by J. R. Ripley
I told him that I had. “Did you hear that somebody shot at Miss Turner this morning?”
He stopped in the middle of tossing a pair of trousers into his trunk. “Is she dead?”
“No,” I answered. “Not even a scratch.”
The director’s face was inscrutable even as he said, “Well, that’s good then.”
“Yes. One murder per show is enough.”
“More than enough.”
Mantooth’s Adam’s apple bobbled up and down as I fiddled with the TV remote lying near his bed. “Tell me, how well did you know Patsy Klein?”
“Ms. Klein? Not well at all.” The director blinked. “Why do you ask?”
“I saw you coming out of room twenty-two a few minutes ago.” I watched August Mantooth’s face carefully. “Ms. Klein’s room.”
The corner of the director’s mouth turned down. “Are you spying on me, Ms. Simms?” He pulled at his mustache. “Shouldn’t you be watching birds instead of people? Think you’re James Bond, do you?” His tone was thick with mocking.
I shrugged as if to say, What if I am? He could hardly suggest that spying on him was worse than him being in Ms. Klein’s motel room. “Did you know that the author Ian Fleming was an avid bird-watcher? In fact, he named his James Bond character after the name of an author-ornithologist of the same name.”
“Fascinating, I’m sure.”
“It is. James Bond wrote Birds of the West Indies. You might want to read it sometime.”
“I’ll wait for the stage production,” August said with an unkind chuckle.
“What were you looking for in Patsy’s room?”
Mantooth threw a pair of trousers, which he’d been holding and twisting savagely into a knot, down in the trunk. “Who said I was looking for something?”
I smiled. “Nobody. But the police might.” I saw his ears perk up. “If somebody was to mention to them that you’d been fishing around in her motel room. A room that is officially off limits.”
The director folded his arms across his chest. He wore a flowery red and blue Hawaiian shirt and billowing gray shorts. The knee-high white socks and open-toed sandals I tried not to look at. What was the man thinking?
“I-I was looking for some papers.”
I raised an eyebrow, questioning.
“Ms. Klein worked as my assistant of sorts, too. She had notes not only on this show but on other projects as well. We”—he paused momentarily—“had a history together.”
“A history?”
“That’s right. She’s worked on several productions for me over the years.”
Realizing this was a good opportunity to learn about the deceased, I asked, “Where was she from?”
“I don’t know.” August rubbed his nose. “Buffalo, I think? Could be Moscow for all I know.” The director plodded over to the compact kitchen tucked into the far corner of the cabin. He grabbed a bottle of scotch and poured a couple of fingers’ worth into a plastic cup. He didn’t offer me any.
“What about family? Where are they?”
He swallowed, then shrugged. “I have no idea where her family is or if the woman even had any. From what your chief of police says, no one has come forward to claim the body.”
“It seems odd that you worked with her as much as you say yet know so little about her.”
August Mantooth downed the rest of his booze and wiped the back of his arm across his face. “You didn’t know Ms. Klein like I did.”
I admitted I didn’t.
“She was a quiet sort. She kept to herself. Patsy Klein was not one to share her personal life. She liked to keep her private life private. That’s a trait I rather admire,” the director said pointedly. “I didn’t press her.”
“Did you find what you were looking for?”
Mantooth’s eyes were glassy. “What?”
“In Ms. Klein’s room? Did you find your papers?”
“No,” he said, forcefully. “I did not.” August stepped around me and snatched some more clothes from the closet. The man had not packed light. “Now, if you do not mind, I have to finish.”
“Of course,” I said. “Though speaking of the chief of police, I wonder what the police will think of you leaving town so”—I tapped my index finger to my lips—“precipitously, shall we say?”
His brows pushed together. “What are you implying?”
I told him I wasn’t implying anything. “I’m only concerned what the police might think. They may take your flight as a sign of guilt. Of course,” I continued, “the police back home in New York could always interview you.”
