Murder in the Balcony

by Margaret Dumas

  “What is it? Have they found something?” From her reaction I assumed the text must be from the police.

  She was already on her way to the door. She paused only long enough to shoot me a look filled with dread and say, “Don’t come downstairs.”

  Of course I followed her downstairs.

  The five fifteen was well underway, so there weren’t any customers loitering in the lobby. There was just Brandon, Albert, and a woman I’d never seen before who seemed to be playing some weird of game of tag with Trixie.

  With Trixie.

  “Yoo hoo!” Trixie stood in front of the woman, waving. “I’m here! I’m right here!”

  The woman, middle-aged with thick dark hair and a stylish red raincoat, had her eyes closed and her hands raised.

  “I feel a presence,” she intoned.

  “Of course you do, honey,” Trixie said helpfully. “I’m right in front of you.” She reached up to touch one of the woman’s hands.

  “I feel you,” she said. “So cold…so cold…”

  “Mom!” Callie yelled.

  The woman opened her eyes and beamed at her daughter. “Calandria, she’s here!”

  Trixie looked up at me. I was still on the balcony stairs, taking it all in. “Nora, I think she can feel me!”

  “Mom, go out to the car!”

  The woman (Callie’s mom!) waved her hands dismissively. “Don’t be silly, dear. There’s a Presence here that’s trying to communicate.” She started to raise her arms again, but before she could get going Callie grabbed both hands and pushed them down.

  “Mom!”

  Callie may have been an incredibly laid-back, screamingly cool young woman. A grad student and filmmaker. But in that instant, she was every kid that’s ever been embarrassed by their mother at a school drop-off.

  “Mrs. Gee!” I said, practically floating down the last few stairs. This was why Callie didn’t want me to meet her mother. “What an absolute pleasure to meet you, finally.”

  Callie glared, Brandon and Albert backed away, and Trixie practically scampered with excitement.

  “Nora, tell her to try again. I really think she might see me!”

  “You must be Nora!” Mrs. Gee shook Callie’s grip off and extended both her hands to me. “Callie’s told me so much about you.”

  “Mother,” Callie said, a valiant attempt at sternness totally undercut by her desperation. “Let’s go!”

  “Don’t go,” Trixie wailed. “Nora, don’t let—”

  “Don’t be silly,” I said. “Please, Mrs. Gee, let me get you a cup of coffee. An espresso maybe?”

  Brandon snapped to attention and rushed to his coffee machine’s side.

  “She can’t stay!” Callie insisted, at the same time her mother said, “How lovely, thank you.”

  “Nora,” Trixie turned to me.

  “We’re going!” Callie grabbed for her mother’s hand again.

  “I can do a mocha,” Brandon called from behind the counter.

  “Nora,” Trixie said again, more insistently.

  “We’re staying, Calandria,” Mrs. Gee said, disentangling herself from her daughter’s grasp.

  “Mom!” Callie shouted.

  “Nora!” Trixie yelled.

  “What!?” I yelled back.

  Everybody—that is, everybody with a pulse—froze and stared at me.

  I swallowed, then put on my most gracious face. “What…would you like to drink?” I asked Mrs. Gee.

  She tightened the belt of her raincoat and gave Callie a look which said something along the lines of “that will be all from you, young lady.” Then she turned to me, her expression changing to long-suffering maternal forbearance. “An espresso would be wonderful.”

  Brandon leapt into action.

  “Nora,” Trixie whispered. “Do you think she could see me if she tried really hard?”

  “Pardon me for asking, Mrs. Gee—” I began.

  “Lillian, please,” she said.

  “Lillian,” I nodded. “May I ask what you were…what, um…” I raised my hands tentatively, the way she’d been doing.

  “Of course!” she trilled. Clearly, she was dying to talk spirits.

  Callie slumped onto the bottom stair with the air of someone who’s given up.

  “I have a very small talent,” Lillian confided. “For perceiving things beyond the veil.”

  Callie groaned.

