The Miser's Dream

by John Gaspard

  She turned and saw Detective Wright headed toward her, coming down the aisle. With all avenues of escape apparently closed, she settled back into her seat and turned her thousand-watt smile on me.

  “That’s one theory,” she said, turning and crossing her long legs into the aisle. “But it’s a long shot.”

  “It is that,” I said. “Want me to expand on it?”

  She shrugged casually.

  “I suspect there was a confrontation of some kind in your office,” I continued, first to her and then looking out at the rest of the now rapt audience. “Perhaps Tyler demanded the money back and you gave it to him.”

  “And then you thought better of it and shot him in the back as he exited your office.” This came from Detective Wright, who had taken a casual pose, perched on the armrest of the seat across from Tracy’s on the aisle.

  “It’s a small caliber gun,” I said, picking up the story. “The bullets didn’t pass through Tyler, but he’s smart enough to realize he’s got internal bleeding and there’s a crazy woman with a gun, so he races back up to the safety of the booth, tosses the envelope of money on the table and closes and locks the door from the inside.”

  Tracy looked up at me with a smile that could only be called inscrutable. I turned from her and headed back down the aisle, toward the stage.

  “Now Tracy has a problem,” I said, turning back to the now very attentive group. “She can’t get into the booth to get the money, because the booth only locks from the inside. A privacy thing, for the projectionist who might be using the toilet. And the gun is not in the booth, so the police are going to look around to determine where the fatal shots were fired. She needs to steer them away from her office—to get them as far away from her as she could—because she’s seen enough crime shows. She knows there is bound to be at least a little blood evidence somewhere in her office.”

  “We have a team in there right now, looking for just that,” said Homicide Detective Fred Hutton.

  His pose was the opposite of the relaxed one taken by his partner. He stood in the center of the aisle, his arms crossed, looking like a golem in an off-the-rack gray suit.

  “She needs to put some distance between the method and the effect. What we call in the business a little time misdirection,” I said. “Quinton, how would you define time misdirection?”

  He didn’t even have to give it a moment’s thought. “Oh, that’s a lovely ploy. I think it was Harry Lorraine who coined the phrase. You see, you make the audience think something happened here, but it actually happened—earlier or later—over there. Oritz called it temporal separation, because you’re using time to separate the cause from the effect. Add in the spatial separation and you’ve got a very powerful method indeed. It’s very common ploy, for example, in the bending of metal utensils—spoons and the like—however that’s only the tip of the iceberg, as it were,” he added.

  “Yes, exactly. That’s her problem—how to steer attention away from her office and radically change the question, from ‘where was Tyler James shot?’ and instead make the entire case about the question, ‘How did the killer get out of a locked projection booth?’ No small problem.”

  “What’s a girl to do?”

  I was surprised this came from Sherry Lisbon, who no longer seemed bored with the proceedings.

  “If the girl in question is a former NCAA athlete who played ball semiprofessionally in Japan,” I responded, “she’s going to use her natural gifts to get the gun into the booth.” I paused and looked at Tracy, who gave me nothing in return.

  “But once again I’m getting ahead of myself,” I said. “Let me back up.” I took two steps backward and leaned against the stage, my little visual joke producing zero reactions. “You see, as it turns out, a quick Google check will tell you that this award-winning athlete had a bit of a gambling problem, and ended up being ‘released’ from her college prior to graduation.”

  “I got canned.” Tracy said this without any sarcasm or rancor, just a straight-ahead fact of life.

  “Your phraseology, not mine. But she was still a skillful player and there was money to be made playing in Japan, so off she went. Unfortunately, while there was money to be made, there were also bets to be placed. After a short stint playing some long odds, she was asked to leave that position as well. And then she made what was probably the only good choice she’d made in a long series of bad decisions…”

  “Unless the courts made it for her,” Deirdre added.

  “That’s always a possibility. Regardless, she came to Minnesota, land of ten thousand treatment centers.”

  “Gambling addiction,” Chip Cavanaugh said, clicking his tongue and shaking his head sagely. “That’s a tough one.”

  I waited to see where the punch line landed, but there seemed to be nothing else to his interruption, so I continued. “She went through treatment and when she was done, she got a job. Managing a movie theater.” I looked to Tracy for confirmation. “Right?”

  “In a general sort of way, sure,” she said.

  “Unfortunately, and I don’t have specifics here, I think she must have suffered a relapse of some kind, because before she knew it she’d run up some big gambling debts with—I’m just speculating here—some people who didn’t qualify as ‘Minnesota Nice.’”

  “Creeps,” Tracy added. “Total creeps.”

  “So, she has a problem—a big gambling debt and no way to pay it off. Until Tyler tells her, in passing, about his side business.”

  Randall leaned forward, excited. “Yeah, yeah. So she gets the idea to try to sell a fake movie,” he said, “with the plan to keep the deposit. She’ll pay off her gambling debts and no one will be any the wiser. Because who’s going to report being robbed while trying to buy a black market movie?”

  Now it was Chip Cavanaugh’s turn to lean forward. “But Tyler figured it out,” he said, picking up the narrative from Randall. “He must have confronted her about it, and took back the money she so desperately needed.”

