The Ghosts' High Noon

by Joanne Sydney Lessner

As she sat in the green room, wrapped in a blanket, sipping whisky, Isobel took a moment to reflect that first jobs always seemed to bring her bad luck. Or, rather, she seemed to bring bad luck with her to every new situation. At her first temp job, she’d stumbled across a dead secretary in a bathroom stall. And now at this, her first bona fide summer stock job, she’d tripped over a dead ghost.

  A dead actor playing a ghost, she reminded herself.

  In life, Vaughn Jackson had been something of a mystery. Three sheets to the wind half the time, but with a glorious basso profundo that made the hair on the back of Isobel’s neck stand up, Vaughn had kept to himself. Unlike most older actors, who loved nothing more than to confer a lifetime’s accumulation of theater anecdotes on an assemblage of hungry acolytes, he showed little interest in fraternizing with the younger members of the company. All Isobel knew about him was that he had a family connection to the Galaxy Playhouse, which had been home base for several generations of Jacksons. Vaughn hadn’t performed there in many years, but work had fallen off lately. He was, somewhat reluctantly, treating his role in Ruddigore as a local comeback of sorts, although Isobel thought the move could also be taken as a tail-between-the-legs return.

  Sunil emerged through the black felt curtains separating the green room from the dressing rooms. He picked up the whisky bottle from the side table where it was parked beside Isobel’s abandoned wig and tipped it questioningly in her direction. She shook her head, but he topped up his own glass and plopped down next to her on the sagging brown sofa.

  “Any news?” she asked.

  “The medical examiner just arrived.”

  Isobel set her glass down and started pulling pins from her hair. In a moment, her own straight brown locks were free, and she rubbed her scalp vigorously.

  “What’s the possibility that Vaughn died while all the men were in position waiting to go on?” she asked.

  “With them sitting right there? It would have had to be a very silent death for them not to notice.”

  “Then he must have died in the forty-odd measures of music between the time the other ghosts leave their frames and Roderic sings his first line.”

  “Rotten timing,” Sunil said drily.

  “Unless you’re Scott Seward,” she pointed out.

  Sunil snorted. “If you’re killing someone because you want to play a second-act role in a lesser-known Gilbert and Sullivan operetta in non-Equity summer stock, your bar is really, really low.”

  “Maybe there’s more to it than meets the eye.”

  Sunil gave her a significant glance. “And maybe there isn’t.”

  She leaned forward eagerly. “You realize why Vaughn fell over the way he did and didn’t just crumple?”

  “Rigor mortis?”

  “Yes.”

  “And?”

  She stared at him, aghast. “Did you even watch your own SVU episode?”

  “Just my two seconds as the halal cart guy.”

  Isobel smacked his thigh. “Well, I watched it. When they found the body in the storage locker, the ME figured out she must have died two hours before, because rigor mortis was just setting in.”

  “But that would mean Vaughn was already sitting there, dead, at the top of the show, and that’s impossible,” said Sunil. “The Act One set is completely different—it’s the village green. There’s no scrim, no chairs.”

  Isobel sighed. “That’s what I’m saying. It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “So what do you think—”

  “Isobel Spice?”

  They started guiltily, as the green room curtains were parted by a heavy-set, middle-aged police officer whose desire to be home in front of the television was writ large on his face.

  She gave a wan little wave. “That’s me.”

  “I’m Mike Ford, Vermont state police. You found the…er…Mr. Jackson?”

  “Yes.”

  He unfolded a rickety chair and sat across from Isobel and Sunil. “What exactly happened?”

  Isobel relayed her experience, while Ford scribbled on his notepad.

  “Did either of you see Mr. Jackson take his place in the chair after intermission?” he asked.

  They shook their heads. Ford gave a resigned grunt.

  “Men’s chorus all say the same thing.” He flipped back through his notebook and ran a finger down the page. “They filed on at the start of the act when the stage manager called places. They didn’t look around the bend in the set wall, so nobody is able to say with certainty whether Mr. Jackson was already seated in his chair.”

  “But he must have been…right?” asked Isobel.

  “You would think.” Ford scratched his upper lip with his pen. “Did you see Mr. Jackson arrive at the theater tonight?”

  “No, but there’s nothing strange about that,” answered Isobel. “Vaughn always checked in at curtain instead of at half-hour, because he doesn’t come on until the second act. And he generally keeps a low profile.”

  Ford jotted this on his notepad. “Is there anything else you can tell me?”

  Isobel glanced at Sunil. He gave an almost imperceptible shake of his head, but she forged on anyway. “Something strange happened when I was onstage. I don’t know if it’s related…probably not…”

  Ford looked up hopefully, though Isobel thought it had more to do with the prospect of getting home sooner than with receiving any useful information.

  “There was a man sitting on the edge of the stage.”

  Sunil rolled his eyes, but Ford paused, pen in the air. “When was this?”

  “During my aria. Right before the portrait scene.”

  “What did the man do?”

  “Nothing. He just watched and listened.”

  Ford gave an appreciative chuckle. “A fan, eh?”

