Murder, Served Simply

by Isabella Alan

  “It’s not like anyone will notice. This isn’t Broadway,” Jasper muttered from the wings. “Not even close.”

  The director jumped on the stage in one leap and got into Jasper’s face. “I don’t care if this is Broadway or not. We treat every production like it is our last. In your case, it very well might be. If you had secured your set, we wouldn’t be in this mess. Eve would still be here, and I wouldn’t have to contend with a second-rate soprano.”

  Ruben, also in his costume, which for his role as an English young man, consisted of a business suit and tie, stepped off his mark. “Wait just a minute, Wade. You know Lena could have outsung Eve any day. In fact, she should have had the lead in the first place. Instead, you gave it to a nobody, and we are all suffering because of it.”

  Wade’s complexion went from white to flaming tomato in two seconds flat. “Hold your tongue. That girl was a better actor than you and your sweetheart have any hope to be. She was destined to be a star.”

  Lena left her mark and joined Ruben. She whispered something to him.

  Ruben frowned at his girlfriend. “I won’t keep quiet. It’s the truth.” He turned back to Wade. “Maybe you should take a minute to notice you’re pushing Lena too hard. She can’t sing when you are screeching at her. She’s just tired and is under too much stress. Give her a break so that she can collect herself. You’ve been yelling at her, at all of us, for more than an hour. It’s a wonder we are able to get through a single scene.”

  Wade folded his arms. “I have a better chance of going hoarse than she has a chance of hitting the right note.”

  Lena wiped a tear from her cheek. “I know I can do better, Wade. Just show me you believe in me.”

  The director threw up his hands. “I don’t have any other choice but to use you. We have another performance in three days.” He held up three fingers. “Three. Do you know what that means? It means we practice twice every single day before the performance until we are ready.”

  “What about Christmas?” one of the other actors dressed up like an Amish man asked.

  “You all know that you gave up Christmas when you signed up for this play. That hasn’t changed.”

  “But we weren’t supposed to have practice on Christmas,” the man grumbled.

  Wade glared at him. “Well, my star wasn’t supposed to die in the middle of the performance either.” Wade pointed at Lena. “She’s the reason we have practice on Christmas. Now, everyone take five. Lena, this is the role you wanted, and you are wasting it. At this rate, I will have to cancel all the performances if you can’t pull it off.”

  The other actors slunk offstage. Many of them gave Lena accusatory looks for being the reason for practice on Christmas Day. I wouldn’t want to be in Lena’s position within the acting troupe.

  Lena’s face turned bright red. “I can hit the notes, Wade. I just need a minute.” She covered her face and ran offstage. Ruben followed in her wake.

  Jasper strutted into center stage with his hands in his pockets and grinned at Wade. “You are grasping at straws, man, and at a lost dream. I know it must be hard to be back in the small time when you’ve already seen your name in lights.”

  Without warning, Wade decked Jasper. The stage manager staggered backward and then catapulted himself at the director. The two men fell onto the stage floor with a bang. They threw punches and kicks at each other as they rolled across the dusty floor. Cast and crew flooded the stage, apparently with the goal of pulling the two men apart. Blake got ahold of Jasper, but he was soon thrown off and landed on his backside a few feet away. No one else dared get that close again. They stood and watched with their mouths hanging open.

  I ran toward the stage. “Someone do something before they kill each other.”

  Collectively the cast and crew turned to me as if I had appeared out of nowhere, which as far as they were concerned, I had.

  Jasper and Wade continued to pummel each other and rolled closer and closer to the edge of the stage. Finally, they rolled so close to the edge, they fell off onto the hard pinewood floor.

  I winced.

  However, the jar of the fall didn’t stop them from beating on each other.

  I rummaged through my massive purse and came up with a full water bottle. I could always count on my purse in a moment of crisis. I opened the bottle and dumped the contents on the two men.

  “What the—,” Wade cried.

  Jasper crawled away from him. There was a cut over his eyebrow, and his lip was split open and bleeding. Wade didn’t look much better. The director had two black eyes and a bloody nose.

  Jasper struggled to his feet and looked intent on jumping Wade again. Blake jumped off the stage and took ahold of his boss’s arm. “Hey, man, calm down. Calm down.”

  “I’ll kill him,” Jasper warned. His pointy, ratlike features twitched.

  A chill ran down my spine. Jasper spoke like a man who had followed through on that promise in the past. Had Eve been the victim last time?

  Two young actors helped their director to his feet. Wade wiped the back of his hand across his face, smearing blood across his cheek in the process. He shook the men off him. “This is the end for you, Jasper. I will ruin you.” The director turned and half walked, half limped from the floor entrance to the backstage.

  “You can’t ruin me,” Jasper yelled, stomping in the opposite direction.

  “What do we do now?” one of the actors asked.

  “Um, I guess, take a fifteen-minute break,” Blake said.

  The cast and crew wandered off the stage, grumbling under their breath. Blake sat at the foot of the stage and spotted me. He hopped to the ground. “What are you doing here?”

