by J. D. Griffo
“Nola, why don’t you call the Arms and find out if Missy’s ready?” Alberta suggested.
“Joyce might have better luck if she makes the call,” Helen said.
“It’s Sanjay’s night off,” Joyce said.
“You know the man’s schedule?” Helen asked.
Ignoring her sister-in-law, Joyce said, “Talk to Brandon, Nola, he’s the assistant manager, he’ll be able to help.”
Based on the escalating sounds of shock that clung to Nola’s words, it appeared that Brandon was only making matters worse. When she ended the call, it took her a few seconds to collect herself before she could speak.
“Brandon said Missy left over an hour ago with her escort,” Nola conveyed.
“Who was her escort?” Jinx asked.
“He said he’d never seen him before,” Nola said.
“That’s impossible,” Vinny said. “The Arms is a five-minute walk away. We’ve all been here for hours, we would’ve seen her come in.”
“What if she never made it to the theatre?”
Alberta’s question prompted the group to take action. Luke called St. Clare’s and confirmed that no woman who fit Missy’s description was rushed to the hospital. Tambra and Vinny called their colleagues and reported that there hadn’t been any car accidents or any 9-1-1 calls. To be on the safe side, Vinny and Tambra left the theatre to investigate the surrounding area to make sure Missy hadn’t gotten into an accident nearby that had not yet been reported.
Reluctantly, Nola told the cast to go home and she would see them at ten tomorrow morning for the first day of rehearsal. Joyce drove Helen and Father Sal, and Wyck and Benny, who carpooled together, left the theatre with them. Bruno advised Kip to follow him in his SUV so he didn’t get lost again, and Luke said he could take anyone who needed a ride in his car, but warned them there was a strange odor coming from his backseat ever since he had to take the cadaver bags to the laundry. Not surprisingly, he had no takers.
“Should we start packing up the food to bring back to the house?”
Jinx heard Freddy’s question, but she was more interested in the questions that appeared to be racing through her grandmother’s mind. “Gram, what’s wrong? You look worried.”
“She is,” Sloan replied. “She thinks Missy is in real trouble.”
“Why, Gram?” Jinx asked. “Do you know something we don’t?”
“We don’t know anything, which is what worries me,” Alberta replied. “What if Missy did make it to the theatre but didn’t come through the front door?”
“Where else would she go?” Freddy asked. “The only way into the theatre is through the lobby.”
“She could’ve come through the stage door around the back,” Johnny said.
“Or the side entrance that leads to the kitchen,” Nola said.
“Or the storage entrance off the wings on stage left,” Johnny added.
“I had no idea the place had so many exits and entrances,” Freddy said.
“What if Missy got lost backstage and fell?” Nola asked. “She could be like one of those old ladies on TV who’s fallen and can’t get up.”
“È meglio cadere dalla finestra che dal tetto,” Sloan replied.
“Why is it better to fall from the window than the roof?” Freddy asked.
“That’s the literal translation,” Alberta said. “Figuratively, it means to choose between the lesser of two evils.”
“Missy could’ve gotten hurt on her way from the Arms hotel, or she’s lying unconscious backstage,” Sloan said. “Take your pick.”
“I don’t like either choice,” Nola said.
“Neither do I,” Johnny agreed. “Whichever way you look at it, I’m out a leading lady.”
“There’s only one way to find out if Gram’s right,” Jinx said. “We need to split up and search the theatre.”
Freddy and Sloan went to the kitchen, Nola and Johnny ran off to the stage left wing, and Jinx and Alberta climbed the stairs to the stage and quickly walked down the hallway off the stage right wing, turning right to continue behind the back wall. Without the working light behind the back scrim turned on, the area was pitch black, and they were about to retreat in order to get a flashlight when Alberta saw a light coming out of the star dressing room. When they stood in the doorway, it was evident their search had come to an end.
