Hollister grinned. “And he’s playing the judge! It’s perfect. I just wish we could have gotten his brother, too, but the guy’s a surgeon in Cleveland or somewhere. No interest, too busy saving lives or some shit. But the judge is pretty good, don’t you think?”
“He’s getting there.”
Toland pulled a pamphlet-sized booklet from his pocket. It featured a cast photograph. All of them posed in costume on the set. “We just got the playbills. Take a look.”
Hollister took one, opened it and stopped short. “Shit. Hold on.” He patted his pockets, touched his head. “Crap. Where did I put my glasses? Did I have them with me today, Mark?’”
“Toland shrugged. “Yeah, probably—I don’t know. I didn’t really notice.”
Hollister turned back to me. “That’s his laser-like focus. Anyway, I always carry a spare.” He pulled a pair of red-framed glasses from his carry-all, slipped them on, and handed me the playbill. “Anyway, fuck it, see for yourself. The bios are right in front.”
I took the pamphlet, leafed through it until I found the Cast Notes. Galassi had spent twenty years as a prosecuting attorney for San Diego County, five years as the district attorney, and ten years as a Superior Court judge. Since his move to Nantucket three years before, he had played Big Daddy in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, Willy Clark in The Sunshine Boys, Wilfred in Ronald Harwood’s Quartet, Pseudolus in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and Quixote in Man of La Mancha.
I looked up from the page “He can sing?”
“Like an angel,” Toland said. “With a bad head cold.”
I nodded. “Dreaming the impossible dream.”
“Something like that.”
“You ever see him work, before this afternoon?’ Hollister asked.
“I don’t get out to the theater much. I guess I’ve been missing out.”
“Victor does voice-overs, too. And commercials. And he’s the old guy who’s scraping his windshield with his American Express card in that Visa ad.”
Toland jumped in with a good impression of Galassi’s grumpy old man act, brandishing an imaginary AmEx card. “Finally! Some use for this damn thing!”
“Right,” I said, “I saw that one.”
“Everybody did. He probably retired on the residuals.”
Toland nodded. “A national ad! Where you get to say a line of dialogue! That’s the actor’s Holy Grail, Chief.”
I handed back the playbill. “So, did Judge Galassi ever dabble in the stolen jewelry trade before he retired?”
Hollister snorted. “Come on. I made that up.”
“Good to hear. So he has no dark criminal secrets in his past?”
“Not to my knowledge. But we all have our secrets. I wouldn’t presume.”
Silence settled in. We watched Jenny straighten up the set. I decided to close in. “So, Blair—where were you on Tuesday afternoon?”
“Tuesday afternoon? That’s when Horst—hold on a second. I’m a suspect now?”
“You were always a suspect. I’m just getting around to you now.”
“Do I need a lawyer?”
“That’s your call. I’d certainly consider it.”
“This is bullshit! It’s nuts. I’m a writer! If I could actually kill people I wouldn’t need to write about it.”
I quoted: “Because I don’t know enough about killing to kill him.”
“The Sting. Thank you! Exactly. I’m just like Johnny Hooker.”
“A con man?”
“I guess. In a way. We’re both looking for that willing suspension of disbelief.”
“So why would you kill want to kill Victor Galassi?”
“I wouldn’t!”
“Or Horst Refn?”
“I’m telling you—I wouldn’t! I wouldn’t kill anyone. I don’t want to get away with murder. I just want to write about it and win a Tony.”
“So...just for the record—where were you on Tuesday afternoon?”
“Come on, man! Oh, I get it. You think I’m the bad guy because of that thing, that stupid argument in the parking lot.”
“It wasn’t your finest hour.”
“Hey, I was stressed out. I was on the phone and I looked up and I almost rear-ended your—oh. That was Jane Stiles.”
“Yeah. And you can expect to see that scene in her next book. I saw her taking notes. ‘Nice intro for my next villain.’ Her exact words.”
“I yelled at your girlfriend. That makes me some kind of homicidal maniac?”
“We’re working on that. Where were you Tuesday afternoon?”
“Jesus! Fine. I was visiting Judith Barsch, okay?”
“She wasn’t home.”
“I know that! I was getting to that.”
“Sorry. Go on.”
“Well, I went there to discuss...it was a money thing. We’re using a couple of Equity actors in the show and they’re not happy with the—you know, the accommodations. The Lab has an actors’ housing set-up out in Tom Nevers, but it’s like a college dorm and Celia Dunbar, from General Hospital? She’s been trying to get the kids to clean up and they’re driving her crazy. She and Ted—Ted Brownell, he played the furry ninja guitar hero in those Galaxy movies…Great guy, he has kids of his own, but he hit the roof when someone spilled an order of takeout chili in his bed and just left it there. Anyway, I was hoping Judy might kick in a couple of grand to put them up in someplace a little nicer.”
Toland added, “I suggested one of the guest houses on North Water Street. They wanted to be in town, so...”
“Judy was all for it,” Hollister pushed on. “You know, she was like, come to the house and we’ll talk it over. We made an appointment and I kept it. But, like you say, she wasn’t home, and her maid gave me carfare so I could grab a cab back to town.”
