Towhee Get Your Gun

by J. R. Ripley

  Out the window, I caught the sound of a motorcycle springing to life, then quickly fading in the distance.

  “What was Patsy doing in here?” I asked Riley and Lou. Looking beyond them, I could see what looked like the entire cast and crew squeezing into the narrow hallway, hoping to catch a glimpse inside. Several had their cell phones out and were talking in clipped tones and shooting pictures of the deceased. Deep furrows formed on my brow. “Isn’t this Miss Turner’s dressing room?”

  Both men nodded.

  “Out of the way, everybody. Move aside!” The sonorous baritone voice reverberated along the hall, and I knew it could only be Eli Wallace. “Right this way, Chief.” The actor burst through the door with Chief Kennedy and Officer Dan Sutton close behind.

  “Lord a-mighty,” Chief Jerry Kennedy said, taking in the corpse. He turned to Eli. “I thought you said Ava Turner shot herself? This sure as hell isn’t Ava Turner!”

  Eli looked befuddled. “I-I thought it was. I mean”—his eyes searched the crowd—“that was what I heard.” His face had gone deep red. For the first time, I noticed his bloodshot eyes. Had he been drinking?

  Officer Sutton’s toothpick worked up and down like clockwork as his eyes also fell on Patsy Klein’s dead body. “Who is she?”

  “Get all those people out of here!” snarled Chief Kennedy, with a backward wave of his hand. He bent to inspect the revolver. Jerry Kennedy’s rather boyish looking, especially with that crew-cut blond hair of his that’s always sticking up. Match that with a fleshy, squat nose, an uneven smattering of freckles, and dark jade eyes, and he looks like a big kid playing dress-up. He fills out his brown uniform as well as ten pounds of Idaho potatoes fill out a sack.

  “You heard the chief!” Officer Sutton began pushing everyone out. “Move it, people!” The officer, a stocky fellow who obviously knew his way around a weight room, was far younger and fitter than the chief. Dan Sutton was half Hawaiian on his father’s side. Each time I saw the officer, his big brown eyes seemed to dart all around like a skittish woodpecker watching for a lurking hawk.

  Riley tumbled out. Ben took my arm and escorted me to the door.

  “Hold on,” Chief Kennedy ordered.

  “Yes, sir?” Officer Sutton wiped his brow with the back of his hand, knocking his brown cap to my feet. I handed it back.

  “Have everyone wait for me down in the theater. I’m going to want a word with everybody who was here.” The chief of police extracted a pair of latex gloves from his jacket and slipped them on before lifting the gun from the floor.

  “Call Larry and tell him to bring the camera, Dan.” Larry would be Larry Reynolds, another of Jerry’s officers. I’d seen him around town now and again. “Has somebody called Greeley?” Andrew Greeley was a sweet old fellow who looked about ninety, but Mom told me was only seventy-one. He owned the local mortuary and doubled as Ruby Lake’s coroner.

  “I spoke to Anita. She called him up and said he’ll be straight over.”

  I wondered how long “straight over” might be. Old Andrew moves at sloth speed, and that’s on a good day. His daily driver is a hundred-foot-long black hearse with frilly white curtains. He’d owned that vehicle for as long as he’d owned Greeley’s Mortuary, which he’d inherited from his father and his father before him. As a girl, I always got a chill whenever he drove by. Still do.

  “Why do we have to stick around?” demanded Nathan Longfellow. I hadn’t seen him enter. “The woman killed herself. And since we are obviously not going to be rehearsing this evening, I’d like to get home. I have work in the morning.”

  “Who are you?” Chief Kennedy rose, holding the gun by its trigger guard, its barrel pointing forward.

  “Nathan Longfellow,” the big Cherokee answered.

  “Well, Mr. Longfellow, it’s only a formality.” His right hand rested atop his holstered service revolver. “Rules are rules.”

  Longfellow frowned and exited.

  Chief Kennedy frisked Patsy Klein and she didn’t seem to mind one bit.

  Officer Sutton returned and said, “EMTs are on their way in, Chief.”

