Mom Doth Murder Sleep

by James Yaffe

  “Me?”

  “Fleance, Banquo’s son, I mean. You were waiting to make your entrance too.”

  I remembered it myself now. Osborn and me, next to each other but far apart, eyes fastened on the blaze of light beyond the wings.

  “You didn’t happen to see the Third Murderer, did you? Maybe he was waiting in the wings too, somewhere behind us?”

  “I was in such a hurry, I didn’t notice anybody else.”

  “Was there anybody in the ladies’ room with you?”

  “I thought I heard the door opening once, and somebody moving around and going out again a few minutes later. But I was in the booth, so I didn’t see who it was, and they couldn’t have seen me either. When I finally got out of the booth, the ladies’ room was empty.”

  “What did you do after that?”

  “Everything was over by the time I went out the door. People were wandering around, and everybody was looking very upset, and I couldn’t figure out what was going on. I heard police sirens, and one of the stagehands told me what had happened. Told me that Martin—” She came to a stop, her lips quivering.

  This whole business was pretty traumatic for her, I realized with a pang of guilt. I was callous about murders, I’d already seen half a dozen of them, but to her it was new and horrible.

  I went over to the couch and sat next to her. I took hold of her hand to comfort her. This time, I thought, we’ll use the bed, like civilized people. “Look, if you don’t want to go on talking about this—”

  “No, it’s all right, you have to do your job.” She gulped a little air and straightened up, and went on in a steadier voice, “I found out what had happened, as I told you, and then I discovered the back doors were locked and nobody could get out of the theatre—”

  “You tried to get out the back?”

  “I wanted to go around to the front of the theatre and look for my father. But there was no way to do that. And then Daddy found me, he’d gone up on the stage right after the murder. We sat together in the dressing room and waited till the police got around to asking us questions.”

  “Do you think Sally Michaels killed Osborn?”

  “I just can’t believe it. Sally has been so nice to me, so sweet and helpful. How could somebody I know be a murderer?”

  “If it isn’t Sally, it’ll probably be somebody else you know.”

  “Why? Why can’t it be some stranger who came in from the street, some hoodlum or drug addict or … or terrorist or something?”

  I didn’t bother to go over the reasoning with her. She was so young, and she didn’t want the world to be a terrible place just yet.

  “From all I hear,” I said, “Osborn wasn’t a very popular character. He used his money to bulldoze his way into the Players. And he had a reputation as a womanizer. Who knows how many bimbos he’s been fooling around with? If one of them has a boyfriend or a husband in the company—”

  “Stop it! You’ve got no right to talk about him that way!”

  The words came out of her like whiplashes. I stared at her for a moment, and finally I caught on. I could feel that twist in the pit of my stomach that I usually associate with eating something that makes me sick.

  She went on talking, and now she was sobbing as well. “I know what people said about him, and it was awful, just awful. The way they misunderstood him, just because he was trying to raise the level of artistic life in this city. If you’d known him, really known him—”

  She was out of breath, she came to a stop in a waterfall of sobs.

  Then I asked her the most unnecessary question I’d ever asked in my life. “You did really know him?”

  She nodded between heavings of her shoulders. “We met each other last April, just after he moved here. He was at a party that I was at, one of the drama students at the college gave it. We fell in love right away. We saw each other practically every day till school was out. We wrote to each other all summer, and he came out to California to see me a few times. We had to keep our meetings secret, of course.”

  “Do you know about Sally Michaels and—”

  “Yes, of course I knew, there was nothing Martin wouldn’t tell me. That silly woman! She completely misunderstood about their relationship. That sort of thing was always happening to him. Was it his fault if women found him attractive and threw themselves at him? He finally had to be quite firm with her, though he knew she’d be vindictive and go around spreading all sorts of lies about him.”

  I had a little difficulty getting out my next question. “What were you and he … were you planning to…”

  She picked up on it without my having to finish. “We were going away together, of course. We decided a long time ago, way back in August. He was going to take me to New York and get me started with Uta or with the Studio. Any school would take me, of course, on account of Daddy, but Martin wanted to make sure I went to the one that would be best for me. He had to guide me and advise me, because he felt I had a very special kind of talent. We were going to leave as soon as Macbeth finished its run. Martin felt he had an obligation to the play. Obligations and responsibilities were very important to him.”

  “But he was in his fifties! He was old enough to be your father!”

  She shuddered away from me as if I had physically struck her. “I thought you at least would have some sympathy!”

  That made me feel overwhelmed with guilt. But I had my pride too. I was hurt, I had a right to be angry. I made my voice louder: “I do have sympathy. If you knew how close I’ve been feeling to you these last few weeks … But you never told me what was going on between you and Osborn! All the time I thought we were really becoming friends!”

  “We were. Honestly, Roger. I think of you as a good friend.”

  “Sure. But that didn’t stop you from lying to me all these weeks, hiding what was going on in your life. Friends don’t hide things like that from each other. I feel like such a damned fool!”

  “I couldn’t tell anybody about Martin and me. We had to keep our relationship secret until we decided what to do about my father. Daddy and I have been so close to each other all these years, since Mother left. And he would’ve said just what you did, that Martin was too old for me. Which is ridiculous, nothing but middle-class superstition, but that’s what he would’ve said.”

