Murder: The Musical (A Smith and Wetzon Mystery, #5) (27 page)

“Dead man?” Mort said.

“In the smoker?” Carlos stood up slowly.

Aline said, “Oh, my God, then—?”

“Who is—?”

Fran bowed his head, his jowls creased with pain. Only he had remained seated when everyone else had jumped up. Had he known all along the dead man wasn’t Mort?

“Everyone please be quiet!” Madigan ordered, raising his voice over the hubbub. “Mr. Hornberg, there’s been a homicide in the men’s smoker. We presumed it was you.” He looked out into the orchestra, then down at his notepad. “Miss ... ah ... Watson, would you please come up here.”

“Why would anyone think it was me?” Mort’s face was blotched with outrage.

Wetzon rose. It seemed she was going to be the next to be interviewed.

Twoey caught her hand and squeezed it. “Do you want me to come with you?” he asked.

She shook her head, then stood on tiptoes and whispered in his ear, “Could you have brought the show in?”

His face broke into a wide grin. “With a little help from my friends.” He nodded at Sunny.

“Wait a minute, wait one minute.” Mort stamped his foot and pushed Poppy away from him. “What’s this going to do to the performance tonight?”

“Mort, please, there’s someone lying dead in the smoker.” Poppy clung to him. “We all thought it was
you.”

Madigan cleared his throat. “Okay, if the dead man isn’t Mort Hornberg, then who is he?”

“I can answer that question for you, Willis.” A short man in an Irish knit rainhat and a brown L.L. Bean stormcoat took center stage.

B movie all the way, Wetzon thought, as she came up on stage. Even to exit and entrance lines. Actually, the whole scene since Mort’s miraculous resurrection was being performed like a play within a play, with everyone acting his part to the hilt. The cast was presently doing
Murder in the Men’s Smoker
and was pretty much the same group that had performed so valiantly in
Dilla’s Death.

Except for ...

It was Sam Meidner lying in his own blood in the men’s smoker.

In the same instant Madigan read from the ID in the wallet: “Samuel Meidner.”

The gasp from the onlookers was so in unison it might have been choreographed. It was part of the performance.

“I take it you all know this man?” Madigan looked from one to the other for verification.

Edward tittered.

Mort said, “You don’t mean to tell me that it’s Sam you took for me?”

“We all did,” Twoey said.

“He was wearing your hat,” Poppy said.

“I’m
wearing my hat. What’s got into all of you?” Mort was furious with them. “We’ll take another half hour and then get back to work. We have a performance tonight.”

“You mean we’re going on?” Phil spoke for everyone.

“Of course, unless the representative from the Boston Police Department sees fit to close us down. Does he?”

Madigan shrugged. “It’s your choice. But the men’s smoker is off limits. I’m sealing it, and I’m going to post a man at the door to see it stays that way.”

“We can’t do a performance without a working men’s room, Mort,” Sunny Browning objected. “And how will it look, I mean, doing a performance with Sam—?”

“Isn’t there act-of-God insurance for something like this?” Twoey asked.

Mort looked at Twoey scornfully. “No one—and I mean
no one
—closes down my show.”

“If I can break in here, I want my officers to get everyone’s statement. Including yours, Mr. Hornberg. In fact, we’d be happy to take yours right now.”

“Who would have wanted to kill poor old Sam?” Carlos said,
sotto voce,
moving into the wings with Wetzon. “He was a harmless old—”

“If we all mistook him for Mort, then the murderer may have, too. Which would give almost everyone here a motive. I’m glad you were in Remington’s where everybody could see you.”

His eyes slipped away from her and out into the orchestra of the theatre. Wetzon’s eyes followed. Smitty. Wetzon caught an exchange between the boy and Carlos that she didn’t understand and would have questioned had not one of the uniforms tapped her on the shoulder. With his head he motioned her toward one of the dressing rooms.

The room she entered was freshly painted an off white. Stage makeup, some in an open blue metal toolbox, the rest lying willy-nilly about the dressing table, was the center of attraction in the narrow room. Tucked into the frame of the bulb-studded mirror were photographs. A box of tissues, a dingy bra, and an open package of Fig Newtons fought for space with the jars, tubes, and brushes, tools of the trade.

Under the dressing table were a crumpled pair of lacy black tights and two pairs of tap shoes.