  “Which my daughter does not appreciate,” she finished.

  “Is that me?” Trixie asked. “Am I beyond the veil?” She waved a hand in front of Lillian’s face.

  Albert cleared his throat. “Do you mean ghosts, Lillian?”

  She turned to him. “I do, Albert.”

  I assumed they’d introduced themselves to each other before Callie and I had arrived on the scene.

  “She means me!” Trixie told me.

  “Well, now, that’s very interesting.” Albert adjusted his glasses. “Because I happen to have seen a ghost here myself once or twice. Just a glimpse, mind you.”

  At that point Callie hid her face with her hands.

  “Was it the usherette?” Lillian asked breathlessly.

  “Still here!” Trixie said, waving.

  “Yes it was,” Albert said. “I knew her in life, you know, when I was a very young boy.”

  “Oh, my. You must tell me everything!”

  Albert began to tell Lillian the story he’d once told me. That he’d been there on the fateful night in 1937 when Trixie had fallen from the balcony to her death. That since then, over the years, he’d caught a glimpse of her now and then. Just a few times. But enough to make him believe.

  While he was holding Lillian in rapt attention, I caught Trixie’s eye. She came over, shining with excitement.

  “Touch her again,” I said very softly, covering my mouth.

  Trixie looked bewildered.

  “Lillian,” I said. “I think she felt you.”

  I’d felt Trixie once, when I’d forgotten she was a ghost and tried to hug her. Mrs. Gee was right. It was a very cold sensation.

  “Oh!” Trixie exclaimed. “Oh, that’s so smart!”

  She went back to Lillian, and just as Albert was wrapping up his tale, she put her arms around her and placed her head on the woman’s shoulder. Her jaunty little cap would have tickled Lillian’s ear, if it hadn’t been ghostly.

  Lillian froze. She looked startled, amazed, and just a little freaked out.

  “She’s here!” she said, breathlessly. “I can feel her!”

  I held my breath, looking at the expression of utter joy on Trixie’s face. Then Brandon, who had been about to hand Mrs. Gee her coffee, tripped and sent it splashing all over her. Trixie yelped in surprise and vanished. Brandon blushed a furious red, stammering apologies, and Callie leapt to her feet.

  “That’s it!” she announced. She grabbed her mother’s hand again and half-dragged her to the door. When they got there she turned around, held up one finger, and made a general announcement. “We will never speak of this again!”

  Oh, yes, we would.

  Trixie didn’t show up again that night. That happened sometimes. She just went poof when she was startled. It wasn’t something she could control, she didn’t remember where she’d been, and she didn’t come back until she’d recovered.

  Trusting that I’d see her again sometime soon, I locked up after the last show and practically froze on the walk home to Robbie’s guest house. I turned up the heat as soon as I got there, and had just opened a bottle of her wine, thinking Bless you, Robbie, for your excellent taste in pinot when the phone rang.

  “Robbie, I was just thinking of you.”

  “I’m psychic,” she said. “Or I’m a terrible person for just having realized that I never answered your question about t
hat real estate guy.”

  “Stan McMillan,” I said, taking a seat on the couch and wrapping myself in one of her cashmere throws. “And you’re not a terrible person, you just respond to my emergencies in order of priority. I’m a terrible person for having so many emergencies.”

  “Let’s blame Ted, shall we?”

  “Always. What did you find out?”

  “McMillan hasn’t tried to get in touch with me, and I asked Mitch, and he hasn’t had any offers either.”

  Mitch was Mitchell Black, a sitcom director that Robbie worked with occasionally. He owned a quarter of the Palace, and he’d been the one who’d offered Robbie the chance to buy her share of it a few years ago.

  “Oh, thank goodness.” I sank into the cushions and took a massive sip. “And nobody’s contacted Monica, so unless McMillan’s gone after Tommy, we’re in the clear.” Tommy May was the fourth co-owner of the Palace. Theoretically I should have met him by now, since he lived only about an hour away, in Palo Alto, where he’d made a fortune with some app.

