Nothing Bundt Trouble

by Ellie Alexander

  “Absolutely,” Lance concurred. “Don’t throw away any of it. We have extensive archives at OSF that I’ve tapped into on numerous occasions for donor campaigns, events, you name it.”

  “Right?” Amanda’s face relaxed. “It’s not just that. It’s everything. She’s micromanaging every detail from directing the cast to what we’re serving for dinner. Jed and I have a different vision. We’re doing away with volunteers for dinner service and hiring professional waitstaff. It’s a bit of an investment, but we feel like it’s going to help streamline the flow and, quite frankly, it’s been a pain to get volunteers to show up. Inevitably, we’re calling around like crazy for people an hour before the show to get extra help when someone bails on a volunteer shift.”

  The cast had begun to gather on the stage again. Amanda looked to Lance. “Jed and I were talking last night. Do we ask her to leave? I mean, be honest. You’ve been here. You’ve been helping, and you have to have seen how overbearing she is. She technically is supposed to be offering her ‘input’ for another six months, but I’m not sure I can handle another quarter with her on my shoulder. Right now she’s up in the booth giving my lighting director her ‘notes.’ I don’t have any notes for him. He’s a pro.”

  Lance patted her shoulder. “Cut the cord. You don’t need her. Too many directors on the stage is the same as too many cooks in the kitchen, am I right, Juliet?”

  “Yeah. That sounds rough.” I balanced the box in one arm. It had been a while since I’d been to the dinner theater. My eyes swept over the theater. It was much the same as the Professor’s description with shiny dark wood tables in ascending rows from the stage. Small lamps with red velvet shades adorned each table, casting a romantic glow. The massive crystal chandelier that the Professor had told me about was even more impressive in person. It looked as if it belonged in Kensington Palace, not here in Ashland.

  Amanda forced a smile. “I’m not excited about the thought of having that conversation with Shelly, but I appreciate your input. Thanks for letting me vent.”

  “Anytime.” Lance kissed her on the cheek in parting. “Let’s do lunch soon. Ta-ta.”

  I hugged Amanda tight. “I’m so excited that you’re home. Seriously, please stop by Torte soon so we can catch up.”

  “It’s a date.” Amanda flashed one more smile before leaving.

  We headed upstairs to the lighting booth. As Amanda had said, Shelly was reviewing pages of notes with the lighting director, who appeared to be half listening. When we interrupted, he seized the opportunity and fled. The lighting booth was a maze of buttons, wires, computer monitors, and dozens of directional lights with colored screens.

  “Ah, Lance, how unusual to see you slumming here in the land of dinner theater when you’re not even needed.” She might have been trying to be funny, but there was a definite edge to her tone.

  “Kiss, kiss.” Lance blew her air kisses.

  Shelly waved to the office door behind us. “Would you like to go somewhere a bit brighter?” She pushed past Lance and opened the door to the office. I was surprised by how spacious the upstairs area was with its curved windows and high ceilings.

  “Do you know Juliet Capshaw?” Lance asked.

  “Grab chairs from any of the desks.” Shelly sat down at a desk covered with scripts, receipts, and headshots. “I don’t know that we’ve formally been introduced, but I knew your father well and your mother and I go way back.”

  “I’m sure I’ve seen you at the bakeshop.” I set the box from Pat on the floor.

  “Yes, I’m sure you have.” She gave me a dismissive nod. “Did you need something?” she asked Lance.

  I got the impression that she and Lance weren’t exactly friends.

  “Indeed.” Lance reached into his attaché case and launched into an over-the-top ego boost, explaining his plight to draw in younger audiences and asking for Shelly’s input on potential shows.

  She studied the survey as he spoke. “I see you have three of our inaugural shows.”

  “Exactly. We want to pay homage to the entire Rogue Valley next season.”

  “It’s a little late for that, don’t you think?” Shelly glared at him. “You’ve turned your nose up at the Cabaret and now that there are new young owners, you’re ready to team up?”

