Polly Deacon Mysteries 4-Book Bundle

by H. Mel Malton

  “Dancewear only looks good on dancers, darling,” Juliet said. “If you like, we can have someone sew an extra length of velour around the bottom of your shirt so it falls lower.”

  “Don’t bother, Brad,” Meredith said. “More material will just be hotter. As long as it covers your skin, that’s all you want.”

  “You will, however, need a dance belt,” Juliet said, leering. “A size large, it looks like.” A dance belt is the arts-world equivalent of an athletic supporter. Required gear for men in tights, believe me. Bradley went very red but leered back, which was the only way to deal with Juliet at times like these. “Come and help me pick one out, Juliet,” he said.

  I told the director that the police were downstairs, so she said “carry on” in a breezy way and swooped out.

  “Good save, chum,” Meredith said to Brad. “But you will need a dance belt, you know. Don’t know where you’ll get one around here, though. I’m going to need an extra pair of tights as well. The backups they gave me have holes in them.”

  “There’s a dance supply place in Laingford,” I said. “If you guys can figure out what extras you’re going to need, I’ll order them tomorrow.” Everyone would need two sets of everything, in order to be able to get through two shows a day without stinking up the playing area.

  Meredith, having done the show before, had brought her own body leotards, top-quality cotton things that would be a lot more comfortable than the cheapo synthetic ones the rest of the cast had to wear.

  “How come she gets to wear cotton?” Shane said, reaching out a hand to pinch Meredith’s sleeve. She jerked away.

  “Because I have seniority,” she said. It was close to a snarl. Our Meredith was obviously underwhelmed by Shane’s charm. He had come out from behind the changing screen, looking manly, somehow, in the bizarre get-up. He was wearing a dance belt. I checked.

  Amber made her entrance timidly. She held the turtleneck in one hand and the hood in the other, perplexed. The leotard was a bit too small for her, producing a décolletage of magnificent proportions.

  “You’ll have to cover those up, kid,” Meredith said. “They’ll glow in the dark.”

  Amber, to her credit, just smiled. “I can’t figure out how this stuff goes,” she said and handed Meredith the hood and shirt. Faced with such direct acceptance of what was plainly her need to be top dog, the older actress became motherly. She helped Amber get togged up, snapping the hood fasteners down and then getting into her own hood. They trooped out into the rehearsal space, Meredith leading, like a broody hen with her chicks.

  “You can’t see much, eh?” Shane said. There they were, four black-clad figures, ranged in a row, gazing at themselves in the studio mirrors that lined the walls. Now that they were all dressed the same, you could hardly tell them apart.

  “We won’t rehearse in costume till later,” I said, “but you should know what you’re up against. We’ll put you in the box and kill the lights so you have some idea.”

  “I have done this before, Polly,” Meredith said. “I’ll sit this one out.”

  “Solidarity, Meredith. I know it’s torture. You might as well get back into the habit, so to speak, and you can help the others get their bearings,” I said. “We’ve only got a week, remember.”

  The cast made their way backstage, into the black box puppet theatre which was their performance space. The box was about sixteen feet wide, nine feet high and five feet deep. The frame was made out of steel pipes, held together with key clamps (the kind of fittings that require an Allen key to tighten and loosen them), over which were draped several acres of black velour curtains, or masking. At the front of the playing area was a shelf about three feet high and two feet deep, which was essentially the “stage” where the puppets would strut their stuff. Extending out from the sides of the box were two curtains, which served to mask the backstage area from the audience.

  Suspended on a pipe above the playing shelf were the “magic” lights, six full-strength ultraviolet tubes that cast what appeared to be no light at all, until one of the fluorescent puppets or props came into view.

  The whole contraption was designed to break down into dozens of portable bundles, for ease of loading and unloading them from the van, and for carrying them up and down school staircases. Once the cast got good at it, the stage could be ready to go in about forty minutes. I explained this to the cast, who, with the exception of Meredith, refused to believe me.

