The Opening Night Murders

by James Scott Byrnside

  Edward meekly clasped his hands together in his lap. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know him well, but he seemed like a good man.”

  “The best.” Rowan sniffled and cleared his throat. “Then Timothy returned to Chicago, where, racked by guilt, he soothed himself in the pleasures of morphine. He is found with the earrings and his razor conveniently by his side. That is the plot I am meant to believe. What about you, Edward? Do you believe that plot?”

  Edward’s voice faltered. “I guess so. Timothy is a much more plausible killer than Maura.”

  “But that is preposterous.”

  “Why?”

  “Oh, let me count the ways. Timothy and Lisa went to Adair a week before the play. She ended the relationship on Sunday. I am to believe that he planned her murder from Monday to Thursday, a meager four days! The woman at Eisenberg’s workshop informed me Timothy ordered the earrings during the third week of March. Are you telling me he had them made just in case Lisa would rebuff him later? And we don’t really need evidence, do we? This was a work of genius. That would be quite the generous adjective for Timothy Brown. Besides, the man who plans a perfect murder kills Allison with his own razor? No. How did he know Williams was on his way to Adair?”

  “Wouldn’t he start taking morphine because he felt guilty and wanted to escape?”

  “Oh, guilt was the reason he turned to drugs, but not because of these murders. When it was finally revealed in the newspaper that pyrotol had been employed to kill those innocent people at the Federal Building, Timothy realized how Lisa had used him and he had, however unwittingly, been involved in the murder of eight innocent people.”

  Edward remembered. “One of them in a goddamned stroller. That’s what he meant at the party when he asked me what one more dead body would matter.”

  “Timothy was sensitive. Most people couldn’t see that, but it was obvious to me. He cried for Lisa. He wanted to protect her whether she loved him or not. The man was so distraught over the threat to Lisa’s life he could barely remember his lines. No, it was not Timothy that killed Lisa or Allison…or Walter. All he did was purchase some earrings—for a friend.”

  Edward’s eyes became glossy. “But it…it wasn’t Maura.”

  Rowan smiled. “There was one other thing I learned at the jewelry shop. Timothy told them for whom the earrings were made. He told them the earrings were a gift for Maura Lewis.”

  “He told them that?”

  “Do you remember when we first met, Edward? It was in the dressing room. I was giving my speech to the cast about the death threat. At one point, I called out Williams’s name. Do you remember what Maura did?”

  An empty, fluttery feeling took over Edward’s stomach. He cried helplessly. “But Maura…”

  Rowan ignored him. “It was a small detail, seemingly unimportant at the time. When I said Williams, she looked at me. I thought she had recognized me. But it was not recognition. There was something automatic in her response. It was as if the girl were responding to her own name.”

  Edward wiped his eyes with his knuckles. “So, her name is Maura Williams? So what?”

  “Today, I saw a very interesting photograph. It was on a flyer for a missing person. One Maureen Williams, a pretty girl with buck teeth and freckles. She’s been missing for a while now.” An inch-long piece of ash hung from his Camel. “Let us try a different plot, one that makes a bit more sense. Just to see if it works. Long ago, a little after Maureen was conceived in fact, a man named Clarence Williams went to Devil’s Lake with a woman.”

  “What happened at Devil’s Lake?”

  “Excellent question, Edward. No one really knows. Clarence was found in the lake, drowned. Murder was suspected, and Lisa Pluviam was the primary suspect. Alas, the police could not tie her to the crime. Most people who knew Lisa assumed she had done it, though. You see, Clarence was romantically linked with Lisa, and he had impregnated her sister, Jenny.” Rowan flicked the miniature Ferris wheel. “This Clarence Williams was a bit of a cad, had many girlfriends. He even married one woman, impregnated her too. According to the information on the flyer, Maureen’s mother now lives in Burlington. It’s about twenty minutes from Adair. Last night, I made some calls to various theaters in western Illinois, trying to see if I could link Maureen to the area. There are small playhouses peppered throughout that part of the state. A few of them knew a Maura Lewis. Not only does their Maura Lewis match the description of our Maura Lewis, but their version seems to have the same difficulties with certain aspects of the English language. Maureen knew the stories about the woman who had murdered her father. I’m sure she read about Lisa’s well-received performance in a play from last year. First, she had to be cast. Maureen Williams was an experienced performer, and she knew exactly what Jenny was looking for—a petulant, childish brat, perhaps one that likes to play peek-a-boo with babies and tell lots of moronic jokes. Once that was accomplished, she developed her plan. Doctor Brown was well-known in the area. He had even been interviewed about his medical efforts in some of the local newspapers.”

