13 - Knock'em Dead (21 page)

“Oooh,” said Beth Mullin, owner with her husband, Peter, of Cabot Cove’s flower shop. “Did everyone hear that? We’re only going to the ’in’ places.”

“Come on,” I said. “It’s a popular restaurant. We don’t want to be late and lose the table.”

After a wonderful lunch punctuated by effervescent conversation, we walked to the Drummond Theater on West Forty-fourth Street, where the guard perused a list of names I’d provided Lieutenant Hayes, checking each of my friends off as they entered.

We paused in the lobby. “Just a word of caution,” I told them. “These are temperamental people, and a dress rehearsal is bound to be tense. All I’m saying is that we have to be quiet. You know, sort of fade into the background. Harry Schrumm, the original producer who was killed, arranged for you to be here. The new producers, Mr. and Mrs. Factor, were reluctant to honor my request for you to be at the dress rehearsal. So, let’s just stay out of their way. Okay?”

“Fine by me,” Seth said. “Wouldn’t want to offend anybody’s artistic temperament.” His pique was evident.

We entered the auditorium.

“We’ll sit there,” I said, indicating the center section, toward the rear. Technicians were busy preparing the stage for Act One. Jill and Arnold Factor huddled with Cyrus Walpole at stage right. The cast, I assumed, was backstage having makeup applied and changing into opening act costumes.

I looked for Detectives Hayes and Vasile but didn’t see them. Nor were there any uniformed officers, with the exception of the private security guard at the front entrance, and undoubtedly the one positioned at the stage door.

My friends seemed enthralled with what was going on in the theater. So was I. This was the first time I’d get to see
Knock ’Em Dead
in its entirety, straight through from beginning to end without scenes being performed out of sequence, or with the constant interruptions that had characterized earlier rehearsals.

Cy Walpole came to where a small table and microphone had been set up in the third row center. I’d been told by one of the technical crew that the director would be able to talk from that position with the lighting and sound technicians, as well as having the capability of stopping the rehearsal and giving instructions over the theater’s speaker system. Hopefully, he wouldn’t need to exercise that option.

Jill took the stage.

“We’re about to begin,” she said. “It’s unusual to have anyone in the audience for a dress rehearsal, but Mrs. Fletcher was promised this courtesy and we have no choice but to go along with it.”

I stiffened. Her snide comment was uncalled for.

“What does she think we are, a bunch of school kids?” Seth muttered under his breath.

Jill looked at Walpole, who’d slid behind his makeshift third row desk. “Are we ready?” she asked.

“Yes, we’re ready,” he said.

“Good. Act One.”

Jill joined her husband next to Walpole. The lights in the theater dimmed, in itself a dramatic moment. Then, the curtain opened to reveal the living room of my fictitious family’s modest home. April Larsen and Joe McCartney, the mother and father, sat in matching easy chairs. He read a newspaper, she concentrated on needlepoint. Their reverie was interrupted by the arrival of the younger son, Joshua, played by David Potts, and his girlfriend, Marcia, her role once again in the hands of Jenny Forrest.

“Isn’t that the one who attacked you?” Mort Metzger whispered to me.

“Sssh,” I said, putting my finger to my lips.

The first act progressed smoothly. I was beguiled by what I saw and heard. Although Aaron Manley had rewritten much of the script, what was being spoken by the actors was very much my work. The characters and scenes I’d created were being played before my eyes. More important, others were being exposed to it simultaneously. I glanced at my friends’ faces. Smiles erupted at the right times, as did frowns of concern at what was being presented between the characters.

Cy Walpole was evidently pleased because he never stopped the play to suggest changes. Even the lighting and sound cues worked to perfection, something I was led to believe seldom happened at dress rehearsals.

We were nearing the end of Act One. I’d learned from working with Manley that it was important to end each of the first two acts with a dramatic flourish. I always tried to do that with the end of each chapter of my books, but it was obviously even more crucial with a play. Act One would end with April Larsen discovering the body of her husband offstage. Her loud and prolonged scream would bring down the curtain.

