Scarecrow’s Dream (16 page)

Chapter Nineteen

“Care to share the ‘why’ of your collection of suspects, Holly?” Addie asked.

“I know none of these are exactly original or new. We’ve talked about almost all of them but I found out more when Shane was looking up folks at the café on the computers.”

“You’re a stalker, Holly Malone,” said Shane.

“Arrest me,” I teased. “Anyway, here’s the rundown on motive, at least from the little I remember. I’ll start with Chandra.”

Shane chuckled. “You never did like her.”

I wished Shane could see me wrinkle my nose at him. Instead I replied, “Yeah, well, we’re talking total mutual distaste. She always acted like she owned you and I was a tick stuck to a dog’s back. It’s hard to build a friendship with Miss I’m-So-Superior. Shall I go on?”

“Motive. We get your whole ‘we’re not besties’ deal with Chandra, but this is murder,” Addie said. “Anything really suspicious?”

I stopped. “Wait. Where do you come up with these words? ‘Besties’? Sounds like pajamas for toddlers.”

“Well, I like ‘besties’, so much more than BFF—and before you ask, it means Best Friends Forever. Now, can we ignore the lingo of the twenty-first century and discuss killers?”

“I’ll admit Chandra’s motive is iffy. I mean, if she’d been so determined to snag Shane, why try to kill both of us? Why not just me?”

“Not to mention, why Rob?” Shane asked.

“Which leads back to the play. Was her character too close to something in her past? She’s a big television star now, but I didn’t see much of anything written about her before she hit the big time, at least in soaps. Did she once do something so awful it could have hurt her reputation to the point of getting her blackballed from any and everything show biz?”

“It’s possible,” Shane said. “Although Chandra was always one of those ‘even bad publicity is good publicity’ types. But go on. What about Wynn?”

“He didn’t like me. I’m not sure he liked
you
. He
definitely
didn’t like the two of us together. He didn’t like controversy. Heck, I’m amazed he allowed you to take the role.”

“All true. Yet he did, so it makes no sense he’d then kill to get me out of the play.”

“Wynn’s motive could be as simple as sheer prejudice, nothing to do with the play. On the other hand it doesn’t explain Rob’s death at all, so he’s not exactly rising to the top of the list.”

Shane poured himself another cup of chai, a treat I never knew existed before Addie introduced me to it and I was now addicted to. “Okay. Forget Wynn for now. Why are you including Angela and her brother?”

“Angela divorced Derek after a ridiculously short marriage. Kinda weird. Could the play have contributed to the divorce? What does she do these days? We need to find out. Larry sort of insinuated himself into the whole discussion the day Rob was mugged. It’s not the greatest reason for adding him as a suspect but he probably knew more about
Basement
than most of the actors simply because he was Angela’s brother.”

Shane said, “I didn’t consider either Angela or Larry so I didn’t look up anything about where they are now. Easy enough to do.” He turned his phone on and typed in a name.

“Hmm, Larry is the CEO of some company called L.M.O. Angela is the COO.” He glanced up. “They were, I mean, are, twins. I forgot that, but it’s not exactly relevant. Anyway, I can’t see why they’d be interested in killing Rob or shooting at Holly and me. No motive jumps out at me. So, who’s next?”

“Derek’s no-name assistant. She was there the day Rob got mugged and could have overheard him talking to me. Yeah, I know, slim for motive, just like the others.”

Addie rose and began to pace. “Guys, the problem is the play could be motive for anyone. It all depends on whether they equated a character or an event to their past, or a friend or loved one’s. Given the right kind of crazy, anything could have sent someone into a killing spree.”

“Good point,” I said. “Okay. In chronological order, our murderer spots Rob somewhere in New York and recognizes him from their past. Killer then gets involved in the play somehow, to sabotage if necessary. Rob isn’t involved in casting after all. Rob is super slow with the script, possibly because he was worried about finishing it and naming a war criminal, albeit disguised within the story and with major name changes. Our bad guy, not willing to wait for what little of the script Rob did finish, arranges a mugging, reads the draft, realizes it’s more damning than originally feared. He asks himself, ‘Who else knows about this? Who has Rob told?’ And, ta-da! We’re looking at a serial killer.”

Shane agreed with my analysis. “It’s more than a little convoluted but then, I don’t have the mindset of this creep, so mugging and murder were perfectly logical to him. And the scary thing is the only people we’re sure had nothing to do with murder were Holly, Rob, Crimson, and me.”