I ran a finger along the top of the lampshade on the table near the door. “I’d be careful those big-city news folk don’t get wind of it though. You know how rumors spread.”
The director’s jaw worked back and forth, but no words were forthcoming.
“Look,” I said, deciding to try a sweeter tack. “Won’t you consider sticking around? Seeing the show through?”
August Mantooth paced like a trapped bear a moment. “There’s a murderer loose, Ms. Simms. And apparently they have not finished killing. Or have you forgotten?”
“I haven’t forgotten at all. But why should the theater suffer for it?” I told him how TOTS might close down completely if something couldn’t be done to bring in some badly needed funds.
“Lou Ferris told me as much.” He slammed the lid of the trunk. “Do you think I like abandoning a show? I lose money if the production shuts down. It’s too late to find another show to direct on such short notice.”
“So you’ll stay?”
August Mantooth slumped on the edge of the bed. “I suppose.”
I stood in the open doorway. “Why did you hire Patsy? I mean, not to speak ill of the dead . . .”
“You may speak ill of the dead all you like,” Mantooth quipped.
“She did not seem to be a well-liked person.”
“She wasn’t.”
“So why employ her?”
“I suggest you go feed your birds, Ms. Simms. Better yet, go rehearse your part.” He pushed himself up from the bed. “I’ve said all I’m going to say to you about Patsy Klein.”
He pushed me toward the cabin door. “And you need all the practice you can get!”
25
The construction noise was driving me crazy the next morning, so I asked Kim to run Birds & Bees alone while I paid a visit to more of the towns’ shopkeepers, trying to convince them to hang flyers for my Seeds for Seniors program and sign the petition Kim, Mom, and I had put together to save the store.
Kim and Randy’s renovation was on hold because they’d found termites in the foundation and were having the house tented and fumigated as a precaution.
I dropped in at Spring Beauty to tape a flyer in the window. Cousin Rhonda was busy clipping a client’s locks. “Hi, Rhonda!” I called. “Okay if I put up a flyer?”
Scissors in hand, Rhonda waved. “Sure, you go right ahead. I’m sure Misty won’t mind.”
“What’s it for?” asked a curious client in the chair at the next station.
“We’re collecting donations to provide birdseed and feeders for senior living facilities. You know, to give residents something to do.” I explained how I owned a shop specializing in such things.
“Like a hobby?” said the woman, with her hair up in big pink curlers. “I think that’s wonderful. My mother used to be a bird-watcher.”
“That’s right. “I’m supplying all my labor for free and materials at cost. I’ve already placed a couple of feeders at Rolling Acres, over by the lake.” I hoped they were still there.
The stylist cutting the woman’s hair said she’d be happy to donate.
“And you say you own a store?” The woman in curlers closed her eyes as the stylist’s hand came across her forehead.
“Birds and Bees,” I said again, watching her stylist deftly unwind the curlers from the woman’s head. “We’re at the corner of Lake Shore Drive and Serviceberry Road.”
She smiled. “By the diner. I believe I’ve seen it.”
Since she’d been so nice, I asked if she’d mind signing my petition to keep the town from taking my store-slash-house. Not only did she agree, but everyone in the salon did too. Ka-ching, six more signatures!
I made my good-byes and headed for town square, where I got several more signatures. A number of shopkeepers, including Sherry at The Coffee and Tea House, let me put up my poster, too.
Coming back along Lake Shore Drive took me past LaChance Motors. On impulse, I pulled into the lot. A salesman came at me fast, like a shark smelling blood in the water.
I waved him off. “Sorry,” I said. “I’m not actually looking to buy.”
He gave my rust-spotted and dented van a look of disdain. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“My name is Juan Chavez.” He handed me a black business card with raised gold letters. “In case you change your mind.”
I dropped the card in my purse and thanked him. I might change my mind if I won the lottery. “I’m looking for Robert—Mr. LaChance. Is he around?”
Juan shook his head in the negative. “The boss and the mayor left on a hunting trip for a couple of days.”
