The Role Players

by Dorien Grey

  “Just how much longer is it going to run?” Jonathan asked.

  Max shrugged. “It’s scheduled for four weeks,” he said.

  “Any chance they might extend the run?” I asked, wondering if anyone other than Tait and Gene knew about the possible move to Broadway.

  “I hope not,” Max said. “I signed on for the four-week run, with a possible two-week extension. After that, my stage-managing days are over, thank you.”

  I had a new appreciation for Tait’s eagerness to find out if anyone from the Whitman was involved in Rod’s death. No one would want to invest in bringing a show to Broadway that had the albatross of a murderer hanging around its neck.

  Just before 1 a.m. we called it a night and went to bed.

  *

  Jonathan, his arm across my chest, was breathing rhythmically against my shoulder, indicating he was fast asleep. Was I? Guess.

  I lay there with a 4th of July fireworks of thoughts going off in my head. I’d never had a maybe/maybe not case like this, and I never wanted another one like it. But, as the smoke cleared, I realized I was reasonably well convinced that there was a case. Something was surely as hell going on with the Whitman, and statistically, most murders are committed by people known to the victim.

  Everything hinged on the gun. Was it or wasn’t it the one that killed Rod? Obviously, the thing to do is to look at it and see if I could tell anything from it.

  Good luck, Charlie.

  And then slowly my mind drifted to a mental image of Gene and Tait and Joe and Cam and a bunch of people I didn’t know all dressed in long nightshirts and stocking caps, lined up across the stage doing “One” from A Chorus Line, and that was it for the night.

  *

  “Do you have a magnifying glass?” I asked as we all sat around with our morning coffee.

  Looking a bit puzzled, Chris said, “Uh, yeah, I think so. You want it now?”

  I grinned. “Not at the moment. But I’d like to take it with us when we go.”

  “You won’t have to,” Max said. “Joe has one in the booth he uses for checking wires.”

  We had decided we’d make it a laid-back, pot-luck kind of day with no set itinerary, but I had requested that we stop by the Whitman for a few minutes first so I could take a look at the gun—which I probably should have done right after Jonathan told me about it.

  We took our time finishing our coffee and getting ready to go out. Jonathan wore his new shirt, of course. He looked rather like a French sailor—a very sexy French sailor.

  For brunch, Max suggested a new place he’d heard of that had both a regular brunch and a Sunday all-day buffet, which struck Jonathan as a great idea. Max called ahead for reservations.

  But the theater first.

  *

  I wasn’t sure if it was exactly kosher for me to examine the gun without letting Tait know, but since Max had a key to the theater, it wasn’t quite the same as breaking and entering. And I hoped no one else would be there or come in while we were there. I suggested we take the gun and bullets up to Max’s booth just in case, and when we got to the theater, Max went in first to make sure we would be alone, while Jonathan, Chris, and I went to the side door. Max locked the main doors behind him and a moment later opened the side door for us, which we also closed behind us.

  I asked Max to go to the box office for the gun and bullets. I figured regular passers-by or anyone associated with the Whitman who might come along would recognize him as belonging there. Chris handed him the clean dust rags he’d taken from their kitchen before we left, so that Max would not have to directly touch the gun or the box. He went quickly into the lobby and returned a minute or so later.

  “Yep,” Max observed, “Colt .38. Same gun as mine,”

  Chris opened the door to the booth and flipped on the light switch just inside the door. We all climbed the steps to the small room, where Max laid the wrapped gun and shell box on his stage manager’s desk.

  “It’s pretty crowded in here,” Jonathan said—and he was right. “Maybe I should go wait in the auditorium.”

  “I’ll come with you,” Chris volunteered, then said: “Tell you what…how’d you like me to give you a quick tour of backstage? I don’t think you’ve ever been back there.”

  “No, I haven’t! That would be great—I’d love to see it.”

  “This won’t take long,” I said as they turned and went back down the stairs. Jonathan gave a one-handed wave over his shoulder without turning around. They closed the door behind them.

