Scarecrow’s Dream (17 page)

“This
is
good. Thanks.”

“Wait. There’s more.”

“Well?” Shane asked.

“According to Corey, Mrs. Brian Martin has been directing plays in Jersey for small theatres the last fifteen years or so. He emphasized
small
—as in community or high school productions.”

“So she stayed in theatre,” I mused. “Nice. I have no memory of seeing her in her soap when I was alive, but I remember I was impressed—or at least I told Rob and Shane how good she was.”

Addie nodded. “With mother and son being involved in the theatrical community, one of them could have run across something which triggered Crimson’s memory of her brief involvement with
Trapped in the Basement
. It’s speculation and probably pure bunk, but it’s still worth asking Brian Martin Junior.”

I shivered. “I only hope we don’t ask something which could turn him into the next target.”

Chapter Twenty

Shane glided Addie’s car to a stop by the curb of Brian Martin’s house.

“Uh, excuse me, but what, precisely, are we going to say to this guy?” he asked. “‘Oh, hi, there, Brian. Look, chap, we believe there’s more to your mum’s death than the police know, like a bloody evil killer from forty-three years ago who’s not done yet. By the way, do ya have any tea brewed? There’s a very lovely ghost who’s gotten me hooked on chai.’”

“We? Whacha mean we? There is no
we
unless we want to watch the man run screaming off toward the Palisades. So sayeth ghost girl.”

Shane smiled. “A bit of entertainment? After avoiding being shot yesterday I’m ready for something a bit lighter. But, back to the original question, darlin’—what
am
I
, Shane Halloran, singular, going to say? And, do I admit to this guy I’m Shane Halloran or stick with Jordan Matthews?”

“I’m not sure it matters now that our killer knows you’re you. But, whatever you decide, make it fast because someone, presumably Mr. Martin, appears to have spotted our car. Why not stick with Jordan to be on the safe side?” I whispered. “I’ll shut up now so he doesn’t get a nice view of you talking to thin air.”

Brian Martin Junior stood in the entranceway of a remodeled Cape Cod bungalow, about three miles from the George Washington Bridge in Fort Lee, New Jersey.

“May I help you?” he called out.

Shane opened the door to the driver’s side and left it open so I could crawl over and get out. He then waited until he was a bit closer to the house. This wasn’t a topic we wanted the neighbors to overhear as the guys chatted on the front lawn. When he was within normal speaking distance, Shane introduced himself as Jordan Matthews and asked if Mr. Martin would mind if he asked some questions about Crimson Cloverly.

Brian’s right eyebrow raised into his receding hairline. “Jordan Matthews? No offense, but you’re the very image of Shane Halloran. I’ve seen every one of his movies on TV and own more than a few DVDs. Both my kids think
Ebony Dreams
was the coolest cult movie made in the early seventies. So, unless you decided to change your face and opted for some damned fine plastic surgery, my first guess would be the image is the man. Care to tell me the truth?”

Shane dropped all pretenses. “No surgery. You’re very observant. You’re also correct. I am Shane Halloran. I’ve lived under the name Matthews since 1973. I suppose you could consider it my own witness protection program.”

“Interesting. I suppose your charade has something to do with my mother’s death?”

Brian Martin was intelligent and he was blunt. Good. It should be easier for Shane to ask what needed to be asked.

“It does.”

“Well, come in. Coffee? Tea?”

“I’m good. Thanks.”

Brian held the door open for Shane. I managed to sneak in without getting whapped in the face by a screen door.

The staircase just inside the entrance led to an upper level boasting a huge living room. Brian ushered us into a small room I’d have called a parlor, which adjoined a dining area, which in turn bordered the kitchen. The parlor included a working fireplace. A Matisse painting hung on the wall to the right of the hearth. It looked like an original, not a print.

And I’d seen it before in this very room.

March 1973

“Ms. Cloverly, is that an original Matisse?” I asked.

I’d met Crimson Cloverly barely two minutes ago when she’d greeted Rob and me at the door and I was already in awe. She exuded the kind of glamor one associates with the Hollywood stars of the 1950s while still managing to appear down-to-earth and genuinely nice.

She was petite, with long dark auburn-colored hair, gray-blue eyes, and the kind of mouth romance writers tend to label as voluptuous. The playwright side of me associated with
Trapped in the Basement
hoped she’d take the role. The Shane-girlfriend side of me shamefully hoped the film I heard she’d been offered would be shooting in India or China or somewhere halfway around the world where Shane wouldn’t be staring at temptation every night.

