Ghosts, Wandering Here and There

by Flo Fitzpatrick

  We were blessed. A wisp or two of smoke remained. That was all. Apparently the door was the only object to have actually been burned. Rafe gently pushed me behind him with the comment, “Women and children to the rear,” and started looking through the room for what might have ignited the small blaze. I debated about hitting him over the head with the discarded (and empty) fire extinguisher for that crack, but decided instead to stay at his shoulder for a few seconds. Then I began to wander through the old prop room on my own.

  “Nothing,” I grumbled. “I don't see one stinkin’ thing that could have started this fire. No cigarettes, no frayed wires, no cans of propellant, no candles burned to oblivion. No nothing.”

  Both of Rafe's eyebrows lifted. “What are you? The arson inspector? Could have been anything, Kiely.”

  “Mmmm.”

  I ignored him. I was busy exploring the space. “Kismet.” I'd never been up here before, and the various props from shows half a century ago or older were distracting me from my new role as Ms. Arson Detective, detecting fires.

  The sofa that was reputedly the spot for various lovers' trysts stood boldly in the middle of the room. I tried to avoid staring at it and realized I was blushing. “Spot” was the operative word. There were many. All over the sofa. I had no desire to find out if they'd been made from coffee, tea, or other organic substances. I caught Rafe eyeing me, right brow lifted, so I quickly shifted my gaze to what was left of the cabinet in the corner closest to the door. The cabinet that had ended up on top of Jason Sharkey.

  Weapons of all kinds were scattered around the floor. Other scimitars from the actual show Kismet. Heavy swords and maces from Camelot. Huge lances from Hamlet or the Scottish play, or perhaps a 1960s production of Man of La Mancha were lying beside bow-and-arrow sets (what the hell? Robin Hood—the musical?) All the weapons looked real. I knew the scimitars were. I repressed a sudden desire to run screaming from the room.

  The cabinet itself had once been a work of art. I'd been dragged to many antique stores in years past by my mother, a fanatic woodworker with a sharp eye and a desire to pass on knowledge to her daughter. This piece reminded me of wardrobes and curio stands from the 1880s. The large box that had originally perched on top of the cabinet now lay in pieces next to the bow-and-arrow set. Some enterprising props person had painted the word “guns” on the front of that box in calligraphic red letters.

  I began experiencing waves of nausea staring at the weapons and the broken cabinet. I turned my attention to the areas that were still intact despite Jason's accident and the fire.

  A table bearing empty bottles of booze, cards, costume jewelry, birthday candles, and tin flowers more than hinted of A Streetcar Named Desire. Next to it stood a tiny curio cabinet filled with miniature crystal figurines. The Glass Menagerie. This must have been the repository for every Tennessee Williams play ever performed at East Ellum. A wire birdcage even held someone's discarded script from Eccentricities of a Nightingale, Williams's rewrite of his earlier work Summer and Smoke. The front page of the script bore the names of a Teresa Barrett and Alma, the lead character, in bold print. I left the small book in the cage.

  Long ago these items had dressed the stage and provided a means to telling a story. Now they were nothing more than junk.

  I crossed to the corner opposite the weapons cabinet and the Williams memorabilia. “Rafe. Look at this.”

  He whirled around as though I'd discovered a book of matches with the words, “Pyromaniac for Hire” on them. “What's the matter?”

  “Nothing. Jeez, you're jumpy. All I wanted was for you to take a look at some of this stuff.”

  He hurried over to join me in the corner, followed closely by Lida Rose who’d been lingering in the doorway, clearly not thrilled with entering the room.

  “Guys, do you think these could be props from the very first Bad Business? I mean, there's a ship's anchor that says “Brazos Belle” on it. It's all tangled up with fish netting but it really doesn't look bad. And that bar. That's gotta be a hundred years old. There's a steamer trunk, too. I'll bet that's the one they used in Act Two.”

