“Did she sleep here last night?” I asked.
“No. I thought she was with Braden. Guys are on the third floor. We’re not supposed to, but . . .” Emily made a “what can you do?” gesture. “She must have packed up this morning, when she knew I’d be at work.”
So Bianca didn’t want Emily to know she was leaving. Why?
We reached the same conclusion at the same time. I opened the medicine cabinet above the sink. Also half empty. No prescription bottles.
Emily was rummaging through a zippered canvas duffle. “It’s gone,” she said. “The chloral hydrate.”
I sat on the edge of the bed and gestured for her to join me. “Tell me exactly what you did Friday. How you got the drug into Chad’s drink.”
“That was easy. I’m the last person on from stage left, from the green room, so I poured a little into his can, then slipped it back in my bag. We’re not supposed to bring anything but scripts and water bottles into the green room, so I opened the outside door and left my bag behind one of the shrubs in the alley. No one knew.”
“Except Bianca and Braden.” Everybody knew the actors often propped open the door, to let their friends from town sneak in for a show, or to pop in and out without making any noise.
She pressed her lips together and nodded.
I frowned. “So after the deputies let you change back into street clothes, you ducked down the alley and grabbed your bag.”
“And I never checked. But the bottle’s gone.”
Which meant the other two had feared getting caught more than Emily did. Even though it was her mother’s name on the prescription and the bottle had been in her bag.
Footsteps pounded down the hallway. I had expected Bello and his deputies to be quieter.
But it wasn’t them. It was Bianca. She grabbed the doorframe and skidded to a stop when she saw us.
“Aren’t you—weren’t you supposed to be at work?”
Emily roared back, like the cat she’d played on stage, “You were just going to leave? Go back to Indiana without saying a word?”
“I—we didn’t know what to do.” More footsteps. A male voice called out, “Bianca, hurry up. Grab the box so we can leave.”
Then Braden came up behind Bianca. He might have been a chorus cat, but with his boyish features and curly dark hair, I’d have bet a bundle he played Curly in Oklahoma! and took a star turn in Brigadoon.
“How could you?” Emily said. “Both of you. We only meant to send him a message. To make him stop. Not . . .”
Not kill him.
“We didn’t mean to hurt him,” Bianca said, half sobbing. “We—we thought you were being too cautious with the stuff, so Braden snuck back in and dumped an extra dose in his can. You said it wouldn’t hurt him, not seriously.”
“Wait,” I said. Adam had thought that the man had been suffocated, not strangled. Dr. Cook had appeared to agree. The soft fabric wrapped around Stevenson’s face would have been enough, if he was already out of commission. “That was the old tail from your costume wrapped around his face, wasn’t it? If you didn’t smother him with it, who did?”
“It wasn’t us,” Braden said.
Bianca’s olive skin paled. “The tail came off when—when he attacked me. I didn’t know what to do. Amanda had told me, after he ripped my showgirl costume, not to let it happen again. Like it was my fault. But then she quit. Kip said if we had problems with costumes to take them to Kathy at the Dragonfly.”
“Did you tell her what happened?” I couldn’t imagine the straight-talking artist, quilter, and retail mainstay keeping quiet about a stage manager harassing an actor.
Bianca shook her head. “No. No. I didn’t want to cause any trouble. I knew . . .”
“You knew he would have denied it,” I said, “and made things worse.”
“Not just worse. Impossible,” Emily interjected. “He’s supposed to cue us on, make sure all the props are in place and everything goes smoothly. That everybody knows about last-minute changes in the rehearsal schedule, or the blocking on stage. There are a million ways he could have sabotaged us. He did sabotage us. To keep us in line.”
The real reason Kip Taylor thought he had a couple of actors who couldn’t get things right. Chalk that up to Stevenson. “How did the killer get the tail? I’ve talked to Kathy. She had to make a whole new one.”
“I don’t know,” Bianca said. Her eyes were wet. “We’re not allowed to take the costumes home, so I left it in the wardrobe room. When I came back the next day to get it and take it to Kathy’s shop, the tail was gone.”
