Audition for Murder

by P. M. Carlson

  Jon grinned suddenly. “You’re right. No one can.”

  “But I disagree that step one is unimportant. Even Glenn Gould can’t do much with an untuned piano. I can help people get the instrument in shape, make sure they know how to play scales, and then if there’s art lurking somewhere inside, maybe it’ll get out.”

  “So even our artist-in-residence doesn’t know what makes an artist.”

  “No. But I’m a hell of a good teacher for piano tuners.”

  Jon nodded, amused. The academician, a bit frightened of the unruliness of artistic creation, rightly suspicious of anyone who claimed to have it under control. Nick had apparently passed his test. “Well, I admire you for trying,” Jon said.

  Suddenly, Paul Rigo began coughing and sputtering. Ellen, next to him, with admirable coolness patted him on the back. A look of apprehension flashed across Maggie’s face before her squared chin rose a fraction and the light of battle filled her eyes. Nick, turning to follow her gaze, found himself face to face with the French chef.

  “Bonsoir, messieurs-dames,” he said, much too fluently. “J’espère que vous avez bien diné.”

  “Tres, très bien,” said Maggie with delight. Was that a kind of relief in her voice? “Vous avez une vraie table française.”

  “Merci, mademoiselle.” Why was he flattered? The man was beaming.

  “Et vous êtes canadien, n’est-ce pas?” she asked.

  So that was it.

  “Oui, mademoiselle. Et vous êtes parisienne?”

  French Canadian, then; and Maggie able to pass for the real article, though not, to judge from her momentary anxiety, in front of Parisians. What a busy child she was. Nick, amused, drank his wine and beamed at the chef, who returned to his kitchen, basking in Maggie’s warm compliments. When he had finally gone she rolled her eyes up.

  “Whew!”

  Nick grinned at her. “What if he’d been from Paris?”

  “Then I’d have been from French Guinea or some such place.”

  “Well, you’ve made his day. Did everything but promise him a listing in the Guide Michelin.”

  “A happier joke than the one we played on poor old Harmon,” said Rob; and he and Maggie, a table length apart, exchanged a glance of pleased understanding.

  After the first cup of coffee Jon Halliday suggested to Grace that they leave their share of the bill and depart. “Could I get a ride back to campus with you?” asked Laura. In the end the Hallidays took her, David Wagner, and Paul Rigo, who was worried about his physics homework.

  The waiter refilled the coffeepot and left it with them, and Maggie poured seconds for everyone remaining. Cheyenne gulped his down, and at Lisette’s request passed her cup up for a third refill. Then he stood. “Blithe Spirit tech tomorrow,” he said. “I’m going. My money is on the tray with the others’.”

  “We’d better go too,” said Ellen sternly to her roommate.

  “The evening is still young,” protested Rob. “And we have half a bottle of this good wine to finish.”

  Cheyenne and Ellen were determined, though; and since they had the only cars besides Rob’s, it was clear that the party was breaking up. Rob leaned forward from his end of the table, earnestly. “Please,” he said. “Take anyone else you want, but leave us Mademoiselle Marguerite, in case that frightening chef returns.”

  Ellen and Maggie exchanged a glance, and Jason, throwing a fond arm around the cardinal-red shoulders, protested. “How can you desert me, Maggie, when I offer you both my soul and my peerless body?”

  “You’ve been drinking, Jase,” said Maggie gently, disengaging the arm and standing up. She smiled at Ellen and said, “Goodbye, eldest oyster.” With a despairing shrug, Ellen went out with the others. Maggie brought the coffeepot and her cup to the other end of the table, where she sat in David’s vacated place between Rob and Nick.

  Rob gave her a slow, appreciative smile and murmured, “A fair hot wench in flame-colored taffeta.”

  She blinked, then replied coolly, “Merely trying to be of service to the unlettered.”

  “Tell us, little soubrette, where did all this linguistic skill come from?”

  “France, of course.”

  “At an impressionable age,” said Nick.

  Her expression did not change. “Yes.”

  “And do your thoughts and wishes bend again toward France?” asked Rob.

  “Often. You’ve been there too. Don’t yours?”

  “Occasionally. But when I was there I was too old to be impressionable.”

