Allison balled her hands into fists. Her mouth crumpled.
“Allie, my dear Allie, don’t give in to Edward when he cancels your vacation. If you do, he’s got nowhere to go. He needs you to put up a fight. The last few rehearsals, you’ve treated it as a mild inconvenience. It needs to be bigger.”
Edward raised his hand like a student. “I’m fine in the scene. I have no problem with how Allie does it.”
Allison bowed her head. “Thank you, Eddie.”
“Yeah, but I have a problem with it. I’m in the audience thinking, Why doesn’t he leave this bitch sooner? She doesn’t seem to care. Don’t do that to your character, Allie. Give her some integrity.”
Allison gave the barest hint of assent.
“Grizz, don’t bring up Lisa’s light on the balcony until she moves forward. Only Edward is lit at the start and then after his cue…What’s the cue Edward?”
“Is someone there.”
Jenny nodded. “Right. After Edward says that line, then, and only then do you bring up Lisa’s light. Any questions?”
Edward raised his hand. “Lisa’s light shines right in my eyes on the balcony. I can’t see anything.”
“You don’t need to see anything. Just don’t fall. Any other questions?”
Maura said, “What about jewelry?”
Jenny did a double take. “I…I don’t know, Maura. What about jewelry?”
“I know I’m supposed to be sixteen, but I know for a fact that sixteen-year-olds wear jewelry. Allie gets to wear that ugly thing in her hair and Lisa’s decked out to the nines. Can’t I wear something nice?”
“By something nice, I presume you mean something ostentatious?”
Maura scrunched her face. “I don’t know that company. I like Monocraft. A brooch with my initials maybe.”
“I’ll get right on that. It might take a few months. Any relevant questions?”
Allison said, “Do you have any notes for Lisa?”
“For Lisa?” Jenny sighed.
“You must have something to say about her. She’s the lead role after all.”
“Hey sis?”
Lisa raised her head. “Yeah, Jenn.”
“Don’t change what you’re doing.”
Lisa grinned. “Don’t you think I know that?”
Jenny stared right through Allison as she spoke. “Lisa gets plenty of notes from me when we’re at home. Worry about your performance, not hers. All right, actors to your places. Let’s do it right so we can all go home and read the funny papers.”
At the back of the theater, Christine wobbled, hands planted on the seat in front of her with a white-knuckle grip. “That voice. Where have I heard that voice? I must remember.”
Chapter 3 just a coincidence
12:20 p.m. Thursday, April 4th
“Con job.” Sergeant Grady sipped his beer.
Rowan lit one of his inevitable cigarettes. “What is the con? What could be gained by hiring a detective?”
Grady had a white walrus mustache he refused to take care of. The liquor coated the lower hairs, so he constantly cleaned them with a wipe of his wrist. His advancing years had produced bruised hollows under his eyes, a look of defeat permanently fixed to his face. His voice rasped like burnt sandpaper. “Doesn’t matter, you walk away.”
The two men sat in the middle of the otherwise empty Brown Bear Bar, permeated with the previous night’s mephitic odor of alcohol, tobacco, sweat, and the vomit-inducing lemon cologne favored by the patrons. Mottled light sprayed through the dusty window, filtering through snaking lines of stagnant smoke and coating the room with a bluish hue.
Rowan’s table bordered the platform supporting the eponymous, stuffed brown bear. The bartender, Dave Bowen, always kept the table vacated, should his favorite customer ever want a drink. “I have already given her my word. I cannot back out now.”
“What’s the woman’s name again?” asked Grady.
“Lisa Pluviam.”
“Pluviam…Pluviam…It sounds familiar.”
“She was in a play last year.”
“Do I look like I go to the theater?”
“Perhaps you have read her name in the paper,” Rowan suggested.
“I don’t read the paper. Too depressing. Hold up.” Grady shouted over to the bar. “Hey Bowen, did you put up those missing-person flyers like I asked?”
Dave Bowen slapped a rag over the brass pump. “Come on, Grady.”
