There were two boys, one, a shrill-voiced toddler called Tyler and the other an older boy called Wade. We knew their names because they were screamed at, frequently. There were several dogs, too. Tied up behind the shack and miserable enough to howl.
It was eight-thirty, and they all seemed to boil out of the house next door at once, shrieking.
“Wade, get your fucking shoes on!”
“Come here right now, you bitch, and help me with this!”
“Maaaa!!!” The dogs began a frenzied barking.
Then the chainsaw started.
George shook his head slowly and sadly.
“I have work to do,” he said and went indoors.
Six
PRINCESS: Without my crown, I’m incomplete.
CAT: You’re still a princess, though, my sweet.
-The Glass Flute, Scene vi
At nine o’clock, I stopped outside Rico’s and honked the horn. He poked his head out the door, waved, then emerged holding two tiny cups. He had, as he promised, dressed “butch,” in a Hydro coat, denim shirt, green work-pants and boots. He looked like a downtown Toronto construction worker. He hadn’t shaved.
“A little pick-me-up,” he said. “Espresso—fresh-made. I bet you didn’t get enough sleep. I didn’t, anyway. The whole thing kept going around and around in my mind like a bad Madonna video.”
“There’s no other kind,” I said and thanked him. I didn’t really need the caffeine jolt, but it was welcome nonetheless.
“Nose looks good,” he said. “Hey. You’re wearing makeup.” I blushed. George’s remark had been meant as a joke, because I never use the stuff normally, but when I was back up at the cabin, I’d accidentally looked in the mirror again. It was too much. I’d given in and searched out a crusty old tube of Max Factor foundation, left over from my fashion-conscious days in the city. I’d started out using only a little bit, just to hide the raccoon eyes, but that had made the rest of my face look pasty, so I’d gone the whole hog, slathering on the foundation, powdering it down, then using blush (sparingly, you understand) and topping the whole mess off with a coat of mascara that made my eyes look like two spiders. Actually, I looked okay. I’d unpacked my nose, and the swelling had gone down enough that I didn’t look like George Chuvalo any more, at any rate. I felt shy about the makeup, but by then it was too late to wash it all off again, so I just thought the hell with it, dressed to match in a decent pair of jeans and a new Mexican vest that Aunt Susan had given me for Christmas, and hit the road.
Rehearsal had been called for ten o’clock, and it’s a theatre rule that even if you’re dying, you get to rehearsal on time.
People trickled into the lobby slowly, and it took a while for me to realize that just about everybody in the cast and crew was wearing makeup that morning, so I didn’t feel so out of place. It wasn’t just the women, either.
Rico usually wore a tiny bit of eyeliner, applied discreetly so you didn’t notice it unless you’d seen him without it. Although he’s dark-complexioned, his eyelashes are sparse and his eyes are blue, so the eyeliner just makes up for what nature forgot. He may have been dressed “butch,” but the eyeliner was in place.
Juliet wore full daytime facial camouflage. She was seriously hung over, and when she came in moments after we did, she brushed past us with a grunt, went into her office and shut the door—very gently.
Kim Lee, the general manager, always wore a bit of makeup and today was no exception. She looked fresh and positively perky (she doesn’t drink). After one look at Rico and me, she steered us over to the coffee-maker in the lobby, handed us both a cup and then took one in to Juliet.
“She’s brave,” Rico muttered. I nodded. Juliet in a bad mood was worse than a pregnant crocodile.
Meredith and Bradley came in together, talking in low voices. Meredith, who had done the show before and knew how physically taxing it was, was wearing sweats. Bradley had on a tight pair of pants that would make him a soprano before the day was out. They said polite good-mornings (not forgetting to ask kindly about my nose), served themselves coffee and retired to a low sofa near the front desk to continue their conversation. At best, they were mildly hung-over, and Bradley had crimson lipstick on his neck, more or less the same colour as the stuff Meredith had on her lips.
Tobin came in next, looking ill. He sat with us, sighing as his large frame settled in the easy chair next to the coffee table. His bunch of keys, the badge of office for every Technical Director in the world, jingled heavily from a loop on his belt.
