by Linda Barnes
“Arresting her just to make the early-edition deadline, Captain?”
“Shut up.”
“She’ll be out of jail so fast—”
“Yeah? She got a hotshot lawyer, too?”
“You bet she does.”
Menlo had raised his huge head, issued the snort that served him as a laugh. “Hurry up with that warrant, Sergeant. Have to be in time for the morning edition.”
After that, Spraggue had answered yes and no.
He yawned; his jaw ached from clenching his teeth. He drew his hands out of his pockets and flexed his bloodless fingers, slowed his pace. Breathe in for four, hold for eight, breathe out for eight. His mind started to clear and he recognized his anger for what it was, fury at his own inadequacy. If he’d figured things right, Langford wouldn’t have died.
He walked along Commonwealth Avenue, heading into Kenmore Square. Even that most frenetic part of the city stood empty at four A.M., the disco joints silent, the neon lights dimmed. Spraggue hailed a lone taxi, gave the Brookline address, and sat back to think.
“Mind driving with the dome light on for a while?” he asked abruptly, five minutes later.
“Nah. Maybe it’ll keep me awake.”
Even before he heard the cabbie’s answer, Spraggue had his small notebook spread out on his knee, open to the page where he’d listed the joker’s pranks.
1. Frank’s Bloody Marys
2. Spraggue’s decapitated bat
3. Georgie and Deirdre’s decapitated dolls
4. Greg’s bloody mask
5. Darien’s dead raven
6. Caroline’s dressing-room break-in
7. Eddie’s attempted strangulation
8. Emma’s bloodbath
9. Caroline’s trip wire
10. Caroline’s stolen orchids
11. Caroline’s murdered dog
12. Alison’s tape and the rats in Grayling’s dressing room
At the bottom, he added Langford’s death, number 13. Then, using the edge of his wallet as a crude ruler, he lined off a column to the right of the list.
Two tracks … that was the problem. Two totally different sets of footprints marched through the Dracula affair, twisting, intertwining, stepping over and under each other.
Eddie Lafferty was Eugene Arnold. If Karen was telling the truth, Eddie had meant only to frighten Darien, only to remind him of Alison Arnold’s “accidental” death. Guilt and fear, those were Eddie’s weapons. And he’d chosen Macbeth, Alison’s final show, as the source of his messages to Darien.…
Which pranks had been accompanied by quotations? Spraggue ticked them off with checkmarks.
The beheaded dolls, the mask, the bloodbath.… Those had all come with act, scene, and line from Macbeth. Tricks played on the brides of Dracula, on Jonathan Harker, on Lucy Westenra.… He recalled that late-night conversation with Karen during his private rehearsal. Maybe Eddie had intended to follow the script, to attack Dracula’s victims in order.… What about the other pranks?
No one had mentioned any message that went along with Frank Hodges’s bloody drinks. That bat at the Fayerweather Street house, no message there. Damn. The printing. The printing was the same.… Spraggue temporarily shelved the objection. Printing was easy to imitate.
He ran his finger down the column. Six pranks accompanied by messages from Macbeth. Seven pranks unaccompanied by messages, including Langford’s murder.
He rewrote the list, grouping the pranks, altering their order. The effort was hurried and his hand was jarred by the Beacon Street potholes and the cabbie’s erratic lane switches. The result was barely legible.
A.
B.
1. The beheaded dolls
1. The Bloody Marys
2. The bloody mask
2. The beheaded bat
3. The dead raven
3. Caroline’s dressing-room break-in
4. Eddie’s strangulation
4. Caroline’s trip wire
5. Emma’s bloodbath
5. Caroline’s stolen orchids
6. Alison’s tape, the rats
6. Caroline’s murdered dog
7. Langford’s death
Messages.… No messages.
But that wasn’t the major difference. The pranks in the first column were scary, even gruesome. But not one of them had caused any actual harm. The second column was more malevolent. Frank had quit. Caroline could have broken her neck. Langford was dead.