“And Nick Bernard. He died in the eighties,” I noted. I headed for the living room window.

I always believed life was better if I took the time to look outside and note the world hadn’t turned upside down in the last few hours. It hadn’t, which was good. Boo-Boo followed and stayed close. Almost literally under my feet. My canine bestie.

“We need anything we can find of the original script. It’s too hard trying to piece together anything without knowing how bad the presumed misdeeds were. Shane? Did Rob tell you anything beyond the synopsis? I remember one scene, set as a flashback in the POW camp but that’s it.”

“Hell, you could hardly call it a synopsis. More like a blurb or a very bare bones outline. But a damned good premise. It was basically ‘this play is about a Vietnam War hero who witnesses a murder and recognizes a traitor.’ My character was the hero. No villainous activities on or off stage.”

He joined me at the window, rightly assuming that where Boo-Boo played, Holly must be nearby. “I’m pretty sure Rob wrote in a wife who murdered her husband…or it was another soldier from the POW camp who murdered the husband? Anyway, there was a character based on the commandant of the POW camp who was not a sympathetic character, but he also wasn’t in the present day. He was going to be seen in flashbacks. And Chandra was supposed to play a nurse who was a bit too cozy with her patients.”

“So Crimson would have had the role of the murdering wife?”

Shane mused, “I believe that’s what Rob originally planned. It’s all so—iffy. And I’m forty-three years away from conversations with our playwright so my own recollections are not exactly spot on. You were much closer to Rob, but since you haven’t latched on to any memories specifically related to what was in the final script, assuming there was one, we have no clue what he did.”

I groaned. “This is getting downright muddy and muddled, so I’m going to exercise one more ghostly prerogative tonight, if you guys don’t mind?”

Addie snorted. Shane asked, “What’s your wish, Ms. Malone?”

“Let’s drop motive for the rest of the night, finish up the chow, and go online for stuff about Crimson, like if she left a husband or surviving relatives and then get some rest. Tomorrow Shane and I will do a road trip to Fort Lee, New Jersey—if we’ve determined there’s really a reason to go—and see if we can discover new info about her accident, and then work out whether any of this has anything to do with us or the play.”

Addie beamed. “You inherited my brilliance along with my tendency to use run-on sentences. But it sounds like a great plan. I wish I could go with you but I have two interviews with Broadway producers tomorrow. Hey! I can use those interviews to do a little digging.”

“How so?” I asked.

“Good old-fashioned gossip. They’ve both been around theatre forever and one of them is the nosiest old maid I’ve ever met. Literally. She never married and is always hounding me for information about actors and directors and whether I plan to reveal the truth about their work habits because she doesn’t want to hire anyone she can’t trust.”

“Do you usually have the skinny on these folks she’s interested in?” Shane asked.

“Oh yeah. But I don’t tell. Not unless something is criminal and been proven. I have no desire to fight any libel or slander suits. I keep the column to artsy comments and I keep my sources confidential.” She snapped her fingers as if brilliance had just hit. “Shane? Do you have a current driver’s license?”

“I have an international permit. Why?”

“Because I’m offering you guys my car for the trip. As long as you fill up, which I forgot to do last time I drove. I hate pumping gas. Just get it back to the garage in one piece and it’s yours for the day. It’ll be less stressful than trying to sneak a ghost onto the bus, plus it’ll be easier once you hit Fort Lee. I imagine you may have to visit more than one spot, depending on what we find out about Ms. Cloverly.”

Shane appeared delighted. “Thanks. We accept. I’ll be sure to return it in pristine condition and filled to the brim with fuel.”

“Thanks, Addie.” I snickered. “You’re now my BFF aunt!”

She groaned. “That’s not the way… Oh hell, why did I bring you up to date on slang? Stupid auntie. Okay. Onward to the new desktop computer, gang. It’s got that lovely twenty-seven inch screen, so we all can see auntie at work.”

She went to her desk and revved up the machine. Shane and I left the window and stood behind her. I reached for his hand and he let me hang on to him. He smiled. “I feel a lovely breeze. Are ya by any chance holding my hand?”

“I am.”

Addie asked, “Hey, do we have a name apart than Crimson Cloverly? Which I must admit I love because it’s so terribly sixties. Anyway, I want to be thorough.”