“Just plug me in,” he said and held out a muscular arm, veins up, in front of the percolator. “I closed up the place last night. This morning, I mean. Can you believe it? Four-thirty. I’m too old for this.” His eyes were bloodshot, and he, too, had not escaped the makeup epidemic. His lips, which had been cartoon-white the night before, still held a ghost of greasepaint. He caught me looking.
“I know,” he said, wiping at his mouth with his sleeve. “Serves me right for mocking a mockery, I guess. I tried everything. Vaseline. Cold cream. I’m marked for life. Just call me honky-lips. Nice nose, by the way.”
Ruth Glass arrived in a hurry, clutching a folder crammed with sheet music. Her eyebrows were still clogged with green goo from her Martian outfit of the night before. She headed for the stairs which led up to the rehearsal hall.
“Sorry I’m late,” she said, and stopped in mid-stride. “Hey. Why isn’t everybody upstairs?”
“Rehearsal doesn’t start for another fifteen minutes, Ruth,” Tobin said. “Our fearless leader is still in her office.” He pointed and we all looked. The door was still ominously shut.
“She’s being nursed into wakefulness by Kim,” I said.
“I’m going up,” Ruth said. “Juliet wants to do a sing-through this morning—told me last night, at two a.m.”
“A sing-through?” I said. “After last night, nobody’s going to be able to sing a note.”
“I know. It’s Jason’s fault,” Tobin said. “Spurned her advances and made her cranky. Then he started fussing around up in the rehearsal room and kept coming down to ask her tech questions in the middle of the party. Pissed her off enough for her to get vindictive.”
“Yay, Jason. Where is he, by the way?”
“Probably up there now, getting ready to take attendance,” Tobin said, gloomily. “He’s a real hard-liner, that one. Don’t know where Juliet found him.”
“He’s a local boy who made good,” I said. “You know how she is. Anyway, I think he came as a package deal with Amber.”
Ruth walked over to Meredith and Bradley to tell them about the morning schedule. Tobin lifted himself out of his chair, poured another coffee, put three sugars in it and headed for the basement. “Anyone needs me, I’ll be in my office,” he said. I knew he was going down for a last minute smoke, and I wondered if I had time to join him.
“A sing-through? Is she crazy?” Meredith said loudly. Her voice was hoarse. Everyone’s voice was hoarse, come to that. “You don’t do a sing-through the night after a party when everybody’s been whooping it up. Does she want to damage us for life?”
“Easy, girl,” Bradley said. “She won’t be able to stand the noise, anyway. She’ll call it off as soon as we’re halfway through the opening number.”
“Well, I should damn well hope so,” Meredith said. “I’m not straining my chords just so Juliet bloody Keating can sit back on the first day of rehearsal and do dick-all.”
Outside, a very large car purred up to the front of the building. We all stared through the glass doors of the entrance, mesmerized by the sheer luxury of the automobile. None of us drove anything like that. We heard a door slam with an expensive clunk, and Amber Thackeray and Shane Pacey made an entrance.
“I can’t believe you said that,” Amber was saying, almost in tears. “You are such an ignorant pig, Shane.”
“I was joking, for Chrissakes, Amber. It’s not my fault that wimp you call your fiancé is too stupid to tak
e a joke, is it?”
“That was not a joke. It was an insult to me and to Jason. Why can’t you just let bygones be bygones?”
“Amber, he’s an idiot. You know it and I know it and I don’t understand why you . . .” They both stopped and stared at the group gathered in the lobby. We stared back. A pause.
“Top o’ the mornin’ to yez,” Shane said, with a fake Irish accent, lifting an imaginary hat. He smiled radiantly, a beautiful smile. He really was a most disturbingly gorgeous man, in spite of being an obvious dink. Amber emitted a peep and scurried over to the coffee, avoiding the eyes of the group. We all muttered hellos and let the moment pass.
Shane came straight up to me and put a hand on my arm.
“You’re Polly Deacon, right?” I nodded. “Listen, Polly, I’m really, really sorry about last night. I had way too much to drink and acted like a complete asshole. I’m sorry about your nose. You okay?” His charm was unnerving. I responded immediately, against all logic, gazing deeply into his dark-lashed, makeup free eyes. Something stirred deep inside me. An octopus, aroused.
