The Last Curtain Call

by Juliet Blackwell

  “Wow, she’s really good,” I whispered to Gregory.

  “What? Who’s good?”

  “Isadora, dancing onstage,” I said. “Surely with her talent she could get a real job somewhere, maybe afford a legal apartment. Right?”

  He stared at me, confused. “Isadora? Where?”

  “There, in the spotlight. Onstage . . . ?”

  “I see the spotlight,” said Gregory. “But no one’s onstage. What are you talking about?”

  I felt a creeping sensation, a tingling at the back of my neck. I was enveloped by the strong aroma of popcorn and cigarette smoke, and heard the crinkling of paper as someone unwrapped a candy bar.

  Chapter Five

  A murmur, muted at first, grew louder by the second.

  Gregory had turned as pale as Isadora’s scarves. “What in the hell . . . ?” he growled, and squared up as though ready to fight.

  I saw something move out of the corner of my eye and whirled around.

  The balcony seats were filled with people.

  I reached up to stroke the gold ring at my throat, reminding myself to breathe, to remain connected to this earth, to the here and now. Trying, without effect, to slow the pounding of my heart.

  “Do you see that?” I whispered.

  “I don’t see anything,” said Gregory, his voice strained. “But I hear something. Those squatters must be playing a joke . . . or maybe it’s an art thing? It’s just the acoustics in here. It sounds like it’s all around us. And it smells of cigarettes . . . and popcorn.”

  Interesting. Gregory could hear and smell the spirits, but not see them.

  I could see them. And not just in my peripheral vision, but straight on. I looked around the theater: The women were dressed in outfits that would no doubt have pleased Hildy, though most were not as sparkly. Still, they had the 1920s drop waist, the cloche hats, thigh-length belted sweaters. The men wore suits and ties, their hats resting in their laps.

  The audience was chatting amongst themselves, smoking, eating popcorn, as though waiting for the performance to begin. The problem was . . . their eyes were wide-open but appeared blind and unfocused, making their expressions seem completely void.

  And then, one by one, they fell silent and turned their unsettling blank stares toward Gregory and me.

  Hackles rose on my scalp and the back of my neck.

  “May I show you to your seat?”

  Gregory Thibodeaux screamed.

  I whirled around. An usher, dressed in a cap and jacket, stood right behind me.

  “May I show you to your seat?” The apparition repeated more forcefully, leaning toward me in a menacing stance. When he spoke, the sound was out of sync with his movements, as though he were an image from an early “talkie” film.

  “Shhhhhhh!” said the audience, their blank stares fixed on us.

  “I—” My voice shook. My heart pounded and my palms felt sweaty.

  Okay, Mel, you’re supposed to be the big bad ghost buster. Think of something.

  Taking several deep breaths, my mind raced: What would my ghost-busting mentor, Olivier Galopin, have done?

  I started to formulate a question for the ghostly usher—“Who are you, and why are you still here? How can I help you?”—when I heard the distinctive thud of a body falling.

  Gregory lay, appearing unconscious, on the dirty balcony aisle, a smear of blood over one eye.

  I looked around, frantic. Had Gregory merely fainted? Had he had a heart attack? Had someone been right here, hiding behind those velvet curtains, and struck him? Or had his injury been caused by something . . . otherworldly?

  Trying to keep an eye on the ghostly usher, I squatted down at Gregory’s side. “Gregory? Gregory, can you hear me?”

  No response. I placed my fingers on his neck; his pulse was fast but steady, and he was breathing. I lifted each eyelid to check his pupils with my flashlight. The beam was dim—Time to get some new batteries, I thought vaguely—but sufficient to reveal his pupils were responsive, and equal in size.

  I let out a sigh of relief. For a moment I had feared that Gregory Thibodeaux might have become the body I seemed bound to stumble across on every major new jobsite.

  “What’s going on?” Alyx rushed in. “Mel? Are you all right? What happened to the suit?”

  “I think he fainted,” I said, reaching for my phone. No luck there. Its battery was drained, though I had charged it just this morning.

  “Do you hear the sounds?” said Alyx. “That’s what I was talking about. This place . . .” He looked around, not in fear as much as awe. “It’s amazing.”

  “What do you see?” I asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You said you hear noises, but do you see anything?”

  The ghostly audience around us continued to stare. Most were silent, but a few were smiling, which seemed much, much worse.

  Alyx looked puzzled. “Huh?”

  “Never mind,” I said. “Do you have a phone? We need to call nine-one-one.”

  “Don’t bother. They almost never work in here, especially when the noises start. It drains the battery.”

  I should have known. This was Ghost Busting 101: Those from the spirit world often ride on the coattails of the energy around them, draining things like cell phones and flashlights and electrical outlets and even the heat from the air.

  “Do the noises happen a lot?”

  “Often enough to keep us on our toes.”

  “Could you help me carry Thibodeaux downstairs so we can call for help from the security office? I think he hit his head—he’s bleeding.”

  “I’m down,” said Alyx. “But first . . . wait for it.”

  “Wait for what?”

  I heard the muffled sound of a motor, and then the theater was filled with the strains of an organ playing a Bach cantata.