  Kennedy nodded. “No hurry. No hurry at all.” Then Jerry saw me standing at the door. Jerry Kennedy and I have a bit of history. We’d had a date in high school. He had tried to frisk me then and I’d rebuffed him.

  Things had gone downhill from there.

  “Why are you still here, Simms? Everybody else left like I asked.”

  See what I mean?

  The corner of his mouth turned down like he’d swallowed a piece of bad cheese. “Grab a seat with everybody else.”

  “Sorry.” I ran my finger along the edge of the doorframe. “It’s just funny, is all.”

  “You find something funny about suicide, Amy?”

  I made a sour face. “Of course not, Jerry. Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “So?” The chief laid the revolver on the dressing table. “Spill it.” He stroked his thumb across his five-point silver badge.

  “Ava Turner texts Lou and August—”

  “Who?” Kennedy squeezed his eyebrows together.

  “The director,” I filled in. “Apparently, she texted them both that she was about to kill herself.” I stepped to one side as a couple of paramedics bustled into the small quarters.

  “So I heard. What’s your point?” Jerry scratched the tip of his nose with this right thumb.

  “What happened to Ava Turner?”

  8

  “Miss Turner!” I couldn’t believe the actress was sitting at The

  Coffee and Tea House on the square. I spied her as I headed up the sidewalk, head bent in response to the cool breeze coming in over Ruby Lake. She looked so calm, complacent, and relaxed, her hands gripping an oversized mug of some steaming beverage.

  I pushed open the door to the café and crossed over to the counter. My friend Susan Terwilliger was rearranging what was left of the day’s pastries inside the glass display case. “Hi, Amy.” She wiped her hands on her black apron and placed her palms on the countertop. “A bit late for you, isn’t it?”

  She was right. With a business to run, I wasn’t out late most nights. “We had some commotion at the theater. I’ve got a part in Annie Get Your Gun, in case you haven’t heard.”

  “Oh, I heard.” Her brown eyes danced.

  I made a face. “I should have known.”

  “You’ll get used to it.”

  “If you say so,” I replied. “Kind of late for you, too, no?”

  “One of my employees called in sick.” She looked around the fairly quiet room as she knotted her brown hair into a bob. “I couldn’t find anyone else, so here I am.” Her brow went up. “Like a part-time job?”

  I threw up my hands. “No, thanks. I’ve got more than enough on my plate at the moment.”

  I ordered a cup of the Serenity blend, a pleasant mixture of chamomile, valerian root, lavender, and lemon balm. Susan swore by its ability to help with sleep. With her “brood of four,” as she fondly called her three boys and a girl, keeping her running all day, she should know.

  “So, what was all the commotion over there?” Susan nodded toward Theater On The Square, which was visible from her storefront window.

  I blew across my mug, took a careful sip, and surveyed the seating area. Besides Ava Turner, there was a small group of high school-age kids and two couples at separate tables. “Someone died,” I said softly.

  “Oh, no,” Susan whispered back. “I wondered what the police cars and ambulance were doing there. I just figured somebody else got hurt.”

  I nodded. The ambulance and most of the other vehicles were now gone. Only Chief Kennedy’s car remained, parked at an odd angle directly in front of the theater. Sure, if I’d tried parking like that, I’d be cited with a parking infraction.

  “You heard about the other accidents?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Susan said, nonchalantly wiping a rag across the countertop. “The little incidents, like petty theft. Your cousin Riley claim
ing somebody purposefully tried to run him off the road.” Susan rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. “Personally, I think that was probably a lost tourist not paying attention or somebody texting and driving.”

  I’d been meaning to ask Riley about that. “Two people were seriously hurt.”

  “Robert LaChance and Coralie Sampson, wasn’t it?”

  “It was,” I replied.

  Susan pointed to my cup. “Want anything to go with that?”

  I smiled. “I thought you’d never ask.” I pointed to one of the almond and raisin bear claws and bit into it greedily.

  “Pretty weird,” Susan remarked as she rang up my purchases. “All these accidents and now somebody dies.” She sighed heavily. “The theater’s troubles keep piling up.”