  Lance pretended to be hurt. “Turned up my nose? Dearest Shelly, how can you say such a thing when we’ve collaborated on so many projects?”

  Was he actually upset?

  Shelly pushed a stack of headshots aside. “I guess you’re right. I’m frustrated. That’s all. Amanda and Jed have no concept of what the Cabaret’s long-standing reputation has meant to the community. Seeing them dig through photos from the early days has me feeling like I don’t want to let this place go. They want to come in and modernize everything. If you could only imagine how much of myself I poured into this theater over the years.”

  But hadn’t Amanda just said that Shelly was the one who suggested shredding the historical documents? I was confused.

  “I was just reminiscing with a friend who helped get Torte off the ground about how different things were in the eighties,” I said to Shelly, careful not to mention the Professor. “It sounds like every business in Ashland in those days had to scrape together loose change and put in a lot of sweat-equity hours.”

  “I guess. We were lucky. We had plenty of cash thanks to some high-end donors, so we were in much better shape than some of the other folks in town.” She reached for a pen and began scribbling answers on Lance’s fake form.

  Lance stood and wandered around the office. “I understand how difficult it must be to see the theater shifting. It’s the nature of the biz, things change. We can’t stay stagnant. We have to evolve. We have to reflect the world around us. That’s our mission as artists and global citizens.”

  Shelly finished the survey and handed it to me. “I’m done. I’ve been in this business too long. And I’ve definitely been in the Rogue Valley for way too long. I need a change of scenery. I’m going to follow in Stewart’s footsteps and go find a sunny condo in Palm Springs.”

  Again, she wasn’t making sense. Hadn’t she just said she didn’t want to let go?

  Lance came back to the desk. “What is Stewart up to these days?”

  She shrugged. “I can’t keep track. He spends most of the year in Mexico, but last I heard he had bought a horse ranch outside of Jacksonville. I think he’s renovating the property to have it ready by summer. He had some grand plan about turning it into an Airbnb for horse lovers. Don’t ask me why he’d want to take on a project like that when he has a perfectly wonderful beachfront hacienda.”

  “I’ll have to give him a call. It would be nice to get his insight too.”

  If Shelly was suspicious of our motives, she didn’t give any indication.

  “How’s the transition going?” Lance asked.

  I knew it was a loaded question. Shelly unleashed. It was clear that neither she nor Amanda were happy about the process. I didn’t know if that had any connection with our case. The fact that Shelly wanted to destroy the old donor files, playbills, and menus raised a red flag for sure. I read her responses to Lance’s survey while she lamented about Amanda and Jed’s management style. I couldn’t be sure until we could place the notes and the survey side by side to examine the handwriting, but at first glance Shelly’s writing looked completely different from the old threatening letters. Drat.

  Amanda came into the office a while later, which finally put an end to Shelly’s rant. Lance and I stood to take our leave. I picked up the box from Pat.

  “What’s that?” Shelly asked.

  “Memorabilia from Rumors. Pat Jr. shared it with me,” I replied. “I’m going on an all-eighties flashback with some of this stuff.”

  “That’s right,” Amanda replied, picking up a stack of playbills on her desk. “Thanks for reminding me. I’m going to make copies of everything from the early days here the Cabaret. I’ll drop it by the bakeshop later—t
hat way I can see how Torte has changed and we can set a date for a wine night or something fun soon.”

  Shelly glared at us. Was she upset about Amanda sharing the Cabaret’s history with me? Why? Or maybe I was reading more into it than I should. It could be that Shelly was simply upset about being pushed out of the theater she had worked so hard to build.

  Lance and I left.

  Two suspects in and two strikes against us. I had thought we might have been able to figure out who killed Chuck, but I was quickly realizing that there was a reason the Professor’s case had gone cold.

  Chapter Twenty

  “Now what?” Lance sounded as disappointed as me once we were back outside.

