Immaculate Reception (5 page)

So far, spending the night watching my current boyfriend's show with my former fiancé was going fine. Get enough people around you for insulation, and the mood can't get too introspective. Besides, Brothers Xavier and Frank had been so interested in the process of making a TV show that we'd had plenty to talk about.

Jody came rushing up to our group just as we were breaking it up.

“Arlo! You've got to come outside right away. Something's happened.”

“What is it?”

“Come out to Dottie's trailer, please!”

“Wait a minute. What's wrong with Dottie?” When something upset your star there was a price to pay. Any producer has to take that seriously.

“Hey!” yelled a guy from the sound crew. He was running onto the set. This was beginning to alarm us all.

“Hey!” he yelled, more agitated than I'd ever seen a
member of a TV crew before. “Call security! I think a guy croaked.”

“Did Dottie see someone have a heart attack?” Arlo asked Jody.

“Does someone need assistance?” asked Xavier, concerned.

“Where's Brother Frank?” I asked, feeling sick.

“That young man, your friend…” Jody said to Xavier.

“Is he helping the poor fellow?” asked Xavier kindly.

“I'm sorry. He
is
the poor fellow. And I think he's dead.”

A
rlo leapt up the three steel stairs to reach the door to Dottie's trailer. The rest of us were right behind him. It was almost 10 p.m. and it was dark out. Giant lights shone down from the corners of the soundstage buildings, revealing empty backlot streets. On one side, several luxury motor homes were lined up. They're used as dressing rooms and private space for the stars who work here. Dottie's trailer was the closest to the stage door, as befitted her celestial position on “Woman's Work.”

“Dottie, it's Arlo. Let me in.”

The door swung back until it slapped against the side of the RV. The bright artificial light caught the figure in the doorway. It was Dottie, standing there stark naked.

“Whoops!” called out Holly, just behind me. And then, after a second, “Man, those cannot be real.” Respected rumor had it that Dottie had her lower ribs removed in order to perfect a twenty-two-inch waistline, and that she'd had the area north of there augmented and everything south of there liposuctioned. This was not the time to go into it with Hol.

“Dottie, I'm afraid you have an audience here,” Arlo said. “Maybe you should get yourself decent, honey.”

“Good advice,” Jody said to no one in particular. “Just twenty years too late.”

“That's all right,” Dottie said, unconcerned with her lack of attire. “Never mind. Arlo, we've got an itsy prob
lem.” Without appearing to hurry, Dottie grabbed a flimsy robe and slowly put it on, moving back into her RV. One by one, we followed her in, first Arlo, then me, Holly, and Jody. Xavier stood outside the trailer, looking concerned.

“Dottie, you okay?” Arlo asked. A Jesuit may be laying dead somewhere, but in Hollywood, that's the appropriate question. How's the star?

“Now, don't get all upset on me,” Dottie said, linking her arm around Arlo.

“We just wanted to make sure you're all right, D,” Arlo said, soothing his leading lady.

I pushed past him and got Dottie's attention. “Jody said a man died. Is that true? Did you see anything?”

“Over there,” Dottie said, gesturing toward the back of her trailer. In the front room were leather-covered sofas and a small table. The tiny kitchen was just beyond. Fresh flowers were in bowls and vases, and a platter of papaya and melon was laid out on ice. I walked past Dottie and Arlo with Holly at my heels, and pulled back the curtain that separated the front room from the bedroom in the rear. The bed was covered with a white satin duvet. Lying serenely on the bed was Brother Frank, his eyes closed as if for a short nap.

“Holy…”

“…shit,” Holly finished my thought.

Brother Frank's head was resting in a bright red stain, the back of his skull caved in. His arms were neatly crossed over his chest.

Arlo and Jody crowded in behind us.

“I told you. I came to the trailer to give Dottie her notes and then there was…this. I told you,” Jody said.

“Yeah, Jody. I get it,” Arlo said. “Go get Brother Xavier—the guy outside. Man, I don't know what happened here, but it sucks.”

Before Xavier could see what had become of his friend, Carlos Schwartz pushed his way into the doorway of the tiny bedroom.

“This is bad, Arlo,” Carlos said, his big voice booming off the low ceiling.

“It's a tragedy,” whispered Dottie, squeezing in next to her manager. “He was so beautiful. Life is short.”

“His was, doll, not yours. So everybody, get moving. Get this body out of here. Now. Arlo, give me a hand.”

