“They’re claiming Senator Leeds is mixed up in it.” Rogers seemed to be eyeing Jake suspiciously.

He knows it was me, Jake thought. They all know it was me. Who else could give that interview, except for Glynis?

Amy Wexler stepped between them. “Ready for your moment of stardom?”

Jake forced a smile. “Yeah. It’s showtime. Isn’t it?”

They spent the whole afternoon going through a scene that would take up only a minute or two in the finished documentary, but it took more than three hours before the director was satisfied that they’d got it right.

Wally told the truth, all right, Jake thought. He’s a stickler.

The idea of the scene was to show how big the ordinary turbine-driven power plant was, in contrast to the compactness of the MHD generator.

Rogers was saying, “So they boil water and use the steam to spin the turbine, and the turbine spins an armature that generates the electricity. That’s the same way Edison did it, almost a hundred and fifty years ago.”

Jake’s line was, “And they get about the same efficiency as Edison got, don’t they?”

“Right,” Rogers came in on cue. “A little over forty percent.”

“CUT!” Ziegler boomed.

The director came smiling kindly up to Rogers and said gently, “You said ‘puhcent.’ Could you pronounce it ‘percent,’ please?”

“Oh, sure,” said Rogers.

“Okay, let’s take it from Jake’s line about the efficiency Edison got.”

Again Rogers said, “puhcent.” Again Ziegler roared, “CUT!”

“Gee, I’m sorry,” Rogers said. “I never realized I pronounce it wrong.”

“It’s all right,” Ziegler replied, a little tensely. “You’ll get it.”

Rogers finally said “percent” to Ziegler’s satisfaction, but it took four takes. And then one of the camera operators announced that his batteries had hit the redline and he’d have to replace them before they started the next take.

Ziegler puffed out a weary breath. “Let’s break for an early dinner.”

Jake began to realize why it cost so much to make a movie.

*   *   *

Over the next few days the blogosphere erupted with stories about the Sinclair murders. The regular news media began to pick up on the story. Jake watched a local television station’s interview with a very disgruntled Captain Harraway, in Vernon.

Looking like a dark thundercloud about to spit lightning, Harraway said grimly, “My forensics team decided it was a murder-suicide and the coroner’s inquest came up with the same finding. End of story.”

But the story would not end. CNN sent a reporter to Vernon, and the local news media began circulating a rumor that the FBI was investigating the case. The regional FBI office’s director would neither confirm nor deny the rumor.

Jake wondered how long it would be before Freeforall or somebody outed him as the “reliable source” that got the story started. He wondered what Perez was doing about it. And Monster.