Читать книгу Ellen Hart Presents Malice Domestic 15: Mystery Most Theatrical - Karen Cantwell - Страница 9

While putting on a new play in a storefront theater in Los Angeles, Daria Barnes finds herself faced with more than just the usual financial and artistic challenges.

Work in the theater for any length of time and you are going to see some seriously crazy stuff. All those hyper-creative, emotional people? It just goes with the territory.

Take Bobby Mossman, for example. Those of us who worked with him thought his fascination with staging the Perfect Crime was a little weird. Nobody, but nobody, thought he’d actually do it. I mean, he didn’t give off any of those scary vibes, like he didn’t care about hurting people. If anything, it seemed like an intellectual exercise to him.

We were mounting our show in a cracker box theater on the unfashionable end of Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles. I came into the office that afternoon, seriously annoyed. Bobby pulled a pack of cigarettes from the back of the rusty file cabinet. He was tall and slender, with long, thinning blond hair and sparkling blue eyes.

“Bobby, I just went to get the gels Jill asked for and the card was declined,” I told him. Gels are colored plastic sheets that go over stage lights.

“I’ll take care of it, Daria,” he said.

The rumble of the actors rehearsing on the stage suddenly burst into a roar.

“Lee, if you don’t learn your lines, I swear, I’m going to shoot you!” Tom screamed.

Tom Cimelli, our director, had also written the play about a soldier suffering from PTSD and holding bar patrons hostage. Lee was Lee Harmon, Bobby’s partner in life. Tom was workshopping the play with visions of Broadway. Bobby’s job was to raise the money to put it on so that Lee could keep acting. My job was to spend as little of the money Bobby raised as possible.

“Careful what you wish for,” Bobby said with an odd snigger. “Now, all I have to do—”

“Bobby, we don’t have time for the Perfect Crime right now,” I said, glaring at him.

“I’m not playing,” he said.

He was certainly in one of his moods. I deeply hoped that didn’t mean he and Lee were fighting again. I looked him over. He usually wore his hair loose, but that morning he’d brushed it into a ponytail. He’d shaved off the usual stubble on his chin, too.

Bobby coughed, then shook a cigarette from the pack. Instead of putting the pack back in the file cabinet, he put it in the pocket of his light blue dress shirt. He had on dark gray dress slacks, too. He looked like he was about to go fundraising, and with two weeks to go before opening, that meant only one thing. We were almost out of money.

“We need those gels,” I told Bobby. “If Jill doesn’t warm up the lighting, the stage is going to look like a morgue.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Bobby said again. He held up his cigarette. “I’m going for a smoke.”

There was no point in antagonizing him, so I didn’t follow him out to the alley behind the theater. But something was up. Usually when money ran short, Bobby told me about it and came up with a donation from one of his sources. I was also pretty darned sure we weren’t out of money. I’d checked the account the day before. I decided I’d better check again.

The office computer took its time booting, so I didn’t really pay attention to the bang I heard, loud as it was. Given the skanky neighborhood we were in on the eastern edge of Hollywood, I heard all kinds of bangs. Could have been a firecracker. Could have been a car backfiring. Could have been a gunshot. I hoped it wasn’t a gunshot. A homeless person had been killed nearby the week before by a random shot.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Jill Levy, our lone tech person, running past the office to the front of the house.

Our theater, like many in L.A., was in a small storefront. Yes, there is a pretty vibrant theater scene here. After all, we have bazillions of actors. They have to do something besides wait tables while they try for their big break. The smart ones do plays to keep their skills sharp. That’s how I got into producing plays, which I discovered I liked a lot more than acting. I mean, I still go out on auditions and have a decent rep for learning my lines, hitting my mark, and showing up on time. But what I love doing is putting on plays. Even depressing scripts like Tom’s. I didn’t mind working for Bobby, either. He could be moody, but mostly he was decent and he was amazingly good at raising money.

I debated going after Jill, but then noticed I couldn’t get into the company bank account on the computer. I tried again. It said my sign-in was no longer valid. I called the bank.

“Sorry, but that account’s been closed,” said the person on the other end of the line.

