Really Dead, Page 22

  “Of course it is. Was Keith Moon sitting in the backseat?”

  “Who?”

  “Exactly. Keith Moon was the drummer for The Who. And he’s dead. Just like Elvis.”

  “No, really, the dude’s name is Elvis. He gave me a ride over here and he gave me a copy of the CD he’s trying to get released. It’s pretty good, too. He played it for me on the way here. I’m going to see if Mike can get someone to listen to it.”

  “So, Elvis left the building with you and gave you a ride here. Why?”

  “I told you. I was bored. Pam said you were here so I figured I’d come over and see what you were up to.” He pointed at the door handle. “But you were down there. Want me to open it for you?”

  “I can’t find the key.”

  “Obviously.” He reached into the back pocket of his designer jeans and pulled out a small black leather case that looked about the right size to hold a pair of sunglasses, but that’s not what it held. When Chris unzipped the case and opened it flat in his hands I saw a collection of metal picks, some short, some long, some straight, some squiggly. “I learned how to use these when I was shooting Crosshairs. Did you see it?”

  “No, I’m not a big fan of spy movies.” Maybe I should have brought Ted over to Virgin Gorda with me? If he was a spy he’d know how to pick a lock and, from what I’d seen, he was willing to go out of his way to please a Butler. Chris wasn’t a real spy, but he had played on one a movie screen. “Why do you carry those with you?”

  “Because they’re cool!” He dropped to his knees, picked a tool, and then picked the lock. “There you go,” he stood up and opened the door. “You broke in to do laundry? Is there something wrong with the laundry service on Soursop?”

  “I’m looking for something.” I walked past him into the small room. Sitting right where Rob had said they’d be against the back wall of the laundry room were two Partridge Family lunchboxes, sitting on top of an Around The World in 80 Days suitcase. I lifted up the name tag on the suitcase — Kate Bond, Toronto.

  “Are these hummingbirds?” I heard Chris call out from somewhere on the patio. “They look like hummingbirds.”

  I couldn’t open the suitcases with Chris around and knew that I’d seen enough anyway. James wasn’t just hiding money, he was also hiding Kate’s suitcases. I lifted one up to feel if it was empty. It wasn’t. It was surprisingly heavy.

  Chris was standing up on the wrought-iron bench, his face mere inches away from the squawking baby birds in the nest.

  “They’re bananaquits.” I picked up all the skewers and closed the door to the laundry room.

  “Oh.” He stepped down off the bench. “Hey, these are pretty!” He ran across the patio to the planters of red bougainvillea flowers and reached out to touch one. “Ouch!”

  I was starting to wonder if Chris had a touch of ADHD. “They’ve got thorns.”

  “I noticed. Kind of like roses, huh?” He sucked the wounded finger. “I like roses. They smell good.”

  “I thought you were scared of red flowers?”

  “Nah, that’s just something my agent puts in my contracts to pump up my mega-star image.” He bolted over to the door that led into the great room. “What’s in here?”

  Chris reminded me of a little kid let loose in the FAO Schwarz store on Fifth Avenue in New York as he ran around exploring every corner of James’ villa. “What do you want to do now?” he asked me when he finally stopped moving and sat down on one of the couches on the covered veranda.

  “Drive you back to the marina?”

  He checked his watch. “They won’t be looking for me yet.”

  I tried to make conversation and quickly discovered the antidote to Chris’ perpetual motion — talking about himself. He behaved like a grownup when he was answering questions about his life and career.

  “In this one I’m playing a really interesting character. The audience won’t know until the very last scene who he actually is — he might be a history scholar, or a journalist, or Rebecca’s illegitimate son. He’s come to dig up the truth about Rebecca’s death. It’s a great role. I was a little worried about working with Ariel, though. She’s a real bitch-a-rooney-dooney!”

  The look on my face must have conveyed my silent question — a what?

  “Red Forman, from That ’70s Show. One of his best lines.”

  “Oh.”

