Murder in the Wings (5 page)

I was nearing the stage door when I heard the phone ring and Stan answer it. He said, "I don't know, Mr. Ashton. I think he may already have gone. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Good night, sir."

He hung up just as I reached him. "Oh, Dwyer. You are here, huh?"

"Unless I'm a ghost."

"That was Mr. Ashton."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, he said he thought you might still be down here. He said he wants you to come up to the penthouse."

"You're kidding?"

He shrugged. "That's what he said."

"Did he say what he wanted?"

"Nope."

"You think there's an emergency or something?"

"Not that I know of."

"I wonder what the hell's going on."

"There's a good way to find out." He smiled; nodding toward the elevator. "Get on the damn thing and go up there."

I smiled at him. "Good point."

I got on the elevator and went up. I was still wondering about Anne Stewart and what she'd been doing in Reeves's office.

E
ven before the elevator doors had opened completely I saw a chandelier that cast an almost blinding light over a reception area nearly as large as the theater's. A fleshy man with sleek white hair and wearing a blue jumpsuit nodded hello. When he spoke it was in good English with a Latin American accent. "You are Mr. Dwyer."

"Yes."

"Mrs. Bridges would like to see you."

I looked around. Three hallways angled off from the reception area. Somewhere down the corridors lived the three Ashtons. The place seemed to be divided into three apartments.

"I'm not going to see David or Sylvia?" I asked.

"Mrs. Bridges did not mention them." He pointed to the second hallway. "She'll be most happy."

I followed him down a corridor so broad that it was almost a room itself. Discreetly lit lithographs by Klee and Picasso lined the north wall. On the other wall were photographs of the Bridges family, usually posed outside a factory or a store or a building that the family owned. For a family from a small Midwestern town they were exceptionally wealthy. Two presidents had selected family members to be foreign ambassadors; one president had even taken a Bridges into his cabinet.

The closer we got to the end of the hall, the sweeter the air became. Cloyingly sweet. When the servant in the blue jumpsuit stopped, I paused and sniffed the air.

"Flowers," he explained with a smile. "Many, many flowers."

The smell reminded me of a funeral parlor. When I got inside the room, I understood why.

Before my eyes settled on the banked rows of flowers, I saw the frail, almost cute little woman propped up in a huge bed covered with a pink brocaded bedspread. Amid all the flowers, the tiny woman reminded me of an illustration from Alice in Wonderland.

When I reached her, she stuck out a slip of a hand and put it in mine. It was like shaking with a kitten. She glanced at the man in the blue jumpsuit, and for the first time I saw the power of the Bridges family: he left the room instantly.

Before I devoted more attention to her, I finished inspecting the room. The flowers, roses and gardenias and mums, literally filled the room. With the thick gold drapes drawn and the door closed behind the servant, I felt as if we were out of time, existing on some altered plane between death and life—particularly when I saw the collage of old photographs next to her bed.

Calvin Coolidge doffed a derby; Ike smiled baldly; Nixon grinned nervously. Each was pictured with an arm around Hughton Bridges, who would have been this woman's husband. But that was not all. There was Ronald Reagan, Celeste Holm, Caesar Romero; there was Frank Sinatra and Satchmo and Dinah Shore—each with both of the Bridges, Hughton and the woman before me, Lenora.

"I'm afraid I don't know many of the celebrities today," she said, drawing back my attention.

I smiled. "I'm afraid I don't, either."

"I noticed your nose."

"Pardon me?"

"Your nose." She giggled. "It wiggled. Like a rabbit's. It's the flowers. Not everybody likes them. I love them. But you don't." Her little blue eyes were flirtatious. In her pink silk nightgown it was still possible to see what a beauty she'd once been, the beauty she was still in the fading photographs. She said, "You're wondering how old I am."

I felt myself flush.

"Perfectly natural and perfectly understandable," she said. "I'm eighty-three."

"You look wonderful."

"Would I sound vain if I said I know I did?"

"Not at all."

"For somebody eighty-three I look damn wonderful, if you'll pardon my French."

So this was "Benito." I had no doubt, just looking at her, that the stories about her were true. But they left out one of the good parts. "Benito" was a charmer.

"You know what I did this afternoon? Something very foolish."

"What's that?"

"Do you remember a hillbilly comedienne named Judy Canova?"

"Vaguely."

"She made a lot of very cheap movies back in the forties and early fifties. Anyway, Hughton used to own some coal mines down South, and she was very popular there. So this afternoon I saw in the cable guide that one of her movies was being shown, and I watched it. I'd hoped it would bring back memories of my husband and I. We always had such great times down South. But you know what?"

"What?"

"It was a terrible, terrible movie. It was like watching a high school play."

I smiled. "I'm sorry."

"Oh, don't be sorry. It was a good lesson for me." She paused. "Most things are best just before or long after they've happened. Everything else is something of a disappointment, I'm afraid."

"I guess I'd have to agree with that."

She giggled again. "Good. You look like an intelligent man." She angled a knotty hand to a nearby stand. "There's Scotch in there if you'd like some. I keep it on hand for all my gentleman callers." She smiled. "'Gentleman callers.' Tennessee Williams used that in
The Glass Menagerie
. I met him several times. Too bad he was a homosexual. He was quite charming. But then I've always liked the theater and theater people, and so did my late husband. That's why we've spent millions on the theater downstairs, bringing in actors who would never have dreamed of coming to the Midwest otherwise. Our theater is my obsession and was Hughton's most treasured possession." For half of her little speech, she looked up at the collage of photographs; for the second half she watched my face. I didn't know what she was looking for, and it made me self-conscious. "And now something terrible's happened to our theater, hasn't it, Mr. Dwyer?"

