Something Wicked

by Carolyn G. Hart

  Carla, nervous as a brood hen, made last-minute adjustments to the set. Her face was grim and pale, whether from concentration or unhappiness Annie had no idea. When Annie smiled a hello and paused to compliment the set, Carla stared at her unresponsively for a long moment, then muttered, “Glad you like it,” before turning away to check the list of props for Act I. Obviously, nerves weren’t confined to the players.

  Annie admired the perfection of the Victorian setting, the statuette of Minerva, Goddess of Wisdom, in the niche midway up the stair wall, the two three-prong silver candelabra atop the sideboard, and the substantial William Morris chairs, then headed downstairs to the dressing area. Although no one, of course, was in costume or makeup tonight (the first dress rehearsal was scheduled for the coming Sunday afternoon, the second for Monday night, and, hurrah, the opening for next Tuesday), Burt urged everyone to get into a groove with their timing and to use the greenroom between scenes.

  The only access from the stage area was down the narrow, steep, creaky stairs that opened just behind the back curtain at upstage right, which was very convenient for this particular play with its offstage cellar, where Teddy dug those useful canals and, occasionally, trenches for yellow fever victims.

  The below-stage area itself compared favorably with the Roman catacombs. The corridors, which branched off in unexpected loops and jogs, were ill-lit, musty, and, tonight, redolent with fresh coffee, mold, makeup, paint, plywood, and mosquitc spray.

  The greenroom opened to the right of the stairs. This was the area where actors awaited their entrances. Two sagging couches, an assortment of straight chairs, stools, and camp chairs were scattered the length of the long, narrow area. Burt had put a coffee urn on a table at the far end, along with a plate of cookies. A cooler on the floor held cans of soda.

  The paint and wood odors emanated from the prop shop across the hall. Farther down the dim length of the corrridor was the prop storage area, an enormous room with bays, ells, and innumerable nooks that contained stage trees, boulders, mock-ups of cars including a 1929 Ford, flags, fake suits of armor, trellises of paper flowers, and an unimaginable array of flotsam and jetsam from past high school productions. Across the corridor were the two large dressing rooms, plus two small ones with stars affixed to the outer panels. Men’s and women’s restrooms were at the end of the hall next to the dim cavern that was the boiler room.

  It was terrific fun to see the whole cast assembled, including Sam and T.K. as policemen, and Burt as Mr. Witherspoon, the fussy superintendent of Happy Dale Sanitarium who arrives in Act III to accept Abby, Martha, and Teddy as new patients. (Except, of course, that Abby and Martha discover he is a lonely widower and perhaps there will be just time for a nice glass of elderberry wine before they depart …)

  Burt stuck his head in the greenroom. “Ten minutes.”

  Henny Brawley grinned and gave a thumbs-up sign.

  Eugene smiled genially at Annie. “Interesting, that.”

  More TR memorabilia?

  TR’s look-alike cleared his throat. “Of course, we wouldn’t want the converse.”

  Annie looked at him blankly.

  “When one of the emperor’s party at the Roman Colosseum gave a thumbs-down, it meant death for the gladiator.”

  Annie felt a stab of irritation. Eugene might be living proof of a little knowledge being a bad thing. At the least, he’d dimmed her pleasure in the moment. Then she decided she was being as superstitious as poor Sam. After all, Eugene couldn’t help being a compendium of useless facts. Determinedly, she willed away her momentary unease.

  “I guess we’re all right,” she said brightly. “No gladiators here,” and she whirled away from Eugene to hurry upstairs. She wanted to see the opening scene.

  To complete her pleasure, Annie found the crate of programs tucked near the prop table and filched one to admire. She settled in a front-row seat. (She didn’t make her entrance until about seven minutes into Act I.)

  ARSENIC AND OLD LACE

  A Play in Three Acts

  By Joseph Kesselring

  Cast in order of appearance:

  ABBY BREWSTER Henrietta Brawley

  THE REV. DR. HARPER The Rev. Charles Donaldson

  TEDDY BREWSTER Shane Petree

  OFFICER BROPHY Vincent Ellis

  OFFICER KLEIN Samuel Bratton Haznine

  MARTHA BREWSTER Janet Horton

  ELAINE HARPER Annie Laurance

  MORTIMER BREWSTER Max Darling

  MR. GIBBS Ben Tippett

  JONATHAN BREWSTER Hugo Wolf

  DR. EINSTEIN Arthur Killeen

  OFFICER O’HARA Eugene Ferramond

  LIEUTENANT ROONEY T. K. Horton

  MR. WITHERSPOON Burt Conroy

  The houselights dimmed, the stage darkened, and Annie sat back to enjoy the play.

