“Who is that with O’Malley?” it read. “He looks familiar. One of your troupe?”
“Zachary Glass, the movie star,” I texted back. “He has the lead role in O’Malley’s Hamlet.”
“Lock up that phone. Sending someone to collect it tonight.”
“Roger.”
I realized that my hands were sweating. I wiped the sweat off of Terence’s phone, tucked it into the top drawer of Cordelia’s desk, and locked it up. Went out and locked the office door behind me.
Then I hurried down the hall to the small bathroom and washed my hands. Twice. With a sinfully excessive amount of Cordelia’s rosewater soap.
As I dried my hands I peered into the mirror. I looked tired. Haggard. Lately I’d noticed that being even slightly short on sleep brought out the dark circles under my eyes, and I was certainly running on empty by now. Maybe I could arrange for someone else to meet whoever was coming to pick up Terence’s phone, so I could go to bed.
And maybe tomorrow I’d go across the way to Rose Noire’s booth and see if any of her herbal remedies would help my poor face. Maybe she’d brought a supply of her organic cucumber eye cream, or her herb-and-mineral mud masque.
And why was I trying so hard not to think about what I’d found in Terence’s phone?
I remembered Nigel telling Michael and me about overhearing what he thought was Terence blackmailing someone. What was it Nigel had reported Terence saying? “I want it. Remember, I have the goods on you.” Had I told the chief about that? I couldn’t remember. Odds were Nigel had by now.
It all made sense, suddenly. Terence was using the embarrassing photos to blackmail O’Malley—not for money, but for something he wanted more than money—the part of Polonius in O’Malley’s upcoming production of Hamlet. And O’Malley was smart enough to realize that as long as those photos existed, he’d never be free. Every time he directed a play or movie, Terence could hit him up for a part. Terence might start asking for money. Or, if Terence decided O’Malley had nothing else of value, he could try to sell the photos. The tabloids might pay handsomely for them. Blackmail always ends badly for someone.
So O’Malley had come up to see Terence. Maybe he’d just planned to talk to him. Reason with him. Or maybe he’d come intending to kill him. Either way, they’d met out in the woods, and O’Malley had killed Terence. But for whatever reason, Terence didn’t have his phone with him—I was sure if he had, O’Malley would have taken it and left. So O’Malley had stayed around to insinuate himself into the group of actors at the Faire. That was why he’d been snooping around Camp Anachronism and rummaging through pockets in the costume shop. And I’d bet anything it was O’Malley who had called Terence thirty-two times over the course of the day. He’d been calling in the hope that the ringing would help him locate Terence’s phone. Bad luck for him that Terence, always careless about practical things, hadn’t bothered to charge his phone all that recently, so that it had run out of power completely by the time O’Malley had started calling it.
Of course, there was still the mystery of how the phone had landed in the pocket of Nigel’s costume. The chief would find out once O’Malley was arrested. I hoped having one of her guests hauled away in handcuffs wouldn’t upset poor Mrs. Larsen. Maybe Cordelia and I should plan to drop by Den Lille Hytta tomorrow to check on her and—
Just then I heard a noise. The squeaky floorboard in the jewelry studio. I froze and listened. I didn’t hear it again. And I also didn’t hear anyone calling out to me. Wouldn’t that be the normal thing to do if you were expecting to find me in the studio and didn’t see me?
Chapter 40
I reached into my pocket, intending to pull out my phone. Maybe I was overreacting, but I decided I’d rather text someone and make sure there was a friendly face out in the hall when I stepped out of the bathroom and went to see who was sneaking around in the jewelry studio. Heck, maybe I could even text 911.
My phone. It wasn’t in my pocket. My key ring was, but fat lot of good that did me. Damn! I’d probably left my phone on Cordelia’s desk. I could go and unlock the door and fetch it … but not without making noise.
Well, someone would be coming by eventually. A police officer to pick up the phone. Michael arriving home after arranging Nigel’s bail. If I could stay here long enough …
But if whoever had arrived so silently had evil intentions, he wouldn’t let me skulk in the bathroom forever. He might come looking for me. I looked around for something I could use to defend myself.
