Laura Lippman - Another Thing to Fall

Whereas, I’m smart enough to know exactly how unhappy I am .

His Treo, set to silent, vibrated on the table, and he glanced at the caller ID. Lottie. No way, no how . Flip was to have told her that Ben was off the reservation, trying to figure out how to beef up the Betsy part in episode 107, per the network’s notes. He may have stayed up until three, waiting for Selene to visit as she had promised, but he had been awake by nine and out the door by ten, at his table in Starbucks by ten-fifteen, a very good boy, and he had actually… gotten nothing done. But he was trying. He had parked his ass in the chair and he had his computer open and he wasn’t checking e-mail or voice mail or surfing the Internet. The phone chirped angrily, indicating he had a message, then began vibrating again. Lottie. And again. Lottie. About the fourth time, he decided to pick up, choosing to take the offensive before she could start haranguing him.

“I’m writing, Lottie. Don’t you remember? Flip’s orders. I’m trying to figure out how to add some scenes without losing some key beats, or else the final episode is going to be overstuffed with exposition. For every beat that goes in, one has to come out and-”

“Greer’s dead,” she said. “Killed at our offices, so we’re canceling the shoot today and I’m reworking the schedule accordingly. We’ll probably have to shoot Saturday to make up for it. I assumed you’d want to know.”

He thought, but couldn’t be sure, that he stammered out the appropriate questions – what, how, when ? Lottie replied as if he had.

“She was beaten to death, last night or early this morning. The police want to interview anyone who had access to the office after hours, by the way, so they have your name.”

“I was in my room all night.”

“Jesus, Ben, no one’s suggesting you’re a suspect. Calm down. I just wanted to give you a heads-up that I gave this number to a Baltimore city homicide detective, Tull. If you see a three-nine-six prefix on your phone, take the call, okay?”

The last was laced with meaning, Lottie reminding Ben that she knew he didn’t take most of his calls.

“Sure, of course, whatever they need. Do they… know anything?”

“Not really. I know they’re going to be looking at her fiancé.”

“She was having problems with him.” Shit, why had he said that? Why would Ben know the state of Greer’s love life? What did it matter what Lottie thought? What mattered was what the police knew, or might find out.

“Really? I mean, I knew they were on and off, but she still had the ring.” There was a silence, as if Lottie might be mulling her words, wondering if things might be different if Greer had felt free to confide her problems to someone. “Well, that’s the kind of thing the police will want to know, I guess.”

“It’s so… awful.”

“You have no idea. I’ve been working in this business all my life, Ben, and I’ve probably seen every variety of murder there is in film. They all looked real to me, or real enough. But nothing I ever saw compares to…”

Her voice broke, and Ben was almost persuaded for a moment that Lottie was human, capable of normal emotion. But she quickly undercut that impression when she added: “So it’s a day off for crew but not for us. You, Flip, and I are having a working dinner tonight, and you should have the new beat sheet, so Flip can go over it.”

“So Flip can flip it, work his flippin’ magic?”

“Right.” She hung up without wasting time on pleasantries she didn’t mean. Lottie may have seen a dead body this morning, but the show must go on.

He stared at the computer screen in front of him, the few words that he had managed to peck out a jumble to him. Greer dead. Why? Let it be the fiancé , he found himself praying. Or a burglar, who didn’t expect to find someone in the office that late. Let it be something that leads them away from the set and the production. Not that it mattered. He had an alibi.

Alone in his room.

Waiting for Selene.

Who had told him to wait for her there, who had promised that she would slip away from her babysitter, somehow, some way.

He got back in line for another mocha, this one with two extra shots. It took so long for the guy in front of him to order that Ben almost began to shake.

“You must really like coffee,” the barista observed. She was young and well cushioned – fat by California ’s standards, but normal for Baltimore, and the extra weight gave her face a sweet roundness, true apple cheeks. She reminded him of someone.

She reminded him of Greer, the way she had been when she first started working in the office, so sweet and helpful, happy to do anything she was asked.

“You can’t possibly believe that Selene has anything to do with Greer’s death,” Tess said.

“I agree,” Flip said in a loud clear voice, casting a nervous look at the waiter. “That plot point wouldn’t work at all in Mann of Steel . But I thought it might solve some things in the final episode, which is why I threw it out there. Could you bring us a bottle of the white Burgundy?”

“We have several. Did you want-”

“Just any decent white Burgundy. I leave it to you.”

The waiter gone, Flip dropped the plummy tone. “Let’s try to be a little discreet, okay?”

“It’s Baltimore, Flip. It’s not like the waiters have the National Enquirer on speed-dial. Read it, yes; tip it off, no. Waiters here are just… waiters. Not aspiring actors.”

Flip, unconvinced, studied their surroundings. The Wine Market on Fort Avenue was Baltimore hip, a mere five or six years behind the decorating curve – brick walls, exposed pipes threading the high ceilings, maple furniture. Tess forgave its derivative look because the food was good and the wine a bargain, sold at only 10 percent above retail.

“I was surprised that the police let me leave the scene without giving a statement,” he said. “Your doing?”

“Luck of the draw,” Tess said. “If anyone other than Tull had been the primary, we’d all be down on Fayette Street right now. Tull trusts me to bring you in later for a more detailed debriefing. Relatively sober,” she added, after watching Flip chug the Burgundy that the waiter had left in an ice bucket.

“Don’t worry, this is just going to restore my equilibrium. Did you-”

“See her? No, fortunately. It sounds as if it was particularly… unsettling.”

“I’ve never seen Lottie that upset about anything, ” Flip said. “I didn’t know she could get upset. The joke on Mann of Steel is that she’s the Woman of Steel, an absolute ice queen. We’re all a little terrified of her.”

Lottie was not the woman who interested Tess just now. She broke off a piece of bread and swished it through the little dish of olive oil and peppers. “And Selene? What kind of emotions does she engender?”

Flip let loose a sigh so long that it was almost a whistle. “Satanic spawn. A total nightmare. God, I wish the network would let us write her out of the show after the first season, have Mann continue on without Betsy Patterson.”

“And lose the whole blue-blood-meets-blue-collar thing? I thought that was the concept that made this whole thing go .”

She didn’t quite achieve the sincere tone she was trying for.

“Are you this obnoxious to all the people who hire you, or do you sometimes manage to fake enthusiasm for their enterprises?”

“It’s the nature of my business to work for people with different tastes, values. Essential, even. I wouldn’t work at all if I had to be gung ho about all my clients’ professional lives.”