Movie Palace Cozy Mystery Boxed Set: Books 1-3

by Margaret Dumas

  “Uh huh. And he was on the balcony landing when you went past?”

  “Yes, but to be fair he wasn’t alone. In fact, I didn’t see him alone all day. He has henchmen.”

  “Henchmen?”

  “Okay, a bodyguard and two hangers-on. In any case, I don’t know if he could have shaken them.”

  “Maybe he didn’t need to. Maybe he got them to do his dirty work. I mean, henchmen. It’s what they do.”

  I blinked. “You’re a genius. I’ve been worried about how he could have gotten into the balcony unseen, but maybe he didn’t have to.”

  “Did you hear Sam arguing with anyone before she…before it happened?”

  “No.” I sat up. “And I would have. If there had been raised voices—or even normal voices—coming from the balcony, we would have heard them on the stage.” Score one for the theater’s acoustics.

  “Wait, didn’t you tell me you were raising the screen? Is that loud enough to drown out voices?”

  I blew out a breath. “Maybe,” I admitted. “Probably not enough to drown out yelling, but maybe enough to cover whispers. I’ll try a test tomorrow when someone else is here.”

  “Who’s coming in if you’re closed?” she asked.

  “Right. Well. I wanted to talk to you about that,” I said. “Everyone on the payroll is hourly, so if we’re not open, they don’t get paid.”

  “I hear that’s how work works,” she said.

  “Sure, but everyone really needs their paycheck,” I told her. “I mean, Callie’s parents are loaded, but she doesn’t live off them. And I don’t know how Marty makes it in this city on what—”

  “You want to keep paying them?” Robbie asked. “Done. I can talk the other partners into that. I’ll stress that we don’t want them going off to get new jobs and then being stuck with nobody to work when we reopen. How long will it take to get the inspection, anyway?”

  I’d called the city building inspector’s office about that earlier, as soon as I’d sent the gang home. The news was not good.

  “We’re in the queue,” I told Robbie. “But they couldn’t give me an exact date.” They’d given me a range, which extended into the next month, but I didn’t share that with Robbie. I figured I’d head down to city hall and plead my case in person the next day.

  “We can pay people for a week or so,” Robbie said.

  “Thanks.” One tiny knot in my chest loosened. “And it won’t be for nothing. The theater is closed, but it’s not red tagged. We can still be in here as long as we’re not in the balcony or the taped-off area. I’ll come up with a list of chores we can catch up on until we open to the public again.” The Palace had deferred a lot of upkeep in the past few years. Coming up with a task list would not be a problem.

  “Perfect,” Robbie said. “I’ve got to go, but, um…”

  Okay, her voice had changed again. This was her I’m-about-to-say-something-I-really-don’t-want-to voice.

  “What?” I asked her. It could only be one thing. “What’s Ted done now?”

  She paused. “He’s packed up all your things.”

  I blinked. “What does that mean?”

  “Well, he sold the house, you know? So he’s packed everything up. And he’s sending you everything of yours.”

  Everything of mine. “Everything? You mean like the life I was stupid enough to think would go on happily until death us did part?”

  “More like your clothes,” she said. “And shoes and stuff.”

  “Well.” I cleared my throat. “That would be easier to pack.”

  “Oh, Nora.” This was said in her best-friend voice. Which was my favorite Robbie voice of all.

  I stared at my phone for a while after hanging up. I thought about getting all “How dare Ted decide what’s mine and what isn’t?” about it, but honestly, I didn’t have the energy. In the vast scheme of “How dare Ted?” behavior, this wasn’t that monumental. I was mulling that sad fact over when someone spoke, startling me half out of my chair.

  “Nora? Don’t be alarmed. It’s just me.”

  Hector.

  He stood at the open doorway, hands up. I should know better than to expect locked doors and a burglar alarm to keep him out.

  “Are you all right?” he asked. “You look a little…”

  “I am a little.” I waved him in. “How’s Albert?”

  “Home, drinking tea by the fire with a book.”

  “Wow, does that sound good.”

  He sat in the chair opposite my desk. “It could be arranged.”

  I smiled. “How was your chat with the police?”

  “Not my favorite activity, but it had the advantage of being brief.”

  “Did you see anything? Where were you when it all happened?”

  He ran a hand over his stubbled face. “I knew you’d be busy until after the lunch break, so I went across the street. I wanted to check something out at the café.”

  “Right. The other crime scene.” Had the fire just been the night before? “Did you find anything?”

  He frowned. “Remember when the police asked me how many locks I’d undone when we broke in to put out the fire? I only had to unlatch the door handle, which would have locked the door automatically when it was closed. But I saw today that there were other locks, deadbolts. They weren’t damaged, except for the smoke, and they can only be bolted from the inside.”

  I sat up. “Lisa usually locks up and then leaves by the back door,” I said.

  “Right, but our arsonist set the fire in the back. They had to leave by the front door.”

  “It was the front door opening and closing that caught my eye.”

  He nodded. “It seems we can conclude that the arsonist, if they were trying to make it look like an accident, miscalculated by leaving those bolts unlocked.”

