Stone Barrington 06-11

self.
    “I’m going to go lie down for a few minutes,” Arrington said, and went into the bedroom.
    “Well,” Stone said, “do you think she’s innocent?”
    “She’s my client,” Blumberg replied, “so she’s innocent.”
    “Come on, Marc, I want an opinion. So far, everybody I know except me thinks she did it.”
    “It doesn’t matter,” Blumberg said.
    “It doesn’t matter?”
    “Not to me, Stone; but then I’m not in love with her.”
    Stone was surprised at this, but he said nothing.
    “She’s innocent until proven guilty, and I’m going to keep her that way.”
    “How are you going to handle the D.A. on Saturday?”
    “I’m not going to handle him,” Blumberg replied. “I’m going to stay out of his way, and let him at her.”
    “You really think that’s a good idea?”
    “Listen, the D.A.’s questioning is going to be nothing, compared with what I just put her through. I dragged her back and forth across the stones of her story for an hour, and she never budged from it. The woman is a rock, and the D.A. is not going to make a dent in her. She’s a good actress, too.”
    “Actress?”
    “She’ll have a jury on her side from the moment she opens her mouth, and I don’t have the slightest qualm about having her testify. O.J.’s team was smart to keep him off the stand—the prosecution would have gutted him, just as happened in the civil trial, but they won’t lay a glove on Arrington, trust me.”
    “You think it’ll go to trial?”
    “Not unless they’ve got a lot more than I think they’ve got. We’ll find out about that on Saturday morning. What did you think of the autopsy report?”
    “Pretty straightforward. He sure had a lot of scars.”
    “I asked Arrington about that; he did most of his own stunt work. Over the years, it took its toll.”
    “That would explain it,” Stone said. “God, I hope this doesn’t go to trial.”
    “I wouldn’t mind, if it did,” Blumberg said with a small smile. “A trial would be a lot of fun.”

Twenty-three

    S TONE GOT OUT OF THE BENTLEY AND WENT AROUND to the other side, where Manolo was holding the rear door open for Arrington and her son, Peter, and his grandmother, who had brought him back for the service, at the insistence of Marc Blumberg.
    Stone took her left hand, tucked it under his arm while she held Peter’s hand with her right, and led the little group through the open rear door of the sound stage, past a large truck with satellite dishes on top. The soft strains of a pipe organ wafted through the huge space. Schubert, he thought.
    As he led them to a front pew, he took in the atmosphere, which was fragmented, and a little unreal. The cathedral set was not complete, being composed of only those parts necessary for the shooting of a scene. Everything at the rear—the choir loft, the organ and its pipes, the pulpit (or whatever it was called in a Catholic or Anglican church)—looked like the real thing, while other parts of the ceiling and stained glass windows were incomplete. A coffin of highly polished walnut rested in front of the pulpit. Stone wondered if Vance Calder’s body was really inside, or if it was just a prop.
    He deposited Arrington and Peter next to her mother on the front pew, then walked to the side of the seating area and stood. From there, he had an excellent view of the crowd. Perhaps twenty pews had been placed on the concrete floor, and they were packed with Hollywood aristocracy. Stone recognized several movie stars, and he was sure that the others were the crème de la crème of producers, writers, and directors. Two pews behind Arrington he was surprised to spot Charlene Joiner, the costar of Vance’s last film, with whom he had, apparently, been sleeping. At the other end of the pew sat Dolce, accompanied by her father. Dolce pointedly ignored him, but Eduardo gave him a grave glance, and they exchanged somber nods. Eduardo had not returned his phone call.
    Behind the twenty pews was a sea of folding chairs, occupied by the working folk of Centurion Studios—directors, carpenters, grips, bit players, script ladies, and all the other people who made movies happen. Stone counted four large television cameras—the studio kind, not the handheld news models, and he realized that they must be feeding to the big truck outside. A boy’s choir began to sing, and Stone turned to find that the youngsters had filed into the choir loft while he had been looking at the crowd. It took