Never Thwart a Thespian: Volume 8 (Leigh Koslow Mystery Series) (31 page)
Read Never Thwart a Thespian: Volume 8 (Leigh Koslow Mystery Series) Online
Authors: Edie Claire
Tags: #thespian, #family secrets, #family, #show, #funny mystery, #women sleuths, #plays, #amateur sleuth, #acting, #cozy mystery, #cats, #pets, #dogs, #daughters, #series mystery, #theater, #mystery series, #stage, #animals, #mothers, #drama, #humor, #veterinarian, #corgi, #female sleuth
I don’t like bodies.
“A twisted sense of morality can be very convenient,” Leigh said. “If only Ned considered knocking people unconscious to be as bad as pole dancing.”
“Criminal minds often create their own rules,” Gerry offered. He was leaning against the doorway to the kitchen, watching over his wife protectively even as he looked tired enough to fall asleep on his feet. “He seems to have deputized Bess as an accessory savior for the building, which was fortunate for her. He trusted whomever she trusted, and he was suspicious of anyone she appeared not to like. I believe he spared you, Leigh, because he knew that Bess was fond of you. But that kind of logic only goes so far. If he became convinced that anyone — including Bess — was a threat to
his
building, he could and would have hurt her, too.”
“Fabulous,” Warren muttered under his breath.
“What I still don’t get,” Maura asked Leigh, “Is how Camille wound up in the closet. Did Ned force her down there with threats of some kind?”
Leigh shook her head. “Not exactly. She told me he came up with some lame story about how Bess wanted to see her down in the kitchen. But he didn’t lead her straight down there — I guess he was smart enough to realize that if anyone saw where she went, they might go and fetch her. So he led her up to the second floor and across, then snuck her down the stairs. Camille said she thought they were being secretive because Bess had some surprise planned for the cast…” Leigh shook her head. “I don’t know. The woman is a loon. But she followed him down there, and then he shut the door behind them and flipped the circuit for the basement to keep himself hidden while he guarded her. She still thought it was some kind of surprise party, and she wasn’t afraid of Ned. But—” Leigh smiled a little, despite herself. “It turns out she’s absolutely terrified of the dark. And when she’s scared—”
“She
sings,”
Ethan, Allison, and Warren all chorused.
“Bingo,” Leigh confirmed. “Well, that flipped Ned out, because he didn’t want anyone to hear her and come looking for her. He clearly believed that her ‘disappearing’ until intermission was crucial to the success of the show, which was crucial to Bess’s keeping her theater, which was crucial to his protecting the building and his dream job. So he told Camille to either stop singing or go in the closet. She chose option B.”
“Surely she realized he wasn’t right in the head when he made her go in the closet?” Warren asked.
Leigh shook her head. “I don’t know. I think in her mind, bizarre behavior is relative. And it’s not in her nature to assume the worst of anyone. She told me that she was upset about not finishing the blessings and not being able to sing for the cast before the show, but she really did believe Ned when he told her that Aunt Bess wanted her to stay in the basement. And she assumed Bess had her reasons. She was only trying to be cooperative.”
“She had no idea that Ned had struck Gerardo?” Maura asked.
Leigh shook her head. “She had no idea Gerardo was even there. When she saw him on the floor with his head all bloody, she passed out. She would have hit her own head on the counter going down if Gordon hadn’t caught her.”
Warren rubbed his face in his hands. “I’m glad Gordon hired the guards when he did, but his mind games certainly muddied the waters, didn’t they? You might have zoned in on Ned a lot quicker if Gordon hadn’t been sending in spies and threatening to shut the place down every other minute.”
“That didn’t help, no,” Maura agreed. “At least not from Bess’s and Leigh’s perspectives. But Applegate did let the police know that Gerardo was in his employ, presumably to keep an eye on his property and make sure Bess was running everything right.”
Leigh scoffed. “You mean because he wanted to know what she was doing every second because he’s an infatuated control freak?”
“That too,” Maura agreed. “Turns out this gig isn’t the only espionage Gerardo’s done on Applegate’s dime. He’s made a career out of posing as an employee in Applegate’s own businesses to see what’s happening on the ground. Gerardo has an interesting history — his parents immigrated from Costa Rica when he was three, and he’s fluent in both languages. He went to Penn on a full scholarship and got a business degree, which is why Applegate hired him originally, but with his talents at subterfuge, he was soon put to other uses.”
“We knew he was a fake, too!” Ethan said proudly. He turned to his mother. “He’s going to be all right, isn’t he?”
Leigh nodded. “He got a nasty cut and a concussion, but he was awake and alert when they loaded him in the ambulance, and the EMTs seemed to think his injuries weren’t critical.” She looked at Maura. “And how is Sonia? It was Gordon’s threatening to sell the building to her that made Ned go after her, wasn’t it?”
Maura nodded. “Ned heard her say she wanted to tear it down. Whether she stood any realistic chance of buying the building from Applegate didn’t matter. She was a threat, and she had to go.”
Warren sighed. “She never did have a shot at buying the building. Gordon told me tonight he was only using her offer to up the tension with Bess. He felt bad about Sonia’s getting hurt, though. In fact, he was late to the show because he was at the hospital — admitting to her that he had no intention of selling, ever.”
“But why does she want the building so badly, if she wasn’t involved with Marconi and had nothing to do with the other murders, either?” Leigh asked.
