Chapter 19
NINETEEN
After Joe left me alone in the solarium, I was catching my breath for a few seconds when I heard the faint sound of raised voices coming from outside. I turned to the door that led to the back gardens and listened again.
I grabbed the doorknob that led to the portico and opened it slowly so as to not be overheard by whomever was out there.
“We’ll have nothing to show for months of work,” the man’s voice said loudly enough for anyone within fifty yards to hear.
I was pretty sure it was the cameraman, Lee Frank.
Even though I couldn’t get a visual on them, I caught the scent of tobacco coming from the direction of the rose hedge maze.
I wondered if Charlie or any of his officers were keeping an eye on them.
“I was an idiot, letting him string me along like that.” The man’s voice sounded desperate, frantic even. “I even used my own credit cards on travel because he promised to reimburse us.”
A second person cleared her throat and spoke in an even tone. “I think we should go to our rooms and talk about this in the morning.” It was Mina.
“No one is depending on you for a roof over their head or their next meal,” Lee argued. “I’ve got three kids in school, and this was supposed to be my way to break into the industry. You know how hard it is to join the union. You have to wait for someone to die to get your name on the list.”
“I’m sure Presley will make sure you get paid,” Mina reasoned.
“That’s easy for you to say. You don’t need money like I do.” Lee raised his voice. “Anyway, I know what she’ll say: Ask the production company.” He said the last line in a singsong voice as if mimicking someone.
“Look, if they don’t pay you, I’ll loan you the money myself. I’ve been living with my grandmother and have some savings.” Mina’s tone was calm and gentle as she walked from one end of the hedge to the other.
“That’s not good enough.” He sounded desperate as he followed her.
“The production company is bust, and I can’t wait for Presley to get her shit together.
I need that money now.” He paused as if realizing something.
“Did Brett pay you?” There was a tinge of bitterness in his tone. “What are you not telling me?”
“What? No, I—” And that’s when Mina began to scream.
I ran past the portico and onto the green lawn, stalking quickly toward the rose hedge maze.
Suddenly, I spotted Mina’s shadowy figure, struggling away from Lee’s grasp.
A cloud moved past the moon, and I could see him grabbing her arm, yanking her back with such force that her torso flung back sideways.
I turned to call for help and spotted an officer on the high stone steps at the back of the house. “Help! Over here,” I called, waving my arms to catch his attention.
The officer rushed over at the same time that I neared Lee, who now had Mina on the ground, his hands clenching her arms as he shook her, demanding answers she didn’t seem to have. My presence wasn’t stopping him.
Mina’s eyes were wide with fear, and she choked back a sob as the officer grabbed Lee and pulled him off her. She scrambled away from him.
“I’m okay,” Mina said with a tight mouth, as if she was trying to keep from crying. “Lee just lost his mind for a second.”
Mina said the words as if this had happened before, as if there might be a long history of threats.
“Sir,” the officer said, addressing Lee with a sharp edge to his tone. “I’ll be happy to escort you to your room. You’ll be staying there indefinitely, and I’m sure the sheriff will want to have a few words with you.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.” Lee looked from the officer to Mina and began to laugh. “I’m not the criminal here.”
“You assaulted this woman,” the officer said in an even voice as he motioned to Mina. “But, regardless, it’s time—”
Lee cut him off, his arms flailing only a second before the officer pinned them behind his back. “Brett Brinkley is the criminal! He’s a thief, owes me nearly twenty grand in back pay and reimbursements.”
“Sir, I’m going to ask you only once to come quietly,” the officer said, clicking handcuffs on the man. “Otherwise, I’ll use force.”
Lee was fuming. “This is ridiculous.”
The officer pressed a button on the walkie-talkie attached to his shoulder and called for backup that he probably didn’t really need. Lee seemed angry, yes, but also incapable of inflicting much harm at this point. As soon as he was restrained, his fighting stance gave way.
“I’m going to lose everything,” he moaned, as he was hauled into the grand house. “And it’s all Brett’s fault.”
Mina and I were left in the dark garden, watching as the officer escorted Lee to his room. For the first time, I realized that the estate must be crawling with a police presence, and I wasn’t sure if it comforted or unnerved me.
