The 7th Month

Chapter 3

A very subdued Don Bilger led D.D. from his white trailer back outside to the waiting transport van. Normally, D.D. would’ve preferred walking, but her back was still bothering her, the baby seeming to have gained three pounds in just the past hour, so driving to the “green room,” where the stars hung out until summoned on set, sounded good.

D.D. had never signed the movie contract. Originally, when she’d spoken to her boss, Deputy Superintendent of Homicide Cal Horgan, she’d been okayed to play consultant on her personal time for private pay. But the discovery of Chaibongsai’s body had changed all that.

Already her squadmates Phil and Neil were at the scene, studying the body, processing the basics. Uniformed officers would start with the canvassing of neighbors. Lists would be made of known contacts, and detectives further deployed to track down Chaibongsai’s family, friends, associates. By definition, the investigation would lead to the movie set, Chaibongsai’s last place of employment.

When Horgan had called with the news of the murder, as well as the suggestion that D.D. go home, she’d argued for continuing on in order to conduct basic reconnaissance. Instead of playing film consultant, she’d spend the next twelve hours identifying key players and getting the lay of movie land. Then, come seven A.M., when the cast and crew were exhausted from having worked all night, D.D.’s fellow detectives would descend and, based on D.D.’s intel, quickly overwhelm the weakest links and strongest targets. Badda bing, badda boom. Case wrapped in time for breakfast.

Besides, D.D. argued with her boss, she wasn’t going to be alone all night, surrounded by potential murder suspects. Shortly after nine, when Alex finished teaching his criminology class, he planned to join her on set. That was his approach to these things: If she wouldn’t stay home with him, then he’d work late with her.

You had to respect a man like that. Probably even love him, which might logically lead to living together, especially considering, you know, the baby.

They would become a family.

And she’d become the new and improved D. D. Warren. Sharing closet space, filing official police paperwork, warming desk chairs.

Telling herself she didn’t miss her independence, or the absolute adrenaline rush of working a crime scene until the odd hours of the morning, diligently sifting through every piece of evidence while simultaneously breaking down the suspect’s supposedly airtight alibi until six A.M., the sun rising and another killer being led away in wrist restraints.

Truth be told, D.D. knew she loved Alex. He was sexy and smart. Patient and kind. No question he’d be a great father, while no doubt she’d bumble and stumble as a mom. She feared, however, that moving in with a man would become the first step to leaving her job.

And she just couldn’t imagine not being a cop.

Even now, striding across a dark, cold city street, heading into an overlit cemetery with billowing fog and roaring generators and endless rows of pale gray tombstones, there was no place else she’d rather be. Beside her, Donnie B. was growing more and more nervous. And D.D. was more and more stoked to be the investigator breathing down his scrawny neck.

Donnie worked his way around the fake fog again. He led her to a large enclosed tent, like the kind used for weddings. An open flap had been tied back to serve as the entrance. He ducked in, muttering, “Welcome to the green room.”

The green room wasn’t green. Just a white tent. Half a dozen brown metal folding chairs had been set up on the ground. A long card table held a collection of snacks and various drinks, including an urn filled with hot coffee.

Three people currently sat in the chairs. One male, two females. All approximately thirty to forty years of age. The man was dressed in dark slacks, a blue collared shirt and light brown jacket that didn’t completely cover the very large sidearm holstered at his right hip. The dark-haired woman was similarly garbed-wardrobe’s equivalent of a detective’s costume, D.D. determined. The other female, a thin, knockout blonde, wore all black and was hard to see in the shadows between the hanging lights.

“Gary Masters?” D.D. asked the man, assuming he was the male lead.

“Don’t I wish. Joe Talte. Stand-in.” He rose, shook her hand. He was wearing black leather gloves. Because it was cold? Maybe.

“Stand-in?” D.D. quizzed.

Don did the honors. “This is Joe, Melissa, and Natalie. They’re the stand-ins for the three leads. Meaning, they’ll go on set first, taking up position on the markers so that the lighting and camera crews can make their final adjustments before shooting begins.”

