Foul Play (A Moose River Mystery Book 4)

by Jeff Shelby

I opened the door and a blast of cold air hit me. There was snow in the forecast for later in the week and I was trying to mentally prepare myself for winter’s onslaught.

  It wasn’t working.

  “Hi,” I said, motioning her inside. “Come on in.”

  “I’m sorry to just drop in on you like this,” she said, her hands shoved tightly into the pockets of her coat. “But I wasn’t sure when I’d see you again.”

  I closed the door behind her. “That’s okay. And, yeah. Figured we should talk about the program.”

  She stood in the kitchen, running a hand through her curly hair, her nose a startling shade of pink from the cold. “I was sorry to hear...about whatever happened between you and Eleanor.”

  “She didn’t make some grand announcement?” I asked.

  “Just that you’d no longer be at the theater and that it was at her request,” she said. A nervous smile creased her lips. “And that I should speak with you about the program.”

  Much of the anger and frustration I’d felt two days earlier after my confrontation with Eleanor threatened to resurface. But I didn’t want the negative energy to eat up my day. So I took a deep breath and reminded myself to let it go.

  “I’m happy to finish up the program,” I told Joanne. It wasn’t true but I sold it well. “If you’re fine with that. I can have it finished this morning and off to the printer today. I can have it delivered to you when it’s done so that I don’t have to bring it by the theater.”

  She looked like she might cry tears of joy. “Really?”

  “Sure. I don’t have a problem with you or the program. I’m happy to finish it.”

  She exhaled. “Oh my gosh, Daisy. That would be so fantastic. The whole way over here, all I kept thinking about was how in the world was I going to finish that program.” She smiled the nervous smile again. “And to be clear, I wouldn’t have blamed you one bit if you didn’t want to finish it. You’re a bigger person than I am.”

  “I don’t know about that,” I told her, thinking about how I’d sulked and railed over the injustices of being banned from the theater. “But I’m happy to finish it up today. Unless Eleanor gave you orders for something else.”

  She winced, then shook her head. “She didn’t. And since I’m in charge of it, I’m going to leave it with you. Because I really appreciate it.”

  Joanne was a nice lady. I just needed to remind myself that I was helping her more than Eleanor. Like my girls, she didn’t need to be penalized because Eleanor and I had had a disagreement.

  “Okay then,” I said. “I’ll get it over to the printers this afternoon. I’ll let you know when it’ll be ready.”

  “Thank you so much,” she said, sighing again. “Given everything else that doesn’t seem ready, it’s a relief to know that at least this is taken care of.”

  I leaned back against the kitchen counter. I should have invited her in, offered her a cup of coffee, but she didn’t look like she wanted to stay. “Other things aren’t ready?”

  She pursed her lips and lines formed on her forehead. “Well, I shouldn’t really be the judge. But Madison...doesn’t seem quite ready yet, no.”

  “Really?”

  She nodded. “She’s had trouble remembering her lines. She seems to miss her marks quite a bit, too.” She bit her bottom lip. “It’s just been a bit rough.”

  Even though a small, petty part of me was glad to hear that, the majority of me was not. Not just because I had Dopey and Sneezy in the play, but because as much as I didn’t like Madison, she was still just a kid. “Oh, wow. That’s not good.”

  “No, it’s really not,” she said. “And she and Eleanor have been at one another’s throats.” She shook her head. “I just hope we’re ready for opening night.”

  “How are ticket sales?” I asked.

  “Actually, pretty good,” she said, but the lines formed in her forehead again. “I’m not sure that’s a good thing, though, now.”

  “Why not?”

  Her shoulders seemed to sag beneath her coat. “I’ve promised everyone a great show. Everyone I’ve talked to in the last two months, I’ve told them how fantastic the play will be. People who’ve bought tickets are expecting to see an amazing performance.” She winced again. “But now watching Madison on stage...I’m not sure that’s what they’re going to get.” She paused and glanced toward the living room. “I may have made a huge mistake.”

