Ghosts, Wandering Here and There

by Flo Fitzpatrick

  Police still roamed the theatre, but with halfhearted interest. Those in the cast with motive had great alibis, and those without alibis had no motive. Officer Carter was leaning toward the freak accidental death theory. Officer Krupke wasn't as certain, but I had a feeling the brass at the police station wanted closure and wanted it before the show opened.

  The accidental death theory fit neatly with the theatre board's plan to go on with the show. And of course, the media loved it. The bane of Bad Business buys tickets. Fran made the announcement less than three days after Jason's death, and East Ellum had been besieged with enthusiastic reporters ever since.

  The official line was, “We feel it would be a slap in the face of Jason Sharkey's memory to close Bad Business days before the grand reopening. It's what Mr. Sharkey would no doubt have wished.”

  It was a bullshit line and we all knew it. The actors knew it, the original cast knew it, Lida Rose knew it, and Fran Watkins and Shirley Kincaid knew it, too.

  Shirley, the ditz, had then made an astonishing decision following Fran's statement. Instead of letting Jason's capable but unknown twenty-five-year-old understudy take over the role of Lance Lamar, she wanted to put sixty-eight-year-old Cyrus Boone, the original hero, in the part. Hey, if you're surfing that wave of media coverage, why not ride it to the very end? The board bought off the understudy's contract and explained that there would be extra rehearsals (with extra pay) to bring Cyrus Boone up to speed in the role that had nearly destroyed his life fifty years ago.

  I thought it was the nastiest, scummiest, most hideous thing to do to another human being other than slice a neck open with a scimitar. I was in the minority. Even Lida Rose thought it would be a great thing for Cyrus Boone: it would give him an opportunity to “redo” a wrong done in the past. Show him that lightning doesn't strike twice. All that trash.

  Surprisingly, Rafe agreed with me. We'd spent fifteen minutes talking about it during a coffee break several days before. He'd been muttering and shaking his head as he watched me dunk a delicious-looking chocolate-glazed doughnut into my mug. “She's nuts.”

  “Who?”

  “Well, now that you mention it, all three of 'em. Shirley Kincaid, Fran Watkins, and Lida Rose Worthington Rizokowsky. A triumvirate of tasteless tarts.”

  He grabbed the last doughnut in the box before I could drown it as well.

  “Tarts?”

  “I was trying to find a t word for nitwits, but couldn't. When I saw that doughnut disappear into your eager hands and considered the role you play in this show, tarts naturally followed.”

  I took a bite. “Oh-kay. I supposed that’s logical. Barely. Anyway, I could have told you that Lida Rose is crazy. I've known her to be certifiable for years. But label Fran and Shirley nuts? Well, Shirley, obviously. But Fran? Why?”

  “Because she agrees that Cyrus Boone should play Lance Lamar.”

  “Ah.”

  I carefully took a sip of my coffee. Too hot. I stuffed a bite of doughnut into my mouth instead. “N’agreewifyou.”

  “What?”

  I chewed and swallowed. “I agree with you. I think it's a rotten idea. And I think Cyrus thinks it's a rotten idea. Did you see how pale he got when Shirley came out with her statement a few days ago? I personally would find it damned difficult to replay a role that caused the death of my best friend.” I continued to chew, while staring down at a tiny coffee stain on the floor. “Don doesn't like it, either.”

  “What?”

  I tilted my chin upward. “When Shirley told Cyrus he was going on as Lance Lamar, I saw Don Mueller in the balcony shaking his head and pointing to Cyrus.”

  Rafe poured a second cup of coffee for himself and scowled at me. “Thanks for ruining what was something we both agreed on. Well, anyway, forget the opinion of your ghost. I think we should talk to Lida Rose and persuade the woman to let Jason's understudy handle this. I realize the theatre might lose some of the rampant curse coverage in the papers, but I think it'd be safer all around.”

  “I'm with you.”

  We strolled, literally arm in arm, toward Lida Rose who was scrutinizing the programs to be sure everyone's name was spelled correctly. The stage manager should have been taking care of that detail, but Lida Rose is a stickler for proper spelling and rechecks everything herself. Probably a result of having to spell her maiden name of Rizokowsky from kindergarten through college.

  “Lida Rose. Kiely and I have been chatting, and—”

  “No. Cyrus is doing the role.”

