The Body in the Cast (19 page)

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Authors: Katherine Hall Page

BOOK: The Body in the Cast
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Millicent nodded. Tom followed suit, nodding several times and seeming about to put his head down on the table. It was time to hear the baby, bless her little heart. Faith jumped up. “I think that's Amy. I'll just run up to make sure she hasn't kicked her covers off.” Tom took the hint. “No, you stay here, sweetheart. I'll go.” Now, would Millicent take it, too? It was their lucky day—or, more probably, she didn't feel like sitting in the kitchen with Faith while waiting for Tom to come back.
“I must be going,” she said over the Fairchilds' feeble protests.
At the door, having swirled her heavy cape around her shoulders, imperiling the light fixtures, she addressed Tom in the familiar tones of a woman not to be trifled with lightly or otherwise. “Tom, I expect you to deal with Penny. The deadline for letters to the editor of the
Chronicle
is Monday. That gives you two days.”
“I'll do my best,” Tom promised. He knew it was pointless to object.
“Thank you for the coffee and that very rich cookie, Faith,” Millicent remarked politely. Any increase in her cholesterol level would, of course, be laid at Mrs. Fairchild's door.
After Millicent left, Tom and Faith looked at each other.
“I don't know whether to laugh or cry,” he said.
“Maybe both? Laugh now and then cry later when Penny Bartlett doesn't budge an inch.”
“I know.” Tom sighed. “But what could I do? By the way, you didn't really hear Amy, did you?” He had folded his wife in his arms and they were talking nose-to-nose.
“No, both cherubs are blessedly sound asleep. I had the intercom on. And from the look of you, it won't be long before you join them.”
“But not immediately.”
Faith smiled. Suddenly, she wasn't tired at all.
 