  “It’s the Mighty Wurlitzer,” Alyx whispered in a reverent tone.

  In front of the stage below us, a trapdoor opened and a mechanism whirred loudly. Slowly, achingly slowly, the Mighty Wurlitzer rose.

  “Who’s playing it?” I asked in a low voice.

  “No one. It plays itself.”

  Did that mean it was like a player piano? Or was Alyx suggesting the organ was being played by unseen forces? No pointing in asking; I might well have my answer in another moment, so I waited with bated breath for the instrument to rise high enough to reveal if someone was playing it, Phantom of the Opera style.

  Through the trapdoor and up to the foot of the stage, inch by inch . . .

  The Mighty Wurlitzer rose.

  Chapter Six

  The good news was there was no masked phantom at the keyboard.

  The bad news was there was a body draped over the back of the instrument.

  A body in gauzy white skirts and long scarves.

  Isadora.

  I could still see her twirling and swaying onstage—dancing like no one was watching—but her body was draped over the Wurlitzer.

  No.

  I closed my eyes for a moment in shock and sadness.

  Jumping up, I pushed past Alyx, raced down the stairs and across the mezzanine, then flew down the rest of the stairs to the lobby and through the double doors into the theater. I felt dizzy with the fear and the running, the crazy pattern of the carpet under my feet.

  The seats in the main theater section were also filled with a ghostly audience waiting for the performance to begin. Their heads swiveled as I ran down the aisle toward the stage, their ghastly, expressionless faces following me.

  Isadora.

  I had been hoping against hope that my eyes had deceived me, or that maybe I had been seeing some kind of ghostly re-creation of some event from a long-ago past. But it wasn’t.

  It was Isadora, lying unmoving on the Mighty Wurlit
zer, her scarves enveloping her like a shroud . . .

  I checked for a heartbeat, but there was no pulse. I felt only her unnatural stillness. As a contractor, I was well versed in first aid and CPR, and had dealt with my share of accidents on the jobsite, but I feared Isadora was beyond help. Her bloodshot eyes were open and slightly bulging, seemingly staring at the ornate ceiling. Just in case, I cast my flashlight beam to see if her pupils reacted, as I had with Gregory, but there was no response. I didn’t see an obvious cause of death—there were no bloody knife wounds or visible bullet holes—but didn’t want to touch her further, afraid to disturb a possible crime scene.

  We had been talking with Isadora not long ago. She was a young, vibrant woman with something to offer this world, a creative community to build.

  I felt the all-too-familiar sense of grief and shock wash over me. I had hardly known the dancer, but that made no difference. It was difficult even to wrap my mind around what this meant, and what it would mean to her family. The imminent agony of her loved ones. It was beyond tragic to think of her being murdered; who could have done such a thing? And why? Or could this have been a natural death? Some underlying medical condition, or drug related, maybe?

  So much for not finding a dead body on the scene of my current construction project. I found bodies so often I had SFPD homicide inspector Annette Crawford’s cell number memorized.

  My gaze shifted to the velvet-draped alcoves and the golden icons with their glowing red eyes. Could a murderer be lurking in the wings even now?

  “Isadora!” Alyx ran up to my side and reached for his friend.

  “Don’t touch her,” I said, holding him back. “We have to call the police.”

  He stared at me, tears in his eyes. “What . . . what happened? What could have happened? Who would have done such a thing? Isadora!”

  “I don’t know, Alyx,” I said as I tried using my cell phone again. No luck. “It’s possible she died of natural causes. But we have to let the police handle this. The less we mess with things, the easier it will be for them to figure out what happened to her.”

  Alyx wobbled, then sank into the nearest theater seat, whose ghostly occupant squirmed for a moment, then disappeared.

  “It’s freaking freezing in here.” Alyx shivered and hiked his shoulders to his ears.

  He was right; our breath was clouding before us, the air frigid.

  “Does that happen often?” I asked.

  “Sometimes. It gets like this when the noises start.”

  “This happens a lot, then? The Might Wurlitzer rises on its own?”

  “Yes, but not with a body on it!” Alyx said, a waspish edge to his voice. He added: “You’re awfully calm.”

  “It’s . . . I’m sorry to say, this isn’t the first time I’ve encountered something like this.”

  “But . . . it’s Isadora,” he said, his eyes filled with tears. “She was . . . she is our friend. Who could have done this?”

  “I was just about to ask you that. Does she have any enemies, do you know? Have you seen anyone suspicious hanging around?” Again my eyes flickered over to the old stage curtain. Was it my imagination, or was it fluttering ever so slightly, as though someone were hiding there, watching us? There were a million places a person could hide in a huge old theater like this.

  Alyx shook his head. “No. It was just us. And lately Isadora’s been so excited, said she’d found something really important with her candy-wrapper project.”

  “Her what?”

  “She found all these old candies.”

  “In the concession stand?”

  “No, they fell through cracks below the seats, I guess, over the years. And she was so excited, said she’d found something that would change things.”

  His voice broke, and he covered his face with his hands, sobbing.

  “I’m so sorry, Alyx. So terribly sorry,” I said. “Right now, though, we have to find a functioning phone and call the police.”