"I'm afraid it has."

"Scandal. The first in our thirty-five-year history." Her shiny eyes hardened the way they had with the servant. Then she said, "I phoned the police today. I wanted all the background I could get on the murder. I spoke with a Detective Edelman. I hope you don't mind, but because the press reports said that you were the last one to see Stephen Wade, I asked Detective Edelman what he thought of you. Edelman is a Jewish name, isn't it?"

"In his case it is."

"I have nothing but respect for most of the Jewish people I know," she said. "And I'm sure I would feel just the same about Detective Edelman if we ever met in person. He was charming on the phone. Very patient with me. I'm an old lady and it couldn't have been much fun for him." She paused again, touching her tiny hand to her throat, as if trying to draw a deep breath. She looked like a dying kewpie doll. "He told me you don't think Stephen Wade is guilty," she said.

"That's right."

"You have proof of that?"

"Not yet."

"You really don't think he's guilty?"

"No, I don't."

"Then what are you going to do about it?"

"I'm not sure yet."

"I've drawn a check for you. One thousand dollars."

"For what?"

"To prove that Stephen Wade isn't guilty. To prove that nobody associated with the theater is guilty."

Finally I understood why she'd called me there, what she hoped to get out of our meeting. She wanted me to prove that the theater and its people were blameless in the murder of Michael Reeves.

"He was an unsavory sort, wasn't he?"

"I'm not sure who you mean, Mrs. Bridges."

"Michael Reeves, of course. He had far too many girlfriends, and he spent too much time working with those convicts." She fixed her eyes on me. "You'll accept my check?"

I shrugged. "I guess I'd just as soon you kept it. If I, turn something up then you can give me something as a reward."

"Detective Edelman said you'd probably react that way. He said that all in all you were a very competent policeman."

"I was all right. Nothing special, really."

She smiled and held out her hand. I took it. Her eyes sparkled again. "I'm afraid at my age, I don't have my seductive powers anymore. In my youth I was very good at getting my way." She put her other hand on top of mine. "Won't you help me, Mr. Dwyer?"

"Your seductive powers aren't bad at all, Mrs. Bridges. Not at all."

A doorbell sounded discreetly. She touched a button next to her bed. The door opened. David Ashton came in. The change in her expression was so abrupt that it bordered on the comic. "Yes?" she said. "Can't you see I'm busy?"

"I'm sorry, Lenora." He was embarrassed in front of me. Nobody likes being talked to that way. Nobody should. She was a different woman now. I felt sorry for Ashton. He was a wimp, but there are worse things to be.

"So what is it you want?"

He cleared his throat. She'd humiliated him so much that he could hardly speak. "You said to keep you informed about Wade."

"Yes. What about him?"

"There was a bulletin on television just now. They think he was spotted in a supermarket about half an hour ago."

"Is that all?"

"Yes."

"Then good-bye, David."

"Yes, Mother."

He left as quickly as he could.

She said, "I don't suppose that was very nice."

"I'd agree with that."

"You sound angry."

"Nobody should be treated that way."

"I've been very good to David. Do you know his background?"

"Right now I don't particularly give a damn about his background."

"His father worked for Hughton as a chauffeur. David isn't the namby-pamby he pretends to be. I saw him angry one time that I especially remember. A director was very insulting to a set designer and David grabbed the man and threw him, literally threw him, against the wall. He's so good-looking that you overlook the fact that he keeps himself in great shape and is very strong.

"And for all his blandness, he's not without wiles. Don't forget that he spent many years as an actor and is capable of giving very good performances." She paused a moment, looking down some invisible tunnel at the past. "Just after my daughter Sylvia had one of her breakdowns, David pretended to befriend her. What he really meant to do was get her pregnant. Which is exactly what he did. Unfortunately, my husband and I were out of the country and didn't know what was going on. So she gave birth to Evelyn. David got rich." She consulted the old photographs again. "Hughton was so much against him that he wanted to fly Sylvia to Mexico for an abortion, but her psychiatrist—a family friend named Dr. Kern—was against it. He was afraid that losing the child would only drive Sylvia deeper into schizophrenia."

"He still doesn't deserve that kind of treatment."

"You're from his background, I suspect. Blue-collar?"

"My father worked in a factory."

She met my angry gaze. "It may surprise you, Mr. Dwyer, but my father was a groundsman."

"That does surprise me."

"I'm not a snob, Mr. Dwyer. But I don't like underhanded men. Which is what David is."

I checked my watch. "I need to be going, Mrs. Bridges."

She put out her hand again. This time I hesitated. Then I took it. "Don't decide yet."

"Don't decide what yet?" I asked.

"Whether you like me or not. You need more time."

Her game-playing had started to have some appeal again.

"All right. I'll give it a few days."

"I wish you'd take that check."

"We'll talk about it if I accomplish something. Okay?"

She looked at me and laughed. "Now you're the kind of man I wish had married into my family. Exactly the kind of man."

Five minutes later I was boarding the elevator. "That's a lot of flowers," I said to the man in the blue jumpsuit. "She must really like them."

"It's her disease." he said. "She needs them to cover the odor."

It was something I wish he hadn't told me.

"Y
ou want some?" Donna Harris had not only let me in, she'd been happy to see me. She'd put Ad World to bed earlier in the evening and was celebrating. Now we were in bed, finished with our lovemaking, watching a John Hodiak mystery on her small Sears black-and-white, and she was offering me some Dannon yogurt.