A Knife to Remember

Finally he said, 'So do I. Agree with Shelley, that is. There's no proof in the world — yet — but my instinct tells me somebody killed her.”

19

“They have to be connected,' Shelley said when Mel had gone back outside to oversee the police examination of the dressing room trailer. 'Two people in the same production don't get killed for entirely different reasons by different people.'

“How do we know that? I mean it, Shelley. There are more than a hundred people out there every day. Any six of them could be potential mass murderers.'

“You're suggesting that six out of a hundred is some kind of national average? You know perfectly well you don't believe that.'

“I didn't say I believed it. But it is possible.'

“But it's more probable that it's one person.'

“As far as I'm concerned, they can all kill each other off, so long as they go away. Sorry. I don't mean it. But I do wish they'd go away.'.

“Jane, you're not thinking very clearly here. They're supposed to be finished tomorrow afternoon and have a wrap party tomorrow night—'

“Surely they'll call that off.'

“Want to bet?'

“No, I don't think so. But what difference does it make?'

“Jane, Mel could be tied up investigating this thing for months! He can't keep the whole production in town. They're going to scatter like milkweed fluff by Saturday morning.'

“Oh. I see what you mean. My weekend with him might be sometime next year.'

“Right. And what you said about understanding their motives is dead-on, if you'll excuse the phrase. He looks on all those people as 'foreigners.' Almost 'aliens.' You and I don't understand them a whole lot better, but we're not thrown for quite such a loop as he is.'

“I don't know, Shelley. I'd really rather stay out of it, I think. The police can't keep Mel chained to his desk forever.'

“Jane…' Shelley began in a strained voice. 'You can't stay out of this.'

“I certainly can. I'm not terminally nosy, you know.'

“That's not what I meant, exactly.”

Jane picked up the now empty coffee carafe and started rinsing it out. 'What do you mean?' She put a hearty scoop of coffee into the basket.

Shelley didn't answer right away. 'Well — I don't quite know how to say this, but there's something you're overlooking.'

“Probably dozens of things, but what did you have in mind?' Jane poured cold water in the coffeemaker and pushed the button to start it brewing before she sat back down across from Shelley at the kitchen table.

“Jane, sooner or later — God, I hate to say this! Sooner or later Mel is going to question everyone about every conversation they heard Lynette Harwell have on this set.”

A faint alarm bell went off in the dim recesses of Jane's mind. 'Yes?' she said warily.

“And one of her more 'public' conversations was with you and your son about her having had an affair with your husband. Lots of people might have overheard it. You and Mike both went off obviously upset, I assume. All of that is going to be in the record, from interviews with other people.”

Jane gulped. 'But. . but. .' she sputtered. 'I already told him all about it. And about Steve's leaving me. It's got nothing to do with all this.'

“Before Lynette was murdered it didn't. But now it's theoretical motive for you to kill her. She did something awful to your child. Told him something you didn't want him to know.'

“Mel wouldn't suspect me!'

“Mel-the-guy-you're-dating wouldn't suspect you, but I'm not talking about that person. Detective Mel Van Dyne would have to. At least 'officially.' Now, he'd be hard-pressed to take off a couple extra days to jaunt off with a suspect in an unsolved case.'

“But nobody who knows me could think—'

“It's not a question of people who know you. It's the people who don't. Like Mel's boss, whoever that is.'

“Oh, hell,' Jane murmured. 'You're right.' 'What's the matter, Mom?' Todd said from the doorway.

Jane smiled automatically. 'Nothing at all, honey.'

“You got any more of those brownies?'

“I've got another package of mix, if you can wait about twenty minutes,' she said. 'I'll call you when they're ready.”

She flung together a bowl of brownie mix while saying to Shelley, 'Okay, let's think sensibly about this. General to the specific, I believe. So, what's a good reason for murdering somebody?'

“There isn't one.'

“Not to us. But in theory.'

“Okay. Greed comes to mind. Hate. Revenge. Fear. Jealousy. Ambition—'

“Whoa! One at a time, so we can eliminate the most unlikely. Hold it.' She spritzed cooking oil on a glass baking dish and hastily dumped the mixture in. Once it was in the oven, she poured them fresh coffee and sat down.

“This is decaf, isn't it?' Shelley asked.

“Of course. If I drank the real stuff this late, I'd be cleaning the oven at four in the morning.'

“You can't fool me, Jane. You wouldn't clean an oven if somebody held a gun to your head.'

“Maybe not. Okay, I think we can eliminate hate as a motive.'

“You do? I'd have put it top on the list. They all seem to hate each other.'

“But that's just it. Hate and jealousy both seem natural to most of the people we've gotten to know out there. Cavagnari hates Lynette, so much so that he also hates George Abington for giving her up to him, but he literally works himself into a sweat directing her in a great performance. Lynette hates George Abington, but is convincingly madly in love with him when the camera is rolling. Everybody hates Jake, but speaks well of his particular skills. Likewise everybody seems to hate Lynette, but they fall down praising her when she gives a good performance. It looks to me like hate and jealousy are somehow natural parts of the process. Maybe even necessary parts. An element of emotional 'pumping up' or something.'

“Okay, I'll accept all that. Cross off garden-variety hatred. Tentatively. The one I'd eliminate is greed. At least in the case of the principal suspects. They must all have lots of money and I can't imagine how any of them would benefit from either Jake's death or Lynette's.'

“Theoretically Butch might have benefited by Jake's death,' Jane said.

“Not really. All Jake's props probably belong to his heir now. And that's not likely to be Butch. All Butch has from Jake is the credit that accrued to him from being assistant to a master. That's his whether Jake is alive or dead.'

“I don't think for a minute that Butch could have killed anybody, but just for the sake of argument, Jake could have been getting ready to fire him or bad-mouth him. I think we talked about this before. But supposing the same person murdered both of them, what possible reason could Butch have for getting rid of Lynette Harwell?'

“None that I can see,' Shelley agreed. 'The onetime I saw him speak to her, it was all 'yes, Miss Harwell, no, Miss Harwell, ma'am.' He all but held his hand over his heart and swooned because she'd deigned to speak to him.'

“So we can eliminate Butch?'

“I wish you'd stick to one method. We were talking about motives, not suspects. Check your brownies.”

Jane turned the pan around so it would cook evenly and sat back down. 'Okay, we were talking about greed. We have no idea who Jake's heir might be, unless it's Angela Smith.'

“I can't quite feature Angela giving up acting to be a property master. But she might have meant to sell the props to somebody.'