“You shouldn't move that man's body,” I said, shocked.

No one gave me a second look.

I raised my voice. “Hey, guys. Really. Nothing should be touched until the police get here.”

“Better take the duvet,” suggested Dottie, ever the practical one.

“The what?” asked Arlo.

“The comforter. It's soaked with blood. Better take it with the body.”

At that moment, Xavier was finally able to push into the bedroom at the back of Dottie's trailer. He saw his young Jesuit friend and froze. I saw pain in his eyes. Then, he moved over to the body and took Frank's hand in his. He knelt down and began to pray. As he whispered the Latin words, Carlos the manager started pulling the corners of the comforter up and flipping them over onto the body.

“Can't you give the poor man a few minutes here. He's saying some kind of prayer, for Christ's sake!” Dottie hissed at Carlos.

“We don't have no few minutes, Dot. Okay, everyone, back out. Back out!”

“Shouldn't someone rethink this?” I asked.

Carlos, a short, squat man with a significant gut and a silly salt and pepper ponytail, leaned near the bed. In an instant, he had the light body of Brother Frank, wrapped in fluffy white satin, flung over his shoulder, fireman-style.

“Hey! He's moving the body,” Holly called out.

“Oh, boy. I'm not sure about this,” Arlo mumbled as the body was hauled down the tight passageway towards the front of the trailer.

I turned to Dottie.

“What happened? I thought Brother Frank was supposed to meet someone by the stage door.”

“No one was there, honey. So I thought he might like to see my, you know, things.”

“What was Brother Frank doing in your bed?”

“Exactly the question we don't want to answer, Arlo,” Carlos said as he opened the door, with the body still slung over his back, and stepped onto the steel steps. Xavier, not wanting to leave his fellow brother, quietly followed Carlos out of the RV.

“What am I going to do?” Dottie wondered.

“The media will get this, it's too hot to keep,” Jody said, doing what assistants to producers do, pulling out her cell phone and tapping it.

“Jody,” Arlo said, pulling her aside, “get Barbara Welsh on the phone right away. Dottie's going to need her.”

Holly turned to me and asked, “Who's Welsh? Dottie's attorney?”

“Publicist,” I said with a straight face.

“I need Christina,” Dottie added in her chirpy drawl.

“Therapist?” Holly guessed, trying to get with it.

“Makeup artist,” I answered. In time, Holly would learn that when stars like Dottie got worried, the crisis was usually more about lipliner.

“Someone's getting Christina,” Jody announced with one hand over the mouthpiece of her cell phone.

“Bravo,” I said.

Arlo turned to me. “You're bugged, huh?”

“Does anyone but me want to know what happened here?” I asked.

“I do,” said Holly.

“Dottie has had a shock. Maybe she doesn't feel like talking about it. Carlos will take care of things when he gets back,” Arlo said.

I glared at him. A wonderful young Jesuit brother was dead. Why wasn't that important here? It seemed every
body had an agenda and none included dealing with the poor man's death.

“I'm so sorry…” Dottie said. She started to whimper. Perhaps the situation was beginning to get too real.

“Dottie, did you kill Brother Frank?” I asked her, exasperated.

“We don't have to know,” Arlo suggested to her quickly. The coward.

“Me? How could I kill him? I was in the shower,” Dottie said, as if that made the whole thing clear.

“Well, that at least explains your lack of clothes,” I said. Although it seemed to me there had been plenty of time from the moment she'd told Jody to get Arlo until the time we all arrived at the trailer to have covered up her assets.

“What was Brother Frank doing in your bed?” I asked again, wondering why no one else was asking.

“Was that poor boy your brother, Maddie?” Dottie asked me, her blue-gray eyes reflecting enormous, if belated, concern. “I'm so sorry for your loss.”

“Actually, we'd only just met him tonight.” I explained. “He was a Jesuit brother working with my friend, Brother Xavier Jones. So you must tell me what happened.”

“No you don't,” said Carlos, coming back into the trailer. As Dottie's manager, he naturally had to protect his franchise. As Dottie's ex-husband, he was feeling more possessive than was legally his right.

“It's okay, Car,” Dottie said. “Just get me a drink, would you hon?”

“Perrier?”

“Too bubbly. My stomach's been acting up.”

“Evian?”

“No. Something hot, maybe.”

“Coffee?”

