Caught Dead in Philadelphia

by Gillian Roberts

  “I can’t hear myself!” Sarah screamed from the stage. “Somebody’s carrying on in the auditorium!”

  I slumped down in my seat, even though I hadn’t been the one who’d offended Halvorsen’s eardrums.

  Sissie, however, gestured with contempt, scattering ashes on the seat in front of her. “Delusions of grandeur, every one of them. Liza, too. Be a star in New York. Be a Cole. Always trying on parts, thinking she could play anything. If everybody would be what they are, then—”

  “I quit!” Sarah screamed. “I don’t have to take this! I can’t think straight.”

  Sissie looked toward the stage with no expression, then, without another word, stood up and slithered aisleward, and from there into the void beyond the theater.

  “Okay,” Gus said up front. “Let’s call it a night. We’re all tired, anyway.”

  The cast walked off the stage. Sarah made her descent slowly, glaring into the dark auditorium as she moved.

  “One minute,” Gus said. “In case anybody hasn’t heard, Liza’s funeral is Friday noon at Hill’s. There’s a viewing tomorrow night from six o’clock on. We’ll start rehearsal late tomorrow, around eight-thirty.” His voice was firm and resolute, as if he’d practiced his little speech.

  I walked toward the cluster of actors. “I wasn’t the one making noise,” I said defensively. Sarah sniffed in my direction and stalked away.

  “We all recognized the voice,” Gus said. He lowered his voice. “If there were some way to take her money and ban her from entering the building, we’d do it.” He turned to the group of players. “Everybody, this is Amanda Pepper. She was not the noisemaker. I’ll be with you in a minute, Mandy.”

  Offstage, without the stature of the O’Neill characters, the cast looked diminished and ordinary as they pulled on sweaters, talked to one another, and left. I stood in the manner of outsiders, trying to be invisible and look relaxed at the same time. Two men dressed in jeans had a hurried conference about something. The stockier of the two walked to the stage door.

  “Did you like it?” the younger one said.

  “Who? Me?” It was not a bright remark, because his only other choice was God. The building was deserted except for the two of us. Gus was nowhere to be seen.

  “Yes, you, Amanda Pepper.”

  I was startled until I remembered that Gus had just introduced me to everyone. “You were fine. All of you,” I answered, showing my keen critical powers.

  He smoked, overtly studying me. He was tall and slender, with dark eyes and a shock of long, thick black hair. His stare made me feel unpleasantly adolescent. He seemed to expect something of me, but I had no idea what. “Got a minute?” he asked. “I really want to talk to you.” His words tumbled out and blurred. I recognized him. He was Eddie the mumbler. “Not about the show. Something else. Something important to both of us.”

  “Do I know you?”

  He moved closer. “Not yet.” His smile looked prepackaged, something rehearsed in front of a mirror.

  I didn’t like him. I didn’t like his predictable good looks or his posturing. The sooty smudges beneath his eyes were his single intriguing feature, but I wouldn’t have been surprised if they were makeup, put on for effect.

  He gave up waiting for me to become his adoring slave. “Look, this is extremely important. You’ll have to believe me.”

  Strangers who tell me what I have to do are only one half notch above strangers who tell me what I dare not do. “I don’t mean to be rude,” I said, “but we really have nothing to talk about.” I turned to look for Gus.

  He put his hand on my shoulder. “I don’t want to be rude,” he mimicked. “Well, you sure as hell are.”

  I wheeled around and he dropped his hand.

  “I’m not asking for a big deal, just for talk. I’m not even asking you to do anything about it. Jesus Christ!” His eyes became even darker. He threw down his cigarette and stomped on it. “You act like I’m attacking you or something!”

  “I have to go now,” I said softly.

  Suddenly, his entire posture changed, and he put his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “Sorry,” he said. His voice was again low, a mumble. “I—I’m strung out. I scared you, and I didn’t mean to.” He laughed. “I’m harmless, really.”

  I didn’t believe he was harmless. He was too intense, too much of whatever he was being. Even his new, relaxed self was too much so.

  He grinned his fake, cheap grin. “Let’s start over, okay? See, I have this kind of sticky legal problem.”

