by Jane Tesh
A sign on Evan’s office door informed us that he was at home with a cold and to call if anything was needed.
Constance’s lips thinned with disapproval. “Home with a cold, indeed. He doesn’t want to deal with Amanda.” Even through closed doors, we could hear Amanda’s voice. “I’ll give him a call. Glad you were here, Madeline. We certainly wouldn’t want anything to happen to Amanda.”
She said this without a trace of irony. Was she willing to kill Harold and attack Joanie and manipulate Megan, all to get rid of Amanda?
Back on stage, Amanda showed no signs of stopping. Jerry listened, occasionally saying, “Really?” and “I can’t believe it,” and other remarks of false concern.
When she paused for breath, I said, “Amanda, you’ve had a horrible experience. You need to go home and rest.”
To my surprise, she agreed with me. “Yes, I can’t let people see me in such a state. Will you follow me home? I’m so shaken up, I’m not sure I can drive.”
“Why don’t I drive you home?” Jerry said. “Mac can follow, and we’ll make certain you’re safe.”
Amanda thought this was a wonderful idea. Jerry and I saw her safely to her mansion, and then Jerry hopped into my car. “You owe me big-time.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“Learn anything from Constance?”
“All this time, I’ve been concentrating so hard on Megan, and now I think Constance might be the murderer.”
“Kill Harold to frame Amanda? That’s a little extreme.”
“To use a theater metaphor, Constance has been standing in the wings, waiting for the star to break a leg for real. She’s often at Amanda’s house. It would’ve been very easy for her to take Amanda’s pocketbook and slip one of her credit cards inside.”
“What about the tooth?”
“You’ve seen how beat up that walking stick is. I’ll bet Megan left teeth everywhere she went.”
“Including the theater.”
“Yes. Constance was genuinely upset about Joanie’s plan to launch another Emmaline show. I can see her smacking Joanie on the head.”
“There’s a small flaw,” Jerry said. “Constance drives a conspicuously big, old red Cadillac. Wouldn’t someone have seen her car at Harold’s and at Joanie’s? Unless she parked around the corner or hired a getaway car.”
This was true. “Maybe I need to rethink my theory.”
Chapter Twenty-two
Friday morning, I took my second cup of coffee to the porch. Friday, already. Had it been only a week since Flower of the South auditions and Harold’s murder? During that week, I’d retrieved unflattering photos, uncovered not one but two Darkrose covens, and routed a disreputable con man. But there were still two unsolved murders.
Even though I suspected he would refuse, I called Chief Brenner to see if he’d allow me some time with Megan.
“Sorry, Madeline, that’s not possible. She’s been taken to Regional Hospital for evaluation and safekeeping. We don’t want her wandering off hurting herself or anyone else.”
“I don’t think she’s a murderer.”
“She did attack her sister, and we consider her a flight risk.”
“Could she be prosecuted for attacking Amanda? She’s not really mentally stable.”
“We’ll take care of her for now.”
I heard the dismissal in his voice, so I thanked him and hung up. Jerry came out on his way to Deely’s. “I can’t talk to Megan, but I might be able to see Joanie today.”
“Anything I can do?”
“Listen for news at Deely’s. People will be talking about what happened at the theater. You never know what might be useful. I’m going to talk to the other members of the Improvement Society. Somebody might have insight into Constance versus Amanda.”
“They were hanging around Peaceful Meadow at the same time, weren’t they? Maybe Constance and Amanda are sisters, too.”
Something else occurred to me. “Jerry, I know Megan had her walking stick with her because she was swinging it at me, but what about her bag? Did she have that at the theater?”
“I don’t remember seeing it.”
“Besides the baby rattle, there was an old spiral notebook. There may be something in that notebook that would give me a clue.”
“Wouldn’t the police have found it?”
“Maybe, or it could still be at the theater somewhere.” I glanced at my phone for the time. “The theater’s not open yet. I’m going to visit Joanie and then go over there.”
