A Midsummer Eve's Nightmare

by Fletcher Crow, Donna

  Bingo! That was exactly what Elizabeth wanted. She went straight to her point. “The goblet Desdemona drinks from, do you wash it after every performance?”

  “Always the next morning, yes. Both goblets and carafe. Trevor wants them shiny under the lights. The apple juice residue would get disgusting.”

  “So the one from two nights ago has been done?”

  “Oh, yes. I cleared my things out as soon as the police let us get in, and Juju set up for Henry. That’s the way we always do it.”

  Elizabeth nodded. That was what she expected. At least she had persuaded Richard to call Dr. Hilliard before they left the Bard’s Haven. Richard had been reluctant to seem interfering by telling the authorities how to do their job, but the medical examiner was happy to talk about her work since there was no official murder investigation underway. No, she had reported, sodium chloride levels were sometimes tested to establish time of death—although it wasn’t a very reliable method—but since several hundred people had apparently witnessed the death there didn’t seem to be any question about the time.

  Yes, it was an easy test, one she’d be glad to perform on the blood samples in the refrigerator when she had time to get to it—the body had been sent on to Sally’s family in New Jersey as soon as the coroner ruled natural causes.

  Yes, she had reported the tests on Erin’s pills to the police, but they hadn’t seemed overly concerned. Rushed off their feet they were, like all public servants—herself included. But, yes, she could see the possible connection, so she would put the first available person on it.

  The others moved on and left Elizabeth alone, staring at the carefully arranged props table. In her mind she saw the gleaming goblets and carafe, purportedly of finest Venetian glass, brushed with gold. Was it like this backstage two days ago?

  Hilary’s work done, the tours completed, all dim and silent behind the reset stage? How easy it would be for a shadowy figure to slip in, lift the stopper from the beaker of apple juice, tip in the white powder collected from Erin’s capsules, give it a few shakes to dissolve the powder, and slip out again.

  A matter of two minutes. But it had meant the rest of Sally’s life.

  If it had happened at all. Perhaps Elizabeth had succumbed to the very allure of the fanciful atmosphere around her that she had tried to warn her sister against.

  Chapter 10

  ELIZABETH WAS STILL THINKING about all that and trying to decide where it would leave them if her suspicions were borne out when they left the theatre and met Gregg at the box office as Tori had arranged. The two couples walked on up the street to Ariel’s Antiques and French Bakery where they had planned to have afternoon tea.

  It took some time for the four of them to sort through the temptations of eclairs, Napoleons, cream horns, fruit tarts and chocolate tortes. Finally they took seats on Victorian chairs around a small table and relaxed to the recorded music of James Galway’s golden flute. Richard held Elizabeth’s hand under the table, and she smiled at him.

  “You enjoyed Henry last night?” Gregg asked.

  “It was great.” “Loved it.” Elizabeth and Richard answered together.

  Gregg set his teacup down. “Sure glad it went well. It would be awful to get the story that we have an unlucky season going here. Theatre people are notoriously superstitious. Once you get people spooked, a rumor like that can be self-fulfilling. They’ll see bad luck in the simplest thing, then their own nervousness will cause more accidents.”

  “Is that all you think it is? Superstition, nerves and accidents?” Elizabeth asked.

  Gregg shrugged. “Seems most likely. This many people working in close quarters under pressure, you’re bound to have accidents.”

  Elizabeth licked a dollop of French pastry cream off her fork before she answered. “And so we talk and do nothing, but methinks, ‘tis shame to stand still.’” She paraphrased King Henry’s Irish captain. “You two have talked a lot about searching for truth. I think we need to search further for the truth here. I think something is going on, and I’m determined to get to the bottom of it.”

  Gregg frowned, and his blue eyes clouded, but he didn’t say anything.

  “Will you help?” She watched closely for Gregg’s reaction, but he didn’t betray anything.

  “Yeah. Sure. But what can I do?”

  “First, tell us about the people who seem to be the most involved—Sally, Larry, Dirk. . .”

