The Last Curtain Call

by Juliet Blackwell

  Except in the field of construction, making decisions isn’t my strong suit.

  As I perused the books, I kept sneaking peeks at Tierney and her client. She seemed to be drawing an intricate portrait of some kind. It was strangely fascinating to watch the process, the application of ink below the skin, dabbing away tiny beads of blood that arose in outraged response to the needle. I thought of what I had learned in anthropology about the traditions of tattooing in different cultures, and how they defined those who were part of a social group. Today, tattoos seemed more a way to define one’s individuality.

  Tierney finally stood back, tilted her head this way and that, added a few more details, then nodded. “What do you think?” she asked her client.

  He looked at his arm in the mirror. The tattooed portrait was red and angry-looking, but I imagined that would settle down in a few days.

  “That’s awesome. Looks just like him,” he said. “Thanks.”

  “Glad you like it,” she said, already busy cleaning and arranging her instruments. She instructed her client to keep the tattoo clean and to apply antibiotic cream twice a day.

  They settled the bill, and as Tierney washed her hands, she asked, without looking at me: “See anything you like? I can adapt anything, but maybe the books give you some ideas?”

  “These designs are impressive,” I said, flipping through a few more pages. “I had no idea there were so many.”

  “I can also copy anything you bring me, or make one up for you.”

  “It’s a little overwhelming . . .”

  “You’re a virgin?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “A tattoo virgin?”

  “Oh yes. I am.”

  “A blank slate,” she said, drying her hands on a paper towel. “I can work with that.”

  “I like the idea of a tattoo,” I said. “But when I think about living with something on my skin for the rest of my life . . . I can never decide.”

  “The secret is to start, like, small? But I’ll warn you. It can get addictive.” She smiled as she joined me at the table, but the smile froze on her face, replaced by suspicion. “Wait. I know you?”

  I nodded. “We met at the Crockett yesterday.”

  “Isadora’s day of transformation.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Death, the ultimate transformation?” she said, the “duh” implied. “You were there with the suit, talking about the renovation?”

  “I was, yes. You’re . . . Tierney, right?”

  She folded her arms. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’ve been trying to get in touch with all of you. Have you spoken with the police?”

  “You think one of us is responsible for what happened? We love Isadora. She’s, like, family?”

  “I’m not saying any of you did it, Tierney. But you were there and might have seen or heard something that could help the police figure out what happened.”

  “Why? What’s the point?”

  “To get justice,” I said, surprised. “If a friend of mine died suddenly, I’d want to know why and if anyone was responsible.”

  “There is no justice but karmic justice.”

  “Um . . .” I was never sure how to respond to this sort of comment. I understand that the legal system might not impose the same justice as the universe, but letting a possible murder go unanswered didn’t strike me as acceptable. It wasn’t an “oopsie” moment, like failing to return your shopping cart to the cart corral.

  “So,” I said, changing the subject, because I was not going to chase Tierney down that philosophical rabbit hole. “You work here, full-time?”

  “Why do you sound surprised? Squatters have to work for a living, too. We might not pay rent, but survival isn’t free, and most of us don’t have family money, you know. It’s not as though we chose this lifestyle.”

  Tierney’s defenses were on high alert, I thought, and spoke more gently.

  “I understand. I got the sense that you all were creating a new society, a creative community, at the Crockett.”

  She nodded and let out a long, slow breath. When she spoke, her voice sounded wistful. “We were. We are. But when it comes down to it, I think we’d all like to have a hot shower once in a while, maybe a house with a yard. I dunno. Get a cat or a dog, maybe?”

  I smiled. “That would be nice, for most of us, I think.”

  She nodded.

  “Where are you from originally?” I asked.

  “Small town in southern Utah,” she said. “A place nobody’s ever heard of, not that you’d want to.”

  “You like it here, in San Francisco?” Enough to live illegally in an abandoned theater with no hot water, and ghosts, and murderers?

  She nodded. “It’s really, like, open-minded here? I didn’t fit in well where I grew up. I saw that movie The Craft? And afterward I started reading tarot cards and stuff, and our priest told my mom I was in league with the devil. Practicing witchcraft. You believe that?”

  “I just came from visiting a friend who’s a witch. She’s really cool. Owns a vintage clothing store, Aunt Cora’s Closet, in the Haight.”

  “Oh cool. I should, like, go visit her?”

  “I think you’d love her, and her store. Right on the corner of Ashbury. So, do you have any tattoos?”

  “Only this one.” She lifted her hair to show me what looked like a tribal tattoo on the nape of her neck. “I was in the Philippines and went to see this ancient woman who will tattoo you in the traditional way. You don’t choose there, though. She just marks you with whatever she wants. She’s way cool.”

  “I like it. Do you know what it means?”

  “She said it referred to strength. I hope it doesn’t say something really bad, like ‘obnoxious American tourist’ or something like that.” She let out a low chuckle.

  I smiled. “I always wonder about that sort of thing, too. Tierney, I know you don’t want to talk about it, but I really want to find out what happened to Isadora. Setting aside the question of justice for Isadora, the murderer might still be around and pose a danger to you and the others.”

