BASIL DILL’S CABIN looked no more prepossessing than it had the day before, but the man himself greeted them warmly. He was in his late thirties, medium height, medium build (though beginning to tend to fat), with a dark, unruly beard starting to show flecks of gray and hair that was receding before the gray could get to it. He wore khaki trousers with a grease stain on the left leg and a medium blue long-sleeved shirt with a red wine stain above the breast pocket. The khakis were frayed at the cuff and the shirt was frayed at the collar. His only concession to style was a pair of tinted aviator glasses that didn’t go with the rest of the get-up.
He thanked Gordon for the Jack Daniels, began to put it away, then struggled with his upbringing.
“I suppose I should offer you a splash, but it’s a bit early …”
“And I have to drive up the mountain after this meeting, so we’re good,” Gordon said.
He offered coffee instead, which they accepted. Gordon and Peter took a seat on a couch that would hold three, but the space on the right side was covered with books. Gordon decided to start out with flattery.
“I hear through the local grapevine,” he said, “that one of your plays was produced in New York.”
“Ah, that would be Under the Coffee Grounds, but I fear the local grapevine exaggerates. It was headed to New York but got derailed in New Haven.”
“What was it about?”
“A New York City garbage collector who was driven mad by all the perfectly good things he found people throwing away.”
“In other words, the things under the coffee grounds?”
“Exactly. I can tell you don’t miss a thing, Mr. Gordon.”
“It sounds like the perfect metaphor for today’s wasteful consumer society,” Peter deadpanned. Gordon wanted to kick him, but there was no cover. Fortunately, Dill took the comment at face value.
“Yes it was, but it was perhaps too iconoclastic and ahead of its time. The audience in New Haven reacted …”
“Like the opening-night audience at The Rite of Spring?” Peter asked.
“Yes. Yes! My God, why didn’t I think of that comparison? Of course. That was it.” He took a slurp of coffee. “I can’t tell you what a pleasure it is to be speaking with two such cultured gentlemen. One doesn’t get a lot of that around here.” He paused. “But you wanted to talk about our summer theater, did you not?”
“In a manner of speaking,” Gordon said.
“Well, I was in at the beginning,” Dill said. “We’ve made a nice little thing of it. In the early nineties, the county rehabilitated the Acorn Theater for use as a community hall, and they left the proscenium stage intact. Someone decided it would be a good idea to do a play in the summer — bring some people from the campgrounds and lodges into town so they’d spend a bit of money. The first year they did Arsenic and Old Lace. I’d just moved here and got hired as director.”
“You can’t go wrong with Arsenic and Old Lace,” Peter said.
“So you might think. But you didn’t see the so-called talent I had to work with. There was no budget for actors, and we had to fill out the play with local amateurs. I’m telling you, gentlemen, it was a labor of Hercules just to get the cast to opening night knowing their lines, never mind delivering them competently. And the only man remotely capable of doing the Boris Karloff role was a retired attorney — now gone, may he rest in peace — with a serious drinking problem. The quality of the production varied wildly from night to night, depending on whether or not he showed up loaded.”
“Most people don’t realize how much goes into producing a play,” Peter said.
“You are so right, doctor. So right. If you haven’t done it, you have no idea. But we pulled in good crowds, and the team from the County Arts Commission saw it one of the nights when ‘Boris’ was sober, so they appointed me permanent artistic director. The honorarium is a lousy thousand bucks a summer, but every little bit helps keep me going while I work on my next play, The Mop in the Bucket.”
He paused, and after a few seconds, Gordon realized he was expected to ask what the new play was about.
“Thank you for your interest,” Dill said, “but I’d rather not say just now. New ideas keep flying into my head, and the nature of the work shifts constantly.”
Gordon decided to move to the matter he was concerned with.
“Actually,” he said, “We were particularly interested in the production from two years ago, The Philadelphia Story. I understand there was a bit of sensation after the fact.”