  “I guess it may not be long until TOTS does close its doors for good,” I commented, thinking of Cousin Riley’s remarks.

  “I hope not,” Susan said, eyes widening. “I count on them being open summer evenings. We get a lot of extra business when the series is running.” She poured herself a cup of decaf. “So who died?”

  “A woman working with the show named Patsy Klein.”

  Susan’s eyebrows drew together. “I don’t think I know her.”

  “I didn’t either,” I admitted. “And now she’s dead.”

  I must have said that a little too loudly because one of the high schoolers shot me a very funny look. Susan pulled me to the corner. “How did it happen? Another accident?”

  I shook my head slowly. “It looks like suicide.” I looked her in the eye.

  Susan sucked in a breath and made the sign of the cross over her chest. “Oh my god.”

  “Yeah.” I described how we’d all heard the shot and gone running and found her in one of the dressing rooms.

  “How terrible for you,” Susan said, pouring me a refill.

  I yawned. Another cup of Serenity and I’d be out like a proverbial light. “The funny thing is . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “We all thought it was her.” I turned my head slowly toward Ava Turner. The actress sat almost unmoving at the small table beside the window. The actress sipped slowly from her mug, then set it quietly on the place mat.

  “Ava Turner?” Susan looked puzzled. “Why would you think that?”

  “Not me personally,” I replied. “But, apparently, Lou Ferris and August Mantooth—he’s the show’s director—received a text message from Ava saying she was on the verge of killing herself.”

  Susan looked amused. “No way,” she said with a toss of her head.

  “Then we break down the dressing room door.” I paused for dramatic effect. “Ava Turner’s dressing room door.” Breaking down sounded so much more interesting than getting a key and unlocking.

  Susan’s eyes grew even wider.

  “And there was Patsy Klein.”

  “Spooky.” Susan bit down on her lower lip. “I think I’ve heard enough.” She fluttered her hands. “Let’s stop. You’ll be giving me nightmares.”

  I managed a small smile. “That’s why I decided to drop in for the tea.” Of course, the umpteen grams of sugar I’d also consumed were likely to counteract any soporific effects of the herbal beverage.

  “Have a good night,” Susan called over my shoulder to a couple heading out the door.

  “Tell me something,” I said, pointing my chin toward the front window. “How long has she been here?”

  Susan tilted her head in thought. “Miss Turner? I’m not sure. A long time. Since before the police cars and ambulance. That I know.”

  “Huh.” Why had Ava Turner left the theater? Had she left before or after Patsy Klein killed herself? “You’re certain?”

  Susan opened her mouth, then shut it again. She looked at the actress. “I think so. I mean, it’s not like I was taking notes or anything.”

  I set down my nearly empty mug. “I think I’ll go say hello.”

  I steeled my nerves and approached the actress. “Miss Turner?”

  Ava looked up at me, adjusting the dark brown and grey fox stole around her neck. Damned if it didn’t look real. “Yes?”

  “I’m Amy Simms.” In response to the seeming lack of recognition in her eyes, I added, “I’m in the show.” Still nothing. “Annie Get Your Gun?”

  She allowed herself a small smile. “Yes, of course, you are.” Miss Turner motioned for me to sit.

  “Did you know the police are looking for you?” I said, wasting no time as I scooted my chair closer.

  Her green eyes appeared amused. “Are they?” she remarked out of the side of her mouth. I smelled bourbon. She must have been lacing her coffee with it, and she must have brought it in herself. The Coffee and Tea House didn’t sell liquor or alcohol of any kind.

  “Yes, they are. Or at least they were.” I knew Chief Kennedy and his men had searched the theater from top to bottom without finding a trace of her. I think we’d all been expecting to find the actress’s corpse in some dark corner.

  “He sent someone to your house to see if you were there and if you were all right,” I added. There was a long pause during which Ava Turner’s finely manicured fingers played along the sides of her mug. “Don’t you want to know why?”

  She turned her gaze away from the window and toward me. I took that for a yes.

  “We all thought you committed suicide.” I laid my hand atop hers, but the look she returned me told me to remove it. I did. “Everyone went crazy looking for you. Lou had to break into your dressing room.”

