The Phantom of Oz

by Cindy Brown

  “Logan Gale,” said the emcee.

  Yes, it was Logan, standing far stage right, dashing in a tuxedo that looked like it came out of a Noel Coward play (it probably did come from a Noel Coward play). He bowed as the audience applauded.

  How did he get changed so quickly? Just a few minutes ago, he’d had a full face of Phantom makeup, but now his face shone, not a trace of makeup under his eyes or caught in his goatee.

  A blackout. The audience gasped at the sudden darkness. A blast from the organ pipes on either side of the stage: DAHHH! Duh duh duh duh duh!

  A blue light appeared at the back of the stage. It grew brighter as it moved toward the audience, acquiring a shape: a flowing figure...a woman in a long gauzy white dress, a scarf around her neck, billowing in some unfelt breeze. She came nearer. Her figure was not solid, but made of a bluish mist. The lights on the stage behind her were clearly visible through her body.

  The audience held its breath. The Lady held out her arms to Logan. He took her in his arms and they began to dance to the macabre organ music. As they twirled, I could see that the woman was still see-through. And that she had a pear-shaped figure.

  Chapter 67

  Now or Never Was the Time to Turn My Knowledge to Account

  By the time the last note of “The Phantom of the Opera” died away, I was waiting for my two so-called friends to come offstage. They both had to be in on the game.

  Madison rushed up and hugged me around the waist. “Ivy, you were awesome!”

  I turned to see Desirée, who had a sheepish grin on her face. “She snuck in. I just found her.”

  “No way I was going to miss you and Logan,” said Madison.

  “But it’s time to go home now, sweetie,” Desirée said. A brown-skinned beauty brushed past us, wearing a tiny bikini on her plus-sized body. “This show is for grown-ups.”

  “But,” said a voice behind us, “it’s also an education in the various forms of beauty.”

  “Eden!” Madison ran to Eden, whose face and arms were covered with white makeup. “You were so scary. And Logan,” she said as he walked up, “how did you do it?”

  Patience is a virtue, patience is a virtue, I repeated silently to myself. Of course I’d heard the old adage growing up, but Uncle Bob had drummed it into my head.

  “It’s an illusion called Pepper’s Ghost that involves projections and reflections,” Logan said.

  I heard my uncle’s voice in my head: “When you’re trying to catch somebody up, you gotta play it just right. Like you’re making biscuits. You gotta add the ingredients one by one, mix them carefully, knead the whole thing, apply heat, and finally, bam!” He did that Emeril Lagassi thing. “Hot biscuits.”

  “Pepper’s Ghost has been around since the early 1800s,” Logan said. “It’s what they use in Disney’s Haunted Mansion.”

  I’d planned to confront Logan by himself, but this was even better. More witnesses, and protection in case he tried anything.

  “The hardest part was figuring out how to dance with a reflection. But Eden was great.” He smiled at her. “We rehearsed a lot.”

  Patience, patience...

  “I love ballroom dance,” said Eden.

  “Can you teach me how?” asked Madison.

  “Sure.”

  Okay, patience might be a virtue but…“I can’t wait for hot biscuits.” Oops, didn’t mean to say that aloud. “Logan, I need to talk to you.”

  “You too,” he said. “I think I found a kimono for you. Red—scarlet, really—and only ten bucks on eBay.”

  “Ooh, a kimono,” said Madison. “I want one too. It’d be cool to wear in the dressing room. Maybe we could make it magic too? Like our panties.”

  “Logan,” I said more firmly.

  “I love my magic panties,” Logan said to Eden.

  “A magic kimono sounds awesome.” She smiled at him.

  “This is not about kimonos,” I said. “This is about Babette.” I took a deep breath. “Logan, you were in league with her. I have proof. In Babette’s own writing.”

  No one spoke for a moment.

  “Well...um...I...” Logan looked at the floor, then at Eden.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “It won’t change anything between us.”

  Maybe not, but whatever he was doing with Candy probably would. I kept that quiet for now. First things first. “So,” I said, “you and Babette?”