  “I’m not a lawyer.”

  “I know that. And it has nothing to do with what I want to ask you, but I don’t want to go to the cops if I don’t have to. You understand?” He moved closer and put his hand on my upper arm, almost stroking it. I controlled an urge to shudder, and I backed off.

  “Eddie? Where the hell are you?” The older man he’d been talking to earlier reappeared through the back door, “I can’t see a damn—is that you? Should have known there’d be a pretty face involved. Listen, man, you’re holding everything up.” He waved in my direction. “Bring her, but get a move on.”

  Eddie looked uncomfortable. “There’s a kind of party,” he said finally. “Want to come?”

  “I can’t. I’m here with Gus.”

  Eddie looked relieved. “Oh, yeah. Well, too bad. So listen, I have to go now. But I’ll be in touch.”

  The older man propelled Eddie away. “Now I know what keeps you so young,” he said as they left.

  “So what did you think of the performance?” Gus’s voice reached me before he did.

  “I didn’t understand it.”

  “Why? She’s nervous, but I thought it was a lot better.”

  “Oh! Sarah’s! She’s fine, Gus. She’s got lots of fire if you can put it in the right place.”

  He flicked out the last of the auditorium lights, and we walked to the side door. “What performance did you think I meant? What was it you didn’t understand?”

  “I don’t remember,” I answered. The only thing I was beginning to understand was the fine art of lying.

  Eight

  I worked at home over dinner, averaging out student quarter-grades. I hate the entire idea of performance marks, but parents consider them the merchandise they pay for. The problem is that they expect the grades to be as inflated as their tuition bills. I entered a “D” next to Lance Zittsner’s name, sighed for my lost morality, and closed the roll book.

  I readied myself for Liza’s viewing. I showered and changed into a severe skirt and blouse I’d bought when I started teaching and thought I had to look like Miss Grundy. They were as good as new.

  The evening was clear and balmy, and I walked the few blocks to the funeral home, liking the crisp feel of early spring. It surrounded me in sweet contrast to all the spongy, suspect things in my life of late.

  The home’s entry hall was cavernous, and I was greeted by an emaciated young man with 1920s center-parted hair. He led me to a room off the hallway that was filled with the hum of voices and a badly matched assortment of people.

  I recognized several actors and actresses from the night before. They huddled together, dressed in dark suits and dresses, all of us looking as if we wore borrowed clothes. The Eddie person stood somewhat apart, staring at the ceiling. I wondered if he was on drugs, if that was why he looked both nervous and drowsy.

  Near me stood another cluster of young, very upset men and women. One of them talked about tenth grade, about how she and Liza had cut school and hitchhiked to Atlantic City. Another, very pregnant and bloated, blew her nose and wiped her eyes.

  Nearer to the coffin, I saw Gus and Dr. Havermeyer. My headmaster pulled at his collar and stroked his belly, waiting to be excused. Helga Putnam stood by her leader, scowling. She had changed into a dark gray cardigan.

  In the center of the room, sitting near the coffin on a straight-backed chair, Mrs. Nichols listened to a woman in rusty black. A few men stood nearby, saying little, obviou
sly dragged along by their wives.

  There were only a few feet between the cluster near Mrs. Nichols and a threesome in the corner, but the feet could have been light-years. It was the difference between what is, what was, and what might have been.

  Sissie Bellinger, chic and rail-thin in navy blue and heavy pearls, formed one pointy edge of the triangle. She stood next to an impassive, elegantly groomed Hayden Cole. His mama faced them. She shared her son’s jutting chin, colorless light hair, and solid, tall frame.

  I went to Mrs. Nichols. The flock of women around her parted expectantly. She clutched my outstretched hand in both of hers. “Oooh,” she moaned loudly, fresh tears welling over her puffed lower lids. “I still can’t believe it—my baby!” She seemed close to hysteria, keening and wailing and beating her hands with mine inside them onto her knees. “Have you seen her? Have you seen how beautiful…?” She released me, pushing me toward the open coffin.

