Hidden Scars Read online

  “Would you sign it?” she asked.

  “With pleasure.” Roland Cassidy, aka L.T. Hart, scribbled his name with a flourish.

  Nakayla risked giving me a wink. The woman was shameless.

  Chapter Five

  We left Cassidy all smiles and headed downstairs.

  “Do you want to call Harlan?”

  “What’s his address?”

  She examined the script page where Cassidy had written the information. “1426 White Pine Road. It can’t be too far, if he’s this side of Ridgecrest.”

  “Then let’s drive. It’ll be harder for him to turn us down if we’re face-to-face.”

  “My brains and your looks again?”

  “Maybe we should reverse that.”

  She laughed. “I didn’t see the director and producer fawning over either one of us.”

  “Then you didn’t see the gleam in Marty Kolsrud’s eye. I’m not letting that guy near you.”

  “Don’t worry. The only way either one of us will get into the movies is to buy a ticket.”

  We returned to the large room filled with desks and scurrying assistants. As I pushed open the outside door, a voice yelled, “Sam Blackman. Wait!”

  I turned to see the young woman we’d first met jump from her chair.

  “Yes?” I said.

  She hurried to us. “Marty would like to speak with you.”

  “About what?”

  “I don’t know. He phoned down from the location and asked if both of you could see him for a few minutes.”

  “Maybe we won’t have to buy a ticket, after all.” Nakayla smiled.

  “Ticket to what?” the woman asked.

  “To this movie,” I said. “We wouldn’t turn down a free pass.”

  The woman lowered her voice. “If it doesn’t go straight to video.” She rolled her eyes at the ceiling. “The fastest way to improve this film would be to have Ernest Hemingway up there fall off the planet.”

  “Problems?” Nakayla asked.

  “Nancy says the best authors for movie adaptations are dead authors. They don’t argue about artistic integrity.”

  “I think you’d have to have it to argue about it.” Nakayla’s comment came so unfiltered that she winced.

  The woman pumped her fist in the air. “I like you, girlfriend.” She opened the fist into a palm and gave Nakayla a high five. “I’m Camille. Camille Brooks. I’m an A.D. running the production assistants.”

  I assumed A.D. meant assistant director, but decided not to ask and confirm that I didn’t know a best boy from a best man.

  “I guess Osteen told you about the theft,” she continued. “Between that and the weather, it’s a real zoo this morning.”

  “Where do we find Marty?” I asked.

  Camille Brooks walked around her desk. “I’ll take you to him.”

  We followed her out the door and into the open space underneath the second story. A two-seater golf cart was parked near one of the support poles.

  Camille looked at me. “You game to be a bag of clubs?”

  “I think I can hang on.” I sat facing backwards with one hand gripping a pole supporting the cart’s canopy.

  Camille slid behind the wheel, but Nakayla hesitated. “You’re sure you’re okay? I can switch with you.”

  Her doubt fueled my determination not to look like a wimp.

  “I could ride for days like this.”

  “Where’d you find Mr. Macho?” Camille asked.

  “Yard sale. It was either him or an old blender. Sam mixes a better drink.”

  I shifted to put more weight on my good leg. “Yuck it up, ladies. I’ll hop off and encourage Roland Cassidy to make new script changes.”

  “Good God, no.” Camille sent the golf cart leaping forward.

  We cruised along the side of the building and then picked up a single-lane road that climbed a wooded hillside. As the angle steepened, my butt slipped and I clutched the pole tighter.

  We passed a few cottages nestled in the pines. They were small and unassuming, the kind of construction that looked like they could have been a student project.

  The road leveled and we maneuvered around some smaller trucks parked in spaces that were too tight for the longer eighteen-wheelers I’d seen at the main equipment site.

  As I bumped along, a thought struck me. If the location had been left unattended last night, why weren’t the more valuable items stolen? Cameras, lenses, and other movie equipment had to be worth more than some building supplies.

