Offed Stage Left

by Joanne Sydney Lessner

  “Aha!” Isobel cried.

  “Oh, my pearls!” Thomas gasped, clutching his chest. “Pleeease don’t tell me you’re shocked by my admission of homosexuality.”

  “Hardly,” Isobel said. “But Jethro seems to think there’s something going on between Geoff and Ezra.”

  “Why would Jethro think that?” Thomas sighed dramatically. “Ezra. There’s another one. So manly. But, alas, also not for the likes of me.”

  “But seriously,” Delphi broke in, “why would Jethro say Geoff and Ezra were a couple?”

  “To make it look like they’re somehow in cahoots,” Isobel said. “Because if Geoff is responsible for any of this, the only things he could have done himself are tip off Roman Fried and mess up the orchestra parts. He wasn’t around for the other stuff. As far as we know.”

  “Geoff may not have a boyfriend, but he does have a girlfriend.” Thomas paused for effect. “Or three.”

  “I think he’s dating Talia,” Isobel said. “Sunil and I saw them in Price Chopper.”

  “But is he just dating Talia?” Thomas asked.

  Isobel cast her mind back to the conversation. “She said, ‘I’m not playing games anymore,’ and then Geoff promised to do something. I don’t know what. I thought she might be referring to doing his dirty work backstage, but maybe she meant being two-timed.”

  “Or three-timed,” Delphi remarked.

  “So who are the others?” Isobel asked.

  Thomas pretended to think, but Isobel knew the names were on the tip of his tongue. “Heather, and there were rumors about Kelly. You know, it’s a small theater community up here.”

  “So, basically, Geoff has slept his way through half the women in the company,” Delphi said.

  “That doesn’t explain Talia. She’s up from New York and she mostly does opera,” Isobel pointed out.

  “What about Arden?” Delphi asked. “Did Geoff date her?”

  “Not that I know of, although that doesn’t mean he didn’t. There are only ten people in theater, you know. We all just change costumes.”

  “And three of us are in this room,” Isobel quipped.

  Thomas touched the side of his nose knowingly. “That’s what I’m saying. It’s a small world. It’s certainly possible Geoff and Arden knew each other.”

  “It still doesn’t answer the question we came in with,” Delphi said to Isobel.

  “My head is so turned around, I’ve forgotten what it was.”

  “Why is Roman Fried coming back to see the show six more times? Or are you too miffed that we found out before you did to investigate why?” Delphi jammed a loose pin into the tomato pincushion and tossed it to Thomas, who caught it deftly.

  “Au contraire. I’m more motivated than ever to find out. After all, I have a reputation to uphold.”

  NINETEEN

  PARADOXICALLY, ISOBEL WAS more nervous for her second performance as Jennie. She hovered by the entrance to the orchestra pit, chattering at Hugh.

  “It’s completely understandable,” he said calmly. “Last night you were a hero. You could have botched everything, but it still would have been a triumph simply because you got through it. Tonight’s audience is expecting a performance. And you’re doing the whole show.”

  She tugged at her bodice. “Is that supposed to make me feel better?”

  “I’m just saying you should cut yourself some slack. You haven’t had the benefit of a rehearsal period.” He tapped his baton against his palm. “Accept that tonight is not going to be perfect, and use the performance as an opportunity to get more comfortable. How’s Delphi holding up?”

  “Girl’s got nerves of steel.”

  “Isobel! Can I talk to you for a moment?” Jethro lumbered toward her.

  “Um, sure, I guess.”

  “You were magnificent last night,” he panted. “I have to tell you—”

  “If you have notes for Isobel, they’ll have to wait until tomorrow. No notes after half hour, and we’re at five,” Hugh reminded him.

  Jethro glared at him. “It’s not a note!” He turned to Isobel. “I wanted to say you were Jennie. Absolutely uncanny.”

  “Oh! Thank you,” Isobel said, flustered. “I don’t know if my performance will be as good tonight. I’m kind of nervous. But I’ll try my best.”

