Backstage Stuff Read online

  “Suzanne, you weren’t responsible for killing Marvin. He was your best friend. It was still light out when that board fell on him. You weren’t there. And he was so careful … do you really think it was an accident?”

  “Marvin didn’t think Freddy had any treasures. He thought he was just a nutty guy who wanted us to find each other. Marvin loved Freddy. He would have had to go work at the factory with his dad if Freddy hadn’t taught him about theater and set design and taught him that all kinds of people could work in theater. Theater wasn’t fussy—that’s what Freddy always said. Rich or poor, if you had the talent and could work hard, it would take you in. That’s why…”

  Jane edged closer, setting down her bag, ready to sit next to Suzanne as soon as she looked like she’d accept her.

  “Why what?” Jane asked.

  “Marvin told Henry if he didn’t stop talking about Freddy’s treasures, he was going to stop the play and tell the director what was going on, that all the old theater club members agreed to be in it because they thought Freddy left clues in the play about where the valuables were. Until your friend Tim found the scripts, everybody had forgotten about what Freddy used to tell us. He was going to make this play the inheritance for his granddaughter. We all thought he was just trying to write a good play, but then Henry lost his money, that Wainwright girl’s father lost everybody’s money, and Henry told Marvin there had to be money or stuff worth money in the house or—”

  “Suzanne, did Henry search the house? Did he use his key and—”

  Suzanne wasn’t listening to Jane. She had her head cocked and was listening to the sounds on the stage above their heads. Henry was leading the rest of the cast now in vocal exercises.

  “Henry didn’t know how to use a nail gun. But…”

  Jane watched Suzanne’s face crumple and rebuild itself. Her pain at losing her friend and protector Marvin was now as fresh as it had been two days ago. In her mind it had just happened and she saw it unfold. This time, seeing it as Jane had described it.

  “Henry tried to make the play seemed cursed, didn’t he, Suzanne? He left notes and arranged accidents to slow everything down, maybe to stop the whole thing, now that he had the script in his hand again and realized his old theater club key would get him into the studio where he thought he might find the treasures. He tried to scare Tim and me away from having a house sale. And he decided to cause another accident to scare everyone, but this time, it wasn’t just a scare,” Jane said, edging closer to Suzanne. “Henry had brought the Bumbles to Marvin so he could fix it and maybe Marvin got mad at him for going into Freddy’s studio. Maybe they argued about Freddy’s play and what Freddy meant when he talked about treasures. Maybe Marvin said he was going to tell Tim and me about what Henry was up to, and Henry saw the four-by-four. Maybe he was really trying to just make it seem like a scary accident, but the beam hit Marvin and—”

  “Henry killed Marvin. He said it was a Bumbles accident. Henry had a Bumbles with him. It was the curse of Bumbles. Then Rick Kendell came and said he was going to take away Geppetto from us…”

  “And Henry’s going to say you killed Rick Kendell.”

  “I didn’t kill him,” said Suzanne.

  Jane believed her. Jane had faced other people who waved guns in her face. Most of them were crazy or mean or desperate. Suzanne was a little crazy and a little desperate and a whole lot of lost. But she hadn’t killed anyone. Yet.

  “Henry must have—” Jane began, but Suzanne stopped her, shaking her head.

  “Henry didn’t kill Rick Kendell,” said Suzanne.

  Detective Oh was in Jane’s head. Wait for it, Mrs. Wheel. Listen to the answer to the unasked question.

  “Henry can’t stand the sight of blood. He faints dead away. Even if somebody gets a splinter and I get out my tweezers, Henry’s gone. There’s no way in the world,” said Suzanne.

  “But there wasn’t any blood. The nail went in at the top of the spinal cord, the base of the brain stem, and Rick died instantly. No bleeding,” said Jane, thinking back to what Ramey had told her when she and Oh had been at the station earlier.

  “How in the world would Henry know how to do that?” asked Suzanne. “All he knows how to do is to pretend to know how to do stuff. He’s been an extra out in California for years, pretending to all of us that he was some big shot. He wanted me to help him take care of Rick, he said, and he told me I should put the nail gun out there. We could scare Rick into signing over the place to me is what Henry said. And then after you found Rick dead, Henry started saying it was okay that I killed him, that it would work out even better now. But I told him I didn’t kill Rick Kendell.”

