Speak Now (17 page)
The inspector’s shoulders descended a millimeter, which I assumed was his version of slumping in disappointment.
“Based on one phone call?” Jack was skeptical.
“He was told a contract and a check were in the mail,” the inspector informed us.
I grinned. “Oh, well, if the check was in the
mail
…”
But I could tell they still didn’t believe me. I sighed. “Look, actors live on dreams. When it comes to telling them they’re about to be rich and famous, they’re the most gullible people in the world.” I shrugged. “If they were sensible, they’d be doing something sensible with their lives.” Like producing. “Now, if that’s all, I need to go shopping.”
The inspector inclined his head, which I interpreted as “Yes, thanks, you’ve been so helpful. Have a good time.” I gave Jack a peck on the cheek, picked up Flank at the bar, and left Yahata in the company of my husband and his Navy buddy.
***
We walked to a shop called Trappings in Time, only a few blocks from the restaurant. Flank followed three steps behind me and I tried to ignore him.
The store was small, and filled to bursting with clothes from the twenties through the seventies. Above the racks of dresses, suits, evening gowns, and lounging pajamas were shelves displaying hats, purses, scarves, gloves, and any manner of vintage accessories. There was fringe everywhere.
Martha was in the back, near a rack of highly painful-looking underthings. She was wearing her standard knitwear layers. Today’s ensemble was in shades of gray—a long straight skirt and a gray funnel-necked sweater accented by a long gray-striped scarf. She had pulled her hair into a knot on the top of her head, then jelled the ends into spikes that stuck out at odd angles, rather like the Statue of Liberty’s crown. Her eyes were rimmed with black liner and her lips had vanished under a nude lipstick that perfectly matched her skin tone.
Anyone else would have looked like a lizard poking out of a steam pipe. Martha looked like the queen of another planet. And she was already hard at work.
“Okay,” she briefed me. “We’re mostly looking for the graduation dress for Regan in the first act, and whatever else we can find along the lines of housedresses for the mother or fabulous bowling shirts for Paul and the father.” She waited for some sign of comprehension from me, then turned her back and began critically assessing a rack of what looked like ancient bridesmaid dresses.
Looking around, it seemed to me that we’d have had better luck if we were trying to costume a drag show set in 1973, but I followed Martha’s example and started digging for gold. We were mainly looking for ideas and vintage pieces to deconstruct for patterns. Martha would use these as a jumping-off point and build the show’s costumes based on them, but in a color palette integrated with the show’s overall artistic design.
Although “fabulous” and “bowling shirts” didn’t normally occur in the same sentence for me, I did manage to find a couple of men’s shirts with what seemed to me to be a fifties sensibility. One was brown with a large raspberry-colored flamingo appliquéd on either side of the chest, and a logo for a drive-in in Ft. Lauderdale on the back. The other was white, with black sleeves and black silhouettes of bowling pins stitched randomly across the body. As if they’d just been hit by a ball. Clever.
While I was shopping, I was thinking about the conversation I’d just had with Inspector Yahata. Cece had told us that Tom Nelson had only appeared at her rehab clinic two weeks before she’d been released, but that he’d left the program at the same time she had. Once out of the clinic, they’d set up house together. So, including the time in rehab, they’d been together for almost a month before the kidnapping. Could an actor really stay in character that long? Especially without getting any direction? And without a script? It didn’t seem likely. No, the more I thought about it, the more I was convinced that, even if the actor had uprooted himself and gone after Cece based on one phone call, someone had to have been directing the show from the wings. And that someone had to be Macbeth.
So, the way I saw it, we had to find out how Macbeth had communicated with the actor. If we could trace the communication back to Macbeth, we’d be able to prove that Jack’s ex-colleague was behind Cece’s kidnapping.
I had to talk to Jack. I turned to make some excuse to Martha, and gaped at the gorgeous gown she was holding triumphantly. “Look!” she demanded.
