by Nancy Martin
I met Tremaine in the lobby of the building. He saw nothing amiss, so I congratulated myself on a quick recovery. More than anything, I wanted to bash Gus Hardwicke over the head with something lethal, and that wish strengthened my resolve. His preposterous engagement story enraged me. And the job offer? It was finally dawning on me that he’d probably used that to defuse my anger.
We reached Broad Street and the old rococo barn that was no longer one of the city’s fine theatrical venues. It was still a beautiful place, though in need of a restoration. The marquee advertised a touring show that would come later in the month. For tonight, Ox Oxenfeld had rented the stage for the Tuttle preview.
Tremaine opened the door for me. Our route into the lobby was almost entirely blocked by a large easel bearing a handmade poster advertising Bluebird of Happiness. The poster depicted a much younger-looking non-blue Boom Boom Tuttle, her arms flung wide, her mouth gaping open as if she were hitting a glorious high note. The photo was surely decades old.
Edging around the poster, Tremaine said, “I’m not much of a theater person myself. You’re going to have to tell me what to look for, Nora.”
“Just take a few short videos of scenes from the show. Maybe we’ll interview some of the cast later. I’ll double-check with the producer, though, before we publish any photos or film.”
The lobby was not thronged with an eager audience, all clutching tickets and pressing toward the open auditorium. Instead, a handful of men in suits brushed past me, talking with one another like bookies at a racetrack. And if the evening was supposed to be a memorial service as well as a theatrical performance, it looked as if mourners had been left off the guest list. Everyone seemed very businesslike.
Ox Oxenfeld came out of an open office door with a sheaf of papers in his hand. He caught sight of me and faltered.
“Hello, Ox,” I said. “Is Boom Boom’s big investor here tonight? I’d like to interview him.”
“Uh, no,” Ox said. “He isn’t—that is, he couldn’t make it. Excuse me, I have to—I must— Sorry. Later.” He rushed over to the bookies. Hastily, he distributed the papers to them, and they all began to discuss financial matters.
“That’s odd,” I said, half to myself. “You’d think the primary investor would want to attend the first preview.”
Tremaine and I headed across the faded carpet of the lobby. At the open double doors, a couple of long-legged showgirls in short, spangled costumes handed makeshift programs to me and Tremaine. The cast list had been printed on one side, a synopsis of the show on the other. No mention of Jenny.
Tremaine didn’t bother glancing at his program. One look at the long legs of the dancers was all it took for him to hitch his camera out of its case. His smile turned enthusiastic. “Let’s get started.”
Inside the auditorium, the lights were on, and a small, restless audience talked noisily among themselves. I guessed they were potential investors, but also curious people from the theatrical community. I saw Nico Legarde standing by the front row of seats, speaking with a well-known local actor. I waved, and they waved back.
Tremaine and I found an open section of seats about halfway back on one side, and he set up his camera there. He pretended to do some test shots by filming the showgirls. They caught him in the act and strolled down the aisle to flirt with him.
I slid into a rump-sprung seat and looked at the stage. The curtains were open to reveal a half-constructed set. It was an interior of a house—a house of horrors, by the look of the crooked staircase and the fake cobwebs hanging from the chandelier. A large Palladian window at center stage had cracked panes and tattered draperies that swooped from a gilded pole. The room was decorated with whimsical props, though—an old butter churn wearing a top hat, a stuffed sailfish on the wall with a man’s tie amusingly wrapped around its neck, a kite with a key dangling from its string.
A chubby man with a clipboard came along to call the showgirls backstage, so Tremaine squinted at the set with puzzlement. “What’s this show about, Nora?”
“I don’t know.”
“Looks like Ben Franklin is going to drop in. Either him, or Dracula.”
