Lights, Camera . . . Read online

  While Luther ran over to help Morris, I reached back to open the trailer door. The sudden rush of fresh air lasted only a few seconds before it was completely obliterated by the pungent stench.

  The skunk looked outside. Then, using its long curved toenails for a painful push off, it leaped to the floor and scurried out the door.

  Morris and Luther followed quickly. My eyes were burning from the putrid air, and I could hardly breathe, but something caught my eye as I turned to leave. Most of the papers that had shot from the shelf with the skunk looked the same, but one was very different. I reached down and grabbed it; then I hurried outside.

  I knew from past experience that skunk spray can travel an amazing distance. Still, I was surprised at how far from the trailer we had to go before we got a slight whiff of clean air.

  “Yeow!” Morris yelled, shaking his hand. “That hurts!” he added, flexing his fingers. Those nasty skunk teeth had left a row of puncture marks on the back of his hand, and it was already swelling and purplish red.

  “Let’s get over to the medical trailer right away,” I urged him. “You need to get that cleaned up, and you’ll probably need a rabies shot.”

  “I’m feeling kind of dizzy,” Morris said, cradling his bleeding hand. He went back to lock the trailer. When he rejoined us, he was sweating and started to tremble as if he was chilled. “It hurts a lot.”

  “Let’s go,” I said. “I think you’re starting to go into shock.”

  Luther and I propped Morris up and walked him to the first-aid trailer. The doctor and nurse were shocked when we told them what happened. They immediately went to work on their boss.

  We started toward the door, but Morris called us back and asked us to stay. He was lying on a cot in the back room while the nurse took his vital signs.

  Luther and I decided to stay for a little while. We sat on the banquette in the front room. While we waited, I checked in with Bess and George on my cell phone. I didn’t go into any detail, but made plans to meet them later at Sylvio’s for pizza.

  “I saw you pick something up just before you ran out of the trailer,” Luther told me. “What was it?”

  “I’m not sure,” I said. “I haven’t looked at it myself.” I reached into my pocket where I’d stuffed the piece of paper. “All the pages that fell off the shelf were typewritten except this one.”

  “Scripts,” Morris mumbled from the back room. “I can hear you, but talk louder? Those were scripts that the skunk pulled down with him.”

  “Well, this page stood out because it wasn’t typed,” I said, raising my voice a little. I unfolded the page and smoothed it out.

  Luther stole a quick glance. “It’s handwritten,” he observed.

  “Exactly,” I said, quickly scanning the page. “I’ll read it to you. Morris, listen to this—the first and last lines are in capital letters:

  THIS MOVIE STINKS!

  Your camp,

  with its noise,

  surface damage, and waste,

  endangers innocent creatures

  like this one,

  destroys the natural beauty,

  and disrupts the ecology

  of this river and its banks.

  GET OUT!

  “Innocent creature?” Morris said. “Take a look at this hand. Innocent creature, ha!”

  Luther and I went into the back room. The nurse was finished. “Well, now, in all fairness,” Luther said, “that skunk was just trying to defend itself.”

  “You’re right, you’re right,” Morris said. “The real culprits are the ones who trapped the skunk and closed it up in the closet. They’re the ones who were endangering a wild animal.”

  “Is the note signed?” Luther asked.

  “It is,” I answered. “Want to guess by whom?”

  “Sure,” Luther said. “The Muskoka Musketeers.”

  “The what?” Morris asked, sitting up. “The Muskoka what?”

  “Musketeers,” I answered.

  “I know what the Muskoka is,” Morris said, gesturing toward the window.

  “Please lie still, Morris,” the doctor said.

  “And I know what a musketeer is,” Morris said, ignoring the physician’s order and swooping an imaginary sword through the air. “But what does a musketeer have to do with the river? Muskoka Musketeers sounds like a rock band but I’m betting from that note it’s a group of environmentalists. Am I right?”

  “You are,” Luther said. “And I’m betting this won’t be the last you’ll hear from them.”

