“Then there was the theater company, the Old New Thespians,” he continued without missing a beat.
“New Old Thespians,” I corrected. There weren’t enough dishes to bother with the dishwasher; I’d just wash them by hand in the sink.
“New Old Thespians,” Paul repeated, trying to maintain his rhythm. “Clearly, Mr. Laurentz created a good deal of animosity there, to the point that he was asked to leave the group. But was that enough to anger someone to the point of violence?”
“They got busted for being naked and they think he snitched on them,” I reminded him.
Paul nodded. “Yes. We need to find out which ones were involved and how seriously they were punished. That could be a motive. The news report Maxie found wasn’t very specific; no names were mentioned. Can you talk to Lieutenant McElone again?”
I put the cups in the dish drainer and wiped my hands with a towel. “I don’t have to,” I told him, thinking I could ask Morgan.”I can utilize the power of the press.”
Seventeen
Saturday
“A bunch of senior citizens stripping down to do Hair?” Phyllis Coates, editor and owner of the Harbor Haven Chronicle, threw back her head and laughed. “Oh, I can’t believe I missed that one!”
“Can you find out about it?” I asked.
Phyllis, as I’d expected, looked at me with mock disdain. “Can I find out about it?” she echoed. “Whom do you think you’re talking to?” Phyllis, a longtime veteran of the New York Daily News, had bought the Chronicle as her “retirement plan,” and prided herself on being a tough, fair street reporter. The fact that she was probably old enough to be my mother (and had been my first employer when I was a paper delivery girl at thirteen) was irrelevant.
“I think I’m talking to someone really talented and smart who could do me a great favor if she were so inclined,” I answered. “How am I doing so far?”
Phyllis chuckled. We were standing in her office, which took up only a small section of the overall Chronicle work space, despite the fact that Phyllis was the only full-time employee of the paper. You’d think her work area would take a somewhat higher priority, but the “outside,” as she called it, housed all her previously published issues (aka “the Morgue”), plus advertising brochures, two light tables for studying photographs—Phyllis was just now starting to go digital—and all sorts of other dusty equipment I couldn’t identify.
“Not bad,” she responded. “Flattery will get you everywhere. Tell me, why are you so interested in this geriatric love-in?” She pulled a pencil out from behind her ear and looked on her desk—which was buried under mountains of paper—for a scrap on which to take notes. Phyllis didn’t mind doing some digging for me, as long as she got a story out of it.
I explained the situation briefly, without mentioning any dead people I’d talked to recently. “If I can find out who was arrested and if some people took it more personally than others, it might point me in a direction in the case,” I told her.
Phyllis narrowed her eyes, thinking. “You’re sure this Laurentz guy was murdered?” she said. “You said the ME’s report shows an arrhythmia. People do die from those, you know.”
“Actually, I’m not sure,” I said. “If I were sure one way or the other, this would be a lot easier. But until I can verify it was natural causes, I have to assume it was a murder, or I have nothing to investigate. Is this coffee from today?” I pointed at the half-full pot on her hot plate, which was inadvisably close to one of the many stacks of papers in the tiny office.
Phyllis looked, as if the coffeepot’s appearance would give her a clue to its most recent activity. “Today or yesterday,” she said off handedly. I decided not to chance it.
I gave her the date of the Hair performance and also the location: Cedar Crest, a forty-minute drive from Harbor Haven but close to the Freehold area where most of the New Old Thespians lived. Phyllis took note of all of it, then poured herself a cup of the suspect coffee—she’s always been braver than I—sat down behind her incredibly unkempt desk and surveyed me closely.
“What’s the problem, sweetie?” she asked out of nowhere.
That stumped me. “Problem? I told you. I need to find out about what happened to Lawrence Laurentz.”
“Who do you think you’re talking to?” Phyllis demanded. “We’ve known each other a long time.”