“It’s amazing,” I admitted. “Beautiful.” It dawned on me that even if I did abandon Martha, I didn’t know where Jack was. They’d have left the restaurant by now, and I had no idea where Mike’s company was.
“It’s a private label,” Martha said. “But obviously modeled on a Dior.”
“Obviously.” Damn. I’d have to wait to talk to Jack. So I might as well focus on why I was talking to Martha anyway—to get information about Brian. Even though I still wasn’t sure where his disappearance fit into things.
Martha was caught up in examining the dress. It was strapless with a tight bodice and full skirt, made of a pale pink satin with an overlay of black lace. It looked like something Elizabeth Taylor would have worn in
A Place in the Sun
. It looked like something Anna, the lead character in our play, would have killed for.
“Wrap it up.”
Martha came close to smiling. “And this, too, I think.” She hung the gown and pulled out a “housedress.” I hadn’t really known what to expect, but immediately recognized something that looked like what Lucy and Ethel used to wear. It was a short-sleeve shirtwaist style dress in a soft shade of aqua, with cream polka dots and a cream detail at the neck and on the sleeves.
“Classic design,” Martha pronounced. “What have you found for the boys?”
She nodded approvingly over both of my discoveries, and we made our way over to a wild-haired woman who was repairing a piece of lace behind the counter.
When the woman was ringing up our purchases, Martha slumped over the glass case and said, “Charley, come look at this.”
I assumed she’d found an interesting piece of jewelry, but when I bent close to see what she was pointing at, she muttered “Don’t look now, but I think we’re being watched.”
I had a momentary adrenalin surge, then glanced at the front door. Flank stood motionless on the sidewalk outside the store. He probably would have looked right at home outside a SOMA nightclub at one o’clock in the morning, but his station next to a rack of swimsuits that might have been worn by Dorothy Lamour didn’t really work for him.
“Don’t worry, he’s with me.”
Martha’s eyes widened.
I patted her hand reassuringly. “Don’t worry,” I repeated. “He can carry the packages.”
***
We loaded Flank down with shopping bags. “Do you mind?” Martha asked hesitantly, then backed away from him.
Flank grunted something that may have been “sure” and relapsed into stoic expressionlessness.
I cleared my throat. “Where to now?”
Martha jumped, then tore her eyes away from Flank. “Oh, the bridal gown place. It’s just up and over a couple of blocks.”
I was trying to figure out how to get the conversation onto Brian as we walked, when Martha gave me the perfect opening.
“Simon has some pretty firm ideas about how we should dress Paul, you know,” she told me.
“I’ll just bet he does,” I said, remembering Simon’s appreciation of our leading man’s talents. “Let me guess, tight tee-shirts?”
“What else?”
“We’ll see about that.” Then it hit me. “Martha, what did Brian think about the costumes? Did you guys come to any decisions I should know about?”
Her step faltered and her face fell. It was a good thing she’d decided on a theatrical career that didn’t involve acting.
“Martha? Sweetie? Are you all right?”
She looked down at her feet.
“Martha,” I said, in as big-sister a way as I knew how, “were you and Brian involved?”
She looked startled. “How did you know?”
“I’m very perceptive,” I assured her. “I’m sure nobody else has a clue.” Nobody who was blind and deaf, anyway.
She covered her mouth with her hands. “Oh, Charley, I just don’t understand. I can’t believe it was all lies. I can’t believe he’d just run out like that, with no word, no note, nothing.”
“He hasn’t contacted you since he left?” I asked.
“Nothing!” she wailed. “Not one word. After all we…after everything he…”
I put my arm around her. “Shhh, sweetie, it’ll be all right.”
But it wouldn’t. Because either Brian had been a jerk who’d forgotten her the minute she was out of sight, or—if he had worked for Macbeth—he’d never been who he said he was in the first place. I wondered which of those possibilities I’d prefer if I were in Martha’s boots.
“Martha, he didn’t leave you a note?” I asked.
“No!” she cried. “Nothing!” She wiped her face, leaving streaks of eyeliner.
A thought occurred to me. “Had he ever given you a note?”
