Murder: The Musical (A Smith and Wetzon Mystery, #5) (46 page)

“I could have told you that without the cards.”

“Very funny.”

“According to the police, Dilla’s and Susan’s murders were crimes of passion.”

Smith looked aghast. “You mean
rape?”
She gathered up the cards.

“Not that kind of passion. There are other kinds, you know. Anger, love, hate, jealousy, revenge ...”

“Revenge? For what?”

“If you promise not to go crazy, I’ll tell you what I think.”

“Do you mean to tell me you know who did it?”

“I don’t know for sure, but I think you were right about Edna Terrace.”

“Who?”

“Oh, for godsakes, Smith, you said you thought the mother did it. Don’t you remember, when Bernstein came to the office for the jewelry?”

“I forgot her name.”

“Phil Terrace’s mother. Read my lips.”

Smith wrinkled her forehead. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“The stage manager. Phil Terrace. He took over after Dilla was murdered. I can’t believe you didn’t meet him.”

“I probably did. You can see how he’s made a lasting impression on me.”

“He’s sort of chunky, short, balding, and tentative.”

“How quaint.” Smith yawned. “What makes you think I’d remember anyone like that?” She thrust her feet into her sandals and stood. “Wait a minute. Not the one who sweats?”

“Bingo.”

“Ah, people who sweat when it’s not hot are always the guilty ones. I knew if we put our minds to it we’d figure it out.” She was heading for the kitchen. “I need some coffee.”

Wetzon followed her. “You’re saying
Phil
did it? Why?” She watched Smith fill her coffeemaker with water and the filter with coffee. The heady aroma of roasted hazelnuts filled the kitchen. “I hope that’s decaf.”

“It is. Tell me why you think it’s what’s-her-face.”

“Edna? Okay, treasurers used to keep a club in the box office in case they were held up. The police didn’t find one.”

They listened to the coffeemaker
whoosh.
Then Smith said, “That’s a little farfetched.”

“And sweating isn’t? There’s more. Edna has been wearing a ring that looks an awful lot like the description of a ring Dilla wore the week she was murdered—”

“You mean she bashed Dilla Crosby for a ring?” Incredulous, Smith poured coffee into cups, and Wetzon carried them into the dining room, leaving Smith in the kitchen.

Wetzon raised her voice. “Listen to me, Smith. I’ve got it all worked out.” She sat down at the table and took a handful of caramel popcorn from the huge bowl Smith set between them. “Once upon a time—”

“Oh for pitysakes.” Smith gave an exaggerated groan, but Wetzon could see she had lightened up considerably.

“Once upon a time on Broadway there was a very successful general manager. You might say he was the king of general managers—This is good popcorn.”

“Will you please get on with your story.”

“Anyway, the king’s name was Lenny Kaufer. He had a wife named Celia, and a daughter—Are you following me?”

Smith nodded, eyes to ceiling.

“A daughter named Edna. Princess Edna.”

“Aha. Edna Terrace.”

“I think she’s got it,” Wetzon said to the ceiling. “Lenny Kaufer was like the godfather, the king of ice. That’s money skimmed from gross box office receipts, kickbacks, ticket scalping. Ticket sales weren’t computerized then. They say it doesn’t go on any more, but a couple of years ago a general manager on a hit show was fired because there was money not accounted for in ticket sales.”

“I get it. Now will you get to the point.” Smith was daintily eating one kernel at a time.

“The king had a mistress, a young chorus dancer.”

“My Lord, not you!”

“Smith, give me a break. There must have been five hundred dancers auditioning for shows at the time. I was only one of them. Dilla Crosby was his mistress.”

“Dilla Crosby? But she’s a-a-she’s a-” Smith choked on the word—“she’s
gay
.”

Wetzon hid a smile. Ah, she thought, the education of Xenia Smith. Smith might just come out of this a better person. “Well, I guess Dilla was either bisexual or maybe, as people often said, just plain rotten and calculating. Anyway, the king gave her a gorgeous mink coat and a red Corvette, among other things.”

Smith punched air with her right fist. “Yes!”

So much for Wetzon’s daydream of a new Smith. “Thank you very much. So King Lenny was stashing cash and stuff away for years in his mega safe deposit box.”

Smith smiled. She always smiled when she heard about money, or schemes to get same. “Go on.”

“Then the king got sick—cancer—and it was bad. While he was in the hospital dying, with his loving family around him, someone with a key to his safe deposit box signed in as his wife, Celia, and cleaned everything out. And when the box was opened after he died, it was empty. I heard that story from Poppy Hornberg.”

