The Phantom of Oz

by Cindy Brown

  “Thank God,” I said. “That noise was making me craz—” The word stuck in my throat.

  There, next to my uncle, glistening in the beam of my flashlight, were wet footprints. Footprints that led out of the pool and past me to the open door.

  Chapter 35

  The Complete Appearance of a Real Phantom

  My uncle and I didn’t say anything. Toto peered into the pool, but he was quiet too.

  The footsteps evaporated within a minute. Maybe it was Phoenix’s dry air, or maybe...“Do you believe in ghosts?” I asked my uncle.

  He didn’t say anything. Out of character for him.

  “Logan said you can get to the hotel from here too. Maybe someone was down here earlier, and we just didn’t see...” I fell silent. We both knew the footsteps weren’t there when we came into the room.

  Uncle Bob got to his feet. “Let’s get out of here.”

  We left, locking the spring room door behind us. I led us down the dark hallway. Toto followed behind, his nails clicking on the concrete floor. The borrowed flashlight, not very bright to begin with, grew weaker and weaker. Then, darkness.

  “No worries. The door to the broom closet is just up here on our right.” I sounded brave. Huh. I felt brave, or at least not scared. Weird. Was it because we were nearly out of the passageway? Because Uncle Bob was with me? No. Whatever had been in the spring room with us wasn’t natural, but it didn’t feel malevolent. Sad and anxious, but not evil. Maybe we had nothing to fear from the Lady in White. Still, I jumped when my uncle’s voice came out of the dark.

  “A few years ago,” he said, “maybe ten now, a couple hired me to investigate their daughter’s disappearance. I found her. Saw her in her boyfriend’s backyard, bending over some yellow roses. Recognized her from the photos her parents gave me—young, slight, with thick black hair in a ponytail. I took some pictures with my digital camera. Got back to my car and almost called her folks right then, to reassure them, but something made me look at the pictures.”

  I shivered, maybe because I’d been trailing my hand along the cool brick wall, trying to find the door.

  “No woman. No people in the photos at all. Just those rosebushes.”

  There it was. The door. Thank God.

  “I didn’t call her folks,” Uncle Bob continued. “I called Pink. He figured out a way to get a warrant.”

  Damn, the door was hard to open. I put my shoulder into it.

  “The police dug up that section of yard and…she was there. Under the yellow roses.”

  I pushed the door open. A sliver of light shone into the passageway. We stepped into the broom closet. “But I saw that girl, clear as day. So, yeah.” My uncle’s face was shadowed by the dim light of the bulb that hung from the ceiling. “I do believe in ghosts.”

  I followed Uncle Bob back to his office so we could talk, I could get some Duda Detectives’ work done, and I could grab one of the Costco boxes of Kleenex. “Aflloo!” I said when he opened the door. “Hey, I didn’t feel bad at all when I was in the spring room. Do you think it was the ghost?”

  “I think it was adrenaline.” Uncle Bob handed me the box of Kleenex.

  “But you do think there was a ghost?”

  A pause. “I wouldn’t say no.”

  “What about Candy? Do you think...?”

  He shook his head. “Even though I didn’t sweep the whole thing, I think I’d have felt a body. Or we would have smelled one.”

  Oh. Right.

  “Besides, unless it was weighted down, a body would float after about twenty-four hours.”

  Right again.

  “You ever heard of Occam’s Razor?” Uncle Bob said, sitting down behind his desk.

  “Razor? You don’t think—”

  “No, no. It’s a principle, a mathematical theory, really, that basically says the simplest answer is usually the right one. And in this case, the simplest answer is that Candy ran away and doesn’t want to be found, at least for a while. I’m sorry, Olive. I know it might feel like your friend dumped you. But it’s better than something bad happening to her, right?”

  Dang. Why was Uncle Bob always right?

  Chapter 36

  A Bad Heart or a Bad Conscience

  About four hours later, I was struggling with the devil’s cleverest invention when a visitor joined me in my dressing room.

  “What are you doing?” Logan asked, peering at my reflection in the mirror. “Is that a spider on your cheek?”

