Murder Came Second

by Jessica Thomas

  “If I wanted Broadway in my backyard I’d live in New York.”

  I sensed a little tiff brewing and hoped to avoid it. “Who’s this Carlucci guy and what does he do?”

  Wolf looked at me gratefully. “He’s a writer/director in New York. He’s done several off Broadway plays that everyone thought had great, great potential, but somehow he just hadn’t clicked big-time. Well, he was being interviewed on some talk show a couple of years ago, and the emcee—an idiot, naturally—asked Carlucci if he thought Shakespeare was now outdated. Carlucci answered, ‘A great play knows no calendar.’

  “Well, he realized he’d gotten off a really good, quotable line, so he took it and ran with it. He swore, then and there, he could take any great play—Shakespearean or other—and make it work today.”

  “Not so.” I lifted my cup for a refill as Cassie walked around with the coffee carafe. “Shakespeare works because of the way he shows human strengths and weaknesses that never really change, no matter when you live. You know, an otherwise great person fails and falls because of too much jealousy or ambition or greed. The one fault finally gets an otherwise great person. Shakespeare doesn’t much deal with social issues per se.”

  Cindy was nodding agreement. “She’s right. Look at George Bernard Shaw. His plays were wonderfully written, clever and timely, but you just about never see one produced now, because the issues aren’t exactly ours today. Unless you’re really into the Shavian politics of the time, you’re lost with old GBS.”

  Cassie emerged with brandies, which she passed around, and Peter broke the tension with a flowery little toast to the new dining room.

  Wolf wasn’t going to give up easily, however. “All right,” he muttered. “But Carlucci has proven his point. He’s done three plays and he’s made them work. First he took Ibsen’s A Doll’s House and—”

  “Oh, hell,” Cindy laughed. “You’ve hit on the one possible exception. A Doll’s House, to womankind’s great misfortune, is still timely, as are one or two of his other plays. In fact, did you know that ‘women’s liberation’ in Chinese is actually the word nora-ism?”

  “You’re kidding!” Cassie held a mug toward Peter for more coffee. “I didn’t know the Chinese had a word for women’s lib.”

  “Well, they had to borrow it, but I am dead serious.”

  “Aha!” Wolf crowed. “But in Carlucci’s version it wasn’t Nora who was made to feel less and less a necessary part of the marriage, less a real person. It was the poor husband! Carlucci changed the setting to the present and had Nora slowly take over every decision the poor man made. She even took over his business and left him stuck at home with the kids and housework. Finally, in desperation, he left the two kids and scarpered without even a note.”

  “I love your phrase, Wolf.” Cassie had a glint in her eye. “If the husband was stuck at home with the kids and housework, what about all the women who are home with them everyday? Should they also scarper?” Somehow I felt we were working up to another evening of endangered crockery.

  “Was the play a success?” I asked.

  “Definitely.” Peter took up the baton. “Ran nearly a year, great reviews. And then our genius Carlucci came out with the biggie! Remember Somerset Maugham’s Rain, where the lady of rather ill repute slowly but surely seduces the young missionary on a south sea island during the monsoons?”

  A couple of us nodded vaguely. A short story, I thought, and maybe a movie.

  “Well, our wunderkind renamed it Snow and modernized the setting to a B&B in Vermont during a blizzard, with a young priest and a black drag queen, whom the priest thought was really a woman until Act Three! She looked just like Queen Latifah. It was fabulous! We saw it in Boston. It has become an absolute cult piece with gay men.”

  “I can imagine,” Cindy said dryly. “But didn’t Carlucci have a flop just last winter?”

  “Well,” Wolf admitted, “He produced The Second Mrs. Tanqueray by Sir Arthur Wing Pinero . . . called it The Tanqueray Tragedy. In the original, around 1910, I think, this rich guy divorces his wife of many years and marries a young thing. He insists his social clique accept her, and he is powerful enough to get compliance, at least on the surface. But behind his back they make her life hell. She finally commits suicide.” He got up and went to pour another brandy.

  “Who cares?” Cassie asked. “People don’t place that kind of importance on divorce or social acceptance today. They just make new friends. Today, Tanqueray is just good gin.”

