by Peg Cochran
It was still light out, but dark clouds made it seem later than it was. Gigi felt a drop or two of rain, and brushed at her bare arm. They quickly made their way across the parking lot, crunching over bits of gravel and trying to avoid the holes that were notorious for causing twisted ankles.
A woman slid out of a red Volkswagen Beetle just ahead of them, and Gigi recognized Evelyn, the proprietress of Bon Appétit. She had her usual cardigan draped over her shoulders, and her dark gray hair was pulled back into a ribbon at her neck.
She turned briefly and waved to them. “It looks like all of Woodstone is here tonight.”
Oliver held the door to the theater open and grinned. “It’s showtime, folks.”
The lobby was crammed with people, their voices rising and falling like the babble of a fountain.
Gigi looked around for Winston but didn’t see him anywhere. She really hoped to talk to him before the performance started. All the pieces of the puzzle swirled around in her head much like the kaleidoscope of colors and prints on the ladies’ cotton summer dresses.
The crowd started to shift almost imperceptibly toward the open doors of the theater.
“Shall we go in?” Oliver tucked his arm protectively around Sienna and gently touched Gigi’s elbow.
She shook her head. “You go on in. I want to ask Winston something.” She craned her neck and looked around the crowded room once again.
Sienna raised her eyebrows questioningly, but Gigi ignored her.
“I’ll be fine, really,” she said when Oliver and Sienna still didn’t move. “I’ve got my ticket”—she held up her stub—“and I’ll join you in a minute.”
As they reluctantly joined the crush moving slowly toward their seats, Gigi continued to scan the crowd for Winston. She was betting that he’d be going outside for one last smoke before the performance started.
Gigi was about to give up and join Oliver and Sienna when a side door opened and Winston emerged, cigarette and lighter in hand.
Bingo, she thought. She knew he’d need to light up at least once more before the curtain rose on the first act.
She followed as he slipped out a side door marked Emergencies Only and took shelter under the narrow overhang of the roof. A flame flared in the shadows, and Winston’s face was briefly illuminated.
The wind had picked up, and it fluttered the ends of Gigi’s shawl. She let the door close quietly behind her.
“Winston?”
He turned abruptly, the cigarette halfway to this mouth.
“Ah, it’s the Gourmet De-Lite girl.” He inhaled a long drag, letting the smoke trickle out his nose. He fished a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket and held them toward Gigi. “Smoke?”
“No, thanks.”
“Getting a bit of air, then?” He gestured toward the theater with his head. “Awfully stuffy in there.” He snickered. “And it’s only going to get worse when they unleash all that hot air.”
“Actually, I wanted to talk to you.”
“Really?” He raised his eyebrows and took another thoughtful puff on his cigarette.
“It’s about Martha.”
“My dear ex?” He took a last drag, dropped the cigarette to the ground and snuffed it out with the toe of his shoe. “You still determined to prove that someone killed her on purpose?”
Put like that, it did seem rather ambitious of her, Gigi thought. She nodded briefly.
“I’m sure I can’t help you.” He smiled even as his features hardened. “It was merely an act of divine providence.”
Well, it certainly was providence for him, Gigi thought, divine or otherwise.
“Actually, I wanted to talk to you about your affair with Adora.” Gigi let out her breath. She’d summoned up all of her Italian and Irish courage to come out with that so bluntly.
“My, my, you have been digging. That was eons ago.” Winston fumbled around in his pocket, retrieved the battered pack of cigarettes and shook one loose. “And, I might add”—he tapped the tip of her nose with his index finger—“none of your business.”
Gigi shrugged. It might have been eons ago, but she felt it in her bones that it was connected somehow to Martha’s death.
“I found some clippings online about Adora and the Broadway play she was in.” She thought it best not to mention the society column photograph of him with his arm around Adora.
“Yes. I remember that. What was the name of that dreadful bunch of tripe?”
“The Silent Tongues,” Gigi supplied.