The next morning, Faith wandered around the house, changing sheets, energetically attacking the dust bunnies, and in general trying to keep herself occupied.
“I feel fragmented,” she'd told Tom at breakfast. “Yesterday, I held a dying woman in my arms, who it now appears was a murder victim. Then Millicent assigned you the thirteenth labor of Hercules. I start to try to figure out who might have killed Sandra Wilson, then my mind jumps to what was going on with the Bartletts in 1971.”
“Why not think of something altogether different? Like me,” Tom had suggested.
“Don't tell me you're feeling neglected!” Faith had protested. After all, he was still smiling.
“No, no,” he'd reassured her hastily. “Not at all. Think about some new recipes or the state of the union or anything you want.”
And so she'd played with Amy, enthusiastically applauding her sluglike wriggles across the floor, which would become crawling one of these days too soon. Faith found that Amy's babyhood seemed to be whizzing by at an alarming rate, whereas Ben's had progressed at a more petty pace. Maybe it was because this was the last child—
definitely
.
When an exhausted baby had allowed herself to be sung to sleep, Faith had dragged out the vacuum cleaner. But without
the baby, all her attempts to keep fragmentation at bay failed. She found herself longing for Amy to wake up and Ben to come home from his friend's house. Before either occurred, the phone rang. It was Charley MacIsaac.
“Before you say a word, I don't know a thing. Or not much. You were right about the cup. The propman went straight from the kitchen and put it on the mantel—where it sat, available to everyone and his cousin, the whole time. Dunne's still questioning some of them over at the hotel, and, if you can believe it, they're all having a conniption fit over how much money the movie is losing.”
Faith thought sadly of how short-tempered everyone had been with Sandra when she'd misplaced the fabric for the walls. In death, she was causing even greater inconvenience. Did anyone connected with the film actually remember the person who had been killed, or was the budget so almighty? From what Charley was saying, he seemed to be wondering the same thing.
“But Max can't really be thinking that they can just go on shooting as if nothing happened.”
“According to John, he can and is. Wants to get everybody back on the set immediately.”
“What about the poor girl? I assume her family has been notified.” Faith hadn't wanted to know too much about Sandra, but the temptation to round out the picture was overwhelming.
“Didn't have much family. Mother dead and no father to speak of. Grew up in Southern California. Her roommate from Los Angeles is on her way and she's pretty broken up. I talked to her. Wants the studio to have a memorial service. According to the guy who saw her take the drink, all the studio wants is to forget her.”
“I'm sure they can't afford the bad publicity.” Although, as she spoke, Faith remembered what an agent friend had told her once: “There is no such thing as
bad
publicity.” People who might have avoided A as highbrow and boring would flock to the movie because of the murder.
“Dunne wants to talk to you some more. He has the idea you aren't telling us everything.” Charley sounded both weary and wary. He knew Faith.
“That's ridiculous,” she said firmly, and after they hung up, she promptly dialed her sister. Even though it was Saturday, Faith knew where Hope would be.
Calling Hope at work was not something she did often. For one thing, it was hard to get her. For another, when she did, she had to contend with Hope's office voice and manner, which suggested that while she was delighted to hear from her sister, the interruption had just blown a $30 million deal.
But the situation was serious.
Miraculously, Hope's equally workaholic secretary, Bryan, put Faith through immediately, and while Hope did not sound chatty, she did inject more than usual warmth into her greeting. She'd seen the papers.
“Not again, Fay!” Happily or unhappily, Hope was the only one who called her this. “How on earth do you end up with all these stiffs? A is the movie you're catering, right?”
“Yes, and I don't exactly go looking for ‘stiffs.'” Faith was about to chastise Hope for her insensitivity. This had been a person. Then she reminded herself that Hope had never even set eyes on Sandra. She tried to continue speaking and realized she was about to cry. A bright, beautiful young woman was dead and Faith hadn't been able to do a thing to save her. An expendable PA with dozens of others eager to take her place.
“Fay,
Faith,
are you okay? I'm sorry. That was really stupid and insensitive. Tell me what happened. I have loads of time.”
Faith was sure she didn't, but she told her everything, anyway.
“But I didn't call you about all this, or at least I don't think I did. The thing is I haven't told the police about Corny—her temper. And she was terribly jealous of Sandra, especially at the birthday party. Yet I can't believe Corny would murder her. It would make more sense to murder Evelyn.”
As she said that, the penny dropped and she realized what it
was that had been in the back of her mind since yesterday. It was Evelyn O'Clair's cry, “My cup!” They really hadn't explored the very distinct possibility that Evelyn and not Sandra was the intended victim. Which could make Cornelia a suspect.
“Oh, Hope, what am I going to do? I suppose I'll have to tell Detective Dunne about Corny, but this is not going to look good in our class notes.”
“Don't worry. Corny wouldn't kill anybody, except maybe you. She likes to watch her victims sweat, and from what I understand, once you've killed someone, that is unlikely. Sorry, I'm being a jerk again.”
“No, it's all right. I mean, I'm all right, but what you say is true. And I'm pretty sure our dear Cornelia was responsible for the missing bolt of fabric that turned up in the barn—a missing prop, for which Sandra Wilson, the dead woman, was blamed.”
“Now that sounds more like our old chum. She likes to get other people into trouble. Lord forbid she should get into trouble herself.”
Faith felt a whole lot better. She decided it wasn't necessary to tell Dunne about Corny's rotten disposition. Difficult as she might be, Cornelia was a kind of friend.
“You should have seen her the night of the party. It was tragic. And what is Corny doing in the glitzy movie business in the first place? She should be living in New Canaan with three kids by now and twice as many horses.”
“Agreed, but you know how stubborn she is. If she's decided to worship Maxwell Reed, it's till death do us part.”
Faith felt a distinct chill. She thought of that odd saying, Someone must be walking over my grave.
Hope was asking after her niece and nephew. It was a relief to talk about teething and Ben's worship of a nice safe hero—Barney, a six-foot, cuddly, purple
Tyrannosaurus rex.
Dunne didn't call until late in the afternoon. Faith hadn't left the house all day and was feeling not simply restless but cross.
Tom wouldn't be home for dinner, and for a fleetingly insane moment, she wished she had a cardboard package of macaroni and cheese to whip up for Ben when he returned from the Macleans'. It was over in an instant, yet she was still shaken when the phone rang.
“Well, we decided to let them start filming again on Monday. At least we'll know where they are, and that's about all we do know about the case. Unless you know something you, ahem, forgot to tell me?” Dunne's gravel-like Bronx accent softened with faint hope.
“Sorry, no, but something did occur to me.”
“Yes?”
“That whatever was in the cup was intended for Evelyn and not Sandra.”
“It occurred to me, too. Pretty much right away, which merely gives us twice as much to sort out. We did find out that the kid was in the hotel with her tutor at the time and the mother was in town shopping. At Filene's Basement, she says, and she has a bag to prove it, but no slip. She left that on the counter. We're trying to find someone who remembers her.”
Faith had never been to Filene's Basement. The idea of pushing and shoving for clothes did not appeal to her. Besides, she'd heard that most of the fabled bargains were last season's. But she knew enough about the venerable Washington Street institution to place Dunne's odds of finding a salesclerk who remembered Jacqueline Carroll at about forty to one.
But Caresse, at least, was eliminated. Faith was glad. The little girl might need to turn over several new leaves; still, at least she wasn't the bad seed. Murder was horrible, but a child murderer was particularly monstrous.
“By the way, what
was
in the cup?”
“Perrier and diet Coke, as you said, plus a lethal combination of rum and chloral hydrate.”
“Chloral hydrate! Isn't that a sedative? How could that have killed her?”
“By itself, it wouldn't have. At least she'd have had her
stomach pumped before it did, but with the rum chaser and her body weight, it did the job. The fact that she was an asthmatic and smoked helped. Somebody knows a lot about drugs, a lot about Sandra, or was just lucky.”
“Plus, it would be easy to get. No doubt everybody on the set is taking something to get to sleep—and to wake up.”
“Exactly.”
“John, could I have done anything?”
“No, not unless you had had a bottle of ipecac in your pocket and given it to her immediately, and even then it probably wouldn't have helped. Besides, you didn't know what was in the cup, and if it had been Drano and you'd made her throw up, you'd have killed her.”
Faith was relieved, but she knew she would never get over the remorse she felt—the
if only.
“Stop thinking about it,” Dunne said when she didn't respond. She was getting this advice from all quarters lately.
“You don't happen to know if I still have a job, do you?” she asked, determinedly changing the subject.
“Actually, I do.” He paused for a tantalizing moment. “You do. We told them we would prefer to keep all personnel the same, including the caterer.”
“John, that's wonderful! I can't thank you enough.” Once again, Faith was relieved. Even though they'd have a late night tonight getting ready and she'd have to do her part at home, since Tom was out.
“It's not a totally disinterested act. Without getting involved—and I want to stress this … God knows why I think it might help—you can keep your eyes and ears open.”
They were a team again.
At least Faith thought so.
 
Suddenly, she found she was feeling more energetic. It was still early. She could take the kids over to the kitchens. She called Pix and Niki, who agreed to meet her there. They could get virtually everything set for Monday. During the past week,
Faith's crew had worked as efficiently as usual. She was sure they wouldn't have to do much now besides get organized and assign jobs. The freezer had been amply stocked and she'd go back the following day to bake.

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