Lights, Camera . . . Read online

  The original hinge screws had been removed and replaced with ones that had been filed down. Everything looked fine if you just looked at the screw heads on the surface—but you could pull them out easily, without using a screwdriver. One jolt against the door, and the screws popped right out.

  I carefully picked up a couple of the screws with a tissue and placed them in my pocket. My fingers glided against the message from “a Friend.” I’d almost forgotten why I was in the menagerie in the first place. I wondered, was I lured to the area by the same person who filed down the hinge screws? If so, someone thought I was a lot closer to solving this case than I did.

  I went to the dressing-room trailer and pulled on my blue homespun dress with the flowered shawl. With a quick touchup of my makeup by Pam and Degas, I was ready. I had an hour until my call, but I decided to go to the soundstage early and watch Bess help with the set. I was eager to tell her about my near miss with Thunder.

  Speaking of near misses—if I had only left the makeup trailer just a little earlier, I would not have had to hear my name spoken by that dreaded voice. “Well, Nan-cy Drew,” Deirdre Shannon said. “What on earth are you doing out here?”

  I wanted to run, but instead, I turned. “Hello, Deirdre. I might ask you the same question.”

  She was dressed in a low-cut black cocktail dress and was teetering in the dirt on spike sandals. Crystal chandeliers hung from her earlobes, sparkling incongruously in the wilderness moonlight. We must have made an interesting sight—a pioneer woman and a party chick.

  “I’m here to audition for the film being shot in River Heights. You probably don’t know anything about that, though. Are you helping out the caterer? I hear your friend’s mother is doing the food.” She looked at my dress, and her nose wrinkled slightly. “Odd waitress uniforms,” she observed. “Or are you a dishwasher?”

  “Easy, DeeDee. I’ve already been attacked by one cat tonight.” I’ve known Deirdre for my whole life—since we were kids in school—and being around her never gets any better. She’s totally obnoxious, and more in love with herself than anyone I know.

  “Do you know anything about the movie?” she asked.

  “Yes. I’m in the cast, actually.” I hate to admit it, but I loved the expression on her face when that sunk in. “I’m surprised it took you so long to get out here. We’ve been shooting for days.”

  “Who’s in charge here?” she asked curtly. “Where should I go for an audition?”

  “I’ll tell you what,” I said, steering her toward Herman Houseman’s trailer. “Why don’t you just check in over there. I’m sure the gentlemen inside will be happy to help you.”

  Deirdre marched over and knocked on the door. I couldn’t leave—I had to see how Mr. Houseman would react when yet another River Heights citizen knocked on his private trailer.

  The door opened a crack and Deirdre talked for a few moments with the person inside. Then she spun around and stormed down the steps. I suppressed my giggle as she teetered back over to me. “That wasn’t the right place at all—as you probably know. It’s that building over there—the office. And I thought you were rude, but the woman in that trailer could give you lessons!” She brushed by me and wobbled toward the office.

  I didn’t waste my time imagining Deirdre crashing Morris’s meeting with the bankers—I was struck by something she said. Who was the rude woman in Herman’s trailer? Could it have been the woman he had kissed the night before? I had to find out. I crouched behind a nearby tree and watched the front of the trailer. At last the door opened again. Out stepped Rita Clocker. Before she left, Mr. Houseman arrived. I could tell by the way they touched in passing that Rita was the kissing woman.

  Before I could straighten from my observation crouch, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned and looked into my favorite pair of brown eyes—the ones belonging to my boyfriend, Ned Nickerson. He kissed me before I could speak.

  “Hi there,” I said. “What are you doing here? I thought you were still in Chicago for that book fair.”

  “Nah, I missed you too much and decided to come home early. Besides, I heard you were almost lion lunch and figured you might need some protection.”

  “Wait just a minute. How did you find out about that?”

