The Fourth Wall (19 page)

“Nor do I,” said Ian. “But it's been nagging at me. Goodlow had better know the whole story.”

We agreed there was no time like the present and got up to leave. Two gushing fans stopped Ian as we were going out, disturbing Paone's characteristic decorum. Ian was short with them, almost rude.

We went straight from the restaurant to Midtown Precinct South. Lieutenant Goodlow was out, so we left a message that we had something to tell him and where we could be reached.

At my place, I watched Ian prowl through my library for a while and decided to tell him about Sylvia and Jake.

He was shocked. “Abby, could you be mistaken? Jake Steiner always struck me as being such a, well, comfortable sort of person. No hidden neuroses or the like.”

“Comfortable, yes,” I agreed, “but there's no mistake, Ian. Jake is happy, now that Sylvia has been reduced to a state of helplessness. I'm not sure he even realizes it himself—but he's in his element.”

“My God.” Ian was silent a moment. “And you say you can't get in to see her?”

“I can't even get her on the phone. Between the doorman downstairs and the nurse upstairs, Sylvia is very effectively cut off from the outside world.”

Ian's handsome face was troubled. “Are you thinking the same thing I'm thinking?”

“That Jake Steiner's responsible for what's been happening? No. If he were out to ‘get' Sylvia, there'd be no reason for the other things that happened afterward.”

“To cover up? To hide his trail?”

“Murder to hide a lesser offense? No. Jake's a monster, but not that kind of monster.”

Ian nodded. “Yes, it would make sense. But I agree that someone ought to check on Sylvia. I'll have a try at it. Maybe I'm better at bullying doormen than you are. They live on Central Park South, don't they? What's the number?”

I told him the number and he wrote it down. Then we continued to wait for Lieutenant Goodlow.

It was four o'clock before he got there. “I see you got the two extra locks,” he said approvingly as he sat down. “Now what was it you wanted to tell me?”

Ian took the lead. “Have you ever heard of Michael Crown?”

“The playwright? Yes, I saw one of his plays once. Committed suicide, didn't he? About five or six years ago?”

“Eight.” Ian frowned. “Closer to nine, now. You've been asking us what Manhattan Rep did that might cause someone to want to hurt us. The only thing we did that was out of the ordinary was, ah, done to Michael Crown. And he's dead.”

Now it was the Lieutenant's turn to frown. “Michael Crown was associated with Manhattan Repertory?”

“No, but he almost was.”

“Better start at the beginning.”

Ian thought a moment and then asked, “Which of his plays did you see, Lieutenant?”

“Mmm. Something about a phoenix.”

“
The Phoenix Is Grounded
, yes. That's the one that started the whole thing. It was different from his earlier plays, enormously different. Abby …?”

I picked up the story. “Crown's plays were superficial and commercial and about as subtle as a heart attack. The characters were flat and almost totally interchangeable—”

“That's the truth,” said Ian. “I know, I played one once.”

“The so-called plots were just flimsy excuses for assembling a bunch of people who stood around swapping one-liners. Crown went for the cheap, easy laugh every time. Good comedy is hard to write, and Crown wrote dialogue better suited to TV sitcoms than the stage. In short, he wrote the very kind of play that Manhattan Rep was founded to avoid.”

“And then came
The Phoenix Is Grounded,
” said Ian.

“Then came
The Phoenix Is Grounded,
” I agreed, “and we all had our ears pinned back. You saw the play, Lieutenant. It's good comedy, solid and substantial, with real people acting out a credible story line. But most important, the play has a point to it—none of Crown's earlier plays had any point at all. The
Times
man wrote that Michael Crown had suddenly grown up.”

Lieutenant Goodlow shifted his weight. “What does all this have to do with Manhattan Repertory?”

Ian said, “You recall the purpose of the company? We wanted to put on new drama as well as good older plays that sometimes get overlooked. The older plays were no problem—the problem was finding enough good new plays to round out our repertory. We had Abby, of course, but she couldn't write
all
the new plays we put on.”

“I wrote two,” I said.

“Do you remember Preston Scott, Lieutenant?” Ian asked. “The director, one of the founders of Manhattan Rep?”

Lieutenant Goodlow nodded.

