“We’ll be here,” Lola said.
With that, I took off in the direction I’d seen Harrison heading. When I caught up to him, he was standing near the gondola boarding area, smoking a cigarette.
“Robert,” I said.
He turned in my direction, slowly blowing out a trail of smoke. “Callie Collins. I heard you were back in town.”
“You remember me.” I walked up and stood next to him.
“Sure, I remember you. We had chem lab together. How’ve you been? I heard you made a career out of your love of the piano and moved to New York.”
“I did, but I moved back last year after I was injured in a car accident and could no longer play at concert level. I was so surprised when I heard you were going to be in this movie.”
He laughed. “I’m not quite the same guy you remember, am I?”
“Well, no. I mean, I’m sure you’re the same guy, but you just seem so different. I didn’t even know you were into acting.”
“I wasn’t.” He slipped the cigarette between his lips and inhaled. He blew it out slowly. “At least not during high school.”
“So, what happened? I guess I always figured you’d end up working in one of the fields of science.”
He took another long drag and then tossed the cigarette on the dirt and then ground it out with his foot. “When we were in high school, I was planning to be a physicist. I even went to LA so I could study physics at Cal Tech University. While I was living in LA, I ran into Bill Fuller. Do you remember Bill? He was in calculus with us.”
“Yes, I remember Bill.” I thought it was odd that he didn’t mention the accident, but he might not have heard about it, and I wanted to see what he was going to say, so I didn’t bring it up.
“Anyway, Bill and I had been friends in high school. Not super close, but friends nonetheless. Bill was attending UCLA, and I was attending Cal Tech. We were both feeling somewhat out of sorts in LA, so we started hanging out. He had a girlfriend who was trying to get into acting. She was really more of a waitress at the time, but she was determined to get her big break, so she went to auditions all the time. The problem was she had an old car that was always breaking down and was forever asking Bill and me for rides. Anyway, she had this one big audition and needed a ride. Bill was busy, but I had some free time, so I offered to help her out. The audition was across town, so I decided to wait. While I was sitting there, this man walked up to me and asked if I was there to read for the role of Stephan. I told him I’d given a ride to a friend and wasn’t there to read. He told me I had the overall appearance they’d been looking for and encouraged me to give it a try. I got the part, and as they say, the rest is history.”
“Wow,” I said. “That is quite some story.”
He shrugged. “Life is strange sometimes.”
“And your friend? Did she get the part she was after?”
“Unfortunately, she didn’t, but she decided that getting the part probably wasn’t meant to be, and a few weeks later, she and Bill eloped.”
“So, she quit acting?” I wondered.
“For a while. Things didn’t work out with her and Bill, and they divorced. After Bill left LA, I helped Jennifer get a small part in a movie I was doing, and that seemed to be enough to get her started.”
“Jennifer? Do you mean Jennifer Ashford?”
“Yeah. Do you know her?”
“No. Not really. I just know that she’s doing this movie and that she was friends with Bill.” I supposed, based on what Robert just said, they’d been more than friends. It sounded as if Jennifer was Bill’s ex-wife.
Robert laughed. “I wouldn’t say friends exactly, but they do have a past. I sort of thought Bill might show up today, but I haven’t seen him.”
I nibbled on my lower lip, trying to decide whether or not to fill Robert in about Bill’s death, and decided that it couldn’t hurt since he would find out anyway. “I’m afraid Bill was involved in an auto accident. I probably should have said as much right away when you mentioned knowing Bill, but I’m not really sure how widely known things are or how much of what I know is privileged information.”
“Privileged information? What happened? Is Bill okay?”
I had to admit he genuinely looked upset by the news. “Actually, the accident was fatal. I’m afraid Bill passed away Thursday night.”
He paled. His bushy brows drew together, and his face hardened. “Thursday night? What time Thursday night?”
“I guess around eleven.”
“Was he run off the road?”
“Not as far as anyone knows.” I decided not to mention that I knew the two men had gone to dinner together. I was interested whether or not he’d bring it up.
“I had dinner with Bill Thursday,” Robert informed me. “He was totally fine when he left the restaurant around ten o’clock. I wonder what happened. He only lived a couple miles from the restaurant.”
“His car was found out on the old highway.”
He furrowed a brow. “What on earth was he doing all the way out there?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “As far as I know, no one knows. Do you remember Cass Wylander?”
“Sure. I remember Cass.”
“He’s in charge of the local sheriff’s office, and he’s been looking into things. If you know anything that might help him figure out what occurred in the hours before Bill died, you might want to call and talk to him about it.”
He bowed his head, shook it a bit as if trying to rattle things into place, and then looked back in my direction. “Yeah. Okay. I’ll call and talk to Cass. Do you have his number?”
“I do. I can text it to you if you’d like.”
“Yeah. Okay.” He provided his digits, and I sent the text.
“At this point, it looks as if Bill was simply distracted and ran off the road, which led to his hitting a tree, but if you have any reason to believe anything other than a simple accident might have occurred, I know Cass would be interested in hearing what you have to say,” I added.
“I might know something, but I need to talk to someone first. Just to be sure. I’ll call Cass either way. We always did get along. I was actually planning to look him up while I was in town anyway. Maybe have a beer and shoot the breeze.” He shook his head again. “Man. I just can’t believe Bill is gone.”
Chapter 9
Later that evening, Cass came over, and the five of us had dinner. During the meal, I shared my impressions after my first day on the movie set, Paisley told us all about her first day of rehearsal since taking over the role of Adrianna, Tom shared his progress in readying the flowerbeds for the first snow, Gracie updated me on the plans for the Halloween Festival now that the Harvest Festival was in our rearview mirror, and Cass shared a story about a puppy he’d rescued from an old well.
As the five of us sat around Gracie’s table eating meatloaf and baked potatoes, I found myself cherishing the family that seemed to have formed since I’d returned to Foxtail Lake. As I joined the others in the sharing of the day’s events, I found myself longing for a reality that would include the five of us coming together as a real family in the days ahead.
After dinner, I helped Gracie with the dishes while Tom and Cass took Paisley into the living room to practice her lines. Tom and Cass had both offered to help with the dishes, but I really wanted to have a chance to chat with Gracie, and she pretty much insisted on doing the cleanup herself.
“It sounds as if you had a good first day,” Gracie said.
“I did. It was interesting even though nothing really happened today. I did get to meet a few people, and I did have a chance to speak to Robert.”