The sergeant simpered under his mustache. “Where we going? Are we going to see the health inspector? How about the Liquor Control Commission?”
Dave pleaded with him. “People come here to escape depression, not to look at a bunch of missing people. You think they’re going to wake up hung over the next morning and form a search party? Most of my patrons can’t remember anything from the night before. The flyers just make the place look ugly.”
“Too late.” Grady pointed a crooked finger. “If those flyers lead to even one person found, it’ll be worth having them on your wall. I asked you nicely a week ago. Today, I’m telling you.”
“But I have a theme going.”
“Theme? Don’t bump gums with me. You’re called The Brown Bear. What’s this next to me? A big, fucking brown bear. Theme accomplished.”
Dave threw his arms into the air. “Fine. They’re spooky, all right? I don’t like looking at them. Every time I turned to the wall, there they were, staring at me with those goddamn smiles on their faces. Meanwhile, I know exactly where they are. They’re in shallow graves or riverbeds. And not one of them is smiling. A couple of them have been missing for twenty years. Hell, one guy is almost my age by now. He’s either dead or he doesn’t want to be found.”
“Get those flyers back on the wall by tomorrow!” Grady turned back to Rowan. “That cocksucker. What were we talking about?”
“Lisa Pluviam.”
“Right, right. She has no idea who left the note?”
“Not the slightest inkling.”
Grady shrugged. “If the woman won’t report it, she must not think too much of it. Most threats never amount to anything. You know that. Why threaten somebody when you could kill them without all the paperwork? But just for a lark, let’s say you thought someone was going to kill you on a certain day, during a certain time, at a certain place. What’s the first thing you’d make sure not to do?”
Rowan grimaced. “She has reasons. They are not logical ones, but I believe she—”
“Hey Einstein, what’s the first thing you’d make sure not to do?”
“Show up,” he said glumly.
“Ring-a-ding-ding, we have a winner. All this malarkey about how the show must go on.”
He is right. I know he is. But... “She is a friend, and I would like to be certain.”
Grady gave his best impression of a smile. “What do you want me to say?”
“I called you because I wanted your advice.”
“Bull. You called me because you wanted me to tell you it was a great idea. Well, it’s not.” Grady sighed. “On the other hand, it couldn’t hurt to just go there and watch her. Be prepared for some tomfoolery though. Actors.” He retched. “Bunch of grownups playing make-believe. Think they’re so damned important. Do they ever get killed in the line of duty?” He jabbed at Rowan’s shoulder. “Hey, I guess you’ll find out the answer to that question tomorrow, huh?”
Rowan gave a forced, little cough. “Williams will be backstage, and I will be in the audience. We could use someone at the entrance. I know you have got a lot on your plate.”
Grady gibbered an unbroken line of swears and then immediately apologized. “I’m not mad at you, son.”
He still calls me son. “The bombing?”
A pained look appeared on his face as he nodded. “Yeah, what the hell’s wrong with this city. I hope they get taken alive. It’d be worth it to catch them alive just to fry them on the hotsquat later.”
“Any leads?”
“We only know that the b
astards used pyrotol. Not much to go on. The feds arrive tomorrow morning, and I’m going to look like a dumb bag of shit.”
Rowan squeezed the charred tip of his cigarette onto the floor. “Where would pyrotol be obtained?”
“Nowhere. They stopped producing it. After the war, the government sold all the reserves. It went fast.”
“What is its primary purpose?”
“Blowing out tree stumps and clearing ditches. Some maniac used it to blow up a school in Massachusetts a few years back. Occasionally, it was used in government projects, building bridges and such.”
“Can sales in Illinois be traced?” asked Rowan.
“We’re trying.” Grady checked his watch, slammed back the rest of his beer, and licked his mustache. “Time to skedaddle. The commies are marching today. They spout their nonsense, a crowd gathers, and before you know it, we have a moving riot on our hands. God knows how many arrests by the end of the day.”
“The entrance?”
“I can spare one cop. And he won’t be competent in any way. Name’s Young.”
“Thank you, Grady.”
“The guy’s a real fuck-up. He’ll probably do more harm than good.”
