“Yeah.”
“Hell,” said Rob, subdued. “I’d hoped it was just me. Looks bad.”
When Maggie arrived a minute later, she looked strained and exhausted, and the sling showed white against her blue shirt. “Poor kid,” murmured Jim, shocked. But she walked firmly over to face the policemen.
“Hello, I’m Maggie Ryan. My roommate says you want to talk to me.”
“Yes, thank you, Miss Ryan.” Sergeant Hawes and the officer stood up politely. “I’m Sergeant Hawes.”
“Sorry it’s taken so long. I’ve had a hell of a couple of days here.”
“Yes, we heard about your elbow, and the car trouble.”
“That’s not all, Sergeant Hawes. That’s not all.”
“Do you want to go somewhere a little more private?”
“Sure. If you want,” she said, and suddenly, terrifyingly, looked full at Rob. Ellen felt a chill.
The policemen started for the stairs. Ellen was one of the few close enough to tell that Rob, sitting in a relaxed posture, swinging his legs over the edge of the table, was actually taut in every muscle. He blurted suddenly, “See me later, Maggie?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said scornfully. But she slowed and looked at him again. Rob’s eyes dropped before hers.
“You’ll tell them about Joe’s?” he asked contritely. He wants to hear, Ellen realized, no matter how bad it is.
“Joe’s? My God,” said Maggie. She stalked over to face him, her good arm cocked indignantly on her hip. And Ellen realized that she wanted him to hear too, and that, whatever their problem, these two were still attuned, still flying in deadly formation just beyond the reach of the rest of them. Except maybe Nick; no longer dull-eyed, he seemed to be following their hidden line.
“Miss Ryan?” The officer took a couple of steps toward her. She turned to him, indignant.
“Did he tell you I was at Joe’s?”
“Yes,” said Rob quickly.
“Yes, he did,” admitted Sergeant Hawes, bowing to reality.
“My God,” said Maggie.
“Miss Ryan, let’s—”
But she continued as though the sergeant had not spoken. “I can’t believe it. You would actually lie like that in a police investigation?”
“Think, Maggie,” Rob said urgently. God, he could look handsome. “It’s true. And it’s best for everybody that it is.”
“Miss Ryan—”
“Don’t worry, Sergeant. He’s not telling me what to say. He’s lying. I should know better than anyone what a liar he is.”
“Maggie. Think what you’re saying. Think!”
“Think yourself, Rob! This is not a game. Not a play. It might be murder.” Ellen felt Nick flinch beside her, and caught the flash of regret and compassion in Maggie’s eyes before she continued. “Sergeant Hawes, I’m sorry. But this makes me mad! Mr. Jenner, as you have probably heard, has been flirting with me all term. Sunday, closing night, I learned that he was not serious.”
It was Monday, thought Ellen, and was aware of Nick’s sudden stillness beside her too.
“Miss Ryan, don’t you want to tell us more privately?”
She said harshly, “Thanks, but don’t worry about me. Everyone will know eventually. It might as well be now. And I want him to know that it’s about time he told the truth.”
“Mr. Jenner?” Sergeant Hawes turned to Rob. “Didn’t you tell the truth?”
Rob said in a low voice, “Not quite the whole truth.” His gaze followed Maggie, hope draining from his face. She was crossing the room toward David Wagner’s chair.
“David,” she said gently, “I know why you said what you did. But it’s time to tell them now.”
“Oh, God, Maggie, no!” David buried his face in his hands. Her good hand hovered an instant over his hair, protectively, before she turned back to the policemen. Beside Ellen, Nick’s head shook infinitesimally, sorrowfully.
“Sergeant Hawes, the problem is that David is Dean Wagner’s son,” Maggie continued earnestly. “I’m sure you understand that none of us want to hurt the dean’s family in any way.”
“Of course.” Hawes had given up trying to get her away.
Rob said desperately, “Maggie, don’t drag other people into something that concerns just us. Really, just us.”
She ignored him. “The problem is, if you’re the dean’s son, you have to be extra careful with your reputation. With what people think of your morals.”
