Sucker Punch

by Sammi Carter

  Richie mumbled something under his breath, along with about half the dancers in the room. I had to admire him for showing up and for ignoring the speculative glances some people in the cast directed at him. He was stronger than I’d ever realized. I’d told Nate Svboda that I was in the cast when he questioned me after Laurence died, and Vonetta hadn’t corrected me. I figured I owed it to her to stick around. Besides, if I was going to be at the theater all the time looking for a way to clear Richie, I might as well have a legitimate excuse.

  Rachel swore softly and limped toward a folding chair near the window. I dropped to the floor and tried to find the water bottle I’d lobbed into the corner last time we had a chance to catch our breath.

  Outside, a small knot of reporters milled around, waiting for rehearsal to break up so they could try to find someone willing to talk. We’d run the gauntlet on the way inside, and it looked like we’d have to repeat the process when we left.

  Alexander had issued an edict when we arrived tonight demanding strict silence with the press. So far, nobody seemed interested in crossing him.

  Jessica clapped her hands and bellowed, “Quiet! People! Quiet, please!” in a voice far too large for a girl so small. “I know you’re all tired. I know this is a lot to grasp all at once. But this scene is one of the most important in the play. The dance, the mime, is crucial. Now please, get back in place.”

  I found my water bottle and chugged as much as I could before she screeched again.

  “Abby? That’s your name, isn’t it? Do you mind? Everyone’s waiting.”

  Every muscle in my body ached. Dancing—even bad dancing—isn’t as easy as it looks. I capped the bottle, struggled to my feet again, and gimped back to my spot on the floor. This had been a mistake. I should have listened to my gut instinct and stayed out of the production. But I was here now, and with my friendship with Vonetta still on shaky ground, being part of the cast might be the only way I could get access to the people I wanted to talk to and the information I wanted to ask them about.

  “Are we ready?” Jessica shouted when I’d resumed my position. “All right, then.” She turned to Stella Farmer, who sat at the baby grand, waiting for instructions. Stella’s a sturdy woman with mint green eyes and strong hands. I’ve known her since I was a kid, back when her big, frosted hairdo was actually in style. I’ve never seen her wearing anything but jeans, a man’s shirt, untucked, and cowboy boots. Except, of course, when she’s at church—and that’s only for the occasional funeral.

  For years, Stella has been the go-to gal whenever anyone in town needs the piano. She’s moderately talented and has the uncanny ability to sight-read anything put in front of her. Which is why she sat at the piano now, ready to sit in for Laurence Nichols.

  “From the top?” Jessica said, and Stella started in with a decent rendition of “Stay, We Must Not Lose Our Senses.”

  “Stop! Everyone stop!” Alexander strode into the room wearing a deep scowl. “I thought you were going to work on the original Nichols piece.”

  Groans rose up from the cast. We were up, in position, and ready to move through the steps for the umpteenth time in an hour. I don’t think anyone wanted to sit around while Alexander and Jessica argued over which song we were rehearsing.

  “Take five, everybody,” Jessica called, as if Alexander’s order to stop wasn’t enough.

  The cast had already tromped back to their seats or gone off to take care of business elsewhere in the building. Richie and one of the guys in the chorus disappeared into the foyer. Stella stood beside the piano and arched her back. Rachel pulled off a shoe and scowled at her toes.

  I dragged a chair over to sit by her. “I’d forgotten how much of rehearsal is waiting around.”

  Rachel laughed and wiggled her toes, watching carefully to make sure they all moved. “It’s practically all waiting. I should have grabbed dinner on my way here. I’m starving.”

  “I should be at Divinity,” I mumbled. “Karen and Liberty are going to wring my neck for getting involved in this.”

  “Quit worrying. Karen and Liberty are fine. I talked to both of them this afternoon. This is the only rehearsal scheduled for this week, and Valentine’s Day will be over before you know it. It’s not even an issue.”

  I took another swig of water and stretched my legs. I could hear Jessica and Alexander arguing, I just couldn’t hear what they were saying. “What do you suppose that’s all about?”

