Murder & The Movie Star: A Cedar Bay Cozy Mystery - Book 12 Read online

  MURDER & THE MOVIE STAR

  By

  Dianne Harman

  (A Cedar Bay Cozy Mystery - Book 12)

  Copyright © 2017 Dianne Harman

  www.dianneharman.com

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form without written permission except for the use of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Paperback ISBN: 978-1545356395

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  To You, My Readers:

  This book came about because a young man who once worked for my husband emailed me and asked if I would make a donation to a fundraiser his children’s school was having. More specifically he asked if people could bid on being a character in one of my future books. I’d never done anything like that before, but I said certainly, knowing it was for a good cause.

  As you read Murder and the Movie Star when you come across a character by the name of Roger Babowal, he is a real person and the father of my friend, Mike, and his sister, Shelly. Shelley was the high bidder at the school fundraiser and asked if, rather than using her as a character, I would use their father, Roger. I wrote and asked Mike if he could tell me something about his father. Once I began writing, Roger Babowal quickly became a very important character in the book, as you’ll soon find out. So, thanks Mike, for asking me to do it and Shelley, thanks for submitting the high bid!

  I would be remiss if I didn’t thank Vivek and Tom, without whom, my books would never see the light of day.

  To Vivek: It’s wonderful to have someone I can rely on to take care of the things that you’re so good at, namely, designing beautiful book covers, handling the technical side of publishing my books, and always giving me sound guidance.

  To Tom: Our home operates seamlessly because of you, and for that I thank you! I could never take care of all the things that need to be done around the house and also find time to write. You’re a living testimony that role reversals can work, whatever the age! Who would have thought a man who was once an important California State Senator would be doing the laundry and loading the dishwasher? Not me!

  And To You, My Readers: Your ongoing support of me and my writing makes it worth every minute I spend doing what I love. Thank you!

  And last, but not least, to you, my readers: I love interacting with you, I love your comments, and I so appreciate your support. Thank you!

  Free Paperbacks

  I'm giving away FREE Paperbacks. Find out more at www.dianneharman.com/freepaperback.html

  Table of Contents

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  EPILOGUE

  RECIPES

  ABOUT DIANNE

  PROLOGUE

  Jacquie Morton walked over to a painting hanging on the wall of her dining room that concealed a wall safe hidden behind it. Using her fingers, she felt the edges of the painting and carefully took it down. She couldn’t see the numbers on the dial of the safe, but she’d memorized how many clicks she had to make each way to open it. When it swung open she reached inside and took out the large diamond necklace and rings she’d planned to wear tomorrow, the day of the big meeting, as well as the rest of her jewelry. With a gun pushed firmly into her back, she handed all of it, along with several large bundles of cash, to the person holding the gun.

  The director of Jacquie’s yet to be filmed movie, The Triangle, in which she had the leading role, was flying in from Los Angeles and meeting with her, the screenwriter, and the supporting actress, Lisette Andrews, in the morning to smooth out some differences they were having over the script. Now she wondered if she would even be alive for the meeting.

  The meeting had been called by the screenwriter who was at a loss trying to understand why he was on the receiving end of negative and sarcastic remarks from Jacquie regarding the script he was rewriting for the movie. The director and the producer felt the movie could be in the running for an academy award in several categories, but they’d agreed the script needed some work. They knew they were taking a risk when they’d decided to make a film about the relationship between two women who were vying for the attention of the same man.

  Jacquie was playing the role of a very wealthy older woman who was interested in a much younger man. Lisette was playing the part of a younger woman who was also vying for his attention. The movie was relying on clever dialogue and psychological nuances, rather than action, to make it appeal to the viewing audience. For that to happen, the script had to be perfect.

  Jacquie had insisted that Lisette and Mickey, the screenwriter, come to Cedar Bay and stay in the house she owned next door to the one where she lived when she wasn’t actively involved in filming a movie. She’d bought the house on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean several years earlier as a retreat from the hectic life she led as one of the most famous movie stars in Hollywood. That was before she’d received the doctor’s diagnosis three years ago that the eyesight problems she was beginning to experience were caused by the onset of macular degeneration.

  Only her doctors in Beverly Hills and Cedar Bay, and her administrative assistant, Maizie Ortiz, knew how far the disease had progressed. She could still see shapes, but often she was no longer capable of determining who a face belonged to or reading the words on a script, which was why she’d opened the front door of her home a few minutes earlier. The person at the door had called her by name, and she didn’t want the person to know she couldn’t tell who it was by looking through the window pane in the door.

  During the last two years, she’d come to rely on Maizie to be her eyes, particularly when she had to learn the lines in the rewritten script, so she’d be ready to meet with Mickey and Lisette the following day. She knew Mickey was frustrated by her response to his script, but she couldn’t let either of them know that she simply couldn’t read it. Instead of telling them about her vision disability, she made excuses by saying she didn’t have the time to read the script, or whatever she could think of at the moment.