  Logan sighed. “Babette had heard about the Lady in White. It’s one of the reasons she came here to scout for talent. She knew she could spin the story for PR. And once she got here, she took one look at that chandelier and decided that would be a great story.”

  “You rigged the chandelier to fall, right? You’re the only one with the technical skill—”

  “Thank you.”

  “Could you check your ego for a minute? You could have killed someone.”

  “No.” Logan shook his head.

  I barreled ahead. Definitely not waiting for biscuits. “And you know all the secret passageways in the theater.”

  “Secret passageways?” said Madison. “Cool.”

  “I’ll show you later,” said Logan.

  “I don’t think—” began Desirée.

  “People,” I nearly shouted, “I am trying to accuse Logan of a crime.”

  That shut them up. Except for Logan. “No. I didn’t hurt anyone. Well, not intentionally.”

  “Babette hired you to cause the accidents, right?” I said.

  “Not exactly.” Logan screwed up his face in embarrassment. “I thought the whole thing was a souped-up theatrical publicity stunt, sort of like the missing filmmakers on the Blair Witch Project or when they hired singing vampires to roam the streets of New York to publicize Werewolf in a Girls’ Dormitory.”

  “Werewolf in a Girls’ Dormitory?” I said. “Is that real or are you trying to distract me?”

  “Both.” Logan sighed. “Babette said that the accidents would be harmless pranks, but she’d make sure they got huge media attention and that she’d introduce me as the mastermind behind the stunts. No one was supposed to get hurt, not even the chandelier. I rigged it to fall, but also to stop about ten feet from everyone’s head, like what happens in a production of The Phantom of the Opera. I don’t know what went wrong. Maybe the ceiling wasn’t as strong as I thought. I felt awful. I’m so glad no one was critically injured.”

  I didn’t say anything about Normina, the Wicked Witch of the East. After all, he did say “critically.”

  “Babette was pretty pissed—she had to fork out some big bucks to get the show back on its feet right away.”

  “What about the other accidents?”

  “The bloody painting and the runaway, those were me. Again, I planned them so that they wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

  “That’s why you were so upset when that techie grabbed the rope,” I said. “But the bloody painting—Babette hired you to squirt blood in her face?” She had looked terrified.

  Logan smiled. “She gave me free reign on that one. I may have taken it a little too far.”

  “Nah.” Eden slung her arm through his. “It was awesome.”

  “That’s really why I hid in the wardrobe in your dressing room that one time,” Logan said. “Babette was on the warpath.”

  I took a deep breath. Time to turn up the heat. “I have to go to the police. Even if Babette’s death was an accident rather than murder—”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Stop right there,” said Logan. “You think I murdered Babette?”

  I thought it was Candy, but he was the one I had on the hook and I had to get him to admit he was hiding her. “I think you hated everything she stood for—conspicuous consumption, a fake ideal of beauty, fame without talent. I think you were close enough to Babette that she would have let you into her hotel room after we lef
t.” The more I said, the more I wondered if it was Logan after all. “I think she was blackmailing you over the accidents. I think that whoever caused those accidents caused another one. With Botox.”

  “No.” It didn’t come from just Logan. It came from all four of them.

  Chapter 68

  Within an Ace of Abandoning a Task

  Logan, Eden, Madison, and Desirée all spoke at once, their words jumbled together:

  “I didn’t mean to.”

  “I caused the—”

  “I did it, but I didn’t murder—”

  “It wasn’t supposed to—”

  “Stop.” I held up my hand for silence. “Are you all trying to confess?”

  They nodded their heads.

  “To what exactly?”

  “To the accidents,” said Eden. “It wasn’t just Logan. It was me too.”

  “And me,” said Madison.

  “Me too,” said Desirée.

  “Mom, you didn’t,” said Madison. “She’s trying to protect me.”

  “You caused some of the accidents?” I asked Madison.

  “Yeah. The lighting and sound stuff before here. Then, you know that one with the blackout and me disappearing? I just reconfigured the lighting program and ran into the bubble. I used some of my allowance to pay a techie to pull the bubble-ship into the fly space. And I put liquid sulfur in the fog machine liquid. It wasn’t supposed to catch on fire.” She glanced at her mom’s stony face and grimaced. “You knew?”