  Suzanne’s voice had gotten softer and softer. Jane held out her hand. “If you’ll give me the gun, I’ll make sure everyone hears what you have to say,” said Jane. Don’t overpromise, she told herself. “Please Suzanne, we have to make sure Henry doesn’t hurt Nellie.”

  Suzanne nodded and, just like that, it was over. Except for the fact that she and Suzanne were locked in the pit-trap room and Henry was going to poison Nellie if Jane didn’t give them the information she had only bluffed about having. Until a few minutes ago, she really didn’t know if those treasures of Freddy’s were real or not. Now she knew exactly what they were and where they were, but if she didn’t get out and stop the onstage action, one of them was going to be ruined. Oh, yes … and Nellie was going to be poisoned.

  “How were you supposed to tell Henry I had given you the information?” asked Jane.

  “At the end of the first act, when the hospital bed is wheeled center stage and they bring in Marguerite?”

  Jane nodded.

  “Perkins the gardener pounds the floor with his rake to see if the electrician is finished in the basement, when they talk about plugging in the electric bed. I was supposed to knock back twice if you told me and three times if you hadn’t.”

  “But we never even rehearsed the knocking back part,” said Jane.

  Suzanne shrugged. “Henry said the play’s such a mess and that Tim Lowry is such a bad director, nobody will notice anything that’s different.”

  Henry was probably right about that.

  They could hear many voices now, the rolling waves of sound that an audience makes with its muttering and murmuring, reading aloud program notes to their seatmates and the helloing across aisles when they see someone they know. Even with the sounds muffled, Jane could tell it was a large audience.

  “Invited dress, my eye,” said Jane. “Sounds like a full house.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Suzanne. “That’s the tradition of the invited dress here. The theater board sends out so many invitations, to try to get new people in. It’s kind of like giving free tickets, but they know the people who always come will buy seats, so they make a big deal out of invited dress to get new people. They serve food and wine afterward in the lobby. Henry said the house would be full and that was good because he and I could disappear in the chaos.”

  “I have a feeling,” said Jane, looking through the prop furniture and rolling out the small portable stairway, “that Mr. Bumbles has left a note somewhere about poison in the liquor and that note will be traceable to you. It’s probably pinned to the dummy you were using with your fingerprints all over the thing.” Jane looked at Suzanne to see if what she was saying was sinking in.

  “Henry could have even found his poison in your scene shop at Geppetto Studios.”

  “I hate actors,” said Suzanne, confirming Jane’s longtime suspicions about the way designers and techies feel about the so-called talent.

  “The play’s started,” said Jane, whispering. “There might be some kind of intercom down here. How else would someone know her cue?” Jane took the compact flashlight out of her tote and began scanning the walls. She found a panel speaker with a switch below and flicked it to the on position. The speaker had to be clogged with years of dust and debris, but Suzanne and Jane could hear muffled onstage voices.

  “I
was surprised to be invited to your welcome-home party, Myra. Things being the way they are between Hermione and myself,” said Chuck Havens as Malachi.

  He was mumbling. Jane was sure he had reinserted the imaginary beard-stroking in his nervousness over the size of the audience. Some of the regular community theater folks might be expecting the invited dress to be an opening night, but neither she nor Tim had known, so they gave no warning about the preopening opening.

  “Malachi! Who invited you? Mother, you didn’t, you couldn’t, you wouldn’t…” Mary Wainwright made it out on time and hit her mark, but she didn’t, couldn’t, and wouldn’t say the right line because she had no idea what it was.

  Chuck came to her rescue. “Don’t worry, Hermione. I won’t bother you tonight. I came because I heard Marguerite would be here and you know I always adored your grandmother.”

  Unfortunately Mary’s stage fright prevented her noticing that Chuck had bailed her out. Apparently, she was going to be one of those actresses determined to say her lines, all of her lines, whenever she remembered them, even if someone had already said them for her.