She beamed at me. “Nice eye, Ms. Malone. Yes. It’s a Matisse and it’s original. My father found it at some obscure little shop in Paris right after the war. No one seemed to be aware of its value. I had it authenticated because I couldn’t believe a genuine Matisse would be floating around for the price Papa paid for it. It’s real.”

“Well, it goes without saying it’s one of the most emotional works of his I’ve ever seen. And call me Holly.”

“Agreed. To the name and the description of the painting. And, please, call me Crimson. It’s been my nickname since I came to America as a kid. I’m well aware it sounds ridiculous but it works for theatre marquees and soap credits, especially when one tacks Cloverly at the end.” She grinned, and then gestured to a couple of chairs in the small living room. “Sit. Please. Would you or Rob care for some coffee or tea?”

Rob answered for the two of us. “We’re fine. Thanks.”

The three of us sat in silence for a long moment.

Crimson spoke first. “Rob, I’ve read through your draft at least five times. And it’s superb. It’s emotionally intense and it made me cry each time I read it. Now, then, you
do
understand you’re insane? There’s no way I can do this play. For so many reasons.” She turned to me. “Have you read it?”

I shook my head. “Only the first act with the flashbacks to the prison camp.”

Rob looked ill. “Crimson, it needs to be done. People have to know.”

“I agree,” said Crimson. “The good captain needs to be exposed for what he really is.”

“He’s the actual murderer, right?” I asked. “Not the wife?”

Crimson answered for Rob. “He is. He’s also a damned traitor. I met him. I didn’t know what a snake he was then. Also, fortunately he didn’t recognize me. I was there, Holly. In that hospital. It’s where I first met Rob. He wrote the wife’s character as a murderer, which is a good idea. It made the role more interesting, while avoiding anyone associating that character with the real killer.”

Rob interjected. “I haven’t decided. I keep switching from the wife to the captain to the nurse and back again to the wife. The script our mugger got has the captain so I’m thinking about changing it again.”

“We’ll figure it out, Rob,” I told him. “But I do need to know what happened if I’m going to be able to help. ”

Crimson voice was a chilling monotone, “What happened was murder. Four beds down from Rob’s yet his doctor refused to believe him. Dismissed everything he’d said, declaring Rob had been too whacked out on painkillers to distinguish reality from nightmare.”

I eyed Rob with less than joy. “I presume Act Two shows the murder? Did you change anything else from the true story?”

Rob turned pale. “I merged a couple of characters into one, but the facts remain.” He glanced at Crimson, who appeared to be blinking back tears. “Holly, a young soldier was murdered in his sleep by a man he’d discovered had collaborated with the Viet Cong—whether out of cowardice or weakness or greed, I’m not sure. I have to believe this man was afraid the truth would come out so…he smothered a twenty-year-old kid in his sleep.”

I asked, “Crimson? You said you knew about this as well? I mean the murder?”

She grabbed a tissue and dabbed her eyes. “I found out the next day. Rob told me what had happened. The killer chose well. It was the graveyard shift. His death wasn’t discovered until hours later.”

“Who was the soldier?” I asked. “Did you know him before you were in the hospital?”

Rob and Crimson exchanged an odd look. Crimson whispered, “Tell her.”

Rob chewed on his lower lip, then said, “I met him there. We’d been POWs in the same camp but we were in separate—well—let’s say ‘areas’. It wasn’t like we could hang out in an exercise yard. But we got to be friends in the hospital and he told me the captain, whom I call Hemming in the play, had been collaborating with the Viet Cong. He and the commandant of the camp—General Thuy in
Basement
—met more than once, even before Hemming became a so-called prisoner of war.”

“And this boy saw them?”

“Yes. Mike—God, he really was just a kid—anyway, he overheard them. He was on leave in Saigon before any of us were taken prisoner. Some crowded bar most of the GI’s had never heard of, so I guess the general and our killer didn’t notice Mike nursing a beer in a dark corner. Anyway, Mike never told anyone until we met and began to compare notes on our experiences.” Rob’s voice sounded distant. “Mike knew I was a writer. He told me I needed to get the word out, one way or another. It was as if he knew he wouldn’t be able to. He also told me he had proof.”

Crimson stared at the ceiling as tears flowed down her cheeks. I squeezed her hand and asked, “Crimson? Why were you at the hospital? Did you already know Rob?”

She wiped her eyes. “No. We first met when I came to talk to the doctors about Private Mikhail Cherstvennikov, who was murdered the night before I was able to see him.

“Holly, Mike was my brother.”