“After
The Phoenix Is Grounded
, Preston went to see Michael Crown,” Ian went on, “and asked him to submit a script to Manhattan Rep. Crown gave us a play called
Two for a Penny
. We were afraid it might be his usual claptrap, but it wasn't. It was every bit as good as
The Phoenix Is Grounded
, and we decided to do it during our second season. This was, oh, maybe a couple of months before we opened for the first time—the schedule was already set for the first year.”

“Then what?” asked Lieutenant Goodlow. “I think I see what's coming.”

“Then Abby found out Michael Crown didn't write either
The Phoenix Is Grounded
or
Two for a Penny
.”

“By sheer accident,” I said. “A friend in Marseilles had sent me a cheaply printed anthology of plays by a writer named Éitienne Quilliot. My friend said Quilliot had never had much success on the French stage—a few provincial productions, nothing in Paris. But she thought he was good and that I might be interested. Quilliot had recently died, and five of his plays were published by his friends as a sort of memorial. It was a limited edition, several hundred copies—not much circulation. I read French slowly, so it took me a while. But by the time I'd finished a play called
Le Cagot
, I was certain it was
The Phoenix Is Grounded
. Even Crown's title wasn't original—it's a line from the play.”

“So then what?”

“So then I took a copy of the play Crown had submitted to us—
Two for a Penny
—and went hunting. Sure enough, there it was. Quilliot had called it
À vil prix
. Crown had changed the names of the characters and moved the setting from Paris to New York, but
Two for a Penny
was definitely
À vil prix
. So Michael Crown hadn't suddenly blossomed into a real writer after all. He'd merely turned into a thief.”

“And so,” said Lieutenant Goodlow, “when you confronted him with it, he killed himself.”

“Which knocked us all for a loop,” said Ian. “I was sure Crown would just try to brazen it out—he struck me as that kind of man. But he must desperately have wanted to be known as a good writer, even if it meant stealing from a dead playwright.”

“Of all the kinds of theft there are,” I said slowly, “I think stealing another person's work is just about the lowest. Michael Crown made a ton of money out of
The Phoenix Is Grounded
. We told him if he didn't make immediate restitution to Quilliot's heirs, we'd call in the police. But he said he couldn't—the money was all gone.”

“So he was in debt and threatened with prison as well,” said Lieutenant Goodlow. “Who confronted him? Just you two?”

“No, the whole committee,” said Ian. “You know about the governing committee?”

“Ms James told me.”

“Abby brought the matter to the committee. We asked Crown to come in and then told him we knew he hadn't written either
The Phoenix Is Grounded
or
Two for a Penny
and what did he plan to do about it.”

“What did he say?”

“He crumbled. He made no attempt to justify what he'd done—just the accusation was enough to make him break down. He sat there in his chair and cried. God, what an awful day that was.”

“So what was decided?”

“Nothing. The man was going to pieces right before our eyes, so we put off making a decision. Two days later he killed himself.”

Lieutenant Goodlow absent-mindedly took off his glasses and cleaned them with his tie. “And now maybe someone is punishing you for Michael Crown's death? Who? Did he have a family?”

“Wife and two daughters,” said Ian. “I think his wife remarried and left New York. I don't know where she is now.”

“Do you know her new name?” Neither Ian nor I did. “What about somebody else he was close to? Somebody close enough to nurse a grudge for nine years?” We didn't know that, either.

“Do you think that's what's happened?” I asked. “Somebody blames us for Michael Crown's death?”

“It certainly fits a pattern of vengeance directed at a group of people. This governing committee—who exactly was on it?”

“Well,” said Ian, “Abby and I. John Reddick and Leo Gunn. Sylvia Markey—who left the company after the first year.”

“But she was on the governing committee during that year? She was there when you confronted Michael Crown?”

“Yes and yes,” said Ian. “And Preston Scott, of course. He was the chairman.”

“And the business manager,” I said. “Don't forget him. What was his name? Albert something.”

“No, it was Alfred.” Ian thought a moment. “Alfred Heath.”

“Your business manager?” asked Lieutenant Goodlow. “He sat on the committee?”

“Definitely. We had to have somebody to hold the reins on spending. A horrible necessity.”

