Trick or Deceit

by Shelley Freydont

  It was a disaster. What had been set pieces days before were now mere shambles. The upholstery was slashed, and the mannequins dismantled and strewn across the room.

  Barry let out a howl. “I’ll kill that so-and-so! I swear he’ll be sorry he ever messed with me.”

  He spun around, nearly knocking Liv over, and disappeared into the next room. The dining room had been a scene right out of classic horror movies and, more recently, the Beautiful Creatures movie, with a table that spun around until the diners whirred into blurs. It had been very cleverly staged and mechanized; there were no diners now.

  The table at least appeared unharmed; the chairs were overturned, but whatever body parts hadn’t been bolted to the seats had been ripped literally limb to limb and were nowhere to be seen. Which meant there might be a lot more mannequin bodies out in the vacant lot.

  “I’ll call the police. They might be able to find some clues as to who the perpetrator is if we don’t touch anything.”

  “Oh, I know who did this, all right. That . . . Well, he won’t get away with it. If he thinks he’ll win by default, that dirty, low-down— Well, he won’t. I’ll get this place back up and running if it’s the last thing I do.”

  “Still, I think we should wait outside.” Liv maneuvered Barry onto the front porch while she made the call.

  He didn’t stop but strode straight across the parking lot.

  “Barry, wait!” Liv hurried after him while she waited for the police dispatcher to answer. She gave her information and hung up just as Barry stepped into the vacant lot.

  The weeds came nearly to his waist. He leaned over, disappearing for a moment, then reappeared carrying a torso wearing a union army coat. He laid it carefully on the ground and started back in.

  “I don’t think you—”

  Barry waded through the grasses, ignoring her.

  An old town car passed down the street and turned right into the parking lot of the old theater that was directly across the street. Henry Gallantine, former child star and director of the current production of the Celebration Bay Players, got out. Seeing Liv and Barry, he waved, then came across the street and over to where Liv stood.

  “You two are out early this morning. What’s afoot?”

  “Someone broke into Barry’s museum and vandalized the place,” Liv said.

  “Oh, dear. And threw the pieces outside?”

  “So it appears.”

  “Is it salvageable?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve called the police. Not that there’s much they’ll be able to do.”

  “No, not usually with these breaking-and-entering cases.”

  “Barry is in shock and angry, but he said he’s going to get the museum up and running again.”

  “Then he will. You can’t keep a good Yankee down. I’ll be right back.” Henry trotted off in the direction of the theater. He was still very fit. Insisted he had always done his own stunts and was ready, willing, and able to do them again if his agent called. Which so far hadn’t happened.

  He went inside the theater and Liv turned back to see Barry bringing out several legs, some still wearing shoes, some bare.

  “They’re everywhere,” Barry said. He sounded close to tears. “What am I going to do?”

  A commotion down the street made Liv turn around. A group of people had just come out of the theater, pushing two platform handcarts.

  Leading the troupe was Henry Gallantine, and right behind him was Liv’s assistant, Ted Driscoll. There were several other people, who Liv guessed were cast members.

  “Yankee ingenuity,” she said. Even though she was nowhere near being considered a local—her best friend BeBe had been here for nearly thirteen years and she was still considered an outsider—Liv’s heart swelled with pride at her neighbors.

  “The cast of Little Shop of Horrors has come to your aid!” Henry announced.

  Barry’s jaw dropped. “Uh, thanks, Henry.”

  “Now, careful troupe, treat these somewhat historically accurate figures as if they were your own parents.” The group spread out, and Henry began placing the parts they had already gathered onto one of the handcarts.

  One of the actresses hesitated. Unlike the others who were wearing jeans and sweatshirts, she was dressed in a blue fifties prom dress beneath a gray hoodie. They must have gotten her in the middle of a fitting.

  She frowned at Henry. “I thought we were going to run through the first act this morning.”

  “Yes, indeed. Rehearse away while you work.” Henry made an expansive gesture. “All the world’s your stage, Marla Jean. Use it as you will.”

