Backstage Stuff

by Sharon Fiffer

  Oh parked in front of the shop with no problem. It appeared to be a simple storefront office on a side street just southeast of Kankakee’s downtown area. Jane noted that although the office had a stenciled GEPPETTO STUDIOS on the window, there was no visible light, no posted office hours, no other information on the outside of the building. There was, however, a buzzer next to the door. Jane, just for good measure, tried the door first, found it locked, then pushed the button. She could hear the buzzer sound and thought she heard a faint rustle from inside, although neither she nor Oh, noses pressed against the window, saw anyone moving.

  They did, however, at the same time, see someone sitting at the desk, shoulders slumped, head down, looking ominously crumpled over his work.

  “Is he sleeping?” said Jane.

  Oh knocked on the window, trying to rouse him.

  Jane slid her phone out of her pocket, ready to dial 911.

  So fixed were they on the dark corner of the office, they didn’t see a figure come out of the shadows and open the front door. An older woman peeked out from around the door frame.

  “Are you looking for someone?” she whispered.

  Although Oh did not jump or startle as obviously as Jane did at the sound of the woman’s voice, she was sure she sensed a twitch next to her.

  “The gentleman at the desk,” said Oh. “We were concerned.”

  The woman nodded.

  “Come in and see for yourself.”

  She moved out of the doorway to allow them to enter, then closed the door behind them. Jane heard what sounded like the click of a lock being turned.

  Once inside the shop, they realized the small storefront was an optical illusion of sorts. Indeed they entered through an outside door directly into an office, but the back wall was actually only a partial wall with a tromp l’oeil bookcase painted on it. From the outside, the office looked small and cramped, all dark wood and thirties- or forties-era office furniture. Once inside, it was clear that the office itself was dressed like a stage set and behind the partial wall was a factory-sized workspace.

  “Doesn’t this cause a daily problem with passersby?” asked Oh, examining the life-sized mannequin dressed in suit, tie, and fedora, artfully arranged as a possible victim of foul play, slumped over a vintage Royal typewriter.

  “Not much foot traffic,” said the woman, again whispering. The combination of her whispers and the sleeping—or dead—mannequin definitely set a scene.

  “What is this place?” asked Jane.

  “Who wants to know?” asked the woman, barely audible.

  Oh produced a card and explained the receipt they found at Freddy’s.

  Although the woman did not raise her voice, Jane thought she saw signs of agitation. Her hands, calloused and work-worn, clenched and unclenched at her side. Jane could tell she was unused to dealing with people in the front office.

  “Is there someone else we should speak to?” asked Jane in the same quiet voice in which the woman spoke.

  “It’s not a good time,” she said. “We’re closed today for a memorial. I came to the door because we’re still expecting people, and there are those who might not know to come to the back—” She broke off, actually looking back over her shoulder. Jane thought she looked like she was expecting someone, anyone, to come from the back and help her speak to the interlopers.

  Jane peeked around the partial painted wall and could see a grand space, a carpentry shop that went on for a block behind this tiny office space in which they stood. There was a giant table saw and several workbenches. The walls were hung with more tools than Jane could identify. It also appeared that there were industrial steel doors at the rear of the building. The space was so massive that Jane had to squint to see all the way back. Those masses of corrugated steel were closed now, but Jane assumed they could be opened so that large pieces could be fabricated inside, then loaded on waiting trucks through the back. Geppetto Studios might be named after the humble little woodcarver father of Pinocchio, but clearly the craftsmen here were makers of far grander objects than wooden toys.

  Jane unfolded broken-legged Bumbles from under her sweater and held him up in front of her. “We were hoping you could tell us—”

  The woman who Jane thought might not be able to speak above a whisper found her voice. Her full voice and more.

  “You bring that in here now? Today? Who the f—”

  “What’s the problem, Suzanne?”

  Someone else had walked in from the back so quietly that neither Jane nor Oh had noticed. And although she seemed a little startled to come face-to-face with Mr. Bumbles, she held on to her composure as Jane remembered she always did … even in high school.

  “We didn’t expect you to attend, Jane,” said Mary Wainwright. “Or to bring a guest.”

