"Why, because he was so candid?"
"He was that.” Kubiak brought the razor to his chin, stopped, pondered. “I suppose he bothers to shave when he has a part on stage. He's directing this production. Aside from Jeri Hall who strictly acts, they all take turns writing, directing, starring. Morris has the lead role this time. It was his play last Christmas, Murder Runs Afoul, when they last used the gun used on Rydell tonight.
"Murder runs afoul of what?"
"You know, that's the one question I didn't ask."
"Now that you mention it, I remember Barbara telling me she was set to play the lead in the production just before she and Rydell had their falling out."
"Well, that won't do her any good. What else did she tell you down at the hairdresser's about her relation with Rydell?"
"Pretty much what you told me the rest of them said, that Rydell was a small-minded woman who had too much power and that she was impossible to deal with unless you agreed with her. I also got the impression she had a particular dislike for young, pretty girls."
"I heard that same line from Jeri Hall, concerning herself, of course, once she got over her thirty-minute period of mourning. But it was worse than that with Barbara. Apparently, Rydell was seeking an order of protection against her and her boyfriend, Watts. She was that afraid of retaliation for cutting Barbara out of the picture."
"So the parting of ways wasn't as mutual as Barbara let on?"
"She wasn't exactly fired,” Kubiak said. “She did leave on her own, but only because she figured the cut was coming, and she was being driven out anyway by the riding she was getting from Rydell for every little thing as the animus built. According to Lipinski, who was the one who kept in closest touch with them both, Barbara regretted leaving from the minute she walked out of the theater and began hounding Rydell the next day. But Rydell wanted nothing to do with her."
"Still, an order of protection? Did Barbara ever threaten her?"
"She said some things to the others; apparently it got back to Rydell. I'm not surprised.” Kubiak dried his face, left the bathroom, crossed the bedroom to the closet. Denise followed.
"So what do you think?” she asked. “Not how does it look, but what do you think?"
"I think it's about the way it looks.” He removed his shoes. “Especially with Barbara already indicted by the woman she shot."
"You don't think it's possible Rydell was trying to write out something else?"
"What? Something cryptic that just happens to have the same four letters of the the name of the woman she had an order of protection against? No. There is one possibility, though. I doubt anything will come of it, and Barbara won't like it. I did, however, phone Crawford and mention it to him."
"How could Barbara not like it?"
"Think about it. You should have it all figured by the time I wake up."
"You're going to bed? You just shaved."
"Well, with starlets dropping by at any hour of the day I have to look my best at all times. By the way, besides telling Barbara I used to work for the Chicago PD, what sorts of things did you and Bobo discuss about me during those long sessions under the hair dryer?"
"Only the most exemplary. Why?"
"I'm only sure Crawford will have a crack at her during the interrogation, and I'd hate for him to learn anything that might come back at me."
* * * *
Kubiak slept fitfully for two hours, during which there was no call back from Crawford. He showered, found Denise deep asleep in the front room's reclining chair, went back to the bedroom, called information, got a number, dialed it.
The name of Janet Rydell's nephew, the theater's owner, had been brought up a few times at the coffee shop. George Warner had an office downtown, but considering the circumstances, Kubiak reached him, understandably, at his home in suburban Hoffman Estates. Kubiak explained who he was and why he was calling. Warner, sounding more puzzled than apprehensive, agreed to see him.
The drive out on the expressway took under an hour. Warner's home was one of those enormous brick houses that might have passed for stately had it not been squeezed into a tightly curved mini subdivision where every other house was deliberately unique though of the same size and type. Inside, an extended family of under a dozen was gathered in a spacious recreation room under a vaulted ceiling. The mood, naturally, was somber, though the television was on for the children. The food was catered. There was no sign of alcohol.
"Crazy Aunt Janet,” Warner muttered, shooing away one of his toddlers and leading Kubiak into a breakfast nook off the kitchen where they could talk alone. “Never moved out of the city her entire life. Imagine that."
