Fourth Wall

by Jason Blacker

  Marmol nodded.

  “Yeah, that’s how she likes to do it. Though she was drinking a lot of it this time. More than usual.”

  “What’s usual?”

  “Well, I can’t say for sure. You see her sip it in between scenes. Maybe she’ll drink a bottle and a bit, but this time I noticed she was onto her third.”

  “How many were in the basket?”

  “Six,” said Beeves, he’d been taking notes all this time. Roberts was standing around with his hands in his pockets, not particularly paying much attention.

  “If you’d have to guess. Seeing as how it wasn’t you who killed her, who do you think could have been capable of it?”

  Marmol raised his eyebrows at me. He shrugged again. It made my traps tired.

  “God, I don’t know. I mean isn’t it supposed to be her husband if he sent the basket. Though I can’t imagine why he’d do it. He’d lose so much.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s obvious, isn’t it? He’s the biggest director in Hollywood at the moment. Why would he give all of that up just because she was maybe having something on the side?”

  “You knew she was?”

  “Well yeah, it’s pretty obvious. She was having sex with Orpen. I’m sure of it. The way the two of them carried on together. They must have been. Though…”

  Marmol trailed off and looked down at the floor.

  “What?”

  He looked back up at me.

  “It sounded like they were breaking up yesterday. I overheard them in her makeup room arguing. She said that she thought her husband had put PIs on him. And he said they’d have to split. She wasn’t going to have any of that. She told him he couldn’t leave her that she’d tell the tabloids everything. That he abused her and she’d tell her husband too and make sure that he never worked in Hollywood again.”

  “Do you think that was a legitimate threat?”

  “Oh yes,” said Marmol, nodding his head vigorously, “if you’re blackballed by Emmett, you’ll never work in this city or New York again. I’ve seen it happen.”

  “You have?”

  “Yeah, I had the privilege of being Emmett’s assistant about ten years ago and a young up and coming actress got too full of her self and started showing up late and at times drunk. She kept bitching at him during scenes and on and on. After the filming was done, she was done. She’s never worked since.”

  I nodded. I looked over at Roberts. He nodded too. We were a bunch of bobbleheads in the back seat of a cruiser.

  “What about the abuse? You said she said he’d abused her. Any merit to it?”

  Marmol shook his head.

  “I don’t think so. At least not as long as I’ve known them. They’ve always seemed very close and flirty. He also doesn’t strike me as the type who’d need to. Rumor has it…”

  Marmol looked around but then fell silent.

  “Go on.”

  “I don’t wish to speak ill of anyone, especially not up and coming stars. I have a career to manage myself.”

  “I understand that, Sig. But this here is a murder investigation. We’ll take anything you can offer in the utmost confidence. However small you might think it to be, it might be the missing piece for us.”

  He looked up at me and nodded somberly.

  “Well,” he said, continuing in a more hushed tone. “Rumor has it that Orpen is after some record for the number of women he can bed. Apparently he’s over two thousand now…”

  “Impossible,” blurted Roberts.

  “Don’t be jealous,” I said, grinning at him.

  Marmol took offense. He frowned at Roberts.

  “I’m not joking. And I believe it too. You’d be surprised how many women line up after each show to have a moment with him. At least a dozen. And I know for a fact that he usually takes at least one of them home with him each night. Married or single. He doesn’t seem to be that picky.”

  “Surely the paparazzi would see it,” said Roberts.

  Marmol shook his head.

  “No. He has his bodyguard take them to his place and he catches a ride service and goes home alone that way.”

  “Really?” asked an incredulous Roberts.

  “I know,” said Marmol. “I found it surprising myself, but there you have it. No explaining women’s tastes I guess.”

  “And Mary was fine with all of this?”

  “I doubt it. But I also don’t think she was aware of the extent of it. He did a good job of doing all of this on the down low, that’s why there’s hardly any pics of him and his philandering other than the rumors you’ll see in the tabloids.”

