JP Beaumont 11 - Failure To Appear (v5.0) (10 page)

“Oh, Jeremy. How awesome!” Kelly exclaimed, sounding every bit the eighteen-year-old she was.

“How did you manage that?”

Jeremy shrugged modestly. “Just lucky,” he said.

Alexis Downey beamed. “
Majestic’s
a terrific show. One of my favorites. I understand you play the Laredo Kid?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I only auditioned for the part on a dare. I never thought I’d actually get it.”

The in-crowd theater talk left me in the dark. “What’s it about?” I asked.

“About this old-time movie character—that’s me,” Jeremy answered. “I appear like a vision to this other guy who grew up going to movies and watching those real old western serials.”

Watch it, Buster, I thought. I used to love those “real old” western serials.

“Now he’s out West working on an Indian reservation,” Jeremy continued. “My character is stuck in the past with all these old scripts and stereotypes of what women should and shouldn’t do. He can’t adjust to this new kind of modern woman who can go to school, cook gourmet meals, fix her own car, and save her boyfriend every time he gets into hot water.”

“Sounds fascinating,” I said.

Alex kicked me in the shins. “It is,” she said. “And we’ll be delighted to go, Jeremy. It’ll be a good counterpoint to
Shrew
tonight.”

If I personally had any objections, they’d been summarily overruled. The waiter brought our orders. Even he looked somewhat disgusted as he slapped the loaded real meat hamburger platter on the table in front of me.

With the arrival of food, conversation ground to a halt. Uncomfortable silence expanded until it seemed to stretch to the far corners of the universe. Each bite of hamburger turned to dry saw-dust in my mouth, although everyone else at the table wolfed his or her food with obvious relish. I could just as well have ordered the eggplant.

“Is your mother coming to the wedding?” Alex asked, innocently lobbing a live hand grenade onto the table. Fortunately, I had just swallowed a mouthful of burger; otherwise I would have required an on-the-spot Heimlich maneuver. Kelly’s gaze faltered, and her hands dropped nervously to her lap while a vivid flush spread up her neck and cheeks.

“Mom doesn’t know about it,” she responded. “Coming to the wedding would just upset her.”

“Upset” didn’t quite cover it. I doubt that’s the word Dave Livingston would have used, either.

The expression on Alex’s face remained utterly composed. “If I were your mother,” she said with an impassive smile, “I’m afraid I’d be terribly hurt if I wasn’t invited.”

“Even if you thought your daughter was making a horrible mistake?” Jeremy chimed in.

I did choke at that one, couldn’t help it. At least the kid was smart enough to recognize the lay of the land.

Alex nodded. “Even if,” she replied.

That was followed by another period of dead silence. “We’ll think about it,” Kelly said finally, but Alex wasn’t finished.

“If the wedding’s tomorrow,” she pressed, “there isn’t much time for your mother to make arrangements. She’s in California, isn’t she?” Kelly nodded. “She’ll have to make plane reservations, and all that.”

“I’ll try to decide today,” Kelly agreed.

It was a major concession, and I wasn’t entirely sure how it had happened. I smiled at Alex, grateful for the miracle, while Kelly changed the subject. “How was the backstage tour this morning, Jeremy?” she asked.

“Everybody’s upset,” he said, “because of the knife and all.”

Knife? It was as if someone had twanged a gigantic rubber band in the middle of my forehead. “What knife?” I asked.

“The Henckels—the twelve-inch slicer—we use for
Romeo
. When the stage manager realized it was missing from the prop table this morning, he spent an hour looking before he had Dinky Holloway report it to Detective Fraymore. You know, because of what happened last night. Nobody knows when it disappeared….”

“I do,” I interjected.

“You do?” Three pairs of eyes searched my face.

“It was missing when I looked at the props during the donor party,” I said. “I remember seeing the empty orange outline on the table. At least it was something shaped like a knife. I didn’t worry about it, though. It wasn’t my problem.”

“It’s somebody’s problem now. Dinky came back to the theater practically tearing her hair out. Fraymore was going out to the farm to take Tanya’s fingerprints.”

“Tanya’s!” Kelly exclaimed. “Why would he do that?”

“Don’t worry,” I assured them. “It’s just routine. If it is the knife from the show, both Juliet’s and Romeo’s prints may be on it. So a print technician will take both Tanya’s and James Renthrow’s prints as well as any stagehands who may have handled the knife. Once they catalog the
known
prints that should be there, then they can sort out the
unknown
ones that shouldn’t.”