  “You were so secretive that time at the health-food store. I checked the receipt afterward.”

  “They sell sulfur at the health food store?” I said.

  “Reduces inflammation,” said Eden.

  “Even though I suspected you caused those accidents,” Desirée said to Madison, “you nearly scared me to death.”

  “That was the point. I wanted you to take me home. That was before I knew...why you wanted us to stay on tour.”

  Desirée’s face relaxed. She stroked Madison’s arm. “I’m sorry, baby. We’ll figure something out.”

  “What about the rest of the accidents—locking me in the spring room? Loosening the clamp on my bubble? Manufacturing my costume malfunction?”

  “That last one doesn’t count as an accident,” said Madison.

  “It does to the person with her breasts hanging out in front of the audience,” said Desirée.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “I...booby-trapped your costume,” said Eden.

  “Booby-trapped. Nice,” I said. “But why? And there were other costume incidents, like itchy monkeys, and a few before this stop on the tour too. Was that all you?”

  She hung her head. “Yes. I thought I was just taking some of the, um, overconfident actors down a peg. You know, help then them see that their outward appearance wasn’t always within their control?” Eden scrunched up her ghostly face. “But I guess it was really just petty.”

  “More than petty. Hello? Didn’t the former scarecrow catch on fire?”

  “That was just Jeb—the scarecrow—being adolescent,” said Eden.

  Madison nodded. “He was trying to light his own farts.”

  Ah. The Bumsen Burner. “Okay. Stupidity on his part. But why me? Why take me down a peg?”

  “I messed with that costume when Candace was wearing it.”

  Ah, the costume “repair” Candy had talked about. “But you let me wear it.”

  “That was more about...distraction. I knew you were investigating the accidents, and I didn’t want you figuring out who...” She looked at Logan.

  Yikes. I was going to have to break her heart soon. “But which one of you locked me in the spring room?”

  Silence.

  “Loosened the clamp on my bubble?”

  More silence.

  “I’m going to have to assume it was Logan, since...” Here it came. “He’s hiding Candy.”

  “I am not,” said Logan. “What in the world would make you think—”

  “This note from Babette.” I unstuck it from my cleavage and waved it in the air. “The way I see it, it could mean one of two things. Plus—”

  “Let me see it.” Logan reached for the Post-It.

  “Ah, ah, ah.” I held it away from him.

  Eden craned her head to read it upside down. “Ready to roll? That could just be about the chandelier.”

  “Could mean one of two things,” I repeated. This confronting-the-suspects thing was never as easy as it looked in Agatha Christie’s books. “It could be about the accidents or helping to disappear Candy.”

  “Why would I want to do that?” Logan said. “And seriously, I need to see that note.” He snatched it out of my hands and examined it. “It looks like it’s from Babette—I’ve seen her writing before—but it’s not mine.” He handed it back to me. “Why did you think it was?”

  “It was stuck to my butt after I got out of your car.”

  Madison giggled. “Stuck to her butt.”

  “I’ve never seen it before,” Logan said. “And a ton of people have borrowed my car. You know that.”

  Including Eden. Huh. “Someone could have tossed it in the car window too,” she said. “He always leaves it open a crack.”

  “Why would anyone else leave this in your car?” I said, mostly to myself. This wasn’t adding up the way I thought it would. And Logan’s face was remarkably clear of makeup. “Maybe they were trying to incriminate you?”

  “Or maybe it stuck to their butt,” said Madison.

  “Hey, you said ‘plus,’” said Logan. “Plus what?”

  “Plus the fact that I saw...” My brain was trying to peer through a cold-induced fog. A phantom figure was taking shape in the mist—a skull-faced man with his hair swept back from his forehead...Arrestadt. Duh. Ivy. You were right all along. He was hiding—protecting—Candy. I couldn’t let the others know. What if they went to the police and blew Candy’s cover? “Oh. Sorry. Never mind.” I turned away and began squeezing through the crowd of revelers that packed the place.

