Behind the Seams

thought it was hard to tell for sure. The first thing she’d said when I got in the car was, “You don’t need to come. I’m not a baby.”

She was dressed in what seemed like a uniform for production assistants—worn jeans, a burgundy red tee shirt with a long-sleeved black flannel shirt layered over it. She had sneakers on her feet and a black-and-white bandana tied over her long brown hair, along with no makeup. As she drove, Nell kept telling me everyone was overreacting. “I’m not a person of interest or a suspect. How could I be? I had nothing to do with it.” I didn’t want to tell her that what she was saying was pretty much what most suspects said. Not that I believed she’d poisoned the sweetener, but I knew if she gave the “I had nothing to do with it” argument to the cops, it was likely to fall on deaf ears.

I took the opportunity to ask her a few questions about the sweetener. Where was it kept? Who knew it was there? How did Robyn get along with other people on the production staff? Nell fumed at first, but I explained I was on her side and she finally opened up.

“Robyn seemed to really have it in for me, but she was hard on all the production assistants. I think she figured she’d gone through it when she was a PA and now it was her turn to dish it out,” Nell said as we neared the studio entrance. “I just grabbed a packet out of her desk drawer. They’re shaped kind of weird, kind of like a pyramid. Robyn made such a big deal about only using Nature’s Sweetie. I think it was because it came from some plant grown in the Amazon and you can’t just buy it at any grocery store.” Nell shrugged. “The one I grabbed looked like all the others.”

Nell pulled into the driveway that led to the guard house and entrance. This felt more familiar to me. When I’d gone to any tapings with Charlie, we’d always parked inside the gated area and gone in through the backstage entrance. Nell slowed long enough to let the guard see her parking emblem hanging from the mirror and prepared to glide through, but he held his hand up for her to stop.

She did as requested and opened her window. “Hi, Hank,” she said to the uniformed guard. “What’s up?”

He muttered, “Sorry, miss,” as he reached in through the open window and took the dangling parking emblem. “Here’s a temporary one for today,” he said, writing the date on a card and handing it to her. “Hang it on your mirror.”

Nell started to protest, but he just put up his hands in a helpless gesture and said again that he was sorry. “It’s probably just standard policy, like if you go on vacation or something, that they take back your parking pass,” Nell said to me.

I just nodded in agreement. Of course, I knew it wasn’t true at all, but why make her feel worse. BOO productions had their own building within the Wolf Studio grounds. She parked close to the warehouselike building, and I followed her as she walked to a door on the side. She swiped a card and the door opened. Inside, there was a uniformed security woman sitting at a desk reading a book.

“She’s with me,” Nell said, jerking her thumb in my direction as we walked past. The woman set down the book and came from behind the desk, stopping our progress.

“Just hold on a moment,” she said in a friendly voice tinged with authority. She made a call on her walkie- talkie. Nell was ready to protest, but I gave her a discreet shake of my head to discourage her. Of course they weren’t going to let her wander around unescorted. A few moments later, a tall woman with short, dark hair approached us. She was only a few years older than Nell, but there was light-years of difference in their expressions and their clothes. Nell looked like she was dressed to go out and play. The woman’s clothes were what I’d call business casual. She wore black jeans, a white collared shirt not tucked in and topped with a jacket. Several layers of necklaces adorned her neck and a stack of silver bangles jangled on her wrist. I recognized Talia Canon immediately from the entertainment news show the night before, though I didn’t let on.

Nell greeted her and she responded with what seemed like forced friendliness. She looked at me, and I started to introduce myself, but she interrupted. “Are you a lawyer?”

“No, she’s not a lawyer,” Nell said vehemently. “Why would I have a lawyer? I didn’t do anything. Her name’s Molly Pink and she’s a friend of my—” She had an awkward moment and instead of adding aunt, slid the my into mine.

Talia gave me a dismissive nod in recognition. In person, Talia’s features were even sharper and more foxlike and there was a hardness to the set of her mouth.

As we began walking down the utilitarian corridor, Nell explained that Talia was an assistant producer, but Talia cleared her throat, and with a sideways glance, corrected her. “I was an assistant producer, but now I’m taking over for Robyn.” She must have realized she sounded a little too pleased about it and dropped her voice with a serious expression. “At least for now. Robyn was in the middle of working on several shows and they asked me to step in and take over for those.”

We passed a series of dressing rooms. Names had been written on placards and slid into holders on the doors. At the end of the corridor, we passed through a door and came out into a reception area. There was a door to the parking lot and a counter with a man and woman close to Nell’s age and experience behind it. The glass door to the outside opened and a man came in with a shopping bag and some boxes. “Who are these for?” the woman asked, picking up a clipboard. The delivery guy had already started to leave but came back and picked up each of the packages and read off the names on them.

“I might as well deliver them,” Nell said, reaching for the shopping bag. The couple behind the counter and Talia all froze and traded glances.

“No, they have it covered.” Talia took the handle of the bag out of Nell’s grasp and set it down before giving us an impatient wave to follow her as she crossed the lobby. A door on the other side led to the production offices. The corridor was identical to the one on the other side, but instead of dressing rooms, there were small offices on either side. Talia stopped in an open doorway. My eye went right to the remnant of yellow crime scene tape stuck to the door handle. The door had a name holder just the way the dressing room side had, but it appeared more permanent. The “Robyn Freed” sign had been made by some kind of machine instead of scribbled in marker. Above it, a cardboard strip had been taped with “Talia Canon” written in. It was pretty clear that the show went on no matter what.

“When they say leave of absence,” Nell said, “how long do you think they mean? Like maybe a few days but not more than a couple of weeks, right?” Talia didn’t respond but had us step into her office. I took the opportunity to look around, knowing this was probably going to be my only chance. Though between whatever the cops had taken and the fact that Talia seemed to have settled right in, I doubted there would be much to see. I noticed a brown cardboard box full of stuff in the corner. I wasn’t sure if the contents were on the way in or the way out.

The Average Joe’s Guide to Criminal Investigation said that investigating was really about talking to people. Though Talia was acting distant and cold, I figured she had a softer side somewhere. I’d found the best way to get through to even the toughest person was by being sympathetic.

“This must be hard for you,” I said to her in a friendly voice. “You must have mixed feelings. Happy for the promotion, but sad how it came about. Is that the dead woman’s stuff?” I vaguely pointed in the direction of the box.

Talia regarded me with interest as her expression opened a crack. “You’ve got that right,” she said. “I’ve been afraid to seem at all excited about my new position for fear people would take it wrong.” She was just talking to me now and seemed grateful to be able to express her feelings, though her version of soft was closer to hard than I’d hoped. “I mean, this is my big chance. I’ve had to step right in, but you have no idea how Robyn left things. There are just cryptic notes for the two shows she was working on. She kept everything under wraps.”

“It sounds like she was trying to protect her job,” I said, and Talia threw me a shrug, as if to say whatever. I wondered if Talia realized that she sounded more annoyed with Robyn than upset that she was dead. She gestured toward the box and finally acknowledged my question. “Yes, that’s Robyn’s stuff. I barely had time to clear her things out of my desk.”

“Is there any of the sweetener in there?” I said, trying to look into the brown shipping box.

Talia shook her head. “The cops took all of it.”

“But she kept it in here?” I asked, directing the question to both of them.

Nell nodded first. “She kept it in that drawer.” Nell leaned forward and yanked the drawer open. “I swear, I think she counted how many of those weird packets were in there every day. She kept going on about how expensive Nature’s Sweetie was and nobody was supposed to touch it except the production assistant who was