by Parnell Hall
I knew it was crazy, but it seemed to me there must be something back there that I could find if Chief Bob hadn’t happened to be in such a goddamned hurry.
41.
I WAS HALFWAY THROUGH LUNCH when it occurred to me I hadn't filled out my health form. The one I’d promised Amanda first thing in the morning. Since I was having a rather late lunch, that estimate now seemed a bit optimistic.
Particularly since I hadn’t filled the damn thing out yet.
Plus I’d left it back in my room.
As I trudged over to the apprentice house to get it, it occurred to me that the health form must be significant. Not the form itself but the fact that I’d forgotten it. Because if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t be going back to the apprentice house now, and in doing so I was probably going to uncover a clue. See something or run into someone. Do something that never would have happened if I’d had the damn form in my pocket like I should have.
However, there was no one in the apprentice house when I got there, and I recovered the health form without incident.
I had to call Alice to fill it out. Thank god she was home.
I hadn’t spoken to her since yesterday, so we had a little catching up to do. A whole extra murder.
Alice was predictably shocked but not particularly alarmed. She didn’t jump to the conclusion that someone was doing in members of the company and that I would logically be next. Instead, she seemed to treat the whole thing as a logistics problem, and one that she expected me to solve.
I’ll say this for Alice. She has infinite faith in my abilities. More so than I have. In my checkered career it’s often been a source of strength for me. To have someone like that rooting for me and urging me on.
Only, in this case, I’d have expected her to be a little more concerned for my safety. Which is silly, of course, because if she had been, it just would have pissed me off and driven me crazy and been one more thing that I had neither the time nor the patience to deal with.
Still, she might have been the least bit concerned.
Anyway, Alice provided me with the names and addresses of my various doctors and dentists. Don’t get me wrong—it’s not like I have a million diseases. But there’s the regular dentist, the periodontist and the root-canal man. Then there’s the regular doctor, the skin specialist and the sports doctor I went to for acute tendinitis. So getting all the names and addresses was a real bummer. Particularly since I was standing outside at a pay phone when I did it.
I messed up twice—wrote things in the wrong blank and had to cross ’em out and start again. I was working in pen, not pencil. By the time I was finished, my medical form looked like a crazy quilt, but at least I was done.
I hung up the phone and strolled over to the theater.
I came in the back way. I must say I felt pretty proud of myself, figuring that out. Because I’m not that good at direction—yet another not-that-admirable attribute for a private eye. But by taking a left fork long before I reached the turn for the theater, I figured I’d come up on it from the other side.
I figured right. Sure enough, after a few hundred yards I saw the roof of the old barn—the rehearsal hall and scene shop—across the field to the right.
I cut through the meadow and walked by the scene shop. The girls were still painting flats on the lawn. Beth was there in another bikini—she seemed to have an endless supply of them. Among other things. At first I was pleased to see her.
Till I noticed Avery Allington. The son of a bitch was hitting on her again, and this time he was actually helping her paint the flat. He was smiling and laughing and coming on to her, and she was smiling and laughing and talking right back at him. So much so that she didn’t even see me.
Which really pissed me off.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m a married man, I had no designs on the girl myself. It’s like I was a noncom, nothing I could do.
But still.
These things can break your heart all the same.
I felt like going up to her and shaking her. No, Beth. Not with him. Please. My god. Don’t be so stupid. I really couldn’t bear it. Anything but him.
I felt like doing something. I had to tell myself hey, it’s all right. The schmuck can’t do anything in broad daylight. Not on her working time, with a dozen other people around.
I tore myself away and walked on down to the theater. Amanda was sitting on the steps out front. She stood up when she saw me.
“There you are,” she said. The way she said it gave the impression she’d been sitting there waiting for me since early that morning. “Do you have the form?”
I pulled it out of my pocket. “Yes, I do.”
“Filled out?”
“Absolutely,” I said, handing it to her.
She took the form, looked it over. “That’s a relief,” she said. She smiled. “I hate to be a bitch about it, but you have no idea the paperwork that goes into a summer theater.”
“It must be awful,” I said.
She turned the form over, frowned. “What’s this?” She exhaled, said, “Oh dear.”
I could feel my heart sinking. “What’s, the matter?”
She pointed to my list of doctors. “This is a mess. What’s all this here?”
“Oh. I started writing in the wrong blank. I had to cross it out and start again.”
“Well, I can’t even read it. What’s this say?”
I looked. “Montclaire. Dr. Montclaire.”
She shook her head. “I can’t read it. I wouldn’t know unless you told me.”
“Oh, come on. That’s Montclaire, see?”
“I’m sorry. You’ll have to do it over.”
I looked at her. “You gotta be kidding.”
She shook her head again. “It’s not legible. Just copy it over. I’ll give you another form.”
I exhaled. “Oh, for god’s sake.”
“Hey,” she said. “Sit down, do it right now. Take you five minutes. Get it over with. I know it’s a big pain in the ass, but come on, whaddya say?”
