by Marvin Kaye
“But Mills didn’t ask for cash at the same time as he demanded the part—did he?”
“No,” she admitted, “the extortion came later.”
“So, you decided to kill him.”
“No!” She stared at me in anguish. “You can’t believe that! It wasn’t until after I’d lost the baby. ...”
“That’s what I thought, but I wanted to hear it from you.”
Dana stirred impatiently. “This is all very sad,” she yawned, “but it has nothing to do with me.”
I shot her an unfriendly glance. “We’re coming to you, don’t worry.” I turned back to Melanie. “I don’t understand how you thought you could shoot Mills and hide the fact from Michael.”
“I wasn’t even thinking about consequences,” she said, resting her head in one hand and shading her eyes. “After I lost the baby, Michael came to the hospital and tried to cheer me—not that he could. He told me all sorts of disjointed things, just to keep talking. He babbled on about the play, and how he envisioned it—and finally it slipped out.”
“About the Third Murderer?”
“Yes. When I knew, I became totally obsessed with the need to revenge my baby’s death. I returned to the cast, unsure how I would kill Mills, but definite on when I would do it.”
“And then he bought himself a gun, and you had the means.”
She nodded. “Except I missed,” Melanie said, shuddering, “and killed my husband instead.” She bit her knuckles, trying to avoid the racking tears she already knew so well.
Mills, of course, had been the target all along. Melanie stole his gun, put it in her purse, and, after getting out of makeup during intermission, dropped the cloak of her costume just behind the little-used stage left door. She only had to leave her purse there for a scant minute, snatch it up again on the way out, and drop the cloak on the other side of the door to the Center Cinema. Betterman found a second cartridge in the wings.
Like most actors, Mills picked the same spot to stand each night while waiting for his entrance. Melanie aimed there, and if it hadn’t been for the darkness, and the fact that her husband got in the way, the bullets would have been for Macbeth. It was impossible to say what actually had taken place when the lights went out, but I remembered the high boots Godwin had put on during intermission to bring his height nearer that of Mills. He’d been unsteady in them; in the vertigo that comes in the dark, he may well have lurched into the path of the bullet.
Melanie had opportunity to fire at Mills, I’d learned that from Pat Lowe. The blond said she’d gone out with Melanie to fetch coffee, but under pressure from me, she admitted that the two of them had not returned together. “Melanie remembered at the last minute that she had to stop at the drugstore and pick up something personal,” Pat explained, “so I took the coffee and said I’d meet her in the theater. Then, when she came back, it was so horrible that all I could think of was how she looked when she saw her husband lying there. When the police asked me, I just said I’d been out with Melanie. The little time we weren’t together didn’t seem important, and I didn’t want them harassing her.”
The personal errand, Melanie told me, was genuine. She was out of birth-control pills. “Ironic, isn’t it?” she asked, eyes still moist. “Michael was so afraid I’d become pregnant again and endanger my life. ...”
I walked over to the bedroom window and looked out at the frozen square far below. A line I’d heard once in a play ran through my mind: “The tears of the world are a constant quantity. For each one who begins to weep, somewhere else someone stops.” And then I recalled another line, something about there being only a certain amount of tears allotted to each individual, and when they were exhausted, the heart dries up.
It would be a long time before Melanie reached that state; her grief was still too fresh.
Melanie, of course, was one of the few people who might be expected to enter the Felt Forum business office. Thus, she was also one of the only members of the company likely to know where the key was kept to the Center Cinema door—the escape route she used after the shooting. She said that once she dropped the cloak on the other side of the door, she ran into the ladies’ room of the movie theater and flushed the key down a toilet.
“Meanwhile,” I said, taking up the story, “Mills figured out he was the target pretty fast, and he lost no time in fleeing.”
“I looked straight into his eyes just before putting out the torch,” Melanie stated. “He must have read my expression.”
“Yes—and after you found out what happened, it must have seemed doubly obscene for Mills to continue to live while your husband was dead.”
