Diva's Last Curtain Call

by Angela Henry

  I made a shortcut through the marketplace, ending up on the side that faced High Street. I spotted the benches that Joy had been talking about near the bus kiosks, and walk over to see if I could spot Lynette, though I was still doubtful Joy had actually seen her. What in the world would Lynette be doing in Springfield? I looked around for her or her black Nissan Altima. I saw about a dozen or so people lounging on or standing near the benches waiting for buses. Even though the buses had yet to arrive I thought I still detected a whiff of bus exhaust. Some of the people waiting looked like students, others were dressed in the uniforms of fast food restaurants and were obviously on their way to or from work, most were elderly people with shopping bags full of groceries. None of them was Lynette.

  For the next forty minutes I walked all over downtown Springfield hoping to spot my best friend or her car with no luck. It was hot. Sweat was trickling down my back, and my feet were beginning to ache even though I had on my running shoes. I felt like an idiot for listening to Joy. She was probably still laughing. Having realized I’d wasted enough time on my fool’s errand, I headed back to my car, once again cutting through the marketplace to the parking lot. Numerous small shops had taken up residence inside the marketplace. You could find everything from handmade jewelry, antiques, leather goods and scented candles to decadent desserts, deli sandwiches and roasted peanuts. The smell of freshly baked brownies stopped me on my way out to the parking lot and led me into a bakery called Just Desserts. I bought a well-deserved—in my opinion—chocolate brownie with walnuts and thick chocolate icing and sat at a small table by the window to eat it. From where I was sitting, I could see people entering and exiting the building. I’d put the last morsel of the moist brownie in my mouth and was licking chocolate icing from my fingers when I noticed a white VW van pull up to the curb outside. A familiar-looking man got out and entered the marketplace with two equally familiar people greeting him as he walked in.

  The man was white, middle-aged, balding and wore polyester pants in a revolting shade of avocado green. His yellow-and-red short-sleeved Bermuda shirt looked straight out of the fifties, as did his thick black horn-rimmed glasses. I recognized him as the man who’d tried to hug Vivianne DeArmond during the autograph session at the awards ceremony. Seeing the man wasn’t much of a big deal but it was the red-headed woman and the light skinned young black man with her that surprised me. They were none other than Noelle Delaney and her hot-lipped lover boy—or should I say lover dude, Kurt Preston. Kurt was holding a medium-sized box that Mr. Bermuda Shirt was looking at in much the same way as I’d eyed my brownie. He started to take the box from Kurt, but Noelle stepped in front of him and held out her hand. Bermuda Shirt looked momentarily confused then pulled out a wad of money from his pocket, peeled off several bills and handed them to Noelle. Noelle counted the bills quickly before stuffing them in her purse. She gestured for Kurt to hand over the box. Bermuda Shirt looked like he’d been given a key to the city.

  Well, well, well. How interesting. I could feel my curiosity racing into overdrive. I moved over to a table nearer to the door and strained to hear their conversation. But there was no conversation. I was disappointed to see Noelle and Kurt leave. Bermuda Shirt walked over and pressed the button for the elevator. I watched as he got on and disappeared behind the closing doors. I couldn’t stop wondering what was in the box Kurt had given him. I knew no one lived in the marketplace and figured the man had a shop someplace on one of the upper floors. I walked up to the bakery’s counter and bought a half dozen more brownies to take home, hoping also to get a little info.

  “Would you happen to know a bald man who wears horn-rimmed glasses and drives a white VW van? I think he has a shop here in the marketplace,” I asked the slender woman who handed me my box of brownies. I wondered if it was willpower or a speedy metabolism that kept her so slim around so many goodies.

  The woman thought for a minute before a look of recognition spread across her face. “You must be talking about Mr. Cabot. I don’t know his first name. But I think the name of his shop is Cabot’s Cave. It’s up on the second floor.”

  “Thanks,” I told her and headed out to the elevator, wondering what a shop called Cabot’s Cave sold.

