“I don’t know his name, just what he looks like. Sort of like Clint Eastwood.”
“Rob and I have been friends for years, we were just visiting, that’s all. I’m a travel writer, not an investigator.”
“I thought you said you were here for a vacation.”
“I am.”
“A vacation from travel writing? And you travelled here to do it?”
I should have come up with a more believable excuse for coming to the island. “Travel writers need vacations, too.”
“I never thought of that. Huh. It must be a fun job, exploring new places … BIRD! BIRD! BIRD!” Ariel started flapping her delicate little hands as quickly as a hummingbird’s wings and quickly flipped her legs up onto the sofa.
Sure enough, a bird had landed on the patio and was in the process of waddling toward us. “That’s just a white-crowned pigeon.” My niece would have been proud of me for identifying it so quickly. Of course, the white crown feathers on the top of its head had made my job easier. The little patch of iridescent green on the back of its neck told me that it was a male pigeon. “They’re harmless.”
“Harmless?” Ariel was almost hyper-ventilating. “Pigeons are the worst! They’re Fascists!”
Pigeons had political views? I didn’t get a chance to ask Ariel how she’d determined that the birds were so right wing.
“That’s what Dan used in The Birds.” She pointed at the pigeon. “Kill it!”
The pigeon wisely chose that moment to take flight.
“God, I hate those things! There was a flock of something trapped under my veranda this morning. It was horrendous! Ted — have you met Ted? He’s one of the contestants on the TV show and he’s a real sweetheart. Anyway, Ted was wonderful and he got rid of the birds for me. I hope he wins the job here. I’d come back for a vacation. It’s a beautiful spot, so isolated. The paparazzi wouldn’t be able —”
The cordless phone started to ring and shimmy across the glass topped coffee table in front of us. “Excuse me.” I reached over for the phone. “Hello?”
“Hi.” Glenn’s greeting wasn’t over enthusiastic.
“Hi.” I replied with an equal lack of affection.
“Your friend Rob,” at least he got Rob’s name right this time, “is wrong. The supposedly missing girl isn’t missing at all. She left the island by choice.”
Without her luggage? I wanted to ask but couldn’t. Ariel was intently people watching — and I was the people she was watching. “Are you sure?”
Glenn sighed, loudly. “Positive. She’s gone to Hollywood with Chris Regent.”
“But that’s impossible. Chr —” I stopped myself. “Um, can I call you back? I’ve got someone over visiting right now.”
—>—
Someone over visiting? Glenn had a pretty good idea who that someone was — and he didn’t like him. Correction. He detested him.
One way or another he was going to expose Mr. Bobbie Dickhead. But first he had to find out more about him.
He punched the numbers for his paper into the keypad of the phone on his desk. “Entertainment desk, please.”
He didn’t know the new kid who answered the phone, but the new kid sure knew who Glenn Cooper was. His byline had been on the front page of the paper so many times that there weren’t many people at the paper, let alone in Canada, who didn’t know who he was. “I need information on some people working on a reality show that’s shooting in the British Virgin Islands.”
“You’re talking about Check-Out Time, right?” she asked.
“You’ve heard of it?” Not that surprising, really, given that entertainment was her beat.
“Some footage was leaked from the set that’s pretty explosive.”
“Can you send it to me?” Maybe he’d catch a glimpse of Bobbie.
“Sure. What’s your email address? I’ll send it right now.”
Glenn gave her his address.
“It should be there any minute.”
“Thanks.” He clicked on Send/Receive. Nothing came in. “While we’re waiting, I need info on a crew member.” It was then that Glenn realized he had no idea what Bobbie’s last name was. “I don’t know his last name, though.” Idiot. Whatever happened to getting as many facts as you could? “He works for James Butler …”
“Bo … Rob.”
“What does he do?”
“He’s a cameraman.”
