Hollywood Scream Play (21 page)

“Even if foul play was the cause of death, how do you know for certain the man who Charlotte saw was indeed Carl Stone?” Jack asks.

“Herr Richter was known to be a loud snorer—hence the back room—and a sound sleeper.” Roger gives the slightest of smiles. “He had requested a wake-up call for six. When he hadn’t responded to it, I went to his room to wake him with a knock on the door. He didn’t respond. I opened the room with the master key. I found him slumped in the chair, at the desk. He was still in evening attire. He succumbed while writing something. The handwriting was barely legible, but from what I could make out, it said, ‘Clapham Sect.’ Naturally, my first thought was that he’d succumbed to a heart attack. The coroner confirmed it. As is the club’s policy, we took the body out of the building by way of the servant’s elevator. The coroner’s lorry was waiting in the back alley.”

“Any idea what ‘Clapham Sect’ may mean? A neighborhood? Or perhaps another private club?” Jack asks.

Roger thinks for a moment. “No, I’m sorry I’m of no help to you there.”

“I’m sorry, Roger, but I still don’t see how any of this connects Carl to his death,” I point out.

Roger turns to me. “Mr. Stone vacated his room a half-hour before the body was found. Charlotte happened to be leaving another guest’s polished shoes outside his door on the fourth floor, when Mr. Stone left his room and rang for the elevator. Our staff is trained to be polite to guests, and to call them by name, if they recognize them. She nodded to ‘Herr Richter,’ but he ignored her—in fact, he tilted his hat so that she’d have a hard time seeing his face.” Roger purses his lips. “She didn’t think it odd at all that he was on another floor. After all, he may have been visiting another guest. However the next night, upon hearing of Herr Richter’s untimely demise and that the time of death was put at two in the morning, she realized Mr. Stone wasn’t the dead man after all. She was upset enough to mention it to me.” Roger drops his head to study the pint of ale in front of him. “I told her she had to have been mistaken. In our positions we see a lot of people. And since there is no security footage of him leaving his room, let alone entering Herr Richter’s, I suggested she consider herself mistaken.”

To avoid detection, Carl would have climbed down from his window in order to enter Richter’s room. He would have also altered any security feeds.

My heart is beating fast now. “Is Charlotte willing to confirm your account?”

Sadness darkens his eyes. “She died a few days later. She was hit in the middle of Brompton Road, by a tour bus, of all things. The incident so unnerved me that I gave notice immediately. I’m the night manager now at another club.”

Frustrated, Jack taps the table with his fingertips. “Without her, we have nothing but hearsay and conjecture.”

“Perhaps not.” Roger pulls something from his vest pocket. “In his haste to leave the hotel, Mr. Stone left this in his room’s trash can.”

It is a clear, small plastic bag. The contents are a vial of pills. “It was already bagged, so no one else’s fingerprints should be on it, if, in fact, his are there.”

I pick up the bag. The vial has no label or markings. “The pills look like Digitalis, but we’ll have to have them examined to be sure. If Richter was taking the drug for his heart and Carl knew it, we have the proof we need that Carl replaced his pills with a higher dosage, which could have killed him.”

“The coroner will still have the dead man’s vial in his case file. We can get it as well.” Jack smiles. “Not exactly a slam dunk, but with your testimony, Roger, it certainly looks that way.”

The night manager sighs his relief. “I truly liked Charlotte. When she mentioned her suspicions, I didn’t take her seriously. If I had, perhaps I could have saved her life.” He rises to his feet. “I’m sure I’ve missed the hunt scene, but so be it. It’s all fantasy anyway, isn’t it? The real world spills real blood.”

We shake hands with him, but we let him leave first.

Jack places his hand over mine, which holds the plastic bag. “This is it—the last piece of the puzzle.”

It’s bad luck to presume we’re out of the woods just yet, so I shush him with a kiss.

He’s taking his sweet time disentangling himself from it. Fine by me.

Finally, I say, “I guess we should see what’s happening at the hunt, too.”

We’re just a few miles from town when I realize we’re not the only ones who are heading toward Castle Drogo. An ambulance, and several police cars pass us.

Not a good sign.

When we pull into the grounds of the estate, Jack runs up to a constable, who is trying to keep the crowd at bay. “What’s all the fuss?” he asks.

“An accidental shooting, I’m afraid—one of the young lasses involved in the production. She wasn’t in the scene proper, but apparently she was hit by a stray shot.”

There are only two ‘young lasses’ in the production—Mary and Rachel.

“But the actors weren’t using real bullets,” Jack reasons.

The constable shrugs. “Sadly, in this case, they were quite real.”

As I race up the lane to the castle’s grounds, my heart pounds in my chest. It could be from exertion, but more than likely I’ll die from the dread that comes with realizing I’ve lost my daughter.

I pray to God to let me live at least until I get the chance to hold her in my arms one more time.

Chapter 13

The Kids Are All Right

“It's hard enough to open your heart in this world. Don't make it harder.”

—Mark Ruffalo, as “Paul”

Imagine this:

You’re all dolled up in some bazillion-dollar gown, which was lent to you by a fashion designer, whose couture is reminiscent of the dresses worn, back in the day, by your favorite Barbie. How sweet is that?

You can tell the Academy of Arts and Sciences is about to announce the winner in the category in which you’ve been nominated because, suddenly, one of the eight live cameras roaming the Dolby Theatre is focused on you!

Immediately, you follow the lead of your competitors: you open your eyes wide, lick your lips, and turn up the star wattage on your smile.

