Towhee Get Your Gun

by J. R. Ripley

  “I was just looking around. What’s all this stuff doing in here? This is supposed to be Ava Turner’s dressing room.”

  Cash’s black T-shirt bore the name of his construction company, CC CONSTRUCTION. “Not anymore. Lou said she refused to come in here.” He pulled a face. “I can’t say that I blame her.”

  “Neither can I,” I agreed. There was something macabre about the space.

  “That’s why Lou’s using it as a storage room.” He pointed at the wall. “I’m fixing up the electric panel and repairing the walls from the fire. That’s why I moved some of the stuff from there over to here for now.”

  “That’s good. Now that the theater is staying open, Lou says the repairs have to be made before he can officially open for business. That reminds me,” I said, “I have a window in my apartment that needs replacing. Did Mom call you?”

  Cash dug his cell phone from the pocket of his jeans. “No, not yet, anyway.” He thumbed through his phone, checking his calendar. “I can stop by in a couple of days, if that works for you?”

  I said it did. I wiped a line of sweat from my brow. “I hope you’ll get the AC issues around here straightened out.”

  Cash pulled a face. “We’ll see. Mr. Ferris still says he can’t afford the repairs. But I keep telling him, he can’t afford not to make the repairs.”

  The contractor stamped his right foot against the floor. “The basement is crisscrossed with ancient duct work. Not to mention the plumbing and electrical.” He shook his head. “I’ve been a contractor for over thirty years and it scares me to go down there. It’s a wonder this whole place doesn’t collapse on itself.”

  “That bad, huh?” I expressed my hopes that the contractor could work his miracles and keep TOTS up and running. “At least see us through the summer season,” I said, encouragingly. “Lou will be grateful for anything you can do.”

  “I’ll do my best,” the contractor promised. “Well, gotta get back to work,” he announced. “I warn you, the electricity will be going out in here in a minute. I have to disconnect the power to the panel while I do a reinstall.”

  “No problem. I need to get back to the store.” I left, but not to go back to the store. I was hoping to catch August Mantooth, aka August Manfred, before he left the theater. I had a couple of questions for the man, and I hoped he would be more forthcoming this time than he had been the last.

  As an added inducement, I had the news article I’d discovered in Patsy’s motel room in my purse.

  The director was in his cubby-sized office, behind an ancient desk, staring at a laptop screen. “Miss Simms,” he said, looking up guiltily from his computer. “What do you want?” He closed the lid of his laptop.

  I sat on the folding director’s chair across from the desk. “I wanted to talk to you about Patsy Klein.” I eyed him carefully. “Or should I say Patsy Kleinerman?”

  “I have no idea what you are talking about.” He pushed back his chair and stood. “Nor do I wish to. So, if you don’t mind.” He motioned to the door.

  I ignored the not-so-subtle hint. “I also wanted to talk to you about this.” I unclasped my purse and took out my wallet. I removed the newspaper clipping and smoothed it open on the corner of the desk.

  August looked down at the newspaper. His lips moved in silence. He looked at me, then slumped back down in his seat. “Where did you get that?”

  “At the Ruby Lake Motor Inn. In Patsy Klein’s room.”

  “But that’s not possible,” he blustered. “I—” The director stopped himself. He pulled his scarf tighter around his neck. The room was frigid. The contractor was right, the HVAC system needed a complete overhaul.

  “You were going to say you searched her room and came up empty-handed?”

  August flushed and reached for the newspaper. I was quicker. “Sorry,” I said. “I might need this. Something tells me Chief Kennedy might want to read it, too.” I had a feeling he was unaware of August Mantooth’s somewhat dubious past.

  Mantooth folded his arms across his chest as he glared across the desk at me. “Go ahead. I have nothing to hide.”

  “Not even the fact that you were burgling Miss Klein’s room?”

  “The door was ajar,” he said, unconvincingly. “I was merely making sure all was in order. What were you doing there?”

  “Let’s stop playing games, shall we?” I said, leaning closer. I’d folded the news article and returned it to the safety of my wallet. Though I was now beginning to fear for my own safety. I may not be confronting merely a man accused of financial misconduct; I could be confronting a cold-blooded killer. “I know all about your past and I know all about Patsy Klein, aka Kleinerman. What I don’t know is why you murdered her.”