“But you’re in costume.” D.D. stated the obvious.

Joe smiled at her. He had a good smile, charismatic, like an actor. With his short cropped sandy brown hair, strong tanned face, and bright blue eyes, he definitely looked enough like a cop to play one on TV. “Our wardrobe needs to be consistent with the actors’ outfits to assist with lighting,” he explained to her. “If I was wearing a black jacket, for example, that would bounce light differently than a tan one. So in the end, it’s easier to dress consistently; otherwise the crew can’t get their job done.”

“But the gun?” D.D. peered at it closely. One of the largest, craziest sidearms she’d ever seen.

“From props,” he assured her. “Does it make me look tough? ’Cause that’s the idea.”

“Total badass.”

He smiled again. Grinned really. Took her all in, even the enormous rounded belly, and poured on the charm. Joe Talte, D.D. decided, was a dangerous man.

“So you’re like understudies for the stars,” D.D. tried out. “Do you like it?”

All three immediately nodded.

“We get a lot of time in front of the director,” said Melissa, the brunette dressed as a detective. “Not to mention the experience of making a feature film. You never know. Stand-in today…”

“Star tomorrow,” Natalie, the gorgeous blonde, finished for her. She trilled the word “star” in a way that indicated she’d practiced it before. Many times, D.D. would guess, probably while standing in front of her dresser mirror.

“I play the victim that gets away,” Natalie continued, gesturing to her tightly fitted black dress, with matching hose and, of course, three-inch stilettos. “Tonight’s the scene where my character, the widow Deborah, first visits her husband’s grave to leave a red rose-it’s their anniversary. Except the Gravestone Killer attacks. She barely gets away.”

Natalie tossed back her wavy blond hair as if to emphasize the drama of her narrow escape. Getting into character, D.D. figured, but already she had a feeling the thin, elegant blonde was the naturally dramatic type.

“That’s scene one,” Don reported, from the doorway. “What they’re setting up now.”

“Later in the movie,” Joe picked up, “the cops”-he gestured to himself and the other stand-in, Melissa-“decide to bait the Gravestone Killer by having Deborah return to her husband’s grave. That’s scene thirty-two, which we’ll film after scene one.”

“Scene thirty-two?” D.D. asked. “Of how many scenes?”

“A hundred and eighty-nine.”

“Meaning baiting the killer obviously doesn’t work. What goes wrong?”

Joe grinned at her. “You’ll have to stick around to find out.”

She rolled her eyes. D.D. had done some digging into Donnie’s production company. She knew that the film had started shooting three weeks ago and that Chaibongsai had received one paycheck for two weeks of work. Meaning the cast and crew had had three weeks to get to know one another, form friendships, and, apparently, make enemies. Given that Samuel had been hired to help primarily with the male lead, she decided to quiz Joe first on Chaibongsai’s involvement.

“You work with the cop consultant?” she asked him.

“Chaibongsai? Nope. I’m just a stand-in. Authenticity is above my pay grade. He worked directly with Gary.”

“What about hanging around on set?”

“His territory was video village. The promised land. Again, we’re second team. We’re lucky to get the green room.”

“Meals?”

“Cast and crew eat together,” Joe granted. “But people are staggering in and out over the course of an hour, depending on their schedules. I sat next to Chaibongsai once. That was it.”

“You local?” she asked him, then stretched out the question to include Melissa and Natalie as well.

As a unit, they nodded.

“What about others on set?”

“Lighting and electrical,” Don spoke up. “Some of the production crew, including PAs. Craft services, hair and makeup. But most of the cast and crew flew in for the shoot. The director, Ron, has his own camera crew out of L.A., sound is from New Orleans, wardrobe from New York. Not sure about the rest.”

D.D. looked at him. “Where’s everyone staying?”

“A hotel in Boston that gives us a group rate.” Donnie shrugged. “It’s why we’re working such long hours. Cast and crew are here to get this done, then everyone goes home again.”

D.D. nodded, frowning slightly to herself. A suspect pool from all over made life trickier. Who had Chaibongsai gotten close to in the past three weeks, and how had that led to his death?