  Since Gregg was in the midst of a large bite of eclair, Tori spoke first. “Funny, isn’t it, how much we see of Dirk, and how little we know about him? I’ve asked Erin general stuff about him—where he’s from, what he does, if he has a family—she never really tells me anything.”

  “Sally’s bio is in the season program. She has—had a degree in theatre arts from some college back East, had done rep with a couple of new England companies. Seems I remember Emily in Our Town and Juliet in Romeo and Juliet were a couple of her favorite roles. It was her first time with OSF,” Gregg answered, his eclair finished. “We visited a little on the set of Othello, but I didn’t know her well. She seemed like a really nice kid.”

  “What else was she doing here? Just understudy?”

  “Oh, no. Everyone does tons of things here—that’s what repertory theatre is all about,” Tori said. “Let’s see, she was an extra in Henry and An Enemy of the People, and in something at the Black Swan, I don’t remember which one. Her best part, though, was Juliet in Measure for Measure.” Everyone was silent for a moment, then Tori added. “I can’t imagine why anyone would want to kill her. It just doesn’t seem possible.”

  But Richard had taken on the deeply-furrowed-brow look that Elizabeth called his thinking face. “Hmm, that’s an interesting idea,” he said at last. “Juliet—the young woman who was to bear Claudio’s child. How close were she and Larry? Is it possible she was pregnant?”

  “Wouldn’t the autopsy have shown that?”

  “Do we know that it didn’t?”

  “But why kill her even if she were? Blackmail?”

  “Is Larry married?”

  Tori shook her head. “I’m pretty sure he isn’t.”

  That seemed to end that line of thought.

  “Back to Dirk.” Elizabeth tried to focus the conversation as she refilled the teacups from the china pot the waitress had set in front of her. “Would he have any reason to kill Sally?”

  Tori frowned. “I don’t think he even knew her.”

  But Elizabeth wouldn’t leave it alone. “Could she have been an old girlfriend? Maybe she was threatening to tell Erin something.”

  Richard shook his head and grinned. “Another elaborate blackmail plot? I’ve always told my darling wife she reads far too many murder mysteries.” Now he clasped her hand where it lay on the table beside her teacup. “Let’s leave Sally out of this unless we find out her death wasn’t natural. For now, let’s focus on the earlier stuff. The flats falling could have been an accident, I assume?”

  Tori and Gregg both nodded. “Right. And Erin could be imagining she’s being followed?” Everyone nodded. “But she didn’t imagine the glass in her face powder, did she?”

  “Definitely not. I saw the scratches on her face.” Tori licked the last bit of chocolate off her fingers. “One of them was really deep. Didn’t need stitches, but looked awful for a few days. She complained a lot about how tricky it was to put on her makeup over it.”

  “But could it have been intended for someone else? Her understudy, for example?”

  Tori’s eyes lit up and she leaned forward. Then she sat back, shaking her head. “Great idea, but I don’t see how. She carries her makeup in a pink-and-purple case that is distinctively hers.”

  “Would she have kept it locked backstage?”

  “No, of course not. Anyone could have tampered with it—but they would have known it was hers. And no one else would have used it by accident.”

  Richard nodded. “And we know the pills were meddled with. So who has a motive to har
m Erin?”

  The lilting strains of James Galway, now playing a tin whistle accompanied by a Celtic harp filled in the silence around the table.

  Finally Tori sighed. “I suppose Sally had the best motive—she got her part.”

  “Lot of good it did her.” Everyone winced at Gregg’s words.

  “Maybe there’s something from Erin’s past,” Elizabeth probed. “Her father sounds capable of hiring someone to scare her.”

  They looked at each other, processing the thought. No one spoke.

  Finally Richard said, “Dirk?”

  “He seems the best choice,” Elizabeth agreed. “But he couldn’t be working for Wooton, could he? Erin said her father hated Dirk.”

  Tori nodded. “Erin as much as said that was Dirk’s main attraction for her.”

  Elizabeth pursued that line of thought. “Funny that Erin would want to annoy her father after she had such a perfect childhood. . .or funny that her childhood could have been so perfect if her father was so domineering.”

