Director's Cut (10 page)

“I have a question,” Fred said, rising. “I read the paper this morning, and there was nothing in it about Turner's accident.”

“I don't know for sure,” I said, “but my guess is that the paper had already been put to bed. By the time Doug was found and the paper learned of it, the presses would have been rolling.”

“That makes sense,” Fred said.

“All right, folks,” I said. “Let's learn what we can as fast as we can.” I shifted to see Tess better. “Tess, I need you to work with Fred on this. I'm going to accept your offer to handle the media. Don't spin anything. At the moment we don't know enough to spin anything.”

She softened and nodded. Tess was as smart as they come, and despite her sometimes prickly personality and hair-trigger temper, she could assess a situation faster than anyone I knew. From the look she gave me, I could tell she understood what else I was doing. I was giving her more “face time” with the media. There was no secret that she wanted to sit in the mayor's seat. It was one reason she took the appointment as deputy mayor. “Deputy mayor” looks better on a ballot than “council member.” If I won the congressional seat, then she would become acting mayor and make a run for the job. If I lost the campaign, then she remained deputy mayor and would take me on in the next citywide election.

My office emptied, and I felt the sudden cold of being alone. Yesterday I shared a pool with a murder victim; today, a respected acquaintance lay in a coma after visiting the site of the murder. I had a feeling I would be facing my own media problems.

I glanced at the clock. It was time to pick Catherine up. I grabbed my purse and left the office behind.

C
atherine met me at the curb in front of my home. I had called her to tell her I was on my way. The unplanned meeting with Tess, Fred, and Russ, as well as some slower-than-usual traffic, had put me a few minutes behind. I pressed the car forward trying to make up for the lost minutes. I have a thing about arriving ahead of schedule. I hate being late even if it's just to drop someone off.

Before we could head to the Curtain Call, we had to swing by Catherine's home. The side trip would double the time, but it needed to be done. I worked my way to the freeway and proceeded north. The sun dropped diamonds on the undulating ocean. The Pacific is aptly named. Looking at it always gave me a sense of peace. No matter what happened around me, the ocean never changed. That was how I had come to think of God. My faith was still new, and I was still growing, having more to learn than I thought possible. Through the difficult and even life-threatening events in my life, God had been there, unaltered by the chaos that surrounded me. Like the ocean, he could change everything around him, and not be changed in the process. There was comfort in that.

We arrived at Catherine's home, and I pulled up the long drive. Hanging from one of the newly planted trees was a piece of yellow police ribbon, flapping in the gentle ocean breeze. Once it had cordoned off the area and marked it as the scene of a vicious crime, now it was just the detritus left behind by police investigators.

I parked on the driveway near the limo, still parked in the same spot as yesterday, and exited with Catherine. The dirt bore the countless footprints of policemen who had searched the grounds.

“The landscapers are scheduled to put down sod next week,” Catherine said. She seemed sad. The bruised ground, along with the tape remnant, was a reminder of what she had experienced the day before.

“It will be beautiful when it's done.” I hoped the kind words would be salubrious words.

She tested the door and found it locked. At least West and his team locked up after leaving. Catherine punched in her code on the keypad and the same “thunk” I heard yesterday sounded again. We walked into the foyer. She stopped suddenly and looked around. Black smears were on the walls. Fingerprint powder. We walked into the living room and saw the same thing. They had gone over the house from top to bottom.

The curtains were still open and my eyes were drawn to the patio, terrace, and the pool I knew to be just out of sight. An arctic wind blew through me, and I tensed. It was all coming back in nauseating detail. I tried to force the memories from my mind.

“There's still police tape around the pool,” Catherine said. She had already started up the stairs and apparently was no more successful at not looking than I had been. I could see she had blanched as she gazed through the windows.

I walked up to meet her. From her position on the stairs we could see down to the pool. She was right. Several pieces of outdoor furniture had been moved close to the pool's edge and used as support for the tape.

“Why would they do that?” she asked.

I knew and felt worse for knowing. “Your chauffeur . . . bled in the pool. The pool will need to be cleaned. There are businesses that specialize in . . . residue cleanup. That's what the police call it. State law requires that the cleanup crew be certified.”

“I guess you have to know almost everything to be mayor,” Catherine said. “I would never have thought of it.”

I didn't tell her that I once had such a crew in my own home. “Let's get your script and get going.” She went upstairs as I descended, found the remote control that operated the drapes, and closed them. There was no need for Catherine to come home to that sight again.

I waited. I heard a door slam, then another. Catherine appeared at the top of the stairway. “I can't find it. I know I left it in my bedroom, but it's not there.”

“Did you check the other rooms?”

“Yes, but it's not there. Since they're empty, I had no reason to put it there. I've even checked the bathroom. It's gone.”

She scampered down the stairs and searched the lower floor. A few minutes later she came back empty-handed.

“Nothing?” I asked.

“I don't understand. I have a place in my bedroom where I keep it. I know it was on the nightstand when I left for rehearsal yesterday morning.”

“Did you take it with you? Could you have left it in the limo?” I sounded like my mother. When I was young and lost something, Mother always started a litany of possible places I could have misplaced it. It annoyed me then. Now I was annoying myself.

Catherine thought for a moment, then said, “No. I didn't take it with me.”

“Would Ed have moved it? Maybe he planned to bring it to you when he picked you up yesterday.”

She moved outside. I followed her to the parked limo and watched as she tried to open the rear passenger door. It was locked. She tried another door but with the same result. I approached as she rounded the vehicle. The tinted windows made it difficult to see in. Placing my hands to the window, I peered in and was able to make out the seats and a few other familiar items, but no script.

“The car is locked.”

I started to ask about the keys but thought better of it. Most likely, Ed Lowe had them on his person when he was shot and killed.