"Crazy."
"We only saw her on the major holidays. She was a true old hippie, hanging out with those Bohemian types since the days they were all beatniks. But she loved what she was doing, and I'll miss her sorely. She kept the old Emerald up and running, gave me one less thing to worry about. She had a part-time job in a vintage clothing store, lived off that and the salary I paid her, gave me more than my money's worth with the time she put in at that theater. Bringing culture to the masses, though not much in the way of masses."
"What do you plan to do with The Emerald now?"
"Nothing. If I shutter the place, it'll be a drain, and it isn't worth selling just yet. The neighborhood is still too Bohemian. But it's gentrifying fast, faster than I expected. I used to think it would be twenty-five years easy before I'd get a pretty penny for the theater, now I'm guessing ten to fifteen. So I'll let the kids go on performing their plays and running the occasional movies, paying the taxes for me. My only immediate problem is hiring somebody to manage the place. Of course, nobody could replace Aunt Janet. All she did for those scrappy little alley cats and one of them goes and kills her. I'll never understand it."
* * * *
"Jimmy, were you aware that there are people who live their entire lives in the city of Chicago?"
"Yeah, everybody I know. What's your point?"
Kubiak had stopped at Jimmy Dee's thinking he wanted a beer, as the sun was setting and it was happy hour. But he had been awake too short a time to work up a taste for alcohol, so he ordered a tonic instead, prompting a look of concern from Jimmy, which the last comment didn't help erase. He asked for the phone, got it handed to him, dialed Crawford's number. When he didn't connect, he declined to leave a message, instead hung up and called Mike Morris, whose number he had gotten that morning. Morris wasn't answering either, so he went to the next number down the list, Pam Lipinski's, and connected.
She didn't mind answering a few more questions despite Kubiak's inability to update her on Barbara's status. Yes, the group of four had met last night at around eleven, which was more than typical. They met every Wednesday night at the same bar for beers, trickling in around that time. Hops on hump night, they called it, when they caught up on each others’ week and planned for the weekend. Casual, growing a bit more lengthy and intense when approaching the occasional weekend production.
"So,” Kubiak said, “that's how Barbara knew to find you there?"
"Yes. We were all surprised to see her, though. Bobo hadn't joined us for some weeks. You know how it is, with her not there for rehearsals and daytime meetings, she just fell out of the loop. I mean, she'd join us at the table: ‘Hey, gang, how's the play coming along?’ Well, we'd be going on about that subject for hours, days, and would be so thick into it I'm sure she sensed she was more of an interruption. She had been spending her Wednesdays at her boyfriend's instead, watching TV of all things. They're into one of those reality shows where people get voted off, and are pretty religious about not missing it. But she said that at the last minute some friends of hers asked her along to a one-evening seminar, some computer something. They were driving her home afterward and passed by the bar. She asked them to drop her."
"What about Rydell?"
"What about her? Oh, no, Janet seldom joined us. She didn't drink much. Paul always, at some point, toasted
to the one night free of her. I think that's why he was always the first one there."
"When was the last time you saw her?"
"So we're back to that.” A sigh. Kubiak pictured her adjusting her glasses. “Late that afternoon. Jeri, Mike, and I met her at the theater. We still had some set work to do, some light wood that needed to be trimmed and painted."
"Where was Volti?"
"I don't know. Work, I suppose. We could have used his hands, but attendance wasn't mandatory."
"You left Rydell there?"
"No. We all left together."
"She went to her job?"
"Yes, at the clothing store. So you know about that. She said she was going back to The Emerald after the store closed at nine, like she usually did, to finish up and move those chairs. But I've been through all this with the police, why are we going over it again?"
Kubiak never did order that beer, instead tipped Jimmy more generously than he ought to have considering the surly service he was getting on account of his decision to stay dead sober, left, and drove the remaining two blocks to his apartment building, parked, decided on a lark to check the mail, which meant going through the main lobby, where he passed Purcell stationed at the front desk.
