“And Nick Bernard. He died in the eighties,” I noted. I headed for the living room window.
I always believed life was better if I took the time to look outside and note the world hadn’t turned upside down in the last few hours. It hadn’t, which was good. Boo-Boo followed and stayed close. Almost literally under my feet. My canine bestie.
“We need anything we can find of the original script. It’s too hard trying to piece together anything without knowing how bad the presumed misdeeds were. Shane? Did Rob tell you anything beyond the synopsis? I remember one scene, set as a flashback in the POW camp but that’s it.”
“Hell, you could hardly call it a synopsis. More like a blurb or a very bare bones outline. But a damned good premise. It was basically ‘this play is about a Vietnam War hero who witnesses a murder and recognizes a traitor.’ My character was the hero. No villainous activities on or off stage.”
He joined me at the window, rightly assuming that where Boo-Boo played, Holly must be nearby. “I’m pretty sure Rob wrote in a wife who murdered her husband…or it was another soldier from the POW camp who murdered the husband? Anyway, there was a character based on the commandant of the POW camp who was not a sympathetic character, but he also wasn’t in the present day. He was going to be seen in flashbacks. And Chandra was supposed to play a nurse who was a bit too cozy with her patients.”
“So Crimson would have had the role of the murdering wife?”
Shane mused, “I believe that’s what Rob originally planned. It’s all so—iffy. And I’m forty-three years away from conversations with our playwright so my own recollections are not exactly spot on. You were much closer to Rob, but since you haven’t latched on to any memories specifically related to what was in the final script, assuming there was one, we have no clue what he did.”
I groaned. “This is getting downright muddy and muddled, so I’m going to exercise one more ghostly prerogative tonight, if you guys don’t mind?”
Addie snorted. Shane asked, “What’s your wish, Ms. Malone?”
“Let’s drop motive for the rest of the night, finish up the chow, and go online for stuff about Crimson, like if she left a husband or surviving relatives and then get some rest. Tomorrow Shane and I will do a road trip to Fort Lee, New Jersey—if we’ve determined there’s really a reason to go—and see if we can discover new info about her accident, and then work out whether any of this has anything to do with us or the play.”
Addie beamed. “You inherited my brilliance along with my tendency to use run-on sentences. But it sounds like a great plan. I wish I could go with you but I have two interviews with Broadway producers tomorrow. Hey! I can use those interviews to do a little digging.”
“How so?” I asked.
“Good old-fashioned gossip. They’ve both been around theatre forever and one of them is the nosiest old maid I’ve ever met. Literally. She never married and is always hounding me for information about actors and directors and whether I plan to reveal the truth about their work habits because she doesn’t want to hire anyone she can’t trust.”
“Do you usually have the skinny on these folks she’s interested in?” Shane asked.
“Oh yeah. But I don’t tell. Not unless something is criminal and been proven. I have no desire to fight any libel or slander suits. I keep the column to artsy comments and I keep my sources confidential.” She snapped her fingers as if brilliance had just hit. “Shane? Do you have a current driver’s license?”
“I have an international permit. Why?”
“Because I’m offering you guys my car for the trip. As long as you fill up, which I forgot to do last time I drove. I hate pumping gas. Just get it back to the garage in one piece and it’s yours for the day. It’ll be less stressful than trying to sneak a ghost onto the bus, plus it’ll be easier once you hit Fort Lee. I imagine you may have to visit more than one spot, depending on what we find out about Ms. Cloverly.”
Shane appeared delighted. “Thanks. We accept. I’ll be sure to return it in pristine condition and filled to the brim with fuel.”
“Thanks, Addie.” I snickered. “You’re now my BFF aunt!”
She groaned. “That’s not the way… Oh hell, why did I bring you up to date on slang? Stupid auntie. Okay. Onward to the new desktop computer, gang. It’s got that lovely twenty-seven inch screen, so we all can see auntie at work.”
She went to her desk and revved up the machine. Shane and I left the window and stood behind her. I reached for his hand and he let me hang on to him. He smiled. “I feel a lovely breeze. Are ya by any chance holding my hand?”
