Murder in a Hot Flash (4 page)

“I heard you tell her yourself last night you didn't think she had a leg to stand on.”

Charlie peered over the parapet, took a glance at the Colorado River so many heart-stopping fathoms away, and turned her back on it. Now if anybody asked her if she'd been out to the Point she could say yes and forestall another trip. A flash of blue caught her eye. Safely back from the edge of anything now, she gestured toward the distant deep azure, evenly shaped lakes in an otherwise dull russet and beige landscape.

“The APC holding ponds,” the director explained. “American Potash Corporation. One of the sponsors of our film. They pump water thousands of feet deep into a mine and when it comes up another hole it's full of potash. They hold it in those ponds and when all the potash sinks to the bottom and the water evaporates they scoop it out. There's a display about it at the Visitors' Center.”

“Potash … I've heard of it but I can't remember why.”

“It's a potassium compound, used in all kinds of things, but mostly fertilizers. What I wanted to—”

“Mr. Drake, I may not be all that up on location shooting, but I'm surprised Cabot didn't get the Film Commission to boot you from this site.”

“Oh, he tried.” John B. gave the sky a hard look and a grimace, but turned back to Charlie with the rubbery smile of an actor. “However, the Film Commission doesn't decide those things on public land.”

This was a state park and the chief ranger at the Visitors' Center did. And he was much more into environmental documentaries than he was science fiction features. The docs were easier on the fragile landscape he was protecting. “They even buried the last twenty miles of the electrical cable that comes out here.”

Cabot's crew had just started to move equipment in the day before.

“They use the campsites more for R&R between shoots and to stock supplies anyway. But they did have some problems finding space in Moab for everybody, supposedly,” he said with an edge to his voice that belied his cheerful expression. “Sid Levit and I have known each other for years.”

The
Return of an Ecosystem
crew had been here four days already and had planned only three but nature'd been uncooperative. “We've had problems with thunderstorms and the critters never show up when they're supposed to. Which is another bone I have to pick with your mother. She ought to be able to flush them for us.”

The cinematographer drove his truck off a cliff the first day. He managed to jump out before it went over, but the production lost some equipment. “We had to rent Earl another truck and fly in replacements. And then along come
Animal Aliens
and Gordon Cabot. I'm hoping, Charlie Greene, that your arrival signals a change of luck for this beleaguered production and its director.”

Gordon Cabot might need a Sidney Levit to smooth things over, but a good director is charismatic, persuasive, decisive, demanding, wily, and infinitely patient. Able to charm the maracas off a rattlesnake. Drake was really no exception. He had Charlie laughing by the time they reached the campground, had her agreeing to forgo the discussion of Edwina's complaints until lunch in his motor home, and her tentative acceptance to join him and the crew that evening when they hoped to shoot a sunset sequence.

A slender tawny blonde pouted in the doorway of that motor home as Charlie passed it. And Edwina pouted in her tent trailer over a cup of coffee.

“Let's go call Libby,” Charlie coaxed. “I know she'd like to talk to her grandma too.”

“What'd Drake have to say?” her mother asked suspiciously as they walked down the road toward the Visitors' Center. “I saw you two come back from the Point together.”

“We agreed to discuss your complaints over lunch in his rig. That's when lots of business gets done in this business. And you're invited. I told him I represent you. But you're going to have to let me do the talking. He's twice as clever as he wants anyone to think he is.” But he's right—this is all a charade.

“You're the agent, Charlie,” Edwina said and even managed a smile.

The Visitors' Center was one of those buildings just before the wye in the road Charlie had passed the night before. There were several rangers behind the desk in the lobby, all young and pink with health. One had a loose, silly grin that didn't disappear when he spoke. His name badge announced him as Tim Pedigrew.

“Radio phone's tied up for a while,” Ranger Tim told her cheerfully. “We got a new digital but there's still twenty phones on four frequencies and we got a backlog of calls to make. Come back later this afternoon, why don't ya? Or if it can't wait, maybe Mr. Cabot would let you use one of his. He's rented three cellulars and a repeater from Royce's Electric in Moab.”