  “O-kay,” I said as I unwrapped the gun. “I don’t think this is going to work, but can I have that magnifying glass?”

  Max went over to Joe’s desk, returning with a Sherlock Holmessized glass. He handed it to me, then switched on the small table lamp on one corner of his desk.

  Using the cloth to move the gun around, I took the glass and moved it in and out to get as sharp a focus as I could.

  Nothing; just a reflection of the polished metal. I opened the chamber carefully. All six rounds were there, unfired. With the chamber still open I cautiously looked down the barrel, then sniffed it. What I was hoping to find I wasn’t quite sure, but I could neither see nor smell anything that might indicate it had been fired recently. (Of course, it had been more than a week, now, since Rod was killed.) Closing the chamber, I looked at the outside of the barrel, and wasn’t sure whether I could actually see something or just thought I could because I knew Jonathan had picked it up by the barrel. I turned the gun over, looking carefully again. Nothing.

  Which meant either that 1) fingerprints don’t show on polished metal surfaces, or 2) the gun had been wiped clean—including Jonathan’s prints? Unlikely—or, most probable of all, 3) I just couldn’t see them.

  “Well,” I sighed, setting the magnifying glass aside, “that was pretty much a waste of time.” I then turned to the box of bullets. Clear plastic lid, again no discernable prints. Manufacturer’s name and “50 .38 Caliber bullets” printed on the sides. There were eight neat rows of five bullets across, and three bullets lying on their sides at one end of the box, where the last two rows had been used to load the gun.

  So much for…three bullets?

  I looked again. Three loose bullets where the last two rows should have been. Five bullets to a row. Ten bullets. The chamber held six rounds. Six from ten equals four.

  Where was the missing bullet?

  I was pretty sure I knew.

  CHAPTER 8

  Circumstantial, Hardesty, purely circumstantial, my mind said as I followed Max down the steps.

  And, as I am so fond of quoting, “Circumstantial evidence is finding a trout in the milk.”

  I waited in the foyer until Max came back from returning the gun and bullets to the box office, then we headed down the side aisle for the door beside the stage which, I assumed, led backstage. We’d gotten about halfway there when the door opened and Jonathan and Chris came into the auditorium.

  “Good timing,” Max said.

  “Yeah, well, thank Jonathan’s stomach for that,” Chris said with a grin. “I thought we had a cage full of lions back there.”

  “So I’m hungry,” Jonathan said. He put his hand on his stomach, looked down at it, then looked up at me. “Hey!” he said brightly, “Maybe I’m eating for two!”

  “With that appetite, I’d say you were eating for six,” I said.

  “Good!” he said. “Then we’ll be sure to make the papers!”

  *

  We left the theater by the side door, making sure it was locked behind us, and took our time walking to the restaurant, which was farther than I’d expected. But it was a beautiful day—we’d really been lucky with the weather—and no one seemed to mind. Though I had told Chris and Jonathan about the missing bullet, everyone seemed to respect the fact that I couldn’t tell them everything I might know or surmise. As for me, I felt…what? Relieved? Vindicated to know I finally might have some solid evidence to work with? Now I had only one small detai
l to resolve: who did it?

  One thing that had bothered me since Jonathan found the gun was the fact that if it was the murder weapon and the killer was aware (or thought) that the gun might be tested, all he really would have had to do would be to get rid of it. Sure, that would pretty much telegraph to those few people who knew the gun existed that it was the gun, but if it was gone, there’d be no way to prove it. But I had an idea.

  “Max,” I said, “can I ask you a real favor?”

  “Sure,” he replied without hesitation. Chris and Jonathan looked at me, curious.

  “Would you be willing to substitute your gun for the gun in the box office?” I asked.

  Max looked puzzled. “I guess, sure. Why?”

