by Joan Hess
“That’s part of the reason why I agreed to direct this one. Now, don’t get all self-righteous and politically correct about it, Claire. I was in high school and college, and I won enough scholarship money to get through graduate school.”
“I’m only self-righteous when I’m blotchy.” I gave up on the drawers, which were all locked anyway, and leaned back in the squeaky chair. “We’ll leave this startling revelation about your past for another time. You don’t think someone deliberately tried to hurt Cyndi, do you?”
While she considered it, I watched Caron and Inez skulk across the lobby toward the auditorium and the heart-stopping possibility of an illicit glimpse of the queen. I couldn’t think of a valid reason to stop them. They were apt to bump into Mac somewhere in the shadows, which would teach them a lesson far beyond my merely mortal capabilities.
“The girls adore Cyndi,” Luanne said slowly, “and I can’t imagine any of them wishing her harm. She’s not the competition. She’s gone out of her way to help them prepare for the preliminary round. I heard her lecturing a group of them on the three B’s of the runway—bust out, belly in, bottom under. She’s quite a pro.”
I tried the three B’s, although I couldn’t judge the effect since I was sitting down. “Well, you know better than I what goes on at these things, so I’m not going to argue over a nail. She’s in good hands with our resident phantom of the playhouse.”
Footsteps thudded in the corridor, then Caron burst into the office. “It’s Cyndi! She’s hurt! You’d better come right this second, Mother!” She sucked in a breath, gave us a wild look, and dashed out the door.
Luanne was fumbling with her crutches as I hurried down the corridor after Caron. I stopped in the arched entrance to the auditorium. The girls were huddled in the middle of the stage, unsettlingly quiet. Caron and Inez vacillated in a shadowy corner.
“What’s going on?” I called as I went onto the stage.
Her lips quivering, Julianna stepped out of the huddle and met me. “It’s okay, Mrs. Malloy. Cyndi was just frightened, and that man is making her sit with her head between her knees so she won’t faint.”
“What happened to her?”
“Cyndi was centerstage, demonstrating the cute little kick step she thought we ought to include in the ending. Out of nowhere this weight just plummeted down at her, and missed her by about one inch. If it’d hit her on the head, she’d be dead, Mrs. Malloy. I mean, completely dead.” She gulped as her words reached her brain. “I guess it was just one of those scary accidents.”
“Maybe.” I pushed through the girls and squatted down next to Cyndi, who had her face hidden between her knees. Her shoulders were twitching; her neck and bare arms were covered with goose bumps. Mac crouched on her other side, his expression tight and unreadable. “Are you all right?” I asked the girl softly, rubbing her back.
“She’s fine,” Mac said. “You’d of thought the damn weight bounced off her head for all the squawking and squealing that went on afterward. I’ve heard worse from the henhouse when the rooster’s on the prowl.”
Cyndi looked up with a teary smile. “I’m okay, Mrs. Malloy. I realize I’m being silly, but it came so close I could feel a breeze on my cheek. It hit right by my foot. If it had been a teeny bit closer, it would have—” She broke off and hid her face again. Her shoulders jerked as she tried to control her sobs.
Several of the girls began to pat her head and murmured comforting, if meaningless, phrases. I stood up and gestured at Mac to join me on one side of the stage. “Tell me how that weight happened to fall,” I said through clenched teeth, pointing at a small canvas bag that was, I suspected, filled with at least ten pounds of sand.
“Beats me. It’s a counterweight for one of the backdrops.” He picked it up and fingered the bit of rope still tied to a leather ring. “Looks like something cut partway through the rope. The new rope, let me say before you start dithering about my irresponsibility and potential liability and whatever else you plan to dither about.”
“I do not dither, especially when someone might have been killed.” I glowered at him for a moment, then glowered at the vast blackness above our heads. “I want to see where the weight was hanging. I presume there is a way to climb up there to adjust things or whatever.”
“There’s a spiral staircase that leads to a metal walkway, but I doubt you want to go up there.”
“Then you doubt incorrectly. Are you going to show me the staircase, or shall I find it without your cooperation?”