She looked at me, curiosity behind her damp eyes. “Why?”
“I wondered if you’d recognize his handwriting. Did you see the note he left for Simon?”
She shook her head.
We turned right, heading back toward University, and I was insensitive enough to notice a lingerie store with some gorgeous lacy things in the window.
“Charley,” Martha said hesitantly. “I would recognize his writing.”
“Oh.” I tried to think how best to say it. “Then maybe you should take a look at the note he left Simon.”
She grabbed my arm. “Do you think something happened to him? Do you think he didn’t just leave like that? Do you think someone else wrote the note?”
I couldn’t tell if she was frightened or relieved at the prospect. “All I think right now is that it’s pretty strange he hasn’t contacted you. So it wouldn’t hurt for you to take a look at the note he left.”
Of course, she might be so eager to believe Brian’s farewell had been forged that she’d say just that when she saw it.
“Martha, do you still have anything Brian wrote to you?”
She sniffed. “I did until the other night.” She made an effort to collect herself. “It isn’t true, you know, what Chip and Paris were saying. Brian wasn’t unprofessional, he was just so insecure. This job meant everything to him. He said it was a huge break. He was terrified of messing up somehow.”
Interesting. For someone with the experience Brian had claimed to have, it didn’t seem like directing at our Rep company would be that big of a break. Maybe he had lied about his past only to land a job that was beyond his qualifications. But if that were the case, it seemed unlikely that he’d have been whisked away by a fabulous offer from Broadway.
I sighed. “What do you mean, you had the notes until the other night?”
Martha hesitated again. “Well, do you know the Psychic Eye?”
I knew it was a New Age sort of bookstore that had on-site Tarot card readers and did something of a business in occult supplies. San Francisco is that kind of town.
“The bookstore, right?”
“Right. Well, I went to get my cards read after I left you guys at the bar the other night.”
“Uh huh…” I encouraged.
“And while I was there I bought a candle.”
“Okay…”
“It was a special candle.” She looked at me nervously. “You know? A ritual candle. A Wicca candle.”
“I can imagine.” Was Martha telling me she was a witch? A Wicca practitioner? A witch?
She was. “I’m not very experienced with performing rituals. I haven’t been practicing Wicca very long, and this was…difficult for me emotionally. But I had to do something when Brian just left like that.”
“Of course you did.” My costume designer was a witch. Several questions presented themselves, but I tried to stay focused on the important ones. “So, when you used this candle…”
Martha nodded eagerly, apparently relieved that I hadn’t started calling for the villagers to burn her at the stake. “I threw all of Brian’s notes into the flames.”
“Was that some sort of a spell?” I tried to keep my voice non-judgmental. I don’t think I quite got it.
She winced. “A ritual. To bring him back.”
Wow.
“Has it worked?”
She looked at me sharply. “It was only the day before yesterday.”
“Of course.” Right. Presumably there was a scarcity of fast-acting rituals to bring back errant boyfriends.
“Is this the store?” I asked. We were in front of a shop called Ages Ahead that had a window filled with vintage wedding gowns.
Martha took one look at the window display and burst into tears. “Oh, Charley!” She put her head on my shoulder and I put my arms around her, giving her back little pats.
“There, there, sweetie. It’ll be all right. You’ll hear from him.”
But, magic rituals notwithstanding, I didn’t think she would.
“You think she’s a witch?” Jack asked.
“Oh, I know she is,” I nodded. “She told me all about it.”
“A witch?” He seemed the slightest bit doubtful.
“A practitioner of Wicca. A Wiccan. Yep. She cast a spell to bring Brian back.”
Once we’d established that Martha wasn’t up to looking at vintage wedding clothes, I’d whisked her off to the nearest bar and she’d told me everything. Not only about the whole Wicca business, but excruciating detail about every tender thing Brian had ever said or done. Then she’d cried some more and Flank had taken us home, Martha to her loft in Hayes Valley and me to the hotel, where I couldn’t wait to tell Jack everything.
