Murder in the Balcony

by Margaret Dumas

  It would be such a relief to be able to tell someone. But I knew I couldn’t do it. Because even if Lillian believed—especially if Lillian believed—it wouldn’t end there. She’d want to tell the whole world. And that story had only one ending: a friendly attendant telling me to swallow the nice pills in a cozy little psych ward somewhere in wine country.

  My fears about this were very specific.

  “Is the microphone stand adjustable for height?” Callie interrupted my thoughts. “Stan McMillan is probably taller than June.”

  “Yes,” I said, irritated simply at the sound of McMillan’s name. “I can’t believe Detective Jackson hasn’t gotten back to us about him.” Although there was nothing new in Jackson not telling me anything. But the picture we’d sent him proved the shady developer was at the bar that night. I’d at least expected an acknowledgement.

  “I wonder if he’s even, like, talked to him yet,” Callie said. She glanced over at me. “You probably shouldn’t put that there.”

  I’d just rolled a simple freestanding backdrop into place behind the spot we’d marked for the chairs.

  “You’ve got that on a trapdoor.” She came over and moved the backdrop. “It’s tilting a bit, see? One side is lower than the other.”

  I could see the outline of the door clearly. I’d noticed it and its twin on the other side of the stage when I’d been mopping. I’d also seen them from below many times, boarded-over high in the ceiling of the basement prop room. Back when the Palace still had live shows, magician’s assistants and vaudeville villains had disappeared through them to the delight and amazement of the crowds.

  I let her reposition the backdrop, trying to figure something out that was just on the tip of my brain. I really wanted McMillan to be the killer, because I really wanted him locked up and in no position to threaten the Palace. But me wanting him to be the killer didn’t make him the killer. There was still the scenario of the tall blonde girlfriend who might have killed Warren in a fit of jealous rage.

  But I kept coming back to the text Warren had sent that night. He’d said June would “lose it” if she knew who was at the bar. McMillan had been there. And then I realized what had been bothering me. McMillan had been there, sure, but he hadn’t been alone. He’d been sitting across from someone.

  Which left me wondering: Whose wrist was just visible across the table from McMillan in the photo I’d seen? Who was with him at the bar that night? And what did they know?

  Chapter 18

  I was taking the back stairs up to my office when my phone rang. A number I didn’t know with a 213 area code. Los Angeles.

  I answered it warily, assuming some enterprising tabloid blogger had gotten my number.

  It wasn’t a blogger.

  It was a law firm.

  It was my law firm.

  They were calling from a conference room at their office on Wilshire Boulevard. All of them were on the phone. The entire firm.

  To tell me some very bad news.

  “Everything?” Robbie’s voice carried the same stunned disbelief I’d felt. I’d called her as soon as I got off the phone with the lawyers. “You’re saying everything’s gone? All the money? All the real estate? All the—”

  “Everything,” I said. “Ted sold the house in Beverly Hills, the flat in London, the beach house in Maui. He sold all the investments. He liquidated all the accounts. He spent every single penny.” I still couldn’t believe my husband—my husband—had done what the lawyers had described.

  “Spent it?! We’re talking about millions! Tens of millions! How could he—What could he possibly have spent it on?”

  “A movie.” I didn’t recognize my own voice. “He invested everything in a movie.”

  “Like hell he did!” she fumed. “Nobody’s that stupid.”

  “He isn’t stupid,” I heard myself say. “I had no idea he was this smart. This deceitful and underhanded and calculating and smart. I had no idea he was stalling for time all the while he was up here begging me to take him back. I knew he was a good actor, but I had no idea he was that good. I had no idea.” I looked around my office and didn’t recognize anything I saw.

  “How could he do that? I mean, not even how could he be so awful as to do that, but practically speaking, how could he sell the houses without you knowing? Weren’t you on the deeds?”