  When Maizie had gotten the call that her granddaughter had to have an emergency appendectomy operation, Jacquie had told her to take a couple of days off and go to nearby Portland so she could be with her family. Even though the big meeting was to be held at her house tomorrow, it wasn’t scheduled to start until 10:00, so she’d arranged for Kelly Reynolds of Kelly’s Koffee Shop to bring several kinds of breakfast things to the house before the meeting. Maizie had gotten the coffee ready for Jacquie and arranged the cups, glasses, forks, napkins, and plates on the mahogany sideboard in the dining room. All Jacquie had to do was plug in the coffeepot, take the pitcher of orange juice out of the refrigerator, and set it out for her guests. No one would know what a struggle it was for Jacquie to make sure she could even do th
at, given her failing eyesight.

  Her main concern was her makeup and hair, but as many times as she’d had to look “camera ready” over the years, she was sure she could do it from memory. Maizie had laid out the clothes she’d wear for the meeting, a dark pink silk pantsuit which accented her creamy complexion and thick, wavy, ash-blond hair. Looking at her piercing blue eyes, no one would ever suspect she suffered from a disease that rendered her nearly blind, a disease she’d managed to hide so far.

  “Jacquie, it’s me. Open up. I want to talk to you,” the voice she recognized said. She’d opened the door and let the person in. She never saw the gun in the person’s hand. All she felt was her arm being held in a tight grip, as the person walked her into the dining room where the wall safe was and demanded that she open it. When the safe had been emptied, the person propelled her towards the back of the house and opened the sliding glass door, letting in the sound of the waves breaking on the rocks below the cliff.

  “What are you doing?” she screamed as she felt herself being pushed forward and the cold muzzle of the gun shoved into the middle of her back. She knew there was no point in struggling or trying to run for help, because she wouldn’t be able to see where she was going. The one thing she realized with a sense of horror was that the person behind her was pushing her towards the sound of the ocean, towards the edge of the cliff.

  “Your time here is over, Jacquie. You had a good run, but now you’re through. Sorry to do this, honest. It’s just the way things turned out.”

  With that Jacquie felt herself flying off into space. She screamed as loud as she could. She never saw the jagged rocks below that broke her back when she smashed into them, severing her spine. Fortunately for Jacquie, the force of the fall was enough to kill her instantly, and there was no pain or suffering.

  Jacquie Morton, one of the most famous movie stars in the world, was lying dead at the bottom of the cliff. The only sound that could be heard was the rhythm of the waves breaking over the rocks, but Jacquie never heard them or saw them as her sightless, and now dead, eyes stared up at the dark sky.

  The person standing at the top of the cliff knew time was critical, hurriedly walked back through the house, and began throwing the jewelry and cash into a small plastic bag. With that job finished, the person hurried to the front door. Within minutes, the house was empty and quiet. There were no witnesses and the person who had just murdered the famous movie star, Jacquie Morton, felt completely confident that the perfect crime had just been committed.

  CHAPTER 1

  It was Monday morning, and the regulars were eager to begin their week with breakfast and coffee at Kelly’s Koffee Shop, the gossip hub of the small town of Cedar Bay, Oregon. People often commented that if it didn’t get talked about at Kelly’s, it probably wasn’t worth talking about. Kelly Reynolds, the genial owner, greeted each of them warmly and the words, “Would you like the usual today?” were often heard.

  It had been a busy morning and as lunchtime approached Kelly went into the kitchen to see how her line cook, Charlie, was doing. “You need a break, Charlie? It’s been pretty busy this morning, and I thought you might like to step outside for a minute and soak up the sun.”

  He grinned at her and said, “Ordinarily I’d take you up on that, Kelly, but I’ve got a great view of the coffee shop and guess who just walked in?”

  Kelly was quiet for a moment listening to the unusual sound of silence in the coffee shop. She walked over to where Charlie was standing, and said, “Oh, my gosh, it looks like the rumors are true. I’d heard that Jacquie Morton had bought a home in that new area north of here that overlooks the bay, but I’ve never seen her. She’s even more beautiful in person than she is in her movies.” She watched as the head of every person in the coffee shop turned towards Jacquie, who graced them with her larger-than-life sparkling movie star smile.

  “I think I’ve seen every one of her pictures,” Charlie said. “Jacquie Morton is my all-time very favorite movie star. I wonder what she’s doing here?”

  “Having lunch, would be my guess,” Kelly said. “Although I’m not sure Molly is going to make it to Ms. Morton’s booth without falling apart. Look at her face. She’s wearing the most idiotic smile I’ve ever seen.” They stood there for several moments, watching Molly, the coffee shop’s cashier and hostess, carefully hand a menu to Jacquie and the two people who were with her.

  “Charlie, can you believe this? Look at Roxie. She’s as star-struck as Molly seems to be. Now she’s going over to their table to take their order. I can’t hear what she’s saying, but from the looks of it I guess she’s asking them if they have any questions about the menu. As if the menu here has a lot of surprises on it. This is a coffee shop, for Pete’s sake.”

