Mom Doth Murder Sleep

by James Yaffe

  “No, no.” Mom’s head was shaking hard. “The answer to why the bodies had to be taken down to the basement is no mystery at all. The murderer expected that Roger told somebody he was going to the theatre, and this somebody could show up any minute. If this somebody sees bodies on the stage, the alarm is given right away, and the murderer didn’t want this should happen. He—or she—needs time to get out of the neighborhood and go back to wherever he—or she—is living.”

  “Then what is the big question?”

  “The smoke bomb, what else? If the murderer’s idea is that the discovery of the bodies should be delayed as long as possible, why set off a smoke bomb in the basement? The smoke is going to attract attention, no? People will think the building is on fire, they’ll rush inside and go to the basement where the smoke is coming from, and naturally they’ll find the bodies there. What kind of meshugene murderer goes to all that trouble hiding two bodies so they won’t be found fast, and then goes to more trouble setting off a smoke bomb so they will be found fast?”

  “All right, Mom, what’s the answer to the question?”

  “What I think is the answer I couldn’t prove yet.”

  She turned suddenly to Roger. “You look like you could fall asleep sitting in that chair! Bedtime already! Go upstairs right away!”

  Roger made some feeble protests, but of course he was no match for Mom. She gestured at me to give her the benefit of my strong right arm, and together we more or less walked Roger up the stairs and into the spare bedroom.

  From the dresser Mom took an old pair of pajamas, which I recognized as an old pair of mine before I got married and moved into an apartment of my own. Then we left the kid alone in the bedroom. I’m sure he was flat on his back on the bed, snoring away if he snores, before we got down the stairs and back to the living room. “I guess it’s time for me to be turning in too,” I said.

  “Sit,” Mom said. “I didn’t finish with the murder yet. I’m coming to the part I don’t want the boy should hear about.”

  I sat down slowly. It was a solemn moment, and I felt it in the depths of my soul. Mom was letting me know that when the chips were down, I was the one she really trusted.

  “Like I mentioned to you,” she went on talking, “I’ve got an idea what’s behind these murders. I’ve also got an idea how you can prove it. Tomorrow is Sunday, when a lot of people don’t work. So you and Ann Swenson should get in touch with the people from Macbeth—the ones that don’t give alibis to each other, and the ones that were on the stage during the murder—and you should tell them to come to the theatre tomorrow in the afternoon. And make sure the assistant district attorney lets Sally Michaels come. In fact, the assistant district attorney and some of his policemen should be there also.”

  “What are we supposed to do with these people once we get them into the theatre?”

  “What else is a theatre for? They’ll act.”

  Then Mom leaned forward and made a speech that I couldn’t understand at first. “Sometimes,” she said, “murders just flare up, like out of nowhere, like when somebody goes crazy and starts shooting at people in the street. But most of the time murders happen the same way a lot of plays are put together. You’ve got a big happy family, where everybody is close to everybody, and life goes along in the same way for years. Maybe there’s hatred and envy and greed underneath, but it don’t lead to murder—until one day the door suddenly opens, something or somebody new comes in from outside, and everything blows up. Like in Macbeth. It’s the witches that come in from outside. They don’t make Macbeth and his wife ambitious. They wake up in them the ambition that’s there already.”

  “What are you saying, Mom? That the Mesa Grande Players are like a big happy family? But what’s the something new that came in to stir them up? Doing Shakespeare for the first time? Osborn taking over as director?”

  “Neither of those,” Mom said. “Listen to me careful, all right? And what I’m about to tell you, you’ll promise me you wouldn’t repeat any of it to Roger. He’s a lovely boy, and very bright, but he’s twenty-two years old, which by me is a baby. And babies aren’t so good about keeping their mouths shut.”

  I gave her my promise gladly. Then she went through the whole thing with me, down to the last detail, and there was no way I could pretend that it didn’t sound right.

  14

  Roger’s Narrative

  God, did I sleep late that Sunday morning! It was way after ten o’clock before I woke up, and blinked around and wondered whose bed I was in. Then I picked up the gorgeous smell of pancakes and coffee, and I remembered.

