The Apostrophe Thief (19 page)

“That was just it—it was brand new! I hadn't had it even a week!”

“Then that's probably why it's gone. A virtually new computer … that would be easy to dispose of. What about the printer? You didn't report one stolen.”

“I used my old printer. The one I keep here.”

“Ah. Is there a chance something was on the notebook disk that was important to someone?”

“What? I told you, I just used the thing for correspondence.”

A young woman whose face Marian was sure she'd seen on magazine covers drifted in from the back of the apartment, smiled mechanically at no one in particular, picked up a purse from a table, and drifted back out again. Tobin ignored her.

With an effort, Marian did the same. Back to business: “Did you back up the disk, or make hard copies to file?”

“No, no, it's all gone.” Tobin took a long swallow of coffee, trying to work himself out of his cantankerous mood. “I'm sorry, Sergeant, there just wasn't anything there of value to anyone other than me.”

“Tell me what kind of correspondence.”

“Letters to my agent and money manager, mostly. One letter to my mother. And I answered a few fan letters.”

“That's it?”

“That's it.”

“The letters to your agent and your money manager—what were they about?”

Tobin stood up and stretched, then walked over to look at himself in a wall mirror … of which there were three in the room, Marian noticed. “My agent's trying to get me TV guest roles that can be shot in four days,” he said, “so I won't have to miss the Wednesday matinee. I sent him two or three letters about shows I did and did not want to appear in. If I told him over the phone, he'd just forget.”

“And your money manager?”

“Two letters—I remember now, I wrote him two letters. They were both just cover letters, accompanying some receipts.”

Nothing there, evidently. Not expecting anything, Marian asked, “Did you know Ernie Nordstrom?”

Tobin turned away from his mirror and frowned. “You know, I may have met him once. I don't believe I ever heard his last name, but I'm sure the first name was Ernie.”

“What did he look like?”

“Short and stout. He had a respiratory problem, as I recall.”

“That sounds like Nordstrom,” Marian said. “When did you meet him?”

“Oh, eight or nine years ago. I was still struggling and taking any job I could get. At the time I was understudying two roles in
Lockhart's Lie
, and this Ernie offered me a hundred dollars to get him a bullwhip that was used in the play. I needed money, but not so badly that I'd stoop to stealing stage props for some leech I didn't even know. So I told him to get lost. But about a week later the whip did disappear, so he got to somebody.”

He told the story so guilelessly that Marian believed him, not forgetting the man was an actor; but if Tobin had himself taken the whip, he'd have denied knowing Nordstrom. “Did you ever see him again after that?”

“Never did.” Tobin sat back down, crossing his legs with a studied elegance. “In fact, I didn't even think of him when our stuff was taken from the Broadhurst. It was only when I read the name ‘Ernie Nordstrom' in the paper that I began wondering if it was the same man. By the way, when do I get the rest of my things back?”

Marian explained that that was up to the DA's office and took out a card. She scribbled the number for Midtown South on it and handed it to Tobin. “If you remember anything else on your computer disk, please call me. It doesn't matter what it is.”

He shrugged but took the card. “Why was this Ernie killed, Sergeant? Does it have anything to do with our play?”

“I'm afraid it does, Mr. Tobin. You'll be seeing me again.”

“Good god, am I a suspect?”

“Everybody's a suspect, and nobody is.” Her rote answer. “No, I meant I'd be at the Broadhurst tonight, that's all.”

He didn't look especially reassured. But he said, “Have you seen the play?”

“Twice.”

“Ah. What did you think?”

Marian's earlier experience with Xandria Priest warned her he wasn't the least bit interested in her opinion of the
play
. So she gave him the praise he craved and left him in a much better frame of mind than she'd found him. He saw her to the door, checking his profile in one of the mirrors as he did.

Good timing; her stomach was beginning to make noises.

