Cherry Cheesecake Murder (33 page)

“Better safe than sorry,” Winnie put her interpretation on it. “That’s right. Would you like to watch the taping with us? Tracey’s been practicing her skating every night after school. She’s going to fly off the end while they’re playing Crack The Whip and she wants it to be perfect.”

“You don’t have to worry about that little gal. She’ll be perfect. She can do anything she sets her mind on. Reminds me of me, when I was that age.”

Hannah started to grin. Somehow she couldn’t imagine Winnie as a little girl.

“I know that’s hard to imagine,” Winnie said, guessing Hannah’s thoughts, “but I wasn’t always old. And thanks for inviting me to sit with you, but I’d better keep an eye on that crane man to make sure he does his job right.”

Hannah shifted a bit on the metal chair. It was a good thing she had a cup of hot coffee to warm her up, because they’d turned on the wind machine to make Tracey’s red scarf flutter in the breeze and all that air blowing across the flat surface of artificial ice in the skating rink had kicked up the wind-chill factor and then some.

“Cold?” Norman asked, noticing that she was shivering.

“Yes.”

“More coffee?” He gestured toward the tent the movie company had set up to provide hot drinks for the cast, crew, and extras.

Hannah shook her head. She’d already had two large cups of coffee and any more would necessitate a trip to the nearest ladies’ room. “No thanks. I don’t want to have to leave during Tracey’s scene.”

“Leave? But why would you have to…” Norman stopped and thunked the side of his head with his gloved hand. “Never mind. I get it. I’ll try another way to warm you up that doesn’t involve liquid.”

Hannah smiled as Norman slipped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. They’d been dating long enough for her to notice that he was always toasty warm, even in the coldest weather. It probably had something to do with his metabolism, and she wished she had inherited whatever gene he had that she didn’t have.

“Here we go,” Norman said, gesturing at the skating rink with his other hand. The boom crane operator had moved the truck behind the coffee tent to hide it from view and he was currently attaching a harness to the statue of the first mayor. “Looks like old Ezekiel is about to rise.”

“If Winnie’s brother had known this would happen, he could have sculpted a statue of Lazarus,” Hannah quipped, and she was gratified when Norman laughed.

It took only moments to secure the harness and hook it to the cable that was attached to the boom. Hannah watched, along with everyone there, as the boom operator began to lift the statue. The only sound was for the powerful motor that drove the hydraulic winch. Everyone was perfectly silent, fascinated by the spectacle, as Ezekiel Jordan’s granite likeness rose from the ground.

“Stop! No!”

Hannah heard a faint voice over the roaring of the motor and she turned to see Winnie heading for the statue at a dead run. Something must be terribly wrong.

Without really planning what she was about to do, Hannah jumped to her feet and set out for the statue from the opposite direction. She had less space to cover and she passed the statue on the fly and managed to intercept Winnie several feet from her goal.

“Winnie!” Hannah panted, holding the small farmwoman so she couldn’t get away. “What’s wrong?”

“That danged fool’s taking the base! I said they could move the statue, not the base!”

“But the base is part of the statue,” Hannah did her best to explain. At the same time, she moved Winnie away from the rising statue and back toward the coffee tent. “Come with me. I’ll get you a cup of coffee.”

“But they can’t move the base!” Winnie insisted.

“They have to move the base. It can’t be in the shot. Ross explained it all to me. They’re going to sweep the snow over the bare spot on the ground, and no one will even know there was a statue there.”

“But…if they cover the ground with snow, how’ll they get it back in the right place?”

“I asked the same thing.” Hannah loosened her hold on Winnie since the older woman seemed much calmer now. “Michelle told me they’re going to put down a piece of cardboard the exact size as the base of the statue and sweep the snow over that. Then, when they’re all through shooting, they’ll sweep the snow off and have the crane operator put the statue back down on the cardboard.”

“Oh. Well…that should work.” Winnie looked much more relaxed as she accepted the cup of coffee from Hannah.

“Come on back and sit with me,” Hannah urged, grabbing a chair that someone had left unattended, and leading Winnie back to the area where Delores, Carrie, and Norman were waiting.