  Rachel checked the other foot and shrugged. “Could be just about anything. I get the feeling Alexander is a real control freak. It’s his way or the highway.”

  Jessica’s cheeks were flushed with anger. Her arms moved with broad, jerky movements as she spoke. I looked away and met Rachel’s gaze. “Who do you think will win this one?”

  “I don’t know. She’s tough, but she’s young. I think I’m gonna have to put my money on Alexander.” She grabbed her tote bag and began searching inside. She came up with half a roll of Life Savers and offered me one. That’s the kind of friend Rachel is.

  “I think you might be right,” I said. “I wish I could hear what they’re saying.”

  “Move closer.”

  I grinned and shook my head. “I’m trying to foster the illusion that I’m a regular cast member.”

  “Good luck with that,” Rachel said with a laugh. Jessica’s voice rose a level or two, and Rachel leaned back in her chair, smiling contentedly. “Looks like you might be able to eavesdrop after all.”

  But the argument was over almost before it began. Looking mutinous, Jessica clapped her hands again, glanced around at the diminished cast, and shouted, “Pirates, Daughters, and Voices! Front and center! Now!”

  It took a few minutes, but the cast was soon gathered again, and Jessica faced us all wearing a frown so deep, her chin turned white. “We’re going to switch,” she said. “We’re going to work on the original Nichols piece that Alexander has added to this portion of the play.”

  Richie, who’d come back to the rehearsal hall a few minutes earlier, raised a hand. “Excuse me, Jessica, but we don’t have that.”

  “Of course you do. It was included in your scripts.”

  “No it wasn’t,” Richie said. “It went missing before they could make copies.”

  “I thought Geoffrey was going to have new copies delivered.”

  “Yeah, well, he didn’t,” Richie’s friend put in. “None of us has seen it yet.”

  “Son of a bitch!” Alexander’s voice bounced off the walls. “That music belongs here, in this production. Laurence wrote it especially for this play. Manwaring has no right to hold on to it.”

  Richie caught my eye from across the room, but we weren’t the only people in the cast who looked startled and confused. “What’s going on?” Rachel hissed.

  “Apparently, Geoffrey Manwaring never sent Laurence’s music like he promised.”

  “He probably didn’t think he needed to since Laurence . . . you know.”

  “Maybe. But it should have been here the day Laurence died. Did Geoffrey just forget, or did he somehow know Laurence wasn’t going to need it?”

  Rachel slipped her feet into her shoes and lowered her voice even further “You think he knew something was going to happen to Laurence?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. It just seems odd that he didn’t follow through. You remember how angry Laurence was when the music turned up missing.”

  Rachel nodded. “He was mad, but even if you’re right, how would you ever prove it?”

  I shrugged and sat back in my chair. “If Jawarski were here, I’d just tell him about it and let him work his magic. He could get phone records, maybe subpoena a computer for e-mail . . . I got nothin’.”

  “Then you’ll just have to get him to confess,” Rachel said with a grin. “That should be easy, right?”

  I laughed. “Yeah. Piece of cake.” But her joke had hatched a new idea. Jessica and Alexander were still arguing over what to do about the missing music, and they di
dn’t show any signs of letting up. I nudged Rachel and asked, “Did you walk, or did you bring your car?”

  “I drove. Why?

  “Want to drive over to the Summit Lodge with me? Maybe we can figure out what happened to Laurence’s original pieces.”

  Rachel stared at me as if I’d sprouted a second head. “Now?”

  “It’s better than hanging around here,” I said. “I’d walk back and get my car, but if Manwaring is a murdering psychopath, I’d rather not show up at his hotel room alone.”

  Rachel hesitated for only a second, then grabbed her bag and began stuffing her things into it. “Okay, you’re on. But only if we can grab something for dinner when we’re through there.”

  That was a condition I could live with. Feeling like kids skipping school, we ducked out of rehearsal and five minutes later we were speeding toward the mountains on the south end of the valley.