“Maggie, shut up!” Rob, blue eyes icy, furious, slid off the table to start toward her, but suddenly found his arm imprisoned by Nick’s big hand.
“Stay there, Mr. Jenner,” said Sergeant Hawes, and the officer stepped a little closer and took Rob’s other arm. “Now, please, Miss Ryan, just tell us what you did Sunday night.”
“I am telling you. I just wanted to explain first why David said he was alone when he really wasn’t. And Rob knew he would say that, and took advantage of it to force me to lie and say I was with him. Well, I wasn’t with him. I was nowhere near him. I was not at Joe’s.”
David, trembling, raised anguished eyes to Rob; but Rob would not meet his gaze. The handsome body still held itself proudly from habit, but Ellen could see that he was defeated, all hope gone. Nick, rather than restraining him, almost seemed to be supporting him now.
Sergeant Hawes was becoming impatient. “All right, Miss Ryan. You say that Mr. Jenner and Mr. Wagner did not tell the truth. You’ve told us where you weren’t. So where were you?”
“Okay. First, I already told you I had kind of a scene with Mr. Jenner.”
“And after that?”
Maggie turned a little, compassionately, toward David, her hand resting on his bowed head again. “After that,” she said matter-of-factly, “I was with David, driving around the lake.”
Rob stood very still.
A shadow of relief and admiration pulsed through his body and was gone. But that couldn’t be, thought Ellen; Maggie had just destroyed his alibi and accused him of lying. Then Nick unaccountably released his arm and leaned back in the sofa, hands clasped behind his head, gaze still on Maggie.
“Mr. Wagner, is that true?”
“Look, I know it sounds bad,” said Maggie, heading off David’s reply. “But that’s what I’m trying to explain. David is a good friend, and when he saw what a mess I was in, after what Rob did, he was very sympathetic. But he was just comforting me, nothing else. It wasn’t what it sounds like. It was just friendship.”
“How long were you driving around?”
“Oh, hours. I don’t remember exactly, I was pretty worked up. I do remember we stopped once to walk along the shore, up near Tomaqua where they have those little cliffs. And I stupidly fell off. That’s how I did this.” She motioned to the sling. “And poor David tried to help me, and he slipped and got pretty banged up too. Look.” She jerked up the front of David’s shirt. There were ugly weals across his ribs. “And see my hands?” she added. She held out her right palm, still raw and red, and even Ellen, who had witnessed the frenzied gymnastics, almost believed her for a moment. David, frowning, pulled down his shirt.
“Mr. Wagner? Is that accurate?”
With an odd glance of defiance at Rob, David said, “Yes, sir.”
“Please don’t worry, Mr. Wagner. I’m sorry Miss Ryan chose to talk in front of so many people, but I’m sure they will be discreet and keep the best interests of the college at heart.”
Everyone nodded. David said, “Yes, sir.”
“Poor David,” whispered Jason. “What a prig he has to be.”
Rob pushed himself back up to sit on the table again. Sergeant Hawes glanced at him, then said unexpectedly, “Mr. Anderson?”
“It could be,” said Tim. “I told you I really couldn’t see them well. I just assumed it was Rob because he and Maggie were usually together. But now that you ask, I think I would have noticed if the guy had been blond. He was just a dark shape to me, because Maggie was driving, and I was on her s
ide of the driveway.”
“Oh, did someone see us?” asked Maggie, pleased. “There, you see, David, it would all have come out anyway.”
“Mr. Jenner?” said Sergeant Hawes, and a shiver of anticipation ran through the watchers.
Rob was swinging his legs again, just a little, and was regarding the toes of his sneakers mournfully. “Yes, it’s true,” he said. He raised contrite eyes to the policeman. “Sergeant Hawes, Miss Ryan makes me very ashamed. I’m afraid I misjudged her character and the situation from the very beginning. She’s right to insist on honesty.” The blue eyes, sorrowful, shifted to Maggie. “If there were any way in the world to go back and start over, I would.”
“You’re admitting that you did not tell the truth?” asked the sergeant.
“It was very close to true.” He still seemed to be speaking to Maggie. “But I only told part of it.” She gave a brief nod.
“You support her account, then?” pursued the sergeant.