  “Not since he incorporated a year ago,” I told her. “We did it for tax reasons. Our accountant pushed for it, but I wonder if Ted was thinking of this even back then. If he was already planning to leave me. And to take everything.”

  He’d gazed longingly at me while his lawyers and accountants had siphoned everything away. He’d made promises. He’d sworn oaths.

  He’d lied, and lied, and lied.

  “Once he incorporated, all our holdings became assets of the corporation,” I told Robbie. “And now it’s all gone. I didn’t have to sign a thing. I didn’t know a thing.”

  “But it can’t be gone!” she protested. “Even if he did invest it all in some movie—”

  “I know,” I said, wondering why I sounded so calm when I was so very not calm. “My lawyers have been trying to track it all since I told them to start up again on Friday.” Was that only two days ago? “Ted has a complete paper trail that says he sank everything into a movie production that’s gone bankrupt. On paper it looks like he’s lost everything.”

  “Like hell he has!” Robbie fumed. “He’s hidden it all somewhere.”

  “Of course he has. He must have.” Because that’s who he was. The man I’d been married to for a decade. “The lawyers say they’ll get accountants and court orders and…” I stopped. I couldn’t go on. I heard the lawyers’ voices echoing in my head, but none of it meant anything. The only thing that was real was that Ted had betrayed me. Again. In a way I never even saw coming.

  “It’s going to be awful,” I told Robbie. “And it’s going to take a long time and it’s going to cost a fortune in legal fees and there’s no guarantee about anything at the end of it.”

  “Oh, Nora.” What else could she say?

  “It isn’t the money,” I said. “I mean, yes, it’s the money. But it’s the lying, you know? The cold-heartedness of it. He knew what he was doing to me all the time he was up here swearing how much he’d changed. He knew what he was doing to me a year ago before I even heard the name Priya Sharma.”

  “I could kill him,” Robbie said.

  “Don’t,” I sniffed. “That would just make the paperwork harder.”

  The only reason I was able to make it through the day is because I didn’t tell anyone else what had happened. Somehow, I did whatever it was I did until the audiences for four showings had come and gone from the Palace.

  Suddenly it was after ten at night. I was alone in the office, thinking everyone had left, until I heard familiar clomping footsteps in the hallway. Marty appeared at the door. “What’s the matter with you? You’ve been weird all day. Are you getting sick or something? Because I will not deal with a hundred realtors on my own tomorrow.”

  “I didn’t even think you were coming in tomorrow.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “Sure. I’ll just let god-knows-who hang out in my booth all day unsupervised. That sounds like me.”

  I waved a hand. “Do what you want.”

  He glared. “You are sick. What’s the matter with you?”

  “My husband stole all my money.” Quick, like a Band-Aid. I just said it.

  “He—” For once Marty seemed to be at a loss for words. He stood in the doorway for a moment, then came into the room and almost sat in the chair opposite my desk, then apparently decided not to. So he just hovered awkwardly, he loomed, over the desk.

  “I don’t know why I told you.” I looked up at him.

  “Do you need me to…hug you or something?” Nothing in his body language said he was up
for that, but I appreciated the offer.

  “I’m good,” I told him.

  His relief was palpable. Then, “Do you need me to beat the shit out of him?”

  “That’s sweet,” I said. “Or something. But no. He’s left town anyway.”

  “For that I’d travel.”

  I laughed, which I think freaked Marty out even more.

  “Never mind,” I told him. “It’s with the lawyers now.” I stood up. Too quickly, as it turned out. I got a little lightheaded.

  “I’ll walk you home,” Marty said. He was looking at me like I had one blue wire and one red wire and he didn’t know which one to cut.

  “Don’t worry about me. I’m going to hang out here for a while. I’ll finish getting the stage set up for tomorrow.”

  “I can help,” he said.

  I looked at him. “Marty, you should leave. Because you’re being really nice. It’s weirding me out. And if you aren’t careful, I might decide to take you up on that offer of a hug.”