  There wasn’t much on the second floor of the marketplace. There was a large banquet room, an antique shop and a used book store. Most of the second floor was made up of empty spaces that were being renovated. Paint cans, tarps and rolls of carpet lined the halls. I could smell turpentine and wood shavings. Cabot’s Cave was the last shop at the end of a short hallway. The door of the shop was light blond wood with a large frosted-glass panel in the center. The words Cabot’s Cave were painted on the glass in big gold block letters trimmed in black. Underneath that, was the name of the proprietor, Donald Cabot, and a phone number. Hanging from a hook on the wall by the door was a plastic sign that read: Closed. The store’s hours were handwritten on small piece of white cardboard taped at eye level above the doorknob: Open Tuesday thru Saturday 10am—6pm Closed Sundays & Mondays. I knocked anyway. For a second I thought I heard movement behind the closed door but no one answered. Apparently, I was going to have to wait to find out what Cabot’s Cave sold and what was in the box. I pulled a pen from my purse and wrote the shop’s phone number on top of the brownie box. I headed back to my car, stuck the Isley Brother’s Greatest Hits in my tape deck, and headed back to Willow to the sounds of “Footsteps in the Dark.”

  Mrs. Carson, my landlady and Mama’s best friend, was sitting in her usual spot on the front porch when I got home. Today, I was surprised to see her dressed not in her usual striped house dress and slippers but a royal-blue warm-up suit and white tennis shoes. Her gray hair was braided in its usual crown on the top of her head. A large tapestry purse with a thick black strap sat on her lap. A big gift bag with a pink pony on the front and a profusion of white tissue sticking out of the top sat at her feet. Mahalia, her Siamese cat, was pawing at the pony’s yarn tail.

  “What you got it that box, missy?” she asked as I approached the porch.

  “I’ll tell you what’s in the box if you tell me where you’re going looking so cute.” She rolled her eyes, but I could tell she was pleased by the compliment.

  “Today’s my great grandbaby’s first birthday. They’re having the party at that Chuck E. Cheese’s place and I’m waitin’ for my ride,” she said with a grimace, which indicated to me that spending time in a restaurant full of screaming kids wasn’t exactly her cup of tea.

  “Which one?”

  “Loreen’s girl, Sienna. I just hope that baby’s sorry daddy stays away. Did you know he was a thief? He’ll steal the wax right outta yo’ ears if you don’t watch him. I’ma have my eye on that boy if he shows up. Better not start no mess if he knows what’s good for him.”

  Seeing as how Mrs. Carson’s favorite son, Stevie, was also sticky-fingered, I was amazed she was being so judgmental. I ignored her comments and opened the box revealing the brownies. She reached inside, grabbed the biggest one and took a bite.

  “Not bad. Mine are better, though.”

  “Have fun at the party,” I told her as I walked up the steep steps to my apartment. I had the key in the lock and was about to open the door when Mrs. Carson called out to me.

  “Kendra, that Reverend Rollins came by here lookin’ for you. Said it wasn’t nothing important and he’ll stop back by. I hope you ain’t steppin’ out on that nice Carl, are you?”

  “No. It’s nothing like that,” I called out, opening my door. Since it wasn’t anything important, meaning not about Lynette, then why was he stopping by?

  “Good! ’Cause that Carl’s a cutie and anyway I heard Morris Rollins was running ’round with that Winette Barlow. You know, Crazy Frieda’s sister-in-law?”

  Huh? I almost dropped the box of brownies. I turned to ask her to repeat what she’d just said, but a car horn sounded and I watched as my landlady hurried off the porch and jumped into a waiting car.

  I’d met Winett
e Barlow last year when I’d been attending a funeral. Winette’s deceased sister-in-law, Elfrieda aka Crazy Frieda, whom everyone in town had mistakenly thought to be a bag lady, was also laid out that day in the same funeral home. Much like Rollins, Winette was an attractive fifty-something widow. She was always stylishly dressed and very friendly whenever I’d run into her in public. I didn’t have to think why he’d be attracted to her. I heard a purr that sounded like a busted carburetor and looked down. Mahalia slunk up the steps, leapt gracefully up on my railing, and looked at me with her almond-shaped blue eyes as if to say, “Well, you don’t want him. So, what’s your problem?”