I think I mentioned my problems in dealing with high-powered women like Amanda Feinstein. Anyway, one thing she said made sense—it sure would be nice to get it over with.
“All right,” I said.
“Fine,” she said. “Come on. I’ll get you a form.”
I followed her inside and into the box office.
Rita, the box-office manager; was on the phone taking reservations. “Arms and the Man is sold out,” she said. “We still got tickets for Glass Menagerie.”
“The whole show’s sold out?” I said.
Amanda nodded. “Yup. And the first two nights of Menagerie too. But don’t be like Herbie and take all the credit. Yes, it’s a good show, but we know why it’s selling out.”
“Right,” I said. I couldn’t help wondering how fast tickets would be selling if they knew there were two murders.
Rita, still on the phone, said, “No, the matinee’s sold out too.”
“Matinee?” I said. “What matinee?”
“Tomorrow’s matinee,” Amanda said. “It sold out too.”
“We got a matinee tomorrow?”
“Of course we do. Didn’t you know that?”
I shook my head. “Nobody tells me anything.”
Amanda smiled. “Oh, it can’t be as bad as all that. Well, there’s a matinee, two-thirty. It’s sold out, so be sure to be there. Now, then. Let’s get that form.”
I followed her through a door at the end of the box office into what proved to be a small inner office. Just room for a desk and a couple of file cabinets.
“Sit down,” she said, handing me back my form. “You can do it right here.”
She pulled open a drawer of one of the file cabinets, riffled through the files and pulled out a manila folder which proved to be filled with medical forms. She flipped to the back of the folder, selected a blank form and handed it to me.
I sat down and picked up a pen.
Rita called from the next room, �
��Amanda, you got a call on two.”
There was a phone on the desk, and line two was blinking.
“I’ll get out of your way,” I said, and started to get up.
She stopped me. “No, no. Sit. Fill out the form. I’ll take it in the box office.”
“Are you sure?”
“Really. It’s no trouble.”
She smiled and slipped out into the other room.
I sat at the desk, feeling very much like a kid kept after school to copy over his sloppy homework assignment. I sighed, started to fill out the form.
Which is when I noticed Amanda had left the manila folder on the edge of the desk. It was lying open, and half on and half off the desk, where I had a good chance of knocking it over.
So I moved it.
When I did, I noticed that as well as blank forms it contained forms that had been filled out.
The form on top said, “Walter Penbridge.” That made sense. When he died, they naturally checked the file to see if they had his form.
I glanced at the door of the box office. It was half closed, and I could barely see Amanda or Rita at all. But I could hear Amanda busily engaged, talking on the phone.
What the hell. I picked up Walter Penbridge’s medical form, turned it over.
Surely Mr. Penbridge had had many problems, but filling in the right blanks was not one of them. His penmanship was also excellent, and I had no problem reading the names of his doctors. Aside from his general practitioner, he had listed the name of Dr. Kleinschmidt as specialist.
I wondered if Chief Bob had reached Dr. Kleinschmidt on the phone. If so, I wondered what the doctor could have possibly told him. Yes, the man had AIDS. Yes, I prescribed AZT. No, I did not put cyanide in it.
I wondered how Chief Bob was making out at the lab. And whether he’d stick around for the results, or drive back and wait for them to phone.
I wondered if I should write down Kleinschmidt’s number in case Chief Bob hadn’t got it. I realized that was ridiculous—the address was Manhattan, as he had supposed, and the doctor would not have an unlisted phone.
I glanced at the door to the box office again. Amanda Feinstein was still talking.
Well, what the hell. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for; but I flipped through the other health forms.
The first few were not particularly rewarding. I learned the name of Margie-poo’s gynecologist. I wondered what tales that man could tell, if such men ever talked shop.
I chided myself for the thought, flipped another form.
And stopped dead.
Son of a bitch.
A familiar name.
Coincidence?
Maybe.
But what-if ?
Good god.
What-if?
I heard Amanda hanging up the phone, so I quickly flipped the folder shut and went back to my form.
But I must confess, I was so preoccupied with what I’d just seen that I wrote in the wrong blanks again, and wound up having to tear it up and start over.
42.
I CAME OUT THE FRONT door of the theater as if in a daze.
What the hell did I do now?
First off, I should call Chief Bob. I tried, but he wasn’t in.
So now what? Try to call him in New Haven at the lab? Not the swiftest of all possible moves when keeping a low profile. And I didn’t even know what he meant by the lab. To find out I’d have to call the station and ask Felix. Which might or might not be cool—had Chief Bob even told Felix where he was going?
So I was really at a loss. The thing was, I had information I needed to check out, but how? I could call myself, say I was Chief Bob, but it occurred to me I could never bluff it through. And even a phone call from the real Chief Bob might not suffice. A doctor’s not going to give out information about a patient over the phone.
No, I needed an ally in New York. Someone to make the approach for me.
