Wanting Sheila Dead(88)

“I think it’s to make us cry,” somebody else said.

Gregor turned around. The first girl who had been whispering in his ear was the one with white-blond hair with a neon green streak in it. The other was the girl named Janice Ledbedder, who had talked to the murder victim on the day of the auditions in Merion.

The girl with the neon green streak in her hair smiled. “Ivy Demari,” she said. “I used to be Ivy Demaris. We went over all this yesterday.”

Olivia Dahl came flying out of the living room with the clipboard clutched to her chest. “Will you all just stop it?” she demanded. “This is not a movie we’re on. We don’t get to rerecord the sound later. And it’s expensive and annoying to get rid of white noise when we don’t have to. So if you please, will you all just shut up—oh, Mr. Demarkian.”

“I can shut up,” Gregor said.

Olivia shook her head violently and headed back for the set. Gregor could see Mary-Louise Verdt on the couch, wringing her hands the way the mothers of good boys gone bad always did in thirties-era movies. Janice Ledbedder was right: Mary-Louise looked ready to cry. If she didn’t cry, she was going to jump off the couch and run away. Gregor didn’t think he had ever seen anybody so uncomfortable.

All of a sudden, the woman on the couch stood up, and people in the living room started fussing around. Mary-Louise left the wingback chair as if she had been launched from it, pushing past the men with their cameras and almost running out into the hall.

“Oh,” she said, reaching Janice and Ivy. “Oh, my God. That woman is such a—she’s such a—”

“Oh, I know,” Janice said. “And they look into your life and they find out everything, and then she just comes along and socks you with it. She was hitting me with my boyfriend right up to the very end—”

“They didn’t have to dig hard for that story. You’ve told all of us a dozen times about how your boyfriend dumped you for another girl,” Ivy said.

“I know, I know,” Janice said. “I’m sorry if I keep talking about it. But it worked . . . But it worked out all right. We both sent in tapes for this, and I got asked and she didn’t. And I’m going to be on television for at least a week, right? I mean, I’m in the house, so I have to be on television at least until the first elimination.”

“Wouldn’t that suck?” Mary-Louise said. “Going home on the first elimination. That’s got to be the worst feeling. I’d almost rather not get on than get on and go home first.”

“Oh, people are always saying things like that,” Janice said. “And then they’re saying the opposite two minutes later. We’re all here.”

“Who goes next?” Mary-Louise asked.

Ivy shook her head. “You were the last one,” she told Mary-Louise. “They’re cleaning up. Can’t you see.”

Gregor looked into the living room with the girls. They were indeed cleaning up. Men were packing equipment away or just moving it around on wheels. The woman who had been playing the interviewer was standing next to Sheila Dunham, talking and looking dissatisfied. Olivia Dahl was checking things out on her clipboard.

Olivia came back into the foyer. “I’m sorry, Mr. Demarkian, we’re just doing a little work around here. I wish you’d called. I could have given you a better time. We’re going to be another ten or fifteen minutes, I’m afraid.”

“That’s all right,” Gregor said.

Olivia started shooing the girls. “Come on now. We’re going to film one of Sheila’s pep talks, and then you’re all off for a couple of hours. No, Janice. Don’t go upstairs and get changed. You’re supposed to look ‘come as you are.’ ”

“I just have to go to the bathroom,” Janice said. “I’ll only be a second.”

Olivia rolled her eyes. Then she raised her voice and said, “Get into the living room, please. We’ve got to set you up. It’s a bigger room than the study. We’ve got to make sure we get the shot. I’m going absolutely crazy. What do the police want around here? The body is gone. I mean it’s really gone. There’s nothing more to find here. Why can’t they go away and let us have access to that room again?”

“It’s probably procedure,” Gregor said, fully aware that he’d said nothing of any importance whatsoever.

Janice came hurrying back down the stairs, from where Gregor presumed the bathroom was. Olivia started checking things off on her clipboard. Then she raised her voice and said,

“Mary-Louise? Mary-Louise, for God’s sake.”