  “How could you expect him not to find out if you and Osborn had gone to New York together?”

  “Then it would’ve been too late for Daddy to do anything. Martin and I would’ve been married, don’t you see? But until then, if Daddy had found out, I think he might’ve killed Martin!”

  “Might have? I damn well would have.”

  These words came quietly from the bedroom doorway, where Allan Franz was now standing.

  * * *

  “Daddy!” Laurie’s face had started off turning white, but as she recovered from the first shock it turned red. “What are you doing here? How could you spy on me?”

  “Sorry, sweetheart,” he said, coming into the room. “I didn’t mean to spy. But you gave me a key to this place, you told me to drop in whenever I felt lonely in that hotel room. So I finished working on scripts a couple of hours ago, I felt lonely, and I dropped in. You weren’t here, so I stretched out in the bedroom to catch a few winks. I guess I woke up a little too soon.”

  How soon? I asked myself, feeling a little sick to my stomach.

  “Those things I just said aren’t true!” Laurie was putting on a great bravado act. It was like her Lady Macduff trying to bluff it out with the thugs who have been sent to kill her. “I said them for Roger’s benefit. To make him jealous!”

  I had scrambled to my feet a long time ago, and now I was scrambling in the direction of the door. “I think maybe … it’s getting pretty late … I’ve got work tomorrow morning…”

  But neither of them had a glance to spare for me. “His age wouldn’t have bothered me,” Franz was saying, keeping his eyes fixed on Laurie. “But the man was such a loser! Professionally, perso
nally. And the way he treated women his whole life! It was well known in Hollywood, I could tell you plenty of stories about him, I could produce witnesses you’d have to believe! Oh my God, sweetheart, if you’d only confided in me, I could’ve made you understand—”

  “That’s why I didn’t confide in you!” There was a quaver in Laurie’s voice, she was close to tears. “You’re always so sensible and logical, you’ve always got facts and witnesses, you can always prove to me I’ve got no right to be happy!”

  “I don’t see how you can say such a thing. Your happiness is what I care about more than anything else in life. I’d do anything to keep you from getting hurt.”

  “You’d do anything to keep me under your thumb, to keep me from leading my own life! That’s why you’re saying all these things about Martin—”

  “Come on, be reasonable!” Franz threw his arms up over his head. “Goddamn it, Laurie, will you stop turning our life into the remake of an old movie! Different cast, same old plot! Your mother walked out on me for a lousy two-bit actor who ruined her life and eventually killed her! Do I have to watch you playing out the same crummy script?”

  He broke off, suddenly swiveling his head in my direction. “Excuse me—Roger, is that your name? It isn’t fair for us to embarrass you with these private family disagreements.”

  I was glad to take the hint. I stammered some more apologies and pulled the door open.

  In the doorway I hesitated a split second, wondering if it was all right to leave Laurie alone with him. He was pretty agitated all right; under that calm manner he was holding in the fires. But then I decided that you can’t get between a father and a daughter. Not if you know what’s good for you.

  * * *

  So I left the little white house and drove around for a while in my car. “I think of you as a good friend,” she had said, but who did she think of as a bedfellow? That conceited old toad, that back-number Casanova! What was wrong with her anyway? An advanced case of a father complex? Or maybe nothing worse than a touch of necrophilia?

  I got home a little later. I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep, so I put a movie on my VCR. It was an old Sherlock Holmes, with Basil Rathbone exposing George Zucco as Professor Moriarty, the mastermind who was sabotaging Britain’s submarines during World War II. I enjoyed it, as I always do. Especially old Nigel Bruce, spluttering away whenever Rathbone delivers a cutting wisecrack at his expense. But my mind kept wandering away from it. Damn Laurie, damn her father, for spoiling Holmes and Watson for me!

  And then, as the movie came to an end, I realized that my frustration over Laurie wasn’t the only reason for my distracted state. Something else was upsetting me, something that was kicking around in my subconscious mind.

  Suddenly I sat up straight on the couch. That something wasn’t subconscious anymore. I knew what it was. My God, I had to tell Dave and Ann about it!

  And then, slowly thinking it over, I wondered if I could tell them about it.

  I woke up early Saturday morning, red-eyed from lack of sleep. I’d go nuts if I didn’t talk to somebody about this. I needed a wiser head to do my thinking for me.

  So I made a phone call to Dave’s mother, and she took pity on me and asked me for lunch.

  9

  Dave’s Narrative

  Roger got to the office fifteen minutes late on Saturday morning. Most offices in the city government are closed on Saturdays, but not us, not when we’re in the middle of a murder case.

  Roger looked pulverized. He’d been out with Laurie Franz last night, and I supposed he’d had an exciting time. At his age, dates are roller-coaster rides: one emotional high after another, and lots of enjoyable wear and tear on the nerves and the stomach. At my age dates are more like the merry-go-round. Round and round you go, you get the illusion of activity, but actually you never move very fast and you never leave the ground.