“I am.”
Addie asked, “Hey, do we have a name apart than Crimson Cloverly? Which I must admit I love because it’s so terribly sixties. Anyway, I want to be thorough.”
“I wrote it down,” I told her. “It should be somewhere in my pile of notes for Salacity City. I’d never remember it otherwise.”
“Found it.” Addie howled with laughter. “I’m not surprised you couldn’t remember! Damn. I’m not sure I can pronounce it.” She sounded out, with a stumble or two, “Fekla Dunyasha Esfir Cherstvennikov?”
Shane rolled his eyes. “Can you imagine coming to America and having to listen to your new teacher mangle your name aloud in class?”
“When did she emigrate?” I asked. “I didn’t see any dates.”
Addie skimmed the bio she’d pulled up on a Broadway website. “All it says is she changed her name to Crimson Cloverly in ’65 when she joined Actors Equity.”
“Was she ever married?”
“Doesn’t say. This site is sparse on this particular bio; more a list of her shows. Let me do some digging. I am the research guru, after all.”
Shane and I waited, somewhat impatiently, for the master of research to uncover any further information on Crimson. After about twenty minutes Addie wheeled the chair away from the desk and threw her hands into the air in surrender.
“I got nuthin’.”
“Did you try her real name?” I asked.
“I did. Nada. And none of the sites state whether or not she was married so I can’t look up a spouse.”
I headed toward the window again, Boo-Boo close behind. I needed air. I threw open the window and stuck my head out and breathed in the cool night breezes. An idea hit.
“Addie?”
“Yo.”
“Don’t you use different sources for your column? I remember you telling me you go to about six different deep cover investigators for the latest as to who’s leaving what soap or replacing what star in what Broadway show. Right?”
“Of course! Head slap. Just because Cloverly has been out of the business for ages doesn’t mean there’s no info about her. Hang on, guys.” Addie checked the clock on the computer. “Ten. Still early so I can call without being too annoying. Let’s see. Cloverly was more a soap star than anything else, correct?”
Shane nodded. “Correct. She was hoping that a Broadway play would show the world she was better than daytime drama.”
“Great. I’ll give my buddy Corey a call. He has researched soaps going back to Helen Trent in the forties or whenever. I swear the man is a never-ending fountain of trivia. Corey tends to be—I’ll be kind—somewhat talkative, so prepare for an hour of listening to me go ‘Uh huh. Oh?’ and ‘Wow, I didn’t know’ and ‘Way too bizarre’. Hopefully I can dig some worthwhile stuff out of him before tomorrow morning.”
“Tell him it’s an emergency,” I said. “After all, it’s the truth. Shit. One killer has already been sent after Shane.”
Addie agreed. “We’ve got to find out as much as we can as fast as we can before the next hit.”
“Ouch!”
“That did sound horrible, didn’t it?” Addie winced. “I’m sorry, Shane.”
“It’s okay.” Shane shuddered. “It’s true and we need to face it and solve
the old murders before I’m the new one.”
Addie held up her hand for us all to get quiet, then spoke into her phone, keeping Shane and me trying to determine what might be going on in the other half of the conversation. “Corey? Yeah…me too. Look, this is kind of a wacky request but do you have any info about the actress Crimson Cloverly? Like what she’s been up to the last few years and did she have any family or close friends?”
A longer pause, and Addie used her hand to mimic someone yammering away. “Yeah, I heard. Six weeks ago. Car crash… Right… Okay, okay. Interesting. Yeah, right. Should prove helpful.” Addie began to scribble furiously in a notebook. “Now that is very interesting. Yeah, I’ll give you a heads-up. Not sure when or if I’d include it. Depends on what some other sources—” she winked at Shane, “—discover tomorrow.” Laughter. “Yeah, same here. Hey. I owe you big time. Lunch Friday? I’ll spring for it. Right. Later. ’Night.”
Addie turned and held up the notebook, a proverbial cat swallowing the canary. “I’m going to treat Corey to something far better than a pizza slice and a soda. This is good.”
