Lights Out Tonight

by Mary Jane Clark

  The librarian had to go.

  How?

  There had been a metal letter opener shining at the circulation desk. That could work. It would be messy but effective.

  C H A P T E R

  22

  Having been rebuffed by Keith Fallows, Caroline and her crew went about getting general video of the exterior of the theater and the manicured grounds that surrounded it. “Make sure you get a couple of shots at different angles of the signs,” said Caroline, pointing to the huge posters that flanked the double doors to the theater lobby.

  Belinda Winthrop’s name appeared in large lettering over the silhouette of a masculine figure holding a pistol. Beneath the silhouette was a list, in smaller print, of the other players’ names. Then, at the bottom, the print increased in size again, announcing that Devil in the Details was written by Victoria Sterling and directed by Keith Fallows.

  “Be sure to get close-up shots on the names Winthrop, Fallows, and Sterling,” said Caroline as she thought ahead to what she would need for editing purposes later. Those three were the most important interviews to get during her time in Warrenstown. Although Fallows had just blown her off, he’d promised to give her some time tomorrow. Caroline wanted to wait to get Belinda Winthrop’s interview until after the play opened tomorrow night.

  “Okay, let’s go inside,” Caroline directed. “Victoria Sterling should be here anytime now.”

  The theater lobby had a soaring ceiling and lots of long glass windows. The walls were lined with slotted ash panels, and the floor was cool slate. Benches were sprinkled along the sides of the spacious area.

  “How about setting up over there?” Caroline suggested, indicating one of the benches.

  “Fine,” said Lamar.

  While Lamar set up his tripod and Boomer fiddled around with his sound equipment, Caroline went over her notes. She had prepared her questions for the playwright in advance. When Victoria finally appeared, Caroline was ready.

  “I’m sorry I’m late,” said Victoria as Boomer clipped on her microphone. “To tell you the truth, I almost forgot we’d set up this interview. You know, last-minute preps before the opening and all.”

  Caroline nodded. “Of course. We just so appreciate that you are taking the time to do this.”

  With interviewer and subject wired up, Lamar signaled that he was ready to begin recording.

  “All, right,” said Caroline. “I guess it goes without saying that this must be an exciting time for you.”

  “Exciting or nerve-racking. Take your pick,” Victoria answered.

  “Devil in the Details is your first solo effort at playwriting, isn’t it?”

  “Well, at least it’s the first solo thing I’ve done in a very long time. Before I met Daniel, I had written several plays. One had even been produced off-Broadway. But once Daniel and I started to collaborate, that was it… until his death.”

  “Some say that this play, Devil in the Details, is better than anything you and your husband wrote together.”

  Victoria nodded. “I’ve heard that, but believe me, I take no solace in it. Daniel was a fabulously creative man, and he was taken much too soon.”

  “Rumor has it that Devil in the Details will be a contender for the Pulitzer Prize in drama. Is that true?”

  “Well, the play is being submitted. As you probably know, Caroline, the Pulitzer committee prefers that a videotape of the production itself be sent, as well as six copies of the script. That tape will be shot tomorrow night at the opening. And having Belinda Winthrop in the lead can’t hurt, can it?” Victoria smiled.

  “No. It certainly can’t,” Caroline agreed, knowing she was about to get to the part of the interview she had been dreading and Victoria Sterling probably wasn’t going to like. “Would you be able to give a brief description of what the play is about?”

  Victoria took a deep breath and paused a moment. “I know how you people want everything said in sound bites, so let’s just say that Devil in the Details is the story of the marriage of a woman who is totally in love with her charismatic husband but slowly starts to realize that he isn’t what she thinks he is.”

  “And what is he?” Caroline prompted.

  “He’s a man with no conscience. He’s capable of doing anything to get what he wants, no matter whom he hurts.”

  Caroline swallowed, knowing she had to ask the next question. “Some people are speculating that the play has an autobiographical component. They say that Devil in the Details reflects your life with your husband. What do you say to that?”