  An aura of sunlight broke through the forest. It wasn’t coming from the overcast sky above but as if a second sun hung just below the tree line.

  Camille braked to a stop. “We’ll walk the rest of the way, in case they’re filming.”

  Although there was a gravel driveway, Camille stepped along adjacent pine needles. I heard a low hum behind us.

  “What’s that noise?”

  Camille looked back over her shoulder. “The generator. It’s blimped and won’t be audible at the set. Although the scene is an interior, Marty wants sunlight streaming through the windows so we have the big HMIs to make our own.”

  I assumed that was some kind of lighting device and nodded like I carried a couple in my trunk.

  Short bursts of a ringing bell sounded from in front of us.

  Camille stepped onto the gravel drive. “Good. They’ve cut. Marty will have a few minutes while they reset.” She picked up her pace and we followed. The driveway curved and we saw the lights first. Two large blazing instruments atop fifteen-foot stands. They were aimed at the windows on the left of the cottage—a cottage constructed out of the same corrugated steel and wood as the production headquarters.

  A table with two monitors sat just to the side of the front door. I gathered the screens displayed whatever was being captured by the cameras.

  The door was open and bodies crisscrossed back and forth as the crew inside prepared for whatever came next.

  “Wait here,” Camille said. “I’ll get Marty.”

  She disappeared into the cottage.

  A man with a gray beard and blue-checked bandanna knotted on his head came out. He must have been around forty. He peeled off leather work gloves and extended his hand. “Sam Blackman? I’m Mick Ritchie.”

  I shook the calloused hand, trying to place where I’d met him.

  “Mick Ritchie,” he repeated to Nakayla. She also shook the offered hand and studied his lined face.

  “Electrician,” she said. “At our office a few years ago.”

  I remembered. Nakayla and I had added some power outlets for our computers, copier, and printers. Mick Ritchie had done the wiring.

  “I didn’t know you were the electrician to the stars,” I said.

  He laughed. “Actually, I started in film electric work. Back when this state was hopping. We had competitive incentives and a great crew base.” He cocked his head. “Don’t know about your politics, but the damn Republicans blew that industry sky high. Made the incentives so restrictive and damned complicated that Hollywood said, ‘To hell with North Carolina.’ Then our so-called leaders hammered the nails in the coffin when they passed anti-gay legislation and dictated who can pee where.”

  Ritchie was so riled a vein rose on his forehead. “They ran everybody off to Georgia, who rolled out the welcome mat. I could get all the work I want in Atlanta. But Atlanta ain’t Asheville, that’s for damn sure. Anyway, I’m grateful Osteen was able to get the funding to make his movie here. Nice to work on a film and sleep in your own bed.”

  A man on a ladder by one of the big lights shouted, “Hey, Mick! We need extensions on these stingers.”

  “Coming right up.” Ritchie turned to us. “I heard you two were here. I told the director all about you.”

  He hustled off.


  “What’s to tell?” Nakayla whispered.

  “Well, we are a cute couple.”

  “Couple of what?”

  Before I could think of a witty response, Camille and Marty stepped outside.

  The director raised his hand in greeting like he was an alien emerging from his spaceship. “Thank you for seeing me. Mick told me all about you.” His eyes moved from Nakayla to me. Instead of looking at my face, he gazed intently at my legs. Mick Ritchie had told him about my war injury.

  He turned to Camille. “Ask Grayson and Nicole to join us for a moment.”

  His A.D. returned to the cottage.

  “I want you to meet our stars,” Marty said. “They’re terrific. Each has a picture in post-production that will escalate their box office stature. We were lucky to get them while they’re still affordable.”

  I tried to look excited.

  “Where’s your crew staying?” Nakayla asked.

  “A block of rooms at the Holiday Inn between here and Asheville. Osteen made Nancy hire as many locals as she could.” He lowered his voice. “Not as many experienced crew are available as when I shot here before.”

