I Only Read Murder, page 15
This buoyed Miranda’s spirits, especially whenever she saw Edgar in the distance, walking along the seawall with Emmy or throwing a stick on the shore for the flowing golden Lab to chase. Or when she saw him making his way up Beacon Hill. Or coming out from Tanvir’s Hardwares & Bait Shop.
Happy Rock was small enough that it was impossible for her not to spot him constantly, but big enough for him to avoid her if he wanted to. Miranda would have preferred either a one-road village or downtown Manhattan to this. Let him deal with her face-to-face, or let him vanish from sight. But to have him always in her peripheral vison, yet not be able to approach? That only made it worse.
Once, when Chief Buckley was able to find the time to drive her along the harbor to the Opera House, Edgar had appeared unexpectedly from a residential street, looking sweaty and wild and smudged with dirt. Ned had slowed down and lowered his window. “All good?”
Face pink, Edgar had replied—tersely on seeing Miranda in the car with Ned—“All good.”
At the Opera House, meanwhile, things had gone from sour to toxic, just as Denise had predicted. Even ensconced in her sound booth manning the cues, Denise was aware of what was going on. Her husband and Annette were daggers drawn, and their director, Judy, seemed unwilling—or unable—to intervene.
After one especially dramatic blowup, Annette had stormed off the stage, calling Graham a “deviant” and a “degenerate” as she left. She always had the most florid insults. Annette trafficked in hyperbole, as prima donnas often do.
And standing in the wings through all of this, who did Miranda see but Finkel Erdely, notepad in hand, watching everything with a cynical look on her face.
Graham spotted her, and he glared at Finkel, who lobbed it back just as decisively. Miranda knew that look. She’d been on the receiving end of Finkel’s withering glower when she’d innocently mentioned the bus ride they’d shared when Miranda had first arrived—When was it? A lifetime ago? An eternity? An eternity plus one?
“She’s a former student of mine,” Graham grumbled. “Finkel Erdely loves to stir up scandals. That’s kind of her thing. I wasn’t surprised in the least that she went on to become a muckraking journalist.”
Muckraking? Journalist?
“We are talking about The Happy Rock Weekly Picayune, correct?” said Miranda. “Bake sales and 4-H, yes?”
“Oh, there’s muck aplenty for her to rake in this town,” he assured her. “Even if she has to manufacture it herself.”
How one would manufacture muck was, perhaps, best left for another day.
“But how’d she get backstage?” Miranda asked.
“Press pass,” he said. “Full access.” Then, as an aside, “I’d stay away from her if I were you. She writes things that aren’t, shall I say, entirely true. Always on the lookout for dirt. Wants to land a big sensational story. There’s one in the Saturday paper, is what I hear. An exposé of some sort.”
“The Saturday paper?”
“That’s right.”
“The Picayune is a weekly, yes? Every paper is the Saturday paper.”
“Exactly,” he said. “And she’s on the trail of something.”
What was it Edgar had said about this young reporter? She’s a regular at my bookstore. The Victorian building with the widow’s walk and the transom windows had been the site of a triple homicide in the late 1800s. Morbid curiosity on Finkel’s part, perhaps?
She sought out Susan in her office afterwards to ask.
“Miss Erdely?” said Susan. “What does she read? Mainly DIY. How-to books.”
“How-to? I thought Edgar only sold murder mysteries.”
“How to get away with murder. How to plan the perfect crime. That sort of thing. How to poison someone slowly, how to poison someone quickly, how to frame a patsy. You know. Nonfiction.”
“Why would she need DIY books about murder? She’s a reporter. At a local paper. In Happy Rock.”
“One never knows!” said Ned, who had come into the theater office and heard the last of their conversation. “The keys?” he asked Susan.
“Doesn’t Burt have them?”
“Nope. He’s done. The set has been put up, the lighting has been rigged, and Burt said he’ll see us all at the wrap party at the end of the run.”
Miranda had refined her performance over the course of the rehearsals, adding a touch of sadness, a layer of pathos. But the other actors remained stubbornly, painfully, the same. Beat by beat. Line by line. The only one who was asked to alter his delivery was Graham. Every run-through brought fresh suggestions—from Annette.
