Murder, She Wrote by Jessica Fletcher Read Free Book Online Page B

defensive marks on them. That was odd, too. If someone had sneaked up on her from behind and thrown the film around her neck, surely she would have put her hands up to fight against the pressure of the celluloid on her throat. And was film strong enough to cut off her air supply without tearing? I didn’t know. Could someone have approached her from behind without her being aware of it? It seemed unlikely. Perhaps she’d been sleeping in the chair and was caught unawares by the killer. If not, if she’d meant to meet this person, why would she have chosen the set for an assignation? As always in these situations, the mysteries piled up, one upon the other.
    The real question was why would someone want to kill Vera Stockdale to begin with? To be sure, she was an unpleasant woman. She was selfish and rude and egotistical. I’d felt the brunt of her temper myself. But there are many disagreeable people in the world and most of them are still walking this earth. A person’s being nasty is not usually enough of a reason to inspire someone to do away with her, although it is not unknown for a killer to have a flimsy motivation. How people respond to insults or humiliations varies widely. Vera had likely cut a wide swath with her venomous tongue. How many enemies had she made? Had someone been so incensed by her spiteful remarks that he or she determined to silence her forever?
    I’d been so focused on the murder scene in front of me, I was surprised when Elovitz spoke. “You know what’s really strange?” he said, as if he’d been weighing all the same questions that had been occupying my thoughts.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œWhere did that thirty-five-millimeter film come from?”
    â€œDo you mean what’s on it?” I asked.
    â€œYeah, that, too.” He took a step toward the body and I put out an arm to restrain him. “I can’t tell from here if it’s something that was left on the cutting room floor or if it’s just undeveloped film,” he said.
    â€œIt’s not worth putting your fingerprints on it to find out,” I said. “The detectives should be able to determine its origin.”
    â€œYou’re right, but maybe what they don’t know is that we don’t shoot on film anymore, at least most of us don’t. That’s the peculiar thing. I don’t have any film here. Everything is digital. I haven’t seen a film camera on a set since my student days. Where did that piece of film come from?”
    â€œGood question,” I said. “Make sure you tell Sheriff Metzger about that.”
    â€œHow long do you think he’s going to keep my set off-limits?” he asked. “I’ve got work to do.”
    â€œI couldn’t say,” I replied. “This is a crime scene, and he’ll need to examine it pretty carefully in case there’s evidence here that’s not immediately visible. Once you start shooting again, that evidence could be compromised, fingerprints added that weren’t there before, items moved. In that case,
his
continuity would be broken.”
    â€œOkay, I get it. Maybe we can make a deal,” Elovitz said. “I’ll help him out with the production stuff, and in exchange he speeds up his investigation and lets me get back to shooting on this set.”
    We heard a commotion at the hangar’s back door and looked up to see two of Mort’s deputies entering, pushing a body bag on top of a gurney. They were followed by an evidence technician, who set his case on the floor and proceeded to remove items he would need, snapping on a pair of latex gloves and placing a bundle of cellophane bags to the side. A tray he set on the floor contained, among other items, several pairs of tweezers, scissors, a tape measure, and a magnifying glass. He looked up at the spotlights overhead. “Guess we don’t need the high-intensity lights today,” he said, as he pulled out a