  “You have a point. So, Carlucci updated the play and made the sweet young girl a sweet young lad.” Peter sighed reminiscently. “It was deemed a great succes d’arte, a most moving piece.”

  “An artistic success?” I teased. “Isn’t that French for box office failure?”

  “Worse than that,” Cindy recalled. “I remember reading one review that said, while the poor laddie offed himself in Act Three, the audience, unfortunately, had already done the same thing in Act Two.” That got her a roar from the lesbian contingent and scowls from Peter and the Wolf. “Who’s Carlucci’s next victim, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farms?” My lady was on a roll.

  “Hamlet.” Wolf almost spat. “And it will be earthshaking, I can tell you. It’s set in a small town down in Georgia, where the old King Hamlet lived. He owned a bunch of discount stores throughout the south. His cousin and wife want to sell out to a big national chain. They kill the old man, but young Hamlet isn’t sure exactly who killed him, isn’t sure they should sell, feels—like his father— it would be unfair to the employees. Hamlet and Horatio are gay lovers, of course. Take it from there. Can’t you just feel the tension! Oh, and it’s a musical. Can’t you just see it?”

  “Hamlet is a musical, set in the rural south, about discount stores. Who is Ophelia, Miss Georgia Peach of 2007? I can’t wait. ‘To be or not to be,’ set to rockabilly.” Cindy stood and looked at me. “Take me home to Tara, darlin’, I can’t stand no more classic tragedy tonight, y’all.”

  We made our farewells and went home to an ecstatic Fargo. I let him out for last patrol and turned to ask Cindy if she wanted a drink or some coffee. Usually, when we got home from any party or such, we dissected the evening over one of the two, and had fun all over again. This time Cindy shook her head. “I think I already had too many brandies or something. I feel numb.”

  “That may have been the subject matter, not the brandies,” I suggested.

  “Poor Ibsen. Poor Maugham. Poor Shakespeare. Poor Pinero. Nobody’s done Pinero since 1930. Hell, no one has thought of Pinero since 1930. And Rain—I guess Wolf said they called it Snow—with a drag queen. I shall take to my bed with a case of the vapors. Good night, my love, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.” She put her arms out, mimicking an airplane and giggled as she made a little misstep turning into the hall.

  She stopped and gave the doorjamb an owlish look. “Damn door always was in the wrong place.”

  She continued toward the bedroom, singing a little song I devoutly hoped she would forget by morning:

  The last camel died at noon,

  Humming an old Cole Porter tune.

  And while the trail was steep and sandy,

  We all enjoyed the Napoleon brandy.

  Alas, my ladylove was looped.

  Chapter 7

  I hate it when the phone rings in the middle of the night. I can never find it before the second ring, and by then I’ve had time to imagine that everyone I care for is either dead, injured or in a Turkish prison.

  Tonight was no exception. It was ten to three, and when I finally got the phone to my ear, I couldn’t quite understand what the person on the other end of the line was saying.

  “Hello? What? Who’s this?”

  “Streak, darlin’, don’t be mean! It’s Bootsie! And I’m in town!”

  “I am not ‘Streak’ and I don’t know any Bootsie. You have the wrong number and probably the wrong town, and why the hell are you calling anybody at three in the morning to s
ay you’re here? Good-bye.”

  Fargo picked that moment to jump onto the bed and land on my stomach. So I added a loud “Ooof!” to my farewells.

  “What did you say, honey-babe?”

  “I said oof. My dog just . . . Christ, why am I having this conversation?”

  I heard Cindy give a smothered giggle as Fargo snuggled cozily between us.

  “Streak, now be nice. I came just to see you, and this is the number you gave me, so it must be you!”

  “I am trying to be nice. My name is Mergatroyd Mountbatten. And I do not know, nor wish to know you. Streak’s number is 4879773. Good-bye.” I hung up.

  “Whose number was that?” Cindy asked.

