Show Time (23 page)

“P
enny,” Walter whined, “Move the blocks and tape deck over there.” He pointed his finger in the direction of a handful of cast members, servant types, hanging out in a corner of the stage. They were lounging on the floor, texting, and chatting quietly. “And you lot, dress the stage.” He waved his hand ceremoniously. The actors stared at him dumbly: they still were not down with his lingo. But at least he was back at work and the cast was on stage, slogging through text and staging. But I wasn't certain that it was enough to have
Romeo and Juliet
ready in three weeks.

Penny announced an extended break so that Chrystal could do some costume fitting. She handed out the male actors' basic wardrobe: tights, white flowing shirts—which had made their debuts at Jerome's funeral—and codpieces. Within minutes, Mercutio, Benvolio, and Tybalt were busy strutting with exaggerated emphasis on their groins. Chrystal was on her hands and knees yanking a pair of tights up the legs of an obese Lord Montague. She had gotten as far as his knees and had braced herself against Penny for leverage. Lola was all Elizabethan: red velvet and satin and exposed cleavage. A much more handsome version of Abby's costume. Elliot appeared from a dressing room, princely in purple and gold.

“It's difficult to see anyone else in Jerome's place,” I said to Lola.

“On show nights, we did crossword puzzles together in the green room when I wasn't on stage.”

“When he wasn't out with Elliot?” I said. “How is Walter getting along with Elliot?” I asked.

“Oh, you know Walter. He huffs and puffs. But frankly, I think he's glad Elliot is around. Someone to share the burden.”

“And the glory, if all goes well.”

Lola crossed her fingers.

Penny and Chrystal congratulated themselves on reaching Lord Montague's waist with the tights, and rehearsal resumed with Walter prancing around, demonstrating period dance to Mercutio and Benvolio.

I coordinated added costume fittings with Chrystal and handed off a rehearsal schedule for the next two weeks to Penny, who scowled.

“Walter will have to approve it,” she said.

Approve this
, I thought, and went next door to the Windjammer to check on things. I holed up in the back booth with my laptop to find some specific information. I was curious what a note from Lincoln to his son Robert, written shortly after he signed the Emancipation Proclamation, was worth. I wondered.
Would
the sale of a letter dated 1863 from one of America's most famous presidents bring half a million dollars or was it worth more than that at auction? Either way, it was worth enough to make someone murder for it.

I stayed on the Internet until closing time, digging into sites for information on rare documents and their financial value. I had a list of the most sought-after materials and sure enough, anything with a first-degree connection to Lincoln was near the top of the list. Previous letters by him had gone for amounts that ranged from a quarter to half a million dollars. And then I found the motherlode: in 2008, an 1864 letter from Lincoln responding to a petition asking him to free all of the slave children in the country fetched over three million dollars at Sotheby's auction house. I closed my laptop. If Mary's find had been authenticated and a buyer confirmed, she and Jerome would have raked in a fortune.

By eleven-thirty, Benny looked stressed out and Henry was actively pouting—a customer suggested he add a touch more paprika to his spicy chicken breasts. I surveyed the dining room as Benny wrapped up behind the bar and Henry switched off the lights. I would be glad when
Romeo and Juliet
opened and I could go back to devoting my time to managerial instead of theatrical concerns. Although, the truth was that I liked hanging out in the theater and, apparently, I was doing a bang-up job of keeping things somewhat organized.

I locked up and met Lola outside the restaurant. The rehearsal over and her meeting with Walter and Elliot concluded, I had agreed to drive her home and fill her in on the investigation. Lola and I hopped in my Metro.

“Whew. I am glad this night is over,” Lola said as she clicked her seat belt. “We've stumbled through four acts and only one to go.”

“Fingers crossed.”

“If we make it to tech rehearsal, it will be a miracle.”

I pulled out onto Main Street.

“So tell me what's going on,” Lola said excitedly.

And I did. From Mary showing up in my driveway with the document to our conversation with Bill to my discussion about the diamond ring.

“She and Jerome would have gotten rich off that letter,” she said.

“Maybe.”

“No wonder he was murdered,” she said soberly. “And we still don't know who killed him.”

“True, but I'm beginning to have an idea.”

I was about to launch into a theory when a black vehicle at the corner of Main and Anderson entered my peripheral vision. It pulled away from the curb, made a left turn onto Main and drove by the front of Georgette's Bakery. I counted to five and then swung my Metro in a wide arc through the intersection.

“Dodie, what are you doing?” Lola grabbed the dashboard. “U-turns are illegal, and I live in the other direction.”

“Didn't you see that car?”

“What car?”

“The black SUV.”

“
The
black SUV?”

“Hang on,” I said.

“I'll call 911.” Lola stuck one hand in her bag and pulled out her cell. “Nuts. It's dead! What about your cell?”

I pressed the accelerator to the floor. “Forget about calling. Get out a piece of paper.”

“What for?”

“You're going to write down the license plate number.”

Lola tore through her bag while I tore down Main, closing the gap between us and the SUV.

We passed the Windjammer and the ELT, and were crossing Amber when the black hulk did a quick turn through a yellow light and headed down a side street, picking up speed. I followed.

“That was a red light,” Lola yelled as my sturdy little car began to tremble. It wasn't used to speeds above sixty-five.

“I have to stay with him.”

I was closing in on the SUV, but I hadn't counted on the side street being a dead end. The SUV stopped our cat-and-mouse game, suddenly, in the middle of the
cul-de-sac
at the end of the block. He waited just long enough for me to commit myself to another U-turn before he accelerated, flying past us.

“Get the plate number,” I screamed.

“I can't see it!” Lola rolled down her window and stuck her head out. I edged closer to the SUV, and when it hit the brakes, I slowed down, too. When it sped up, so did I. We went on like this for half a mile before it was forced to halt at a red light ahead.

