Just Murdered

Chapter 15

Helen heard the pop of a champagne bottle near the pool, then the clink of glasses.

Peggy and her policeman must be enjoying a little afternoon delight. Their voices carried in the soft, subtropical air. Helen tried not to listen, but she couldn’t help it.

The man said, “You are so beautiful.”

The woman said, “I love it when you lie.” Her laugh was light and sophisticated. Helen heard the couple kiss.

The woman had a low, throaty voice, intimate and teasing. She didn’t sound like Peggy. Was it Kendra?

The man definitely wasn’t Phil. She’d know his voice anywhere. That was a relief. She hoped Kendra was with another man. Maybe she’d go away and forget about Phil.

Helen moved closer to listen. This was demeaning. She’d sunk to spying on a lowlife like Kendra. She had to get out of there. She had to stay. Helen stood behind the thick bougainvillea near the pool gate. She couldn’t see anyone, but she could hear better.

“I’m not lying,” the man said.

“Of course you are. I’m a wrinkled old bag.” Good God. Now Helen recognized that voice. It was Margery. The man must be Warren. Look where her jealousy landed her.

“You are a woman of experience,” Warren said. “The life you’ve lived only makes you more beautiful.”

The Margery Helen knew would have snorted. This Margery gave a sexy little chuckle.

Helen was mortified to be eavesdropping on her landlady. She backed slowly away and fell over a folding lawn chair. Helen made more racket than twelve raccoons in a trash can trying to untangle herself. She wound up flat on the grass, bruised and embarrassed.

“What the heck was that?” Margery said. Now she sounded like her old self.

Her landlady popped up behind the bougainvillea. She was holding a champagne glass. Her hair was in that elegant French twist so unlike her usual pageboy. Her royal purple off-the-shoulder blouse had slid off even farther than the designer intended, revealing good shoulders and a firm bosom.

Helen blushed and stammered. “I’m really sorry. I didn’t know you were there. I wanted to ask you if you’d like two tickets to Richard the Third tonight.”

It was the first excuse that leaped into her head, and it was lame. If Margery said yes, Helen would have to buy herself a ticket for another performance. Her murder investigation was off to a great start.

“What are you doing on the ground?” Margery said. “Never mind. I don’t want to know. The answer’s yes. I’d love to see the play.”

“Good,” Helen lied. “You’ll be taking Warren, of course.”

“Nope, he’s working at the studio tonight. I’m going with you. You need a keeper.”

Warren stood up, holding a bottle of Piper-Heidsieck by the neck. The man could wear a safari jacket and not look silly. “Would you care to join us for champagne, Helen?” he said.

“Three’s company. I mean, it’s a crowd,” Helen said. “Pardon me. Alcohol and stupidity don’t mix.”

Margery and Warren laughed and toasted her, clinking their glasses again. “See you tonight at seven,” her landlady said. “We’d better go early. And I’ll drive.”

Helen started to say thanks, but she saw Warren nibbling Margery’s neck. It was time to go.

By seven o’clock, Margery looked like her old self again, with her purple shorts and plain gray pageboy. They arrived almost forty-five minutes before the show, but there were no parking spots on the playhouse lot. Margery circled the side streets.

“Good thing the tickets Luke gave me are reserved,” Helen said. “At least we’ll have seats.”

“This must be some show,” Margery said. “The sign says it’s sold out.”

“The show may be good, but that’s not why they’re here,” Helen said. “It’s the first night the theater’s been open since its benefactor’s death—and the last night that Luke is playing Richard. Look at that. Three TV trucks and who knows how many newspaper reporters. This is the sort of story that winds up in Vanity Fair.”

“The millionaire movie star,” Margery said. “That’s what the TV anchors are calling Luke. Kiki’s death was a good career move. He hasn’t even made the movie yet, and he’s a star. I guess the rest are the usual ghouls who want to see the chief actors in the Blood and Roses Murder.”

