Backstage Stuff Page 12

  14

  Jane surprised herself by arriving at the Kendell place early. No Tim, Margaret, or Bruce and Claire Oh. No other cars in the driveway. Because she was there first, she decided to drive around to the back of the house and explore. It was a large piece of property, more like a country estate with city-block proportions, and so, city amenities. A serviceable city alley provided access behind the extra deep yard. Entering at the end of the block, she drove behind the property, where she had an excellent view of a six-car garage with what appeared to be an apartment built above. There was an outside staircase that led up to the second-story space. Jane pulled her car up close to the building and parked. An ironwork fence that closed off the property appeared to be sturdy enough, but Jane shook the gate and found that she could open it just enough to slip her hand through and work the inside latch. Pushing up, then moving the pin first to one side then the other, allowed her to release the gate and it swung open.

  “That was way too easy,” said Jane aloud. This property should be better protected. Who had advised Margaret about security?

  Jane paused at the bottom of the stairs leading to the second floor. Tim had said they were not going to bother with cleaning and inventorying the coach house. Margaret had told him not to bother … even if there were any knickknacks in there, they would have belonged to Freddy and she would probably want to keep anything personal of Freddy’s. Both Margaret and Rick had assured him there was nothing of value if, indeed, there was anything at all. Freddy had used it as a writing studio, but after his death the space hadn’t been used for anything, except possibly storage of automotive or gardening equipment. Since there was a separate gardening shed as big as most two-bedroom homes, Tim had doubted that any valuable garden statuary or accessories had been carried up the stairs. That didn’t mean Tim didn’t want to check out the space—he and Jane both lusted after anything behind a locked door—they just hadn’t yet taken the time. They were too pressed to ready the main house for the sale.

  Jane, however, had a little extra time right now.

  Climbing the stairs alongside the building, Jane thought about the space being used as Freddy’s writing studio. On the wall that faced the alley, there were high, horizontal light-borrowing windows whose purpose would be to allow in the daylight but not to subject anyone to the alley view. On the other three sides, large, mullioned windows looked out onto the gardens in every direction. Jane could see that there were some transparent curtains hanging on the window that faced the main house, almost half a city block away across the lawn. The fabric wasn’t opaque enough either to block out light or to allow anyone to forget just how magnificent the setting was.

  At the top of the stairs there was a small landing with a built-in bench opposite the door. On the door was a small engraved plaque. Although it was badly tarnished, Jane rubbed the metal with her thumb and made out some letters:

  A-T-E-R U-B

  Jane used the corner of her shirt to rub the plaque harder until she could read all of the letters. THEATER CLUB. So this wasn’t only Freddy’s writing studio, it was also the headquarters for something called the Theater Club. Henry had mentioned the theater club in his speech about Marvin at the EZ Way Inn, but Jane had heard it in small letters—figuring it referred to a loose group to which they all belonged—not formally, not spelled out in caps, with a real clubhouse that had a metal plaque on the door.

  Jane tried turning the large burnished brass knob. Locked. As much as Jane wanted to get into the space, especially now that she knew it was also the theater club, she was actually relieved the door was locked. If security had really been as loose on the coach house as it was on the back gate, she would have to advise that Margaret do a complete inventory with Tim before the sale, since a burglary seemed much too easy and inevitable. As soon as word spread that there was a house sale being prepped—and word always spread, leading pickers and dealers to ring doorbells and knock on windows days in advance of the sale—the property became even more vulnerable. Although no one could actually see the circle drive in front of the house clearly from the road, someone might be out walking his dog, glimpse a car in the driveway, creep closer, and recognize Tim’s T & T Sales van. A dead giveaway that although no one was living there, objects of value were still in residence.

  Jane stood on tiptoe trying to see in the small window at the top of the door. Maybe if she stood on the bench, she would … Hello? Jane noted hinges on the painted green seat. A storage bench just might hold a spare key. She checked her watch. She probably had a few more minutes before the rest of the group arrived. Couldn’t hurt to take a peek.

  “Aah,” said Jane, opening the squeaking bench, jumping back and turning suddenly cold despite the sunny June morning. “You got me again.”

  Mr. Bumbles lay inside the bench, his demonic grin intact. This time, though, his hands were placed together to hold a block-printed sign: IT’S ABOUT TIME SOMEBODY LET ME OUT OF THIS BOX! FORGET YOUR KEY AGAIN?

  Jane wanted to move the dummy to see if a spare key was placed underneath him, but as she reached out to touch him, she was struck by the dust that covered his face, hands, and clothing. Intricate cobwebs were laced over his body. Jane examined him from every angle before reaching in to touch him.

  “You’ve been lying here quite a while, Bumby. I think you just might have a twin brother back at the house. You do, don’t you?” Or, Jane thought, maybe even a triplet, since that would explain the dummy having changed clothes from dungarees into his little suit. It made sense that a performing ventriloquist would have multiple dolls, didn’t it? So maybe Freddy had a set? Or Margaret? On the other hand, what made sense about being a performing ventriloquist?