“I appreciate it.”
A sea of red marched down Ashland, monstrous draping banners of hammers and sickles hoisted every twenty feet. The protesters shouted their chants in perfectly timed unison. “The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains!”
Maura pressed her hands against the dash as she blew an enormous bulb of a bubble. It made a loud, bright pop before it deflated over her cherry lips. “What are proletarians?”
Edward’s legs twisted about with cramped muscles. For the fifth time in the last minute, he grabbed the rearview mirror, adjusting it before settling it back in its original position. “I think they’re meant to be us. Are you all right back there, Christine? Is it too hot for you?”
The sunlight drenched the back seat of the Auburn sedan with heavy, stifling rays. Christine’s frizzy white hair, which had been standing on end, was now bent down on one side from sweat. She rubbed her lobes. “I’m a bit sore, dear. Why are we stopped?”
“A protest.”
Maura grabbed hold of the headrest with both hands. “Did you like the play, Miss Filius?”
“Oh, yes. Edward was magnificent. Though I must say, I don’t like him on that balcony. It looked terribly unsafe.”
“We’re professionals.” She winked at Edward. “Ain’t we, Eddie?”
He looked down to her nyloned knee.
“You and Christine live together?” asked Maura.
“Christine needs daily care, so I have to live with her. She doesn’t have anyone else. I’ve seen the inside of those shelters. Gosh darn awful—”
Maura cut him off. “So, the answer is yes?”
“Yes, we live together.”
“What about your parents? Where are they?”
“Both dead. Well, my mother is dead. My father, I’m not sure.”
“Is this a sore subject?” Maura asked. “You can tell me to zip it. I won’t get offended.”
The march continued in front of them with no sign of the tail end. “No. My mother died of…” Edward looked back to the mirror. “Christine, what did Mom die of?”
“She was shot by an Italian. An ugly one.”
“No, my mom. Your sister. What did she die of?”
Christine crinkled her forehead in thought. “Oh, it was sepsis. She died at the hospital after you were born. Quite painful as I recall.”
Maura smiled. “That’s a good mom.”
Edward looked at her with disbelief. “Dying from sepsis makes you a good mom?”
“Acksherly, it does.”
“Actually. It’s pronounced actually.”
“Think about it. She died giving birth to you. I wish my mom died giving birth to me. It would be the first good thing she did in her life.”
“No, it was well after I was born. Mom was sick. Plum loco in la cabeza.”
“What about your dad?”
Edward frowned. “I never knew him. He left her for another woman, then skipped town.”
“I never knew my dad either, died before I was born. That’s kinda crazy. Allison grew up with no dad or mom. And Tim, his mom died when he was a baby. We’re all a buncha guttersnipes.”
The chant in the streets changed to Justice for Abe Gray. Maura turned to Edward, propping her knees onto the seat. “You know something funny, I got only one photo of my dad. He’s standing in front of an iron mill, with a gigantic shovel held across his waist. And he’s got those glasses, those funny-looking protective glasses. So’s when I dream about him, he always looks like that. It must be cause it’s the only way I’ve ever seen him. In the dreams, I always tell him to take off the glasses cause I want to see his eyes. He never does. Isn’t that creepy?”
Christine reached from the back seat, laying her hand on Edward’s shoulder. “Dear, I’m feeling a bit faint. Could you drive under some shade?”
Edward jabbed the steering wheel. “I can’t drive anywhere.” Buried at the front of the small crowd gathered on the sidewalk, a police uniform flashed in Edward’s line of sight. “Wait here, you two. I’ll see if that cop knows how long it’s going to be.” He exited the car, crossing the street and jostling through the gawking public.
Maura stretched out the gum with her fingers and pulled it back into her mouth one chomp at a time. “What about me, Miss Filius? Was I a believable teenager?”
Christine’s stuttered, her head turning back and forth as if she were searching the car. “Where is Edward? Who are you?”
“I’m Eddie’s friend. You and I have been talking the whole car ride.”
Her upper lip curled. “Oh, yes. I recognized your voice.”
