“Abandoned vehicle in a snowbank.”
“Guess it’s that time of the year.”
“The chief wanted to take it, but with his ankle, Ralph’s going to have to step up.” She gave me a look. “No pun intended.”
“I’m sure he’s up to the job.”
“Dodie, been meaning to ask you. When you were in New York, why was the chief chasing that couple on the street anyway?”
I wanted to scream, but then everybody in the restaurant would gawk at me even more meaningfully than they were now. “Here’s your order, Edna. Have a good day.” My face was beginning to ache from holding my tongue.
“10-4,” she said.
I saw the Banger sisters wave to me from their table in the corner. I groaned inwardly, gave them a “just a minute” signal, and sent Gillian to wait on the two dotty siblings. Then I escaped to the kitchen.
* * *
“Dodie! What a night you must have had and sleeping at Bill’s—” Lola glanced around at a few occupied tables in the restaurant and caught herself. “The emergency room must have been exhausting.” She lowered her voice. “Sorry about that. I know how everyone talks in this town.”
“Hey, you look done in too,” I said.
Lola sighed. “I was in bed last night when Walter called in the middle of an anxiety attack.”
“He’s really shook up over the show. I get that—”
“Not just the show. The whole ELT. He said he’s resigning as director and washing his hands of the whole thing. I tried to talk him down off the ledge, but he was adamant. He’s sending a resignation letter to the board,” Lola said.
That’s all the theater needed right now. Walter wasn’t my favorite person, but he had kept the theater running for many years and usually his arrogance was offset by his neediness. But when you added frenzy to the mix, he was a recipe for disaster. “Maybe he needs to have the day to chill and rethink things.”
“So how are you holding up?” Lola asked as she nibbled on a slice of pizza.
“I’m fine. But tired of fending off Etonville’s ridiculous belief that I am somehow responsible for Bill stepping off the curb and breaking his ankle.”
“How was the dinner before the accident?” Lola asked softly.
“To die for. Rondelay—”
“Oooh, I love that place,” Lola said.
“The ambience, the food, the wine. Everything was going so well. And then his ankle.”
“At least you spent the night together,” she teased.
“With him snoring in the guest room and me on the sofa.”
The two of us started to giggle. Benny deposited two cups of coffee on the table and leaned over the back of the booth. “Is it true the chief’s hiring some more help until his foot heals?”
“Who said that?” Lola asked.
Benny shrugged. “Word has it that with this murder, Officer Shung will take over the department and the chief has someone else to help head up the investigation.”
I hadn’t heard any of this. “Ralph? I doubt that.”
Benny chuckled. “Game on for the Etonville PD.”
I promised Lola I’d let her know if I heard anything that might result in the theater re-opening. Then I texted Bill to see how he was coping, with his ankle and the scuttlebutt, but got no response.
8
A howling wind and a steady tap-tap-tap on my bedroom window forced my eyes open at seven a.m. Freezing rain outside. I burrowed farther into the blanket, debating how badly I wanted my morning coffee, the end of a dream still haunting me. A young girl clawing her way up the sheer face of a rock cliff, then waving furiously at me, as she leaned back against nothing and floated to the ground. It was disturbing. All the more so because I realized the girl was Sally.
Sally! I hopped out of bed and seized my cell. Finally, a reply to my text: Meet me? I hesitated for only a fraction of a second before I repeated: Where are u? She answered with an address in Creston and I agreed to be there at three thirty this afternoon; I would still be back in time to release Benny before the dinner rush. Then she responded: Don’t tell police yet PLEASE.
As I showered and dressed, I revisited the wisdom of my decision to meet Sally and to keep our meeting secret for the time being. After today’s meet-up, whether she liked it or not, I had to let Bill know about her reaction to seeing the man Sunday. We had a history, Bill and I, of jockeying positions regarding my participation in previous murder investigations. He was a tad sensitive about my tendency to, as he said, play lone wolf and leave him out of things. I just assumed I was being proactive.
By the time I had my second cup of coffee in hand, my cell rang. I checked the caller ID. “Hey. How’s the ankle this morning?”
“A pain in the neck,” Bill grumped.
“Sorry.”
I could hear the smile coming, the mouth ticking upward. “But the dinner was worth it.”
“Yes! I can still taste the oyster chowder and foie gras.”
“So I’m off the hook for missing Valentine’s Day,” he said.
“Absolutely.” I laughed.
His tone shifted. “I’d like to talk with you this morning.”
His voice was low, intense. I imagined a warm, intimate moment between us. I forgave him every missed date these last months and even—
“Because I have some news.” He was all business.
“Well…okay.”
“I’m getting some assistance with the investigation since I’m, well, sort of moving slowly.”
Sort of? “That sounds like a good idea.”
“Yeah. I’m not thrilled, but I don’t have the mobility to get out and about.”
I had a vision of another Ralph on board: donut breaks, crowd control, rescuing Mrs. Parker’s cat, Missy, from wherever. Anything else was probably punching above Ralph’s weight class.
“And I’d like you to talk with him. Tell him what you told me about Sally Oldfield, maybe fill him in on the theater,” Bill said.