Melanie nodded. “I had to kill him after that! Only I didn’t know where he was hiding.”
“Not until Dana told you—correct?”
Dana started to object, but I waved her down without looking at her.
“Yes,” Melanie said in a strange voice, “I hadn’t thought of it that way—but yes, it was she who enabled me to catch up with Armand. ...”
“That was desperate,” I remarked, “stabbing him in Grand Central! You must have guessed, when you saw me, that there might be police everywhere.”
“As long as I could get to him, I didn’t care. I wouldn’t even have tried to escape, but I panicked. Residual self-preservation instincts, I suppose. Of course you recognized me in the subway.”
“Negative. Not with that disguise! It didn’t strike me till later that you were the only person with easy access to Michael’s clothes. I also recalled that the two of you were about the same height. That’s when I phoned Dave Bluestone for fine points on the art of imitative makeup. He said Michael’s features would be easy to copy, provided the actor knew him and/or had a photo to study while applying the necessary cosmetics.”
“I thought it appropriate to kill Mills in such a getup,” Melanie said, sadly adding, “but I was as inexpert with a knife, it seems, as I am with a gun.”
“For your sake,” I replied, “I damn well hope so.”
“What difference does it make to me?” she asked wearily, with a deprecating gesture. “Do you think I want mercy? No jury can restore what I’ve lost.”
Had I but dy’d an houre before this chance,
I had liv’d a blessed time ...
“All right,” I addressed Dana coldly, “it’s your turn.”
“I’m here under duress,” she said haughtily. “I refuse to speak!”
“Tant mieux! Whatever you might say would make me nauseous!”
Melanie shook her head. “I still don’t see what Dana has to do with all this.”
“That’s because she used Mills like a marionette and stayed neatly out of sight—the same way she manipulated you. Only he figured it out and you didn’t. As a matter of fact, if you hadn’t missed when you shot at him, I probably wouldn’t have even linked her to the tragedy. But Mills forced her hand. When he escaped, he was nearly as worried for his career as he was for his life. He couldn’t risk telling the police he’d been the target of the bullet, or it would have come out that he was a blackmailer. For the same reason, Dana had to keep her own mouth shut, rather than take the chance of being ruined professionally.”
“I haven’t heard one shred of proof yet for your wild claims!” Dana interrupted.
“You haven’t? All right—here’s some proof! First of all, a conversation between you and Mills, during which you subtly suggested that if he indeed had secrets hanging over Melanie’s head, he’d be a fool not to use them to extort money. Source: Bill Evans, who was there.”
“Why would she say a thing like that?” Melanie asked, obviously distressed.
“Because she was gambling on the possibility that if Mills acted on her suggestion, it might cause you so much anxiety that you’d lose the baby. And if that happened—well, you know how it affected your husband. He was practically destroyed.”
It sank in. Melanie turned slowly and regarded Dana in a new light “I see,” she said, hard as granite.
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“Yes,” I went on, “it’s no secret how ambitious Ms. Wynn is. She wanted to direct, and she wanted your husband out of the partnership. No matter how. Period.”
I half-expected Dana to argue, but she was too busy shrinking from Melanie, who looked as if she might pounce.
I continued. “Her plan nearly worked, but she never imagined you’d try to kill Mills. It turned him desperate. He needed money, and he was smart enough to figure out Dana had manipulated him, so he phoned and made her meet him secretly at the G&G offices. Proof: I was there in time to see him leave. I heard him say he’d phone in two days. His tone of voice clearly made it a threat. It had all the earmarks of blackmail. Two days afterward, Dana left a message with her answering service for Mills to phone her at another number. He did. Evans overheard the latter conversation, too. One phrase Mills used is especially interesting; he said, ‘I know who shot him and why,’ then added that he wouldn’t be the only one sucked down. Now that’s a peculiar thing to say if either he or Dana killed Michael, but it makes sense if the killer was a third party. It also implies Dana’s culpability, along with Mills.”
Dana, though she still cringed at Melanie’s stare, told me my “proof” was rather flimsy. I ignored her and proceeded with my analysis.