Fred Fusby came out from the wings and strode purposefully across the stage on his rubbery long legs. He headed for the lone piano. No orchestra had been engaged for the preview, I guessed. Fred spread his music on the stand and snapped on a light. He sat down at the bench and flexed his fingers. The audience understood his signal and quickly took their seats. Fred played a few bars of a pleasant melody. The auditorium lights dimmed, and a moment later the stage lighting came up. Spotlights pinpointed all the dilapidated details of the set, and I guessed the show had to be about a haunted house.
From the top of the crooked staircase, a wraithlike figure appeared. For a second, I assumed it was a ghost. But a light hit her, and I realized she was Boom Boom Tuttle in a flapper-style gown and a blond fright wig. Her face had been slathered with white makeup to diminish her blue coloring, but it hadn’t quite worked. Her knees looked knobbier than ever, and her dancing shoes had heels too high for her to manage. Arching eyebrows had been painted on, and she wore false eyelashes along with rouge and matching lipstick. She swayed unsteadily, then clutched the banister to remain on her feet.
“Good evening,” she said in a warbling voice that barely carried as far as the mezzanine. “Welcome to a newly discovered musical by the late, great Toodles Tuttle, my dear husband and the undisputed king of Broadway theater!”
A few murmurs around the auditorium hinted that the royal title she proposed might have been disputed just a little.
“I hope you brought your checkbooks,” Boom Boom continued, “because we’re still looking for a few smart investors. Tonight we’re going to perform highlights from the show, just to give you a taste of what this production really could be. Sit back and enjoy!”
Fred Fusby cleared his throat meaningfully.
“Oh, yeah,” Boom Boom added. “We’re also remembering my daughter, Jenny. She was kinda helpful before she kicked the bucket. Now—on with the show!”
With that, Fred began banging on the piano and Boom Boom descended the rickety staircase. The audience held its breath as she teetered on her high heels. Two graceful male dancers leaped from the wings and rushed to assist her. By the time she had unsteadily reached the stage, more dancers came out and began to move around her. I settled back and tried to enjoy what I was watching. The choreography and music were lively and pleasant.
Then Boom Boom began to sing.
I couldn’t understand a word.
But the action that played out on the stage began to make sense. Men in tuxedos danced or took turns passing trays of champagne glasses. Ladies in flapper dresses tap-danced and blew little plastic horns. It was supposed to be a New Year’s Eve party, I realized. Boom Boom continued to sing inaudibly, and then two male dancers picked her up and spun her around. She did a hip wiggle and mimed embracing them. Her lascivious expression was ludicrous for a woman of her years.
Then Poppy Fontanna spun into view, grabbing a man in a white dinner jacket and pulling him away from his dance partner. The man was the recently hired choreographer, who had clearly been engaged at the last minute to perform in the preview. The rest of the cast faded back as the two of them tangoed, looking like a surefooted romantic couple. I had to admit, they were great. He dipped her. She kicked up one leg and pulled a funny face at the audience. Then Poppy danced offstage, and the man in the white dinner jacket came down to the front and sang. All he needed to make his life perfect was a new lady in his arms. His clear tenor was a welcome change from Boom Boom’s shaky voice. He made a longing gesture in Poppy’s direction before his previous partner came downstage to claim him.
Fending her off, he sang about his family history. How they had come on the Mayflower and how a young George Washington had left a foundling on their doorstep in a Paul Revere soup tu
reen. How Betsy Ross sewed their curtains. It didn’t make a lot of sense, but I gathered he was proud of his family heritage.
From the front row, Nico Legarde glanced back at me. In the dark, I could not read his expression.
More great dancing. More upbeat music. Then Boom Boom took center stage and sang, but nobody could hear her. She was trying hard to be a sexy grande dame, I decided. A broad interpretation of a great lady gone to seed. Somebody gave her a champagne bottle, and she popped the cork, which soared across the stage and hit Fred Fusby squarely on the top of his bald head.
The audience laughed. Beside me, Tremaine snorted. The man in the white dinner jacket rushed onstage again, looking very handsome in the spotlight, and he valiantly tried to regain the audience’s attention. He began to sing about love and bluebirds.