  “It’s the stupidest ‘beauty trick’ ever,” I grumbled. “Obviously invented by a man to torture women. Like corsets. I can’t believe Glinda really needs to wear—ack.”

  “Did you just glue your eye shut?”

  “Just the right one. The other eyelid is glued to my brow bone. My left eye may be stuck open permanently.”

  “Let me help you.”

  “You know how to put on false eyelashes?” I asked as Logan sat down in a chair next to me.

  “I do makeup as well as props. You have some Vaseline?”

  “Here.” I gave him the little tub I kept in my makeup kit.

  “Okay. Close your eyes.”

  I felt Logan put something slick on my eyelids. He rubbed them gently with his fingers, then with something soft, probably a cotton pad. “Now,” he said, “wash the rest of the Vaseline off your eyelids. You’ll have a clean slate and we can try again.”

  I opened my eyes and walked over to the sink, where I washed the last slippery traces from my eyelids. I also washed off part of my foundation. Since my stage makeup was darker than my skin, it looked like my face was streaked with dirt. “Note to self,” I said. “Do eyelashes before other makeup.”

  “Right,” said Logan. “So I think you were using too much glue before.” He squeezed a small bit onto the tiny torture device he held with his fingertips. “Close your eyes.” I did, and felt him place the stupid ridiculous fake thing on top of my perfectly fine left eyelashes. “Keep it shut for a minute,” he said. “So, did you find anything in the spring room?”

  “What? Like what?” I wanted to open my eyes to see the expression on his face but didn’t dare.

  “I don’t know. What were you looking for? Something that might help you find Candy?”

  “I have to see this for myself.” Babette’s strident voice floated through the open dressing room door.

  “Aah! Don’t tell her I’m here.” Logan’s voice sounded panicked. I heard him walk a few steps across the dressing room, then there was a creak and a rustle and another creak.

  “Oh my God,” said Babette, way too close. My eyes flew open. My not-quite-dry eyelash flew halfway off too. Babette was standing right in front of me, hands on hips, bright red lips in a sneer. “I can’t believe they’d replace Candace with you.”

  “Um,” I said intelligently, trying to stick the inside corner of my fake eyelash back onto my lid. In the mirror, I saw the door to the wardrobe swing open slightly. Logan’s hand crept out and tried to pull it shut.

  “Wait, aren’t you that ghost bubble photographer? Someone told me you’re a private eye. Are you just pretending to fill in for Candace so you can investigate what happened to her?”

  “No, I’m both. An actor and a private investigator.” The eyelash half-escaped, springing off the inside part of my eyelid while sticking to the outside corner. “Well, almost.”

  “Almost is right. Almost an actor, almost a detective.” She looked at my image in the mirror and her lip curled in sadistic delight. “Almost pretty.”

  I couldn’t really argue with that right then, not with a fake eyelash that was working its way up to my eyebrow. Instead I said, “And I am looking for Candy. Got any ideas?”

  “Why are you looking for her? Someone hire you? As an almost detective?”

  Didn’t seem prudent to tell her about Arrestadt. �
��I’m Candy’s friend. I’m worried about her.”

  Babette laughed again, if you could call it that. “Actors don’t have friends. Not real ones. Too self-involved.”

  There was some old saying about a pot and a kettle…it was on the tip of my tongue when there was a definite creak from the direction of the wardrobe.

  Afloo! I faked a sneeze to draw Babette’s attention and give Logan time to grab that dang wardrobe door. “Back to my question. Do you know where Candy is?”

  “Why would I?”

  Ooh, she was good. And frustrating. And I had to be onstage in twenty minutes and still needed to wrangle these stupid eyelashes and redo my streaky, dirty-looking makeup. “Listen,” I said, “I need to get moving here. Is there something you want?”

  “Yeah.” Babette met my eyes in the mirror. “Stop poking your nose into the accidents.”

  This was interesting. “Why?”

  “Somebody might get hurt.”