  “How did Maura know that the…”

  “Curare.”

  “How did Maura know the curare would kick in when Lisa was on the balcony?”

  “Oh, she didn’t. No, no, that was pure happenstance. Maureen had no idea the exact moment Lisa would be paralyzed. She probably had rapturous daydreams about Lisa collapsing at the dining table, seeing everything but not being able to move. Maureen could have whispered rotten nothings in her ear while pretending to be concerned for her.” He lit another disgusting cigarette. “Such evil makes the spine shiver. Then, during the party, Maureen followed Allison, didn’t she?”

  Edward put his head in his hands.

  “I’ll take that as a yes. Now, just for a moment, put yourself in Allison’s position. She was alone, in the dark, terrified, with Maureen waving the straight razor she stole from Allison’s bathroom. Allison backed down the wing, trapping herself in the dressing room, the three earrings in her hand. Tell me, what did she do? What would a foolish, desperate girl do in that situation?”

  Edward turned white. He whispered, “She swallowed them.”

  “Ring-a-ding-ding. Why else would the corpse be rummaged through? She must have told Maureen she swallowed them, and the police would find them if Maureen killed her. You and I both know that Maureen is a determined girl. She simply had to retrieve them.”

  Edward shuddered.

  “Which brings us to Walter. Maureen was here when I talked with him on the telephone, wasn’t she?”

  “I’m sorry I lied to you. I knew she was running from something, but I couldn’t imagine this.”

  “Where was she, Edward?”

  “Upstairs.”

  “Listening to our conversation on the telephone?”

  He sobbed.

  “She went to Adair in a last-ditch attempt to cover her tracks. After Maureen murdered Walter, she discovered the address of Timothy’s sister’s home in his pocket. 1422 Montrose. Upon returning to Chicago, she found Timothy, overdosed on morphine. She planted the razor and the earrings next to him. It was her best chance to get away with it, a noble effort, considering the corner she had painted herself in.” The storm eased. The rain vanished. Only the dripping gutter could be heard. “The only remaining piece of the puzzle is your Aunt Christine.”

  Edward’s eyes darted upward. “What does she have to do with any of this?”

  “We both know Maureen injected her with curare. That’s why she went into what the doctors thought was a coma.”

  “Why would Maura do that?”

  “Another superb question. Obviously, she knew you were delivering it to the hospital. She only had to charm her way into your car. Suspicion would naturally be cast on you. Hell, you might even be enough of a jerk to take the blame for her. All Maureen would have to do is stick around and let you pet her, right? As my friend Walter would say, it was like taking candy from the proverbial baby.” He snorted a laugh but then quickly
composed himself. “Why inject your aunt? It would seem to be an unnecessary attempt at murder. After all, Lisa Pluviam was the target. Why take the risk? I found out the answer in Baraboo.”

  “What’s Baraboo?”

  . “It is a town near Devil’s Lake. There was a witness who saw the woman accompanying Clarence all those years ago. I traveled to Baraboo with Jenny and Lisa’s senior yearbook in the hope that she would be able to identify Clarence’s murderer.”

  “Was she?”

  He smiled. “Oh, yes.”

  “Who murdered him?”

  Rowan caught a glimpse of his dull eyes in the mirror. “The witness pointed at the teacher. The goddamn teacher. I had not noticed the teacher on the page. Christine Filius.”

  They both felt a tremendous, nervous tension flow through their flesh. Edward ground his teeth.

  “It was quite a shock.” Rowan chuckled. “I felt like Allison must have felt when she brought Lisa the earrings in the crossover.”

  Edward’s face became pained. He looked away in disgust. “You don’t expect me to believe this garbage. Christine?”

  “I believe your aunt may have inadvertently revealed it to Maureen.”

  “But… but how did she inject her?”

  “I imagine Maureen had alternate plans in case the earrings did not work—perhaps she carried a syringe with her. I am sure there were plenty at David Brouthers’s. We will find out when she is caught. Christine warned us though. She said Maureen tried to kill her.”

