Could she swing to safety, like Tarzan? Or climb up the rope to the safety of the gridiron? But her hands were tied together. And, with this rag in her mouth, her teeth were useless. The only thing she had that was even a little sharp was her belt buckle. Desperately, she began to rub her wrists against it.
The worst thing was thinking of how sad Jim would be.
“Maggie.”
It had been a long search. He had called her room; no answer. Then he had walked over to the library and looked through it thoroughly. Finally, back in the theatre parking lot, he had met Jason. “Seen Maggie?” Nick had asked.
There was a flicker of pleased embarrassment in his eyes. “She was in the woods behind the gym a few minutes ago.”
The hazy sunlight drifted through young leaves and lit her blue shirt as she leaned disconsolately against a trunk. “Hello,” she said dully. Damn Rob, she really had been hurt. And now it was his turn to hurt her.
Unless he was wrong.
She said, “Thanks for getting our tragic hero under control back there. I was afraid he was going to panic too soon.”
“Would’ve served him right.”
“Yeah.”
“Wish I could be as decent to my enemies,” he added.
That made her think a minute. She pulled off a leaf and twirled it in her fingers. Finally she said, “Nick, you’re being too kind to me. What I did will hurt Rob a lot.” Nick remembered the look of wounded defiance that David had given his groveling, impotent hero, and decided she was right. She frowned thoughtfully. “And you’re being too hard on yourself. She really gave you no hint at all?”
“None,” he said shortly. There were some tiny white flowers in the young grass. He ground his toe into a patch of them, carefully, and when he glanced up, she was still studying him. “Look,” he said, “I blew it about Rob and you, I know, but that’s because Rob lied to me, not because I wasn’t tuned in. If I’d listened to my guts instead of to him, I could have saved you a lot of trouble. I’m not an insensitive clod.”
“God, no.”
“And with Lisette I’d had years of hard practice. If she’d wanted to—” He broke off. All right, the hell with it. Do what you came to do, cruel and ridiculous though it is. Nick the brute. He said, “I’ve got to ask you something, Maggie.”
“Sure.”
“Back there you said it might be murder.”
“Nick, I’m sorry. I was kicking myself as soon as I said it.”
“You didn’t really think it was?”
“No.” She was puzzled. “There’s evidence, Nick.”
“I know.” What a stupid project this was, done for the sake of a hateful memory.
“Do you really want to talk about it?” she asked.
“No. I don’t want to. But I have to.”
“I see. Okay.” She leaned back against the tree, one knee bent, foot braced against the trunk behind her, and considered. “We’ll leave aside the note and the hypodermic for a while, then. Who could’ve done it?”
Why not? He leaned against a neighboring tree and crossed his arms. “Okay. Not Laura. And no one in the greenroom. That clears everybody except you and David and Rob and Paul.”
“What about Grace and Judy and Cheyenne?”
“Possible. Maybe. They left about fifteen minutes before Ellen went to get her.”
“And Ellen?”
“No. Not enough time.”
“Brian? Dean Wagner?”
“Christ, this is stupid! There were a million people who weren’t in the greenroom, who could have done it. Bat nobody would! Even Laura was just playing nasty jokes.”
“Those barbiturates at the restaurant were more than just nasty,” said Maggie thoughtfully. “She never even admitted she’d done that.”
“She wouldn’t have admitted anything if you hadn’t caught her at it. Anyway, we’ve always said she just miscalculated. The photos were unpleasant, but never dangerous.”
“Right. And as Ellen says, the timing is crazy. Why wait till closing night if you want someone out of the show? The only way this could make sense as murder is if the person wanted her to stay in it.”
“Yeah.” It didn’t make sense as murder, she was right. The only thing that made sense was betrayal.
“Anyway, Laura was in her dorm. Who else is there?”
Nick returned to the game, “Well, there’s Paul, who has so conveniently disappeared. We all knew he was in trouble. But Lisette wasn’t the only one giving him a low grade.”
