“The police.”
“Well, the Tucson police...” Franklin threw up his hands. “If they’ve led you to believe this was a murder, I won’t argue with you. But I’d ask you to consider that if Art was making everyone on this set hate him so much that somebody finally had to kill him...” He stopped for a moment to think about it. “You could call that the ultimate form of self-destruction, could you not? Either way, my original point stands. It’s frankly amazing to me that Art didn’t die earlier in his life.”
Perkins stared down at the diagrams on the floor for a moment, and then said abruptly, “How did the shooting go yesterday?”
“Fine,” Franklin said. “Why?”
“I just wondered. Any problems you remember?”
“There are always problems...”
“Was McDougall on the set yesterday?”
“Yes, as I recall. He was there for most of the day.”
“Was that usual?”
“Yes, he tended to be on the set for a while every day.”
“Was he disruptive?”
“Not yesterday.”
“Was he ever disruptive?”
“I wouldn’t say he was particularly disruptive,” Franklin said. I was thinking about now that Franklin would have made a good lawyer. “A movie company involves a lot of people, and it’s sometimes hard to keep them in line—to get them to be quiet during takes, and so on. I know several famous actors of excellent reputation who are always walking into shots. As a director, you learn to live with a certain amount of disruption.”
“I get the impression,” Perkins said, “that you found him disruptive but aren’t going to say it.”
“No,” Franklin insisted. “I didn’t.”
“Claude Binyon told us that McDougall was very disruptive on the set yesterday.”
“Well, Claude may have had some experiences that I wasn’t aware of. I usually have my hands full with what’s happening on camera, not what’s off camera.”
Perkins stood. “I won’t trouble you any further,” he said, and headed for the door. Then he stopped.
“Oh, one last thing,” he said. “You mentioned that McDougall took drugs. Do you know what drugs he took?”
“I got the impression from talking to him that he was familiar with a range of drugs. Marijuana, barbiturates, LSD, and so on.”
“Cocaine?”
“I don’t know any specifics, I’m afraid.”
“Thank you for your time,” Perkins said.
We both left and Franklin closed the door.
“Who has drugs in this company?” he asked me.
I hesitated. This was an arena I didn’t want to get into. If you work in movies for a while, you get accustomed to a lot of drugs floating around. Nobody makes a big deal about it. And after a few years of that atmosphere, you tend to forget that most of those drugs are illegal and that people can get into serious trouble if they’re caught with them. I didn’t want to get anybody into trouble.
“Look,” I said, “this is a movie company.”
“I am aware of that,” Perkins said. “Who has drugs?”
“Lots of people,” I said, feeling more helpless. And thinking that lots of people had them who didn’t use them. It’s part of the way movies work.