“Very ingenious.”

“No. Very larcenous. At the king’s funeral Celia Kaufer made a tearful appeal for the money. I heard that from Alton. I guess they weren’t destitute, but they had an expensive life style that they could no longer support.”

“Of course, it was never returned.”

“Of course. This is like putting a picture puzzle together. Not all the pieces fit the first time around. Fran Burke was Lenny Kaufer’s protege. I think he’s been sort of godfathering Phil.”

“That old coot might have killed Dilla to avenge his mentor.”

“True. When I first visited Susan, Dilla’s mother and sister and brother-in-law were there packing her things. Susan’s dog Izz—by the way—I have a foster dog now. A Maltese.”

“You? A dog? How does Alton feel about that?”

“It’s of no consequence.”

“Wait a minute, where’s your ring?”

“I’ve broken it off with Alton, Smith.”

“I can’t believe even you would do anything so stupid.”

Offended, Wetzon said, “Well, I guess I did, and it’s not up for discussion. Do you want to hear the rest?”

“Get to the end, please.”

“You know you have the attention span of a duck? Remember the embroidery inside the pouch of jewelry that Susan sent me? It said
Lenny/Celia.
Everyone on
Hotshot
saw Dilla wearing that ring the whole week before she was murdered, but she wasn’t wearing it when we found her. And when I met Edna Terrace, she was wearing a ring just like the one Carlos and Sunny described.”

“So we’re back where we started. Who would kill for a ring? Was it worth a couple of mil? If it was, I could see killing.”

“Oh, shut up, Smith. If Dilla cleaned out Lenny’s safe deposit box, she was killed for
revenge
. I bet Dilla thought by giving Phil a job, she could make up for what she had done. On the other hand, when the police drew up the profile of Dilla’s murderer, they said it was a young man with no strong male role model, which is why Smitty—”

A tear rolled down Smith’s cheek. “But sweetie, isn’t Phil Terrace a young man? Does he have a father? It’s so unfair.”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, the police are not always right. I met that Fran Burke. That old man should be sent to the glue factory.”

“Fran controls the ice now. If that ring belonged to Celia Kaufer, both Fran and Edna would have recognized it immediately. Maybe Dilla thought enough time had passed so that she could wear it.”

“Then she was a fool.”

“Fran hated Mort for how he was treating Phil. His eyes aren’t so good. He could have mistaken Sam for Mort in the men’s smoker. His cane is a blunt, cylindrical object.”

“Yes,” Smith said, excitement in her voice. “And he’d have nothing to lose.”

“What makes you say that?”

Smith clasped her hands together under her chin. “Walter Greenow told me this is Fran’s last show. He’s dying of liver cancer.”

Wetzon outlined her lips with the lip pencil, then filled them in with a brush. Her hand trembled. Openings always made her nervous.

Almost two weeks had passed.
Hotshot: The Musical
had come in from Boston and played a week of totally sold-out previews. Ticket scalpers were lined up before the box office opened each morning. People were behaving as if it were the Second Coming.

Alex Witchel’s wonderful interview with Carlos had appeared in last Sunday’s
Times
, and Mort would be on the cover of
Time
next week.

Smitty had been indicted for homicide—Susan’s—by a grand jury and was out on bail, but Arthur still felt the case would never go to trial. No hard evidence had come to light, only Susan’s note in her date book and Smitty’s thumbprint on the service door. And still no murder weapon.

“So what do you think, Izz?” Oh, dear, she was going to have to watch herself. Izz lay on Wetzon’s bed watching Oprah, seemingly mesmerized by the timbre of Oprah’s voice.

Alton phoned every day. Wetzon wavered each time she heard his voice. His steadying presence in her life was beginning to fade. Stepping into her standby basic black wool and spandex jersey, she pulled it up over her hips and stuck her arms in the sleeves. Yet she had to admit she liked the adventure of living alone again, the stir of anticipation about the new and unexpected.

Opening night curtain was six-fifteen. Early, so the critics could write their reviews and deliver them on the eleven o’clock news, as well as meet deadlines on the few daily newspapers left. She remembered the days when there were seven.

She put a coat of clear polish over her pink nails and fluttering her fingers, lay down on her bed waiting for the polish to dry. It was a good excuse for Izz to shimmy over and crawl up on Wetzon’s belly to stare at her. “Don’t look at me, watch Oprah.” Oprah’s subject was the joy of May/December marriages. Pointing the remote at the screen, Wetzon zapped her. Enough of that.