  “What if there are wild animals in there?”

  “Many hands make light work,” he said, ignoring her concern, and pushing her toward the vacant lot. As they reached the edge of the pavement, he lifted his head and followed her into the weeds.

  “I don’t know which one of his movies he’s channeling, but this is the most energy I’ve seen out of this group since rehearsals started,” Ted said.

  “You’re in the play?”

  “Guilty as charged.” Her assistant grinned at her. This morning he was wearing a leather jacket and a brown fedora with an orange band and feather.

  “You didn’t say anything. I know you have a great singing voice.” He’d taught Whiskey to sing every holiday song there was. Unfortunately, Whiskey’s idea of singing never passed the yowl stage, as far as Liv was concerned, but it only egged Ted on. And what Whiskey lacked in ability, he made up for with his enthusiasm. “Can you act, too?”

  “Need you ask?”

  “I guess not.” So far she hadn’t seen anything Ted couldn’t do.

  “I’m just the voice of the narrator. Actually, it’s going to be taped for the performances, but I told Henry I would help out when I had the chance. But I draw the line at gathering body parts from a vacant lot. You never know what you might find back there.”

  Liv shivered. “Don’t.”

  “I was thinking skunks and other vermin.”

  “Still, eww.”

  They stood on the tarmac watching the group while waiting for the police. The carts filled up with body parts—arms, legs, heads—piled on top of each other. One of the young men carried the pantalooned and stockinged legs of a character that Liv couldn’t even guess at. Bluebeard?

  Another young man waltzed out with a torso dressed as a pilgrim.

  He twirled around and placed her upright on the pile of limbs, then bowed and turned a cheeky grin on the others. “I thought I’d give her a little thrill. God knows those puritans had no fun.”

  A police cruiser stopped at the curb and Officer Meese jumped out.

  “Heard there was a break-in,” Meese said to Liv and Ted since no one else paid him any mind. “What are these people doing?”

  “There was a break-in at the Museum of Yankee Horrors.”

  “The contest winner?”

  “I’m afraid so,” Liv said. “The whole place has been vandalized, the mannequins were dismantled and thrown out in the grass. Some people from the theater group came over to help gather whatever they could find. Barry’s hoping that he’ll be able to reconstruct it before the official opening on the weekend.”

  “Huh.” Meese looked over the group that had filled the first cart and was working on the second. “Wow.”

  “That’s almost all of them,” Henry Gallantine announced. “Shall we start returning them to the house?”

  “Wait, sir. Please,” said Officer Meese. “Mr. Lindquist? Can you tell me what happened?”

  Barry stepped toward the officer. “I’ll tell you what—”

  A bloodcurdling scream rose from the grasses.

  Liv jumped. “Holy moly. What was that?”

  Another scream.

  Ted chuckled. “Marla Jean Higgins. I’d recogniz
e that scream anywhere. She’s been practicing for weeks. She probably saw a mouse.”

  A third scream, this time even louder and more bloodcurdling.

  “But maybe we should go see.”

  Liv and Ted struck off toward the lot, where the rest of the actors were still combing through the grasses.

  Henry joined them. “That girl takes her role very seriously. Can’t act her way out of a paper bag, but her scream is superb. It’s the sole reason she got the part.” He gestured for them to precede him down the path of trampled grass made by the volunteers, then called out, “Marla Jean, very nice, dear, that will do.”

  “Girl, ha,” Ted said. “Marla Jean is forty if she’s a day. She just acts like a time traveler from a bobby-sox movie. Shall we?” Ted gestured for Liv to follow Henry.

  Several yards into the empty lot, the actors were gathered in a perfect semicircle, looking at something in the brush.

  Marla Jean had stopped screeching and was sobbing into the sweatshirt of one of the male actors. He looked back at Henry, his face white as chalk.

  “What a tableau,” Henry muttered.

