Set Change: A Nina Bannister Mystery (The Nina Bannister Mysteries) (21 page)

Clusters of conversation flying around like scraps of confetti:

“How did they do that?”

“How could they know the rain was going to stop?”

“Isn’t there some more to the play?”

“I think so, but who cares? The way they ended it was wonderful!”

“Wasn’t Helen magnificent as Ophelia?”

“Yes, and Hamlet was superb!”

“He was, he was—and, and, there’s going to be a video of it.”

“When?”

“I don’t know, next week they said.”

“Yes but we can’t buy it until the national TV production airs.”

“Is the town going to be in the production?”

And on and on and on.

Nina had somehow made her way outside, astonished by the warmth and succulence of the still-drenched air, and trying to choose between rides home, when she noticed that everyone had turned and was now facing a wooden platform that had been hastily erected by the fountain that sat before the mansion’s entrance.

Floodlights on the platform.

Striding up onto it were Helen, still in her whitefordrowning robes, and Barrett, still in Hamlet’s blackbutredstainedfromswordfighting Shakespeare suit.

“My dear friends! I thank you, and my darling wife thanks you!”

Thunderous applause.

Then Clifton Barrett talked about how wonderful Bay St. Lucy had been; and about how wonderful all the people were; and how sorry he was that they were going to have to leave tomorrow—

Someone, one of the other actors, handed him a glass of Scotch, which he drained. Then he talked about…

 
…how marvelous it was that the weather had changed, and that the moon had agreed to be in the play…

––laughter at this—

Another glass of Scotch.

And all the time, Helen, there by his side, looking up at him with…

…what emotion was that?

It seemed to be respect and love.
     

But Helen was a good actress.

And she knew how to wear makeup.

It was midnight when Nina got home.

She was hungry but too tired to eat; excited by the play, depressed by what Helen had told her, and utterly drained.

She walked out onto her deck, watched the sea, watched the moon, thought about Hamlet, and listened once again as the monstrously good lines filled her brain.

Then she changed into her nightgown and went to bed, turning restlessly this way and that.

During this time she thought about the situation, and tried to be as optimistic as possible.

Perhaps Barrett, a human being despite everything, would not make a terrible scene the following morning.

Perhaps he’d be persuaded to handle the divorce discreetly, and let Helen go.

Perhaps John Giusti would control his temper.

And perhaps Ophelia’s lines in Act Four…

“I hope all will be well.”

..would prove to be true.

Maybe things would all turn out well.

By the time Nina had begun to doze off, she’d made herself believe these thoughts.

And she was completely wrong about every one of them.

PART THREE:
 
SOLUTIONS

CHAPTER 14:
 
CHERNOBYL

She was awakened at 6:30 the following morning by the simultaneous sounds of a car horn blowing and several dogs barking, the cause and effect nature of this cacophony doomed forever to remain obscure.

She propped on an elbow, kicked Furl off the foot of the bed, and looked back through her window.

Margot Gavin, dressed only in a floppy gray sweatshirt and dungarees—this in itself was quite an event, something like the equivalent of a reborn Vincent Van Gogh having decided to devote years of his new life copying all of Norman Rockwell’s Thanksgiving portraits—was making her way toward the stairway.

Nina, still morning-woozy, had just reached the door and opened it, when Margot ascended on the platform, breathlessly gasping out the question:

“Have you heard?”

Nina frowned, turned, and rasped over her shoulder, while taking the first steps toward the kitchen and tripping over Furl:

“Never ask me that at this time of the morning.”

“But…”

She could hear Margot entering and following.

“…but, I didn’t know if you’d heard.”

“I’ve never heard.
 
I don’t hear.”

“Then you don’t…”

“No.
 
I’ve been asleep.
 
Now go on out on the deck.
 
I’ll get coffee going.”

“You’re not going to believe this.”

“Then don’t tell me.”

“I only found out myself about thirty minutes ago. Eve Thornberry came by the shop.
 
I couldn’t believe she’d be there so early. But it’s like that all over town. Everybody’s wandering around shocked.
 
From what I can understand…”

“Don’t talk. I have to have coffee. Then, whatever it is, you can tell me.”

“I’ve just got to get all of this off my chest. I can’t believe it.”

“Is it good news?”

“No!
 
It’s…”

“Then please don’t talk about it.
 
Go out on the deck.”

Margot did so; Nina made a pot of coffee, and, within five minutes, was sitting with her back to the wall of her shack, and her face turned to the incoming tide.

The smell of the sea mixed with the aroma of coffee, and made her, she felt, the equal of whatever news was to come.

This was not true, of course, but she enjoyed believing it.

Margot sat facing her, face somewhat akin to a slab of granite that had been eroded by the sea and was waiting to sink ships.

“All right,” Nina asked/slurped.
 
“Tell me.”

“I can’t believe this has happened.”

“Tell me.”

“Nina, Clifton Barrett is dead.”

A bomb blast.

But somehow, somehow, not surprising.

Nina immediately flashed back to Helen Reddington sitting exactly in the chair where Margot was now, saying:

“Somebody needs to kill him.”

John Giusti grabbing him and saying:

“Touch her again and I’ll kill you.”

And now he was dead.

Too much.
 
Too much to digest.

First though, just get the facts straight.

“What did you say, Margot?”

“Clifton Barrett is dead.”

“How?”

“I don’t know.”

“I mean, what did he die of?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who found him?”

“I don’t know.”

“When did this happen, Margot?”

“I don’t know.”