Marian was in the mood for something green and crunchy, so she stopped at a small eatery that had a fairly decent salad bar. As she chewed on a cucumber slice, she took out her notebook and flipped through the pages. The fact that Mitchell Tobin had once met Ernie Nordstrom didn't mean much, she felt. Considering the line of work Nordstrom had been in, it was not unreasonable that he'd once crossed paths with someone from the
Apostrophe Thief
bunch. And unless Tobin was lying, there was nothing on his computer disk that anyone wanted.

Xandria Priest's costume was just that, a costume; nothing special about it. But the Bernhardt jacket—that had turned out to be more valuable than she'd realized. People killed for a lot less than $22,000. Marian still had to see Frieda Armstrong about her missing fake fur coat; and she supposed she ought to check with Ian Cavanaugh about that shaving mug he'd made such a fuss over. But at this point it looked as if four of the missing items had been taken only to confuse the issue, to prevent the police's attention from being focused on the fifth. That's the way the original burglary at the Broadhurst had been set up, a lot of thefts to obscure one particular one.

Marian finished her salad and idly pushed a black olive around her plate. Captain Murtaugh was sending out a list and description of the five missing items to all the precinct houses, but the chances of anything coming of that were slight. Maybe she'd been too quick to dismiss Mitchell Tobin's brief contact with Ernie Nordstrom, because maybe it wasn't that brief. Perhaps Tobin was protecting himself by admitting he'd known the dead man, in case someone saw him recently with Nordstrom. But if that were so, he wouldn't have claimed his one and only meeting with the dead man had taken place eight or nine years earlier. Marian sighed; no point in trying to figure it out until after she'd spoken to Armstrong and Cavanaugh. She popped the olive into her mouth and left.

Marian was looking forward to her next interview. Frieda Armstrong was something of an institution; she'd been acting longer than Marian had been alive, on the stage and in the movies and on television. Not everyone knew her name, but few people in the country would fail to recognize her face. Armstrong had never been a leading lady; she'd made a career out of playing mothers, or at least motherly women. Her very first role, at age eighteen, had been a thirtyish mother, and she'd been playing mothers or mother-types ever since. Sometimes she was a loving aunt, or a best friend, or a helpful next-door neighbor; Marian remembered one movie set during the Depression in which she'd founded an orphanage. Her role in
The Apostrophe Thief
was a slight departure; still a mother (Kelly and Xandria's), nevertheless she somehow wasn't quite
nice
. A mother that made the audience just a trifle uncomfortable—by design. It was a smart touch, thanks to Abigail James; and smart casting … thanks to John Reddick?

Frieda Armstrong lived in an older apartment building on the West Side that looked like an Art Deco set for a Marx Brothers movie. The door to her apartment was opened by a maid or housekeeper, who made Marian wait in the hallway while she took Marian's card in to her employer. But she returned quickly, and Marian was ushered into a formal sitting room.

The woman she'd come to see was sitting at a writing table by a window, the afternoon sun throwing her partially into silhouette and creating an attractive picture suitable for framing. Armstrong finished what she was writing and then looked up. “Well?” she said sharply. “Have you come to tell me my fur coat has been found? My very
expensive
fur coat.” There was no mistaking the sarcasm in her voice.

“Just the opposite, I'm afraid,” Marian said. “I came to tell you it has
not
been found.”

The other woman made a noise of exasperation. “I don't know why I'm surprised. Or even why I care. It was a cheap coat … still, it was better than the one they replaced it with. Oh, do sit down—don't
hover
over me like that! I suppose now you want to ask me questions.”

Marian sat down, amused. She knew better than to confuse actors with the roles they played, but evidently all those years of kindhearted motherness had begun to wear on Frieda Armstrong. “Ms Armstrong, was there anything special about that coat, anything that might make it valuable to someone else?”

A look of such scorn appeared on her face that Marian had to fight down an urge to apologize. “
That
coat?” the matronly actor exclaimed in ringing tones. “Surely you are jesting …”—she glanced at the card Marian had sent in—“Sergeant Larch.
That
coat belongs in a Goodwill Industries used-clothing store! I wouldn't be surprised if that's where it came from. I've never known Gene Ramsay to squeeze a dollar the way he's done with this play. For something as pivotal to the plot as the fur coat is—but then, I don't suppose you've bothered to see the play.”