  Liza did look beautiful. And unfamiliar. With no animation, no drama, with her jet hair haloing her still face, with the bruise I could never forget cosmetically hidden, she looked like a sleeping child and no one I had ever known. Even so, the sight was terrible, and I moved my eyes away over it quickly, trying to leave no imprints.

  Mrs. Nichols screamed, “Liza! My Liza!”

  I turned away, feeling like a voyeur to so much naked pain. Gus’s sympathetic face greeted me. Then I saw Sissie staring incredulously at Mrs. Nichols, and beside her, Mrs. Cole and her ramrod back. They had no qualms about watching and silently condemning Mrs. Nichols’s misery.

  Main Line ladies’ upper lips were genetically stiff, and only genteel sounds could squeeze through them. Mrs. Nichols, made only of flesh, sounded primitive and frightening.

  “Pray for Liza,” the women around Mrs. Nichols crooned, patting her shoulders and clucking until the heavy, choking sobs gradually stopped. The bereaved turned into a bulky woman of stone, staring blindly ahead. “Thank you for coming,” she said flatly.

  The circle of women closed in on her and filled the room’s sudden silence with more comforting noises.

  “Mrs. Cole would like to meet you,” Gus said. I followed him into the corner.

  “Ah,” Mrs. Cole said, shaking my hand vigorously. “Amanda Pepper, the one who… It must be so difficult for you, dear. So trying. We have thought of you constantly during this dreadful time.”

  Hayden, who had definitely thought about me, stood a bit behind his mother, avoiding me as much as he could.

  Sissie, who had also thought about me—if actual thoughts passed between her jet streams of observations— fidgeted, but didn’t interrupt the older woman.

  “Knowing Liza so intimately,” Mrs. Cole added.

  “Well, actually, I didn’t,” I began.

  “Miss Pepper prefers to consider herself as merely an acquaintance of Liza’s,” Hayden said dryly.

  “To lose your dear friend,” Mrs. Cole continued, undeterred, “to lose a confidante, a girlhood companion. Oh, when I was your age, how terrible it would have been.”

  I had a vision of girls in organdy ruffles, whispering innocent secrets in a garden of phlox, and wondered what her images could possibly have to do with me. I didn’t consider my stage in life “girlhood,” either, but the woman was nodding agreement with her own statements, and I didn’t think a discussion of semantics was appropriate.

  “Isn’t it terrible?” she said directly to me.

  “Yes,” I said, not certain what, precisely, I was agreeing to.

  “And to have to speak with the police, to be questioned. I find it trying. They have no sense of propriety. No manners. The most brash young man came to our house. I refused to speak to him after a time. Don’t you agree? Didn’t you?”

  Hayden eyed me suspiciously. Sissie paced back and forth, hovering like a vulture. And Mrs. Cole examined me intently. I knew I was being tested, and for some reason, I wanted to pass, or at least stay in the running. “I talked to them, but I didn’t have anything much to say. I don’t know anything.”

  Hayden’s mouth turned down with distaste.

  “I never had a daughter,” Mrs. Cole said, off on a side trail of her own. “I had such hopes, such hopes.”

  Sissie, who had all the necessary qualifications for the newly vacated position of Cole daughter, took this opportunity to reach over and pat the older woman’s arm. Mrs. Cole didn’t seem to notice.

  I searched for a graceful out. Gus was no help, lounging against the nearby wall. I looked around. Near the door I saw a familiar tall figure, a brash young policeman with blue eyes that circled the room, noting whatever it was he was paid to note. He noted me, we shifted our heads slightly to acknowledge each other, and then Mrs. Cole began again.

  “I would like to talk with you,” she said. “I want to know more about poor, dear Liza, and you knew her best.”

  “But really, I didn’t.” It is not seemly to speak, or probably to think, ill of the dead, and it’s certainly futile to resent them, but Liza’s lies had outlived her and were twisting my life around. I wasted a few moments dealing with lots of directionless anger. “Certainly,” I insisted, “your son knew her a great deal better than I did.”

  “I think we should leave, Mother,” her son said. He glanced at his watch and looked displeased. “I’ve already postponed the meeting.”