  Rafe stared at her. “How the hell did you even know what we were going to ask?”

  She smiled. “I know Kiely Davlin. I know you. I know you've been talking in the kitchen. Ergo, I knew what you were going to say. Now go away. The decision has been made. Cyrus Boone is in the program under Lance Lamar, hero, along with a brief history of the theatre, including the tragedies the last two times the show was performed. Oh, and a nice memorial to Jason Sharkey. He’d’ve loved it. It's full of lies about how wonderful he was. We're starting rehearsal in five minutes, kids. Go away.”

  We went away, both of us shaking our heads like dogs in the window of a pickup truck. “Brain dead. All of em. She and the board members have truly lost what was left of their collective senses.”

  “Yep. Mark my words, Rafe, there's gonna be more trouble. Lida Rose. Trouble. The words go together like ‘serial’ and ‘killer.’ Like ‘earth’ and 'quake.' Like ‘dis’ and ‘aster.’“

  He grinned at me. I grinned back. “So, is there anything two sane people, i.e., us, can do about this? Short of actually burning down the theatre?”

  “I don't think so, Kiely. Cops are still prowling around here, so that should deter anyone else from ideas of throwing more cabinets around. We open in a week and hopefully that's not enough time for anything else to go wrong.”

  I sighed and took back my last statement. “One week is a damned long time. Everything could go wrong. And probably will.”

  “Break over! Places for Act Three!” The stage manager was yelling at the top of his lungs.

  We set down our coffee cups and headed back onstage. Act Three, Scene Two. The “Hog-tie Hoe- down.” I'd originally enjoyed choreographing the dance but now I hated the whole scene. Cyrus didn't seem comfortable with tying Rafe up, the Humble brothers were tentative about swinging “Nick Nefarious,” and Daisy had yet to keep the right tempo for the whole number because she was glaring at Cyrus as though it was his fault Jason had died.

  Today wasn't any better. Cyrus fumbled with the ropes and “Billy Joe Bob and Bobby Joe Bob Travis” dropped Rafe dangerously close to the orchestra pit when those ropes gave too soon. Rafe landed on Macy's foot. She squealed like a stuck pig and the apologies flowed.

  “Hold it!”

  We looked offstage. Lida Rose and Billie Boone were in deep conference. Finally Lida Rose announced, “Take five, everyone. We may have some changes coming here.”

  I glanced at Rafe. He glanced back and the communication was instant. Lida Rose was about to undo several weeks of work. I could feel it.

  “Kiely!”

  I jumped down. “Yo. Please don't tell me I'm redoing the choreography? Please, please?”

  Lida Rose smiled. “No. Nothing that rash. We're trying to figure out what the problem is here.”

  “Ask Rafe. He's the one entangled in rope. Ask Hank and Ham. They' re the ones who have to carry him. Ask Cyrus. He's the one that ties the man up.”

  Lida Rose lowered her voice. “That's why I'm talking to you. Is Cyrus capable of making that lasso tight? Is he holding back for fear of hurting Rafe?”

  I glared at her. “Now you want to know? Now you're uneasy because you stuck Cyrus into a rotten position? And we haven't even started rehearsing the gun scene. I can't wait to watch that poor man choke up when he has to shoot Rafe.”

  I turned to Billie. “He's your husband. Why in hell are you letting him do this?”

  She closed her eyes for a second. “Believe
me, Kiely, I've gone over and over whether I should have tried to talk him out of it. But he's suddenly adamant about going through with the show. He believes that once he fires that gun opening night and nothing bad happens, he'll be free of all that guilt he's carried for fifty years. I can't change his mind. So what am I supposed to do?”

  I stayed silent for a moment or two. Then I quietly stated, “All right. If he's determined, then we'll help him out. We'll practice the stupid lasso trick until he feels comfortable. I'll change the beginning of the dance so Hank and Ham will have time to make sure those ropes don't loosen.”

  Lida Rose beamed at me. “Thanks, Kiely. I knew I could count on you.”

  I growled at her and turned to the cast. “Yo. Crew. Slight change in the hoedown.”