  I walked down the aisle like I had every right to observe their play practice. “I met you earlier in the lobby when you were playing swords.”

  Blake’s ears turned bright red. “I remember.”

  “I didn’t mention then that I’m a township trustee.” I held out my hand, and he shook it. I resisted the urge to wipe my hand on my coat after the handshake. “I dropped in, representing the township trustees’ board. We have a meeting tonight, and I wanted to be able to report back how well rehearsals are going.”

  He flicked his long bangs out of his eyes with a jerk of his head. “Not very well. Everyone is on edge. I guess you might have seen the fight between Jasper and Wade.”

  “I did,” I said, happy he brought up the subject so I didn’t have to. “Do you know what the argument is about?”

  He shrugged. “They’ve known each other forever, longer than I’ve even been alive.”

  I eyed him. “How old are you?”

  “Nineteen, but I’ll be twenty next month,” he added quickly.

  “You’re not much older than the stagehands they hired here in the county.”

  Blake straightened up to his full height, which was an inch or two shorter than me. “They are just hired help to assist with the heavy lifting. I’m the assistant stage manager, and I have many more responsibilities than they do. Jasper depends on me to keep the show running.”

  “Like he depended on you to check the swing’s ropes before Eve went onstage.”

  He finger combed his bangs. “How do you know about that?”

  “I told you I am a township trustee. We have to know this information in order to better serve the community.”

  Blake’s brow wrinkled as he thought about what I had just said. I hoped he wouldn’t think too hard on it. “Do you want me to get Wade for you?”

  “No,” I said a little too quickly. “I mean, he seems to be very upset. I can talk to him later. You will all be here through Christmas, so I’ll have lots of opportunity to see him again.”

  Blake kicked the leg of one of the padded folding chairs in the audience seating section. “I can’t believe I’m spending my Christmas here. I should quit an
d go see my parents in Chicago. But I only joined because of Wade in the first place.”

  “Because of Wade?” I asked.

  He stopped kicking the chair. “Don’t tell me you don’t know who Wade Brooklyn is.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t really follow Broadway.”

  “He was, like, one of the most famous stage directors in New York. He directed productions on Broadway for nearly twenty years. Everyone wanted to work with him. Bette, Meryl, the entire A-list.”

  “What happened? Why is he here instead of in New York?” I shifted my bag on my shoulder. I should really take some stuff out of it. It always got heavy by the end of the day.

  “That’s the mystery. No one knows for sure . . . at least no one I’ve talked to.”

  “So Bette and Meryl might know,” I joked.

  He gave me a withering look. “All I do know is it involved a young actress, and I heard whispering about something being settled out of court. I don’t know the actress’s name. She wasn’t famous or anything. She kind of disappeared after that.”

  Involved a young actress? I couldn’t help but think of Eve.

  I tapped a finger to my cheek. “So after whatever happened with Wade and the young actress.” I grimaced as I thought of the possibilities. “Then what happened? Wade was kicked out of Broadway?”

  “From what I heard, no one asked him to leave. He just did. He disappeared for nearly twenty years, and then an advertisement appears in the trade journals for this production he’s directing in Holmes County, Ohio. I applied right away. I wouldn’t have another chance to work with such a genius.”

  I frowned. “So you were willing to spend Christmas away from your family to work with Wade in Ohio, even though he is no longer respected by the Broadway community?”

  “Of course. We all were. If this is the beginning of Wade’s comeback, he’ll take us with him. The man is a genius.”

  “And Jasper? You said they know each other from way back. Did Wade hire him?”

  Blake wrinkled his nose and nodded. “I know he is my supervisor, but I don’t know why Wade chose him as the stage manager. He has such a sour disposition.” He lowered his voice. “Some of the other crew members say Wade hired him because Jasper knows whatever caused the director’s ruin all those years ago. I can’t help but think that must be true. No one likes Jasper.” He shrugged. “Maybe Wade’s just giving someone from his past a chance.” He jumped onto the stage without using the stairs and walked to a broken chair. Frowning, he said, “I’m going to try to fix that.”

  “What happened to it?” I asked, standing just below the stage.

  “Wade threw it across the room.”

  I made a face. “Yikes.”

  Blake shrugged. “At least he didn’t throw a person.”

  “He throws people?”

  “Not yet.”

  I wanted to ask why Blake assumed Wade would throw a person, but it might have seemed too inquisitive. So instead I asked, “Are the actors afraid of him?”

  Blake spun the chair leg in his hands. “I don’t think so. I mean everyone is used to a yelling director. You wouldn’t make it very far in this business if you weren’t.”

  “Where do you think Wade went?”

  Blake frowned. “To smoke. He does that when he’s angry. He’s been doing it a lot lately. You can probably find him just outside the backstage door.”

  I thanked Blake and went in search of the play director.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  The back door had been left open a crack, and I heard angry voices. I peeked out just long enough to see Wade and Jasper glaring at each other. Each man had a lit cigarette in his hand.

  “Listen to me. You mess with me and I will expose your story. That wouldn’t look too good to the police if they knew. They’d throw you into prison so fast, your head would spin.”