  “Wait.” Logan followed me. “Why did you think I was hiding Candy? And do you still think I killed Babette?”

  “Babette?” said a sexy vampire. “You killed Babette Firman?”

  “Whoa, reality TV star murderer here,” said a big man in a toga. “Should we call the police or feed him cake?”

  “I didn’t—” began Logan.

  “You killed Babette?” A dude with horns sprouting from his shaved head slapped Logan on the back. “Awesome, man. She was a bitch.”

  I glared at him. “Murder is never awesome.” I must’ve looked pretty scary, because the guy backed away from me—right into Logan, who then fell against the large bosom of a furry black cat.

  “Ivy, wait!” cried Logan. The human kitty wrapped her arms around him and purred.

  I slipped through the crowd and down the hall to my dressing room. I needed to think.

  The note must have been Arrestadt’s. He must have been pointing a finger at Logan in order to take anyone’s eyes off him. He and Babette must’ve engineered Candy’s disappearance together. It was good PR for his show too. He probably hired me to keep me on the wrong track. But something must have gone wrong. Now he was hiding Candy, and the only reason I could see was that he was protecting her.

  I pushed open the door to my dressing room and sat heavily in a chair. Now what? Did I pursue this, knowing it could land my friend in prison? I didn’t think it was murder. As little as I knew this new Candace, somewhere inside her was my old friend, and she would never kill anyone on purpose. And as Eden said, the world might be better without Bab—

  No. I could not think that way. Murder—or in this case, accidental untimely death—was never awesome.

  My phone buzzed in my duffel bag. A text. I scramble
d through my bag.

  What would it serve to have Candy put away? She wasn’t a danger, at least not to others, and prison might put my already fragile friend over the edge.

  I glanced at my phone. I desperately hoped it was Matt, telling me goodnight. No. I sat up straight. It was from Candy. “Don’t worry. I’m OK.”

  Now she tells me. I was relieved and pissed at the same time.

  Another buzz, another text from Candy. “It’s all for PR.”

  No shit, Sherlock. Strange she didn’t mention Babette’s death, though.

  Another buzz and another and another. What the hell? My phone was downloading a bunch of texts—all from Candy.

  “Woo-hoo! Can you believe the press we’re getting? They’re all worried about little old me.”

  “I’m holed up in a luxurious hotel suite, eating MoonPies, taking bubble baths, and getting ready to be a star. Nice work if you can get it.”

  “Ivy, are you getting these texts?”

  Oh no. These must be days old. Same as what happened with Cody. More beeps. More texts from Candy.

  “This is getting weird.”

  “Ivy, something happened. It’s bad.”

  “Help me. He’s gone craz—”

  Chapter 69

  No Time To Think of the Fresh Horror

  I waited. I shook my phone. I pressed all its buttons, but that was it. Nothing more. I jumped up, mostly because I couldn’t sit anymore. I studied the texts. I could tell the dates they were sent, but not the time. The first two were sent Sunday, probably after she disappeared. The ones about press and bubble baths on Monday. She checked to see if I was getting her texts on Tuesday. The one about things getting weird was Wednesday. “Something’s happened” was Thursday, as was the last one: “Help me. He’s gone craz—”

  Had to be “crazy.” Why didn’t she finish it? Did Arrestadt find her phone? Or did he...?

  No. Candy was still alive. I was sure it was her I’d seen tonight.

  And Arrestadt knew I’d seen her. Shit. He wouldn’t keep her at the hotel any longer. In fact, that’s probably why he brought her to the ball when I was performing. I bet he saw me when I was staking out his hotel room and knew that I suspected him. Paparazzi were still hanging around trying to get inside information about Babette’s death from hotel staff, so it would have been too risky to be seen leaving the hotel with Candy, even in costume. Maybe especially in costume—they would have stood out too much, since the Erotic Art Phantasmagorical Spectacular wouldn’t be a draw for the Hotel La Fuente’s conservative upscale clientele. Arrestadt must have secreted Candy from the hotel to the theater via the secret passageway and disguised them both once they were out of sight so way they could mingle and leave amidst the other masked revelers.