  In the ensuing hour, she took the stage twice as Elaine. Responsible for keeping track of her own entrances, she had developed a fine inner clock that alerted her that her cue was nearing, whether she was out in front, downstairs, or taking a quick breather on the back steps outside the stage door. All the cast members moved about, except Vince Ellis, who settled down to a serious game of poker in the greenroom with Ben Tippet when they were off. At various times, Annie caught glimpses of Shane, who paced impatiently in the below-stage hallway between appearances; Hugo, who glowered at them all impartially when offstage, but whose performance was brilliant; Arthur, who smiled at her shyly, clearly excited by his participation; and Janet, who dashed down several times to dart into the ladies’ room. Even Henny confessed to feeling a little parched, rushing into the greenroom once in search of her thermos of iced tea and shedding her warmup jacket to reveal a Spuds Mackenzie T-shirt.

  But, most of the time, Annie stayed in the auditorium, because this was as near as she would come to seeing the production as a whole, and because she was out of the way of Carla and Cindy, as they changed props between scenes. Annie was, of course, faithfully on hand for all of Max’s appearances as Mortimer. She didn’t intend to tell him how superb he was. The man was quite conceited enough without her driveling like a fan letter. But, golly, he was wonderful!

  After her stint as Elaine in Act II, when Jonathan tries unsuccessfully to imprison her in the cellar, she slipped down the stage right steps and returned to her familiar seat. A shadow moved in the darkness, and Eugene plumped down beside her.

  “Going great, isn’t it?” he whispered.

  She didn’t want to talk; she wanted to watch. But Eugene was due on as O’Hara in just a few minutes, so she would be patient.

  “Sure is.”

  “Everybody’s swell, aren’t they? Henny’s just a real star.”

  “Henny and Hugo and Max,” she replied.

  He gnawed at his lip. “Shane’s learned his lines.”

  Now that, of course, qualified as noblesse oblige of the first order. Actually, Shane had started off fairly well in the first act, but then he began to hurry his lines, and, when he was offstage, urged the others to pick up the pace. She even heard him telling Arthur, “We don’t want to be here all night, old man.” He didn’t even have time for his nightly sweetie-feely session behind the backdrop with Cindy. Annie was amused to see Shane brush off the teenager when she rushed to give him a big hug after the first act and stood on tiptoe to whisper in his ear. He disengaged her almost roughly, saying irritably, “Not tonight, Cindy,” and ducking down the stairs. Cindy had glared after him, her eyes hard. Shane’s impatience irritated the hell out of Hugo, who snarled, “Slow down, or I’ll slow you down permanently.” The saving grace was that the other cast members were too professional to let Shane break their rhythm and, after all, Teddy, though a fun figure in the play, wasn’t as critical to its success as were Abby, Martha, and Jonathan. Although if Shane kept up his rapid-fire delivery on opening night, it surely would detract from the others’ performances. Sam, of course, periodically yanked at his fringe of hair and moaned, “This is not a friggin’ expressway!” />
  Annie said dryly, “If Shane doesn’t stop trying to stampede everyone, Hugo may break his neck.” Then she added briskly, “But, overall, it’s going great. And you’re going to be a smash as O’Hara.”

  “I’ll give it my best shot,” he offered. He took a deep breath. “As TR once said, ‘Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though chequered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory or defeat.’” His blunt head turned toward her. “Don’t you agree?”

  “Oh, thoroughly.”

  She was saved from further comment when he added prosaically, “Almost my time. See you later, Annie.”

  And Eugene was superb as the hopeful policeman-playwright assuring the drama critic that he has absolutely no idea what goes on in Brooklyn, while the critic is awash in a welter of corpses and crazy relatives. The remainder of Act II sparkled, in part because Shane had no more appearances. But acrimony broke out almost immediately at the end of the act, when Carla accused Cindy of misplacing Abby’s and Martha’s hymnals.