  I was up and dressed in ten minutes, and wolfing down the breakfast Dave’s mother shoveled into me. I felt like a twelve-year-old kid again. I wasn’t a bit ashamed of myself for the feeling.

  I was finishing up my second cup of coffee when Dave arrived. “I’m driving you downtown to pick up your car,” he said, “and then we’re both going to the office. We’ve got a lot of phoning to do.”

  “Who’re we phoning?”

  Dave didn’t answer this. He hustled me out of the house and into the car; I barely had a chance to thank his mother for her hospitality. Outside the Ramon Novarro Theatre I transferred into my own car, and then we were in the public defender’s office, making ourselves at home at Ann’s desk.

  “Who’re we phoning?” I asked.

  “Our guests for the party we’re throwing at two this afternoon,” Dave said. “In the theatre, with the assistant DA in attendance and all the suspects and a few others. Here’s the list, get on the phone and invite these people.”

  “Do I tell them what it’s all about?” Which was my sneaky way of asking Dave to tell me what it was all about.

  “All you tell them is, it’s important, we’d appreciate their cooperation. If they give you a hard time, put me on the line.”

  His caginess really pissed me off. Why wouldn’t he let me in on his plans? Was I a member of the team, or wasn’t I?

  “You’ve got Sally’s name on this list,” I said. “Leland Grantley will never go along with it. He’s planning to have her bail revoked this morning.”

  “Ann spoke to Grantley an hour ago. It’s all fixed up with him. Are you going to make those calls, or aren’t you?”

  I sat down at Ann’s desk and started dialing. Not in the spirit of graciousness, though.

  The two Murderers were easy. They both said they’d be at the theatre at two, and I could hear the excitement in their voices. If you’re young and your health is good and you’re not a serious suspect, there might be some pleasure in being involved with a murder.

  Randolph Le Sage, apparently awakened from his Sunday morning beauty sleep, also raised no objections. Time must have been hanging on his hands in Mesa Grande. No Sardi’s or Players Club for him to lounge around in, swapping stories with cronies at the bar.

  I reached Laurie at her off-campus house. I was nervous about taking an official tone with her; I didn’t want her getting sore at me. The result was I stammered and blushed as I put my request to her. But she didn’t seem to mind. She told me how glad she was to hear from me, and she started to say how much she looked forward to seeing me at the theatre this afternoon, but then the phone was pulled away from her.

  Her father’s voice barked into it. “What the hell is this all about?” The authentic bark, I guess, that struck terror into the hearts of his slaves on the set.

  Dave took the receiver from me and explained to Franz, in his most deferential voice, that the public defender had requested this gathering in order to clear up the two murders.

  “Laurie had nothing to do with either of them!” I could hear every word Franz was saying, even though the phone was three feet away from me.

  “Of course not,” Dave said. “But she was backstage at opening night, and she may have seen something that’s slipped her mind or is kicking around in her subconscious.”

  “I very much doubt it.”

  “It’s a longshot, Mr. Fran
z, we know that. But I’m sure you’re the sort of person who wants to see justice done, especially if it means that innocent people don’t have to suffer for crimes they didn’t commit. I’ve been to your movies. I know they had to be made by somebody with liberal humane ideals.”

  There was no way Franz could hold out against that particular line. What they all yearn for out in Hollywood is for people to tell them how liberal and humane they are. That’s why Academy Awards go to dull movies about race relations instead of to entertaining movies about sex relations.

  “All right, I’ll let Laurie come to your meeting,” Franz said. “But on one condition only: I’m coming with her. And if anybody says one word to her that’s out of line, I’m taking her the hell out of there.”

  Dave thanked him and promised that none of our words would be out of line. He replaced the receiver, then handed the phone back to me.