  “So maybe it was someone who wasn’t familiar with the store?”

  “Or they assumed the whole building would burn down and it wouldn’t matter. In any case, I was over there poking around when I heard the sirens coming up the street and cursed myself for having left you.” He grimaced, but even a grimace looked good on him. “By the time I got back over here it was a madhouse. Everyone was saying someone had fallen to her death from the balcony.” He met my eyes. “I thought it was you.”

  I couldn’t look away. “I’m fine.”

  “This time. But the fact remains that I left you alone with your prime suspect in a murder and an arson. That won’t happen again.”

  I blinked. I couldn’t tell if his promise made me feel protected or stalked. “Okay,” I said slowly. “Three things: I wasn’t exactly alone, it’s not your job to take care of me, and I can take care of myself.”

  “All good points,” he said. “Nevertheless.” Something flashed in his eyes. “And now, if you’re finished here, we should get you something to eat before I take you home to that cup of tea by the fire that I know you won’t have.”

  I stood. “You’re always trying to feed me.”

  He shrugged. “I have to do something, and you won’t let me kill your husband.”

  Okay, then. Dinner it was.

  Chapter 27

  The next morning I woke to find the Palace all over the news.

  “A near-catastrophe at the landmark Palace Theater yesterday when a moviegoer fell from a faulty balcony…”

  What? I stared at the Channel Five newscaster in horror.

  “A local realtor is in critical condition today after plunging from the faulty balcony of the historic Palace Theater…”

  No!

  It was the same on every channel. I dove for my laptop and checked the San Francisco Chronicle online.

  The historic Palace Theater is closed today, following an accident yesterday in which local realtor Samantha Beach was critically injured in a fall from the n
inety-year-old theater’s balcony.

  It went on from there, not as accusatory as the TV news had been, but also not raising for a moment the possibility that Sam had been pushed. Until I got to the comments section after the article.

  She was a realtor? Somebody probably did us all a favor and pushed her.

  OMG everyone knows that place is haunted! The ghost did it!

  HaHa right! The ghost pushed her. Woo!

  My phone rang and I grabbed it, seeing Callie on the caller ID.

  “Nora, it’s all over Insta. It’s literally everywhere!”

  I hadn’t checked social media. “What are they saying?”

  “That the ghost is back at the Palace,” Callie said. “And she’s, like, super pissed.”

  I was super pissed. I shouldn’t have been surprised that the hive mind of the Internet would grab on to the legend of the ghostly usherette and run with it. I felt horrible for Trixie, but she had the distinct advantage of being on an alternate plane of existence, presumably with no Wi-Fi access. She was spared hearing what they were saying about her, at least until she came back. Now I was kind of hoping she’d stay “away” until it all died down.

  But what I was really furious about was the way the supposed-to-be-professional journalists had all piled on to the notion that the balcony railing had given way. The Palace could recover from stupid social media blather about a vengeful ghost. That would probably even increase attendance, at least for a while, at least from gawkers, before naturally fading away. But a rumor reported as fact in the legitimate press? One that declared the building structurally unsafe? That could really hurt us.

  And I couldn’t think of a damn thing I could do about it.

  Wait. Yes, I could. I knew half a dozen public relations specialists in LA. The kind of people who made a celebrity’s stint in rehab or inconvenient DUI disappear from the press, or—even better—turn into an inspiring redemption story rather than a public flogging. Why couldn’t they protect the reputation of the Palace the same way they did the latest Real Housewife?

  Of course, hiring someone like that would be excruciatingly expensive, but if word hadn’t gotten out about how Ted had stolen all my money (and he probably paid just such a PR flack to ensure that it hadn’t, as it might make him look bad) the general assumption that I had access to millions should still be in place. I should be able to hire someone now and worry about paying them later.

  I made a few calls.

  Then, because I had to fight the battle to save the Palace on all fronts, I summoned a rideshare to take me down to City Hall.

  Okay, so the Department of Building Inspection wasn’t at City Hall. It was about a mile away, in a generic office building on Mission. The Inspection Services department was on the third floor, and I followed the signs to the office where they handled Special Inspections. The Palace, in this context as in all others, was Special.

  I told the guy handling walk-ins what I was there for, and he pointed me to a hard plastic chair where I could wait.

  The room was a hellscape of bureaucracy lit with energy-efficient bulbs. I had plenty of time to take it in because I waited four and a half hours, draining my phone’s battery as I obsessively checked what was being said online about the Palace. Finally I was handed off to a middle manager named Alice who appeared to have been sapped of any visible will to live quite some time ago. She told me that an inspector would be probably be available in three- or four-weeks’ time.

  But I hadn’t spent the past decade negotiating contracts on behalf of my undeserving husband for nothing. I looked Alice in the eye, and I explained, then I cajoled, then I wheedled. Then I agreed to take a look at her son’s screenplay and get it to the right Hollywood agent. By the time I left I had an appointment with an inspector for the following Friday afternoon.

  I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: everybody has a screenplay.