Suddenly it all made sense. The champagne cork, the man in the white dinner jacket, the tango, the magnificent house that had seen better days, the proud family heritage. I found myself boiling to my feet.
“Nora?” Tremaine asked. “You okay? What’s wrong?”
“Bluebirds!” I pointed at the stage, not caring who heard me. “This show isn’t about Bluebirds! It’s about Blackbirds!”
“What?”
I could barely sputter out the words. “They’re doing a show about my family!”
“Huh?”
I rarely lost my cool. I never made scenes. I couldn’t stand melodrama. But suddenly I was a raving pregnant lunatic, shouting like a fishwife and shoving my way past Tremaine. “Stop filming! Turn off that camera!”
Tremaine stared at me as if I had grown an extra head. “Nora, have you gone crazy?”
“They’re making fun of my parents! And Boom Boom is supposed to be—she’s pretending to be Grandmama Blackbird—the loveliest, most kind, gracious lady who ever walked the earth, and she’s making her out to be a horrible old— Let me go! I’m going to punch her in the nose!”
The whole audience turned around to watch me. The action onstage never stopped, but I couldn’t hear anything except my own hysterical voice. The next thing I knew, Tremaine collared me as I tried to lunge past him, heading for the stage. He dragged me, kicking and shouting like a demented fury, up the aisle of the theater. I was vaguely aware of the audience watching my ranting exit. But I only wanted to run up onstage and knock Boom Boom down on her bony blue butt, once and for all.
Outside, Tremaine handed me off into a pair of strong arms, and in another minute, I was on the sidewalk, beating Gus Hardwicke on the chest.
He was laughing as he held me out of reach by my shoulders. “Keep this up, and somebody’s going to call a cop.”
“Do it!” I cried. “I want her arrested! I want all of them arrested! They can’t do that to my family! To my grandmother! She was an elegant, lovely person who practiced civility, and they’re pretending she was some kind of—some kind of strumpet!”
“A strumpet?” Gus burst into fresh laughter. “Who uses a word like strumpet?”
“And look what they’re doing to my father! They’re implying he was in love with someone other than my mother! See how he danced with the other woman? They’re— It’s obvious that Jenny Tuttle had a crush on him, and she—she made him into some kind of romantic hero. I won’t let them do it, Gus! I swear I won’t. Let go of me! I’m going back in there and—”
“You’re not doing anything,” he said reasonably as he restrained me, “except calm down. If you don’t, you’ll drop that baby right here on the street and Abruzzo really will have me executed. There you go. Breathe.”
I sucked in a deep breath only because I had run out of air. When my head stopped spinning, I hauled off and clobbered Gus again just because he was within range.
He took the blow without wincing. “Feel better?”
I realized he still had a firm grip on my shoulders. I summoned my most commanding voice. “Turn me loose.”
He eyed me sideways. “Are you going back inside to cause mayhem?”
“No,” I said sulkily.
He set me back on my heels but positioned himself between me and the lobby doors in case I decided to make a break for it.
Tremaine came outside again, looking unnerved. He gave me my handbag. I accepted it with a very formal thank-you, and he returned to the theater with only one wary glance over his shoulder that said he feared I might turn into a screaming harpy all over again.
Gus said, “Better now?”
I tried to inhale another cleansing breath. “I’m still very angry.”
“Let’s get you out of here.”
He hailed a taxi and settled me into the backseat. Gus stayed on his side of the seat, took out his phone and checked it. I looked at my phone, too, more to have a moment to regain my composure than to read messages. Sometime during the show, Michael had called, but I hadn’t heard his ring. I read the text message.
Sorry—I hve thing 2 do. Take train home? 1 of my guys will pck u up @ station. Rwlns & grlfrnd here 2 bbysit. Roast chkn in oven.
Gus hadn’t looked up from his phone. “Anything wrong?”
“Besides my family being subjected to libelous horror?”
