"Why did you bring it to me?"
"Seemed as good a guess as any. I didn't know who to give it to because I didn't know who'd given it to me. I left here last night with Elaine Suzanne after she brought the thousand bucks back to me and asked me to stay on the case. We went looking for Craig, found him in an apartment up near Rancho Cucamonga. Elaine told me it was her apartment but it's not in her name. Craig had been dead for at least two hours. He was naked, tied hand and foot, throat cut from ear to ear. He—"
She surged to her feet and moved quickly to the door, paused there to look back and say, "Excuse me a second," and went on out.
I lit a cigarette and smoked it half way before she returned. I'm cutting down but it's hard to quit entirely, especially in stressful times. I was feeling plenty of stress.
Judith was carrying a tall glass of water when she came back in. She'd been crying but seemed fully in control again.
"I wanted to kill him myself last night," she quietly told me as she returned to her chair. "Who did it?"
I said, "Well, that's the big question of the moment. Another one is why. I'm hoping you can help me with the second one."
"Well, he was the biggest liar I've ever known," she said matter-of-factly. "And he was almost totally irresponsible. Other than that, though, the sweetest guy in the world. And a great talent. With the right break...what do you want me to tell you?"
"I'd like to know why someone would want to kill him, for real."
She had to excuse herself again. I waited, but not
patiently. Didn't know how much time I might have before the posse arrived. She came back after a minute or two with a blotchy face and said, "I'm sorry. Where were we?"
"Why was he killed." I made it a statement, not a question.
She shook her head. "I wouldn't have the faintest idea. Such a waste."
I said, "Yeah. There's a lot of waste in our world today. But tell me about Craig. What did he waste?"
"Time," she replied immediately. "And energy. Talked too much, maybe he dreamed too much. Lied too much."
"About what?"
"About everything. Many actors do that. It's sort of like . . . being unable to distinguish between the dream and the reality."
"Did he tell you that he was an undercover cop?"
She laughed softly. "No. But I wouldn't put it past him."
"Did he ever tell you that he was being guarded by federal marshals?"
She wrinkled her nose. "No. What is a federal marshal?"
"Something like a sheriff," I explained, "except at federal level. The two guys who were chasing me backstage last night, the two in waiter's garb—do you know those guys?"
She said, "They work here, sure."
"As waiters?"
"Yes."
"How long?"
"Waiters come and go," she replied. "I don't know how long they've been here."
"Had you ever noticed them in company with Craig?"
"No."
I told her, "Those two are deputy United States
Marshals. It's been hinted to me that they are protecting someone here, maybe Craig, under the Federal Witness Protection Program. Does that give you any quivers?"
She shook her head in negative response but the eyes were beginning to show some new wonderment.
I asked, "How well do you know Elaine Suzanne?"
"Not personally at all," Judith replied. "This is her first production with us."
"Talented?"
"Oh yes."
"More or less reliable?"
"More or less, yes."
"More than less?"
"Less than more," she said.
"Were she and Craig honeys?"
"I guess she'd like to be."
I saw something in the eyes there that prompted me to ask, "Was Craig gay?"
"How would I know?"
"Women are usually the first to know."
"I don't mix much with the cast offstage," she told me. "The actors come and go. I don't, I'm here all the time for all the shows—and while we're staging one play I'm usually trying to prepare for the next one."
"This one has had an unusually long run."
"Yes."
"What made this one special?"
"Craig made it special."
"He was that good?"
"He was the best I've ever seen in that role."
"So you weren't surprised when someone stepped forward to package it for the road."
Her eyes clouded. "Well . . . I'm wondering now . . . that could be another of Craig's tall tales."
I reached for another cigarette but didn't light it, just held it—that helps sometimes. "Why do you say that? You've never met the new producers?"
"No. But Craig pointed them out to me one night and-"
"You mean there was never any formal... ?"
"Nothing involving the theater, no. That would not be necessary. We don't own the play. We merely produce it under license from the owners. Anyone can do that. So I really wasn't involved in any of the talks and wouldn't have been unless and until the new producers wanted me to direct or stage-manage or whatever."
"So all you know about any of this came from Craig."
"That's right."
"You said he pointed out these people to you?"
Her eyes twitched. "Yes. That's why now I'm wondering, after what you've told me about Larry and Jack. You say they're federal agents. Craig told me they're the new backers."
"Working as waiters?"
"Craig has a way of making the ridiculous sound absolutely sane. These men always work that way, he said. They pose as ordinary people so they can be close to ordinary people and learn how ordinary people are reacting."
"They could sit comfortably in the audience and do that," I pointed out.
"Oh, but these men are also greatly interested in the way the cast works together and pulls together backstage and offstage."
"And you fell for that?"
"I really felt no need to challenge it," she replied.
"You're telling me that Larry and Jack, the waiters, are the backers who are going to put this show on the road?— and that only Craig had their ear?"
"That's about it," she said. "So one of you, either you or Craig, is a very cruel liar. And of course Craig would be the cruelest, if it's his lie. Because he's had these kids so high ..."
