Running Out of Time

by Suzanne Trauth

“I need help,” I said.

  She looked up. “Dodie? What’s wrong?”

  “I think they’re coming for Sally and I have to get her out of here. Now.”

  Lola jumped up. “What should I do?”

  I spat out the words. “I need a distraction if they come into the theater.”

  Lola stood up, her forehead creased. “What kind of a distraction?”

  I scanned the house.

  “I hate to ask this but could you postpone the start of Act Two? Maybe get the actors out here, milling around, creating their normal chaos?” I said.

  Penny blew her whistle and shouted, “Take ten.”

  “Penny!” Lola shrieked. “Use the headset. Performance conditions!”

  “Sorry. The headset’s not working. I can’t communicate with backstage,” she yelled.

  “Lola?” I said, panicking.

  Sally was standing behind me, completely baffled. Lola turned to me, then set her chin. “Okay. Penny, get all of the actors in the house.”

  Penny hauled herself up and out of her seat. “What for?”

  “Do it!” Lola was taking no prisoners.

  Penny shrugged and blasted two toots on her whistle.

  Walter stuck his head out from between the curtains. “What’s going on? It’s performance conditions! Penny, you can’t blow your whistle during performance conditions!”

  Performance this, I thought.

  “Thanks,” I said and squeezed Lola’s hand as actors trickled off the stage, looking confused, shrugging their shoulders.

  Penny tramped over to us and slapped her clipboard. “Lola, I’m supposed to be running the show. You can’t stop the show unless I say ‘halt.’”

  “Lola? What’s going on?” Walter demanded.

  I took advantage of the disorder to snatch Sally’s arm and pull her through the crowd and onto the stage. ELT members did a few double takes as people began to realize who she was.

  “Hey, Sally!” Edna called out as we hurried past each other. “Nice to see you. How are—”

  “Edna, you didn’t see Sally. You have no idea she was even here. Police business.”

  Edna narrowed her eyes. “Oh! Got it. 10-4.”

  She hitched up her period skirt and headed to the house. The door from the lobby opened. A figure bundled in a winter coat stood in the dim light. No one I knew.

  Uh-oh.

  27

  I ushered Sally through the green room door into the hallway that ran between the scene shop and the wardrobe storage. I’d had previous experience with the backstage locales. The shop was open, flooded with the glare of fluorescent light—someone had left the space unlocked and vulnerable. But lucky for us. I slammed my hand against the light switch on the outer wall and the space went black. There was enough ambient light as we threaded our way around saws, a work table, a tool cage, equipment, and flats. I flipped the deadbolt on the back door. Sally and I stepped outside onto the loading dock, occupied by debris and trash cans. The chill air was a welcome shock to my frenzied system.

  “Where are we going?” she asked, scared.

  “Some place where you’ll be safe.” I fervently hoped that was the truth. With someone tailing us, ELT confusion would only provide a distraction for a limited period of time. I needed to stash Sally somewhere quickly. The closest possibility was the Windjammer. I also hoped that whoever was tracking us assumed that we’d escaped through the shop and took off.

  I unlocked the back door of the restaurant that led into the kitchen and thrust Sally inside, soundlessly shutting it behind us. The musty restaurant smells were comforting for a moment, its dark interior lit only by the light of my cell phone.

  “Now what?” Sally asked, panting.

  I forced myself to think calmly. Where to go? The basement was an obvious choice, but we could become trapped down there. It offered a place to hide but no means for a getaway. There was always the pantry with shelving full of boxes, canned goods, and dark corners. But once the light was switched on, we’d be sitting ducks. I was stymied.

  Then the particles in my brain rearranged themselves and an unexpected picture flashed on my mental screen. The roofer had told Henry that the attic space below the roof needed sealing, insulating, and venting and Henry had gone up to check it out. There was a short, dangling rope in a corner of the kitchen that was attached to a panel in the ceiling. Yanking on the rope revealed an aluminum, collapsible, pull-down ladder. Henry had had it installed several years ago when there had been another roof leak. When the problems should have been fixed. Never mind. The pull-down stairs might save our lives.

