Muffin to Fear, page 17
With the perfect timing she often displays, Hannah called just then. Lizzie and she connected on FaceTime and we both greeted her. She moved around, her face blurry at times, getting a piece of paper and looking at it. “I have a lot,” she said. “I’ve e-mailed you the info, Merry, but I wanted to ask you a couple of questions, too.”
“Ask away,” I said. I hopped up, closed the door, and came back.
“Who do you want to hear about first?” Hannah asked.
“Let’s start at the top,” I said. “Hugh Langley, the producer.”
She went through his professional credits. He was sixty-seven years old, and had started in the early seventies at a small TV station in his hometown of Albany. He lived in Texas for a time, worked for a network station, and from there moved to San Francisco and worked in news production. Since then his work life had been checkered. He got the job at HHN and ended up producing Haunt Hunt three years before. He was responsible for bringing Dirk Phillipe and Millicent Vayne on board, which sent ratings soaring.
“His listing on IMDb is pretty long,” Hannah said. “I’m impressed. He produced a TV show I liked, a crime drama set in a big-city library, but it only lasted a season.”
“Why is he working on a show like Haunt Hunt?” I mused. “It feels like a step down after the work he’s done in his career.”
“Are you kidding? You think that because you’re old,” Lizzie said. She slewed a look in my direction. “No offense. Haunt Hunt is way cool, according to kids at school.”
Hannah nodded. “You would not believe how many people in town are secretly excited about Haunt Hunt being at the castle, though they won’t admit it.”
“Okay,” I said, grudgingly. I had seen that firsthand with Mabel Thorpe. “But Hugh does have other aspirations.”
“I suppose if he did well on this, he’d have his pick of jobs, right?” Hannah said. “And it is doing well, in part because of Dirk Phillipe.”
“How about the others?” I asked.
“Todd Halsey and Stuart Jardine worked together in media consulting as Halsey Jardine. They were still working in media when they had a show called Ghost Groupies,” Hannah said. “It only lasted eight shows. They started Haunt Hunt three years ago, with Hugh Langley as producer. As I said, he was the force behind bringing on psychics, with Todd and Stu resisting at first. A source online says the resistance ended when the network made it clear this was an either/or proposition.”
“What does that mean?” Lizzie asked.
“Either they accept the psychics or else, I guess,” Hannah said.
That pretty much put the kibosh on the possibility of Hugh setting up the murder, though I hadn’t seriously suspected him anyway. Todd and Stu were definitely in the mix, either separately or together, though it seemed like shooting themselves in the foot to kill the goose that was laying golden eggs in the shape of better ratings. However, Todd had been pretty vocal about not liking Dirk’s role on the show. Surely, if he planned to or had killed Dirk he wouldn’t be making his disdain for the psychic so clear?
“What about Todd’s wife, Rishelle Halsey? She’s a recent-ish addition to the show, and there is some tension with Felice over her being preferred in shots, because of her looks and, uh, attributes, Felice says.”
“She means her implants,” Lizzie said to Hannah, leaning into the screen.
I elbowed her. “We don’t put other women down, remember? What they choose to do with their bodies is their own decision. Always. No exceptions.”
“Hey, I wasn’t putting her down for it—you assumed that, which means you’re the one putting her down for it,” Lizzie protested. “I was just saying, that’s why Felice is so bent out of shape. Millicent told me that herself. She says Rishelle is nice and has been kind to her, unlike some of the others.”
Actually, Rishelle had been pretty dismissive of Millicent when I first talked to her, so was it a case of being fake-nice? And “others” had been unkind to Millicent, others like Felice? Had Felice perhaps killed Dirk as a strike against having psychics on the show, or a way of killing the show to get back at Todd for having Rishelle join them? That was a bit of a stretch, since Todd hadn’t liked Dirk and wanted him gone anyway. So no, that didn’t make sense.
“Okay, so, the camera guys, Arnie Ball and Ian Mackenzie,” I said. “Have you learned anything about them?” I thought of Todd’s suspicion of Rishelle and Stu having an affair, while it was Arnie he should have been concerned about.
“Ian Mackenzie has worked for Haunt Hunt since the beginning. Not much else on him. He was a tech guy on Ghost Groupies, though, so he’s worked with Todd and Stu for a long time.”
Tech guy . . . as someone may have had to be to alter Chi’s supposedly harmless prank. “And Arnie?”
Hannah looked at her notes and frowned. “Well, Arnie Ball has been in the business since he was a teenager. He’s received some awards for his work, but that was a few years ago.” She paused, then looked at me, biting her lip. “I came across something on a subreddit about Haunt Hunt that said he had done something on a movie set, got fired, and ended up working on the show because no one else would have him.”
“What exactly did he do?”
“According to someone on the subreddit, he punched out one of the talent, breaking his nose and causing a concussion. The guy sued and won a huge lawsuit against the studio.”
That was serious. Punching the guy and hurting him was one thing, but a lawsuit was something entirely different. Still, I didn’t think it had any bearing on the underhanded way Dirk was killed, which took a more devious mind. A guy who punched someone out in anger was not the same guy who would slyly change up a prank to kill someone. “How did he get hired on Haunt Hunt if he was blackballed?”
