by Cindy Brown
“You know that confuses me,” whined our own little hedge-pig.
We’d recently discovered the only thing that made The Real Witch crazier than talking in the cauldron was reciting his lines—it thoroughly flustered him. It was completely unprofessional, way too much fun, and harmless. The Real Witch never actually screwed up his lines, he was just a Nervous Nelly. This got him off our backs.
After our scene (which went perfectly), Candy and I headed back to our dressing room. No more scenes left, just curtain call. With the play done for the day, my mind turned back to motives.
I watched the rubber snake in Candy’s brown hair bounce as I followed her into our dressing room. Did she have a motive? Not as far as I could see. Oh wait. Sheesh. Some detective I’d make. I was with Candy almost all the time. She’s the one person who didn’t have opportunity. Could I trust her with my suspicions about Simon’s death?
I shut the door, turned to Candy, and took a leap of faith. “Help me figure out who might have wanted to kill Simon.”
“Kill him?” She looked at me with something like pity in her eyes. “Hon, the man drank himself to death.”
“Just play along with me for a minute.”
She still had that look on her face
“And stop looking at me that way.”
Candy nodded and settled back in her chair. She put her feet—her enormous feet—up on the dressing room counter. “Can’t blow me over,” she said, admiring her size twelves.
Oops, she was distracting me. That’s not how it’s supposed to work.
I reached into my purse, pulled out the photo of donkey-eared Simon in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and handed it to Candy. She examined it for a moment. I watched her carefully, for what, I wasn’t sure.
“Nice ass,” she said.
“Yeah, yeah. Have you seen this before?”
“Well, it was tacked up behind the table at the service. Can’t remember who brought it. D’you think it was a statement or something? About Simon being an ass?”
Oh. I considered that for a minute. “Maybe. Have you seen it—this photo, I mean—since?” I didn’t want to come right out and ask her if she’d put it in my purse.
“Since the service? No,” she said, looking genuinely confused.
Good. One bit of detective work crossed off my list. “So who hated Simon?”
“Pretty much everyone except you.”
I gave her a look.
“And me,” Candy said. “I liked Simon just fine. But you know, Edward hated him, Bill hated him, Linda hated him—”
“Linda? What, because he threw up on her shoes?”
“You never heard the love triangle story?” Candy took her feet off the counter and sat up on the edge of her chair. “Ooh, this is a good one. Linda and Simon were both working some summer Shakespeare-in-the-Park type gig up in Flagstaff years ago. She’d gone up there with her girlfriend, Lucy.”
“Wait, how do you know this?” I hoped it wasn’t from a theater party, where the general motto is “Never ruin a good story with the truth.”
“Lucy told me. She was the art director for a movie I did once,” Candy said. “‘Beaver Canyon.’”
“An indie film?”
“Sort of.” She grinned, a little sheepishly. “Softcore lesbian porn.”
I couldn’t tell if she was kidding or not. I hopped down from my perch on the counter. “Really? You did porn?”
“Softcore, hon. Just nudity, really.” Her smile faded into a serious face I’d never seen before. “I needed the money.”
Candy was giving me her secret to hold. Our eyes held each others’ for a moment. I nodded and her smile returned. “So Linda was the stage manager. She and Lucy had been doing this Flagstaff summer gig for years. They were real tight. Guess you rarely saw one without the other. Linda would help build sets, and Lucy would sit in on rehearsals. Then Simon came along.”
“I thought Lucy was a lesbian.” I turned to the mirror, where I could see Candy and repair my makeup. Had to look good for curtain call.
“So did everyone else. Even Genevieve—”
“Wait, Genevieve was there, too?”
“Yeah. Riley, too. And Edward. Anyway, Lucy was a looker. Tall, blonde, athletic type. Like a Scandinavian ski model.”
“Huh,” I said, imagining short, sturdy Linda with a Swedish skier. I could see it.
She went on. “I guess Simon swept her off her feet and away from Linda, all in the space of one...”