  Isobel hauled herself up from the carnivorous couch. “You don’t understand. It’s not normal for an audience member to come onstage during a performance. And as soon as I exited, I looked out again and he was gone.”

  “What did he look like?”

  Isobel paced along the pattern of the rope rug, which, like many of the furnishings in the green room, had been worn down by the repetitive, palliative motions of nervous actors.

  “I didn’t get a good look at his face, but I have the impression that his hair was gray and on the long side. He was dressed oddly, in a jacket that looked like it might be velvet and a white shirt with a floppy bow tie.”

  Ford had stopped writing and was staring at her, a wary look on his face. “That’s…that’s…interesting.”

  Before Isobel could ask what he meant, Tim Ferguson, the artistic director of the Galaxy Playhouse, strode into the room, brimming with adrenaline. Tim thrived on tense situations and near-disaster, which was why he was so happy running a summer stock theater.

  “Audience has gone home. They were pretty traumatized—well, some of the old ladies actually seemed kind of excited—but the ushers were great, really calmed them down. We’ll have to reimburse them, or offer replacement tickets or…something.” He ran his hand over his spiky gray hair. “Anyway, I’ve got all the theater personnel sitting out in the house. You’ll have to tell me what you want to do with them.”

  Ford gestured to Isobel. “Tell Tim about the man you saw sitting on the edge of the stage.”

  Tim turned a curious gaze toward her. “What man? I’ve been watching from the house. There was nobody onstage who shouldn’t have been.”

  As she repeated her description for Tim, she got the distinct feeling that, despite Sunil’s scorn, there was something significant about her vision. Ford was fidgeting in his chair, causing the metal to squeak in a percussive counterpoint. When she finished, Tim stroked his goatee and peered at her more closely.

  “Somebody told you the story?”

  “What story?” Isobel asked, feeling a sudden chill.

  “Do you know who founded this theater?”

  “Some relative of Vaughn’s, right?”

 
“His great-grandfather, Garrett Jackson.” As Tim spoke, he paced the same trajectory Isobel had. She fought the temptation to follow him, Looney Tunes style, and instead let the couch devour her again.

  “The Jacksons were a prominent Southern family, from Virginia, I think. After the Civil War, they made money in textiles. Garrett was being groomed to take over the family business, but he wanted to be an actor.” Tim hedged a wry smile. “His father sent him to London on a business trip, and he saw lots of theater while he was there. Including, legend has it, opening night of Ruddigore at the Savoy Theatre.”

  Isobel gave a shudder. “That’s a little weird!”

  Tim arched an eyebrow. “Just wait. Garrett returned, more full of his ambitions than ever, but the family was still having none of it. So he ran away to New York to follow his dream.”

  Sunil laughed. “Let me guess. His mother cursed him?”

  Tim gave him an odd look. “No…not his mother.”

  Sunil sobered and Tim continued, “Garrett began to have some modest success on the stage, but it wasn’t until he was cast opposite Gracie Goddard that his career really took off. They were big operetta stars for several years. They fell in love and eventually got married. But Garrett’s ego got the better of him, and he started sleeping his way through the chorus girls. Gracie got wind of it, but by that point, she’d already given birth to two children: Nicholas and Martin, who was Vaughn’s grandfather.

  “Gracie got fed up and did something unheard of at the time. She fed the New York papers all the intimate details of Garrett’s dalliances, making them sound as dastardly as possible. She spun the story to her advantage and won in the courts of divorce and public opinion. As a result, it became harder for Garrett to find work. Down on his luck, he tried to see Gracie at the stage door one night, to beg her for money. In front of everyone, she cursed him and his descendants, declaring them destined to work in summer stock for the rest of their lives.”

  Isobel felt Sunil shaking with silent laughter next to her. She elbowed him in the side and smiled sweetly. “Go on.”

  “To borrow an overused platitude, Garrett decided to make lemonade from his lemons and came up here to Vermont, where he started this theater. It flourished under his leadership, but he grew estranged from his children, who had sided with their mother. At some point, Martin decided to go on the stage as well. Gracie tried to dissuade him, but he rejected her, made peace with his father, and joined him here. Gracie was so devastated by the desertion that she fell ill and died. Nicholas lost his mind, came up here, killed Garrett, and then went after Martin.”

  Isobel gasped. “That’s awful!”

  “It was ruled that Martin killed Nicholas in self-defense. But the experience left him a wreck of his former self. He drank himself to death, leaving his wife, Florence, and their son, Albert, Vaughn’s father, who inherited the theater.”

  “What happened to Albert? And does that mean Vaughn owns the theater?” Isobel asked eagerly.

  Tim held up a hand. “I’m getting to that. Albert ran the theater until he died of natural causes. Vaughn inherited the theater and immediately sold it to a group of investors, who renovated it and have owned it ever since.”

  “Vaughn didn’t want it?” Sunil asked.

  Tim shook his head. “He’d already been working steadily for years in New York and in regional theater. He didn’t want to be tied down to a non-Equity barn in the Green Mountains. But,” Tim paused for effect, “almost as soon as he sold the theater, his career started to flounder.”

