“Maybe you could sit in on the interviews, at least for now.”
“If you think I can help.”
“It’s a weird, fucked-up situation. You’re a shrink. That’s your area. Weird and fucked up, right?”
The tension on Mira’s face dissolved with her laugh. “I suppose it is.”
4
She started with Matthew at the dining room table where they’d all shared a meal. A low centerpiece of white lilies and short candles replaced the food and dishes, and a gray T-shirt and sweatpants replaced Matthew’s suit.
“Connie gave me a change of clothes. They have a home gym and she keeps some workout gear for guests. McNab said it was okay if I changed. My clothes were wet. Marlo’s, too. Wet. She changed, too.”
“No problem. I want to record this, and just to cover everything, I’m going to read you your rights.”
“Been a while.”
“Sorry?”
“I got arrested for drunk and disorderly and underage drinking when I was seventeen. One of those ‘the parents are away so let’s party’ deals at a friend’s. Too loud, too stupid, and I mouthed off to the cop. A thousand-dollar fine, alcohol school, and three months’ community service. I got grounded for three months on top of it.
“Sorry,” he added and scrubbed the heels of his hands over his face. “That doesn’t mean a damn, does it? I’ve never seen anyone dead before. I’ve been dead, killed people, held my dying sister in my arms—on-screen. So you think you’ve got it, but you don’t. No matter how good they are with the makeup, the lighting, the angles, it’s not the same.”
His breath hitched in and out. “She was so white. And her eyes …”
“Would you like some water, Matthew? Some tea?”
He looked at Mira with such gratitude. “Can I get tea? Is that okay?”
At Eve’s nod, Mira rose again. “I’ll see to it.”
“I can’t seem to get warm. The water was a little cold, I guess. And the … Sorry,” he said to Eve again.
“Have you got something to be sorry for?”
“I’m not handling this very well. I thought I was good in a crisis, but I’m not handling it.”
“You’re okay.” She set up the recorder, read off the Revised Miranda. “You got that, Matthew? You understand your rights and obligations?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“What were you and Marlo doing on the roof?”
“We went up for some air, to hang for a few minutes.”
“And what happened?”
“Her feet hurt. Marlo. She said her feet hurt, so I said she should take her shoes off, stick her feet in the pool. We were going to just sit on the edge of the pool awhile. We were laughing about the gag reel when we walked into the dome. We didn’t even notice her for a minute. Seconds, I guess, it was just a few seconds.”
Mira came back out with a tray, a short pot of tea, some cups. “Coffee?” she said to Eve.
“Thanks. What happened then?”
“Marlo yelled. She saw her first, I think, and she yelled. I didn’t think. I just jumped in. I didn’t think. She was facedown, and I—we got her out.”
“Marlo got in the pool?”
“No. No.” He sipped at the tea. “I pulled K.T. to the side, and Marlo helped me get her out. She was heavy. I did CPR. I was a lifeguard in high school and college, so I know how to deal with a drowning victim, but she was gone. I couldn’t get her back. Marlo was helping me, and crying, but we couldn’t get her back. We ran down to get you. We should’ve called nine-one-one from the roof. But we ran down to get you.”
“Did you see anyone else up there, or on your way up or down?”
“No. Well, we saw Julian passed out on the couch, and Andi was coming out of the powder room off the foyer. Then we took the elevator straight up.”
“Do you know anyone who’d want to hurt K.T.?”
“Jesus.” He squeezed his eyes tight, drank more tea. “She can be hard to get along with, and when she drinks too much she’s harder still. If there’s friction on the set, she’s usually the reason because the rest of us just get along. But no, none of us would hurt her this way. She’s shot most of her scenes so we’d be away from her anyway before much longer. Just have to tolerate her through the media rounds.”
“Did you have any problems with her, specifically?”
He stared down at his tea. “I don’t know what to call you.”
“‘Dallas’ works.”
“Dallas.” He took a long breath. “We went out a few times. It was months ago, before we started production, before I had the part. And she wasn’t drinking when we hooked up. She wasn’t drinking when she got the part either, and Roundtree went to bat for her with the money people. She had to audition, and that didn’t sit well, but she nailed the character—and she put in a word for me. She helped me get a reading for McNab. They were looking at somebody else, but she helped me get a reading, and I got the part. It’s a break for me. Then we stopped going out.”
“Because you got the part?”
“I know it could look that way. And she liked to think that. Liked to think I’d just used her to get a foot in the door.”
“Why else then?”
“Okay.” He rubbed his hands over his thighs, then set them on the table. “We had fun at first. We only went out for about three weeks, and it was fun. And we worked on the auditions together, and it was good. We were good. Then, when she got the part, she started drinking. Really drinking. And she got, well, possessive and paranoid.”
“How so?”
“She wanted to know where I was every second. Where I was, what I was doing, who I was with. Or if she wasn’t tagging or texting me, she’d just show up where I was. If we were having dinner and I smiled at the waitress it was because I wanted to fuck her, probably was fucking her. You know how she acted at dinner? She’d do the same sort of thing in public.”
He picked up his teacup, circled it in his hands. “It was embarrassing, infuriating. She accused me of cheating, lying, using her if I wasn’t paying enough attention. We only went out for a few weeks, like I said, and it wasn’t serious. Not for me, and I didn’t think for her. Then she got scary serious. She’d come by my place in the middle of the night to see if I was with somebody else. She’d start getting physical—shoving, slapping, throwing things. I told her I was done. We were barely into preproduction when she tried to have me fired. I had to go to Roundtree and lay out the whole mess. He backed me up, said it wasn’t the first time she’d gone off that way.”
“It couldn’t have been easy working with her.”
“It’s called acting,” he said with a weak smile. “If it was easy, everyone would do it. Anyway, she eased off for a while, like none of it ever happened. So okay with me. It was working, the characters, I mean. Everybody could see we had something going with this project. It’s just been recently she started up again. Maybe because we’re almost done. Last week, she trashed my trailer. I know it was her. Broke up my stuff, ripped up my clothes. I had to start locking it when I was on set. We don’t have any more scenes together,” he added, then winced. “I mean, before this happened, we’d finished our scenes together.”
He paused for a moment, stared into the empty cup. “We did good work. Even with all that, we did good work.”
“Okay, Matthew. That’s all for now. If you’d ask Marlo to come back, then you can go.”
“You mean home?”
“For now, yeah.”
“I’d rather wait until … Is it okay if I stay out there awhile longer?”
“Up to you, but ask Marlo to come back.”
He got up, looked from Mira to Eve, then back again. “Thanks for getting the tea.”
Eve switched off the recorder. “Opinion?” she said to Mira.
“He seems younger than he did at dinner. He’s still shocked and shaky. Forthcoming, and a little guilty. He can’t decide if he used her or not to get the chance at this part, but knows she believed it, so he feels guilty. My read is he’d chosen to give her as little thought as possible, and now he has no choice but to think about her.”