  Richard wrinkled his forehead. “I’ve heard tell of fathers who only get that way when their little girls start dating. Especially if they take up with playboys like Dirk.”

  Elizabeth nodded. “And you have the feeling she’s tired of him now, Tori? Maybe Dirk doesn’t want to be thrown over. Maybe he’s got some notion of scaring Erin into marrying him so he’ll get her money.”

  “Well, he looks like he has plenty of his own.” Tori bit her lips. “Of course, you never know.”

  Elizabeth nodded. “We really don’t know much, do we? Richard, why don’t you try talking to Dirk. Gregg, you see what you can learn from Larry.” And I’ll watch, you, Gregg, she concluded mentally.

  At that moment Victoria slipped her hand into Gregg’s on the table, just as Elizabeth’s own still rested in Richard’s. The intimate gesture reminded Elizabeth that there was a young woman here whose future concerned her far more than Erin’s. And that the search for truth they had discussed earlier could mean a lot more to her sister’s future than the one they were pursuing at the moment. She sought a way to turn the conversation without seeming too obvious. Then the line from Pericles came to her: “We must keep searching for ‘truth can never be confirmed enough, though doubts did ever sleep,’” she quoted, then looked at Richard.

  He took up her meaning. “I’ve got a great idea. Let’s have another round of pastry.” He signaled the waitress. “And while we’re indulging, Gregg, you can tell us how you’re coming with your own search for Truth.”

  There was a slight movement as the hand that held Tori’s gripped tighter. “Well, I haven’t had much time.”

  Elizabeth looked at the couple across from her. Tori looked so young and innocent in her white cotton dress, her long black hair pulled back in a mother of pearl clip; and Gregg, his azure eyes looking even clearer than usual above his blue, open-collared shirt, his appealing hesitancy clearly a part of what made him so attractive to her sister.

  Richard, however, was not one to be put off so easily. He dealt with Gregg as he would have with a reluctant student. “I’ve found that most people purport to place a high value on truth, but it’s really a lackadaisical effort. Most people just accept popular culture—absorb what the media spews out as philosophy. Very few people have a real program for reading and examining and asking, ‘what does this mean to me?’”

  Gregg rubbed his forehead in a manner that showed Richard’s shot had gone home. “The trouble in looking for values is whose values are you going to accept? Whose truth?”

  Richard grinned as if he had been waiting for that one. “Yes, many of my colleagues in education use that as an excuse for not teaching values—the cry of ‘whose values?’ As if there is no objective truth.”

  Tori jumped to Gregg’s defense. “Yes, but really—try to look at it from the viewpoint of someone who hasn’t grown up always believing in absolutes. Where do you start?”

  “Look to the lives of people to whom the search for truth was important. People who found a personal Truth that changed their lives. Truth should mean something in a person’s life. Don’t waste time on the lives of nihilists or on the lives of people for whom what they found didn’t matter to them.”

  Gregg nodded, looking more serious than Elizabeth had seem him look before. “So who do you recommend?”

  Richard thought for a moment. “Start with people who started where you are. People relying on their own intellectualism or working for superficial success who then found deeper meaning.”

  Elizabeth held her breath, hoping Gregg wouldn’t be insulted by Richard’s implication that he was shallow. But if Gregg caught the inference, he took it placidly. “Like who?” he asked.

  Again Richard thought. “Well, some of my favorite are Pascal, St. Francis, C. S. Lewis, Malcolm Muggeridge, Wilberforce and John Newton.” He stopped and grinned. “That should keep you busy for the night.”

  Gregg looked at his watch. “Especially since I have makeup call in half an hour. But you really do believe, then, that there is objective Truth?”

  “No one deals with that any better than Lewis when he points to the great commonality of the ethical requirements of the religions and philosophies of the world.”

  Gregg leaned forward. “That’s my point exactly. They all believe the same—so how do you sort out who’s right? That’s why I don’t think it matters what you believe—or if you believe.”

  “Congratulations.” Richard held out his hand to a bewildered Gregg. “You’ve taken the first step. You’ve seen the commonality. You’ve seen that there is objective Truth. The next thing you need is to find its source.”