  “I called the office up here to let you know I was home early, but no one was taking calls over there. So I called the next best thing: the mess hall. Boy, was I surprised when George answered! I didn’t know Mrs. Fayne had gotten this account. Anyway, George filled me in on everything that’s happened. Some of her story sounded more like a movie than real life.”

  “You have no idea,” I told him. “I can’t wait to tell you all about it. Come on, you can watch us shoot the fire scene.”

  “Wait a minute. I have a present for you. I picked it up in Chicago. You’re going to love it.” He reached into his book bag and pulled out a flashy-looking magazine. “It’s a Hollywood gossip sheet,” he explained. “And it’s got a big article about your costar Herman Houseman. I don’t usually buy this stuff, of course, but this issue . . . well, wait till you read it.”

  I was thrilled. I definitely needed another assessment of Herman Houseman besides Harold Safer’s. Ned and I found a quiet place near a security light, and sat down to comb the pages of Hollywood Heartbreak.

  It turns out that Mr. Safer was closer to the truth than I gave him credit for. The article said that Mr. Houseman had received a big offer from a major Hollywood producer but Morris’s attorneys had him in an airtight contract for another film.

  “‘But take heart, Houseman fans,’” I read aloud, “‘Herman says he has just a few more things to take care of and then he’ll be able to sign the new contract!’”

  “The article says that the new movie begins filming in one week,” Ned explained. It seemed that they were going to cast someone else in the romantic lead if Herman couldn’t get released from his contract for Stealing Thunder. Apparently, they were guaranteeing him a million dollars up front, percentages, bonuses. It was the role of a lifetime . . . in more ways than one.

  11

  Take Two

  Motive!” I whispered. “We finally have someone who has a real motive for shutting down this production. Come on!”

  I still had a half hour before I had to report to the set. Ned and I raced across the compound to the mess hall and found George. We showed her the magazine, and I summarized the article about Herman Houseman.

  “Motive!” she cried.

  “Exactly,” I said. “Can you get away for a few minutes?”

  “Absolutely.” She checked out with her mother and returned to Ned and me.

  “I want all the dirt you can get me on Rita Clocker,” I told George. “She’s the woman Herman was kissing last night.”

  “Yeah? I had my money on Donnalee,” George said. “Come on.”

  She took us to the office, and the room in which she’d untangled all the computer data. It didn’t take long to find out what we wanted—especially once George snuck into the studio database and Rita’s employment file. All for the sake of the case, of course.

  “There she is,” George announced. “Whoa, we’ve even got her fingerprints.”

  “Excellent,” I said. Then I told my friends what I had discovered about the hinges on Thunder’s cage door.

  “Nancy, that could have been bad,” George pointed out.

  “Not really,” I said. “I believe Jake when he said that Thunder wasn’t really after me. He just wanted a romp in the woods. When they went out there to get him, Thunder walked up to the van the first time Jake called him.”

  I didn’t tell them the rest of what Jake had said—about how Thunder was still a wild animal, and if he’d decided that I would’ve made a good wrestling partner, he could have tossed me around like a rag doll. No need to worry my friends, right?

  “Hel-lo, what have we here?” George pulled my attention back to the computer screen. “Check this out.”

  “That’s Rita’s addr
ess in Hollywood, right?” Ned asked.

  “It is. Now look at this.”

  “Herman’s address,” I said as I read. “And they’re the same! I knew it. Those two are definitely a couple.”

  “And the couple that plots together—,” George began.

  “Splits a million-dollar signing fee, plus percentages, plus bonuses, together,” Ned finished.

  “Okay, Morris, you’re going to have to meet with me now,” I declared. “Where’s his meeting?”

  “In the conference room,” George answered. “It’s just like this room, but on the opposite side of the building.”

  “Wish me luck,” I told them.

  “Luck,” Ned echoed, with a thumbs-up sign.

  “Can we come?” George begged.

  “Wait for me in the lobby and send me mental cheers when I barge in.”

  “Done,” she said.