Wetzon sat on the bench in front of the dressing table. Greasepaint—although it was no longer really greasepaint—had a certain resiny odor. A whitish powder lay like pseudo-snow on the base of a black porcelain lamp, its shade ecru with age. Wetzon stared into the mirror. Her face was smudged red, like the smudges on Mark’s jeans, as if she’d put on her blusher in the dark.

The cop taking her statement was the one with the scruffy hair, who’d come on stage with Madigan. Officer Bryant. After she answered the name, address and occupation questions, Bryant asked, “How did you get blood on your face and coat?”

She looked down at her coat. Matted fur, dried sticky. Had she gotten it from Mark? “I don’t know. There was blood mixed with snow on the floor near the stagedoor, but how did it get on my coat?” And what was the blood doing near the door? Sam was lying dead in the smoker. Touching the stiff fur of her coat, she said, “We don’t know that this is Sam’s blood.”

“But we can find out.” Bryant proceded to take some scrapings from the matted fur and store them in a glassine bag.

She was thinking disconcertedly that they would do the same thing with Mark’s jeans when Bryant snapped his book closed and told her not to leave town without letting them know.

“I’m going back to New York on Sunday. Is that going to be a problem? I have a business to run.”

Bryant frowned. “I’ll mention it to Madigan.”

Wetzon made her way across the stage to the pass door. Carlos was sitting orchestra left, giving a statement to one of the other officers, and motioned her over.

“Can we try again? Remington’s—in ten minutes?” He looked at the cop. “How much longer?”

“Ten minutes is okay.”

Wetzon continued up the aisle, heading for the ladies’ lounge. She had to clean the blood off. In the last row Phil sat with a woman in her forties, maybe late forties, large round glasses and brown, shoulder-length hair held in place by a red velvet headband. She wore a black cloth coat. They were having a heated argument in whispers so that all Wetzon could hear was the searing sibilance, like a snake hissing, which Phil broke off the minute he caught sight of her.

“Hi, Phil.”

“Mom, this is Leslie Wetzon. She’s a friend of Carlos Prince.”

The woman smiled, exposing enormous teeth and a lot of gum, and offered her hand. “Pleased to meet you.”

“The same here,” Wetzon said, trying not to stare.

Phil’s mother was wearing a ring with a huge yellow diamond. She was also the woman Wetzon had seen getting into a cab in front of Susan Orkin’s building.The woman Susan had refused to see?

Don’t hang up, goddammit!” It was Mort yelling. “Susan!”

Nudging the door gently with her toe, Wetzon peered into the ladies’ lounge. Its baroque and rococco carvings and murals seemed a more apt backdrop to murder than the hunting lodge severity of the men’s smoker.

Mort banged the phone box with his fist. “Shit!” The tickle in Wetzon’s nose became a sneeze, and Mort spun around and clapped his hands, “Just the person I wanted to see. Leslie, come in here. When are you going back?”

“Probably Sunday morning ... the Boston PD willing.” The lounge, too, had an odd odor, this one, like citronella. It must be the cleanser they used. She sneezed again and blew her nose.

Mort’s face was a garden of yellow and purple bruises; his breath was sour milk. “You wouldn’t consider going back tomorrow?”

“Before the opening? Why would I do that? I came up for the opening. Besides, they might not let me leave.”

“What do you mean they might not let you leave?”

“Excuse me? Sam’s been murdered—or had you forgotten?”

“Darling, that’s why I need the favor. For the good of the show. Carlos—
all
of us—need you to do something.” Mort reached out, ignoring her flinch, and took a lock of her hair. He rolled it over his fingers. “We
need
you, Leslie.” He was playing her for all he was worth. “And, trust me,” he continued, his voice husky. “I can get you out of Boston.”

“And if I say no is ya gonna try to strangle me and trow me out a winder?”

Mort looked wounded. “Come on, Leslie. I had a bad reaction to the medication. It happens. All I’m trying to do is get this show on. And everyone keeps getting in my face.”

“May I quote you?”

He grabbed her arms and shook her, hard. “Why do you keep twisting everything I say?”

She snapped, “Let go of me,” and brought her heel down on his toes in their soft Bally boots.

“Oh, Christ, oh Christ!” He let her go and hopped around clutching his foot.

Wetzon watched him, then heard herself say: “My mission would be ...?” What was she saying?

