“I understand your reluctance. You might have a fortune in your possession. Let’s have a look. I might be able to save you time and money.” He watched me consider his offer. “If you would be more comfortable in my office, we can arrange another meeting.”
“No, we might as well do it now. If you can wait a minute, I’ll get it. Just make yourself comfortable.”
Morty smiled and sat down as I walked calmly up the aisle and into the lobby. I followed Bill’s directions and opened an emergency door that led to a hallway. At the end of it, one could access the scene shop and backstage area.
Bill had been watching the entire exchange and was waiting for me.
“I’ll be right here in case anything happens,” he said softly, handing me the file.
My hands shook. “Thanks.” I squared my shoulders and retraced my steps.
I walked back to the front row with the folder holding the Lincoln letter and prayed that this was not a mistake.
“Here it is.” I flipped it open to show Morty the parchment paper in its plastic sleeve. He took a magnifying glass from an inside coat pocket and bent his head over the letter. I thought I heard a slight gasp, but I could have been wrong. He lifted his head, and the color seemed to have drained from his face, though his expression was as bland as it had been since his arrival.
“Well?” I said.
“It’s fairly dark here. Is there somewhere else we could go?”
Leaving the house was not part of the plan. Walter’s office would make the most sense, but Bill was backstage. I had to think fast.
“Somewhere with brighter incandescent light?” Morty said.
“Maybe a dressing room? Makeup mirrors are very bright.”
Morty nodded. I took back the file and stashed the document in my bag. We climbed the steps house right. I took my time picking my way around the balcony/ladder, platform bed, and assorted square blocks that would serve as chairs, tables, and coffins. Morty was two steps behind me. And Bill was somewhere behind the black curtains.
“Romeo and Juliet?”
“Yes. Big challenge.” I laughed to keep myself calm.
We entered the green room and I flicked on the fluorescent overheads. I still had Lola’s master key so I crossed to the women’s dressing room and unlocked the door. Before I could withdraw the key from the lock, Morty had turned on the light bulbs that rimmed each actor’s mirror. I blinked.
“This should do it,” Morty said and sat in one of the makeup chairs.
I carefully placed the letter on the makeup counter, one hand still on the corner of the encased document. Morty took out his magnifying glass again and studied the text, the signature, and the paper fiber.
“The letter is promising,” he said.
“That’s good to hear.” I could feel tension in my solar plexus. Every breath was like a knot being tied, then loosened.
“But of course I will need to do some lab tests.”
“How long will that take?” I asked. I hoped Bill was close by, overhearing all of our conversation.
“It depends on the date of the document. The quality of the paper, the composition of the ink . . .” He raised his hands as if in regret. “There’s little else I can say at this point.”
“Well, I’ll come by your office tomorrow.”
“I’m sorry Ms. O’Dell. . . .” His polite smile had turned into a sneer. “Or whoever you are, but I cannot let this letter out of my possession.”
“Excuse me?” I said.
He reached for the letter and I grasped it away from him. “Don’t tear it!” he yelled and stood.
Suddenly I had the upper hand. “It’s that valuable?”
“You have no idea what you are holding in your hand.”
I eased back a couple of steps, guesstimating the distance to the door. “Worth half a million, huh?” I tried to release a nonchalant laugh, but the sound caught on the back of my throat. I sputtered. “No wonder you killed Jerome for it.”
My accusation stopped him in his tracks. “I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“Jerome said he wouldn’t pay your fee, so you tried to get access to it yourself. When he refused, you killed him.”
Where was Bill?
“Jerome had no idea what he had found. Now I mean to have it.”
Morty faltered for a split second. Sitting on the makeup table to my right was a stack of blouses and an iron. I used his hesitation to heave the iron at him. I clipped him on the left side of his head and he howled, then fell to the ground. I slammed my hand against the light switch and ran into the green room. If he got to his feet, he would be expecting me to run to the stage; a better option was lying low in the wardrobe room and trying to contact Bill. I reversed direction, sprinted down a short hallway off the green room, and plunged Lola’s master key into the lock.