  The Summit Lodge is one of three new hotels that have been built in the past few years to accommodate increased tourist traffic. Nestled against the mountains between ski runs and the new golf course, the lodge is an impressive display of varnished wood and polished glass.

  We found a parking space near the main entry and scurried inside out of the cold. A fire blazed in a huge open pit in the center of the lobby, and honey-colored wood gleamed all around us, as if management had people working round the clock with furniture polish.

  I knew the desk clerks would never give us Geoffrey’s room number, so we nosed around until we found a house phone. The scents of garlic and beef swept over us as we searched, and Rachel was so distracted I half expected her to bolt for the hotel’s closest restaurant.

  After several minutes we found a bank of phones tucked out of sight behind—what else?—a wall of polished wood. I punched the button for the front desk and asked to be put through to Geoffrey Manwaring’s room. After a couple of clicks, the connection went through and the phone rang. And rang. And rang. And rang.

  After the fourth ring, the call transferred to voice mail. Disappointed, I replaced the receiver. “Well that was a waste of time and gas. There’s no answer.”

  Rachel had already moved on. She dug through her bottomless bag and pulled out a tube of lipstick. “Maybe he’s gone to dinner.”

  “Yeah. Maybe.”

  “Speaking of which . . . We’re eating here.”

  “Are you kidding? It’ll cost a fortune. Jawarski and I came here last year, and they charged fifteen dollars for a burger. And that was on the lunch menu!”

  “So?”

  “So I’ll probably have to sell my car to pay for dinner. Let’s go somewhere else.”

  Rachel slicked on a layer of wine-colored lipstick and dropped the tube in her bag. “I’m not leaving here until whatever I can smell is in my stomach. I’ll buy.”

  I snorted a laugh and followed her back into the lobby. “You’re not buying my dinner. There are plenty of great places in town and it’ll take us five minutes to get to any one of them. Besides, neither of us is dressed for this place. Let’s just go.”

  Rachel glanced at my sweats and T-shirt with a shrug. “I don’t care how we look. If you don’t want me to pay for your dinner, you can wait for me in the lobby or you can wait in the car, but I’m not leaving.”

  I consider myself a reasonably intelligent woman, chiefly because I can recognize an immovable object when I run into it. I could have argued until I was blue in the face. Rachel was not going anywhere. “Fine. Let’s go.”

  We wound our way along a hallway toward the restaurant, flanked by framed shots of local scenery on one side and a long bank of windows that looked out over the valley on the other. It was a beautiful hotel, I wouldn’t deny that. It just wasn’t forty-dollar chicken beautiful.

  A hostess led us through the nearly deserted restaurant toward a table for two tucked in a corner where nobody would see us. I was about to sit when I spotted Geoffrey Manwaring at a table on the other side of the room. “Excuse me,” I called after the hostess.

  “Yes ma’am?”

  Ma’am. I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to people calling me that. “We’d like to sit over there, please. One of those tables by the window would be perfect.”

  I could see the war going on inside her. Say no and offend a customer. Say yes and offend all the others. Luckily, probably because there were only a handful of those “others,” she inclined her head and motioned for us to follow her.

  “What are you doing?” Rachel demanded as we walked.

  I nodded toward my unsuspecting prey. “That’s Geoffrey Manwaring. If I’m going to spend twenty dollars for a bowl of soup, I might as well get something extra out of it.”

  Our hostess seated us at the table directly in front of Geoffrey’s. The location couldn’t have been more perfect. I smiled, delighted with the turn of events until I opened the menu. The constant assault of beef and garlic on my nostrils had convinced me that I was hungry, too, but steak tonight would mean ramen noodles for the next two weeks. It had better be worth the sacrifice.

  After studying the menu for several minutes and trying to make the prices drop by sheer mental power, I decided on a jumbo seafood cocktail (jumbo being the operative word) and a Coke for a mere twenty-five bucks. Rachel ordered as if she had money to spare—tomato bisque soup, bone-in rib eye, and a glass of cabernet sauvignon. She squeaked in at just under a hundred dollars, minus tax and tip. A steal at half the price.

