Ms America and the Brouhaha on Broadway (31 page)

“I didn’t concoct it!” she cries. “The calendar could still happen!”

“And now you’re talking about moving down south? What’s that all about?”

“You have to ask?” my mother hollers.

“I have every right to move closer to my sister,” Kimberly says.

“I bet that sister of hers lives in North Carolina,” my mother says, and we all know she’s got that right.

“Kimberly, you listen to me and you listen but good,” I say. “Jason is a married man. And that means you better back off.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she tells me. “All we’ve ever done is work together. And I was super confident the calendar would be approved.”

“If you were super confident, you wouldn’t have been so worried the text from the calendar people would be upsetting. So where were you, anyway, when you were texting with them?”

“I was backstage.”

Likely story. Then something else occurs to me. “So who’s covering Jason’s expenses? Do you expect him to pay for the Sofitel?”

“Of course not! I’m covering everything.”

More proof Miss Kimberly has money. This so-called business trip of Jason’s is big-time costly. “You’ve got to tell him the calendar is on spec. And I mean today.”

Her face crumples. “He’s not going to be happy.”

“Tell me about it.” Now I understand why Kimberly was crying so hard the night Lisette died. It wasn’t grief, as I thought at the time. It was either guilt, because she feared her texting had precipitated Lisette’s fall, or sadness that Jason’s calendar had gotten nixed. I suppose it could’ve been both.

“I still want my photo shoot,” my mother says.

I guess nothing short of thermonuclear war breaking out on Madison Avenue would deter her from that. “You up for it, Kimberly?” I ask.

She throws out her arms. “Fine! But I want a little air first,” and off she goes.

Once the door slams shut behind Kimberly, my mother shakes her head. “That girl’s trouble.”

I agree. The only question is how much. It’s certainly possible she’s lying when she says she was backstage while Lisette was on that staircase. She has a strong incentive to claim she was nowhere near the mezzanine while she was texting. And how would I find out otherwise? Somebody seated in that area might’ve noticed Kimberly was using her phone, but how would I ever find that out?

And this whole thing about Jason’s calendar boggles my mind. I dread his reaction. At least it’ll be Kimberly and not me who has to face the immediate fallout.

I glance at my watch. “Let me finish your makeup, Mom, because I’ve got to get out of here in ten minutes.” I don’t want to be late for Junior.

Although by the time I make it back to the theater, he puts me off again, this time for a half hour. I point myself toward the backstage coffeepot before I realize it’ll be empty. It’s Monday, which means the theater is dark. Naturally the unions insist that cast and crew get time off every week—whether opening night is coming up fast or not—and then there’s the age-old superstition that a theater’s ghosts need one night a week to conduct their own performances. I wander into the empty, shadowy auditorium and just for variety decide to wait in the orchestra pit, one of the few locations I haven’t checked out yet.

I seat myself on a random folding chair in what I think is the string section. Around me are empty chairs and music stands, some of those empty, too, but some holding sheet music. I have to admit that when it’s dark like this, I find the theater spooky. I do my best not to think about ghosts, but however hard I try, one recently departed individual keeps coming to mind. She’s got long blond hair and favors a boho-chic look and is excellent at getting on everybody’s nerves.

I wonder if Lisette is haunting this theater where she died. How would she feel today, 48 hours before the musical she wrote is to open? Now that I think about it, I realize Lisette is more attached to
Dream Angel
than anyone. She gave birth to it, really. She conceived it; she wrote every word; she nurtured it through all those stressful days when it must’ve been very tough to stare at a blank computer screen.

Especially with her father’s expectations watching over her shoulder.

I understand so much better now all the work she put in. A musical is like a string of pearls, Enzo explained to me, and it’s up to the writer to decide not only which pearl goes where, but when the spoken word should give way to song. He said there is an ideal moment: when an emotion is bubbling below the surface that screams to be expressed in the way that touches the heart best: through music.

Broadway lore has it that the book writer gets the blame if a musical flops and the composer gets the credit if it hits. After all, nobody walks out of a theater humming the dialogue.

Now years of work, by Lisette and scads of other people, are about to culminate in opening night. It would be thrilling and terrifying at the same time.

And bittersweet. Because that long chapter of Lisette’s life would be ending. But talk about a whole different kind of final curtain …

I wonder. What do I really think, in my heart and soul? Do I think Lisette was murdered?

The truth is I can’t give a yes or no answer to that question. I recognize that I’m sort of in love with homicide. (Now that’s a
sort of
for you.) And I find it really hard to judge to what extent that affects my thinking.

On the yes-for-murder side of the ledger, numerous people had a strong motive to want Lisette dead. Four I know of: Junior, Kimberly, Tonya, and Violet Honeycutt. And there could well be more since Lisette excelled at making enemies.

On the no-for-murder side, how in the world could a murder have been committed in this case? We all saw Lisette fall. It’s clear she wasn’t pushed because she was standing in front of the throne at the time and we all would have seen it. She might well have fallen accidentally; that’s the conclusion the N.Y.P.D. drew. She might’ve lost her footing on her own or perhaps something distracted her, for example the cell phone belonging to that well-known menace Kimberly Drayson.

How could a murderer have intentionally caused her to fall? I suppose they could’ve put something slippery on the staircase, like water or oil or marbles or something, but I know for a fact the cops reported the treads were clean and dry and no one—including me—ever found anything suspicious on stage. Plus, the murderer would have had to count on Lisette once again interrupting the preview by appearing atop the staircase during the final song. Otherwise, Tonya would’ve gotten up there first and she would’ve been the one to topple to her death.

