Free Behind the Seams by Betty Hechtman Page A

name public until their family had been notified.
    “Thank heavens for that,” I said to Dinah. “It would be awful if that was how her family found out.”
    Pierce kept trying to find out as much as possible about the victim and who might have wanted to harm her. “You were telling me a production assistant is the one who gave the victim the poison.”
    Talia suddenly appeared uncomfortable. “I said allegedly might have given the victim some kind of poison. And please, no names for the victim or the sus—alleged suspect.” Pierce tried to squeeze more details out of Talia, but all she would talk about was Robyn’s job.
    “We call them segment producers to separate them from the other kinds of producers on the show. It’s their responsibility to get all the pieces together for the shows. Like, they take care of all the video background pieces we always have. Sometimes it takes a year to put one together if they’re following somebody’s progress at, say, losing weight.” Pierce wanted to know what kind of shows the victim had been working on. She hemmed and hawed and finally would only say she had been assigned two shows—one featured an author and one a celebrity couple.
    “And you worked for the deceased woman?” Pierce said and she nodded. “Is it safe to assume that you’ll be taking over for her?”
    Talia must have realized how cold all of this sounded, and she suddenly appeared anguished or tried to appear that way. She insisted the whole staff was brokenhearted over the loss. “But Barbara can’t just stop her show and let all her fans down. I’m going to be doing my best to step into Ms. X’s shoes.” Talia seemed done, then she looked back at the camera. “And for all you fans out there. Under the circumstances, we’re doing a repeat tomorrow, but after that, it’s back to our regular schedule.”
    “Barbara is certainly not letting any grass grow under her feet,” Dinah said.
    “I suppose it seems that way, but they can’t just close up shop,” I said. “I sure hope CeeCee isn’t watching this. If she hears anything about a suspect, she’ll have to figure it’s Nell,” I said as we got our leftovers packed up to go. I drove the greenmobile, as I called my old blue green Mercedes 190E, back to my house. Dinah pushed me to take all the leftovers and then got in her car and left.
    I called Mason as soon as I got inside. He listened as I relayed how Nell seemed to think she was off the hook because they let her go, but then I’d just heard somebody on TV say the cops had a suspect. “Could it be someone other than Nell?”
    “Anything is possible,” Mason said. “But I wouldn’t get too hopeful.” He repeated his offer to talk to Nell or CeeCee. “This must be a whole new experience for CeeCee—having to focus so much attention on someone else.” He realized that had sounded wrong and corrected his statement. “I didn’t mean anything about her personally. It goes with the territory. Lord knows I deal with enough celebrity types to see how they are. They get so used to being the center of attention it’s hard for them to consider somebody else.” He brought the subject back to me, remembering I’d been pretty worn when he dropped me at the bookstore.
    “You sound exhausted, Sunshine,” he said in a caring manner. I was agreeing with him when Samuel came in the kitchen door carrying his guitar. I had left the bag of leftovers on the counter, intending to put it in the refrigerator. He opened the bag and pulled out one of the containers and some bread and headed for his room. The door opened again and Barry came in. He was in shirt sleeves with his tie hanging loose. He touched my shoulder in greeting and started poking through the bag of restaurant food. He tried to look intent on the food, but I knew he was listening to my call.
    “Do you have company?” Mason asked.
    “Yes,” I said, feeling inhibited.
    “And you can’t talk anymore, huh?” Mason