  I felt badly for her. She’d gone into the whole production thinking that it might result in permanent employment and now she was worried that her own reputation was at stake.

  “Well, it’s not your mistake,” I said gently. “You’re just trying to sell tickets. The production itself isn’t your fault. You have no control over that. You’re not responsible for that.”

  It took her a moment, but she finally moved her gaze back to me. “I suppose. It’s just difficult, that’s all. And I’m just afraid it’s not going to all come together in time.”

  “Hopefully, it will,” I told her. “You can’t control what you can’t control.”

  She thought for a moment. “No, I suppose I can’t.” She forced a smile on her face. “I’ve taken up enough of your time. I should get going. Thank you again for all your work.”

  “You’re welcome,” I said.

  We said goodbye and I held the door open for her as she ventured back outside. I watched her walk down the steps from the porch and get into her car.

  She sat there for a moment, her head on the steering wheel before turning the car on and backing out of the driveway.

  I truly felt bad for Joanne Claussen. She didn’t seem like someone who would cry wolf so if she said things were bad, I believed her. I thought about Madison not knowing her lines or her marks, and I painted a vivid mental picture of how that might translate on stage in a play with a cast of over fifty kids. It didn’t look good.

  I sighed and poured myself a fresh cup of coffee. If there was anything good about being banished from the theater, it was that I wasn’t going to have to watch the train jump the tracks.

  THIRTY TWO

  I spent the rest of the morning finishing up the Snow White program. I wanted it done and off my plate so I wouldn’t have to worry about it any longer. My goal was to be free of everything tied to the play, other than watching my girls in the performance.

  If I was allowed into the theater.

  I finished it, called the printer and let them know I was emailing them the design. We went over the particulars again and the man on the phone assured me he could get the programs done on time and they’d look great. I gave him Joanne’s contact info and told him to let her know when they were done, that she’d arrange pickup and payment. He thanked me and I hung up and breathed a sigh of relief. Done.

  With that finished, I headed to the grocery store. With six mouths to feed in our house, I spent nearly as much time at the store as I did in our own home. It didn’t matter if I found everything on my list and brought it all home. We always needed more of something or something different. I’d often joked to Jake that we’d be better served owning our own farm.

  I was turning out of the baking aisle and heading for the cereal, staring at my list on my phone, when I bumped carts with another shopper.

  I looked up.

  Eleanor Bandersand was behind the other cart, frowning at me. Her hair was piled on top of her head and large gold hoop earring dangled from her ears. Her false eyelashes looked more blue than black today, their color eerily similar to the eyeshadow dusting her eyelids. A thick pearl choker encircled her neck and it looked to be a centimeter away from cutting off her circulation.

  I didn’t think that would altogether be a bad thing.

  “Good afternoon, Daisy,” she said, lifting her chin and gazing down at me.

  “Eleanor,” I said. “Sorry. I was reading my list.”

  “Yes, I see that,” she said, her frown deepening.

  We stood there awkwardly for a moment and then I maneuvered the
cart around her. “See you later.”

  “Well, probably not,” she said with a chuckle, her red lips curving into a sardonic smile.

  I froze. “What did you say?”

  If possible, she tilted her chin even higher, her eyes even buggier than normal. “I think you heard me.”

  My patience could only be extended so far. I could take being banned from the theater. I could take finishing the programs despite not being allowed near the theater. I could allow my daughters to continue to participate.

  But I could in no way, shape or form take being taunted by a ridiculous pants wearing, obnoxious talking, power hungry wanna-be community theater director.

  I pushed my cart past hers until I was right next to her.

  Her chin stayed in the air and she eyes me with haughty indifference.

  “You may not see me later at your little theater,” I said, lowering my voice. I glanced at the bags of chips and frozen dinners in her cart. “But at least I’m not going to bounce a check when I go to pay for my groceries.”

  Her buggy eyes nearly burst out of her head. “Excuse me?”