  “Not much,” said Victoria.

  Caroline waited for her subject to continue, but Victoria resolutely stared her down.

  C H A P T E R

  23

  Boomer studied the See the Berkshires tourist guide, or more specifically, he studied the restaurant ads. He settled on a place that boasted unbeatable steaks and sweet Maine lobsters. “Surf and turf. That’s for me,” he said, his eyes growing brighter at the prospect.

  “Whatever makes you happy, Boom,” said Lamar as he packed away his camera gear.

  Caroline noticed that neither man extended an invitation to join them. “Thanks, guys,” she said. “But I’m going to pass this time. I want to have dinner with my stepdaughter later.”

  Lamar looked slightly sheepish, while Boomer seemed not have picked up on her sarcasm.

  “Oh, yeah? Where you going?” he asked, worried there might be someplace better than the restaurant he’d chosen.

  “Not sure yet,” she answered. “I’m going to leave it up to her—if I can ever reach her on the phone.”

  As the crew car drove away, Caroline decided to head over to Main Street. She walked past the ivy-covered brick buildings that dotted the edge of campus, aware of a sense of history. Warren College had been established just after the Revolutionary War, and many of the towered structures had been built during the 1800s. There was a feeling of permanence and serenity here. It was a privileged, protected place.

  She thought of the parents of the two young apprentices who had died in the car wreck. They had sent their kids off to Warrenstown for the summer, confident that no harm would come to them here. They’d be sleeping in the Warren College dorms, eating in the Warren College cafeteria, working and learning in the theater on the Warren College campus. Instead, those parents were experiencing the worst imaginable heartbreak.

  Thank God, Meg was all right. Nick would never get over it if something happened to his daughter.

  Caroline strolled down Main Street, stopping to look in the windows. She admired a gauzy, black peasant skirt displayed in a dress shop window and went inside to try it on. As she assessed herself in the long mirror, Caroline wished, as she did at least once a day, that she was taller. But the skirt looked good on her all the same, so she bought it.

  She continued down the block, where a turquoise necklace at a jewelry store caught her eye, and she bought that for Meg’s birthday. She wanted to get something for Nick as well. When she spotted the art gallery, she headed for the entrance. A pleasant-looking, middle-aged woman walked toward her.

  “Hello. I’m Jean Ambrose,” she said, extending her hand. “Welcome to the Ambrose Gallery.”

  Caroline looked around the spacious, open room. Carefully hung paintings graced the pale gray walls. Several precisely arranged pieces of handcrafted furniture sat on the slate-colored carpeting. A few glass display cases housed decorative artifacts. Everything in the gallery had been deliberately selected and displayed to its best advantage.

  “You have a beautiful place here,” said Caroline.

  “Thank you,” said Jean. “We’re getting ready for the exhibition opening Friday night.” She gestured to an empty space on a long wall. “That’s where Remington Peters’s new portrait of Belinda Winthrop will be displayed.”

  Caroline walked over to the wall and looked at the two paintings flanking the spot reserved for the new portrait. In one, the figure of a woman wearing a flowing gossamer
gown swayed against a wooded background. In the other, the same woman wore a simple black dress and an especially long string of pearls around her neck. Her hair was swept up in an homage to Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

  “Those, of course, are Belinda Winthrop in the roles she played the last two seasons at Warrenstown. Titania, the queen of the fairies, in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Madison Whitehall, the main character in Treasure Trove,” Jean explained. “We are so thrilled to be able to add Remington’s newest work, with Belinda as Valerie in Devil in the Details.”

  “These are magnificent,” said Caroline. “You can tell the artist cares about his subject.”

  Jean smiled. “That’s a bit of an understatement. Remington doesn’t just care about Belinda Winthrop; he adores her. He fell in love with her when they were young, and as his work attests, he’s never gotten over her.”

  “That’s a bit sad, isn’t it?” Caroline stared at the portraits.