  “Do you know how well Orpen and Ancher got on?”

  Marmol shook his head slowly. He put his hands in his pockets. He was wearing expensive jeans that looked like they’d been around since the gold panning days.

  “No. I’d be speculating.”

  “Then speculate,” I said.

  He tossed his head to the side.

  “Well, the way they were at the after-party on opening night, you might have thought they’d had something at one point. I don’t think it was current though.”

  Marmol looked down for a while. When he looked back up at me he looked like a shepherd tired of tending a flock.

  “I got the impression that Will was more interested in new tail than he was in sleeping with women he’d already slept with. I don’t think it counts.”

  “What doesn’t count?”

  “Sleeping with the same woman twice. I don’t think it counts as another lay. Like I said, he was on some sort of challenge to sleep with as many women as he could. And you didn’t hear it from me.”

  “Where did you hear it from?”

  “I overheard him speaking with a buddy of his a few weeks ago. His buddy asked: ‘How many you banged?’ and he replied, ‘Almost two thousand’. Then they must have heard me walking by because they changed the topic.”

  “And who was his buddy?”

  “Clifton. Clifton Gudaitis.”

  I shrugged. The name didn’t mean anything to me.

  “I don’t really know who he is,” said Marmol, “though his father’s the CEO of the chip manufacturer Gigacell.”

  I’d heard of that company. Their chips were in just about all mobile phones.

  “Thanks, Sig, you’ve been most helpful.”

  Roberts handed him a card.

  “If you think of anything else, don’t hesitate to call,” he said.

  Marmol took the card and left.

  “How about the stagehand who did CPR?” I said to Beeves.

  Beeves left and I turned towards Roberts.

  “I feel like I’m slogging through molasses in a Michigan deep freeze,” I said.

  “Come on, Sid, this is a slam dunk. The husband did it. He got sick and tired of his wife banging the actor.”

  I grinned at him. He was having me on.

  “Right, Jesus, why didn’t I think of that? Well then, let’s go arrest him and celebrate over some beers. You’re buying.”

  “We are gonna have to talk to him about it though,” said Roberts.

  “You said we’d be doing that tomorrow.”

  “We are, along with Smelter and Kordel.”

  TEN

  Helping Hands

  BEEVES brought in the stage hand. He looked like he’d just come off a farm in Wyoming. Cowboy boots, Wranglers, plaid shirt. All there. No hat though. I was grateful for that. He was an average looking guy from the midwest. His dirty brown hair was cut short and he had a scar above his right eye. He wore suspenders over his plaid shirt. Beeves pointed at me as they walked up on the stage.

  “How do?” he said to me, offering a hand.

  “Good. How you doing?”

  “Been better, I reckon. Awful business with this lady dying here.”

  “I’m Anthony Carrick,” I said.

  “Beau Cracknell, Tony,” he said, chewing on a piece of stick that might’ve been a toothpick though i
t didn’t have a sharp end.

  “Anthony,” I said.

  “I hear ya, Anthony,” he said.

  I put him as the oldest of the bunch we’d seen so far. Probably sneaking up on forty.

  “What do you do here, Beau?”

  “I’m the stage hand or carpenter. Pretty much anything they needs doing I do. I built this here set y’all standing in.”

  “It’s good work,” I said.

  He chewed on his stick and transferred it to the other side of his mouth. He had his thumbs stuck through his belt loops. He nodded slowly at me and squinted, even though he wasn’t directly under the stage lights. Looked to me like he was doing his best Eastwood impression. But he wasn’t tall enough nor charismatic enough to pull it off. I chewed on my bottom lip to stop from grinning at him.

  “What happened to your eye?” I asked, figuring he’d draw me a colorful yarn.

  “Got in a knife fight with a Mexican,” he said.

  He held my gaze steady for a while. I couldn’t help myself. I started grinning which turned into a big smile. I wasn’t buying it. He started to grin back and then he laughed. He unhitched his left thumb and slapped me playfully on my shoulder.