“We are asking no favors of Gordon Cabot,” Edwina informed her daughter as they left the center.

“I wanted to catch her after she got up but before she decided to go out somewhere,” Charlie insisted. “And I have to get that tire fixed. John B. and Mitch must have phones, too, if Cabot does.”

“Mitch doesn't, I know. This is his chance to get away from it all. Drake has one, I think. If not, I need a few things in Moab. You can call from there. We'll tell him our business lunch'll be late. Those people don't keep human hours anyway.”

If the director or his blonde were at home they didn't answer Charlie's knock. She left a note on his door and they took off in Howard's Jeep, Charlie driving.

Howard Greene had purchased the Jeep two weeks before his fatal heart attack—which was just under two weeks before Libby was born—and had never traveled in it except for a few forays into the mountains west of Boulder. Since then, Edwina'd rattled it all over the deserts, plains, and mountains of the Southwest but it would always be “Howard's Jeep.”

Howard had been a good deal older than Edwina and a full professor before his second marriage. Still, Charlie would always wonder if the shock of her pregnancy had in any way helped bring on his coronary.

Because, although Professor Howard Greene had taken little notice of his adopted daughter as she grew up, Charlie certainly captured his attention when at sixteen she announced she was pregnant.

Chapter
4

Moab was deathly quiet and a long way to go for “a few things,” a phone call, and a tire repair. An elongated town swept clean by the sun, its shape defined by red canyon walls, its dark green trees improbable against the desert backdrop and snow-capped mountains on the horizon. A dusty Western town filled with church spires instead of saloons.

Charlie reached only the answering machine at home. So she called Maggie Stutzman—her neighbor, friend, and confidante.

“Tell me she made it home last night,” Charlie pleaded.

“I assume so. Doug Esterhazie picked her up about an hour ago. Saturday's orthodontist day, right?”

“Oh Jesus, would you believe I forgot?”

“Yes. How's Edwina?”

The orthodontist made it clear Saturday slots were for high-paying adults too important to take off on weekdays. He explained endlessly that children missing school for appointments was logical because there were so many of them among his clientele. If mothers stayed home to raise children they could take them to and from school for appointments and his life would be easier.

But times were tough in Long Beach and insurance companies less willing to pay even portions of cosmetic orthodontia. He needed the work and Charlie took enormous satisfaction in messing up his schedule.

She could remember cutting her tongue on her own braces during the torture of Libby's birth.

“Charlie?”

“What? Oh, uh … she's just being Edwina. And mysterious. And the usual pain in the behind. Tell you all about it when I get back tomorrow night. Thanks for keeping an eye on the scenery, Maggie.”

“Relax, Greene, ‘the scenery' will be just fine here. You take care of your mom.”

Charlie never felt at ease leaving Libby, but she was more comfortable knowing Maggie lived across the driveway and had windows facing Charlie's.

She stepped away from the public phone, her thoughts still in Long Beach. A door slammed and a car pulled away from a Laundromat across the street, bringing Charlie back. Here it was, early Saturday afternoon, and the shops were open. A few cars were parked in the street, most with out-of-state license plates.

“Where is everybody?” she asked Rudy Dichtl at Dichtl's Full Service service station. At least Charlie didn't have to replace the tire. There'd been a nail in it. Rudy stuffed the hole with gluey rubber bands and cut them off even with the surface.

“They been bussing extras out to Dead Horse Point for a twilight shoot. Those who ain't in the scene, or the film even, go to pass out sandwiches or take pictures of relatives and friends in costume and just to watch. Hollywood's big business around here. And more fun than watching tourists all day. About all we have left—tourists and Hollywood.” He dumped the tire in a tub of water to look for leaks. “My dad now, he was baptized by Charlton Heston.”

“Excuse me?”