“Bianca,” Braden said. “My car’s outside. We have to go.”
“Hold on, cowboy. You’re not going anywhere.”
Heaven help me, I was actually glad to see Detective Oliver Bello. A deputy stood behind him. No doubt another had an eye on Braden’s car.
“Are we under arrest? Are you charging us? We didn’t kill him.” The three young actors didn’t wait for any cues or prompts, talking over each other.
“I know that,” Bello said. “I’ve talked to the ME and the chief toxicologist. The chloral hydrate didn’t kill Stevenson. But drugging him is a form of assault. You need to tell me everything.” He glanced around the half-empty dorm room, not exactly a comfortable place for an interview. But then, I’ve been in the sheriff’s interview room. It’s not a space meant to make you feel comfortable. “At the station, please. Deputy Oakland will show you the way.”
Emily turned to me. “I’m going to be late for work. Should I call my dad?”
“Don’t worry about work. And calling your dad’s not a bad idea.”
The actors left with the deputy. No surprise that Bello stayed behind, or that he trained his very serious peepers on me.
I summarized what the girls had said about Stephenson and the plan to send him a message. “Bianca said the tail disappeared before she could take the costume to be repaired, and I can’t see either Emily or Braden taking it. It doesn’t fit with the rest of the plan. He passed out, then he was suffocated with the tail, right?”
Bello grunted and glowered. “Why didn’t they report the perv?”
“Detective,” I said. “Oliver. You know why. Young women these days know what Stevenson did was wrong. But even the bravest and boldest isn’t going to speak up if she doesn’t think it will do any good. Not that I condone drugging a man, but they did try to solve the problem themselves. Rather creatively, in my opinion. Since you asked.”
As he obviously wished he hadn’t.
“Come in and give a formal statement.” He checked his watch. “Say, two o’clock? We should be finished with our young thespians by then. I’ve got a couple of other witnesses coming in, but those interviews should be quick.”
I agreed and walked out with him. The car needed gas, so I drove out to the highway to fill the tank. Realized I was famished and needed to fill my own tank, too, so after gassing up, I pulled into a slot outside Perk Up, the breakfast-lunch-coffee joint next to the gas station.
“Hey, Cyndi,” I called to the woman behind the counter. “How about one of your fancy grilled cheeses?”
“Onions and tomato? Stay or go?”
“Yes, and go, I guess.” I searched in my bag for my phone—might as well check my email and our social media while I waited. The program from the other night was stuffed in the bottom of my bag. I smoothed it flat and paged through. The cast lists I’d seen, but not the bios. Bianca wasn’t from Indiana, as Emily had said, but Illinois. Close enough. Braden McNally hailed from Southern California. Would the trouble over Stevenson bring the curtain down on their summer romance before the season ended? Kip couldn’t keep them in the company if they were charged with criminal assault, could he?
I flipped through more pages, then stopped. Flipped back. The souvenir program, the one I’d paid two bucks for, compared to the free playbill for that night’s show, included bios for the full cast and crew. It had been printed before the last-minute changes, and it in
cluded a woman with shoulder-length dark hair and a serious expression.
Amanda Swallow’s hair had been cut collar-length when I saw her Sunday at the athletic club, going in to teach a yoga class. Not uncommon for dancers to study yoga, and once she left the theater, she’d needed a job. Why had she stuck around? Because as I’d said of Kathy and myself, Jewel Bay is that kind of town. And she knew Stevenson would be leaving in September.
I wasn’t a regular, didn’t know the schedule, but took a guess that class ran at the same time every day. I stuffed my phone and the program into my bag and grabbed my keys. No sign of Cyndi.
If my hunch was right, I didn’t have time to wait.
I was halfway to the car when Cyndi came running out, a go-box in hand. I thanked her and did my best to heed her caution to drive carefully as I wound my way above the lakeshore, past the golf course, to the athletic club.