“Margot, did somebody do something to him?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did John Giusti have anything to do with it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is Helen all right?”

“I don’t know.”

“What about Hope?”

“I don’t know.”

“Does Hope even know?”

“I don’t know.”

“Where is Helen now?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do they suspect foul play?”

“I don’t know.”

“My God, I saw him—we all saw him––last night, right after the play. He looked fine. What could have happened to him?”

“I don’t know.”

“Margot, I’m sorry I keep peppering you with all of these questions.”

Margot leaned forward, so that the small table rocked, and took both of Nina’s hands in her own.

“It’s all right, Nina. It’s just so good to get this information of my chest”

The residents of a small community that had been hit by a hydrogen bomb would have had no cause to complain about a shortage of light or heat.

But the amount, the amount…

This was the gossip situation in Bay St. Lucy as the sun rose huge and orange out of the sea at just after 7 a.m.

There was simply too much of it to bear.

It was beyond the levels of human consumption.

Bay St. Lucy had become gossip’s new Chernobyl.

On Friday, August 1, the town had been partially flooded by the fringes of Hurricane Deborah.

That was something to talk about.

Then, that evening, a nationally acclaimed Shakespearian production company had mounted a world class production of
Hamlet
, which had been filmed by the Public Broadcasting Service, and was destined to be viewed for years thereafter, if not decades, by theater lovers around the world.

That was something else to talk about.

Two hours after the end of this performance Clifton Barrett, one of the best known actors in the country if not the world, had been found dead, cause uncertain, time uncertain, place uncertain, and anything else even remotely relevant equally uncertain.
     

That was something to talk about, too.

All of this news had the effect of making normal gossip impossible.

There was simply no place to start.

People would run into each other on the streets and stand mute.

Nothing would come out.

Then, shaking their heads, they would shuffle away, frustrated.

This led to a morning routine of most Bay St. Lucyans
 
breakfasting on something or other, putting on something or other, going downstairs, thinking about the possibilities of things they could do, deciding against them, and resolving instead to spend the morning walking aimlessly through the streets like zombies.

Which Nina and Margot were doing, shaking their heads at a stream of strange looking cars and vans pouring into town, craning their necks to get a good look at the strange helicopters now hovering overhead…

…that one had NBC News printed on it!...

…when somehow or other they got news that a press conference was to be held at 8 AM in the old Bay St. Lucy High School Gymnasium.

In two months there would be a new high school gymnasium, courtesy of Robinson money, but the building was not yet finished.

And so at seven fifty five, they found themselves, along with every other Bay St. Lucyan, crammed into the same space she and Frank had once frequented to watch basketball games.

In the middle of the court three metal chairs sat in a row.

In these chairs sat Edie Towler, District Attorney; Dr. Paul Dawkins, physician and County Coroner; and Moon Rivard, Chief of Police.

A flood of reporters had ringed the people who were to hold the press conference, with more arriving all the time and making their way through the crowd.

Among these reporters was Tomlinson, Clifton Barrett’s lawyer.

Edie approached the microphone, setting off, as she did so, a thousand flash bulb explosions.

The microphone squeaked, as it always did. She adjusted it, making it squeak still more. She shook her head and mouthed something incomprehensible to someone sitting at a console of some sort behind the scorer’s table.

He nodded and turned some dials.

The microphone died completely.

Then four or five men in janitors’ uniforms came and took it away, replacing it with another one, which worked.

Edie’s voice now echoed, but it did not squeak.

“Ladies and gentlemen…”

Flash flash flash pop pop pop.

Whrrrrrr of recorders.

Murmurmurmurmurmur of whispers in the crowd, the ability to gossip effectively still not quite back.

“Ladies and gentlemen, as you all know by now, I’m quite sure, there has been a tragedy in Bay St. Lucy.”

She paused, took several deep breaths––along with the crowd, which took one collective deep breath—and then continued:

“The great actor, Clifton Barrett, guest in our town and husband of Helen Reddington, was found dead early this morning.”

For an instant the silence seemed to become more profound.

Now there was no deep breath.

There was no breathing at all.

The flashbulbs continued to pop.

Several reporters crowded in closer, holding their microphones not more than two feet from Edie’s

Edie:

“You all know our County Coroner, Dr. Paul Dawkins.
 
Paul has by now had a chance to make an examination. He will tell you of his findings.”

Edie sat down.

Paul Dawkins, tall (once a basketball player in this very gymnasium), slender, wearing a white sport coat and dark blue denim shirt, adjusted the microphone.

He peered at some notes through his wire rimmed glasses.

Sound of an airplane landing, passing low over the building.

More reporters, thought Nina.

“These are the facts as clearly as I can tell them to you now. At precisely five fifteen this morning the emergency unit based in Bay St. Lucy Community Hospital received a 911 call. This call came from the number 415-678-3942.
 
That is the residence of Ms. Hope Reddington. The caller identified herself as Ms. Helen Reddington. The caller went on to say that her husband, whom she identified as Mr. Clifton Barrett, could not be awakened, and was not, so far as she could tell, breathing. A unit was immediately dispatched to the aforesaid residence. Paramedics arrived at five twenty one. They were shown into the residence by Ms. Helen Reddington, who took them upstairs. An immediate check for life signs in Mr. Barrett proved negative. It was determined that he had in fact expired some time earlier that morning. There was no need for any type of emergency cardiac therapy. The body of Mr. Barrett was, accordingly, taken not to the hospital, but to the Jefferson County Morgue, where it now rests.”