They found their missing star lying on a settee, wrapped in a lace shawl, and holding a bottle of arsenic. Missy Michaels wasn’t lost, she was dead.
CHAPTER 9
Chi è più freddo? L’uomo o il cadavere?
The first thing that struck Alberta was that Missy looked exactly like the publicity photo she had seen in the back of the theatre. Same haircut, same black eyes, same slightly wrinkled face. There had been no airbrushing, no photo enhancement of any kind to make the image look younger or prettier; it captured Missy just as she had looked when she was alive, which, according to the information they currently had, was less than two hours ago. But maybe Alberta was overlooking a crucial detail? What if Missy was still alive?
“Stay here, lovey,” Alberta instructed.
Before entering the dressing room, Alberta quickly surveyed the area. There weren’t any footprints on the tiled black floor and the mirror attached to the vanity was spotless. The light bulbs that framed the mirror weren’t turned on, but they were dust-free, and the flowers in the vase next to the mirror were freshly picked and fragrant. Besides the settee Missy was lying on, the only other pieces of furniture in the room were an occasional chair upholstered in a green-and-gold-paisley pattern, a black half-moon table to the right of the chair that hadn’t a speck of dust on its surface, and a brass floor lamp on the left that was topped by an off-white lampshade trimmed on the top and bottom with black ribbon. It was the lamp that illuminated the small room.
Even though to the naked eye it looked as if they wouldn’t find any fingerprints in the room, Alberta still took precautions to make sure she didn’t contaminate any potential clues. The dressing room wasn’t yet a crime scene, but there was a very good chance that was the next role the room would play.
She took off her pale pink espadrilles and tiptoed in her stocking feet until she reached Missy. Alberta placed two fingers on the wrist of Missy’s outstretched right hand—the one that wasn’t holding the bottle of arsenic—and felt for a pulse she was certain she wouldn’t find. After thirty seconds she conceded that her instinct was correct. She looked at Missy’s bloodshot eyes and silently commented to herself how sad it was that the former star died before she could make her comeback.
“She’s dead,” Alberta announced.
Jinx wasn’t surprised by the news, and while this wasn’t the first time that she had found a dead body in her midst, it was still a shock. Luckily, she hadn’t yet become a jaded journalist. She turned away, made the sign of the cross, and started to say a Hail Mary. When she finished her prayer, she kept looking down the hallway to avoid looking into the dressing room.
“We’d better tell the others,” Alberta said.
“I already texted Freddy and Nola to let them know we found Missy,” Jinx said. “They should be here any second.”
Alberta walked into the hallway and started to put her shoes back on. She placed her right hand onto Jinx’s shoulder to maintain her balance while bending over and putting the index finger of her left hand into the back of each shoe so she could slip her feet back into her espadrilles. While she was bent over, she looked up, and Missy’s eyes were staring right at her. Woman to woman, corpse to detective. Alberta heard Missy’s voice loud and clear, as if the words had trickled out of the dead woman’s lips.
Find my killer.
Alberta’s body shook and Jinx, thinking her grandmother had lost her balance, grabbed her hands to steady her. Alberta was grateful that footsteps coming from the wings on stage left interrupted them because she wasn’t sure she wanted to explain to Jinx that she thought she was hearing voices from beyond the grave.
“Thank God!” Nola cried. “Missy, we’ve been worried sick.”
Jinx put up her hands and stopped her friend from physically entering the room and pushed her back slightly so she couldn’t look in. She wanted to prepare her for what would undoubtedly be one of the biggest shocks of her life.
“What are you doing, Jinx?” Nola asked. “I have to see Missy to make sure she’s all right.”
Jinx had a tendency to be blunt, which was an inherited Italian trait. It was a useful quality for an investigative reporter, but unsuitable when attempting to be a sensitive friend. Knowing Nola as well as Jinx did, however, she knew that despite the delicate circumstances a direct approach was needed.
“She isn’t all right,” Jinx replied. “She’s dead.”
“flat?!”