  “The sweetness that was missing in your Emma was right there with Jennie.” To her surprise, Jethro took her hand and kissed it, and when he raised his head again, there were tears in his eyes. “Breathtaking. I’m deeply grateful.”

  “I told you,” Hugh said as they watched him leave. “We all wanted you, but Felicity insisted the role be cast Equity. The Miss New York angle didn’t hurt, either.”

  “Sunil said he thought Emma was better for me because she’s feistier.”

  “She isn’t really,” Hugh said. “I think you were hitting her hard because you had so little to do.”

  She gave him a pained look. “You never said!”

  “You never asked.” He kissed her forehead. “But Delphi is Emma now, and you’re Jennie, so go out there and enjoy being the star.”

  If Isobel hoped seeing Hugh before the show would settle her, it had the opposite effect. Feeling even more off-kilter than before, she went in search of Delphi and found her in the dressing room with Marissa. Thomas’s head was up her skirt, while Marissa looked on, amused.

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were being harassed,” Isobel said.

  “Just fixing the bustle roll,” Thomas said, muffled.

  “It came undone,” Delphi explained.

  Thomas reappeared, his blond hair tousled, and smoothed down Delphi’s skirt. “You should be good to go. Toi, toi!”

  He blew them all kisses and swanned out of the dressing room.

  Isobel’s stomach dropped. “Did Kelly call places?”

  “Not that I heard,” Marissa said.

  “Whew! I thought I’d missed it. But what time is it?” Isobel asked. “I could have sworn five was about ten minutes ago.”

  “I wasn’t paying attention.” Delphi looked over her shoulder in the mirror. “Does this bustle make my butt look big?”

  “That’s kind of the point,” Marissa said.

  “What were they thinking back then?” Delphi wondered.

  Isobel shifted her weight impatiently. “What time is it?”

  Marissa picked up her watch from her dressing table. “Ten after eight.”

  “Kelly should have called places by now.”

  Marissa shrugged. “Second night. Probably still some kinks being worked out. I’m sure she’ll call it any minute.”

  There was a knock on the door. Heather opened it and stuck her head in.

  “See?” Marissa said. “What did I tell you? Places.”

  “Um, not exactly,” Heather said. “We’ve got a little situation, so we’re going up late.”

  “Situation?” Isobel’s senses prickled.

  “Nothing serious. I mean…it’s serious as far as the show is concerned, but nobody’s hurt. The stage manager’s book is missing. Kelly can’t call the show without it.”

  “What?” Delphi cried.

  Marissa, unaccountably, burst into tears.

  “I’m sure it’ll turn up,” Heather said, although she didn’t sound like she believed it. “It’s got to be somewhere.”

  “Like at the bottom of the Hudson,” Isobel muttered.

  “Dan is on his way in with his copy. It should only be a few more minutes.”

  Heather left to knock on more doors. Isobel turned to Marissa. “Are you okay?”

  Marissa dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. “Yeah, sorry. I don’t know what came over me. I guess it’s all the tension, and Arden, and…” Tears trickled anew as Isobel and Delphi stood by awkwardly.

  “We’ll leave you alone for a bit.”

  Delphi followed Isobel into the hall. “The stage manager’s book?” She whistled. “Someone is definitely trying to shut this thing down.”

>   Isobel scuffed her boot against the baseboard molding and jumped when a piece of plaster fell off. “I’m not so sure. Is the person trying to shut it down or just hobble it? And if it’s the latter, is he or she pranking it so Fried will write about the shenanigans? Because even if they don’t succeed in shutting down the production, it’s a great way to tarnish a new property.”

  “But shows go up late all the time for all kinds of reasons,” Delphi said. “That alone isn’t newsworthy.”

  Isobel spotted Sunil and beckoned to him. “There’s also you going on cold for the first time. And who knows? Maybe something else will go wrong tonight.”

  Delphi chewed her lip. “You know, sometimes I hate the way your mind works.”

  “I’m troubleshooting. I think we should all be on our guard, that’s all.”

  “Arden dying wasn’t enough?” Sunil asked.