  She shrugged, went over to a tall drafting table, and started adding details to an elaborate sketch of a winged fairy.

  “Do we even know it was murder, for sure?”

  “Not yet, but it’s rare that someone like Isadora—young and in good health—simply drops dead.” On top of a Wurlitzer. Also, people around me tended to die a violent death. “It’s best to err on the side of caution, don’t you think? Skeet the security guard tells me Isadora wanted to show him something, but never got the chance. Do you know what that could have been about?”

  She shook her head.

  “Did Isadora, or any of you, find items of value in the theater?”

  “First you accuse us of murder, and now stealing?”

  “I’m not accusing anyone of anything, Tierney. I’m just trying to figure out a possible reason for all of this. Can you think of any sort of motive to kill Isadora?”

  She erased a line on her drawing and started sketching anew. Without looking up, she said, “Only thing I can think of is those old candy wrappers?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Isadora really got into collecting these vintage candy wrappers? Sometimes they even had candy still in them, which was kind of gross.”

  “Where did she find them?”

  “She said they were in the thingamajig under the balcony.”

  “What thingamajig?” I asked, trying to picture the balcony.

  “If I knew what it was called, I wouldn’t call it a thingamajig.”

  Touché.

  “It was, like, the place where things would fall if they were dropped?” she continued. “I guess people lost a lot of things over the years. She found matchbooks, too, and old-fashioned ca
lling cards, bottles, some old lipsticks. A whole bunch of old coins. Whatever people might carry in their pockets. She said they must have fallen through the cracks, or rolled down the floor to the openings and slipped through, or maybe were swept into it by a lazy usher. She said the area was supposed to be cleaned out regularly, but probably wasn’t.”

  Wait a minute—could the opening to the “thingamajig” refer to the mushroom-shaped iron caps over the ventilators that I had seen when I was in the balcony with Gregory yesterday?

  “I can’t believe this is happening,” Tierney said quietly, and her voice caught in her throat. “Isadora was good to everyone. She was such a beautiful soul. I don’t know what we’ll do without her.”

  I was hit by another wave of sadness for Isadora’s life, cut short. I remembered Alyx glaring at me and asking why I wasn’t more affected by the discovery of Isadora’s body. I didn’t want to tell him: “Because it’s not my first corpse.” It was human nature to adapt to circumstances, to become accustomed to a new normal, which in my case meant seeing ghosts and finding dead bodies.

  But this was a life lost. A young woman forever gone.

  Snap out of it, Mel. Focus on what you’re good at: remodeling buildings, talking to ghosts, and occasionally tripping over things that help solve murders. Leave the grief to Isadora’s friends and family.

  Good advice—but easier said than done.

  “Is there anything else you can think of? Was anyone acting oddly around Isadora? Was she afraid of anyone? Or has anyone been acting strange since she died?”

  “I’m . . . Not in terms of what happened, ’cause he wouldn’t hurt a fly, but I’m really worried about Liam.”

  I searched my memory: Liam was the big, bearlike guy with the wide blue eyes, like an overgrown doll.

  “He was sort of like Isadora’s shadow?” Tierney continued. “He’s been desperate for money, and really tried to talk her into doing that stupid reality show.”

  “He’s desperate for money?”

  “Don’t judge. I’ve done some truly wretched things for money myself.”

  “I’m not judging. Just wondering. Was Liam working with Isadora’s brother, Ringo, to convince her to do the reality show?”

  She shrugged again. “Maybe.”

  “How about Mitch?”

  “What about him?”

  “I just wondered . . . He seemed a little on edge.”

  “Mitch is always on edge,” she said dismissively. “But I mean, he’s okay. Anyway, aren’t you being a little sexist in your assumption that if Isadora was killed, then a man did it? Maybe I killed her. Ever think of that?”

  “I’m trying not to assume anything. Just asking questions.”

  “I already told you: You’re looking in the wrong place. We were a community. None of us would have done this.”

  I decided to try another tack: “Have you ever seen anything odd in the theater? I’ve heard rumors about ghosts.”

  She gave a humorless laugh. “You’ll have to ask Alyx about that. He was the one who, like, always insisted on it? Every once in a while, the Wurlitzer rose up, but I’m pretty sure Alyx made that happen. He’s an engineer, you know? He’s always screwing around with the clockworks for the marquee, that sort of thing. Anyway, unless you need help picking a tattoo, I should get back to work.”

  “Yeah, I should get going. But, Tierney, are you still living in the theater? And the others? Even after what just happened?”

  “Where else are we supposed to go?”

  Maybe someplace other than a haunted theater where a murder just occurred.

  “But—”

  “But what?” she demanded, her delicate chin raised in defiance.

  “I’m just worried about you. Until we know what happened—”

  “Don’t you worry about me, Mamacita. You worry about yourself.”

  Mamacita? Was I that old?

  “Okay, one final question: How do you get in and out of the theater? It’s considered an active crime scene at the moment, so the doors are sealed.”

  “Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” she said, glancing at the door. “Anyway, my client is here.”

