Taking the Fifth (9780061760891)

by Jance, Judith A.

  She looked at me doubtfully for a moment, as though afraid I was going to accuse her next. I tried to reassure her. “Look,” I said. “Someone is trying to frame Jasmine Day. I’ve got to find out what’s going on.”

  “I do,” she said finally. “And Alan Dale and Ed Waverly both have keys. The same goes for the guy with the theater, that Dan Osgood. He has a master.”

  “When did you get here?”

  “Just at six,” she answered.

  “And was the trunk already here?”

  Bertha nodded. “It was. I thought it was kind of odd, but I never had a chance to talk to Alan about it. It didn’t seem that important.”

  “Who usually brings it here?” I asked. “Did you see anyone?”

  Bertha shook her head. “One of the stagehands does it,” she answered. “But I don’t have any idea which one.”

  “Someone who was smart enough to make sure it was in her dressing room when the DEA guys came through with their search warrant.” I said it aloud, but more for my benefit than for Bertha’s.

  “And you think someone’s trying to frame her?” Bertha asked.

  “I’m sure of it,” I answered. “And they’re not missing a trick.”

  A burst of applause from outside told me another number was over. I hurried out of the dressing room. Alan Dale was standing alone off to one side of the stage. I went up to him, took him by the arm, and led him back to the dressing-room area so we could talk.

  “Did you move the costume trunk into Jasmine’s dressing room?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “Do you know who did?”

  “No. One of the stagehands, probably, right after intermission.”

  “What if I told you that tonight somebody did it before six o’clock, before Jasmine and Big Bertha got to the theater?”

  “I’d say somebody had their act together.”

  “What if I told you there’s a million dollars’ worth of cocaine in the bottom of that trunk?”

  “Bullshit!” he said.

  “It’s true. Want to look for yourself?”

  He shook his head.

  “And since they found it in Jasmine’s dressing room, they’re going to try to pin it on her unless we figure out who put it there.”

  Slowly, Alan Dale swung his face in my direction, a penetrating look in his eyes. “You mean you don’t think she put it there?”

  “No. It’s a setup. I just don’t know who’s behind it.”

  “Wait here,” Dale commanded.

  I didn’t do quite what I was ordered to do. I came out of the dressing-room area far enough to see Jasmine on stage and close enough to hear the music. I was dimly aware of Alan Dale moving silently among the members of the stage crew and whispering to them. And to one side, I could see Roger Glancy standing with one of his men, patiently waiting. But mostly I was aware of Jasmine, of Jasmine Day and her music.

  During the next round of applause, she came over to the wings to pick up her wooden stool. Glancy made a move as if he planned to grab her then, but Alan Dale appeared out of nowhere and stopped him. After the applause died down, the spotlight found Jasmine and her stool in center stage.

  The auditorium was breathlessly silent as she lifted the microphone to her lips. “First,” she said, “I want to thank you for being such a wonderful audience tonight. I’ve loved being here with you, and I know you’ve enjoyed the show.”

  Applause started to trickle through the audience, but Jasmine raised her hand to quiet it. “During this tour, my comeback tour, I’ve taken some time out of each show to share with others what’s happened to me in the course of the last few years. I’ve told people how I screwed myself up on drugs and how, with the help of Betty Ford’s treatment center, Rancho Mirage, I finally got my life back on track again. But tonight there’s something else that needs to be said.

  “This afternoon my manager, Ed Waverly, got a message from his boss in California saying that the remainder of my tour has been canceled. We were supposed to be in Vancouver, B.C., tomorrow night. Instead, we’ll be packing up and heading back to California.”

  An audible groan rumbled through the audience. Jasmine smiled. “Thanks,” she said. “I needed that. But I want to tell you what caused the cancellation. The audience response, both here and in other cities, has been wonderful. The reason the tour was canceled is that the financial backers are scared, scared of me and my reputation. They weren’t all that happy to take on someone who had the kind of history I do. They were afraid I was too risky. I was told from the beginning that if there was any hint of trouble, they’d drop me like a hot potato.