“What's he doing now?”

Ian and I looked at each other blankly. “I have no idea,” I said. “I haven't seen him since Manhattan Rep closed.”

“I think we'd better make a list,” said Lieutenant Goodlow. When we finished, we'd written down the full membership of the governing committee:

Preston Scott, director and chairman (deceased)

John Reddick, director

Abigail James, writer

Ian Cavanaugh, actor

Sylvia Markey, actress (left after one year)

Hugh Odell, actor

Loren Keith, designer

Leo Gunn, stage manager

Alfred Heath, business manager (whereabouts unknown)

“Anybody on this list especially friendly with Michael Crown?” Lieutenant Goodlow wanted to know.

“I don't think so,” said Ian. “I think I probably knew him better than most—I acted in one of his plays. But obviously I didn't know him at all. I was dumbfounded when he killed himself.”

Lieutenant Goodlow was frowning at the list. “You know, I believe in coincidence. Things do happen by chance. But I'll be damned if I can make myself believe
this
is coincidence.” He slapped the list with his hand. “Every one of the murderer's targets is here. Reddick, James, Cavanaugh, Markey, Odell, Keith. That's no coincidence.”

“If that's a list of targets,” I said, “then Vivian Frank at least is safe.”

“Vivian Frank, I forgot about her,” said the Lieutenant. “Did she ever serve on the committee at all? As Sylvia Markey's replacement, for instance?”

“No, Sylvia was replaced by another actress who's long since defected to Hollywood.”

“Then Frank's probably safe,” murmured Lieutenant Goodlow. “This has got to be it. This list of people. Which means that Leo Gunn and this Alfred Heath, wherever he is, are both in danger. As well as you two.” He looked at Ian. “He's already made one try for you, Cavanaugh. It backfired, so he'll try again.” Then he turned to me. “Has it occurred to you that you seem to have gotten off rather easily?”

It hadn't. “How?”

“You and the rest of the committee stopped a man from stealing another man's work. Admirable, from most points of view. But
somebody
sees it as the act that drove Michael Crown to suicide, an act for which you must all be punished. Whoever that somebody is, he's attempted emasculation and maybe failed on purpose. He's attempted disfigurement and ironically succeeded in a way he didn't intend. He's successfully attempted murder and blinding. Ms James, you're the one who discovered the plagiarism and brought it to the attention of the committee. Yet what has he done to you? He destroyed the set of your play—which you have to admit is small beer compared to the other things he's done. I think you're in danger. Both of you.”

“So what do you suggest we do?” Ian asked dryly.

“Hire bodyguards,” said Lieutenant Goodlow bluntly. “I can give you some protection, but not round-the-clock.” He stood up and shrugged on his coat. His face betrayed his excitement; he was on to something at last. But he still wasn't smiling.

So it was a surprise when he turned in the doorway and said, “You understand this whole thing may be a false trail. Your governing committee may have nothing at all to do with it.”

“Come on, Lieutenant,” said Ian. “What else could it be?”

“It could be a lot of crimes committed to hide
one
crime. It could be the acid throwing and all the other things are just a way of muddying the stream.”

There was no need to ask what the one crime was. It could only be the most serious one, the murder of Rosemary Odell.

5

After Ian and the Lieutenant left, I sat thinking. The Lieutenant's parting remark bothered me. For if everything else had been a smoke screen laid down around the murder, that brought the whole thing back to Hugh Odell. Could he have killed Rosemary in some sort of fit of passion (embarrassing phrase)? Who else would want to kill Rosemary Odell? It sounded callous, but
she simply wasn't important enough to kill
. You don't kill the Rosemary Odells of the world, you merely slap their wrists.

The only person in whom Rosemary aroused strong feelings was Hugh. And if Hugh's passion had suddenly gone sour, it could only be because he found she was cheating on him. And that's the part I couldn't believe. Not because Rosemary was too loyal or too principled to have an affair, but simply because she lacked the necessary energy. Deceiving a spouse requires planning and deciding what lies to tell; you have to work at it. An affair would have been just too troublesome for Rosemary Odell at the stage of her life she'd reached right before she died. No, her death was no crime of passion, I was sure.