  The props and puppets themselves were stored under the shelf, behind the masking curtains and littering the backstage area. Every single item had a specific place to be, part of the “pre-set,” which was crucial to the smooth running of the show. If you’ve got to make a flower appear at a precise musical moment, two minutes into the show, the flower had better be where you expect it to be, because the backstage area is very dark and you’re squinting through black netting. All this stuff would become obvious to the cast as we rehearsed, but I could hear Meredith telling them anyway, issuing dire warnings, as if they were all entering enemy territory.

  Once they were standing in the playing area, Ruth turned out the rehearsal room overheads, and I flipped the switch on the UV lights. Immediately, the cast disappeared. If you were standing close, you could see the faint blue outline of each figure, but from five feet back, the playing area was empty.

  “Meredith, can you bring up the flute, so we can see how this works?” I said. Meredith reached under the shelf and brought out the glass flute, a larger-than-life prop made of clear plastic, painted with a wash of fluorescent pink to make it glow. All the props were equipped with black handles or dowel sticks, so that they appeared to be floating in mid air. Meredith made the flute float around and everybody went “oooh, aaaah.” It really is a cool effect, even if you’re a grown-up.

  “To make it disappear,” Meredith said, obviously getting into her Vanna White role, “you take one of these black flags, and just move it in front, like this.” A square of black velour mounted on a dowel, the flag was one of the “tricks” that made audiences gasp. She shooed the rest of the cast out of the box to watch the effect from an audience perspective.

  “I wondered how that was done when we were watching the video,” Shane said.

  “This is going to be fun,” Amber said.

  “Can we take these off now?” Shane said. “I’m cooking.”

  “Just wait till you’re halfway through the second show and you can hardly breathe,” Meredith said primly from the box. “Don’t think you can stop just because you’re hot.”

  “Meredith, we knew what we were getting into when we signed our contracts,” Shane said, losing his cool with alarming speed. “You don’t get any extra medals just because you did it before, so stop acting like such an asshole.” To be honest, I agreed with him. Meredith’s know-it-all attitude was bugging me, too.

  Meredith tore off her hood, and her face appeared out of the darkness, disembodied and distorted with anger. Her teeth were bared and gleamed blue under the UV light.

  “Listen, you little shit,” she hissed, “I’m trying to give you the benefit of my experience, and if you don’t like it, then why don’t you go back to turning tricks on Church Street?” There was a little gasp from Amber, Shane drew in his breath, and suddenly Meredith’s face disappeared.

  “Is this part of the play?” said Becker, from the door.

  Ten

  SERPENT: What you believe ith true ith an imaginary notion / The thingth you thee and touch are real, the retht ith jutht emotion.

  -The Glass Flute, Scene vii

  When the overhead lights came on, Meredith could be seen in the box, struggling to remove the black flag that was draped over her head. A tubby figure stood next to her, with its arms crossed. Since Shane and Amber were out front, Meredith’s flag-man had to be Brad. He was still wearing his hood, but I swear I could feel him grinning.

  Meredith was in full hissy-fit mode. “You think that’s funny, Brad? Dicking around with the props? Thes
e aren’t toys, dammit. I thought you were a professional.”

  “Merry, dear, you are taking yourself way too seriously. This is the first day of rehearsal. If you keep this up, you’ll blow an artery before we open,” Brad said.

  “Uh, folks,” I said, “police’re here.” Nobody but me seemed to have heard Becker’s remark. He stood in the doorway, wearing that baffled expression you see sometimes on non-theatre people who interrupt a rehearsal and can’t figure out what’s real and what’s not. Meredith’s remark about Shane would definitely bear checking out later, but it struck me that an in-house investigation might be more diplomatic. Becker, I figured, could be kept in the dark for now. Theatre people do sometimes over-dramatize things—I admit to that tendency myself—and if you take everything they say at face-value, you could wind up reaching the wrong conclusions.

  “I have a few questions I’d like to ask,” Becker said. “Can you take a break for a few minutes?”

