DD Warren 00 - The 7th Month

lead.
    “Don’t I wish. Joe Talte. Stand-in.” He rose, shook her hand. He was wearing black leather gloves. Because it was cold? Maybe.
    “Stand-in?” D.D. quizzed.
    Don did the honors. “This is Joe, Melissa, and Natalie. They’re the stand-ins for the three leads. Meaning, they’ll go on set first, taking up position on the markers so that the lighting and camera crews can make their final adjustments before shooting begins.”
    “But you’re in costume.” D.D. stated the obvious.
    Joe smiled at her. He had a good smile, charismatic, like an actor. With his short cropped sandy brown hair, strong tanned face, and bright blue eyes, he definitely looked enough like a cop to play one on TV. “Our wardrobe needs to be consistent with the actors’ outfits to assist with lighting,” he explained to her. “If I was wearing a black jacket, for example, that would bounce light differently than a tan one. So in the end, it’s easier to dress consistently; otherwise the crew can’t get their job done.”
    “But the gun?” D.D. peered at it closely. One of the largest, craziest sidearms she’d ever seen.
    “From props,” he assured her. “Does it make me look tough? ’Cause that’s the idea.”
    “Total badass.”
    He smiled again. Grinned really. Took her all in, even the enormous rounded belly, and poured on the charm. Joe Talte, D.D. decided, was a dangerous man.
    “So you’re like understudies for the stars,” D.D. tried out. “Do you like it?”
    All three immediately nodded.
    “We get a lot of time in front of the director,” said Melissa, the brunette dressed as a detective. “Not to mention the experience of making a feature film. You never know. Stand-in today . . .”
    “Star tomorrow,” Natalie, the gorgeous blonde, finished for her. She trilled the word “star” in a way that indicated she’d practiced it before. Many times, D.D. would guess, probably while standing in front of her dresser mirror.
    “I play the victim that gets away,” Natalie continued, gesturing to her tightly fitted black dress, with matching hose and, of course, three-inch stilettos. “Tonight’s the scene where my character, the widow Deborah, first visits her husband’s grave to leave a red rose—it’s their anniversary. Except the Gravestone Killer attacks. She barely gets away.”
    Natalie tossed back her wavy blond hair as if to emphasize the drama of her narrow escape. Getting into character, D.D. figured, but already she had a feeling the thin, elegant blonde was the naturally dramatic type.
    “That’s scene one,” Don reported, from the doorway. “What they’re setting up now.”
    “Later in the movie,” Joe picked up, “the cops”—he gestured to himself and the other stand-in, Melissa—“decide to bait the Gravestone Killer by having Deborah return to her husband’s grave. That’s scene thirty-two, which we’ll film after scene one.”
    “Scene thirty-two?” D.D. asked. “Of how many scenes?”
    “A hundred and eighty-nine.”
    “Meaning baiting the killer obviously doesn’t work. What goes wrong?”
    Joe grinned at her. “You’ll have to stick around to find out.”
    She rolled her eyes. D.D. had done some digging into Donnie’s production company. She knew that the film had started shooting three weeks ago and that Chaibongsai had received one paycheck for two weeks of work. Meaning the cast and crew had had three weeks to get to know one another, form friendships, and, apparently, make enemies. Given that Samuel had been hired to help primarily with the male lead, she decided to quiz Joe first on Chaibongsai’s involvement.
    “You work with the cop consultant?” she asked him.
    “Chaibongsai? Nope. I’m just a stand-in. Authenticity is above my pay grade. He worked directly with Gary.”
    “What about hanging around on set?”
    “His territory was video village. The promised land. Again, we’re second team. We’re lucky to get the green room.”
    “Meals?”
    “Cast and crew eat together,” Joe granted. “But people are staggering in and out over the course of an hour, depending on their schedules. I sat next to Chaibongsai once. That was it.”
    “You local?” she asked him, then stretched out the question to include Melissa and Natalie as well.
    As a unit, they nodded.
    “What about others on set?”
    “Lighting and electrical,” Don spoke up. “Some of the production crew, including PAs. Craft services, hair and makeup. But most of the cast