Maybe the officer was an old guy nearing retirement, like one of those TV detectives who got burnt out from thirty years on the force—
“We’ll meet at the theater. How’s nine? I have Lola opening up.”
“I’ll be there.”
* * *
Lola was waiting for me in the lobby of the theater, nervously fingering her keys as if they were a set of worry beads.
“Dodie?” Bill stuck his head into the lobby. “Archibald is here. Let’s join him onstage.”
Archibald…definitely old school. Bill held the door for me as I squeezed Lola’s hand and gave her an encouraging smile. We made our way down the aisle, Bill plodding, crutch, step, crutch, step, while I stayed a pace behind.
“Retell your whole story, okay?”
“Sure. So where is Columbo?” I joked.
“Who?” Bill was focused on his crutches.
“You know, that police lieutenant on television? My dad loved him, watched all the reruns. Columbo always wore the same rumpled rain coat and smoked a cigar and—”
“Archibald is not a police lieutenant.”
We’d reached the stage and Bill started his ascent up the stairs.
“What is he? A detective?” I asked.
“Private investigator,” he said.
The stage was brightly lit, yellow crime scene tape encircling the entire turntable. A white outline marked the spot where the body was found. I stepped closer to the platform to study the location of the murder.
“Hello.” The voice was unfamiliar but velvety smooth.
I whirled around. Whoa. He was no Colombo. Tall and slender, with a day’s worth of black stubble, hair that skimmed his collar, penetrating brown eyes. He wore a leather jacket and scuffed cowboy boots. “Dodie O’Dell.” I took his offered hand. It was cool and surprisingl
y soft.
“Archibald. Means truly brave.” He looked me up and down. “Hmm…I’d guess Irish on both sides.”
“Good guess. And you?”
“The Archibald is from my maternal Scottish grandfather. The Alvarez from my old man. And yeah I paid for my name with some pretty gruesome playground brawls.” His eyes crinkled in a warm grin.
Yowza. I grinned back. Charming.
Bill cleared his throat. “Archibald would like to review your statement.”
Archibald stuffed his hands in his back pockets, his eyes ending up on me again. “So why don’t you tell me what you saw.”
“Okay. Well, I was in the women’s dressing room changing my clothes—”
“Are you in the play?” he asked politely.
“No, no. I was running the intermission concessions and we all planned to dress in the period since we were serving colonial—”
“Dodie…” Bill steered me back on course.
“Right. So I came out here and stopped when I heard a noise.”
Archibald listened to my story, prompting me when he needed more information or interrupting me with an apology when he had a question. I led him through the incident—Sally’s gasping, then her sudden appearance, her fixation on her hands before she ran off, and, finally, my finding the man with a knife stuck in his chest. “That’s about it.”
Bill stood silently resting on his crutches.
Archibald nodded a few times, walked around the crime scene. “Was it a sold-out house?”
“Excuse me?” I asked.
“Were there any seats available?” he asked.
“Actually, they’d only sold half the house.” What did ticket sales have to do with the murder?
“Too bad. So much effort goes into getting a show on its feet.”
“True.” I looked over at Bill whose expression was blank, no opinion one way or the other.
“Did you know Sally Oldfield well?” Archibald asked.
Did I? “Not really. I met her when she came to town last month. I suggested she audition for Eton Town since she’d done some acting in high school.”
Archibald squatted down and viewed the location where the dead man was found. Then he abruptly stood up. “I think that’s it here. We’ll be in touch if we need to speak with you again,” he said to me.
“Dodie, can you stop by the station at three? Suki will have your statement ready for a signature,” Bill said.
He knew I usually took my break then. I hesitated. I’d agreed to meet Sally at three thirty in Creston and meeting Bill would be cutting it close.
“Something the matter?” he asked.
“Uh, no. I’ll be there.”
I said good-bye to Archibald, who seemed engrossed in the turntable, but still courteous and friendly, and made my way to the theater office. Lola was concentrating on an Excel spreadsheet on her laptop and didn’t hear me walk in. I watched her brow pucker as she scrutinized the screen. “Can I help?” Business management had been my college major and I had mastered the principles of finance and accounting before I had turned my hand to the restaurant game.
Lola looked up. “I’m trying to see what kind of hole this show blew in the theater budget. If we can’t open it, we might have to cancel the spring musical.”
“It’s that bad?”
“Yes. No income from Eton Town might mean no more theater until we do our summer fundraiser.”
That is desperate. “I wish there was something I could do. Besides supply the intermission desserts.”
Lola swiveled in her office chair and stared at me.
“What?” I asked.
“Dodie, you know I think the world of Bill and everything he’s done for Etonville,” Lola said.
“Well, sure. I think the whole town appreciates him. He has his own place on the ego wall in the Municipal Building. There’s the Etonville Standard article on his solving Jerome’s murder and the photo display of his youth football team.”
“And having another detective—” she continued.
“Private investigator—”
“—on the case will certainly help the situation now that Bill is incapacitated,” Lola added hurriedly.
