Final Curtain (19 page)

Tim looked around. “What if Polly’s right, and not all the guests have left?” he said to Randy. Can you get a detail out here to check the property before we go to bed? With all those plants, I’ve left plenty of places for someone to hide.”

Randy shook his head. “No way. I’ll have a look around before I go.”

“You’re going?” Polly said, with more than a hint of disappointment in her voice. “I rather thought that…well, because you’re failing to send in the SWAT team…you might feel a duty to…because you’d want to make sure I was fully protected…perhaps you would…”

Suddenly the panther roared and a horrific scream was heard from deep inside the tent.

I
n a matter of seconds Polly, Tim, and Randy were running to the tented jungle and cautiously moving down the main path. Randy led the way with his gun drawn and his arms moving from left to right like an oscillating fan. Polly stopped and sniffed the air. “Patchouli!” she whispered and separated herself from Tim and Randy to follow the scent. “Over here,” she said and cautiously inched her way through the pots of dense foliage.

Tim and Randy quickly caught up to Polly and were aware of every sound and movement in the jungle. “It’s coming from over there,” Polly said, pointing. Randy vigilantly moved forward with Polly and Tim bringing up the rear.

“Freeze!” Randy suddenly shouted. “Beverly Hills Police Department! Freeze or I’ll blow you into South Central!”

Polly and Tim rushed to Randy’s side and found one of the nearly naked and body-painted cater waiters crouched under a tall fern and the leopard circling him as though he were a potential mate. “Get him away!” the waiter cried.

Tim went over to the leopard and patted the cat’s coat and scratched him under his chin. “Let’s go play with Placenta,” he said and nudged the beast toward the path leading to the exit.

Although the scent of repulsive cologne still hung in the air, it quickly became obvious that the cater waiter was not the one wearing the heady aroma. Polly stood over the young man in his loincloth. By the look of his well-cut physique she knew that he was handpicked for the job by Tim. “Why aren’t you helping in the kitchen?” she asked with a definite edge to her voice.

Still crouching on the ground, he looked up and said, “A couple of guys gave me a hundred bucks to come in here and distract you.”

Polly, with hands on hips, demanded to know the names of the guests who had paid for this charade.

“I don’t know,” the young man said. “But as soon as I yelled, they ran out the back of the tent.”

“There is no back to the tent,” Tim insisted.

The young man, who had by now raised himself to his feet and was brushing off mulch from his bare legs, looked over his shoulder to the side of the tent. “There is now.”

Polly, Tim, and Randy saw that the thick plastic material had been cut and was now fluttering in a light summer evening’s breeze.

“That’ll cost a fortune to repair!” Tim burst into a small tantrum. “Who the hell were these guys?”

“Again, I don’t know,” the waiter insisted. “But one of ’em stank of that stuff that immigrant gardeners bathe in.”

Polly gave Tim and Randy an “I told you so” look. Her expression made it clear that she wasn’t imagining the men who had pursued her. She turned to the waiter. “Give us a description of the goons!”

“Both were wearing dark suits. I could tell that one was a knockout in the sex-appeal department—”

“Never mind the editorializing,” Polly said. “Be specific.”

“As I said, one was a babe, and the other was…I think he was a babe too. I mean, I think he was a she pretending to be a he.”

Polly blanched. “And don’t dis my transgender friends!”

The waiter looked offended. “It was the way he…er, she…moved about. Whatever the gender, the person waded through the plants like they were terrified of what they might find as they moved about the foliage. Ya know, a sissy sort of way of mincing. Plus, I got a look at the butt. It was too pear-shaped to be a guy’s.”

Polly frowned and looked down at her own rear end. “Did either of them say why they wanted you to cause a commotion?”

The waiter shook his head. “I figured they needed a diversion to make an escape.”

“An escape from what? Why not simply leave through the front door?”

“Could be because they were stealing an Emmy Award from your trophy room,” the waiter said.

Polly issued a sound equal to the scream that the waiter had made to attract their attention in the first place.

When Polly returned to the house and entered the great room, she found that indeed one less Emmy occupied her lighted glass bookshelves.