  “Gone to Georgia,” I said.

  Marty nodded. “So, you’re familiar with our business. If Black Mountain College wasn’t our core setting, I guarantee we’d be shooting this film in Georgia.”

  “Are your stars staying at the Holiday Inn?”

  “Oh, God, no. Osteen worked out several rental houses in the Montford neighborhood in Asheville. When we can, we take advantage of the Asheville scene.”

  Montford was a rejuvenated section of Victorian homes and Arts and Crafts bungalows within walking distance of the downtown, a mecca for brew pubs, mountain and bluegrass music, Friday night drum circles, and probably the highest number of excellent restaurants per capita in the state. I could understand the Hollywood crowd wanting to be in those surroundings.

  “You wanted to see us?” A young man with slicked-back brown hair asked the question as he stepped from the cottage. He wore loose-fitting jeans with the cuffs turned up and a white T-shirt whose short sleeves were rolled to the shoulder. I knew the outfit was pre-designer name brands and before every T-shirt was an advertisement for a shoe company or a brewery.

  Behind him came a young woman in blue cotton shorts and a sleeveless yellow blouse. She stepped gingerly onto the gravel with her bare feet. Her jet black hair was cut short and the bangs were pulled off her forehead with a red plastic band. Her smooth olive skin and high cheekbones projected an exotic Mediterranean air. She couldn’t have been more than twenty-five.

  “Nicole Madison and Grayson Beckner, meet Nakayla Robertson and Sam Blackman.” Marty stepped back like he expected the four of us to have a group hug. Instead, we exchanged formal handshakes and responses that ranged from “Nice to meet you” to “A pleasure.”

  We all looked back to Marty who stood with his arms folded and his eyes rapidly moving between Grayson and me.

  “Nakayla and Sam are private detectives,” he said.

  “How terribly interesting,” Nicole said.

  This time I heard what could have been an accent from Australia or New Zealand. She didn’t look like a native of those countries, but I really had no clue what those people should look like.

  “Are you working a case?” Grayson asked.

  His accent came straight from Brooklyn. The two actors sounded worlds apart from western North Carolina and from each other.

  “Just getting some information on something that happened a long time ago,” I said. “Nothing to do with the movie.”

  Grayson winked. “I understand. The ‘private’ in private eye.”

  “Something like that.”

  “Marty, we’re ready.” A young man in cargo pants layered with pockets stood in the doorway.

  The director clapped his hands. “Excellent. Sam and Nakayla, would you like to see the set and then watch the video assist?”

  Nakayla looked at me and then the two actors. “If we’re not in the way.”

  “Nonsense,” Grayson said. “We block out everything around us.”

  Nicole laughed. “Including Marty’s direction.”

  The front room was stripped bare except for a handcrafted round wooden table and two straight-back chairs. The walls held a few woven tapestries and a shelf of pottery—a pitcher, some goblets, a few mugs.

  Two cameras near the table were positioned ninety degrees from each other, and I could see the wall objects were mounted at odd places to be within camera range.

  “Sit at the table,” Marty said. “Grayson and Nicole need their makeup freshened. Now when you see this scene on the big screen you can say you were there.”

  “Your big chance.” Nakayla pointed to a deck of cards on the table. “I’m pretty sure this is the strip poker scene. Robbie loses.”

  “Who?”

  “Grayson’s role. Robbie Oakley, the main male character.”

  “With a looker like Nicole, the movie has the guy lose?”

  “Sexist.” Nakayla glanced to the other side of the room where a woman fussed over Grayson’s hair. “He looks hot to me. I’d buy a ticket.”

  “Sam, you and Nakayla look at each other.” Marty stood beside a camera operator whose lens was focused on me. “You’re a good stand-in for Grayson while we tweak the shot.”

  Sam Blackman. Stand-in for a younger actor with a hot body. I could live with that.

