Jill Churchill - A Knife to Remember

“Or if she'd left the trailer for a minute," Mel added.

“But this foul-tasting tea would have been cold by that time."

“Longabach said she usually drank it lukewarm," Mel said. "That it hurt her teeth if it was hot."

“What about Butch? Where was he after five?" Jane asked.

“Same story. All over the place. Putting away props. Nobody was with him the whole time. He and the assistant went back and forth from the set to the prop trailer. Passed each other a couple times, but the same time element applies to him. He had his own car since he's local. He says he left the set at six. No real alibi."

“But Mel, I don't want Butch to be the murderer," Jane said.

“I'm sorry, but that's not exactly a consideration," Mel answered. "Since you two have been snooping, you might tell me what, if anything, you've learned. What are people talking about this morning?"

“About Lynette's death, mainly," Shelley said. "I guess you'll be glad to hear that most of the crew doesn't believe it was suicide either."

“Everybody's relieved that it didn't happen before the filming finished, naturally," Jane added. "More than relieved. They seem to be stuck in a groove about how ironic and fitting it was that she managed to give the performance of her life only hours before she died. The 'out in a blaze of glory' theme is getting a lot of play."

“Not very helpful." Mel glanced at his watch. "I've got to get back."

“What are you going to do next?" Shelley asked.

“God knows," he said glumly.

2 3

When Jane got home the cats were being so pathetic about their long incarceration that she decided to let them outside. So what if they wandered through a scene? It would just add a touch of realism, she decided.

She opened the kitchen door and Max streaked out like a lightning bolt, got about ten feet before he noticed the crowd, then whirled and streaked back. "You thought they'd gone?" she asked him. "Or had your little kitty brain forgotten that they were ever here? I wish I could forget this." She held the door open patiently while he made a second, more cautious exit with Meow creeping along behind him. They stretched their necks, taking in the unfamiliar smells for a bit before they headed for the foundation plantings and disappeared.

Butch Kowalski had been watching this performance and approached her. "Poor things," he said, smiling as Max reemerged briefly to arch his back for a pet. "I'll bet you'll all be glad to have your yard back to yourselves."

“It's not so much the yard as far as they're concerned. It's the field. That's their hunting ground.

They think they're wild cats when they're prowling out there."

“No cat food bushes, though. Well, it'll be trampled for a while, but all the equipment will be gone by tomorrow night. Some of it will be moved out by tonight. Are you coming to the wrap party?"

“Am I invited?" Jane asked to avoid giving a direct answer. The last thing in the world she wanted to do was draw out her relationship with most of these people. No, that wasn't fair, she chided herself. Some of them were quite likable. Butch, for one.

“Sure you're invited," Butch said. "I wish you'd come. It would be nice to have at least one friendly face there."

“What do you mean by that?"

“Come on. You've heard the gossip about me, haven't you? Everybody's treating me like Jack the Ripper. Sure, it was my boss who died, but I don't get anything out of it. I'd be stupid to off Jake. He was my paycheck. Besides — I really kinda liked the guy."

“You did?"

“I know. He was a real jerk about a lot of things. But he treated me good enough. Took me on when I didn't know shit about the business, and took a lot of time teaching me stuff. Everything I know was because of him. If it wasn't for him, I'd still be driving a delivery van with no damned future at all." His face was getting red.

“What's your future now, Butch?"

“I guess I gotta set out on my own. And it's not gonna be easy. I talked to Roberto — before Miss Harwell died — and he said he'd put me intouch with a guy who does a lot of commercials around here. I'm gonna have to start pretty well down the ladder on my own. No movies, but I might get commercial jobs and work back up to movies. Don't you see? If Jake was still alive, I could have gotten a lot more credits and contacts with the big-time people before I went on my own. I wouldn't kill him off. Mrs. Kowalski didn't raise no stupid kids."

“What about your medallion?" Jane decided to ask since Butch was being so frank.

He didn't seem surprised that she knew about the medallion. He assumed that everybody on the set knew about it, which was probably true. "I don't know! I just can't figure that. 1 had it in my pocket 'cause the chain busted. I got a free minute somewhere along the line, and I remember getting it out to see if I could fix it, but then somebody needed me for something and I guess I just put it down. I just can't remember. It wasn't important at the time."

“Was this yesterday?"

“I think so. I got the feeling it was in the morning sometime, but like I say, it wasn't that important and I'm not sure."

“And you were never in Miss Harwell's dressing room?"

“Are you kidding? A slob like me? Hanging around the likes of her?"

“Do you think somebody put it there on purpose to implicate you?"

“I dunno. Maybe. Or maybe she found it wherever I left it and just set it out meaning to ask whose it was and forgot. Or somebody else picked it up and left it there by accident. The police asked me all this and seemed real pissed that I didn't have any good ideas about it."

“Butch, I'm really sorry about this. It's not fair to you."

“Yeah, but Jake woulda said, 'You ain't got Fair in your contract.' He had a lot of stuff like that he said. I'm really gonna miss him. That's why it makes me so mad, people acting like I killed him. And then thinking I mighta done anything bad to Miss Harwell — that's crazy! Did you watch that scene yesterday?"

“Only from a distance."

“Well, let me tell you, she was—" he groped around, trying to come up with the right word, and finally produced one that surprised Jane. "Stunning. She was stunning."

“Let's sit down a minute, Butch. You haven't got a cigarette on you, have you? I left mine inside."

“God, no. I had to give up smoking when I started working for Jake."

“Oh, yeah. There's no worse crusader than an ex-smoker, is there?"

“What do you mean? Jake never smoked." "Oh? I thought he did—" something clicked in the back of Jane's brain.

“Naw, his mom died of lung cancer when he was a kid. He never smoked and never let anybody who worked for him smoke either."

“But why did I think—?"

“ Quiet on the set!" someone behind Jane bellowed.

At the same moment, the intern came plunging through between the pieces of scenery and said, "Butch—"

“ Rolling," the bullhorn announced.

The set was utterly silent. The intern froze in place and gestured to Butch. Butch responded with a quick movement of his fingers.

Jane put a hand over her mouth to keep from exclaiming. Hand signals! Signing! That's why she thought Jake was an ex-smoker. The way his hand kept fidgeting at lunch. But it wasn't nerves. It was signing! In complete silence, he'd been "talking" to someone.

The next couple of minutes seemed to last for hours. Jane's mind lurched and wheeled, circling memories, picking some, rejecting others, fitting pieces together, trying to make pieces fit that refused to.

“ Cut!”

Without another word to Butch, Jane leaped out of her lawn chair and sprinted to where she thought she'd seen Shelley standing a few minutes before. But Shelley was gone. "Maisie!" Jane said, spotting a familiar face. "Have you seen Shelley?"