“I’m a signatory on that account. I didn’t authorize that,” I said, really working hard to keep from yelling at the poor woman.

“Daria Barnes?” she asked.

“Yes, that’s me. I even gave you my social security number a minute ago.”

I heard computer keys clicking on the other end. “It appears Mr. Mossman withdrew the money and closed the account this morning.”

“What? Did he transfer it to another account?”

“No. He withdrew cash.”

I hung up.

“I am going to kill him!” I screamed.

What stopped me was the laughter from the doorway. The man doing the laughing was of average height, but built like a cement mixer, with broad shoulders and a square face. His hair was deep, dark black. He was wearing a dark suit with the slight sheen of polyester.

I turned on the new arrival.

“Who are you?” I demanded.

“Berto Esparza,” he said, flipping open an ID case. “I’m a private investigator working for the law firm of Graham, Shipkey, Shipkey, and Rubin. I’m looking for Bobby Mossman.”

“I think he’s around here someplace.” I got up and worked my way around the beat-up desk in the tiny room. “If he’s lucky, you’ll find him before I do.”

“He’s the one you’re going to kill?” His dark eyes flashed merrily.

“Well, not in so many words,” I said, suddenly swallowing. “I mean, it’s just an expression.”

“What did he do?”

I brushed back my curly dishwater-blonde hair. “He withdrew all the money in the company account and closed it. It was half our budget. I’ve still got programs and tickets to pay for, plus another ad. And rent’s coming due on this armpit of a space.”

Berto shook his head. “You may want to start looking for another one. Or some more money. I’m here to serve papers on Mr. Mossman.”

“He’s being sued? For what?”

“Can’t say.”

“Probably some sort of fraud,” I snorted.

Berto’s eyes gleamed and he grinned knowingly.

My jaw dropped. “Holy crud, he is doing a Bialystock.”

“Huh?”

“The Producers.” I stumbled over the words.

“Film by Mel Brooks, 1967, starring Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder.” Berto grinned.

I had to admit I was impressed that he got the older version of Mel Brooks’ story about a producer who raises more from investors than he spends and makes a profit when the show closes.

“Most people would be thinking Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick.” That was the newer, musical version. I shook my head to clear it. “I was wondering if Bobby wasn’t getting nice little old ladies to cough up.” I looked at Berto. “But that’s not fraud, is it? They weren’t investors. They were donors. Besides, every penny we had went to the show.”

“That you know of,” said Berto. “Mr. Mossman is probably just this side of legal. Kind of hard to prove criminal intent when your victim gives you the money willingly to put on a play and that’s what you do with it. That’s why I’m also trying to find out if there was any other funny business going on. Which given what I heard coming in, I’d say there was.”

“With a hey nonny-nonny,” I said, getting angry again. “He stole half our budget.”

I pushed past Berto to go outside just in time to hear screaming from the back of the theater. The stage area was a largely unfurnished section surrounded by black curtains. Stage right, behind the curtains, was the only offstage area in the theater. The prop table was squeezed up against the back wall of the tiny alcove under a window we had to keep open because it was summer and the AC was on the fritz again. An open door led to the alley.

Jean Frisch, our leading lady, was in the doorway screaming in full-on terror as she looked outside. Berto gently pulled Jean back onto the stage. Tom, Lee, and Dev Lippman, one of the other actors, looked at us with puzzled faces. Berto already had his cell phone out and was calling the police as he hurried out to the alley.

“There’s a body out there,” Jean sobbed. “With a big, ugly, bloody spot on the back of his head.”

“Maybe somebody just hit him,” Tom said, heading for the door. “We should be out there taking care of him.”

Tom was stopped by Berto’s return. One look at Berto’s face and Tom gasped and turned pale.

“Maybe we could do some first aid,” Dev said.

Berto shook his head. “I’m a former cop. I know a stiff when I see one. Everybody needs to stay right here.”

I gulped. “Do you know whose body it is?”

“Somebody with a blue shirt on and dark gray slacks,” Berto said, obviously watching all of us.

“Bobby,” I whispered, swallowed, gasped, then looked at Berto. “Bobby Mossman was wearing a blue dress shirt and dark gray slacks today.”