  “Right. Um, about that…”

  I sat up. “Tommy’s had an offer.”

  “Just a couple calls,” Robbie said quickly. “Which he hasn’t even returned. I didn’t talk to him, but he told Mitch somebody’s been trying to get a meeting with him.”

  “McMillan,” I said, certain of it. “Or one of his proxies.”

  “It doesn’t matter who,” Robbie reassured me. “Because even if it is your snake developer and even if he did go after Tommy and even if Tommy wanted to sell, that would still only be one quarter of the owners.”

  All good points, which did nothing to loosen the many knots in my stomach.

  “You know, Nora, if Tommy is open to selling, he doesn’t have to sell to some developer,” Robbie said. “You could buy him out.”

  I’d be lying if I said this hadn’t crossed my mind. Not buying out Tommy specifically, but having some ownership of the Palace. I’d feel so much better knowing I had some control over its long-term fate.

  “How much do you think McMillan is offering?” I asked.

  “Probably less than the gigantic divorce settlement I hope you have coming.”

  “Right. But I don’t have it yet.”

  “You will. I mean, this is box-office-king Ted Bishop you’re divorcing. You know better than anyone how much he’s made.”

  I knew because I’d put my own career as a screenwriter on hold so I could act as Ted’s manager and agent. His unpaid, unacknowledged manager and agent.

  “Think big,” Robbie said. “Manifest an abundant universe.”

  “You’ve been listening to those self-help books again.”

  “I’ll send one to you,” she promised.

  “Great. I’ve already got a guided meditation that’s supposed to help me sleep.”

  “Then get off the phone and sleep, girl. Everything’s fine. And everything’s going to get better.”

  I could only hope she was right. I could hope, and I could push the lawyers to do their lawyering quickly. Because suddenly I needed that settlement. Forget buying a house—I needed to buy into the Palace. It was the only way I could be sure of protecting it. Because tearing it down was unthinkable. And not just because it was a landmark and a bastion of all the films I loved. It was something more than that.

  If the Palace was ever torn down, what would happen to Trixie?

  Chapter 17

  The next morning I staggered into Café Madeline for caffeine, wishing there was some way they could legally serve it intravenously.

  Ted still hadn’t made contact, I was still no closer to figuring out who had killed Warren, Lisa’s café was still on the chopping block, the Palace was officially under attack, and—this should probably go without saying—the meditation CD had not worked.

  I didn’t see Lisa as I waited in line for my life-giving elixir, and it occurred to me that if McMillan had murdered Warren all Lisa’s troubles would go away. Likewise the threat to the Palace. Which was kind of a terrible thought. But then, Warren had already been murdered. It wasn’t like I was wishing him ill. Simply wanting the police to catch his killer wasn’t wrong. And if catching his killer coincided with getting the evil developer who had designs on my theater off the streets, so much the better.

  I took my coffee to go. I had to make the final preparations for hosting the evil developer, along with June’s Howard Realty and another firm of realtors from the neighborhood. The big event would be the next day, and there was a lot to do.

  If this were an episode in one of Robbie’s TV shows, I’d be able to come up with some insanely clever way to get McMillan to publicly confess to Warren’s murder in front of the crowd of realtors tomorrow. Could I tamper with the PowerPoint deck, showing incriminating evidence? That would be easier if I had incriminating evidence. What I had was a picture of a man in a bar. Try as I might, I couldn’t see how that would get McMillan to crack.

  Once inside the Palace I called out to Trixie but got no response. The scene with Callie’s mother must have really taken it out of her. Still, I’d been hoping she’d be there. It made me nervous when she stayed away too long.

  I went straight to the auditorium. The latest electric bill had been staggering, so I didn’t turn all the house lights on in the big space. Every little bit helps. I made my way to the stage by the glow of the exit lights. There had once been an orchestra pit—home to a massive Wurlitzer organ—but those glory days were gone. The pit had been covered over and in its place were steps leading up from the auditorium to the stage.

