Shooting Star, page 23
“No, no, no,” said Roderick, shaking his head. “No, no!”
Lennie chortled. George turned his back on the others, went into the cookroom, and sat down. The rest stood silently.
Victoria waited a moment, then continued. “You put your hands around Peg’s neck and shook her, tried to get her to confess to you, was that it? Had she recovered enough so she could talk?”
“She told me Roderick tried to kill her.”
Howland shifted position slightly.
“You must have thought she was lying to you, that Roderick was having an affair with her?”
“No!” shouted Roderick.
“It was obvious,” said Duncan, glaring at the people standing and sitting around him. “Mrs. Trumbull seems to be the only one here who understands my situation.”
“Roderick pressed his gloved hand against Peg’s mouth and nose. We know that. But it was you who put your hands around her neck and squeezed life out of her.”
“I was trying to get her to talk to me,” said Duncan.
“Why did you throw her down the cellar stairs?”
Duncan turned. “I didn’t want them to find her right away.”
“And Roderick, foolish Roderick, played right into your hands, didn’t he?”
“He is foolish.” Duncan looked down at the floor.
“Why were you after Teddy?” Victoria asked.
“I heard Peg scream, ‘Run, Teddy, run!’ I thought Teddy had seen me.”
“Before you even went into Peg’s house? I would guess that Roderick put his hand over her mouth, then lifted it enough so she could tell him where Teddy was, and that’s when she screamed. Teddy never saw you. But you went into his house looking for him?”
“I wasn’t thinking clearly,” Bruce said. “When I didn’t find him in his house, I started going through the desk looking for people he might have run to.”
“Teddy did see you, when he climbed the tree. But from where he was sitting, he could see you only from the waist down.” Victoria tapped the cane on the floor. “When he broke the branch, you ran out the back door and tripped over his toy box.”
“Wonder I didn’t break a leg, falling down the stairs. Kid shouldn’t have left it there.”
Victoria smiled for the first time. “That’s what his mother kept telling him. Teddy hid because he was frightened and didn’t feel well,” Victoria continued. “He thought the intruder was his mother’s boyfriend. Teddy didn’t want the boyfriend to find him. He had no idea Chef Callaghan was locked up in jail.”
“Not securely enough, apparently,” said Howland. “I recommended him for the road-work detail.”
“Teddy was coming down with chicken pox and he wanted a safe place to rest.” Victoria smiled again. “Here.”
“Peace and quiet,” said Lennie, finishing the last of his rum and holding the glass up the the light as if more might miraculously appear.
“What about Bob Scott’s death?” Casey asked. “That exchange of bullets in the stage gun? The attempt on Becca’s life?”
Roderick was still on the floor, head on his knees.
Victoria said, “Roderick removed what he thought were blanks and substituted bullets in the stage gun. Right, Roderick? The blanks actually were real bullets.”
He grunted.
“We don’t know who substituted the toy gun with the gag flag for the stage gun.”
George, in the cookroom, raised a hand. “Guilty.”
“Fortunate that you did,” said Victoria. “I’m curious to know where you found a joke item like that.”
“Mary at Shirley’s Hardware.”
“That explains it.” Victoria turned back to Duncan, who was rubbing one foot on the leg of his jeans, having trouble balancing himself with his hands shackled. “Bruce, you took out the blanks and substituted real bullets, didn’t you?”
Duncan said nothing.
“You hoped we’d think a serial killer was at work, that we’d never suspect you because you were the one who alluded to a serial killer. That’s why you killed Bob Scott, isn’t it?”
Duncan was silent.
“You were willing to let Roderick take the blame?”
Bruce Duncan stood up straight. “He deserved it.”
“What about Becca’s shooting? Where were you? In the wings?”
“I bought a ticket, bought it from that girl who didn’t even recognize me.”
“Didn’t anyone in the audience see you with the gun?”
Duncan smirked. “I had it in my pocket. When I pulled it out, they were busy feeding cute lines to the freaks up on the stage. They wouldn’t have noticed a rocket launcher in their midst.” He laughed. “I had a seat on the aisle, and I slipped out at the beginning of Becca’s scene and stood by the door. The only reason I failed to kill the bride of Frankenstein was because some guy standing near me jostled my arm when he started cheering.”