“I see,” Jeremy said. “So it’s a process of elimination?”

“Right,” I answered. “It’s called disqualifying prints.”

Jeremy breathed a sigh of relief. “I’m glad to hear that. I was afraid it meant she was really in trouble.”

“Any reason why she should be?”

“Daddy,” Kelly complained. “Stop being a detective.”

“I can’t help it. Curiosity becomes a way of life.”

Iced tea and eggplant had evidently propped up Jeremy’s confidence. He was feeling expansive. “It’s just that Tanya’s had so much bad luck,” he said. “First her parents died in that fire when she was twelve. Then she got in a beef with her guardian and ended up on her own by the time she was fourteen. She’s been self-supporting ever since. In all that time, she never lost track of her goal.”

“Which was?”

“To be an actress. And look at her. She is. For someone her age, she’s accomplished a lot. Especially when you consider she’s raising Amber all by herself.”

“What happened to her husband?”

“Oh him.” Kelly sniffed disapprovingly. “I guess Bob couldn’t stand the competition. He was ten years older than Tanya. When she landed better parts than he did, he took off.”

“How old was Amber when he left?” I asked.

Kelly and Jeremy exchanged veiled glances before Kelly answered. “Tanya told me he left the day he found out she was pregnant.”

Oops. One more time, open mouth and insert foot. Once again Alex came to my rescue. “How old is Amber?”

“Two and a half.”

“I know what actors make around here,” Alex continued. “It isn’t much. How has Tanya managed?”

“She couldn’t have if it hadn’t been for Marjorie,” Kelly explained. “That’s Marjorie Connors,” she added for Alex’s benefit. “Our landlady. She runs Live Oak Farm, where we all live. Tanya couldn’t afford an apartment by herself. She was about to be thrown into the street when Marjorie invited them to come stay with her.”

Jeremy nodded. “Marjorie’s great. That’s the kind of thing she does. She was volunteering at the theaters when she heard about what was going on with Tanya and Amber. She knew Tanya was broke, so they worked out a way Tanya could help around the farm in exchange for the rent. That’s what we all do, more or less.”

“Is that how you ended up there, too?” Alex spoke with her eyes focused on Kelly’s face. If I had asked the question, Kelly probably would have thrown the remainder of her eggplant burger in my face, told me it was none of my business, and stomped off in a huff. Since Alex asked, though, it was okay.

“Pretty much,” Kelly answered.

“Sounds like a nice lady,” Alex went on. “I’d like to meet her sometime. Maybe at the wedding.”

Jeremy shook his head. “I doubt that. Marjorie doesn’t like weddings. She says marriage is a barbaric holdover from the Middle Ages that turns women into slaves and men into tyrants.” Jeremy delivered that last sentence in a brusque voice that mimicked Marjorie Connors’ clipped delivery perfectly. Both Kelly and I laughed. Maybe Jeremy was an actor after all.

For a change, since Alex alone of the three of us had never met Marjorie Connors, she was the one left out of the joke.

Jeremy glanced down at his watch. “Sorry to rush. I’ve got a cast call pretty soon. If we don’t leave now, I won’t have time to take Kelly home and bring the others into town.”

“I take it you operate the Live Oak Taxi?” I asked.

He grinned. “Like Kelly said, it helps pay the rent.” He started to fumble gamely for his bill-fold, but I told him to forget it, that I was buying. They left a few minutes later, even though it was just barely twelve-thirty. Alex and I lingered at the table. It was hot in the restaurant, and I switched from coffee to iced tea.

“What do you think?” I asked.

“Of them?” Alex shrugged. “They’re sweet. And very much in love.”

She sat there stirring sugar into her iced tea in an artless, casual gesture. Watching her, I was surprised by how much I liked it; by how much I liked her. It was as if she had somehow tiptoed around the defenses and crept into my heart through a back entrance I didn’t know existed.

“Could I ask you a personal question, Ms. Downey?” I asked.

“Shoot,” she said.

“Let me lay it out for you this way, ma’am. Here we are having lunch with my daughter and the young twerp who is all set to marry her without so much as a by-your-leave. In the middle of this highly pressurized lunch, you come right out and ask if they’ve invited Karen to the wedding. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not complaining, but would you mind telling me why you did that?”