“I’m fine, Shane,” I said. “Thanks for asking.” He squeezed my arm once, warmly, then let go. Then he turned to Rico. I could feel my friend stiffen beside me.
“You’re the person I should really apologize to,” Shane said, quietly. “I don’t remember a lot of it, but Amber filled me in. I’m not supposed to drink. Shit happens when I do. Can you forgive me?” Rico was flabbergasted. So was I.
“Well, yeah, I guess,” Rico stammered. “It was, you know, a . . . misunderstanding, I guess.”
“Sure was,” Shane said, bathing us both in that impossible smile. “You make a terrific woman, eh? Just warn me next time.” Then he turned away and made a beeline for the coffee. Rico looked at me.
“Close your mouth, Rico,” I whispered.
“Is he real?” Rico whispered back.
“Hey, where’s Jason?” Ruth said, hurrying down the stairs. “He’s been messing around with my keyboard and the amp cables are gone.”
“Haven’t seen him,” I said.
“He wasn’t around when we got here,” Rico added.
Juliet’s door opened and she stepped out, followed by Kim, who had an armload of scripts. “Well, kiddies, shall we go up?” Juliet said. “Where’s that little stage manager?”
We heard heavy, running footsteps on the basement stairs and Tobin burst into the lobby. His face was so pale it was grey.
“Jason’s vest is floating in the workshop pool,” he said.
Seven
WOODSMAN: The job is hard, the days are long / but forest work will make you strong.
-The Glass Flute, Scene vii
We all went to look, thundering down the stairs like a bunch of kids let out of school.
It was Jason’s leather vest, all right, tangled in rope and floating at the edge of the black square of frigid water. Without Jason in it, it was just a piece of clothing, but the implication was horrible, nonetheless. It was like seeing Jason’s persona, drowned.
“Jesus,” Rico said.
“You think he’s down there?” Amber whispered. A rush of blood rocketed to my head, which made my battered nose throb. One thump like a drumbeat. I’d seen a dead body before—two, actually—and I wasn’t keen on seeing another one. We all stared at the water in silence, expecting to see a dim, pale shape bobbing just below the surface.
Nobody ran forward to fish around. After all, it was just a vest, but there was an uncomfortable, final sort of feeling in the air. Meredith crouched at the edge and reached down to untangle the garment from its tether. She laid the sodden vest on the shop floor, where it oozed water like a dead seal. It’s just a vest, I kept telling myself. It doesn’t mean anything.
“I suppose he could have, you know, taken it off down here and it fell in, and he just didn’t bother to pull it out,” Tobin said, doubtfully.
“He never took it off,” Amber said.
“Except to shower,” Shane said and snickered. There was a nasty little pause and we all stared at Shane, shocked. “Sorry. Joking,” he said, lifting his hands in a gesture of apology.
“Even if he did take it off, and it fell in somehow, he’d rather have died than lose it,” Amber said. We all let that one hang in the air.
“Did Jason know how to swim?” someone asked. Amber burst into tears.
Kim and Juliet went upstairs to call the cops, and the rest of us just stood there until someone noticed that Amber was making the transition from tears to hysterics. Shane put his arm around her and led her up the stairs.
“Let’s go to the lobby, kid,” he said. “You don’t need to be here. It’s nice and warm up there. C’mon, you’ll be okay.”
“Hope he doesn’t try to jump her,” I heard Meredith mutter.
Ruth was gazing intently at the mass of black cord that had prevented Jason’s vest, if not his body, from disappearing into the icy, swiftly running depths of the Kuskawa river. The spring run-off was at its peak, and the edges of the pool foamed with the movement underneath. One end of the rope had somehow caught on one of the old brass mooring cleats and the tip flashed silver. “Those are my missing amp cables,” she said. Not rope. Audio cable. Weird. “They’ll have my fingerprints all over them. They’ll think I did it.”
“Did what?” Bradley said. “Killed him? It was obviously an accident, Ruth.”
“What kind of accident?” I said.
