As she walked across the busy backstage toward the stairs, she saw Felix nearby. He was as she had often seen him—standing with his electronic device, punching in characters, staring at the screen with great concentration. But her movement caught his attention, and he looked up. He glanced around the area, and not seeing Ian, said to Annie, “Do you need someone to help you to the prompter’s box tonight, Mrs. Dawson.”
“Please call me Annie, Felix,” said Annie. “You don’t need to be so formal with me. And thanks for asking, but I really think I can manage it just fine tonight.”
“OK, … Annie,” said Felix. “If you change your mind, let me know. I’ll check on you at intermission, so if you decide you need a hand then, I’ll be around to help you.”
“Thanks again, Felix,” said Annie. “I really appreciate everything you’ve done to make this production possible. You’re a great stage manager. I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone quite so organized. I don’t know what the professor will do when you graduate from college this spring.”
Felix blushed. Annie supposed he wasn’t used to praise. She’d certainly never seen Professor Howell say anything to him that had vaguely resembled it. No, wait, she told herself, the professor had said something nice about Felix when he introduced him at that first meeting up in the conference room. Still, that wasn’t the same as saying “thank you” to someone’s face.
“Thanks, Mrs. … Annie,” said Felix awkwardly.
“I’ll see you later then,” said Annie as she continued on her way.
As she approached the stairs, Annie felt that same twinge of panic that she had felt each time since her leg had been broken. She paused and looked up at the grid. She took a deep breath and slowly let it out. It was safe. There was nothing above the stairs that could fall down and hit her. She squared her shoulders and began her descent. She took her time going down the steps, and then she hurried across the area under the stage, its dark corners causing a chill to run up her spine. At last, she made it to the small set of steps and up into the box. After taking her seat, she placed the script before her and flipped on her little light.
Soon she heard the piece of music that she knew preceded the beginning of the play. Professor Howell had told the cast and crew that he intended to say a few words before the play began this evening. Annie saw him walk to center downstage, just as the music stopped.
“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen,” began the professor. “I want to thank you all for coming this evening. The production you are about to witness has a noble purpose. At the behest of our author, Jacob Martin, and thanks to our legion of volunteers, all of the proceeds from the upcoming performances of the play will go entirely to the National Breast Cancer Foundation. Directing this cast and crew has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my long career. I hope that you will agree with me that this play will take its place along with other great works that speak to our human condition. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, theater is the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way we can share with one another the sense of what it is to be a human being. Without further ado, we present to you, King Lemuel’s Treasure!
****
The first act flew by for Annie. The Friday evening dress rehearsal had been laid back compared to this performance. The Friday audience had been family and friends, and it was expected that mistakes would be made. But the atmosphere at the Saturday evening dress rehearsal was completely different. Annie thought she finally really understood what the professor had meant about there being a “flow” to a play. Tonight she could feel it. It was as if there were an electric current in the air, and it seemed that the others felt it as well. The performances were intense, but not over the top. All of their hard work seemed to be paying off.
At intermission, Annie was ready for a break. She hadn’t realized how tense she had been as she watched, and now her joints felt stiff. Felix was nowhere to be seen, so she began to make her way down the steps to the under-stage area. Just as she reached the bottom step, she heard a noise in the far corner. She just stopped herself from screaming by clapping her hand over her mouth. Trent Bodkin immerged from the shadows, one bare, tattooed arm wrapped around a long box labeled with words along the side that indicated it contained five-foot, 40-watt fluorescent tubes.
Trent stopped and stared at her, but didn’t speak. Annie swallowed and tried to sound normal, “Hello, Trent. I didn’t realize anyone was down here. You really scared me for a moment there.”
He didn’t apologize, but just said brusquely, “Had to get this box.” Then he stomped across to the stairs that led up to the backstage area, leaving Annie staring after him. When her heart stopped racing, she crossed the space to the stairway herself and climbed them to the backstage area, which was a hive of activity. While the actors were taking a break, the stagehands were busy setting up for the opening scene of the second act. Annie could hear the intermission music rising from the orchestra pit out front.
Annie looked around and just saw Trent as he turned and moved out of her field of vision at the opposite side of the stage. She saw Felix was busy directing traffic behind the scenes. He looked up and saw Annie. “I’m sorry, Mrs. … Annie,” he said. “I was coming to help you, but I got distracted.”
“That’s all right,” said Annie. “I managed.”
Felix smiled at her. “I see that.” Just then, one of the stagehands approached him and asked him a question; his attention was directed elsewhere again.
Annie looked at her watch. The intermission was twenty minutes long, and she had fifteen minutes left to go. Her first stop was the backstage ladies restroom. Afterward, she glanced inside the ladies dressing room. It was a bit of a madhouse, so she determined to stay out of their way. She took a slight detour to try to steer clear of some of the activity backstage, and her route took her by the freight elevator. That was the same elevator that she and Wally had used weeks before to take the tapestry from the workshop up to the fourth floor. Now she saw the box that Trent had carried from under the stage propped against the wall between the elevator door and the swinging door that led to the set of service stairs that also ended in the workshop area. Trent was nowhere in sight.