  “Her fans think she’s a real sweetheart, but the whole world’s a stage and everybody’s just play acting, right?”

  “Is that the way you like your Shakespeare quotes?”

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind.”

  “Ariel only appears as a ghost in my scenes so I don’t have to do any lines with her, thank God. All her scenes are flashbacks that took place when my character was just a kid. Gail Watson’s playing Mrs. Danvers, Rebecca’s crazy housekeeper. I’m really looking forward to working with her. She isn’t coming to Soursop, though. All her scenes are being shot in-studio back in LA, once we’re finished shooting here. The rest of the location cast should be flying in soon, but I’m not supposed to say who’s coming. Nobody’s supposed to know who they are until the masquerade ball.”

  I didn’t dare interrupt Chris’ monologue by asking what ball he was talking about. He’d been stationary for almost ten minutes.

  “That’s not part of the movie, but you already know that. It should be an awesome finale for the TV show, don’t you think?” I simply nodded. “Everybody wearing masks and period costumes. We’ll take our masks off when we come out of the voting booth — the big reveal — which stars are in the movie and who won the reality show. Dan’s really good at coming up with ways to promote his product and, with this one, he’ll be killing two birds with one stone. Are you going to stick around to watch Manderley burn? We’re shooting that first. It’ll be awesome.”

  “You’re shooting the burning of Manderley? Here? It was the de Winter’s mansion in Cornwall.”

  “It’s Maxim de Winter’s plantation in the Caribbean now. Mrs. Danvers torches it. I’m not in the scene, but I can hardly wait to see it. That’s why I asked to be in a cottage at the north end of the island. I’ll be able to sit out on my patio and watch the whole thing. Hey! You want to come over and watch it with me?”

  “I don’t know if I’ll still be here.” They’d built a plantation at the north end of the island for the sole purpose of burning it down, and that fire was going to be ignited by someone who wasn’t really on the island, but who would appear to be on the island in the finished product. I found myself wishing that movie people followed the principle of the line I disliked so much — it is what it is. From what I’d seen, nothing in their orbit was real; it was just a distorted illusion of reality.

  CHAPTER

  TWELVE

  When Check-Out Time aired the television audience would see Chris’ arrival on Soursop. They’d see him step out of the helicopter, shake hands with Judy, and then walk out of the shot with her. What they wouldn’t see was the not-yet-fifty-year-old woman with long red hair who’d hitched a ride over from Virgin Gorda with him. That woman, namely me, did as she was told; staying squished up against the back wall of the helicopter and scrunched down in the seat, making sure that the top of her head stayed below the lower edge of the side window once the helicopter was within visual range of the cameras on the island.

  The sun hadn’t been low enough in the sky to make the shot of the helicopter landing picture perfect so we’d circled the island a few times. I got to see how big it really was and was amazed by how many secluded beaches there were on its shoreline. At the north end of the island I looked for the Caribbean version of Manderley. My eyes followed the winding dirt road that cut through the thick vegetation. A large area on the very top of the northern plateau was in the process of being clearcut; sunlight reflected off the shiny blades of the scythes that several gardeners were swinging back and forth through the dense bush. No plantation had been built, though. In fact, nothing had been b
uilt, although it was obvious from the piles of lumber and the construction vehicles that something was about to be built.

  The makeup woman who’d spent the day covering up Chris’ black eye (and who repeatedly offered to show me how to cover up my freckles) gave me a ride to my cottage. The sun dropped below the horizon as we drove and a line of automated lights came on over the road. The porch light over my front patio was already on when we pulled into the driveway. I’d left my golf cart by the main dock, but someone must have arranged for it to be returned to my cottage. It was parked by the front stairs, the key left in the ignition.

  I turned on the hallway light once I was inside; it supplied all the illumination I needed to make my way into the living room without crashing into any furniture. The flashing red light on the side of the phone was like a beacon of hope — I hoped that it meant Glenn had called and left me a message. Even more, I hoped that he, not his voicemail, would answer when I called him. I picked up the receiver and then froze; a man had just cleared his throat. That throat, and presumably the man attached to it, was somewhere very close to me.

