Lisa Gardner: The 7th Month

Donnie worked his way around the fake fog again. He led her to a large enclosed tent, like the kind used for weddings. An open flap had been tied back to serve as the entrance. He ducked in, muttering, “Welcome to the green room.”

The green room wasn’t green. Just a white tent. Half a dozen brown metal folding chairs had been set up on the ground. A long card table held a collection of snacks and various drinks, including an urn filled with hot coffee.

Three people currently sat in the chairs. One male, two females. All approximately thirty to forty years of age. The man was dressed in dark slacks, a blue collared shirt and light brown jacket that didn’t completely cover the very large sidearm holstered at his right hip. The dark-haired woman was similarly garbed-wardrobe’s equivalent of a detective’s costume, D.D. determined. The other female, a thin, knockout blonde, wore all black and was hard to see in the shadows between the hanging lights.

“Gary Masters?” D.D. asked the man, assuming he was the male lead.

“Don’t I wish. Joe Talte. Stand-in.” He rose, shook her hand. He was wearing black leather gloves. Because it was cold? Maybe.

“Stand-in?” D.D. quizzed.

Don did the honors. “This is Joe, Melissa, and Natalie. They’re the stand-ins for the three leads. Meaning, they’ll go on set first, taking up position on the markers so that the lighting and camera crews can make their final adjustments before shooting begins.”

“But you’re in costume.” D.D. stated the obvious.

Joe smiled at her. He had a good smile, charismatic, like an actor. With his short cropped sandy brown hair, strong tanned face, and bright blue eyes, he definitely looked enough like a cop to play one on TV. “Our wardrobe needs to be consistent with the actors’ outfits to assist with lighting,” he explained to her. “If I was wearing a black jacket, for example, that would bounce light differently than a tan one. So in the end, it’s easier to dress consistently; otherwise the crew can’t get their job done.”

“But the gun?” D.D. peered at it closely. One of the largest, craziest sidearms she’d ever seen.

“From props,” he assured her. “Does it make me look tough? ’Cause that’s the idea.”

“Total badass.”

He smiled again. Grinned really. Took her all in, even the enormous rounded belly, and poured on the charm. Joe Talte, D.D. decided, was a dangerous man.

“So you’re like understudies for the stars,” D.D. tried out. “Do you like it?”

All three immediately nodded.

“We get a lot of time in front of the director,” said Melissa, the brunette dressed as a detective. “Not to mention the experience of making a feature film. You never know. Stand-in today…”

“Star tomorrow,” Natalie, the gorgeous blonde, finished for her. She trilled the word “star” in a way that indicated she’d practiced it before. Many times, D.D. would guess, probably while standing in front of her dresser mirror.

“I play the victim that gets away,” Natalie continued, gesturing to her tightly fitted black dress, with matching hose and, of course, three-inch stilettos. “Tonight’s the scene where my character, the widow Deborah, first visits her husband’s grave to leave a red rose-it’s their anniversary. Except the Gravestone Killer attacks. She barely gets away.”

Natalie tossed back her wavy blond hair as if to emphasize the drama of her narrow escape. Getting into character, D.D. figured, but already she had a feeling the thin, elegant blonde was the naturally dramatic type.

“That’s scene one,” Don reported, from the doorway. “What they’re setting up now.”

“Later in the movie,” Joe picked up, “the cops”-he gestured to himself and the other stand-in, Melissa-“decide to bait the Gravestone Killer by having Deborah return to her husband’s grave. That’s scene thirty-two, which we’ll film after scene one.”

“Scene thirty-two?” D.D. asked. “Of how many scenes?”

“A hundred and eighty-nine.”

“Meaning baiting the killer obviously doesn’t work. What goes wrong?”

Joe grinned at her. “You’ll have to stick around to find out.”

She rolled her eyes. D.D. had done some digging into Donnie’s production company. She knew that the film had started shooting three weeks ago and that Chaibongsai had received one paycheck for two weeks of work. Meaning the cast and crew had had three weeks to get to know one another, form friendships, and, apparently, make enemies. Given that Samuel had been hired to help primarily with the male lead, she decided to quiz Joe first on Chaibongsai’s involvement.

“You work with the cop consultant?” she asked him.

“Chaibongsai? Nope. I’m just a stand-in. Authenticity is above my pay grade. He worked directly with Gary.”

“What about hanging around on set?”

“His territory was video village. The promised land. Again, we’re second team. We’re lucky to get the green room.”

“Meals?”

“Cast and crew eat together,” Joe granted. “But people are staggering in and out over the course of an hour, depending on their schedules. I sat next to Chaibongsai once. That was it.”

“You local?” she asked him, then stretched out the question to include Melissa and Natalie as well.

As a unit, they nodded.

“What about others on set?”

“Lighting and electrical,” Don spoke up. “Some of the production crew, including PAs. Craft services, hair and makeup. But most of the cast and crew flew in for the shoot. The director, Ron, has his own camera crew out of L.A., sound is from New Orleans, wardrobe from New York. Not sure about the rest.”

D.D. looked at him. “Where’s everyone staying?”

“A hotel in Boston that gives us a group rate.” Donnie shrugged. “It’s why we’re working such long hours. Cast and crew are here to get this done, then everyone goes home again.”

D.D. nodded, frowning slightly to herself. A suspect pool from all over made life trickier. Who had Chaibongsai gotten close to in the past three weeks, and how had that led to his death?

A new person entered the tent, headset clamped over his ears. “Second team, on set,” the kid announced, and all three stand-ins rose. “New shoot schedule: We’re starting with scene thirty-two, then scene one.”

Donnie immediately appeared annoyed, hustling over to the kid. “Why the change?”

“Stephanie’s running late.” The production assistant shrugged his shoulders. “Scene thirty-two starts with the detectives in action, so easiest to go there first. But director also wants Natalie, so we can work out lighting on the tombstone.”

Stephanie must be the actress playing the widow, D.D. deduced. She made a mental note. One actress late to set. Just a movie star being a movie star… or related to the murder?

The change in scene order didn’t seem to be a big deal, at least not to the stand-ins. Joe and Melissa shrugged, while Natalie seemed genuinely thrilled to be assisting with the lighting of a tombstone. Go figure, D.D. thought.

D.D. followed Donnie out of the green room to a brightly lit area containing a towering Styrofoam-carved tombstone and carpets of fake fog. Joe and Melissa took up positions behind real tombstones, detectives on the job. Natalie, as the widow, sank to her knees in front of the gray-painted foam masterpiece, her fingers coming to rest on a single red rose.

Tendrils of fake fog immediately enveloped her, and this time, even D.D. shivered.

Joe, Melissa, and Natalie started rehearsing the scene. Donnie led D.D. to video village, where they could watch the action live on camera. First thing D.D. noticed was that the stand-ins didn’t just hit marks, but delivered their lines with genuine inflection and emotion. Natalie in particular was very convincing as the young widow, grieving her husband’s tragic death without ever saying a word.