“Maybe she was supposed to be more understanding because she was in the show too.”
“Maybe. But I can’t really believe that either, can you? A kid like Paul? Mr. Peacenik himself?”
“You’re right. He didn’t do it.” She was sure. Too sure?
He went on. “And there’s Rob. If he really thought David was threatened, he might do something desperate. I mean, he did do something desperate.”
“But he would have planned a better alibi. He’s too bright. Besides, Nick”—she drew a shaky breath—”he really is a gentle and loving person. Damn him. He really, is.”
“Yeah. I know that too.” She was right, poor kid.
“Okay. Go on. Who else?” she said brusquely. Wanting to move on. But he hesitated.
“Really, this is stupid, Maggie. I don’t want to accuse people at random.”
“So far your accusations haven’t been random. I can think of two more, easily.”
“Two?”
“Well, for example, Grace has had the hots for you since the first week of rehearsals.”
Startled, Nick asked, “How did you know? Did Rob tell?”
“Oh, did he know too? No, we never talked about it. But I’m very observant. At least I am about everyone’s business but my own.” A bitter voice.
Same here, Nick thought. He said, “You were up against a master, Maggie. Talented, and practiced, and very much in love.”
“Yeah.” She made an effort, rallied. “Well, anyway, I haven’t told anyone about Grace, if that worries you.”
“Good. That happens to people sometimes, Maggie,” he explained earnestly. “They can be happily married and still be attracted briefly to other people. It’s not serious, usually.”
“Yes, sir, Uncle Nick, sir. I’ll remember.”
“O’Connor’s Pompous Advice to Youth, Chapter Seventeen.”
She smiled a little. “It’s just that you’re being so chivalrous. Here’s someone who fits all the qualifications. She’d want Lisette around until the end of the show, and then she’d want her out of the way. Perfect motive. Flattering to you. So why not be suspicious of her?”
“Damn it, Maggie, I’m not suspicious of anyone, really! But…” But what? I want someone else to take the blame? He stopped. He couldn’t go through with this after all.
“You’re still being chivalrous, Nick. Who else did you think of?”
He glanced at her uncertainly. Challenging eyes, bluer than the May sky, sympathetic. She knew, had probably known since he arrived, what he was leading up to. How could he do this to her? He liked her, and trusted her. He, who was such a rotten judge of people. Nick the bungler. He’d trusted Rob. Wrong. He’d trusted Lisette. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
The challenge in her eyes was fading slowly to hurt, and he knew suddenly, against all reason, that he must go on, for her sake as well as Lisette’s. Nick abandoned thought and went with his guts.
“You,” he said. “I thought you could have done it.”
“Dear Nick!” Relief in the young voice. “I shall grapple you to my soul with hoops of steel!”
It was the right reaction, but not the one he had come to hear. Hell. He said, trying not to despair, “I’ll accuse you of something horrible every day, if it makes you so happy.”
“It’s just that at the moment I seem to value honesty above all other human virtues.”
His bitterness broke through. “No matter what it costs your friends?”
A little bre
eze fluttered the leaves and her black curls as she moved across to him, her good hand gentle on his barricading crossed arms. She said, “Nick, you pay me an incredible compliment. And I know it hurts to face it. But that’s what you came to find out, isn’t it? Because your problem is with the note, not with the fingerprints.”
“Yes. Easy enough to wipe the hypodermic, press her hand on it. But the note is different.”
She was compassionate, gentle, implacable, making him face it. Well, that was what he wanted from her, wasn’t it? She said, “Maybe Lisette wrote that note on the mirror herself. Or maybe someone else wrote it.”
He nodded. Spell it out. “And if it was someone else, it had to be someone who knew about Jennifer Brown. Which means you or me.”
Her hand dropped, and she stared at him. “What did you say?”
“Well…” He frowned. It was obvious, wasn’t it? “You were the only one here who knew about her. Even Rob didn’t know. I still don’t know quite why I told you.”