  “I did not,” the teenager screeched. “I haven’t touched them!”

  Carla ran out onstage, looked over the downstage left table, then whirled toward Cindy. “If you didn’t spend every minute chasing after Shane, you could be of some help.”

  Cindy flipped her long blond hair angrily. “What’s the matter with you? PMS? Or maybe you don’t even have periods.”

  Sam bounced up on his sneakered feet, moving deftly between them. “Girls, girls, stuff it. Come on, Carla, put anything on. We’ll find ’em later.”

  For the first time all evening Annie thought of the saboteur, then shrugged it away. Everything was going perfectly, and the misplacement of the hymnals was surely too minor to have been planned. Just one of those prop mix-ups. What was remarkable was what a fabulous run-through it had turned out to be. Except for Shane, of course. One and all, the principals were turning in first-rate performances.

  With substitutes for the hymnals finally slapped in place, the curtain opened on Act III. Annie slipped comfortably down in her seat. She wasn’t due on until almost the finale, so she could thoroughly enjoy the complications of life at the Brewster manse. And she could smell success. Burt must be overjoyed. And Sam was surely visualizing a bright white trail leading back to Broadway. Annie grinned. It was fun to be part of something good.

  Mortimer jousted with Jonathan over the disposition of the corpses (Mr. Hoskins belonged to Abby and Martha; Mr. Spenalzo was the contribution of Jonathan and Dr. Einstein). There was a rapid flurry of coming and going at this point, Mortimer off, Jonathan on, Abby and Martha off, Einstein on.

  Jonathan demanded that Einstein bring up his medical instruments for use on Mortimer. Dr. Einstein refused, but Jonathan knew the medical bag was in the cellar and departed to find it.

  And then, nothing happened.

  Dr. Einstein, alone on the stage by the cellar door, finally twisted his head to look up toward the second-floor landing.

  Annie leaned forward.

  At this point, Teddy should burst onto the landing and raise his bugle, then Mortimer should frantically dash out and grab his arm, to prevent the bugle call.

  There was a flurry of sound backstage.

  “Well, where the hell is he?” Even the back curtain couldn’t muffle Hugo’s clarion, outraged tone.

  The rehearsal slammed to a halt. Backstage, Sam squalled, “Amateurs! God deliver me from amateurs!” Burt darted onstage and peered out over the lights at the auditorium. “Shane?” His voice quivered with irritation. “Anybody see him? Is he out there?”

  Annie stood up and looked around. In a minute, the houselights flickered on.

  Eugene, his mustache bristling officiously, poked his head through the red velvet curtains of the center aisle. “Haven’t seen him,” he called. “I’ll take a look in the foyer,” and his head withdrew.

  Soon, the entire cast and crew were involved.

  Five minutes later, after searching the restrooms, the greenroom, the dressing rooms, and the parking lot, a dour cast and crew gathered onstage.

  Max ducked back inside through the stage door. “His car’s out there. No sign of him.”

  Cindy looked surprised. “His car’s out there? But I thought maybe—” Then she stopped, but not quite soon enough.

  T.K. looked at her sharply. “What did you think, young lady?”

  His daughter gave a huffy little shrug and refused to reply.

  But Burt was too anxious to be politic. “What the hell did you think? You know what that jerk was up to?”

  Cindy glanced at her father’s reddening face, then said sullenly, “I don’t know anything for sure. But he said he was going to be busy after the show.” Fury flared in her eyes.

  Max studied her. “You think he had a date with somebody?”

  “Yes.” Resentment and anger snapped her full moist lips shut.

  “By God, this is the last straw!” Hugo slammed a fist against the stairs and they wobbled. “Now we know who’s caused all the trouble throughout the rehearsals. Anybody who’d pull a trick like this certainly did the rest of it.”

  “But his car’s out there,” Max protested. “So he hasn’t left.”

  “Unless someone picked him up. I’m sure there is a cadre of willing females lined up across the island,” Hugo said maliciously, flicking disdainful glances at Janet and Cindy.

  Their faces bore an uncanny, damning resemblance as both stiffened at the implication of his words.