  “Well, my friends, there’s trouble, and I’ve been dropped. During the next few days, I’m sure you’re going to hear lots of rumors about me. Evidently, someone connected with the show has been selling drugs, and the backers are convinced I’m part of it. I’m not, but I don’t suppose I’ll be able to change anyone’s mind. As far as they’re concerned, once a druggie, always a druggie.

  “So tonight is my farewell performance. There are probably a lot of you who don’t know that I started out singing solos in the First Baptist Church of Jasper, Texas. Back then, my name was Mary Lou Gibbon, and what I wanted more than anything was to get out of Jasper and stay out. Right now, Jasper is looking pretty good to me.

  “During the next few days, when you all are hearing all those rumors and reading all those stories that they write to sell newspapers, I want you to remember what I’m tellin’ you.” A soft Texas drawl had somehow drifted into Jasmine’s pattern of speech. It fit her like a warm glove.

  “There’s no sense in me tryin’ to stop all those rumors, because lies have a life of their own. But I want to tell you right now that I gave up drugs two years ago, and I haven’t touched them since. And I’d die before I’d be a part of selling ’em and sendin’ somebody else into the hellhole I’ve spent the last two years trying to climb out of. And no matter what they say about me, I’m not a part of any murder either.

  “So tonight I’d like you all to help me say good-bye to Jasmine Day, whoever she is.” She reached up then and tugged at the blonde wig, peeling it back from her head like a cabbage leaf and tossing it off stage, where Alan Dale caught it. She reached up and rubbed her head, scratched it, and laughed.

  “There, that’s not so bad, is it?”

  A few bits of nervous laughter drifted through the audience, but mostly the huge room was silent.

  “Jasmine Day started the concert tonight, but Mary Lou Gibbon is going to end it,” she continued. She turned away from the audience and spoke briefly to the piano player, who nodded in understanding. Then she swung back around on her stool.

  “The two songs I’m going to sing aren’t on the program, and the orchestra may not know them, so we’ll do them with just the piano. They’re songs Mary Lou Gibbon used to do back home in Jasper.”

  The audience was now totally silent. No one coughed or moved or cleared a throat. The pianist hit a chord, and Jasmine’s bell-like voice soared through the auditorium, filling it with an old gospel song, “It’s Always Darkest Before the Dawn.” When she finished, the place was still silent. People didn’t know what to do, whether to applaud or cry.

  I happened to glance at Alan Dale just then. He seemed to have gotten something in his eye. I was suffering from the same problem. I doubted there were many dry eyes on the other side of the curtain either.

  Before the audience had time to recover its equanimity though, the piano player bounded off into another song. Jasmine picked up the wooden stool by one leg and tossed it off stage. They could have been rehearsing it for years. Alan Dale caught it one-handed.

  “You all know this one,” Jasmine was saying into the microphone. “And if you know it, help me with it: ‘Put your hand in the hand of the man who stilled the waters…’”

  The second time through, the orchestra picked up the tune, and by the third pass, the audience was on its feet, singing along and clapping. The sound mu
st have rattled the huge crystal chandeliers hanging from the ceiling.

  I’ve never had much luck with Billy Graham or Jerry Falwell, and I’ve lived my whole life without ever having attended an old-fashioned revival meeting. But that night, in the Fifth Avenue Theater, Jasmine Day took the place by storm. I felt I’d truly been revived. When the music finally stopped, the applause was thunderous.

  The standing ovation wouldn’t stop, so she went back out front and did one final chorus. Even then, there were three more curtain calls after that. As Jasmine came off stage for the last time, Alan Dale started out to meet her, but Roger Glancy cut him off at the pass.

  He was waiting by the curtain with an open pair of handcuffs in his hand. “I’m Roger Glancy with the DEA, Miss Day,” he said. “I have a warrant for your arrest on a charge of possession of cocaine with the intent to distribute.”

  She gave him an appraising look. “My name is Mary Lou Gibbon,” she said. “You didn’t say anything about the two murders. Did you forget those?”