  “Silly Rob,” said Lisette, yawning. “You’re always impressionable. Could I have some more coffee?”

  Nick and Rob finished the wine and smoked cigarettes while Maggie had a leisurely cup of coffee and Lisette, apologetically, her fifth. “I don’t know why I’m so sleepy,” she said. “I guess it was a harder week than I thought.”

  “There’s been some strain,” said Nick, thinking of the scorpion. “Well, Rob, ready to go?”

  They decided to use the Jenner credit card because O’Connor was too Irish. Rob pocketed the pile of money that the others had left and settled the bill in broken English. Maggie and Lisette went to the rest room while Rob and Nick waited next to the coatroom. Rob held Maggie’s coat over his arm, one elegant hand smoothing the soft white fur. He looked very tired.

  “Exhausting to be French, isn’t it?” said Nick.

  “Mmm.” Rob didn’t raise his eyes. He said, “They’re so young.”

  “Yeah. I was just thinking that today too. It’s fun. I haven’t felt this alive in years. But they are exhausting, especially Mademoiselle Marguerite.”

  “Yes. Amusing kid.” There was a pause, then Rob said, almost to himself, “I’m thirty-two, Nick.”

  “Yeah, me too. Age with his stealing steps hath clawed us in his clutch.”

  Rob didn’t smile. The lean hand stroked the fur quietly for a moment. Then he said, “Zetty was an undergraduate when you found her.”

  Nick was suddenly uneasy. “Yes,” he said, then, not sure if it was the right thing to say, he added, “But we’d have fewer problems now if we’d waited a bit.”

  “You didn’t wait then. Would you have waited if you’d been thirty-two?” The blue eyes, burnt with exhaustion and loneliness, suddenly leveled with Nick’s.

  Nick said forcefully, “Rob, you’ve been here one week. Fourteen to go. And you’ve got the whole damn show riding on you. Plus the future of Brian’s department.”

  Suddenly restless, Rob straightened and turned his back to look out the window, the white fur tossed over the shoulder of the camel topcoat, soft blond hair against it. He said, “Nick, I’m a professional too. You know the damn show will be all right. Whatever it takes.”

  Five

  Lisette stumbled on the way to the car, and Nick caught her elbow to steady her. Rob had unlocked the back door, and Nick helped her in while Rob let Maggie into the front passenger seat and then went around to the driver’s side. There were a few snowflakes blowing in the wind, and his pale hair licked about his forehead like little flames. He sat down, closed the door, and stared at the wheel a minute.

  “God,” he said. “I’m stoned. A little.”

  “Do you want someone else to drive?” asked Maggie.

  “No. I’ll be fine.” He raised a dramatic finger and declaimed, “Good wine is a good familiar creature if it be well used.”

  “Every inordinate cup is unblessed,” countered Nick, who had maybe had a drop too much himself.

  “I’ll be extremely careful,” Rob promised. He turned the key and started out of the lot. Lisette lurched against Nick as they rounded the corner onto the highway.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Very tired,” she said.

  Nick tipped her chin up and studied her a minute in the headlights of the car behind them. “You look bad,” he said, concerned. He could see her honey-brown eyes in the wavering light. The pupils were tiny. “Do you feel sick?”

&n
bsp; “M’all right,” she said. The eyes closed. Nick leaned forward.

  “Rob, she looks bad. Could we get her to a hospital, do you think?” Maggie turned to look at Lisette.

  “She says she’s all right,” objected Rob. “Are you sick, Lisette?”

  She made an effort. “Just tired. Bed.”

  “I’ll just take you home,” said Rob soothingly.

  “Home,” murmured Lisette. Her cheek was cold and damp. Nick felt panic rising.

  “Rob, please!” he said.

  “Come on, Nick,” said Rob. He had stopped at a stoplight, and turned to look back at them, the red glow making his hair shine like embers. “The hospital is miles away, and she says she’s just tired. I believe her. I’m tired too.”

  “Nick’s right,” said Maggie suddenly. “She’s not just tired.”

  “Jus’ tired,” repeated Lisette.

  “See?” said Rob. “You two alarmists are interfering with her rest.”

  Maggie leaned across Rob, switched off the ignition with one hand, and opened his door with the other. “Out, Rob,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Out. Get out. Now.”