He recoiled enough to give me a flicker of satisfaction. “I don’t care if you want to break your neck by climbing around up there. That’s why I’ve got insurance.” He led me to the darkest corner of the stage and pointed with his thumb at a rusty metal staircase that almost disappeared in the gloom above our heads. “I replaced most of the bolts that hold this and the walkway to the wall. It might hold you.”
I grasped the rail and shook it, steeling myself not to react to the appalling amount of give. “You replaced most of the bolts and it might hold me? How encouraging you are, considering the fact that someone managed to climb up there and cut partway through your rope so that your weight almost killed someone in your theater.”
“Close only counts in horseshoes. And the rope might have been gnawed by a rat. Lots of rats up there. Big, skinny, hungry ones with red eyes.”
I will admit I hesitated, but only long enough to decide he was trying to bully me. No rat worth his whiskers would climb up that rusty staircase. I beckoned to Caron and, when she came over, said, “If something happens to me, call Peter and tell him. The will is in the lockbox. And you and Inez behave yourselves and stay off the telephone until you’ve done your homework.”
Caron regarded me levelly. “Okay. Can I have your hair dryer?”
“It’s going to charity.” I began what felt like a descent into hell, except for the paradoxical sensation of climbing upward. The staircase clinked and wobbled, but did nothing more dramatic than that, and I reached the narrow catwalk that stretched across the stage. The catwalk swayed as I moved down it at a turtlish pace while busily wondering what I was doing up there without a flashlight or a parachute. Or a brain larger than a protuberance on a righteous rump.
There were all sorts of ropes and cables dangling like the root system of a plant. I gripped the rail and forced myself to look down at the stage thirty feet below me. The girls were still huddled on the stage, and I could see the top of Cyndi’s head in the middle of them. As I watched, Luanne came onto the stage to join in the audible clucking over Miss Thurberfest. Mac was gone from the bottom of the staircase, but Caron was staring upward with her mouth agape. The stage was covered with chalk marks; from my perspective it resembled the mysterious scrawls on the blackboard in a football locker room.
When I reached the middle, I saw an unencumbered rope within a foot or so of the rail. I again made myself look down, and decided it was positioned over Cyndi’s mark on the stage. This end of the rope was frayed in much the same manner as the other end. Whether it was in that condition from the attentions of a rat or a knife was beyond me, although I couldn’t imagine why a rat would creep to the rail, fling itself into the darkness like a flying squirrel, and cling to the rope long enough to do substantial damage.
But Luanne did not seem to think any of the girls disliked Cyndi, much less had any motive to hurt her. Mac was disinterested in the pageant and its outcome. No one else was allowed in the auditorium. I decided I was behaving in a foolish, reckless, overly imaginative fashion, and carefully made my way back to the staircase.
Luanne hobbled across the stage as I reached the bottom. “What on earth were you doing up there?”
“I was checking for rats trained in guerrilla tactics. We can all rest easy. You can do so in the office, or we can send everybody home and seek solace in scotch at my place.”
“I do think we’d better quit for the day. This accident has upset all of the girls, including this middle-aged one.” S
he studied me with a pinched expression. “You didn’t find anything up there, did you?”
“I found the other end of the rope. Mac said there were rats up there, so I suppose one might have gnawed at the rope enough to cause it to break at an inopportune moment.”
“And it was a coincidence that the weight hit one centimeter off Cyndi’s mark?”
“It could well have been a coincidence,” I said with more confidence than I felt. “Just like the nail. You’re the one who’s had experience in this milieu. I have no idea to what extremes a girl will go in order to win an utterly insignificant title and a year’s worth of appearances at the Miss Applecore festival.”
Luanne gazed at the girls, then shrugged and shook her head. “You’re right, Claire. It’s one thing to steal mascara or splash water in another girl’s high heels, but to do something this dangerous is senseless. Cyndi’s reign is over on Saturday night. Why would anyone want to hurt her?”