Unless it was Tonya who did the dirty deed. She would’ve known not to mount the stairs all the way to the top unless Lisette beat her to it.

My phone buzzes with a text. It’s Junior. He wants me in his office.

I’m making my way out of the orchestra pit when I bump into a music stand and sheet music flutters to the floor. I’m gathering it up when I notice something rolling away from me. I have to chase it before I can bend down and pick it up.

It’s a ball bearing, a bit smaller than an inch in diameter and really heavy for its size. It’s not super clean, though nothing on this floor would be. I roll it around on my palm and peer at it closely. There’s something crusty on it that’s reddish in color. Some of that, whatever it is, flakes off onto my hand.

I can’t stop staring at the darn thing. It seems an odd object to find here and yet there are lots of odd objects in a theater, little bits and pieces that belong to props or equipment to move props. Nevertheless, I wrap it in a tissue and put it in my handbag. Believe it or not, I can feel its weight as I hustle to Junior’s office.

I’ve barely gotten inside when he barks at me from behind his desk. “Took you long enough. Clear the crap off that chair and sit down. And stop wearing so much perfume. My head’s already pounding. I don’t also need to suffocate.” He throws a marked-up script on his desk and pinches the bridge of his nose, shoving his glasses up onto his forehead.

“I have a couple aspirin if that’ll help.”

“There’s only one thing that’ll help and that’s to drown every member of the Longley family in the East River.”

I guess one question is answered: Junior does have at least some homicidal tendencies. “So what happened now?”

He drops his hand from his face and looks at me. “You really want to know? You’re my shrink all of a sudden?”

“You’re the one who brought it up, Oliver. And I’m happy to be your sounding board.”

“Fine.” He leans his elbows on his desk. “Tell me why somebody who knows nothing about the creative process thinks they can exercise creative control.”

“That’s what Warren Longley is doing?”

“He insists I freeze the production. He’s pissed at all the mistakes that were made last night and he thinks we need to lock it down and let everybody rehearse it as is.”

This probably explains why Junior kept delaying our meeting today. He’s battling over creative differences with Warren Longley.

Junior slams his hand down on his desk so hard that everything jumps. “Last night’s preview was the first since Lisette died and you know what? It was the best ever! The audience loved it! You wanna guess why?”

“Because you and Enzo rewrote it?”

“Exactly! And now the thing actually works.”

“Can Warren Longley tell how much you rewrote?”

Junior flops back in his chair. “He’s got a pretty good idea. That’s another thing.” He eyes me. I’m glad I don’t see hostility emanating from him like I did before. Let’s hope that continues so he doesn’t call Mr. Cantwell to complain about me. “Anyway, tell me what happened with my father.”

“Long story short, I placated him with my feminine charms.”

“That worked on the old SOB? Come on, cough up the details.”

I share a few, attempting to be as entertaining as possible. It works well enough that I’m emboldened to ask the source of the bad blood between him and his father.

“Don’t push your luck,” he tells me.

I take a stab at another topic. “You know, if the show is really good now and you’re only worried about minor tweaks anyway, maybe you should toss Warren Longley a bone and agree to freeze it. Because I can imagine a nightmare scenario if you don’t.”

“I’ve already had enough nightmare scenarios to last a lifetime.”

“What if he decides that in tribute to his daughter he wants to revert to the last version she wrote?”

An expression of horror contorts Junior’s face.

I say what he doesn’t. “In that case, you’re screwed.”

He takes a deep breath. “Well, you know what they say about musicals. You never finish them. You just stop.”

I say nothing. I see the wheels of Junior’s mind turning. I will feel I did
Dream Angel
a service if I encouraged him to freeze the production. If it’s already “the best ever,” as he says, it seems to me Monday is none too soon to set it in stone for a Wednesday opening.

Junior dispatches me to fetch one of his fancy teas. I have to trek several blocks to a snazzy teahouse to buy him
shincha
, a Japanese green tea that costs twenty-five bucks an ounce. I must’ve sounded like a hillbilly when I asked what makes it so special. I shouldn’t have bothered. It has something to do with the leaf being shaded the last few weeks before harvest to bring out its essential oils.

After I hand the stuff over, I find myself outside the theater at loose ends. I already goosed Senior about Violet Honeycutt and he told me he put a call in. I have no desire to check in with my mom about her shoot with Kimberly. I’m not meeting Jason for a few hours and thanks to Junior I missed lunch with Trixie and Shanelle.

Again I am aware of the ball bearing in my handbag. I pull out my phone and call Mario.

“You know how crazy this sounds, right?” Mario asks once I’ve explained what I want.

Across the street, Star Wars characters are posing for photos with tourists, who are out in impressive numbers even though it’s a Monday afternoon in January. I watch Princess Leia and Luke Skywalker produce megawatt smiles. They’re surrounded by a tribe of 12-year-olds, most of whom are making hand signals for the camera. “You mean it’s crazy,” I say to Mario, “because why would anybody be suspicious of a ball bearing. Although there is that reddish stuff on it.”

“I know you think that might be dried blood. But even if we allow a slim chance that Lisette Longley was murdered, who would choose a ball bearing as a weapon?”

I watch the kids gather around Chewbacca. “I do understand that it’s probably nothing.”

“And not only do I have to justify the test,” he goes on, “but whatever DNA is on the ball bearing has been severely compromised. Lisette fell Thursday, so this thing has been rolling around a theater floor for four days.”

I ignore that part. “Are you sure N.Y.P.D. will release a sample of Lisette’s DNA for the test?”

“To my F.B.I. contact? No question about it.”

“There’s another thing that makes this hard, Mario. I’d want the test results really fast.”