  “Captain Anders’s private line.” Anders was outstanding proof that not even Ptown could have cops that were universally smart and dedicated. He was dumb and obnoxious. He had gotten the job through the political clout of a former chief. The clout was now long gone, but how did you get rid of Anders? He never did anything dishonest. He rarely did anything at all. Fortunately, retirement was only a few years away.

  “Hopefully,” I added, “Mrs. Anders will answer.”

  “You really are dangerous when somebody wakes you up.” Cindy laughed. “Go back to sleep, Streak, darlin’.”

  “Oh, God.”

  We all sort of settled down and were quiet. Fargo was the first to begin to snore lightly. A short time later, Cindy’s breathing became rhythmic and deep.

  And I began to think those calm and happy thoughts that come to us all in the middle hours of the night. What the hell was wrong with Cindy’s car? The mechanic had fixed it twice, but it still made that funny noise. The garage door opener moaned piteously with every use. I supposed I’d better get a new one before the damn thing stuck halfway. What had caused my back tooth to give a twang when the ice cream hit it earlier last night? God, I hated dentists! And mine had a billing system that made our defense budget look like Scrooge personified.

  Then Fargo began to whimper and twitch his legs in his sleep. Automatically, I reached out and stroked his head. “It’s all right, sweetheart. It’s all right. I won’t let it get you. Go back to sleep. You’re safe in bed.”

  Cindy heaved a disgruntled sigh. “Why do you always wake him up? My brother says when they whine and paddle their feet like that, they’re having a wonderful dream about chasing rabbits, or maybe squirrels or a cat.”

  “I have heard that,” I replied loftily, “But no dog has ever been able to reassure me that it doesn’t mean a five-hundred pound rabbit wasn’t chasing them. Therefore, I go to their rescue.”

  “Oh. How thoughtful.”

  They both went to sleep again. I lay staring at the window. When I realized I could see things outside, I gave up and got up. After dressing quietly, I made a pot of tea and thought about getting my camera and going out. But it wasn’t much fun alone. Before I could decide, two rather frazzled beauties joined me and all was normal.

  After tea for two and a biscuit for one, we went to the beach.

  As the dog ran ahead of us and we walked down to sea level, I was once again reminded of why I loved this place. A few miles offshore, a gray fog bank squatted on the horizon like a grumpy toad, and above it, cirrus clouds reflected the radiant orange-pink glow from a sun not quite risen above them. The ocean was almost calm, with no breakers out to sea, and only wavelets reaching the shore, rippling almost apologetically along the low-tide line. Even the breeze seemed shy, just touching your cheek and then fading, as if not wishing to intrude upon your thoughts.

  Far down the beach, another dog appeared—maybe one of the Coasties had it with him overnight and felt secure in letting it run this early in the morning. It was a Dalmatian, I thought, lean and graceful. The two dogs spotted each other and began to run right toward each other, like knights in a tilting match. They covered the ground at amazing speed.

  “Are they going to kill each other?” Cindy’s voice held alarm. She grabbed my arm and pointed.

  “I hope surely one of them will give way. God, they must have a closing speed of fifty miles an hour!” I was getting a little concerned about a collision myself, and couldn’t decide whether it would be better to bellow at Fargo to come back, or not distract him.

  Before I could decide, both dogs had slithered to a stop, scattering great clods of wet sand around them. Then began the sniffing ritual, followed by their backing off, facing each other and bowing with front legs low and extended, rear end and tail up in the air . . . the universal animal symbol of, “Want to play?” Yes, indeed! Fargo ran in a wide circle, the Dalmatian in hot pursuit. Then Fargo crashed into the water, leaping through the shallows and beginning that strong swim, which always makes me worry slightly that his next stop might be the Azores.

  The Dalmatian followed him into shallow water and stopped, unsure whether she wanted to continue or not. She nibbled daintily at the water and shook her head in distaste. She took a few more tentative steps and stopped when a small wave splashed across her chest. Retiring to the edge, she barked and Fargo turned. I could almost see his shrug as he swam back to shore to rejoin his more timid companion.