  I suggested that the cast go and change back into their street clothes first. “We’ll work in full blacks later in the week,” I said. There was no point in making the actors endure an interview with an OPP officer while they were dressed like dorks.

  While they were changing, Becker sat down at the SM’s table and took out his notebook.

  “Did you check out the scene downstairs?” I asked, trying to make light conversation.

  “No, Polly, I thought I’d just come up here and ask questions without knowing what the hell was going on. Of course we’ve checked downstairs.” Boy, Becker was touchy.

  “I was just asking,” I said.

  “Are you going to be able to get fingerprints from the amp cables?” Ruth said.

  “And you are . . .?” Becker asked, flipping to a new page in his notebook. Ruth introduced herself as Becker unfolded the contact list I’d given him in the lobby and made a little check mark next to Ruth’s name. I looked over his shoulder and saw that he’d checked off Tobin already. At the bottom he’d added “Rico Amato, antique dealer and hanger-on” and there was a check mark beside that, too. Yay, I thought, with some satisfaction. I knew that list would be useful.

  “Now why would you think we’d need to check the cables for prints, Ms. Glass?” he said.

  “Well, somebody obviously tied the vest to the side of the pool . . . don’t you think?” she said.

  “Never mind what we think. Right now I’m just trying to get some details down,” he said. “How well do you know Jason McMaster, Ms. Glass?”

  “Hardly at all,” she said. “He came up here, when, Polly? About a week before the cast did?”

  “Yup. The SM—that’s stage manager, Becker—is usually contracted for a week before rehearsals start. It’s called pre-week. That’s when they do all their paperwork and stuff. He came up last Monday.”

  “I gather he lives in Toronto,” Becker said.

  “You kind of have to if you’re an SM or an actor,” I said. “There’s not a lot of professional theatre work around here—except for Steamboat.”

  “Where do people stay?” Becker asked.

  “Sometimes they’re billeted with local staff, or they get rooms in B&Bs. Some of them stay in motels until the show hits the road. I think Jason was at the Falls Motel. The address and number are right there on the contact sheet.”

  “Mr. ah . . . Boone said that McMaster is from around here originally, though,” Becker said. “Doesn’t he have family he could stay with?”

  I shrugged. “You’ll have to ask someone who knew him better, Becker. He wasn’t exactly forthcoming about his background.”

  “Well, we’ll have to get in touch with his family and find out if they’ve seen him,” Becker said. “He could have gone back to Toronto.”

  “You mean you don’t think he’s in the river?” I said. “I thought that was obvious.”

  “Look, Polly, we’ve got one wet leather vest and no body. I know you love to get involved in a good murder, but there’s no indication at present that we’re dealing with a death here. Right now, according to you folks, Jason McMaster has gone missing for a few hours. That’s all. It’s hardly worth investigating at this point.”

  “But he’s a stage manager. An obsessive one. Obsessive SMs don’t just blow off a rehearsal. That’s why we called you in the first place,” I said.

  “I know, and we appreciate that,” Becker said. “But until he’s been missing at least 24 hours, this is just a courtesy call.”

  The cast filed in from the wardrobe room.

  “But what about the vest?” I said.

  “I’m not convinced that a vest in a pool of water necessarily means murder, Polly,” he said, in a tone that was so condescending, I wanted to smack him. “Now, you folks are the actors, I take it? Take a seat, everyone, and we’ll have a chat.”

  “Oooh. Just like in an Agatha Christie book,” Bradley said. He pointed to Shane in mock accusation. “He did it. He did it.”

  “Cut it out, Brad,” Meredith said, pulling up a chair. “Jason is missing after all, even if we don’t all think he was drowned on purpose.” She glared at me as she said it, as if she thought I was responsible for the whole thing.

  “So you all think he was drowned?” Becker said. “Your director thinks that Mr. McMaster just left because of personal reasons.” He stared at Amber. “You’re his fiancée, aren’t you?”

  Amber nodded.