  It took me only about thirty minutes to add the time needed for the rope check. For once the cast listened and did exactly as I asked. The stage manager called lunch after we had rehearsed the new sequence at least five times from beginning to end. I was more than ready. It seemed to be a brown-bagging day. No one wanted to go out. The kitchen grew crowded, the “Green room” intolerable with chattering and munching, and the scene and costume shops were off-limits to food at this point. Lida Rose was meeting with a few media types in the lobby.

  I finally took my crunchy peanut butter and jelly on twelve-grain toast outdoors and headed for the only tree that offered any shade. I devoured the sandwich, then curled up for a short nap. Jed was with me and didn't mind being used as a pillow.

  “Kiely. Wake up.”

  “’N’t wanto. Go away. I’m about to give my speech for winning the Tony for Best Choreography for next year's hit musical. Thank you, thank you.”

  Rafe nudged me. “Up, dreamer. Afternoon rehearsals are starting in one minute.”

  I yawned, poked the dog, who was snoring (at least it wasn't me this time), then followed Rafe back inside.

  “Hog-tie Hoedown. Places, everyone.”

  It started off well. The dance before the actual lassoing sequence went off without a hitch. Cyrus tossed the rope around Rafe and tied it exactly as he'd been shown. The Humble twins swooped up Rafe and began to swing him. And swing him. And swing . . .

  The rope broke. Rafe tumbled to the edge of the orchestra pit, which happened to be in the down position. I dove and grabbed his legs before he could topple to the cement floor twenty feet below. The music stopped. Screams came from every direction. I held onto to Rafe's legs until he could hoist himself to a sitting position. We stared at each other.

  “Thanks.”

  “Don't mention it.”

  Lida Rose, the stage manager, and Charlie Baines were on stage faster than Jed normally goes through a chew toy.

  “Crap.”

  “Charlie?” Lida Rose asked.

  “This is the wrong rope! It was supposed to be thrown out with the rest of the garbage. How the hell did it get onto the prop table instead of the good rope? This thing is torn in so many places it's no wonder it snapped.”

  Everyone looked at everyone else. No one even breathed.

  “Charlie?”

  “Yeah. What?”

  One of the other techies stood next to the prop table in the wings near stage left. “There's at least three ropes on the floor here. Somehow this one got mixed up with the good ones. I have no idea how, except that this whole table is a mess. Don't you people take care and check your props?”

  The company nodded as a unit. I was furious.

  “The table was not like that before lunch,” I said, “and we don't normally check to see if the props have been mixed up while we're gone for one hour when no one is supposed to touch them. How'd everything get so screwed up?”

  “Probably the media's fault.”

  “What?”

  We turned as a solid unit and looked at Daisy.

  She nodded vigorously. “They've been all over this theatre today. Interrogating everybody they can find who'll talk. I found three cups of coffee on the piano after lunch. Can you imagine? Pigs. One of them probably got nosy and started messing with stuff onstage, too.”

  I hated to admit it, but it was a plausible explanation. Maybe Daisy had a brain lurking under the mousy brown hair after all. The reporters had taken the opportunity to stick their noses into every nook and cranny in the theatre each time they got an invite to enter. Lida Rose had given a mini press conference during lunch. So one of them might easily have dug through the props looking for a loaded weapon, or a big sign saying, this way to the origin of the curse.

  “Rafe? You okay?”

  He nodded. “A bit shaken. I'll be fine, thanks to that flying tackle by Ms. Davlin.”

  He glanced at me with admiration. “Notre Dame could have used you. I don't remember a superwoman dive in the play books, but I'll suggest one at the next alumni function for my ex-teammates.”

  “Glad to be of service. No charge. Well, except for the Band-Aids. I've now got skinned knees no dance-hall girl would bare.”

  Lida Rose looked at both of us with concern. I had a feeling she’d’ve liked to stop rehearsals, but the stage manager was already calling places. We went back to work.

  It was less than a week before we were going to open. The intercom system was still sputtering. The prop crew was being chewed out for allowing any of the press anywhere backstage. Daisy was carefully wiping coffee stains from the piano top. This grand reopening had more glitches than a light board from the 1920s. Our leading man was dead. We'd come close to losing Rafe because of a frayed rope. Cyrus would now be even more terrified to perform, but very soon Bad Business on the Brazos would play to standing-room-only crowds.

  Chapter 16

  “Fire! Fire! We're going to die! We've got to get out!”

