A Perfect Manhattan Murder

by Tracy Kiely

  Peggy glared back at me. “Says you. This new scene changes the entire play. I’m still not sure if it works.”

  “So if it doesn’t work, then don’t add it,” I said.

  Peggy chewed her thumbnail again. “It’s not as simple as that. Mark called the theater critics and invited them to review the changes. He said that we’d get more publicity that way. For people who haven’t seen the play, it might be an inducement for them to see it.”

  “That makes sense,” I said, nodding.

  “But what if they hate the changes?” Peggy asked. “What if I ruin everything? I swear to God, if I can get through this rehearsal without developing an ulcer, it’ll be a medical miracle.”

  “Peggy,” I soothed, “it’ll be fine.”

  I glanced around the theater. A handful of seats were occupied. I spotted Julie sitting in an aisle seat near the front row. Seeing me, she gave a curt nod and then looked away. Dark purple circles stood out under her eyes. Her complexion was dull and her hair was lank. The past few days had clearly not been easy for her.

  Across the aisle from Julie, Zack was hunched down in his seat, making notes on a legal pad. Next to him sat Fletcher. Glancing up, Zack caught my eye and waved. I smiled and waved back. Fletcher noticed his movement and he glanced our way as well. He stood and began to walk toward us. “I’m sure the reviewers will love what you’ve done,” I said to Peggy. “Now, why don’t we grab our seats and let you get started.” I gave her a hug and whispered, “It’ll be fine. You’re doing great.”

  Peggy gave me a tight hug and nodded. “Okay, wish me luck,” she said as she hurried backstage.

  I glanced over at Harper. “Are you okay?” I asked.

  Harper nodded. “I’m just tired, I guess,” she said.

  “Well, why don’t we find a seat then,” I said just as Fletcher joined our group.

  “My dear girl,” he said looking down at Harper. “What on earth are you doing here?”

  Harper managed a small smile. “I’m here to support Peggy,” she said. “She’s a bit nervous about her changes.”

  Fletcher reached out and gently took her by the arm. “You look exhausted. You really should be home resting,” he said. Shooting me an annoyed look, he added, “I would have thought your friends would have better sense than to drag you out for something as inconsequential as this. And where is your daughter?” he asked.

  “She’s at home with my nanny,” Harper said. “But I’m fine. Really, I am,” she said. “Besides, I want to be here for Peggy.”

  Fletcher gave her a dubious look and then led her over to where he was sitting. Nigel and I trailed behind them. As we approached, Julie looked down at her phone and pretended not to see us. Zack, however, immediately stood up. “Hello, Mrs. Trados,” he said to Harper, his expression sincere. “It’s nice to see you again. How are you doing?”

  Harper managed a small smile. “I’m fine, Zack. Thank you for asking. I got your card, by the way. Thank you. It was lovely.”

  Zack ducked his head in embarrassment. “It was the least I could do,” he said.

  “Come on, my dear,” Fletcher said as he led Harper past Zack and down the aisle a few seats. “Let’s get you seated.”

  “Thank you, Fletcher,” Harper said. Nigel and I followed after them. We had just taken our seats when Peggy walked out onto the stage. “I want to thank everyone for coming to our performance this afternoon,” she said. “As you all know, I’ve made some changes to my play. I think they allow me to better illustrate some of the themes I was trying to convey—particularly how family loyalty can be a blessing and a curse.” Peggy paused and glanced at me. “Ok, then. Without further ado, here is Dealer’s Choice.”

  The theater lights dimmed and Peggy quickly walked off the stage. I said a fervent prayer that my gamble would pay off.