  Just then the front door opened, and Kelly saw the familiar face of Doc Burkhart, a regular customer who had become a close friend of hers. He’d been the best man when she and Mike had gotten married a few years earlier. She watched as Doc walked over to the celebrity’s table and smiled at Jacquie who smiled back at him. They exchanged a few words, and then Doc made his way to an empty table at the back of the coffee shop.

  “Well, I better get out there before my help completely falls apart,” Kelly said with a laugh. She delivered a couple of orders and then made her way to where Jacquie was sitting in a booth with a man and a woman. The woman looked vaguely familiar, but Kelly couldn’t place her.

  “Welcome to Kelly’s Koffee Shop, Ms. Morton. I’m Kelly Reynolds, the owner, and I’m delighted to have you here. Will you be in town for long?”

  “I don’t think so. We’re just taking care of some details in the script for my next movie, The Triangle. This is Mickey Sloan, the screenwriter. He’s here trying to fix the original script he wrote,” she said nodding in the direction of the handsome man with a full head of red hair and a matching beard. Kelly noticed the look of anger that passed quickly over his face. Jacquie continued, seemingly oblivious to his angry look, “And this is Lisette Andrews, the woman who has the supporting role in the movie. Naturally, I will star in it.”

  Kelly was shocked by the way she’d introduced the other two people, and although each of them was now wearing a pasted-on smile, neither of them seemed very happy with the introduction. “It’s nice to meet you. I hope you enjoy your lunch, and if you have any questions, please feel free to ask.”

  “As a matter of fact, I do,” Jacquie said. “I know Doc Burkhart, and he speaks very highly of you. I’m having a breakfast meeting Wednesday morning with these two and the director of the movie who’s flying up for it. Doc said you might be able to cater some coffee cake and a few other breakfast items for the meeting. It’s scheduled for 10:00. I’ll talk to you on the way out, but first I want to see if the food is as good as Doc says it is.”

  “Of course,” Kelly said, inwardly seething at the implication the food at Kelly’s wouldn’t really be all that good. “In the meantime, I’ll be thinking of things I could make for your meeting.” She turned and walked over to where Doc was sitting.

  CHAPTER 2

  “Good noon to you, Doc. I see that you’re punctual as usual,” Kelly said.

  “It’s not me, Kelly, it’s my stomach. It starts calling out to me about 11:30 in the morning, and before I know it, I’m in my car and on my way here.”

  “Well, you know you’re always welcome. I see you’ve met our guest celebrity. I’m not sure the rest of the people in here are going to get what they ordered, given the condition of Molly, Roxie, and even Charlie. They’re giving a new meaning to the word starstruck.”

  “So I’ve noticed. This may be the first time I’ve ever been in here that Roxie hasn’t brought me a cup of coffee and a menu within moments of my arrival. Can’t say I blame her, though. Jacquie is definitely a movie star from the old school.”

  “I assume that means you’re on a first name basis with her.”

  “Yeah, I see her professionally from time to time.”

  Kelly knew t
hat was a closed subject. Doc never talked about his patients or what they were seeing him for. “I don’t know whether to thank you for referring me to her or not. We briefly talked about me making some breakfast items for a meeting she’s having regarding her new movie.”

  “She can be a little difficult at times,” Doc said, “but I think that comes from having people idolize you for so long. I know she’s getting ready to shoot a new movie and from what I’ve read, she really needs this to be a hit, because the last one she starred in was a bomb.”

  “It must be pretty hard to take when you’ve been at the top of the charts for years and then you fall flat on your face while the whole world’s watching.”

  “It is,” Doc said cryptically and then changed the subject. “Coffee looks good. Thanks,” he said to Roxie who had just walked up to him.

  “Sorry about bein’ a little late with your coffee, Doc,” Roxie said breathlessly as she set a cup of coffee and a menu in front of him. “Things are kind of crazy with Ms. Morton in here.” She put her head down, lowered her voice, and said, “Have you seen that necklace she’s wearing? I’ve never seen diamonds that big dangling from a gold chain. And that tote bag on the seat next to her? I was reading one of those fancy fashion magazines the other day when I was at the beauty shop, and I’m sure that bag is a Hermes Birkin bag. Do you have any idea what those bags cost?”

  “No,” Doc and Kelly said in unison.

  “Oh, not much. Just around $100,000, that’s all. Can you imagine spending that kind of money on a tote bag? It boggles the mind. You could buy a house around here with that kind of money. Anyway, Doc, what can I get you today?”

  “I’m in the mood for a grilled cheese sandwich and the soup of the day. Tell Charlie to make it a double. He made one for me a couple of months ago, and it was the best one I’ve ever had. Every so often I get a craving for one of his double grilled cheese sandwiches, and today’s one of those days.”