“Good.” Franklin Becker poured another sugar into his coffee, stirred. He was a former casting director for Michael Schmidt. After she'd had her talk with the producer at the theater she'd approached the stagehand Schmidt had dressed down about dropping the load of lumber. She'd bought the poor man a cup of coffee and delicately extracted from him the names of several people who might be willing to dish on Schmidt. Becker was the first one who'd called her back.

Rune explained, “It's about Shelly Lowe.”

“The actress who was killed in that bombing. And you know about her connection with Schmidt?”

“Right.”

Becker reminded her somewhat of Sam Healy. Tall, thinning hair. Unlike the cop's stone face, though, Becker's broke frequently into curls of emotion. Her impression too was that he wouldn't have any wives in his past, only boyfriends.

“What can you tell me about them — Shelly and Schmidt.”

He laughed. "Well, I can tell you quite a story. What she did... it was astonishing. I've been casting on Broadway for almost twenty years but I've never seen anything like it.

“We had a number of EPIs... Michael preferred interviews to EPAs-auditions. He's a funny fellow. You ever talk to him, you know he's got very definite ideas. Usually the producer couldn't care less about the hired help — the actors, I mean. He leaves that to the director. As long as the principals get good reviews and pull in a crowd that's enough for them. But not for Michael. He rides herd on everybody: director, principals, walk-ons, arrangers, musicians, everybody.”

Rune wasn't sure where this was going but she let the casting director continue at his own pace.

“So when it came time for casting, Michael kept his beady little eyes over my shoulder. We read resumes, we saw tapes, we talked to talent agencies.” He shook his head. "Everybody went through the standard interview — everybody but Shelly. That's the astonishing part.

"Somehow she'd gotten her hands on a copy of the script for the new play. I can't guess how. Michael treated them like gold ingots. There just weren't any copies floating around. But she'd gotten one and had memorized the leading role. So it's time for her interview. She walks into Michael's office and doesn't say anything. She just starts walking around. What's she doing? I don't know. He doesn't know.