Katherine Page - The Body in the Cast

“Yesterday was the Ides of March, you know," Marta commented in a voice filled with foreboding.

“Yes, but Sandra wasn't stabbed and we're not doing Shakespeare, Marta!" Max was annoyed. He looked angrily at Faith. "What is she doing on the set?”

Alan stepped forward and said something sotto voce to Max, who struggled with himself for a moment, then calmed down—the whole process vividly enacted on his face.

“Detective Dunne, I am sure you will understand that we need to get on with what we're doing here. I can't have a whole crew just sitting around on their hands. It gets to be very expensive. Producers don't like it, especially my producers."

“Of course I understand. As soon as we get word from the hospital, you can all get back to work." Dunne's tone suggested he liked movies as much as the next guy.

“But this could take hours!"

“I'm sorry. However, since there is the possibility that there was something in the cup that shouldn't have been, until we hear otherwise, we can't disturb the room." He waved his hand vaguely in Faith's direction.

He might just as well have said it out loud, Faith thought bitterly: f you want to blame anyone for all this, blame little Mrs. Fairchild, your soon-to-be-ex caterer.

“The cup!" Evelyn's voice rose to a wail. "My cup! What was in my cup!" She'd taken off her coat and was wearing her Hester costume. Faith had had to look twice to be sure it wasn't Sandra miraculously risen from her hospital bed.

Max put his arm around Evelyn. She'd detached herself from Cappy, to whom she'd been clinging like a limpet, and crossed over to Max's side as soon as she entered.

“Nothing! Nothing was in the cup. Maybe some liquor. Somebody did it as a joke. Hester with bourbon on her breath—something like that. Everything's going to be fine. Why don't you go back to your trailer and lie down for a while until this is all sorted out?"

“I'm not going back there alone! Something's going on here! I want a bodyguard, Max. I told you I should have one!" She began to sob. She looked absolutely terrified.

He put his other arm around her. "Nothing is going to happen to you. Nothing has happened. Just some mix-up. I wouldn't let anything or anyone hurt you.

You know that, darling! How about if Marta goes back with you? Just until I can come?" He looked over Evelyn's head, now buried in his shoulder, at Marta, who nodded and moved toward them.

Max addressed Dunne pointedly. "I assume we're free to leave the room."

“Certainly, but, for the time being, not the property.”

After Marta led the distraught actress away, others left in search of a breath of air, perhaps, and also to get away from the eidetic images hanging about of Sandra prone on Faith's lap—and the cup.

Max looked glumly after the retreating figures and said to Alan, "Oh well, we were going to have to break for lunch soon, anyway." The remark reminded him of Faith, and he seemed about to say something to her she'd rather not hear. She was hastily following the crowd out into the frigid March morning when Dunne called after her, "Don't go too far, Mrs. Fairchild. I want to talk to you”

Faith ran to the tent to tell Niki and Pix what was going on—or rather, what had happened. The news had preceded her and they were waiting anxiously by the entrance.

“Faith! One of the crew said Sandra drank from a cup that was a prop and passed out! Do you think someone has been playing tricks again?" Pix asked.

“I don't know. But whatever was in the cup acted extremely quickly and she seemed in very bad shape." Faith suddenly realized she had to sit down or she'd fall down. Her knees had buckled out from under her at the memory of how rapidly Sandra's skin had cooled and her heartbeat slowed. Someone was talking.

“Put your head between your knees.” It was Pix with typically useful advice, although Faith had long ago decided she'd have to be in extremis to assume such an ungainly position.

“I'm okay. And I'll be a whole lot better when we hear that Sandra is.”

But they didn't.

As they were serving the first of the crew, Dunne strode in, took Faith aside, and said, "She's dead. Now come with me and tell me everything.”

Six

Death was too definite an object to be wished for or avoided.

Faith was stunned. The thought that she should have started CPR or done something else nagged at her. Her nose got stuffy and she felt the tears come. She stuck her hand in her jacket pocket and found a blue crayon but no tissue. It made her cry harder. Dunne reached into his pocket and pulled out a fine Irish linen handkerchief with his initials discreetly embroidered at the border. She took it silently. It smelled faintly of bay rum.

She wondered where they would be able to talk and followed him into the house—an hour ago crawling with movie people, now crawling with police. She noted the familiar yellow plastic crime-scene ribbons and the plethora of cameras as they passed the diningroom. She followed Dunne up the narrow, twisting stairs to the second floor and into the front bedroom. It was being used to store equipment and the only place left to sit was on the floor or on the large four-poster. Charley MacIsaac, who was behind Faith, immediately claimed the end near the pillows. Dunne sat next to him and Faith perched at the foot of the bed. The lyrics to one of Ben's favorite songs, "Ten Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed," immediately leapt to mind and she could hardly keep herself from chanting, "And the little one said, `Move over, move over.' " She restrained herself by focusing again on the tragedy. It wasn't difficult to push nonsense aside in the face of incomprehensibility.

“What made you think Sandra Wilson had been poisoned?" John got straight to the point.

“I'm not really sure." Faith tried to explain the feeling she had as soon as Max had said Sandra needed a doctor. "Maybe it's left over from the other night. The whole thing was pretty strange." She described Max's birthday party in detail. Charley's eyes opened wide and the detective lieutenant allowed himself one of his thin-lipped little smiles. "A Hester Prynne striptease. Wait until they hear about this down in the Zone. It could replace `All Nude College Girls: “

Faith continued. f she thought out loud, maybe things would get clearer.

“It's very hard to tell what's normal on a movie set. I mean, there's obviously a lot of tension about time and not going over budget. Then the actors all have a lot of anxiety about their roles. In some cases, whether they're doing it right; in others, whether they've got enough to do. And you have all these egos that need caressing, which reminds me. Caresse Carroll." She told them about the child's tantrum and fears about being off the picture. She and Charley filled Dunne in on the black bean soup incident.

“I don't see how the two events can be connected, yet they have to be. And the fire. I'm sure it was set to get us out of the tent while the Chocolax was put into the soup, although it still leaves the question of Evelyn's soup. That was served before the fire. But tampering with food—twice in less than a week. Even if the first incident gave someone an idea, there has to be a link.”

Dunne shook his head in agreement. "Do you know who was responsible for filling the cup?”

Faith had been dreading the question. "Yes. Me. That is, the prop man came into the kitchen before they started shooting and asked me to fill the cup with diet Coke and Perrier. I did and he took it back to the dining room."

“Charley, you want to go down and find the guy? Ask him what he did with it after he left the kitchen."

“It probably sat on the mantel the whole time. That's where it was when I came in later," Faith told them.