  Damned cat.

  The next day I was back in Springfield. I kept a half-hearted eye out for Lynette, though I knew I wouldn’t see her. I’d called Greg the night before and he hadn’t heard another word from her. He’d lied to Justine and the kids, telling them Lynette was away on an overnight trip for work. He didn’t know how long he could keep the news of Lynette running off from her mother. Greg and I had agreed that if Lynette didn’t turn up the next day, we’d have no choice but to tell Justine. I wasn’t looking forward to that conversation at all. In the meantime, Allegra had indeed come back to stay with me.

  I was sitting on my couch with a bottle of wine and the box of brownies, having a pity party over a man I had no business being upset over, when my door flew open, revealing Allegra with all her crap—again. This time, I refused to give up my bedroom and made her sleep on the couch. My sister was understandably jumpy. Every time she heard a car door slam she would run to the window, convinced it was Harmon and Mercer coming to arrest her. Plus, she polished of the rest of my brownies.

  “I needed them more than you,” she’d told me when I spotted the empty bakery box. I’d only been out of the room a few minutes. She must have inhaled those last three brownies. Then I watched as she picked up the half-full wine bottle and chugged the rest of it wiping a trickle of wine from her chin with the sleeve of her shirt.

  “Allie, it’s going to be okay. Carl’s a damned good lawyer. You have nothing to worry about.” I gave her hand a reassuring squeeze.

  “Yeah, I have to admit he looks like he’d be damned good,” she’d said with a sly smirk, then let out a small belch.

  “He is,” I’d told her rather frostily. Then, having nothing left to say, I had gone to bed and dreamt about catching Allegra and Carl in my bed feeding each other brownies.

  My sister was actually the main reason I was back in Springfield. I wanted to know what was in the box that Kurt had given Donald Cabot, and if it could possibly have anything to do with Vivianne’s murder. I knew I had to help my baby sister no matter what, even if she did annoy the hell out me and was after my man. Once this mess was cleared up, she could go back to L.A. and leave me to live my boring life.

  This time, when I arrived at Cabot’s Cave, the door was open. As I walked in, I could hear Percy Faith’s “Theme from a Summer Place” coming from an old record player sitting on the shop’s front counter. A slight breeze was coming from one of the shop’s large open windows. Cabot’s Cave wasn’t cavelike at all. It was a large, light and airy space with a high ceiling, bright white walls and same the gleaming blond woodwork that the front door was made of. The shop was filled almost to the gills with old movie posters, vintage records, toys and other odds and ends connected either to the movies or television. Under one glass-topped display case there were vintage lunch boxes from the fifties, sixties and seventies. The two dozen or so boxes included the Flintstones, Howdy Doody, Star Wars and Scooby Doo. I even spied a yellow Josie and the Pussycats lunch box identical to the one I used to carry as a kid. My mouth fell open when I saw the price, and I wished I’d held on to mine. Who knew old lunch boxes would be so valuable?

  I flipped through the albums and was inspecting a plastic-encased soundtrack to the movie West Side Story when Donald Cabot emerged from another room and greeted me with smile. Today he was dressed in a red-and-black two-toned bowling shirt with the words Daddy O stitched on the front pocket, and jeans cuffed and rolled up past his ankles. Red Chuck Taylor high-topped tennis shoes were laced tightly around his skinny ankles and made his already big feet look boatlike. The shop’s lights made his bald spot look shiny and his eyes squinted at me from behind his thick horn-rimmed glasses. If pressed to describe what look he was trying to capture I’d have to say it was Revenge of the Nerds meets Grease.

  “Hello. Are you finding what you’re looking for?” he asked with such hope and enthusiasm I wondered how many customers he actually had on any given day. Was there a big market for memorabilia?

  “You’ve got a lot of good stuff here,” I replied, ignoring his question and making a sweeping gesture around the shop.

