A Knife to Remember

laughed. “Oh, was she?“
    “George Abington says so. Do you suppose he’s right?“
    “I have no idea. Never met the man before. He could be a pathological liar for all I know. But—he could be right. I just assumed it was a romance from all the attention Jake paid to her, but it could have been plain old nepotism. Come to think of it, she looks sort of like him. The same coloring and the sharp planes of their faces. They could be related.“
    “But she told me he was trying to seduce her.“
    “That’s when she was trying to impress you, right? I heard about you being a famous scriptwriter. That doesn’t happen to be true, does it?“
    “No, of course not. But it does make people talk to me. I didn’t come up with it. Shelley did.“
    “Then that’s why Angela lied. She was trying to get you to see her as the poor, virginal heroine and write her a tasty role.”
    A hand fell heavily on Jane’s arm.
    She turned and looked at Shelley, who was wide-eyed and stunned-looking.
    “Shelley, you look like somebody just hit you with half a brick,“ Jane said. “Come sit down and tell me what’s wrong.”
    They took up their positions in their lawn chairs. “I’ve been talking to Lynette Harwell. Or rather, I’ve been being talked at by her. I knew you wouldn’t want to have a chat with her, so I gave it a shot.“
    “And... ?“
    “And she’s amazing. Amazing...“ Shelley’s voice trailed off as if she were remembering a horrible event from the distant past. Like the Black Plague.
    “Shelley, get a grip!“
    “Yes, yes. She ought to be institutionalized. She’s not quite human. Jane, she knows and cares about positively nothing but herself. Nothing, I tell you! I asked her about other people in the cast and she quite honestly didn’t seem to know who I meant. She seemed to dimly remember George Abington. Not because she was once married to him, mind you, but because she had some scenes with him.
    I’m not kidding! George only exists, in her mind, to fill in spaces in the script with talk so that the camera can focus on her reactions.”
    Shelley was hanging onto Jane’s arm, as if it were her last link with the real world.
    “What about Jake?“
    “She didn’t seem to really know quite who he was. I asked her if she’d ever worked on a set with him before and she looked at me as if I were crazy to expect her to remember anybody she’s ever worked with. Her only interest in Jake was that he ‘got himself killed’—that I assure you is a direct quote—and has perpetuated the myth about her being bad luck on a set.“
    “No!“
    “By that time I was so fascinated, that I asked her what she knew about his death and she knew nothing. Not that he was stabbed, or where or when it happened. I tried to make her speculate on who did it and she just said, ‘Well, I didn’t.’ Understand this, Jane, that wasn’t a denial of guilt, it was a statement that if she didn’t do it, who could possibly have any interest in who did? Amazing.“
    “That all fits with what George Abington said about her. I’ll tell you about my conversation with him in a minute. So you’re pretty sure she was telling the truth? About not killing Jake?“
    “Positive. When she ran out of self-praise for a second, I quickly asked her if Jake had been blackmailing her and she was genuinely astonished at the question. Blackmail, she explained rather patiently to me, requires that a person has done something wrong. She—it should have gone without saying—had never done anything wrong.“ “But she was in drug rehab, wasn’t she? Why didn’t you bring that up?“
    “Oh, I didn’t need to. She did. She was put in some kind of institution. She went on about it until I was ready to throttle her,“ Shelley said. “I didn’t exactly get the idea it was to do with drugs, but it was hard to tell. She’s worked it around in her mind that she was merely there to brighten the days of the patients and staff. A charitable act, don’t you see? She likened it to Dorothy Lamour handing out coffee and donuts at the U.S.O. during World War II. Although she didn’t mention the war itself. I don’t think she knows there was one. She hadn’t been born yet, so what could there have been for people to fight about!“
    “Shelley, if your voice gets any higher, only dogs and bats will be able to hear you! Calm down.”
    She sighed heavily. “I know. You think I’m exaggerating, but I’m not. All of this“—Shelley