You’re also praying that you (a) don’t break your beloved’s wrist by holding it too tightly as you wait for your name to be called; (b) don’t cry if your name isn’t called, but smile valiantly and clap with some semblance of sincerity for the bitch who beat you; and if you win (c) you don’t shout out some expletive, or trip on the hem of your much-too-expensive Barbie-worthy gown as you gallop to the stage, and (d) that you remember your well-practiced acceptance speech.

Let’s just pretend you’ve won, okay? Here’s the order in which you should thank all the little people who made you who you are today: (1) the Powers that Be (2) the film’s producers, (3) the studio distributing the film, (4) your agent, (5) your make-up and hairdresser (6) your mother, wherever she is—hopefully, not stuck in the ladies’ room— and (7) your significant other.

Should you forget any of the above, only one person on that list will forgive you. Sorry, if you can’t figure out who I mean, you deserve the obscurity that will eventually come your way because of this one brain fart.

I’ll give you one clue: it isn’t your mother.

Now, go enjoy your hard-earned fame.

My daughter lays prostrate, face down on the ground in the mossy alcove beneath a tall tree.

Everything moves in slow motion: the wind, wafting through the branches above us; the clouds sitting low in the sky, dark and engorged; and the crowd hovering just beyond the tense ribbons of yellow police tape.

Those who seem to move the slowest of all are the paramedics working to revive a child, while those who pray hardest for her look on in horror.

Of course, I’m imagining this. In truth, all the life-saving maneuvers—chest pumping and oxygen masking and fluid infusion—are happening in real time.

Maybe if I heard something, anything, I could break the spell cast over me by this nightmare. But the ringing in my ears—the loud, shrill shriek—just won’t stop.

That’s okay. I’d much rather my precious Mary be in shock than have met with the fate of her dear friend Rachel, whose limp, dead body is the reason for my daughter’s pain.

I wrap my body over hers. My attempt to shield Mary physically may provide her some comfort, but there is nothing I can do to stand between my daughter and the vision of seeing her friend’s chest torn open by a bullet, or the memory that will linger for a lifetime of Rachel’s shock, and final realization, that her life is now behind her.

Over and over I whisper, “You’re safe, I promise, and I’m here for you…”

When she finally believes this is true, her screams end and she turns around so that I may cradle her in my arms.

“What is a ‘sci-fi’ movie?” Trisha asks.

“It’s about fun things that come from outer space,” Jeff explains. “Or sometimes it takes place in the future. Trust me, you’ll like it.”

She wrinkles her nose. “Will the aliens speak English?”

He sighs. “Of course, silly! And in British accents, too. Now, grab your rain coat. If we’re going to catch the opening scenes, we have to leave now.”

“Take an umbrella, too,” I warn them. “It’s starting to sprinkle.”

At my behest, Jeff is taking Trisha to the local movie house, just down the street. Unfortunately, it only has one screen, so slim pickings. The film was produced here in Great Britain, and is one the children haven’t seen. It isn’t a great choice for a six- and an eleven-year-old, but it’s better they be there than to see their sister like this.

“Who knows? Maybe it’s something Addison can adapt,” Jeff said. He isn’t just trying to make the best of his role as Trisha’s babysitter. He really means what he says.

I think he’s found his calling.

The local doctor left a sedative for Mary. I had to force her to take it, so that she’d calm down.

Aunt Phyllis is in Mary’s room, watching over her as she sleeps. My daughter cried until the sedative kicked in. Her shock over Rachel’s death came out in self-loathing and blame. She was no more than a couple of yards from Rachel when the bullet hit her friend.

“Why am I still alive, when she’s dead?” she asked herself, over and over.

I wait until Jeff and Trisha walk out the front door, and I’ve closed the door to Mary’s room before asking Jack, “How is Addison handling this?”

“After he met with the police, he went back to his cottage in order to call Rachel’s family, to break the news.” Jack looks at his watch. “It’s just now daybreak, Pacific Time.”

“I don’t envy him the task. As for her parents…” My voice trails off.

Jack puts his arm around my waist. He knows what I’m thinking—no parent wants to go through the horror of hearing the news of his or her child’s death.

“I’m sure Addison is weighing the consequences of her death on the picture’s viability,” Jack brushes my forehead with his lips. Does he feel me trembling? He must because he holds me tighter, as if he’ll never let me go.

That would be fine with me.

“Since all of Rachel’s scenes were completed as of yesterday, no rewrites are needed, so it won’t affect the production schedule,” I reason out loud. “And, as odd as it seems, her devoted fans will want to see her final project, if only to connect with her one last time. I can see why. She was luminous on the big screen. It’s a shame she never fulfilled her potential.”

“Sebastian wrote a great script, and Whitford knows what he’s doing with it. But you’re right. As far as the cast is concerned, the only reason to see this movie is because of Rachel.” Jack shrugs. “Right now, the biggest issue facing the production is the stance of its insurance underwriters. Between the explosion in Venezuela that took the lives of the two stunt doubles and now a featured actor’s death on the set, the underwriter may have all the reason it needs to pull the plug on the production.” He takes his cell phone out of his pocket. “Speaking of which, I should check in with Arnie. He’s still at the crime scene, assessing it with the police.” A moment later, he’s murmuring instructions to Arnie.

When he hangs up, he turns back to me. “Chad and Whitford have released all the firearms to the investigators, as have the hunt club members who played extras and were allowed to use their personal guns. The Special Effects crew insists each and every gun, both real and props, was checked and double-checked to assure the ammunition in the chamber was only blanks.”