  His eyes widened.

  “Go home, Marty. Or go see your not-a-boyfriend. And if you do see him, and he’s arrested Stan McMillan, let me know, okay? I could use some good news.”

  “Why would—” Marty started to ask, then he saw the look on my face. “Sure. I’ll go see David. I’ll let you know.” He still looked indecisive. “And you just…” Here’s where most people would say “take care” or something equally considerate. Marty said, “You just don’t lose your shit until after the realtors thing, all right?”

  “All right.”

  A furniture rental truck had delivered the podium and six red chairs to the back-alley entrance earlier that day. We’d left them wrapped up in plastic and bulky moving blankets at the back of the stage. Now I raised the screen and began unwrapping everything, placing the furniture in the spaces Callie had marked with chalk that morning.

  It didn’t take long. And then I looked around. The auditorium was dark, and the stage was lit only with working lights. And a ghost light, a bare-bulb floor lamp that was always supposed to stay lit on a theater’s stage, either to keep the ghosts away or to comfort them, depending on who you believe. I’d seen this old one in the basement a while ago and I brought it up tonight. With the screen up and the stage in use it seemed appropriate. Plus I liked the idea of keeping it lit for Trixie. I hadn’t seen her since the incident with Callie’s mom. It had only been one day, but it had been quite a day. I missed her.

  “Trixie?” I called out.

  “What?”

  I yelped a little, because it wasn’t Trixie who answered me.

  “Sorry!” Callie came into view at the bottom of the steps to the stage. “I didn’t mean to startle you. What were you saying?”

  I’d been calling the name of my friend. The one who’d died over eighty years ago.

  “I was saying ‘Testing,’” I told Callie.

  She gave me an odd look. “People usually wait for the microphones to do a sound check. I’ll have a sound guy for that tomorrow.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “Marty called me.” She crossed the stage and slung her bag onto one of the carefully placed chairs before flinging herself into another one.

  “I take it he told you.” I sank into the chair next to her.

  “I mean, he told me that the shittiness of Warren having another girlfriend paled in comparison to the epic shittiness of your shitty husband,” she said.

  “It’s not a contest. At least, it’s not a good contest.”

  She shrugged.

  “You didn’t have to come,” I told her. “I’ll be fine.”

  “I literally knew you were going to say that.” She reached over to her bag and pulled out a bottle of wine. “Sooo…I brought this with me.”

  I looked from the bottle to her.

  “Okay. You can stay.”

  Chapter 19

  “Joan Crawford in Mannequin!” Callie announced proudly.

  “Oh, good one.” We were still on the Palace’s stage, listing every movie ever made where a strong, smart, brave, and true woman got mixed up with a low-down rotten skunk of a man. Mannequin (1937, Joan Crawford and Spencer Tracy—as the good guy, not the skunk) was pretty obscure but met the criteria.

  “Go, Joan,” Callie said. “Leave that sleazy what’s-his-name—”

  “Alan Curtis,” I said. He’d played the skunk.

  “Leave that sleazy Alan Curtis in your badass dust, Joan!”

  We’d already listed many movies. Also, we’d finished the wine.

  “Ohmygod!” I slapped my forehead. “What’s wrong with me? Born Yesterday!” (1950, Judy Holliday and William Holden).

  “Yeeessss,” Callie exhaled. “Don’t you just love Judy Holliday? I mean, isn’t she the greatest comic actress of literally ever?”

  “Of literally ever,” I agreed.

  “Let’s have a Judy Holliday film festival,” she proposed.

  “Done,” I promised.

  “To badass women!” Callie raised her paper cup in a toast, attempted to drink, and then held the empty cup upside down. “All gone.”

  “How sad,” I said. “Mine too. Did you only bring one bottle?”

  She nodded. She’d sunk further into the red chair on the stage.

  “Then it’s a good thing I’m here,” a voice called from the shadows.

  I held my hand up to shield my eyes. “Who’s there?”