“He went to college with Felice Broadbent, or that’s what the subredditers say. She supposedly put in a good word with Hugh Langley, and he decided to take a chance on Arnie.”
There was a connection I hadn’t expected . . . Felice and Arnie went to college together? But it didn’t appear, on the surface, to mean anything. “Speaking of Felice, she’s a bit of a puzzle to me. She doesn’t appear to get along with anyone on set very well.”
“A fan group I dropped in on had a poll, and Felice was the least-liked on-screen personality. Someone said she was about to be fired, but there’s no real reason to think that person had insider knowledge. They said all kinds of goofy things on the fan group.”
“Like?”
Hannah smiled. “There was a lot of back-and-forth about how legit the hunts were. Most seem to think they’re real, but some were making fun of them for thinking that way.”
The kitchen door opened and Millicent bumbled in, followed by Rishelle. I told Hannah quickly that I’d get back to her and closed the laptop, since I didn’t want any of the Haunt Hunt people knowing what I was up to. I also turned over my notes, while Lizzie opened her textbooks and appeared to work on a calculus algorithm, though what she was really doing was doodling.
“What can I do for you?” I didn’t feel very friendly toward my guests at the moment, since I knew I’d have to put up with them for a day or two more, until the sheriff dismissed them or we found the culprit.
“We’re out of tea,” Millicent said.
I got up to put the kettle on.
“And I was wondering, can you call your friend Janice to come back? She had a Ouija board among her things. I’d like to ask a few questions of the spirit world, and Ouija might work.”
“Millie, no,” Rishelle said, touching her arm. “That’s messing with weird stuff. I don’t like it.”
I eyed the woman with interest. She did look alarmed, but then, she and Millicent and Chi had accidentally set up a murder. It must be quite unnerving to sit in that library with all the others and know that one of you was a killer, and that the killer had used your prank to murder.
“I can call Janice,” I said, watching the two. “I don’t know if she’ll do it, but if you like, I can ask her.”
“Would you?” Millicent said, genuine tears starting in her eyes. She crossed her arms over her chest and hugged herself. “I wish I knew who messed with things, who caused it.” She looked over her shoulder at her friend. “We never intended this to happen.”
“Even as much as you hated Dirk,” I finished.
“I didn’t hate Dirk!” she said with a gasp, her hand to her throat. Her eyes were wide, like a startled fawn. “Whatever gave you that idea?”
“Maybe that you appeared to dislike him and argued with him? Maybe the fact that he was a jerk to you? And belittled you? And that he was a dirtbag most of the time? I hardly knew him and I didn’t like him.”
“He wasn’t that bad,” Rishelle said. “Dirk had some good points. We wanted to have a laugh at his expense. He needed his ego punctured a little.”
“How did you know he’d do what you wanted him to do, go out to the garage?”
Millicent exchanged a glance with the other woman. “Everyone heard that restaurant woman’s story, and after that episode in the ballroom we knew Hugh wasn’t going to let him have what he wanted, which was to work the garage. So after my performance, and how we emphasized that there was a spirit in the garage, we were sure Dirk wouldn’t be able to resist checking it out. So we set up the tool belt to drop down from the upper shelf on his head. We had a camera set up to film him jumping around like an idiot.”
“Were you planning on putting a clip of it online?” Because otherwise there was no point, and they knew that would drive a narcissist like Dirk crazy.
Rishelle shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
“It depended on how he reacted. It was a little joke among coworkers,” Millicent said, her tone becoming combative. “I resent that everyone is making it seem so mean-spirited.”
“Everyone? Like who?”
“Hugh is mad,” Rishelle said.
“Of course he’s angry. It’s a producer’s worst nightmare; the one guy who was boosting ratings is gone.”
Rishelle said nothing, glaring at me in simmering silence. She didn’t dare talk back, since I had a little secret of hers, what she and Arnie were up to. I didn’t intend to tell anyone, but she didn’t know that.
“So will you call Janice?” Millicent said impatiently. “I want some answers. Maybe Dirk is still here and can tell us what happened.”
That was a creepy notion, but I don’t happen to believe in Ouija magic. I nodded. “Sure. Go back to the library for now. I’ll call Janice and see if she’ll come out this evening with her Ouija board.” I filled a teapot and set it down for Millicent to pick up. “I’ll let you know what she says.”
I had a tentative plan, but needed to run it past Virgil first. I wanted to see if we could trick a trickster.
Chapter Eighteen
I CALLED JANICE and she agreed to come out with her Ouija board, though I begged her not to dress up like a crystal ball swami. “Janice, one more thing. Do you believe in it, the Ouija board?”
She chuckled, a rich sound like a gurgle rather than a giggle. “I think it works great to show what people are really thinking, maybe even on a subconscious level.”
My thoughts exactly. I was relieved she didn’t believe in it wholeheartedly. Things were weird enough as it was.
I wanted to watch the videos Lizzie had loaded on my laptop, but we didn’t have time. I needed to set up everything for the evening, and I also wanted to ask a couple of people questions. I started dinner while Lizzie did some homework, then she settled down to read a book for English lit, The Lovely Bones. It’s an excellent novel, and one I hoped she’d enjoy.