  I squatted on the floor and dove into the props like a toddler making mud pies. I was oblivious to my foamy hair and general disarray. It took some doing, but I managed to open the old trunk and started tossing out items. “Oh wow. Cool. There's the deed to Polly Sue Primrose's property. How did it survive? Maybe these things aren't as old as I thought. Maybe from the production fifty years ago?”

  Rafe peered over my shoulder at the paper used to represent what the villain intended to steal in Bad Business. The deed makes one appearance in the show, in the last act, during the card game. “It's well preserved, but I think you were right the first time. All this stuff looks way over a century old. I'm surprised you didn't notice earlier—when Lida Rose gave you the tour.”

  I shook my head. “I didn't get the tour. Never had the time. If you remember, I came in late after L.R. lost her other dancer. Jason offered to show me around up here, but I figured he meant the couch only, so I declined.”

  Rafe knelt down next to me and begin carefully lifting items out of the trunk. “I wonder if anything really valuable is up here? You know. A first edition, hand-written copy of a Eugene O'Neill masterpiece. Even a first-edition, hand-written copy of Bad Business. That should be worth something to this company in sentiment alone.”

  Lida Rose leaned over and let the netting from the ship's anchor glide through her fingers. “Kiely? I hate to crush your hopes of finding treasure, but this place is pretty much old junk.”

  “Party pooper. You have no imagination. In that case, if I do find anything, I'm hanging on to it and keeping it a secret. So there.”

  Lida Rose snorted, “Yeah, right. Like Miss Honesty-Trained-by-the-Nuns was going to sneak out of here with the crown jewels of Romania or someplace. Okay, folks. I think the excitement is over for a while. I don't see anything offhand that could be responsible for a paltry little fire, unless it's a cigarette butt that burned itself out before we got here. We'll never know. So . . . downstairs. Much as I'm enjoying this brief respite, we do need to rehearse. Kiely? You're having far too much fun. Up, girl, and prepare to dance. Uh, after you clean up. No offense, but you look like you got stuck in a shaving cream container.”

  Rather in the manner of sheep following the shepherd, the boys and I lined up behind our director and began the march back down. I was bringing up the rear, so no one noticed when I noticed the very tiny object in the corner of the doorway.

  A piece of popped popcorn. One. It could have been left there days ago by Jason or one of his girls. It probably didn't mean a thing. Rafe hadn't been eating any—for a change—when he came bounding up the stairs, but he had been in this prop room looking for cards before Jason had died here. I picked up the bit of food, held on to it, and then hurried to catch up with my fellow firefighters.

  I stopped at the lighting booth. Don Mueller stood inches inside, holding a bag of popcorn in his hand. He gestured at the prop room, shook his head, and disappeared.

  Chapter 17

  “Who's there? What's going on? Who's hiding under there?”

  At the sound of the voice, I jumped and knocked my head on the edge of the couch, then screamed, “What the hell are you doing sneaking up on me like that? After everything that's happened here in the last two weeks! Are you insane?”

  “Kiely?”

  “Yes. Kiely. The dancer with the headache and probably a large bump on my forehead thanks to you.”

  “I saw a body on the floor under the sofa and naturally wanted to know who was up here after hours.”

  “Well, now you do. I should ask you the same thing. What brings you to ‘Kismet’ this late in the evening?”

  Rafe sat down on the floor next to me and peered at my forehead. “You're not bleeding. That's good.”

  “Thanks for the concern. So—why are you snooping around scaring me into probably premature white hair?”

  “Sam
e as you. I'm curious as to what started that fire earlier. I'd like to know if something in the wiring is about to short out and cause the whole theatre to go up in flames.”

  “Hmmm.”

  Rafe threw me a sharp look. ”What does that mean? Do you know something you're not telling?”

  I did, but he'd never believe me. The popcorn pointed specifically to my ghost. A ghost who, as far as I knew, had no good reason to play arsonist in his off hours. I shook my head and avoided Rafe's question.

  “I'm not looking for faulty electrics. I wouldn't know one if it reached out and bit me. To be honest, I wanted another look at that stuff from the original Bad Business. Something kept nagging at me to come up and poke around. I thought perhaps some of the pieces from the old show might have been kicked under the sofa through the years. And since the romantically inclined who use the sofa aren't exactly interested in historical research, they stay on the top, so to speak. I was trying to check underneath!”