The available options weren’t encouraging. A spray bottle of cleaning solution. But it was an environmentally sensitive cleaner, widely advertised as all-natural, non-toxic, biodegradable, and free from ingredients that might irritate the eyes. Nice that Cordelia was doing her bit for the ecosystem, but I’d have given a lot right now for a spray bottle full of toxic eye-irritating chemicals.
About the only possible weapons I could find were an old-fashioned red rubber plunger and a dilapidated toilet brush, both clearly well used. I had a brief vision of trying to wield one or the other against a killer armed with one of the impressive weapons slasher movies always seemed to feature—a Texas chainsaw, the machete from Friday the 13th, and Freddy Krueger’s glove with knives on all the fingers. Then I made a mental vow to work harder at discouraging the boys’ budding fascination with scary movies and reminded myself that the unseen intruder probably wasn’t armed with any of those. If I was lucky, he’d have picked up another cheap, flimsy dagger from the Bonny Blade, and I’d have the advantage of superior weaponry. If I was unlucky, he’d have a gun, and neither of my weapons would be much use.
Unless I could leverage the ick factor. That might prove useful.
Not now, though. I’d stall for time. Every minute that passed increased the chances that reinforcements would arrive.
But what if the reinforcements were less prepared to tackle O’Malley than I was? The boys, for example. Dad. Even a Riverton police officer might be vulnerable if he thought he was just completing a tame—if important—errand to secure evidence.
At least I knew there was someone there. And had a good idea who it was.
I’d creep out, armed with my weapons of mass disgustingness, and surprise the intruder.
Or at least bring to an end this miserable crouching and waiting in a bathroom that seemed to be growing smaller by the second.
“Seize the moment,” I told myself—mentally, of course. “Time and tide wait for no one. She who hesitates is lost.”
But then I paused and looked around for a place to hide something. The toilet tank. Moving swiftly and silently I relocated the toilet paper rolls, still-wrapped bars of soap, and other bathroom clutter that lived on top of it. Ever so carefully I slid off the tank lid. I pulled the key ring out of my pocket and gently eased it to the bottom of the tank. Then I put the lid back and restored its load of toilet paper and soap. The phone was still locked in Cordelia’s office. No sense making the office-door key easy for him to take.
I shoved the bathroom door open with the business end of the plunger, strode briskly down the hallway, and burst into the jewelry studio, shouting “Hai!” with a volume and fierceness that would have pleased my old martial arts teacher.
O’Malley was so startled that he almost dropped the gun he was holding.
“What the hell are you supposed to be?” he snapped.
Okay, the gun was a bad break. But maybe I could talk my way out of this. Or at least stall until the cavalry arrived.
“Good heavens.” I pretended to be relieved at the sight of him. “I thought you were a burglar. You might want to leave now. The chief will be arriving any minute, and she won’t be pleased to find you ignoring Cordelia’s orders to stay away.”
O’Malley smiled.
“Nice try,” he said. “Now how about giving me Cox’s cell phone?”
“And then you’ll just go away quietly and never darken our doorstep again,” I said. “Yeah, right.”
“
I know you’ve got it in your pocket.”
“No, I don’t,” I said. “It’s locked up in the lost-and-found.”
“Then unlock it.”
“I don’t have the key.”
“Then where is it?” The “is” was halfway to “ish.” He was probably still under the influence. Was that something I could use, or did it make my situation worse?
“The chief has it.” Not exactly a lie—she did have a key to the office—and I was pleased to see him flinch slightly. “And she also has the photos. The ones of you and Zach Glass and your … friends. Just how did Terence get his hands on those, anyway?”
He looked stricken for a moment, then put on an unconvincing air of nonchalance.
