Murder at the Academy Awards (R): A Red Carpet Murder Mystery by Joan Rivers, Jerrilyn Farmer

different stars. Everyone loves to see the beauties and the beasts dressed and bejeweled. But this time, all I did was spend the next few hours fending off the two questions everyone had to ask: “What happened to Halsey Hamilton?” and “What were her last words?”
    “For that,” I told my various audiences all night and all morning long in a conspiratorial whisper, “you’ll have to watch our prime-time special.” Of course I was bluffing. We had yet to make any such deal. But I thought I should put the idea out there. Why not dream big? “But for right now,” I would always conclude, knowing exactly how to let down the hopeful on-air hosts and put a stop to their probing questions in just the nicest way, “we have too much sympathy for the family to say any more.”
    At seven o’clock, Drew, looking no more rested than I did, met me at ABC-TV as we were leaving their Burbank studio. We rushed over to do the live feed for NBC, and still we were not done with our work as we spent an hour doing live radio interviews. Finally, Drew and I were driven over to Glendale to finish up at Glam-TV’s studio, changing again into new outfits to do the chatty mom-and-daughter commentary for our one-hour Oscar Fashion Disasters special set to air later in the evening.
    The word came down at Glam that everybody had loved our red carpet show. Loved it. The best show ever. And if I could tell you how many times I’d heard those very words just hours before getting the call saying my show was being canceled, I might have smiled a little brighter at the compliments. Instead, I questioned everyone I saw, “But why did they cut away from our interview with Halsey? Answer me that?”
    And no one could understand, from the studio wardrobe man to the vice president of programming, why our young director, Will Beckerman, hadn’t at the very least let the cameras roll and tape the footage instead of just bloody pulling the plug. Asshole.
    By the time our unruffled driver, Jeffrey, returned Drew to her house and me to the Hotel Bel-Air, I was just getting my fifth wind.
    “Good?” Malulu asked, as I held on to the evil pink concoction she’d handed me without so much as taking one sip.
    Okay. I tried it. That’s what guilt can do to me. “What’s your secret ingredient? Sardines? Peanuts?”
    “You go to sleep now, Mrs. L?” she asked, bustling to pick up all the things I’d dropped when I’d entered.
    “No. Too much to do. You have my messages?”
    “I do. But you sure you…”
    I sank down on one of the pair of flower-upholstered bergère chairs, one with a straight back, and held out my hand. How could I rest when the world was calling?
    As Killer softly jumped into my lap and settled himself gently, and Malulu brought over my BlackBerry, I checked out a thick handful of messages. The personal calls were many. Ian had called twice, and I knew he’d want to hear I was home safe and sound. I tapped out a quick e-mail to him and signed it with my usual row of xoxoxox.
    Several friends were on the prowl for gossip, but I only took the time to call back Dr. Bob, who seemed most interested in the specific details of Halsey’s collapse, but whether from a medical standpoint or that of just another shocked avid fan, I couldn’t quite tell. Halsey’s flawless youth had held a hint of fragility, a combination that kept most of the world spellbound. Even those of us who knew her and her troubles felt the pull of her talent and beauty.
    “I remember seeing her around my house,” I told Dr. Bob, “when she was only twelve or thirteen.”
    “Oh, Max. That’s right. She used to tag around after Drew, didn’t she?”
    “I’d look at that gorgeous kid, and I worried that her parentswould need to keep a careful rein on that girl. Only twelve, and she had more cleavage than I did.”
    “But I fixed that.”
    “Those parents,” I said, ignoring Dr. Bob. “When Halsey was only twelve, they had her starring in pictures with