I heard a noise from the door, a sort of a choke or snort. I jumped off the counter. Linda was standing in the open doorway, watching us. Listening to us. How long had she been there?
“Ever heard of knocking?” said Candy.
“The door was open,” Linda said, not looking at either of us. Had the door been open? I could have sworn I shut it.
Something wasn’t right. I listened to the show over the dressing room speakers.
“Lay on, Macduff!” That was Jason, just about to get beheaded by Macduff. The show was nearly over, but not quite. Linda should have been up in the booth, calling the light cues.
“Better get into place for curtain call, Candy,” she said, giving her a look that said she wanted some privacy. Candy ignored her.
“And Ivy, you might want to skip bows tonight. We...uh...” She looked at Candy again. No dice. Candy was not going anywhere. Linda gave up on that idea, straightened her shoulders, and finally looked me in the eye. “We just got a call about your uncle.”
CHAPTER 23
The Deed Confounds Us
The curse of Macbeth was alive and well in the twenty-first century. My favorite person in the world was hurt and I couldn’t get to him.
I couldn’t get a ride to St. Joseph’s right away because no one wanted to miss curtain call. I thought about taking a taxi, but it wouldn’t have arrived at the theater before we’d wrapped up. So I waited impatiently, bowed, and ran back to my dressing room, where I pulled on a pair of shorts over my leotard. I’d hoped to catch a ride with Jason, but couldn’t find him after curtain call. Candy wouldn’t drive me because she had an audition.
“Now? On Sunday night?”
“They made a special arrangement for me ’cause of the show. That’s why I have to go.”
“Candy, the cops called. He’s in the hospital. Do you know what that means?”
“No, hon, and neither do you. He could have had a little indigestion or something.”
“Don’t ‘hon’ me. I need you.”
“And I need a job.” Candy looked at me seriously. “It’s a film audition, the job pays five hundred bucks, and I’m perfect for it. I need the cash.”
“Whatever.” I turned away from her. She sighed, walked over, and opened our dressing room door.
“Gentlemen?” she called out. “Who would like the honor of driving Miss Ivy home?”
“Not home, to the hospital,” I hissed.
She shook her head. “Better chance for a ride if they think they might get invited in.” She winked. I ignored it.
I heard running footsteps. Riley bounded up. “Sure, Ivy, I’ll take you,” he said. He was panting. I hoped it was from running.
I glared at Candy, slung my duffle bag over my shoulder, and left with Riley.
Riley was a nice guy. He was also one of those talking drivers who looks at you instead of watching the road. After three near-collisions, and one guy who yelled something about Riley’s mother, I made it out of the car and into the hospital, only to hit a dead end at the information desk.
“Robert Duda,” said the friendly, white-haired volunteer, staring at her computer screen. “There’s no one here by that name.”
“Please check again,” I asked. “Maybe you mistyped it. It’s D-U-D-A.”
She
typed the name again, slowly. She stared at the screen. “Nope. Sorry, dear.”
“But the police called. They said he was here.”
“The police? Did they now?” She screwed up her face, her wrinkles compounding. She sized me up with piercing blue eyes. I was wearing shorts over my too-tight leotard and tights, and lots of sparkly stage makeup. Whatever she was considering me for, I didn’t pass muster. “No, I don’t think—”
“Listen,” I grabbed her hand. It was soft and powdery. “I know this looks weird. I’m an actress. I just came from a show, where I got this message that something had happened to my uncle.” Tears threatened. “It must be serious, or the police wouldn’t have called me at the theater.” I wiped at my brimming eyes.
“Oh, honey,” said the nice old lady, who stood and patted my shoulder awkwardly across her desk. “I really don’t have him in my system.” She pulled me closer and said in a whisper, “But one of the other volunteers said there’s a policeman on guard at Room 607. Give that a try.”