“I don’t know what photos you— Okay. Yeah. I want the photos. I told Terence I didn’t want him to take any photos of our rehearsal. My Hamlet’s going to be a bold, new interpretation. Very modern—visually in your face. I didn’t want any hint of what I’m doing to leak out. But I guess he ignored me. I just want the photos, If Terence were alive, I’d be able to make him see reason. But since some lunatic decided to knock him off—well, I’ve been trying to find his phone so I could delete them before they get out and ruin the surprise.”
“Interesting,” I said. “I must reread Hamlet. It’s been a while. I don’t remember the coke-sniffing scene. Or the dominatrix subplot.”
“Just give me the damned phone!” O’Malley took a couple of steps toward me. I thrust the plunger and toilet brush in front of me, and he scrambled to get beyond their reach.
He took a few steps to the left in what I suspected he thought was a subtle, nonchalant manner. I took a few steps to my left, keeping the distance between us the same. We repeated this maneuver a couple of times. I suspected he was angling to get between me and the door. He was welcome to try. I was angling myself to get closer to where I’d dragged the table. If I got close enough, maybe I could leap behind it. The top was good, thick oak. If it didn’t stop a bullet, at least it would slow one down. And then—
I needed to keep him distracted.
“We have a stalemate,” I said aloud. “You can shoot me. But then you’ll never get your hands on the phone. I suppose there’s no use pointing out that Virginia’s still a death penalty state, since you’re already on the hook for killing Terence—”
“I didn’t kill Terence!” Suddenly he sounded terrified. “I never saw him down here.”
“You came down Friday night,” I pointed out.
“I was going to tackle him today,” he said. “I didn’t come up here until this morning, I didn’t know he was dead until that horrible policewoman told me, and I didn’t kill him!”
“Then who did?”
“How should I know?” He sounded exasperated. And sincere. And almost believable. He wasn’t that good an actor, was he?
“Well, let’s think about it,” I said aloud. “Because if we can’t figure it out, the chief’s probably going to arrest you. Who else had a reason to dislike Terence?”
“Who didn’t?” O’Malley said. “I’ll tell you one thing: Whoever killed him did me a favor. The thought of having to use that talentless hack in my Hamlet was driving me crazy.”
“But you didn’t kill him yourself.”
“No, I—”
Suddenly, from behind O’Malley, an electric iron flashed into sight and struck the top of his head. He groaned, his eyes rolled up, and he would have fallen to the floor if the person who had just coshed him hadn’t caught him with one arm and eased him to the floor—while deftly removing the gun from his limp hand. I heard the iron clatter onto the hard boards.
“What an annoying man.” George Sims stepped farther into the room, giving O’Malley’s crumpled body a wide berth.
I’d have been babbling with gratitude if I hadn’t noticed a curious thing: the gun, now in George’s hand, was still pointing in my direction.
Maybe I should pretend not to have noticed. Brazen it out.
“Very annoying,” I said. “But Chief Heedles will be annoyed if he dies before she can arrest him for Terence’s murder. How about if you guard him while I go to fetch Dad?”
I took a couple of steps forward, as if to do so.
“I don’t think so.”
Why did that bland, self-effacing smile of his suddenly look so sinister? I retreated, and revived my notion of diving behind the table.
“He was telling the truth, you know,” George said. “He didn’t kill Terence. I suppose he might have tried if I hadn’t gotten to the bastard first. And O’Malley would have messed it up, of course. But you knew that.”
“No,” I said. “I really didn’t. And I’m not sure I believe it now. You’re just trying to be dramatic. What possible reason could you have had for killing Terence?”
“No one notices.” He nodded as if I had just confirmed some sad suspicion he’d held for years. “The man abuses me. Makes fun of me. Plays humiliating and destructive pranks on me. Bad-mouths me to directors so no one ever casts me. And no one notices. He leers once or twice at Dianne and everyone falls all over themselves to make her feel better. He targets me for constant humiliation and torment and everybody says ‘Oh, never mind. It’s just George. It doesn’t really matter.’”
“Are you kidding?” I was having a hard time keeping my temper. “How many times did I offer to speak to Terence? How many times did I ask you if you wanted me to do anything? And I know Michael and Cordelia did the same.”