  “I don’t know.” I handed him the survey. “Look at the handwriting. We can compare it with the old notes later, but I don’t think it’s a match. Shelly’s cursive scroll has all these little loops.”

  Lance agreed. “Yes, but don’t be too discouraged. We still have three more suspects and this is only our first line of investigation. It’s highly likely that the killer intentionally disguised their writing.”

  “Yeah but if that ends up being true for the next three people, where is that going to leave us?”

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. I vote that we take a side trip to Jacksonville. We can track down Chef Ronald and see about finding Stewart. I’ll call my admin on the way and have him put in a call to Stewart to let him know we’re coming.”

  “But we don’t even know where his ranch is.”

  “I have people for that, darling.” Lance rolled his eyes.

  We were both pensive on the drive to Jacksonville. I watched as we passed acres and acres of organic pear orchards. Vineyards with symmetrical rows of grapes and Italian-inspired villas stretched on both sides of the horizon. The historic mining town was a short drive from Ashland. Downtown Jacksonville consisted of one main street that ran for six blocks with brick buildings on either side. It was very walkable with cute shops, restaurants, and the vintage inn in the center of town. The gold rush had created gold fever in the Rogue Valley, and Jacksonville was at the heart of it.

  Lance parked on the street where the original hitching posts still lined the sidewalk. We headed for the inn, a two-story brick building with bright red awnings. The eight-room inn had graced numerous travel magazines and won awards for its amenities, including full-service breakfast, jetted tubs, and original touches like exposed brick walls.

  “What’s our story going to be with Ronald?” I asked, as Lance opened the door for me.

  “Leave it to me.”

  Famous last words, I thought. We approached the reception desk. Lance played his OSF card. Instead of creating an elaborate lie, he stuck with the truth. Explaining that he was hoping to get some feedback from Ronald, due to his previous connection with the Cabaret. The receptionist would have granted us access anyway, but Lance buttered her up with free tickets.

  Since the hotel restaurant was between lunch and dinner service, the receptionist showed us to a table in the dining room to wait for Ronald. The dining room was elegant, with touches of Jacksonville’s history in the form of an exposed brick wall and black-and-white photos of mining and railroad crews at work in the early 1900s.

  Ronald emerged from the kitchen wearing a black chef’s coat and a surly scowl. I had imagined a young, edgy chef in my mind, but kept forgetting that decades had passed. Ronald looked to be in his early sixties with graying hair and fading tattoos.

  “What can I do for ya?” He pulled out a chair and turned it backward.

  Lance introduced himself, then me. “I believe you knew Juliet’s father, back in the day. William Capshaw.”

  “Will, yeah, he was a good guy. I heard he had cancer. Bad luck.”

  I swallowed hard.

  “You here about Will?” His voice was raspy with a thick rattily quality. I guessed it was from decades of smoking.

  Lance took a slightly different approach with Ronald. “In a way, yes, but before we get into that, can we buy you a drink?”

  “No. I’ve been clean for ten years. I don’t touch anything other than water.”

  “Congratulations.” Lance kicked me under the table. “We’re in the process of putting together a tribute to the Cabaret. Did you hear that it’s under new ownership?”

  Ronald shook his head. “I haven’t paid much attention since I left in the late nineties to come work here.”

  “Well, the new owners are a dynamic young duo and I’ve made it my mission to welcome them to Ashland and roll out the red carpet.”

  “Okay. What does this have to do with me?” He took a vape pen from his coat pocket and flipped it in his fingers.

  Lance reached into his leather bag and removed a piece of paper that looked different than the survey. “We were hoping to pick your brain, as they say, and have you write down any memories of that inaugural season that come to mind. I’m having our art department create beautiful memory boards that we’ll have on display at the re-opening of the Cabaret.”

  I had to give credit to Lance. He had obviously thought through his approach.

  Ronald pushed back the sleeve of his chef’s coat to reveal a watch and more tattoos. “How long is this gonna take? I’ve got to prep for dinner.”