“Beats me,” I murmured, quoting the irritating man with the rats. “I suppose I could talk to Cyndi and ask her if she can think of anyone who might want to frighten her. She’s too upset now, but I’ll have a word with her tomorrow.”
“Frighten her—or kill her?”
Before I could answer, she hobbled back to the girls and told them rehearsal was over for the day. Cyndi was on her feet, although Julianna and another girl were clinging to her elbows and the other girls were hovering at a convenient distance should she opt to topple.
“I’m sorry to be so silly,” she said to Luanne. “I mean, it’s not like it actually hit me or anything. It just scared me.”
“What’s going on?” boomed a voice from the corridor entrance.
We all turned to stare at the stout woman who marched into the auditorium and onto the stage. She appeared to be in her late fifties, and her tweed suit of the same era. She had peppery hair cut off with no concession to her appearance, a square face, and a chin that hinted of a bulldog in her lineage. Two shrewd eyes regarded Cyndi, then turned on me.
“Why is she white and shaking like an hibiscus in a hurricane?” the woman barked at yours truly.
“A weight crashed on the stage. It came close enough to frighten her, but there was no harm done.”
“What weight?”
I pointed to the side of the stage, but found myself pointing at a flat expanse of wood. “It was over there, but someone seems to have moved it. It was just a standard sandbag,” I added, resisting the urge to retreat under the woman’s beady glare. “Who are you?”
“I am Eunice Allingham—and Cyndi’s trainer. I’ve been out of town at a trade show, but I see now I never should have left her in such incompetent hands. The girl is near collapse, which cannot be good for her. She needs to lie down until the color comes back to her cheeks.” The woman went over to Cyndi and assessed her as if she were an item on a sale rack. “She appears to be unharmed, although what emotional damage there may be will surface in time. Her hair, most likely.”
Cyndi produced a glittery smile that must have impressed ( if not blinded) many a judge. “Oh, Eunice, please don’t worry about me. I’m just fine, but I would like to lie down. Perhaps Julianna and Heidi will be sweet enough to help me down to my dressing room?”
Julianna and Heidi nodded enthusiastically, and the three slowly made their way across the stage and down the stairs. The rest of the girls rubbed their hands and muttered among themselves as they wandered away.
Once the queen and her attendants were out of sight, Eunice let out a gusty sigh. “Her hair goes limp when she’s upset. The curl just slips out of it until she looks worse than a wet dog. I’ve tried and tried to get her to put it up like they do in the Big One, but she thinks it looks old-fashioned. Of course it looks old-fashioned. That’s called tradition. I can’t begin to tell you how many times she’s limp when a nice curl would have cinched the finals or even the title.”
Luanne nodded, thus earning a continuation of the limp hair dilemma. I went over to the place where the sandbag had been and looked around for it. I checked behind the stairs and in the dark corners of the stage, then went over to Caron, who was now gaping at Eunice.
“What happened to the weight?” I asked her in a low voice.
“How should I know? Who is that woman, Mother? She is totally bizarre, and making no sense whatsoever. Did she say she was Cyndi’s trainer—as in German shepherds?”
Inez made a small noise. “I think it’s more like an agent.”
“Just because your sister is in the pageant doesn’t make you an expert,” Caron said without mercy. “She used the word trainer, as in dog tricks. Besides, I think she’s crude.”
I left them and joined Luanne, who was looking increasingly pale and wobbly as the woman lectured in her face. “You’d better go back to the office and sit down,” I said, ignoring Eunice. “If you don’t, you’ll end up with your head between your knees.”
She nodded, then hobbled away, leaving me to smile vaguely as Eunice muttered, “We can’t have that sort of thing. Bad for the complexion. Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad.”
“You’re Cyndi’s trainer?” I asked, not sure what was bad for the complexion and not wanting to find out at length. “What does that entail?”
“I manage her career, and see that she makes as many of the local and regional pageants as possible. We’ve got our eye on the Big One, but she needs more work before we take a run at it. I may let her try the first round this year.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said politely.
“Are you the pageant director?” Eunice huffed.
“Luanne Bradshaw is the official director. I’m helping out because of her ankle—and I have no experience with beauty pageants. I’ve never been to one, and I’m afraid I don’t understand the jargon.”