“Okay.” Glenn listened to her tapping a keyboard. “I think I found your guy. There’s a Robert Churcher who’s worked for James Butler on most of his shoots.”
“Where are you getting this from?” Glenn was impressed by how quickly she’d found Bobbie.
“IMDbPro. It’s an online database of information about people who work in the business. It lists filmographies, has biographies, the usual stuff, on just about anyone who’s worked in production.”
Glenn didn’t know what information to ask for next so he clicked on Send/Receive again. “I just got your email. Give me a minute to watch it.”
Glenn opened the attachment and watched the video play. A small dinghy, driven by a man dressed entirely in beige, came out from behind some rocks. It was heading toward a beautiful woman who was walking out of the water toward the beach. The shock of seeing the dinghy suddenly explode into a ball of fire made Glenn jerk. “What the …” The woman in the water screamed and the screen went black.
“We don’t know if it’s real. Remember, this is reality TV we’re talking about, the biggest oxymoron of the twenty-first century. Do you need anything else?”
When in doubt, go for everything. “You’d better send me the link to the database, I might have to check out a few more people. Will I need a password?”
“You can use mine. I’ll put it in the body of the email with the link. You’ll find info on Shykoff’s movie personnel, too. His company’s producing a theatrical, once the television show wraps.”
“Isn’t it the other way around? Didn’t they do the movie first?”
“No, principal photography hasn’t even started on the movie yet. They aren’t scheduled to start for another couple of weeks.”
Glenn didn’t like the way his stomach felt. It was sinking. If the movie hadn’t been made yet, Chris Regent wouldn’t have left the island yet. “Did Chris Regent come in early to shoot his stuff first?” It was worth a shot — a long shot.
“He’s not even on the island. He’s been seen partying in St. Thomas for the last week. Ariel Downes is there, though. Rumour has it she and Dan aren’t seeing eye-to-eye. Do you need anything else?”
“Can you do a quick check on one more name while I’ve got you on the line — Kate Bond?”
“Are you sure about her name? There’s a Kathy, a Karen, and a Kathleen Bond. Oh, and a Kathryn Bond, but she was an actress back in the silent movie days. There’s a Kate Pond, the last thing she worked on was a production in 1997; she was the script supervisor.”
“Keep looking. See if there’s a Kate Bond who’s worked on something more recent.”
“Kathleen Bond was an accounting clerk on Revolutionary Road. Could that be who you’re looking for?”
“No.” Was James’ show the first production job Kate ever had? Allie would know. Ria probably knew, too. Yet another piece of information Glenn had failed to ask for. He was batting a thousand. “Hang on.” A beep had signalled another call coming in. “Cooper.”
“Hi.”
“Hey!” Glenn sounded almost glad to hear my voice.
“I just had drinks with Ariel Downes!” I hoped that I hadn’t sounded too much like a star-struck fan. “I didn’t want to talk about Kate in front of her. Glenn, Kate couldn’t have gone anywhere with Chris …”
“I know.”
Huh? “But you said …”
“I was wrong.”
The temperature in Hades had just plummeted. “Why did you think she’d gone to Hollywood?”
“That’s where her sister thinks she is. I went to her apartment and her sister was there. Her identical twin sister.”
Kate had a twin? “Oh my God, that’s who the police talked to! But why would her sister tell the police that she’s Kate?”
“Can I call you back? I’m on the other line with the entertainment desk. We’re looking for info on Kate, but we can’t find a listing for her on the entertainment database.”
“That’s because this was her first job.” A fact Glenn would have already asked for if he’d taken me seriously to begin with. But he was taking me seriously now. I could hear it in his voice. “Look up another name — Albert Black.”
“Who’s he?”
“It’s a long story. I’ll explain it to you later.” We both had a lot of explaining to do … later.
“Hang on.” The line went quiet for a few minutes. “Ria?”
“I’m here.”
“She found three of them; a composer, a broadcast engineer in Scotland, and an actor in South Africa. Which one is your guy?”