  “So she shot him,” Randall added.

  “I had no choice,” Tracy said sharply and then her eyes went a little wide as she looked out at the assembled group. Like everyone else, she had gotten caught up in the narrative.

  Sherry Lisbon shook her head disapprovingly. “Dear, no one in this room is buying that for one blessed second.”

  Randall Glendower slumped back in his seat, perplexed. He looked up at me. “That’s all well and good, but how did she get the gun into the booth?”

  “Clearly, she didn’t use a monkey,” Chip said, throwing a look in Quinton’s direction.

  I shook my head. “No. Sorry, Quinton. She didn’t use a monkey. Instead, she used the skills she had been developing for years.”

  I headed up the aisle toward where Detective Wright was still perched on an armrest.

  “Detective, what do your notes say about this back exit here by the screen?” I asked, motioning to the curtained exit at the foot of the aisle.

  Wright pulled out his notebook and flipped through some pages, finally landing on the one he was looking for.

  “‘The suspect appears to have exited via the south rear exit,’” he read slowly, “‘and stepped away from the building about two feet. Subject must have seen or heard something and returned to the building to seek an alternate form of egress.’”

  “That’s one way of looking at it,” I said, holding out my hand to him. It took him a moment to figure out what I wanted, but a second later I was holding the small gun in my hand. “Another idea is she came down here, stepped out the back door, packed some snow around the gun until it was reasonably round, returned to the auditorium and threw it. Through that hole up there.”

  I mimed forming the snowball and making the throw with the small gun.

  They all turned and looked at the square hole up in the back wall of the theater.

/>   It suddenly seemed very far away.

  “That’s a tough throw for a basketball player,” Chip Cavanaugh said sadly. “Even a really good basketball player.”

  “Yes, but you’re making the same assumption I made about Tracy. Because of her height. And because of my woeful ignorance about sports in general.”

  “What’s that?”

  “That she played basketball.” I turned to Tracy, who was staring straight ahead. “Tracy, what sport did you play in college and in Japan?”

  She sat silently for a long moment, and then said quietly, “Softball.”

  “What position?”

  Another long pause. “Catcher.”

  I turned away from her and back to Chip and the rest of the group, gesturing toward the small windows on the back wall.

  “An impossible throw for a basketball player, probably. But a softball catcher can throw far, they can throw hard, and they can throw precisely.” I took a seat on an armrest and glanced over at Tracy. “You see, I made the common mistake of thinking, just because she’s tall, Tracy must have been a basketball player. Had I been paying attention, I would have noticed how often she used baseball terms in real life, but never basketball terms.”

  “I will give you all the money in his wallet right now if you can name one basketball term.” This came from Deirdre, who was gesturing toward her husband while giving me a sly smile.

  “I think we both know how that would end,” I said.

  “Badly,” she said.

  Homicide Detective Fred Hutton looked confused at the exchange but relieved the contents of his wallet were, for the moment, safe.

  “As I was saying,” I continued, “my mistake about Tracy’s chosen sport was corrected in passing during a conversation with Mrs. Tyler James, thank you for that.” I doffed an invisible hat to Mrs. James and she looked back, annoyed, clearly not remembering her referring to Tracy as the “Bad News Bears washout.”

  “That got me thinking. And I did a quick check on the internet, heeding some oft heard advice from my late aunt Alice,” I said, holding up my phone. I looked over to where Harry was seated. He gave me a warm smile.

  “My aunt Alice,” I continued, “used to warn me all the time about my actions being set down somewhere in an unseen Permanent Record. She was a big fan of that concept, the Permanent Record. And that’s a pretty fair definition of the internet. Tracy’s gambling scandals—the college and Japanese versions—are well documented.”

  Randall Glendower had stood up and turned in his seat, squinting up at the projection booth. He pivoted back toward me. “She threw the snowball with the gun in it through that little hole?”

  “Yes,” I said, “using the strength and precision she had developed as a semi-pro softball catcher. The snowball hit the floor of the booth and the snow went flying, which explains the small puddles of water which were found once we got to the booth.”

  He considered this for a moment, and then turned. “But what about Clifford Thomas?”

  “Yes, which brings me to my next point. That snowball also led to the death of Clifford Thomas.” I looked to Tracy, but she returned my gaze with a stony expression, clearly having learned a lesson from her last outburst.

  “The best I can figure,” I continued, “is Clifford Thomas came by our magic shop to return some books he’d signed for my Uncle Harry. We weren’t open so he left them next door—here at the theater. I’m guessing Tracy recognized him from the times he stopped by to talk to Tyler. Maybe he invited her to stop by his house some time. I’m not clear on the details, but I do know he wasn’t shy about letting fans, particularly good-looking fans, into his house.”

  Randall Glendower nodded as I spoke and then cut in. “Then she went to his house, maybe to see if he’d figured out Tyler’s murder—he was a mystery writer, after all. And he was the one who had put down the $75,000 deposit. Perhaps Tyler mentioned that when he confronted Tracy.”