“I wrote it down,” I told her. “It should be somewhere in my pile of notes for
Salacity City
. I’d never remember it otherwise.”

“Found it.” Addie howled with laughter. “I’m not surprised you couldn’t remember! Damn. I’m not sure I can pronounce it.” She sounded out, with a stumble or two, “Fekla Dunyasha Esfir Cherstvennikov?”

Shane rolled his eyes. “Can you imagine coming to America and having to listen to your new teacher mangle your name aloud in class?”

“When did she emigrate?” I asked. “I didn’t see any dates.”

Addie skimmed the bio she’d pulled up on a Broadway website. “All it says is she changed her name to Crimson Cloverly in ’65 when she joined Actors Equity.”

“Was she ever married?”

“Doesn’t say. This site is sparse on this particular bio; more a list of her shows. Let me do some digging. I am the research guru, after all.”

Shane and I waited, somewhat impatiently, for the master of research to uncover any further information on Crimson. After about twenty minutes Addie wheeled the chair away from the desk and threw her hands into the air in surrender.

“I got
nuthin’
.”

“Did you try her real name?” I asked.

“I did. Nada. And none of the sites state whether or not she was married so I can’t look up a spouse.”

I headed toward the window again, Boo-Boo close behind. I needed air. I threw open the window and stuck my head out and breathed in the cool night breezes. An idea hit.

“Addie?”

“Yo.”

“Don’t you use different sources for your column? I remember you telling me you go to about six different deep cover investigators for the latest as to who’s leaving what soap or replacing what star in what Broadway show. Right?”

“Of course! Head slap. Just because Cloverly has been out of the business for ages doesn’t mean there’s no info about her. Hang on, guys.” Addie checked the clock on the computer. “Ten. Still early so I can call without being too annoying. Let’s see. Cloverly was more a soap star than anything else, correct?”

Shane nodded. “Correct. She was hoping that a Broadway play would show the world she was better than daytime drama.”

“Great. I’ll give my buddy Corey a call. He has researched soaps going back to Helen Trent in the forties or whenever. I swear the man is a never-ending fountain of trivia. Corey tends to be—I’ll be kind—somewhat talkative, so prepare for an hour of listening to me go ‘Uh huh. Oh?’ and ‘Wow, I didn’t know’ and ‘Way too bizarre’. Hopefully I can dig some worthwhile stuff out of him before tomorrow morning.”

“Tell him it’s an emergency,” I said. “After all, it’s the truth. Shit. One killer has already been sent after Shane.”

Addie agreed. “We’ve got to find out as much as we can as fast as we can before the next hit.”

“Ouch!”

“That did sound horrible, didn’t it?” Addie winced. “I’m sorry, Shane.”

“It’s okay.” Shane shuddered. “It’s true and we need to face it and solve the old murders before I’m the new one.”

Addie held up her hand for us all to get quiet, then spoke into her phone, keeping Shane and me trying to determine what might be going on in the other half of the conversation. “Corey? Yeah…me too. Look, this is kind of a wacky request but do you have any info about the actress Crimson Cloverly? Like what she’s been up to the last few years and did she have any family or close friends?”

A longer pause, and Addie used her hand to mimic someone yammering away. “Yeah, I heard. Six weeks ago. Car crash… Right… Okay, okay. Interesting. Yeah, right. Should prove helpful.” Addie began to scribble furiously in a notebook. “Now that is very interesting. Yeah, I’ll give you a heads-up. Not sure when or if I’d include it. Depends on what some other sources—” she winked at Shane, “—discover tomorrow.” Laughter. “Yeah, same here. Hey. I owe you big time. Lunch Friday? I’ll spring for it. Right. Later. ’Night.”

Addie turned and held up the notebook, a proverbial cat swallowing the canary. “I’m going to treat Corey to something far better than a pizza slice and a soda. This is good.”

My patience vanished. “Spill!”

“Okay. First of all, Crimson Cloverly married one Brian Martin back in the seventies. They had three kids, and he died from a heart attack in ’96. The kids kept the Martin name. There is a Brian Junior, age forty-one, and living in Fort Lee, New Jersey, in the old family domicile. Corey gave me the address. Brian Junior has two older sisters, but Corey hadn’t seen any married names. He figured Brian would be the one to talk to about Crimson because he happens to be a casting agent and is up on the biz.”