  They followed me into the small reception lobby, which was empty. “His assistant and the office girl are both in there with him,” George explained.

  “Great,” I said. “Nobody to tackle me before I barge in.”

  I stood outside the conference-room door. Then I took a deep breath and opened it.

  “Go get ’em,” Ned whispered.

  There were six visitors in the room—four men and two women. They and the office employees looked startled. Morris looked positively stunned.

  “Na-Na-Nancy!” he stammered. “As you can see I’m very busy at the moment. We can talk at another time.”

  “Excuse me for interrupting you, Morris, but this can’t wait. I need to talk to you now.”

  “But I’m—”

  “I realize you’re busy, but I really need to talk to you.”

  “Very well,” he said. He’d lost his initial shock, and was beginning to sound irritated. “Everyone, please take a few minutes’ break. Help yourself to refreshments.”

  Morris followed me to the reception lobby, where George and Ned were waiting, and shut the door behind him.

  “This had better be an emergency,” he said, his teeth clamped. “I was close to closing the deal in there.”

  “You don’t want to make a deal without this information,” I assured him. “Prepare yourself—I’m pretty sure Herman Houseman and Rita Clocker are partners behind the sabotage that’s been perpetrated against this production.”

  “What?! You’re not serious. Are you serious?”

  I didn’t even let him think about it. I just peppered him with speculations, deductions, and conclusions.

  “Have you heard about the movie deal Herman’s been offered?” I asked.

  “Sure, but I don’t believe it,” Morris said. “It’s just a trick by his agent to try to wring more money out of me.”

  I showed him the article, with the quotes from the producers of the new movie.

  “I know that producer,” Morris said. “He would never let his name be used unless the facts were right. I don’t believe this.”

  I told him about Rita and Herman living together, and about seeing them kiss the night before. “Who better than the continuity chief to guarantee that the production goes way over budget? Think how much money we lost just on the day the reverses were bungled,” I pointed out. “And that was an outright continuity error. Plus, in her job she had access to pratically all the keys and locks in the compound,” I added.

  “George is close to bringing us the hard evidence we need—the e-mails from Herman and the address of the recipient. I’m sure that we’ll find that Rita’s computer was the third one programmed to run the generators,” I concluded. “How she got her hands on it will be an amazing story, I’m sure.”

  “She’s very computer literate,” George said. “I’ve realized that since my first day on the job. If she’s not good enough to disable all the machines herself, she’s at least good enough to hire someone to do the job and explain what she wants done.”

  “And the food poisoning?” Morris asked.

  “She was probably behind that, too,” I said, “but it might be hard to prove. We should have enough information to put them away for quite a while, though.” I told him about the cage door hinge screws.

  “That could have been a real disaster,” Morris said.

  “They were getting desperate, I think,” I told him. “Apparently, they knew I was closing in before I did.”

  “Yikes!” Morris yelled, checking his watch. “We have to get to the soundstage.”

  “Relax, boss,” George said. “They can’t start without you.”

  “But they can,” he protested. “I told my assistant director to start the shoot because I didn’t know how long I’d be tied up with the potential backers. If Rita and Herman have something planned for this scene, it really will be a disaster!”

  He tore out of the building and ran to the sound-stage. We followed.

  “I don’t get it,” Ned said, racing with us. “Why is this scene so risky?”

  “It’s the moment when Ethan Mahoney, played by Houseman, is knocked out by the Rackham brothers during the robbery,” I explained between gasps. “He’s in his office on the houseboat, and they set fire to it as a parting shot. Ethan regains consciousness, puts out the fire, and limps off the boat to get help.”

  “Luther talked the River Heights Museum into letting us use a bunch of authentic artifacts to dress the set,” George continued.

  “We’re setting a real fire—briefly,” Morris called back over his shoulder. “If they try to sabotage this shoot and hundreds of thousands of artifacts go up in smoke—trust me, it’ll be a disaster. We’ll lose our insurance coverage and have to close down for good.”