“I don’t have other problems, Phyllis. I’d tell you.” I didn’t have problems I wanted to think about, anyway….
“You’re acting funny,” she said, then added—not leaving time for me to make a remark about how nobody was laughing—“You’re hesitant when you should be enthusiastic yet you’re rushing into something when you don’t have all the facts. You don’t know if this guy was murdered. You don’t know why someone would want to murder him. I don’t mind helping as long as I can get an article out of it, but this doesn’t seem like you. Is there something else on your mind?”
“It’s about my dad,” I said quietly, surprising myself. I’d had no idea that was going to come out of my mouth.
Phyllis’s eyes got sad. “He’s been gone a few years now,” she said.
I nodded. “Five years. And I know I’m supposed to have moved on by now, but I don’t think I have. And this thing with Lawrence Laurentz feels connected to him somehow.” I couldn’t say it was because Lawrence’s ghost had insisted Dad was involved. “It’s gotten me thinking about him a lot.”
Phyllis drank some of the coffee and barely grimaced at the way it must have tasted. She looked me straight in the eye. “You never get over a loss like that,” she said. “Don’t believe what people tell you; you don’t. And every once in a while, he’s going to pop into your mind and make you sad that he’s not here. You have to expect that once in a while.”
Suddenly I was fighting back tears, successfully, but just barely. “I know. The logical part of my brain is aware of that. But that doesn’t make it hurt less.” I could also have mentioned that I was upset with my father for not coming to visit me and his granddaughter after he was dead, but making Phyllis think I was crazy didn’t really seem like it would be a huge help.
“You know, I think I have a few clips about your dad in the…archives,” she said, tactfully avoiding the word morgue. “Come back in a couple of days, and I’ll put something together for you to remember him by when you choose to do so.”
At that second, my battle with the tears was lost. I sniffled, let a few drops go from my eyes, but managed not to break down in loud sobs, which I suppose was a pyrrhic victory. “You’re a good person, Phyllis.”
She patted me on the shoulder. “I know,” she said. “But don’t spread it around. I have a reputation to uphold.”
Paul was right: Later that day, while I was driving home, Jerry Rasmussen called to apologize for what he described as “my regrettable behavior when we met yesterday.”
“I don’t think you need to apologize,” I said, having rehearsed for this once Paul had suggested the situation could arise. “You were upset, and I was saying things that would rightly upset many people.” The Bluetooth I was wearing made it sound like Jerry was in Siberia, but luckily, the drive from the Chronicle office to the guesthouse would be short. That was lucky, too, because the cup of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee I had in the cup holder (I just wasn’t brave enough for Phyllis’s coffee) would probably be an iced coffee by the time I arrived home.
“Still,” Jerry said, apparently trying to convince me that he was indeed an awful person, “I attacked the messenger when it was the message I found objectionable. I regret my actions, and I wonder how I might make it up to you.”
I wouldn’t have seen that one coming if Paul hadn’t exhibited better foresight than I and had already coached me on a proper answer. “Well, you could answer a couple of questions I still need to figure out,” I said. “For example, how many of the other New Old Thespians lived in Whispering Lakes, like you and Mr. Laurentz?”
“Well, the group’s genesis was
actually here,” Jerry answered. “Besides Larry, I’m not sure if you met Frances Walters. She lives there.” I hadn’t told Jerry that Frances had given me his name because I didn’t want him to resent her sending a private eye after him—I’d told him only that I’d gotten his address from “another member of the group.” This might have been his attempt to confirm it had been Frances, but I wasn’t biting, so he hesitated and then went on. “At the time, Marion O’Day was here, too, but she’s since moved to Taos, New Mexico, to live with her daughter. And Barney Lester passed away just a few weeks ago.”
Uh-oh. “I’m so sorry to hear that. What happened?” I asked.
“Heart,” Jerry sighed. “He’d been frail for a long time. I don’t think he appeared in a production for more than a year.” Well before Lawrence died.