“Does anyone have questions?” Victoria looked around.
Lennie peered out the window and addressed Roderick’s back. “Now you’re blocking three cars, sonny. Two of them are cops.”
Roderick started to get up, but his legs gave way and he fell back on the floor.
Smalley entered the kitchen along with Junior Norton and Tim Eldredge. All three carried drawn guns.
“You can put your weapons away,” said Victoria. “We’ve identified the perpetrator. Sergeant Smalley, you might want to read Bruce Duncan his Miranda warnings.”
“You’ve got to stop taking the law into your own hands,” said Casey, when she came to Victoria’s for coffee the next morning.
“Would you like my resignation?” said Victoria, pulling off her baseball cap. She’d been wearing it all morning.
Casey sighed. “Forget I said anything. That nut might have killed you.”
“I wasn’t on his list.”
“Telephone for you, Gram,” called Elizabeth from upstairs. “You can pick it up in the cookroom.”
Casey handed her the phone.
“Mrs. Trumbull, I presume.” A sonorous voice. Mellow, plummy, theatrical.
“Yes?”
“I am Nicholas Wright, artistic director of the Provincetown Players.”
“I’ve heard of you,” said Victoria.
“I should hope so,” said Nicholas Wright. “I am putting together next season’s schedule of plays, and would like to discuss with you the purchase of performance rights to Frankenstein Unbound.”
“Oh?”
“I understand it’s an extraordinarily fine play. Demanding.”
“Thank you,” said Victoria, smoothing her hair. “I’m glad to hear that a reputable theater appreciates the seriousness of the subject and the gravity of the …”
“Serious? Grave? No, no, no, Mrs. Trumbull. Frankenstein Unbound is one of the finest farces to strut across the boards in decades. Comical. Witty. Slapstick.”
There was a long pause before Victoria told him, “I’ll have to call you back.” She turned the phone off and held it against her chest. McCavity strolled in, glanced around, and leaped into her lap.
“A failure, Casey,” Victoria said, and handed the phone to the chief. “A total failure. My serious work was misunderstood. A farce. Slapstick, he called it. That’s success. Now the playhouse will turn Equity. Nothing can be done about it.”
Casey set the phone back in its cradle on the wall. “You solved two murders and two attempted murders, Victoria. Hardly a failure. You can write another play any old time.
The phone rang again and Casey handed it to Victoria.
“Victoria? It’s Ruth Byron. Got a minute?”
“I do,” said Victoria. “Several, in fact.”
“Wait until you hear what’s happened.”
“You sound a great deal more cheerful than I feel.”
“I fired Dearborn and got rid of my sister, both at once.”
“How is Becca?” Victoria asked.
“She’s fine. She’ll live. She’s making the most of her injury, of course.”
“You can’t blame her.”
“That’s not what I called you about. The Provincetown Players have hired both Dearborn and Becca, contingent on their performing your play.”
Victoria looked up at Casey, her eyes hooded, her wrinkles sagging. “I suppose that means there’s no way my play will ever be taken seriously,” she said to Ruth Byron.
“But it is being taken seriously! Farces are difficult plays to stage, probably the most difficult. Timing is critical. Please sell them performance rights, Victoria, will you?”
“I don’t want my name on the play.”
“And furthermore,” Ruth went on, “my board is thrilled with the receipts from those few performances of Frankenstein Unbound. We made enough to support the theater for two years. The board declared that this was amateur theater at its best.”
“Amateur? Dearborn and Becca? Roderick?”
“Yes, Victoria. Don’t you see? You’ve infused new life into community theater.”
Victoria handed the phone back to Casey who again returned it to the wall cradle. She looked out the window at the view of the village beyond her overgrown meadow, at the church spire, the library, and the store.
Casey waited.
Victoria patted McCavity absently. “I suppose they’ll want Dracula next.”
McCavity turned in her lap, faced away from her, lifted a hind leg, and began to clean himself.