  “Amber Thackeray, right?” He consulted his list. “You’re staying in the Falls Motel, but in a different room from your intended. That’s unusual nowadays, isn’t it?”

  Amber turned pink and fiddled with the ring on her finger. “We only just got engaged, Officer,” she said. “We didn’t, you know, live together or anything.”

  “Ah, I see,” Becker said. “So everything’s fine between you?”

  “Y-yes,” Amber said. “I mean, like, I didn’t see him at the motel after the party because he was working late, but everything was okay. We said we’d see each other here this morning. He kissed me goodnight.” Her lower lip trembled at the memory.

  “And Mr. Pacey. Which is Mr. Pacey?” Shane raised his hand slightly. “You’re staying at the motel too?”

  “Guilty,” Shane said.

  “You and Ms. Thackeray know each other? Before here, I mean?”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?” Shane said.

  “According to Ms. Keating, a lot. Your director said that Jason McMaster was unhappy about you coming up to do this little play, Mr. Pacey. Now why would that be?”

  “You tell me,” Shane said. We were all staring back and forth between Becker and Shane, trying to figure out where this was going. I knew that Shane was a last-minute casting decision, but nobody had mentioned that Jason had a problem with it. Usually, information like that whips round the theatre faster than a company cold.

  “Weren’t you two an item at one time?” Becker said. Amber looked like she wanted to hide under the table. Shane looked like thunder.

  “Amber and I dated in theatre school for a while, if that’s what you’re talking about,” Shane said, through his teeth. “Not since.”

  “You were engaged?” Becker said.

  “I don’t know where you’re getting this from, but it’s none of your goddamn business,” Shane said. That would explain why Juliet had told me earlier that she thought “there was some history” between Shane and Amber. Would that make Jason insecure enough to ditch the show and ditch his brand-new fiancée? It seemed unlikely to me. Jason was the kind of guy who would get all scrappy and confrontational with a rival. He wouldn’t run away.

  “Ms. Thackeray?” Becker said, turning to her. She stared at him for a moment like a bunny caught in the headlights, then began to cry. There are some people who are like that. Amber had been weepy all day, understandably, I might add, but most of us would try to control it. Amber was the kind of woman whose distress sets up an immediate chemical reaction in those around her. She cried beautifully, big, clear teardrops that did
n’t redden her eyes, just poured artistically down her cheeks without taking a side-trip to her nose, the way they do with the rest of us. No snot, no hiccups. Just Hollywood tears. She made next to no noise when she cried, just little tiny puppy whimpers. Instantly, the whole lot of us got all protective.

  Meredith put an arm around her, and Bradley passed her a handkerchief. Ruth made a little “tsk” sound and Shane growled low in his throat.

  “I thought so,” Becker said, getting up. “I think we’ll find that Mr. McMaster is back in Toronto, dealing with a few jealousy issues.”

  “This is ridiculous,” I said, speaking, I thought, for the group. “The fact is that Jason’s vest, the one that he never, ever takes off, was found floating in the pool downstairs this morning. We’ve told you that he was an obsessive stage-manager, absolutely dedicated to his job. He wouldn’t just leave the company in the lurch. Whether he drowned by accident, or for some other reason, you won’t find him in Toronto, you’ll find him at the bottom of the Kuskawa River.”

  “This is not a Stephen King movie,” Becker said, “and I’ve wasted enough time trying to explain to you people that the police need more than a discarded piece of clothing to start an investigation. We’ll get in touch with his family and check out the Toronto angle, but I’ll bet that you’ll hear from him before the day is out.” We all stared at him.

  “When you do,” he added, “we’d appreciate a phone call.” He left, taking his notebook (in which he’d written nothing) and the cast-list with him.

  “Nice guy,” Bradley said. “Real thorough.”

  Eleven

  MOTHER: I know that you’ll succeed, my son, it’s written on your heart / you’ll vanquish fear, your fame will spread, you’ll play a noble part.

  -The Glass Flute, Scene i