“One other thing,” I moved on. “Can you think of a reason someone would want to be rid of Mr. Laurentz?”
“I can think of thousands.” Droll.
“Do you know if he left a large estate? Money, property, anything like that?”
“You haven’t checked on such things?” he asked, unimpressed with me.
“An investigator asks the same questions sometimes to see what answers she’ll get,” I explained, parroting something Paul had told me. “So, Mr. Laurentz’s estate?”
“You’d have to ask his accountant,” Jerry sniffed. “The man was a ticket seller at a regional theater. I doubt he was sitting on the Hope Diamond and waiting for the right moment to cash in.”
As apologies went, it left me just a little unsatisfied.
“I don’t see how this is getting us closer to Grampa,” Melissa argued. I was driving her to a bowling party for one of her friends from school, and gift in hand, she was still complaining about not doing any investigating today. Meanwhile, my new “official” assistant, Jeannie, had begged off for the day, saying she didn’t work weekends, which was not making her husband, Tony, happy. “You and Jeannie talked to a bunch of people yesterday, I talked to Lieutenant McElone, but even if we find out what happened to Mr. Laurentz, how does that help us get Grampa to come back?”
“That is a good question,” I admitted. “But I don’t have an answer for you now.”
“I don’t see why I have to sit in the backseat,” Maxie interjected. This time, I’d actually asked her to come along, as per Paul’s suggestion. She’d have work to do.
“I’m going to see if Phyllis gets anywhere with the theater troupe arrest angle,” I told Liss, doing my best to ignore the dead woman in the car with us. “There’s nowhere to go with the medical examiner’s report. I can go back and question some of the people I’ve already questioned—especially Penny Fields, now that I know she found Lawrence’s body—but I don’t know if I’m going to do that today. So that’s where we stand in the investigation.”
“So why am I going bowling for Justin Krenshaw’s birthday?” Melissa moaned.
“You like bowling.”
“I don’t like Justin Krenshaw.”
“Then why are you going to his birthday party?” Maxie asked.
“That’s what I’d like to know,” Liss answered.
“You were invited,” I reminded her.
“Hmmph.” That was Maxie, not Melissa. Occasionally I wonder which one is more mature. The rest of the time, I’m positive it’s Melissa.
I chose not to listen to the rest of the conversation (Maxie has a way of convincing Melissa that everything is my fault) and pondered Liss’s original question: How was this getting me any closer to finding Dad or figuring out exactly what was going on with him? And when I searched my heart, the fact was, I cared more about that than I did about what happened to Lawrence Laurentz. I know; I’m a bad person and a lousy private investigator. I have never suspected otherwise.
After I dropped Melissa off at the bowling alley (where her mood immediately brightened when she saw Wendy and a couple of her other friends and went giddily inside), Maxie slithered up into the front seat and sighed contentedly.
“So,” she said. “Where are we going now?”
Before I could answer her or even move the car out of park, my cell phone rang, with a number I didn’t recognize in the caller ID. I hesitated, but put the call on speaker to be hands-free. And got an earful of an angry Tyra Carter.
“What are you doing talking to Penny Fields about me?” she demanded. “How am I supposed to get my job back if I’m being bad-mouthed behind my back?”
“Since when do you want your job back?” I asked.
“I don’t make enough money. I need that job back. So how come you’re bad-mouthing me to Penny?”
“I’m not.” I thought back over the sequence of events. “Wait. I never even mentioned your name to Penny Fields—she gave your name to me! What are you talking about? How did you get my number?”
Maxie seemed amused, which was not at all unusual when I was made uncomfortable.
“You gave me a business card,” Tyra shot back. “The point is, how come you were talking to Penny Fields about me?”
I took a deep breath and thanked myself for not putting the car in gear. “Listen carefully, Tyra. The only time your name came up in my conversation with Penny was when she brought it up. I’d never heard of you before then, and I haven’t talked to Penny since I met you. So what makes you think that I’m talking about you behind your back?”