April 2016

I stared at the Matisse as the flashback subsided, wishing I could tell Shane what I’d just learned without attracting Brian’s attention. Some kind of mild spectral activity that wouldn’t freak him out. Shane needed to know Crimson Cloverly’s brother had been the soldier who’d died in the hospital. He needed to know it was murder, and that more of the play than he’d thought had been based on truth.

The killer must have decided he couldn’t risk exposure. Rob had made major name and plot changes but he obviously believed there was still enough there to denounce him and reveal him as the traitor he was. The only thing that surprised me was that Crimson hadn’t been killed along with everyone else in April of ’73.

Shane and Brian Martin were discussing the Matisse and Brian was telling Shane his grandfather had been a Ukrainian who’d emigrated to the United States before World War II, then joined up with the US to fight overseas. He’d found the Matisse in Paris a few months after the war ended.

Brian’s eyebrow lifted. “My grandfather was a proud soldier, but my mother was very much opposed to war. My uncle Mike died in a veterans’ hospital back in the late sixties, so that probably contributed to her feelings.”

“I’m so sorry,” said Shane. “What happened?”

“All I know is that he was in a POW camp in Vietnam. He was already in pretty bad shape when he was finally released and brought back to the States. Died at the VA not long after he was home.”

Brian continued. “My grandfather was awarded the Bronze Star during the Second World War and my great-grandfather fought in the Crimean War. A family tradition of soldiering.” He smiled. “But you didn’t come here to listen to me babble about my ancestors.”

Shane said, “Funny, but in a way I did.”

“Oh?”

“If we’re…if
I’m
right, this centers around your family history.”

Shane sank down onto the sofa and I stood next to him.

Brian said, “Go on, Mr. Halloran.”

“Please, make it Shane.”

“Brian.”

Shane took a deep breath. “Brian, forty-three years ago, your mother was asked to take a role in a play. It never made it onto the stage. The playwright, Rob Stutzgraft, and my…well, the play’s co-writer, Holly Malone, were both murdered.” His voice broke, but he added, “I disappeared. I knew I was next.”

“But why come to me now? What’s going on?”

“I returned to Manhattan about two weeks ago, not long after your mother died, using the name Jordan Matthews. I never imagined I was still in danger until yesterday, when someone tried to shoot me. Wanted it to look like a mugging gone wrong.” He did not add that he was saved by the ghost of Holly Malone, screaming stage directions at him in concert with a bald eagle.

Brian smiled. “Sounds like a decent movie plot.”

“It does, doesn’t it? We’ll give it a go one day when it’s all sorted out. At any rate, I found a copy of the
Village Voice
with my photo plastered on page one. It had been taken at a protest the previous night in Bryant Park. It identified me as Jordan Matthews but, as several people have pointed out, I’m still pretty easy to recognize.”

“So the theory is this mugger saw the photo and targeted you?”

“Exactly. Which begs the question, why? And the only answer that makes sense is this has something to do with whoever tried to kill me forty-three years ago.”

Brian exhaled. “Whoa. This is interesting, and bizarre, but what does it have to do with my mother?”

“I am so sorry for bringing this up, but are you
certain
Crimson’s accident was an accident?”

“What are you implying? It was deliberate?”

“It’s…possible. I don’t know.”

Brian frowned. “The police came by a week or so after the accident. The…autopsy revealed Mom had peanuts in her system. She was allergic. They surmised she’d had a seizure, gone into shock, and lost control of the car. She was always aware of what she ate and she always carried one of those epi-pens with her just in case. The police told me they found a half-eaten cookie on the passenger seat. There was no epi-pen in her bag. I just thought it had been misplaced. The cookie was chocolate, but they found traces of peanuts in it. She wouldn’t have known…”

I flinched. Shane must have felt the movement because he casually laid his hand over mine without Brian being aware of anything unusual.

“Where was she before this happened?” Shane asked.

“I have no idea. She was meeting someone for tea. We visited and called often, but it’s not like I saw her every day.” Brian stood and crossed to the fireplace, then ran his hand over the frame of the Matisse. “But, Shane, there’s one thing… It didn’t mean much at the time but after hearing what happened to you, it now seems important…”

Shane and I both waited.

“She was all excited because she’d been cleaning out old trunks and cartons and came across a very early draft of an old script written by a friend of hers. She said she’d gotten in touch with the man who’d tried to produce the original play years ago, Derek Fergus. I said it sounded interesting and Derek has always had an excellent reputation. Anyway, they met and were discussing how terrific it would be to finally get it produced if they could find someone to finish the script. The day she died she’d told me she was going to meet with someone who claimed to have a copy of the final script. She wasn’t sure how this person knew she was interested. And I have no idea how he or she found out Mom wanted to try and get it produced.”