  “Oh, Hayden!” Mrs. Cole smiled at him. “You’re so busy all the time!” She looked at me. “He’s so concerned about helping others. The geriatric groups. The handicapped, and on and on.” She leaned close. “My son is a good man, Miss Pepper. Thinks and does only what is good. That’s why it’s important he become senator.”

  “We must say good-night to Mrs. Nichols,” Hayden said impatiently, taking his mother’s elbow. “And to you, Miss Pepper.”

  Gus left his post by the wall when the Coles and Sissie were out of earshot. “Ugly people, aren’t they?” he said. “And Liza was waltzing right into their arms.”

  Not ugly. But odd, most definitely. Especially odd about me. Why me? What was it everybody, including Gus, thought I knew? And what would convince them all that I didn’t?

  “Gus, we should go now.” Sarah Halvorsen’s voice was low but emphatic. She stood in front of us, along with several others of the company.

  “All right,” Gus said, “let’s make our farewells.” He merged into the little knot of actors moving toward Mrs. Nichols.

  I walked over to the crowd and waited my turn. Mrs. Cole’s broad back was in front of me. She, her son, and Sissie waited stolidly in silence. They seemed withdrawn from the scene and the people around them.

  “Amanda Pepper. I knew we’d meet again soon.” Eddie stood close to me, smiling, looking almost innocent and boyish.

  Mrs. Nichols sobbed in the background, her cries muffled by the people around her.

  “Look,” Eddie said, “it’s because you’re the one who found—”

  I could not bear hearing that again. Of all the careers and claims to fame I’d ever imagined, none had been based on being “the one who found the body.” The disgust on my face must have been obvious.

  “Don’t get mad again,” he said. “There’s something we have to talk about.”

  “I don’t know anything.”

  “I think I do,” he said. He rolled an unlit cigarette in his hand, waiting to get outside and light it. His long fingers trembled. The circles under his eyes were now a frightening purple.

  “Why tell me?” I asked. “Why not tell the police?” I kept my voice low and calm.

  “I can’t. I’ve got enough hassles with the law already, and I can’t. Besides, until I talk to you, I’m not one hundred percent sure if what I know is important.” He reached out and clasped my wrist. “Trust me,” he said.

  “Why?”

  We were moving closer to Mrs. Nichols, pushed forward by the crowd. “You were the last to see her,” he said. “Well, almost. You were the one in the middle. And see, I think—”

  “S
hh,” I said because his voice was becoming reedy with urgency, and I didn’t think this was an appropriate conversation for the mournful, subdued setting.

  “Did she tell you about it?” he said, whispering now.

  “About what?”

  “About…about her news?”

  “She didn’t tell me anything.”

  He looked surprised. “She didn’t?” He released my wrist and rubbed his hand over his bruised-looking eyes. They seemed much older than the rest of him. “I was sure she did. This is driving me up the wall. I tried to see you the other night. Waited near your house, but when I finally got the nerve to approach you, you screamed. Then a car came, and I—”

  “It was you!” I momentarily forgot to monitor my voice, and Eddie shushed me now.

  “I didn’t mean to frighten you,” he said. “I’m telling you, I was scared myself. I didn’t know you. But I had to talk to you, alone.”

  “Go to the police, Eddie,” I repeated. “I don’t know anything. She didn’t tell me anything. I swear it.”

  “Listen,” he whispered urgently as I moved forward. “Listen to me. Talk to me.”

  “I am.”

  “No. Not here.”

  I shook my head.

  “Listen, you don’t think I did it, do you? Why would I hurt her?”

  “Why would anybody? But somebody did.”

  “Okay. Talk to me someplace you won’t be scared. I have to go to rehearsal after this. How about tomorrow? After the funeral, in public. Outside. That could be private and still safe enough for you.”

  I shrugged.

  “It’s a deal. And then, if you think I should, I swear I’ll go to the police.”

  “Listen, Eddie, you’re not making a whole lot of sense.”

  “I will, after we talk.”

  The Coles and Sissie turned to leave, having completed stiff farewells to Mrs. Nichols.

  Eddie gave them a cursory nod, said a quick “tomorrow” to me, and left the room.

  “Miss Pepper,” Mrs. Cole said, “I meant it about wanting to spend time with you. That was not mere social pleasantry.”