  forty-eight

  Peggy’s new scene was at the end of Act II. Jeremy, Nina, and Brooke were all on stage, in their roles as the struggling Davis family. Brooke’s character, Lilly, has just confronted Jeremy’s character about his affair with a woman from their town. Jeremy sits at the family kitchen table, with his head in his hands. In front of him is a bottle of what appears to be whiskey. Nina stands at the sink. A plate that she had been washing falls to the floor and smashes. No one moves. “This ends now!” Brooke suddenly yells as she storms out of the room. The stage goes dark. A moment later, it is lit up again. The scene has changed. The kitchen is now empty. The bottle of whiskey sits on the table. A dark figure enters and pours a vial of something into the bottle and leaves. The stage goes dark once more. When the lights come back on, we see that Jeremy is sitting alone in the kitchen. There are papers on the table in front of him. A cot has been moved into the room, implying that he has been kicked out of his bedroom. Jeremy pours himself a large glass of whiskey and drinks it. Seconds later, he begins to cough. He claws at his throat and then finally collapses onto the table. Moments later the dark figure returns to the room. The figure picks up the bottle of whiskey and dumps it down the sink. The figure then pulls a new bottle out of a bag and pours half of it down the drain as well, before setting the bottle down on the kitchen table. The figure washes out the glass that Jeremy used before taking down a second glass from the cupboard. Bringing the rim to its mouth, the figure leaves an imprint of lipstick on the glass. The figure then places both glasses in the sink. Turning back to Jeremy’s still form, the figure drags Jeremy to his cot and places him on it. The figure takes the papers from the table and starts to leave.

  Next to me, Harper gasped and put her hand over her mouth, just as the theater lights came on. Around me, people blinked in confusion. Peggy suddenly walked out on the stage and stood next to the dark figure. A black ski mask still hid the face of the individual. Peggy reached over and yanked off the mask to reveal Nigel.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” she said as she took a deep breath, “please forgive the interruption, but I thought it was important to explain the significance of the scene you just witnessed. You see, what you saw was a reenactment of how Dan Trados was killed.”

  forty-nine

  Fletcher leapt from his seat. “What the hell is going on?” he bellowed. He glanced over at Harper’s pale face. “This is outrageous!”

  Peggy took a startled step backwards and looked at me. I nodded at her and stood up. “Actually, this was my idea,” I said as I made my way up to the stage to stand next to Nigel. “Could the rest of the cast come out on stage now, please?” I asked. “Oh, and you, too, Mark,” I added. My phone buzzed with an incoming text. I glanced down and gave a sigh of relief as I read the message from Marcy.

  There was an awkward silence as Nina, Brooke, Mark, and Jeremy shuffled out onto the stage. They stared at Peggy in confusion. “Would someone please explain to me the meaning of this?” Nina asked.

  “I’d be happy to,” I said. “As you all know, Dan Trados was murdered and the police have unfortunately focused their attention on his wife, Harper. I’m here today to prove her innocence.”

  Brooke glanced nervously at Nina and back at me. “How do you propose to do that?” she asked warily. Mark stepped next to her and grabbed her hand. She leaned back into him.

  I smiled at her. “Simple. I know you were told that Peggy had added a new scene to the play, but that’s not entirely true,” I said.

  “Actually, it’s not true at all,” Nigel said.

  I nodded in agreement. “That’s true,” I admitted. “The scene you just watched was one that I wrote. I asked Peggy to pretend that she wanted to add it to the play.”

  “But why?” Jeremy asked.

  “Because I wanted to know what someone’s reaction would be,” I said. “I didn’t mention this part earlier, but everyone was secretly filmed during that scene. It was very illuminating.”

  “So … so you know who killed Dan?” Harper said in a dazed voice from her
seat.

  I looked over at her and nodded. “Yes, I do.” I shifted my gaze to the one pair of eyes; eyes which now held an expression of fear.

  “Who?” she asked, her voice barely a whisper.

  “Zack Weems,” I answered.

  fifty

  Zack blinked at me. “You’re kidding, right?” he asked, his voice incredulous. “This has got to be a joke! Why on earth would I kill Dan?”

  I walked over to Nigel and took the papers he’d used for the scene out of his hands. “Because of this,” I answered.

  “Is that Dan’s missing manuscript?” Harper asked.

  I shook my head. “No, it’s Year of the Yeti, the play that Dan was trying to get backing for.”

  Zack shook his head in confusion. “But that makes no sense. Why would I kill Dan over a play?”

