Murder Came Second

by Jessica Thomas

  Mom favored him with a dazzling smile and said she hoped Sonny and the others currently lying on operating tables would be as pleased at their contribution to the play’s success as Paul. Personally, she would be thrilled to trade her son’s leg to sell an extra block of tickets to Hamlet.

  Carlucci turned beet red, muttered something about going out for a smoke and practically ran to the exit.

  He caromed off Dr. Gloetzner, who was coming in from the parking lot, where he had just informed the ever-increasing number of media people that under no circumstances would any of them be allowed inside the hospital. If they caused any further disturbance outside, they would have to leave the premises entirely and that he, personally, would make only one statement: The staff were busy doing what hospital people do. Treating patients.

  He looked at me and made a follow me motion. We went through the ER, which was busy with its ordinary nightly casualties of bar fights, falls, migraines, women going into labor and chest pains. In his small office, he motioned me to a chair.

  “Well, Ms. Peres, again and again we meet under arcane circumstances. Have you ever consulted a spiritualist? Do you perhaps have some special wiring that places you here on evenings like this?” Before I could answer, he picked up a buzzing phone and asked, “Anything new?” He listened and looked strangely at me. Then he said, “Okay, she’s right here. We’ll be there shortly.”

  Hanging up, he turned to me. “Lt. Peres is just now coming out of surgery. We’ve been like a MASH unit here tonight. Had to practice some triage, you know. As you are aware, our facilities are neither large nor heavily staffed. Sonny was in no danger and could wait a little while. The bullet ricocheted off the concrete floor and lost a lot of pizzazz. It hit the fleshy part of his calf, with no bone damage. There is minor muscle damage, and he may need a little therapy, but one hundred percent recovery is probable. He’ll be our guest for a day or so.” He made a little tick on the notebook he held.

  I breathed deep in relief. “Mom will be glad to hear that. Has anyone told her?”

  “As we speak.” He nodded. “The surgeon is entering the waiting room. I’m glad it’s good news.” He made a thumbs-up sign.

  “Mrs. Fields, a member of the audience,” he continued, “Caught the piece of concrete that Sonny’s bullet dislodged, and it penetrated her . . . ah, sizeable gluteus maximus. Not seriously. She is already on her way home, counting up the numbers of people she can call to tell of her great adventure.” He took a drink of some coffee that was frighteningly black and thick.

  “Also released is that young man who played Horatio. In an attempt to occupy a space much smaller than himself, he cut the top of his head, four stitches worth. Three of his raucous friends have rescued him and were last known headed for the Crown and Anchor. Not wise, but perhaps they celebrate life.”

  “I’m glad he’s okay,” I said. “So he’ll have a headache. He would anyway.”

  “Good thinking. Now, Ms. Edgewood has a slight flesh wound on the inside of her upper arm and can leave tonight if she wishes. That’s a tender spot and it’s going to hurt, but we can give her something to help that. She’s lucky it missed her breast. She must have been sitting crooked.” He checked his little book again.

  “Mr. Novak’s shoulder is a mess. We are doing all we can, but at some future date, he will probably require additional surgery. He also lost quite a bit of blood, but we expect him to recover without incident.”

  “By the way, Ms. Peres, what say we give that knee and elbow of yours a little wash up and some ointment and bandages?”

  I sighed. “Wonderful! With everything that’s going on, I didn’t have the nerve to ask anybody. But the damn things hurt!”

  “Oh, there’s nothing like a good scrape to hurt. I sometimes wonder how children survive so many of them. Come over here.”

  I managed not to scream when he doused my knee and elbow with some solution I swear was Clorox. Then he put some soothing antibiotic ointment on them both and applied bandages. “Better?”

  “Yes, much, thanks.”

  “Change those bandages tomorrow, then the next day, leave them off to let it dry up. Do you have antibiotic ointment at home or do you need some?”

  “No problem, I’ve got some Panalog,” I replied.

  “A wonderful medicine. Is your dog injured? Here.” He handed me the partly used tube.

