Movie Palace Cozy Mystery Boxed Set: Books 1-3

by Margaret Dumas

  So he came in and gawked at what was happening.

  “Chris,” Callie yelled. “Keep everyone out.” I hadn’t realized she was right behind me. Her assistant raced to the door and pushed the staring realtor out, closing the door behind him, throwing herself against it to keep it closed. Callie was on her phone.

  Then everything went blurry. Everything except the sight of the broken woman beneath the balcony.

  Sam Beach.

  Someone jostled me and I came back to my senses. I took a step closer to Sam, placing my fingers gently on her neck without much hope. She’d fallen onto the seats to the left of the center aisle. Her back was arched unnaturally, and a thin trickle of blood had appeared at the corner of her mouth.

  But beneath my fingers I felt something. Faint, irregular, but it was there. I looked up at Callie. “There’s a pulse.”

  Which is when the next scream came, this one from above.

  I looked up to find the balcony railing lined with people. All staring, some already crying and turning away, others demanding to know what was going on.

  Scratch that, only one was demanding, loudly and insistently, that someone tell him what the hell was happening.

  McMillan.

  June was there, her hand over her mouth in shocked disbelief. Cora was next to her, gripping the balcony railing. I saw a flash of bright pink and thought Ingrid but lost her in the growing crowd. Callie’s crew, gathered below, was yelling at everyone to get off the balcony. “Don’t lean on the railing!” one of them yelled, which sent a spark of fear into the crowd. They turned and began stumbling to the balcony doors in fear for their own safety. Cora pulled June away. Eventually they all scattered until there was only one lone figure in the center of the balcony, staring down, her face a mask of unimaginable pain.

  Trixie.

  I made a sound and reached toward the balcony. She tore her anguished gaze from the broken woman beneath her to meet my eyes.

  Then she vanished.

  “She’s hanging on,” an EMT told me before closing the door and taking Sam away. But I’d heard the team of six talking as they’d braced her neck and immobilized her on a board. She hadn’t regained consciousness, but that wasn’t as concerning as the trauma to her spine.

  I stood on the sidewalk, watching the ambulance tear down the street. I didn’t realize I was freezing until Hector draped his jacket around me. I hadn’t realized Hector was there.

  We went back into the theater. Everyone who’d been in the building was now penned in the lobby, waiting their turn to talk to the police about what they’d seen and where they’d been when they’d heard the first scream. They were freaked out, annoyed, and scared. Every single one of them seemed to be on their phone.

  “Nora.” A deep voice, coming from my right. I turned to see Detective Jackson on approach, June and Cora with him.

  “I have to go,” June was saying. “I have to go be with Sam. Cora, have you got her emergency contact information? Can we call someone?” Cora nodded and began tapping on her phone. June turned to Jackson. “I have to go.”

  “You shouldn’t drive,” I told her. She was shaking and had a frantic look in her eye.

  “I’ll have a squad car take you to the hospital,” Jackson said. “Let me know if you think of anything else.” He handed her his card and signaled to a uniformed officer who came and led the two women away.

  Jackson turned to me. “I’d like to see you in the auditorium.”

  I nodded and moved to follow him when he seemed to notice Hector for the first time. “Acosta, isn’t it?” He’d met Hector when he’d investigated Hector’s brother’s murder. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m a friend of Nora’s.” Hector answered.

  “Uh huh,” Jackson said. “Friends wait in the lobby. Someone will take your statement.”

  Hector looked like he was about to object, but I intervened. “Can you find Albert?” I asked him. “He was already tired out, and all this…”

  I could tell he didn’t like being sidelined, but he nodded. “I’ll see to him.”

  Following Jackson through the crowded lobby I wished it were just as easy to ask someone to look after Trixie. I couldn’t get the image of her agonized face out of my mind.

  In the auditorium, the crime scene people were hard at work. The area where Sam had fallen was taped off. Jackson led me past it to the front of the theater, so we could look up at the balcony where more specialists were measuring, dusting, and taking samples of everything.

  “Tell me what happened.” Jackson said.

  So I did, which didn’t take long.

  “You didn’t look up into the balcony before you heard the scream?” he asked when I’d finished.

  I shook my head. “Even if I had, you can’t see up there from the stage when the lights are on,” I explained. “There could have been a dozen people up there. But I never even looked. Callie and her crew were the only ones who were supposed to be using the balcony today, and they were already down on the stage.”

  “Show me,” Jackson said. I took him up the stairs to the stage. He shielded his eyes, looking toward the balcony, but the spotlights were all still on, and I knew the glare would keep him from seeing anything.

  “When was the last time you saw the victim before the incident?” he asked.

  I perched on the arm of one of the red chairs on the stage, thinking. “I know she was sitting at June’s table on the balcony landing before I went to the break room,” I said. “And, yes, she and June and Cora were still at the table when I came back down.” How long had I been talking to Ingrid in the basement? Not long. “It couldn’t have been more than five or ten minutes before…”

  He’d called it “the incident,” which was noncommittal in that maddening police way of his. He didn’t say “the accident” or “the attack.” I didn’t know if he thought it had been an attempt at murder.