“If you’d really cared about how he treated me, you’d have done something anyway.”
“We were doing something anyway,” I said. “When Cordelia realized he was a problem, she started giving him warning memos—at least for those times when anyone could bring themselves to tell us what happened. Not just for things he’d done to Dianne—we had at least as many on things we could prove he’d done to you. And we were going to fire him. Today would probably have been his last day.”
“Really?” George blinked and looked unsure of himself. Then he recovered. “Doesn’t matter. Too little too late. And if he thought I’d had a hand in getting him fired, he’d never have let it go. He’d have blackened my name with everyone.”
“Only the people stupid enough to believe him,” I said.
“But people did.” He glanced down at O’Malley. “He wouldn’t even give me an audition, the swine.” He kicked O’Malley’s shoulder by way of emphasis. “Pretty sure Terence poisoned the well. And he’s been ruining things here. Do you think I took this job because I like living in a tent and clowning around for a bunch of stupid tourists? Why would anyone take on a gig like this unless his career was dead in the water? But stupid me—I thought someone would see my work here and want to cast me in a real show. Fat chance of that after the way Terence kept making me look bad, week after week.”
At least he was focusing on Terence—not blaming anyone else. Like Michael. Or Cordelia. Or me.
“We all know he was treating you badly,” I said. “But we can find a way out of this. Put down the gun. Let us help you. If—”
Just then I heard a rattling out in the corridor. George started and looked over his shoulder.
“Take cover, Meg!” a voice called. Grandfather?
I jumped to one side as one of the giant clothes racks, heavily loaded with multicolored costumes, careened into the room and slammed into George. I could see Grandfather riding on the back of it.
“Stay outside!” I shouted. “And go get help! He’s got a gun!”
George had fallen, but he was trying to scramble to his feet, and he’d managed to hold on to the gun.
“Scurvy knave!” Grandfather leaped off the clothes rack and strode forward, waving his raven cane wildly. “Drop that infernal fire stick and put your hands up!”
“Do what he says!” Dad would never manage to be one-tenth as menacing as Grandfather, but the ten-foot bardiche he was carrying seemed to get George’s attention, just for a second or two.
I took the
opportunity to vault over the table and grab George’s gun hand. I didn’t manage to wrest the gun away from him before he pulled the trigger, but my grip was more than strong enough to keep it pointed steadily away from everyone until he’d fired all its rounds into my poor sleeping bag. Then I stomped on his instep and wrenched the empty gun out of his hand.
“Ow,” he said. “I think you broke my wrist. And I’ve got splinters! Splinters from that nasty floor.”
Dad had pulled out his phone.
“Can you bring my medical kit down to the jewelry studio?” he was saying to someone.
That seemed to please George—until he noticed that Dad was focused on O’Malley—who was still unconscious.
“I’m injured too,” George wailed.
“Help me tie him up,” I told Grandfather.
“On your belly, worm!” Grandfather snapped.
While Grandfather kept George pinned down with his raven staff, I ran to the bathroom, retrieved my keys, and fetched a roll of electrical tape from Cordelia’s office.
Just as we finished trussing up George—
“What is going on here?”
We all looked up to see Chief Heedles standing in the doorway. Lenny, Horace, and a third officer were peering over her shoulders.
“Meg caught your killer,” Dad exclaimed, pointing to George.
“We helped,” Grandfather added.
“He’s the killer?” the chief sounded puzzled. “After seeing those photos—”
“O’Malley’s a creep, but George is the killer,” I said. “It’s a long story.”
“And one that will have to wait,” Dad said. “We need to get O’Malley to a hospital. How soon can we get an ambulance here?”
“At this time of night? Let’s take him in the patrol van. Horace! Lenny! Find something we can use as a stretcher. Carlton—take charge of Mr.… um…”
“Sims,” I reminded her.
“Take charge of Mr. Sims. And Meg I’d like you to come along. You can start telling me that long story.”
The Falcon Always Wings Twice Page 28