  Jane began to explain that Mr. Bumbles had been repaired previously at the shop but stopped when she saw Mary offer her hand to Detective Oh, telling him they weren’t properly introduced at the theater previously. Of course she was referring to Oh, not Bumbles, as her guest.

  “Although this is a private service, impromptu really, just for friends, you’re welcome here, Jane,” said Mary, never taking her eyes off Oh. “And I would love to get to know this distinguished gentleman a little better.”

  Was it Jane’s imagination or did Mary actually break into a kind of flirtatious southern accent?

  Suzanne, formerly the whisperer, was having none of Mary’s nonsense.

  “You are not welcome here. This is a private gathering. And to bring that thing in here is just cruel.”

  Jane apologized and covered Bumbles up with her sweater again, since the mere sight of the dummy caused the woman such agitation.

  “We didn’t mean to interrupt anything. We found a Geppetto Studios receipt for repairs on several of these Mr. Bumbles dummies and we’re trying to find out who brought the doll into your shop,” said Jane. “If you’re the owner, perhaps—”

  “In ten minutes we’re having a memorial service for the owner. My partner, really. It’s a little up in the air what’s going to happen to the business,” said Suzanne. “We’re grieving, you see.”

  Although the woman, Suzanne, according to Mary Wainwright, did not exactly warm, she seemed to thaw slightly. She put her hand up to her temple and glanced back. When no help came from Mary Wainwright, who had taken Oh’s arm and led him to the other side of the office, chatting as if she had found an old friend, and no one else seemed to be arriving from the back of the workspace, she shrugged and gave in to her need to say something about what was going on.

  “That dummy you have,” she said, shivering, “whenever it was in our shop, it was bad luck. We knew it was bad luck, the Bumbles have always been bad luck, but Marvin said everything would be okay and now he’s—”

  “Marvin? Marvin the carpenter?” said Jane.

  “Marvin was so much more than a carpenter,” said Suzanne, too sad to be insulted by Jane’s characterization. “Marvin was a wonderful set designer and an amazing artist. He could do big projects and he could carve the most exquisite miniatures. And he was a wonderful man. He never forgot us. He could have gone to New York or anywhere. He was asked. But he liked Chicago so he could come here and make things and give us work, pay us to make things. He never let any of us go, even when times were tough. He found work for everyone and he…” Suzanne, whose age Jane couldn’t have determined when she first came to the door whispering at them, now seemed to be very old. Her hair was a short tight mass of steel wool curls, and her face was crumpled tissue paper. When she had first emerged from the back, her erect posture and masklike expression hid her age, but now she looked like a woman who had nothing left to hide.

  “Without Marvin, I don’t know what will become of me,” she said. “I was prepared when Freddy died, but not for Marvin. Not this way.”

  “Mrs. Wheel,” Oh said, waving at her from across the small office. Mary had backed him into a corner and seemed to finally take a breather from h
er one-way conversation with him. Jane wanted to pursue the conversation with Suzanne. Now that the door had opened and included Freddy, Jane knew she had something to learn from Suzanne.

  But Oh was a drowning man and he was her partner. She had to help. She took Suzanne’s arm and apologized again for intruding, walking her over to Oh, not wanting to let her drift to the back of the shop while she went over to throw out a life preserver to Detective Oh.

  But Mary was not finished with her end, the only end of the conversation. She was, indeed, only taking a breather and now that she had had a chance to inhale and exhale, she was back into action.

  “We’ve all known Marv for years, of course, all of us who worked in the theater, and he was always so generous with his time and his talents. I mean, I thought everyone knew how he was the backbone of the theater here … Of course, Janie and her mother have never participated until now, so of course they wouldn’t know anything about Marvin.…” Jane touched the key hanging at her throat, tucked under her shirt. Marvin’s key.

  “No, Mary, you’re wrong. Nellie’s been involved since before you were born,” said Jane.

  “You know Nellie?” asked Suzanne.

  Now Mary looked confused. Jane had taken a stab, not entirely in the dark. Since Suzanne had talked about Freddy and Marvin in the same breath and since Jane knew that one of the keys to Freddy’s Theater Club was inscribed with the name Suzanne, she had a strong feeling that this Suzanne had to be part of that early group which included Nellie and Henry Gand. Freddy’s Theater Club. In fact, Jane would bet all the money in her wallet that Henry Gand was also sitting in back with the mourners.