  August jumped up.

  “And why you are trying to murder Ava Turner.” I turned and looked at the door, judging the distance and August’s poor physical condition. There was every chance I could outrun him.

  Of course, if he had a gun, I couldn’t outrun a bullet.

  Realizing I may have put myself in a difficult and dangerous situation, I rose. It was time to exit stage right.

  “Patsy was blackmailing me, if you must know,” August confessed suddenly. He tugged at his orange scarf and glanced at the door as if contemplating making a run for it. In the end, he sank into his chair like a deflated balloon.

  “She wanted money?”

  His big, sad eyes looked at me. “No, she only wanted a job here and there.” He turned his attention to his hands. “She was actually good at what she did. So I obliged by getting her backstage work on my shows, everything from costume prep to scenery design. She liked to call herself a Jill-of-all-trades. In any case, it was far cheaper than paying her off or suffering the consequences. This is a small world. If word got out about even a hint of impropriety, my career could have been ruined.”

  August shook his finger at me. “And if you’re thinking of telling Lou Ferris, you can save your breath. I told him myself after the murder.”

  “So why kill Ava Turner now? How does she fit into this?”

  “I didn’t kill Patsy and I’m not trying to kill Miss Turner!” cried Mantooth. “You saw me. I was outside with you and the others when Patsy was murdered. Besides,” he added, “why would I kill her?”

  “Maybe Patsy Klein was tired of small jobs and wanted one big payoff.”

  August shook his head no. “It wasn’t like that. Besides, like you said, Ms. Simms, the killer was really after Ava Turner. Patsy was murdered by mistake. I don’t know who is trying to kill Miss Turner. Believe me, I want to keep our star alive almost as much as Lou does.”

  I couldn’t help smiling. “He does care a lot about the theater.”

  The director gave me a wry look. “And a lot about Miss Turner.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning I do believe the dear man adores her.”

  I said I wasn’t surprised. “My cousin feels the same way.” A sudden thought came to mind. “You don’t suppose Lou could have murdered Patsy?”

  He smiled in amusement. “Just how would he have managed that, Miss Simms? Lou was farthest from the scene than any of us.”

  I sighed and rubbed my face. Lou had been on the opposite side of the theater in his office. He’d come running after I’d arrived. How, indeed?

  “I suggest you leave finding the killer to your chief of police,” said August, grabbing a stack of papers beside him. “Focus on learning your lines. We’ve got a show to do.”

  “There still may not be a show unless we can catch whoever it is that is trying to murder your star.”

  “It seems to me,” said August, clearly losing patience, “that more people want Ava Turner alive than dead. So who is our mysterious killer?”

  I told him that I wasn’t so sure of any of that anymore. I wasn’t so sure of anything. I tried coming at the truth from another angle. “So it was Patsy Klein’s idea to come here to Ruby Lake and work on Annie Get Your Gun?”

  Au
gust nodded. “She was quite insistent.”

  I thought for a moment. “Did you know she was really Patsy Kleinerman, the stepdaughter of the man that Ava Turner shot in self-defense?”

  August shook his head glumly, pulling his fingers through his thick and curly beard. “Not at all. At least, not until your Chief Kennedy mentioned as much. He told me Patsy was Rex’s stepdaughter from a previous marriage.”

  “Do you think Patsy might have wanted to kill Ava Turner?”

  A sick smile crossed the director’s face. “I wouldn’t be surprised, given the history between the two women. Ava Turner shot and killed Patsy’s stepdad, Rex Richardson, in defense of her daughter.” His gray eyes hinted at me. “Some say that the real story is quite different than the one that was released to the papers.”

  I felt a chill run up my arms. “What do you mean?”

  He shrugged. “Some say it was Ava’s daughter, Lavinia, who shot Rex. That he hadn’t been assaulting her at all and was simply trying to take the gun away from her for her own safety.” August tapped his temple. “The rumor was that the girl wasn’t quite . . . stable.”