The corner of my mouth turned down. “That’s too bad.” It was also very interesting. What had the two men been hunting? Ava Turner, perhaps? And how was the car dealer planting and shooting with a broken arm? I was no hunter, but I knew that couldn’t be easy.
Seeing the crestfallen look on my face, Juan added, “The boss should be back tomorrow. What’s your name?” He tugged at the collar of his black long-sleeved shirt.
It seemed like an odd choice for such a warm day, but it wasn’t my business to say so. “I’ll tell him you stopped by.”
“Actually, I’m here to hang an announcement in the window and drop off a few brochures.” I pulled one of the flyers and a handful of brochures.
He looked a bit surprised but lost interest quickly as another car pulled into the lot. He eyed the blue coupe and its woman driver greedily. “If you don’t mind?”
“Of course not,” I said. “I’ll tape this up and get out of your hair.”
Juan attacked his new customer, and I made a beeline for the small showroom. I would have loved the chance to snoop around Robert’s office some, for evidence that I could use to show that he and the mayor were in cahoots against me, and maybe even murdered Ava Turner, for some murky reason. But I caught sight of his receptionist manning her desk in the front of Robert’s trailer office. She was hard as nails and likely sleeping with him. She’d never let me past the front door.
I taped up the flyer inside the showroom window to the curious and amused looks of a couple of salesmen and got out before one of them, a slick talker with a thick Alabama drawl, talked me into an almost-new truck with zero down and only eighty-four low monthly payments.
I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when Robert LaChance got back and discovered my flyer in his window! He’d probably have a cow.
I was on my way back to my own, paid-for van when I noticed the Harley. I only knew two men who rode Harley-Davidsons. One was Kim’s boyfriend, Randy. The other was T-Bone Crawford.
And only T-Bone worked at LaChance Motors. The big black and chrome motorcycle with the studded leather saddlebags had to belong to him.
I hitched my purse over my shoulder and walked back to the garage, wincing with the noise my heels made against the concrete as I neared. I wouldn’t be sneaking up on anybody.
The mechanic stood beneath a station wagon that was up on one of those hydraulic lifts. He wore short-sleeved gray overalls and work boots. I suppose they could have been motorcycle boots. They were big, black, and chunky.
His neck craned upward into the bowels of the car. A cigarette dangled from his lips. A cloud of smoke billowed around him.
I coughed.
T-Bone raked his eyes over me. “What are you doing here?” His voice was rough, like someone had sanded his vocal cords with gravel.
It took me a minute to come up with an answer. “Looking for Robert.”
The mechanic narrowed his eyes at me. “He isn’t here.” A black and white skull-and-crossbones motif bandana was wrapped tightly around his long head. “You shouldn’t be either. The shop is off limits to customers. That’s the rules.” He wasn’t lying. I’d passed the NO CUSTOMERS ALLOWED sign on my way in.
We were alone in the service area. It must have been a slow day for auto repairs and maintenance.
He spat out the butt of his smoke and crushed it underfoot. That definitely had to be against the rules, too. Heck, it was probably against the law. I refrained from pointing that out to him. T-Bone Crawford did not, on first look, appear to be the sort who took criticism well.
I wasn’t too certain he cared much for the law either.
I started to reply that I wasn’t a customer but was also afraid T-Bone lacked a sense of humor. I slid my purse to my other shoulder and forced a smile. “Did you hear the news?”
T-Bone plucked a large ratchet wrench for a kit he had laid out on a cloth and did something to one of the front wheels. “What news would that be?”
“It looks like Annie Get Your Gun will go on, after all. I suppose we may start a day or two late, but still, good news, right?” T-Bone, much to my astonishment, did have one of the production’s plum roles.
T-Bone tossed his ratcheting wrench back from whence it came and tugged at the wheel’s brake calipers. A grunt was his only reply.
“Have you acted in other plays before?”
I took T-Bone’s scowl for a no.
