The Hamlet Trap (21 page)

TWENTY-FOUR

Ro hung up the phone
and turned off the tape player and put it in his pocket. He took from his pocket the small container of sleeping pills Jack Warnecke had given him and stared at it for a minute. Then he opened the bag he had been carrying and withdrew a quart bottle of orange juice. It was half full. He opened it and dumped in all the pills and shook the bottle. He put it on the round table, went to the bar and brought out a glass and put that on the table also. He poured Scotch into a second glass but did not touch it again. He looked at his watch, glanced at the table, and left the office, went to the back door and waited. A few seconds later there was a tap; he opened the door and admitted Sunshine. “Hello, Ro,” she said in her soft voice.

“Come to the office. We have to talk.” He turned his back on her and she followed him through the dimly lighted hall to the office. They entered and he closed the door.

“How much do you want?” he demanded, standing with his back to the door, watching her move about the room.

“I don't know what you mean,” she said.

He went to the table and picked up the glass with Scotch. “I brought juice for you. Help yourself. Sunshine, what exactly do you want now?”

“But I already told you, Ro, you know? Just to be produced, to have Gray be my director, maybe have Amanda in my next play.” She poured juice into the glass and lifted it. “We already agreed to all that, you know?” She put the glass to her lips.

“I wouldn't, if I were you,” Charlie said then, rising from behind the chair where he had been crouching. Sunshine screamed and dropped the glass. Ro looked stunned. “Come on out, Gus,” Charlie said. Gus Chisolm emerged from the closet, and the door to the hall opened, admitting Constance. “The show's over, folks,” Charlie said.

Sunshine was staring in horror at the orange-juice bottle. “He was going to kill me? Like the others?”

“I don't know,” Charlie said. “What did you intend, Ro?”

Roman Cavanaugh had not yet moved or made a sound.

“I made a case against you almost immediately,” Charlie said. “You left the auditorium the night Ellis was killed. You walked over here and let yourself in and he appeared and said he was taking Ginnie away. You hit him over the head and grabbed an umbrella and hightailed it back to the school. But Laura saw you. No one had missed you and you were covered for the rest of the time. Easy. It explained why the sketches weren't on the table where they should have been. Ellis walked over and handed them to you. Back at the school, you stashed the umbrella in a locker and some kid found it and claimed it. Easy.”

Ro was shaking his head in disbelief.

“Laura's death was just as easy,” Charlie continued. No one had moved. Constance stood near the door, Gus at the end of the desk, Sunshine by the round table. A tableau, well staged, Charlie thought distantly. “She was blackmailing you, not for money, but to get rid of Gray so he would go home again with her. At the restaurant you agreed to meet at your place as soon as you could leave. You got home and hit her with one of those good solid blunt objects, wrapped her in a sheet or something, and stashed her body in the bedroom until you could make your phone calls, have your meeting, and get rid of your guests. Then you used Jack Warnecke's car to dispose of her body in the river. Again, easy. Problem is I could have done the same kind of thing with almost everyone. And I kept coming up against the same reason not to. Motive. Why?”

“He was afraid Ginnie would leave with her lover, you know? He'd kill to keep Ginnie. I read his cards, you know?”

Charlie shook his head. “He knew Ginnie was obsessed with theater every bit as much as he was. All you have to do is look at William and Shannon to see what happens with a union between one who's obsessed and one who isn't. Or, from what I hear, Gray and Laura. I think he just didn't want Ginnie to suffer too much. Is that right, Ro? In fact, you're apart much of the time as it is, aren't you? One or the other gone for months at a time.”

Ro nodded.

“But if he put something in the orange juice and wanted to kill me tonight, it must mean that you were right about him, how he did the other ones. I understand that he doesn't like me, you know? His aura's dark green, you know? I promised I wouldn't read Ginnie's cards or bug her or scare her or anything. There's no reason to try to poison me.” She sounded plaintive and hurt, near tears. “I wouldn't have drunk enough to die anyway. I can taste pollution. I would have tasted it and stopped drinking.”