“You’re talking about Connie Baxter’s murder, of course. A tragedy. I was aware, during the production, that there were some problems at home, but I had no idea it was that serious. I don’t think anyone did. And it was a loss for our local theater. I was all set to cast her as Corrie in Barefoot in the Park next summer.”
“So she had some talent?”
“Definitely, though in somewhat raw form. She was the most gifted actress I’ve dealt with in my five years here, and I’ve wondered from time to time what might have happened if she’d decided to study acting at an earlier age. There’s a chance she could have become good enough to be more or less steadily employed. But that reminds me,” he got up. “You specifically asked about The Philadelphia Story, and I have some programs for you, as well as the stage hand’s copy of the play, if you’d like it. I don’t believe it’s ever been opened.”
“That would be very helpful,” Gordon said. Dill moved to a table several feet away and returned with a small pile of documents. Gordon picked up one of the programs. It was a standard sheet, folded in half. The cover featured a black and white photograph of a man and woman (probably Connie). The inside left page, under Dill’s name in large type, listed the order of the scenes and named the members of the production crew, in type much smaller than Dill’s. The inside right page listed the parts and the cast, and the back cover consisted of two half-page ads — one from the local hardware store and one from a restaurant no longer in business.
“All in all,” Dill continued, “I think The Philadelphia Story was our best production so far. Probably because Connie brought some life to it.”
“May I ask a question,” Gordon interrupted. “On the inside left page, it says, ‘Our thanks to Harrison Lumber and Building Supply for underwriting this production.’ You had an underwriter?”
“Oh, that. Yes. The year before, when we did You Can’t Take It With You, we ended up, despite considerable hustle and ingenuity, exceeding our budget for props and costumes. I’m afraid the Arts Commission has no idea what such things cost, and the overrun was a trifle. Maybe fifteen hundred dollars. But they were really worked up over it.
“So when we did The Philadelphia Story the following summer, I decided to ask a local business to underwrite the show, put up a couple of thousand if we went over again. Lee Harrison is one of the wealthiest men in town, so he was the logical one to approach.”
“But it came with a price?” Peter asked.
“You don’t miss much, do you, doctor? Yes. His daughter Amy, Amy Hawkins, wanted to be in the play, and so did her husband, Kevin. No problem with that. I mean, she was in the one the year before, and it’s not like they were any worse than most of the others who tried out. The problem came when Amy got it into her head that she wanted to play Tracy Lord, the lead role.”
“I’m guessing she didn’t have star-level talent,” Gordon said.
“Not even understudy-level talent. Still, she could have gotten the part if no one else was clearly better.”
“But Connie was?”
“No doubt about it. At the audition, Connie absolutely nailed the Dutch Muffin Ear line. To be fair to Amy, I gave her a second chance to read that scene, but even after seeing how it should be done, she was totally at sea about it. There was no way I could give her the part.”
“I take it old man Harrison wasn’t too happy,” Peter said.
“No, he wasn’t. He called me in for a ‘frank and candid discussion,’ and it wasn�
��t too comfortable. But we’d deposited his check, and all I’d promised him was that Amy would get a good part. I cast her as Liz Imbrie, the magazine photographer, and her husband, Kevin, as Connor, the reporter, one of the lead roles, so I could argue that I’d kept my part of the bargain. And he knew it would look bad if he pulled his money after the fact, so he was smart enough to let it go.”
“A wise businessman knows when to cut his losses,” Gordon said. “What can you tell us about how Connie was during the rehearsals and the run of the show?”
“She definitely gained confidence as it went along. She was realizing she could do something she probably hadn’t tried since elementary school, and that had to be empowering. And given her domestic problems, probably a bright spot in her life.”
“How did the cast get along?”
“I couldn’t tell you too much about that. They seemed to talk to each other during breaks, but I was always too busy figuring out the next thing to do, so I wasn’t paying much attention.”
“And things were all right between Connie and Amy?” Peter asked.