  As we reached the soundstage, I told the others to go ahead while I called Chief McGinnis. When I finally stepped inside, I looked around for our two suspects. Herman was onstage, running through his lines, but I didn’t see Rita anywhere on the scene. Then she entered from stage left. She was carrying an old-fashioned fire extinguisher. She walked across the set to where another extinguisher was hanging on the wall. She took the one off the wall and placed it on the floor—then she substituted the one she was carrying, hanging it on the wall instead.

  12

  Action!

  I followed Rita to a spot just off the set. When her back was turned to answer a question, I grabbed the extinguisher she had removed from the wall. It was heavy. Then I checked the one she had substituted. It was feather-light—so light it had to be empty. I switched the two extinguishers back the way they had been.

  “All right, everyone. Are we ready?” Morris’s assistant director yelled. “Are the backups ready?” To be safe, six men and women, all armed with extinguishers, skirted the set out of camera range. “All right, then. Here we go. Action!”

  The scene began with the fire. Herman, as Ethan Mahoney, lay on the floor. Then he groaned and rolled up onto his knees. Shaking his head, his expression changed to panic at the prospect of his houseboat going up in flames. He staggered to the wall, rubbing the back of his head. He pulled down the extinguisher and turned the hose onto the fire.

  When the retardant shot out of the hose, Houseman seemed to lose character for a moment and be genuinely surprised. He aimed it at the flames, and they were extinguished quickly.

  “Cut! Print!”

  “Police! Don’t anybody move!”

  At first everyone thought it was part of the movie. But I recognized Chief McGinnis’s voice. He barged onto the set, pushing Ben and Luke Alvarez in ahead of him, their hands in the air. He held them at gunpoint with a triumphant expression. Two of his officers followed. Apparently the guns and masks the guys were wearing as the Rackham Gang persuaded Chief McGinnis they were real thieves—real thieves who dressed in eccentric costumes.

  “Is this some sort of sting?” Luke asked, his voice muffled by the bandanna mask he had tied around his mouth for the next take.

  “Or is this a joke, Morris?” Ben asked. “I promise, I’ll learn my lines. I get your point!”

&
nbsp; “Chief McGinnis, thank you for arriving so promptly,” I said, walking over to stand beside him. I needed to help him save face. “That was a brilliant way to sneak undetected onto the set. Now you can let Luke and Ben go and arrest the real culprits.”

  Chief McGinnis seemed confused, until I pointed to Rita and Herman. A collective gasp fluttered around the set as the officers handcuffed the two. Morris explained to the rest of the crowd that they were being accused of the sabotage that had plagued the company since it arrived. I recounted the same arguments that I had used earlier to convince Morris.

  “And I believe that if you compare the fire extinguisher that Herman just used to the one near where Rita is standing,” I added, “you’ll see that the two had planned one last devastating attack on this production. And it was one that could have resulted in more than just lost artifacts and lost insurance. If the fire had gotten out of control, it could have caused someone’s death.”

  “But the one I used was full,” Herman protested.

  “Yes, that was the one I specifically hung on the wall just before we started shooting,” Rita said with a smug look.

  “I’m afraid not,” I told her, explaining how I’d reversed her switch.

  “So you apparently have all the answers,” Houseman said.

  “Except a couple,” I answered him. “About Muriel and Thunder—which of you released the bird and filed down the screws in the mountain lion’s cage?”

  “We shared those honors,” Houseman said. “Rita shooed the bird away, and I personally loosened the hinges so that the slightest pressure by Thunder on the door would release it. Having you in front of the door when it opened,” he cooed, “was a bonus.”

  The officers escorted Rita and Herman off the set. I was happy to have Bess arrive in time to see them leave.

  “You can let those two go,” Morris told the chief, pointing to Ben and Luke. “They’ve got a robbery to commit!”