  “Perhaps,” I agreed, turning back to Tracy. “You’re sitting with him in his library, behind that fancy moving bookcase. Then maybe he left the room for a minute, to get drinks or something, and your curiosity got the better of you. I think you took a peek at the manuscript of his new book on the desk and the title probably freaked you out.”

  “What was the title?” Randall was leaning forward, as was Chip Cavanaugh. Even Sherry Lisbon appeared to be sitting on the edge of her seat. Only Mrs. Tyler James and Gunnar seemed disengaged from the narrative, now that neither one appeared to be a suspect in either murder.

  “I’m just speculating,” I said, “but from the list of titles he kept in his desk, only one would have really caught your eye: A Snowball’s Chance.” I walked up the aisle and looked down at her. “Did you think he’d solved the crime and written it up as a novel?”

  Tracy didn’t meet my eye. “I didn’t think. I just acted.”

  “That’s right, you’re impulsive,” I said, remembering the kiss she had planted on me after driving her home from the hospital. “You picked up the letter opener, Clifford Thomas came back to the room, and that was that.”

  “That was that.”

  I turned and headed back to the front of the room, then stopped suddenly and turned around. “Oh, and you took the manuscript. Which wasn’t about Tyler’s murder, was it?”

  Tracy shook her head. “No. It was about ice fishing and a murder using a frozen fish or something. I didn’t finish it. Mysteries are stupid.”

  “Not to worry. I’m sure the prison library stocks many other interesting genres,” I said as Detective Wright stepped forward with a pair of handcuffs.

  Chapter 23

  “You know what they say: A party’s not a party until someone gets read their Miranda rights.”

  This wry observation came from none other than Sherry Lisbon. Even after I laughed, her two attorney companions still seemed unsure of the comedic intention of her proclamation. Then Sherry cracked what, for her, passed as a smile, and the two women instantly offered up their impressions of what a smiling attorney might look like.

  This was just one of many odd conversations which filled the next half hour after Tracy was arrested and the rest of the attendees filed out of the auditorium, through the lobby and into the crisp cold evening. Deirdre stopped long enough to thank me for my help in arranging this.

  “You were correct in your theory,” she said. There was a grudging edge to her compliment.

  “I got the broad strokes right, I suppose,” I said. “Thanks for letting me stage it.”

  Deirdre shrugged. “Once you laid out the evidence, Homicide was in general agreement. We figured if Tracy was working with an accomplice, she would have copped to it when you confronted her. But it looks like she was working alone.”

  “That’s the way it looks.”

  Deirdre glanced over at me, the slightest traces of a smile on her face. “Anyway, try to stay out of trouble. For at least a couple days.”

  I held the door for her and just as she exited, Chip Cavanaugh came up behind me and gave my back a playful slap.

  “Thanks for throwing this shindig,” he said with a wink. “And I hope I didn’t tease you too much with my ad on Glendower’s website,” he added, winking again.

  “That was you?”

  He nodded, not even trying to suppress a smirk.

  “Why?”

  Chip shrugged. “Who knows? I clearly have too much time on my hands. And speaking of time,” he said, glancing at his watch. “I better get moving. I tell you, this is the best party I’ve ever been at that involved handcuffs.” He stopped and touched his chin thoughtfully. “No, strike that. Second best.”

  No one thought this joke was funnier than Chip, who was still laughing as he made his way out the door. From my vantage point in the lobby, I could see Sherry Lisbon was standing in front of the theater, perhaps waiting for her car
to be brought around.

  Chip scanned the area surreptitiously and then took a position next to her. From where I stood, it didn’t appear they were speaking or relating in any fashion. They were just standing, quietly, side by side.

  They stood there for a moment and then Chip reached over—slowly, very slowly—and took her hand. She batted it away without turning toward him. He waited several seconds and then made a second attempt. This time it was accepted, tentatively at first and then with more enthusiasm. They stood there for several moments, holding hands, as if it were a completely alien action for both of them. Then Sherry’s ride—provided by her two attorneys—pulled up in front of the theater. Chip and Sherry immediately separated, like magnets being pushed apart, she getting in the car quickly while he turned and headed down the sidewalk in search of his own car.

  I thought of my encounter with Sherry Lisbon in the downtown St. Paul parking ramp, the one connected to Chip Cavanaugh’s condo building, and realized the two eccentric millionaires were conducting a courtship of sorts, in their own awkward, inimitable fashion. I smiled because the idea struck me as, well, sort of cute.

  I was interrupted from this reverie by a grunt behind me. I turned to see that Mrs. Tyler James and her friend Gunnar were approaching me in an obligatory fashion, like I was the under-populated reception line at a one-person wedding. The pair stood there staring at me for a long moment, Mrs. James still masticating the life out of her gum.

  “Thanks for coming by,” I said finally.

  “I didn’t think we had a choice,” she said in her typical sullen fashion.

  “That’s true. Sometimes when the police are involved in an invitation, the wording can suggest your options are limited.”

  “Whatever,” was all she said as the pair slouched out.

  I shook my head, thinking how proud Oscar Wilde would have been if he had exited an event with the same wit and élan.

  “It’s been quite a week, I’m going to turn in,” Harry said as he buttoned up his coat, even though he’d only be outside for ten seconds on the walk from the theater to our door.