by A. J. Chase
"And this adulation is the result of being the first girl to not fall prey to your lethal charms?" Fielding asked, not bothering to hide her amusement.
"Are you kidding? She's so not the first. But I'm in love with her."
"What?" She and Mac spoke together.
"I'm telling you she's the one. After you've seen as many girls as close up as I have, you just know. Actually speaking of Janine, I have to go. I'm going to meet her at the park."
"You're going to meet her at the park," Fielding repeated incredulously.
"Yeah. We're taking her niece and nephew. You all will meet her at the party." He looked at his watch. "Let me go to the bathroom, and then Mac and I have to get out of here."
He practically skipped from the room.
"He's demented," Mac murmured. It was an amazingly lucid comment for him.
Fielding smiled slightly, hiding it behind her fingers. "He's not demented. He thinks he's in love."
Mac shook his head. "It won't last."
But Fielding wasn't so sure of that. She had known Josh for twenty-five years and in all that time he had never once proclaimed himself to be even so much as fond of another girl. Never even once. First she was stunned, then she started to hope. Maybe one of them at least could be happy.
She wanted badly to meet Janine, desperately afraid that she was going to break his newly discovered heart and make him a worse womanizer than he already was. And she was fairly certain that if Josh turned out to love with as much passion as he did everything else, it would be a far too easy thing to do.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Everyone in the entire cast was subdued on Monday morning. Rehearsals for Profundo were scheduled to begin again as soon as someone was found to replace Charlotte. But they would be given only one day to run through the number together. Bob and Lynette would otherwise be individually responsible for insuring that the girl knew what she was supposed to do.
Everyone but the proper authorities were still forbidden from crossing into the back labyrinth of hallways so they couldn't have gotten to the small theater even if they had wanted to go back to those rehearsals.
The cops were still letting their presence be known in the form of Z. Wallace and his middle-aged partner who were prowling the theater and taking people aside occasionally to talk to them. When Liz called a meeting, Wallace was at the back of the stage talking to poor Leslie who still looked like she might be a little hung over. She was flushed and agitated and kept looking at anything except the good detective.
Fielding wondered if her parents had warned her of the supposed evil of detectives as well as drink. At least as far as detectives went, Wallace looked like a mother could stand to perhaps warn her daughter against him. Now that she wasn't in a state of shock, it was easy to see he was dangerously masculine.
Sara addressed the cast first when the meeting came to order. She took the reins in the emotional support department saying that it was wrong that Charlotte had been killed, she had been an innocent victim, and she would be remembered as vivacious and clever by all. Armand was apparently in charge of the overwrought French babbling, as that was his contribution when his turn came around.
Fielding suddenly wondered exactly how many of those musicals she had taped to her wall were also attended in some way by Armand. Or by any of Chandler's small professional entourage. Liz, as ever, was all business when her chance came. She addressed all the questions of what the police knew and when the funeral would take place.
Neither Chandler nor Lynette spoke at all about Charlotte, which seemed like the best thing. Neither one of them possessed the necessary softness required in a situation like this. Lynette stood in the corner looking more irritated than upset over Charlotte's untimely demise in the middle of a number.
Chandler stood in his requisite spot just down the aisle from the stage, arms crossed over his chest, watching the proceedings with that eerie lack of expression he developed whenever the option seemed to be falling prey to any actual emotion.
She felt certain that Detectives Wallace and Pettigrew, now stationed at the back of the theater, found his curious lack of emotion when it came to Charlotte's death as another indication of his guilt. She wished that he would just open up to them a little, just enough to humanize himself, and they would see that a man who was honorable enough to not cheat on his hideously philandering wife for seven long years was unlikely to stoop to murdering strangers. But he would never show himself for having any kind of weakness. Not to them and not to her.
For the most part he just acted as if she wasn't there, which wasn't any more or less than she would have expected. But every once in a while she caught him looking at her with an almost softness that tore at her heart more than anything he had ever done or said.
It was too much to hope that he didn't view their illicit meeting in the rain as a mistake. He had already said as much. And it was probably wrong of her to hope that he would remember her for the rest of his life, the way she would remember him.
She was talking in her head as though she was already gone, she realized with a start. It was probably the best way to think. There was little chance she would make it all the way to opening night without giving herself away to the police. Then she would have to go, because after that, it would only be a matter of time before Chandler knew too. That also meant she had only a limited amount of time to find the person who was dogging Chandler's heels killing his lovers, however preposterous the idea was.
The image of the imaginary clock hanging over them was visible to everyone when Chandler finally took the stage and began to pace. "Today is the seventh day of December. This musical opens on the fifth day of January. That means that we have twenty-nine days until curtain, assuming of course that Sara does not convince me to actually give you holidays and weekends off. Should she succeed, then we have only nineteen days until you all make a fool of me and of yourselves to the general ticket-holding public."
He paused and glared at them before starting his pace again. "I disagreed with Liz and my marketing team when they suggested that we align the timing of our opening to the time of year in the show. It's the off-season for Broadway and a great risk on our part. But they convinced me, and now here I am feeling distinctly as though my time and money are about to be wasted, and I don't like feeling that way.