She made a face at Carlos. Coffee didn't appeal.

“Latte? Cappuccino? I can send out.”

“Too much caffeine. How about some herbal…”

“Can we talk about the death of Brother Frank del Valle here?” I asked. Perhaps I'd allowed too much exasperation
to creep into my voice, but I got the attention, at least, of what might be the only witness to the death of an innocent young man.

Just then, a knock came at the door. Jody answered it. A guy from studio security popped his head in the trailer.

“Sorry to disturb you, Miss D, but I just thought you should know that a couple of folks have called the gate and reported what they said was a…uh…occurrence near your trailer.”

“Is that so, Gary?” Dottie was seated on a pink leather banquette-style sofa. She crossed her legs, and the slit on her robe did its thing.

The leg-crossing did not go unnoticed by Security Man Gary. He gawked and smiled. He looked to be in his upper fifties, by the gray in his hair and the padding under his belt.

“Just thought I should let you folks know, that's all.”

“Thanks, Gary,” Dottie drawled. “By the way, could you be a lamb and get the commissary to send me an herbal tea?”

“Sure thing, Miss D. Do you like chamomile?”

“Not tonight. I think something with fruit.”

“How about black currant?”

“She hates currants,” Carlos said, jeering at his rival for Dottie's thirst attentions.

“Do they have that thingie?” Dottie wondered. “With the oranges, I think.”

“Orange pekoe?” asked Security Guard Gary.

“That sounds divine,” squealed Dottie, smiling up at her hero.

Holly shot me a look. I whispered to her, “Lipton.”

“Can we get to the point?” I asked the group, a little louder than was absolutely necessary. “What exactly happened here? Has anyone called the police?”

“I didn't,” Dottie said. When I looked startled, she said defensively, “Well, I didn't want to touch anything, of course.”

“I think your own cell phone would have been okay,”
I said. “What about you?” I asked the security guy.

“Why, no,” Gary said, leaning against the sink in the little kitchen. He smiled at Dottie and said, “I'm investigating. Right?”

Arlo said, “Gary, maybe you'd better get that tea for Miss D. We'll handle this situation. Thanks.”

When Gary left, Arlo turned to us. “Mad's right. We're going to have to call the police. Jody has cancelled the rest of the crew for this evening. She reached Brockman and he's coming over here right away. It's his studio, so they'll handle the press for now. Dottie's going to talk to the police and then go home. Can you do that for us, honey?”

“Sure, Arlo. I'd like to cooperate fully with any and all authorities. The thing is, I just don't know anything.”

“Well said, Dottie.” Carlos the manager grinned. “And that's what you're going to tell Barbara Walters.”

H
olly sat on the pink leather banquette, the exact spot that Dottie had recently been occupying, with both hands on her head. She brushed her spiky bangs up, out of the way, and began massaging her forehead with her long fingers. Then she stopped, mid-rub, elbows up in the air, and looked over at me. “What gives, eh?”

Fifteen minutes of sporadic activity had seen everyone go off in different directions, eventually leaving Holly and me alone in Dottie's dressing room trailer. Holly tried to rouse me from my dizzy thoughts again. “Apparently, there was an accident. Isn't that what someone said?”

“Arlo.” I finally spoke. “Arlo was the one who mentioned the word accident.”

“Huh. I guess that Brother Frank guy must have fallen somehow, and, like hit his head on something and, well…” Holly tried to connect the dots and, missing a few vital numbers, ran out of steam.

“Holly, how does a twenty-three-year-old guy fall to his death on top of a Beautyrest?”

“Tripped?”

“Onto a very firm pillow?” Neither one of us actually wanted to smile. Gallows humor. It can be as uncontrollable as giggling at a funeral. Out of line, definitely, but sometimes also beyond control.

“Madeline,” Holly spoke to me firmly.

I stifled myself.

“Maybe he fell onto the headboard?” Holly suggested.

“I don't know.” We both looked towards the back of the trailer where the bed in question was just sitting there, begging to be examined.

Holly stopped massaging her temples and let her whitish wisps fall back down into her eyes. “Maybe we could take a tiny peek,” Holly offered. “It's not like there haven't already been an army of people in Dottie's bedroom.”

“And that's another thing,” I said. “What was this religious almost-like-a-priest guy doing in Dottie's bed in the first place? Hadn't he just gone outside for a minute to meet somebody?”