I pulled the door shut. My eyes adjusting to the faint light, I could see rows of costumes running parallel from one side of the room to the other. The closest racks would be devoted to Romeo and Juliet.
I whipped out my cell phone and punched in Bill’s number. His voice mail came on. “Bill, I’m in the wardrobe room and Morty’s in the women’s dressing room.” I clicked off.
I shook my head. I had to think straight. Bill had said Edna would be at dispatch if I couldn’t reach him. I tapped on 911.
“Edna—” I hissed.
“Dodie, is that you?”
“I’m trapped in the wardrobe room at the theater. You’ve got to find Bill. He’s not answering his cell.”
“Hold on.”
I could hear her sending a radio message. Maybe to Bill or to Suki. Please God not to Ralph. “It’s a 240 and maybe a 217. But be prepared for a 207. . . . What? A twenty—oh, forget the code and just get to the theater, Ralph.”
My heart sank. I heard a noise in the hallway and clicked off. I stooped down, crawling behind the first rack of costumes. The door handle turned slowly, and a figure was silhouetted in the entrance backlit by the light from the green room.
“Dodie?”
I nearly cried with relief. “Elliot?”
The wardrobe lights snapped on and my eyes closed instinctively to avoid the harsh glare of the fluorescents. I scrambled to my feet. “Elliot, am I glad to see you! There’s a man in the women’s dressing room and he—”
“Yes, I saw him.”
“I was sorry I had to lob that iron.”
Elliot chuckled. “I think you put him out of commission. What happened in there?”
“He wanted a letter . . . the valuable document that got Jerome murdered.” My eyes slid to my bag, which rested underneath the clothing rack. Elliot’s eyes followed mine.
“That’s right,” Elliot said smoothly.
Too smoothly. My skin crawled. “You know about . . . ?”
“The Lincoln letter? Yes. Jerome told me all about it.”
Elliot pulled a gun from his pocket and pointed it at me.
“Elliot . . . ?” I froze. I could feel the sweat trickling down the inside of my silk blouse. “What are you doing?”
“Give me the letter.”
My mind was reeling. I couldn’t put together my image of the Elliot I had come to know the past few weeks with this man holding a gun on me.
“Don’t waste my time,” he said and waved the gun at me. “You don’t want to end up like Jerome.”
I gasped. “You, you . . . murdered . . . ?”
“Well, I didn’t pull the trigger.” He paused. “I was sorry, but he was obstinate. I couldn’t reason with him.” He waggled the gun and smiled. “Unlike you, I’m sure. I like you, Dodie, and I’d hate to have to do something we’d both regret.”
I prayed that Bill would be here any minute. I had to keep him talking. “Elliot, how could you do that to your best friend?”
“Jerome was about to call the whole thing off. I couldn’t have that. There was too much money at stake. Now hand it over.”
My mind was racing. “Did
Marshall know what Morty was up to?”
“Marshall couldn’t find his way out of a paper bag. He had nothing to do with this.”
“So Morty’s the brains in the family. Wonderful company you keep, Elliot,” I said, my voice shaky.
“We go way back.”
Please, Bill, show up! “And you dumped Jerome’s body on the loading dock? That seems stupid. Like you were telling the police where Jerome was murdered.”
Elliot’s mouth formed a tight line. “Jerome wasn’t supposed to die. But afterwards, Morty panicked. It was getting close to dawn and he was afraid to be seen.” Elliot shrugged. “It was the simplest solution.” He took a threatening step toward me. “Enough talk.”
I stood in his way.
“Move!” he said and gestured with his gun.
I eased a couple of steps to my right, and Elliot bent down to retrieve my bag. He took his eyes off me for one second, and I dashed for the entrance to the wardrobe room. Elliot whipped around just in time to see me collide with Bill in the doorway, his service pistol pointed at Elliot’s head.