Why had Amanda done it? I had little doubt that she’d snuck in the side door—she’d have known the actors often left it propped open. She’d found Stevenson passed out and seen an opportunity she couldn’t pass up. The tail was an even bigger message than the toy mice Emily had tucked in the stage manager’s hands, but one he’d never see. A message he would never get, because Amanda Swallow had taken their prank a step too far.
I’d been irked with the former costume manager’s admonishment to Bianca after the assault that tore her skirt to not let it happen again. Like it was the girl’s fault, I’d thought. But no. It was not that, and more than that, at the same time. Amanda had been an actor once, and she knew. No one would listen. No one would stop guys like that. You had to look out for yourself.
She couldn’t have known about the chloral hydrate, just as the three young actors had not known about her. She had taken matters into her own hands—strong hands, used to sewing and to supporting yoga poses. She had taken revenge for what Stevenson had done to her, and taken action to keep him from attacking yet another young woman who feared the consequences of speaking up even more than she feared him.
I parked outside the club. No sign of her. I had no idea what she drove. Was I too late?
“Erin!” Bunny was coming toward me, in her yoga clothes. “If you’re here for yoga with Amanda, it’s canceled today. Besides, you’re late. And you’re not dressed.”
“Bunny. The new teacher, with the dark hair and the trendy clothes. Is that Amanda?”
“She’s terrific. I guess she’s sick today, one of those summer colds. I ought to swing by and check on her, but I think I’ll head home instead.”
“You know where she lives?”
“Sure. She rents from Polly, the apartment over the garage. I keep telling you, come to class. You’ll love her.”
“Thanks. It’s so hard to make time in the summer.” We air-kissed and I followed her car back to the highway. She turned south, toward home. I went north, to her sister’s house.
I was not one bit surprised to reach the place and find a car parked outside the garage, the rear hatch open, boxes and suitcases inside. It was apparently the day for theater people to load ’em up and move ’em out. I blocked the car with mine, careful of Polly’s roses. Her husband had built the apartment for his parents, but they’d bought a condo instead, and Polly used it as a retreat and gathering place. I’d been here once for a Pampered Chef party.
The people door at the bottom of the stairs stood open. I ignored the twinge in my knee and started up. A few steps later, Amanda emerged from the apartment, dressed in leggings and a tank, a cardboard box in her arms.
“Who are you? What are you doing here?”
I held out both hands in the universal signal that I came in peace. “Erin Murphy. I run the Merc, in the village. One of the theater kids, Emily Davies, works for me.”
A look of fear mingled with defensiveness crossed her face.
“I know how these guys work,” I continued. “Stevenson and his ilk. He pestered Emily, but it was her roommate, Bianca Calderon, who was his real target. After you left, that is.” Apparently he had a thing for slender brunettes.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She came down a couple of steps, obviously hoping I’d back up. Or back down, literally and figuratively. As she got closer, my nose picked up the scent of jasmine.
“I think you do. He went after you and you pushed back. He got more insistent—I won’t pretend to know what he did, but it must have been pretty awful for you to leave a job you loved. After all, you came back to Jewel Bay intending to stay, didn’t you? You couldn’t let a creep like that ruin things.”
She took another step, and so did I. Neither of us could see where we were going, she because of the box, me because my eyes were fixed on her.
“You did your best to protect Bianca,” I continued, “but when you left, he focused all his attention on her.”
Another step. “I told her not to let it keep happening. To find a way to stop him.”
“But you didn’t mean for her to kill him. You wanted to do that yourself.”
“What do you want me to say? That I killed him, but I’m sorry? Because I’m not.” She took another step. Were we close to the bottom yet?
“How did you get the tail? And what did you plan to do when you snuck in during the first act? You couldn’t have known about the chloral hydrate.” Her face said I was right, that she’d had no idea. “Sleeping pills. Liquid, actually. They spiked his pop can so he’d pass out and get in trouble.”
“Orange Pellegrino. He’s addicted to the stuff.”
I used to love it, too. No more.
“They tucked little fuzzy mice in his hands, as their calling card,” I said. “So he’d get the message.”
“I wondered what those were.”