  “Now that there was a tall tale, mister,” he said. “I’m just kidding with ya. Got it from jumping into a shallow lake when I was just a young’un.”

  I nodded my head and smiled at him.

  “You been working on this play since the beginning?”

  “Yes sir,” he said. “I’ve worked a bunch of times with Sig. He’s a good bale of hay, that man.”

  “So you got to go to the after-party on opening night?”

  “No sir, they all don’t seem to take a liking to me. Mind you, I’d say it’s mutual. I don’t particularly care for them neither. These artsy types, don’t seem to have no sense of reality.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Hey, I’m just telling it like it is. I’m a truth sayer, Anthony. It’s in ma blood.”

  “Then tell me who killed Mary Beale.”

  “Her husband, right? These big wigs here in Hollywood reckon they’s above the law. Well, I reckon you can’t blame them, seeing as how the courts just love them greenbacks. They’ll get you off all the time.”

  I wasn’t sure what he was talking about. But I figured if you spoke to enough idiots for long enough you might even find enough pearls of wisdom to make a necklace.

  “Seems to me you’re in an odd profession considering you don’t much like actor types,” I said.

  “Yes sir, you’ve read me like a book. Not the good book. No sir, but a book nonetheless. See, this is how I got here. I came out from Montana looking for work and most of the decent work here is attached to them movie folks. I’m pretty good with my hands, don’t y’all think?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “So I landed odd jobs building things for the movies, but there’s no regular work there for the likes of me. When Sig moved over to theater some years back I looked him up and he offered me a job. Been with him ever since. He’s good peoples.”

  “And how did you meet him?”

  “That time he was working under that big boss man. What was his name? Emmett something or other.”

  “Lavan Emmett?” I offered.

  “Yeah, that’s him. Liked him alright. He’s alright, but didn’t have nothing to offer me so I come over with Sig. Been good ever since. Steady work, but I ain’t gonna get rich off of it.”

  “So you don’t know much about the actors that work for Sig then?”

  “No sirree. Don’t want ta neither. They don’t live by the good book. Temptation’s bad enough in this sin city, y’all can understand that being detectives and all. No way, Anthony, I ain’t got time for sinners and whores. I live by the book. But I ain’t here preaching to no sinners. I just lets them live how they like. But I ain’t looking to make friends.”

  “Pretty odd, I reckon,” mirroring his speech, “that you’d leave Montana then for sin city life.”

  He grinned at me. He was still squinting, still chewing wood.

  “No work in Montana. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.”

  “Can you tell me anything about Mary Beale or William Orpen that’s related to this murder?”

  “No sir. Nothing y’all probably don’t know. Mary, she liked her pom juice alright. Drank it every night. Everybody knows it was her lucky charm or somethin’.”

  “Did you see who dropped it off?”

  “Nah, that’s Gina’s job. She deals with couriers and them types of folks. I’m pretty much usually in the workshop less they need me up front here which is only during the acting.”

  He looked around.

  “Bad acting if you ask me.”

  I smiled at him and nodded.

  “I was here yesterday to see the play. Mary wasn’t bad.”

  “Yeah, maybe she ain’t a bad actress but she’s a bad woman that one.”

  “How so?”

  “She’s an adulterer. Sleeping with Billy and getting all pouty when he sleeps with other women. She’s a no good Jezebel. Don’t understand some folks. She’s got a good man at home. Treats her right. All the money in the world. Don’t understand some folks, Anthony, no sir.”

  “What do you mean by Jezebel?”

  “Whore, Anthony, she’s a whore. Don’t ya read your bible?”

  “How do you know her husband treated her good.”

  He shrugged. Chewed on the wood.

  “Making assumptions I guess. Never heard her say a bad word about him other than he was boring and needy.”

  “Needy?”

  “She seemed to think that him calling her at times when it ain’t appropriate for a married woman to be out at night with other men was needy. I dunno, seems to me like he shoulda cut that woman loose a long time ago.”