  “You have to think someone pushed her,” I said, because I couldn’t not say it. “Sam is the same Samantha Beach who was one of the last to leave the bar the night Warren was killed. This has to be connected.”

  Jackson didn’t say anything.

  I stood. “There’s nothing wrong with the balcony railing,” I told him. “I’m up there every day. It’s fine. And you can’t tell me you think—”

  “I’m not telling you anything,” Jackson interrupted. “That’s not how this works, remember?” He gave me a practiced homicide-detective look.

  I took a deep breath, but I didn’t give up. “She had to have been pushed.”

  Jackson paused, then nodded. “Okay. Who do you think pushed her?”

  I answered without hesitation. “Stan McMillan.”

  His eyebrows went up. “Any particular reason?”

  “Didn’t you get the picture I sent? McMillan was at the bar that night too!”

  He nodded. “Which isn’t proof that he killed anyone.”

  “But I saw him up in the balcony right after Sam was pushed!”

  “Right after?” he asked. “You’ve just proven that you couldn’t see the balcony from the stage.”

  Maddening! “Okay, not right after, but as soon as I got to Sam.” That wasn’t quite true, I realized. “I felt for her pulse and looked up right after I realized she was alive.”

  “And you saw McMillan at the balcony railing. Was he the only one there?”

  “Well, no, but—”

  “Who else did you see?”

  I wanted to scream in frustration, but I kept it together. I tried to visualize the crowd looking over the balcony railing. “June and Cora, the three guys who were with McMillan all day. Maybe Ingrid Barnes—or someone else wearing pink—and a couple others whose names I don’t know.” Plus Trixie, I didn’t add.

  He nodded. “Any of whom could have pushed Sam just as easily as McMilla
n.”

  “Sure, but he’s…”

  Jackson waited to see how I would finish.

  “…Awful.”

  Even I knew that wasn’t exactly evidence that would hold up in court.

  “What did June say?” I challenged him. “Was McMillan already in the balcony when she and Cora got there?”

  “You know I can’t share other witness’s statements with you.”

  “But she must have said McMillan was there first! She must have!”

  “Nora.” Jackson used his rich, deep voice to full effect. “You need to take a beat.” He nodded in the direction of the crime scene teams. “All these people are gathering evidence. A whole bunch of other people are gathering statements. I’m personally going to talk to anyone who saw anything. We’re going to get to the truth here.”

  I was just about to hit him with a pithy answer when his phone rang. He gave me one last look before walking out of earshot to take it.

  I was dismissed.

  I stormed up the back stairs to the break room. I’d never felt so frustrated. I knew McMillan had pushed Sam off the balcony. And I knew I had a witness. Trixie. She’d been glued to her target all day. She must have been with him in the balcony. She must have seen everything.

  But that was exactly the problem. She’d seen everything. She’d seen a young woman get pushed from the same balcony she herself had been pushed from on the night she died. How horrible it must have been for her, like watching her own death again. Incapable of stopping it again. No wonder she’d been so traumatized she’d vanished.

  My heart went out to her. She was my friend and there was nothing I could do to comfort her. I had no idea how long it would take her to recover. If she’d be able to recover. I had no idea when I’d ever see her again. Or if.

  I’d never wanted to see her more.

  Chapter 26

  My office was crowded. Callie, Marty, and Brandon had assembled and were exchanging notes on what they’d heard from the police.

  “Are you guys okay?” I asked. “Where’s Albert?”

  “He and Hector are just finishing up with the cops,” Callie said. “Then Hector’s going to give him a ride home.”

  “Good.” I sank into the chair at my desk. Callie and Brandon were on the couch. Marty was pacing like a caged yeti.

  “They shouldn’t even be talking to Albert,” Marty said. “We were both in the break room when we heard the scream. I went looking to see what the hell was happening, but Albert stayed behind. They should just let him go home.”

  “I’m sure they will.”

  My attempt at soothing words earned me a glare.

  “What have you heard?” I asked the others. “Did any of you see anything?”

  “I just got here,” Brandon volunteered. “The police weren’t even going to let me in, but Detective Jackson said it was okay.”

  “The cops wouldn’t tell me anything,” Callie said. “But everybody’s saying, like, the balcony railing gave way.”

  “Like hell it did!” Marty fumed, at the same time I protested, “It did not!”

  “Somebody pushed her,” I told them. “They must have. Callie, when did you first look up to the balcony? Who did you see there?”

  “That’s exactly what the cops wanted to know.” She scrunched her forehead. “But I wasn’t really paying attention.” She made a face. “I’m, like, the worst. I was just looking at my setup and thinking those idiots were going to break all my equipment.”

  Her production station had been in the front aisle at the center of the balcony. From the position of Sam’s body, she must have been just next to it when she was pushed.

  “Which idiots?” I asked her. “Did you notice anyone in particular?”

  “I mean, that guy,” she said, thinking. “The one who was yelling at everyone.”

  “Stan McMillan,” I nodded. “Was he alone when you looked up? Was he the first one there?”

  She concentrated. “I don’t know. There were a bunch of people. June, for sure, I saw her streak of white hair. And some more people I don’t know.”