  “Christine gets faces and names mixed up sometimes.”

  “Maureen killed Lisa Pluviam because she stole her father away from her mother, and she tried to kill Christine because Christine was the one who murdered Clarence Williams.”

  Edward doddered his head, appearing shell-shocked. “I’m such a fool.”

  “No, Edward. I am the fool. I knew it was Maura. I always thought so. The signs pointed to her all along.”

  “What will happen to Christine?”

  “I don’t know. Her age and health might be considered a factor, but one has to pay for one’s crimes. Don’t you agree Edward?”

  Edward nodded.

  “I tell you, out of everything that happened, the biggest shock I received was seeing Maureen’s flyer. I knew her name was Williams, but I didn’t have proof. Imagine me finding the proof on the wall of my favorite bar. I was even more shocked when I saw her date of birth.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because Maureen was born in 1919. The girl is only sixteen years old. She couldn’t have been Clarence Williams’s daughter. That blew my theory of Maureen being the killer out of the water. All of it. Everything I just told you falls apart with that one tiny fact.” Rowan chuckled again. “I should have been able to pick up on it. Hauling ashes is very popular with teenagers these days. No one over twenty seems to know what it means. My bartender’s young nephew knows it though. The phrase is common teenage slang.” Rowan shook his head. “Such a shame. I had my heart set on Maureen as the killer. It was a clever theory, don’t you think?”

  Edward became a still-life portrait, motionless. “You said her name was Williams.”

  “As my friend Walter told me, Williams is a very popular name. The only name more common in the United States is Washington. She just happened to have the name. Maureen is a runaway teenager from Iowa. Her missing person’s flyer has been up in various parts of Chicago for about a month. That’s why she wanted nothing to do with the police. The girl would do anything to avoid being captured and returned to her mother. Imagine the spanking she would get. I spoke with her mother before I came here today. The woman is desperate for her little girl to come home. Her husband died in a steel mill accident before Maureen was born. Maureen is all she has left in the world.”

  Edward suddenly appeared calm, his tense shoulders relaxing back into the sofa and the tears ceasing. For the first time since Rowan’s arrival, he smiled.

  “I did some theater in high school too, Edward. I was not nearly as good as you. The crying and forgetting the name of the curare again and again—that was good stuff, quite authentic. Everything that comes out of your mouth sounds authentic.” Rowan pulled out the twenty-two.

  Edward nodded. “Acting is amazing. It teaches you a lot about yourself. You find out what you’re really capable of.”

  Rowan flexed his jaw from side to side until it cracked. “Before Walter was murdered, he sent me a message. Even after death, he was trying to help me. He recommended that I read the playbill. You see, I hadn’t paid much attention to the play. My focus was elsewhere. When I read the playbill today, the names of the characters really stuck out. The names are important. Take Allison’s character. Her name was Stella. That was the name on the playbill. Stella. Do you remember the balcony scene? Let me see if I can jog your memory. You held up a rose.” Rowan held up the gun like a flower, cradling it. “This is for Agatha. You said Agatha, not Stella. I think Agatha is a special name for you. Agatha Filius was your mother’s name. Walter informed me of that as well. I should have made that connection earlier, but I am getting old, Edward. I’m not half the detective I used to be.” Rowan’s hand shook as it squeezed back onto the handle.

  Edward grinned so wide, both rows of teeth showed. “I didn’t even mean to do that. It just slipped out.”