“Hmmm, yes, I think you’re right.” Winston leaned against the wall, one foot crossed casually over the other, the picture of relaxation—although Gigi could see the muscles in his jaw clenching and unclenching. “It didn’t last very long as I recall.”
“No, it didn’t,” Gigi agreed. “Was it really that bad?”
“Oh, yes, my dear.” Winston straightened, patted the lapels of his navy blazer and shot the cuffs of his pale pink shirt. “It was a terrible play. With hideous sets, nonexistent direction and dreadful acting.” He took a puff of his second cigarette. “Although that doesn’t seem to stop half the stuff produced on Broadway these days, so perhaps it wasn’t that bad after all.”
“Did you ever think it odd that Adora never appeared on Broadway again?”
Winston laughed, and the sound caught in his throat and turned to a raspy cough. “She was an abominable actress. Barely fit for summer stock or amateur productions.” He waved a hand toward the barn-turned-theater.
“But you’d think that with her ambition she would have secured at least another part or two.”
Winston shrugged. “She was always late for rehearsals, couldn’t get along with the rest of the cast, argued with the directors.” He leveled a look at Gigi. “Pick one of those, any one. Adora acted offstage as if she had talent onstage. Some things—anything—can be forgiven if a person is good enough, but if you’re not”—he shrugged again—“you’d better make yourself as accommodating as possible.” He paused for a moment. “And she didn’t.”
“I was wondering…” Gigi held her breath for a second. Here goes nothing, she thought. She’d drawn her own conclusions but didn’t have any proof. “I was wondering if there wasn’t more to it than that.”
Winston jerked, and the glowing stub of his cigarette fell from his hand. He looked down at it briefly, before crushing it under his heel. “What do you mean?”
Gigi crossed her fingers behind her back. “I happened to reread Martha’s obituary. It mentioned that at one time she’d been a theater critic as well as a restaurant reviewer.”
The tension from Winston’s face cleared, and he threw back his head and gave a bark of laughter. “You really are good, Little Miss Nancy Drew.” He pulled a linen handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at his mouth. “Yes, Martha did review theater. Under the name of Sarah Bernhardt. Clever, don’t you think?” He looked at Gigi. “You do know who Sarah Bernhardt was, don’t you?”
Gigi nodded. So that was why she couldn’t find anything under Martha’s own name.
“You’re quite right.” Winston leveled a finger playfully at Gigi. “I’d been a bit of a naughty boy with Adora, and Martha found out. Very unfortunate. That shrew who wrote the gossip column for the New York Post caught us coming out of La Côte Basque one night.” He sniffed. “Had to put it in her column. Martha was furious.” He shook his head, then looked up at Gigi. “The columnist fancied me herself, that’s why she did it.” He shot his cuffs again.
“What happened then?” Gigi asked, although she was pretty certain she already knew the answer.
“Martha panned the production of Silent Tongues. Absolutely panned it.” His eyes lit up with what looked to Gigi like admiration. “Of course, she picked on Adora specifically, even though her part in the play was relatively minor and hardly warranted mentioning. And it certainly wasn’t the cause of the entire play flopping. Frankly, the director was to blame for that.”
“So Martha got her revenge.�
�
Winston smiled. “Yes, I guess you could say that.” He shot his cuffs again and straightened his shirt collar. “Good old Martha. She certainly did get her revenge. As you have already noted, that was the beginning and end of Adora’s Broadway career.” He started to reach for another cigarette and then changed his mind. “Adora became known as ‘the Silent Curse.’ No one would touch her. No one,” he repeated. “It was merely Hunter Pierce’s bad luck that he became tarred with the same brush, so to speak.”
“Isn’t Hunter Pierce the director…?” Gigi inclined her head toward the theater.
Winston nodded and smoke streamed out his nose into the thick, humid air. “Yes. He’s the director of tonight’s little production.” He blew out a sigh. “Which is why I don’t have much hope for this evening’s performance. Adora can’t act, Hunter can’t direct, and I don’t even want to think about the rest of them.”
“So, Hunter had every reason to hate Martha as much as Adora…”
“Exactly, my dear.” Winston glanced at his watch. “But surely the curtain on tonight’s little drama is about to rise. Shall we go in?”