“Yes, I do. We quarreled. She returned a ring I had given her.” He pulled it from his sweatshirt pocket. There was a mild sensation among the crew members. “I hoped she might change her mind later. Right after the show, I saw her and David Wagner together in the parking lot. We all know that David is in a peculiar situation because of his father’s position, and later when I heard that neither of them had been seen all evening, I put two and two together.”
“You knew Mr. Wagner would claim to be alone?”
“I suspected he would.”
“And you thought she would back your story to protect him?”
“I hoped so. I knew she would want to protect David and the college from needless scandal. And I had hoped we would be on good terms again, and that she would support my story.” He looked sadly at the ring and replaced it in his pocket. “My action was very wrong, I know. But I was really trying to avoid as much trouble as possible for her, and for David, as well as for myself.”
“Great motive,” said Maggie, “but you’ll avoid even more trouble if you just leave me alone.”
He turned to her and said carefully, “Henceforth I vow it shall be so for me.” And Maggie’s defenses cracked for an instant, and she bit her lip and turned away from him.
Sergeant Hawes said, “Mr. Jenner, now, we still have to ask where you really were. And why you did not tell the truth.”
He drew a deep breath. “Sergeant Hawes, would it be possible to take you up on the offer of a more private room? I’d like to save the shreds and patches of my reputation among the students if I can.”
“Certainly,” said Hawes. “We’ll go up to the men’s dressing room. Miss Ryan, Mr. Wagner, thank you. We will be discreet with your information, of course.”
“Thank you, Sergeant Hawes,” said Maggie. She watched as Rob, with a glance of abject penitence, went up the stairs with the policemen. Then she turned back and carefully aimed a friendly, hearty slap at David’s swollen shoulder. Tears sprang to his eyes. “There, you see, David?” she said genially. “Nobody here is going to tell on you. It’s never smart to withhold information.” She ran out the door toward the stage. He gazed after her with hatred and with respect.
Ellen stared too, perplexed. Maggie had lied. About Sunday night. About when she had quarreled with Rob. About her injuries. About being with David. And in the course of those lies, Ellen had seen Rob go from concern to the depths of angry despair, and then suddenly almost back to normal, even though his alibi had been annihilated in front of policemen and friends. And Rob had supported her lies, and so had David, honest square David, and so had Tim.
Ellen noticed suddenly that Nick was regarding her with friendly eyes.
“Nick,” she said, and stopped.
“Don’t ask, Ellen. We heard better than truth.”
“But—”
“Do you know The Taming of the Shrew?”
“A little.”
Nick quoted, “Forward, I pray, since we have come so far,/And be it moon, or sun, or what you please,/An if you please to call it a rush-candle,/Henceforth I vow it shall be so for me.”
“Oh,” said Ellen.
“Stick with her, Ellen. You’ll never have a more worthwhile friend.”
“Yes. That I knew already.”
But she saw that Nick was losing interest in the conversation already, his friendly concern fading to leadenness again.
Cheyenne stuck his head in the door and said, “Got to clean up here this morning, soon as the cops leave. Everybody out.”
They got up, except for Nick, and milled toward the door. Ellen glanced down at him, but something about his dark eyes told her she could not help. Then she saw that Maggie had edged back into the room and was talking to Jason in the corner. He was patting her good shoulder in clumsy sympathy. I’ll ask her now, Ellen decided.
But as she drew near, she froze at Maggie’s soft words. “Jase, you once offered me your peerless soul and body. Is the offer still open? One-time basis?”
Jason stared at her for a startled instant, then managed to say lightly, “Of course. A gentleman would never retract such an offer.”
“Well, you can keep your old peerless soul anyway. But I want to get laid, Jase. Right now.”
Ellen had turned away in confusion, and as they started for the stairs Jim came back in from where he’d been waiting for her. “Coming?”
“Not yet,” Ellen said, taking her decision. Clearly she would have to make do without Maggie’s advice. “I want to ask Sergeant Hawes something when he’s finished with Rob. I’ll meet you in the library, okay? Shouldn’t be too long.”
“Okay,” said Jim. “Main reading room.” He went out too.