Bits and pieces of conversation flooded back into Spraggue’s memory: “Watch out for Langford; either he’ll get himself appointed your deputy or he’ll take over altogether! He’s our chief busybody.” “… psychological insights …” “Of course, that could have nothing to do with the joker.” “I was afraid you might be too late.”
While he had followed Eddie’s trail, Langford must have tried to trace the other footsteps.
Just as the cab screeched into the driveway of the Brookline estate, Spraggue scribbled across the bottom of the page: A = Eddie, B = X.
Who the hell was X?
Chapter Twenty-six
Lights blazed on the first floor of the red-brick mansion. Never too late for Aunt Mary. She met him at the door, hugging a purple velvet dressing gown around her frail body.
“I meant to call,” Spraggue said.
“I heard it on the news.” She led him into the library, slippers padding on the polished floor of the foyer. “Do you want food?”
Spraggue shook his head.
“Coffee?”
“Please.”
She poured from a silver pot. The fragrant steam bathed his face. He sat down heavily on the green velvet sofa, leaned his head back against an embroidered cushion.
“The whole thing makes absolutely no sense to me,” Mary said angrily. “Why should that boy kill John Langford to get back at Arthur Darien? Why not kill Darien?”
“Exactly,” murmured Spraggue. Aunt Mary stared at him expectantly, but he said no more. Finally, she yawned.
“I’ve been waiting for Georgina, poor child. Are the police still grilling her?”
“She’s in jail.”
“That sweet child? That tiny little—”
“No strength required for this murder. A child could have switched the real knife with the trick one—”
“But shouldn’t that blond fellow, Hudson, have noticed? Shouldn’t it have felt different?”
“I couldn’t tell one from the other. But, believe me, the police are very interested in Gregory Hudson, slighted lover of Emma Healey, wielder of the fatal knife.”
“About Georgina. Did you—”
“I called Max Shaefer. He’s not sure he can get her sprung tonight. He’ll do his best.”
“He’d better.”
Spraggue inhaled coffee. “Has Karen Snow called?”
“No. No calls.”
“I gave her Shaefer’s number, too, but I doubt even Menlo would toss her in jail.”
“Menlo? Our Captain Menlo? Is he giving you trouble, Michael?”
“He can’t take my license away, can he?”
“True. Did you find out why Karen Snow lied?” She waited but Spraggue didn’t answer. “Are you awake, dear?” she asked after a while.
“Barely. Look, let me brood alone for a bit.” He saw his aunt’s disappointed face. “Thanks for the coffee. Thanks for everything. It’s just—”
“I know. I’ll go up to bed now.” She leaned down and rested her smooth cheek against his unshaven one. “I’m sure you did whatever you could, Michael.…” Something in his eyes warned her to stop there. She turned and left the room, closing the heavy oak-paneled doors without a sound.
He must have been asleep when the phone rang. He burrowed into a sofa pillow and tried to recapture his dream. Puzzle pieces, there were puzzle pieces in the dream … tiny fragments that persisted in changing color and shape, even as he held them, grasped them with all his strength.
He opened his eyes reluctantly. T
he phone.
Hurley.
“Look, Spraggue”—his voice was muffled, urgent—“I just monitored a call from a District 4 patrol car. An attempted break-in at the theater.”
“Attempted?”
“Amateur. Panicked when he heard the prowl car. The regular boys figure it was a kid, souvenir-hunting after the murder.”
“And you?”
“I just figure it’s interesting.”
“You sending a man out, Hurley?”
“Haven’t got anybody. Short shift. I can probably get somebody on it at seven.”
Spraggue checked his watch: five-fifteen. He couldn’t have slept more than fifteen minutes. “I’ll go, Hurley,” he said.
“You kidding? Menlo would have my head on a pike if he knew I was talking to you!”
“Is there a guard at the theater?”
“Nope. Menlo sealed it up tight and commandeered all the keys.”
“Thanks.”
“Wait a minute. What are you planning?”
“Try to see that nobody gets there until seven, okay?”
“You know how much say I have over Menlo—”
“Has he got Eddie yet?”
“No. But he’s got an all-points out on him.”
“How’s it worded?”