  I directed my flashlight at the rope and gave it a tug. Nothing budged. I dragged a stool to the dangling rope, climbed up, and jerked it again. This time the panel dropped an inch. Sally joined me and we heaved it down together, the metal stairs descending with a creak. I gestured for Sally to go first. She hesitated, so I gave her a gentle poke and she scrambled up the steps. I replaced the stool, took a final glimpse of the kitchen, and followed Sally up the ladder. At its top, I lay down on the attic floor, stretched out—with Sally hanging onto my legs—and wrenched the stairs upward a few inches at a time. The panel snapped into place with a clap that sounded like a detonation, then all was quiet.

  The attic space was small, impossible to stand up in, so we crawled to a spot a few feet away from the stair unit. If my sense of direction was accurate, we were over the bar area. I leaned against a wall and tilted my flashlight toward Sally. She looked pale, a streak of black smudged across one cheek, her eyes gigantic, staring at me.

  “We should be safe here,” I whispered.

  I flicked off the light and texted Bill again, my fingers trembling, my eyes glued to the pull-down ladder: : In windjammer attic. Help. Bill had our location. Now we needed to hang on until he arrived. The attic was stuffy and warm. I slipped off my coat and Sally did the same. Then I pocketed my cell. No point in giving away our hiding place with even a narrow shaft of light leaking from the attic to the floor below. Anyway, I had to preserve the battery.

  My eyelids drooped; how long had we been sitting in the dark? Minutes though it felt like hours. Sally was still, her eyes closed; I wondered what was going through her mind. I rubbed my tired eyes. Walter and his bizarre warm-ups. Blindfolding actors’ eyes…the little hairs on my neck twitched. There was something about Gordon Weeks’s eyes in Sally’s photograph. What was it? Then it hit me. He had one brown eye and one hazel eye. Like Sally. Proof he was her father! That’s what made the picture so important. Sally hadn’t realized it because she hadn’t had time to study the photo—

  A clatter from below jolted me forward. My heart hurdled into my mouth. Someone had discovered our getaway route to the Windjammer and apparently had a run-in with Henry’s pots and pans. I tapped Sally’s leg, placing a finger on my lips. I doubted she could even see me in the pitch dark, but I gripped her arm reassuringly. Footsteps around the kitchen, growing softer as the trespasser moved from spot to spot—the dining room? The pantry? Silence for a moment as the heavy treads melted away. Probably a trip to the basement. Bill…where are you? I whipped out my cell and texted again: SOS.

  The sound of the footsteps reappeared and once again seemed to move from area to area, increasing in volume until I could swear the intruder was in the attic with us. My hands were clammy as I clutched my cell phone. A creak and a scrape sent a surge of sound reverberating around the attic walls as the collapsible ladder dropped. Instinctively, I scooted farther into the dark of the attic, willing Sally and me to shrivel into tiny balls of humanity, out of the arc of the powerful flashlight that swept to and fro throwing light into our hiding place. There was a pause in the activity. A grunt, then the light diminished as the ladder ascended into the ceiling. The footfalls resumed in the kitchen below.

  I exhaled and leaned back against the wall, both of us envelop
ed by the attic dusk once again. I clasped Sally’s arm to say “we’ve dodged a bullet for the moment.”

  She must have felt equally relieved because she shifted her body and stretched out her legs, accidentally kicking a loose piece of lumber. We froze. Had Henry left it here? The thud echoed around us; I prayed it hadn’t reached the ears of the intruder below. Dead silence. Was our stalker listening to us as carefully as we were to him? I counted to ten, the footsteps faded away. I exhaled in relief for the second time in five minutes. This night had to end soon. It was murder on my nervous system.

  “Found anything?” A voice drifted upward.

  Though slightly muffled, it was still distinct. I recognized the smooth-talking kidnapper.

  Suddenly I could smell the fear leaching off Sally. She latched onto my arm, her fingers clawing my hoodie.