Nola’s scream was instantly followed by Freddy’s.
“Dude! Where are the dressing rooms?!”
“Follow the hallway that leads behind the stage!” Jinx shouted. Then, lowering her voice considerably and adopting a much less shrill tone, she looked at Nola and said, “I’m so sorry.”
“This can’t be happening,” Nola said. “Missy can’t be dead.”
There was no sense in arguing with Nola, so Jinx moved to the side so her friend could peer into the room and see for herself. Gasping, Nola covered her mouth with her hands to stifle another shriek and, seconds later, while instinct was still in control, she stepped forward in an attempt to walk into the room and get closer to Missy. Neither Alberta nor Jinx had to make a move to prevent her from entering the room and disturbing the area because Johnny did it for them.
“Don’t,” Johnny said. His hand was placed firmly on Nola’s left shoulder, which prevented her from taking another step. “We don’t want to disturb the room and destroy any evidence.”
Alberta was about to ask Johnny why he suspected there would be any evidence that needed to be preserved when Freddy and Sloan entered from the hallway on stage right.
“It’s so dark back here you can’t see your hand in front of your face,” Freddy said. When he could finally see clearly and saw the group gathered outside the dressing room instead of inside, fawning over their star, he was confused. “Where’s Missy?”
Sloan caught Alberta’s eyes, and from her expression he knew exactly where Missy was and why the rest of them were waiting outside the room. “Looks like she’s right in there.”
“Then why is everybody hanging out in the hallway?” Freddy asked. When he stood in the doorway and saw Missy for himself, he understood. “Dude, she’s dead.”
It wasn’t the most eloquent description of the situation they found themselves facing, but it was accurate. All that was needed now was the police’s stamp of approval, which they received when Vinny and Tambra returned to the theatre a few minutes later.
The pronouncement, seemingly all the more final when given by an officer of the law, caused Nola to burst into another round of sobs. Johnny wrapped his arms around her, and she clung to him tightly. Sloan put his arms around Alberta and she gratefully held on to her boyfriend as she shed tears for the woman she would never truly get to know. Jinx buried her face into Freddy’s broad chest and cried because death had once again made an appearance in her life. Despite their grieving, there was work to be done.
“I called it in, Chief,” Tambra said.
“Thank you,” Vinny replied. “And thank you, Alfie.”
“Me?” Alberta said, pulling away from Sloan and wiping the tears from her eyes. “What did I do?”
“You acted like a real detective,” Vinny said. “You had the good sense and the restraint to keep everyone out of this room.”
“Don’t shower me with praise just yet, Vin. I entered the room so I could find out if Missy was dead or alive,” Alberta admitted.
“I know,” Vinny said. “Which is what you needed to do in case she needed mouth-to-mouth to be resuscitated. But you didn’t let anyone else in and you took off your shoes before entering.”
“How do you know I took off my shoes?” Alberta asked.
“The back of your left espadrille is collapsed under the heel of your foot,” Vinny said. “They weren’t like that earlier, so at some point after we all split up, you must have taken off your shoes, then put them back on.”
This time, Alberta held on to Sloan’s shoulder for balance as she lifted her left leg to look at her shoe. “Dio mio! I was so overwhelmed with all this that I didn’t even notice.”
Tambra’s walkie-talkie crackled and she gave instructions on how to find the dressing room backstage.
“I need you all to move out of the way so Forensics can do their job,” Vinny said.
“What job?” Johnny asked. “We already know that she’s dead.”
“We need to find out how she died,” Alberta interjected.
“That’s right,” Vinny agreed. “Tambra, could you take them all back to the theatre?”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Nola announced. “This is my theatre and I have a right to know how one of my actors died.”
“I understand how you feel, Nola,” Vinny started. “But right now, I need you to follow my orders and wait in the theatre until my team is finished. I promise you all I’ll share whatever we find with you.”
“And we’re supposed to just believe whatever you say?” Johnny asked.