  “Do you want to explain to me why Glenn’s snooping around for dirt on my show?” James asked.

  “You first. I’d like you to explain to me how you got into my cottage. My locked cottage.” I reached in what I hoped was the direction of a lamp. It was, but I knocked the lamp off the table and from the sound of glass breaking as it hit the tile floor I knew it wouldn’t be shedding any light on the situation.

  “I borrowed Winnie’s master key.” A light came on, the lamp on the end table nearest to James. He slowly lowered his hand from inside the shade. “Your turn.” He was sitting on the biggest sofa. The lamplight sparkled off the empty etched-crystal highball glass in his hand. Draped over the back of the couch was a white tuxedo jacket. An untied, or not-yet-tied, black bowtie hung around the open collar of his white shirt.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Even though I was telling the truth I still felt guilty and made a point of not looking at him as I sat on the sofa opposite his. I didn’t know what Glenn was doing, but was pleased to hear that he was doing something. “Why don’t you call him and ask him?” Maybe, just maybe, James would open up to his best friend. He’d have to hit rock bottom to open up to me and he wasn’t there yet.

  James exhaled an almost laugh. “Yeah, right. Call Glenn. Like that’s going to happen. As I’m sure you already know we’re not exactly on speaking terms right now.”

  I didn’t know. Glenn hadn’t said anything about being at odds with James. “That’s news to me.”

  “Oh get off it, Ria! You expect me to believe that you and Glenn didn’t natter away about me being with somebody on this shoot?”

  Glenn knew about James having a mistress on the shoot? And he didn’t tell me? Then again, he wouldn’t. He and James were best friends, and best friends protected each other’s secrets. But he could have warned me! Oh. No, he couldn’t have — because I hadn’t told him I was going to the BVI. “Natter? You actually used the word natter?” I tried to steer the conversation away from what Glenn and I may or may not have talked about.

  “Nice try. Answer the question.”

  “We didn’t natter about you.”

  “This shoot is turning into a fucking nightmare.” James bent over, dropped his head into his hands, and talked to his knees. “Ted got a call from his sister. She said a C. Bernstein was asking a lot of questions about the show.” He sat up and looked straight at me. “C. Bernstein? We both know who that is.” He leaned into the cushions on the back of the sofa. “You spend a week with Glenn, then you suddenly have the urge to come here, and while you’re here Glenn starts snooping around in my post-production facility. Am I supposed to believe that’s just a coincidence?”

  I glanced longingly at the flashing red light on the phone and kept staring at it.

  “You’re doing your ‘look everywhere but at me’ thing.”

  I looked down through the glass coffee table at his shiny black leather shoes. “I know about the money, James. I saw it this afternoon.” I forced myself to meet his glare.

  He jumped up off the sofa and yelled, “Fucking Mandy! She was supposed to —”

  “Well, she didn’t. I did. I met Albert.”

  James grabbed his highball glass off the table and I thought he was going to hurl it at the wall, but he marched out onto the patio instead, heading for the bar. “That stupid, stupid bitch!”

  I followed him. The lights in the pool had been turned on and I was pleased to see that the camera discs were still soaking in the aquamarine water. “What’s the money for, James?”

  “It’s … it’s for the production. It was all Dan’s idea.” James instantly slipped into standard James behaviour — blame someone else. But his defiance and denial didn’t last long. Tears were welling in his eyes. “Why is it all going so wrong?”

  “I don’t know, James. And I can’t help you if you won’t tell me what’s going on.”

  He rolled up his dress pants. I rolled up my jeans. We sat, side by side, our feet dangling in the pool.

  “It was all Dan’s idea …” he started.