Annette even gave direction to the director, suggesting that, in her role as the Great Oracle Olivia, Judy might step back, behind Annette, when delivering the oracle’s immortal “visions,” which always conveniently helped the investigation: “I am seeing . . . a . . . size nine man’s footprint in the garden outside the back window.” Or “I am seeing a . . . vision of a notarized will for the Buckingham inheritance that was recently challenged by an unnamed plaintiff known only by the initials S and S.” Gosh, I wonder who it could be? Strongman Seth, maybe?
In spite of his heft and ungainly movements, Rodney had proven good at his job. Running here for props, there for last-minute wardrobe fixes. He’d learned to sidestep Annette, and he worked well with Teena, Miranda’s understudy, who also helped set tables and shift furniture between scenes. The two of them were a team.
Teena and me, we were in school together. We always had each other’s back. We always watched out for each other.
It was true what Edgar said. It wasn’t really about theater, it was about community.
The surprise of the show was Doc Meadows.
He hit it out of the ballpark every single time with his monologue about the disappearance of his character’s wife: “Even if my beloved is not with me physically, she remains with me in spirit. She is in my thoughts every day. I hear her footsteps in the hallway, I hear her laughter in the corridors. I can see her in an empty chair, in the setting sun, in the morning light through an open window. I feel her next to me when I go to sleep and in the morning when I wake. She fades . . . only to return. My greatest failing is that I was never able to tell her how I feel. Because I was afraid. Afraid of the depths of my feelings, the ache in my chest . . . I am a man condemned. Condemned to love the woman I married. To love her always, dearly, deeply.”
It was the only moment of raw honesty in the entire play. And Doc’s delivery was pitch-perfect. Heartfelt and unflinching every time.
Miranda dug out the creased playbill and, sure enough, beside Doc’s name she had earlier written: Marriage problems?
And then it hit her. Those weren’t Doc’s words. Those were Edgar’s. He had written them. About her.
All was not lost!
She intercepted him after rehearsal, as he was trying to slip out the back.
“Edgar! Wait!”
He knew the Opera House well, was hard to catch, but she managed to follow him through to the rear exit.
“Doc’s monologue! It’s beautiful.”
Edgar stopped, hand on the door. He turned his head. “I wrote that a long time ago, Miranda.”
Those were feelings from a decade ago. “And now?”
“This play we’re doing. It’s like a beetle trapped in amber. A time capsule. That’s all. Goodbye, Miranda.”
Before he could leave, she blurted out, “I know about Annette!”
She was bluffing, but it made him turn around. And at this point, that was all she wanted. For him to Not Leave, to stay, even if it was just for a moment longer.
His eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, you ‘know about Annette’? In what way?”
“It’s okay. I forgive you, Edgar. I understand. You were lonely. So was I.”
Anger in those eyes. “Forgive me? Forgive me? My affairs are none of your damned concern.”
Affairs? Plural!
Miranda fought her outrage down. She’d had dalliances of her own over the years, a stuntman here, a younger co-star there. Film sets were a hothouse of infidelity, and theater was no better.
Again, Edgar turned to go, and again, Miranda stopped him with another wild accusation.
“I know what you’ve been doing!” she said.
Again, he turned, and again, he asked, “What do you mean? Exactly?”
“Telling Bea one thing and Susan another, pretending to miss me one moment and then dismissing me in the next breath. Pretending like I don’t exist when it suits you. Well, I do exist, Edgar! And I am here, whether you like it or not.”
He stomped over, towered above her. She’d forgotten how tall he was.
“You. Never. Came. Back,” he said, his voice punching every word. “The note you left when you slipped out of bed? On our honeymoon, no less. I will send for you. Well, you never did, did you? You left me on that bed, and in many ways, I am still on that bed, waiting for you to return.”
Her voice faltered. “I have returned, Edgar. Don’t you see? I have.”
“You’re fifteen years too late.” And with that, he was gone, straight-arming the door and disappearing into the alley.