“Uh, no. There was a definite undercurrent of tension there, more than I could understand, over the casting of a summer play.”
“How about Connie and the rest of the cast?” Gordon said.
“As I said, I wasn’t really paying attention. It did seem to me that Dick Holmes, who played C.K. Dexter Haven, the other male lead, was flirting with Connie a bit, but I can’t imagine anything came of it.”
Gordon sneaked a look at his watch.
“We have to be going soon,” he said, “but I really appreciate your taking the time to talk about this. Do you think the Harrisons would be willing to talk about the show? I mean Amy and her husband and the old man?”
“I’m pretty sure they’d be all right with that. Would you like me to make a call to introduce you?”
“That would be great. And if you think of anything else about Connie, could you let me know?” He handed Dill a card with his cell phone number.
“I’ll do that.”
“Can I ask one last question before we go?” Peter said. Dill nodded. “You said Connie’s confidence grew as the rehearsals and play moved forward. Can you give us an example?”
Dill tapped his thigh for a few seconds, then replied:
“The most obvious one was that Connie kept coming up with ideas for the part. In fact, there’s one scene where Tracy, her character, gets drunk, passes out in the swimming pool, and has to be carried back into the house. She’s covered with a robe, but Connie wanted to be naked underneath, which surprised me at first, though not later when I thought about it. Absolutely out of the question in a small-town family production. But she kept hinting she might do it on closing night, so I was on pins and needles to the end.”
“Why weren’t you surprised when you thought about it later?” Peter asked.
“You obviously haven’t spent much time around actors, doctor,” Dill said with a smile. “If there’s one truism about the tribe, it’s this: Every actress wants to do a nude scene, and every actor wants to kill someone onstage. Don’t ask me why, but that’s how it is. I’ve given up trying to figure it out.”
THEY STOPPED AT COLLIER’S STORE to get sandwiches for lunch. There was just enough time to eat them at one of the picnic tables in the warm sun that had dispelled the memory of the cool autumn morning. They hadn’t talked much after leaving Dill’s place, but Gordon raised a point as they were eating.
“Did you notice something about Dill, Peter? He never asked us why we were asking him questions about the play or Connie. He wasn’t curious at all.”
“Not surprising,” Peter said. “We were talking about him, so he probably just assumed we’d be interested.”
After wolfing down the sandwiches, they started up the road to Carolina Lakes. The lakes had been named by an early prospector from the Carolinas, one Carleton T. Calhoun. He claimed to be related to Senator John C. Calhoun, and given the sketchy state of communications in those days, no one was able to challenge the claim. He led a small party that discovered a basin with three stunning, glacially carved lakes, which he named Charleston, Columbia and Raleigh.
A slight rise separated that basin from another, which was first reached by another prospector, Abraham Hamlin, who came up from the other side of the mountain range. Hamlin (no relation to Senator Hannibal Hamlin) found a gold nugget in the creek that flowed from a lake in the basin, and, mistaking a fluke for a phenomenon, bestowed the names Nugget Lake and Nugget Creek on those two bodies of water.
In 1923 a Bay Area company obtained a 100-year lease from the Forest Service to build a lodge on Nugget Lake. It opened in 1924 and was an immediate success, owing to its spectacular scenery, plush accommodations and great trout fishing. Also, with Prohibition in full force, the establishment was isolated and set back far enough from the road that the customers could quench their thirst without worrying about visits from law enforcement.
At 1:55 p.m., Gordon turned off the paved county road onto the gravel road that led to the lodge. It wound through dense forest for a quarter mile before emerging into a clearing by the lake. A large, timbered building sat about ten feet above water level, overlooking a beach and pier, deserted this late in the year. Another two dozen cabins were scattered around the periphery of the clearing. The lake was a stunning cerulean blue, and except for the area where the lodge was, it was entirely flanked by pine forest and vertiginous granite mountainside. A few patches of snow remained on the upper levels of the surrounding mountains. Gordon drove into the lot next to the lodge and parked next to a sheriff’s patrol car.