  Next on my list was Lloyd Cunningham. He made trouble at first. Since he had left the theatre before the murder, he didn’t see why he had to show up for any gathering of suspects. At Dave’s prompting, I told him this was exactly why his presence would be so vital to us. We needed somebody who knew the staging for Banquo, who could tell us what Osborn would have been doing and where he would have been standing at each moment. Cunningham sniffed a little, but he was softened up. He said he’d be glad to do us a favor.

  My next call was to Sally Michaels at her house. Bernie’s name was right under hers on my list, but he answered Sally’s phone. It was eleven-thirty in the morning; I didn’t ask him if he’d been there all night. He said Sally was still asleep, he was in the process of making breakfast for her. If her attorney told her to come to this meeting, she would certainly come. And he’d be glad to come too.

  So I hung up the phone, feeling as if I’d done a good morning’s work. And wondering what the hell I was working at.

  15

  Dave’s Narrative

  There’s something about a theatre. It can be empty and badly lit, as the Ramon Novarro Theatre was when Roger and I got there at a quarter to two that Sunday afternoon. There can be no audience, and the curtain can be up, and the scenery on the stage can look like what it is, flimsy canvas-and-wood flats with paint smeared on them, dilapidated sticks of furniture from Goodwill. Even so, a theatre makes your heart beat a little faster in spite of yourself. It makes you take a deep breath and wait for those beautiful people, who are bigger and smarter and more alive than you are, to start hugging and kissing, or making witty remarks, or scratching each other’s eyes out, or crying into each other’s shoulders.

  And if a theatre has this effect on me—who, as I’ve mentioned, am definitely no theatre nut—what could it do to a bunch of actors, to people who already halfway see their lives as a series of big scenes playing themselves out behind lights? It could make such people dizzy with excitement, it could cut whatever ties they might still have to reality. Flying up into a dreamworld, posing and making faces in the clouds, they could say things they wouldn’t say if they had their feet on the ground.

  So I understood why Mom wanted me to put them through this little charade, and in the same theatre, on the same stage, where murder had been done twice. The only thing that worried me was that the person we were aiming all this at might get too carried away and try to do murder for the third time. All I could hope was that the presence of Assistant District Attorney Leland Grantley, sitting in the best seat, third row center, and of three or four uniformed cops stationed at strategic points around the hall, would take care of that little problem.

  By two-fifteen some of them still weren’t there. Then Allan Franz and his daughter Laurie arrived—fifteen minutes late, which seemed only proper; you can’t expect great directors to arrive at their sets earlier than the actors. But Sally Michaels and Bernie still hadn’t shown. That definitely made me nervous, and I knew it was having the same effect on Ann Swenson. She sat in a front-row seat next to me, stiff as a ramrod, glaring into space. Suppose our client had lost her head and decided to jump bail, confirming her guilt just as we were about to prove her innocence! Sally was spacey enough that I could imagine her doing such an idiotic thing.

  But at two-twenty she came sailing in, with Bernie trailing after her at the distance that bridesmaids trail after brides whose trains they’re holding. An invisible train stretched from Sally to Bernie as she greeted everybody with smiles, handshakes, hugs and kisses where appropriate, and apologies to Ann and me.

  “I didn’t oversleep, I really didn’t,” she said. “Bernie can tell you, if you don’t believe me. Tell them, Bernie. I was wide awake hours ago, wasn’t I? Because I fully intended to get here not only on time but ahead of time, to show you how seriously I take this meeting. I haven’t got the slightest idea what it’s all about, of course, but if dear Ann and Dave—and you too, my darling little Roger—think it’s important for me to be here … I’ve got complete faith in the three of you, and I fully intended to show you that by being a good girl and getting here on time. But you see, that’s exactly why I’m late. I was so sure this was going to be an important occasion that I became horribly nervous and self-conscious and, in fact, positively panicky about what I was going to wear. I had to look exactly right for such an occasion, but no matter what I tried on, somehow it didn’t seem exactly right, and finally I just threw on whatever old thing was closest to my hand, as you can see.”

  The old thing that had been closest to her hand was a frilly little gown in pinks and blues, with sweater and beads and hair ornaments to match.