“Wow.”
“That’s just what I thought,” I told him.
“I have no other response.”
Jack was helping me to get over my skittishness about the bathtub, a natural-enough response to finding a dead body in one, by sitting on the edge of the tub and occasionally splashing me while I soaked in a cloud of steamy bubbles.
“What do you think about Brian?” I asked him.
His forehead creased. “It’s weird. It’s one more weird thing.”
“Paris and Chip think Brian didn’t have a clue about what he was supposed to be doing and was just faking his way through the job. But Martha, who’s admittedly biased, thinks he was brilliant and just needed the chance to prove it.” I loofahed my legs reflectively. “But it really doesn’t matter which of them is right.”
“Why not?” Jack watched the movement of the sponge with interest.
“Because Broadway doesn’t just call some guy in San Francisco who lied on his resumé and tell him to pack his bags and catch the next plane.”
“Mmm.” I couldn’t tell if that indicated Jack’s agreement with me or his increasing level of concentration on splashing away some of the more strategically placed bubbles remaining in the bath.
“Anyway—” I thought I’d try to use Jack’s distraction to my advantage—“did you and Mike have fun with Inspector Yahata after I left?”
“He stayed for a while.”
“Jack, I think I should call him.”
“You haven’t shot anyone, have you?”
“I wish you’d stop saying that.” I gave him an expert splash, which he took like a man. “No, I was just thinking about that actor who romanced Cece, and I really don’t think he could have gone for a month without some sort of direction.”
“Oh, well, you left too early. We heard all about that.” Jack reached for a towel. “Tom Nelson—that’s his real name—was sent a digital video camera and instructed to keep a secret video journal and upload all the files to a web site whenever he could.”
“That sounds like something they’d do on a TV reality show,” I admitted. “But could he do that from rehab?”
“He got to leave the clinic twice a week, and he used an Internet café to send in the files. The next time he checked the web site, there would be instructions for him, based on what he’d said on the video. That’s how he found out he was supposed to pretend to have a house in Marin and ask Cece to move in with him.”
“So he did have someone coaching him from the outside.” I shivered despite the heat of the water. “Arranging everything.”
“And once they were out of the clinic, and Nelson had access to a computer from home, the communication was daily.”
“Until the kidnapping.”
“Right. Nelson’s story is that he was instructed to propose to Cece on a certain day. If she accepted, the show would be over, and he would win a million dollars. Then the producers would appear and tell her it had all been a game. If she still wanted to marry him after she found out about the TV show, he’d win her and her whole fortune.”
“I bet they didn’t tell him her fortune includes Harry.”
Jack grinned. “Anyway, that’s how they got rid of him. He proposed, and Cece accepted—”
“She what?” I sat up, sending bubbles flying everywhere. “What kind of a—”
“So anyway,” Jack wiped a fleck of scented foam from his face. “Nelson had been told to leave her alone in the house after the proposal. He thought the TV crew would show up after he left.”
“And instead the kidnappers did.”
Jack nodded.
“And let me guess—when Tom Nelson checked the web site, he was told Cece said she never wanted to see him again.”
“Right. So he believed he’d lost the game and he went back home and he’s just been waiting for the show to be on TV and make him a star.”
“And the web site he used?”
“Gone.”
I’d said it a lot that day. “Wow.”
Since Jack was in such a talkative mood, I decided to press him for information. “I don’t suppose you told Inspector Yahata about your buddy Macbeth?” I reached for a towel.
Jack grimaced. “He’s knows we’re not telling him everything, and I think it’s driving him a little nuts.”
“Probably.” I stood and wrapped myself in the towel, not without enjoying an appreciative glance from my husband. “But I don’t suppose it matters. I mean, it’s not like you have anything concrete to tell him about Macbeth.” I attempted an elaborately casual tone. “Do you?”
Jack shot me a focused look. “I thought you’d never ask.”
“What?” I splashed my way out of the tub. “What have you found out about Macbeth? Is he doing all of this from prison? Could he have hired Tom Nelson? Or Brian?”