“Well, he probably fell down those treacherous stairs, like your friend did last night,” Bradley said, pointing at Rico, who cringed.
“Yeah, that’s possible, I guess,” Ruth said, thoughtfully. “He fell down the stairs with his arms full of amp cables and went straight into the water. Bumped his head, maybe, going down.”
“What would he be doing coming down here with amp cables at four-thirty in the morning?” Tobin said. “That’s when I locked up. He wasn’t here then.”
“He was obsessive,” Bradley said. “You know he was setting up the rehearsal space last night. Didn’t you check upstairs?”
“Sure I did. Like always. Lights were off. Nobody home.”
“Maybe he was in the bathroom.”
“You don’t turn the lights off in the room you’re working in if you’re just stepping out to go to the can,” Tobin said.
“So maybe he was conserving energy.”
“Anyway, he wouldn’t come down here if he was setting up sound equipment. That’s all stored upstairs,” Tobin said.
“Polly,” Rico said.
“What?”
“I want to go home.”
“I know, Rico. Me too, but we’ll have to stay. The police, eh? Oh, man. I bet they send Becker.”
Rico shot me a look that was pure sympathy.
“Look, guys,” I said, “we can’t do much good down here, and the more people that hang around, the more mess we’ll make of the scene, whether it was an accident or not. We probably shouldn’t have pulled the vest out of the water. Tampering with the evidence, you know?”
“Well, excuse me for living,” Meredith said.
“I didn’t mean you did it on purpose or anything,” I said, but Meredith was already making her exit.
“Come on, Bradley,” she said. “Let’s leave Nancy Drew to collect clues.” She stomped up the stairs, and Brad followed meekly behind.
“Oops,” I said.
“Touchy,” Ruth said.
“You did sound kind of bossy,” Tobin said. I stuck my tongue out at him. “You guys can go up, but I’ll stay down here,” he said. “Someone should, in case, you know, the killer comes back or something. They’ll want to talk to me first, anyway. I was the last person here last night, and I found Jason’s vest.”
“The killer? You don’t think it was an accident?” Ruth said.
“Look at the cables,” Tobin said. “That’s not an accidental tangle. Someone’s wrapped the cable around the cleat like they were mooring a boat.” We looked. It was true. The nautical
knot at the end of the cable couldn’t possibly have happened by chance.
“Yikes,” Ruth said. “You haven’t handled the amp cables, have you, Tobin? You two get along okay?”
“Just go upstairs.”
The cast wasn’t in the lobby. There was only Kim Lee, working calmly at her computer, wearing that blank, expert-keyboard-person expression which meant that her brain was directly connected to her fingers.
“Where is everybody?” I said.
“They’re upstairs. Juliet said they might as well get started with the video, instead of sitting around worrying.”
“How sensitive,” Rico said. Kim smiled slightly and kept on typing.
“No sing-through?” I said. “Meredith’ll be pleased.”
“Juliet wanted one, but Ruth said her amp cables are otherwise occupied, so there’s no sound system.” Oh yeah. Tobin would have to go out and buy new ones. Usually, it was the stage-manager’s job to purchase tech supplies, but Jason was “otherwise occupied”, too.
“Are the cops on the way?” I asked.
“They said they’d send somebody over,” Kim said, “but they didn’t seem overly concerned. They said Jason’s vest didn’t sound like enough to warrant a river search. Usually they wait for twenty-four hours in the case of a missing person.”
“Typical,” I said. “Kuskawa’s finest, responding with speed and alacrity. Jason’s body’ll be washed out to Port Mortimer by the time they decide the missing person is missing for good.”
“Well, that’s what they told us,” Kim said and shrugged. “Anyway, they did say someone would come, but it didn’t sound like they’d drop everything and scream in here with the flashers on. Juliet told me to wait for them.”
“What about our AIDS benefit meeting?” Rico said.
“We could have it now, I guess,” she said. “Polly, you should go on up to the rehearsal space. Juliet’s not in the best of moods.” Rico told me he would find his own way home after the meeting.
I went. The cops would send Becker, I knew they would, and I’d rather sit though the Flute video for the thousandth time than have to deal with him.
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