“You mean you’ve finally come across someone with a little dignity?” Peterson smirked.
“We don’t need him.” Kelly smiled broadly, and then looked around the room for effect while biting her lower lip. It was the best little girl being attacked face she could muster. “I have the sole owner of the estate, the great-grand nephew, Wallace Lindemann.”
That created the buzz she was hoping for. People started talking all at once. Her show, Hunters of the Paranormal, would indeed air live in two months on Halloween night from the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania; she knew it by the excitement in the room. They had already forgotten about her not being able to obtain the reclusive psychiatrist, Gabriel Kennedy.
As she looked from person to person, her eyes finally fell on Lionel Peterson. He was looking at her with his left eyebrow raised once more, in that maybe you have us hooked, and maybe you don’t way of his. Peterson had been overruled two years before by the man who had previously sat in the entertainment president’s chair, and so a small cable series that had shown promise in the ratings had become a network franchise that was now a juggernaut according to the television God, Nielsen. The man just would not, could not, let go of his failure and embarrassment at the way Kelly had outmaneuvered him years ago.
Peterson slapped the table twice. His entertainment people quieted, returning to some semblance of a professional group.
“I can’t help but think we’ll look like Johnny-come-latelys on this, Kelly. I mean, so many ghost hunter shows have investigated the Lindemann summer house and found absolutely nothing since this Kennedy fiasco — they couldn’t even air the footage they had in the can.”
Kelly was actually stunned that Peterson knew of the summer house and its television history. She tried not to show her surprise.
Peterson looked down at the conference table and thumbed the thick pages Kelly had placed before him, and then looked up with a smirk.
“Kennedy won’t see you because he probably made a deal with his missing student to take it on the lam so that Kennedy could get a book deal out of his disappearance.” He again thumbed through her proposal and pulled a sheet of paper from the binding. “In addition, devoting four primetime live hours, and another four live hours into late night, well, that may cost us too much. The advertisers would run for cover. As you said, there’s not much of an ‘evil owner’ angle here. Even I’ve heard about the philanthropic Lindemanns.”
Kelly pulled out her chair and sat down. She had done the interviews herself, everyone from Philadelphia television news reporters who had covered the Kennedy story, to a few of the cancelled ghost hunter shows that couldn’t keep up with hers in the ratings. They all claimed the same thing: the place was so beautiful and charming and so very much not haunted. After listening to them all, she even started having her own doubts. Then she’d heard what happened there in 2003. It was something the other shows never touched on because of legalities, or they claimed never to have even heard of the Kennedy incident. Her research had taken her from USC to the Poconos; from Beaumont, Texas — where either USC or the Pennsylvania authorities tried to hide Kennedy from the rest of the world — to this very boardroom, pitching the greatest live event since Orson Wells and his War of the Worlds broadcast in the thirties. The one difference that emerged from her research was the one thing the other shows lacked, her imagination.
“That’s true, those shoddy shows and news reporters didn’t find anything, but they don’t have our experience. Even if the place is benign, which I know it isn’t, we have the official Kennedy account from the great-grand nephew of F.E. Lindemann himself, sole heir of the great sewing machine magnate, that says something horrible did happen there in the summer of 2003, contradicting the official state police report. We tell that story along with the others we have related to you in the slide show, and then, if we have to, we’ll make our audience believe. And there’s one thing the other shows refused to touch on: whatever is in that house was triggered into action by Kennedy and his team. He awoke something in that house that had lain dormant for over three-quarters of a century. With a cast of ‘experts,’ I can get the house to awaken once more. Only this time, it will be on my cue and on live television.”
“Am I hearing you right?” Peterson asked, staring straight at Kelly. “You want to fake events at that house if it proves not to be haunted? I want to hear you say it, Kelly. I want everyone here to understand it clearly.” He pointed a finger from her to the others around the room. She only wished she could reach out and snap that prissy little manicured finger right in half.
“That’s a rather hard turn of phrase, Lionel. All I mean is that since we don’t have Kennedy, we push the boundaries a little. That’s all.”
“And your above-board hosts, writers, and other producers are good with this?”
“They will be, yes. They’re troopers. They’ve been through thick and thin on this show for five years and they’ll do anything to keep Hunters of the Paranormal on top of the ratings. I have a line on two of the students that walked out of that house with Professor Kennedy.”
“What of the other three?” Peterson asked.
“They have never spoken to anyone about Summer Place. Their parents wouldn’t even tell me where they were currently living. It’s like they dropped off the face of the earth.”
Lionel Peterson clearly did not like this. She could see it on his face. As much as he would have liked to see her fail and take her show down with her, his advertising revenues would plummet and never recover, no matter what show they replaced her with. No, his fate was tied to hers. She suspected that prospect gave him far more chills than her ghost hunting show ever could.
“How much?” he asked.
“The largest expense is the house rental itself. That will run one million dollars.”
“For just one night?” Peterson asked, loud enough to startle a few of the more timid people around the table. His eyes bore into Kelly’s and she could tell that this time he wasn’t putting on a front.
“The nephew, Wallace Lindemann, is rich beyond measure, but is also a cutthroat little bastard. He won’t take a penny less than the one million for the two weeks we need the house. That’s one week for signal testing and setup two weeks before, and one week for the actual broadcast on Halloween night.”
“You’re bordering on blowing a quarter of a season’s budget on an eight-hour special? The network brass would go ballistic. No way am I approving this.”
Kelly smiled with as much fabricated embarrassment as she could muster. “I, uh…already broached the subject to Mr. Feuerstein in New York when we attended the Emmys a month ago. He said corporate would be onboard, on one condition.”
Peterson frowned. Kelly was sure he thought her an arrogant bitch for going over his head and making him look like a moron, or at the very least a dupe. However, she watched as he looked around the table at his very own people. Their enthusiasm for the project was obvious. He forced himself to smile and nod his head. He knew the game she was playing very well; after all, he had almost invented it.
“Okay, I’m all jittery inside with expectation and anticipation,” he said sourly. “What’s Mr. Feuerstein’s condition?”
“They want Julie Reilly of the Nightly News to go along, for window dressing and legitimacy.”
Peterson didn’t say a word at first. He stared at her and then lowered his head with a shake.