  Take the woman I’ve been seeing for the last couple of months, the legal paraprofessional I was with Friday night. Actually Mom isn’t crazy about her, she thinks I can do better, but she’s always nudging me about her anyway. “So what are you waiting for anyway? Why don’t you make up your mind already?” Dear God, could I be such a romantic adolescent that I’m actually waiting for a roller coaster to come along?

  “Okay, let’s get down to business,” I said to Roger, and he proceeded to give me a play-by-play account of his date with Laurie Franz, including her father’s dramatic entrance from the bedroom. I assumed, of course, that Roger left out certain personal details that weren’t relevant to the murder.

  “So there’s another one without an alibi,” I said. “She says she was in the john, throwing up with an attack of stage fright. But nobody saw her there, she admits that herself.”

  “You can’t seriously think Laurie did the killing,” Roger said. “Even if she put on a dozen raincoats and black masks, nobody could ever mistake her for Harold Hapgood! She’s three inches taller than he is.”

  “We’re proceeding on the theory, in this office, that the murderer was taller than Hapgood. He walked around the stage with a stoop, to make himself look shorter.”

  “That theory is for public consumption, isn’t it? We don’t really believe it. Your mother knocked it down right from the start.”

  I could feel my stomach tightening a little at that, but I was careful not to let anything show on my face.

  “Besides,” he went on, “even if the audience didn’t see through her disguise right away, I sure as hell would have.”

  “Just exactly how?”

  “The moment she grabbed me from behind. If that girl ever held on to me like that—damn it all, I would’ve known!”

  He must have noticed I was staring at him, so immediately he made his voice businesslike. “Besides, she has no motive for killing Osborn. In fact, just the opposite. Like I just told you, she was crazy about him, they were planning to go to New York together. You don’t kill a man when you’re in love with him and the two of you are running off together. And there’s also—”

  He stopped talking. Something about the look on his face made me give him a hard stare. “There’s also what?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Is something on your mind, kid? Something you haven’t told me yet?”

  “No, of course not.” He met my stare without flinching. A pretty good job, only it didn’t calm my doubts one bit. But he wasn’t going to say anything else right now, so I gave a shrug and dropped it.

  Our next step ordinarily would have been to report our progress to Ann, but she wasn’t in the office, she was taking a deposition in another case and would be tied up all morning. She had left word with Mabel Gibson that she’d see us at four that afternoon for a full report on the Michaels case.

  So I told Roger to read through all of my notes and all of his own and spend the morning typing up a detailed report for Ann. Then I went off to talk to Lloyd Cunningham.

  * * *

  Cunningham’s store, the Audio-Visual Palace, was located in another one of the new malls. Ten miles away from the mall where Harold Hapgood had his insurance office, but identical to it in every respect. I got there just after it had opened for the day, but already three or four customers were browsing around. CDs and VCRs and TVs are big business in Mesa Grande. In culture and politics we may be a wasteland, but when it comes to the latest gadgets, we’re right up there with Los Angeles and New York.

  I hadn’t called to warn my target that I was coming. I was pretty sure he’d be there, though. Cunningham owned the business, he wasn’t likely to neglect his interests by taking a day off.

  I saw him spot me in the doorway. He didn’t look a bit surprised or frightened. He gave me a quick cheerful wave, signaled to another salesman to take over with the customer he’d been shepherding around, then came bustling up to me.

  With his broad shoulders, his football center’s build, could he possibly have scrunched himself up to look like the Third Murderer? Wouldn’t he have burst through tha
t raincoat of Sally’s and given the game away?

  “So here you are,” he said, shaking my hand, grinning that slightly crooked sarcastic grin at me. “Actually I was expecting you yesterday. I hope you didn’t put me off till last because I’m such an unimportant witness.”

  “Maybe we’ve been saving the best till last,” I said. “You got any place around here where we can talk?”

  “We’ll go to the office in back.” He led me across the salesroom, pausing on the way to flash big smiles at customers or shake their hands or ask after the last piece of equipment they had bought from him. “How’s that Harman-Kardon woofer holding up, Mac? God, that’s a sweet little job! I wish I could afford one. Are you happy with the new stereo TV, Sid? Curling up at night with that wraparound sound, are you? Not quite as good as a good woman, I’ll give you that, but the chances are it’ll last you longer. And the woman doesn’t come with a two-year warranty, right?”

  His laugh was loud and hearty while he ushered me into the little glass-enclosed office in back, but he cut it off sharp as soon as he shut the door.

  “The name of this sitcom is ‘Cunningham, Super-Salesman,’” he said, waving me to a chair and sprawling behind the desk. “It’s my longest-running role. To tell you the truth, I wish the author could come up with some better jokes. All right, all right, let’s get down to business. Was I in the theatre Thursday night to see the opening? I damn well was. Since a couple of hundred people saw me there, including yourself, Dave, there’s not much point denying it. And I already told it to the cops, incidentally.”

  “Were you still in the audience when the murder took place?”

  “That’s the second question the cops asked me. The answer is no. I hung around long enough for Banquo’s first big scene, then I walked out.”

  “Why did you do that? If you were curious enough to come to the play at all—”