“Maybe Dottie didn't know that Frank was a Jesuit brother who had taken vows of celibacy,” Holly replied, getting to her feet and offering me a “you first” gesture down the passageway to the bedroom. I rose and, as directed, went first.

On the bed, the duvet had been removed, along with Frank's body, and the stripped mattress revealed no traces of the incident. There was no blood. The headboard, a swirly polished brass number, had a lot of jutting curly-cues adorned with porcelain beads, but none were dented or showed any signs of blood or mayhem.

We each studied the bed.

“Even if a person fell on one of those brass hoozies, would he actually die?” Holly asked, doubtfully.

“How could he?” I answered. “Everybody bangs their head on the furniture, sometime. They don't die, for goodness sakes. They get a bump.”

“That's why God invented black and blue,” Holly chimed in.

“Holly.” I pointed at her sternly.

“It just slipped out.”

I eyed the small room. There was not much space. The queen-size bed took up two-thirds of the floor, with a tiny dressing table and full-length mirror on a brass stand in the corner.

“Those must be Dottie's awards,” Holly said, reading
the framed certificates that covered one wall.

“How many times has she been nominated?” I asked.

Holly finished counting. “Seven times a bridesmaid, never a bride.” Emmy had evaded our star. “But she's got a bunch of People's Choice awards.” Holly picked one up from the dressing table.

“Hol, maybe the police will be looking around. Try not to leave too many fingerprints.”

“Oh, yeah. Sorry,” She put down the statuette. “I wonder how Brother Xavier is taking this.”

“I spoke to him a few minutes ago. He said they moved Brother Frank's body to the studio infirmary,” I said. “Xav's doing okay, I guess. He's the calm type, you know? And then he's got this whole kind of centered thing going for him.”

“I think they call that religion, Maddie.”

“Yes. Well, it's still got to be horrible for him.” I sighed, thinking about how painful things had suddenly become. How quickly life shifts gear. How vulnerable we all are. I felt a need to keep talking.

“Xavier hadn't known Brother Frank very long, just since he's been rooming at the rectory at St. John's while he's in town.” I checked my watch, but didn't really register the time. “He said he'd sit with the body until the church sends someone to take it.”

“The poor guy,” Holly said.

“On top of everything, he's got the pope arriving in three days. I think he's worried about what the press could make of this.”

“I see his point. Young handsome Jesuit found dead in the bed of a beautiful T. V. star. This stuff keeps ‘Hard Copy' on the air.”

“And the timing is so unfortunate. Xavier's mission is to make sure the pope's visit goes well. If this turns into a scandal that won't go away…” I stopped in mid-thought.

“Hey, what's this?” I had been trying to straighten the sheet that had gotten bunched up near the wall, a result of
the hoisting of the body from the bed. I felt something hard.

“Is it a gun? Is it a knife?”

“The young man was neither shot nor stabbed, Holly. But it's something…”

“Well, you've already rearranged the sheets. How much more can it hurt to take a little peek?”

I carefully pulled back the white eyelet top sheet to get my “little peek” at what was so hard just beneath. Wedged between the bed and the wall, jumbled up in the top sheet, was a ten-inch-tall chrome-plated, spade-shaped statuette sitting atop a marble base. It was half-wrapped in a white terrycloth hand towel that was smudged with a few tiny droplets of dark red.

“Uh oh,” Holly muttered. “What kind of accident was this?” We looked at each other. Holly must have been thinking the same thing I was thinking because she asked me, “Where did they take Dottie?”

“Jane Seymour's trailer.” The lot was fully booked. This week, Miss Seymour was shooting a series of commercials here during the day. In this emergency, her trailer had been “borrowed” so that the star of “Woman's Work” could be comfortable while she awaited her interview with the authorities.

Dottie was gracious, as always. Ensconced in her new digs, she promptly asked for a Diet Dr. Pepper, her special gourmet diet ranch dressing and Christina, her makeup stylist. Several trips back and forth to her old dressing room were necessary before the cold drink, the creamy ranch, and cosmetics artist were found and escorted to the Jane Seymour/Dottie Moss trailer.

“So what's with Dottie? Did you think she was acting funny?” Holly said.

“She's blessed by a natural self-absorption so great I don't think much else penetrates. Most of the time I think she's fun, but if a thing doesn't center on Dottie Moss, she loses interest pretty damn fast.”

“True,” Holly said.