She looked up at me and smiled, her deep blue eyes flashing in merriment. “You really don’t know?”

“Haven’t a clue.”

“Karen’s Kelly’s mother, right?”

“Right.”

“She’s also your ex-wife. Divorces notwithstanding, mothers expect to go to their daughters’ weddings. Period.”

“So?”

“So, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m not interested in a one-night stand or even a several-month stand with you, Mr. J.P. Beaumont. I’m not that kind of girl. I like you a lot, but if there’s ever going to be anything permanent between us, then we’d better make damn sure that if we’re invited to Kelly and Jeremy’s wedding, Karen and Dave Livingston are, too.”

Just like that, I got the picture. Talk about a slow learner! So when we went to see
The Majestic Kid
that afternoon, I sat up and paid attention, and not just because my future son-in-law was playing a lead role. I figured since this was a play about a girl who kept bailing her boyfriend out of the drink, then I needed to take lessons.

During intermission, Alex excused herself. I thought she was going to the rest room. Instead, she must have used a phone. When she sat back down beside me, she squeezed my arm.

“It worked,” she said. “I checked with Kelly. She and Jeremy talked it over on the way home. Karen and Dave are invited to the wedding after all.”

“Hot damn!” I breathed. By then I understood Karen’s presence at the wedding was in my own best interest.

“Well,” she hedged. “It’s not all smooth sailing.”

“Why not? What do you mean?”

“They want you to make the phone call.”

“Me!” I choked. “I have to do all the dirty work?”

Alex smiled and nodded. “I told Kelly you wouldn’t mind at all. That’s what fathers are for. We’ll call Karen as soon as the play is over and before we meet Dinky for dinner.”

I watched the second act of
The Majestic Kid
, but I can’t say I enjoyed it very much. Alex, of course, savored every minute of it. Why wouldn’t she? She didn’t know Karen Moffit Beaumont Livingston. I did.

Expecting the immediate outbreak of World War III, I wasn’t willing to use a public pay phone to call Rancho Cucamonga. After the play, we took the Porsche, drove to a shady parking place near a park, and called on my cellular phone. I did try Dave’s number at work but ended up with voice mail. Taking a deep breath, I dialed the Livingstons’ home number.

I hoped Dave would answer, but of course he didn’t. “Hello, Karen,” I said. “it’s Beau.”

Her guard came up just like that. “What do you want?”

Karen didn’t used to be that defensive, and I don’t blame her, not anymore. It’s a perfectly understandable device to keep from being hurt again. Since she wasn’t that way back in the old days when we were first married, I have to accept some of the responsibility for how she is now. Being married to an alcoholic isn’t a bed of roses, so I’m willing to shoulder some of the blame. Some, but not all.

“I’ve found Kelly,” I heard myself blabbing into the phone. “She’s in Ashland, Oregon, and she’s okay…. No, she’s fine, really. Karen, listen to me. No, I’m telling you, she’s all right.”

Karen was crying into the receiver so hard I wasn’t sure if she heard a word I said. I looked over at Alex for help and encouragement. She nodded, urging me forward, but she didn’t offer any other help. In this deal, I was strictly on my own.

I forged ahead. “Karen,” I said reasonably, “calm down and listen. This is important. Kelly is getting married on Monday. Tomorrow. I’m calling to see if there’s any way you and Dave and Scott can make it up here on such short notice.”

The words had the same effect as a bucket of cold water. “Married?” Karen sputtered. “She can’t do that.”

“Yes, she can.”

“Who’s she marrying?”

“A boy named Jeremy Cartwright.”

“When?”

“I already told you. The wedding’s set for two-thirty tomorrow afternoon here in Ashland, Oregon.” I paused and took a deep breath before I said the rest. “Kelly’s pregnant, Karen.”

I held the phone away from my ear during the angry tirade that followed, but sooner than I would have expected, Karen grew oddly silent.

“Look,” I said. “I know this hurts like hell, but you’ll have to decide whether or not you want to be part of it.”

Seven hundred and fifty miles away, the telephone receiver clattered noisily onto a tabletop in Rancho Cucamonga. That in itself was a pretty definitive answer. I figured it was a final one, but a moment later Dave Livingston came on the phone.

“Thanks for saving my ass and not letting her know I called you,” he said. “I’ll handle things on this end. Where can I call you once she comes around?”

“You think she will?”

“Yeah,” Dave said. “I’m sure of it.”