So I did. Outside Room 607, which I felt sure was my uncle’s room, I pled my case to a cop whose head looked like a mottled bullet. “Please,” I said. “What if he’s dying? What if I never get a chance to see him alive again?” I encouraged the tears that still waited at the back of my eyes.
But the bullet-headed policeman was like one of those guards at Buckingham Palace. Not a word, not a ruffle, not a glimmer of humanity.
I parked my butt in a chair outside the room, figuring the guard would have to pee at some point. He didn’t.
An hour passed. Two. No sound from inside the hospital room, but my stomach growled at me. Really growled, like it was mad it had been denied food. I gave in and headed to the cafeteria. I came back with some food and an idea.
“Here,” I said to the cop. He looked down at the maple bar I offered. “I brought coffee, too.”
“I find your assumption offensive,” he said, but he did take the coffee and donut.
I sat down, tucked into my hamburger, and waited for the extra-large coffee I’d brought to take effect on the non-peeing policeman.
I must have fallen asleep. A slight squeak woke me—the policeman’s shoes as he padded down the hall toward the restrooms. Success.
Silvery pre-dawn light spilled from the windows into the hallway. Must have slept longer than I thought. I opened the door to Uncle Bob’s room and slipped into the dark room. I could just see Uncle Bob’s bulk under the thin bed covers.
A shaft of light sliced the darkness as the door opened. I heard footsteps behind me. A hand grabbed me by the shoulder. “Hey!” The hand spun me around until I was face to face with—who? Not the bullet-headed policeman. I caught a whiff of menthol cigarettes as I peered at the vaguely familiar face in the dark. “Olive?” it said.
“Sir!” The policeman rushed in. “I just left for a moment and she was asleep and—”
“You’re lucky she’s his niece,” said the guy, who I now recognized as the detective who’d questioned me about Simon.
“His next of kin,” I said to the bullet-headed policeman.
“Back to your post.” The policeman skedaddled before the last word was even out of the detective’s mouth.
“Is my uncle okay?” I whispered to the detective. “What happened?”
“Yes, and we’re not sure. He hadn’t regained consciousness when I called earlier, but...”
“Well, I have now, what with all this goddammed whispering and shit,” came a scratchy voice from the bed.
Relief washed over me. He was okay. If he was that grouchy, he was okay. Uncle Bob fumbled for a cord and turned on a light. He had two black eyes, a splint over his nose, and tubes running in and out of the covers. His left leg was immobilized in a black contraption with lots of Velcro strips.
“Hey, Bob,” said the detective, who looked like he’d slept in his clothes, too. “We wake you?”
“Nah, I’ve been awake for an hour or so,” rasped Uncle Bob. He clutched his neck. “Damn, my throat hurts. What in the hell happened to me? I feel like someone rammed a sparkler down my throat.”
“A what?”
“A sparkler. You know, from the Fourth of July. “
The detective chuckled. “A sparkler. That’s cute. Sweet. The guys downtown will love that.”
“Aw, give me a break. Something hot and fiery. Just say something hot and fiery.”
“Something pretty and sparkly, you said?”
I watched the two of them, my mouth open. Until a few days ago, I had no idea they even knew each other. In that moment, I realized I knew very little about my uncle.
Uncle Bob saw me watching him and held out his arms. I went to him and hugged him hard, working around the tubes that ran out of him and connected to various blinking machines.
“Oh shit,” he said. “I think you just unplugged something.”
I jumped back, shouting, “Omigod! Call a nurse!”
I turned to the detective, who was holding his stomach, laughing. So was Uncle Bob.
“Ow,” he said. “Ow, shit. Hurts to laugh.”
“Serves you right,” I said. “Not funny.”
“Ow,” he said again. “My throat hurts like a son-of-a-bitch. Why in the hell is that?”
His friend—Pink?—pulled up a chair and sat next to Uncle Bob’s bed. “It looked like you’d OD’ed and passed out. I guess you didn’t respond to the medications they gave you in the ER, so they pumped your stomach just to make sure.”
