A Knife to Remember

assumed that everybody on the set knew about it, which was probably true. “I don’t know! I just can’t figure that. 1 had it in my pocket ‘cause the chain busted. I got a free minute somewhere along the line, and I remember getting it out to see if I could fix it, but then somebody needed me for something and I guess I just put it down. I just can’t remember. It wasn’t important at the time.“
    “Was this yesterday?“
    “I think so. I got the feeling it was in the morning sometime, but like I say, it wasn’t that important and I’m not sure.“
    “And you were never in Miss Harwell’s dressing room?“
    “Are you kidding? A slob like me? Hanging around the likes of her?“
    “Do you think somebody put it there on purpose to implicate you?“
    “I dunno. Maybe. Or maybe she found it wherever I left it and just set it out meaning to ask whose it was and forgot. Or somebody else picked it up and left it there by accident. The police asked me all this and seemed real pissed that I didn’t have any good ideas about it.“
    “Butch, I’m really sorry about this. It’s not fair to you.“
    “Yeah, but Jake woulda said, ‘You ain’t got Fair in your contract.’ He had a lot of stuff like that he said. I’m really gonna miss him. That’s why it makes me so mad, people acting like I killed him. And then thinking I mighta done anything bad to Miss Harwell—that’s crazy! Did you watch that scene yesterday?“
    “Only from a distance.“
    “Well, let me tell you, she was—“ he groped around, trying to come up with the right word, and finally produced one that surprised Jane. “Stunning. She was stunning.“
    “Let’s sit down a minute, Butch. You haven’t got a cigarette on you, have you? I left mine inside.“
    “God, no. I had to give up smoking when I started working for Jake.“
    “Oh, yeah. There’s no worse crusader than an ex-smoker, is there?“
    “What do you mean? Jake never smoked.“ “Oh? I thought he did—“ something clicked in the back of Jane’s brain.
    “Naw, his mom died of lung cancer when he was a kid. He never smoked and never let anybody who worked for him smoke either.“
    “But why did I think—?“
    “ Quiet on the set!“ someone behind Jane bellowed.
    At the same moment, the intern came plunging through between the pieces of scenery and said, “Butch—“
    “ Rolling,“ the bullhorn announced.
    The set was utterly silent. The intern froze in place and gestured to Butch. Butch responded with a quick movement of his fingers.
    Jane put a hand over her mouth to keep from exclaiming. Hand signals! Signing! That’s why she thought Jake was an ex-smoker. The way his hand kept fidgeting at lunch. But it wasn’t nerves. It was signing! In complete silence, he’d been “talking“ to someone.
    The next couple of minutes seemed to last for hours. Jane’s mind lurched and wheeled, circling memories, picking some, rejecting others, fitting pieces together, trying to make pieces fit that refused to.
    “ Cut!”
    Without another word to Butch, Jane leaped out of her lawn chair and sprinted to where she thought she’d seen Shelley standing a few minutes before. But Shelley was gone. “Maisie!“ Jane said, spotting a familiar face. “Have you seen Shelley?“
    “I think she’s talking to somebody over by the props truck.”
    Jane headed that way and met Shelley coming back. “Quick! We have to find Mel and talk to him. I just realized something!“
    “He’s at the dressing room trailer.”
    He was interviewing someone and they had to wait a few minutes. “What is this?“ Shelley asked in a whisper.
    “Not here,“ Jane said. “Inside. Privately.”
    An electrician emerged from the trailer and Jane darted inside. “Mel, I’ve got to talk to you. At my house where nobody else can hear us.”
    She all but dragged him across the field.
    Once they were all inside and well away from anyone who might overhear, Jane explained. “I don’t know if anybody mentioned this to you, Mel, but Jake made his workers all learn to sign.“
    “You hauled me in here to tell me that?“
    “ Yes. It’s important. He was doing it at that lunch the day he was killed. I noticed, but then I forgot about it. It was after he’d finished eating and he kept fidgeting his fingers, as if he were antsy for a cigarette to handle. I just figured he was a recently reformed smoker and didn’t give it any more thought. But you see? He was giving someone a message!”
    Mel