  “Nellie is my mother,” said Jane.

  Suzanne gave her a quick and awkward hug. “I haven’t seen your mother for at least forty years. Whatever happened to her?”

  It wasn’t as if Jane believed everyone in the world had heard of the EZ Way Inn, but in Kankakee? It was fairly well known, and if Suzanne and Nellie had been old friends, and both still lived in town, wouldn’t they all have kept track of each other?

  “Nothing,” said Jane. “I mean, she and my dad run a tavern on the west side.”

  Suzanne’s face was blank. She shook her head. “I don’t really get out much. I live in the back, in one of the apartments at the very back of the shop. I just do the work Marvin brings in. When Nellie left Freddy’s club, I never saw her again. I just figured she went away and changed her name and became a great actress, forgetting all about us back here. I mean, Henry left, too, but he always came back summers and kept in touch, but when Nellie left the play, nobody ever mentioned her again.”

  Jane thought this seemed hard to believe. Most people met Nellie once and never stopped talking about her.

  “She was a heartbreaker, your mom,” said Suzanne.

  “Shouldn’t we be getting back for the service?” asked Mary. She wasn’t happy about having Jane take center stage, but she seemed to grow even more agitated when Nellie, not even present, began to upstage her.

  Suzanne ignored Mary’s question, now lost in the memories of the theater club. “Nellie was one of the original members along with Marv and me and Henry and Bryan and—”

  “Bryan Kendell? Bry?” asked Jane, trying to remember the rest of the names on the keys. Nellie, Marvin, Henry, Suzanne, Bry had to be Bryan Kendell, and what was the other name?

  “Yes, Bryan’s here with his new wife,” said Suzanne. Jane must have looked puzzled because Suzanne smiled and shook her head. “Not that new, I guess. Melanie died twenty years ago, but like I said, I’m just an old lady who doesn’t go outside and I just can’t get used to Bry’s new girl.”

  Melanie. That was the name on the last key.

  Jane realized that although Suzanne looked her age, there was something childlike in her behavior. If she were rich, Nellie would say she had a screw loose, but because she was sad, needy, and more than a little lost, Jane thought Nellie might be kinder and describe the woman as no more out to lunch than most.

  Mary looked out the window at a passing car that slowed. “That might be … nope. Guess he couldn’t make it. We ought to get started, Suzanne,” said Mary. She took a blank piece of paper and a marker from the desk drawer and printed out in all caps: CLOSED. DELIVERIES CAN BE LEFT AT THE REAR ENTRANCE. Mary grabbed a roll of tape and handed it to Suzanne along with the sign.

  Suzanne recoiled, clenching her fists and putting her hands behind her back. “You know I can’t…”

  “You can tape it from the inside, Suzanne. Just tape it facing out from the inside.”

  Suzanne nodded and took the paper, crossing to the front door and centering the sign on the glass of the center panel.

  Mary leaned in toward Oh and whispered, “Eccentric. Never steps foot outside. Lives and works in the back. Marvin made her shop manager and guaranteed her a home for life, but now … who knows. No close relatives that we know of, but if he didn’t leave a will…” Mary shrugged and repeated. “Who knows?”

  “You can come with us to the service,” said Suzanne. “Nice to have someone representing Nellie. But,” she said, gesturing to the bundle Jane still carried wrapped in her sweater. “Not him. He can’t come.”

  Suzanne might be an oddball character, confused and grieving, but Jane didn’t think her at all strange for insisting Mr. Bumbles not attend the service.

  Jane nodded and laid Bumbles down on the desk. She then followed Suzanne, who motioned for Jane to follow her into the back of the shop, and watched with an odd mixture of amusement and resentment as Mary Wainwright took Oh’s arm, claiming him as her escort. When the four of them had crossed the shop, they stepped around another partial wall where folding chairs were set up facing a sturdy, well-oiled workbench, laid with the most beautiful antique planes and woodworking tools Jane had ever seen.