“Drop the gun.”
Elliot complied.
Relief flooded through my veins like warm milk. The man was my hero.
* * *
Main Street was awash with flashing lights atop squad cars. Even though the station was just around the corner, the perpetrators were loaded into the back of two vehicles. Bill had placed Elliot in his patrol car, with the obligatory hand on the perp’s head to foil inadvertent cranial damage, while Suki and Ralph handled Morty, who was groggy and disheveled, and the massive fellow I had seen coming into Morty’s office building. He drove Morty in the black SUV. I remembered later that he was the mountain of flesh I had bumped into at Jerome’s funeral. It turns out he and Morty were responsible for the break-ins. And while Morty and I had been doing business in the dressing room, he’d had a run-in with Bill. Literally.
Lola and I sipped from coffee containers.
She shook her head. “Jerome and Elliot were such good friends. At least, I thought they were.”
“I think Jerome did, too. That’s why he confided in Elliot about the letter.”
“And took Elliot’s advice about Forensic Document Services,” she said.
“Jerome and Mary never needed the money as much as Elliot.”
“I knew he spent a lot in Atlantic City. Even that he was in debt. But this?” Lola shook her head. “He never let on.”
We’d learned later that Elliot’s debts had provided motivation, and Morty, who was a forger and handwriting expert, had provided assistance. They were both high rollers who’d met in Atlantic City, where they’d plotted the theft. Jerome’s murder was collateral damage. Elliot would have preferred not to have Jerome killed, as he’d said, but Jerome had smelled a rat and was about to tell Mary to turn the document over to the library. Elliot had to act fast because Jerome had intended to visit Mary the day after the auditions and end the whole business. MR 4/16. I was willing to bet that a diamond ring would have been part of that visit.
“I almost made a fool of myself over Elliot,” Lola said sheepishly. “I feel like I don’t know him after years of working together.”
“We were all taken in. Myself included.”
“But I should have been suspicious, the way he disappeared, then reappeared after Jerome died,” Lola said.
The squad cars drove off, blue and red lights rotating. The crowd that had gathered was dispersing. Tomorrow morning, Etonville would be saturated with gossip and innuendo. But for once I didn’t mind the prospect. I was beginning to think that Etonville’s rumor mill was really just a testament to its community spirit. The town was feeling more and more like home.
Bill joined us, rubbing his head where Morty’s hatchet man had delivered a glancing blow before Bill had knocked him out. “I’ve got to get to the station. It’ll be a long night of paperwork. Good job, Dodie.”
I smiled. “Thanks. How’s your head?”
“I’ll live.”
“I’ll check in with you tomorrow,” I said.
“It’s a deal.”
Lola watched me watching Bill walk off. “Hmmm,” she said.
Chapter 27
“One, please,” a husky voice said.
I looked through the box office partition, ripped off a stub from my roll of tickets, and exchanged it for fifteen dollars. “Enjoy the show,” I said to Mary.
“Thank you,” she said and placed her hand on the lip of the window. Jerome’s diamond ring sparkled in the lobby light. I thought, and Bill agreed, that there was no point in leaving it in the evidence locker. It didn’t bear on the murder case, and Jerome would have been pleased to see her wearing it. The Lincoln letter, on the other hand, had been transferred to a legitimate authentication company by the Etonville Public Library. Whether it was worth half a million or not remained to be seen, but with the library probably coming into some big bucks, Mildred had coaxed Mary into taking up residence once again in the special collections. Luther, who claimed he couldn’t trust Mary, had his doubts, but Mildred was persuasive—she threatened to resign. Besides Bill had convinced Luther that there was no point in pressing charges against Mary, now that the letter was safe.
Mary toddled off to the house and I began to close up the box office.
Behind me, Lola had slipped into the lobby from backstage. She was in full makeup, her hair in an updo, thanks to Carol, queen of the updos, and was wearing a dark purple dressing gown.