“Yes,” Vinny replied.
Johnny was about to protest, but Nola spoke first. “The chief is a man of his word. He can be trusted.”
The tension in Johnny’s body remained and he appeared as if he was physically reluctant to accept what his girlfriend said. Alberta and Jinx glanced at each other, and the intrigued look in their eyes told them both that they were surprised to see Johnny had an issue with the police. Maybe it was simply the strange circumstances they all found themselves in or maybe it was something more deep-rooted. Time would tell.
Forty-five minutes later, Vinny was ready to tell the group assembled in the theatre what the preliminary investigation had found. Unfortunately, it wasn’t much more than what they had known before the experts arrived on the scene.
He conveyed that Missy had been dead for approximately an hour. It wasn’t a stunning revelation, but nevertheless, it did leave the group stunned because it meant that Missy had died in the theatre while they were a couple hundred feet away. They didn’t hear a thing—not her entrance through the stage door nor her exit from this world—and had they known she was going to make a pit stop in her dressing room before greeting everyone on stage, perhaps they could’ve gotten to her earlier and saved her.
“No one should blame themselves,” Vinny said. “There was no way to know that Missy wasn’t going to enter from the front of the house, and there’s a very good indication that she didn’t want to be heard until she was found.”
“What do you mean, Vin?” Alberta asked.
“It appears that we may be dealing with a suicide,” Vinny announced.
“That’s ridiculous!” Nola exclaimed. “Why would Missy commit suicide? She was about to make her comeback.”
“Maybe she was too frightened to go through with it,” Sloan offered.
“So quit the show and go back home,” Freddy said.
“Don’t go to the trouble of making the trip just to off yourself before the first day of rehearsal.”
“If you’d let me finish,” Vinny said. “I was about to remind everyone that just because it looks like a suicide, it doesn’t mean it is. We won’t know until we get the full report back from the medical examiner.”
“Now I’m impressed, Vin, with how much you’ve grown as a detective,” Alberta said. “We have to rule suicide out, but Missy was definitely murdered.”
“Murdered!”
It wasn’t lost on Alberta that the only people who didn’t shout that word wer
e either members of the police department or the director of the show.
“Alfie!” Vinny yelled. “How many times do I have to tell you not to get carried away and make a snap judgment?”
“I’m not getting carried away,” Alberta said. “Did you see what was around her neck?”
“A lace shawl,” Vinny replied. “Not particularly in style for a woman of any age, but she was probably getting into character. We won’t know if Missy committed suicide, was murdered, or died of natural causes until we get the autopsy report, so until then, no one should speculate. And that means you too, Alfie.”
Alberta opened her mouth to speak, but then saw the group looking at her, waiting to hear what she was going to say. As the widow of a man who hated to be contradicted, Alberta had learned that it was sometimes better to keep her thoughts to herself and allow others to think they had won an argument. She disagreed with Vinny but felt it wasn’t the time to contradict him. She would do that once she had proof that she was right.
“I hope you put the autopsy on the fast track,” Jinx said.
“Yes, I told the medical examiner to make it a priority,” Vinny shared. “Now if you’ll excuse us, we’re needed elsewhere.”
Vinny, followed closely by Tambra, retreated backstage while the six people who were the first witnesses to Missy’s death gathered closer together. Most of the law enforcement workers were backstage with only two cops standing guard near the lobby doors, but they still felt they needed to speak quietly and maintain an air of privacy.
“I cannot believe Missy died right here in the theatre on the night before rehearsals were about to start,” Nola said. “This show was supposed to put the Tranquility Players on the map.”
“It’ll probably still do that,” Freddy said. “But, you know, for all the wrong reasons.”
“This is an absolute disaster,” Nola cried.
“Tell me about it,” Johnny said. “This production was supposed to make my career and now it’s going to ruin it. I mean, how selfish could Missy be to kill herself right before rehearsals? She couldn’t wait until after opening night?”