  “Not sure…sound…attic…”

  The second voice was in and out, but I’d heard enough to get the gist. The stalker had heard Sally’s scuffle with the lumber and any minute would pop open the panel and lower the stairs. We were easy targets. But I wasn’t about to surrender without a fight. Every second I stalled was one more second I gave Bill. I removed my boots and motioned to Sally to do the same. My heels were low and rubber. Sally’s were spikes. Then I felt around the floor and my hand grasped the short two-by-four Sally had struck. I now had four missiles and a makeshift blunt object.

  “Go ahead,” the kidnapper said clearly. He must have been standing directly under the pull-down door.

  Another creak and scrape and the stairs fell, followed by the same explosion of light as before. “Sally? It’s your dad. I know you’re up there. Come on down, honey, and let’s talk.”

  My chest tightened. The polite, soothing voice of the kidnapper belonged to Charles Oldfield?

  Sally was immobile, looking petrified.

  Charles waited five seconds. “I’m done fooling around. Now get down here.” This time sounding less patient, more demanding. “You might as well join her, Dodie. Sally, you’re in my custody. The court will revoke your bail if I report your disappearance. They’ll put out a warrant for your arrest.”

  I gripped the boots tightly in both hands, the hunk of wood under my arm. “Not when they find out who really killed Gordon Weeks. Sally’s real father,” I said with ten times the bravado I felt.

  Was it my imagination or was there a change in the atmosphere?

  “I’m not playing around any longer,” Charles snarled, all trace of his Boston elitist pedigree dissolving.

  “You’re going to have to come up here and get us,” I shouted, hoping that loudness communicated confidence.

  There must have been some soundless discussion below, then someone grasped the sides of the ladder and took a step. I eased a few feet forward. I could see the top of a head, thinning brown hair, a bald spot dead center. I aimed for the bull’s-eye and let fly one of my boots. It clipped him on the top of his head and, caught unawares, he looked up. Its mate smashed the side of his face. He howled and swore and stepped off the ladder. Charles pushed him out of the way. “That’s it. Down here. Now.”

  I flung both of Sally’s spiked boots at Charles and when a thin streak of red appeared on his chin, I knew I’d hit my mark. I had only my hunk of wood left. Sally was now alert, perched on her haunches, ready to follow me into the fray. I edged to the lip of the opening and saw Charles, head bent, wiping blood off his face, while his partner waved a gun.

  “Let me take a shot, boss,” he said. “A few holes in the ceiling and they’ll come running down. Watch.”

  OMG. Holes in Henry’s kitchen ceiling? That was going too far. I clenched my teeth, then tightened my grip on the lumber, ignoring splinters that had become wedged into my palm. I was about to hurl my last defensive weapon when, in the corner of the panel’s frame, I saw a pair of cowboy boots and two jean-clad legs. I had a moment of exhilaration followed by a sinking sensation. So Archibald was in collusion with Charles Oldfield. Bill was wrong about his friend and I was right. Small consolation.

  “Detective Alvarez,” Charles Oldfield greeted Archibald smoothly. “Trying to get my daughter out of the attic. We need to return to Boston.”

  “Dodie? Sally? Come on down. It’s all over—” Archibald’s face appeared in the panel opening.

  I couldn’t help myself. “I was right about you! When Bill finds out—”

  “What?” Archibald asked.

  “I know about you and Charles in the diner,” I started in. “I saw you together—”

  Archibald looked quickly over his shoulder, then stepped onto the bottom rung of the ladder. “Dodie! I’ll explain everything—”

  I maneuvered myself as close to the opening as I dared and chucked the wooden projectile right at his head.

  “Hey!” he shouted.

  Then things happened in a blur: Charles Oldfield’s sidekick fired a shot into the kitchen ceiling, Sally screamed, and I lurched forward, sliding down several steps of the collapsible stairs, my stockinged feet landing squarely in Archibald’s midsection.

  And Bill appeared, winded, on crutches, backed up by Suki, gun drawn and pointed straight at the shooter’s chest. “Drop it,” he said. The voice of authority.

  Charles Oldfield’s body slumped in defeat, the gun dropped to the floor, and Bill and Archibald exchanged looks: Well done, they seemed to be saying to each other.

  Huh?