“You’re an amateur? How on earth do you plan to run a good pageant with no experience in the necessary details? Why, even the little local ones require diligence, hard work, and attention to an incredible number of issues. Last year this utterly incompetent woman tried to stage the Miss Chicken Drumstick with no idea—no idea at all—about the problems she would encounter. It was a nightmare from the judges’ luncheon to the final scoring. She even had someone use low-wattage lightbulbs in the dressing rooms, if you can imagine. It wasn’t even worth our time.”
“Well, this one will be a shambles,” I said with a bright smile. “Luanne was in a couple of pageants years ago, but neither one of us knows what she’s doing. It’s somewhat of a lark for us.”
Eunice snorted at my charming candor. “We shall see. I’m going down to the dressing room to check on my gal, then I’ll come back here so you and I can discuss what’s been done and what needs to be done. You go fetch a notebook and a pencil; I’m sure I’ll have a long list for you and that other woman. Exactly which pageants was she in?” Her voice fell to a chilling whisper. “She surely never made five, did she? Her cheekbones are unruly.”
“Five what?” I hissed back.
“The top five finalists.” Eunice turned and stomped across the stage, no doubt appalled by such ignorance. Once she had vanished down the stairs, I told Caron and Inez to go home. I then stopped at the office and repeated Eunice’s threat to help those of us who were deficient in the language and clearly unlikely to make the top five. Luanne grabbed her coat and locked the office door. As we reached the small lobby surrounding the box office, we heard Eunice’s booming voice.
“What’s this about a nail?” she demanded loud enough to be heard anywhere in Farberville, or perhaps the immediate county.
I went home.
THREE
When I picked up Luanne the next morning, she was gray about the gills. It took her a long while to find her purse, make sure her house keys were in it, lock the door, and make her way down the sidewalk to my car. I hardly expected her to break any hundred-yard-dash records, but each step was tentative and clearly painful.
“You don’t have to go to the dres
s rehearsal,” I said. “You can stay home for the day and rest, and then make a grand appearance tonight.”
“I’ll remain in the office. I have a million telephone calls to make, and my ankle won’t feel any worse there than it will at home.”
“Maybe Eunice will help you.”
“Maybe I’ll lock the office door.”
I dropped her off in front of the theater, then drove down to the Book Depot and ascertained that the student who’d promised to clerk was clerking as promised. She had everything under control. As I walked the two blocks to the Thurber Street Theater, I noticed that the shopkeepers were all busily setting out racks and tables for the Gala Sidewalk Sale. They were doing so without a report, in triplicate ( or duplicate, or even singlicate) , from their fearless chairperson.
I increased my pace as I passed Sally Fromberger’s cafe, but it did no good. Said proprietor popped out the door, her body covered with a sparkling white apron and her nose with a smudge of what I suspected was stone-ground, whole-wheat flour. No additives or preservatives.
“I’m so glad I caught you, Claire. I still need your committee report. The sale officially begins right after the parade and opening ceremonies. I’m not sure what we can do without the report; it’s much too late for an ad hoc.”
I waved at the activity on both sidewalks. “Everybody knows what to do, and is in the midst of doing it. I’ll write you a letter about it next week, since I’m occupied for the moment with the beauty pageant. It seems someone volunteered me.”
She beamed at me with the delight of a kindergarten mommy at graduation. “Luanne is so lucky to have you for a friend. She finally admitted she couldn’t handle the pageant without help, and I knew you’d be thrilled to be her assistant. Wait here for a minute and I’ll give you the menu report on the luncheon. I think you need two copies—one for the file and one for the notebook.”
“You’re catering the luncheon?” I managed to say in a perfectly civilized voice.
“Yes, and it’ll be simply wonderful. The girls will be bubbling with energy for tonight’s preliminary round, and the judges will feel ten years younger. We’re having tofu lasagna and a salad of alfalfa sprouts with sesame honey dressing. No nasty carbohydrates to slow us down.” She went inside and returned with the copies.