Back at Bea’s, Miranda drained another box of wine, moaned about flanges and lost husbands and insects caught in amber, until Ned and Bea had to put her to bed.
“Bea?” she mumbled as they were tucking her in.
“Yes, dear?”
“Can I have a wake-up call?”
“I think you just received one.”
“Bea?”
“Yes, dear?”
“My laundry is really starting to pile up. Can you do something about that? Thanks.”
THE BIG DAY finally arrived.
Dress rehearsal! (Also: the night of the murder.)
“Full house,” Susan whispered, peeking from the wings.
It was mostly empty, so their definition of “full house” differed from Miranda’s. It was a large theater, 450 seats, and it was nowhere near full, even with everyone packed into the center of it.
“We cordoned off a hundred seats for the audience, but we had to move the rope! We’ve already sold one hundred and sixty tickets, and we’re expecting two hundred. That’s much more than usual, now that we have a big-name draw.”
Miranda no longer took the bait. “Yup. You bet, Annette can sell tickets.”
“I meant you,” said Susan. “Even back when Annette was ruling the roost, we never sold this many seats. She knows that. It’s why she’s so cold. Word got out that you’d be doing a cameo, and people have come in from as far as Eugene.”
A cameo! Yes, thought Miranda. That’s what this is! Not a minor role, not a public humiliation, a cameo. I am gracing them with my presence. Suddenly, she perked up.
One of the posters had been put up backstage, and Miranda noted her name in bold at the bottom.
“I did that,” said Susan with a proud smile. “Featuring a cameo by Golden Globe–nominated actress Miranda Abbott!”
Miranda felt her eyes mist over. “Thank you, Susan. You’ve been a good friend.”
The moment was ruined, however, by a voice from behind that made Miranda jump.
“Two t’s.”
She turned and there was Officer Carl in his butler’s jacket, grinning at her. He pointed to Miranda’s name on the poster. “Abbott, with two t’s. Glad they got that right, huh?”
“If you’ll excuse me, I must check my wardrobe.”
Miranda was already in her Victorian maid’s outfit—which was decidedly frumpier than the frilly skirt and fishnet French maid getups they kept trying to put her in during her Pastor Fran days—“Undercover at a manor! Owned by a Frenchman!” “Undercover at a school for maids! Owned by a Frenchman!”—but any excuse to get away from Carl. She went to check her wardrobe.
The murmur of the crowd.
An announcement over the PA: “Ladies and gentlemen, tonight’s dress rehearsal begins in five minutes. Please take your seats.”
That old excitement returning. God, how she missed this. Even if it was only a cameo.
The actors had assembled in the wings behind Strongman Seth, whose luminescent pimple would lead them onstage when the moment came.
And as they waited for the curtains to rise and for Denise’s overture to begin, Annette turned to her fellow cast members and said, “It has been an honor. I invite you all to join me at the Bengal Lounge for a drink after tonight’s performance.” And with a glance Miranda’s way, she added, “Major cast members only, of course.”
Of course.
And now the overture has begun, and now the lights have dimmed, and now Ned is saying cheerfully from the sidelines, “Good luck, one and all! Good luck, good luck, good luck.”
Damn you, Officer Buckley!
The music swells, the curtains rise, and the applause follows.
Miranda came up with several cutting retorts to Annette’s last-minute dig, but decided to save them for after the performance, when Annette would be leading the “major” cast members Pied Piper–style toward the Duchess Hotel.
Miranda Abbott never got a chance to deliver her cleverly crafted ripostes, however, because exactly one hour and fourteen minutes later, Annette Baillie was gone. For good.
Chapter Eighteen
“She’s (finally) dead!”
Harpreet Singh had done a splendid job on wardrobe this year. When the cast walked out onstage at the start of the dress rehearsal, the applause rose in a wave as much for what the actors were wearing as for who they were playing.