  Ted put out a hand. “Henry, I think you and Liv should stay here.” Henry nodded and Ted motioned Meese to follow him.

  The two of them approached the group, then both knelt down, their heads disappearing from view, and Liv got a sudden sinking feeling that she knew what they were looking at.

  “They seem to have found a live one,” Henry said, and shuddered dramatically.

  The group parted.

  “Perhaps, not exactly alive, but . . .” Henry turned away.

  Not a mannequin in period costume, but a woman in an off-white trench coat.

  Officer Meese reached for his cell phone. “Folks, if you’ll just stand back, I think I’d better ask the sheriff to take over.”

  Chapter Three

  “Who is it?” Henry asked.

  Liv recognized the trench coat from the award ceremony, but she couldn’t imagine why Lucille Foster would be lying dead among a field of dismantled dummies. If it was Lucille.

  She moved closer and peered over the shoulder of one of the actors. She could just see the woman’s face. It was Lucille, all right.

  “Good heavens,” Henry said from behind her. Liv jumped; she hadn’t realized he’d followed her. “Is that Lucille Foster?”

  “Looks like it,” Liv managed.

  “What happened?” Barry asked, coming closer. “What’s she doing here?” His voice climbed an octave.

  No one answered. Ted knelt down and stuck his fingers on Lucille’s neck. Waited for a few seconds, stood up. Looked at Liv and shook his head.

  “Shouldn’t we at least try—”

  Ted leaned close to her. “Already cold,” he whispered.

  Liv shivered. She was feeling the cold herself. Her teeth began to chatter but she wasn’t sure if it was from the weather or from shock. She wished the sheriff would hurry up. “Do you think she had a heart attack?” Please say yes.

  “There was a bruise on her neck. It’s possible she was strangled,” Ted said. “Of course, that’s just my unqualified opinion.”

  “Strangled? But what was she even doing here? Why wasn’t she at home. It doesn’t make sense. Why would she vandalize the museum? She was one of the judges.”

  “Liv, keep your voice down. Take a deep breath and regroup. I don’t know any more than you do.”

  “I know, sorry. It’s just . . .”

  Ted patted her shoulder. “I know.” He sighed. “And after such a peaceful Harvest Festival.”

  Liv sighed, too. “I knew it was too good to last.”

  “You think you’re disappointed,” Henry said. “Imagine the poor victim.”

  Liv didn’t have to imagine. Lucille Foster was dead, possibly strangled. And only last night she’d been celebrating the winners of the contest and the success of the fund-raiser.

  The actors stood close together, still holding mannequin parts. They didn’t seem to realize what they were doing. Occasionally a sob would escape from Marla Jean, or a nervous laugh from one of the others, quickly cut off. It was a little surreal. Even with the gruesome reality just feet away from them—a real dead person—they looked like a crowd scene on CSI.

  Barry just stood looking down at the body, wringing his hands, and mumbling, “I don’t understand, I don’t understand.”

  Liv heard a car door slam. It was the sheriff, Bill Gunnison. At least he’d had the good sense not to use the siren. Not that the news would be kept secret for long. The main form of entertainment in Celebration Bay was Monday Night Football, arguing in the pub, and listening to the police band on ham radios. And not necessarily in that order.

  Ted, Henry, and Liv turned to wait for Bill. Barry didn’t wait but ran up to meet him and began gesticulating and pointing to the field, while the sheriff nodded and kept walking.

  Bill Gunnison was in his fifties, tall and big boned, with grizzled graying hair and twinkling blue eyes, even when he was angry.

  Normally this was the season for his sciatica to act up, but he’d signed up for a yoga class in September and it seemed to be doing a lot of good. He was barely limping. He’d received a lot of grief from Chaz and some of the other guys about what he looked like in yoga pants, even though he assured them he wore sweats. But he took all the ribbing in stride. He didn’t excite easily, which made him a good sheriff. Henry Gallantine couldn’t have cast him in a better role.