“She’s on the brink of bankruptcy,” Warren answered. “Sonia is a very good lawyer — but she’s a lousy speculator. She invested in several real estate ventures that proved to be total blunders. She had a line on a major corporate buyer for the theater building, and she hoped to shore up her finances by making a quick buck on the turnaround. But it had to be quick, because she’s got a balloon payment coming due in a matter of days that she knew would finish her.”
“So Gordon gave her a final ‘no’ just before the show, and now she’s going to go bankrupt?” Leigh asked.
Warren cracked a wry smile. “She would if Gordon took my advice, but he tends not to, you know. He was vague with me about the details, but I’m pretty sure he agreed to help bail her out somehow. The man does have a conscience, you know. And a heart.”
“Applegate does seem sincere in his concern for Bess,” Maura commented. “I believe even Ned could see that — which is why he threatened Bess, rather than Applegate himself, in the note he mailed. It worked, too. Stroth says Applegate’s been driving him nuts, first worrying that Bess would be a suspect in Sonia’s assault, then worrying about the note and the break-in. When Bess called Applegate earlier tonight and told him that Camille was missing, he was in town at the hospital still, but he immediately called Stroth and demanded that he personally go down and check it out.”
Leigh’s eyebrows rose. “He did? But Bess called—”
“By then, Stroth had already dispatched the nearest unit,” Maura answered. “And a good thing, too.”
“Bess didn’t seem too appreciative of Gordon’s efforts when I saw her,” Warren noted.
Leigh remembered the “colorful” scene all too well. “Well, as my mother put it,” she said with a chuckle, “
it’s a dance they do.”
She gave her head a shake. She would never completely understand Gordon Applegate, but she supposed she didn’t have to, so long as her Aunt Bess did. If the two of them wanted to liven up their golden years by playing incomprehensible high-stakes mind games with each other, well… she guessed it beat watching cable.
“What about the theater?” Maura asked. “I never even asked how all the chaos went over with the audience. I guess the rest of the show was cancelled?”
The room was quiet for a moment. Then Leigh, Ethan, Allison, and Warren all burst out laughing.
“Have you
met
my Aunt Bess?” Leigh teased. “The woman did everything but stand on her head to distract the audience from what was going on. As soon as she knew that Camille and I were all right and that Gerardo was being taken care of, she raced up the stairs to the auditorium and announced that everything was fine — that one of the theater employees had had an ‘accident’ in the kitchen, and that an ambulance had been called, but that he was going to be fine, and that no one need be upset by the army of police cars outside because… get this… it was clearly a slow news night in West View!”
Maura laughed out loud. “Damn, she’s good.”
Gerry joined in. “Sure she’s not looking for a job in PR? The city force could use her.”
“I believe she’ll be fully occupied for some time,” Leigh answered. “The show was, despite all odds, a rousing success. If Merle and Earl follow through with their promise to personally recommend the production to everyone they’ve ever met, the next two shows are definitely going to be sellouts.”
“And if Mr. Applegate follows through on his promise to Aunt Bess, the North Boros Thespian Society will be able to use the theater as long as they want,” Allison added, stroking the pups again. “By the way, Mom, Aunt Bess says they’re doing
Wizard of Oz
over the summer. Can I try out for a munchkin?”
“Hey!” Ethan enthused. “We can train Chewie to play Toto!”
“Sounds good to me,” Leigh responded, delighted with the thought of Allison doing something silly and fun… and
bright.
“But ixnay on the Toto thing. Chewie’s too big for a basket, and anyway, he would eat his way out of it long before Oz.”
“You could try out too, Mom,” Allison encouraged. “You said you wanted to get back into acting.”
“I did,” Leigh confessed. “But
Wizard of Oz
is a musical, and I can’t sing.”
“The wicked witch of the West doesn’t sing,” Gerry offered, smiling sardonically.
Leigh caught his eye and grinned. True, the man had once locked her up for a murder she didn’t commit. But they were past that, now.
And she always appreciated a good sense of humor.
Everyone else in the room watched as she stretched her arms lazily, cuddled into her husband’s side, then let out a loud, spine-tingling cackle.
The show must go on.
Author’s Note
I hope you’ve enjoyed
Never Thwart a Thespian!
If you haven’t guessed already,
See You in Bells
is a real play. Not only that, but it’s a play I wrote myself, with a part
for
myself, which I actually got to perform! Doing so was truly one of the highlights of my life, and I can’t tell you how much I’ve enjoyed bringing that experience back to life again as seen through Leigh’s eyes. (I played the part she got to read for — such fun!) The play was published by Samuel French/Baker’s Plays and is currently available for production, so if you’re a thespian yourself, please check it out
here!
The next installment in the
Leigh Koslow Mystery Series
will be released in 2015. If you’d like to receive an email announcement when Book #9 is released, you can sign up for my
New Book Alert
. The series currently includes eight novels (
Never Buried,
Never Sorry,
Never Preach Past Noon,
Never Kissed Goodnight,
Never Tease a Siamese, Never Con a Corgi, Never Haunt a Historian
and
Never Thwart a Thespian)
and a short story ("Never Neck at Niagara") which takes place chronologically right after
Never Preach Past Noon.
If you're new to the series and would like to start reading where it all began, click
here!
To find out more about these and other books by Edie Claire, including my novels of classic romantic suspense, women’s fiction, and YA paranormal romance, please visit my
website
or check out my
Facebook page
. Several of my novels, including this one, are (or will be soon!) available as
audiobooks.
I always enjoy hearing from readers via
email
, so if you're so inclined, please drop me a note. Thanks so much for reading!
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