  Back in the elevator I resisted the urge to collapse into a puddle of exhaustion. Which was just as well, because the elevator stopped on the second floor and a guy in a well-cut suit got in. He was quite obviously not in his happy place. He was glowering. He fired up his phone immediately and indulged in a string of profanities the likes of which I’d only heard from thwarted paparazzi. Apparently, whatever he’d been working on was caught up in the machinery of local government.

  Which was only interesting because the guy in question was one of McMillan’s henchman.

  Once we hit the ground floor, he stormed out the door and climbed into a waiting SUV. I watched him leave, still ranting into his phone. He hadn’t once looked over toward me. I went to the building directory by the elevator doors.

  The second floor, where he’d been, was home to Plan Review Services.

  So what plan of McMillan’s had just been denied?

  “I don’t know,” I told Lisa. “But here’s hoping it was the plan for tearing down the neighborhood.”

  I was back at the Palace, and I’d called Lisa to tell her what I’d seen. I wanted to believe it meant that her café and my theater were both safe. At least for a while.

  “That would be so amazing,” she said.

  “It would, but we can’t count on it,” I cautioned her. “The guy probably has half a dozen projects at the planning stage. We don’t know which one has been denied.”

  “I just want to believe there’s hope,” she said. “All I can think about is rebuilding. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to get everything back up and running just to be forced to sell it to that snake McMillan.”

  I didn’t tell her he was more of a shark. To each their own.

  Around three that afternoon I was down in the lobby with a clipboard, making an inventory of all the little tasks we could take care of while the Palace was closed. Areas that needed touch-up paint, or a thorough cleaning, or a minor repair.

  The list was not short.

  I was interrupted by a rap at the glass lobby doors. It was Brandon, waving and grinning hopefully.

  “I thought you’d be here,” he said when I opened the door. I was alone in the theater, so I’d kept everything locked up.

  “And I thought I told you guys not to bother coming in until tomorrow.”

  He shrugged. “It’s on my way home from school. I just thought I’d ask if there was anything you needed help with.” He glanced around the lobby. “Anyone else here?”

  The penny dropped. “Callie isn’t in,” I told him.

  “Oh, I didn’t mean…um…” He tried to cover, but the rising flush on his face confirmed that he’d come here looking for the object of his infatuation.

  I gave him a look and he abandoned his pretense with a sigh and a shrug. “The heart wants what the heart wants,” he said plaintively.

  “So I’ve been told. Come on. There is something you can do for me as long as you’re here.”

  I put clipboard and pen down on the candy counter and crossed the lobby to the auditorium doors. “The furniture rental people will be here first thing in the morning to pick up the chairs and the podium. You can help me wrap them back up in their plastic and blankets and take them downstairs to the back alley door.”

  “Cool.” Once in the auditorium, he shrugged off his jacket as he followed me down the darkened aisle to the stage. “Um, the police are okay with us moving things?”

  “As long as it’s not in the taped-off area.” I’d checked. I went up the steps and flipped on the stage lights. The screen was still raised from the day before, which reminded me I had to try something out.

  “Brandon, there’s something else you can do after we get the chairs out of the way. I want to see if I can hear someone talking from the balcony while the screen is coming down.”

  He gave me a doubtful look. “Are we allowed in the balcony?”

  For a self-confessed stalker and boyfriend spy, the kid was a stickler for
the rules.

  “Not strictly speaking, but I won’t tell if you don’t. Let’s take care of the furniture first.”

  “I’m on it. Where’s all the wrapping?”

  “In a pile behind the backdrop, unless somebody’s moved it.” I started for the podium. I’d have to take the microphone off and pack that up as well. The audio equipment had been rented from yet a different vendor.

  “Have you heard anything about how that lady is doing?” Brandon asked. “The one who fell?”

  “Just on the news,” I told him. “This morning they said she was still in critical condition. I texted June earlier, but she hasn’t gotten back to me.” Looping the microphone cord around my arm, I glanced over at him.

  “Who do you think—”

  But the rest of his question was cut off with a yelp of surprise as the floor went out from under him and he plunged through the stage into darkness.

  Chapter 28

  “Brandon!” I ran to the hole that had appeared in the floor. One of the ancient trapdoors had given way. I peered over the rim to the dark room below. “Brandon, are you okay?”

  “Callie?” I heard him say, sounding dazed.

  I felt a rush of relief. “It’s Nora,” I yelled. “Don’t move. I’ll be right there!”

  I dialed 911 as I raced for the stairs. I should have put them on speed dial.

  Brandon had broken his leg. That much was clear when I got downstairs and found him on the floor of the prop room beneath the stage.

  “Nora, hey,” he greeted me when I flipped on the lights. “I’m sorry. I think I fell.”

  He was dazed, but he didn’t seem to be in the kind of pain I’d expect from the very wrong angle his left leg was in. Maybe he’d hit his head. Maybe he was in shock.

  “You’ll be okay,” I told him, hoping it was true.

  His face scrunched in concentration. “I think I hurt something.” He struggled to get up, but I restrained him with a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t try to move.” Aside from the fact that his neck or spine might be injured, I didn’t think it was the best idea for him to see his leg like that. I heard the faint wail of sirens. “I’ll be right back.”