“Ah.” Uncle Bob nodded. “What was in it?”
“Some shit that nearly ate your stomach lining.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Diet Coke. You gotta stop drinking that shit. You know, you drop a nail in it, it’ll dissolve in four days.”
Uncle Bob chuckled appreciatively. I didn’t. This little routine they had was cute, but I was scared and impatient. “I suppose the Coke broke his leg,” I said.
Uncle Bob raised his head to peer at his leg. He squinted, or tried to. The splint on his nose didn’t give much. “Ow! Damn.” He felt his face. “Don’t tell me someone’s messed up my good looks.”
“That would have been the light pole,” said Pink. “And whatever or whoever made you pass out and crash into it.”
“Crash?” My uncle looked upset for the first time. He swallowed audibly. “My car...is it...?”
Pink looked at the ground. “Yeah. Totaled,” he said. “Sorry.”
A tear leaked out of one of Uncle Bob’s swollen eyes. “There’s no justice in the world.”
“Yeah there is,” said the detective. “If some bastard did this to you, he’s toast.”
CHAPTER 24
Things without All Remedy
In the hospital parking lot, I climbed into the passenger side of the detective’s car, over empty pop cans and Burger King bags. I rolled down the window, hoping to dissipate the stale smell of menthol cigarettes with fresh air. Nope, just a lot of other downtown-type smells—asphalt, exhaust, fast food grease—good stuff like that.
The detective hopped in and started up the car. We smiled at each other, both relieved, I think, that Uncle Bob was going to be fine.
“Thanks for driving me home,” I said, “Mr., uh, Pink?”
“Pink’s a nickname, but everybody calls me that. Short for Pinkstaff.”
I knew a drag queen with that name. I decided not to mention it.
“And you,” he said, “you like to be called Olive?”
“Olive or Ivy.”
“Isn’t that a Christmas song? The Olive and the Ivy?”
I looked at him out of the corner of my eye, to see if he was kidding. He chuckled. I was beginning to see why he and my uncle were friends.
We drove up Central Avenue to my apartment. “Oh cr
ap,” I blurted. Pinkstaff looked at me out of the corner of his eye. “Nothing. Don’t worry. Just need to call my folks, that’s all.” Right: that’s all. I dialed their number on my cell. It had been weeks since I’d talked to them. No, months.
My mom picked up. “Olive? You’re not usually up this early.”
I glanced at Pinkstaff’s dashboard clock. 7:48 a.m. Not that early. But not too early for a jab at what she called my “bohemian lifestyle.”
“I just wanted to tell you that Uncle Bob is in the hospital.”
A pause. “And?”
“And?” I repeated.
“And is he going to be alright?”
“Oh. Yeah. He’s going to be okay.” I glanced at Pinkstaff, who was openly eavesdropping. “He was...in a car accident.” The detective nodded in approval.
“But he’ll be alright?”
“Yeah.”
Another pause. I couldn’t wait it out. “Are you going to come down?” Uncle Bob was her brother, after all.
“He’ll probably be out of the hospital before we even get there.” My folks lived two hours away, not twenty. “Give him our best. And thanks for calling.” She hung up.
“Gee, thanks, Mom,” I said to the dial tone. “Me? I’m okay, a little shook up about Uncle Bob. He looks pretty bad. Did you get the review I sent you of Macbeth? It would be great if you’d come see it. My first pro gig, you know. Yeah, love you, too.”
I hung up. Pinkstaff stopped for a red light, looked at me and shook his head. “And I thought you were an actor.”
“I’m better onstage.”
“She hung up right before ‘Gee, thanks.’”
I nodded.
“I am a detective, you know.”
Pinkstaff looked at me before stepping on the gas, an awfully tender look from a middle-aged guy I didn’t know well. It could have been because of my relationship with Bob, or my non-relationship with my folks, but just in case it was something else, I decided to preempt any romantic strike.