Charlie nodded agreement. “What would you have done then, Ro? You made sure Ginnie and Gray were covered. You called Sunshine to meet you here; you must have had something on your mind. He would have done something, Sunshine,” he said to her. “You see, he didn't have a motive for Ellis or Laura. He didn't have to kill to keep Ginnie, but he thought he had to kill to protect her.”

“From me?” Sunshine asked softly. “I promised not to read for her or hurt her or anything.”

“From you,” Charlie said. His voice was as soft and easy as hers, as if they were discussing a new herbal brew that was only mildly interesting to him. “You were blackmailing him, Sunshine; Laura wasn't, you see.” He looked at Ro again and said kindly, “It's really over, Ro. Today, tomorrow, next week. It'll all be out in the open. You can't hide history.”

Finally Ro spoke. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

“You do. Did you plan to hang all the killings on her? Make it appear she had gone by way of an overdose, out of remorse, maybe? A tidy way to get rid of the entire problem all at once, get on with the good life? Was that your plan?”

Ro shook his head silently.

“When I smelled blackmail, I thought she must have linked you to the killings, but it just wouldn't work that way. Oh, you'd kill to keep what you loved, but Ginnie wasn't at risk, at least not because of Ellis.” Charlie shook his head, went on. “Imagine Sunshine holed up with Shannon for a few days,” he mused. “She would have ferreted out every secret Shannon had by the end of day one. I kept thinking how strange it was that Sunshine really had been afraid of you, by all reports, and then she wasn't afraid anymore. The day Laura died you bawled her out in public and she ran, terrified apparently. But after that she came and went freely, and you glowered, but she stayed. No way to account for that change except by looking for blackmail, and if not for murder, then what? It must have been something she picked up from Shannon, and Shannon's been a recluse for years, so it must have been something from the past. The only way I can see that you're vulnerable is through Ginnie. It didn't have to be hard facts; hints, innuendos, rumors, suggestions, that would have been enough. And Shannon's been hurting to tell someone about the past. All Sunshine needed to do was mention that she had read the cards for Ginnie, that she had seen a terrible catastrophic fire. That would have been plenty.”

Ro made a hoarse sound deep in his throat and Charlie went on more briskly. “You made a deal. She could roam the theater if she stayed away from Ginnie, and you would read her plays, produce one now and then. But deals get undone, don't they, Ro? How far can you really trust a blackmailer? She'd tell one way or another, wring you dry, keep you on tenterhooks. You had a taste of it when Laura said she was rewriting the play again. Sunshine told her deliberately, lied about it, knowing Laura would tell you; she was needling you, waiting for you to come to her, knowing this time she would be able to silence you with a word. You had to protect Ginnie or she might go crazy again. Isn't that what you were most afraid of? That she would become insane, catatonic even, maybe not recover? Weren't you willing to pay any price Sunshine demanded to prevent that?”

Ro stared at him dumbly and finally nodded. “But that's all past history. It has nothing to do with what's happening now, with Ellis, or Laura. It doesn't have to be brought into this situation.”

Charlie drew in a deep breath. “I hope not. She was blackmailing you, wasn't she?”

“Yes. Just as you said. About something that's very ancient history. Not about now.”

Charlie looked at Sunshine and shook his head. “Like I said before, Sunshine, the show's over.”

She looked away from him to Constance, then swiftly to Gus Chisolm, who had not made a sound; he was leaning against the desk with his arms folded. “They're trying to frame me or something,” she said in a frightened voice. “You heard him. Charlie made him admit something that's a lie. You're a policeman, aren't you? How can they do this?”

“Has she ever been in your office before tonight, Ro?” Charlie asked.

“Never!”

“I thought not. And tonight she's just been in this section, hasn't she? I was behind the chair the whole time, you know.”

Ro nodded. He moistened his lips. “What are you getting at? She's been in the center of the room all this time.”

“Just wanted to establish that. So if we find her prints in the bathroom, or the closet, or on any of the objects on the shelves, they had to have been put there sometime in the past. Right?”

“I've been in here lots of times!” Sunshine cried. “In the bathroom and everywhere. What are you trying to do?”