“I need that script.” She was coming unglued. I walked around the long, black car and placed my hands on her shoulders.

“Can you get another one?”

She nodded. “Yes. I can call and the studio will send out another, but they won't be happy.”

“Things get lost. They'll understand.”

“No, you don't get it. Scripts are secret. Producers and directors don't like the public getting their hands on early scripts. It can lead to all kinds of problems.”

“Okay, here's what we're going to do. You need to be at the Curtain Call pretty soon, so I'm taking you there. You focus on the play. I'll call Detective West and see if he or any of his people took the script. Perhaps they took it for some kind of evidence or something.” I was making it up as I went. “While I drive you to the theater, you can call your producer or director or whomever and ask them to send you a new one. They can email it to me if they want.”

“They won't email it, especially to a stranger. I'm telling you, Maddy, movie people are paranoid about these things. You should see the contract I had to sign, preventing me from revealing any thing about the movie, shooting schedule, actors, or anything else until they give me the go-ahead.”

“I'm sorry,” I said. “It's all I can think of to do right now.”

A sigh escaped her lips. “You're probably right. The police must have it. I can't think of what else could have happened to it.”

We locked up the house and started down the drive. As we did, a thought rose within me.
Would someone kill for that script?

When I reached the end of the driveway, I turned to my right.

“That's not the way we came,” Catherine said. She was searching her purse for her cell phone. I hoped that hadn't gone missing as well.

“I know. I'm taking a different way out. We'll end up on the freeway at about the same time. I should have you at the theater a few minutes early.”

“Okay.” She found her phone and began entering numbers. A few moments later, I heard her give her name and ask for Charles Buchanan. She sat in silence. I assumed she was on hold. Moments later, Catherine launched into the story about the missing script. I could only hear one side of the conversation, but I was able to glean that Buchanan was conciliatory and perhaps worried about Catherine's well-being. “I'm fine. Really, I'm fine.” She said that ten times if she said it once.

My mind began to wander. We had been driving for only five minutes when I pulled to the shoulder. Catherine gave me a funny look. I mouthed, “I'll be right back.” She continued her phone conversation as I slipped from the driver's seat.

I felt chilled despite the fact that it was a warm October day. Along the coast of Southern California, October isn't that much different from May. Days are shorter. Nighttime temperatures are a little lower. But that's it. My chill came not from a breeze but from what was before me. I walked toward a gray metal railing. Posts rose every six feet. The railing was shaped like a rounded W, attached to the posts by thick carriage bolts. The rail was separated from the uprights by a block of wood. The bolt traveled through the metal rail, wood block, and metal uprights. I peered at the back of the post. The bolt was attached with a large washer and a pair of metal nuts. With the right tools, it would be easy to remove the rail.

I walked a few feet farther along the road and stopped in front of three twisted and bent posts. Their rail was nowhere to be seen. Just beyond the posts, a steep, heavily planted slope shot downward. Some of the plants had been uprooted, and I could see gouges in the bare ground where something hard had impacted the earth.

This was where Doug Turner's car had plummeted off the road. The bent metal uprights had been unable to stop it. I shivered. It was a long way down Aberdeen Canyon. It was amazing that Doug was only in a coma and not dead.

I pulled myself away from the sight and walked back to the car. Catherine was off the phone.

“Why did you stop here?”

“A rail is missing,” I said. “I wanted to look at it.”

“Doesn't the city hire people to do that?”

“Yes, we do.” I started the car. “How did the call go? Are they sending a script up?”

“Yes, and a new driver. Since I have to be in Hollywood in the morning and back in time for opening night, they're sending a new chauffeur. The script and chauffeur will arrive by dinner tonight. They're going to meet me at the theater.”

“So I don't need to pick you up.”

“No. I'll be fine.”

“You're welcome to stay with me again.”

“Thank you, but I'll be okay . . .” She paused. “Okay, maybe one more night, but I have to leave early in the morning.”

“I rise pretty early. It won't be a problem. Dinner?”

She shook her head and her long raven hair shimmered in waves. “Remember? Harold is buying the cast dinner tonight. Do you want me to see if I can get you invited?”

“Sounds fun, but I still have some catching up to do. I'll wait up for you, and we can have hot chocolate or something.”

“Okay. I shouldn't be late. I need my sleep.”

Fifteen minutes later, I dropped Catherine at the front door of the Curtain Call theater.

Chapter 10

I
made it back to the office in time to gather and review my notes, making changes based on the business license information Floyd had compiled. The speech would be short, and then I'd entertain questions. I was to speak after lunch, which meant that I'd eat very little. Most public speakers forgo eating right before they speak. It cuts down on throat clearing and sleepiness. It was bad enough when the audience dozed off after lunch; it was unforgivable when the speaker did so.

On my drive from the office to the Ocean Green Country Club—a golf course with a meeting room large enough for the active members of the chamber—I kept noticing guardrails. Some were different than what I had seen a couple of hours before. The rails were wider, some fixed to wood posts instead of metal, and some higher. All my life, I had passed these low-lying barricades that line streets and freeways and had never taken notice of them. Now I couldn't stop thinking of them and when I did, I was immediately immersed in thoughts about the murder that took place at Catherine's and her missing script.

I forced my brain to change gears. I was about to speak to the business leaders of Santa Rita, and I needed to be at my best. Some of the people had contributed to my campaign for congress, others opposed my election. Some were CEOs of billion-dollar businesses, others were struggling mom-and-pop shops. All deserved a mayor who was prepared and had something to say.

As I pulled into the parking lot of the country club, I could see I should have left sooner. The lot was full. Either there was a major golf tournament I didn't know about, or I would be speaking to a packed house. I hoped for the latter. I found a spot at the far end of the lot, guided my Aviator into the stall, and marched across the pavement to the country club meeting hall.