“I suppose Mills threatened to expose Dana’s role in Michael’s death unless she paid him off. A simple letter from him to the police, with copies to Grilis, perhaps the Directors Guild and the trade papers, would have wrought plenty of damage. It might mean admitting his own part in the affair, but at least he would still be in hiding, and later he might be able to resurrect his career, under a new name, if necessary. Though I suppose he hoped things would eventually calm down and Melanie would be apprehended.”
Theories!” Dana mocked. “Vague allegations.”
“Not if Mills lives.” That shut her up. “Of course, you knew that if you once paid what he asked, he’d be into you for the rest of your career. Or as long as he lived. You wanted him dead, then, and you had a ready-made weapon at hand—Melanie Godwin. You manipulated her into trying to kill him, and if she was caught, you would have no reason to worry; she’d think she was entirely responsible.”
“All right, that’s enough!” Dana exclaimed. “I’m leaving!”
But with a quick, unexpected movement, Melanie rose and stepped in front of the door, blocking it.
Dana sat back down.
“If I hadn’t been so embarrassed and flustered by your charade in front of Hilary the other night,” I said, “I might have wondered about your sudden solicitous concern for Melanie. It was out of character. Furthermore, the idea of paying a nurse with G&G funds without Fred Grilis being aware of it is preposterous. That bastard probably keeps track of every paper clip.” I turned to Melanie. “We know that Dana hired Ms. Casson to impersonate a nurse. But why? Did Hilda find a reason to leave you alone yesterday?”
“Yes,” Melanie admitted. “Hilary wouldn’t have left my side, of course. But yesterday, my so-called nurse pretended she had a family emergency. Of course, she said she didn’t want to go without getting a replacement. However, by then Dana had informed me that Armand would be in Grand Central at 7 P.M. I was racking my brain to think of some way to sneak out without the nurse knowing. When she came to me with her phony emergency, I thought it was a lucky coincidence!”
“Uh-huh. Now you can see what her actual job was—to give you time to get at Mills without anyone stopping you. Not that she knew it. But by seeming to forsake her professional duty as a nurse, she’d supposedly have to provide you with an alibi.”
“And vice versa,” Melanie remarked. “I told her no one needed to know she’d ever left me alone.”
Dana was certainly clever. She arranged it so the nurse would enable Melanie to attack Mills and yet appear to have an alibi for the time of the stabbing. Of course, if Melanie had really needed the sham nurse’s testimony, it would have been damned difficult to track down Hilda. However, once Mills was dead, Melanie wouldn’t have bothered—a fact that also would have worked in Dana’s favor, though I doubted that it occurred to her during her scheming.
“How did Dana let you know where to find Mills?” I asked Melanie.
“Oh, she lied to me,” she said bitterly. “After Hilary was gone, Dana visited and sent her flunky out of the room. First she gave me a present ...”
“The dagger?”
“Yes. It was Michael’s, the one he used when playing Banquo. She said the replacement was superstitious about using it and she thought I’d want it ‘as a memento.’ ”
“Uh-huh. Very neat. And then she told you about Mills?”
She nodded. “Dana pretended he’d phoned her to beg for some money to get out of town—which, I suppose, was close to the truth. She acted worried, but very compassionate. She didn’t want to call the police in on someone she knew so well—so she told me. Then she asked whether she ought to meet Mills, the way he’d requested.”
“And you warned her not to?”
“That was my advice,” Melanie said, uttering a short, humorless laugh. “I thought I was the clever one, turning the situation to my advantage! I warned her not to meet him, because he might be dangerous, but I agreed not to call in the police, either.”
“So you see,” I said, low she provided the means and opportunity for murder, then allowed you to think of what to do all by yourself. ...”
Dana stood. Her face was pale, her chin was thrust forward defiantly, and her lips met in a grim, determined line. “You can’t keep me here any longer,” she protested, voice trembling, “I have a rehearsal tonight!”