  She said nothing and so I continued. “Once we were able to get inside, we discovered you weren’t there at all and found her sitting in your chair. Dead.”

  Miss Turner lofted her mug to her lips and sipped silently.

  “Why did you send that text?”

  “What text?”

  “The one to Lou and August threatening to kill yourself.”

  “I can assure you I did no such thing. I rarely text,” she said with evident disdain. “Besides, my cell phone has gone missing.”

  “You’re saying you did not send Mr. Ferris and Mr. Mantooth a message stating that you were going to commit suicide?”

  For the first time, I saw amusement work its way onto her face. The actress drew herself up as she said, “Why would I kill myself?”

  She plucked her purse from the place mat at the seat to her left. “People would kill to know me.” She stood, bobbled a moment, and then cinched her stole around her neck. “People,” she said rather forcefully, “would kill to be me.”

  Without another word, she departed. I watched in fascination as Ava Turner crossed the dark square. For a moment, I thought she intended to return to the theater, but she avoided TOTS and instead headed diagonally up to the intersection of Main Street and School Drive. I had no idea how she was planning to get home. I didn’t give it much thought either.

  I was too busy thinking about how I had failed to mention, and how Ava Turner had not asked me, the name of the dead woman in her dressing room.

  9

  “How can I help you?”

  “I’m Amy Simms. I’m here to see Floyd Withers, Miss . . . ?”

  “Millicent Bryant,” the woman said. The lobby of Rolling Acres, the senior living facility, was way fancier than I’d been expecting. The fortyish woman sat at a desk to the right of the main doors. She exuded an air of quiet confidence and a scent of flowery perfume.

  I told her I was happy to meet her, but she seemed unimpressed.

  There was a traditional-style oxblood leather-trimmed blotter with a calendar atop the desk, along with one fancy black pen and one number-two pencil, its point clean and sharp. Nothing more. No desktop nameplate. Not even a mug.

  The elegantly dressed brunette rose from her ornate walnut desk, smoothed down the skirt of her eggplant and charcoal knee-length flocked jacquard dress and floated over to a computer monitor. The dark monitor rested atop a buffet table, which was nestled along the paneled wall, toward the back of the quiet lobb
y.

  Ms. Bryant tapped the space bar, bringing the PC to life. “Are you family?” she inquired, turning from the computer screen to me.

  “Friend.” I folded my hands and waited as she did her thing on the computer.

  After spelling my name and showing her my driver’s license, the woman looked at her slender gold watch and said, “You’ll find Mr. Withers in the activities center.”

  “Okay.” I wondered how she knew that. Did they track all their residents?

  She handed me a self-stick nametag and pointed to my chest, and I affixed AMY SIMMS to my shirt. “Thanks.”

  “Follow the hall to the second door on your right.” She pointed, waited until I’d nodded to show I’d understood, and then walked wordlessly back to her seat.

  The dense carpet muffled the sound of my footsteps as I meandered down the long hall. Eventually, I came to a pair of open glass doors leading to a room that was identified by its overhead signage as the ACTIVITIES CENTER. Bingo.

  Though there wasn’t a whole lot of activity going on at the moment. Some residents sat in tall, spindle-backed rockers and plush chairs soaking up the afternoon sun. Two gentlemen and three women sat around a card table. I had no idea what game they were playing. The only chips I could see were potato.

  Others seemed to be snoozing. Two Ping-Pong tables sat unused, except that someone was using a corner of one as a spot to rest his or her inhaler.

  I spied Floyd Withers sitting by himself near a large plate-glass window, looking out onto the lush grounds. He was dressed comfortably in brown trousers and a beige cardigan over a button-down shirt the color of creamed corn.

  “Floyd?”

  Mr. Withers slowly turned his head.

  “It’s me, Amy.”

  His eyes trembled for a moment; then recognition seemed to come. “Hello, Amy.” His voice came out a whisper.

  “It’s good to see you again.” I patted his arm. “How have you been?” Like most men his age, at least those who didn’t use hair dyes or toupees, Mr. Withers had thinning white hair and a well-trimmed yet bushy mustache.