  “I wouldn’t know anything about murder, ma’am,” Roger Glancy said. “That’s his department.” He turned and nodded toward me. I shook my head and said nothing. There was nothing to say.

  When the cuffs snapped shut around Jasmine’s wrists, Alan Dale sprang into action. I saw him move, heading toward Glancy, and I cut him off before he could do any damage.

  “Cool it,” I ordered. “You can’t help her that way.”

  “But they can’t do this. It’s a put-up deal. You said so yourself.’

  “They can do it. They are doing it.”

  Dale gave me a shove, trying to push me out of the way, but Jasmine put an end to it once and for all. “It’s all right, Alan,” she said. “I’ll be okay.”

  He stood still then. Meanwhile, the other agent, the one named Dick, had come across the stage and taken hold of Jasmine’s arm.

  “Take her into her dressing room,” Glancy ordered. “We’ll wait there until the crowd breaks up. Waverly’s in another. I don’t want to try to take them out of the building until it quiets down outside. If we do it now, it’ll cause a riot.”

  Dick led Jasmine back toward the dressing room. She walked quietly offering no protest.

  Alan Dale started after them, but I held him back. “Who moved the trunk?”

  “They all denied it.”

  “All of them?”

  “Every last goddamned one of them. When I figure out who did it, I’m going to tear the son of a bitch limb from limb.”

  Those were my sentiments exactly.

  CHAPTER 22

  THERE WAS A FLURRY OF ACTIVITY AT THE top of the stage stairs and B. W. Wainwright, Agent-in-Charge Wainwright, strode into view. He marched directly into the main circle of activity. “What’s going on here?” he demanded. “Where’s Glancy?”

  “In the back,” someone told him. “In the dressing rooms. They’ve got two of the suspects back there, the woman and Ed Waverly.”

  Wainwright nodded. “Good work. Where’s the other one? What’s his name, Osburn?”

  “Osgood,” said the DEA agent who was supplying the information. “We don’t know. He didn’t show up here for work today, and this guy”—he motioned toward me—“he says Seattle P.D. has already issued an APB on him.”

  Wainwright glanced toward me. “Hello, Detective Beaumont. How’s it going?”

  “Who knows?”

  Wainwright headed for the dressing-room area, and I tagged along. As soon as he saw the agent in charge, Glancy looked enormously relieved. “I’m glad you’re here, boss,” he said. “L.A. called me when they couldn’t raise you on the pager. We’ve got Jasmine Day in one dressing room and Waverly in the other.”

  The agent in charge glanced briefly at the two closed doors. “Someone’s in there with each of them?”

  Glancy nodded, watching Wainwright pace back and forth across the room. “I don’t know what those assholes in L.A. are thinking,” Wainwright stormed. “They’ve got their heads up their butts, pulling off an operation like this without giving us any advance notice.

  “I was out flying,” he added. “I got the message as soon as I landed and came straight here. It looks as though you’ve got everything under control. Good work, Glancy.” Wainwright turned to me. “Any idea what became of Osgood, Detective Beaumont?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “None. We’ve talked to his wife. She told us he had moved out. We’re afraid he may have skipped town. We’ve got people staked out at the airport looking for him, and we’ve notified customs at Blaine in case he tries to get out that way.”

  “Good. That was smart.”

  Just then someone tapped me lightly on the shoulder. I twisted around to find Big Bertha Harris standing right behind me. “I have to talk to you,” she whispered.

  Obligingly, I followed her out of the room. “They’re all like that,” she said as soon as the door closed behind us.

  “What are all like what?” I asked.

  “The other trunks,” she answered. “They all have false bottoms.”

  “Are they full or empty?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. I didn’t check.”

  We looked at three more trunks. One was for costumes and two were for instruments. Bertha was right. They all had false bottoms, and they were all empty.

  Alan Dale had followed along. He scratched his head. “Jesus Christ! How could I have been so stupid? This must have been going on the whole time and I never had an inkling.” Angrily, he shoved his hands in his pockets and walked toward the edge of the stage. I went after him.