"Just to give you a heads up,” Purcell told him as he waited for the elevator, “that pretty girl is back."
"Upstairs?"
"Yes. She seems sweet enough, aside from the ornaments drilled into her face, but she's even more agitated than she was last night. What's her story?"
"Is her boyfriend with her?"
"No."
"Then I can guess."
He spent the short ride up to seven preparing his defenses. The reception he got upon entering the apartment, however, was more cold than antagonistic. Barbara was back on the couch with another rum and Coke, though without anyone's arm over her shoulders. Her eyes were puffy. Denise was on her feet and remained so. She was volunteering nothing, so Barbara was the one to confirm what he suspected: The police had Watts.
"Is he under arrest?” Kubiak asked her.
"I don't know,” Barbara said. She took one of those long swallows of her drink before launching into yet another of her convoluted discourses, leaving Kubiak to piece together the series of events. She had spent most of the day in an interrogation room, was released around mid afternoon with only warnings, no explanations, had spent an hour trying to locate her boyfriend, finally got hold of his mother who told her Watts had been brought into Area Three headquarters to answer a few questions and had not come out. No one was telling them anything.
"So what do we do now?” she finished, looking from Kubiak to Denise and back.
After a pause, Denise answered flatly, “We may have already done too much."
"What do you mean?” Barbara asked, understandably blindsided by the comment and the tone, as Kubiak was certain Denise had offered nothing but consolation in his absence. “Don't say that."
Denise finally requested that private consultation Kubiak had expected last night. She asked Barbara if she would be all right alone, promised she would be back in just a minute or two for more consoling, then led Kubiak down the hall to the bedroom.
"You warned me Barbara wouldn't like it,” she said, closing the door behind them. “Well, neither do I. Crawford finally called back."
"Oh?"
"Don't play stupid. The only thing keeping you out of the doghouse is that he claims he didn't need your learned counsel, that he was working the boyfriend angle from the start."
"He would claim that. So did he say if Watts was at home when Barbara phoned him after she found the body?"
"He wasn't. Watts's story now is that when Barbara stood him up at the last minute ... You do know they had a regular date on Wednesdays?"
"I understood they stayed home and watched television. If you call that a date, then what the two of us do nearly every night—"
"Anyway, Watts decided, at his last minute, to hang out with some buddies of his that Barbara is not too fond of, which is why he lied to her about being home. He supposedly was in a club in Wicker Park with those friends when Barbara's call came on his cell phone, but so far the police haven't found the friends to verify it. And according to Crawford, it's looking more and more like Janet Rydell just might have been killed before Barbara found her."
"And,” Kubiak added, “Watts could have made a copy of Barbara's key to the theater at any time, which would have given him previous access to the gun, and while Barbara was more upset, he was more angry and so more likely to commit the crime, unaware that she would decide, at her next last minute, to go to the theater to confront Rydell."
"Case closed. Congratulations, Kubiak, you finally cleared someone of a murder charge without going to the bother of herding a group of suspects together to get it done. I only wish you had found some other perpetrator, for Barbara's sake."
"I'm sorry, it was the only other thing I could come up with on short notice that would explain Rydell scribbling Barbara's name. If it was Watts, Rydell would know the reason he was there was to avenge his girlfriend, perhaps even was sent by her, and so she would naturally spell out Barbara's name. But I didn't clear anyone of anything. I only thought Crawford was moving too quickly against Barbara, so I put the nugget of an idea in his head when I phoned him."
"Still, it was your nugget. It would be one thing if you were certain Watts murdered the woman, but you can't possibly be. And now we have this poor girl on our couch ... I'll ask you the same question she did. What do we do now?"
"Well, you could begin by hiding the rum. The way she's going at it—"
"That's not funny. You've been gone all afternoon, you haven't dug up any other nuggets?"