  “That still could have been coincidental,” Isobel said. “I mean, if somebody did murder her, why keep going with a prank like taking Kelly’s book?”

  Sunil put a finger to his lips. “We should keep our voices down,” he warned.

  “It goes back to the question of what the person is trying to accomplish,” Isobel whispered. “Someone may have killed Arden, but that hasn’t managed to kill the show.”

  Suddenly, she froze.

  Delphi grabbed her arm. “What?”

  Isobel shook her head slowly. “It’s not a prank.”

  “What isn’t?” Sunil asked.

  “Hiding the book. It isn’t a prank,” Isobel said. “It’s hiding evidence. Kelly had the script page with ‘Die, bitch’ in the front pocket of her binder. Bet you anything if and when the stage manager’s book turns up again, the note will be gone.”

  TWENTY

  IF ISOBEL AND DELPHI found the delayed curtain an additional source of agitation, Sunil was relieved, because it gave him more time to think. Loyalty demanded he tell them what he’d witnessed the night before, but he didn’t want Isobel to go off half-cocked. Although she had gotten through opening night like a pro, finding out what Chris had been up to right before curtain couldn’t fail to unnerve her, especially now that she was playing opposite him. It had unnerved Sunil when their discussion about Arden, the pranks, and the stage manager’s book had cast a new light on what he’d seen.

  Opening night, after Kelly had called five, he had gone outside despite the cold to clear his head and say the little prayer he always said before a first performance. Chris was standing behind a dumpster, and at first Sunil hadn’t noticed him. But as Sunil paced back and forth, he caught sight of a tiny flame and called out, startling Chris, who jumped into view.

  “Sorry, I thought something was on fire,” Sunil apologized.

  “My lighter.” Chris fumbled in the dark. “I was saying the rosary. Always do before opening night. Just wanted to see what I was doing.”

  “That’s why I came outside. To say a prayer.”

  “Is there a Hindu god of actors?”

  “I’m Jewish. And while you’d think there would be, there isn’t.”

  Chris walked over to him. “Are you adopted?”

  “No, I’m an Indian Jew.”

  “Is there such a thing?” Chris gave an exaggerated Borscht Belt shrug. “Who knew?”

  “Most people don’t. Some say we’re the lost tribe.”

  “You must—”

  “Eat well, yeah. We do.”

  They stood in silence a moment. Then Chris said, “We should probably go in. It’ll be places soon.”

  “I’ll come in a sec. I need another moment.”

  It was Chris’s hesitation following through on his move to go inside that made Sunil suspicious. That and the fact that Chris had held up the lighter, but not a rosary. He walked over to where Chris had been standing. An LED on the side of the building cast a shaded glow on the far side of the dumpster. Chris wouldn’t have needed a lighter to see. What was he doing, and why did he react so guiltily?

  Look at me. I’m turning into Isobel, Sunil thought.

  He squatted on the ground. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but figured he’d know when he found it. It didn’t take long. A charred piece of paper was nestled by the corner of the dumpster. When he picked it up, he saw it was a string of nearly identical photographs, the kind from a five-dollar photo booth. Chris hadn’t succeeded in burning it all the way, and enough of the woman’s face remained in the top photo that Sunil recognized it immediately as Arden’s.

  His first instinct was to pocket the damaged photo, but he thought better of it and replaced it on the ground. No doubt Chris would come back to finish the job, and if the photo was gone, Chris would know Sunil had taken it. At that point, Arden was still alive, and Sunil had put it out of his mind in order to concentrate on the show. Even now with Arden dead, the fact that Chris burned a photo of her didn’t make him guilty of—well, anything, except littering. But Sunil had forgotten about the note in Isobel’s script, and suddenly it was impossible to deny that Chris’s behavior seemed distinctly ominous.

  By the time Kelly called places at twenty after the hour, Sunil still hadn’t decided whether it was wise to tell Isobel what her costar had been up to opening night. Delphi’s hand slid into his as they waited in the wings for their first entrance. He squeezed it affectionately.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “More or less. I’m glad it’s you out there with me.”