Everyone held their breath as the sculpted image of Lake Eden’s first mayor hovered, swaying slightly on its tether, as high as a two-story house above them. Winnie watched the statue for longer than most, but at last she lowered her gaze and drew a deep breath. “Guess everything’ s okay with Arnie’s statue.”

“Of course it is,” Hannah reassured her, and the mothers and Norman added their own words of encouragement before their attention was drawn to the wooden warming house at the far end of the skating rink.

“It’s that new lady director,” Winnie said, nudging Hannah as Lynne appeared. “Looks like she can skate just as good as the kids.”

Hannah watched as her old college friend glided across the rink and stopped in the center.

“Thank you all for coming out today,” Lynne said, and since there was no way anyone’s voice would carry over the sound of the crane’s motor and the whine of the wind machine, Hannah realized that she must be using a clip-on microphone. “I know it’s cold and there’s coffee and hot chocolate over there in the red striped tent. Feel free to help yourselves. We’ve already shot some crowd scenes and we’ll be shooting more when the action on the rink starts.”

Lynne motioned with her hand and seven young girls came out of the warming house, with Tracey bringing up the rear. “These are our little stars for this scene. They’re going to skate out to the middle of the rink and play Crack The Whip. As the new girl in town, not yet accepted as one of the crowd, Tracey’s character will be on the end. On the fifth complete revolution, the girl who’s holding Tracey’s hand will let go and Tracey will end up crashing into the snowbank in front of the green-and-white tent.”

Hannah, along with everyone else, turned to look at the snowbank where Tracey would be landing. It looked slightly different than the rest.

“If you’ve noticed that the bank of snow looks a little different, it’s because it’s made out of foam that’s been painted to look like hard-packed snow. The fall will look horrible on camera, and Tracey will scream and pretend to break her arm, but that’ll be acting and she won’t actually be hurt at all.”

There were murmurs from the audience, and then someone shouted out a question Hannah didn’t hear.

“One of our extras asked about saying walla-walla. That may sound silly to some of you, but if a crowd of people says it over and over again at different times and in different voices, it sounds as if people are talking to each other. You don’t have to say walla-walla today. We’re not picking up crowd noises. They’ll be added later in postproduction and some of the dialogue will be dubbed.”

Hannah was impressed. Lynne was doing a good job of explaining what they should do.

“When the action starts, I want everyone to look as if you’re having a wonderful time at the winter games in the park. And when the impromptu game of Crack The Whip begins, you can smile and even applaud as the girls twirl around. When Tracey veers off and heads for the snow bank, I’d like to see some expressions of alarm and fear for her safety. And finally, I need you to look horrified when she crashes into the icy snow and breaks her arm.”

“This is pretty exciting,” Winnie said, turning to Hannah with a smile. “I didn’t know that moviemaking was so much fun.”

It wasn’t when Dean was in charge, Hannah felt like saying, but she didn’t. Lynne was much better at public relations than her predecessor.

“Is everyone ready?” Lynne asked, and there were nods and a few shouts of assent. “All right, then. Let’s see if we can do this in one take. Tracey? Costume, please.”

Tracey turned and skated for the wooden warming house that sat on the far end of the rink. When she got there, she went in and closed the door, but not before Hannah had spotted Honey, the makeup person, and the wardrobe mistress, Sophie, waiting for her.

Hannah looked around and noticed that one cameraman had taken up his position in the spot vacated by the statue, another was up on a platform at the far end of the rink, and Clark, the cameraman Hannah had met, was walking the perimeter of the rink with a Steadicam on his shoulder.

“Places please, girls!”

At that instruction from Lynne, the six girls still on the rink skated toward the center. Lynne arranged them at intervals, changing their positions a few times. Once everything and everyone looked the way she wanted them to look, Lynne called out to Tracey. “Ready, Tracey?”

“Ready,” Tracey replied, opening the door to respond and then shutting it again.

“Lights!”

Hannah was surprised as the bright outside lights that had been mounted on poles surrounding the rink came on. It was broad daylight, but perhaps they were needed.

“Cameras!” Lynne waited a beat, and then she gave the final call. “Action!”