I put my cigarette away and told her, "I think maybe you've given me what I came for."
"You mean... ?"
Yeah. That's what I meant. Maybe someone in that "so high" cast found out about the cruelest lie of all.
And maybe he or she or they got mad enough to kill.
CHAPTER TWELVE
I had a whole new angle on the situation now and a lot to think about but I still was not sure that I had all I could get from Judith White. She was plenty sharp, had one of those blessed female minds that can cut straight through all the crap and trivia to instinctively seize and size an issue at its naked core. Also I was beginning to like this woman quite a bit.
So I talked her into walking over to the hotel coffee shop with me, primarily because I didn't want to be interrupted by the official police but also because I felt that a public atmosphere could help her to relax and open up a bit more.
On the way over I asked her, "Okay to call you Judy?"
"I prefer Judith," she replied—then added, with a little smile, "Except in intimate moments. I couldn't expect Cary Grant to say, 'Judith, Judith, Judith,' could I."
So Judith it was, for the moment—with maybe a hint of Judy in the future—but at least it was a start in the right direction. Over coffee and Danish I learned that she was older than she looked—thirty-two—and had once dreamed of starring on Broadway herself. She'd landed a role in a national touring company straight out of Pasadena City College, had later toured Europe and Japan, then decided that was not the way she wished to spend the rest of her life.
"I gave it five years," she told me, "and during that time I saw too
many middle-aged people, fine talents all, who'd given it their lives and everything else—home, family, even self-respect. I settled for less, and I believe in the end I will have more."
"And less is ... ?"
"What I'm doing now. I still have the creative outlet, the fun, the excitement, but it's not burdened now with the dream."
"Dreams are important," I suggested.
"Reality dreams are important," she countered. "Most theater dreams are totally unreal, especially if they're all aimed toward Broadway. I try to tell the kids who come through here to relax and enjoy it—hey, people are paying to watch them perform. If you'd perform without pay— and you're no performer if you wouldn't—then hey, you've made it, you've arrived, enjoy it."
I guessed, "Craig couldn't do that."
"Well that's just it, that's what so sad, Craig did do that, but to a fault. Craig seemed to live for that moment, that moment on the stage when the dream was working. Craig's problem, you see, was that he often could not or would not turn it off when the curtain came down."
"Give me an example."
"He was into American Indian mysticism—barely into it, I'd guess, Craig was no scholar. But he'd picked up this shamanistic idea that the dream time is the real life and the real life is the dream. He—"
"Sort of fits the La Mancha theme, doesn't it?"
"Pretty close, yes, pretty close. But the Indians still went out and hunted the buffalo and killed it and ate it because they knew that real or not they still had to feed themselves to keep the dreams alive. But you're right—I've often thought that Craig was so right for La Mancha because he was really playing himself up there on that stage."
I said, "La Mancha is a story within a story."
"It's a story within a story within a story," she corrected me. "And it's also a dream within a dream within a dream. The prisoner Cervantes is a defeated and dying old man who invents the fictional Alonso Quijana as an inept, ineffectual and perhaps demented old country gentleman who transforms himself into Quixote, an inept, ineffectual and certainly demented knight who sees the world exacdy as he chooses to see it, all other evidence to the contrary— but then that illusion is seen as a transforming vision of human life as it ought to be, not so much by Quixote or Quijana as by those who are moved and transformed by his insanity. The play ends with the other prisoners singing "The Impossible Dream" to Cervantes as he is being led away for judgment before the Inquisition. It's powerful stuff, and that is why the play has captured the hearts of so many people all over the world."
"But Craig was no Cervantes."
"No. Craig, I'm afraid, was too lightweight for that. Craig, I would say, was the demented knight."
"Acting out what?"
"His dementia."
"And that took the form of...?"
"One of the boys who was in the play is very shy. He's a bit overweight and has a so-so talent but hell make it in community theater if he sticks it out. Well, this boy fell
crazy in love with one of the girls in the chorus. Talked about her all the time, I gather, among the other guys, but he was too shy to even ask the girl for a date. So Craig- Quixote intervened. He didn't play John Alden, he played God.
Told the boy that he'd overheard the girl talking about him, that she was crazy about him and that she couldn't understand why the boy wasn't showing any interest in her. Well, I'm sure he was kindly motivated and thought it would give the boy the courage to make a move. Instead, the boy asked Craig to make the move for him. Craig did, apparently, but the girl said the same thing that Priscilla said, speak for yourself.
"So Craig made a date with her, then went back and told the boy that it was all set up. So the boy goes and blows a hundred and fifty dollars for a limousine and shows up at the girl's door at the appointed hour bearing flowers and candy. Predictably, she is very disappointed by this turn of events and slams the door in the boy's face. We heard about this from the girl herself. Never saw the boy again. He was too humiliated to come back, even quit the show by telephone."
I said, "A good deed gone astray."