  “Because you wrote that play,” I said. “You wrote it and sent it to Dan under an assumed name hoping to get some honest feedback. Instead, Dan wrote back that he didn’t like it. But he did. He liked it a lot. In fact, he liked it so much that he stole it. He changed parts of it, including the name of the playwright. If you’ll remember, Dan told everyone that a man named Robert Taylor wrote the play. But that wasn’t true. Harper went to Dan’s apartment the night before he died and she saw a copy of the play on Dan’s desk. The name on the play was G. Lockhart.”

  Zack looked around the quiet theater and laughed. “So? What does that prove? If you haven’t noticed, my name isn’t Robert Taylor or G. Lockhart.”

  I smiled. “Yes. I know. Gilderoy Lockhart is a character from Harry Potter. A character by the way, who wrote a book called Year with the Yeti. You’re not the only Harry Potter fan, Zack.”

  Zack opened his mouth but nothing came out. He shook his head. “I’m sorry, but you’re grasping at straws here. Just because I like Harry Potter doesn’t prove anything,” he said.

  I tipped my head in acknowledgment. “Not by itself, no. But then I began to think about all the evidence. Dan’s apartment was staged to look as if he’d been having an affair. It was well stocked with tea—a drink that Dan hated. There were condoms in the bedroom. Unfortunately, Dan had a latex allergy, so it was doubtful that they were his. In the sink there were two wineglasses, one with a lipstick stain on the rim.” I walked over toward the table on the stage. “And there was the little problem with the decanter of scotch in Dan’s apartment.”

  Zack blinked. “I don’t understand. There wasn’t any poison in that decanter,” he said.

  I gave a slow smile. “I know. However, I don’t believe I ever mentioned that to anyone. No, the problem with that decanter wasn’t that it had been tampered with. The problem was that it was filled with an inferior variety of scotch. It was Nigel who noticed it, actually.” I turned to Nigel with a nod. “An appreciation of fine scotch was one of the few things Nigel had in common with Dan. And then I remembered how at Fletcher’s party, you couldn’t tell the difference between scotch and whiskey. I began to wonder if you had poisoned Dan’s scotch and then later replaced it. It would be so simple to do, really,” I said. “You were going over to Dan’s apartment all the time anyway to work on the manuscript. You poisoned the scotch and then when Dan was dead, you let yourself back into the apartment and staged it to look like Dan was having an affair.”

  “But he was having an affair,” Zack protested. Pointing at Nina he said, “She admitted it!”

  Everyone turned to look at Nina. “Except she wasn’t having an affair with Dan,” I said. “She only pretended to, to hide the real reason she’d paid a visit to Dan. He was trying to blackmail her.”

  Nina nodded. “I am so sorry, Harper,” she said. “I know my lie must have hurt you terribly.”

  “You see, when Nina heard that it appeared that Dan was having an affair, she used it to cover the real reason she’d gone to see him,” I said.

  Fletcher’s eyes narrowed. “Which was what?” he asked me.

  Nina’s startled gaze flew to mine. I saw a silent plea for silence in her blue eyes. I saw a similar expression in Brooke’s very similar colored eyes. I looked back at Fletcher and shook my head. “That’s not for me to say,” I said. “But it had nothing to do with Dan’s murder.” Nina let out a sigh of relief. “I was struck from the beginning that while most people disliked Dan, no one thought he was the kind of man to cheat on his wife.”

  Harper’s head dropped to her chest, and she let out a small sob. Fletcher wrapped a comforting arm around her shoulders.

  “In fact, the only one to push that narrative was you, Zack,” I went on. “You claimed that you hadn’t been working late with Dan and hinted that Dan had been using you as an alibi. But Dan was working late with you. You’re on the security footage going to his apartment.”

  Zack stood up and sneered at me. “This is all a very pretty story,” he said. “Maybe you can help your friend write her next play. But as for evidence, you don’t have a damn thing. Just because I’m a Harry Potter fan doesn’t mean I wrote that play. You have no proof.”

  I shook my head. “Actually, Zack. That’s where you’re wrong. It’s because you are a Harry Potter fan that I was able to get proof. When I visited you in your office a few days ago, you told your secretary your computer password. Remember? It was 62442, the same password Harry uses to get into the Ministry of Magic.”