Toland jumped in. “Blair doesn’t have a car on island and he’s too cheap to rent one.”
“And the Theater Lab is too cheap to rent one for me!”
“So how did you get there? She lives way out, off Hummock Pond Road.”
“I took the bus—the Wave. It was fine. I get good ideas riding on busses. I wrote my first play riding down to L.A. from Fresno.”
“So people saw you. On the bus.”
“I guess. Probably.”
“And the maid can verify you were there.”
“Sure.”
“Plus the cab driver who took you back to town.”
“Oh, yeah—yeah! Definitely.”
I could see he was cheering up as his alibi came together. “Do you remember the cab company?”
“Uh...no, I mean, I wasn’t really paying that much attention. But Judy’s maid might know—Carmen Delgado? She talked to them. Ask her.”
“We will.”
“Great. He was a funny little guy, the cab driver. We did some Who’s on First together. He was good! We really got into it.” Hollister launched into both parts. “‘You know the fellows’ names? Yes. Well, then who’s playing first? Yes. I mean the fellow’s name on first base. Who. The fellow playin’ first base. Who. The guy on first base. Who is on first. Well, what are you askin’ me for?’ I love that shit.”
“Funny stuff.”
“But you don’t laugh.”
“It’s a family thing. My dad wrote comedy for a living and he thought it was unprofessional to laugh at jokes. Like a chef belching. It drove his comedian friends crazy. ‘You never laugh,’ I remember one of them yelled at him one time. He said, ‘But my eyes are twinkling merrily.’”
“He sounds like a dick, no offense.”
“He was a dick. But funny makes up for a lot. And he always made me laugh. Listen. Can I have a minute or two with Mark?”
“Sure, right, no problem.”
“Alone.”
“
Oh, yeah, right—sorry. I’m outta here.”
When he had climbed the side stairs to the lobby and we heard the big doors close, Mark said, “He’s a nervous wreck now.”
“I like him that way.”
“Me too. And by the way, we were rehearsing all afternoon on Tuesday and my actors would probably cover for me, but I wasn’t here. They just ran lines with the stage manager.”
“So where were you?”
“It’s—I’d rather not say. Unless you put me under arrest or something and I have to. It wasn’t exactly a triumph. I will tell you…it had to do with that…that item I outbid you for at the auction.”
“Oh.”
“Kind of an expensive mistake.”
“So it didn’t work out?”
“It was a crazy stupid plan. I was just—I guess, when you live in your own head as much as I do, you forget that other people have real lives outside of it. Your dreams are not their goals. They have their own plans. Anyway. I’d love to just leave it at that, for now.”
“No problem.”
“If you really think I’m a killer, talk to Jane. She’ll set you straight. She’s known me forever.”
I nodded. “You grew up here, right?”
“Part of the time. Enough of the time.”
“For what?”
“To know this island pretty well, Chief. And to be glad to get the H. E. double hockey sticks out of here. That’s what we used to say at NHS. Small-town kids who thought you’d get in trouble if you said ‘Hell.’ Good old Nantucket High School. Not that we were angels, or anything. Far from it. Some weird stuff went down here, back in the day. Shit I’m not proud of. But we all grow up right? At least I hope we do.”
“Did this stuff you’re talking about involve Haden Krakauer?”
“It’s—I…why would you say that?”
“Last summer, when you were scouting movie locations near where Andrew Thayer’s cottage burned down, you came into the station for questioning, and as I recall you were desperate to avoid Haden. It struck me as a little odd.”
“It was odd. It still is. So, call me a gutless worm. Though the other gutless worms might protest. “Hey, give us a break, we’re not totally gutless, like that little punk.”
“You’re pretty hard on yourself.”
“Well, I deserve it.”
“So what happened back then?
“Ask your girlfriend. She knows the whole story. Hell, she was the whole story. It might be tough to pry out of her, though. I notice she’s never written about it. The Nantucket in her books is way too warm and fuzzy.”
We sat silently for a while. I realized that Jane hardly ever talked about her childhood on the island. “Why come back?” I asked finally.
He blew out a breath. “What can I say? I missed the place. It’s the only spot on Earth that ever felt like home to me. The steamboat whistle for the six-thirty ferry woke me up yesterday morning. It went through me like…I don’t know. It really got to me. It’s the sound of my childhood. It made me feel like an exile. That’s why I throw a penny off the side of the boat when it clears the breakwater, just like everybody else.”
“To make sure you’ll come back.”
“Yeah.”
Jenny called from the stage, “I’m gonna take off, if that’s okay?”
“Thanks. Tomorrow at nine?”
“Oh, yeah.”
She disappeared into the wings.
I turned back to Toland. “So how did you hook up with Hollister?”
