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I took a few steps into the darkness and was nearly beheaded by three people carrying what looked like the back wall of Captain Matthews’s office. “Hey, watch out,” one of them called cheerily, a wiry young woman with short blond hair and a hammer hanging from her hip. She hustled on by with the other two, rapidly easing the wall around lights, more scenery, and other workers.
I stood and let my eyes adjust to the darkness before I began once more to edge carefully through the room, alert for any more lethal scenery. In the center of the room, rimmed by a cluster of lights, cameras, and some intense technical action, stood a scenic wall, edge facing me, and I moved toward it to see what it was. I scooted around two men fluttering large squares of colored, transparent plastic in front of a standing light, and I peered around to see what the wall might be. As the far side of the wall came into view, I stopped and stared.
I was looking at what seemed to be the inside of an apartment on Miami Beach. A sliding glass door led out onto a balcony, where the top of a palm tree waved in front of a gleaming greenish-blue expanse of Biscayne Bay. For a moment, it was very disorienting, and I actually stepped back and looked at the other side of the wall, just to be sure it was really only two-dimensional. Happily for me, it was.
I moved a few steps closer and looked again. The scene still looked very real to me, except that as I watched, a stout, red-haired man slid open the glass door and stepped off the fake balcony to stand in apparent midair in front of the palm tree, and began to fuss with the fronds. It was an eerie illusion; if the palm tree was real, then it had a red-haired giant floating in the air beside its fronds.
I admired the surreal view until someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around to see a bearded man, about forty-five, with three rolls of duct tape hanging from his belt.
“We gotta focus the lights,” he said. “Can you stay back over there?” He waved a hand at the far wall of the room and pushed past me, pulling a long strip of tape from one of his rolls.
“Of course,” I told his back, and I made a mental note to try his tape dispenser arrangement sometime soon.
I walked carefully to the area Mr. Tape had indicated, and it turned out to be a wise move. Nestled into the corner, tucked away in the sheltering half darkness, I found a long table absolutely groaning under the weight of a remarkable array of food. There were bagels, cream cheese, thin-sliced tomato and onion—and real nova lox! And there was even a large bowl filled with M&M’s, and a platter with three kinds of cheese, a huge tray of yogurt, bananas, apples, oranges, and trail mix. And on the far end of the table, right next to a large coffee urn, was a pile of pastry boxes, eight high, from Muñequita Bakery, my very favorite pastry shop.
I had just grabbed a guava pastelita and a jelly doughnut and settled into the shadows on the edge of the set when I felt some hostile presence steaming up behind me, and I turned around, prepared to slay it with the pastelita. But I held my fire when I saw that it was only dear demoted Deborah, face clenched tightly enough to crack walnuts.
“Good morning, sister dearest,” I said. “Isn’t it wonderful to be here at the heart of Hollywood?”
“Go fuck yourself,” she said.
“Perhaps a little later,” I promised. “After I finish my pastelita.” She said nothing, just stood there glaring at the set and grinding her teeth loud enough that I thought I could hear molars shattering. “Would you like a doughnut?” I asked, hoping to soothe her just a bit.
It didn’t work. Before I could even blink she whipped a fist at me, landing it solidly on my upper arm hard enough that I almost dropped my jelly doughnut. “Ow,” I said. “Would you prefer a bagel?”
“I would prefer to kick Anderson in the balls and get back to doing real police work,” she said through her tightly clenched teeth.
“Oh,” I said. “So it didn’t go well when you told the captain about Patrick?”
“He ripped me a new asshole,” she said, and she ground her teeth even harder. “With Anderson watching. Smirking at me the whole fucking time, while the captain told me what a fucking idiot I am.”
“Ouch,” I said. “But he didn’t suspend you?”
“He near as fuck did,” she said. “But he figured if I was suspended I’d go after the killer on my own time.”
I nodded and took a bite of guava. From what I knew of Deborah, that’s exactly what she would have done. It was a very shrewd guess, and my opinion of Captain Matthews’s savvy went up.
“So he ordered me to stay on the set,” Debs said. “So I can’t do a single fucking thing except stand around and babysit. While Anderson fucks up the case and fucking laughs at me.”
“Oh, he’s not just fucking up the case,” I said. “He told Jackie he wants to be her security blanket, twenty-four/seven.”
She snorted. “He said that? To Jackie?!”
“Yup,” I said.
“What did she say?”
I smiled at the memory, as close
to a genuine smile as I have ever managed. “She told him she already had one,” I said. And I took a very satisfied bite, getting the last third of pastelita into my mouth.
Deborah looked at me, a hard and searching look, and I wondered if I was unconsciously chewing with my mouth open. I put a hand up to check; I wasn’t. I swallowed the pastry and looked back at her. “What?” I said.
“You son of a bitch,” Deborah said, and somehow her anger was now focused on me and I had no idea why.
“What did I do?” I asked.
“You fucked her!” she hissed at me. “You fucked Jackie fucking Forrest!”