“You wrapped the tail around his face and smothered him. You’re wearing the same perfume now that you wore that night—it must have rubbed off from your hands onto the tail fabric. But where did you get the tail?”
“After I quit, I came back to get my things and I spotted it on the floor beneath the costume rack. I recognized it right away as part of Bianca’s costume. When I saw how badly he’d damaged it, I knew I had to do something.”
“So you came back . . .”
“My hatred was keeping me from enjoying something I loved. I thought if I came back and walked around during a production, I’d fall for the place all over again and forget about revenge. But when I saw him lying there, sleeping on the job, it was like a sign. That the time had come. That he’d never stop unless I stopped him.”
Criminy. She’d admitted it. “Come with me. Tell Detective Bello what happened. All of it, including what Stevenson did to you. They’ll understand.”
I didn’t know if they would or not. If the law would consider his harassment, his assault, a mitigating circumstance. If her actions were legally defensible. I couldn’t defend them, but I understood them.
Amanda pushed the box at me, shoving me against the wall. She started to scoot by and I stuck out a foot, hoping to trip her. No luck. She was a former dancer, after all, leaping easily down the last few steps and dashing out. I staggered to my feet, pain shooting through my knee. From outside, I heard a car engine start. I stumbled to the door and out into the bright sunlight.
Amanda put her car in reverse, cranked the wheels, then pulled forward and backed up again at an angle. If she kept it up, she might be able to squeeze around my car, but only if she took out Polly’s rose bed. Polly would never forgive me, and neither would Bunny.
And I’d never forgive myself if I let a killer get away. Even if her victim had been despicable. He deserved to be punished, to be reminded every day of the terrible things he’d done, robbing young women of their dreams, their confidence, their futures. But to suffer, he had to live.
I didn’t have time to rub my lucky stars. And with my knee throbbing, I couldn’t run after her.
The contents of the box lay scattered at my feet. The miscellaneous box, the last things you pack. I picke
d them up, one by one, and began pelting Amanda’s car. The alarm clock bounced off the windshield with a metallic clang. A coffee cup decorated with comedy and tragedy masks, the symbols of drama, smacked the side-view mirror and shattered when it hit the ground. As Amanda wiggled the car back and forth, I stooped, grabbed, and threw.
“What is this racket?” Polly’s cry pierced the air. “Erin Murphy, what are you doing? Don’t you stomp on my roses.”
“Call 911,” I shouted. “A killer’s trying to get away.”
Bless her, for once, Polly Easter Paulson did as she was told. Detective Bello pulled up just as I was hurling the last item within reach at Amanda Swallow’s car. I missed the car, and if he’d ducked when I yelled, it would have missed him, too.
Oh, well. Getting smacked with a pastel rainbow Beanie Baby unicorn is hardly the worst indignity a cop has to endure.
Turned out I was right. Amanda had been in the company for two seasons a decade ago, singing and dancing her way through Oklahoma!, Footloose, and even Bye Bye Birdie. She’d have kept on singing and dancing if an injury hadn’t stopped her. She pivoted to costume design, jumping at the chance to come back to Jewel Bay. She’d truly loved the Playhouse and the Taylors, and had hoped to make a full-time career with them. That was part of the reason she’d kept her mouth shut when Stevenson began harassing her.
You can’t solve a problem you don’t know about, Kip Taylor had said. But I wasn’t going to let him off the hook. To his credit, he completely agreed that he’d failed in his responsibility to keep the young women in his employ safe, and promised to do everything he could to make the theater a safe workplace. I had a hunch his sister had played a role in his sudden understanding.
Amanda had been driven to murder as much by protectiveness as by personal revenge. Would that help her in the legal system? I hoped so. My knee recovered and the theater reopened. Emily, Bianca, and Braden all agreed to stay for the rest of the season. Misdemeanor assault charges were filed, with a promise that they’d be dropped if the actors completed the season without any further trouble and cooperated with the authorities. Emily continued working at the Merc, and before long, we were all singing with her, as the wind came sweeping down the plain and swept the gray skies away.
Carried to the Grave and Other Stories Page 12