  “You’re crazy!” He stared at her unbelievingly. The light blinked to green.

  “Sorry, kid,” she said, leaning back against her door and placing an elegant French boot, still muddy, against his thigh.

  “My God! My coat!” Shocked, he flinched away from the boot. She shoved, and he suddenly found himself outside, arms flailing for balance. Maggie slid smoothly into the driver’s seat and turned the ignition. The car moved forward and left Rob on the pavement, staggering. When they were clear of him Maggie pulled the door closed and made a rapid U-turn, then pressed the accelerator. The car vaulted up the hill toward the hospital.

  By the time they had run their third red light, a patrol car was chasing them. Lisette was slumped against Nick, and he braced himself to keep them both from ricocheting around the back seat as Maggie traced a complex, competent line through the other traffic. He was dimly aware of the flashing lights from behind intersecting the rapid flow of the light from street lamps. She did not slow, and the sirens and lights behind them got other traffic out of the way. When she turned into the hospital driveway the patrol car seemed to relax a little. She skidded to a halt in front of the emergency room and was out opening Nick’s door instantly.

  “Need help?”

  “She’s not heavy,” he said. Lisette was unconscious.

  “I’ll follow when I’ve talked to the officers.” She made sure the emergency door was open and then walked toward the patrol car. Nick carried the limp body into the emergency room. She was so pale, almost silvery in the bluish fluorescent lights. Instantly, a nurse and an intern were helping him.

  “What is it?”

  “Some sort of drug, I think.”

  “Burning sensations?”

  “She didn’t mention any. Just passed out.”

  “You don’t know what it was?”

  “No idea.”

  The intern turned to the nurse. “Oxygen. Cyanosis.”

  They hurried her away. Nick gave his insurance card to the woman at the reception desk and filled out forms. When he had finished he stood, suddenly extraneous, in the glare of the fluorescent bulbs, their artificial cheeriness ghastly in the night.

  After a minute or two the cold air swirled through the door and Maggie came in, the white fur fluttering in the gust of wind. A constellation of snowflakes rested a moment in the black curls, then faded in the warmth. The two of them found chairs near the reception desk.

  “Some kind of poison? An attack?” she asked.

  “Did she take something in the rest room?” Nick felt very tired.

  Maggie thought. “No. I’m sure. Maybe food poisoning?”

  “The food. Maybe. I didn’t think of that.”

  “You thought she did this herself? On purpose?”

  She was very young and quite lovely. “Oh, Christ. It’s all so squalid,” said Nick. He rubbed his face. Whatever chance Lisette had now, she owed to this youngster. He ought to explain a little. “This is about the umpteenth time Lisette has had an overdose of something. On purpose, yes, most of the time. Not a truly dangerous dose, most of the time. She’ll start with bourbon, go on to barbiturates or anything else that’s handy. She wants to be rescued. But usually she’s depressed, or there’s some kind of clue beforehand. That’s what I don’t understand. She’s been happy here, damn it! I was so sure!”

  “She seems happy to me,” said Maggie. She studied him a moment. “But I don’t know her well.”

  “It’s true,” he said. “She hasn’t been this happy since the first year we were married. I thought maybe, finally, she was finding her way out.”

  Blue eyes, serious and friendly. Not a child’s eyes. “At first she seemed a little tense,” she said. “Not at ease with herself, except when she was working.”

  “Work has always kept her going,” he explained. “She’s very professional. Until the last show before we came here.”

  “You mean she was worse then?”

  “Started drinking again. But she got herself dried out and decided to get out of New York.”

  “So coming here has been a sort of therapy?”

  “In a way. It was supposed to get her away from the pressures of the city. And we were both happy for a while in college. We were married there, you know. A while ago. 1960.”

  “You were undergraduates?”

  “She was. I was an instructor, a two-year job I had while I was writing my master’s thesis. It was a little place, Wilson College. We were the big frogs in a tiny pond. She was a freshman, but very good. We played a lot of leads. Eliza and Higgins. Antigone and Creon. It wasn’t a very big department.”

  “Also you’re damn good.”

  “That too.” He grinned at her. He was beginning to feel a little hopeful about Lisette again. She really was happier now, he was sure. This must have been some sort of accident. “Anyway, I think she’s enjoying it here. Enjoying her work and the whole atmosphere. I know I am.”