“You weren't afraid to come in, right into the lion's den?” Charlie murmured. He regarded her. “How can you account for your fingerprints in the promptbook, Sunshine?”

“Gray showed me,” she said in a near whisper.

“Uh-uh. He didn't. And even if he had shown you the original, the book he brought here was a Xerox copy. Fingerprints were on that copy.”

Ro made a deep sobbing sound. Charlie turned to him with a bleak look. “You were dealing with a blackmailer who just happened to be a killer, Ro, and a killer who didn't give a damn if Ginnie got pegged for it. Didn't you even wonder why she wasn't afraid to come here tonight, to the scene of the first murder?”

“No,” Sunshine whispered. “It's a lie. I never hurt anyone, you know? I never told them bad things from the cards, or gave them bad things to eat or drink. I don't hurt people. I didn't even know Peter Ellis. And Laura was my friend. I gave her rose-hip tea for her cold.”

“You knew that Gray was bringing the promptbook over here that night and you had to sec it for yourself, didn't you? You knew that if he hadn't fixed it sufficiently, Ro would have tossed you out the door. You didn't have anything on him yet and you were desperate. Walking into the theater changed your life. Your genius suddenly had an outlet, didn't it? First-prize money, and a production, people who would finally give you the recognition you deserved. You couldn't bear to lose it after coming so close. You used William's key, didn't you? Slipped it from his pocket, slipped it back the next morning when you saw him. He didn't need it to get in. By the time he got here the place was humming, doors unlocked. He never even missed it. You came over here after he dropped you off. You went to Ro's office to read the promptbook, and Ellis walked in on you. You didn't have to know him; he knew you. And you knew he'd tell he had found you here. You didn't have a motive to kill Ellis. You would have killed anyone who walked in that door that night. It just happened to be him. Everything would be taken away from you again, wouldn't it? You knew damn well that Ro wouldn't tolerate having you in the theater at night, in his office. You hit Ellis and ran out the back door, and Laura saw you. A rainy night, strange town, she didn't even know what she had seen until days later when she saw Ginnie and Gray leave the theater, and suddenly she remembered the other figure she had seen that night. You. Did she actually tell you? Was she that stupid?”

Sunshine was staring wide-eyed at him.

He barely paused for an answer, continued. “It doesn't make much difference now. Poor Laura. A or B. Tell Ro, go to the police with what she had seen, what? Offer to trade with Ro? Save Ginnie in exchange for Gray? The point is that she couldn't do any of those things. She wasn't a blackmailer. And she couldn't bear to go to the police yet, to throw away what she saw as a ticket out of here. You lied about her, told us she had come to a decision the last afternoon that you spent with her. She couldn't decide. A or B. Did she ask for advice? That would have been pitiful, a little ordinary mind like hers trying to manipulate a genius like you. Ro saw her as sick that night, but you knew better. You could read her without even trying, the way you can read all the others. You could see she was ready to break. During the afternoon when you were together, did she try to pump you, hint that she knew? It never even occurred to her, did it, that she might be in danger? All she could think of was getting out of here, taking Gray with her. Obsessed. She couldn't see your pain and humiliation at the public display Ro had put on at your expense, treating you like a bum, a nobody. You told her you were rewriting again, knowing it would get back to Ro, planning the scene when he screamed at you the next time, how you'd slip the knife into him ever so gently, give it a twist, a turn, how you would tame him. Her obsession blinded her to anyone else's pain, blinded her to her danger. They're all obsessed, aren't they? Like children to be read and manipulated and used. Somehow you got her to take a walk with you. Another stroke of genius. You couldn't go to your rooming house, or to her house, or to a bar, or anyplace, really. Just out in the open, in the good clean air. Onto the first foot bridge where you hit her and pushed her into the river. Then you had all the time in the world to go up the river farther and pick out a spot to mess up, make it look like she had gone in there. Make it look like someone had driven her there. That was a very good stroke; it really fooled them all.”

He stopped, as if waiting for her to comment. She continued to stare, almost unblinking in her fixity of gaze.

“You remember when we met? You called me the Emperor, but you were wrong, weren't you?”