“All I know is that before you talked to Penny, she said I had a chance to come back and work at the theater, and now she says they’re full up and there are no jobs available. Does she think I don’t talk to the people on staff there? She has a job available—she just doesn’t want to give it to me! It’s got to be because of something you said.”
“Look,” I said. “Do you want me to call Penny and ask her? Because I’m telling you, I never…”
“No, I don’t want you calling Penny!” I pictured Tyra, all six feet of her, standing up with that headset on, looking angry. It was not a comforting image. “Lord knows what you’ll tell her this time. But mark my words: If I have to spend the rest of my life trying to tell people how to inflate their tires, you had better start looking over your shoulder, because one day, I’ll be behind you.” She hung up.
I looked at Maxie, who was not attempting to conceal her glee. “Shut up,” I said.
“I’m not saying anything.”
I decided while I was parked there to take Frances Walters up on her offer and called her. She knew the people involved better than I did, after all. I told her about Tyra’s call and asked her what she thought it meant.
Frances was silent for a long moment, and I didn’t get the sense it was because she didn’t have an opinion, but because she wasn’t sure exactly how she wanted to express it. “I think it means that you should be very careful,” she said. “Tyra has something of a temper, and she can still be extremely physical.” That didn’t sound good.
“Still?” I asked. “What do you mean, still?”
This time I got the impression the pause was because Frances was trying to determine exactly how stupid I might be. “You know about Tyra, don’t you?” she asked. Sort of asked. More like insisted.
“I’m guessing I don’t. What do I need to know?”
“You’re not driving, are you?” Frances could tell I was calling on a cell phone. I assured her I was parked (we still hadn’t had a chance to leave the bowling alley parking lot) and able to withstand any shock. “Well, the fact is, until about a year ago, Tyra Carter was Tyrone Carter.”
“She’s a transsexual?” If it was true, I had to admit her doctors had done admirable work. You’d only know because of her size and to some extent her voice, if you were more observant about those kinds of things than I was, clearly.
“Yes. And before she managed to come to terms with her gender, Tyra told me that she was a rather, well, excitable man who would occasionally act out his emotional frustration physically.”
“Tyrone was violent?”
“Yes, according
to Tyra. She never did any jail time or anything like that, but there were arrests after the occasional bar fight. Tyra says it stopped when she learned to go to different bars and says she hasn’t had any violent feelings since she finally decided to go for gender reassignment.”
I moaned. Now I had to actually worry about Tyra’s threats that she’d dog my tracks. I thanked Frances for her help and disconnected the call. “Let’s go somewhere safe,” I said, more to myself than to Maxie.
“Like where?” she asked.
“The only logical place to go,” I said. “A paint store in Asbury Park. Time to put you to work.”
Madison Paint had not altered much since I’d last been there, and yet it had changed, or I had; it was like going to your childhood home and realizing it’s much smaller than you remembered. The colorful sign hanging on the front of the store was a little shabbier now, illuminated a touch less completely. But the primary colors behind the letters P-A-I-N-T were still clean and joyful, inviting the customer in to bring a little variety of color into his life.
Inside, the place was a paint store like most others that weren’t part of huge home improvement superstores (and I would know, since I used to work at one of those). It smelled slightly of, well, paint, a smell some people don’t like but I do. Whenever Dad was painting a room in our house, even before I was old enough to help, I had a sense of anticipation—that things were going to look new and different. The smell was part of that excitement. I’ve always loved it.
Inside, the shelves were stacked, though not with gallons of different colors anymore. As Josh Kaplan—grandson of Sy Kaplan, the owner—was telling me, the procedure now was to stock various kinds of primer (essentially a colorless paint), find out exactly what hue the customer wanted and then add the color with a precise formula and mix it on what Josh called “the shaker,” a machine that did exactly that to a can of paint.
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