Annie didn’t pause, but continued to head back toward the stairs to make her way below the stage. She felt a rising nervousness about going down the steps again. She was about five feet from the top of the steps when she just stopped. She felt a sense of panic rising within her. This is ridiculous, she thought. She tried to take a step, but it was as if someone or something were standing directly in front of her, its hand at her neck, stopping her from moving forward. She knew what it was. It was fear.
“Annie! Let me help you down the stairs!”
It was Wally Carson. Annie felt like she must have jumped ten feet in the air and left her heart on the floor.
Wally saw the look on her face. “Did I startle you, Annie? I’m really sorry. I guess you did all right before the play began. I tried to get back here, but Bill Witherell buttonholed me out in the lobby, and by the time I could get away, the professor was already giving his speech. I guess you were OK?”
Annie took a deep breath, and the fear that had gripped her seemed to fly away. “Yes, Wally, I was all right. But I have to admit, I’m really glad you’re here now.”
Wally offered Annie his arm, and she took it gladly. When she was safely seated in her little box again, Wally promised he would be back as soon as the last scene ended so that she could join the company for the curtain calls.
The house lights must have already begun to flicker to signal the end of the intermission, because soon Annie heard the medieval melody that had been floating from the orchestra pit come to an end. The curtain opened and the first scene of the second act commenced. All other thoughts not connected with the play stopped for Annie, and once again she was swept up in the drama of King Lemuel’s Treasure.
18
The last word of the final scene had just been spoken, and the stage l
ights had gone dim when Wally showed up to escort Annie back up to the level of the stage. As they went down the steps from the prompter’s box, across the under-stage area, and up the stairs to the backstage, Annie heard the audience applauding. It wasn’t as thunderous as it had been the night before, but it was strong and lasting, and she thought she heard a couple of “bravos” and “bravas” shouted out too. She and Wally watched from one of the wings at the side of the stage, and Annie was glad to see that the audience was on its feet.
When the curtains closed for the final time that evening, Annie went to collect her jacket from the ladies dressing room. Peggy was sitting in front of one of several lighted mirrors removing her stage makeup, and Kate and Vanessa were making sure the costumes and any accessories were back in their proper places, putting aside the pieces that would need to be cleaned before opening night the following Friday. An after-show party had been arranged by Gwen and John Palmer at Maplehurst Inn, and Annie told Peggy and Kate she would see them there.
The backstage area was starting to clear out as Annie made her way down the side passage that ran from the stage area back to the lobby. Her mind returned to her encounter with Trent at the start of intermission. It just seemed odd. She knew there were at least a couple of students from the college that were working with him on the light and sound, but shouldn’t he have been in the control booth during the performance instead of getting a box of fluorescent lights from under the stage? Something wasn’t right.
Annie was still deep in thought when she met Alice in the lobby. “Annie! Wasn’t that just the best? The cast really outdid themselves tonight. Stella and Gwen said they’d see us over at Maplehurst Inn.”
Annie agreed about the performance that evening and then said, “I’m just going to make an appearance there, but I don’t think I’ll be staying very long. I’m exhausted. Besides, it’s not like I’m the star of the show or anything.”
Catching a look in her friend’s eyes, Alice asked, “What is it Annie? Is something wrong?”
“It’s just that I had the strangest experience earlier,” said Annie. She told Alice about seeing Trent under the stage at intermission.
“That makes no sense,” said Alice.
“That’s what I was thinking,” said Annie. “I don’t like to say this, but it occurs to me that there might have been something in that box besides florescent lights.”
“Like what?” asked Alice.
“Like a tapestry, perhaps?” said Annie. “I’m just remembering the way that Trent was handling that box, and then the way it was propped up against the wall by the elevator—it wasn’t like it contained anything breakable. And it was the right size to hold the rolled-up tapestry.”
“Why don’t we just go check out the box?” asked Alice. “If it’s still sitting by the elevator, that is. It should be easy enough to tell if it contains lights or not.”
Annie agreed, and the two of them went back down the passage to the backstage area and then to the freight elevator. The box was gone, but they could both hear the sound of the freight elevator as it moved.
Annie looked at Alice. “Do you think it’s going up or down?” she asked, referring to the elevator.
Alice listened. “Down I think.”
They both looked at the swinging door to the service stairs and then at each other. Without having to say a word they moved in unison toward the door to the stairs. Annie had almost forgotten her leg was in a cast. “Drat!” she said, “I can’t move fast enough down these stairs in this cast.”
“Here,” said Alice moving close to Annie’s side, “put your arm around my shoulders and hang on to the rail. I’ll act as a crutch, and you won’t need to put your full weight on your broken leg. We should be able to go faster that way.”
Alice was right, and the two women worked their way down the steps fairly rapidly. They listened for the elevator at each level, and quickly moved on down the steps as the slow-moving elevator continued. When they reached the door to the workshop on main floor level, they were both out of breath.