“Like hell,” I sneered, “you want to go home and pack!”
“Get out of my way!”
I stood my ground. “One final point, Dana! There can’t be many keys to the prop room you ‘borrowed’ the dagger from. There’s yours, the Forum manager’s, the crew head’s. I doubt—”
She didn’t let me finish. It was a repeat of our earlier tussle, nails and all—only I ducked out of her way after the initial onslaught and allowed her to confront Melanie.
Dana screamed. Once only. Then the sound stopped.
The door to the bathroom banged open, surprising me. I didn’t have time to look, though, because I was too busy prying Melanie’s hands away from Dana’s neck. She collapsed on the bed, clutching her throat and gasping for breath.
I turned in amazement. There, standing beside me, was Hilary Quayle. Behind her was a short, slightly paunchy individual with crew cut and liver lips. I knew him. It was Willie Frost, Hilary’s personal attorney.
Frost immediately approached Melanie and inquired whether she was all right. Since she was vertical, and Dana, horizontal, the question indicated that Willie had a new client.
“Have you been here all this time?” I asked Hilary.
“Considering that we came out of the bathroom, brightness,” she answered, “I’d have thought you could have figured that out without my help.”
I decided to ignore her sarcasm, mainly because of the wry smile on her face.
Frost spoke. “We were here when you phoned Melanie, Gene. She’d been giving us her version of what happened, but when you told her to expect Ms. Wynn, Hilary and I figured something was in the wind.”
Hilary drew me aside. “Gene,” she uttered in a low voice, “how come you didn’t go straight to Lou Betterman?”
“For two reasons. First, I wanted to work on that bitch myself!”
“And second?”
“Melanie is your friend,” I murmured. “I didn’t know what to do. I doubt if I could have called Lou.”
“You don’t have to,” Hilary said, giving my arm a brief squeeze, “Melanie has already decided to do it herself. But listen, Gene, you did a good job on Dana. We all thought Mills was the only one to blame.” She pursed her lips thoughtfully. Of course, if I’d had a little more time—”
“I know, you would have solved the whole thing,” I agreed, trying to sound neither
smug nor condescending. “But now, how about Melanie? What does Willie believe will happen to her?”
“That depends on Mills. If he lives—and the hospital thinks he will—then Willie feels he can work up a strong defense, considering what Melanie has been put through. Of course, at this point she says she doesn’t care what happens to her, but she might change her mind tomorrow. Meanwhile, Melanie does want to see those bastards dragged through the mud.”
“I do, too.”
She nodded, then turned and regarded Dana with contempt. “Suppose you start talking,” Hilary suggested.
“Why should I?” Dana groaned, still holding her bruised throat
“The alternative,” Hilary said sweetly, “is to let you discuss it in private with Melanie. We can leave the two of you alone together.”
Willie muttered something in my ear about evidence obtained through coercion, but I told him to relax. We were four against one, if Dana ever challenged us. Willie warned me to shush, but I wasn’t concerned about her hearing our conversation.
Dana was too busy telling Hilary what she wanted to know.
13
IT WAS EARLY EVENING before we could get away from Inspector Betterman, and by then I was more hungry than exhausted. Willie parted company with us at the door and went home, where he’d been working on the Sunday acrostic before Hilary harangued him into giving up part of his day off.
The Opel was parked a few streets away. I was too tired to trust myself behind the wheel, so I asked Hilary to drive. She unlocked the door and I slid in to the far seat. As she started the engine, Hilary said, “If you don’t mind waiting long enough for me to shower and change, I’d like to treat you to dinner.”
“Oh, hell!” I exclaimed.
“What?” She was startled at the unexpected comment.
I apologized swiftly. “I didn’t mean it the way it came out! I was just trying to work up nerve to ask you out!”
“Are you implying,” she teased, “that I’m such a dog that you have to force yourself to ask me for a date?”
“That’s it precisely,” I agreed, sharing her mirth. She asked where I wanted to eat, and I replied it made no difference so long as it was understood I picked up the tab.