I put a beef roast in the oven on low and slow, the easiest way to feed a large number of people. I’d do hot roast beef sandwiches with some rich dark gravy, or roast beef on a bun for those who preferred. Pish came in as I was chopping garlic and stirring beef broth for gravy.
He summoned me away from Lizzie. I followed him down to the sitting area. “These people,” he said, wide-eyed. “They’re snapping and sniping at each other constantly.”
“What’s going on?”
We sat down in the wing chairs and he explained what happened when Millicent and Rishelle came back in and announced they were having a Ouija reading that evening, with Janice Grover. “Hugh thinks it’s disrespectful to Dirk.”
“I never thought about that aspect.” I could see how it would appear, but the idea did not come from me. It was their own cast that wanted to go ahead. “When the girls wanted to do it, I saw it as an opportunity to get at people’s thoughts. The Ouija table thingie is supposed to work on micro movements, or something like that, directed from people’s subconscious. If we ask the right questions, we may figure out if anyone suspects anyone, or . . . I don’t know.”
“Sure, I remember playing as a kid with my sister and cousins,” he said. “I always tried to catch people moving, but never could. With any group of people, how do you tell who is really directing the planchette?”
“True.” I could see the problem with that. We might get answers, but from whom? “Let’s say I’ll be watching people to see if I can detect anything. Pish, who do you think killed Dirk?”
He frowned, two pinched lines between his brows. “Last night was truly odd. Did you hear all the commotion?”
“I heard doors opening and closing, and could tell people were going to each other’s rooms. Not my business, I figured, so I stayed out of it.” I didn’t say anything about who was cheating with whom, at this point.
“I couldn’t sleep, so I came down to the library to find a book I left on the desk. I was headed out through the great hall when Rishelle and Millicent came in. I asked what they were up to. They said they were out for a walk.”
“A walk? In the middle of the night? That’s when they set up the prank. Was Chi not with them?”
He shook his head. “He must have come in before them, or more likely, after them. They went upstairs laughing and talking, and I headed to the kitchen.” He frowned down at his hands, interlacing his fingers. “Now that I think of it, I did hear the front door while I was in the kitchen. You know, it kind of thuds when it closes. So someone must have come in a few minutes after the girls.”
“So that was likely Chi, right?”
He nodded. “It has to be. But, Merry, after that I wandered outside. I was hoping Becket would come in, or thought he might be waiting.” Leaning forward, he whispered, “Do you remember the surprise party you and Miguel tried to throw for my birthday?”
I flashed back to that night, an elaborate party with all of his friends doing a classic “hide behind the sofa” surprise. Pish entered the room in the semidark, but had stopped dead and said, “Who’s there? Come out!” thus spoiling the surprise. “Sure, I remember.”
“That’s what I felt like outside. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, but I ignored it. I thought I was just cold. I’d swear now that there was someone there. I think I heard something, a clank.”
“Maybe that was Chi.”
“But why would he hide from me?”
“Because of the prank setup. He wouldn’t want you asking him any questions.”
“But then who was it who came back in and closed the door before that?”
I thought. “We don’t know that the door you heard was anyone coming in; it could just as easily have been someone going out. Here’s what we know: You saw Millicent and Rishelle coming in, but you didn’t see Chi. You did hear the door. That may have been Chi coming in, or someone else going out. And we know that if the trio didn’t set up the prank to kill Dirk, then someone else from this group did, and so had to go out to the garage between the time the trio came in and Dirk went out.”
“Succinctly summarized, my dear.”
“I suppose someone could have been hiding behind one of the production vans. Or . . .” I thought a moment, remembering Serina in the production van earlier. “Or maybe in one of the vans, doing something? Like maybe getting the tools to alter the prank?” I told him what Chi had said, about the spring he had used only being strong enough to heft a leather tool belt, but not a heavy tool chest full of tools.
Pish nodded. “That could be it, you know—someone in one of the equipment vans. That could have been the clank.”
“Or, maybe it was just Dirk skulking around. Maybe he heard the door open and didn’t want to be caught going out to the garage, so he hid until you went back in.”
“I guess that’s possible. If only I’d stayed outside longer, maybe I would have seen something.”
“There is someone else; I heard some noise and caught Felice sneaking back in after having a smoke outside, so she says. She had the key. I took it from her and locked back up.”
“That’s interesting. But as far as we know, Felice had no part in the prank. And this was later, you say?”
I nodded. “Not sure how much later, though. We have no idea when Dirk went out. It could have been before Felice, it could have been after. If someone went out after I locked up, it would leave the door unlocked again. Did you tell Urquhart all this?”
“Of course.”
“I’ll have to tell him what else I’ve remembered. This gives us something to go on. I’d bet on your feelings. What time was that?”
He frowned. “They wrapped up about four, right? And then there was some rustling around and doors closing, and then I went back downstairs, say, four forty-five or so, give or take some minutes. So . . . maybe five or five twenty?”
I rubbed my eyes. “Who do you think would do this, Pish? I’m scared, I’ll admit it. One of them killed Dirk.”