  “Oh, God.” I laughed. “I’m so dicey I don’t know what I’m saying. Thanks.” I shoved the tube in my pocket. “Doctor, you haven’t said anything about Bobby—Nick Peters.”

  “Because you are on the way to see him. He regained consciousness several minutes ago and has asked for you. That was the phone call.”

  “Me! I hardly know him. His sister is Elaine Edgewood. Isn’t she well enough to go to him?”

  “Yes,” Gloetzner said, “But he told Lainey specifically to keep her away from him. He wants you, and frankly, I don’t know how long we have with him. He might make it, or he could go any second. So let’s go.”

  As we went down the corridor to an intensive care room the doctor explained, “The bullet hit the sternum and fragmented. The largest portion of it has rough edges and is resting right against the abdominal aorta. That kind of surgery is beyond the experience of any doctor here. We’ve called in Dr. Weeks from Hyannis, who will arrive shortly, although he doesn’t sound too optimistic after my description of the wound. Maybe we can get him stabilized sufficiently to transfer to Boston. I just don’t know yet.”

  He shrugged. “Meanwhile. If Bobby—Nicky?—moves wrong or gets agitated, the bullet could puncture the artery and I doubt we could control the bleeding. So try to keep it calm.”

  “Christ. You don’t want much, Miss Scarlett. I don’t know nothin’ ’bout birthin’ babies or keeping aortas at peace. Are you sure this is wise? Surely there is someone else!” I was feeling shakier by the second.

  “It could be the last request of a dying man. We try to honor those,” he answered simply.

  I felt my palms grow sweatier and my throat tighten. Suddenly we made a sharp turn into a room draped with cables and framed with various TV-type screens, one of them quietly beeping as small lightning strikes marched across its face. A seemingly shrunken Bobby lay on the bed, head slightly raised, with tubes going here and there about his body. I hated the smell of hospitals. The antiseptics, sickness, pain, fear. They all had a combined odor that made me want nothing more than to run outdoors, look at a live tree and breathe deeply.

  “Hiya, Nick, it’s Alex. Is there anything I can do for you? They’re taking real good care of you, my friend. But if I can help . . .”

  He looked up at me for several seconds, as if remembering who I was. He spoke softly. “Wanted to say . . . knew you would believe me . . . sorry about the mess on stage. It really was David’s screwup. I had no intention of anyone getting hurt, except Elaine. But I should’ve checked. Elaine was the one. My plan was . . . when Hamlet shot her with a blank, I would fire live from offstage. Lots of confusion later when they discovered she was really dead. Had a good place to hide the gun . . . didn’t much care, as long as she got hers. She sold me out to Terese. I’m thirsty.”

  I turned to a nurse. She held a glass with a straw to his mouth, “Easy, pull easy on that, young man, don’t be greedy.” After two sips she took it away.

  “More,” he said irritably. “More!”

  “More in a minute or so,” I said placatingly. “Nick, don’t worry about David and the bullets. We all know that was truly an accident. And everyone is going to be okay. But what do you mean Elaine sold you out?”

  “Told Terese all about me. But the article would say they never could locate Elaine. Water, dammit! I heard ’em talking . . . Terese’s room. Water now!”

  The nurse gave him another carefully monitored sip while I steadied the straw. I wondered what we were all trying to save him for, a lifetime in a mental hospital? In prison? I felt a deep stab of sorrow for a rough-tongued, gentle
man who could understand a young girl who mourned a dill plant.

  He cleared his throat and stared at a space where no one stood. When he spoke, his voice was strangely childish.

  “ . . . said you bled down there sometimes and it was gross . . . said he loved me, loved me best, man to man . . . If you hadn’t told, she wouldn’t have . . . now she’s gone, too . . . gone . . .” Tears filled his eyes and started slowly down his cheeks.

  Then he looked back at me with recognition. He was still crying quietly, but his voice was his own.

  “It’s funny, now she’ll get away . . .” He gave a soft laugh. “They will all think that I . . .” Suddenly he choked and a gush of blood shot from his mouth.