Sergeant MacAullif would have been good, if I could have counted on him to do it. But there was no way. I’d need hard evidence to sway him. All I had at most was a theory.
Richard Rosenberg would have loved to come up with some legal way to force the doctor to divulge the information, but even if it worked, that would take time, and I didn’t have time.
On the other hand, one of Richard’s clients was a thief named Leroy Stanhope Williams who could have broken into the office for me, no sweat. Only not during office hours. And it occurred to me that though an accomplished art thief, Leroy would probably have scruples about breaking into a doctor’s office.
No, the only way for me to pull it off would be to go back to New York, make an appointment with the doctor and during the examination distract him somehow and rifle his files. Which would have been a hell of a long shot even if I’d had a car and it hadn’t been too late to do it today.
Jesus Christ.
I walked around downtown a long time just trying to calm down and figure out what the fuck to do. I can’t say I really accomplished either. What I really did was kill time, hang around and continue making fruitless calls to the police station. I’m not sure how many calls I made, but the intervals between ’em must have been getting shorter and shorter, because I noticed Felix getting progressively more pissed. It was a relief when he finally put the answering machine on and went home. Though the first time I got it I must admit it occurred to me how bizarre it was to be living in a town where you could call the police and get an answering machine, even though the message did give a number where a policeman could immediately be reached.
I began making wider circles in my walks, getting farther away from the center of town. On one of these I walked right by the actors’ house. Actually, on two of them I did, but the first time I walked by it without even seeing it. That’s because I’d only been there once, and that time had been in the car with Chief Bob. So the first time by it didn’t even register.
The second time it only did because Nellie Knight came out the front door.
“Going to dinner?” she said.
Good god, was it really that late?
“No,” I said. “Just taking a walk.”
Which was a silly thing to say. As if I wasn’t going to have dinner before the show.
But I wasn’t. I couldn’t have eaten a thing. And seeing the actors’ house and Nellie Knight had given me an idea. All the actors would be going out to dinner. Or at least going to the theater. Maybe I could do the job from this end.
But not just yet.
I waited till Nellie Knight set out, then walked in the opposite direction. I had to get away. Had to think.
Had to call Chief Bob.
He wasn’t in yet, of course. Not that it mattered, now that I had a plan of my own.
I hung out, kept walking around.
Only now I was careful not to walk by the actors’ house. I just kept strolling around, trying to keep calm and occasionally calling Chief Bob.
I got him at seven-ten.
That was a surprise. I kept calling in, to see if the answering-machine message would change, rerouting calls to him, when he picked up the phone himself.
“What happened?” I said. “Did you get it?”
“Yeah, I got it. Are you where you can talk?”
“I’m at the pay phone downtown.”
“Come on in.”
“There isn’t time. I got a show tonight. What’s the score?”
“There’s no fingerprints or anything else helpful. Which is too damn bad.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. The top three pills were laced with cyanide.”
“Son of a bitch.”
“Yeah. We got our means, not that it helps us much.”
“It may.”
“Oh?”
“I got a new theory on the case.”
“What is it?”
“I gotta check it out first.”
“Tell me now.”
“There isn’t time. I gotta do the show.”
“Then how
you gonna check it out?”
“I’ll call you later. Fill you in.”
“Damn it, tell me now.”
“Sorry, Chief. Gotta go,” I said, and hung up the phone.
I looked at my watch. Fifteen minutes till half hour. It was gonna be close. Assuming I could do it at all.
I wondered if Chief Bob would hop in his car and come screeching out to find me. It wouldn’t be hard. He was only blocks away. Not that I was standing there waiting for him. I was hotfooting it down the road.
To the actors’ house.
I got there at seven-twenty. There was no way they were still there. Not ten minutes till half hour.
I went up on the porch and in the front door. The place seemed deserted. I hesitated just a moment, then went up the front steps. I stopped at the top of the steps and looked around. Damn it, which door was it?
It was at that moment that it dawned on me that I was doing just what every nitwit in every detective story ever written always did. I had arrived at the solution to the crime, but I hadn’t told anyone. Instead, I had gone to investigate myself. Told Chief Bob I’d check it out and call him later. Implied that I had cracked the case.
And it occurred to me, what if it happened that in life’s rich pageant I was not the hero, the leading man, the solver of the crime, but merely that mainstay of mystery fiction, the supporting character who gets killed before he can divulge what he knows?
A phone rang and I jumped a mile.
Jesus Christ, that was loud!
I looked down and there it was, right there in the hallway on a little end table. As I looked, it rang again.
And a door down the hall opened.
I was scared to death. Good god, what did I do now?
There was a door right behind me. I didn’t care where it went. I jerked it open, slipped inside.
The good news was there was no one in the room I’d just entered.
The bad news was it was a broom closet.
And the lights were out and there were mop buckets on the floor. It was all I could do to keep from stepping in one. I teetered on one foot, held my balance.
The door was still open a crack. I leaned forward, peered out.