“What are you doing out here? It’s nearly eight o’clock.” Real time, according to Penny, but in theater time it was “places.”
“I wanted to check the house,” she said. “It looks like most of Etonville has turned out for opening night.”
“I hope not. I’m counting on a big crowd tomorrow when we debut our dinner-then-theater. We’re going to set up an outdoor café.”
After spending long hours deliberating about the theme for the Romeo and Juliet dinner, I had decided that, although the play seemed to be about passion, murder, poison, and the heat in Verona, it was also about reconciliation. The Jets and the Sharks, the Capulets and Montagues, the Windjammer and La Famiglia. I’d negotiated a truce between the two restaurants such that Henry made the entrees, La Famiglia provided several pasta dishes, and Georgette’s Bakery—neutral territory—supplied desserts. Everyone was, well, if not exactly happy, at least talking.
I supposed reconciliation was in the air. JC replaced the balcony /ladder with a five-foot platform that cost less and didn’t trigger Romeo’s “angoraphobia,” Abby was on probation with the Etonville Little Theatre for her lack of professionalism, and Walter had promised to keep his fingers out of the box office till. Lola was now the treasurer. With the murder wrapped up, Bill had let Walter off the hook with a stern warning and Walter’s guarantee that he would repay the ELT funds.
Penny bounced into the lobby, head set in place and clipboard tucked under her arm, closely followed by Walter in a flowing shirt that revealed a little bulge at his belly.
“Lola, your public can’t see you before the curtain rises.” He tried to take her hand and kiss it. He’d been in an exceptionally good mood since Elliot had been removed from the show.
“Walter, stow it. I’m on my way now,” Lola said firmly. Some relationship work needed to be done there.
“Lola, you should be backstage now. You’re on.” Penny pushed her glasses up her nose. “O’Dell, we go in five.”
Carol stuck her head into the lobby. “I’m not finished,” she said and waved a can of hair spray.
“Well, this is it,” I said. I extended my hand and Lola took it. Carol laid hers on top. Penny got into it and clapped Carol’s. Walter just looked at us blankly.
“Oh, come on, Walter. Live a little,” Lola said.
Walter tentatively rested his hand on Penny’s.
“Show time!” I snapped a group selfie.
“Let’s do it,” Penny said, and everyone darted off.
The lights were dimming as I entered the house and spotted my row, halfway down the aisle. Carol and her husband sat next to Pauli and his date, a young brunette who looked an awful lot like him. Carol was euphoric.
The pre-show music swelled and the main drape rose. I slipped into the second seat from the aisle and glanced at the empty one next to me. Oh well, I thought, and settled in. He probably had an emergency. A 217 or a 450 or a 1098—
“Hope I’m not too late,” Bill said.
“Just in time,” I whispered to Etonville’s new hero. Since arresting Elliot for Jerome’s murder, Bill had attained a new status in town. His photograph from an interview with the Etonville Standard was going up in the lobby of the Municipal Building right next to Bull Bennett and his thirty-pound bass.
The house went out and we sat in darkness for three seconds. Lights gradually came up on the company—Walter looked resplendent in Elizabethan velvet, Lola regal in blue satin. They stood on either side of the Prince, the formerly disgruntled Servant-Watchman-Guard who had gotten promoted since the first Prince was resting in the Episcopal cemetery and the second one was sitting in the county jail awaiting his day in court. The iambic pentameter rolled out of their mouths, Walter’s head bobbing slightly.
I relaxed into the back of my seat. Tonight’s for you, Jerome, I thought.
Unexpectedly, Bill squeezed my hand.
OMG.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Suzanne Trauth is a novelist, playwright, screenwriter, and a former university theater professor. She is a member of Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, and the Dramatists Guild. When she is not writing, Suzanne coaches actors and serves as a celebrant performing wedding ceremonies. She lives in Woodland Park, New Jersey. Readers can visit her website at www.suzannetrauth.com
To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.
LYRICAL UNDERGROUND BOOKS are published by
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