  “I’ve tried to excuse you, Eleanor, but you’ve made it nearly impossible,” I said. “I sent the program to the printer before I drove over here. Let him know if you need to post-date the check.”

  Her hand flew to her chest and she gasped. “Why, you horrible woman!”

  “I’m the horrible woman?” I said I set my hands on my hips. “Really? You kick me out of your little theater because your kid made something up about me and then you make some smart remark about it? After I finished my volunteer work, work that I didn’t have to do?” I leaned in closer and she took a step back. “Give me a break, lady. At least I’m not lying to everyone about my company when it’s really on the verge of bankruptcy.”

  “Where did you hear such a thing?” she hissed at me. “That is patently untrue!”

  “Big words and fancy phrases won’t make it untrue, Eleanor,” I told her. “But you reap what you sow.” I smiled at her. “I’m thinking I might just start my own theater group when yours goes under.”

  She gasped. “You wouldn’t dare!”

  “Wouldn’t I? Really?” I leaned in even closer. “And when people start asking for refunds this weekend because your show is a mess, I genuinely hope you have the money to give it back to them.”

  “My show will not be a mess!” she cried, shaking her head.

  “It’s not your show, Eleanor,” I told her. “It belongs to the kids. Remember? And from what I hear, it is going to be a mess. So good luck with that.”

  Her hands were white on the handle of the cart. Her chin shook. Her nostrils flared at me. Her lips were clamped shut and if she’d had a bat, I had no doubt she would’ve swung it at me, given the anger burning in her eyes.

  It wasn’t my finest moment. I shouldn’t have confronted her in the aisle of the grocery store. And it didn’t feel good to say those things to her; at least not as good as I’d thought it might. But she’d been rude and imperious to me from the moment I’d met her and I was done taking her garbage.

  I stared her down, waiting for her to passive aggressively attack me or look down her nose at me again.

  But then something changed in her eyes. It was like water on a fire. The anger died.

  And was replaced by tears.

  The shaking in her chin spread to the rest of her body and she bent over, leaning her head against the handle of her shopping cart. Loud, violent sobs exploded from her mouth, the sort of high-pitched wails that made me think of a sad sea lion.

  People walked past us, eyeing her, then me before quickly moving away. I stood there, my hands moving from my hips to my cart. I knew better than to try to comfort her; I had no doubt a reassuring hand on her shoulder might lead to a direct punch to my stomach. It was disconcerting to see a grown woman cry halfway between the baking aisle and the cereal aisle at the grocery store. It was even more disconcerting to know that I was partly to blame.

  Finally, Eleanor stood up, her eyes red and swollen. Rivers of blue eye shadow and black mascara ran down her cheeks, leaving dark trails on her powdered face. She fished around in her purse and pulled out a tissue, wiping her eyes with a practiced hand. She took a deep breath and her entire body vibrated.

  “I’m sorry you had to see that,” she said.

  “That’s...okay.”

  She pursed her lips and took a couple of deep breaths, clearly trying to regain her composure. She started to say something and her mouth hung open for a moment, then closed. She tried again and her mouth did the same thing. Open, then closed. She took another deep breath and hitched her pants up to just under her boobs.

  “You’re right,” she finally said. “We are not in great shape. This could be our last production.”

  Given that I’d just thrown all that in her face, I wasn’t sure what to say to her admission.

  “We’ve bled money for the last year,” she said, staring at the package of frozen lasagna in her cart. “I’ve tried everything I could think of, but nothing has worked. I’ve never had to ask for any kind of assistance before and I guess I’ve waited too long now.” She paused, and I wasn’t sure if it was because she needed to catch her breath or if she was doing it for dramatic effect. “I just thought that if I changed things up this time around, it might also change our fortunes.”

  “What did you change up this time around?”

  She sniffed several times. “Have you been to any of our previous productions?”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  She sniffed again and steadied herself against the cart. “My daughter has had the lead role in every production we’ve done for the last three years. Now, mind you, she is a wonderfully talented actress and no matter what anyone thinks, she earned the right to play those roles. But there was a...redundancy...to seeing her onstage so often in the same company.”