  “Because,” I said, “if the box office gun is indeed the murder weapon, the killer knows that it is the only solid link between Rod’s death and the Whitman—and, ultimately, him. And with all the prying around I’ve been doing, he might be having second thoughts about having returned the gun and decide to get rid of it, especially if he may still assume no one else is aware of the gun or where it is.”

  “Okay,” Max said. “We can make the switch either when we get home today or first thing in the morning, if that’s soon enough.”

  Well, actually, I’d have preferred to do it right then, but didn’t want to take up any more of our together time than I already had.

  “Sure,” I said.

  We got to the restaurant in time for our 11:30 reservation, but still had to wait about twenty minutes until our table was ready—which, again, no one minded.

  It was worth the wait. Chris and Jonathan opted for the brunch buffet, while Max and I ordered Eggs Benedict from the regular brunch menu. Jonathan insisted I take a couple of sausage links, two or three strips of bacon and one of his three breakfast rolls, which hardly left a dent in the mound of food on his plate.

  All in all, a really great brunch, both for the food and the company. And the fact that I might have an actual murderer to find rather than a bunch of might-be suspects to eliminate made it all the better, I’m sure.

  *

  After brunch we made our way up to the Guggenheim, which for some reason reminded Jonathan of a snail, and spent quite some time there, then crossed 5th Avenue to Central Park and strolled around enjoying the weather, the ample supply of two-legged fauna (male variety, on foot, bicycle, and skates) and each other’s company. When we came across the Conservatory Gardens, Jonathan insisted we go in.

  If I didn’t know we were in the center of the largest city in the nation, surrounded by the hustle and bustle of millions of people, we could have been in another world—one of calm and quiet. I think I enjoyed it almost as much as Jonathan did, though he was mildly frustrated because he had forgotten his camera and none of us had a pen and paper so he could write down the names of trees and plants he wasn’t familiar with to be able to look them up in his books when we got home.

  I was really quite proud of myself in that I somehow managed, despite finally having resolved the “is there a case or isn’t there” issue, to put it out of my mind all but completely for the entire day. Well, most of it.

  “Where to now?” Jonathan asked as we left the park.

  Chris looked at Max. “How about Billy D’s?” he asked.

  “Great idea,” Max said.

  “What’s Billy D’s?” Jonathan asked.

  “It’s normally a piano bar on the northern edge of the Village,” Max said, “but on Sunday afternoons and early evening they have a fantastic banjo quartet. Lots of college kids, a few straights, but mostly gay. It’s really a fun place.”

  Jonathan looked at him closely. “Banjos? You mean like in Deliverance?”

  Chris grinned. “Yep. Only there’s four of ’em.”

  “Wow!” Jonathan said. “Sounds great!”

  And it was.

  *

  We got to the bar just before four o’clock. Apparently the quartet was on a break, but the place was packed. Max had been right about it being largely a college crowd, but a nice mix of people.

  Is it just me, my crotch asked innocently as I looked around the room, or are college guys getting cuter over the years?

  I glanced at Jonathan, who was looking at me with a Mona Lisa smile.

  “Down, boy,” he said.

  We made our way to the bar to order our drinks, and as we looked around for a fairly uncrowded place to stand, I noticed a small stage beside the piano, on which were four tall backless bar stools. Too bad they were for the quartet, I thought.

  “Max! Chris! Over here!” a voice called as we wove our way through the pack. We looked around to see a hand raised above the heads of those in front of us, gesturing us over. As the people between us stepped aside, I could see it was Brent Freeman from the Whitman—and standing beside him was Cam Roberts.

  Serendipity! one of my mind-voices said.

  And right back to the case, another sighed.

  Everyone exchanged greetings and, by forming an informal circle, we were able to talk for a few minutes before the quartet came back for their next set. Cam asked Jonathan and me how our vacation was going, and Jonathan gave them a blessedly Reader’s Digest version of our past few days, then the talk naturally got around to Impartial Observer and its apparent success.

  At that point the quartet got up on the small stage beside the piano, the crowd quieted, and they began to play…the song from Deliverance. First one banjo, then two, and by the time they got to all four, the audience was totally theirs. They were fantastic. I’d almost forgotten what an exhilarating instrument the banjo can be.