  “Yes, I guess it is,” Jean agreed. “But look at the fabulous product of that emotion.”

  “I suppose they are fabulously expensive, too.”

  “They aren’t for sale,” said Jean. “Unfortunately, Remington won’t part with them. I wish he would. If he had sold the other paintings he’d done of Belinda over the years, they wouldn’t have been destroyed when his studio caught fire.”

  “What a shame,” Caroline uttered softly.

  “Oh, it was truly terrible,” said Jean. “The paintings were insured, of course, but no amount of money could make up for such a horrific loss.”

  C H A P T E R

  24

  The first act of dress rehearsal had gone almost without a hitch. Keith Fallows had come backstage when the curtain fell, and as he delivered his notes to the cast and stage technicians, everyone felt a little more relaxed, a little more in control.

  “All right, everybody,” Keith said. “We’ll go straight through till the end of act two, no matter what happens. We’ll meet here again afterward for my final notes. Now don’t forget. We’ll rehearse curtain calls, too, just to see how quickly we can all get onstage.”

  When the curtain went up on the second act, Langley Tate stood in the wings at stage left with a copy of the script in hand, careful to stay out of the way of actors entering and exiting. The first two scenes went smoothly. As she had all night, Langley focused on only one person. The lights came up again, and Langley watched Belinda Winthop standing across the set from her stage husband. Then Langley turned her eyes down to the script.

  ACT II, SCENE 3

  The same room, some time later. The fireplace is lit and, along with a lone lamp on one of the bedside tables, it provides the room’s only light. VALERIE and DAVIS are at opposite ends of the room, squared off for battle.

  VALERIE: What do you want from me, Davis?

  DAVIS: I do not want anything from you. What would ever make you think I needed you at all?

  VALERIE: Living with me, and making love to me, for fourteen years might have led me to suspect it.

  DAVIS: (Laughing.) Oh, that. You have confused need with convenience, I’m afraid. (Pause.) You have always been a little confused. It is a part of your charm. (DAVIS walks to the other bedside table and turns on the lamp, speaking to VALERIE over his shoulder.) You have been looking a little tired lately, but you have been happy, have you not?

  VALERIE: Now you are the one who is confused, Davis. Happiness and fear are not the same thing—at least, not for the rest of us.

  DAVIS: Fear?

  VALERIE: Yes, fear. Maybe I am the only one. The only one who knows enough about you to know that fear is the only appropriate response to you.

  DAVIS: What is it you think you know, Valerie? (DAVIS opens the drawer in his bedside table. He turns to face VALERIE.) Tell me, damn it. What do you think you know?

  VALERIE: I know that the scariest thing in the world is lying in bed next to someone who has sold his soul to the devil.

  DAVIS: I am flattered you thought I had a soul to sell. (Turning his back to VALERIE, DAVIS lifts a shiny pistol out of the drawer. VALERIE sees the pistol. She takes a step backward. DAVIS holds the gun loosely at his side.)

  VALERIE: Davis, I have known about the gun. You have kept it in that drawer for months so that I might lie here, night after night, afraid to close my eyes, afraid that, at any moment, you might put it to my temple and pull the trigger.

  DAVIS: Maybe I can convince you to pull the trigger yourself. Feel the cool steel, the smoothness. Listen to the click just before the end. Everyone would understand, you know. I would be sure to remind them, afterwards, how upset you have been lately.

  (DAVIS moves to the bedroom door, blocking VALERIE’s exit. VALERIE opens the doors to the balcony.)

  VALERIE: Enough, Davis. This is not funny anymore. Even for you.

  DAVIS: I agree. It is not funny, but it is fun to consider the possibilities.

  VALERIE: Why not divorce me, then? Or leave me. I won’t give you any trouble.

  DAVIS: But that would not work at all, dear. I have never been a failure at anything, Valerie. And I am certainly not going to let people think that I failed as a husband. (With menace.) Letting you go is completely out of the question.