  There was a cold silence in the room, and it wasn’t merely the out-of-whack HVAC system.

  “Do you think Ava Turner might have murdered Miss Klein? Maybe she discovered the truth about the woman. Or maybe Patsy confronted her and Ava decided that the best way to deal with the woman was to silence her forever?”

  August’s mouth twisted down. “I don’t know,” he said, finally, his fingers pressed against the desktop. “But if she did”—he pulled up his brow—“it wouldn’t be the first time she’d killed, would it?”

  29

  I left August Mantooth to his own devices and went in search of Lou. What the director had said about Ava had rocked me to the core. I wanted to see what, if anything, Lou could corroborate about what August had said. If there was one thing I knew about people in general, and men in particular, it was that they were not above lying when it suited them.

  The sign thumbtacked to Lou’s office door said NO ADMITTANCE, but up ahead I saw T-Bone Crawford open the door and duck inside. What did he want to see the theater manager about? He’d be more likely to want a word with the show’s director.

  I tiptoed to the door and pressed my ear against it. I didn’t hear a thing. Not even a murmur. Very funny. I tried the door. It wasn’t locked, so I went in.

  “Lou?”

  T-Bone Walker stood behind Lou’s desk. There was a glistening knife in his hand that he was using to attempt to pry open the side desk drawer.

  “Hey, what are you—”

  T-Bone snarled and lunged across the desk for me.

  I would have screamed, but I never got the chance. I dodged to the right and rolled a wobbly office chair at him. He bellowed and chased me behind the desk.

  T-Bone lunged for me once more. This time, I did yell. At the top of my lungs. “Help! Help!”

  I didn’t know what good it would do. Lou Ferris’s office was clear over on the other side of the theater, away from the dressing rooms. Away from where big, strong Cash Calderon was working on the electrical panel.

  I grabbed anything and everything in reach and started throwing the whole lot at him. Books, pens, lamps, the telephone book, a portable radio, and stuff I barely comprehended before it left my hands. But it all either missed horribly or bounced off the over-muscled monster harmlessly.

  “Stop moving!” snarled the ex-con. “You’re only making it tougher on yourself.”

  “That’s funny,” I said, near breathless, as I swung around the desk to evade the point of his knife once again. “I thought I was keeping myself alive.”

  T-Bone hissed and dodged to the left. Unfortunately, I’d dodged to my right, which put me directly in his path. “Ha!” His eyes filled with fire and mirth.

  I drove the heel of my shoe into his foot and he howled. I retreated behind the desk again and watched with terror—and a little bit of joy—as the big man hopped awkwardly on one foot, bellowing with rage.

  Sadly, he hadn’t dropped the knife.

  “Is that what you told Patsy Klein, or should I say Kleinerman?” I was shouting now. Partly because my adrenaline was running uncontrollably. Partly because I hoped somebody, anybody, would hear the commotion and come running, like the cavalry to the rescue. “That if she didn’t put up a struggle it wouldn’t hurt as much when you stabbed her to death?!”

  “Shut the hell up!” he screamed at the top of his lungs.

  I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye. Lou came in, put a finger to his lips. I tried desperately not to give any indication that the other man was in the room. If T-Bone caught sight of Lou, we’d both be dead. As it was, I couldn’t imagine what the doughy theater manager could do for either of us. My eyes pleaded with him to run and call the police.

  But Lou was crouching now, like a sandpiper preparing to descend on a small crab. Soundlessly, his hands wrapped around the black motorcycle helmet on the floor next to the door.

  “You’ll never get away with this!” I shouted in a desperate attempt to keep T-Bone’s eyes on me. What the devil did Lou hope to accomplish? My arms were shaking as I clutched Lou’s desk chair before me as a shield.

  If he was planning on stealing the man’s helmet, he’d only make him all the madder!

  “I am going to cut you, b—”

  T-Bone Crawford never got to finish his sentence. Lou drove the motorcycle helmet down on the biker’s head. He went down like a proverbial dead duck.

  I felt the floor shake as his dead weight hit the ground. “Lou, Lou!” I shouted, running out from behind the desk. “Thank you!”