“No.”
Something in his tone chilled me, despite the steamy room. “I’m getting a very bad feeling here.”
“It’s been next to impossible to find anything out,” Jack explained. “Even for Mike, and he can usually get in anywhere —” He stopped himself before he said anything more. “But this morning he found out why all the information on Macbeth had been sealed up.”
Somehow I knew. I forced myself to say the words. “He’s dead.”
Jack nodded briefly. “He killed himself. Six weeks ago.”
Our eyes met. We were back to square one.
***
We stayed up for hours trying to figure out what to do next. Jack told me that Mike was hard at work attempting to learn the details of Macbeth’s death, but it was only the suicide ruling they doubted, not the actual death.
“I just can’t accept that he’d kill himself,” Jack explained. “Particularly if he was behind setting Cece up and that woman in the tub. He wouldn’t just leave it all unfinished.”
“But it wasn’t unfinished,” I pointed out. “Someone finished it.”
Jack gave me a meaningful look. “If Macbeth is—or was—behind all of this, it isn’t finished yet.”
“Jack, why are you so convinced it’s related to him? I mean, it was my cousin who was kidnapped, and it’s a director from my theater who’s gone missing, and that woman’s body was left in a hotel room booked under my name. Suppose this isn’t about you? Suppose it’s about me?
He stopped pacing for a moment to look at me with a frown. “I have thought about that. Everything has been directed against you, but the way it’s all been carried out sends a message explicitly for me.”
“From a dead man?”
Jack blew out a deep breath and sat down. For once in my life I shut up and let him think. I was rewarded for my uncharacteristic patience when he spoke. “When I found out Macbeth had been selling us out,” he began, “we were in the middle of a…project.”
I bit my tongue and waited for more.
“The tactics used by Cece’s kidnappers—the identical clothes and masks, the instructions on typed paper, everything—was what we’d been doing. How we’d been operating when we—” He stopped.
When he what? When he’d been working undercover? Had he kidnapped someone? I probably wasn’t going to find out. I wasn’t sure I wanted to find out.
“And the way Tom Nelson met Cece,” he continued. “The way he manipulated her—it’s classic Macbeth.”
“It’s classic schmuck,” I countered. “If every guy who lied about being a doctor—”
“Charley,” Jack spoke quietly. “There’s something else.”
Not good news, I was willing to bet.
“It was because of a woman that I found out what Macbeth was doing. She told me about it. She betrayed him.”
I knew by now that any questions I had about what Macbeth was doing would go unanswered. So I asked the other obvious question. “What woman? Where is she now?”
“She’s dead.” Jack’s tone was flat. “I found her the day Mac beth was arrested.”
“Don’t say it.” But I knew. And I had to say it. “She was in a bathtub.”
He met my eyes. “She was his wife.”
I took a minute to wait for the room to stop spinning. “Right,” I said, my voice cracking. “So I guess this is about you.”
***
I spent Sunday in bed with the covers over my head, but Monday morning I had a plan. Not a plan to figure out who had assumed Macbeth’s tactics in order to terrorize the people around me and torture my husband, but a plan nevertheless.
First, I had figured out how I would explain Flank’s presence at the theater. I would tell people he was my personal trainer and a sort of food watchdog. The trainer bit was entirely believable, given the man’s physique. The watchdog thing would account for him going everywhere with me. I’d tell people it was Flank’s job to knock doughnuts out of my hands and force broccoli down my throat. Presumably that’s what trainers did. It was a stretch, but it sounded better than telling a roomful of actors that I might be in danger, and that by association they might be in danger, and the only thing between them and a homicidal maniac might be the oversized gentleman in the balcony.
Part two of the plan was to make Chip my assistant director. He was obviously ready for the job. If I was totally honest with myself I would have to admit that he was more qualified to direct the play than I was. I looked guiltily at the script that I’d managed to ignore since Thursday, even though I’d vowed to study it before the first read-through, scheduled to begin at eleven o’clock.