Lee’s wail rose above everyone else’s and he sank onto a bar stool on stage.

“I need everyone to stay in this room,” Berto said. He looked at the alley as if he needed to be out there, as well.

Shaking, Jill wandered in from the sidewalk outside the storefront.

“What’s going on?” she asked, her voice panicky. She was a short woman, with spiky dark hair.

“There’s a body in the alley,” Jean said, crying and tossing her long brown hair out of her perfectly shaped face. “We think it’s Bobby.”

“Noooooooo!” Jill wailed. “I was just playing with it!”

“Playing with what?” I asked.

But Jill was too hysterical to answer. She sank into a seat in the first row and hugged herself as she sobbed.

Berto waved me over to the offstage area. “Can you keep everyone here in the theater?”

“Can’t you?” I asked, my voice starting to tremble.

He looked back at the alley. “I’ve got to secure the scene. You, on the other hand, look like you’ve got it together.”

“I suppose,” I whispered. I sure didn’t feel like I had it together. But compared to everyone else, I must have looked like an oasis of calm.

Lee’s sobs were the loudest, even as he began hyperventilating. I’d have questioned it, but Lee was simply not that good an actor. Tom sat on one of the other bar stools doing deep breathing exercises with his eyes closed. Dev sniffled and paced relentlessly while Jean kept mechanically patting Lee on the back.

“Whoa. What’s this?” Berto squatted over something on the black-painted cement floor next to the prop table.

It was the little snub-nose revolver we were using for the big scene when Lee’s character pretends to commit suicide. It had fallen off the prop table. Berto looked up at the open window, then pulled a small flashlight out of his inside jacket pocket and trained it on the small revolver.

“Muy interesante,” he muttered to himself.

I laughed weakly as he looked at the window again.

“That’s not the murder weapon,” I said. “Can’t be.”

“Why not?”

“It’s not a real gun. It’s a prop gun. And the whole point of the scene is that it’s not actually loaded.”

“Looks pretty real to me,” Berto said. He moved the light around to the side of the grip. “See that? It’s the gun’s serial number. Why would there be a serial number on a fake gun?”

“But… But… nobody’s stupid enough to—” I stopped.

I know I can be pretty hard on actors. Most of them are decent and reasonably intelligent human beings. But there are a few… how do I put this kindly? They would, in the name of “Being Real,” be stupid enough to use a real gun as a prop. The problem was I didn’t think we had any of that kind of idiot in our cast.

Suddenly Jill’s hysteria meant something. I went back to the stage area and found Jill still sobbing in the first row of the fifty seats that made up the audience area. I sat down next to her and put my arms around her shoulders.

“Jill,” I said softly. “I heard a gunshot earlier.”

She nodded.

“What happened?”

“It was a real gun,” she whispered. “I had no idea. Bobby just gave it to me. Said it would look great under the lights. I knew he was right. But I didn’t know it was real. I truly didn’t.”

“So, you were playing with it today,” I said.

“I was aiming out the window and it went off,” Jill gulped. “It scared me to death. I ran out to the front. I was praying to God I hadn’t hit anything. Anyone.”

Jean screeched. “You mean he’s been pointing a real gun at me all this time?”

“Apparently so,” I said, patting Jill’s arm, then getting up.

Jean screamed and collapsed into my arms. I could hear sirens in the distance.

Tom opened his eyes. “Is there a reason you don’t use real guns?”

Tom was an Iraq war vet, so maybe you could give him a pass. I wasn’t ready to.

“Yeah,” I said, patting Jill and getting up. “Like what happened.”

“But it wasn’t loaded.”

I glared at Tom. “Apparently, it was.”

He had the decency to go pale again and pick up his deep breathing with even more focus. I slid Jean into a seat next to Jill.

“We don’t know that it was the weapon,” Berto pointed out, coming out onto the stage. “We’re just guessing at this point.”

“I don’t care,” I yelled. “Why the hell was there a loaded gun on my set? That’s what I want to know.”

Everyone assembled stopped crying and looked at me blankly, except Jill, who shrunk even further into herself. I suppose it was a bit much to expect a real answer. I took a deep breath.

