Throwback Thursday: ‘Frankie Ray Makes Murder’s Final Cut’

Out of the Flames

In the final episode of The Extra: A Monument Studios Mystery by Mel Anastasiou, movie star and thwarted director Marietta Valdes has just confessed to murdering matinee idol Gilbert Howard. Frankie Ray should be happy to hear Marietta admit to the crime for which she herself stands accused, but Marietta is an excellent actress and a fluent liar, and her confession doesn’t add up. What’s worse, nobody knows better than Frankie that the electric chair waits off-set for the real murderer, so she’d better get it right.

Enjoy this excerpt of The Extra: Frankie Ray Makes Murder’s Final Cut from Pulp Literature Issue 31, Summer 2021, on sale now till the end of the year!

Frankie Ray Makes Murder’s Final Cut

by Mel Anastasiou

In the silence that followed Marietta’s confession, Frankie noticed that moonlight turned the actress’s dress and lips grey, so that she appeared more than ever her screen self in the black-and-white world of the movies. And despite her skilled delivery of the line “I did it,” Frankie was certain Marietta was acting. Lying. 

Was Marietta capable of murder? Abso-tively. Marietta was capable of anything in the pursuit of her career. Frankie had never met anybody so ambitious in her life. But capability was not enough. 

Marietta had no motive to kill Gilbert Howard. 

Frankie said, “Marietta, it will be as obvious to the police as it is to me that you had no reason to kill Gilbert Howard. He was your only ally in your struggle to direct The Emperor of New York.”

Eugene scowled. “Yes. For once, try to control your need to be the centre of attention, Marietta.”

“It’s my job,” Marietta said bitterly.

Frankie made a strangled noise in her throat that turned into a smoky cough. And she coughed again. She’d coughed so much since Marietta had dragged her out of the fire that by now her throat felt as rough as the gravel under her feet. 

“Eugene knows every word I say is true,” Marietta insisted. “I killed Gilbert Howard.”

Eugene shook her head. “I killed him.”

Frankie snapped a look from Eugene to Marietta. Then she raised her gaze to the heavens and wished she’d never met either of them. Of the three people sitting here, exhausted in the aftermath of the studio fire, one was lying about being the murderer. The second was lying about not being the murderer. And the third person — Frankie herself — was being sought by the police for the murder. For Pete’s sake. 

She said, “You’re knitting a story out of pure deception, aren’t you? Like screenwriters write movies. Your story is a fake.”

Eugene said, “Everything in Hollywood is phony.”

“Hollywood,” Marietta said, “is a law unto itself. It is also the axis of the spinning world.”

“I’m sick of all the lies,” Frankie said.

“Look who’s talking,” Marietta retorted. “You’ve told at least three since I dragged you out of the fire. And you call yourself a gentleman.”

Frankie looked down at herself in her man’s clothing. “I’m really not so much of a gentleman as I appear to be.”

Find out what happens next in Pulp Literature Issue 31, on sale till December 31st!

Or head on over to our Keep the Presses Rolling Silent Auction and put a bid on the Mel Anastasiou Mystery Bundle, including The Extra plus both Fairmount Manor Mysteries!

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Mel Anastasiou writes mysteries, including the Fairmount Manor Mysteries and the Monument Studios Mysteries, available from Pulp Literature Press. For her novel Stella Ryman and the Fairmount Manor Mysteries, Mel won a Literary Titan Gold Book Award and was longlisted for the Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour.