“I feel as if I should apologize for uncovering this animal welfare thing just now,” I said. “In the middle of the festival, this close to Christmas, when you’re already swamped.”
“What better time than Christmas to do a good deed for some of God’s creatures?” the chief said. “And frankly, I’m glad to have something to distract Horace and your father from their frustrating experience over in Clay County. I’d give Sheriff Whicker a piece of my mind, but it would do about as much good as yelling at my boots. It’s officers like him who give rural law enforcement a bad name. Well, at least here in Caerphilly we don’t have a John Doe hanging over our heads this Christmas.”
“No—we have an undisclosed number of puppies,” I said. “I like our side of the bargain.”
The chief chuckled, and we went back to working on the complaint document. I was relieved when the chief was finally satisfied with it and I could go back out to my car. Which had accumulated another inch of snow.
When I started the car, I realized that while tailing Haver I’d gone into stealth mode and turned off the radio. I turned it on again and let “O Holy Night” coax me into a holiday mood.
I drove back to the theater through the increasingly empty streets of downtown Caerphilly. Most of the tourists’ cars were gone, and most of the locals had had the good sense to go home or stay home. Everything still looked festive because of all the lights, and a couple of restaurants were doing a lively business—I suspected the diners were tourists staying in the various bed-and-breakfasts within walking distance of the town square. Beau’s antler-decked snowplow was working on the town square, and closer to the theater I waved at Osgood Shiffley, who had painted his snowplow black and customized it into an uncanny replica of Darth Vader. It was quite startling to see the Sith lord emerging from the darkness, appearing to glide facedown and headfirst over the road, sucking up the snow with the metal grill of his helmet and spewing it to either side.
I wondered what they had planned for the new snowplow, assuming the distributor ever delivered it.
As I drove by the front of the drama building, I could see that Grandfather’s name was now framed—but not obscured—by evergreen garlands and red bows. I spotted a sign on the door—almost certainly a CLOSED DUE TO INCLEMENT WEATHER sign. I nodded with approval.
I was also relieved to see, as I drove past the stage door, that the Rabid Fan was not keeping vigil in the snow. And equally relieved to remember that she was staying in a bed-and-breakfast not too far away.
But when I reached the parking lot, I was dismayed to see only three cars there. One of them was Michael’s. Neither of the others was a silver Honda Accord. It was only four thirty. Rehearsal should be in full swing. Snow or not, we didn’t have that many rehearsals left before opening night. Surely they could have gotten in an hour or two of work before the roads became too bad.
I let myself in through the loading dock door and raced up the stairs to the stage.
The completely and utterly empty stage.
Chapter 12
The stage might have been empty but the building wasn’t. I heard voices coming from somewhere down the hall. I followed the sounds to the scenery shop.
“It’ll be fine,” Michael was saying. “I bet you’re the only one who even notices.”
“You noticed.” Jake the set designer.
“Only because you kept asking me if I noticed anything wrong. And remember, it did take me four guesses to figure out exactly what was off.”
I entered to find Michael and Jake studying a flat—a piece of painted vertical scenery that would form part of the back wall of the Cratchits’ poor-but-cozy parlor.
“What happened to rehearsal?” I asked.
“I sent everyone home,” Michael said
“On account of the snow?”
“Well, that and the fact that Haver never showed up.”
“Oh, no!” I exclaimed. “I’m sorry. I was supposed to watch him, and first I let his agent distract me while he made his escape and then I let him go back to town without me.”
“Not your fault,” Michael said. “And besides, you found his bootlegger, right?”
“Yes, and Chief Burke is about to make the bootlegger’s life very interesting,” I said. “He might not be free to scamper over to the Clay County ABC store for a while.”
“I like the sound of that.”
“I’ll give you the whole story at home,” I said. “And speaking of home—”
“Probably a good idea for us to head there,” Michael said. “By the way, Jake lives halfway to Richmond, and he doesn’t have snow tires—”
“So if you haven’t already offered him one of our guest rooms, you should do it now,” I said.
“I’ll get my knapsack.” Jake grinned and dashed out.
“Did you check to see if Haver made it back to the Inn?” I asked.
“Not lately,” he said. “Haver’s agent did, around two thirty before going out to roam the streets, searching for him.”
“Then I’ll check with the Inn to see if either of them has come back. Why don’t you and Jake head out? I have a couple of things to do and then I’ll follow you.”
“Roger.”
I pulled out my phone and called Ekaterina.
“Haver is not here,” she said, instead of hello. “I am becoming somewhat anxious. He comes from Los Angeles, you know. California. They do not have snow in California. I suspect he knows even less about driving in the snow than Virginians do.”
“I’ll call the chief and ask him to have his deputies keep an eye out for Haver’s car.”
“Good. He is not the most pleasant of guests we have ever had, but he is a guest. I feel responsible. And what should I do about the bird?”
“The bird?”
“At some point this afternoon, he smuggled in a caged bird. Some sort of parrot, I think.”
A parrot? I remembered the object Willimer had placed in the back seat of Haver’s car. And the Gouldian finches in Willimer’s barn.
“Can you describe this parrot?”
“Let me take a picture of it.”
“Even better.”
Ekaterina must have been very near Haver’s room if not actually in it—the picture popped up on my phone screen in mere seconds.
“It’s not exactly a parrot,” I said. “It’s a Gouldian finch.”
“Do they talk?”
“I don’t think so. Grandfather would know for sure.”
“I would be grateful if you would ask him for me. I do not want to waste time if this is not a talking bird.”
I was puzzled.
“Have you been trying to teach him to talk?” I asked.
“No, I have been listening to him. Waiting for him to talk. I thought perhaps he might say something that would turn out to be a clue.”
Okay, that explained why she happened to be in Haver’s room. And I spotted something in the corner of the picture.
“Can you take a picture from a little farther off?” I asked. “Showing the cage and that blue object that’s on the sofa?”
“That filthy blanket?”
“Yes. Humor me.”
Another picture appeared. The cage was square, and looked to be about the size of the object I’d seen Willimer place in Haver’s car. And the object I’d spotted in the corner of the previous picture was the same kind of bright blue quilted moving blanket the object had been wrapped in.
“Thank you,” I said. “This is helpful. I now know where Haver got the bird.”
“About the bird: Should I be feeding him? His cage has a food dish, but there is nothing in it. I refreshed his water, but I do not know what birds of this kind are permitted to eat.”
“I’ll check with Grandfather,” I said.
“Excellent. And I will inform you immediately if we determine Mr. Haver’s whereabouts.”
“And what about Mr. O’Manion?”
“Also not here. Should I also notify you if he returns?”
>
“Please. By the way, I thought the Inn had a no pets policy.”
“Our policy discourages pets,” she said. “But I have the discretion to authorize pets, on a case-by-case basis. If the bird proves troublesome, we will inform Mr. Haver that he will need to make arrangements elsewhere.”
“Let me know if that happens,” I said. “Or if you see any signs that the bird’s not being treated properly. I’m not sure Haver’s someone I’d want to trust with the welfare of a helpless animal.”
“Will do. Over and out.”
So where was Haver? Obviously he’d made it back to the hotel—the bird hadn’t been there when Ekaterina made her morning inspection. And then he’d gone out again.
With his agent, perhaps?
And they were both from Los Angeles. I thought Ekaterina had an overly jaundiced view of Virginians’ snow-driving skills, but perhaps she did have a point about Californians.
I called the chief.
“Haver’s not in his hotel room,” I said. “And neither is his agent. Is there any way you could put out a lookout for them? Just to make sure if they’re safe? Because they’re both driving rental cars, and they’re both strangers to our roads, not to mention coming from California, so they probably have no clue how to drive in snow and—”
“Relax. I’ll send out a BOLO on silver Honda Accords. In fact, I can call Van and find out the license numbers of the ones they’re driving. Then I can put out a BOLO asking anyone who spots either of them to perform a welfare check and encourage them to return to the safety of the Inn.”
“Perfect. Thanks!”
I hung up, closed my eyes, and took a few deep breaths. I sometimes made fun of my cousin Rose Noire’s fascination with all things New Age and metaphysical, but some of her notions did work. I focused on breathing out stress and breathing in calm and felt noticeably better after a couple of breaths.
Better enough that I decided I had the energy to search Haver’s dressing room before heading home. He hadn’t spent much time in it today, of course, but you never knew. And I’d make it a nice, thorough, leisurely search. The first few times I’d searched, I’d done so hastily and furtively, almost paranoid about the possibility of being caught. I’d grown less worried about getting caught—after all, by now he must have figured out someone was stealing his booze. But the sheer volume of things I always had to get done at the theater had kept me from doing more than a quick check of the most obvious places to hide a bottle.
Not today. With the rehearsal called off, I suddenly had a block of time to devote to whatever I wanted. And right now, I wanted to snoop.
I left the set workshop and made my way to Haver’s dressing room—boldly and blatantly. I unlocked the door with my master key—assistant directorhood hath its privileges—and stepped inside.
“What a dump.”
If I’d said that within earshot of Michael’s fellow thespians, they’d race to be the first to mention that Bette Davis had uttered those immortal words in Beyond the Forest. And they’d probably try to top it with a Shakespearean quote. Possibly “something is rotten in the state of Denmark.” Better still, “a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors.”
Both very apt, I thought, as I sniffed the air. No trace of alcohol, but there was definitely a smell of rotting food on top of the typical dressing room smell, which was a mixture of sweat, aftershave, and the peculiar half-sweet, half-chemical smell of theatrical makeup.
I set my tote down just inside the door and fished out the baggie containing the plastic gloves I kept handy for my searches.
“I think your dad is rubbing off on you,” Michael had said, laughing, when he first spotted me gloving up for a search. “Or maybe it’s Horace. Do you really need to worry about leaving fingerprints?”
“Laugh all you want,” I’d answered while snapping my gloves in place. “It’s not fingerprints I’m worried about. I’m going to be pawing through his dirty underwear and possibly finding more decomposing week-old sandwiches in the drawers. Would you want to do that bare-handed?”
Today the dressing room was noticeably tidier than it had been when I’d first begun searching, mostly thanks to Mother, who couldn’t resist tidying whenever she came in. There were now far fewer empty soda cans, half-empty potato chip bags, used coffee cups, aging newspapers, and stained tissues and napkins.
It was still a pigsty.
I turned on Haver’s radio and fiddled with it until I found the college station. I figured a little Christmas music would lighten my search, and if I kept the volume low I could hear anyone approaching. “While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks” made nice music to search by.
I started to the left of the door and began to work my way clockwise around the room. And this time I wasn’t just checking for bottles. I was examining every object in the room, no matter how small. I wasn’t entirely sure what I hoped to find. Since yesterday’s search a nasty thought had occurred to me: What if we did succeed in cutting off Haver’s alcohol supply, only to have him fall back on pills of some kind?
And it had also occurred to me that Haver didn’t have a brilliant memory. Even considering that he had the largest part, he’d taken much longer than anyone else to learn his lines. If he had more than one contact who was supplying him with booze, mightn’t he have their names or addresses or phone numbers written down somewhere?
So I checked every pill I came across: Excedrin, Advil, Tums, Alka-Seltzer, Imodium, Colace, Pepto-Bismol, NyQuil, Ambien, and Tic Tacs. No unidentified pills or powders.
I threw away a rotting apple and a half-eaten ham sandwich that was well past its prime.
I sifted through the mail he’d had forwarded from California. Both Southern California Edison and SoCalGas were threatening to cut off his service. His bank balance was anemic. He still owed the November portion of his Actors’ Equity dues.
I checked the pockets of all the clothes. And the linings. I straightened a paper clip and used it to probe the various pots of makeup on his dressing table. I checked behind and under drawers. I held my breath and delved into the dirty clothes hamper Mother had installed.
I did find a couple of pieces of paper with phone numbers on them—a few had initials, mostly only the numbers. I took pictures of them with my phone and put them back where I’d found them.
I finished my search with the piles in the center of the room—mostly more dirty laundry that hadn’t yet joined the collection in the hamper. I decided Haver probably wouldn’t care or even notice if I took care of that housekeeping detail, so after I finished searching the laundry I hampered it.
“I give up,” I said, sitting down in his dressing table chair. The fact that I hadn’t found any alcohol failed to cheer me because it only meant the bottle he’d bought was still with him. And the glimpses I’d gotten of what seemed like a sad, lonely, and impoverished life depressed me. I was feeling sorry for Haver.
“What are we going to do with you?” I muttered, leaning back in the chair and raising my eyes to heaven—or at least to the dressing room’s utilitarian acoustical-tile ceiling.
One of the tiles was askew.
Curious.
I stood up and climbed up on the chair so I could reach the offending tile. It had probably just been knocked askew by accident. Then again, the space between the tiles and the concrete ceiling wouldn’t be such a bad hiding place. So just in case, before settling the tile back into place, I shoved it a little farther aside and felt around the periphery of the open area.
My gloved hands encountered something. Not a bottle. Smaller than a bottle. And metal rather than glass.
I grabbed the object and pulled it into the light.
A gun.
Chapter 13
In my initial shock I almost dropped the gun. Then I took a better grip on it, being careful to point it away from me, and stepped cautiously down from the chair.
Haver had a gun. The noisy, belligerent drunk who lost his temper when crossed and had no qualms about kic
king a hole in the scenery had a gun. In the theater where he acted with my sons and had pointless, violent arguments with my husband.
My first impulse was to confiscate it. Put it in the attic room where we were storing all the booze, so we could prove, if needed, that we hadn’t stolen it—we were only holding it for him until the end of the show’s run.
But what if he kicked up a fuss? A gun was, after all, slightly more valuable than a few bottles of alcohol. Well, not more valuable than all the alcohol we’d confiscated. I’d toyed with the idea of selling the attic bottle collection at the end of the run and making a donation to the local food bank in Haver’s name. At the rate he was going, it would be a generous donation. Although I was also considering the notion of using the proceeds to pay for his minder if the college wouldn’t. But still, the booze was something to be consumed—rather rapidly in Haver’s case. The gun was a very permanent object. He’d probably make a big fuss.
Or worse, what if he got another gun, just as he’d gotten countless other bottles of liquor?
My next thought was that I should report the gun to Chief Burke.
But what could he do? Owning a firearm was legal in Virginia. And taking it away, even from someone who shouldn’t be trusted with a slingshot, was almost certainly illegal.
Still, I should tell the chief. I had a sudden vision of the chief stopping Haver for the DUI that we all knew was in his future, only to find himself looking down the barrel of this gun. The chief, or Horace, or Aida, or Vern Shiffley or—
Inspiration struck me. I could unload the gun. If Haver went to grab it in a drunken rage, he wouldn’t be able to do any immediate damage with it. In fact, with any luck, he might not be a particularly meticulous or observant gun owner. Maybe he wouldn’t ever notice his ammo was missing.
Of course, first, I had to figure out how to unload it.
A few years back, after having a gun pointed at me by someone who did not have my best interests in mind, I took a gun safety course Vern Shiffley was teaching, with the general idea that if I ever found myself in such a situation again, I might be better off knowing how the things worked. Vern had spent a considerable amount of class time making sure we knew how to load and unload a gun without killing ourselves.
How the Finch Stole Christmas! Page 9