But I also had a much more selfish reason. With Chip as my AD, I’d be able to delegate a lot of work, which would leave more time for figuring out what had really happened to Brian, why Rix was meddling in my theater, and whether either was connected to the dead woman in the tub or Cece’s kidnapping.
Of course, I wouldn’t tell my husband any of this. He’d made it very clear that he and Mike were still handling any investigations. They’d already started checking out all of Macbeth’s former associates, but I figured if I approached the puzzle from the other end, they’d never have to know about it until I found some crucial piece of information. And then it would be too late for them to be angry.
So I smiled innocently at Jack when he emerged from the bedroom. “Just to let you know—I’m brilliant.”
“I already knew that. I have something for you.” He was holding a shopping bag, which he placed on the table in front of me.
“Not another gun?” I eyed the bag suspiciously.
“Open it.”
A cell phone. “Oh. Thank you.”
“Try not to lose this one,” he suggested. “There’s something else.”
It was one of those tiny electronic organizers that everybody seems to have these days. I regarded it suspiciously. “Do I have to learn some weird way of writing?”
“You’ll manage. You’re brilliant, remember?”
I flipped the cover open and turned it on. “There’s stuff already in it.” I looked up at Jack.
“I filled in the address book with everyone I could think of,” he said.
“When did you have time to do that?”
He grinned. “You sleep a lot. I also put a few things on your to-do list.”
I pushed the button that looked like a list. The first item to appear said “Screw your husband senseless.” I gave him a sideways look.
“That one’s set up to appear daily.”
“’Cuz otherwise I might forget,” I nodded.
The next item said “Call Realtor.” I turned the thing off and shut the cover. “It’s great, Jack. Thanks.” I slipped the two gadgets into my purse, which was getting unfashionably bulky, and grabbed the script. “I’d better get going if I don’t want to be late for the read-through.” I opened the door and crashed directly into Flank. God only knew how long he’d been standing in the hallway.
“Have a nice day, dear,” Jack called after me. There was more than a touch of mockery in his voice.
***
I walked to the theater at a brisk pace. I figured if I was going to pass Flank off as my trainer I should make an effort to look like I exercised occasionally. I knew how demanding the rehearsal schedule would be, and that it would leave no time for indulgences like long runs along the waterfront. We only had six weeks to pull the show together. That would include all the time for rehearsals, technical run-throughs, building the sets, creating the costumes, and a thousand other things.
I got to the theater early, counting on the assumption that Chip would be there before anyone else. I was right. He was heartbreakingly naïve about the new position. He worried that he wouldn’t be up to the job. He promised earnestly that he would justify my faith in him. And even though he was leaving the union protection of his current position, he didn’t ask about a pay raise.
He did ask whether he could promote Lisa, his assistant, to replace himself as stage manager. Although I’d seen her around, I hadn’t actually met the woman yet.
“She’s up to it?” I asked him.
“She’s amazing,” he assured me.
“Go for it.” If only everything could be that easy.
The cast started filing in around ten thirty. Because the Rep owned the building outright, we didn’t use the kinds of rental rehearsal spaces other companies had to deal with. We’d be able to hold all rehearsals right in the theater. Chip had stopped for muffins on his way and made coffee before anybody else arrived. As expected, people began congregating around the food as they came in.
A large table had been set up center-stage. The first read-through of a play was often grueling. The actors all sit around the table with their scripts in front of them and simply read the play. It sounds easy enough, but it was the first real work the cast would do together, and egos would be at their most fragile.
We would need the whole cast to be present. A few minutes before we were scheduled to start I came down from the office, sent Flank up to the balcony, and assessed the situation.
Regan was there, looking ready to get to work in comfortable jeans and a long-sleeved tee-shirt. Her hair was in a simple ponytail and she wore no discernable make up, but she was still, in Jack’s vernacular, drop-dead gorgeous. She also seemed a little nervous, a fact which I noted with some satisfaction. Thankfully, today she had no escort.