  Gregg pushed his half-eaten tart aside. “Time to go to work.” He looked at Tori. “Is Erin doing Olivia tonight?”

  “Yes.” Tori jumped up. “I should go see if I can do anything for her. Her first night back, she may need a little extra support.”

  Gregg paid their part of the bill and he and Tori left together. Elizabeth sighed as she poured her absolutely last cup of tea. “I don’t know what to think. I want to like Gregg. But we know so little about him I’m afraid Tori’s really in over her head.”

  Even after a swallow of hot tea she couldn’t suppress a shiver.

  Chapter 11

  RICHARD GROANED AS HE stood up and held Elizabeth’s chair for her. “Ooh, what idiot suggested a second round of pastry?”

  Elizabeth turned and just brushed his cheek with her lips. “My favorite idiot.”

  “Oh, yeah.” He gave her a quick hug. “Let’s see what we can do about walking this off before the play.”

  Their first bit of walking was around the antique shop, admiring a heavily carved, dark Victorian dresser with a marble top and beveled mirror among the many other treasures the shop held. “Oh, Richard, if we get that Victorian bungalow we’ve been admiring, wouldn’t this be perfect!”

  Richard looked at the price tag. “Yes, it would. But it looks like you’ll have to choose between the bungalow and the dresser.”

  “Why in the world was I so impractical as to marry for love rather than money?”

  They left the shop laughing, but the sharp breeze that had come up while they were inside made Elizabeth catch her breath. “I didn’t think to bring a sweater since we’re going to be indoors tonight. The short-sleeved shirt with coral and blue flowers that matched her blue chambray skirt provided little protection. Even Richard’s arm around her, while very nice, wasn’t really enough warmth. “Well, I guess we can take our walk going back to the Bard’s Haven, but the park would be so much more romantic.” She started to turn toward their B & B.

  “How about just popping up the street and borrowing something from Tori?”

  “Good idea. See, I married for love and brains.”

  “Yes, but still no money.”

  A few minutes later Tori was rummaging in her bedroom. She came out with a paint-spattered sweatshirt and a red sweater. Elizabeth started to reach for the sweater, no mat
ter how it clashed with her blouse. “Oh, just a minute. I almost forgot—my new jacket. Erin borrows it so much I don’t think of it as mine.” Tori dashed into her roommate’s room and returned with a soft coral jacket trimmed in blue that looked as if it had been made for Elizabeth’s outfit. “Pull up the hood if your ears get cold. It’s really snugly.” Tori walked them to the door. “See you backstage after the play.”

  Elizabeth turned in surprise. “You will?”

  “Oh, didn’t I tell you? Just a very little party to welcome Erin back to work. We didn’t want to do much or it would look disrespectful for Sally—but the show must go on, and all that. Anyway, come back and tell Erin how great she was. She can use the reassurance.”

  Before entering the park Richard and Elizabeth stopped at a little island where the road divided and went on either side of a turn-of-the-century gazebo covering a fountain bubbling up cool, crystal clear Lithia water, the mineral-rich water some claimed offered great health benefits. “Have to taste it, it’s part of the Ashland experience.” Elizabeth gestured for Richard to go first.

  He took a mouthful of the clear, bubbling liquid. Just one. “Blahh!” He put his hand to his throat. “I’ve been poisoned! You set that up so you could marry a rich husband next time.” He cupped his palm for a handful of water and flipped it at Elizabeth. She shrieked and whirled away from him, off the island and into the street. Laughing, he turned to scoop up more water when a squeal of tires jerked him around again.

  A girl nearby on the sidewalk screamed. The car with the screeching tires was inches from Elizabeth.

  Richard lunged.

  His long fingers caught just the hem of her full skirt. He jerked her back.

  It was enough. By a quarter of an inch and the grace of God it was enough.

  The little silver car streaked on down the street.

  Shaking so violently he could hardly move, clutching her fiercely with both arms, Richard half carried, half led Elizabeth across the street to a bench just inside the park. “Oh, Elizabeth. Thank God. Oh, my darling.” He buried his head in her hair.