  “Morris, I want you to stay here for a half hour at least,” the doctor said. “And I want you to lie quietly—no distractions,” he added, looking over at Luther and me.

  I could take the hint. “Come on,” I said. “Let’s get back to town and let him rest.”

  “Luther, on your way out, stop by the office and pick up your employment papers and ID,” Morris said. “I’ll let you know about when to report here. Your first assignment will be meeting our screenwriter, Althea. Oh, and please have Rita send one of our security people over here. I want to find out how a Musketeer brandishing a skunk managed to get into a locked trailer.”

  “Morris—,” the doctor began.

  “I’d be glad to talk to the security officer for you while you rest, Morris,” I broke in. “I can get some preliminary information at least, and I can alert the security staff that there’s been a breach.”

  “Excellent idea, Nancy,” he said, lying back on the cot. “Having the famous Nancy Drew as part of my security team . . . great idea . . . I need to keep you out here, anyway, so I can bug you to play Esther . . . perfect.” Still mumbling, he drifted off to sleep. They must have given him a sedative.

  Luther went to the office building to check in, and I strolled around the compound. I finally found a large trailer labeled SECURITY.

  I knocked, and the door opened immediately. A young woman peeked out. Her nametag identified her as Jane Brandon. “Whoa, you must have been the girl who was with Morris when the skunk bit him,” she said, resting her finger under her nose.

  “You guessed it,” I said, “although I’m sure my ‘perfume’ gave me away. Sorry about that. We can talk out here if you like, so I won’t drag these fumes into the trailer.”

  “Good idea,” she said, stepping outside. She closed and locked the door, and walked down the steps to where I stood. “Don’t be too self-conscious about the smell,” she said. “I’m a farm girl—I’ve been around more than my share of skunks.”

  We walked along the bluff above the river. I told her that Morris had asked me to talk with her, and she seemed happy to hear that. “One of the first things that struck me when Luther and I arrived earlier was that you guys aren’t fenced in at all,” I said, “and no one is posted to keep out visitors. Morris seemed to be shocked that someone could just walk in with a skunk, but it didn’t surprise me at all.”

  “There are only two of us in security so far,” she explained. “Dave Linn and me. He’s over at the supply trailer. This is a really low-budget operation. Morris has promised that when we actually begin shooting and the excitement really starts, we’ll have more security people. But right now . . . he seems to think we don’t need any more.”

  I told her about my background as a detective, and she seemed genuinely impressed and relieved.

  “Frankly, we can use all the help we can get,” she said. “This production has had a lot of trouble from the get-go, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that animal didn’t just crawl in there on his own.”

  “You’re right.” I showed her the note from the Muskoka Musketeers and told her what I knew about them. “Have you seen any reporters around? The Musketeers love publicity, so they might have alerted the press about what they had planned, so they could make the TV news tomorrow.”

  “No. No one from town seems to have gotten wind of it,” she answered. We looked at each other and, smelling the pungent odor, broke into laughter at her unintentional joke. I had a good
feeling about working with her. Sometimes professional security people don’t like an outsider working on their cases. But Jane seemed to be really open to the idea.

  “I’ll be glad to talk to the Musketeers, if you like,” I volunteered. “It’s a local group. Chances are I know some of the members, and they might be more open to talking with me. I could set up a meeting between them and you and Morris. Maybe have Luther Eldridge sit in too. He’s very well known around here as someone who’s interested in protecting the history of River Heights. And Morris has just hired him as a script consultant—the Musketeers should like that.”

  “That sounds great,” Jane said. “Try to get something going for tomorrow, will you? That will give Morris a chance to rest a little, and also give us time to jump into our investigation. Then we’ll be primed for the meeting.”

  I agreed to her suggestion and started back to the office to track down Luther. He was there waiting for me, and he couldn’t stop talking as we walked to his car. This was rare for him. I had met Luther through his daughter, who had been a friend of mine. She and the rest of his family were all killed in a car accident a few years ago. He’s been almost a hermit ever since—so it was great to see him excited again.