"Worse than that," Judith assured me. "I called Craig on that. He just smiled at me and said, 'He had it all for awhile, didn't he?' That's what I mean about confusing dreams with reality. That boy didn't have anything except a false hope that turned to ashes very quickly. But Craig saw it as something else."
"He saw it as ... ?"
"As something experienced in the mind, something that was very real in the mind for awhile. Something very joyous, a dream come true."
"But only in the mind." "Right."
"Like Quixote's mind when he attacks a windmill and believes that he has vanquished a dragon."
"Exacdy."
"But that works in the play. It worked in the novel."
"It works," she told me, "because Quixote never knows that he's a dream and because Alonso never awakens from it. But what will become of Cervantes when he finally faces the Inquisition? You see, the play ends without answering that question."
"What happens to the dream," I asked soberly, "when the dreamer disappears?"
"Exactly," she said. "Does it have a life of its own? No. The dream vanishes with the dreamer."
"And those left behind," I mused aloud, "have to sort it all out."
"If that is what you are trying to do," she said quietly, "then good luck."
"Maybe Craig himself was a dream."
"Then who was the dreamer?"
"Maybe," I said, "a kid from Minnesota. Ever hear the name Alfred Johansen?"
"Sure," she said immediately. "He's in the play but he uses the stage name Johnny Lunceford. He and Craig are best friends. He's the Padre in the play but he also understudies Craig in the title role."
I didn't know if I was glad or sad over that news. I just knew that the stage of possibilities was becoming very, very crowded.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
We talked a bit more and Judith named the three actors who'd followed Craig Maan from the theater on the night he was killed. The four were close friends and apparently the only thing Craig had said at the theater before he walked out was, "That's it, I'm sorry but I'm out of it and I'm out of here."
The three had followed him outside to find out what was wrong and none of them had returned.
Judith knew nothing about a secret marriage between Craig and Elaine and doubted that the story was true. As far as she knew, Craig had not dated any of the girls in the show and did not seem to be particularly interested in any.
I saw sheriff’s cars parked outside the theater as I was walking Judith back from the coffee shop so I did my thanks and goodbye outside and went on to my car. That didn't change anything because Art Lahey was parked alongside and waiting for me.
"Get in," he said, without a greeting of any kind.
So I got into his car and we drove away without another word between us.
He headed east along Foothill Boulevard then turned north. It seemed that we were traveling toward the murder scene. "What's up?" I finally asked him.
"Just shut up," he replied.
So I just shut up and let it develop his way. After a moment he glanced at me and asked, "Did you get anything from Miss White?"
"It seems," I said, "that the victim quit the show and walked out with two minutes notice. Three of his friends followed to see what was wrong. None of them returned. She had to patch the show up with those that were left."
Lahey grunted then asked me, "Which victim?"
"How many victims do we have?" I countered.
"Well see," he said.
"I was talking about Craig Maan. The other three are Sanchez, Peterson and Stein."
"What about Miss Suzanne?"
I replied, "I gave you that last night."
"Give it again."
I said, "She did the show last night. I was there. She was on stage practically the whole time. She slipped me a note to meet her at the stage door after the show. I did, and we went looking for Maan. She—"
>
"That was about what time?"
"Shortly after eleven o'clock."
"And Maan was last seen at... ?"
"It's an eight-thirty curtain."
"So about three hours later you found him dead."
"About that, yeah."
"You called it in immediately."
"Yeah. Well, within a couple of minutes. The girl was
overcome so I took her back to the car. Then I went straight back inside and called it in."
"The log shows the call received at eleven thirty-three."
"Sounds like it," I said.
"So you had just met her for the first time about thirty minutes earlier."
"That's right."
"Even so, you made a pitch on her behalf and took responsibility for her, took her away."
I said, "It seemed the thing to do, Art. She was a client, sort of."
"So you said. You took her to your own doctor. Why not to the emergency room?"
"You know how that goes. We'd have been there all night. My doctor was closeby, and it took five minutes."
"What medication did the doctor give her?"
"Think she said it was seconal. I still have a couple of the pills at home, probably, in the clothes I was wearing last night. What's this all about, Art?"
"Just shut up."
I said, "Fuck you, don't ask me a thousand questions you've already asked and then tell me to shut up. Where are we headed?"
"Well see."
But I already knew, I thought, where we were headed. We were near Rancho Cucamonga by then and approaching the apartment complex where I'd found the body of Craig Maan.
But I was in for a bit of a surprise. We went on past the scene of that crime and whipped around a corner to another section of the complex.
It looked very much the same as the other. Yellow tape was strung about the outside of the building and there were cops all over the place.
I asked Lahey, "What the hell is this?"
"Guess," he said.
"That's all I've done for three days," I told him.
"Then you shouldn't mind a few minutes more," he growled.
But I did. I minded it all to hell.
Four more murder victims were at that scene. And I recognized them all.
Copp In The Dark, A Joe Copp Thriller (Joe Copp Private Eye Series) Page 6