Winston pulled open the door for Gigi and motioned for her to go first. The lights in the lobby were flashing to signal the start of the play, and Gigi fumbled in her purse for her ticket stub.
The theater was already dark. The usher took the ticket from Gigi and shone a pen light on it. “Follow me.” She clicked the light off and headed down the aisle.
Gigi apologized profusely as she slid past a half dozen pairs of legs to the empty seat in the middle of the row.
Sienna leaned across Oliver and whispered, “Where were you?”
The curtain began to slowly creak upward, and Gigi mouthed, “Later,” before turning her eyes to the stage.
But she wasn’t thinking about the play.
She was thinking about how many lives Martha had managed to ruin wielding her nasty pen—all the restaurants that had gone out of business after one of her bad reviews, and people like Adora and Hunter Pierce whose careers were ruined. And Carlo and Emilio, who had so much to fear from Martha’s vitriolic writing.
The question was—which of them had hated Martha enough to kill her?
Chapter 19
Gigi was enjoying the play, although she wasn’t sure if half of her fascination didn’t come from seeing people she knew up on stage. But the first act went quickly, and she was surprised when the curtain rang down on intermission.
“What do you think?” Sienna took her arm as they made their way up the aisle, leaving Oliver behind to mind their wraps and hold their programs.
“I’m rather enjoying it. Adora isn’t half as bad as Winston made out.”
“Speaking of Winston”—Sienna moved to one side to let a couple of teenagers pass—“what were you two talking about before the play? I thought you were going to miss the opening act.”
Gigi glanced around her. “I don’t want to tell you here. Let’s see if it’s raining, and if it isn’t, we can step outside.”
The lobby was full of people milling around, sipping glasses of chilled white wine. Their faces were flushed—the ancient air-conditioning system wasn’t up to the task of coping with so many warm bodies. Women fanned themselves with their programs, and men pressed handkerchiefs to their faces. Gigi and Sienna were headed toward the door when Carlo came up to them.
“Please.” He touched each of them lightly. “Let me get you a glass of wine.”
“Water for me.” Sienna patted her tummy.
“An orange juice maybe?” Carlo glanced over toward where a table covered in white linen had been set up as a bar. “I believe they do have some.”
“Wonderful.”
They both watched as he insinuated his way through the crowd.
“Okay, tell me, quickly, before he comes back.” Sienna glanced toward the bar. “There’s quite a line, so I think we have a few minutes.”
They leaned their heads together, and Gigi filled her in on her conversation with Winston.
Sienna whistled. “So Martha basically ruined both Hunter Pierce’s and Adora’s theater careers.”
Gigi nodded. “Neither of them ever got another shot at Broadway, according to Winston. Of course, in Adora’s case, Winston says that’s partly because of her own behavior.”
“Still, I imagine Martha’s review carried a certain amount of clout. And theater people are so superstitious—just think of all that nonsense about the Scottish play—they probably viewed Adora as bad luck.”
“And she wasn’t good enough to overcome their prejudices. They could easily just pick someone else.”
“I guess that’s not what she bargained for when she tried to steal Winston away from Martha.”
“Fame and fortune is more like it.”
Gigi thought about Ted and the woman who had ruined their marriage. Would she go as far as Martha had to exact her revenge? She didn’t think so. Funny, but she just realized that she really didn’t care all that much anymore. At first, she couldn’t think about anything but Ted, and now she went for weeks without having him cross her mind at all.
Gigi looked across the crowd and noticed Devon Singleton slouched in a corner, scribbling in a pocket-size notebook. She wondered if he were reviewing the play for the Woodstone Times. She hoped his review would be more charitable than some of Martha’s had been.
Carlo returned with a glass of white wine for Gigi and juice for Sienna. The girl with the spiky hair who helped Sienna in the Book Nook drifted past on the arm of a young man in a polo shirt with a popped collar and carefully pressed khakis. Gigi watched them go by. She supposed they were proof that opposites did attract.