“I’ll meet you after the breakfast shift.”
***
Joanie was awake and glad to see me. She was dressed in a ruffled gown and looked like a queen on a throne of pillows. “I hope you’re on the case, too, Madeline. I want to know who had the nerve to attack me in my own home.”
I pulled up a chair. “Do you remember anything?”
“The back doorbell rang. I went to answer, and there was a figure all in black. Before I could say or do anything, this person hit me on the head. I fell and hit my head again, so I’m useless as a witness.”
“Are you going to be all right?”
“The doctor says I can go home tomorrow.”
“This figure. Was it short? Tall? Did it say anything?”
“Everything’s a blur. You don’t expect to find something like that on your doorstep, now do you?” She leaned forward eagerly. “What’s this I hear about Megan and Amanda getting into a fight? Did Megan really take a swing at Amanda?”
“Yes, she was very upset about Amanda’s plans to have Flower of the South in Peaceful Meadow.”
Joanie leaned back on the pillows and took a sip from a paper cup on the table near the bed. “So maybe she’s the one who hit me.”
“Someone would like to make us think so. Jerry and I found a tooth from Megan’s walking stick on your back porch, but the police had done a complete search before. Megan might have been set up.”
Joanie set the cup aside. “Oh, it was probably Megan. She has to be angry at me for stealing the part of Emmaline out from under her. And if Amanda Price thinks any of this is going to keep me from stopping the Rossboro production, then she’s got another think coming.” She paused to take another sip of water and held up the cup as if making a toast to herself. “I’m going to be the best Emmaline anyone’s ever seen.”
“I’m sure you’ll be terrific. Let me ask you about the Women’s Improvement Society. I’d like to know more about the members.”
“You think one of them is jealous enough to attack me?”
Joanie’s ego was big enough for the entire town. “That’s very possible.”
She settled back into her ruffles. “The main thing about them is they’re all rich. They all belong to the country club and sit around the pool all summer gossiping.” Joanie held forth on the rest of the Society members, telling me all their various faults and remarking on their lack of artistic talent. “Which is why they can’t understand me, or realize why I would be the ideal choice for their show. Then there’s Eloise Michaels, who never worked a day in her life and thinks she can sing. I’ve heard her sing. Talk about pitiful! A mouse with its tail caught in a trap sounds better.”
Eloise Michaels was the same Eloise who wanted Amanda’s silver centerpiece, the same Eloise who was Britney’s aunt. I’d met her at the fundraiser when I’d bravely defended the centerpiece from her advances. Why hadn’t she been at the theater all this time?
“Eloise wasn’t at auditions,” I said. “Is she involved with the show at all?”
“You’ll have to ask her. She’s odd. She’s the only one of those women who doesn’t live up in the Sunnyside Lane neighborhood. Lives on Tasmin in one of the older sections of Celosia.”
I thanked Joanie for her information, skewed as it was, went back to my car and looked up Eloise Michael’s address. Tasmin
Avenue was two streets over from Harold’s street.
***
Eloise Michaels blinked at me through her screen door. “Oh, hello, Madeline.”
Until Joanie had compared Eloise to a mouse, I hadn’t seen the resemblance, but the small woman’s light brown hair, sharp little nose, and furtive air did give her a mouse-like appearance. “May I ask you a few questions about the Improvement Society?”
She crossed her arms. “I don’t know that I have anything to say about that.”
“Are you still a member?”
She sniffed as if getting a whiff of rotten cheese. “Well, some people don’t think so.”
“Amanda Price?”
“We were getting along just fine until she made herself our fearless leader. I don’t live in her hotsy-totsy neighborhood. I don’t wear clothes from big snooty stores, and I certainly don’t go around town declaring myself the best thing since striped toothpaste.”
I’d never heard anyone actually use “hotsy-totsy” in a sentence. “But you came to her party.”