  “Out of all the wrong assumptions I made, two of them proved to be particularly boneheaded. The first was the assumption that Lisa’s murder was revenge for Clarence Williams. It was not. Her death was revenge for Agatha Filius. The second was that Christine’s poisoning was a murder attempt. Once again I was horribly wrong. Now, before I wipe that fucking smile off your face, let us try a different plot, one that makes absolute perfect sense. Please, tell me if I get anything wrong.” He cocked the gun. “Clarence Williams impregnated Agatha Filius. He probably offered to pay for an abortion, but she refused. Clarence left her, and she went mad, eventually dying at the loony bin. Agatha’s sister, Christine, murdered him. But you…you Edward were not satisfied. You wanted revenge on the woman who stole Clarence away and drove your mother to madness. You had to kill Lisa Pluviam. Maureen stole the morphine, but you stole the curare. You knew you would be delivering it that day. The post was easy enough, you make deliveries from Glenview, and you know the people that work at the needle plant. You asked Timothy to have the earrings made. He was good friends with the people who work at Eisenberg’s. You told him they were to be a present for Maura, and that is exactly what Timothy told them. Of course, you had to test the earrings to make sure the poisoning would work—the whole idea is so outlandish. So you did. You tested them on Christine. You knew you would be at Garfield hospital, and you knew they had an iron lung on the premises that would save her life. To cover up the murder, you butchered Allison Miller. Then you murdered my only friend in the world and parked his body on Main Street in a little town near Iowa. Finally, you went to kill Timothy Brown, but he had already done your work for you. The last step was planting the earrings and the razor next to his dead body. Now that sounds just about right, doesn’t it, Ed?”

  Edward took a slow, heavy, relaxed breath. “Oh, drat. It comes down to luck, Mr. Manory. When it’s good, everything falls into place, but when it’s bad…sheesh. I spent a long time dreaming of killing Lisa. When she came back to Chicago, it was like a gift. It’s hard to describe. You see, I’d never left home. Never made anything of my life. I suddenly had a purpose. It was a godsend, really. She was the one I blamed…the one I still blame.” He cleared his throat. “My good luck continued when I got cast in the play. I couldn’t believe it; I had no experience, but Jenny liked me.”

  “And the plan?”

  “I was down in Glenview when I learned about curare. The plant manager said that in one month, I was going to be delivering something exciting—the next step in modern medicine. That’s when it came to me. It’s a crazy idea, I mean, you’ve gotta be a little crazy to think of something like that, right? After every rehearsal, Lis
a had to wipe blood off her ears and I thought, why not? My hat’s off to you. You’re right about everything. I knew a guy who worked at the needle plant. I told him I wanted to make needle earrings as an art project, and he pressed two posts for me, even helped me make the little screw housing to put into the glass. He’s really nice. Tim knew the jewelers in Eisenberg’s. I asked him to make a pair for Maura—identical to Lisa’s but using my posts. Testing them on Christine was the scariest thing I’ve ever done in my life, especially when we ran into that protest. I thought she was done for, but we got to the hospital just in time. Gosh darn commies; they ruin everything. After the test on Christine, I knew it would work. It was the perfect murder. I mean really, it was the perfect murder. No one would suspect a thing.”

  “Not quite. The shipment to the hospital came up short.”

  “Oh, come on. No one would have checked,” Edward frowned with indignation. “Curare is undetectable. How would anyone know what had killed her? And I had a plan for the hospital. I told my supervisor it must have been a mistake, bad paperwork. Of course it was hard for them to buy that excuse when three bottles of morphine were missing too. They must think me a fiend.” Edward shook his head. “Oh, Maura.”

  “Why did you let her go with you to the hospital?”

  “Couldn’t say no. When women have ignored you all your life, it feels like true love when one finally pays attention. Besides, she wouldn’t know what I’d done. I figured it might be good to have a witness say I didn’t do anything. I was even at the reception desk when it happened. No, Maura wasn’t a problem. What tripped me up was the hubbub about the note. That gosh darn note. My plan was ruined. I couldn’t believe someone else wanted to kill her on the very same night. And the truly horrible thing was, everyone would know that her death wasn’t from natural causes. The note said she would be murdered on opening night. I had already switched the earrings and Lisa never left the dressing room—the cop was there and Walter and you…Gee-whiz, talk about bad luck. I should have waited, but I was so excited that I switched them right when I got there in the morning before I learned about the death threat. I had to carry through with it. There was no alternative.” Edward giggled. “You know the funny part? When we got past scene two, I thought the curare wasn’t working. Christine had gone under a lot quicker. So I dipped Lisa—like when you’re dancing. I thought it would make the curare roll into her lobe more. Isn’t that amusing? I got a little lucky because she fell off the balcony. At least there was a rational explanation for her death. But I knew you wouldn’t accept that. You had to know it was murder. I smashed the one earring, but the bad luck just kept on coming. The other one stayed on. I couldn’t get to it. What was even worse was when I checked the drawer for the real earrings, they were gone. I didn’t know who had them.”