  I backed away and ran from the room. I found my way back to Gloetzner’s office and lit a cigarette. Screw hospitals, there was no oxygen in here. I was shaky and cold and pulled my jacket around me. I felt something hard against my chest and tugged a flask from an inner pocket. That’s how Gloetzner found me, on my second cigarette and nursing an almost empty flask of bourbon.

  He ignored my various infractions and said gently. “He’s gone. We couldn’t help him.”

  “Well, I sure didn’t help much.”

  “You reassured him about the bullets and the wounded. That had to help. What else was he trying to say? Did you know?”

  “Not really,” I lied. I polished off the contents of the flask and stowed it in its pocket. “Something about his mother and father, I think. A family feud.”

  “Well.” The good doctor took my arm to steer me out. “Let’s go give everybody the happy news and the sad.” At that, his phone rang again. He listened, smiled tiredly, and once again just hung up.

  “Sorry, I got waylaid. Ms. Edgewood is checking out. She seems to be alone. I hope she’ll be all right.”

  “She’s staying at the Chambered Nautilus. I’m sure they’ll look in on her and give her dinner. They’re nice people.”

  He nodded with relief. “Good. Glad there are a few left. They won’t need to feed her. She had dinner here.”

  I laughed. “Then they’ll definitely need to feed her. Have you eaten here?”

  “Rarely,” he admitted. “We also got a phone call from Mrs. Willem in New York. She and a nurse will be up in the Willem’s private plane to pick up Hamlet in the morning if he stops crying and thrashing around and yelling that none of it was his fault. We’ve given him enough medication to knock out a bull. But he keeps telling us how sensitive he is. He’d better desensitize by morning. I’ve had about enough of his hysterics.”

  “It’s his big scene, how can you deny him? He missed the one on stage.”

  “A-ah. Okay. Let’s go tell the visitors to go home. No one who’s had surgery will be awake before morning. Wish I could say the same.”

  I huddled with our little group with the good news about Sonny, the unhappy news about Bobby and the news about Hamlet.

  I turned to Noel. “Is that for real? He has a private plane? Then why was David so worried about Terese’s article? I thought his family lived in a tenement on the Bowery or something.”

  Noel laughed. “Not hardly! The family has been here since the Bowery was an uptown street, however, and they own very large chunks of Manhattan and Long Island. Now there was a rumor— a rumor, I say—that when David went to the RADA, he met this English stripper, fell madly in love, got her pregnant and married her. His family had a fit, but he wouldn’t give her up, so while he went to one acting school, she went to another.”

  “To be a real actress, you mean?” Aunt Mae asked.

  “No, to be a real aristocrat instead of a Cockney stripper. And she learned well. She eats, speaks, walks, dresses and probably dreams high falutin’. She really is a great gal, though. I like her. But obviously, none of the Willems wanted her youthful career publicized by the A-List. That’s what was worrying David.”

  He got a good laugh, and we separated for the night. Mom was chauffeuring Aunt Mae home. Cindy and I took Noel back to the Marshes.

  Poor Fargo thought we’d all fallen off the planet. He pushed past us out the door and to the closest shrub. And then to another. And finally to a third. Only then did he come to us and whine his sad tale of abandonment. Wells disappeared into a dark, far corner and stayed a while.

  The four of us had had no dinner. It was only a little after nine, but it felt like next week. I fed His Nibs and Her Majesty and then started making my famous grilled cheese sandwiches while Cindy changed to pajamas.

  Dinner was neither gourmet nor festive, but served to make us all sleepy. So after another outing for the dog and cat, we packed it in.

  Chapter 26

  Fargo was snoring lightly within seconds. Cindy was breathing deeply within minutes. Wells was a silent dark blob on the windowsill. I was abruptly wide-awake and apparently going to stay that way. I tried my left side and then my right. I tried counting backward from a hundred. I tried naming all the states alphabetically. I got up, slipped into some sweats and mocs for the cool night and headed back to the kitchen. Looking at me in sad reproach, Fargo sighed and padded down the hall behind me, whuffling irritably.

  I made myself a bourbon highball, gave him a biscuit and sat down at the kitchen table with a cigarette. Thoughts were circling in my brain in some sort of jumble that I couldn’t turn off. They were bothering me badly. I was sure some of them were wrong, felt that some of them were backward, and others were escaping me entirely. An example? I wasn’t sure I even had an example. I wished I had Sonny’s blackboards.