  Jane reached in to move Mr. Bumbles, surprised anew at how creepy it was to touch the doll and feel its wooden body beneath its clothes. These were the things bad dreams and B movies were made of—the ventriloquist’s dummy that took on a life of its own and enslaved his master.

  When Jane placed him into a sitting position, she was pleased to find a rectangular metal box that had been hidden beneath him. Just the type of container to hold a spare key. And since Bumby had scared her half to death, she felt she had earned the right to let herself into Freddy’s studio. Inside the box were six identical keys, all strung on individual linked chains. Each chain had a silver engraved wafer attached to it in addition to a key.

  Jane placed the chains over her left hand and held up the tags with her right to read the etched letters. Names. Marvin. Henry. Bry. Melanie. Suzanne. Of course, these were members of the theater club. Jane picked up the last necklace and held it close to read it. In the distance she heard a car door and even from across the vast lawn, she could pick up the voice of Claire Oh talking a mile a minute. Jane put five necklaces back in the box and arranged Mr. Bumbles back in his benchlike coffin.

  Although she wouldn’t visit the clubhouse now, she’d hang on to this sixth key so she could visit later. It wasn’t really stealing if she took this key and placed it around her own neck, feeling the cool metal against her skin as she tucked it beneath her shirt. Of course it wasn’t stealing since she could just say she was returning the key to its rightful owner. And she did plan to do just that. As soon as she once again met up with its rightful owner, they would have a good heart-to-heart and she would hand her the key with her name engraved upon it.

  Jane decided to leave her car parked next to the coach house. She walked the lawn, which gently sloped upward toward the main house. Once she reached the brick walkway through a slightly overgrown herb garden, she turned back and looked at the coach house. Freddy, if his desk faced out the large front window, would be able to look up from writing his play and observe life going on in the garden and, if the curtains were open, in the large living room at the rear of the house. The theater club, if they were meeting and rehearsing or whatever they did in their elegant clubhouse, would have a direct view into the rear bedrooms of the house. Jane moved to different spots in the yard, looking fi
rst at the coach house, then staring up at the main house. Looking back and forth between the two buildings was where Tim found Jane when he bounded around the house into the garden.

  “You’re here?”

  “Where?”

  “What are you doing back here? Where’s your car?”

  “Tim, do you think sometimes we ask the wrong questions in life?”

  “Oh no, I don’t have time for this right now. Claire’s tearing through the house like a banshee and thought she spotted someone walking in the backyard and sent me out here. I was hoping I could tell her she was wrong,” said Tim, sighing. “It would give me so much pleasure to tell her she was wrong.”

  “I was just looking at the view from Freddy’s writing studio,” said Jane, gesturing toward the coach house.

  Tim looked back and forth from the coach house to the main house.

  “Yeah, he could see the house. Why is that so interesting?”

  Jane walked away from Tim into the garden and centered herself, her back to the coach house, and looked up at the house. The drapes were all open. The main staircase that ran through the center of the house was visible and she could see Claire walking purposefully up to the second floor.

  “Come stand by me,” said Jane.

  “Why must I be…” Tim started his complaint with a weary voice, but when he stood beside Jane, looking where she had pointed, he ended with a laugh. “Wow!”

  “What do you see, Mr. Director?”

  “I see Murder in the Eekaknak Valley,” said Tim. “It’s Freddy’s set. Right down to the description of the drapes and the wallpaper. I thought he was precise in his set design information and stage directions, but I didn’t realize he was just putting down everything he saw outside his window.”

  “Instead of a play, he was writing a documentary,” said Jane.

  In the script, Freddy had reduced this exact view of the house for his set. The stairway was placed in the same spot, even the paintings on the wall were described as the ones that were actually on the walls in the house. The doors and windows were placed in the same proportions, and the brick patio leading to the gardens was described as leading out from the house, backstage.

  “It’s reversed a little, so the gardens remain in the back, but it’s weird how looking at this view of the house is exactly his set description,” said Tim.

  “And exactly the way Marvin built it,” said Jane.

  “He even had the wallpaper exactly right, which I’m not sure I would have gotten from the description the way Freddy wrote it,” said Tim. “Freddy said the walls had a tiny gold tuliplike print, but the wallpaper is really a fleur-de-lis pattern, and that’s what Marvin painted. Exactly.” Tim gave a little shiver. “How did he know what Freddy wanted … he was using the same script as us…”

  “Marvin wasn’t using the script at all,” said Jane. “He was painting from memory.”

  “There is work to be done, you two.” Claire Oh stood on the second-floor Juliet balcony looking down at them. “What in the world are you doing staring into space?”

  Jane ignored Claire and turned to Tim.

  “You told me you were giving me a murder to take my mind off my troubles. You said Freddy died mysteriously?” said Jane.

  “I was, you know, exaggerating, talking about the play. A murder mystery. I mean it was odd that Freddy collapsed the week before the play was supposed to go on, but he was an old man. He had a heart attack, I think, right in the garden, but he didn’t…”

  Tim stopped talking and Jane looked around where they were standing.

  “On the brick path in the garden, right? Where the cousin is found murdered in the play?” asked Jane. “Where we’re standing right now.”