My patience vanished. “Spill!”
“Okay. First of all, Crimson Cloverly married one Brian Martin back in the seventies. They had three kids, and he died from a heart attack in ’96. The kids kept the Martin name. There is a Brian Junior, age forty-one, and living in Fort Lee, New Jersey, in the old family domicile. Corey gave me the address. Brian Junior has two older sisters, but Corey hadn’t seen any married names. He figured Brian would be the one to talk to about Crimson because he happens to be a casting agent and is up on the biz.”
“This is good. Thanks.”
“Wait. There’s more.”
“Well?” Shane asked.
“According to Corey, Mrs. Brian Martin has been directing plays in Jersey for small theatres the last fifteen years or so. He emphasized small—as in community or high school productions.”
“So she stayed in theatre,” I mused. “Nice. I have no memory of seeing her in her soap when I was alive, but I remember I was impressed—or at least I told Rob and Shane how good she was.”
Addie nodded. “With mother and son being involved in the theatrical community, one of them could have run across something which triggered Crimson’s memory of her brief involvement with Trapped in the Basement. It’s speculation and probably pure bunk, but it’s still worth asking Brian Martin Junior.”
I shivered. “I only hope we don’t ask something which could turn him into the next target.”
Chapter Twenty
Shane glided Addie’s car to a stop by the curb of Brian Martin’s house.
“Uh, excuse me, but what, precisely, are we going to say to this guy?” he asked. “‘Oh, hi, there, Brian. Look, chap, we believe there’s more to your mum’s death than the police know, like a bloody evil killer from forty-three years ago who’s not done yet. By the way, do ya have any tea brewed? There’s a very lovely ghost who’s gotten me hooked on chai.’”
“We? Whacha mean we? There is no we unless we want to watch the man run screaming off toward the Palisades. So sayeth ghost girl.”
Shane smiled. “A bit of entertainment? After avoiding being shot yesterday I’m ready for something a bit lighter. But, back to the original question, darlin’—what am I, Shane Halloran, singular, going to say? And, do I admit to this guy I’m Shane Halloran or stick with Jordan Matthews?”
“I’m not sure it matters now that our killer knows you’re you. But, whatever you decide, make it fast because someone, presumably Mr. Martin, appears to have spotted our car. Why not stick with Jordan to be on the safe side?” I whispered. “I’ll shut up now so he doesn’t get a nice view of you talking to thin air.”
Brian Martin Junior stood in the entranceway of a remodeled Cape Cod bungalow, about three miles from the George Washington Bridge in Fort Lee, New Jersey.
“May I help you?” he called out.
Shane opened the door to the driver’s side and left it open so I could crawl over and get out. He then waited until he was a bit closer to the house. This wasn’t a topic we wanted the neighbors to overhear as the guys chatted on the front lawn. When he was within normal speaking distance, Shane introduced himself as Jordan Matthews and asked if Mr. Martin would mind if he asked some questions about Crimson Cloverly.
Brian’s right eyebrow raised into his receding hairline. “Jordan Matthews? No offense, but you’re the very image of Shane Halloran. I’ve seen every one of his movies on TV and own more than a few DVDs. Both my kids think Ebony Dreams was the coolest cult movie made in the early seventies. So, unless you decided to change your face and opted for some damned fine plastic surgery, my first guess would be the image is the man. Care to tell me the truth?”
Shane dropped all pretenses. “No surgery. You’re very observant. You’re also correct. I am Shane Halloran. I’ve lived under the name Matthews since 1973. I suppose you could consider it my own witness protection program.”
“Interesting. I suppose your charade has something to do with my mother’s death?”
Brian Martin was intelligent and he was blunt. Good. It should be easier for Shane to ask what needed to be asked.
“It does.”
“Well, come in. Coffee? Tea?”
“I’m good. Thanks.”
Brian held the door open for Shane. I managed to sneak in without getting whapped in the face by a screen door.