“Looks like my man’s already here,” he said. “You might want to try your luck from the pier.”
“The thought had already occurred to me,” Peter said. He began getting his gear out of the back of the Cherokee as Gordon walked to the lodge.
The dining room was to the left of the main entrance, and only two of the two dozen tables were occupied — one by a retired couple eating lunch without speaking, and another, next to a window overlooking the lake, by a uniformed sheriff’s deputy. He looked to be in his early thirties, with straight sandy hair cut to a length of half an inch and a large-boned body. He stood and introduced himself, and Gordon guessed his height to be about five-ten.
“Nell told me you were tall,” he said as they shook hands. “She wasn’t kidding. Sit down. I have to be back on duty in 40 minutes, so I ordered already. You having anything?”
“Just coffee. My friend and I just grabbed a sandwich at Collier’s.”
“They bake pies fresh every day here if you were thinking of dessert.”
“I wasn’t, actually, but you had me at pies. Any recommendations?”
“The apple’s always good.”
A waitress, who looked as if she’d been in high school a year ago, sauntered over. Gordon ordered apple pie and coffee. Burroughs already had a cup. Gordon decided to let him talk first, and it took a few awkward minutes.
“Nell thinks you can be trusted,” he finally said. “She said you have an honest face.”
Gordon didn’t reply.
“It looks honest anyway, but you can’t really tell. How did you get involved in all this?”
“Short version: My girlfriend has a friend who works for a group called Not Guilty Northern California.” If the name registered with Burroughs, he didn’t show it. “They look into potential wrongful conviction cases and thought there might be one in Gary Baxter. I was coming up here on a fishing trip and Elizabeth, my girlfriend, volunteered me to do some legwork.”
“Did it ever occur to you to say no to her?”
“Not really.”
“Ever done this sort of thing before?”
“Not exactly.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’ve ended up, purely by chance, in the middle of a couple of criminal investigations, but this is the first time I’ve ever gone anywhere with a case in hand.”
&
nbsp; Burroughs nodded.
“I’m not committed to any outcome, really,” Gordon continued. “I just agreed to look into it as much as I could and still get some fishing done.”
“What’s your take so far?”
“There are some holes and discrepancies in it, but so far the case against Gary looks pretty strong. Unless there’s an alternative theory, I don’t see how it can be broken.”
Burroughs nodded again. “For what it’s worth, I think Gary’s guilty myself. I know Nell doesn’t feel that way, but there are some loose ends that she’s right about and that bother me just a little. Especially one that she doesn’t know about and that didn’t come out at the trial.”
Gordon nodded.
“Nell’s a good woman. Stone-cold honest and not someone to shrug off a wrong. She married badly, but so did I, so we both have that in our past. Pass City is in a good location for my afternoon break, and I’ve been taking it there more often lately. Her complaints, along with what I know and she doesn’t, makes me think that maybe a couple of those things should be looked into more carefully. I don’t expect it to change the outcome, but it might put her mind at rest.”
“You’d get involved for her?”
“Up to a point. She won’t be able to move on until she puts Gary behind her. On the other hand, I like my job and want to keep it.”
The waitress arrived with Burroughs’ grilled cheese sandwich and Gordon’s pie. Burroughs took a bite of his sandwich, and Gordon took a bite of apple pie. It was delicious. After finishing a second bite of sandwich, Burroughs lowered his voice and leaned slightly toward Gordon.
“Suppose, hypothetically, that I told you something that could, hypothetically, lead to an alternate theory of the crime. Hypothetically, what would you do with that information?”
Gordon took another bite of pie, chewed it slowly, and washed it down with coffee.
“I suppose,” he finally said, “I’d take it to Gary’s defense attorney.”
“And if you hypothetically did that, would you hypothetically tell him where you got the information?”
I Scarce Can Die (Quill Gordon Mystery Book 5) Page 13