That was the cue for the girls and they began to play on the ice. One practiced spins at the far end of the rink, another skated backward, two girls joined hands and made slow circles in an imitation of the figure skaters they’d seen on television, and another two girls clasped crossed hands and skated as fast as they could around the perimeter of the rink. This went on for several minutes.

“Cut!” Lynne said at last. “Next scene! Action!”

The two girls who were skating slow circles headed to the middle of the rink. One of them motioned to the girl who was skating backward and she went over to get the girl who was practicing her spins. When they’d lined up at the center of the rink, the last two girls joined the line. There was some good-natured kidding and lot of smiles as they joined hands and began to play Crack The Whip.

“Cue Tracey!” Lynne said.

A moment later, Tracey opened the door to the warming house. She was dressed in a royal blue coat with a red satin lining, and Bill’s red scarf around her neck. She had a royal blue knit cap on her head, and blue pom-poms on her figure skates. Instead of bulky snow pants, Tracey was wearing ski pants with stirrups that fit under the soles of her feet and kept her pant legs from pulling up. Her outfit was fashionable, what a rich little girl might wear to skate at the Rockefeller Plaza rink, and it contrasted sharply with the rest of the girls who wore parka jackets and snow pants.

Tracey, who seemed unaware of the contrast, began to smile as she saw the girls playing at the center of the rink. She skated out and approached the girl on the end, obviously asking if she could play. The girl exchanged glances with several other girls and then she nodded. Tracey happily joined the line.

The line began to revolve in a circle at the center of the rink. Tracey looked as if she was having a wonderful time as the line revolved faster and faster around the largest girl, the pivotal point at the head of the line. Tracey was on the other end, the place with the most torque.

The girls skated faster and faster, and Hannah counted the revolutions. She saw other people in the crowd doing the same and she heard Winnie and Norman counting them off aloud. As Tracey faltered slightly at the end of the fourth revolution and almost lost her balance, everyone in the crowd looked concerned.

The fastest revolution of all was the fifth and Tracey barely managed to hang on as the end of the line whipped past the coffee tent. The blue-and-white tent was next in line and everyone could see that Tracey was tiring and she was bound to stumble soon. She hung on by what looked like the skin of her teeth past the yellow-and-white tent, and Hannah glanced around at the crowd as her niece neared the green-and-white tent, the spot where she was slated to fall. Everyone was staring at Tracey with alarm, just as Lynne had wanted. Hannah knew the feeling. Although Andrea had told her that Tracey had practiced this stunt with the same girls, her actual friends, at least two dozen times, she was alarmed, too!

As the green-and-white tent came into Tracey’s view, she wobbled alarmingly, tried to right herself, and made a real effort to hang on. That was when her real best friend, Karen Dunwright, dropped Tracey’s hand and let her crash into the snow bank.

There were gasps from the crowd and a few actual screams as Tracey fell spectacularly. She landed on her arm and Hannah could see her eyes fill with pain and surprise as it twisted under her. She gave a faint whimper and then everyone was silent, waiting to see what would happen.

“Cut!” Lynne shouted, despite the fact that she was miked. “Are you okay, Tracey?”

“I’m fine, thanks.” Tracey got up and smiled at the crowd. Then she swung her arm over her head to show that she’d sustained no injury and everyone there applauded.

Hannah turned to Winnie. “I think Tracey has a career waiting for her in show biz. I really thought she’d hurt herself, didn’t you?”

But Winnie didn’t reply. She was staring up in absolute horror as something fell from the bottom of the statue.

The cameraman who taken the statue’s place shouted out an invective that Hannah wouldn’t have said in front of Tracey or Bethany, and rubbed his head. Then he looked up and jerked his camera several feet back and into the crowd.

There was another shout, something about the statue falling apart and raining debris, and everyone reacted. Lynne skated toward the girls and rushed them inside the warming house, the people who were close to the falling debris headed for cover, and whatever was falling continued to rain down from above.

“Wow!” Hannah said, wondering if the cameras were still running. Winnie had been right about moving the statue. It was disintegrating before their very eyes. She turned to tell Winnie she was sorry for even suggesting that they move her brother’s granite tribute to the first mayor, and she was surprised to see that Winnie’s chair was empty. Why had Winnie left when their chairs weren’t even close to the debris falling from the bottom of the statue?