“None of them.”
“What does your guy do?”
“He’s a camera original courier.”
“I’ll ask her to check again.”
He was gone for less than a second.
“Her guy is a camera original courier. Can you look up people by their jobs instead of their names?”
“It’s still me. You pushed the wrong button.”
“Shit. Be right back.”
The line went quiet for so long that I started to wonder if Glenn had cut me off.
He came back. “Louise Flavelle was just killed by a hit and run driver!”
“Seriously?” I’d never seen any of her movies, but had seen her smiling face on the posters for too many romantic comedies to count. Chris Regent had been her co-star in one of those movies.
“Seriously. The newsroom’s going nuts!”
“What about Albert? Did you find him?” I felt bad for Louise Flavelle, especially for her infant daughter, but she wasn’t real to me. Kate, even though I’d never met her, was real. And Albert was too real — really creepy.
“Oh, sorry, the newsflash came in while we were talking about him. Hang on, I’ll see if she found him.”
The line went quiet — and stayed that way. Glenn had disconnected me, instead of putting me on hold.
It wasn’t quiet below my veranda, though. I heard someone crying and then a woman yelling “Did you hear about Louise?” Doors slammed. Feet pounded up and down the wooden staircases on the back of the cell blocks below me.
Bad news sure spread fast in the world of production. So why hadn’t news of Kate’s disappearance spread like wild fire?
Because nobody realized that she’d really disappeared.
CHAPTER
SEVEN
Our call time for dinner was seven o’clock, but the digital clock on my patio changed from 7:34 to 7:35 just as Ariel rang my doorbell. The delayed departure had given me the chance to hang out with my gecko friend on the patio. She’d clung to the wall and agreed with everything I said. Neither one of us thought I should be the one to call Glenn — he’d hung up on me, the onus was on him to call me back. Both of us wondered why he hadn’t.
“Wow,” I exhaled when I saw Ariel. She was sheathed again, but this time in a flowing gossamer gown. She looked red-carpet ready and I was tempted to ask her who she was wearing.
“You like?” She asked as she did a sultry pirouette on my front patio.
She’d worn her hair loose (but I bet it had taken a lot of work to make it look so naturally wavy). It flowed with the dress as she spun and lifted enough to show me that the dress didn’t have a back. (If she’d been wearing a thong I would have seen most of the small back triangle of material.) The dress didn’t have any straps or sleeves and the front was split open from her belly button to show a widening estuary of chest flesh. How the heck was it staying on? The deep, rich periwinkle colour made her thick dark hair look dramatically darker and her white skin look like alabaster. Around her delicate neck hung a glittering diamond necklace that must have cost more than the gross domestic product of some countries. Looking down, I saw that she was wearing sparkling sandals and that her toenails were painted the exact same colour as the dress; a tiny, shiny gold star had been painted in the middle of each toenail.
I was wearing my cleanest T-shirt, most comfortable jeans, and brown leather sandals. The only jewellery I wore was the multi-ringed silver ring I’d bought from a prune-faced old lady on the miniscule Greek island of Kythira a few months earlier. The last time there’d been paint on my toenails had been when I helped my niece paint her bedroom and some of the black trim colour had dripped onto my feet. My hair was pulled back into a high ponytail. To say I felt underdressed would have been like saying Hugh Jackman had no sex appeal.
“You look amazing,” I said with conviction.
“Thanks! You look okay too.” Even with her considerable acting skills she hadn’t been able to make that last line sound believable. “Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.” I locked the front door to my villa and we walked down the steps to my waiting chariot/golf cart.
“Thanks for giving me a lift. Dan doesn’t know it yet, but he’ll be bringing me home, so don’t feel as if you have to wait for me. I’m hoping this get up will make him more willing to see the Rebecca character the way I do.”
If she wanted Dan to see Rebecca barely half-dressed then she was wearing the perfect get up, as she called it.
