Frances shook her head. “No, nothing like that. I’ve gone over and over it in my mind, Hannah, and I don’t think anyone hated him enough to kill him. Everyone knew what he was and they accepted that, because he was such a genius. They made allowances. Live and let live, you know? And all those women he coached in his trailer? They didn’t expect to be his one and only.”

“How about his wife? Sharyn expected to be his one and only, didn’t she?”

“Of course she did. And not one single person in the company would have told her she wasn’t. We all liked Sharyn and we were loyal to Dean.”

“Everyone?”

“I think so. If anyone wasn’t, I don’t know about it.” Frances glanced around her again to make sure no one was near enough to overhear their conversation. Presumably she was getting ready to impact some tidbit of great secrecy. “It’s like this, Hannah. I don’t think Dean was the target. I really believe someone was trying to kill Burke.”

“Who?”

Frances shrugged. “I don’t know, but I’m almost sure it wasn’t anyone connected with the movie.”

Stalemate, deadlock, logjam, gridlock, Hannah’s mind gave her all the synonyms for the impasse she seemed to have encountered. Frances didn’t have any information she hadn’t heard before, but Hannah decided to ask a few more questions anyway and see what came up. “Tell me about Burke. Was he well liked?”

“Well enough. None of us knew him before he signed on, but he seemed nice enough. He had a big part, but he didn’t have his nose in the air, and he was really nice to the little people.”

“Little people?”

“People like grips, script girls, P. A.’s, and everybody who’s hourly and not salaried. A lot of actors don’t bother being polite to the people who can’t do them any good, but Burke was nice to everybody.

“So you liked him?”

“I did. That’s why I can’t imagine anyone trying to kill him. He was naive, and fun, and really grateful when you went out of your way to do something nice for him.”

“Do you think everybody in the crew feels the way you do about Burke?”

“I think so. It’s like this, Hannah

killing Burke would be like killing the Easter Bunny. And that would really be a crime!”

Chapter

Chapter

Twenty-Nine

“Hannah? Wait a minute!” Hannah swiveled around as a hand grabbed hers and she came face to face with Winnie Henderson. “Hi, Winnie. Are you here to check on the statue?”

“Yes, and I like that gal that’s guarding it. She doesn’t look like she takes any prisoners.”