  “Mrs. Wheel?”

  Detective Oh had, in his usual manner, approached quietly on her blind side.

  “We were just admiring the view,” said Jane.

  “Ah, now there is another missing painting,” said Oh, immediately adopting their position and looking toward the main house.

  Jane turned to Oh, knowing if she waited, he would tell her what he meant.

  He pointed toward the living room, where two paintings hung on the back wall, the one facing them. “There are two there, but on your stage set, which I looked at last night … it is this house, right? There are three paintings on the stage walls.”

  Jane dug into her tote bag, which she had set down on the lawn as she had walked back and forth. Pulling out her now battered Murder in the Eekaknak Valley script, she turned to Act One, Scene One, where the set for the house was described: center staircase which winds around a pillar, carved with a niche … wallpapered background … two paintings (portraits) on the left … one painting, a still life of fruit and wine, over the demilune hall table. Jane looked up from the script and back to the house, Oh was correct. In the main house, the real house, there was no painting over the hall table.

  Jane, Tim, and Oh tore themselves away from the living tableau of Murder in the Eekaknak Valley and walked around to the front door to enter the house. Margaret stood in the main foyer, looking up at the chandelier.

  “Should we dust before the sale?” she asked.

  Claire, standing on the landing and looking down at them all looked as if she was about to berate Margaret, was interrupted by Tim. Jane thought she saw Tim actually cast a warning look at Claire before he touched Margaret’s arm and shook his head.

  “Shoppers like the dust. They don’t want housekeeping, they don’t judge. They want old and untouched and so that’s what we try to give them.”

  Margaret smiled. “Untouched,” she repeated.

  Claire swept down the stairs. She was a woman made for grand entrances. Without comment, she took Jane’s arm and walked her along through the dining room, through the hallway that led to the rear of the house. Now that Jane understood the layout, she realized Claire had brought her right into the rear living room area that was actually Freddy’s setting for most of the action of his play. Jane looked around and realized it really felt like she was standing on Marvin’s set. She had been working in the house and working at the theater for the last few weeks, but she hadn’t seen similarities. Now she couldn’t not see them. Claire paid no attention to Jane’s scrutiny of the room. If she could have gotten away with it, she might have taken Jane’s head in her own hands and pointed her, eyeball-to-eyeball, into a focused, listening stance.

  “Those paintings are not here,” said Claire. “I didn’t expect them to be, but still, I thought I’d find something that would explain or lead to what happened. I don’t know why, I just…” Claire was whispering, fast and low. “Margaret’s losing her grip. She’s always been sweet, but not savvy about people. Animals, bugs she understands, but people? Way too trusting. And now she’s broke. She needs the money from all this stuff, but even more important, she needs those big-ticket items.”

  “Broke … you mean low on cash or do you mean broke-broke?” asked Jane.

  “Her dad was a lousy investor to begin with and it didn’t help that he put most of his stuff with some Kankakee prototype of Bernie Madoff. Everybody thought the grandfather, Freddy, was a goof with all his theater stuff, but it was his son, Margaret’s dad, who lost the big money. And Freddy had always said Margaret and Rick would have enough even if their dad didn’t have vision. Freddy promised them that their fortune was safe, put where their dad couldn’t get to it. Always told her … Ah what’s the difference? She’s got a broken heart and if we don’t scrape up enough for her to pay off at least one of her mortgages, she’s in trouble.”

  “This house has to be worth a lot … it’s a whole block, it could be—”

  “You know of any property selling for what it’s worth these days? And in Kankakee? It’s not like this is a great place for a housing development. The house has been on the market for over three months. I called the Realtor yesterday and there’s only been two showings and she thinks those were just curiosity visits. Tim put the kibosh on showin
g while you guys have been prepping, but I asked about interest in the place, and there haven’t been any calls anyway.”

  “Did Margaret talk to her brother?”

  “He swears that he wrapped up the paintings I described. I called the auction house and it’s possible, just possible that the paintings they received are close enough in subject matter. I mean, Rick could have figured those were the ones I meant for them to send, but even if he just made a mistake, where are the real ones?”

  Jane noticed that even though they were whispering head to head, both of them had roving eyes. Behind Claire, Jane scanned the walls, willing the missing work to appear. Claire, Jane noticed, was staring beyond her as well.

  “The paintings in this room have been here a while. Tim and I took them down to look at the backs and you can see from the fading around their frames that they haven’t been switched.”

  “I know. These are okay. A watercolor, a print, there’s an okay oil in the hall, but they aren’t anything special.”

  “It’s funny though, that they were duplicated as the prop paintings for Freddy’s play. I found the paintings for the set up on the third floor with his props and I didn’t even notice that the still life and the hunt scene were copied from this room. What a weird—”

  “Props?”

  Jane and Claire looked at each other and headed for the kitchen staircase that would take them up into attic storage.

  “I can’t believe you didn’t think of this earlier, Jane. Freddy could have hidden the good paintings with his props so that his idiot ‘businessman’ son wouldn’t sell off those, too, with the rest of the family store.”