  While our server was in the back mining the gold dust to sprinkle on each of the dishes, I pasted on a friendly smile and stepped over to Geoffrey’s table. “Well, hello. Geoffrey Manwaring, isn’t it?”

  He looked at me with a blank expression. “It is.”

  “You probably don’t remember me. Abby Shaw. I run the candy shop in town.” I held out a hand, which he promptly ignored.

  “Ah. Yes.” He dabbed a napkin to his tight little mouth and ran a glance over my clothes. “You’re the lady who refused to deliver my order.”

  “We did deliver it,” I reminded him.

  “Yes. Thanks to the other woman.” Apparently, he sensed that I wasn’t going to leave, so he linked his hands together on the table and made an effort to hide his irritation. “What can I do for you, Ms. Shaw?”

  I took that as an invitation to sit at his table. My mother would have had a fit if she’d seen me. “Well, it’s a little thing, really. Rachel and I—that’s Rachel right over there—were just at a rehearsal at the Playhouse. The music that Laurence wrote for the production still wasn’t there. I’m just wondering if you forgot to order the copies you promised to get?”

  What little patience he’d been able to manufacture evaporated while I was speaking. “No, I didn’t forget. The music won’t be coming. You might as well let the others know.”

  Not much room for interpretation in that answer. “But I was under the impression that Laurence wrote the music especially for this production. The troupe at the Paradise Playhouse were going to be the first ever to perform it.”

  Geoffrey motioned for the waiter to bring him another cocktail. “You’ve been given some bad information. Laurence was in the process of writing his own screenplay. He was also writing the original score. That score is the only unperformed work of his in existence.”

  What a jerk. I didn’t care that we were sitting in a world-class restaurant, or that I looked as if I belonged on the cleaning staff. I hate being lied to. “That’s interesting,” I said with a cool smile. “I heard Laurence himself talking about that music, so I know you’re not telling the truth.”

  “Do you?” Geoffrey accepted a glass from the server and swallowed half of it in one gulp. “You have something in writing to support your claim? Because I don’t. There’s no contract. No promise. Nothing.”

  “Laurence and Vonetta had a verbal agreement.”

  “Well, that’s too bad, isn’t it? I don’t know anything about a verbal agreement. Now that Larry’s gone, his work is going to be worth a small fortune
. I’d be an idiot to hand over the last work he ever did to a Podunk operation like the one you’ve got here.”

  I could just imagine the reaction this news would get when Vonetta and Alexander found out. “Are you ever going to tell the others that you’re backing out of the deal? Or are you just going to let them go on thinking you forgot to send the music?”

  “Oh, I’ll tell them eventually. But considering the fact that Vonetta tried to weasel out of a legally binding contract with my client, I’m not all that worried about her.”

  “Maybe you should be.”

  He laughed softly, and the sound made me so angry I barely resisted the urge to wipe the smile off his face. “You don’t frighten me, candy lady. I’ve been in this business a long time. You’re barely wet behind the ears.”

  “That’s because I was busy practicing law while you were boning up on how to cheat people.”

  His eyes widened for an instant, but he got over the surprise quickly and laughed again. “Nice try, but I’m not cheating anyone. Like I said, I defy you to find a written agreement promising that music to anyone.” He downed the rest of his drink and tossed his napkin onto the table. “In fact, I’ll make you a promise. If you produce an agreement, providing it’s not a fraud, I’ll honor it.”

  “I’ll hold you to it. Now why don’t you explain to me how you knew that you didn’t need to send the copies of the music to the Playhouse before Laurence died.”

  Geoffrey’s smile faded. “Are you accusing me of having something to do with the death of my best client and closest friend?”

  “I’m asking a simple question. You promised Laurence that you’d have the music delivered to the Playhouse the day he died, but you obviously didn’t. How did you know he wasn’t going to need it?”

  Geoffrey sat back in his chair and let out a long-suffering sigh. “After Vonetta tried to terminate their contract—without a valid excuse, I might add—I was kept busy trying to convince Larry not to sue her.”