“The license plate is orange,” Lola said.

“That's not New Jersey. It's out of state.”

“I think it's three letters followed by four numbers.”

“Hah! I think that's New York,” I yelled.

The light changed, the SUV shot forward a few feet, then braked unexpectedly, leaving me in the middle of the intersection with a car barreling down on my right. The driver hit the brakes as I swerved to my left and straddled the white line in the middle of the road.

“Oh!” Lola squealed.

The SUV was toying with me. I was beginning to take it personally.

“Can you read it?”

“T . . . B . . . U . . .”

“Write it down.”

Lola bent over to make a notation just as the SUV crossed the town limits and zoomed onto the entrance to the highway. It must have been going ninety because I couldn't keep up. In seconds it was out of sight. I steered my Metro to the side of the road and put it in park. My heart was banging erratically in my chest, and my hands were damp on the steering wheel.

“Dodie, I'm sorry I missed the last three numbers.”

“We have the plate color, probable state, and three letters. Bill should be able to do something with a partial number.”

Lola's eyes were shining. “I hope so.”

After delivering Lola to her doorstep in one piece, I drove twenty miles an hour through town to my place. I collapsed on my bed, but my eyes were wide open. Sleep was going to be a challenge.

* * *

At seven
AM
, I dressed and headed for Coffee Heaven. I decided to drink caffeine until Bill got to the station. Probably closer to eight. I had the partial plate and a plan of action. What more could he want? I was getting an image of his dimple, laser blue eyes, and turned-up mouth as he listened to my report, grateful for a job well done. I scribbled on a scrap of paper:
Jerome, Mary, Lincoln.

“Refill, Dodie?” Jocelyn asked, coffeepot in hand.

“Thanks.”

“You're here early.”

“Couldn't sleep.”

“This murder keeping you up?”

“A little,” I said and sipped from the fresh cup.

“It's all anybody talks about in here now.” She paused, hand on hip. “I saw this TV show last week about criminals and their motivations. This detective from New York was saying that the obvious suspect in an investigation was most often the guilty party. Do you think that's true?”

“I have no idea.” But it made sense. Who knew about the Lincoln letter? As far as I knew only Jerome and Mary, and now Bill, Lola, and me. But who had the most to gain from its theft? Jerome was dead; Mary had turned it over to Bill, who I assumed would keep the document safe. Lola and I certainly had no designs on it....

I remembered a philosophy class in college where the professor had spent an entire session clarifying a principle he referred to as Occam's razor. Basically it stated that among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected. Jocelyn might be right. And that meant just one thing.

I glanced at my watch. Bill should be at work by now. I dropped some bills on the table and waved good-bye to Jocelyn, who was now filling cups at the counter.

Edna was at dispatch with her nose buried in the
Romeo and Juliet
script. She looked up as I entered and struck a pose, one hand flying into the air to gesticulate, the other hanging on to the play for dear life.

“Edna!” Neither one of us saw Bill enter the hallway.

Edna, startled, dropped her script onto her container of coffee, which teetered before she could catch it and splashed liquid on her headset. “Chief?” she said as she swiped Kleenex over the microphone.

“Is that play all anybody can think about these days?” he asked grumpily. “Get Ralph and if he's at Coffee Heaven, tell him I said to get his tail over to the Shop N Go. One of the Banger sisters swears someone stole her purse and she's been calling my private line. How did she get my private line, anyhow?”

Edna shrugged. “10-4, Chief.”

He turned toward me. “Dodie, you're up early.”

“Do you have a minute?”

Ralph's voice shot out of the speaker, whose volume level was at ten. “Edna, don't tell the chief I called in, but I have to stop by the bakery and pick up a cake for Ricky's birthday.”

Ricky was Ralph's five-year-old.

“Uh, Ralph . . .” Edna shifted her gaze upward to Bill's face, which was quickly becoming a light shade of crimson.

Ralph chuckled. “Oh yeah, and I found this toy fire truck with a fireman who looks just like the chief. You know, face all scrunchy and stuff.”

“Ralph?” Bill said.

There was silence except for Ralph's audible gulp.

“Is that you, Chief?”

“Get over to Shop N Go. Edna will fill you in.”

“Copy that,” he said meekly.

“And Edna, lower the volume on that speaker,” Bill said. “Dodie, we can talk in my office.”

I followed him down the hall, practically running to keep up.

Bill crossed behind his desk, staring out his office window into an alleyway where a delivery truck was dropping off cartons for Betty's Boutique next door.

“Bad day?” I asked tentatively. It was much too early to have everything crumbling around you.

“The mayor's on my case about the murder. Says it being unsolved isn't good for business. If it drags out until summer, the tourist trade will be affected.”

Mayor Bennett was Bull's brother, and anything Bill did was not going to measure up to his older bro. If the mayor had his way, Bull would be policing Etonville from the grave. And the tourist trade? Etonville was named after Thomas Eton, one of George Washington's army officers during the American Revolution. Sometime in the early nineteenth century, Eton's farm had become a village, then grown to a town. Mr. Eton's farmhouse was renovated into the Eton Bed and Breakfast in 1910—a white clapboard affair with black shutters surrounded by a white picket fence—and placed on the historical register. It remained Etonville's claim to fame, along with an ancient cemetery that dated from 1759. The mayor must have been referring to the odd couple or two who showed up at the Eton B-and-B after getting lost on State Route 53.

“I don't think I'd let Mayor Bennett worry you too much,” I said.

“Well, he's right in one sense. The longer this investigation takes, the colder the trail.”

“But now we have the letter.”

“And no suspect.”

“That's why I'm here,” I said. I laid the slip of paper with the three license tag letters in front of him.