  Zack’s face paled as he listened.

  “So I had my old partner get a warrant to look at your computer. Which she did, while you sat here and watched this little drama unfold. It’s all on your computer, Zack. Your play. The letter to Dan. All of it. Isn’t that right, Marcy?”

  Marcy stepped up behind Zack. Brian stood next to her. “It sure is,” Marcy said with a satisfied smile. Zack whirled around and tried to run, but slammed into Brian’s chest instead. A moment later, Marcy slapped the cuffs on Zack.

  I moved to stand next to Nigel as Marcy began to read Zack his rights. “I think that’s the part of being a detective I miss most,” I said to Nigel as Marcy led Zack away.

  “Reading someone their Miranda Rights?” Nigel asked.

  “No. Slapping the cuffs on the suspect,” I admitted.

  Nigel wrapped his arm around my shoulder. “Well, I’d be happy to play cops and robbers with you later, if it’ll make you feel better.”

  I tucked my head in under his neck. “You sure know how to sweet talk a girl, Mr. Martini,” I said.

  Nigel kissed the top of my head. “Well, duh,” he said.

  fifty-one

  An hour later, we were at Harper’s apartment. Peggy and Evan sat on the couch. Nigel and I sat across from them in matching club chairs. Harper was in the nursery with Devin trying to put Gracie down for a nap. Donald was busy making us all drinks.

  “I still can’t wrap my head around all of this,” Peggy said. “Dan actually tried to steal his own co-worker’s play. What a son-of-a-bitch.”

  “Quite literally in this case,” Donald said dryly as he handed Peggy her drink.

  “I guess I owe you an apology for all those times I teased you about being a Harry Potter fanatic,” Peggy said, after thanking Donald. “If it hadn’t been for your rather, ahem, obsessive knowledge of the books, Zack might have gotten away with it.”

  I raised my eyebrow. “So much for your apology,” I said. Donald handed me my drink and I took a grateful sip.

  Harper came down the hallway and flopped onto the couch next to Peggy. “Do you want a drink, honey?” Donald asked.

  “God, yes,” Harper said.

  “Is Gracie asleep?” Peggy asked.

  Harper shook her head. “Not quite. She’s close though. Devin has her.”

  “So what’s the deal with you two, anyway?” she asked. “Are you going to start seeing him?”

  Harper accepted a drink from her father, took a sip, and then leaned her head back against the cushions. “I
don’t know,” she said, closing her eyes. “I know my marriage to Dan was over. But it feels wrong to start anything now. I mean, we just buried him.”

  Peggy reached over and squeezed Harper’s hand. “I know, honey. But that shouldn’t stop you from being happy. And I have a feeling that Devin will make you happy. And, if it doesn’t work out, send him my way, because he is gorgeous!” she said with a giggle.

  Evan rolled his eyes. “You know, that’s not nearly as funny as you think it is,” he groused.

  Peggy laughed and leaned over to kiss his cheek. “Oh, it’s a little funny,” she said. “Besides, you know I adore you.”

  Donald handed Evan and Nigel their drinks and then sat down with us. “So Dan not only stole someone’s play, but he was also trying to blackmail people into funding it?” he asked me.

  I nodded. “He found out that Fletcher had once bilked investors out of thousands of dollars, Brooke was rumored to have pushed a rival off a stage, and that Jeremy was only pretending to be gay to take advantage of the goodwill of the LGBT community.”

  Harper sneered in disgust. “I still can’t believe Jeremy did that. I don’t know which is worse, actually. What he did or what Dan did.”

  “Both are pretty despicable,” I said.

  “But what did Dan find out about Nina?” Harper asked.

  I looked at her in surprise. “I would have thought you’d have figured that out,” I said. “Remember, you’re the one who told me that Dan had mentioned that Nina had a baby.”

  Harper opened her eyes wide. “I don’t understand,” she said. “Why was that so terrible? So what if she had a baby and put it up for adoption? Why would anyone care about that?”

  “Well, for one, I think Fletcher Levin would care a great deal. After all, it was his baby.”

  Harper’s mouth fell open. “Fletcher’s baby?” she repeated.