  Liv shook her head. Her mind tended to wander when she was freaked out. Which she was now.

  “Liv, Ted,” Bill said. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised to see you both here.”

  “I was just helping Henry out at the theater,” Ted told him.

  “And I was jogging by,” Liv added. She sighed. “Except that I stopped to take a photo of this lot that was supposed to have been mowed—”

  Bill held up his hand. “Just hold that thought until I can deal with the crime scene. Barry, I know you’re upset, but these things take time. If you will please stand here with the others, I’ll talk to you as soon as possible.”

  Barry began to protest.

  Ted placed a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll get everything sorted out. Not to worry.”

  “Don’t worry? My museum has been destroyed, Lucille Foster is dead, this is a disaster. Just a disaster.”

  He walked over to talk to Officer Meese. Whiskey attempted to follow him, but Liv made him sit.

  “Just a few more minutes,” she said. Maybe.

  Bill and the young officer began moving people back to the parking lot, urging them to walk single file and keeping them a distance from the body. But Barry refused to move.

  Finally Bill had to take his arm and steer him back to the parking lot. Ted, Liv, and Henry followed.

  “If you will all stay right here for the moment, Officer Meese will take your statements.”

  The actors added the last mannequin parts to the handcart and stayed there, striking another tableau, huddled together next to a pile of arms, legs, and torsos waiting to be carted away. It was a gruesome scene, something fit for the Museum of Yankee Horrors itself.

  Liv tore her gaze and her thoughts away. She concentrated on watching Bill, who had returned to the overgrown lot and was peering into the grasses. She wondered what he was looking for. And if they had trampled any evidence the culprit might have left behind.

  She shivered again and hugged herself. Under Armour was great as long as you kept moving, but between the shock and the morning chill, Liv was feeling extremely uncomfortable.

  Liv pulled out her phone and checked the time: 9:20. All this had happened in a little over an hour. She should have been home, dressed, and on her way to work by now. Ted, too. She’d barely been aware of the passage of time. The sun hadn’t come out. The day was raw and overcast. It look
ed like they were in for some weather. Hopefully no major storms that would destroy decorations or rain on their scheduled weekend activities.

  Then Liv remembered that for one person there would be no activities ever again. She knelt down and scratched Whiskey’s ears. He put his paws on her knee and licked her face. She nuzzled her face in his fur and felt a little better.

  Whiskey had been content to sit at her feet for the first few minutes, but when Liv stood up he moved over to Ted and looked expectant.

  “Sorry, fella, not the time or the place right now.” Ted held his hands open. “No song, no treat.”

  Whiskey sat there a few seconds longer, then stood and shook himself. He’d been patient, but now he was ready to go home to his breakfast.

  He barked once, to get her attention.

  Liv let out his leash just enough to give him some wandering room without getting in the way of the investigation.

  Whiskey trotted over to the group of actors, where he was an immediate hit. Marla Jean leaned over and hugged him. Two of the guys scratched his back and ears.

  Therapy dog, Liv thought, remembering how he’d helped calm more than one upset young person since they’d moved here. And from the way everyone was petting him and talking nonsense, he was working his magic on the dismayed actors.

  The crime scene truck and ambulance arrived. Bill motioned them into the grass. There was a brief discussion, then they all began whatever it was they did.

  “How did this happen?” she asked. “We saw her last night. Saw her go meet her husband. When did she come down here? And why? Surely she wasn’t the one vandalizing the museum.”

  “It doesn’t seem likely,” Ted said. “Maybe she saw something, and stopped— But no. She would be too smart to try to stop them herself. She would have called the police and reported it.”

  Liv huffed out a sigh. “One would think.”

  Henry looked around, then leaned in to listen.

  “But we saw her leave with her husband,” Liv said. “So where is he? You don’t think that he could be—”

  “I certainly hope not.” Ted’s brow knitted. “I remember her saying, ‘There’s Carson,’ and leaving, but I didn’t actually see him, did you?”