  Luther pulled his car out of the compound and we started back along the Muskoka toward River Heights. Even though it had been over an hour since the spraying, we both still stunk from the skunk.

  “My car will never be the same,” Luther said with a sigh. “Oh well, maybe it’s time to trade it in anyway. Although I don’t know anyone offhand who’d take it at this point.”

  “It’ll air out eventually,” I said, “in maybe ten years or so!”

  We hadn’t gone more than a couple of miles when I noticed a few small tents in a clearing ahead. “There they are,” I pointed out. The Muskoka Musketeers had set up a small protest site on the riverbank. A half dozen people waved and held up signs as we zipped by.

  “Do you want to stop?” Luther suggested. “We could walk all through the camp and stink up the place.”

  “Not now,” I said, smirking. I told him about my conversation with Jane Brandon, and about setting up a meeting for the next day. “Besides, I don’t want to give them the satisfaction of knowing their skunk ambush worked so well.”

  “Good idea,” Luther said as he pulled into town. “Thank goodness they tend to be a pretty peaceful bunch. We should be able to work something out with them.”

  Before long we were turning onto Park Street. “I assume you want to go home,” Luther said.

  “Absolutely,” I answered. “I’m supposed to meet Bess and George at Sylvio’s, and there’s no way I can go smelling like this.”

  After a few more minutes, Luther stopped his car in my driveway. “Well, thanks for another adventurous afternoon with Nancy Drew,” he said. His grin crinkled his face into a dozen wrinkles. “So . . . I’ll be seeing you on the set, right, Esther?”

  “I said I’d think about it,” I told him. “And I will.” That was the truth. I really hadn’t made up my mind yet.

  I waved good-bye, then went inside to clean up. Well, at least I tried to. I was kind of glad no one was home to greet me. I live with my dad and our housekeeper, Hannah—my mom died when I was three. If Hannah had been home when I came in smelling like a skunk, I’d be cleaning up for weeks.

  The thing about really bad smells is that they go through your nose and up into your sinuses. Or maybe it’s just such a shock to your senses, that it stays in your memory. All I know is I scrubbed for half an hour, and I couldn’t tell whether it did any good or not. My head was still full of skunk stink.

  I finally gave up and drove to Sylvio’s. No one seemed to notice when I walked in. I figured that was a good sign. The waitress I walked by didn’t hold her nose, and people didn’t jump up and run out like they do in cartoons when a skunk walks in. I sat down with Bess and George at a table by the window.

  “We didn’t think you’d ever get here,” Bess said. “Tell us everything—and don’t leave anything out.” She leaned in to hear my report. Bess is really pretty—blond, with perfect features. And right then, her perfect little nose began to twitch. She’s also kind, and doesn’t like to hurt people’s feelings, so she didn’t say anything. She just leaned back in her chair and casually rested her hand in front of her nose.

  George, on the other hand, is very direct. “Where have you been?” she exclaimed. “Or should I ask, what have you been rolling in?”

  I told my friends about my afternoon with Luther and Morris Dunnowitz.

  “You’re going to be in the movie?” Bess said, ignoring the part about the skunk. I knew she’d think working on the film was a great idea. And to be honest, just hearing the enthusiasm in her voice got me excited about it.

  “Do you think you can do it?” George asked. “I’ve heard film acting can be pretty boring. A lot of waiting around, endless retakes. Besides, you haven’t had any experience in something like that. Are you good enough to be in a real movie?”

  “Of course she is,” Bess pointed out. “She was Buttercup in Pinafore, and she was wonderful!”

  “That was in the seventh grade,” George reminded her cousin. “And she was all right—until she ran off the stage in the middle of Act Two, sick. Remember? I’m not sure that really counts.”

  “Who else is in it?” Bess asked, leaning across the table. “Who are the stars?”

  “I have no idea,” I said, “I don’t really know anything about it except the story. Wouldn’t Ned be great as one of the Rackham brothers? The camera would love his dimples. Too bad he left for that book fair in Chicago.”