  Monica loped up the stairs to the stage. “I heard you were holding a wake.”

  I raised a hand languidly “Not wounded, sire, but dead,” I quoted Katharine Hepburn from The Philadelphia Story (1940, Hepburn and not-a-skunk-at-all Cary Grant).

  “One bottle of wine did this to you?” Monica took in our reclining forms.

  “One bottle of wine, no food, and the treachery of men,” I told her.

  “Uh huh.” She joined us in the semicircle of chairs. Tomorrow there would be a no-doubt rousing panel discussion on mortgage rates on this stage. Tonight there was sisterhood.

  “How did you get in?” I asked Monica. “And why are you here?”

  “I have a key,” she said. “I’m an owner, remember? And yes, I locked the door behind me.” She settled in and gave me a look. “Callie called me. She told me what that…actor did.”

  I really thought she was going to say something other than actor.

  “We’re not talking about him,” Callie informed her. “We’re not wasting our breath on him. He’s nothing but a minor character. Nora’s the star.”

  “Aw, thanks Calandria.”

  She gave me an evil look for using her full name. I’d have to remember to do it more often.

  “Very sensible,” Monica said. “Waste no more time on men. I’ve only met a handful in my life that were worth putting on lipstick for.” She grinned. “But were they worth it.” She turned to Callie. “I brought you what you asked for,” she rummaged in her bag. “Nora, I know you don’t normally—”

  “Chocolate!” I said. “That’s what this party’s been missing.”

  “It’s very strong chocolate,” Monica warned, holding up a purple-wrapped bar. “And I don’t mean in terms of cocoa powder.”

  I held out a hand. “I’ll proceed with caution.”

  “And I’ll order pizza,” Callie whipped out her phone.

  Sisterhood.

  “I mean, I know there’s no comparison between some guy I’ve been dating for a few weeks having another girlfriend and your husband of ten years publicly humiliating you,” Callie leaned forward in her chair, elbows on her knees. The three of us had decided to stay in our little pool of light on the stage until the pizza came.

  “Thanks,” I said. “And let’s not forget his thievery.”

  “And thieving from you,” she agreed. “But at least you can yel
l at your man. I can’t even do that. All I see all day long is what a great guy Warren was.” She held up her phone, then dropped it into the chair in disgust. “You literally can’t speak evil, right?”

  “You can with us,” Monica assured her.

  “Ugh.” She collapsed back into the chair again, staring up at the rafters. “And, I mean, I may not even be in the right. What if I’m the other woman? What if Warren was seeing this Ingrid person first? She might have every reason to hate me, or be just as hurt as I am or something.”

  “Do you think she knows about you?” Monica asked.

  I’d been only half listening since Callie had mentioned the possibility of my yelling at Ted. Maybe it was the wine and the pot-laced chocolate talking, but yelling at Ted sounded like a really good idea.

  “I mean, if she didn’t before Warren died, she must know now,” Callie said. “She must be looking at the same posts about Warren that I am.”

  I sat up. I could yell at Ted later. And I undoubtedly would. But right now something else was tickling my brain. “What do you know about Ingrid? Is she a realtor? Does she work for June?”

  Callie shook her head. “She works at a bank. She does, like, mortgage loans.”

  “That’s realtor-adjacent,” I said, more to myself than to her. “What else do you know about her?”

  “I mean, more than I want to. She’s twenty-seven, and she went to Stanford and majored in economics. So she’s definitely smarter than me.”

  “Stop that,” I told her. “What else?”

  “She bakes.” Callie made a face. “She posts pictures of cupcakes and things. Do you think she seduced Warren with cupcakes?”

  “Oooh, I’d kill for a cupcake,” Monica said.

  Cupcakes sounded amazing, but I was trying to focus, and Callie was now on a roll. “She has a tiny little dog that she carries around in a Chanel bag,” she went on. “Fake Chanel, I think.”