“My God.” She was shaken. She had turned away and was rubbing her forehead with the palm of her good hand. There was a stirring of unease in Nick’s tired mind, a new tickle of suspicion. Had he miscalculated again?
“’Look, Maggie. Did you tell anyone else?”
“No, no, of course not.” She brushed off the question. What was wrong with her? He explained carefully, “Well, if you didn’t do it, and you didn’t tell anyone, then it has to be suicide.” With all that that implied.
But she was thinking, no longer listening to him. Finally she dropped her hand and, suddenly decisive, started for the stage door. “Come on!” Then, noticing his hesitation, she added, “Look, Uncle Nick, don’t be afraid. If I turn out to be a murderer, at least it clears her, doesn’t it? Also, I only have one arm.” Which was such an exact transcription of his own thoughts that he had to smile.
“Where are we going?”
“To see if Ellen was right about the timing.” She was moving fast. She glanced up the stairs as they entered, then ran down and through the empty greenroom. He followed, puzzled. She opened the door to the stage and went into the cavernous twilight. “Hey, Cheyenne!” she called. “Got a question for you.”
“Yeah?” He was adjusting something by the fly rigging, removing a sandbag wired to one of the ropes as a counterweight. “What do you want?” He took a few steps toward them, eyes flat in the dusky light.
“The night Lisette died.” She stepped past the stage-left wagon and stopped in the center of the stage. “Tell us about it.”
“I’ve told everybody. I’m tired of talking about it.”
“You said you went with Grace and Judy to get the account books, and then came back to the greenroom to look for Paul. You got there just before Ellen went up to get Lisette.”
“Right, that’s what happened. He’ll tell you. He was there.”
“That’s right,” said Nick slowly. But he was thinking, Ellen left fifteen minutes after Judy. Getting that book couldn’t have taken that long. And as the implications smashed into his battered emotions, he grasped the lofty ramparts wagon beside him in disbelief.
Maggie said, “There’s a little more to it, isn’t there, Cheyenne? Something you left out.” She crossed toward him.
“Like what?” He was edging back toward the rigging lines.
“Like the fact that Jennifer Brown was your sister.”
The shifting pattern jelled. Nick launched himself across the width of the stage. But Maggie cried, “Nick, stop!” and at the note of terror in her voice he checked.
There was a gleam of steel now in Cheyenne’s hand. Just a knife, thought Nick, I can cope with a knife. But the knife was not wielded as a weapon. Instead, Cheyenne had laid it gently across the support rope that had held the sandbag. Nick followed Maggie’s uplifted gaze and saw the problem.
High above them, gagged and tied and dangling from the grid, was Ellen.
Very high above them. And without the sandbag counterweight, slicing through that already frayed rope would send her plummeting to the wooden floor.
If she fell, she would die. If she fell, Cheyenne would escape, they’d have to get help for her. Futile help.
Maggie was moving around behind Cheyenne, who turned to watch her. She said, “Vieille taupe! Travailles-tu sous terre si vite?”
Nick backed away, trying to make his overloaded mind work. Old something, work under the earth—canst work in the earth so fast? Old mole! Suddenly he understood. The enormous rampart that Jason hated so much soared up to fill most of the height of the proscenium arch. If he could move it under Ellen somehow, she might still break an arm falling—but she wouldn’t die.
He bounded behind it, lifted the locks off, began to push. For the show, four stagehands had moved it, and he had to turn it a little too, angle it upstage, to get the top platform under her. And he had to move fast, faster than that knife. Maggie was talking to Cheyenne, distracting him. But as Nick laid his shoulder into the huge wagon, got it started at an excruciatingly slow pace, he saw Cheyenne glance back and, in startled comprehension, jump toward the rope again. Nick, straining, was aware of Maggie hurling herself at Cheyenne. But she was lighter, sore, her elbow sprained. Heaving desperately at the wagon, Nick inched toward Ellen. Cheyenne got a leg behind Maggie’s, flipped her off balance, and began to saw at the rope again. Maggie bit him in the calf. He swore, turned back to her, and she swarmed over him again, grasping for the knife. He grunted, peeled the fingers of her good hand from the knife, shoved her away sprawling, and sliced through the rope.