"Actually, I have. Four more, but the thing keeping me from entertaining them is Rydell, herself. She made it pretty clear who she wanted indicted for her murder, and as Jeri Hall said, you don't lie about that just because of some grudge."
"You wouldn't think of turning this back on Barbara? She's already hinted she'd be willing to confess to the murder if it would clear Watts. I won't let her do that."
"Fine. Don't let her. She's your hairdresser, not mine. My barber is Tony, and if he were to kill anyone I'd read about it in the morning papers, then go find another barber."
"I don't believe that for a minute. And don't throw this back at me. I didn't pressure you last night to take up Barbara's case. I deliberately left you free to make your own decision. But, since you did take it up, it's your responsibility.... Where are you going?"
"To Jimmy Dee's,” he said, opening the bedroom door, “where I can juggle my nuggets in peace. While I'm gone, you two go ahead and keep asking each other what we do now, maybe you'll come up with an answer by the time I get back."
He was aimed with determination for the front door, so he barely gave Barbara a glance as he approached it. She had risen from the couch and was staring out the window, standing at the same spot he had been last night when he first saw her as she climbed out of the taxi.
"What did he decide?” she asked without turning to face him, her voice small, her drink clutched at her chest. Holding the pose, Kubiak thought. Still the actress even now.
"He decided he doesn't care for rum,” he told her, “so he's going for beer."
She jumped at hearing the voice was his, turned. “I'm sorry,” she said. “I thought—"
But he knew what she thought as he stormed through the door. She was expecting Denise with more assurances. No doubt there had been promises along with the consolations while he was gone: “Don't worry, dear, I'll take him into the back and shame him into getting your boyfriend cleared if I have to, send the old man back out to find someone else to pin the murder on, work down the list until we're all satisfied. You just stay here shivering and looking helpless."
Actors, all of them, and everyone with a script save Kubiak.
The elevator was slow as ever. When it finally did arrive, his anger had subsided and he was able to laugh at
Barbara's gaffe, at the expression on her face. The ride down seemed longer than the one up, and he watched the floor numbers blink on, off, on, off.
What she thought...
On. Off. On.
By the time he reached the lobby, he was no longer laughing.
"Are you all right?” Purcell asked, reacting to the expression on his face.
"I'm not sure,” Kubiak told him, after a moment. “Actually, I think I may have been all wrong from the start."
But no more wrong than the victim herself.
* * * *
Getting the members of the theater company together turned out to be easier than he had expected. Because of a lingering police presence at The Emerald, and perhaps even a sense of decency, opening night of the latest play was put off until the next weekend, leaving the theater empty Saturday night. The four, Lipinski, Volti, Morris, and Hall, had planned to meet there anyway, and according to Pam Lipinski, each was anxious to see Barbara, who had been holed up in the Kubiaks’ apartment since her arrival Thursday night. So they were happy to have Kubiak join them as long as he brought her along, even agreed to answer more of his questions about the night Rydell was killed.
They hadn't expected Crawford. At one point, neither had Kubiak. The lieutenant had scoffed when Kubiak had explained why he preferred he be present, so when he agreed to show up, Kubiak guessed the case against Watts was growing weaker, though Crawford claimed otherwise.
As Barbara's key to the lobby was still in a police evidence locker, Kubiak asked Lipinski to arrive an hour early to let in himself, Barbara, and Denise, who at this point was not about to leave Barbara's side. When Lipinski asked why, he told her he wanted to move around some chairs, which he did while Denise kept an eye on Barbara and Lipinski, who busied themselves in the front row catching up on the past seventy-two hours. He placed five chairs in the center of the stage, found a folding table and dragged it up to the stage, then placed the chairs around it. He then located that shadeless table lamp, set it up where it had been burning when he had walked in on Rydell's body, and set all the lights in the theater to where they had been at that point. Finally he went to the lobby and made a phone call to complete his preparations.
AHMM, January-February 2008 Page 12