  I turned toward the door. Steeped in old movie stereotypes about tattoo parlors, I half expected to see a burly sailor on shore leave.

  Instead, in walked a willowy young woman in a sweet floral dress whose smooth skin, I imagined, would soon be imprinted with a drawing of a fairy in a forest glen.

  * * *

  * * *

  Out on the sidewalk, I surveyed the Crockett Theatre again, zeroing in on the fire escapes. If the squatters were able to break in so easily, then surely I could as well. But the rusting fire escapes looked a little dicey, and a several-story fall to the pavement below would not end well for me.

  Not to mention, it made me dizzy, just thinking of it. I still had vertigo to contend with.

  But I wanted to get back in that theater, to see if Isadora’s spirit would take a break from her dancing to speak to me, tell me something about what had happened.

  Not so long ago I would have avoided the murder scene, and its resident ghosts, like the plague. But this wasn’t my first rodeo. Ghosts scared the heck out of me, but had never actually hurt me, and as I understood it, their ability to cause harm to the living was largely theoretical. Still . . . the memory of that glassy-eyed ghostly audience made me quail a bit. Not to mention the in-your-face phantom usher. May I show you to your seat?

  Still, the main reason I didn’t try to break in and look around was 100 percent human, and far more formidable than any ghost: Inspector Annette Crawford.

  I checked my phone, but she still hadn’t called me back.

  As I went to find my car, I spied an elegant woman walking a small white dog so fluffy it looked like a plush toy. It was the preservationist Coco—as in Chanel. I admired her apparent comfort with wearing a turban and a flamboyant multicolored wrap and wondered if I would ever be able to pull something like that off.

  “Coco!” I called out. She stopped and waved.

  I trotted across the street. “I’m Mel Turner. We met yesterday?”

  “You’ll be working on the theater,” Coco said.

  “Yes, exactly. I mean, I hope so . . . soon,” I said, glancing at the bright yellow crime scene tape that warned us all to stay away.

  “What in the world happened there? I heard sirens yesterday, and now . . .” She left off with a dramatic sigh.

  “Could I buy you a drink, maybe, or a cup of coffee, and we could talk?”

  “I’m afraid I must get back home. It’s time to feed Martha. My little baby, here.” She cooed at the little white fluffball.

  I bent down and held out my hand, and Martha’s tiny wet nose bumped up against it. “I have a big brown dog. The two of them don’t even look like the same species.”

  She laughed. “I tell you what. I live just around the corner. Why don’t you come with me and I’ll fix us both a cup of tea?”

  “Thank you,” I said. “That sounds lovely.”

  “Here we are,” she said just a few minutes later, gesturing to a grand old Victorian that had been divided up into flats.

  As we walked into the classic paneled foyer, fragrant from a large floral arrangement on a demilune table, we were joined by a large, bearded man who held the door for us.

  “Oh! This is fortuitous!” Coco crooned. “Mel, this is Baldwin. Baldwin just moved into the building, but he and I worked together with the Crockett Caretakers to preserve that beautiful theater. Baldwin, Mel is in charge of the crew that will be renovating the Crockett. Isn’t that a scream?”

  I looked at her, not understanding her meaning. She laid a perfumed hand on my arm.

  “It’s just marvelous what women get up to these days,” Coco said, pronouncing the word as “MAH-ve-lous.”
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  “It’s nice to meet you, Mel,” Baldwin said, smiling warmly and shaking my hand. His wrinkled shirt hung loose out of his saggy jeans, and his longish hair was uncombed. Standing beside the sleek Coco, he looked like a humble prop assistant tending to a grand film star.

  “What an interesting name,” I said. “I haven’t met a lot of Baldwins.”

  “My folks are real movie fans. Guess that’s how I got into all this preservation stuff. I—”

  “Baldwin,” interrupted Coco. “I was about to fix Mel a cup of tea. Would you care to join us? We can talk about the Crockett in a more dignified setting.”

  I thought the building’s paneled entry, with its velvet banquette and chandelier, was itself rather dignified, but Baldwin and I followed her up the stairs.

  Coco’s second-floor apartment was a San Francisco fantasy fulfilled: bright and spacious, with large windows and high ceilings. One corner of the living room opened onto a round tower room with a built-in circular bench that was topped with soft-looking pillows and wraparound windows that offered a nearly 360-degree view. The walls were lined with bookshelves and posters, and a grand piano held pride of place smack in the middle of the living room.

  “I’ll feed my little baby, Martha, and put on some water,” Coco said, waving a large, graceful hand in my direction. “Please, make yourselves at home. Do feel free to look around.”

  “This is just beautiful,” I said. “So, Baldwin, Coco said you recently moved in? Is your apartment as amazing as this one?”

  He smiled and shook his head. “At the moment it’s nothing but cardboard boxes and a mattress on the floor. But a man can dream.”

  From the kitchen came the sounds of Coco cooing to the pup, and the faucet running. Baldwin glanced toward the other room, then back at me.

  “Coco’s okay, really. I know she can seem a little much . . . but I don’t know. I think she’s sort of great. I try to look out for her, check in occasionally, make sure she’s eating.”