  “What are you going to do?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “I might just as well go ahead and start the load-out. I don’t know where they’re going to take the stuff or who’s going to pay for it, but I’ve got to get it out of here, and I can’t keep the stagehands on duty all night.” He looked around. “Where the hell is Ray?” he asked.

  “Ray Holman?” I asked. “Is he missing?”

  Dale shook his head. “Probably didn’t think we’d start this soon and snuck off to have a beer.”

  The head carpenter summoned his crew. “Okay, you guys, let’s strike this sucker, starting with the band shell.”

  Ray Holman’s being gone bothered me a whole lot more than it seemed to bother Alan Dale. I went back to the dressing room where B. W. Wainwright had taken charge. “You ought to send someone out to check the rest of the trunks,” I told him. “It looks to me like they’ve all got false bottoms.”

  Glancy and Dick were dispatched to take care of that. I looked at the closed door to Jasmine’s dressing room. I knew she was in there, and I wanted to go and talk to her, to reassure her and tell her not to worry, but I thought better of it. Moments later, Alan Dale came pounding on the door to the common area.

  “Beaumont, can you come here for a minute?”

  “What’s going on?” I asked as we walked away from the dressing rooms.

  “You’d better come take a look at this.”

  “What is it?”

  “Just come look.”

  He led me to the back of the stage, where the pedestal used to support the band shell stuck up out of the decking like the empty stump of a tree. The band shell had been removed to one side and was being dismantled by several stagehands.

  “You got a strong stomach?” Dale asked, handing me a flashlight.

  “Strong enough,” I replied. “Why? What’s going on?”

  “Crawl under there and take a look.”

  I got down on my hands and knees and crawled along the worm-gear track. As soon as I put my head under the decking, I smelled the unmistakable odor of human feces and blood and death. The decking had somehow contained it, kept it bottled up. It wasn’t necessary to go any farther to know there was a body under there. I shone the light along the track until I saw the outline of a man’s shoe. Then I crawled back out from under the decking. Alan Dale was standing there waiting for me.

  “Do you know who it is
?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “I turned around as soon as I saw the shoe.”

  “Me too,” I said. “I’ve got to call the department. They’ll have to get a team over here.”

  “Help yourself to the phone,” Dale told me. “You know where it is.”

  I started for the phone with the head carpenter trailing behind me. “Looks to me like he got bound up in the worm-gear drive. That’s about where it ran off the track. Shouldn’t we try to get him out?” he asked.

  “No. It’s too late for that. He’s dead; I’m sure of it. Doc Baker from the medical examiner’s office and the crime-scene investigators from the crime lab have got to be here when we uncover him. Is it possible it’s Ray Holman?” I asked.

  “Maybe,” Dale said.

  I dialed Sergeant Lowell James’s desk directly. There wasn’t much point in going through 911.

  “Hello, Sarge, this is Beau.”

  “It’s about time you called in. We’ve had complaints from parking enforcement about your car. I understand it’s still parked in front of the theater with its emergency lights flashing.”

  “That’s what this is,” I countered, “an emergency.”

  “For two hours?”

  “Look, Sarge, do you want me to report this homicide, or are you going to climb my frame about parked cars?”

  “What homicide?” James snapped.

  “Beats the hell out of me. We’ve got an unidentified body under the decking on the stage of the Fifth Avenue Theater. And the DEA guys are here. They’ve already arrested two people on drug charges and are looking for a third.”

  “The DEA? How’d they get called into this, and why weren’t we notified?”

  “Would you do me a favor and just call Doc Baker’s office? And contact the crime lab. We can handle all this paper-pushing bullshit later.”

  “Right,” James said. “We’ll handle it, all right.”

  Twenty minutes later, Sergeant James and I were waiting near the back of the Fifth Avenue’s stage when Doc Baker came huffing up to us, his tie flapping loose around his neck, his white hair standing on end. The same young female photographer was trailing behind him.