“Did you hear that we lost Louise Flavelle today?” Ariel asked.
“I did.” I drove slowly, not wanting to take the curves too fast and risk rolling one of Ariel’s breasts right out of her almost dress. “It sounded like a lot of people on the crew were really upset about it. Did you know her?”
“We worked together once. It was a nightmare. She was a bitch!” she said with venom.
I held the steering wheel extra tight to stop myself from swerving.
“And she couldn’t act her way out of a paper bag. She auditioned for the role I had in The Birds and it was laughable. Not that she ever had a chance of getting the part. Dan had to go through the motions of auditioning other people, though.”
“Oh.” What else could I say? I’d been planning on telling Ariel that I was sorry for her loss of a co-worker, or maybe even friend.
“I wonder if her baby was affected by all the coke she was constantly snorting? Gerrard’s life will definitely be better without her. We hooked up just before I left to come here and he was miserable. Louise getting killed has saved him a fortune — Hollywood divorces are insanely expensive. And speaking of killing, have you heard anything else about the PA?”
“Nothing.” Unfortunately, it was true.
“Well, that’s boring. Every production should have a least one melodrama. And tonight’s party won’t be much fun if the crew’s all mopey because of Louise. I guess the TV crew won’t be, though. I don’t think she ever worked in television, especially Canadian television. Maybe if they get liquored up they’ll talk about the PA? That’ll at least make the night interesting.”
I was liking Ariel less and less by the minute. At first I’d thought she was a nice person. The person she was showing me as we pulled up to the hotel’s main building wasn’t very nice at all. She wasn’t interested in “the PA,” who was a real person named Kate. She was only interested in the thrill of the gossip.
The pool area had changed, too. It had been transformed sometime between my tense lunch with James and our arrival for dinner. A long table had been set up on what looked like a floating floor that hovered across the far end of the pool. Tall metal towers of scaffolding had been built on both sides of the pool and they had big lights attached to them that were all pointing at the table. The table was covered in a big linen cloth, but there were no place settings on i
t.
Circling the area where Ariel’s lunch table had been there were more lights on individual tripods. Those lights were on, illuminating the white-tuxedoed members of a band — a big band. Only one thing remained fairly unchanged, the groupings of crew personnel, in various stages of undress and casual dress, who were lounging and laughing in the unlit areas. I recognized Bear; he was sitting beside Pam, the girl with the pink bangs.
The band leader tapped his baton and the band started playing a tune that sounded vaguely familiar. The clarinet player stood at the front, the horn players rocked from side to side in unison behind him in time to the music.
“Name that tune!” Bear yelled out to his group.
People starting calling out possible answers.
“Johnny Dorsey?”
“It was Tommy Dorsey, you moron.”
“Benny Goodman?”
“Wrong!” Bear added his own rendition of the incorrect answer buzzer from Jeopardy.
“Ooh! I know!” Pam shouted happily. “‘Next Stop Pottersville!’”
A couple stood up and starting dancing. “Who cares what is it, let’s jive, man!”
“Hep cat, all the kids are doing it.” Another couple joined them on the dance floor.
It did have an infectious beat; my right foot was tapping of its own accord.
“Wasn’t ‘Next Stop Pottersville’ from a Seinfeld episode?” asked the guy who’d been holding the big poofy microphone when I was first met by Ted at the dock.
“Episode 94, ‘The Mom and Pop Store,’” another crew member shouted.
The swinging doors to the kitchen burst open and Ted came strutting out onto the patio. “There you are! Mr. Shykoff has been waiting for you.”
“Haven’t you heard, Teddy? It’s good to keep a man waiting. It makes him want you more,” Ariel ran her fingertip down the length of Ted’s tie in an extremely sensual manner and then jitterbugged her way to the door and disappeared into the kitchen.
Even in the poor lighting I could see Ted’s blush.
“Are we eating in there?” I asked.