A new person entered the tent, headset clamped over his ears. “Second team, on set,” the kid announced, and all three stand-ins rose. “New shoot schedule: We’re starting with scene thirty-two, then scene one.”

Donnie immediately appeared annoyed, hustling over to the kid. “Why the change?”

“Stephanie’s running late.” The production assistant shrugged his shoulders. “Scene thirty-two starts with the detectives in action, so easiest to go there first. But director also wants Natalie, so we can work out lighting on the tombstone.”

Stephanie must be the actress playing the widow, D.D. deduced. She made a mental note. One actress late to set. Just a movie star being a movie star… or related to the murder?

The change in scene order didn’t seem to be a big deal, at least not to the stand-ins. Joe and Melissa shrugged, while Natalie seemed genuinely thrilled to be assisting with the lighting of a tombstone. Go figure, D.D. thought.

D.D. followed Donnie out of the green room to a brightly lit area containing a towering Styrofoam-carved tombstone and carpets of fake fog. Joe and Melissa took up positions behind real tombstones, detectives on the job. Natalie, as the widow, sank to her knees in front of the gray-painted foam masterpiece, her fingers coming to rest on a single red rose.

Tendrils of fake fog immediately enveloped her, and this time, even D.D. shivered.

Joe, Melissa, and Natalie started rehearsing the scene. Donnie led D.D. to video village, where they could watch the action live on camera. First thing D.D. noticed was that the stand-ins didn’t just hit marks, but delivered their lines with genuine inflection and emotion. Natalie in particular was very convincing as the young widow, grieving her husband’s tragic death without ever saying a word.

When the first scene ended with Joe and Melissa leaping over tombstones, D.D. wanted to clap. Instead, the director yelled about needing another light by the tombstone while the director of photography grumbled that the camera man needed a different lens. Joe, Melissa, and Natalie simply walked back to their first marks and took up position again.

And again. And again. And again. Same scene, performed a dozen times and counting, and they weren’t even filming yet. The glamorous world of moviemaking, D.D. quickly realized, was about as exciting as watching paint dry.

D.D. sighed, rubbing her lower back absently as she struggled to get her bulk comfortable in the canvas director’s chair.

Eight P.M. Full dark beyond the reach of the lights. Temperature already at forty and still plunging with mid-November glee. On set with a very nervous producer and a cast of one hundred and four possible murder suspects.

This is where Samuel Chaibongsai had sat, day after day, scene after scene. Looking for blatant procedural inconsistencies. A former cop turned entertainment consultant. The job he used to do, the job he was now paid to do. One man, two occupational views.

Then, she was struck by another thought. If scene one was about the murderer’s first attack, and scene thirty-two was about baiting the same murderer, then where was the actor, or even the stand-in, for the Gravestone Killer?

Because suddenly, D.D. was staring at the whitewashed face of a demented man, looming out from behind the fake tombstone and raising an ax over Natalie’s bowed head.

Murder is a full-body experience. Your pulse rate will spike, your skin flushes with heat, your palms dampen with sweat. Beforehand, it is not uncommon to have second thoughts, pre-party jitters so to speak. Once the process has started, however, crossing the street, sneaking into the backyard, prying open that never completely secured window…

A calm will descend. A predatory Zen state, where the air tastes crisper, the smell of her shampoo registers sharper, while the sound of her first muffled scream, caught in the latex-covered palm of your hand…

Sound and scent will become snapshots, frozen forever in your mind. A slide show of sensory indulgence, her panting breath, matching the equal racing of your heart, her kicking struggles, the corresponding flex of muscle and power in your own limbs. Her sheer, desperate need to escape. Your own equally compulsive, biological imperative to kill.

You will feel stronger, hear better, smell sharper, taste finer, and see crisper than ever before. As long as you stay in control. No panic, no frenzy, no mistakes. Ride the ride to her last, gasping, gurgling breath. Killing is about power, but it is also about self-control.

Mentally prepare for the physiological overload. This is step four.