The elevator had already stopped, and they could hear the scrape of metal as someone opened the elevator door. The swinging door from the stairwell contained a small window. The stairwell was lighted, but the workshop was dark, and both Annie and Alice knew that they wouldn’t be able to see anything inside the workshop, but the person from the elevator might be able to see them if they looked through the window. Annie saw a light switch by the door and quickly flicked it to the off position before the elevator door completely opened. Now the stairwell was pitch black except for the faint light that shone into the workshop from the elevator and in turn came in through the small window of the stairwell door.
“Now we just have to hope he didn’t see that,” Annie whispered to Alice. The two of them pressed their backs up against the wall behind the door, holding their breath, waiting to see if the door moved.
Apparently the person in the elevator didn’t notice that the light had gone out in the stairwell, because after a few seconds, nothing happened. Annie relaxed a little and moved to carefully peek over the edge of the small window just in time to see the very back of a person exit through the outer door. He had laid the long cardboard box on a large worktable.
“Quick!” said Annie. “He’s gone out the back door. Let’s open the box and see what’s inside.”
Annie and Alice carefully pushed the swinging door and entered the workshop. The only light inside came from the still opened elevator. Even so, Alice was able to find a box cutter on a workbench and cut three sides of one narrow end of the box that was pointed toward the elevator so they could see inside.
Annie pulled back the cardboard square and looked inside. She gasped and whispered loudly, “Oh my gosh! It’s the tapestry!”
Just then, Annie and Alice heard voices outside the back door. They looked at each other’s panic-stricken expression in the dim light.
“Hurry! Go back up the stairs and get help,” whispered Annie as she pushed the end of the box back in place well enough to disguise that it had been opened. They both knew that going back up the stairs was the only way out. The workshop door into the museum was kept locked outside of work hours.
“I can’t leave you here!” whispered Alice.
“You have to,” whispered Annie emphatically. “I’ll hide—I’ll be fine. Now hurry!”
Alice moved just in time. When the back door opened, and the voices became clearer, the door to the stairs was still swinging slightly. Annie had moved behind the table-saw table, clutching the box cutter in one hand, and sitting on the floor out of sight. Her heart was pounding. She hoped Alice would be all right climbing back up the steps to the next level; she certainly wouldn’t be able see well or to move very quickly in the darkness of the stairwell.
Annie tried to listen to the voices. She didn’t recognize the one that was speaking. “… and after my client has authenticated the tapestry, he’ll transfer the funds to your account in the Caymans.”
“I can assure you it is the real thing,” the other man replied. “I want my money as soon as possible.”
Annie nearly gasped out loud when she heard the other man’s voice and put one hand up to cover her mouth. She knew that voice—it was Professor Howell.
“Patience, Rudy,” said the stranger. “You’ll get your money. I only deal with people I can trust.”
Annie couldn’t see the man’s face, but the irony of his words didn’t escape her. What was that saying she’d heard—honor among thieves? As if, she thought.
“I have to get to the party across the street,” said the professor. “I’ll lock the back door after you and take the elevator back up to the theater and leave from there.”
“Nice doing business with you, professor,” said the stranger. “If you come across anything else you want to dispose of, give me a call. You know how to reach me.”
Annie heard the professor sniff with disdain. “I doubt very much I will be requiring your service
s again. This transaction should set me up nicely for my retirement, I think.”
“Money doesn’t go as far as it used to, Rudy,” said the man with a laugh. “Especially for someone with expensive tastes like yours.”
Annie heard the scraping sound of cardboard being moved across the table. She assumed the man was starting to pick up the box. She hoped she had replaced the cut end of the box well enough so that he wouldn’t notice that the box had been opened. What could she do? She couldn’t just let him take it. If he got it out that door, she knew she’d never set eyes on the tapestry again. She knew what she had to do. She stood up.
“Stop!” she shouted.
The two men jerked in surprise.
The professor recovered rapidly. “What are you doing here, Mrs. Dawson? How long … .” His words trailed off, and his eyes narrowed. “You should be across the street at the party. Perhaps I could escort you … .”
Annie brandished the box cutter she’d held onto when Alice left. “You stay away from me! How could you do something like this? We all trusted you—you’re so talented and smart. Why?”
The professor seemed extremely calm to Annie, and she didn’t like that at all. The other man began again to shift the box toward him.
“Stop!” she shouted again. “Alice has gone to get the police, and she’ll be back any moment now.”
The stranger looked at the professor. “Who is this Alice person? Is she bluffing?” The man left the box on the table and started backing toward the door. “I’ve got to be going, Rudy. Don’t call me, I’ll call you.”
The professor didn’t try to stop the man as he quickly exited the room. Instead, he looked at Annie accusingly. “It appears you have ruined everything, with your amateurish sleuthing, Mrs. Dawson. How did you come to be here?” he demanded.
The Tapestry in the Attic Page 17