The staircase just inside the entrance led to an upper level boasting a huge living room. Brian ushered us into a small room I’d have called a parlor, which adjoined a dining area, which in turn bordered the kitchen. The parlor included a working fireplace. A Matisse painting hung on the wall to the right of the hearth. It looked like an original, not a print.
And I’d seen it before in this very room.
March 1973
“Ms. Cloverly, is that an original Matisse?” I asked.
I’d met Crimson Cloverly barely two minutes ago when she’d greeted Rob and me at the door and I was already in awe. She exuded the kind of glamor one associates with the Hollywood stars of the 1950s while still managing to appear down-to-earth and genuinely nice.
She was petite, with long dark auburn-colored hair, gray-blue eyes, and the kind of mouth romance writers tend to label as voluptuous. The playwright side of me associated with Trapped in the Basement hoped she’d take the role. The Shane-girlfriend side of me shamefully hoped the film I heard she’d been offered would be shooting in India or China or somewhere halfway around the world where Shane wouldn’t be staring at temptation every night.
She beamed at me. “Nice eye, Ms. Malone. Yes. It’s a Matisse and it’s original. My father found it at some obscure little shop in Paris right after the war. No one seemed to be aware of its value. I had it authenticated because I couldn’t believe a genuine Matisse would be floating around for the price Papa paid for it. It’s real.”
“Well, it goes without saying it’s one of the most emotional works of his I’ve ever seen. And call me Holly.”
“Agreed. To the name and the description of the painting. And, please, call me Crimson. It’s been my nickname since I came to America as a kid. I’m well aware it sounds ridiculous but it works for theatre marquees and soap credits, especially when one tacks Cloverly at the end.” She grinned, and then gestured to a couple of chairs in the small living room. “Sit. Please. Would you or Rob care for some coffee or tea?”
Rob answered for the two of us. “We’re fine. Thanks.”
The three of us sat in silence for a long moment.
Crimson spoke first. “Rob, I’ve read through your draft at least five times. And it’s superb. It’s emotionally intense and it made me cry each time I read it. Now, then, you do understand you’re insane? There’s no way I can do this play. For so many reasons.” She turned to me. “Have you read it?”
I sh
ook my head. “Only the first act with the flashbacks to the prison camp.”
Rob looked ill. “Crimson, it needs to be done. People have to know.”
“I agree,” said Crimson. “The good captain needs to be exposed for what he really is.”
“He’s the actual murderer, right?” I asked. “Not the wife?”
Crimson answered for Rob. “He is. He’s also a damned traitor. I met him. I didn’t know what a snake he was then. Also, fortunately he didn’t recognize me. I was there, Holly. In that hospital. It’s where I first met Rob. He wrote the wife’s character as a murderer, which is a good idea. It made the role more interesting, while avoiding anyone associating that character with the real killer.”
Rob interjected. “I haven’t decided. I keep switching from the wife to the captain to the nurse and back again to the wife. The script our mugger got has the captain so I’m thinking about changing it again.”
“We’ll figure it out, Rob,” I told him. “But I do need to know what happened if I’m going to be able to help. ”
Crimson voice was a chilling monotone, “What happened was murder. Four beds down from Rob’s yet his doctor refused to believe him. Dismissed everything he’d said, declaring Rob had been too whacked out on painkillers to distinguish reality from nightmare.”
I eyed Rob with less than joy. “I presume Act Two shows the murder? Did you change anything else from the true story?”
Rob turned pale. “I merged a couple of characters into one, but the facts remain.” He glanced at Crimson, who appeared to be blinking back tears. “Holly, a young soldier was murdered in his sleep by a man he’d discovered had collaborated with the Viet Cong—whether out of cowardice or weakness or greed, I’m not sure. I have to believe this man was afraid the truth would come out so…he smothered a twenty-year-old kid in his sleep.”
I asked, “Crimson? You said you knew about this as well? I mean the murder?”
She grabbed a tissue and dabbed her eyes. “I found out the next day. Rob told me what had happened. The killer chose well. It was the graveyard shift. His death wasn’t discovered until hours later.”
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