Jill Churchill - A Knife to Remember

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."

“Anybody else who's already a property master would have their own and somebody like Butch, trying to break into the business, wouldn't have any money. Besides, I got the impression that a property master located props rather than owning a warehouse full of them."

“You're probably right. We're really hampered by knowing so little about the film business. Let's ignore Jake for the moment. What about Lynette?" Shelley suddenly laughed nervously. "Who would have thought, a week ago, that we'd be sitting here talking about Lynette Harwell as if she were somebody we actually knew!"

“To our sorrow," Jane said glumly. "Well, Lynette was probably loaded. George Abington told me that even bad roles often pay well and she has been working steadily on bad roles for a lot of years."

“Maybe poor old Olive killed her for her money," Shelley offered.

“Are you kidding? Lynette took her for granted. I'll bet she didn't even pay her a decent salary. I can't imagine her making Olive her heir.”

Shelley nodded. "That would be like making a carpet your heir, wouldn't it. Lynette seemed to take all that adoration as her just due. What about Lynette's family? Maybe somebody on the set is a long-lost brother."

“George said she came from a rich, social background. Well, that's how she got Olive. She started out as Lynette's nanny. I imagine the rest of the family is well off."

“New motive. Ambition?”

Jane waved this away. "The movie is almost done. How could killing either of them further anybody's career?"

“This movie is almost done. But what about the next one? I wonder if Mel could find out if either of them was contracted for a job after this.”

Jane sipped her coffee and thought about this. "Possibly. That makes me think of Jennifer Fortin."

“Me, too."

“Maisie said she was supposed to have wanted this role badly. Maybe Lynette had another good role coming up that she beat Jennifer out of? When Jennifer saw or heard what a great job Lynette did on that last scene, she might have felt she had to clear her out of the way or she'd never have a chance. They look somewhat alike. They're about the same age, and each has one Oscar for agreat performance. Maybe the way Jennifer saw it there were certain roles that either of them could play and Lynette was going to get them all from here on."

“That's all perfectly logical, but I don't buy it," Shelley said.

“No, me neither," Jane admitted. "Oh! The brownies!”

When the kids had come and gone, stuffed to the gills with starch and chocolate, Jane said, "I'm still puzzling over the mysterious producers."

“Not again! Jane, why do you keep coming back to that?"

“I don't know. It just seems like it ought to be important. And I have that peculiar feeling that I know something that I don't know I know. Something Katie said when she was making up stories about those clothespin dolls made it come to mind. I wish I could remember what she was talking about at the time."

“Maybe you're right," Shelley said. "There must be a huge amount of money involved in making a movie. And money can be a good motive for murder. As good, or rather, as bad as any other." She glanced at her watch. "Oh! It's after ten! Paul will think I've run away from home."

“Paul's back?"

“Just this evening. Watch me to my door, will you?”

As Shelley opened her kitchen door and waved at Jane, she called out, "Think about those dolls when you go to sleep. Maybe your subconscious will work on itfor you."