He paused, listening. "No, Roberto must have called Fortin. She's doing them. Didn't even ask for credits. Just scale. My guess is she's sucking up to Cavagnari. Oh, sure I did. I don't let anybody near here without a signed contract. Not to worry.”
Jane got very busy picking over the donuts as if which one to choose were a life-and-death decision. Not that she needed a donut, but she wanted a reason to stay in place.
“Listen, Veronica, everything's really all right, given the mess," the young man was going on. "We didn't need Harwell today except for the long shots. And the kid doing the props is fine. Don't worry about the press. I'm just sorry we're getting all this attention now instead of closer to the release date. Now, I've got a problem with George's home ticket. It's for the wrong day. Could you get it straightened out at your end? Uh-oh, a reporter's got hold of Olive. Gotta go!”
In fact, several reporters had gotten through the security cordon and had hold of Olive. Or perhaps she had latched onto them. Jane's heart ached for the older woman, who looked pale and ill. Her eyes were red and her face blotched and she was hanging onto an assortment of canvas bags and dresses on hangers, which made her look like a refugee fleeing a disaster with all her worldly goods.
But she seemed to have a grip on herself in spite of it all. At least for the moment. "I will not comment on Miss Harwell's death," she was saying to a gathering crowd. The producers' nerd was trying to shoo them away, but to no avail. "But I will talk about her life and her work. She was the finest actress of the century and when the world sees the work she did on this, her last film, she will take her rightful place in the history of the film industry."
“How did she die?"
“Who are you?"
“Where's she being buried?”
The questions came fast, overlapping each other.
“This film represents the finest achievement of her career," Olive went on, as if giving a rehearsedspeech. Maybe it was, Jane thought. "This role and her remarkable performance will be a tribute, an eternal tribute, to a fine actress."
“That's enough, boys!" George Abington had appeared, grabbed Olive's arm, and pushed her through the crowd, flinging reporters aside like bowling pins. "Olive," he said firmly. "Drop all that stuff. There are people to carry it for you. Just come over here and have some tea. Those people won't bother you again."
“Let me fix you some tea, Miss Longabach," Jane said. "Do you take sugar?"
“Lemon and sugar. Yes, please," Olive said, her voice starting to crack. Jane wondered for a second if she and George were the only people in the world who'd ever offered to do anything for Olive. George had scattered the last of the reporters by the time Jane got to the old woman with a hot cup of tea and a paper plate with a donut.
“I'm very sorry about your — about Miss Harwell, Miss Longabach," Jane said.
“Thank you, dear. It's terrible. . just terrible. I feel so awful that I wasn't with her. ."
“Now, now. Don't think about that. Would you like for me to keep her things in my house until somebody can pick them up?”
George was still standing guard over her. "Don't bother, Jane. I've already arranged to have them sent back to the hotel. Olive, you should stay here today. I don't want you back there by yourself. Roberto may need you, too. And there's a wrap party tonight, you know," he went on. "You must come."
“Oh, no. I couldn't."
“But you must come in Lynette's place," George insisted. "You know she'd want you here, and so will the cast and crew. If we can't have her, we must have you. Very few of these people will be able to come to the funeral, but they'll want to say their good-byes through you.”
It was a gracious gesture, beautifully done, Jane thought. George Abington might consider himself a plumber of an actor, but he was a nice man. He'd sensed that Olive Longabach would have been miserable and lonely this evening by herself, but had appealed to her psychotically overdeveloped sense of duty to Lynette to get her out.
“Well, if I must—”
Maisie had joined them, checking on Olive's well-being and Jane felt free to wander off. She spotted the production assistant who always found her when it was time to let Willard out and waved that she understood the message.
As she brought him outside, Shelley was just putting her little orange poodle Frenchie into his smaller dog run. "Shelley, did you ever know anybody named Veronica?" Jane asked.
Shelley unsnapped Frenchie's collar, closed the gate, and leaned on it. "I don't think so. Oh, yes. A girl in my grade school."
“And what did you call her?"
“Call her? Ronnie, I think. Why on earth do you ask?"
“Because I have a sneaking suspicion I know who the mysterious producers are."
21
“What did you say your wife's name was?" Jane asked George Abington a few minutes later.
She and Shelley had tracked him down in his dressing room, which was the other half of the same trailer that housed Lynette's space. It was very nice, but quite cramped and impersonal. There was a couch/sofa, a table big enough to eat or do paperwork or play cards with one friend, an open closet, a counter beneath a well-lighted mirror, a couple of chairs, and visible through another door, a train compartment — style bathroom.
George was sitting at the small table and had apparently been studying his script when the brads holding it together had come apart. He fussed with the pages, trying to get the holes lined up. "My ex-wife, you mean? Mrs. Johnson," he said. "Why do you ask?"
“Ronnie, I think you called her," Jane persisted.
“Yes. Hell! Where did that other thing go?" He leaned down and looked at the carpet for the other brad.
“George, is your ex-wife one of the producers of this movie?”
He finally gave up pretending interest in the reassembly of the script and smiled. "You're clever, Jane. Yes. She is."
“And are you another?”
He nodded.
“And who else?"
“Who do you think?" he shot back, grinning. "Lynette Harwell."
“Bingo. How in the world did you figure it out? Am I such a poor actor that I gave it away or did Lynette blab?"
“Nobody blabbed. I just heard your rep on the phone, addressing the person he was speaking to as Veronica. And I remembered you calling your wife Ronnie. I also remembered you saying you'd made good money doing so many roles and I figured Lynette probably had, too."
“Come on, Jane. There are a lot of Veronicas in the world and a lot of actors who are fairly well off."
“But there aren't a lot of producers who would risk putting a ton of money into a movie starring Lynette Harwell — except Lynette herself. She hadn't made a decent movie for ten years and was considered a jinx besides.”
George nodded at the logic of this.
“I asked myself, why would you agree to work with her, given your personal history, unless you had money in it, too? And you did say your wife was wealthy and had kept in touch with the business, but not as an actress. You also mentioned how good she was with contractual things in the movie business. So instead of having absent producers, you had two of the three on the set, right in the middle of things, anda third handling the money from a safe distance." "You'd make a good detective.”
Jane hoped he'd never repeat this remark in front of Mel, who could be counted on to take umbrage at such an assessment of her leanings.
“How did this all happen?" Shelley asked.
George leaned back and laced his fingers together over his stomach. "Ronnie and I read the book years ago. While we were still married. I was starting to do pretty well by then and we bought the film option from the author. Then Lynette came along and our marriage went to pot. But we kept joint ownership of the film rights and kept renewing the option because we knew it would pay off someday. Then about two years ago Olive Longabach happened on the book and saw it as a good film opportunity for Lynette. She contacted the publisher and learned who owned the rights. Lynette contacted Ronnie, who suggested that instead of getting into a bidding war for the option renewal, the three of us get together and produce it instead."