  Nakayla read my mind. “Must be a real wide shot so don’t get your hopes up.” She patted the deck. “And I was kidding about the strip poker. Robbie and Sacha are building a house of cards while sharing their background stories. Another one of L.T. Hart’s not-so-subtle metaphors.”

  “What are the background stories?”

  “Robbie’s a World War II veteran who wants to be a painter. He’s local but he saw a lot of action in Europe. Sacha Molter is a camp survivor. Her father was German and owned a biergarten. Her mother was Jewish. Her father was killed trying to protect them and the mother died in Ravensbrück, a women’s concentration camp north of Berlin. Sacha was liberated and came to Manhattan to live where her aunt had immigrated a few years before the war. Sacha wants to be a dancer. Both are broken, trying to expunge their inner demons through their art.”

  I thought I saw where a chick lit story was headed. “One of them dies, right?”

  “Sorry, you’ll have to read the book.”

  Marty’s shadow fell across the table as he stepped in front of the window and leaned over us. “If the film weren’t already cast, you could be my leading roles. Come outside and watch the scene with me.”

  He led us to the area with the monitors. Extra director chairs were set up and a technician handed Nakayla and me wireless headsets. We watched Grayson and Nicole take their places. Instead of the clapstick slate depicted in the movies, a slate with flashing red sequential numerals was inserted into the camera shots. I read “Love Among the Ridges, scene 46, A&B reversals, Take 1.” A voice read the information aloud, then said, “Mark it,” and a beep sounded as the slate flashed white for a split-second.

  The slate withdrew, the cameras reframed on the actors, and Marty spoke into a microphone. “Action!”

  Grayson picked up the deck of cards and began building a tower. “How did you come to be here?” The Brooklyn accent had been replaced by a pitch-perfect mountain twang that could have come out of a moonshiner’s mouth.

  “My aunt. She arranged for me to study with Merce Cunningham. I think she just wanted to get me out of New York.” Nicole added a layer to the card tower. Her accent had transformed into a German-tinged English.

  “Are your parents away?” Grayson stacked another section of the card house, not really looking at Nicole. A little time passed before he realized she hadn’t answered him.

  Nicol
e had tears flowing down her cheeks.

  Grayson sat up straight. “Sacha?”

  “Merce says a dancer must have joy in her soul. But I look in my soul and I find…” Nicole pressed her hand against one of the bottom cards and the whole structure toppled. “Destruction. Around me. Within me.” She jumped up from her chair and out of frame.

  “Cut!” Marty pounded me on the back. “Brilliant. Brilliant.” He pulled off his headset. “See what I mean? These two will make something out of this pile-of-shit script.” He practically ran into the cottage to congratulate his actors.

  “What do you think we’re supposed to do now?”

  Nakayla started walking down the driveway. “Last I heard we were working a case. It’s time to see Harlan Beale.”

  I caught up to her. “But don’t you think that was odd?”

  “Odd? They were good performers.”

  “Odd that Marty wanted to speak to us, but what did he say?”

  Nakayla stopped and looked back at the cottage. The tech crew was already striking the lights. “I guess he was trying to impress us.”

  “Yes. Which leaves us with one big question. Why?”

  Chapter Six

  The rusty mailbox bearing Harlan Beale’s address looked like it had been there since first-class stamps were three cents. No house was visible. We turned onto a single lane driveway strewn with pine needles and rode about fifty yards until the road took a sharp left. The woods parted to reveal a one-story cottage centered in what appeared to be more pasture than lawn.

  A vintage 1970s Ford F-150 light blue pickup was parked near cinder block steps to a warped wooden porch. Set back on either side of the main cottage were two outbuildings. One sheltered an old tractor and the other anchored a fenced area containing chickens and guinea hens. They perched tucked together as feathered balls against the light drizzle.

  The three structures looked like they’d been salvaged from the materials used at Black Mountain College and never been renovated since.