As Tim and Randy tried to comfort Polly, Placenta came into the room dragging Mag Ryan with her. “Nabbed your little Gloria Upson trying to weasel her way off of the estate with your firstborn,” Placenta said, holding up an Emmy. “‘Debut season of the Polly Pepper Playhouse,’” she read from the tarnished metal plate. She then pushed Mag forward to face Polly.

Polly looked down at Mag with equal parts confusion and fury. “I thought we were friends.”

Mag hung her head and looked at the carpet.

Randy stepped forward and flashed his badge. “Mag Ryan. I’m placing you under arrest for burglary, theft, and extortion.”

Stung by the thought of going to jail, Mag cried, “No! It wasn’t me! I was only following orders! It was—”

“Who?” Polly interrupted. “Who told you to swipe my Emmy? There are at least two of you. Don’t deny it. That cater waiter you paid off gave us a complete description.”

Mag sighed. “Why do I always get stuck with the stinky roles?” She looked into Polly’s eyes. “Okay. Here’s the thing. This guy at the party tonight said he’d heard that I was a great actress and that he had a big part for me to play.”

“He obviously had too many martinis,” Polly cracked. “Who was this Neanderthal and what was the big role? Tell us everything, or sweet Polly Pepper will turn into Shirley Temple on a roid rage!”

Mag slumped onto the sofa and closed her eyes for a long moment. When she finally opened them, she also opened her mouth and began to spill her guts. “I’m not covering for anyone anymore. Not even for Gerold. You want a story?”

“I want the truth!” Polly said as she plopped herself down on the sofa with her arms folded across her chest.

“Okay. From the beginning,” Mag said.

The others in the room immediately took seats on the sofa and wingback chairs, concentrating on what Mag was about to reveal.

“You already know that Karen and Gerold argued over casting changes,” Mag continued. “I was glued to Gerold’s side to make sure the dumb ass didn’t get cold feet about letting me have the role of Gloria Upson. I’ve wanted that part ever since I saw the old Roz Russell movie
Auntie Mame
. It’s a showstopper and I knew I could do it well. But Karen had other ideas, namely Sharon Fletcher.”

Polly interrupted, “When did Sharon get to the theater that morning?”

“She arrived shortly after Charlotte and Hiroaki left. Karen had called each of them and asked that they come in extra early. She staggered their arrivals so that none of them would be embarrassed in front of each other by hearing that they were being let go. Anyway, after Charlotte and Hiroaki took their lumps and left, Sharon showed up with her Emmy and her Pollyanna smile and then got the word from Gerold that she was history. Sharon’s a lot tougher than her bitch character on
It’s
Never
Fair Weather
. She was furious with both Gerold
and
Karen. She said that Karen had no spine, and that Gerold was a big fat fully stocked walking refrigerator.

“Just as we’ve all heard from her statement to the police, Sharon hauled off and threw her cell phone at Gerold. She’s a diva. When divas get mad, watch out. She looked as though she could kill both Karen and Gerold, and me too as a matter of fact.”

Detective Archer leaned forward in his chair. “You said that the others had left by the time Sharon arrived, so there’s no one to corroborate your story.”

“Of course there is,” Mag said. “Karen’s boyfriend, Jamie, was there all along. He was there with Karen when Sharon stormed out of the theater.”

Polly scratched her head and again leaned in toward Mag. “Are you one hundred percent certain that Charlotte and Hiroaki left the theater?”

Mag shrugged. “They left. I didn’t follow them home. But I didn’t see them again until the next day. Coming back as they did, I guess they thought that the death of the director might make a difference in their employment status. Gerold did what Karen tried to protect them from—public humiliation.”

Polly stood up and walked to the wine cooler. She opened the glass door and withdrew a bottle of champagne. She uncorked it and filled a fresh glass and took a long sip. She filled the flute again and brought the bottle back to the coffee table. “What happened next?”

“Jamie said something about being late for an audition. Then he gave the janitor some money and a list of different coffees for each of the cast, and sent him over to Starbucks.”

Polly suddenly snapped, “You just finished telling us that nobody else was in the theater and now you say the janitor was there!”

“I meant no one else of any importance, like from the cast,” Mag said, stung by Polly’s outburst. “Sure, there were a couple of other people, like the cleaning crew.”