  “But the part of Esther is small, right?” Bess asked. “Esther Rackham was the sister of the bad guys, wasn’t she?”

  “Yes,” I answered. “If I remember the legend correctly, it should only be a couple of scenes.”

  “It’s perfect,” Bess declared. “The movie’s about the most famous River Heights mystery, and it will star the most famous River Heights detective! You have to do it.”

  “That’s just what the director said,” I told her. “Except the word star is a little extreme. But it does seem to be a natural fit, personality-wise, doesn’t it? Besides, this production is going to be really important to Luther. Playing this part will sort of be a way to support him.” I paused, thinking about some of the other bit parts I had played in grade-school plays. I had been nervous every time—but I was older now. I would be able to handle it, right? “I guess I’ll do it,” I finally muttered.

  While Bess and George dove into the pizza, I called Morris and told him my decision. Hesitant as I was, I was really happy to hear that he was feeling better, and that the accident with the skunk wasn’t going to slow him or the filming down.

  Bess, George, and I spent the rest of the evening talking about our favorite films and movie stars. When I told them that Morris was looking for extras and bit players, their eyes lit up at the prospect of seeing their own names in the credits.

  Sunday morning I reported early for orientation, costume fitting, and makeup tests. Morris had told me to go to the editing building to meet with Rita Clocker, the production assistant and continuity chief. She would give me my schedule.

  From the moment I arrived at the compound, the general mood seemed to be panic. When I had worked on a theatrical production before, it was a pretty weird experience. Everyone was stressed about meeting schedules, meeting the budget, and a hundred other crazy details. I could tell from the minute I arrived at Rocky Edge that this production wouldn’t be any calmer.

  People were running from trailer to trailer, yelling questions back and forth. At first I thought these people were talking about Morris’s encounter with the skunk. Maybe they were worried about him, and about what would happen to the production if he got sick from the animal bite.

  As I moved closer into the compound, I heard the same questions over and over.

  “Does yours work?” several people shouted frantically.


  “I have to have one now!” a couple of people called out.

  I walked toward the editing building, and finally got a clue what the uproar was about. A woman standing in the doorway yelled, “How about notebooks or laptops? Who’s got notebooks?”

  Suddenly a familiar voice cut through all the panicked strangers. “Nancy! You’re here! And you’re going to be our Esther.”

  “Luther,” I said. “At last—a calm, familiar voice.” I turned to see my friend striding from the writer’s trailer.

  “I’m right, aren’t I?” he asked. “You’re going to accept Morris’s offer?”

  “I am. But what’s going on here this morning? Even for filmmakers, this group seems pretty frenzied. And it’s only the first day!”

  “It’s not a pretty picture, is it?” he said as we took in the chaotic scene.

  “I heard one of the members of the editing team say something about laptops and notebooks,” I told him. “Is something wrong with the editing machines?”

  “You might say that,” Luther said in his calm, drawn-out way. “Every computer out here has been fried.”

  Stealing Thunder

  Fried?” I repeated. “What happened?”

  “No one knows,” Luther answered. “Could be some computer virus. All I heard was that no database, no files, and no software are available to anyone.”

  “But they must have backup systems,” I said.

  “They do—and they’re also totaled. They can’t figure out what’s wrong—”

  “George can.” I didn’t mean to interrupt Luther, but the words just poured out. This whole deal sounded suspicious to me. All the computers out of commission—even the backups? My antennae were quivering.

  “That’s right,” Luther agreed. “She’s pretty good with technology, isn’t she?”

  “She’s a total genius when it comes to computers. I can pretty much guarantee that she’ll figure out what’s wrong—and fix it. Come on, let’s find Morris.”

  It didn’t take me long to convince Morris to bring on George. He was really desperate for help. “Believe me,” I promised him, “if it’s a computer virus, George can snuff it out, and if it’s a worm, she can squash it.” I decided to keep the last promise to myself: If it’s sabotage, she can detect it!