"So here is what you all are going to do to assuage that feeling in me. You are going to work harder than you have ever worked before, until you are a well-oiled machine that projects the very image of Pirates in your sleep. If you cannot do that, you will be asked to leave. So I don't want to hear any requests to get off early for parties, I don't want to see any minds busy making last-minute shopping lists instead of focusing on this show. I don't want to hear any Yuletide Carols. I don't want to hear or see anything but perfection. Thank you very much."
"Still think he's not guilty?" Stan requested wryly from their seats at the back of the theater.
"What? Because he's a hardass? That doesn't make him guilty. That just makes him a jerk." Zave leaned back in his hard wooden chair. "Besides, you said it yourself. He's got millions wrapped up in this show, and it's got to be hard to motivate the masses when the holidays are looming. You gotta admit."
Stan rolled his eyes. "What are you, his cheerleading squad?"
"Hell, no. I personally don't know how anyone can stand the guy, but I reiterate, that does not a killer make."
And if it did he would have had to arrest Stan years ago. He sighed and scanned the stage for some of the people in the line that he had talked to earlier.
"Now shut up and look at all the pretty girls before we have to go back to the station and look at Pierson and McGraw for the rest of the day."
Stan snorted. "Amen to that. We get all the good ones, don't we?"
He was referring to the strangulation in a Queens nudie bar that they had just finished consulting on for the Queens department. Zave rolled his eyes too, just not where Stan could see. Yeah, those we
re the good ones all right. He scanned the stage again and found the small, but formidable, Fielding French. His original impression that she was up to something other than trying to leave her footprints on the sands of time was only more reinforced by watching the way that she was always watching. He was of the opinion that very little happened within these walls that passed by her attention.
She would be an excellent ally, but he had to take her on knowing that her allegiance already lay somewhere else. She could tell him whatever she wanted about her relationship, or lack thereof, with Chandler Bentley, but if there was one thing Zave knew with precision, it was people. Their lies, their imperfections, the things they tried to hide. And she was nothing like the impartial third party she was pretending to be. She was in love with Chandler Bentley, and if Zave wasn't mistaken, and let's face it he probably wasn't, Bentley was pretty fond of her, too. An interesting situation that he was already trying to decide how to manipulate to his advantage.
Fielding trudged into her apartment at five to four feeling like she had been put through the ringer emotionally and physically. Chandler had not been kidding when he'd said they were going to work harder than they ever had. While she had been on the ride over from the theater, her feet felt like they had swollen to the point where she was unlikely to be able to get them out of her shoes. She sat in the chair nearest to the door and struggled to pull them off her aching feet. The muscles in her legs burned, and she was unaccountably depressed.
She had not expected anything from Chandler. Not really. Like the old Native American tale about the snake—she had known what he was before she picked him up. She had known that he would pretend like he had never touched her the minute they stepped out of that old theater and into reality, but that didn't make it any easier. She still had incredibly vivid memories of those very short, extremely intense, moments burned into her brain. Stronger even than the image of Charlotte's sightless eyes, which was something she knew she would never forget if she lived to be a hundred.
Regardless of whether either one of them wanted it, he had marked her forever. She wasn't so naïve as to think it could work out between them, even without her perfidy. Chandler was badly scarred emotionally and had little interest in allowing anyone to touch him on any level, even physically, although he had obviously failed on that account.
But her heart was now engaged in the situation, and she ached for his pain and then for hers. Why did she never do anything the reasonable way? The easy way? Why couldn't she have fallen for a nice, reliable guy like she had thought Dale had been? But not for her. For her, there was a man with deep frown lines, an incredible laugh he never used, and a soul that she wouldn't be able to save.
The phone rang and she hobbled over on one shoe. "Hello?"
There was a moment of static and she unaccountably panicked as if there was some kind of threat in the sound. Then Josh's voice carried over the line. "Hey, I got something on the 'take her up tenderly' thing. You're right, it wasn't easy. And it's kind of bizarre. But it's what I've got."
She worked off her other shoe and rubbed her foot. "Give it to me straight."
"Okay. In the nineties Bentley had a friend named Georgio Pentalina who directed a lot of overdramatic plays that turned into critically acclaimed made-for-TV movies. You know the type."
Indeed she did. She propped her feet up and leaned back against the couch. She didn't know what the man or his plays could have to do with Chandler, but she didn't have to guide Josh. He knew what he was doing when he was in research mode. "In 1994, he was directing a play in London's east end called Take Her up Tenderly."
Fielding's relaxed posture disappeared and she leaned forward in her seat. "Then suddenly Pentalina's appendix goes south, and he winds up in the hospital a month before opening night. At this point he makes some kind of arrangement with his good buddy Bentley to have him step in and do the dirty work while the doctors disposed of the offending organ. Bentley was acting director for three weeks before Pentalina got back on his feet and took the reins of his made-for-TV Empire."
"What happened while Chandler was directing?"