  “It’s a good place,” said Maggie. “In touch, but sheltered from the most horrible things, most of the time. Ivory tower. Like a lot of colleges.”

  “Yes. But still vital. I love it, I’d forgotten how much. And I think Lisette does too, even though she ended up having a rotten time in college.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “My bright idea,” he said bitterly. “Assuming that at twenty or so we were adult and unchangeable, and could casually take a couple of years out of our lives without altering anything. I finished my master’s degree, you see. We’d been married ten months but she still had two years to go. We’d been very happy that year.” Merrily, merrily shall I live now, under the blossom that hangs on the bough.

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “And then I got the bright idea that everything would come out even if I got my military service out of the way while she finished school. Then we’d both go to New York and become rich and famous.” He felt again the familiar twist of anger at that stupid blind youth, himself, who had ruined Lisette’s life and his own.

  “You enlisted?”

  Nick caught the shadow of reproach in her voice. “I owed them for my education,” he explained. “Anyway, this was before Vietnam. We were still the good guys. Kennedy was president. Since I knew some German, they sent me to Berlin. They had just built the Wall.”

  “I see.”

  “I grew up a lot. That one night…” He rubbed his eyes. He hadn’t spoken of it for years. That stupid blind kid had paid for his sins in many ways. “There was an East German boy. Must have been in his teens. We were sitting there at the checkpoint, drinking coffee. I was off-duty actually, just saying good night to a buddy. Then there was shouting and we looked out and the kid was scrambling across the no-man’s land toward us. And they spotlighted him and they machine-gunned him. Halfway across. And we stood there with our big guns and
did nothing. Nothing. We were forbidden to shoot. Defenders of freedom. The kid lay there and bled to death and we couldn’t do a thing.”

  “Christ.”

  “Except I got sick. A useful contribution to the cause of freedom.” He rubbed his hand through his thin hair. With rainy eyes, write sorrow on the bosom of the earth. He looked at her sideways. “Ich bin ein Berliner,” he said mockingly.

  She shook her head. The young wise eyes were sad.

  “I’m babbling,” Nick observed. “Sorry to be so tiresome.”

  “Oh, lump that,” she said tartly. “You’re a pro, you know when your audience is hanging on every word.”

  “Okay.” He smiled. “I’ll admit that my shameful life is fascinating. Like a toad. No more false modesty. I promise.”

  “Done!” She extended a lean young hand and they shook solemnly. He noted the firm clasp and the thickened skin of the palms. A gymnast. He smiled again.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “I don’t know. You make me dredge up one of the worst experiences of my life, and I feel better.”

  “The talking cure.”

  “Dear old Freud.”

  “We can leave him out of it. But I would like to hear about Lisette.”

  Serious again, he tilted back his little chair. “Okay. Well, eventually I came home, the Army having made a man of me and all that. And after a week or so it gradually dawned on me that all hell had broken loose in Lisette’s life too. And I think she tried to hide it. I know at least that there weren’t any hints in her letters, because I reread them later.”

  “What happened?”

  “What didn’t? Alcohol. Drugs. Her senior year she was even dealing in a small way. I came back expecting to be comforted and coddled. All-American G.I. returning to his all-American wife. And here was Lisette with a police record, for possession only, thank God. She was a psychological wreck. She hadn’t done any acting for a year and was on the verge of flunking out of college.”

  “God! What had happened to her?”

  He spoke from the shadows of the past. “It was a wrench for her when I left. Her own dad had run off, and she felt echoes. From being the college queen, she suddenly found herself without much in common with the other students. There she was, a junior, and an old married lady who didn’t date or do much of anything, in a college that had very few married students. Apparently there was some resentment among the theatre students because she had been getting so many leads. The directors explained to her that they wouldn’t be casting her so often, because others needed a chance too.” He shrugged. “But I think they were worried already about her drinking. Didn’t want to expose the other undergraduates to a hard-drinking experienced married woman. It was rough. God, she was just a junior.” He caught the twinkle of amusement in the blue eyes and said defensively, “This was the early sixties, Maggie, when juniors were still juniors instead of hardbitten citizens of the world.”