“My folks’ place,” Alicia said. “My father died ten years ago, my mother just two years ago. When I have the time to renovate, I don’t have the funds. When I have the funds, I don’t have the time. I don’t know. I watch all those home improvement shows, but I think it’s decadent, the way we fetishize our homes. Or maybe that’s a convenient rationalization for my crap house.”
“It’s cozy,” Tess said, sucking up, but not completely insincere. “I’m guessing your parents died kind of young?”
“Dad had that cancer no one can pronounce, the one that steelworkers get from asbestos. Mom went out the old-fashioned way, good old lung cancer.” Alicia Farmer fired up a Lucky with a great deal of style and ceremony. “Me, I’m invincible. Or I don’t give a shit. I haven’t figured out which one it is yet.”
“Wasn’t it weird working on Mann of Steel when your dad had worked at Beth Steel?” Tess may have been trying to ingratiate herself, but she also was genuinely interested. “I mean, you had to realize how bogus it was, a thriving steel plant in modern-day Baltimore. Plus, you probably know some of the steelworkers who have raised a stink about it.”
The question seemed to catch Alicia by surprise. She blew smoke at the ceiling while she thought about it. “It’s a television show. A guy time-travels after he gets hit on the head. It wasn’t exactly a documentary. I have to say, though, you’re the first person who ever asked me that particular question about my job at Mann of Steel.”
“What do people usually ask?”
“What’s Johnny Tampa really like, do I ever get to ride in a limo. Shit like that.”
Tess smiled. “I’ve worked there less than a week, and I’ve been asked the Johnny Tampa question.”
“What do you say? I told people he had all the personality of particle board, and everyone thought I was kidding. Me, I thought it was kind of unfair to particle board.”
“How did you end up working for them?”
“The usual Baltimore thing – I know a girl who knows a girl who does the hair of an old friend of John Waters. John’s been working with the same people forever and didn’t have anything for me. But when his casting director, Pat Moran, heard that Mann of Steel was coming to town, she made inquiries on my behalf. I got hired as Flip’s assistant before the pilot was shot, and it was great… for a while.”
“What happened?”
Alicia looked to the ceiling again, blew more smoke. “Oh, the usual girl-on-girl action. Greer got hired, she wanted my job. Somehow she made it happen.”
Time to go straight at it, Tess decided.
“Lottie MacKenzie says you photocopied a script and gave it to someone outside the production, that you resigned when asked about it.”
“I resigned because I was so damn sick of Greer’s manipulations by then. Who do you think ran to Lottie, blaming me? She was going to get me one way or another. If I had been smarter, I would have gotten out of her way the first time we clashed, asked Lottie for another job in a different department. But by this time, Greer had trashed me so thoroughly that I didn’t have a chance. Besides, she had a protector. I never had a chance, once she got him on her side.”
“A protector? Flip?”
“Ben Marcus.”
Strange. Tess had the impression that Ben didn’t particularly like Greer. And then she wondered why she thought that. Perhaps it was just that Ben didn’t seem to like anyone, starting with himself. Or perhaps it was because Ben wanted her to think he wasn’t particularly fond of Greer, that he had taken every opportunity to run her down. Lottie had said that Greer seemed to be open to any kind of liaison that would give her career a boost.
“Are you saying…?”
“I can’t say anything for sure. Still, she wheedled her way into the writers’ office as an intern, when we really didn’t need anyone. Then, all of a sudden – bam, she’s got a paying gig, as the second assistant. She was very efficient, however. Meanwhile, phone messages were disappearing from my desk, I didn’t get e-mails that I was supposed to get. Penny-ante shit like that.”
“And the script? The one that was found in the dead man’s house?”
Alicia stubbed her cigarette out in a bright yellow ashtray that could probably fetch an outrageous price in some hip little secondhand store. “Truthfully? I don’t know shit about it. The guy’s name was in the phone log, but I don’t remember him, and I never said anything to him beyond ‘I’ll pass that on to Flip.’”
“Pass what on?”
“Who knows? He was one of a dozen people who called or e-mailed every day, claiming an urgent need to talk to the executive producer. My job was to be politely unhelpful – take the message, send a ‘Thank you for your inquiry’ e-mail, whatever. He was one name among many, Wilbur Grace. Hard to forget a name like that. But I sure as shit didn’t give him anything. All he ever got from me was ‘Hello,’ ‘I’ll tell him,’ ‘Yes, he’s got your number.’”
“Someone gave him the script and the bible. The man killed himself. And now Greer is dead.”
Alicia studied Tess. “But you just said they’re looking for her boyfriend, right?”
Actually, Tess hadn’t said that. “He’s officially a person of interest at this point.”
“But it makes sense, especially if she was sleeping with Ben Marcus.”
“Are you saying that you know this for a fact?”
“I’m saying that I know Ben Marcus has sex so often, and with so little thought, that I wouldn’t be surprised if he started humping a doughnut off the craft services cart one day.”
Flip had alluded to the same behavior on Ben’s part but said an affair between Ben and Greer was unthinkable. And it was, Tess decided – not because of Ben but because Greer wouldn’t settle for anyone less than the boss.
Her beer finished, Tess decided to let her doppelgänger have the oblivious evening she so clearly desired. She stood. “One last thing-”
“Home alone, sleeping. That’s one thing I don’t miss about the old job, those crazy hours.” Alicia smiled. “That is what you were going to ask me, right? Where I was the night Greer died?”
“Actually, I just wanted to use your bathroom.”
The powder room proved to be one of the few projects that Alicia had found the time and money to complete. It had a pretty pedestal sink, a striking light fixture, and one of those state-of-the-art toilets that used a minimum of water. Tess flushed it twice, giddy as a child.
A few blocks away, Tess pulled over and found a little free wireless bleeding into the air, possibly from the McDonald’s. She used it to look up Wilbur Grace on her laptop, see if he was still listed in Baltimore. There he was, Wilbur R. Grace on Elsrode Road, mere blocks from where she sat. How could she not at least drive by, given that it was all but on her way back to Selene’s condo?
And once she found the house, on a dead end that ran into Herring Run Park, how could she not get out, walk around. It was never her intention to break in, of course – or so she told herself as she fiddled with the kitchen window, which slid up so effortlessly that it seemed rude to resist its invitation.
She flicked the kitchen light switch. No power – it must have been turned off by now – and it only would have drawn the neighbors’ attention. But there was a streetlight outside, and once her eyes adjusted, she began to look around, feeling silly. What did she expect to find? A man had killed himself here, hung himself from the ceiling fan above the charming, old-fashioned table, a white metal top with an elaborate black design. It was sad, but it probably didn’t have anything to do with Mann of Steel, despite what had been found among his effects.