  Dan came up with a way to hide some of James’ money from Victoria and her lawyers, but it was James who had hired Albert. He brought James just under ten thousand dollars every time he came to the island, because anything more than that would have be declared at customs … so it was legal, right? (James tried to limit his guilt liability.) Dan, with Winnie’s help, then magically produced receipts for services rendered on the production that always added up to the amount of Albert’s deliveries. Victoria, or her lawyers, would see the money leaving James’ company accounts, they’d see receipts from the production to justify those amounts, and James would have a bank account in the British Virgin Islands that nobody knew about.

  “I don’t want to lose her, Ria, but I think I already have.” A few more tears leaked out.

  My mouthy nature was hard to control, but I knew that telling him his marriage would have been in much better shape if he’d kept his pants zipped up wasn’t going to help matters any. Instead, I went with a more helpful suggestion. “Then get rid of Mandy. Fire her. Send her home. Sell her to Dan for all I care. Call Victoria and grovel — and I mean grovel. You’ve got a lot of apologizing to do.”

  “But …”

  I held my hand up in front of his face to stop his mouth. “Don’t start with a list of buts. If you mean what you say, about wanting to work it out with Victoria, then do it. Just do it.”

  “Do you think she’d…?”

  “I don’t know what Victoria will or won’t do. There’s only one way to find out.”

  “Are you sure you and Glenn didn’t compare notes? That’s almost exactly what he said to me.” James stared out into the dark horizon for quite some time. “Look at me, a middle-aged, balding, old guy, turning to my big sister to help me out of a jam.”

  I took a deep breath. “You’re not quite jam-free yet, James. The money isn’t the only thing I saw at your villa.” As much as I hated to pop his positive outlook bubble, I knew I couldn’t let him off the hook yet. “I saw Kate’s suitcases in the laundry room, too.”

  James didn’t burst, but he sure deflated.

  If I wanted honesty from him I had to deliver the same. “That’s why I came, because of Kate. Rob called me.”

  “You don’t think I …”

  “I don’t know what to think.” And I wasn’t going to give him the chance to deny or deflect. “What I do know is that one of your production assistants is missing. You and Dan told the crew she’d gone home, but she’s not there.” James looked honestly surprised. “And I know that you know something about it because (a) you’ve been trying to hide in a bottle, just like Dad, and (b) you threatened to fire Rob when he tried to talk to you about it. James, what happened to Kate?”

  “But Dan said … the cops said … they said she was in Toronto!”

  “She’s not
.”

  “Are you sure?” He spoke in barely more than a whisper.

  “Positive. Glenn went to her apartment and talked to her sister.”

  “Oh my God.” He swallowed hard and stared at the water in the pool as if in a trance.

  “You really don’t know what happened to her, do you?”

  He shook his head slowly. “I mean, I wondered, especially when Dan told Mandy to put Kate’s suitcases in the laundry room. But then the police, they said the cops in Toronto had checked, that they’d talked to her, so I figured she’d just quit, like Dan said she had, and she’d gone back home in a huff.”

  As much as I hated to do it, I knew it was the perfect time to hit him with the information about Ted. If James had anything, anything at all, to do with Kate’s disappearance the only way he’d admit it was if he was hit when he was down. “There’s something else, too. Ted Robarts is an intelligence officer with CSIS.”

  “What?” He shook his head. “This can’t be happening.”

  “It is. And, James, I need you to hold it together. If you want to go on the bender to end all benders do it later when you’re back on Virgin Gorda. Right now, I need you here and sober.”

  James stood up and walked slowly, determinedly, toward the bar. I couldn’t watch. I didn’t want to see him with a bottle in his hand. When he handed me one of the two Diet Cokes he’d got out of the refrigerator I knew he was going to stay in the now of the crisis, instead of flooding it with alcohol. “Tell me what you need.”

  “Answers.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Ted. Did you know who he was when you signed him on for the show?”

  “No! Dan’s people checked and double-checked his references. This is Dan’s fourth reality show, so his team have had lots of experience checking applicants out. And before we made the final selection all of the applicants went through psychological testing. Ted passed with flying colours. He can’t be here because of the money. That whole scheme of Dan’s didn’t come into play until long after we’d chosen the contestants.”