Gus pocketed his phone. “Maybe because my family has been hit with more mud than Pompeii, it didn’t seem that horrible to me. I came in late and certainly couldn’t hear what that old lady was singing, but the show wasn’t bad—as that kind of twaddle goes.”
“Did you recognize Blackbird Farm?”
“The ruin of a house you live in? Not at first, but now that you mention it, I remember the place looking rather like the bulldozers should be called.”
“That’s my home you’re talking about!” I put my face in my hands and moaned. “And my grandmother! Honestly, Gus, she was a refined lady. A cultured person who would rather be shot out of a cannon than be portrayed as some kind of crude, tasteless—”
“She sounds familiar,” Gus said. “The refined lady part, that is.” When I didn’t respond, he added, “That’s a compliment, you know. You’re a throwback to a more gracious era.”
I subsided into the seat. “For the first time in my life, I’m glad she’s gone. I loved her, and I always wanted to be like her. She’d be appalled by this.”
Gus reached over and took my hand. When I tried to pull away, he held on firmly. “Who’s going to know the difference, Nora? I saw nothing that anyone would recognize as your family.”
“We only saw the first fifteen minutes! Who knows what comes next?”
“Back up,” he said, “What did you mean about Jenny Tuttle having a crush on your father?”
“Wasn’t it obvious? He was the romantic lead! He left his wife to dance with Poppy!”
Light dawned on his face. “Crikey!”
“What?”
“Isn’t it obvious? Your father was the father of Jenny Tuttle’s child.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
If I were a trout, my mouth could not have fallen open so promptly. “He was not!”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure!”
“Your father never had any affairs?”
I swallowed the answer to that question. Yes, my father had affairs, and yes, I knew he’d fathered at least one sibling who had not been raised with my sisters and me. My half-brother Tierney had showed up last summer. We weren’t exactly close, but at least we acknowledged our bond. And our father’s tendencies.
Firmly, I said, “David Kaminsky is not my brother. I’m absolutely certain he’s not my father’s son.”
“Then whose son is he?”
“I don’t know. Whatever Jenny felt about my father was purely wishful thinking on her part. And then she wrote about it!”
“You realize what you’re saying, right?”
“What do you mean?”
“She wrote about it? Either you’re
not thinking straight,” Gus chided, “or you’re saying Jenny composed the show, not her father.”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” I said. “There’s no way Toodles could have written that story about my family. It’s all from Jenny’s point of view. Toodles never thought two moments about my father, but clearly Jenny was mad about him. And she disliked my mother—so she’s making her out to be a fool in the show. And she must have truly hated my grandmother!”
“So why is the family pretending Toodles wrote the show?”
“Because with his name on it, the show would be a Broadway blockbuster no matter how good or bad it genuinely is. But if Jenny was the composer, there’s no name recognition. It would be just another risky theatrical investment with lousy roles for the cast, who are all hoping for a vehicle to stardom.” I said, “And it’s all the motive for several people to kill Jenny.”
“Are you serious?”
“Look, Jenny was preparing herself for the opening night. She relentlessly rehearsed the cast herself. She was losing weight, finding the right dress—which is the way any woman would want to present herself to the public, if she expected to be in the spotlight for the first time in her life. She was going to claim her work, and everybody in the cast knew she was going to do it. They had to stop her.”
The cab pulled up to the Pendergast Building, and Gus helped me out of the backseat. He paid the driver while I stood unsteadily on the sidewalk. Suddenly, my anger was like sand that had drained out of an hourglass. When the last grain slipped out, I felt very weary. I desperately wanted to go home and eat roast chicken and then maybe a bowl of chocolate-chunk ice cream before burying my face in my pillow.
I sensed Gus watching me as he tucked his wallet back into his hip pocket. He said, “You look like a jumbuck just knocked you over.”
“I am sure whatever a jumbuck is, it’s no honor to be knocked over by one.” I summoned my strength. “Did you call your sister back?”