A smile slashed across Maura’s face. “Did you, now?”
“You had changed your hair. That’s why I didn’t recognize you. Now I remember. You were the one in the attic.”
“Acksherly, I’ve never been in your attic and my hair has been this way since I saw The Canary Murder Case in the cinema. Do you know Louise Brooks? Everyone says I look like her.”
“Are you taking the test?”
Maura sputtered out a laugh. “I think you need a nap, Miss Filius.” She looked down at the two white, cardboard boxes next to Christine and then back to the old woman’s vacant eyes.
Edward returned a few minutes later, restarting the car and slowly going back and forth in an effort to turn round. “The cop told me this march is headed to the meat packing plant. We can get through at Fulton. Should be clear all the way to the hospital.” The car finally finished its tortured u-turn. “No worries, Christine. We’re on the move.”
Nurse Gonzalez was filing her nails at the hospital reception desk, the sound of her jangling bracelet producing a sterile, tinkling echo in the white room. “So when’s the first show?”
Edward set the boxes in front of her. “Tomorrow night.”
“I hope I can come next week, but you know, people keep getting sick and dying.”
“Nice. Well, that’s not nice, but I hope you can make it.”
The nurse pulled out a form from the filing cabinet. “Are you nervous? I couldn’t stand all those people watching me.”
“I won’t know ’til I get up there and say my lines.”
“Don’t you have to imagine them all naked? Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do?”
“No.” Edward looked back at the car through the glass door. Maura was leaning across to the back seat. “Lisa told me to pretend they aren’t there. That way it’s just you on stage alone.”
“Who’s Lisa?”
“She’s one of the actresses,” Edward said, still looking at the car outside.
The nurse squinted at the paper taped to the box. “Eddie, be a dear and read off those formulas for me. My eyes have gone to pot, and I forgot my glasses at home.”
He opened the flaps of the top box and pull
ed out a bottle. “C-seventeen, H-nineteen, N, O-three.”
“C-seventeen, H-nineteen, N, O-three. Got it. And the other one?”
“C-thirty-seven, H-forty two, Cl—” He stopped. Maura was standing outside the car now, a look of horror on her face. Edward’s legs moved slowly at first, but then faster through the door. The nurse’s voice called out to him in a distant, faded drone as he ran across the short sidewalk onto the asphalt. Christine’s body was bent over at the waist. The eyes were open, but no breath was coming from her mouth. Maura finally let loose with a scream. A pair of orderlies wheeled out a gurney, and they all made a mad rush to the emergency ward.
Nurse Gonzalez caught Edward’s arm at the emergency doors, yanking him against the wall. “I’m sorry, Eddie. You have to stay out here.”
Rowan pushed and pulled on the front rail. The wood nudged a bit in either direction but not enough to suggest sabotage. It was disappointing but not surprising. Although the ladder could be made rickety and the railing unscrewed a bit in strategic places, one could be prepared for those things. Even a brazen murderer would surely eschew such methods.
Walter looked out over the two-hundred seats. “More than likely, the attempt will happen backstage. Don’t you think?”
Walter’s reasoning was sound. Visibility was a key issue in the construction of this would-be crime. A murder committed in front of that many witnesses wouldn’t imply braggadocio as much as blinding insanity. Yet, the opened script was the kind of clue that gnawed at Rowan, and the balcony stood out as the most obviously dangerous place in the theater. “Edward will be on the other side of this partition. Go over and attempt to reach me.”
Walter walked a few feet toward the ladder, crossing onto the other half of the balcony. Careful not to disturb the many potted flowers, he leaned over the rail, barely hooking Rowan’s wide lapel between two outstretched fingers. “I can do it, but it’s not a solid grip. If Edward had a long knife, he could reach over and stab her, but no matter what he does, everyone in the auditorium will be able to see it.”
“Yes, we continue to encounter the problem of the audience. Perhaps the killer is counting on them seeing what they expect rather than the actual event. Does Edward ever touch her in this scene? Even holding hands?”
The Opening Night Murders Page 4