  “Thank you,” he said, grinning and turning slightly red. I could tell he was as proud of his shop as any mother would be of their child.

  “You know, if you can’t find what you’re looking for here I can always try and track something down for you from another collector.” I was about to tell him that wouldn’t be necessary when I happened to glance over his shoulder and noticed a poster on the wall. I brushed by him and stared at what looked like an original poster for the movie that launched Vivianne DeArmond’s career, Asphalt City.

  The poster depicted a very young and beautiful Vivianne dressed in a tight black skirt, slit thigh-high on one side, and a yellow halter top. A black scarf was knotted around her neck. Black open-toed, high-heeled sandals graced her feet and large silver hoop earrings dangled from her ears. Her hair was long and wavy with one side falling over her right eye. Lush red lips pouted seductively as she leaned suggestively against a lamppost with her voluptuous breasts thrust out and straining against her top. The movie’s tagline, “Love Her at Your Own Risk,” screamed in red letters across the top of the poster, underneath the title.

  “It was her most famous role,” said Donald Cabot walking over to stand beside me. “Her other film work was quite special, as well, but she could never quite capture the intensity of emotion she projected as Pearly Monroe,” he continued wistfully. I wondered what he thought about Demon Kitty.

  A lot of people thought Asphalt City was a masterpiece. I thought it was one of the most depressing movies I’d ever seen. Vivianne played Pearly Monroe, a prostitute who seduces a naive young policeman, Sam Hart, and talks him into robbing and killing her vicious pimp and lover, Johnny Desmond. Instead, their plan backfires and Desmond kills the cop in self-defense. Pearly rats Desmond out to the police and testifies against him in court. Desmond is sent to the electric chair. After his execution, a destitute and guilty Pearly realizes she loved Desmond after all and can’t live without him. The movie ended with her throwing herself off a bridge. The credits rolled as her trademark black scarf fluttered in the wind. Not exactly an uplifting tale, but Vivianne’s performance was excellent. Plus, the fact that Vivianne was rumored to be romantically involved with the movie’s very French and very married director, Jacques St. Marchand, didn’t exactly hurt ticket sales.

  “She deserved an Oscar for that role,” Donald Cabot declared indignantly.

  “Yes, she did,” I agreed. “I saw you at the award ceremony for Vivianne DeArmond this past Saturday, didn’t I?” I asked matter-of-factly. Cabot swung round and gave me a startled look.

  “You were there?” he asked, surprised.

  “Of course I was there. I’m a huge Vivianne DeArmond fan. I can’t believe she’s really gone.” I shook my head and tried my best to look distraught.

  “I cried like a baby when I heard about it on the news. Hollywood has lost one of its brightest stars. I just wish she could have done one more movie.” He looked as if he was about to cry and I pressed on.

  “And to think there was a killer roaming around the auditorium,” I said to gauge his reaction. Just how much of a fan of Vivianne’s was Donald Cabot? Did he try and approach Vivianne in her dressing room and get angry when she rejected him again? Could he have killed her? />
  “You know,” he said, looking around as though the shop was filled with people and he didn’t want to be overheard. “I tried to see Vivianne in her dressing room and that horrible assistant of hers was guarding that room like a sentinel. I wonder where in the world she was when Vivianne was murdered. If you ask me,” he murmured, looking around again. “I bet she killed Vivianne.”

  CHAPTER 7

  “Why do you think that? Did you hear them arguing or something?” I asked hopefully.

  “Oh, no, nothing like that,” he said quickly. “But I never saw that woman leave Vivianne’s side the whole time she was at the ceremony. It’s strange she would have left Vivianne alone and she’s sure mean enough to be capable of murder.” He was certainly right about that, I thought, as an image of a raging Harriet Randall being wrestled to the ground by the police flashed in my mind.

  “Why were you trying to see Vivianne?” I asked.

  “I wanted to invite her to my unveiling,” he said, rubbing his hands together excitedly.

  “Of your shop?”