Part 7 (1/2)
”It's all over the TV. I discovered her body. You can go into the kitchen and learn all about it. I'm still going to bed.”
”You found her body?” Confused, he ran his large hands through his red unruly hair. ”How well did you know her?”
”You don't need to know someone well to find their corpse. We were working together on a movie, that's all. We talked alone in her trailer yesterday evening.”
”What about?”
”She couldn't remember her lines. Why? Did you know her?”
”This'll bring her father down here.” He edged crablike back out onto the deck and toward the stairs.
”You know Jenny's father?” I followed after him.
”In a way.” He loped down the steps to the common pathway.
”In what way?” I yelled after him.
”I owe him money.” He ran up his steps and disappeared inside his house.
My landline rang. Closing and locking the sliding doors, I answered it.
”Don't you ever answer your cell?” Zaitlin bellowed.
”I turned it off.”
”You're all over the television holding your mother's ashes, for G.o.d's sake.”
”I know. I think it was the doorman who took ...”
”Our insecure star, Jake Jackson, is chewing my a.s.s out about it. He asked me if you'd gone f.u.c.king nuts.” Before I could respond, Zaitlin continued, ”I'm sending a car for you tomorrow at eleven in the morning. Jackson wants a meeting to discuss if we go forward with the movie or not. And he wants to make sure you're okay.”
”In what way?”
”'Okay' as in not f.u.c.king nutso.”
”You know I'm not. And why a car? You think I'm so crazy I can't drive?”
”In case there are reporters outside your house. I don't want any more mistakes, Diana.”
”Mistakes? You mean like finding Jenny Parson in a garbage truck?” I was yelling now.
”No, I mean your reaction to it.”
”If you had done your job as producer I wouldn't have been put in this position.”
”All right. Let's calm down. We're all on edge. Just don't bring your mother to the meeting.” He hung up.
I slammed the phone down and stared at the urn dominating the mantel. The cherry wood looked substantial. Her nameplate shone. Maybe I should unpack her Oscar for Best Actress in a Starring Role and put it up there. Except I wasn't sure where it was stored. I wasn't sure where anything or anyone was.
In bed, I took a sleeping pill and turned out the light. The TV flickered a bad black-and-white film. They weren't all great.
I thought about Ryan owing Jenny's father money. He didn't ask how Jenny was murdered. Nor did Celia. n.o.body seemed interested in how she died or why. Except Ben. And why would the head of a security firm, a fixer, use an alias to look at Bella Casa? And then there was Beth Woods, our director, who thought Jenny was evil. Why did she think that?
My mind wandered to tomorrow's meeting with Jake Jackson. He had star power and an image to protect, a dangerous combination. Was he going to kill the movie? Or just kill me by recasting my part when they recast Jenny's? One way or another we were all in danger. Somehow. I reached out my hand to the empty side of the bed. It was a futile attempt for comfort.
The sound of a woman screaming bolted me out of my sleep. My heart leaping, I blinked at the TV. Joan Crawford, her mouth opened so wide you could park a truck in it, was screaming herself into a nervous breakdown. I didn't blame her.
CHAPTER ELEVEN.
By nine o'clock in the morning, the fame suckers were gathering outside my house. Cameramen and reporters with microphones were focused on my front door with all the intensity of a group of sharpshooters. On the ocean side, a few photographers took pictures of my rotting deck and yelled for me to come out and talk to them about Jenny Parson. I ran around pulling shades and curtains.
In the kitchen I drank my coffee and ate my breakfast huddled low over the table so they couldn't get a good shot of me through the window above the sink. The onslaught brought back all the old fears I'd experienced with my mother as we were rushed through hotel kitchens to avoid the paparazzi that always waited for her. Instead of feeling special, I had felt trapped and vowed never to live like that. Yet here I was, not because I was one h.e.l.l of an actress, but because I'd discovered a dead one. And the fame suckers wanted a piece of that.
The limo driver whom Zaitlin had ordered to pick me up at eleven arrived thirty minutes early. When I looked out my peephole, he yelled above the pandemonium that he was here to get me. Letting him into the house, I slammed the door before they could take a picture.
”I'm Gerald, ma'am.” He was a big guy with dyed brown hair.
”Wait here.” Before he could answer, I left him standing.
In my bedroom, I gulped more coffee and put on makeup with a shaky hand. Then I struggled into my LBD (little black dress), which I thought would make me look less ”nutso” to Jake Jackson. Slipping into high black heels, I ran around trying to find my cell phone. It was in my purse. Grabbing a short gray leather jacket (a little edge always helps in Hollywood), I hurried into the hallway.
The driver came to attention.
”I'm ready, I think,” I said.
”Do you want me to hold your jacket up in front of your face or anything?”
”I'm not a suspect. Let's just get to the car as fast as we can.”
”It's parked about fifteen houses down. I couldn't get any closer, sorry.” He put his hand on the doork.n.o.b. ”Ready?”
”As I'll ever be.” I slapped on my sungla.s.ses.
But you are never ready. Reporters with mikes rushed at me, mouths flapping, screaming questions. I could smell their rancid coffee breath and the sweat of the paparazzi, which was permanently distilled into the zip-up jackets they wore.
”Diana! Did you see her die?” shouted one man.
”How close were you and Jenny?” added another.
”Will her death hurt the movie?” a third bellowed.
”Did you kill her?” a woman called out.
Lights flashed. Video cameras crushed in on me. I dipped my head, trying to turn away from the prodding lenses.