I waited with anticipation for that moment to occur, my eyes moving between the stage and my friends’ faces. The entire fictitious family, now gathered on stage, were in the midst of an intense confrontation between the father and his two sons. Jerry, the oldest, flings a nasty accusation in his father’s face, causing the father to storm from the room. The others leave; April Larsen sits alone, despairing over the rift that has developed within her family.

She calls out for her husband, but receives no reply. Then, she leaves the stage to look for him in their bedroom.

Now! I thought. The scream.

Maureen Metzger, who sat next to me, flinched at the first pained hint of the howl as it arose from offstage, and grasped her husband’s arm. The scream increased in intensity, filling the theater and threatening to peel the paint from its walls.

Except—the scream hadn’t come from April Larsen. It took me a split second to become aware of this and then to realize it had emanated from the opposite side of the stage from where April had made her exit—the side on which the offices, dressing rooms, and costume and prop room were located—the side where Harry Schrumm had been murdered.

I stood. April ran on to the stage in response to the scream. Cy Walpole said into his microphone, “What in bloody hell is going on?”

The stage filled with cast and crew. The house lights came up. It was chaos. My friends from Cabot Cove looked at each other in shock: “What’s happened
^?
” “Is this part of the play, Jess?”

Suddenly, Charles Flowers ran to the stage from the direction of the scream: “It’s the serial killer. He’s got Jenny.”

I immediately headed down the aisle, followed by Wendell Watson and Mort Metzger. We climbed the few steps up to the stage, went into the wings, and ran down the long hallway to where Detectives Hayes and Vasile were pressed against the wall on opposite sides of the women’s dressing room door.

“The serial killer is here?” I asked, breathlessly.

“In there,” Hayes said, pointing to the closed door. He motioned for us to move past them and out of the way, and we followed his silent instructions. Cold air came from around the corner, just as it had the day I discovered Harry Schrumm’s body. I moved in that direction, Wendell at my side. The stage door was wide open. The security guard who’d been posted there lay on his back, a magazine at his side. Wendell immediately knelt over him and said, “Hey, you okay?”

To my relief, the guard raised his head, then slowly came up to a sitting position with Wendell’s help.

Thank God, I thought. He was alive.

I moved back to where Hayes and Vasile, guns drawn, continued their vigil, whispering instructions to each other. Mort Metzger had taken a position against the wall, next to Vasile.

“One more time,” Hayes said aloud to the door and whoever was behind it. “Let the girl come out. Don’t hurt her. Let her go, and you come out with your hands raised.”

There was no response.

I looked past the detectives to where a dozen people were congregated at the other end of the hallway. A few started in our direction, but I held up my hand. The last thing Hayes and Vasile needed was a crowd. “Are you sure Jenny is in there with him?” I asked Hayes.

“Yeah,” he replied, sotto voice. “He came through the stage door, grabbed her, and shoved her in there. I happened to be coming out of one of the offices as it was happening.”

“I didn’t know you were in the theater,” I said.

He held up his hand to silence me.

“Listen to me,” he said loudly to the door, “don’t be a fool. You can’t go anywhere. You’re going to have to come out eventually, so do it now before anybody gets hurt.”

We waited; it seemed like minutes although only a few seconds elapsed before we saw the doorknob turn, and the door opened slowly. Hayes and Vasile kept their guns trained on the person standing in the doorway. It was Jenny Forrest. She had a crooked smile on her face and held her head at a defiant angle.

“Thank God you’re all right,” I said.

Hayes motioned for her to come fully into the hallway. She complied. We all peered into the dressing room, but, saw no one.

“He’s in there?” Vasile asked Jenny.

She nodded.

“Go on, get out of here,” Hayes told her.

I watched Jenny deliberately leave us, but instead of walking in the direction of the onlookers at the other end of the corridor, she headed for the stage door.

I returned my attention to the room she’d just exited. Detectives Hayes and Vasile moved closer to the doorway in order to have a wider view of the room.

“Jesus,” Hayes muttered, lowering his weapon and stepping inside, followed by Vasile. I took a few steps into the room and saw what had prompted his exasperated comment. Sprawled on a small couch was Roy Richardson. Blood oozed from around a knife stuck firmly into his chest.