  Daisy Haltom was shrieking and waving, and pointing upstairs toward “Kismet.” I tend to dismiss anything Daisy says other than her notes on our singing, but when music stops and an accompanist screams in an unholy and shrill manner, I pay attention. Along with every other member of the cast, I stopped dancing and tilted my head upward.

  Sure enough, smoke was oozing out of the doorway of the prop room.

  “Oh, crap! A fire in the theatre is not what I need today.”

  Lida Rose's tone held more irritation than fear. Rafe, Ham, Hank, and Theo were already running toward the stairs, ready to do their manly duty and destroy any possible blaze. I've seen speed skaters with less velocity and more politeness. The bruises every one of them would bear trying to elbow one another out of the way could well reach lethal proportions. Each man was hell-bent on crossing the finish line of the smoking door ahead of his peers.

  Rafe won. The other three slid and crashed right behind him. Then all four looked at the door, now slightly ablaze, then back at each other with mixed expressions of admiration, credulity, fear, and stupidity. Not a one of the stalwart warriors had thought to bring any of the six fire extinguishers from anywhere in the theatre.

  Lida Rose and I stayed onstage and contemplated our fellow cast mates and elderly audience with concern. Most were yelling incoherently and inanely.

  “Theo, watch out! Be careful. You could get burned, you dimwit!” came from Lindsay.

  “Oh hell, this'll mess up the theatre's insurance,” was Fran Watkins's practical statement.

  “Run away for your lives!” Not surprisingly, Shirley Kincaid had resorted to cliché. A mangled one.

  The only rational remark came from Thelma Lou. Along with her words came a solution. She entered the stage with the portable kitchen fire extinguisher in hand.

  “Kiely? You're in better shape'n me. A' course, you're sixty years younger. Now, get this up to those morons before one of 'em gets hisself hurt.”

  I grabbed it and started running toward the ladder in the back of the theatre that led to the balcony area. Two rungs from the top, I was able to fling the extinguisher to the heroes. By this time someone had managed to do the reasonable thing and beat out the flames with a heavy tarp they'd found in fron
t of the light booth. The blaze was dead.

  Undeterred by this fact, Rafe bravely sprayed white foam over the door, over the other men, over me, and over half the balcony, including the ladder. I ducked and missed the worst of it.

  “Rafe! Rafe! Yo! Stop. Hey! Montez. It's out. It's been out for five minutes. Halt. Cease. Desist. Look. We're safe.”

  His gorgeous features became slightly sheepish. “Uh-oh. Did I get a bit carried away?”

  “I believe the word you're looking for is overkill.“

  “Well, I have this rabid fear of fire in theatres. With or without an audience present. Too much flammable stuff, too many people panicking. Even a little one like this can suddenly turn nasty. It's that Boy Scout thing of being prepared.” He acknowledged, “Maybe taken to the extreme?”

  Lida Rose had made it to the barely charred door by this time. She'd taken the regular stairs and was eyeing my soaked ladder and sodden hair with a mixture of amusement and disdain.

  “Okay. Let's see the damage.”

  She kicked bits of white foam off her feet. “Well. My, my. Thanks, gentlemen, for dousing the blaze. Although, I do believe you may have been overly enthusiastic with the fire extinguisher, Rafe. Considering the fact that from where I stood there was barely a flicker of flame. Oh, I like that. Flicker of flame. Has such nice alliteration. Flicker of flame. Flicker of flame. What a great idea for a song.”

  “Lida Rose? A request from those of us who are soaked in white goo and not really up for your wiseass comments? Shut up.”

  Rafe winked at me. “It was kind of fun, spraying that thing. Gives one a feeling of power. Of manliness.”

  I snorted, then sneezed as white foam dripped too near my nose. “Reminds me of attacking one's best friend in grade school with Cheezey Squirtum. A favorite sport of mine and obviously one of yours?”

  He ignored me. “Let's survey the damage to ‘Kismet.’ A room I admit I hadn't wanted to enter for a while.”

  Lida Rose stood back to let Rafe and Theo kick in the door. Stupid, really. We had no idea where the fire had started and I'd seen movies with back-draft blazes engulfing stuntmen. A vision of a roaring flame bursting through and knocking us all down onto the stage as we screamed in anguish flashed before my eyes. I shivered as I tried to forget that a real death had taken place in this very room less than two weeks ago.