  “It must have been Marguerite who invited you. She always adored you.”

  Pause.

  “Yes, yes she did,” said Malachi.

  “Put aside your differences for a moment, you two. Can’t we just pretend for one night that a homecoming is a glorious event? A night to be celebrated? Can’t we be them?” said Rica. Jane knew she was now gesturing to the painting over the mantel. It was a sentimental pastoral scene in which a shepherd drove his flock toward the barn and a woman waited with a lantern.

  Jane knew now, however, that underneath that amateurish scene was another canvas. It was a painting called A Homecoming, described by Claire and the auction house that received another painting in its place as having an auction estimate of $250,000. If Rick Kendell had wrapped up the wrong painting, it wasn’t on purpose. He just couldn’t find the right one since it was disguised and stored in Freddy’s props closet.

  That was why Freddy kept changing the lines and rewriting the play. As soon as he was able to spirit something out of the house, away from the foolish selling off of property and blind investing and gambling of his son, he had to camouflage it somehow and add it as a prop to his play. Freddy’s legacy was in his play, all right, but the treasures were literally, not figuratively, present. Freddy’s promises were not about royalties; they were literally promises of valuable properties—props. Jane crouched down next to the rolling staircase and tried to lock it in place.

  “Can you help me steady this thing?” asked Jane.

  Suzanne shook her head but came over and with one hand pushed the lock down on each of the wheels. “You were an actress, weren’t you?” she asked.

  “A long time ago,” said Jane. “Now I prefer to be behind the scenes.”

  Jane carefully climbed the stairs and unlatched the lock on the hinged square on the ceiling/stage floor. She could tell by where the actors were standing that this was the farthest trap from the downstage action. If opened, the placement should be right next to the French doors leading to the garden.

  “Why, Detective Craven, I wasn’t sure you’d come,” said Myra.

  Silence.

  “And now, here you are,” said Myra.

  Silence.

  “How could you miss my homecoming party, after all? I’ll bet you wouldn’t miss a chance to visit this old place in a million years, would you, Detective Craven?”

  Rica, as Myra, was good, but Jane could hear a note of desperation creeping into her voice.

  Silence.

  Jane tiptoed up the now-locked stairs. She hoped her spatial sense had not failed her and prayed that the hinges would not squeak as she opened the trap. She knew the action was taking place downstage and there was no danger of dropping an actor through the floor, but she also hoped that no potted plant or set of fireplace tools would come crashing down.

  Slowly she opened the hinged panel. The trapdoor would swing open downward and once it was open an inch, she held the door steady and peeked out. Just in front of the panel was a huge brass pot filled with geraniums marking the entrance to the garden. The perfect screen. No actor would be coming near the now unlocked trap. Peeking out, she could see she was directly behind Tim. The hem of his trench coat was just above her eye level.

  “Detective, may I offer you a drink?”

  Jane could hear Myra walk toward the bar. The silence onstage was palpable. Jane could hear the clink of the crystal stopper being removed from the decanter.

  “I’ll have a scotch. Neat,” whispered Jane. “Get it together, Timmy, it’s just a dress rehearsal. Say your lines.”

  “Scotch,” said Detective Craven. It came out as a parrot squawk. “Neat,” he added with a little more force.

  Myra laughed and bless her, she ad-libbed a cover and gave him his cue.

  “I was afraid my celebrity might make you nervous, might make you forget that I am just a hometown girl at heart.”

  “You were many things, Miss Davis, but you were never just a hometown girl.”

  Jane noticed that Tim had brought back his Norwegian/Manchester/Australian accent, but the fact that he could speak at all was good. Perhaps those in the audience would not figure out that the Eekaknak Valley was their very own Kankakee on Backward Day. Perhaps they would buy Detective Craven’s accent as the Eekaknakian vernacular.

  Three more lines and Perkins would enter through the French doors, so Jane closed and latched the panel.

  Suzanne had left her spot on the couch and was going through Henry Gand’s messenger bag. She took out cough drops and a water bottle, two energy bars, a Swiss Army knife, folders filled with papers, and as she opened one of the folders, his passport fell out on the floor. She opened it and nodded.