  They launched into a medley of college football fight songs, encouraging everyone to sing along. When he heard the first notes of On, Wisconsin, Jonathan let out a war-whoop that caught me so by surprise it nearly made me jump.

  Max leaned over to me and said, “You know, Dick, we’ve got to find some way to bring that boy out of his shell.”

  *

  When the set ended, we all—Cam and Brent included—decided to stay for another. And I decided to take the bull by the horns with Cam.

  “If you guys don’t have any plans after this,” I said, “why don’t we all go out for dinner?”

  Jonathan and Chris exchanged a quick glance; Cam and Brent a slightly longer one.

  “Uh, sure,” Brent said. “The play’s kept us so busy we haven’t had any real time to just relax and socialize.”

  I gathered from the “us” and “we” that Jonathan had been right when he’d asked Chris if Brent and Cam were a couple. I was mildly concerned about getting home in time to do the gun switch, but decided that a few more hours couldn’t hurt.

  The quartet’s next set was as lively as the first, and everyone was in a pretty upbeat mood as we left the bar. Cam suggested a small, quiet place not far from Billy D’s, run by two lesbians, one of whom had graduated from a famous cooking school in Paris.

  It was a good choice. The restaurant was small and comfortable and there were only about eight other customers in the place when we arrived. The waitress, who looked like she was just out of high school, was cute, friendly, and very efficient. She brought our drinks almost immediately, gave us all menus, and excused herself, asking us to signal her when we were ready to order or if we needed anything.

  We sat around the table relaxing and exchanging general background information. Brent was a native New Yorker and Cam was from New Hampshire. Both had been drama majors in college, and Brent had been doing off- and off-off Broadway productions since graduation. Cam had done summer stock, dinner theater, and been in a touring company of Carousel. Impartial Observer was his first try at New York theater.

  Jonathan was fascinated. “How did you ever even find out about the Whitman and Impartial Observer?” he asked.

  “Keith told me about the audition, and the play’s story.”

  “Keith?” I asked. “Tait’s Keith?”

  He smiled. “Well, I don’t know anything about that, but, yeah
, Keith and I went to college together. I was in Theater and he was in Business. We lived in the same dorm. We ran into each other a couple of months ago, right after I moved to New York, and in the course of catching up on what we’d been doing, Keith mentioned that Gene Morrison was doing a new play at the Whitman, and suggested I try out. Sure glad he did.”

  “I didn’t know you knew Keith before,” Chris said. “I don’t think I’ve even seen you talking together.”

  “Well,” Cam said, “this may sound a little strange, but I’d appreciate it if you didn’t mention to Mr. Duncan that we knew each other before I auditioned at the Whitman.”

  “Really?” I said. “Any particular reason, if I may ask?”

  Cam sighed, looking mildly uncomfortable. “It’s no big deal, but Keith thought that if Mr. Duncan knew Keith had suggested that I audition, he might think Keith was trying to influence the casting. It’s not as if Keith and I were ever really close friends, but I can understand his reasoning. Keith works for him. He thought we should just play it cool, so that’s what we’ve done.”

  “Interesting,” I said. “You know, I’ve heard quite a bit about Rod Pearce from Max and Chris and some of the others at the Whitman—I’m curious what you two thought of him?”

  Brent and Cam looked at one another quickly.

  “I’m really sorry he’s dead,” Brent said. “But actually, I hardly knew him. I didn’t have much contact with him except for rehearsals.”

  “You never spent any time with him outside the theater?” I asked, knowing that I was pushing again. “To study your lines, I mean.”

  Brent cleared his throat. “Well, yeah,” he said. “Rod suggested it and we tried it a few times the first week, but then he decided it worked better with the whole cast around.”

  Well, now, there was enough space between those lines to read War and Peace.

  “How about you, Cam?” I asked. “How did you get along with him?”