Oh dear Lord, are they reenacting the Donner Party? Amelia seemed horrified by the idea.
One of the actresses hefted a bundle of cloth, bouncing it against her shoulder like she would a baby, but exaggerated. The whole thing was exaggerated. “Darling! I’m afraid!” she declared, clinging to the man arguing for the shortcut.
“Don’t be, my dear! I know what I’m doing!” The man turned forward, gazing into some invisible distant horizon. They looked very much like the giant pioneer statue over at the state park. This might have been intentional. “Soon, we’ll be in California and all will be well!”
“Great, great!” the director said. “Now, let’s do it again. Take two!”
Ignoring the film shoot, which had nothing to do with him, Cormac headed over to the Historical Society building. Turned out, the place was closed—a sign on the door helpfully indicated the society was only open three days a week, and not today.
“Sir! Sir, you can’t be there, you’re in the shot!” The woman with the clipboard hurried toward Cormac. As far as Cormac could tell, the camera pointed well away from him. He crossed his arms, and she hesitated, not coming any closer. “Uh, hi. Can I ask you to please move along? Just for a little while.”
“You guys making some kind of movie?” he asked.
“A TV show, yes.”
“About the Donner Party?”
“Y-yes?”
He nodded like she had revealed some deep dark secret. “Just give me one more minute.” He went to the sashed window to the left of the door, cupped his face to the glass, and looked in.
“Sir!”
The windows weren’t particularly clean; he didn’t see much. Mostly framed black and white photos of stern men on horseback and parades.
Satisfied, he crossed to the other end of the lot and his Jeep. The director glanced his way, and Cormac caught his gaze. The director didn’t look away right off; instead, he gave the impression of making some calculation.
Well, this should make our investigation more interesting.
Cormac sincerely hoped not.
Back at the Donner Trail Inn, Cormac dropped by the office. Trina again tore out of the back room as soon as she heard the door, and her face lit up when she saw him. Unfortunately. He resisted an urge to walk out and instead asked what he came to ask. She claimed to know everything about the area. Time to test that.
“You hear anything about filming down at the park?” he asked.
Trina’s reaction was dramatic, as she slapped the counter and rolled her eyes. “Oh my God yes, I heard all about it, they’re doing some kind of documentary for one of those history TV shows about the Donner Party, including recreations. Like, with kids sitting around campfires licking bones and that kind of thing, can you believe it? I mean there’s always somebody or other coming through and making documentaries, but these are apparently way out there. The historical society isn’t happy but the producer is paying the town off so what’re you gonna do? Some of my friends are furious, they thought there’d be some kind of local casting call for extras or whatever, just people standing around in the background, you know? I have this friend who lives in L.A. and being an extra in crowds is, like, her job. She just stands around all day and makes pretty good money. Isn’t that cool?”
“But these guys aren’t hiring locals,” Cormac prompted, hoping to move the conversation along.
“No, from what I hear this company does a lot of these reenactments for cable shows and crime shows and stuff and they have their own actors they bring in. Just think how much goodwill they’d get if they hired like at least a few locals—”
“You know how long they’re supposed to be filming?”
She shrugged. “A week? Something like that?”
“Thanks. Another question—you know anything about Art Weber?”
“Oh my God, the ranger who died last week? That was so weird.”
“Did you know him?”
“No, I didn’t know him. But my friend Katie used to go out with him—just a few dates, you know? She ended up breaking it off because he was kind of a loner. And then he died. . .all alone. . . .” Her gaze went a little vacant.
“But you don’t know of any rumors about him that might give an idea what happened?”
She shook her head. “People liked him. He was always around, helping out and stuff.”
“What about Elton Peterson?”