“Cleaning crew?” Polly ranted again. “Why are you telling us all this now? By the way, the cleaning people work in the late afternoon, not early morning! Why are we supposed to believe one word you’re saying?”

Mag was unsettled and her face turned red. “You’re making me confused! Maybe it wasn’t the cleaning crew. Maybe the voices I heard belonged to the producers or the stage manger or maintenance people, or—”

“Or maybe what you heard was Charlotte or Hiroaki plotting to kill the director,” Polly said. “Or maybe everything you’re saying is a big fat lie and maybe you killed Karen to make absolutely sure that Gloria was your role. The possibilities are endless.”

“No. I swear I didn’t kill Karen!” Mag continued her desperate defense. “The voices weren’t Karen’s or Gerold’s or Charlotte’s or Hiroaki’s. I know what they all sound like. I think the voices were in Spanish or they at least had a foreign accent. Anyway, they sounded weird and that’s why I thought they must have been cleaning people!”

“Accents? You’re suggesting that the butler did it?” Polly reached for the bottle of Krug. “I ought to clobber you with this thing and rattle some sense into that feeble brain of yours. You come to my beautiful show and steal a role that was perfectly cast and then you’re invited to be a guest in my house and you steal the thing most precious to me—other than my Timmy and Placenta. And now you’re flat-out telling me that you were at the scene of the crime, but you didn’t see anything! I’m at my wits’ end, my dear.”

Mag was silent, but her body was shaking from the emotional trauma of the evening. She leaned forward and picked up someone’s half-full glass of champagne and swallowed the drink. She reached for the bottle, but Polly slapped her hand away. “I need something to calm my nerves.”

“And I need you to tell me who you were working with tonight.”

The meager amount of champagne that Mag had swallowed was enough to embolden her. She looked at Polly defiantly. “One drink, one answer.” She held out her glass.

Polly stared at the impudent actress for a long moment, silently transmitting her disdain. Then she reached for the bottle and began to slowly pour Mag’s drink. “You’ll play by my rules,” she said and stopped pouring when the glass was filled halfway.

As Mag downed the drink, her eyes remained fixed on Polly’s. “Charlotte,” Mag finally said.

“Huh?” Polly said. “What’s that supposed to mean? Charlotte what?”

“Charlotte Bunch’s fence—Fernando—paid me to pinch your Emmy tonight. Charlotte has to take special medications for her MPD, and her SAG insurance doesn’t cover the cost. Plus, she’s broke.”

“MPD? A new iPOD model?” Polly asked impatiently.

“Multiple personalities disorder,” Tim said. “Now Charlotte’s weird behavior makes sense!”

“She’s channeling voices or something,” Mag added.

“She’s not imitating people, she becomes them?” Polly said with a groan. “Jeez, I’m in
The Twilight Zone
!”

Mag continued. “This Fernando guy—the one who recognized my major talent—sells movie star memorabilia to collectors all over the world. The only way that Charlotte can pay to keep her prescription filled is by getting him to sell off her celebrity garage sale junk. She was going to steal Sharon’s Emmy, but her plan was foiled. You’re the only other star she knows with a bunch of acting awards. She knew you’d miss a few, but could probably get ’em replaced.”

“It
was
Charlotte who absconded with my Emmy,” Polly cried. “And this Fernando character, I suspect he wears Patchouli.”

“Charlotte said she knew that you suspected her of grabbing your other Emmy, the one you dropped off in West Hollywood Park. She wanted to stop hurting you. She knows what she’s doing when the voices take over, but she can’t control them or her actions. Charlotte didn’t mean to be unkind. My raid on your fancy-schmancy mansion tonight was going to be the end of her stealing from you.”

Polly and the others were dumbfounded. “This is a nightmare, or a bad
Saturday Night Live
sketch. We’re supposed to be in la-la land, but all around us are murderers and thieves and crazy people who have uninvited guests dancing around in her head! Hollywood is beginning to feel like a strange world to me!”

Detective Archer finally spoke up and addressed Mag. “Take us back to the theater, the morning of the murder. When did you discover Karen and Gerold missing?”