  “Good picture, Henry,” she whispered. “You son of a bitch.” She twisted and pulled at the passport with a wringing motion and managed to tear out the photo page. She handed Jane a printout with flight information. An e-ticket.

  “We don’t have much time, Suzanne. You say Henry couldn’t kill Rick, but I do believe he’s capable of poisoning my mother. We have to get out there and—”

  “The padlock is on the outside. He locked us both in, remember?”

  Jane pointed up with her finger. “This is the way out.”

  “I cannot go onstage,” said Suzanne. You can go out and come around for me, but I can’t go onstage.”

  Jane looked at the woman and saw the pure panic in her eyes. There was stage fright and there was stage fright, and this was the latter. Paralysis would set in before she could climb the stairs.

  Okay. By this time Detective Oh would know she was in trouble. He would have called Ramey, he would be prepared to lead the cavalry, but there was no way for him to know exactly where to charge. Claire and Margaret would probably be with him, probably sitting in the audience. Margaret might not feel like seeing Freddy’s play tonight, but they wouldn’t leave her alone in the motel room.

  “Cook tells me they’re bringing your grandmother home tonight.” Henry Gand was in fine form as Perkins. When had he gone Scottish?

  Silence.

  Mary Wainwright again, probably scrambling for a script in a potted plant.

  “Just say yes, Hermione, for God’s sake,” whispered Jane.

  Suzanne shrugged and walked over to the intercom speaker. “Yes,” she whispered directly into it.

  “Yes,” said Hermione.

  Jane mimed applause. Suzanne nodded and whispered, “Actors are morons.”

  “Morons,” said Hermione, matter-of-factly.

  Jane motioned Suzanne away from the speaker.

  “What’s that you say, lass?” asked Perkins.

  “When did this play become Brigadoon?” whispered Jane.

  “I said … I said, the morons from the hospital should be arriving any minute,” said Hermione.

  “That’s good, Mary, just go with it,” muttered Jane.
/>   Jane weighed her options. If she popped out onstage and yelled “cut,” she would certainly stop the action and there was a chance they would be able to grab Henry Gand before he could gather his wits and run from the theater. Jane was sure Oh would have the place surrounded, or at least the entrances and exits guarded. The problem as she saw it—and she was thinking quickly—was that Henry believed Suzanne had killed Kendell and so would everyone else. He could pin everything on her. The police had identified her prints on the nail gun by now and Henry would have made sure that the notes and the dummies would be traceable to Suzanne. He would present himself as an old man who was persuaded to help his old friend, before he realized what she had done. He would say he had no intention of poisoning Nellie, he was afraid for Jane’s life since Suzanne was holding a gun on her below. It would be Jane against Henry. And, as Don had said himself, Henry was a hell of an actor. But if Henry really didn’t kill Rick, as Suzanne insisted, someone was out there who did. Bumbles was still at large. And somehow, Jane popping up and stopping the action might put more people at risk. She had to find a way to make sure Henry couldn’t follow through on his plan, but make sure no one was tipped off too early about Jane’s plan. Oh yes, and she had to figure out a plan.

  The actors had limped through the first act and Jane realized she could sneak up right now, during the intermission, and no one would be the wiser. She knelt down in front of Suzanne, who had reclaimed her spot on the couch. Suzanne might still be capable of running a scene shop, but right now she looked scared and sick and every bit her age. She was still holding what was left of Henry’s passport.

  “I’m going up there and we’ll work this out, okay? You won’t be left alone in this,” said Jane.

  Suzanne nodded.

  Jane climbed up the stairs and opened the trap, but instead of seeing the lights of the theater stage, the square that should have allowed her to exit was blocked.

  “Damn it, they’ve already moved the couch back to make room for the hospital bed downstage,” said Jane.

  She pushed on the bottom of the sofa, but it was impossible to move or slide the heavy piece from her angle below at the top of the stairs. The couch was dead center over the trap. She climbed back down the portable stairs and moved them under another trap, upstage left. If she were right again about the placement, this door would open next to another large pot of flowers, on the other side of the garden entrance/exit.