“Archibald Alvarez,” I said mock seriously. “Quite the sexy guy, looks like a real bad boy but has the voice of a Latin lover. If I wasn’t already spoken for…at least I think I’m spoken for—”
“Dodie. You have to do something!” Lola slammed the lid of her laptop.
“Like what?”
“You need to find out who killed that man so we can open our show and get an audience and make some money and save the theater. And you have to do it before the reviewer from the Star-Ledger leaves on his vacation,” she said urgently.
“What? Pump the brakes. I’m not a cop or detective. I’m only—”
“Who discovered Jerome’s killer?”
“Well, it was a joint effort—”
“And who discovered how Antonio died?”
Lola was giving me far too much credit. Wasn’t she?
“Dodie, you know what I mean. You see things that everybody else misses. And you don’t let go. You’re like a puppy with a bone.”
Not sure I liked that image.
“Lola, I want to see the theater saved,” I said gently. “But there are now two guys on the case, three if you count Suki.”
She moaned. “I don’t know what we’re going to do.”
* * *
I blew out cold air, watching my breath form puffs of carbon dioxide. Poor Lola. The theater’s future was a heavy weight for her to lift alone. Walter should have been sharing the load, but his ego was having a pity party and Lola had no intention of attending. I knew that I’d been instrumental in solving the two previous murders, but I’d more or less fallen into the investigations, trying to honor a friend, trying to save the Windjammer. Lola was suggesting I “fall” into the investigation one more time—to save the theater. What could I do that Bill couldn’t? Or Archibald, for that matter.
I schlepped to the Windjammer, unlocked the door, and put on the coffee. I could hear activity in the kitchen. Henry already working on stock for his homemade chicken noodle soup. Better to let him work out his usual morning crotchetiness alone. In my back booth, I opened my laptop and eyed my own spreadsheet: the weekend’s staffing schedule. I made a few adjustments, now that the show wasn’t running and I wouldn’t have to be present for intermission duty, wrote a few notes to myself on an inventory sheet, and doodled in the margins of the paper.
I couldn’t get Lola’s plea for my help out of mind. She’d been flattering when she suggested that my detection skills were responsible for solving the recent murders in Etonville. But was it more than flattery? Was she right to think I could do more than the Etonville Police Department? There were so many unanswered questions…who was the dead man, why was he in the theater, what was his relationship to Sally, and most importantly, what role did Sally play in his death?
Already my little hairs were frolicking. And what about Archibald Alvarez? What was his story? Why had Bill called in a private investigator? Had he worked with him before?
I closed the spreadsheet and typed the PI’s name into my search engine. Surprisingly, there were several pages of Archibald Alvarezes from around the country. I skimmed the first page and saw a link for a Patrolman Archibald Alvarez who had been part of an undercover drug detail in Trenton. The story featured an interview with the cop about his clandestine work for the state police. He was no longer working in that capacity, the article indicated. I scanned a few other links that referred to his time with law enforcement in Texas and Pennsylvania. But the entry that caught my eye appeared on page three. The link read “Hottest Male Models of 2002.” I clicked on the site and a series of photos popped up. Yikes!
“Hi.”
&nbs
p; I flinched. I’d been so engrossed in beautiful bodies I’d missed Benny’s entrance into the restaurant. I shut my laptop.
“Surfing unsavory sites?” he asked.
“Yeah, right,” I said and forced a laugh. I could feel heat crawl up my face.
Benny wrapped himself in an apron. “Shame about that Star-Ledger reviewer. Everybody says this was a once-in-a-lifetime for the ELT.”
“I suppose so,” I said absentmindedly.
“What?”
“I was thinking maybe there’s a way the show can go on,” I said.
“How?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe another theater?”
“Like at the high school?” he said.
Etonville High had a cafetorium—combo cafeteria and auditorium. It housed guest speaker events, graduation, and dances, as well as noonday food fights. “Not the best venue.”
Benny rinsed a few glasses left in the bar sink from last evening. “There’s always the theater in Creston.”
“The Players? Walter has had a feud with them for the last year. He’d never stoop to begging for space from them. Anyway, I think they have a dance concert this weekend. I saw it advertised in the Etonville Standard.”
“That means the only solution is finding out whodunit, wrapping it up, and getting Etonville back on the boards.” Benny dried his hands on a towel, then flipped it over one shoulder.
I stared at him. Out of the mouths of bartenders…
9
Lunch was a steady barrage of patrons chewing over the murder and the latest Etonville gossip as well as Henry’s BLT-with-roasted-tomatoes-and-avocado special. I had convinced him to perk up the menu and maybe move half a star closer to his nemesis La Famiglia. The jury was still out.
“Henry is getting a little ahead of himself,” pouted a Banger sister. “I like the regular BLT.”
“Me too. I like my tomatoes cold and hard, not hot and soft,” said the other, crossing her fleshy arms.
I could have commented, but the Windjammer was rated PG. “Henry likes to try new recipes. Give a little zing to his specials,” I said.
The sisters exchanged looks. “We get enough zing at the theater. At least we did until it shut down,” said the first one.
Running Out of Time Page 7