  “So?”

  My head hurt and I didn't feel like being social. “So, nothing. I'd barely gotten started in this corner when Rafe, the resident snoop, barged in on me.”

  “I told you I wasn't snooping; merely trying to make sure things stay safe around here. I got a bit too close to those flames today to be nonchalant about the theatre burning down. Not to mention, this might not be the safest place to be right now, even without flames bursting forth.”

  “So why isn't our tech director or stage manager or even Lida Rose taking on this chore? How did you get elected? Are you now the resident hero?”

  His brows were set I knew I was pushing, but I really wanted an explanation for Rafe’s odd habit of diving headfirst (literally) into everything in the theatre.

  “None of the people you've mentioned feel there's a problem. They think the fire was a fluke. I do not agree. Is that clear enough for you? As to that, your own explanation for whatever lured you to the prop room after hours to hunt for buried treasure or first folios seems a trifle thin as to a sane reason for you being here, too.”

  We glared at each other for at least thirty seconds. Then I began to laugh.

  “Kiss or kill?”

  “What?”

  “Didn't you ever take Directing 101? ‘Kiss or kill.’ When two characters are in a tense scene and they get closer than two feet to each other, one of two things has to happen.”

  His expression softened for the first time since he'd surprised me under the sofa. “I get it.”

  He did, too. He grabbed me, put his lips to mine, and began the more pleasurable of the two choices. Lips were exploring lips, tongues getting entangled, arms were clenched around bodies, and hands were starting to roam. I was giving back as good as I was getting and enjoying the whole process far too much. Lida Rose would be proud.

  Rafe started to lift me up—perhaps heading for the top of the sofa?—when my foot got caught by the netting I'd seen this afternoon next to the Brazos Belle anchor.

  “Rafe!”

  “Yes?”

  “This is nice, but could you put me down? There's something clinging to my foot and it's not pleasant.”

  He reluctantly complied, then knelt down to free me from the rope. “Damn. What a mess. This is actual fish netting. I'm surprised there's not a big mackerel or carp in among the ruins.”

  I finally managed to get my foot free. The two of us were now busily trying to untie the ancient net.

  “Rafe. There's some old jewelry mixed up in this. I wonder why the costume crew didn’t use this?”

  I held out my hands to show him the glass piece caught between the strands of the netting.

  “Kiely, it's really matted in there. Costumes probably didn't know anything was there. Assuming they even had a costume crew. From what I've heard about the original theatre productions, they were pretty casual.”

  We worked at the netting until the piece came free. An earring. Garnet. My hand closed over the stone and I immediately wanted to run out of the room, which seemed to have grown very small and very dark, and very dusty. I was freezing. I closed my eyes and breathed in slowly. For an instant I could detect the presence of another being. Not Don. A female exuding a sadness I'd never experienced in my thirty-two years of life.

  I heard the barest hint of a whisper. “Please, Elias. Please, don't. Let me have my life!”

  Then it was gone.

  Rafe's head was cocked to one side. He seemed to be waiting for me to say something.

  Instead, I held the earring up for his inspection and nonchalantly asked, “Whatcha think? Real? Or literally, costume?”

  He studied it. “Garnets aren't my field, but this looks pure. We should take it to a jeweler and get it appraised.”

  I wasn't really listening. “I wonder who it belonged to.”

  I shivered again. Rafe glanced at me. “Oh, no.”

  “What?”

  “You've got that ghost-sighting look in your eye. I saw it the day you were trying to convince me our deceased villain was in the audience. I hate to tell you this, but I don't think Mr. Mueller was playing the part of Nick Nefarious fifty years ago with a garnet dangling from his ear under a stovepipe hat.”

  I postulated, “The politically correct version? Nefarious was gay and about to come out to sidekick Jackson Wild? Well, maybe not.” I grew more serious. “I'm sure this had nothing to do with Don Mueller. But one of the dancehall girls might have worn it. All of us now have similar pieces. Except ours are definitely fake. But this? I think it's real. Having it appraised is a good idea.”