  “He certainly didn’t hide the cat in the window seat,” Henny interjected, “so I’d say it’s very questionable that this is a trick on Shane’s part.”

  “Could he be sick?” Janet quavered.

  “We looked in the johns,” Burt retorted.

  “How carefully did you search downstairs?” Max asked.

  “He’s not in the greenroom or the dressing rooms. He’s not anywhere,” Burt insisted.

  “But if he’s sick,” Janet fretted, “he might have fallen somewhere. Oh, we’d better look again—”

  “If he’s sick, I hope it’s terminal,” Hugo snapped. “I for one did not come to the theater tonight to search for a half-assed actor. I will wait ten more minutes, and if he doesn’t show up, I’m leaving—and I won’t be back.”

  This galvanized Sam into a frenzy of action. “Quick, quick. Come on, now, let’s give it a big try, boys and girls, downstairs and out in the lot, too. Get some flashlights. Come on, everybody, let’s get with it. He has to be somewhere!”

  Annie glanced down at her watch. It was almost ten-forty. Actually, the play had been almost on schedule until Shane missed his entrance. For the first time all evening, she felt tired and more than a little irritated. Obviously, Shane wasn’t anywhere around. She didn’t know whether his disappearance was part of the malicious mischief which had dogged the rehearsals or whether he’d taken French leave for his own purposes, but she was damn sure she wasn’t interested in being part of the search party. However, Max was leading a pack out into the parking lot. She shrugged and followed Vince down the backstage steps. Tallyho.

  Even with the huge flashlight from Max’s car and a pencil-sized addition from her purse, they found no trace of Shane in the lot. Vince headed for the maintenance garage for school buses, while Eugene and Arthur climbed the steps of the baseball stands. Circling the track, Annie stumbled over a gopher burrow. As she limped back toward the light over the stage door, she was considering artistic ways of revenging herself upon Shane, starting with a hatchet buried in his thick skull.

  Then, awkwardly, she began to run, ignoring the twinge in her ankle, because the sound that carried on the silky night air, though muffled and indistinct, was unmistakably a horror-freighted scream.

  10

  Vince Ellis (perennial winner of the island’s annual triathalon) reached the stage door twenty-five yards in the lead. Ann
ie was straining for breath, but she was right behind Max as he plunged up the steps. Eugene and Arthur were trailing far behind.

  Screams, sobs, and a hoarse flurry of shouts echoed up the stairwell from the basement.

  Thudding down the narrow steps, they found a knot of shaken onlookers clustered around the open door to the boiler room.

  Annie craned to see past Arthur’s bony shoulders, then wished she hadn’t.

  Shane’s pink cotton sports shirt bunched awkwardly across his chest, forming a depression. The blood trickling down from his pulpy face had collected in a dark, viscous pool. Once he had been handsome; now blood suffused the eye sockets, shards of bone poked whitely through torn flesh.

  Annie drew her breath in sharply. “What did that to his face?” she asked, her voice high.

  Arthur didn’t turn, but he answered her in a dull monotone. “Gunshot wounds. Several.” And Annie remembered he wore a Purple Heart and an ill-fitting uniform every year in the Fourth of July parade.

  It was Janet who found Shane, and Janet who screamed, but the wrenching sobs came from Cindy, who knelt on the gritty cement floor, holding a flaccid hand tightly between her own.

  “Shane. Shane!”

  T.K. shouldered past Annie, then shoved Arthur and Hugo aside. “Get up, Cindy. Get up.” For once T.K. had no eyes for his wife, who sagged against a dusty pillar, her hands at her throat, her face crumpled in horror. There was both anguish and fear in his voice as he reached down to grab his daughter’s arm.

  “Leave me alone,” she cried, twisting free. Cindy turned a grief-distorted face toward her father. “Don’t touch me. You hated him. You know you did. Oh, leave me alone.”

  T.K.’s jowly face turned crimson, and he yanked the girl to her feet and began to shake her harshly. “Shut up,” he shouted. “Shut your mouth.”

  Janet flung herself toward them. “Stop it! Stop it, both of you!”

  Vince Ellis, the freckles standing out against his face, watched them intently. T.K., his jaw quivering as he stared at his daughter, never even noticed.