Too late. Nick was hauling on the brakes, steadying the wagon. Ellen thudded onto the platform far above him.
“Hey, Winfield, you all right?” called Maggie.
Three measured thumps. She was alive.
But Nick’s sense of triumph evaporated as Cheyenne, taking advantage of Maggie’s moment of distraction, tucked his knife in his belt, seized her sprained arm, and tugged it free of the sling. Slowly, he screwed it around behind her. Her face was white with pain.
“Don’t move, Nick,” said Cheyenne. “Let’s not hurt her.”
Again, Nick checked himself, and Cheyenne obligingly eased a fraction of the pressure on her arm. Maggie, with an exasperated glance at Nick, clenched her jaw against the pain and drove back with her healthy hand to grab Cheyenne in the crotch. Before she could tighten her grip he jumped back, swearing, still holding her hurt arm and pulling his knife from his belt again. But she had won space to whirl toward him, reducing the pressure on her hurt arm.
Then Nick was upon them. He hardly felt the cut on his arm as he reached for the knife, twisted it from Cheyenne’s hand, and pried Cheyenne’s fingers from Maggie’s arm. She dodged away from them. Cheyenne, writhing expertly, almost escaped him then; but Nick was quick too, and trained and heavy, and when he hit Cheyenne something switched off in his brain. Everything focused in on the bright clarity of the present instant. The world seemed murky except for this thing in front of him, this object of stringy meat and gristle and bone that had to be broken. He couldn’t quite remember why, it had something to do with Lisette. The objective Nick would remember later. Right now the thing had to be broken. It was not murky like the rest of the world. It was very clear, like a cartoon outlined in ink; it had a frightened face on it, and he could pick it up easily and slam it into the brick stagehouse wall. It fell but then started to twist around again, so he picked it up again. Through the haze he thought he heard its voice. He had to mash the thing against the wall again, until it stopped moving. He wondered how long it would take. He had never had to kill this sort of thing before.
Kill.
The word stabbed through him, and part of the murk cleared away. He seemed to be holding Cheyenne by the belt and the collar. The head was flopped over and there was blood running down the face. He was still moving. Thank God. The head straightened a little and then flopped down again.
“I think he’ll come round,” said Maggie in a strained v
oice. “Nick, are you okay?”
His own voice sounded a bit funny too. “Yeah. Now I am.” The murk was fading away.
“Get one of those ropes and tie him. You’ll have to do it. I’ve only got one hand.” She held Cheyenne’s limp head by the hair with her good hand while Nick bound his arms behind him, and then his legs. His eyes opened a little. Nick straightened and stepped back. His own arm was bleeding, he saw with surprise, a long knife cut angling from biceps to wrist. Not deep. He found his handkerchief and dabbed at it. Maggie had whisked up the rampart wagon and was fumbling at Ellen’s bonds with one hand.
The backstage door opened. “Ellen? Are you in here?” It was Jim, squinting in the dim light.
“Jim! Go get Sergeant Hawes. He may still be upstairs with Rob,” called Maggie, tugging at the gag.
“What’s going on? Is Ellen here?”
“Damn it, Jim!” shrieked Ellen the unflustered. “Get the goddamn police!”
Jim went.
The adrenaline was still surging through Nick’s system, and he clenched his hands by his sides to keep from moving. Cheyenne, bound on the floor by his feet, was watching him, alert again, and a bit of the old sardonic look crept into his smashed face.
“You must have loved her, you poor bastard,” he said suddenly. “But I saw through her. I knew what she’d done to my sister.”
Nick’s mouth tightened. He held himself still.
Cheyenne went on. “I was building a show. I couldn’t even go to her funeral. You know how I found out? I went later that summer. I talked to one of her friends. And she said that she’d admitted it to her. She admitted it, and the stupid police couldn’t catch her!”
Audition for Murder Page 23