  Lou let the helmet fall to the ground. It hit T-Bone’s back and rolled across the rug.

  “I don’t know what I—”

  And then the lights went out.

  30

  “What the hell?” gasped Lou. I heard him trip over T-Bone’s Winert body.

  “Don’t worry,” I said, using my hands to feel around in the dark, windowless office. “It’s probably Mr. Calderon. He told me he was going to have to turn off the power while he works on the electric panel.”

  I could hear Lou fumbling around in his desk drawers. “Why didn’t he tell me? I’m the one paying the bills after all. Besides, I told him not to worry about it today.” A drawer slammed. Another fell to the floor.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Looking for a flashlight,” explained Lou. “I know there’s one here someplace.”

  “Shouldn’t we be calling the police?”

  Lou must have stopped because the commotion ceased. “Of course,” he said, finally. “I don’t have my phone. Can I borrow yours?”

  I nodded, though I don’t know why. If I couldn’t see him, he couldn’t see me. I dug out my phone and placed it in Lou’s hands. Fortunately, not a peep was coming from the fallen ex-con. Soon to be new-con. I’d known there was something fishy about that guy. While I was all for helping reformed criminals, my intuition had told me that T-Bone wasn’t interested in going down the straight and narrow path.

  Lou’s face lit up in the glow of my phone. His fingers hesitated over the screen.

  “Just dial 9-1-1,” I said. I was concerned that fear had taken over and that the poor guy was falling into shock. “Want me to do it?”

  “No, I’ve got—”

  “Shush. Listen.” I strained to hear. “What is that?”

  “I don’t hear anything,” wheezed Lou. His face was ashen with ugly red blotches.

  “That sounds like somebody shouting. . . .” I slowly turned around. There was a faint glow coming from behind a door behind the desk. I worked my way over to it. “Hey, I think there’s a light on down here.” I jiggled the handle. The door stuck. “What’s in here?”

  “Nothing,” replied Lou. “It’s a closet.”

  I jiggled the door once more, then pulled with both hands. The door flew toward me.

  I found myself lookin
g at a steep wooden stairway leading down. “Hey, I thought you said this was a closet? This looks like it leads to the basement.”

  “I thought you meant the other one.” Lou fiddled with the phone. “I can hardly see a thing.”

  “Help! Help!” The muffled cry came from below.

  “Somebody’s down there!” I cried, chills running up my spine. “I’m going down.”

  “No!” returned Lou. “It may not be safe. Mr. Calderon said we shouldn’t go in the basement.”

  I ignored Lou and started down the stairs. The warm glow cast by a couple of candles on the bare concrete floor provided just enough light to see.

  “Help!” Pause. “Is somebody there?” It was a woman’s voice.

  I reached the bottom of the stairs and stopped to collect my bearings. Cash Calderon was right. The basement was a mishmash of rusted metal ductwork, drooping electrical wiring, and seeping plumbing. “Hello?” My voice was absorbed by the black ominous space.

  It was a good thing I did not believe in monsters. Nonetheless, I was keeping my eyes open. If Dracula was lurking down here, I didn’t want him sucking a pint of blood from my neck.

  In several spaces, the basement had been roughed out with two-by-fours and Sheetrock to create smaller rooms. Cobwebs decorated the dark, damp space like some cheesy Hollywood movie set.

  “Hello?” I whispered. “Is anybody here?” I found myself rubbing my itchy neck, checking for fang marks.

  After a moment, I heard a rattle emanate from a thick wooden plank door. A single white candle on a saucer flickered weakly beside it. “Who’s there?” The woman’s voice sounded both hopeful and fearful.

  “It’s me, Amy Simms.” I skipped to the door. “Hold on!”

  There was a simple steel pin placed through a metal latch. I pulled it free with a twist, and the woman came tumbling out. “Miss Turner!”

  The actress looked dazed and weak but otherwise unharmed. Her white dress was covered in dirty smudges.

  At the sound of hippopotami stampeding down the narrow stairs, we both looked up. “I told you not to come down here!” Lou shouted with an anger I hadn’t known he was capable of. He was carrying a small gauge rifle, a twenty-two as far as I could tell.