“Armed and dangerous. You know Menlo. Shoot first, talk later.”
“Hurley, see that the kid doesn’t get killed. Tone it down.”
“I’ll try to tag along when they take him—”
“Thanks.” Spraggue hung up and stared at the phone. Five-eighteen. Leave the house by five-thirty. Half an hour to the theater. Maybe twenty minutes.
What he wanted was a long, hot soak, a shave, a change of clothes, orange juice, bacon and eggs. He slapped cold water on his face, shoved a note to Mary under the jade bowl, and left the house.
Chapter Twenty-seven
With a quick glance in the rearview mirror, Spraggue pulled to the left, into the narrow alley beside the theater. The right wheels bounced up on the curb, tilting the car at a rakish angle. Spraggue held his breath, but the Volvo cleared the tall buildings on either side by a good two inches. No scrapes, no scratches.
The alley sloped downhill, opened into a tiny trash-filled yard. Spraggue killed the engine and coasted to a stop. Five forty-five. Record speed.
He got out and pushed the door shut without slamming it. A fine snoop’s car, Aunt Mary’s Volvo; its deep blue exterior melted inconspicuously into a dumpster. Spraggue retraced his path up the alley.
The predawn chill was more like October than August. Spraggue wished he’d tossed a jacket over his black turtleneck. His left foot stepped on a shard of broken glass. He halted in front of the sheltered side door.
An amateur job, all right. The small window next to the door had been clumsily smashed. No glass cutter, no neatly shaped knob of putty, just rock versus glass. The hole wasn’t large enough to admit a midget’s hand. And whoever had made the hole had taken to his heels at the approach of a prowl car, giving the game away. If he’d stayed put, stayed quiet, the police would never have known.
Spraggue worked at the door with his picklocks, his face pressed close enough to hear the tumblers click. Once he thought he heard footsteps, but it could have been his imagination, or his heartbeat.
The handle turned. With a faint creak, the door opened. The small foyer was vaultlike, cold, damp, and still. Spraggue closed the door behind him, focused the beam of his tiny pencil flash on the floor. Karen kept flashlights on the pegboard in the wood shop. The wood shop was downstairs.
He padded lightly over the uneven floor toward the stairs. The damp chill rasped his breathing. He passed the costume shop, the storage rooms, the paint room.
Downstairs. Right turn. The trapdoor lift loomed in front of him, left open in last night’s confusion. He’d come too far. He turned back, fumbling with his hands along the right-hand wall, until he located the pegboard, found a more suitable flashlight.
The new beam was clear and strong. Spraggue muttered a quick prayer for the contined good health of its batteries and set out for the stairs.
One hour. He’d have to be gone before seven, before the police arrived. One hour to search the cavernous theater, the offices, the dressing rooms, the storage closets, the workrooms.… Might as well have stayed home.
One hour. Just have to trust to intuition, instinct, and luck. Something might work. Something was there.
What? Something that hadn’t been in the theater when all the cast members had left at four, but was mysteriously there by five-fifteen? Mail sure as hell didn’t come that early. No. Something that had been in the theater at four, but was too unusual, too incriminating to be removed under the eyes of the cops? Or something that didn’t have to be removed, that had to be altered, changed.…
Spraggue decided to take care of his own business first, personal business. Maybe his intuition would be working by the time that was finished.
He jogged down the narrow hallway, turned right, and took the next flight up to Darien’s office.
The door was locked, but the next office down, probably Spider’s, had a communicating door that stood ajar. Spraggue shielded the flashlight, kept the beam low. The lone window in Darien’s office was filthy and blocked by a mess of fake greenery; still, just as well not to risk a curious onlooker.
Darien’s office was empty, still as a cat waiting to pounce. The faint outline of the missing daggers stood out against the far wall. Darien would have told the police when he’d last seen the two daggers, whose idea the trick replica had been.
Spraggue reached deep in the pocket of his jeans, pulled out thin plastic gloves, carefully smoothed them over his fingers. Then he followed his flashlight beam straight to Darien’s single filing cabinet. He riffled the contents; all he wanted was one thing. There: Karen Snow, 2412 Westland Avenue, 555-7687.