  I turned to face her head on. “Who? What do you mean? Who are you threatening?”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, stop being so dramatic. Actors.” Babette rolled her eyes. “All I meant is that you’re local. You probably know the guys who work here, which means you probably know whoever caused those accidents. Who else could have pulled it off? You want any of them to get in trouble—maybe go to jail—for what they did?”

  I anticipated the noise from the wardrobe and faked another sneeze just in time to cover up a squeak of protest from Logan. “Afllooey! Thanks for the warning.” I picked up the second eyelash from the counter. “Is that all?”

  Babette slid her hand into the purse slung over her shoulder. “Not quite.” Shit, did she have a gun? I looked around for weapons, but the closest thing I saw was hairspray. Babette took her phone out of her bag. Phew.

  “Say cheese.” She took a flash picture, looked at it, and grinned. “God, you’re a mess. ‘Can’t wait to have Candace Moon back as Glinda,’” Babette said out loud as she tweeted. “‘Her stand-in looks more like Ma Joad in Grapes of Wrath. With a bug on her face.’”

  “Aflecchh!” That sneeze was for real. And it was strong enough to blow the eyelash from my fingertip onto Babette’s face, where it stuck. Hopefully from snot-glue. “You can keep that,” I said, then grabbed my phone from the counter and snapped a photo. “And you’re right. It does look like a bug.”

  Chapter 37

  Suddenly Plunged In Darkness

  “You can come out now,” I said to Logan after Babette had stomped off. “And tell me why you’re hiding from Babette.”

  “Who wouldn’t hide from that witch?” Logan stepped carefully out of the wardrobe and looked over my shoulder at the photo I’d taken. “Are you going to tweet that?”

  “Don’t have a Twitter account. And what is this answering a question with a question crap? I expect from than Babette, but not from you.”

  Logan hung his head. “I was hiding from Babette because I may have said something disparaging about her on Twitter. Something about wishing the chandelier had fallen on a capitalist she-pig with an itty bitty heart.”

  “So? I bet people say mean things about her all the time.”

  “Yeah, well, Babette found out that I worked at the theater. She said if I didn’t stay away from her and stop threatening her, she’d talk to my boss and have me disciplined.” He grimaced. “That Tweet was pretty unprofessional.”

  “And what about what she said about those accidents? About someone local causing them?”

  “Listen, Ivy, you’ve known me for years. Do you think I’d ever hurt someone intentionally?”

  I was about to harangue him for answering another question with a question when the speaker in the corner of the dressing room spoke up (so to speak): “Fifteen minutes ’til top of the show,” said the stage manager’s voice.

  “Anyway,” said Logan, “thanks for helping me out. Have a good rehearsal.” He scooted out the door before I could ask him any more questions.

  I thought about Logan as I finished getting into makeup and costume (skipping the false eyelashes). I hadn’t really known Logan for years. Though we’d seen each other dozens of times, we hadn’t really talked much beyond small talk until a few days ago. I didn’t feel like he would hurt people, but there was his obsession with “the dark side.” Did that say something about his internal state? And hiding in the wardrobe seemed a bit much, but he did love his job, and I could see how Babette might make trouble for him. I sat for a minute, thinking. No, I didn’t think Logan was dangerous. But like Matt said, I also tended to believe the best in people. Something to keep in mind.

  About a half hour later, I stepped out of my silver bubble and onto the stage. Munchkins crowded around me. “Greetings,” I said to the munchkins. “I hear we have good news.”

  “That’s right,” said one of the munchkins. “The Wicked Witch is—” Blackout.

  In the theater, a blackout is exactly what it sounds like: cutting off the lights suddenly, unlike, say, fade to black, where they go dark gradually. Blackouts are used to convey the end of an act, to give the crew a chance to reset the stage, and of course, to provide a dramatic ending. They are not used in the middle of a scene where munchkins are celebrating the death of their enemy.

  “Hold!” yelled the stage manager. “What the hell?” she said into her walkie-talkie.

  “Hell if I know,” crackled a voice. “Just a sec.”