  Sally took a seat next to Lloyd Cunningham, patting his hand and saying in a loud whisper, “Lloyd, darling, I didn’t see you! How nice that you’re back with us again! It’s the way it should be, isn’t it? Everything the way it was before—” She stumbled on the “before,” gave a little cough, blushed rather prettily, and went on with a giggle, “Well, you know what I mean, don’t you?”

  Bernie, looking just as flustered as Sally, though he hadn’t spoken a word, sat down next to her. Silence fell heavily.

  I got up, climbed onto the stage, and faced them. I felt a little funny about this at first. I’ve never gone in much for acting, even when I was a kid in school. Standing up there like that, looking across the end of the stage at all those people, I felt for a second like in one of those dreams where you’re in a play and you get out in front of the audience and suddenly realize that you don’t know your lines.

  But I pushed aside my stage fright by reminding myself that I did know my lines, I’d been coached in them by Mom, how could I do better than that? What’s more, this had to be done. As Mom had said to me—her final words before I went home last night—“Most murders you solve because the murderer is lying and everybody else is telling the truth. In this murder they’re all lying. Why not? They’re actors. So you have to clear away the little lies that don’t matter before you can crack open the big lie that does.”

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” I started in, “the public defender and the district attorney’s office asked you to come here this afternoon for a very simple reason. As you know, there’s been another murder. Harold Hapgood, who was a member of your cast, was killed last night, right here on this stage. That’s the second time somebody was killed on this stage. We’re here today to find out who’s responsible. And we’re going to do that by going through, as accurately and thoroughly as we can, all the events leading up to and including Martin Osborn’s death last Thursday night.”

  “Wait a second,” Allan Franz broke in, “you mean this is going to be some kind of reconstruction? Everybody doing what they did on the night of the murder? And the killer is supposed to lose his head and make a full confession? My God, that brand of corn went out with the old Thin Man movies!”

  “Bear with us for a while, Mr. Franz,” Ann Swenson said, in the easygoing, unruffled voice that had succeeded in calming some pretty wild beasts in the past. “If it turns out we’re making fools of ourselves, you can say you told us so.”
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br />   Franz heaved a deep sigh. “Okay, okay,” he said, and subsided into his seat. His daughter took him by the arm and whispered something to him. Her face was very pale, and I could see that Roger had noticed this too: he was staring at her from his seat across the aisle.

  “First of all,” I said, “in the course of this reconstruction, I’m going to have to use the forbidden word, and more than once too. It’s the name of the play, so there’s no way I can avoid it. If you believe in that old superstition, I apologize to you. Chances are, when I say the word—Macbeth—the bad luck will come down on my head, not yours. Though I’d better warn you, a lot of bad luck is going to come down on one of you before I’m through this afternoon.”

  I paused to let this sink in, then I went on, “Twenty minutes before the scene where Banquo gets killed, Harold Hapgood finished his scene as the Old Man who reports that Scotland is suffering from a lot of agitated birdlife. Then he went down to his dressing room to change into his Third Murderer costume. He put on the black mask and the poncho, and stepped out to the corridor. He never made it to the stairs. Somebody came up behind him and hit him on the head, and dragged him into the broom closet. Then this somebody took the mask off his face and went upstairs to take Hapgood’s place as Third Murderer. All this had to be done fifteen minutes or less before the murder.

  “So, those of you who were on or near the stage, suppose you go to where you were located during that time.”

  * * *

  People stood up and started talking all at once, but gradually sorted themselves out and made their way to different parts of the theatre. Allan Franz moved away from Laurie and took the aisle seat in the fifth row, where he’d been sitting on opening night. Roger went to the wings backstage right, and Murderers Number One and Two took their places in the center of the stage. “After the Old Man exits,” said Jeff Greenwald, the high school student, “Macbeth has this scene with his wife—Mr. Osborn moved it up from later in the play—and then we’ve got this scene with Macbeth. This is when he hires us to kill Banquo.”