“Who here knew Bobby was about to bolt?” I asked.

Everyone except Berto erupted into confused chatter.

“I did,” said Dev, loudly. He was a sandy-haired man with a deep, soft voice. The others stilled. “Well, I didn’t really know. But he asked me to fly away with him to Mexico yesterday.”

“Bobby?” cried Lee. He looked like he was about to fall off the stool. Jean went over and held him.

I looked at Lee and shuddered.

“That’s the thing,” I said. “Jill didn’t know the gun was real, and she had no reason to kill Bobby. In fact, the only person here who knew the gun was real also had the least motive to kill Bobby, and that’s you, Tom.”

“Are you sure?” Berto asked quietly.

“Reasonably sure,” I said. The sirens grew louder and I figured I only had a few minutes more before the police arrived and did their thing. “So, if the gun was originally Bobby’s, and it turned out to be loaded, then who would the logical victim be?” I looked at Lee. “Don’t you press the gun to your temple and pull the trigger at the end of the first act?”

Lee turned white. “It couldn’t be.”

“As in Bobby’s Perfect Crime?” I pressed. “Lee, Bobby was being sued, probably by one of our supporters. He closed the company account this morning and took all the money in cash. I don’t know how you two were getting on, but the fact that he asked Dev to go with him to Mexico suggests to me that things were not all that great.”

“He was being horrible!” Lee wailed as Jean held him close. “He said he was tired of me. I couldn’t do anything right.”

I couldn’t help but think, if only we could get that kind of emotion out of him during the performance. I looked over at Berto to steady myself.

“Maybe,” I said. “In any case, Bobby finally had his Perfect Crime. He takes off to Mexico. You use the gun as scripted. Only it goes off and you’re dead.”

Both Lee and Jean wailed again.

“More to the point,” I continued. “Bobby’s just dumped you. There’s no reason to believe that you haven’t pulled off some overly dramatic suicide because you’re not around to tell us that you didn’t know the gun was loaded. It’s about as close to a perfect crime as you can get. The only thing Bobby didn’t take into account was Jill.”

“I didn’t know it was real!” Jill cried. “How was I supposed to know? I’ve never even seen a real gun before.”

Berto looked skeptical, which I could understand. He actually dealt with real guns on a regular basis. However, I totally got where Jill was coming from. The weight of the gun supposedly should have given it away, but I would have assumed it had been weighted to be more “real.”

“Exactly,” I continued. “Jill was goofing off with what she had every reason to believe was a prop gun and not the real thing. Call it irony. Call it Karma. But Bobby was hoisted on a petard of his own making.”

“And what makes you so sure?” Berto asked.

“It’s the only thing that makes sense,” I said out of the corner of my mouth.

“The Thin Man,” Berto said. “1934. William Powell and Myrna Loy.”

He was right. I’d unconsciously parroted that line from the end of the movie, which is one of my all-time faves.

The police arrived and did their thing. It took forever. However, the physical evidence supported my theory. Berto teased me later that, thanks to me, he’d lost some extra billable hours, but his bosses at the law firm were pretty impressed with how he’d handled things. I couldn’t have cared less that he got the credit for figuring it all out, especially since I couldn’t have done it without him telling me what he knew.

Jill eventually recovered. Amazing what good therapy will do. She’ll even still work with me, but not on anything with a prop gun. We did eventually get Tom’s show up and running. Turned out people had been lining up and taking numbers to sue Bobby. So, just to cover our backsides, we figured we’d better mount it, trauma or not.

Lee found the money to do it, too. He told us he wanted to prove Bobby wrong about the script. So much for that. The show closed after the second night. Like I mentioned earlier, it was a pretty depressing piece of work.

Anyway, that’s how Berto and I met. It didn’t take that long before we got to be best friends. He is the big brother I never had, and while he does have a younger sister, it’s like I’ve been adopted by his family, too. Berto’s kids even call me Tía, or Aunt Daria.

Berto does bug me sometimes about working with him. While I do the odd job for him now and then, the work he does as a P.I. makes even the stuff I do in the theater look sane. I’ll stick with my kind of crazy, thank you. At least that I get.