He toyed with the idea of calling her now, waking her. Hell, what would that accomplish? Make sure she was home, find out what Menlo had pried loose. Later. He had fifty minutes left for the search. Damned effective search you could pull off in fifty minutes.
He played the flashlight around the room. Nothing. Papers. If Darien, or anyone else, had wanted a file, a slip of paper, that badly, he’d only have had to slide it between the leaves of a magazine, or into a roomy pocket. No need for a clumsy burglary attempt. If the burglar’s target was one of the offices, why use the side entrance at all? The employees’ door was closer, almost as well-hidden from the street.
Okay, intuition, time to get going. The side door … closest to the dressing rooms. Personal belongings would be stored in the dressing rooms. No valuables, of course. The assistant stage manager collected rings, watches, and wallets before each show. No locks on the doors. Too many anonymous individuals hurrying to and fro.
Langford’s dressing room would be the first stop. Spraggue moved as he decided. If Langford had been killed because he’d caught on to X, he might have made some notes on his investigation, left some clue as to his “psychological insights.”
Langford’s room had been searched, a careful, polite, nondestructive police search. The evidence remained: heavy curtains pulled slightly away from windows, drawers barely ajar, carpet rolled up, crookedly replaced. The leading man’s clothes were all jammed together at the end of the single rod; Langford had been a fastidious dresser. Spraggue’s hands searched each jacket pocket, patted and probed. Nothing.
If the police had checked out the victim’s dressing room, Spraggue doubted they’d neglect the suspect’s. He entered Eddie’s room and noted, with a sinking sensation, the same subtle signs of disarray. Still, he searched. Why the hell not? What could a well-trained group of cops find that Hawkshaw Spraggue couldn’t? He quickly emptied all drawers, fondled their undersides. Nothing.
Eddie’s makeup kit lay on the counter. Spraggue checked each jar and bottle, praying for something, anything out of the ordinary. Tubes numbered and labeled Max Factor and Jac
k Stein, tiny tins of color, crepe hair, spirit gum, contact-lens solution—
Contact lenses. That’s how Eddie had pulled off the dark-eyed, caped apparition at the theater. That’s why he’d seen the trip wire. Spraggue grunted, cursed. Height, weight, eye color: the first questions the cops always asked, the first things the trained observer looked for. You can shave a mustache, but you can’t change your eye color. Sure. So much for the old maxims of the trade. If he hadn’t trusted his own eyes so much, maybe.…
Six thirty-five. Langford’s room and Eddie’s had taken too long, yielded nothing. A cop at seven, Hurley had said. Time to leave. He focused the flash beam reluctantly on the door.
Damn. Suddenly he knew, knew where the clue would be. Intuition, late, but still cooking. Caroline’s dressing room. Too much had happened in Caroline’s room: orchids stolen, room ripped apart, dog killed. Karen had sworn Eddie had never touched that mutt. Spraggue believed her; he’d seen the boy’s face.
He pushed open the door to Caroline’s room. No signs of search here. But then the police weren’t working with the old Spraggue intuition.
The flashlight picked out the broad shelf running along the right-hand wall, the radiator, the vast expanse of mirror, the makeup-stained sink. Costumes hung neatly along a rod at the end of the room, headless corpses in the gloom. Caroline’s last-act dress lay crumpled on the floor; her oversized makeup case on the shelf. Aside from some smeared tissues, it cast no reproach on its owner. Each item was neatly placed, closed, wiped clean of painted fingerprints. Spraggue removed a large jar of pale face powder, opened it, sniffed. His nose wrinkled at the smell—flowery, overripe, decayed.
He studied Caroline’s photographs, ran his hands behind the frames. Caroline Ambrose receiving the Tony Award … with various stars, gushingly inscribed … with Darien, arms entwined, he minus the silver in his hair. Spraggue hesitated over a small image of a younger Caroline, embraced by a dark, mustached Latin. De Renza, that would be, the Colombian former husband.…