  “What about Ingrid?” I asked. “Pink tweed suit?”

  “I don’t think so.” Callie looked distressed. “Honestly, I kind of forgot about Ingrid. Is it wrong that I don’t want to go downstairs and, like, find her after all of this?”

  “Of course not,” I told her.

  “Attempted murder trumps boyfriend issues,” Marty agreed. Then he unhelpfully added, “Even dead boyfriend issues.”

  “I talked to her,” I told Callie. “Ingrid. She seemed…nice.”

  Callie winced. “I was, like, afraid of that.”

  Marty cleared his throat. “If we could get back to the attempted murder?” He turned to me. “What about you? Who did you see when you looked up to the balcony?”

  “It seemed like there were dozens,” I said. “But, honestly, the only people I know I saw were June and Cora and McMillan. And those three guys who seem to be permanently attached to McMillan.”

  “His bodyguards,” Marty said.

  “His what?” I turned to him.

  “At least one of them is a bodyguard. Sam told me when we were watching him from the booth. McMillan’s had some death threats over some project he’s doing in North Beach.” He flung himself into a chair, biting his thumbnail. “I could understand it if he’d been pushed from the balcony. Thousands would cheer.”

  “What else did Sam say?” I asked Marty. He’d spent the most time with her that morning, bonding in the projection booth. “Anything else about McMillan? Was she afraid of him?”

  “She thought he was a tool,” he said. “My word, not hers. She clearly despised him, but I don’t think she was afraid of him.”

  But he’d been afraid of someone. Afraid enough to hire a bodyguard. Who?

  “If Sam hated him so much, maybe she did try to push him from the balcony,” Callie suggested. “I mean, they could have argued, she could have shoved him, he could have shoved back…?”

  “Where was the bodyguard during all this shoving?” I wondered. “Marty, when you came out to the landing, were McMillan’s guys still at the table?”

  He shrugged. “The entire building was filled with white guys in suits. Who can tell them apart?”

  He could have told them apart if they were Alan Ladd and Glen Ford. Or even if they were bit players like Donald Crisp or Fred Clark. But as these white guys in suits were real people in the real world, they had Marty flummoxed.

  “Did David tell you anything?” I asked him.

  Another glare. “Our relationship does not make me privy to any information.”

  I assumed that was a direct quote from Detective Jackson. Which was fine and honorable and everything, but if you weren’t going to get good information, what was the point in dating a cop?

  The cop in question chose that moment to knock briskly on the open door. We all turned to him.

  “Nora,” he said. “A word?”

  I stood, but Marty protested. “Oh, come on. Whatever it is, she’s just going to tell us anyway.”

  Jackson looked at me and I shrugged. “Odds are,” I agreed.

  He sighed. “While a preliminary examination doesn’t reveal any obvious structural flaws, the balcony will need to pass a city safety inspection. That’s after it and the area below are cleared by the techs as an active crime scene.”

  I sank back down into the chair again as Marty stood. “You’ve got to be kidding me. David—”

  “It’s not my call,” Jackson said firmly. “It’s procedure.”

  “What does that mean?” Brandon turned his stare from the detective to me. “Do we have to keep the balcony closed?”

  “It means,” I said heavily. “We can’t let anyone sit in it or below it.” I looked at each of them, Marty scowling, Callie w
ith understanding dawning, and Brandon still in confusion.

  “It means we need to close the Palace.”

  I sent everyone home, but I stayed until the party rental crew had cleared their tables and chairs from the lobby and until every last realtor had left the Palace. Also every last cop. I knew they were all gone because after they left, I made a full sweep of the building from basement to offices. Talking to Trixie.

  I said anything I could think of to give her comfort. I told her how sorry I was, how awful it must have been for her to see Sam fall. I didn’t know if she could hear me, but it was the only possible thing I could think of to do for her.

  She didn’t answer.

  After that I finished up in my office, where I finally did what I’d been putting off all afternoon. I called Robbie to let her know what had happened. I started with the news that the theater she’d entrusted to me was being closed until further notice, and then worked backwards to the attempted murder that had happened right under my nose.

  “Wait, what?” she said. “You’re telling me there was a three-person camera crew and a hundred people in the theater and nobody saw anything?” Her voice was incredulous.

  “If they did, they aren’t talking,” I told her. “And the police took all the cameras and recordings.” Much to Callie’s dismay.

  “Okay,” she said, and I could tell from that one word that she’d switched to her this-will-not-defeat-me voice. She’d once told me that this voice was her magic superpower. It’s what enabled her to rule her TV empire. I relaxed a little. Nothing bad could happen when Robbie used her this-will-not-defeat-me voice.

  She spoke. “Let’s think of this like the writers we are and ask a character question: Who’s your gutsiest suspect? Because to do something like that, in that amount of time, with all those people around, you have to be either crazy sure of yourself or just plain crazy.”

  “First,” I said. “Thank you for putting this in fictional terms. When I think of it like that, I still have to say Stan McMillan. He’s got an ego the size of Montana. That could read as gutsy in the right circumstances.”