A Play in Three Acts Presented by the Island Players
FRANKESTEIN UNBOUND
A stage adaptation
by Victoria Trumbull
of
FRANKENSTEIN, Or, THE MODERN PROMETHEUS
by Mary Shelley
Cast members in order of their appearance
ROBERT WALTON, THE ARCTIC EXPLORER … . … . … . … . … ...Bob Scott
VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN, THE MONSTER’S CREATOR … . … ...Dearborn Hill
THE MONSTER … ..Howland Atherton
HENRY CLERVAL, VICTOR’S BOYHOOD FRIEND … ..Bruce Duncan
MONSIEUR DE LACEY, THE MONSTER’S ADOPTED FATHER … ..Gerard Cohen
FELIX DE LACEY, M. DE LACEY’S SON … ..Jeff Brown
AGATHA DE LACEY, M. DE LACEY’S DAUGHTER … ..Toni Ferreira,
SAFIE, M. DE LACEY’S ADOPTED DAUGHTER … ..TBA
ELIZABETH LAVENZA, VICTOR’S BRIDE … ..Dawn Haines
ALPHONSE FRANKENSTEIN, VICTOR’S FATHER … ..TBA
WILLIAM FRANKENSTEIN,
VICTOR’S FIVE-YEAR-OLD BROTHER … ..Teddy Vanderhoop
JUSTINE MORITZ, THE FRANKENSTEINS’ HOUSEKEEPER … ..Peg Storm
Understudies
VICTOR FRANKENSTEIN … ..Billy Amaral
THE MONSTER … ..Roderick Hill
ELIZABETH LAVENZA … ..TBA
Ruth Byron, Founder of the Island Players
Dearborn Hill, Artistic Director
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Victoria Trumbull (or at least I, her amanuensis) has now completed the Tisbury Citizen Police Academy and has a certificate proving it. Many thanks to former Tisbury Police Chief Theodore (Ted) Saunier, who not only taught the rigorous and informative course, but who vetted my manuscript to make sure Victoria was using the right terminology and following correct procedures, and that the characters were handling guns properly.
As always, Jonathan Revere provided much of the inspiration behind the story, including the true account of his picking up hitchhikers at midnight while still in costume.
Dawn Haines is a real person, transmogrified into a snippy teenage actress, which she’s not. At a fund-raiser for Vermont College’s MFA scholarship program, Dawn won the grand opportunity of having her name immortalized along with Victoria’s in addition to a weekend at the Cleaveland House bed-and-breakfast.
Thanks to the members of my two writers’ groups, especially Jacqueline Sexton, Jeanne Hewett, and Shirley W. Mayhew, who insisted, despite my protests, that I change the names I’d started with. I did, and they were right. But all the following members worked to make the book better, including Rev. Bonna Whitten-Stovall (Southern Baptist), Rev. Judy Campbell (Unitarian-Universalist), Rev. Mary Jane O’Conner-Ropp (Methodist), and Rabbi Carla Theodore, all of whom made sure I wrote a straight line. And to writers Wendy Hathaway, Carolyn O’Daly, Ernie Weiss, Nelson W. Potter, Ethel Sherman, Charles Blank, Sally Williams, Barbara and Jack Moment, Barbara Linton (who attended the police academy with me, including a field trip one sleeting February night when she was on crutches), Gerry Jackman Dean, Ann Hammond, and others who’ve made suggestions that I listened to.
Thanks to Alvida and Ralph Jones and to Ann and Bill Fielder, who’ve gone over every one of my manuscripts.
A special thanks to Arlene Silva, who triggered this outpouring of words. She must feel like the Sorcerer’s Apprentice, unable to stop the flow.
A final thanks to Islanders, West Tisbury villagers in particular, for providing me with characters and ideas—none based on actual people and events, of course. Someone once claimed that I’m killing off everyone on the Island I’m mad at, but that’s simply not true.
OTHER MARTHA’S VINEYARD MYSTERIES BY CYNTHIA RIGGS
Indian Pipes
The Paperwhite Narcissus
Jack in the Pulpit
The Cemetery Yew
The Cranefly Orchid Murders
Deadly Nightshade
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
SHOOTING STAR. Copyright © 2007 by Cynthia Riggs. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS.
An imprint of St. Martin’s Press.
www.thomasdunnebooks.com
www.minotaurbooks.com
eISBN 9781466819641
First eBook Edition : April 2012
First Edition: May 2007
Cynthia Riggs, Shooting Star
