Death in Daytime Read Online Free PDF Page A

came to me with it I would have had time to think and decide the best way to handle those questions. Finally, they said they were finished. I stood up.
    "Can I leave?" I asked. "Or will I need to get someone to pick up my daughter at preschool?"
    "You have a preschooler?" Jakes asked.
    "Yes."
    "Yeah, my partner's got one, too. His is a boy."
    "Mine's a girl."
    "What's her name?"
    "Sarah."
    "My partner's son's name is Danny."
    "Davey," his partner corrected, as if he had to do it all the time. They didn't sound like longtime partners if he didn't know his partner's kid's name--unless it was an act to throw me off?
    "Right," Jakes said, "Davey."
    "May I leave the building?" I asked.
    "I wish I could say yes, Ms. Peterson," Jakes said,
    "but I can't. You'll have to hang around while we question the others."
    Damn! I wanted to talk to Paul again before they found out on their own that Marcy and I hated each other. I needed to find another dark corner where I could--
    "Do you have a cell phone?" Jakes asked, as if he could read my mind.
    "I--yes, I do."
    "Leave it with me, please."
    "Why?"
    He smiled, minus the warmth, this time.
    "Because I asked you to."
    "I might get a call about my daughter--"
    "We'll answer it if it rings," he said. "If your daughter's school needs you, we'll let you know." He put his hand out. I took my phone out and gave it to him.
    "Nice," he said. "Can you get on the Internet with this?"
    "I suppose," I said. "I don't really do that."
    He put the phone down on Thomas's desk, then turned and looked at me as if he were surprised I was still there.
    "You can go back out to the others," he said.
    "Thanks."
    ** *
    Over the course of the rest of the morning and into the afternoon the police questioned everyone. They also fingerprinted us, so we all ended up trying to clean our hands with water and paper towels. Production shut down for the day and we just had to sit around on the set and wait--they wouldn't let us go to our dressing rooms. To my surprise it was Cindy who came up with the idea for some of the crew to haul out folding chairs so we could at least sit down. It was unusually considerate of her. Or maybe it was just because her own legs were getting tired. Again, people broke up into groups. The techs and camera crew sat together, some of them eventually hauling out lunches they had bought from the commissary earlier in the day. The rest of us had to make do with leftover donuts someone had brought for breakfast, because they wouldn't let us go to the commissary at this point.
    Cindy sat in a group with a PA, a couple of cast members and one of the staff writers.
    Thomas sat with another PA, a couple of male cast members and, I thought, someone from one of the sponsors who was going to watch us tape. The police brought the hair and makeup people in to sit with us, so I ended up close to George and the makeup girl, Linda.
    Thomas started moving around, talking to everyone about what they were going to have to do now that Marcy was gone. She wasn't even dead a few hours and I started to see why he appeared so hyper. He figured he'd be in charge of the show now--at least, until Marcy was replaced, and maybe even after that. He was probably right, too, since he'd been with the show the longest. I could see that some of the others saw his immediate seizure of power as being in bad taste. Eventually, he calmed down and returned to his seat, but I knew he wasn't done pushing his weight around.
    Finally, it was getting so late I knew I'd have to call my mother to pick up Sarah. I walked over to one of the uniformed policemen who was standing at the door to keep us from leaving.
    "I need to speak to Detective Jakes, please."
    "Ma'am," he said, "he's busy questioning--"
    "I know he's very busy," I said impatiently--
    surprising myself with my tone--"but he has my cell phone and I need to call someone to pick my daughter up from school. She's only four years old."
    "All right," he said. "Please don't try to