“I was there opening night,” Marian said, trying to sound humble.

“Were you indeed? Well, then, you know how important it is that I wear a good fur coat. The whole plot turns on it!”

Well, not the whole plot
, Marian thought. In one scene young Xandria got on her mother's case about wearing fur; Kelly eventually backed her sister, although suspicious of Xandria's sudden interest in animal rights. The mother seemed willing to alienate both her daughters rather than give up her fur coat; it was one of several minor issues deliberately left unresolved in the play, to show the family looking for things to squabble about rather than grapple with the big problems that faced them. “Yes, I can see why real fur would be better,” Marian said diplomatically.

“But Gene Ramsay absolutely refuses to get me real fur,” Frieda Armstrong went on, “because, he says, from the stage the fakes
look
real.” She sniffed. “As if anyone who's ever worn fur would be fooled by those conspicuous imitations!” She put her fingertips to her throat and posed for a moment, and then said, “I see
The Apostrophe Thief
as a female
King Lear
. ‘How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child!' Here's this woman who's given her entire life to two selfish daughters, who turn on her when she finally has a bit of luxury to indulge herself in! However, I can't say I care much for the ending of Abby's play … it's a bit equivocal, don't you think?”

Marian made a noncommittal sound; the play's ending had seemed quite unequivocal to her. The mother played only a small role in that ending, though—that's what grated on Frieda Armstrong. “Did anyone try to steal the fake fur earlier? Or buy it from you?”

A scornful laugh. “Most burglars wouldn't take the trouble. As to buying it—no, of course not. Who would want it? Other than that contemptible little man who robbed us and then got himself murdered.”

Uh-huh
. “How did you know he was little?”

“He was a thief, wasn't he? He was little.”

“Did you ever meet Ernie Nordstrom?”

“Certainly not!”

“Perhaps you knew him as Eddie Norris.”

“Sergeant, I didn't know him as
anything
! There are hundreds just like that man, swarming around every play, looking for things they can pick up to keep for themselves or to sell. And in cinema and television, they number in the thousands! These people are leeches—faceless, nameless leeches. They get their identities from us. They're not true fans, you know. True fans show respect. But these
collectors
respect nothing except their own collections. Take their collections away from them and they'd wither up and blow away, I'm sure of it.”

Marian was thinking Holland would probably agree with her. But that was the second time that day Marian had heard Ernie Nordstrom called a leech, and she wondered what had prompted Frieda Armstrong's tirade. “You've been ripped off before, haven't you?” she ventured.

Instantly a change came over the woman; gone was the imperious denouncer of collectors, and in her place emerged a sweet, long-suffering woman of sturdy backbone and cheerful demeanor. Mom had arrived. “All my life,” she said in a gentle voice. “As far back as I can remember, people have been taking from me. But I try not to let it dishearten me. I don't let myself feel like a victim. That's all one can do, isn't it? Keep on keeping on? It's a burden one simply must bear.”

The scene would have benefited from music swelling in the background, but it still played pretty well the way it was. “You're very brave,” Marian said solemnly.

“I try to be. To set an example for the younger ones in the cast, you know. They don't yet understand it's better to be stolen from than to have to steal.”

Marian felt sure that was a line from a movie. On the whole, she'd been enjoying Frieda Armstrong's performance, but she wasn't getting any answers here; reluctantly Marian got up to go. “Thank you for your time, Ms Armstrong—”

“Oh, you aren't leaving, are you, dear?” Mom said. “Wouldn't you like a nice cup of tea before you go? Or are you a coffee drinker? Perhaps cocoa is more to your taste.”

“Nothing, thank you,” Marian said with difficulty. “I just finished lunch.”

“Well, then, some other time.”

“That would be nice. Goodbye.”

Marian tried to hold in her laugh until she got down to the street; but in the elevator it exploded from her in a rush, frightening an elderly man cradling a small dog close to his chest. “Sorry,” she apologized, “but a visit to my mother always affects me like that.”