  I took another look to catch Wade’s reaction.

  Wade blew smoke out of the side of his mouth. “Fine. But after this production, we’re through. Do you hear me?”

  Jasper’s lips curled. “Loud and clear.”

  My heart beat faster. I should call Mitchell right away. He needed to find out what the two men were talking about. Why would it land Wade in trouble with the police? Did it have something to do with the young actress twenty years ago? What I really wanted to know was whether it related to Eve’s death.

  A day ago, I didn’t know who could possibly kill the rising star. Today, I had more suspects than I knew what to do with. There were Jasper, Wade, Lena, Ruben, and Nahum, to name a few. How many more suspects would surface before the investigation was over?

  I waited a few more beats until I knew Jasper was gone and had stepped outside. I cleared my throat. “Hello, Wade.”

  “What are you doing here?” he snapped.

  “Representing the township; I was just checking to make sure everything is on track.” I gave him a bright pageant smile. “And to offer any assistance if you need it.”

  He took a long drag from his cigarette. “Can you sing? Can you dance? Can you act?”

  The wind whipped snow across the field that divided the barn from the main hotel. In the dark, yellow light from the barn’s open back door reflected in the snow as it swirled in our faces.

  I pulled my stocking cap down over my ears. “Um, no.”

  “Then what use are you to me?” He waved me away. The wind caught ashes from his cigarette.

  “Well,” I said, “the township is very sorry for your loss. I was here the night of her performance. Eve was very good.” I paused. “How did you discover her?”

  He blew the smoke out through clenched teeth. “She found me. She came to my office in New York and auditioned. I knew she was destined to the part, and not just because she grew up Amish, although that certainly helped. I don’t know how she knew about the production. Most of my advertising for roles had been well off Broadway.” He grimaced as if he were reluctant to admit that.

  “Her sister told her about the play. I gather she heard about it because she works here at the hotel.”

  Wade dropped the still-burning cigarette onto the ground and stomped on it with his boot. “A sister. Eve never told me that she had a sister working in the hotel. Of course I knew she was from here, but I didn’t know her family was that close to the production.” He shrugged. “In any case, she was destined to be a star. I can always tell which kids have it and which ones don’t.”

  I took a step backward, closer to the entrance to the backstage, before I asked my next question. “Is that what you thought about the actress twenty years ago?”

  He stepped into my face. “Who told you about that? Was it Jasper?”

  He leaned in so close, I could smell the tobacco on his breath. “I paid enough money never to answer that question. I advise you to never ask it again.”

  My hip hit the side of the barn. The open door was just one step behind me. “I’m sure the sheriff will be curious to find out.”

  “Listen to me, little girl. You don’t want to get involved with this. If you poke your nose in where it doesn’t belong, you might lose it altogether.”

  I resisted the urge to touch the tip of my nose to make sure it was still intact. “I don’t scare easy.”

  He smiled and stepped back. “That’s your first mistake.”

  Instead of slipping into the barn, I stepped around Wade and retreated to the safety of the hotel. I felt the director’s eyes on my back throughout the long cold walk. I was so preoccupied with what I had witnessed in the barn and the conversation with Wade, I didn’t see Junie materialize out of the snow until it was too late and I collided with her.

  I was twice the girl’s petite size, and she bounced off me and fell into a snowdrift.

  “Junie, are you all right?” I gave her my hand. “I’m so sorry.”

&nb
sp; Junie rolled back and forth in the drift for a moment, trying to find her footing, but finally, with my help, she stood up.

  “I am sorry,” she murmured as she brushed snow off her sleeve. “I wasn’t watching where I was going.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “The barn. Mimi asked me to tell the people working on the play that supper is ready for them, and then I’m headed home. It’s been a very long day.”

  I couldn’t agree more about the length of the day. It felt like I had seen Junie at the hotel three weeks ago instead of just that morning. So much had happened between then and now.

  I grimaced. “Right now might not be the best time to deliver the message, at least not to Wade or Jasper.”

  She wrapped her arms around her waist. “Why not?”

  “A small misunderstanding,” I said.

  If you can call an open brawl in the middle of the stage a misunderstanding.

  “I’ll just tell Blake, then.”

  “You know Blake?” I asked.

  She blushed, or at least I thought she blushed. I wasn’t certain because of the darkness. “I know all the people from the production. I have been tending to their needs for more than two weeks.”

  “But Wade didn’t know that you and Eve were sisters.”

  She frowned. “If she never told him or any of them, that was her choice. I had no reason to tell them. I barely saw my sister while she was here at the hotel. That’s why you are here at the hotel tonight, isn’t it? It’s about my sister again. I wish you would let it go. Gott will sort it out for us all.”

  I didn’t answer, but with Wade’s threat ringing in my ears, I was more determined than ever to find out how Eve fell from that swing.

  Junie continued on her way to the barn.

  “How do you plan to get home?” I asked.

  She glanced over her shoulder. “I will walk. It’s less than two miles.”