I shook my head in disbelief. “What was that?”
In the moonlight I could see red finger marks appearing on Mina’s upper arm and she absentmindedly rubbed at them. “He’s under a lot of stress, but he usually doesn’t take it out on me. He has three kids, and his wife has been sick for a couple of years.”
I’d been right. They did have some kind of history, or at least enough of a relationship to share about their families. “Has he ever grabbed you like that before?”
Mina huffed out a long breath. “He’s upset. We both are.”
I tilted my head and studied her. “You seem to express your emotions very differently.”
“We haven’t been paid for this gig, and now that Brett’s…
gone, we may never be. I’ll be fine, but he…
who knows?” Mina lifted her head and looked directly at me for the first time.
“I know you probably couldn’t tell, but Lee was—is—my mentor.
Took me under his wing when he was a cameraman on an episode of SVU and saw me cut from the scene.
I’d been trying to make it in Hollywood, and I’d gotten parts here and there, but that day I was playing an actual named role.
Until I wasn’t. They decided to rewrite my part and give it to a guy.
I was standing off-stage crying, and Lee spotted me, distracted me by asking if I’d ever tried operating a Blackmagic URSA. ”
At that, I must’ve made a face because Mina clarified, “It’s a camera.
Lee let me hang out and watch him, got me clearance to shadow him.
Over the next few months, he taught me the tools of the trade.
I figured it was the next best thing to being on camera, and it was kind of nice, learning from someone who’d been in the business for a couple decades. We became friends.”
The interaction I’d just witnessed didn’t seem too friendly, and she must’ve read as much on my face.
“I know,” she sighed. “When COVID happened, it shut down almost everything for a year, and he’s been struggling to make ends meet ever since.
He’s worked in the industry since he graduated high school, so I think seeing me get paid more on Small Town, Big Romance and then me being the one to get this gig for us to—”
“Wait.” One line in particular stood out to me, and I interrupted her. “Why did you get paid more on the reality show?”
“I got a few lines – nothing that actually helped my acting career, but it bumped me up to a different tier.” Mina looked toward the house where the officer had taken Lee.
“I think he feels like he’s losing his edge, that I’m just a kid getting him opportunities instead of the other way around.
To him, it’s all… I guess, a load of crap. ”
What I was hearing was that Lee was not only desperate for money, but he was also frustrated by the lack of control he had over his life, his finances.
I understood the strain and the toll such a thing could take on one’s mental state.
Even now when my phone lit with a voice message, I had flashbacks of demanding debt collectors.
“When the sheriff was speaking to everyone this evening, Lee said that Presley wanted us to keep recording, but it was really his idea,” Mina continued. “He was hoping we could make some kind of documentary out of all of this, but the sheriff shut that down real fast.”
Mina bit her lip as if contemplating her next steps. She started to speak again but then looked at me and hesitated, before finally saying, “Look, I don’t know if I should be saying this to you, but you seem to have some kind of rapport with the sheriff, am I right?”
I nodded once. “I helped him with the investigation at the summer pageant, and we’re… kind of… together.”
“Kind of?” Mina asked, studying me before she gave up.
“Never mind, none of my business.” We started back through the garden and toward the house, pausing for a beat as we reached the stone steps.
“Just… if you get a chance, tell the sheriff that Lee was freaking out, but really, he’s a decent guy. ”
I couldn’t help but shoot her a questioning look. The way he’d shaken her hadn’t seemed decent.
Mina put up both hands. “I know, I know, but I’ve never seen him violent before. I didn’t know he had that kind of fight in him.”
“Now that you do, do you think Lee could’ve been angry enough to hurt Brett?”
Mina squinted as if trying to see exactly what I was after. Finally, she shook her head. “What would be the point? He was hoping that Brett would pay us any day now. It wouldn’t make sense to kill the income source.”
Mina’s logic was sound, but as I told her to get some sleep and watched her walk away, other reasons Lee might’ve wanted to kill Brett leapt to mind.
Maybe Lee had planned to make some kind of documentary, like Mina had suggested. Or maybe he planned to wrest the back pay from Presley’s hands. Maybe he was just fed up and wanted to off his boss.
There were many reasons a desperate man might murder someone like Brett Brinkley.