  “Not me.” He straightened suddenly, sniffing loudly. “I’m out of here.”

  “No, Alyx—you have to stay and speak with the police. It’s important.”

  He shook his head vehemently. “No. The police and I do not get along.”

  “Alyx, wait, please—”

  Alyx ran up the aisle and out the double doors to the lobby, his feathered boa trailing behind him.

  The ghostly audience jeered and laughed.

  “Shut the hell up,” I snapped.

  I was not in the mood.

  * * *

  * * *

  There wasn’t anything more I could do for Isadora, so I went back upstairs to the balcony to check on today’s other casualty, Gregory Thibodeaux. He was moaning but still unconscious. There was no way I could carry him downstairs by myself, so I tried to make him more comfortable by using my coveralls as a pillow, then retraced our steps, passing through the secret door in the lobby and down the utilitarian corridor to the backstage exit.

  I banged open the metal door to the alley, and was greeted by wisps of mist. San Francisco’s famed summertime fogbank, nicknamed Karl, had rolled in, as if on cue from a ghostly director.

  I was surprised to find Skeet in the security trailer. “I thought you were going off duty?”

  “Thad didn’t show for his shift, so I have to cover it. One of the perks of being in charge. The wife’s not pleased, I’ll tell you that much. I pull more doubles around here lately than . . .” He noticed my distress. “Mel? What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

  “I . . .” My voice shook, and I sank down on the top step of the trailer.

  “Did something happen? Where’s Mr. Thibodeaux? Let me get you some water.”

  “Thanks,” I said, putting my head between my knees. Black spots careened in my field of vision, and I tried to focus on taking slow breaths. In and out. In and out. In and . . .

  Skeet handed me a Dixie cup full of cool water. I gulped it down. It helped a little, though juice was more effective at countering the adrenaline shock. This was the sort of thing I had learned over the past few years spent dealing with ghosts and murder.

  “We need to call nine-one-one,” I said, regaining my breath. “My phone’s dead.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “I’ll explain in a minute. Where’s the phone?”

  “Come inside.”

  The security trailer was blessedly warm after the unearthly chill of the theater and the fog-filled alley. The place had the familiar appearance of the trailers Turner Construction sometimes used on really big jobs: a watercooler, a small table with an electric kettle and assorted instant coffees and teas, several folding chairs, and a utilitarian desk. But this desk was tidy, with only one tray of papers, two paperback novels, and a few hardbound books stacked on it. The trailer’s faux-wood-paneled walls were decorated with official-looking flyers detailing workers’ rights and first aid instructions, as well as a movie poster for the 1941 Humphrey Bogart classic, The Maltese Falcon.

  Skeet motioned to a molded plastic chair by the desk, and handed me a portable landline. “Cell phones are useless in the theater. The reception is spotty, and the batteries run down superfast for some reason.”

  “I noticed.” I dialed a number I had called too many times: SFPD homicide inspector Annette Crawford’s direct line.

  Annette picked up immediately. She listened while I explained briefly where I was and what had happened. She asked if I was safe, then told me to stay put—and above all, not to touch anything. She would send uniforms and the paramedics for Gregory Thibodeaux.

  “The police and an ambulance are on their way,” I told the stunned-looking Skeet as I handed him back the phone. “You heard what I said?”

  He nodded solemnly. “I can’t believe this. Mr. Thibodeaux is hurt? How did that happen?”

  “I’m not sure,” I
said. “He’s unconscious but still breathing.”

  “And Isadora is . . . dead? You’re sure?”

  “Sadly, yes. And it’s definitely Isadora.”

  I thought of the scarves floating behind her as she leapt and spun gracefully across the stage.

  Was Isadora simply dancing one last time on the stage of the theater she loved? Or could her spirit be lingering because she had something she wanted to tell me? Or needed to resolve before she could move on? This was one of my weaknesses as a ghost buster: I’m usually too rattled at the moment of encounter to ask the right questions. Maybe I should start carrying a checklist or a script like the ones telemarketers use. Good afternoon, ma’am! So sorry you’re leaving us today. And just what is it you wish to convey as you pause in your journey to the afterlife?

  “I can’t believe this . . .” Skeet trailed off. “I should have stayed with you two. But I thought it was safe . . . Nothing like this has ever happened before.”

  Maybe once or twice, I thought, recalling the body outline of the poor murdered usher, who was now haunting this place and desperate to show me to my seat.

  “It’s not your fault, Skeet,” I said. “I doubt your being there would have made any difference. I was right there, and I couldn’t do anything.” At least where Isadora was concerned. Had Skeet been with us, he might have been able to catch Thibodeaux when he fell. “But that’s all water under the bridge now. Did you see anyone go in or out of the building?”

  He shook his head, quickly noted something in his big journal, and said in a grim voice: “Help yourself to coffee, if you like. I’ll go find Mr. Thibodeaux, see if I can do anything for him.”

  “He’s in the balcony. But, Skeet—it’s important not to touch anything that could be important to the police investigation. Especially around Is-Isadora.” My voice wobbled when I spoke her name.