The lights blinked once, in warning.
“I’ll take those.” Carlo took their empty glasses and headed toward the bar, which was now strewn with discarded plastic tumblers and screwed up napkins.
Gigi turned around, and coming toward her was Detective Mertz. With a young girl on his arm. Gigi looked her over—young and pretty. Maddeningly pretty, with long hair, long legs and a perfect tan. Gigi was suddenly seized with irrational jealousy. There was no reason why Mertz shouldn’t bring someone to the play. It was just that she’d hoped…
Mertz glanced in Gigi’s direction and obviously noticed her staring at them. A strange, startled look crossed his face, and he grabbed the girl’s arm and began to steer her in the other direction.
“Isn’t that your policeman?” Sienna asked, staring after the couple.
“He’s not my policeman. Obviously.” Gigi dabbed at her upper lip with her crumpled cocktail napkin.
“Honestly, Gigi, if you played your cards right, I think he very much could be your policeman. Or”—she turned to Gigi and smiled coyly—“is it Carlo you’re after? Either way, you have to admit, they’re both quite the catch.”
“I like Carlo. Very much. But he wouldn’t be right for me. I’m ready to settle down, and,”—Gigi glanced at Sienna’s belly—“and maybe have a family. Carlo’s still a boy.”
Sienna pounced. “So it’s Mertz you’re interested in. I knew it.”
She smiled smugly, and Gigi could easily read the look in her eyes. It said, I haven’t known you for this long without being able to read your thoughts.
Gigi was ready to protest, but fortunately the lights blinked their warning again. “Come on, let’s get back to our seats,” she said instead as the crowd began to edge toward the theater.
Gigi and Sienna went back to their seats. Something nibbled at the edge of Gigi’s mind, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. It was an idea that had begun to formulate while watching the first act. Maybe she would be able to track down the elusive figment during the second half.
The curtain rose on a living room scene. Gigi recognized the armoire that Sienna had painted. Adora was wearing the too-tight shorts in this scene, although Gigi thought they looked just a bit looser, so maybe Adora had lost some weight after all. She squinted at the stage. Yes, it looked
as if Adora must have shed at least five pounds.
Emilio appeared in the second act as Adora’s character’s love interest. Gigi wondered if practicing this scene had led to their real-life affair. It certainly lent an air of realism to their performance. She found herself forgetting that these were people she knew and began thinking of them as their onstage alter egos.
Poor Emilio was in a suit and tie, and Gigi could see the sheen of perspiration breaking out on his forehead. The air conditioner had only managed to cool the theater to lukewarm—it must still be beastly hot under the lights.
Thinking about that tickled that elusive thought she’d had earlier. Something to do with the heat perhaps? Certainly something to do with Martha’s death. Everything about the theater brought that day back in sharp focus. She tried to forget it and concentrate on the play, but scenes from that afternoon kept flashing like streaks of lightning across her mind.
She remembered arriving with the lunches, and the tension she’d sensed crackling in the air. Then the rain, Barbie and Winston going out to their car, the smell of Martha’s wet coat in Gigi’s MINI and Martha taking her first bite of the melba toast. She closed her eyes for a moment. Should she have stopped Martha from eating the food? But why? She knew there hadn’t been any peanut oil near Martha’s lunch.
The thought she’d been chasing suddenly swam into focus, and she sat bolt upright in her seat.
“Are you okay?” Oliver turned toward her, eyebrows raised.
“Yes, fine, sorry. Foot fell asleep.”
Gigi thought furiously. It all made sense now—Martha, Emilio and Al Forno, the teenage boy the UPS woman had seen. Like dominoes, everything plunked into place.
Gigi could barely sit still. She had to tell Detective Mertz right away.
Gigi had no idea how the play ended. All of a sudden the audience was on their feet applauding. She jumped up to join them and clapped furiously, as if that would make up for her lack of attention.
“It was wonderful, wasn’t it?” Sienna said.
“Oh, yes,” Gigi enthused, in spite of not having the least idea of what had taken place in the second half.