  They trotted over to us to say hello. The female Dalmatian was a friendly beauty, and I pulled out a couple of small biscuits for each of them. At that point a young woman appeared down where the animal had begun her run. She was waving and blowing a shrill whistle. The Dalmatian looked up, gently accepted the treat and turned for home. Fargo followed her a few steps, and I called him back. The three of us walked over to a half-sunken tree stump and sat down. Fargo stared down the beach.

  “Do you suppose he needs a playmate?” I said.

  Cindy gave me a look over the top of her dark glasses. “Don’t even think about it. Let’s go home and go to bed. You must be delirious.”

  I was in that sort of out-of-body state where you are so tired you are past tired and too wired to be sleepy. “Aha!” I leered. “The lady is propositioning me!”

  “No, the lady has every intention of going to bed to sleep, perchance to dream.”

  “Oh, Shakespeare. Right, the players are coming with their polyester-suited Hamlet. I can hear him singing that soliloquy now.” I picked up a stick and began a rap beat on the tree trunk. Cindy wasn’t the only one who could compose a song.

  To be or not to be is the question, yessiree,

  To off ol’ Claudius or leave him be?

  An’ do I stab Polonius behind that drape?

  Or watch sweet Ophelia wrap herself in crepe?

  Of course there’s always darling mother

  To poison her or smother . . .

  Cindy gave me a withering look and stood. “Come on, Fargo.” She began to walk up the beach. “Let yo’ mama sit there and suffer slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. You and I will stop and buy the papers, not to mention a few pastries, and then we’ll have a lovely nap. Let’s go, boy. Anyway, I don’t like the looks of the alligator under that log.”

  I knew they wouldn’t go far. They’d stop and look back and wait.

  She broke into a jog, Fargo trotting happily by her side.

  “Hey! Hold up! Wait for me!”

  Chapter 8

  Earlier in the summer a tourist had dozed off while driving his car through Provincetown’s snail-paced traffic. One could hardly blame him, but my friend Marcia Robby—also understandably— was not pleased to find his ancient and large Oldsmobile sitting in the front room of her antique shop. It had been my pleasure, as well as my job, to expedite repairs and to find her a place to live while repairs were made. I picked Green Mansions. I figured that Peter and the Wolf, combined with their Victorian décor, would make a good blend. And I had been right, she loved it there.

  Marcia made out well with the repairs, with a lovely big bow window replacing the three small ones that had been knocked out, and an inviting new walkway with neat landscaping leading up to the door. The interior was much brighter and seemed more spacious. She had presented Peter and
the Wolf with a giant, kitschy Victorian lamp as a thank-you for their hospitality, and they were delighted. And she had given me a lovely small round table, which now sat under our dining room windows, providing an intimate little dining table when Cindy and I felt privately formal.

  I was using it at the moment to fill out some forms for a couple of insurance cases I had just closed. They were both straightforward and basically dull, which suited me fine.

  One was at an older B&B, where a young woman claimed to have tripped on a frayed rug and taken a header down the stairs, managing to break both her leg and her wrist. She was, unfortunately for the insured and insurer, quite right. I took photos, sent them in with a report and warned the owners to make repairs in a hurry before someone else took to the air.

  The other one was more fun, for me, anyway. A man in his forties had been walking up the driveway of a house advertising homemade fudge for sale. He claimed to have fallen over a tricycle that was blocking the driveway, and that he hadn’t seen. He claimed a painfully sprained back. I told the owners over the phone to make sure no one moved the tricycle until I could get down there to take photos. The way I saw it, the bright red trike was parked mostly on the lawn with one lone back wheel on the driveway, not even knocked over and leaving room to drive a small truck easily around it. And it was broad daylight.

  I caught up with the victim coming out of X-ray at the hospital, clad only in one of those little hospital gowns, which he was trying simultaneously to pull down in the front and hold together in the rear. Well, don’t we all? I cannot imagine anyone being a hero in these circumstances. I flashed my private investigator’s license, my thumb carefully concealing the word private and gave him the bad news.

  The insurance company would pay for whatever medical care he had received up to this minute . . . period. If he elected not to sign a release but to pursue the matter, the company would probably go after him for all medical and legal costs, plus my fee. When I showed him the Polaroids of the tricycle’s location, he signed.