  “You think he might’ve killed her?”

  “Reckon he’s as good as any right? He sent the basket containing the poison. Must’ve been him.”

  “How’d you know Orpen was sleeping around.”

  Cracknell shook his head slowly.

  “Unless you being sleepy around here you can’t miss it. The way he flirts with the women coming back stage every night. I seen him sending them home with his bodyguard. Partner, it’s plain as day.”

  “Do you know Anna Ancher?”

  Cracknell shook his head.

  “Nah, not really. Them artsy famous people think they’re better’n the rest of us. She was here on opening night. But she didn’t stick around long after, they alls went to Mary’s place for the after-party. Like I told you I wasn’t there.”

  “You were the one that did CPR on Beale when Orpen came out right?”

  “That’s right. Will came out all frantic, yellin’ and shouting that Mary ain’t moving. He thinks she’s dying. So I head out to perform CPR. He’s right. She ain’t responding to nothing. I checked her pulse and it was real faint like. I know my CPR so I kept at it until the paramedic came and took over. I reckon she was still alive then on account that they rushed her out of here.”

  “And they asked you what happened?”

  “Yeah, but I told them I didn’t know much on account I was just here getting ready to set up the next scene with my boys. I said it just looked like she’d fainted or something. One of them fellas was talking to Will, and he gave them that pom drink she had almost finished.”

  I nodded.

  “Thanks, Beau.”

  Roberts handed him a card. Cracknell left and I turned to Beeves.

  “The assistant.”

  Beeves went off and I looked at Roberts.

  “This is as helpful as hemorrhoids on my ass,” I said.

  Roberts laughed.

  “Well, maybe once we’ve got forensics and figured out what’s in the bottles of juice, it might give us direction.”

  “So far we’ve got two homicides. Both poisoned, if you count the pills.”

  Roberts nodded his head back and forth.

  “Perhaps.
The first one made to look accidental, this one is no doubt a murder. Why the difference?”

  “Maybe he had a bigger hard on for Beale than Ancher.”

  “But first, Sid,” said Roberts, “we’ve gotta figure out the connection if there is one.”

  Beeves walked towards us with a petite blonde haired woman following him. She wore a tan suit with a skirt bottom that ended at her knees. Her hair was pulled behind her into a bun. She wore modern rectangular glasses on her oval face. She wasn’t a looker but she did the best with what she had. I offered her my hand. Hers was soft and warm like fresh baked crumpets.

  “I’m Anthony Carrick,” I said.

  “Gina Penman.”

  Her manner seemed curt and she didn’t hold eye contact very well. But I put it down to her being shy. Looking at her closely, her eyes were rimmed red.

  “I hate to have you relive this,” I said, “but we need to ask a few more questions.”

  She nodded and her eyes moistened.

  “When did you notice that Mary Beale started acting strange?”

  “It was around scene seven or eight, I think. I can’t remember exactly. I’m kept pretty busy by Sig, making sure the lighting is on cue, the music is timed properly and all sorts of little things that have me running around backstage.”

  “I understand. Now you accepted the gift basket that was sent for Beale.”

  She nodded.

  “Who delivered it?”

  “It was a courier service.”

  She was trying to smile, but it kept falling off her face like a wet bandaid.

  “No, I mean who? What did he look like?”

  “He was African American, maybe around your height. I didn’t get a good look at him. He wore a dark blue hoodie. But he had a name tag.”

  She tapped at her chin for a moment thinking.

  “His name was Luther. Yes, that’s right,” she nodded. “I remember now because it reminded me of Luther Vandross.”

  I nodded.

  “And did you happen to see the van he was driving when he delivered the basket?”

  “Well, I know it wasn’t the business where the basket came from. The envelope in the basket said the gift came from Brigitte’s Baskets and Gifts. The van was something like Stampers or Stampeding or something. Stompers, maybe. I’m sorry, I wasn’t paying attention, there’s so much to do.”