"Absolutely nothing. Even people in the industry weren't particularly interested in the switch off, it happened so quickly. I'm not sure most people would have ever even known."
"I don't understand how that could have possibly inspired such a horrifying message. I mean, to write it on Charlotte's hand like that…" She shuddered again at the memory.
"I just deliver the messages. I don't interpret them. I leave that to you sophisticated writers."
Yeah, she was just the picture of sophistication. Sitting alone in her apartment in sweat pants with body odor, swollen feet, and a ridiculous urge to call up a man who didn't want to talk to her, like she was an unpopular teenager with a crush. "What was the play about?"
"Uh, nonsense. I took notes. Hang on." She heard papers rustling. "Here we go. Guy has an affair with a chick who's like 'boil your bunny' insane. Then she comes along and drowns the guy's wife in their private lake and makes it look like an accident. Then she starts suggesting to the cops that the wife killed herself because she was sleeping around. Then at the end the psycho girlfriend blows a hole through the guy she was willing to kill for in the first place before she hopped the quickest train to Crazyville."
"Jeez."
"Yeah, a real after-school special. What it's got to do with Charlotte and Bentley, I have no idea."
"Me neither," she admitted. She would just have to think about it more when she was off the phone and could focus. But right now she had other issues she wanted to address. "How's Janine?" Hopefully she sounded more casual than she felt. She wanted so badly for him to be happy.
"Still amazing." He was silent for a moment. "Mac didn't believe me, did he? That I love her."
"No." Her hand curled tighter around the phone. "But I do."
He took a deep breath. "Thank you, Fielding. I'm sorry that I haven't trusted your judgment throughout this whole Bentley thing. I feel like such a loser because I come along and do the most ridiculous thing of all, something so totally against my nature, and you don't doubt me for a second. I haven't been a very good friend, and I'm sorry."
She laid her head back against the couch once more and closed her eyes. "It's okay. You're worried about me. I'm worried about me." She made the concession in a small voice. If they were going to be telling the truth she had a few things to add.
He laughed slightly. "We're a pair, aren't we?"
"I've decided to blame our parents." He laughed again. "Just…be careful, you know. Don't give too much of your heart away too soon. I don't want…I don't want you to get hurt."
Josh sighed. "You know what Janine said about our relationship? She said that we were two lost souls who had found each other. I really think a better description would be that we're two screwed up people who found the one person who could make us feel human again.
"I guess what I'm saying is that you don't get to decide how much you're going to love somebody. I would have thought you would have known that by now. I know that I keep saying it, but I still feel like it isn't enough. You be careful too. You're the only sister I've got, even if you are just my imaginary ex-step-sister."
She swallowed that familiar lump that had been her companion for the last few days. "I will. I promise. No more illegal drugs, unsterilized tattoos, unprotected sex with bikers or unsanctioned hits for the mafia. I swear."
He chuckled. "And what more could an ex-step-brother ask?"
She hung up the phone hoping against hope that Josh was not making a mistake, trusting so quickly in his feelings for a girl with a guitar he'd met in a bar. Then again, maybe he was the one who was right, and she was wrong. Maybe there were no appropriate rules for loving someone. If there were, she was probably breaking a few of them herself.
She forced her mind off relationships and on to the horrible play that Chandler had directed for so short a time. Could there really be a message in it? She decided
to break Josh's short, cynical summary into parts and evaluate for clues. Psycho lover. There could definitely be one of those if all of his past partners weren't dead. Psycho lover kills the man too. She wasn't seeing too many comparisons unless Charlotte's killer was trying to tell Chandler that he would be next, but that didn't seem all that likely.
But what if the message were more general than specific? There was a woman who was crazy enough to kill in her desire to keep Chandler for herself. But, why would she use Charlotte as a billboard to deliver such a message? That connoted a certain level of willingness to reveal herself, almost as if she was warning Chandler. And that wouldn't make sense at all. But suppose that it did. Who would she have pegged for the crazy stalker type?
She didn't think that Liz seemed like a stalker at all. She seemed the sort who would simply make a list of all the practical reasons why Chandler ought to love her and hand it to him on a clipboard. She was trim and efficient and probably wore a girdle every day. Not the love-inspired killer type.
Sara was too self-assured to bother with obsession and honestly seemed only marginally fond of him for someone he had known for so long. Armand was certainly passionate and hot tempered, but she thought he was just too Gallic to lust after someone like Chandler who represented all things English, and heaven knew the two cultures were not living hand in hand in harmony. Furthermore, Armand was a constant pot of passionate emotions that all too frequently boiled over the sides. Not really the secret anything sort.
That left Lynette. And frankly she seemed just the type to rage on the inside while she glowered in the corner on the outside. Fielding had not cared for the older woman on sight, though, and she didn't want to allow her biases to color her perceptions. She would just have to go back to those musicals and check them against Lynette, and probably against the others for the sake of being thorough, before she made any further assumptions. The point here was not to try to pin murders on another innocent, but to find the real criminal. As soon as she possibly could.