  He was watching me closely. “You're not telling me something.”

  I looked up at him as he helped me stand again. “You won't believe me. I'd prefer not to have you scoffing at me, at least for a while.”

  He frowned. “Try me.”

  I quickly inhaled, then told him about the flash of that other presence, the incredible misery that had accompanied it, and the certainty that this earring had belonged to a lady who had been dead for perhaps a century. I didn't mention the voice. Rafe raised both eyebrows. (I was making progress. Two brows signified he was at least listening before making tacky comments.)

  “Kiely, this is beyond my understanding. I’ve read articles claiming what we call ghosts might be heightened emotions from people who've passed on and left some sort of chemical energy behind them but it’s all pretty damned speculative.”

  “Is that a willingness to listen to another idea? To be honest, I didn't buy any of this paranormal stuff until I began communing, if you will, with the spirit of Don Mueller, but I'm beginning to believe that ghosts hang out on this earthly plane for a reason. Usually things left undone.”

  “So what did Don leave undone?”

  I set my jaw. “His murderer was never found. Never brought to justice. He also never got to be with the love of his life and maybe he doesn't know what happened to her, either . . .?”

  Rafe shook his head. “I'm sorry. The man was buried and given a nice funeral and should now be a beam of light somewhere above waiting to welcome the newly departed to his bosom. Dressing up in costumes and watching rehearsals waiting for revenge is a bit too much to swallow.”

  “I didn't say he was out for revenge. I said justice. Two different things. Or maybe that's not why he's here at all. Maybe there's some reason so obscure I’ll never think of it.”

  Rafe looked at me, then around the room. “And your other ghost?” He smiled. “As if one wasn't enough. What's her raison d'etre?”

  “I don't know. Maybe I should be researching that first cast of Bad Business? Maybe more than one murder has been committed?”

  Rafe chuckled. “You're having way too much fun with this.”

  “Quite possibly. So, wanna search the room and see if the other earring turns up? Got to have been part of a set, especially from a hundred years ago. People didn't wear s single earring unless they were pirates. Early rock stars?”

  Rafe didn't hear me. He'd gone diving under a pile of drop clo
ths that should have been in the scene shop. Actually, they should have been tossed. Blue paint clung to the parts of the fabric that were still intact. On closer inspection, the paint turned out to be mildew.

  I wrinkled my nose. “Rafe? Unless you want to gather this stuff for penicillin, I'd suggest avoiding it. Why on earth is this still here?”

  He popped up and wiped his hands together in disgust. “Sheer laziness on someone's part. This is truly gross. There's about three trunks underneath all these cloths, but I'm not touching ‘em even if they’re all loaded with real garnets, not to mention diamonds and pieces of eight from your heavy-metal pirates.”

  I helped him dislodge a piece of cloth that had managed to attach itself to his shoulder. “It's past midnight anyway. Perhaps it's time to leave and just let the techies come up here with disinfectant and a few large garbage bags.”

  He sighed. “Maybe we shouldn't have stopped the fire. Let the place burn to the ground.”

  I looked at the birdcage, the old scripts, and the anchor. “No. There's too much really great stuff up here. Look at this. There's a stack of programs under Alma’s birdcage. Someone really needs to go through and separate the treasures from the trash.”

  “Volunteering? “

  I let out a deep breath. “Nope.”

  He held out his hand and we started to leave. Another voice filled the space.

  “Kiely? Rafe? My goodness, you're both filthy. Have you been sampling the sofa? It's about damned time.”

  We faced our accuser. Lida Rose stood in the doorway. A huge grin spread over her entire face.

  “Lida Rose? I thought you'd gone home. And, no, we weren't sampling the sofa.”

  “I did go home. I came back after worrying for the last hour that the theatre would burn down before I got back on Monday unless I found out what started that fire. So? What are you doing here?” The grin grew larger. “As if I couldn't guess. I've heard King Arthur's Camelot throne chair is quite comfortable, too.”