  (VALERIE turns toward the balcony and EXITS. DAVIS, still carrying the gun, follows VALERIE offstage. Lights dim to dark.)

  C H A P T E R

  25

  Belinda stepped out of her green velvet gown, and Meg carefully hung it on the freestanding clothes rack. She folded and draped the petticoat over a wooden hanger and hung that alongside the gown.

  “Oh, that feels good.” Belinda sighed as Meg loosened the corset strings. “How did women in the eighteen nineties live with these things?”

  Meg took the corset and put it away, then busied herself with other things as Belinda stripped down, and dressed again in jeans and a form-fitting shirt with a plunging neckline.

  “Here. Let me take that,” said Meg, reaching for the cotton tank top Belinda had worn under the corset. “I want to get it to the laundry.”

  As Meg exited the dressing room, Langley Tate was waiting in the hallway to come inside. Meg hesitated just a second before continuing on to the laundry room. She couldn’t figure it out exactly, but something about Langley made Meg feel protective of Belinda. She didn’t want to leave the star alone with her understudy.

  Meg dropped off the undergarment and turned to go back to the dressing room when her cell phone sounded. Checking the number, she knew she had to respond this time. There was no avoiding it. She was going to have to have dinner with her stepmother. But rather than answer the phone and have to talk with her, Meg waited until Caroline left a voice-mail message and then text-messaged a reply.

  Belinda sat before the large mirror, wiping away her heavy stage makeup. Langley stood behind her, talking to Belinda’s reflection.

  “You were wonderful tonight, Belinda.”

  “Thanks, Langley.”

  “In the second act, especially, I was scared to death. The way you portray Valerie coming to the realization that her husband is going to kill her is just so incredible, Belinda. I learn so much from watching you. All those years of experience just shine through.”

  Removing the clips that fastened her upswept hair, Belinda shook her head, and the ash-blond locks tumbled down. “You’re making me feel old, Langley.” She laughed.

  Langley appeared concerned. “Oh no, Belinda. That’s not what I meant at all. It’s just that you have such breadth of experience. Your range is staggering. It makes me feel so inadequate.”

  “Come on, Langley. You are very talented and you know it. You just need to give yourself more time.”

  “Forgive me, Belinda, but that’s easy for you to say. When you were my age, you’d already won an Academy Award.”

  MEET U @ THAI PLACE ON MAIN. MIDDLE OF BLOCK.

  Meg snapped her cell phone closed and strode back to the dressing room. As she opened the door to go inside, she h
eard Langley Tate’s voice.

  “I can only pray, when my turn comes, I’ll be able to do half as good a job as you do, Belinda.”

  C H A P T E R

  26

  After the e-mail address and password were typed, and the Sign In button clicked, the fake account that the killer had set up as Amy’s mother opened on the laptop screen.

  There were no new messages.

  No response from Brightlights. No answer from the person Amy had contacted in the moments before she died. The only person who could spoil everything.

  C H A P T E R

  27

  They both ordered pad Thai.

  “Well, there’s something we can agree on,” said Caroline as she closed the menu and handed it to the waiter.

  Meg smiled weakly.

  “And I know there’s something else we agree about.”

  “What’s that?” Meg took a sip of water.

  “We both love your father.”

  Meg took another drink but didn’t answer.

  Sensing she shouldn’t push any further at the moment, Caroline shifted the conversation. “So, how’s it going? Is the apprenticeship living up to your expectations?”

  Meg shrugged. “I guess so.”

  “Do you feel your acting is improving?”

  “It’s hard to say,” Meg responded. “I’ve gone to the acting classes, but I haven’t gotten a part in any of the plays I’ve auditioned for.”

  “I gather it’s a very rare thing for an apprentice actually to get a part in one of the Main Stage productions.”

  “It is,” said Meg. “But I haven’t even gotten a part in any of the one-acts.”

  The arrival of their dinner saved Caroline from having to give a lame pep talk—she was relieved to have the respite. She so wanted a good relationship with Meg, but their conversations were always so strained.