  There was a little kerfuffle among the munchkins—giggles, a few squeals of fake fright, and several of them using the excuse of darkness to run into my spaceship. I could hear the muffled bonks as they made contact with the bubble’s fabric exterior. I took the chance to pull a Kleenex out from my cleavage and blow my nose.

  “Oh,” said the walkie-talkie voice. “Looks like someone messed with the lighting program.” Lighting design for most theaters was computerized, to a point. The director and lighting designer collaborated on what they wanted to see onstage, set the levels during technical rehearsals, and then put that information into a software program. During the show, a techie in the lighting booth made sure the changes happened on cue. Like everything else in theater, lighting couldn’t be completely automated, since things happened in real-time onstage that could affect the timing—actors missing cues, doors getting stuck...

  Spaceships disappearing.

  That’s the first thing we saw (or didn’t see) when the lights came back up. The stage manager, on autopilot, said, “Okay, let’s take it from, ‘Greetings’—what the hell?” She craned her neck to look into the fly space, where my bubble hung in its pre-entrance place. “How did that get back up there?” She looked accusingly at the techies manning the cables, but they shrugged their shoulders.

  “Madison?” Desirée ran from her seat in the house toward the stage.

  I scanned our little group. Yes, we were a munchkin short. The kids looked at one another, wide-eyed. “The ghost!” one shrieked. “The ghost took Madison! Just like Candace!”

  Chaos. As the semi-official munchkin wrangler, I tried to rein them in, but their little round-bellied costumes made them hard to grab. Bounced off me like bumper cars.

  Everyone else scattered, looking for Madison (everyone except Dorothy and the Wicked Witch of the West, who were checking out their phones). Toto ran onstage barking, escalating the din and the sense of terrified drama. But wait. Toto was barking at something. I followed his line of sight to...my spaceship.

  “Quiet, everyone,” I said in a commanding voice. They shut up.

  “Help!” cried a muffled voice from, yes, my bubble spaceship, high up in the fly space. “Help!”

  “Drop Glinda’s bubble,” the stage manager said to the techies.

  “No!” cried Desirée. “Don’t drop her.”

  “Go ahead, drop her on her head,” said the mean girl munchkin.

  The pervy boy
sniggered. “Maybe it’ll do some good.”

  I glared at them. “Just a figure of speech,” I said to Desirée.

  Glinda’s bubble floated down to the stage. I quickly opened the door. Madison cowered inside, her face white. Desirée pushed me out of the way. “Are you all right, sweetie?” Madison crawled out of the bubble and into her mom’s arms. “What happened?”

  “I...I don’t know.” Toto jumped into Madison’s lap and began licking her face. “I was with all the munchkins, then there was that blackout. Someone grabbed me, put a hand across my mouth, and shoved me in there.” She pointed at my bubble-ship. “It was dark, and I didn’t know what happened and I was so scared.”

  “It’s okay,” said Desirée. “It’s all right now.”

  “I don’t think it’s safe here,” said Madison. “I want to go home.”

  Desirée didn’t say anything, just stroked her daughter’s hair.

  “Did you see who it was?” I asked Madison. “The person who grabbed you?”

  “No, it was dark.”

  “It was the ghost,” said Vincent, the annoying munchkin boy. “The ghost is going to get us all!” he screamed overdramatically. Another munchkin took up the scream, then another. “The ghost! The Lady in White! She’s after us!”

  “All right, my lovelies,” said a calm voice. Eden’s. “The ghost won’t hurt you.” The kids gathered around her like baby birds. “The Lady doesn’t want to hurt anybody. But I do think she may be trying to tell us something—”

  “How do you know?” asked the snotty girl munchkin. “Are you a Ghostbuster or something?”

  “Who you gonna call?” shouted Vincent. “Ghost—”

  “Maybe I am,” Eden said. “In fact, about that séance idea...” She looked around, but everyone was wrapped up in the drama of the moment.

  “If we’re looking to cast blame on anyone,” said the Tin Man, “I think we should look at the real witch. You know, the one who makes accidents into extra publicity?”