  Lacking them, I went into the office and brought back two fairly large pieces of cardboard I used in matting my photographs. I propped them on the kitchen table.

  On one I wrote: Elaine, relatively famous leading lady. Charming and warm as long as things go her way. Threatened by Terese.

  On the other I wrote: Bobby, failed actor, excellent stage manager, not famous at all. Growly but appealing. Lonely? Afraid of being hurt by Terese?

  Funny, how I had changed the wording. Then I remembered something Elaine had said the evening she told us her whole sad tale in the backyard. She told us Bobby had sworn his father abused him, had touched him intimately and made him feel uncomfortable, had done things that had hurt. Yet Elaine was adamant her father had never abused either her or Bobby.

  If true, how would a seven-year-old boy know certain kinds of sex with a grown man could hurt? And how come the shrink hadn’t managed to get him to admit he had lied? Surely the shrink could get the truth out of a seven-year-old! What if it was not Bobby who lied, but Elaine?

  I remembered a book of Sonny’s on child abuse that I had read once, when we had a man on the prowl for kids here in town. I had been quite surprised to learn that over time, abused children could be quite flattered by the attention and feeling of importance and adulthood, even though they knew it was wrong, even though it might be painful. They could even be jealous of other children the abuser paid attention to, if they knew about it.

  Recalling the book further, I remembered that abusers usually grew tired of their male or female victims when they reached certain ages, usually puberty, when they lost the cuteness and sweet softness of the young child. In a girl, perhaps when “she began to bleed down there” and the abuser found it “gross.” Then perhaps a father might turn his sights to his young son and explain to him the special “man-to-man love” they could share.

  Then I mentally finished off another sentence that Bobby had tried to utter a few hours back, and wrote it on my cardboard. “If you—Elaine?—hadn’t told . . . she—mother?—wouldn’t have . . .” I ended it for him: “wouldn’t have taken Daddy away, and then they took her away, too.” Maybe it was not Bobby who squealed to his mother that Daddy was abusive, but a jealous Elaine who decided to get even with both fickle father and the new love object son.

  Obviously, she wouldn’t have counted on her mother killing her father, but Elaine’s hatred may have been deep enough to make the act seem justi�
��ed when she did. And being unsaddled from an unstable mother after the murder would have been okay, too. Young Elaine was already a pretty good actress! She was just a sweet young girl who finally convinced the authorities nothing had happened, because, batting her big dark eyes, nothing could possibly have happened with her loving, normal father.

  And Bobby, poor little brother, was imagining things, mentally unhinged like his mother.

  Then Elaine had charmed her way into a nice adoptive family and never looked back.

  When she visited Bobby once in Pennsylvania, she did him in again, purposely or accidentally. When she bragged of being an actress, he immediately sought her approval by saying he would be an actor. And when his adoptive parents couldn’t afford tuitions, Bobby took it as one more abandonment episode in his rocky life and filed his silly, but hurt-filled lawsuit. Failing at that, he went to New York to seek out the one person still standing from those few years when he had had his own family, and when they had all loved each other.

  I drained my highball and put on a pot of coffee. I needed to stretch my legs, so Fargo and I took a turn of the yard, which we found safe from two- or four-legged intruders. Back inside, coffee was done, and we shared a pastry left from breakfast. With an apologetic lick, Fargo left my side and retreated across the kitchen to the cozy warmth of his bed, and I was left with my jigsaw puzzle.

  But the pieces were becoming easier to fit now, and I could see a definite picture.

  My cardboards were becoming filled with abbreviated notes.

  Elaine could have subtly sabotaged what acting jobs Bobby did get, and this could have triggered the antagonism he displayed if at all threatened or opposed. I had seen examples of that in the last few weeks. His personality was not geared to smoothing troubled waters. But eventually he gave up acting and became a capable stage manager. So he no longer comprised competition for Elaine. She had once again gotten him out of her way, and further away from the possibility anyone might tie them together and dig up the woodchopper scandal.