  Sunil stretched his legs and set his empty whisky glass next to Isobel’s. “Well, that’s a cool story, but I don’t see what it has to do with what happened tonight.”

  “Come.” Tim motioned for them to get up. “I want to show you something.”

  Sunil helped Isobel off the couch. The room was swaying slightly, and she realized the whisky had gone to her head. Tim ushered them through the black felt curtains, past the dressing rooms, to a door at the end of the hallway that Isobel hadn’t noticed before. It was ajar.

  “That’s strange,” Tim muttered.

  Ford snapped to attention. “What’s strange?”

  “This room is kept locked. I’m the only one on staff with a key.”

  Tim pushed open the door and flipped on the light, revealing a large storage area, with racks of musty costumes. Isobel ran her fingers lightly over a faded lavender gown that released a puff of dust at her touch. Boxes overflowed with prop telephones, typewriters, spears, and swords. Tim led the way past large, unused set pieces angled up against the wall and came to a stop at the far end of the room in front of a tall box. The top of a picture frame was just visible leaning against the wall behind it.

  “Can someone give me a hand?”

  Ford stepped forward and helped Tim shove the heavy box to the side, revealing a portrait.

  Isobel gasped. “Oh, my God, that’s him!”

  Tim nodded. “Yes, that’s Garrett Jackson.”

  “No! That’s the man who was sitting on the edge of the stage while I was singing! The jacket, the shirt, the bowtie. And look at his hair!” She bent forward to examine the portrait.

  Tim gave a satisfied nod. “It wouldn’t be the first time.”

  “The first time for what?” Sunil asked.

  Ford cleared his throat. “There have been…well, sightings, for want of a better word, of Garrett before. Tim has called me in to check out several in the time he’s been here, because there’s always some odd petty crime that happens around the same time.”

  Isobel cocked her head, curious. “Like what?”

  “Well, during The Secret Garden, all the women’s character shoes disappeared from the dressing rooms,” Tim said. “When we did Can-Can, it was the frilly undergarments, and with My One and Only, it was the top hats. Some of the stuff turned up again. We found the underwear two years later under a loose floorboard in the cabaret. It was never anything really worrisome. Just poltergeist stuff.”

  “If you believe in that sort of thing,” Sunil said.

  Tim ignored him and continued, “In each instance, a member of the cast reported seeing what amounts to a vision of Garrett Jackson either onstage or backstage right around the time the stuff disappeared. It’s only ever one actor at a time who sees him, but the description is always the same.”

  “I’m sure the portrait has been reproduced in the theater brochure,” said Sunil. “Or it’s on the web somewhere.”

  “It’s never been used in publicity materials, even during the retrospectives we do in anniversary years,” Tim said. “I don’t know who would have posted it online or how.”

  “Okay, so some joker who once saw the portrait down here decided it would be fun to dress up as Garrett and lurk around the theater, spooking people,” Sunil said.

  “Only the three of us who work here year-round even know this room exists, let alone what’s in it.” Tim shook his head. “I’ve never found it unlocked before.”

  They regarded each other warily in the dark, dusty room, the single, bare bulb casting weird shadows on Garrett Jackson’s portrait. A woman’s voice intruded into the gloom.

  “Mike? Are you in here?”

  “Yep, coming,” Ford called out.

  They followed him back to the door, but Isobel hung behind, her eyes locked on Garrett Jackson’s. He returned her gaze flatly, but she could have sworn that, just for a moment, his expression altered slightly into a smirk. She shivered and followed the others into the hallway.

  A woman in medical scrubs was leaning against the wall, peeling off rubber gloves. Ford introduced her as Marion Risley, the county medical examiner.

  Dr. Risley took in the expectant faces. “All signs point to a massive coronary. Death more or less instantaneous.” She stretched the gloves between her hands and snapped them back. “Regarding the onset of rigor mortis…” She threw a furtive glance at Isobel and Sunil.

  “It’s all right,” said Ford. “They can sta
y.”

  “There are one or two toxic substances that can cause rigor to set in almost immediately, but they have obvious effects, like convulsions, that the others would have heard, even sitting around the bend. More likely we’re looking at a case of extreme physical or emotional stress just before death, causing cadaveric spasm. That would explain the facial contortion as well.”

  “Facial contortion?” Isobel asked. Dr. Risley eyed her curiously, and Isobel added, “It was so dark backstage, I never saw his face.”

  Dr. Risley nodded. “It was quite a grimace. Fear or pain. Whatever it was, it was acute at the moment of death. I’ll let you know what I find in the autopsy, Mike.”

  “Thanks,” said Ford.

  Dr. Risley retreated down the hall, as the others digested this information. When she reached the black curtains, she paused and turned around. “Didn’t Vaughn Jackson have a family connection to this theater?”

  Tim nodded. “He was the last in a long line of Jacksons.”

  The corner of Dr. Risley’s mouth inched upwards, and she began to sing in a deep contralto:

  Baronet of Ruddigore,

  Last of our accursed line,

  Down upon the oaken floor—

  Down upon those knees of thine!

  She gave a wry chuckle. “I think old W.S. Gilbert would have appreciated the irony, don’t you?”