The phone rang. She jostled Izz aside and answered it, careful to protect her polish.

“Leslie? This is Sonya.”

Wetzon had rescheduled her Thursday session with Sonya because of the opening. “Hi, Sonya. You didn’t forget that the opening is tonight, did you?”

“No. I wanted to tell you why I asked you to hold April first for me. It’s ... well, Eddie and I are getting married.”

Sonya and Eddie.... “You mean O’Melvany?” Wetzon felt a rush of ... what? Envy?

“Yes. Are you surprised?”

“I shouldn’t be. I knew that you guys were seeing each other, but getting married ...”

“We both want it to be official, and we’d like you to stand up for us because you introduced us.”

“Me? Gosh, Sonya, I’d be honored.”

“We’re going to meet at the Municipal Building at One Centre Street. One o’clock on April first. Can you do it?”

“Yes, of course. Sonya, best wishes and all that.”

“Thank you, Leslie. You can’t imagine how happy I am.”

Try me,
Wetzon thought.
Just try me.

When her downstairs buzzer sounded, she draped her black cashmere shawl around her and left, much to Izz’s distress.

In her lobby a nervous panther named Carlos was pacing. “Come on, come on, Birdie, we’ll be late.”

“Where’s Arthur?”

“In the cab. Let’s go.” He hustled her into the cab next to Arthur.

“What’s with your friend?” she asked, and they both laughed. Carlos ignored them.

The theatre marquee was a rainbow of brilliant hues. Barricades had been set up to keep oglers and photographers back. Celebrities always requested tickets for openings of shows that were going to be hits so that their photographs would be in the next morning papers. There would be plenty of stars out tonight. A mounted policeman sat high on his observation tower talking to a man in an ill-fitting tux and a yarmulke. Bernstein. All dressed up for the opening. Why was he here? Wetzon tried to get his attention but the crowd was thickening.

“Let’s get a drink,” Arthur suggested, and they headed over to Sardi’s.

Spring had arrived three days earlier and not a minute too soon, either. She had not had her terrifying dream since the night she’d left Alton. Don’t look for solutions, Sonya had said, and she was trying not to.

They had a quick drink at the bar and then came back to the theatre and took their seats. Around them sat Cher with a dark-haired young man, Mary Tyler Moore, Mike Nichols, and Diane Sawyer. Julie Andrews was two rows away. Sunny Browning had whispered to Wetzon in the lobby that she had placed Wetzon and Arthur next to the MacBeths, otherwise known as Frank Rich and his wife, Alex Witchel. Wetzon was aware from experience that you took care what you said on opening night because you never knew who was sitting next to you or in front of you. Or, for that matter, behind you.

It was dressed-to-kill night. Smith wore a black off-one-shoulder long narrow sheath with a slit to the thigh, and a huge lemony taffeta shawl. She clung exquisitely to Joel Kidde’s arm. Behind her was Smitty, looking the handsome boy-man in black tie.

Wetzon’s eyes traveled up to the mez, dreading the vision of Dilla’s broken body. Just before the houselights began to dim, she caught another glimpse of Bernstein. Then the house went dark and JoJo appeared in black tie and tails. He waited for the applause to die down, then he raised his baton. The overture began.

The show sailed from number to number with at least three showstoppers in the first act. The fancy-dressed audience, which included investors and cast family members among the celebrities, seemed to be having a grand time.

During intermission, Wetzon ran into a radiant Poppy Hornberg in the ladies’ room, her face pink and blooming, probably because of her recent stay in Florida. “Isn’t it wonderful?” Poppy gushed. She seemed less acerbic, even mellow, and it was flattering.

“You look lovely, Poppy. A hit musical in the family agrees with you.”

“Oh, it’s not that—some part of it maybe—but I’m—” Poppy lowered her voice, but excitement raised it again. “I’m pregnant.”

Good grief, Wetzon thought. Sonya was getting married. Poppy Hornberg was pregnant. What was happening? “I’m so happy for you and Mort. When?”

“We’ve been trying for years, Leslie. Can you imagine? The end of November.”

Back in her seat as the second act curtain went up, Wetzon was distracted. She watched from a far planet until the finale, “Merrily, the M.16,” brought the entire audience, except the critics, to their feet. The MacBeths left the theatre, and the ovations continued through the bows. Then JoJo reprised “M.16” as the audience exited.