“Yes. I wanted to see that silver centerpiece.”
“You know Amanda hired me to keep an eye on her things.”
Her little nose quivered. “I wasn’t going to steal it, for goodness sake! When Delaney’s Antiques held their annual auction last month, that centerpiece was the only thing I truly wanted, but Amanda knew that and purposely outbid me. I wanted to see for myself that she actually bought it and took it home and didn’t buy it only because I wanted it. I wouldn’t take it now if you paid me, not when she’s had her grubby hands all over it.”
It was a wonder Amanda was still alive. “You said Amanda came along and made herself leader of the Society. Who was your leader before?”
“I should have said president. Beverly McAdams was our president, but she retired, and quite frankly, no one wanted the job. That’s when Amanda stepped up. Everyone was pleased at first. We had no idea how pushy she was.”
“Constance is vice president?”
“Yes, and I was the treasurer. I don’t know who took that position. Probably Amanda.”
“So you haven’t come to any meetings at the theater?”
“No, but I’ve heard more than I want to about Flower of the South. I think that’s a crazy idea, so I’m staying out. I told Constance it wouldn’t work.”
“When did you last talk to Constance?”
“You know, she’s the only one who’ll stop by and visit. Such a fine lady. Real class. Amanda Price could take lessons on how to behave from her. Constance has kept me up-to-date on the Society, and if Amanda ever leaves, I’ll be happy to come back.”
“Did Constance visit you last Friday?”
There were more mouse-like wrinklings of Eloise’s face and nose. “Last Friday. I think so.”
“It would’ve been audition night when Megan Underwood and Joanie Raines showed up.”
“Oh, yes, now I remember. Constance came by to tell me about the witch woman and what a surprisingly good job she did, and of course, Joanie Raines tries out for everything, especially the parts she’s so wrong for. We had a good laugh about that. I was glad to see she’d cheered up. Harold’s phone call upset her, but I told her not to worry. He called me, too.”
“When was this?”
“As soon as he heard about Amanda’s plan, he called every member of the Improvement Society to try to convince us not to go along with it. What are you getting at, Madeline?”
I still wasn’t sure about motive, but I was getting at a really good opportunity. “I wanted to know more about the Improvement Society, thanks.”
“I’m not going back until Amanda Price is gone, you can tell them that.”
“Not even with your niece involved?”
She gave a short laugh. “Hah! I spent months trying to get Britney to join. I thought it would be a good opportunity for her senior project. She turned me down every time. Then along comes Amanda, who asks her one time, and she jumps right in, and her best friend Clover, too.”
I would leave it to Britney to explain why that happened.
I thanked her again and walked back to my car. Tamsin Avenue was a typical middle-class neighborhood with older houses and large trees. If Constance came to visit Eloise often, no one would think anything of her red Cadillac parked on the street. It would’ve been very easy for her to leave her car out front, or move it down so Eloise would think she was gone, and then travel on foot over to Harold’s.
In fact, I was going to do that now.
This might have been more difficult in a wealthier neighborhood—excuse me, a hotsy-totsy neighborhood—where everyone had gates and fences and security systems, but walking down Tamsin and around the block to Miller was a breeze. Harold’s street was the next one, and his house was in the middle. I decided to walk down Miller to see if there was a place to cut through to his backyard. I noticed an empty house with a For Sale sign about halfway down the street. No one questioned me or set off any alarm as I walked down the driveway of the empty house. I appeared to be interested in the house and strolled around to the back. The backyard of this house ran right into Harold’s backyard with only a line of trees separating the two lots. At night, with no lights on in the empty house and no one watching, it would’ve been easy for Constance to get to Harold’s back door without being seen.
Now I knew how Constance had gotten in. I still didn’t know why, but it might have had something to do with Harold’s phone call.