  “No time at all. We’ll walk you through our questions in a flash,” Lance assured him, handing him a pen.

  “I can give ya five minutes.”

  “That’s all we need.” Lance shot him a dazzling smile and proceeded to ask Ronald about his early days at the Cabaret.

  “You want me to write this?” He sounded skeptical.

  “Just the highlights. A sentence or two is fine.”

  Ronald shrugged and scribbled his first few answers on the OSF letterhead Lance had provided.

  After three relatively tame questions about the menu and how service worked, Lance went in for the kill. “We’ve learned there was a murder opening night. Do you remember anything about that?”

  “Hard to forget. Chuck Faraday. The guy was a major pain in my ass. Can’t say I was upset about it. Don’t think they ever said it was a murder. Where’d you hear that?” His demeanor changed. He clutched has vape pen and repeatedly tapped it on the tabletop.

  Lance waved a hand in the air as if to prove that the topic was light and airy. “Oh, I don’t remember, do you Juliet? It must have come up in our other interviews.”

  Ronald scooted his chair away from the table. “Who else have you been talking to?”

  Was it my imagination or did he seem agitated? Not to mention wrong. Between what I had learned from the Professor and reading my dad’s journals, it was clear that the public knew that Chuck had been intentionally killed.

  “Everyone and anyone we can track down who was involved with that first season. Our goal is to flesh out the story behind the stage, if you know what I mean.”

  Ronald glared at him. “What does Chuck have to do with it?”

  “Nothing. Or, perhaps everything. His tragic death could become paramount to how we tell the story. It’s too soon to know. At this point we’re gathering as much information as we can and then we’ll begin to see how the narrative unfolds.”

  “You’ve got the wrong guy. Chuck and I weren’t friends.” The way he rhythmically tapped the vape pen against the table remained me of a drummer trying to hold the beat.

  I tried a different approach. “From articles I’ve found about the accident it sounded like Chuck was under the influence that night. Do you know if he had a drug problem?”

  Ronald stared at the vape pen. “We all did. It was the eighties. The decade of excess. Pot and coke were popular around here. Chuck was part of that scene.”

  “Do you think he could have been dealing? Maybe that got him killed.”

  “Chuck?” Ronald dropped the vape pen. “No. A dealer? No. That would have been way beneath him. Chuck’s ego was huge. I doubt he ever paid for his drugs. He expected everyone to give him things and worship
the ground he walked on because he starred in shows at the Festival and a few low-budget commercials. The guy didn’t have enough work ethic to deal.”

  “You mentioned that you don’t use anymore?”

  “Nope. I gave up those days cold turkey when I got the job here. I had to turn my life around. It was a crazy scene in Ashland back then. There was a lot of drug use for sure. It was the scene. College kids, a young town, easy access, you know how it goes. Half the staff wouldn’t show up for work, so I would go out onto the plaza and yell, ‘Hey, who wants to work tonight?’ And, then I’d hire help on the spot.”

  “And your relationship with Chuck was?” Lance interjected.

  “Nothing. We weren’t friends. I already told you that.” He picked up his vape pen. “I gotta get back to the kitchen.” Ronald stood and flipped the chair back to its original spot. “I wouldn’t spend a lot of time on Chuck. No one liked the guy. I doubt that’s the story you want to tell.”

  He returned to the kitchen. I reached for the paper with his notes. “Lance, look at this. Look at the handwriting.”

  I thrust the letterhead at Lance.

  “Hmm. It’s a potential match, isn’t it?”

  We both stared at the page. The writing was similar to what I remembered from the notes in my dad’s files. I wasn’t sure if it was an exact match, but it was the closest we’d come yet.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Lance carefully tucked the letterhead in his bag. I glanced at the door to the kitchen. A small round window was cut out of the top of the door. Chef Ronald stood on the other side staring us down as if we were criminals about to take off with the dining room flatware. A wave of fear washed over me.