57aacbcd9598439b495cce0c68035a7c

“I’ll tell him it’s preventive. What?” she added when Odelia gave her a critical look. “It never hurts to be careful about these things.” She flicked the whip a few times, a look of relish on her wrinkled old face. “I’m gonna have so much fun!”

And then, before we could ask her any more questions, she was gone—out the door quick as a flash.

“I still don’t get it,” said Dooley. “That stuff is never featured on the Hallmark Channel.”

“It’s not on the Discovery Channel either,” I said, equally puzzled. I turned to Odelia. “Is it featured on any channel?”

“Yeah, are we missing something?” asked Dooley.

Odelia smiled.“Oh, it’s on a channel, all right, but not one destined for babies like you. Now, are you going to help me out with this Donna Bruce thing or not?”

Dutifully, we hopped down from the table and returned to our Internet search. Even with me and Dooley pooling our knowledge, gleaned from the Hallmark Channel and the Discovery Channel, there obviously was still a lot about the human experience that was alien to us. A lot of strange and wonderful things that were out there. But first… we had a murder to solve.

Chapter 12

Ransom Montll? lived in a dilapidated boarding house near the main road out of town. When Odelia and Chase arrived, a seedy-looking individual with a beer belly and a brown-bagged bottle of liquor in his hand sat playing fetch with his dog out on the front porch. He threw a stick in the direction of the road and the dog fetched it and returned it to the man’s feet. Each time the dog ran off, the man took a swig from his bottle, then bent down to pick up the stick and threw it away again.

They mounted the creaky porch, avoiding the one broken step, and Chase brought out his police badge.“Are you the owner of this establishment, sir?”

“That, I’m not,” said the man, slightly slurring his words.

“We’re looking for Ransom Montll?.”

“That, I am,” said the man, and hiccuped. He frowned at Chase. “Am I in some kind of trouble, officer?” He held up his liquor bottle, wrapped in the brown paper bag. “This is not what it looks like.”

“It’s not?”

The man shook his head decidedly.“Apple juice. Just plain old apple juice.”

“That’s fine,” said Chase, taking a seat next to the former producer. “I’m not interested in your juice, old-timer. My name is Chase Kingsley and this is Odelia Poole.”

“Nice to meet you, missy,” said Ransom, tipping an imaginary cap in Odelia’s direction.

“We’re looking into the murder of Donna Bruce.”

The man’s face turned into a scowl. “Donna Bruce? Someone murdered that old hag?”

“She wasn’t that old,” said Odelia.

“But she was a hag,” said the man, nodding to add emphasis to his words.

“And why is that, exactly?” asked Chase.

“She went out and ruined me, didn’t she?”

“What happened?” asked Odelia.

“Well, she was going to be in one of my movies. You may have heard of it.A Star is Born.”

Odelia frowned.“Wasn’t that with Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson?”

“There’s also a version with Judy Garland and James Mason,” said Chase.

She looked at him admiringly.“You know your classics.”

“Big fan of old movies,” he intimated.

“So we were shooting a new version,” said Ransom, cutting through their chitchat, “and I had personally tapped Donna Bruce for the lead. I thought she’d be just great.”

“I didn’t know she could sing,” said Odelia.

“Oh, she could sing all right.”

“So she was really going to do this?” asked Odelia. “But I thought she retired from acting.”

“This was way before that funny website she built,” said the former producer. “Way, way before, back when the name Donna Bruce conjured up images of wonderful movies, and not golden dildos and the like.” He chuckled freely, then dissolved into a coughing fit. When he came out of it, he continued, “So everything was set. We had our stars, we had our director, we had one of the major studios on board, and that’s when tragedy struck.”

“A storm?” asked Chase. “A freak storm destroyed the sets?”

“Not a storm.”

“A stuntman died,” said Odelia knowingly. “Or a stuntwoman. Donna’s stunt double would have to be a woman, obviously.”

“No one died,” said the man, shuffling annoyedly.

“So what happened?” asked Chase.

“If you will just let me finish I’ll tell you what the hell happened!”

“I’m sorry,” said Chase. “Please continue.”

“I will,” he said, throwing the detective a look of censure. “Donna Bruce walked out, that’s what happened. And since the studio was dead set on her, that was also the end ofA Star is Born.”

“Wait, she walked out of the movie?” asked Odelia.

“That’s what I just said.” He raked his fingers through his wild mane of gray hair. “Said she was sick and tired of being an actress and she was going to start a family instead. So she walked out of what would have been the best part of her career.”

“So what did you do?”

“What could I do? I sued, of course!”

“You sued Donna Bruce?”

“Of course. She was ruining a movie I’d already sunk a big chunk of my own money in. So I sued.” He sagged a little. “And lost.”