“Actually, she was acting just like her normal self,
which is interesting. You'd think if she was trying to cover something up about Brother Frank's death, she'd be much more concerned. She'd play it with loads of shock and fear. You know, some screaming would be in the picture,” I said.

“That's right. She'd be saying just the right thing, and, assuming she had on the right kind of makeup, start cranking out loads of tears.” How quickly Holly caught on. “So do we think she wasn't involved?”

I shook my head, not knowing what I believed. “She's an actress.”

“True,” Holly agreed, and then added in a whisper, “but not monumentally talented when you get down to it.” When it comes to the business, everyone's a critic.

I looked at Holly and we shared a wordless thought. We moved back through the trailer and I used the toe of my shoe to nudge open the door to the tiny bathroom. The shower stall was slightly fogged. A towel draped over the sink. The space was faintly humid.

“Well,” I said, “it appears that Dottie did take a shower.”

“Before or after the…accident?” Holly whispered.

The door of the trailer swung open and in stepped Arlo.

“Yo,” he said to Holly. He came over and slung a tired arm around my shoulder. “Oh, Mad.” His crisp khaki shirt had wilted somewhat. His jeans had lost their knife crease. He began to rub his eyes behind his wire-rims.

“Has Dottie explained what happened here?” I burst out. “We've actually found something…”

“She's fine. She's okay. Dottie's a real trouper. She's done regional theatre, don't forget,” Arlo explained.

He didn't get it.

“Arlo,” Holly jumped in, “Brother Frank is dead and there may have been a murder here. Don't you see?” Her hands pulled her bangs up off her forehead and held them there.

“What murder?” Arlo asked. “The poor guy wanted a
tour of the backstage area and Dottie was kind enough to take him around.”

“And…?” I looked at the man, exasperated.

“And…and…something happened, some accident, and he died somehow or other. But it doesn't have anything to do with Dottie. She didn't even know the man.”

“Arlo, did Dottie even realize that Brother Frank was a Jesuit?” Holly demanded. “He and Brother Xavier don't wear those priest-type suits with the jazzy collars. Did Dottie think Brother Frank was just an adoring male fan?”

“Holly, I don't know.”

I noticed lines on Arlo's forehead, where his eyebrows pinched together. For once, this T.V. wonderkind looked all of his thirty-five years.

“Arlo, you look exhausted,” I said. I wanted to do something, and nurturing Arlo was the only thing available.

“Never mind. The police are here. Couple of detectives are talking to Dottie now.”

“I wonder why they aren't over here?” asked Holly.

“Yeah. Wouldn't they want to tape off the crime scene?” I asked.

“What makes you so sure it wasn't an accident?” Arlo finally asked, succumbing to our forward push of alarm.

“Maddie found a heavy blunt instrument. And it was covered in a towel. And the towel had blood stains.”

“He was bludgeoned to death?” Arlo asked, now seriously shocked. “With what?”

“Dottie's Cable Ace Award.”

“Oh, man. She was so proud of that one. You know, she's never won the Emmy.”

“Hollywood is rough, man,” Holly offered.

“Guys!” I heard my voice sound a trifle more high-pitched than normal. “Get a grip.”

“You're right,” Arlo said. “So what should we be feeling? Like, sad?”

You have to either hate Arlo or just pity him that he couldn't find his feelings with a
Thomas Bros. Street Guide
.

“I feel disgustingly freaked,” offered Holly, always
willing to lend an emotion, if one can only decipher it.

“And yet,” Arlo went on, “I've been amazingly calm. It's Brother Xavier. I just went over to speak with the guy, and he had some incredible words of comfort.”

“Did he?” I asked.

“He's beautiful. He's the guy who should be most upset. If I were him I'd be acting like a shit. But you know what? After all he's been through, he was concerned about me. He said that sometimes we might face a blow that seems too big to handle. But that's just the time to turn to God, you know, give him our faith, or whatever.”

I had never heard Arlo talk this thoughtfully. Actually, I had never heard Arlo talk so long without leading up to a punchline.

“Brother Xavier told me,” Arlo went on, “that we may never get the answers we seek. But with God's help, we can get through anything. Sometimes we just need to accept that life is a series of tests, of questions.”

Never to be answered?

I looked at Arlo, who was finding peace in the very thought that was driving me crazy. I knew faith worked for many. I knew it worked for Xavier. But the only peace I'd find would be when every damn mystery was solved.