“His agent called me. I guess Blair read that profile in the Hollywood Reporter when Acid Reign came out. I talked about Nantucket, and how I missed it and how I wanted to direct a play. Well, that lit up the board for him. Blair had been reading about the island for years and he had the perfect play for me. He wanted to try it out in secret—some small-town company where he wouldn’t have to worry about New York critics lurking in the wings. The Nantucket Theater Lab seemed perfect. I know that’s kind of a backhanded compliment...but anyway, I liked the play, the actors were free, the Lab had a slot open...so everything kind of aligned perfectly, and here we are. Trying to get a community theater diva to talk and fight at the same time. Not exactly the Old Vic.”
“Does Hollister seem off to you in any way?”
“I don’t know. What way?”
“Moody. Angry. Quiet. Drinking by himself.”
“Nope. Just the opposite. Even-tempered, patient, chatty, buying rounds for the bar. I don’t see a problem there.”
“And the judge playing a judge?”
“Typecasting?”
“How about Galassi, himself?”
“Sweet old man. Loves the theater. Started acting when he finally put his wife into a nursing home. Alzheimer’s. Terrible business. But he came out the other side and kind of took wing, you know? It’s a nice story. I don’t see him as some kind of jewel thief con man dude. That doesn’t fit.”
“How about Refn?”
“I only met him a few times. Parties and fundraisers. We talked on the phone mostly. He was here for the first day of rehearsals. That’s it.”
“Any thoughts?”
“He was a creep. That’s my thought. A nasty little creep with a phony smile. Calling you a genius while he stabs you in the back. And with an ice pick, not a knife. He was an ice pick-kind-of-guy, though I heard he hated the cold.”
“And yet…winters get chilly here.”
“Refn never stayed for the winter. He always flew south when the last show opened. He spent his winters in the Caribbean somewhere. That’s what I heard.”
“Any idea who might have wanted to kill him?”
“Gee, I don’t know, Chief. Pretty much everybody who ever had to deal with him? Except the Theater Lab board. They bought his bullshit down to the last shovel-load. But as far as I can see, none of them know a thing about how the theater actually works. They just like cocktail parties and swanning around as patrons of the arts. It’s the same way everywhere. Nonprofits are notorious—nothing but overpaid idiots at the top.”
I stood. “Thanks for your time, Mark. If you think of anything else, or notice anything odd—give me a call at the station.”
We shook hands. “Will do. And you’re comped for the show, Chief. You and Jane.”
“Thanks. Maybe we’ll come opening night.”
“I’ll be looking for you.”
In fact I wasn’t sure I wanted to take him up on the offer. I certainly didn’t expect to be making my theatrical debut that night, and I had no idea that Hollister’s creaky, contrivance-ridden production would turn into a deadly true-crime drama before the first curtain call, but as Oscar Wilde pointed out, art imitates life.
And life gets even.
Part Three:
Washashores
Chapter Eight
Otto’s Story
Karen Gifford fired her first five rounds, all grouped around the fifteen-yard target bull’s-eye, and popped the magazine.
“Cover!”
“Covering,” I shouted back.
She rammed the second magazine home and locked the slide back. “Ready!”
“Okay!”
She holstered her Glock.
“Issue the verbal challenge. We can do this dry first if you want.”
She shook her head. “Halt!”
“All right, advance!”
She pivoted to the left, still in the Weaver stance, moved to the ten-yard line and shot twice. She was still grouped in the bull’s-eye. She walked back, called out the same warning, performed the same maneuver, but pivoting right, and a third time, walking backward. All the shots looked good. All the commands felt real.
She’d obviously been practicing.
We worked the same procedure to five yards, and then to three. “ECQB,” I said.
“Every round counts at this stage,” I reminded her.
“Got it.” She discharged five rounds, reloaded, fired five more, left and right, stepping backward for the final shots. The paper targets were shredded and useless by this time, but I had set up another scoring target for her.
She pulled the trigger for the last time, and turned to me. Despite the earplugs, both our heads were ringing.
“Do I pass?”
“Flying colors,” I said.
“You were a little sloppy at the seven-yard mark,” Billy Delavane said, walking up to us. He’d been practicing at the range when we arrived, fine-tuning the sights on his hunting rifle and working some new rounds through a used Beretta he’d picked up on a surfing trip to South Carolina.
Billy pointed. “You can see—four shots went a little wide, outside the grouping. You have to get your feet back set parallel every time.”
Karen glanced over at me. I nodded. Billy was an expert shot, and I suspected he’d bagged quite a few deer out of season with that Mossberg Patriot of his.
“Here, let me show you.”
He already had his arms around her shoulders, straightening her outstretched elbow with one hand and nudging her feet apart with his hiking boot.
Karen smiled. “This is cozy.”
“He’s ten years older than you,” I blurted. It was embarrassing, but I’d seen Billy at work before. He just smiled. He knew I was a Quaker at heart.
“I don’t think that matters much, once you pass the age of thirty,” Karen said. “I’ve actually had a boyfriend or two, Chief. And the ones my age were idiots. More like big dogs than grown men. I like pets, but…”
“You’ll love Dervish,” Billy said. “He’s a pug.”
“The biggest little dog I’ve ever seen,” I added.
Billy nodded, resettling Karen’s left hand around the butt of the Glock. “Dervish may actually have too much personality for his size.”
Nantucket Counterfeit Page 12