I drove to Joanie’s neighborhood and tried the same thing. It was a little scary how easily people could prowl around. In most Parkland developments, there were fences and barriers and neighborhood watch patrols. Here in Celosia, one yard ran into another, and there was an open-door policy in most of the smaller neighborhoods, where friends and neighbors could come and go into each other’s houses to visit. A great thing if you were friends, but also a great thing for your enemies.
The streets in Joanie’s neighborhood were narrow with big piles of branches stacked along the curbs where work crews had trimmed the trees from power lines, making parking more of a challenge. If Constance had parked a few streets over, as I imagined she did in Harold’s neighborhood, her choices would’ve been limited with few Cadillac-sized spots. But I found a likely place one street over with a straight shot to Joanie’s back door. Constance would’ve been in a hurry to plant the tooth. How had she managed to race through the bushes and back to her car without being seen? I decided to try it.
I parked my car where I guessed Constance would’ve parked, got out and ran to Joanie’s back door, zigzagging around hedges, past clotheslines, swing sets, garden sheds, and garages. No one called out or demanded to know what I was doing. I pretended to toss a tooth into the jar on Joanie’s back stoop and ran back. Okay. It wasn’t impossible. What was impossible was imaging a prim and proper woman like Constance, who was always dressed in beautiful expensive-looking clothes and jewelry and always looked perfectly put together, making a mad dash through the hedges.
Or maybe she didn’t dash. Maybe she put on jeans and a tee-shirt and took her time as if out for a casual stroll.
Maybe I was wrong about this whole thing.
***
By now, the theater was open. Evan turned on the house lights so Jerry and I could look around. Since we weren’t sure how Megan had entered the auditorium, we started in the back and went up and down each row. While we searched, I told Jerry about my findings. “Even Eloise could be a suspect. She’s furious with Amanda for buying a silver centerpiece she wanted.”
“Amanda’s the gift that keeps on giving, isn’t she?”
“The champion at riling people, that’s for sure.”
“Eloise told me Harold called all the women in the Improvement Society to complain about Amanda’s plan. I’m wondering what he told Constance. If he dated Megan, then he was visiting
the commune. Maybe he knew about Constance’s involvement with the coven. Oh, is that the bag over there?”
False alarm. What looked like Megan’s bag was a pile of skirts someone had pulled from the costume shop.
Then Jerry tugged something from under a back curtain. “Found it.” He handed me Megan’s rumpled shoulder bag. “She must have flung it off in her rage.”
We sat down on the stage, and I dumped the contents out. “I’m looking for a notebook.” There it was, in a shower of flowers, nuts, rocks, loose change, feathers, receipts for goat chow from the feed store, and the pink rattle, which rolled out and came to a stop. My emotions rolled with it, a wave of sadness for a lost life. Megan never got to place it on the baby’s grave.
Jerry brushed the loose petals off the notebook. “Is this her book of spells?”
The first few pages were covered with scribbles and drawings of flowers and weeds. There were recipes for dandelion jelly, corn pudding, and sun tea. But near the back, in a different handwriting, was a play.
A play about Emmaline Ross.
“I don’t believe it,” Jerry said.
I turned more pages, examining the faded paper and ink. It was only the first few scenes, but it was excellent. “This looks like it was written several years ago.”
“By Megan? She thought she was Emmaline.”
“No, this is a different handwriting from the recipes. I’ve seen this handwriting, but I can’t remember where.” I read more. “This is very good. This is much better than Amanda’s version.” I paused. Now I knew why the handwriting looked familiar. I’d seen it on neat lists of cast members and outdoor drama expenses. “Jerry, this is Constance’s handwriting. Constance wrote this play.”
“What’s it doing in Megan’s bag?”
“I don’t know. Apparently Megan picks up everything.” I read a few more pages. “This is actually good.”
“But Amanda has steamrolled her version into Celosia.”
We put everything back into Megan’s bag and stopped by Evan’s office to thank him for letting us look. We stowed the bag in the trunk of my car.