  I could see how that could be considered redundant. And annoying.

  “I think people in the community tired of seeing her. It felt as if they were watching the same production.” She looked at me and tried to force a smile. “So I went with Amanda Pendleton as Snow White.”

  I could feel my anger and animosity slipping away. She was doing something I didn’t think possible: Eleanor Bandersand was finding a way to make me sympathize with her. I was starting to feel like Bugs Bunny in that old cartoon where he morphs into a jackass.

  “Let me clarify,” Eleanor continued, her voice a little stronger now. “Amanda earned the role. She’s a very good, very capable young actress. So it’s not as if I just carelessly handed her the role. I just thought it was fortuitous that she tried out at the same time I was looking to...change the dynamic.” She paused. “I was optimistic then. I thought she might bring a few new people to our shows, spark some new enthusiasm in the community.”

  I thought she might be overestimating the entire Moose River community’s interest in local theater, but I didn’t think she was wrong in what she’d hoped for.

  “So I thought we might endure,” she said, taking another deep breath and then exhaling. “But then Amanda went and ran off or went wherever she went and I’m sure now people are looking at us as some kind of circus.”

  Again, I thought she was attaching too much importance and significance to her tiny community theater company. Moose River was a town that supported local endeavors but it wasn’t as if theater dominated the extracurricular scene.

  I cleared my throat. “Joanne says ticket sales have been good,” I offered.

  She gave me a patronizing smile. “Ticket sales need to be exceptional for us to crawl out of the hole we are in, Ms. Savage.”

  I frowned. “I think she thought most of the shows were close to sold out.”

  How much more exceptional could ticket sales get?

  “Perhaps,” she said. “But does that mean that they’ll still show up? Will they purchase concessions? Will they buy the little Star Grams for the actors? Season
ticket passes for the remaining shows?” She raised her eyebrows. “All of those things add up and I’m afraid that given the circumstances surrounding Amanda’s leaving the show and the ensuing chaos, people will choose to remain at home rather than come to see our shows.”

  If she was counting on the ancillary income from the shows, then the financial issues were bigger than even Joanne had alluded to. She probably should’ve quit while she was ahead and canceled the Snow White production before it even began. Because it sounded like now the best she could hope for was to make enough money to pay the bills that were already sitting and waiting.

  Eleanor took another deep breath and set her hands firmly on the handle of her cart. “I need to be going. Goodbye, Daisy.”

  Good thing I wasn’t expecting an apology. Or an un-banning.

  But as I watched her waddle away, the waistband of her pants pulled up to the middle of her back, I was struck by one thing.

  She’d wanted the production to be a success. She’d needed it to be a success. The production had been harmed by putting Madison in the lead role mid-way through rehearsals.

  There was no possible way Eleanor could’ve been involved in Amanda’s disappearance.

  THIRTY THREE

  “Why are we going to watch cheerleading?” Will complained from the back seat of the minivan.

  “Because our friends are in it and we are going to support them,” I told him.

  “Yeah, but I thought you told Grace and Sophie the only way they could be cheerleaders was if you got stabbed and died and your ghost couldn’t find them to haunt them.”

  I glanced in the rearview mirror. “I don’t think I said anything about getting stabbed.”

  He rolled his eyes and moved his gaze to the window.

  It was the evening of the regional cheerleading championships and I’d told Brenda we’d come to watch. I wasn’t particularly enamored with the idea of watching a couple hours of plastered-on smiles and young girls wearing clown-like makeup, but the girls were excited to watch Maddie and I had no doubt that they’d find it all exciting. Will was just a victim of my unwillingness to leave anyone at home that night. He’d tried to argue that Emily and Jake were getting to stay home, but I pointed out that Emily had homework and Jake had a conference call. They were staying home to work. When I’d offered up some chore options for him to complete rather than going with us – cleaning the bathroom and polishing the wooden stair banister – he’d sighed and dragged himself to the car.