  I found the control panel on the wall and turned on the stage working lights, then flipped the switch that raised the screen. Thank goodness that equipment was fairly new, and it went up without a hitch to reveal the stage as a large empty space, but a filthy one. I went down the back stairs to the supply room and hauled up a broom, a bucket, and a mop, for what would no doubt be a less-than-glamorous day in show business.

  When I was just finishing up with the mop, I heard the blare of the 20th Century Fox overture and knew Marty had arrived. A few minutes later he called down from the window of the projection booth.

  “I’ve set up that projector for tomorrow, but I hope you don’t think I’m going to sit around all day pushing the ‘Next’ button for a bunch of slides about real estate. I have a life, you know.”

  “Good morning to you too,” I yelled up to him.

  “You don’t have to yell. The acoustics in this theater are fabulous. Did you hear what I said?”

  “You won’t be here tomorrow,” I confirmed. “I know. Enjoy your day off. One of June’s people will be on slide duty.”

  There was silence from the booth. High above the balcony seats I saw Marty’s head and shoulders silhouetted at the small window. “Someone I don’t know?”

  “Yes.”

  “Someone I don’t know will be in my booth?”

  “I’ll make sure to tell them not to touch anything.”

  More silence.

  “I mean, he’s absolutely going to be here tomorrow.”

  I jumped when I heard this, not realizing that Callie had entered the auditorium. I shielded my eyes, the glare from the lights on the stage making it hard to see the seats below.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m directing the filming tomorrow. I need to mark the camera positions and figure out the lighting.” She started up the steps.

  “I thought you were going to have someone else do it.” We’d talked about it soon after Warren’s death, when she’d been at her most distraught.

  “Yeah, that was before I found out Warren had another girlfriend.” She gave me a meaningful look. “I’m in a different head space now.”

  “Sure,” I said slowly. I understood better than most the effect that finding out you’d been cheated on could have on a person.
“But I’m still not sure it’s a good idea. You may be angry at Warren, and hurt, but you’re still grieving.”

  “Maybe I am,” she acknowledged. “But I’m also a professional.” She gave me a defiant look. “This is a paid directing job that I’ll be able to put on my résumé, and I’m not going to let my stupid feelings about stupid Warren get in the way of that. I can handle it.”

  I looked at her closely. She seemed okay. In fact, she seemed more assured than I’d ever seen her. It occurred to me, not for the first time, that she might actually be a good filmmaker. “I know you can handle the work,” I said. “Just be sure you can handle being around all of Warren’s colleagues.”

  Because being around everyone probably meant hearing gossip from everyone, and Callie didn’t need to put herself through that.

  “I’ll be fine,” Callie insisted. “Where’s the podium going to be?” She gave me a steely-eyed look I didn’t know she had in her.

  Okay, then. “Right over here.” I stood where the podium would go the next day and she whipped a piece of chalk out of her pocket and marked my clean stage floor.

  We couldn’t position the actual furniture, the podium and chairs that June had requested, until after the last show that night. But we marked where everything would go, so Callie could figure out how to direct the lights and where to place her camera crew to get maximum coverage.

  At only one point did I attempt to bring up the subject of what had happened in the lobby the day before.

  “How’s your mom?”

  Her chin went up. “Don’t you dare make fun of her.”

  “Callie, trust me, I’m the last person on earth who would ever make fun of someone who believes in ghosts.”

  She inspected me for visible signs of mockery but seemed satisfied that I was serious. “Good.”

  “I would, however, totally make fun of someone for being embarrassed by their perfectly charming mother.”

  She rolled her eyes and went back to her measurements.

  I still couldn’t believe Lillian was sensitive to Trixie’s presence. In my long night of not sleeping I’d thought about what it would be like to tell her. To tell her everything about Trixie appearing to me after I got conked on the head by a light last fall. To tell her how we chatted, and what a delight Trixie was. To tell her how she’d saved my life.