With a last look back at Nick, Ellen went slowly upstairs. There was a low murmur of voices from the men’s dressing room. She sat down on the bench by the prop room to read the notes for her history exam while she waited. After a few moments there was a step behind her in the hall.
“Waiting to see the police?”
“Yeah,” said Ellen, glancing back, and then did the most stupid thing she had ever done. She asked, “Listen, did you tell them about your sister?”
“Why? Ancient history.”
“Yeah, I know. Just wondered.” And then she did the second most stupid thing she’d ever done. She turned back to her history notes.
There was a shock of pain on the back of her head. The world flared white an instant before the wave of blackness sucked her down.
Eighteen
It smells to heaven.
Nick leaned back in the corner of the sofa, his eyes closed, his arm flopped on the table where Rob had been, and dreaded the future. He had been distracted briefly by the concerns of these people he cared about, and had concentrated on them almost gratefully while he could. But now those problems had reached a resolution of sorts. Maggie, hurt but not destroyed, had made her choice. She had saved David and the department’s good name, and had tossed Rob to the policemen to squirm for a while; but he would doubtless invent something just scandalous enough to explain his lie and wriggle out. It was no longer a murder investigation anyway. Nick was not really worried about him. And, as the last people drifted out of the greenroom, he realized that he could not put off his own terrible task much longer.
Lisette was dead.
He had to face that. He thought he could, eventually. He had faced the possibility many times before.
She had committed suicide.
He knew the strength of the inner horror that she fought constantly, and he had known that she might lose someday. Now, with her fingerprints on the hypodermic, and her own incontrovertible note, there was no denying it.
But she had killed herself without asking him to help. In fact, she had been assuring him for weeks, in word and action, that things were better for her.
She had lied.
She had not given him a chance to help her this time.
Maggie’s calm words throbbed in his memory. “You’re angry at her, because she left you and did
n’t give you a chance to try.” Giving him that chance had always been the agreement, unspoken perhaps, but part of the foundation of their life. She would let him know somehow when it was bad. She always had.
Now she had betrayed him.
And he was angry with a rank helpless rage that blocked all decent emotions. Except shame. A sweeping shame that he was so selfish, that he felt only the insult to himself, that he did not feel grief or sorrow or regret, but only this obscene, unspeakable fury at her final betrayal.
Once again his mind teetered to the edge of this truth and then drew back. He could not come to terms with it. Everything he had believed about himself, about her, about their life, had been a lie.
How could she have done it to him?
And how could he, big ox, sit here furious at the frail tortured soul he had loved so long?
He must find something to do. Close up the old emotional shop for a while longer. O, my offense is rank, it smells to heaven. So, stow it. Forget it. Lock it away. Find something to do.
But the nagging thought circled back. One person could settle his doubt.
If he didn’t check, wasn’t that as bad as what she had done to him?
If he was right, he would lose twice over. If he was wrong—well, he had to give Lisette this last chance. He stood up resolutely and began to search.
Ellen was floating in a void, in peace and silence and dim light. A thought came to her. She’d been hit on the head. Was this death? The undiscovered country. She blinked, and things came a little clearer. For one thing, her head ached. For another, there was tightness around her mouth. A cloth. And there were Lekos a few feet away. And the edge of a catwalk behind them. A harness tight around her shoulders. Odd country, death.
She blinked again. The pain localized a little, head and bound mouth. She managed to raise her sore head a little to look up. The gridiron. The ropes attached to the flying harness disappeared up there into its pulleys.
So she was floating. Someone had granted her wish. Someone had pulled her hastily, like Laura’s dummy, from the dressing room hall onto the catwalk. Now she was dangling high in the flies above the stage floor. Not dead after all. But when she looked down again toward the faraway floor and saw who was standing down by the pin rail, fraying the rope, she realized that she soon would be. When the rope gave way, she’d fall, like the sandbag that had almost hit Lisette. And today there was no help. The police were on the other side of that soundproofed door, the others gone. She would fall, her gag would be removed, and there would remain only the dead heap of silly Ellen, who had stupidly tried out the harness alone, using a frayed rope.
Audition for Murder Page 22