  If Henry Gand was upset at seeing outsiders join the group of twenty or so men and women talking quietly, he didn’t show it. He got up gracefully and crossed to them, thanking Jane for coming. She introduced him to Oh and mentioned that he, too, had been at the theater the night of Marvin’s death. She was about to offer more, explain that Oh and his wife were friends of Margaret Kendell, but she caught herself. She hadn’t been asked for further information so why should she give any more away?

  “And I heard your eloquent toast at the EZ Way Inn, as well,” said Oh. “I am sorry for your loss.”

  Henry bowed his head in a small nod. Bryan and Penny Kendell gave a small wave but didn’t get up. Rica Evans nodded, but she remained seated as well.

  When Oh and Jane were seated, there was a rustling in the back of the area as someone got up and slipped an iPod into a dock with speakers and music began to play. Jane almost recognized it—she thought it might be Bach, measured and mathematical, but she wouldn’t bet on it. She was never positive with classical music.

  “Oh my,” said Oh, in what for anyone else would have been an even tone. Jane, though, heard the utter surprise in his voice. Was the music not Bach? Was it something inappropriate for the occasion? A tanned overweight man wearing a light-colored suit more suited to a tropical climate than early spring in Kankakee stood up and moved to the workbench, preparing to speak. He cleared his throat and smiled, looking benevolently out at the group gathered in front of him. He looked vaguely familiar, but Jane couldn’t place him. Someone she knew from when she lived in Kankakee? A customer from the EZ Way Inn?

  “Although I am happy to once again be home in Kankakee, I am so sad that I arrive in town on this sad occasion. I planned this trip with a light heart, never dreaming that an event such as this would be my first stop. For those whom I have not yet met, I am Rick Kendell.”

  17

  Rick Kendell gave a bland recitation of what a wonderful craftsman and gentleman Marvin had been. Marvin was one of his grandfather Freddy’s young protégés and Rick characterized himself as just a kid, hanging around gawking at everyone. When he said that, there were a few rueful chuckles, since Henry, Suzanne, a
nd Bryan were now part of a much older generation and Rick, a few years older than Jane, was certainly no longer the pesky little grandson he owned up to being.

  Now he was the pesky adult. Jane had never heard a more self-serving eulogy, if that was what Rick Kendell’s speech was supposed to be. Since he said he had just arrived in town that morning and heard of Marvin’s death, an impromptu speech would not be surprising. Kendell’s words, however, were not offensive because they were hastily composed; they were upsetting because they were not at all elegiac and they were far from comforting.

  “As some of you may know, Freddy gave Marvin the seed money to start Geppetto Studios and also helped him pay for the conversion of this building, one of my great-grandfather’s original factories, into this lovely scenery-building workshop. I know that many of you have benefited from Marvin’s guidance and Freddy’s generosity. Those of you who were not techies employed by Marvin either enjoyed his beautiful sets as audience members or worked on them as actors. You probably don’t know that Freddy retained ownership of this property. Although Marvin was in the process of negotiating with the estate to actually buy this wonderful building that houses Geppetto Studios, his unfortunate accident means that this transaction cannot be completed. This leaves the fate of this building to me.”

  Jane watched the people around her react to this news. Suzanne was too horrified to weep. She sat unmoving with her mouth open in a tiny ring. Even Mary Wainwright, who always looked as if her smile was surgically implanted, allowed her mouth to relax into a straight line. Henry fought a battle that showed in his eyes, allowing them to narrow, then widen, then narrow—moving from puzzlement to astonishment to determination. Rica held a handkerchief over her mouth, as if the air had grown too foul to breathe. Bryan stayed cool, although Penny wept, adjusting her wrapped ankle so often that Jane thought the weeping might have more to do with personal discomfort than reaction to Marvin’s death and Rick’s pronouncements.

  It was the reaction of Detective Oh, however, that Jane found most surprising. Jane had grown used to his unflappable demeanor. She had studied him, feeling that even the slightest movement of an eyebrow or smallest twitch of his lips had something to teach her. Jane would not be able to say whether she found his face handsome. She only knew that she was drawn to its complexity, that his minimalist expressions held humor and intelligence and honesty and curiosity, and greatest of all, compassion. Now when Jane looked at Oh, mostly to see if he, too, was observing the people around her, she saw an expression he had not shown her before. And when Rick Kendell claimed that the fate of the building was in his hands, Oh did something most unusual.