  “That’s probably the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

  “Don’t get too used to it. And after this, I swear I’m never doing a musical again. They’re terrible for your health.”

  THOUGH SHE WOULD NEVER have admitted it to her friends, Isobel was slightly disappointed that nothing else went amiss after Kelly got hold of Dan’s prompt book. In fact, all things considered, the second performance went quite well. Isobel fumbled a lyric in the first-act finale, and Delphi almost missed her entrance as the hotel maid in act two, but overall it was a success and they acquitted themselves admirably in their new roles. For the first time since the ten-out-of-twelve, Isobel relaxed. Any initial misgivings about taking her Equity card vanished somewhere during the second-act love duet with Chris, when she finally internalized that the role of Jennie was now hers.

  “Full company in the house, please,” Kelly announced over the monitor. “As soon as you can, please change and come down. Thank you.”

  Talia paused with a makeup wipe in her hand. “Do you think it’s the producers wanting to talk to us?”

  “They didn’t show,” Isobel said.

  Talia’s face fell. “Were they ever coming?”

  “Apparently they were and they canceled. It’s probably just notes.”

  Delphi appeared in the doorway. “Are you heading down?”

  “Yeah, give me a sec.”

  Isobel threw on her sweater and gathered her bags. She didn’t really think it was notes. The urgency in Kelly’s voice hinted at something more serious, and she had a pretty good idea what it was. Delphi’s expression indicated that she had drawn the same conclusion. Either Talia didn’t have a suspicious mind or she was playing dumb. Given what Isobel and Sunil had overheard in Price Chopper, she was inclined toward the latter.

  They were among the last downstairs. Felicity stood in the aisle in front of the stage, talking to an unfamiliar man, while a sedately dressed woman lurked a few feet away.

  Isobel nudged Delphi. “Detectives.”

  “Amazingly, I got that far myself,” Delphi retorted.

  Ezra, Jethro, Kelly, and Heather were down front, while the rest of the company, including Thomas and Dan, the tech director, were scattered throughout the auditorium. Talia followed a few moments later and joined Marissa, who had taken over several seats with her belongings. Chris was by himself a few rows behind. The orchestra sat off to one side, looking put out. Oliver was there, but Geoff was nowhere in sight.

  Sunil made room for Isobel and Delphi as Felicity brought them all t
o attention.

  “I wish a meeting of this kind weren’t necessary, but unfortunately, recent events make it unavoidable.” Her usually authoritative voice held a note of unsteadiness. “I’m not in a position to say more, so I’ll turn it over to Detective Dillon.”

  Detective Dillon stepped forward. He had black hair, graying at the temples, hooded eyes, and a wide, friendly face. But the words he spoke were anything but warm.

  “I regret to inform you that your colleague, Arden Claire Horowitz, did not die of natural causes. Preliminary toxicology reports indicate that she died of acute nicotine poisoning.”

  There was a collective gasp. As the memory of Felicity’s words on the phone, “I don’t think Arden smoked,” ran through Isobel’s mind, she scanned the theater to see who either looked unfazed or was overreacting. But it was a group of actors. They all looked like they were overreacting, even if they were pretending to be unfazed.

  “We will need to interview all of you. I know it’s late, and we won’t be able to get to everyone tonight. Please check in with my colleague, Sergeant Pemberthy. She has a list of everyone involved in the production, and she will let you know if we’ll be speaking with you tonight or first thing tomorrow.” Dillon glanced at a piece of paper. “Where is Isobel Spice?”

  “Here.” Isobel’s voice came out in a squeak.

  Detective Dillon met her eye across the auditorium. “We’ll start with you.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  “I UNDERSTAND YOU WERE Arden’s understudy,” Detective Dillon said.

  “That’s right.”

  “And you’ve been eagerly learning her role.”

  Isobel leaned back too heavily in the padded chair in the small conference room next to Felicity’s office and tipped backward. She steadied herself against the table, although she realized immediately the chair would never have gone off-balance. She, on the other hand, had, just a bit.

  “How did you hear that? I thought I was the first person you were interviewing,” she said.