He checked out Charlie's expression. “You're probably too young to remember
The Greatest Story Ever Told
, but Charlton Heston was John the Baptist. He dunked Dad and a slew of Rotarians before he lost his head.” Rudy made a slicing motion across his throat with an oil-stained forefinger. He was a nice-looking man with thick hair graying elegantly and a thin mouth slanting down at the corners while playful eyes made fun of her city naiveté.

Why did she expect the world to turn predictable once she left Southern California?

“My son's a rat.”

“I'm sorry.”

“Runs in the family, acting … art … you know.” He turned the tire to check the other half for bubbles. “My grandfather, now he got killed by Cochise—Jeff Chandler. My mother was scalped by his son, Rock Hudson. Well, one of Rock's braves but it makes a better story.
Broken Arrow
and
Taza, Son of Cochise
. Don't suppose you ever heard of them.”

“Yeah, well … you ever heard of
Phantom of the Alpine Tunnel?
” Charlie countered. It was, at the moment, about the only big thing she and Congdon and Morse had going. Sort of.

He thought for several minutes—most people would have given it a second. “Don't believe I have. Who starred in it?”

“It's still in production.” With any luck.

Rudy wasn't impressed. He informed her that he'd done some off-camera lackey work for the more recent
Geronimo
and
Thelma and Louise
himself and carried the repaired tire on its heavy wheel to the Jeep for her. Edwina was already there and they had to rearrange sacks of groceries to make room for it.

“I'm leaving tomorrow,” Charlie said, glancing back at the food as they headed down the street. Where are you going to put all that stuff?

“Don't want old John B. thinking he can hold me up, just for a bite to eat. Let's grab some burgers on the way. If I want to get mad and walk out on the negotiations he won't have the satisfaction of hearing my stomach growl.”

Charlie pulled the Jeep into a true drive-in, not a drive-through. A girl in blue jeans came up to the car for their order. Charlie hadn't seen one of these in years.

On the way out of town she asked carefully, “Edwina, are you still taking your hormones?”

“Now what's that supposed to mean?” Charlie's mother reached for a sack of potato chips from the pile of food in back.

“I've just never heard you talk like this before. Calling people names and being so … so confrontational.”

“Ever strike you that you just might not be around me enough to know what I'm like?” They traveled in a dangerous, loaded silence for miles before Edwina spoke again, this time with a hint of restrained tears. “I gave up a lot for you and Libby. Keeping her in good day care while you went to college, supporting you both for all that time. It about wiped me out financially and emotionally. And Howard dying before she was even born.”

Oh boy, not this again. “You know I'm grateful. I don't know where we'd be now without you.”

“You'd be on welfare, that's where you'd be.” Edwina was a staunch Republican and had maintained from the moment Charlie refused to give up her baby that no child of hers was going to be a “welfare queen.”

“Edwina, are you having financial problems?” One of Charlie's worst fears was that for some unforeseen reason her mother would decide to chuck it all and come live with them. Another was that Charlie would lose her job and she and Libby would have to go live with Edwina.

“No, I'm not having financial problems,” Edwina mimicked in that infuriating way that made Charlie want to slug something.

She pressed down on the accelerator instead, the ancient Jeep responding with relish.

“You think I'm going crazy, don't you?” The unshed tears again.

“Of course not. You're just talking funny and I thought maybe something was wrong.”

“Funny—crazy.”

“No. Just different than normal is all.” Because she resented owing her mother so much already, Charlie didn't want to admit how much she counted on Edwina's stability (preferably at a great distance) to give ballast to her own world. “I mean, like … asshole, dickhead. That's not my mother talking.”

“I can't believe I'm hearing this from you. You who had a mouth like a locker-room parrot by the time you hit fourth grade.”

“I like to think I've matured some since fourth grade.” Are you never proud of anything I do? Any way I change? Of what I've become? We both worked damned hard at this you know. “You seem to be regressing.”

“Regressing …” Edwina absently fished what was left of Charlie's hamburger out of the bag and finished it, “as in senile, crazy …”