hank’s hand.
Is that what really happened? I wondered.

The thought slipped into my mind unbidden. It was hard to imagine the Ice Princess having the technical know-how or the energy to rig the prop gun, though. Unless she had an accomplice? But why would she bother? She didn’t even seem that interested in her starring role. I was more confused than ever, my thoughts fluttering like moths in my brain.

“It’s a dream come true!” Lola gushed, as if she was Tammilynne’s publicist and the young starlet was a sulky client. “Isn’t that right, sweetie? This is what you’ve been waiting for your whole life.”When Mom wants to be enthusiastic, she pulls out all the stops. I always thought she missed a great career as a Home Shopping Channel hostess. She can wax enthusiastic about anything from cheese graters to cubic zirconia and she can do it at two in the morning.

Tammilynne stared at Lola for a long moment and shifted her gum from one side of her mouth to the other. “I thought acting in a movie was pretty wicked at first,” she said, letting the words roll around in her mouth like marbles, “but it’s getting old real fast. You know?”

“Really?” I hadn’t expected this. Isn’t this why she’d stuck with Hank Watson for the past two years, all to get a crack at stardom? “I thought you’d be over the moon. What part of the movie business is”—I searched for a word and gave up—“getting old for you?”