And the costumes were very good. Certainly, Miranda had performed in shoddier garb in professional productions. Officer Carl in his long-tailed butler’s jacket, looking very much like a dour penguin. Lord Wussex in whiskers and herringbone tweed, cap pulled tight. Lord Reginald Buckingham the Third in top hat and scarlet cape. Melvin in his muscles, with that faint scent of something that always surrounded him like his own personal pungent brand of cologne. The groundskeeper with his hand-knitted sweater and not-so-suspicious limp. (He did have a prosthetic limb, after all.) Here was Judy as the oracle, in peasant skirt and shawl, with bangles and bracelets rattling. Here was Miranda, looking frumpy in her shapeless maid’s outfit. Maids of that era were apparently outfitted in mop caps, white aprons, and black gunny sacks.
And here, of course, was Annette Herself, resplendent in shimmering taffeta. She had demanded a new costume, from scratch, and she’d gotten it: a tight bodice with a hoop skirt, layered in fabric. She seemed to float onto the stage rather than walk, an hourglass figure with bounteous cleavage and a demure to-the-floor hem, laid out in purple like the royalty she was. Was there really a time when ankles were considered more risqué than someone’s pale pillowy breasts pushed into your face?
In spite of the drab getup she was wearing, Miranda’s entrance also caused a stir as people whispered and gestured in her direction. Susan’s framing her appearance as a “cameo” had worked, something Annette Baillie clearly resented, stabbing a look at Miranda every time she moved across the stage in her role as the maid to take a jacket from someone with a curtsy.
Up in her booth, Denise was hitting every mark with creaky winds and thunder, as Owen McCune stepped forward to deliver his very first line of the play.
“Good . . .”
He drew a blank.
From the wings, Susan whispered, “. . . afternoon.”
“. . . afternoon!”
After that, he mostly got through it, though he did refer to Mamie Dickens’s beautiful “shade of dipstick,” as opposed to lipstick.
Finally, the moment was on hand: Miranda was about to deliver her one and only line of the play.
“I say, a toast is in order, or my name isn’t Reginald Buckingham the Third! A toast! A toast to Miss Mamie Dickens!”
The butler (aka Carl) carefully poured out each glass one by one.
Carl had—once again—given Miranda the chipped glass. Hell with this, she thought. When Carl turned to hand a drink to the Earl of Wussex, Miranda switched the glasses out, swapping hers with Annette’s.
The others then raised their glasses. “A toast! A hearty toast!” cried Lord Buckingham the Third.
While the others chortled and drank, Miranda, as the maid, furtively snatched up a glass of her own and, throwing one final look of longing the strongman’s way, downed her champagne apple juice.
Here, then, was Miranda’s moment!
Trust Annette to upstage her.
Miranda paused, quietly drew her energy inward. Closed her eyes with a flutter, stumbled one way, then the other, and allowed the growing awareness of her impending doom to swell and expand within her soul . . . But when Miranda opened her eyes, the audience wasn’t looking at her; they were staring past her to Mamie Dickens instead.
Miranda turned just in time to see Annette knock over the lamp.
True, Miranda hadn’t been paying much attention during the last rounds of rehearsals, but her first thought was, Has Judy changed things up? When did this happen?
“Gawwck!” said Annette, and Miranda thought, Hey that’s my line.
It was seven seconds to the murder . . .
Mamie Dickens staggered offstage, and Graham followed, rushing out of sight. He came back looking pale and distraught.
“She’s dead! She is! She’s really dead!”
He’d delivered these lines with much more passion than he’d shown during rehearsals. Talk about taking it up a notch! Talk about living the moment! This was his Yale training in action, she was sure.
When no one moved, Graham repeated his lines. “She’s dead! She is! She’s really dead!”
An awkward moment followed, and then Susan whispered from the wings, “Or my name’s not Reginald Buckingham the Third.” At which point, not knowing what to do, Denise played the dah-dah-DAH zing.
Graham then vomited behind the sofa (upstage; he was a professional). Wow. They teach that at Yale? Miranda was impressed.
She looked to Judy for direction—Do I say my line? Do I follow Annette stage left? Do I wait for her to return?—but Judy was as baffled as she was.
Rodney came out onto the stage, only to freeze when he realized the lights were still up. Had Act One ended or not? He stood, not knowing what to do or where to turn.