“Musicals?”
“Nope.”
He grabbed a can of spray and attacked the wheel like he was bug-spraying a nest of hornets.
I waved a hand in front of my face and coughed hard.
“See?” T-Bone said, with a devilish look in his ever-changing green eyes. “It isn’t safe around here.”
I gagged and hurried to a foul-looking watercooler. I grabbed one of those ridiculous cone-shaped paper cups and swallowed a mouthful of lukewarm water that tasted like it had been piped directly from the septic system. “How do you drink this stuff?” I spat.
When I could finally speak again, I asked, “How did you wind up getting into acting?” Maybe he’d had his arm twisted, like I had.
T-Bone shrugged as if to say, What does it matter? “The boss was doing it and he thought it might be good if I did, too.”
That was a decidedly cryptic answer. Why had Robert wanted this surly and menacing mechanic to join him in Annie Get Your Gun? Was it so he could keep his hired goon close at hand?
The mechanic grabbed a small box from which he removed a pair of brand-new brake pads. He fondled them in his hands, the way I might a fine piece of jewelry. “Are you sure about the show being back on?”
“Pretty sure.”
“Funny.” He scratched his cheek with the edge of one of the pads. “I didn’t think that Turner woman would want to go on, what with all the trouble.”
Trouble? Is that what he called two attempts on her life? A nagging thought shaped itself in my brain. What if Robert LaChance, Mac MacDonald, and T-Bone Crawford were all in the musical because they wanted it to fail? Maybe, just maybe, they wanted the Theater On The Square to fail.
So they could take over the property like they intended to take over Birds & Bees! It was a crazy idea, but it might explain why the three of them were involved with the theater. What better way to make sure it closed down?
They might be plotting some sort of monopoly of half the town!
And if they murdered the show’s star attraction, Ava Turner, the theater would likely shut down for good.
“Then again,” T-Bone said with a laugh, “the woman does pack a mean right hook!” He cackled some more.
I took a measured step back. “You know this from personal experience?”
“Sort of,” he replied, slyly.
“You want to elaborate on that?”
He grabbed a fresh cigarette from the pack of Winstons in his top pocket, took a long pause to light it with a silver butane lighter before speaking. “I saw her arguing with that guy who plays your boyfriend in the show.”
“Eli?”
“Yep.”
He took a drag of his cigarette, and we both watched the smoke billow out and dissipate in the smelly garage, where it would no doubt go undetected. “Well, not arguing so much as making herself clear.”
Right then, I was wishing the mechanic would make himself clear. “I don’t understand.”
“The man came on to her. And the lady didn’t care for it.”
“Eli? Eli Wallace?” Were all theater people promiscuous, or was it something in Ruby Lake’s water? “Miss Turner’s old enough to be his mother!” Heck, maybe his grandmother!
T-Bone loomed over me, lit cigarette dangling inches from my face. “Lady, when she hit him in the face, I thought she was done for.”
“Eli didn’t take it well?”
T-Bone’s grin split his face in two. “He about looked like he was going to rip her head off.”
“So,” I gulped, “why—why didn’t he?”
“Lou showed up and Eli took off like a whipped pup with his tail between his legs. But I could tell his blood was boiling.”
“Where did this happen?” I said.
“In one of the boxes.”
“You mean one of the theater boxes?” There were several theater boxes on the left and right side of the stage. “And where were you while all this was going on?”
“Sitting down in one of the seats near the orchestra, taking a break.”
“And you didn’t think to intervene? What if Eli had hurt her?”
“I don’t like to get involved.” He tapped ash to the floor.
Didn’t like to get involved or was happy to let Eli Wallace do his job for him?
“Besides, I’d seen the great lady going at it once with that lady that got herself killed. I figured she could hold her own.”
“Miss Klein and Miss Turner were arguing?”
“More like a catfight, if you ask me,” chuckled the mechanic, pulling the cigarette to his thick lips and inhaling once more.