  * * *

  I stamped my boots—now back on my feet—on the cement sidewalk outside the Windjammer to keep warm. After a few days of rising temps, winter had come booming back tonight with below freezing wind chills. I flipped my hood over my head. I didn’t care that my fingers were going numb because I’d dropped my gloves somewhere between Sally’s hotel in Creston and our escapade in the ceiling of the Windjammer. This was a picture I had to witness: Charles Oldfield and his gun-toting underling hauled off in one of Etonville’s black-and-white squad cars. Ralph was doing crowd control, which consisted mostly of the Eton Town cast who, when they’d gotten wind of the commotion on the street, dumped the curtain call and flew out the front door, despite Penny’s whistle and Walter’s protests.

  Lola had given up and joined the crowd. Suki had Sally in hand, taking a statement and explaining the next steps in her legal odyssey. Apparently, Charles’s lawyer was on the level and would be following up with Sally, offering confirmation that charges would be dropped.

  “Whew, wind chill is fifteen degrees,” Lola said and hugged her Canadian goose down coat around her.

  “I thought you didn’t believe in wind chills?”

  She grinned. “I didn’t believe in the turntable either, but I changed my mind on that too.”

  Apparently, the balky platform had surrendered to Walter’s vision and was good as gold throughout the final dress rehearsal.

  “How did everything else go?” I asked, the question coming out in a puff of chill air.

  “Not bad. Little slow. Actors were squirrelly. Vernon went up on his lines. The usual,” she said.

  “You know what they say…terrible dress rehearsal means a great opening.”

  Lola smiled at me. “Yes, they do say that. This theater thing is becoming second nature to you, isn’t it?”

  I laughed and nodded.

  We watched Suki and Sally.

  “She owes you a lot,” Lola said.

  I shrugged. “She feels like the younger sister I never had.”

  Bill and Archibald stood off to one side talking. I had to admit that I was a little miffed at the sight of them together acting so chummy.

  “Archibald was working undercover,” I said.

  “Oh my!” Lola gasped.

  “For the FBI, according to Bill. Investigating Charles Oldfield for corporate fraud. Something about him stealing Sally’s mother’s fortune for years.” I shuddered inside my co
at. “Etonville will have a heyday with all of this tomorrow.”

  “I do feel sorry for Sally. She lost her biological father and her stepfather. She’s going to need support,” Lola said. “So the two of you were tied up in the attic of the Windjammer?”

  “We weren’t tied up—” I said.

  “I heard they shot at you a bunch of times!” Lola said, astonished.

  “It was only one time and…” It was starting already.

  Lola shivered and put an arm around my shoulders. “I could use a drink.”

  “Let’s go inside the Windjammer. I don’t think I’ll be getting much sleep tonight,” I said.

  “I have to run next door and speak with Walter but I’ll come back.” She gave me a hug and walked off.

  Henry pulled up in his car and hopped out of the driver’s seat. I was going to have to listen to him rant about the bullet hole—

  “Are you okay?” he asked, clearly alarmed.

  “Fine. Guess you heard about the ceiling?” I winced in anticipation of his tirade.

  He waved his hand dismissively. “Not important.” He stared at me. “Sure you’re okay?”

  Wow. I nodded, dazed. It was Henry 2.0, a new, improved version of the Windjammer chef. He scurried inside the restaurant and I turned to follow him.

  “Next time you text me during a crisis, give me your location. I had to run around town…your place, Sally’s room at the boarding house, the theater…”

  I faced Bill. His mouth ticked up on one side in the familiar quirky grin. “What are you talking about?” I said a tad huffily. “I texted you while we were in the attic. Why didn’t you text back?”

  “I was a little busy chasing the bad guys. I figured you were hiding somewhere and I was afraid someone would hear an incoming text.” Bill leaned on his crutches and pulled out his cell. “Anyway, I got your SOS, but did you see what else you’d written?”

  “What do you mean?”

  He held up his phone. “Fido on rink Jane. Help.”

  I glared at the jumbled words. Auto-correct. I’d been so nervous my thumbs were all thumbs. “Sorry,” I said sheepishly.