“Get her!” Hayes commanded, spinning around and returning to the hall.
“Get her!”

We reached the stage door in time to see Jenny Forrest’s back as she left the theater and entered the alley separating it from the Von Feurston.

Wendell, who’d helped the security guard into his wooden chair, didn’t hesitate. His long, lanky frame was out the door in a flash. We poured through the door and saw my young bodyguard from Cabot Cove tackle Jenny Forrest from behind, sending both of them tumbling on to the sidewalk, knocking down pedestrians, and ending up in Forty-fourth Street’s gutter. Hayes and Vasile picked her up, brought her hands behind her, and cuffed her wrists. Simultaneously, marked police cars roared to a stop in front of the theater, lights blazing, a swarm of uniformed police spilling from them.

“Let’s get back inside,” I said to Mort and Wendell, whose green uniform was torn at the knees from hitting the pavement. We paused to see Jenny being placed in the back seat of a patrol car, then returned to the auditorium where everyone had gathered. My friends from Cabot Cove, who had been standing together at one end of the stage apron, flocked to me, as did most of the cast and crew.

“What happened?” they asked, almost as a chorus.

“I’m afraid—I’m afraid that Jenny has been arrested.”

“For what?”

“For murdering someone most of you know, Roy Richardson.”

“Roy?” Hanna Shawn cried out.

“Jenny killed him?” Brett Burton mumbled.

“Looks like you won’t have to worry about your Broadway serial killer any more,” Mort announced proudly.

“What happened to you?” someone asked Wendell, noticing his torn uniform and dirt on his face.

“This young man apprehended the murderer,” Mort said. “He’s a genuine hero.”

“Jenny is the serial killer?” Joe McCartney said in a voice swelled with disbelief.

“Is it true?” Arnold Factor asked.

“I don’t know,” I said, “but it looks that way.”

Lieutenants Hayes and Vasile joined us. So did Jill Factor, who’d stayed with Cy Walpole at the director’s third-row desk.

“The entire Broadway theater community, and all of New York City, owes you a huge debt of gratitude,” she said to the detectives in a sweet, sincere voice I’d not heard from her before.

Cy Walpole came forward. “It doesn’t surprise me in the least that our Ms. Forrest turns out to be a cold-blooded killer,” he said. “The question is, what do we do now for the role of Marcia?”

“Maybe our beloved casting director has the answer,” Jill said, looking past us to Linda Amsted, who seemed to have suddenly, and simply, appeared from the rear of the house.

“I just arrived,” she said, “and saw all the commotion out front.”

I explained what had happened.

Linda slumped in an aisle seat. “Jenny Forrest a murderer,” she said into the air, “and Roy Richardson a victim. That’s a switch.”

“But what do we do about Jenny’s role?” Walpole asked.

“Get Pamela South back,” Linda said matter-of factly. “Now that the serial killer has been apprehended, she shouldn’t be afraid any longer.”

“There’s the ghost she saw,” David Potts said.

“We’ll hire ghostbusters,” Linda quipped, standing and walking away in search of a phone. She returned twenty minutes later to announce that Pamela South was on her way to the theater.

The rehearsal resumed an hour later. I sat with my Cabot Cove friends and watched the cast once again attempt to get through the play without interruption. Although the energy level was down, particularly Dave Potts, who wasn’t as comfortable playing his scenes with Pamela as he’d been with Jenny, and despite the heavy, palpable air of murder that hung over the theater—the backstage area, especially the dressing rooms, were declared off-limits, necessitating the removal of all the costumes to the small offices that lined the hallway—and the loss of concentration created by the night’s nontheatrical events, it went well, as well as could be expected. My friends applauded loudly when the final curtain came down and the house lights came up.

I looked across the theater and was surprised to see Lieutenant Hayes sitting alone.

“I thought you’d left,” I said.

“I intended to, but decided to see whether your play would come together after everything that’s happened. Looks like it has.”

“I think so.”

“You were lucky to have that other actress ready to step in.”