Mort stopped in midhop. His face lit up. “You’ve got to bring Susan up here. For the opening. If you go back tomorrow morning, you can do it. We need her here.”

“Susan? Susan Orkin? Why?”

“To tell the truth, I’m not sorry to lose Sam—of course I never would have wanted it that way—but it’s a lucky break for the show. Nelson is a real talent; he’ll take care of any new music we need, and Susan’s written more than half the lyrics already—She hung up on me just now.” He shuffled his feet and put his hands in his pockets. “She blames me for Dilla. Christ, I didn’t kill Dilla. I wouldn’t have. I needed her. Look at the loser I’ve got to work with in her place.” Removing his cap, he ran a comb through his paucity of hair. “Maybe someone will do me the kindness of relieving me of Phil.” He took a small mouth spray from his pocket and sprayed his mouth. Eureka! The citronella-like smell.

“Starring in
Henry Two,
Mort? If so, you’re playing to the wrong audience. Tell me, did you stay on in the theatre with Dilla the night she was murdered—after everyone left?”

“Leslie! How can you ask me something like that?” Funny how Mort was beginning to sound like Smith. Did she attract people like that? And he’d answered her question with a question.

Wetzon sighed. She was about to be a schmuck. “What makes you think I would be able to convince Susan to come back?”

“Carlos told me you and Susan were college buddies. He thought maybe you could be helpful.”

Carlos! The rat. “Carlos listens fast.”

“Leslie, will you try? Just
try.”
Crocodile tears welled up in Mort’s eyes. “I’ll be eternally grateful. I’ll
owe
you.”

“You would? I’d like to collect on that right now.”

“What do you want?” Mort slipped that everyone-takes-advantage-of- me look on his face.

“I want you to keep your bloody hands off Smitty.”

“What?”

“You heard me, Mort.”

“How dare you make judgments about me? Who do you think you are?” He splayed his hand at her as if he were casting an evil spell.

“I’ve known Smitty since he was a child, and I know you’ve made that boy a lot of promises.”

“Listen, you self-righteous bitch, who are you to sit and judge me? You’ve never been married. I bet you’ve never even had a decent relationship with anyone. You sit over there on Wall Street and make money on sleaze and dirt. You think you’re fucking Joan of Arc? You know what happened to
her,
don’t you, bitch?”

Wetzon turned her back on him and walked into the bathroom. She looked at her face in the mirror. Dried blood did not become her. Wetting a paper towel, she dabbed gently at the smudges. Mort’s threat rang in her ears. He’d stopped screaming “bitch,” but she could see him out of the corner of her eye raging, stamping around the lounge.

In truth, she would give just about anything to get out of Boston. The old joke danced through her brain—
who do I have to fuck to get off this show?—
and she laughed.

She went to the door and leaned against the door frame. Mort, eyes bulging with rage, stopped and looked at her. “If you’ll make me that promise, I’ll go in and see Susan tomorrow,” she told him.

“That’s easy enough to promise. The kid’s been getting a little tiresome anyway. Every time I turn around, he’s there underfoot.” He had sheepish, shitkicker written all over him. And the storm was over.

“Just remember, you’ll have to clear it with Madigan.”

She left him in the lounge, admiring his own image in the mirror. But he had drawn blood. Was there some truth in what he’d said? Was she self-righteous? Had she never had a decent relationship?

In the back of the orchestra, Detective Madigan was talking to two men, one carrying a medical bag and the other loaded down with cameras. Since they had already taken her statement, she ambled down the aisle. She could now try calling her office. Madigan beckoned to her.

“Oh, Miss. One moment, please.”

Damn. She retraced her steps.

Madigan was concluding his conversation. “Take a seat. Be right with you.”

She sighed. Write this day off. She envied Smith lunching in Gloucester, blissfully unaware of Sam’s murder. She did not sit down.

“Now then, just a few more questions.” Madigan had draped his coat over the back of the seat. He was looking through some notes, grunting. “You were the first person Juliette Keogh told about finding the body?”

Juliette Keogh? Wouldn’t you just know that the orange-haired fashionplate would have a name like Juliette? “Right.” She shifted from one leg to the other.

“Take a seat,” he said again. This time it was an order.

She sat on the edge of a seat, ready to fly.

“She said you were on the phone near the stage door.”