“I wonder if Desiree will be here,” Helen said. Margery swung her car into a spot on the street behind the theater. “Is that her? The little woman creeping in the stage door?” Margery pointed to a hunched black figure.

“Yep,” Helen said. “She’s only twenty or so, poor thing. She looks like an old woman.”

But she moved like a young one. When a TV reporter approached her with a microphone, Desiree sprinted through the door at a speed that Jackie Joyner-Kersee would envy.

Helen and Margery elbowed their way through the crowd and found their seats. The Sunnysea Shakespeare Playhouse was the grand name for a small theater in an old supermarket three blocks from Sunnysea beach. The chairs were molded white plastic, the sets were amateurishly painted, and the props seemed to be from the actors’ homes. Helen’s heart sank. It was going to be a long night. Maybe they could sneak out after the first act.

Helen had an even greater desire to run when the actors filed onstage for the first scene. It was Shakespeare in modern dress. Richard and his men wore jackboots and trench coats with Nazi insignia. The women wore 1930s evening dresses.

“I didn’t realize they had Goodwill in the fifteenth century,” Margery said.

“Why do directors have to tinker with Shakespeare and make him modern?” Helen said.

The dark-haired woman sitting in front of them turned around and glared. Helen thought she looked like one of the actors in Richard’s entourage. Oops. Had she insulted someone’s son or husband? After that, Helen didn’t dare say what she thought about Richard himself. She looked for Desiree and didn’t see her in the audience.

Luke, as the clubfooted noble, wore a black trench coat and a modern walking cast to “show his crippled spirit,” the program notes said. In case the audience still didn’t get it, he carried a cane. The hollow thumping he made on the old wooden floor was distracting.

Soon Helen didn’t notice. Luke glowed onstage. From the first familiar words, “Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this sun of York . . .” Helen could not take her eyes off the man.

Luke had seemed so handsome in the bridal salon. Now he was twisted with hate and malice. When Luke said he was “cheated of feature by dissembling nature, deformed, unfinished . . .” he really did look ugly.

How did he do that? Only the best actors were not afraid to make themselves unattractive for a role. Luke might well be a major talent. Helen reveled in his words. His voice was rich, without the orotund phoniness that afflicted so many Shakespearean actors. Helen was completely under the spell of the future Richard III.

“He’s carrying his cane in the wrong hand,” Margery said.

“Who?” Helen was jerked back to reality.

“Richard,” Margery said.

“I hadn’t noticed.”

But now she did. It was no longer Richard III onstage, but Luke stumping around, saying that he was “so lamely and unfashionable that dogs bark at me.”

“Actors!” Margery snorted. “Look at that. They always get it wrong. Only one I know who gets it right is the crippled coroner on CSI.”

“Shush,” Helen said. The woman in the row ahead was glaring at them again. Helen could hear nearby theatergoers stirring restlessly in their seats.

“He’s supposed to carry the cane on the side of his good leg, not the bad one,” Margery said. “I see it wrong in plays and movies all the time. Even the major names do it. Makes me crazy.”

“You’re making me crazy,” Helen said to her. “I want to watch the play.”

“Quiet!” commanded the glaring woman. Even Margery shut up. Helen happily entered the world of make-believe murder, until the lights went up at intermission.

“That Luke is one hell of an actor,” Margery said, as they strolled to the lobby. “He’s got quite a future.”

“Now that his mother-in-law doesn’t.” Helen regretted her words as they slipped out. “What did you think of the other actors?” she said quickly. “Elizabeth, King Edward’s queen, seems quite good.”

Margery checked her program. “Name is Donna Sue Hawser. She’s better than good, but I’m guessing she’s on the shady side of forty. Donna Sue’s lost her chance for the big time. Must be hell, knowing she could have made it and didn’t. All she needed was a little luck.”

Must have been hell for Luke, knowing he was about to lose his main chance, Helen thought. But he was lucky. Conveniently lucky.

Helen was really glad she didn’t say those words. She felt a tug on her sleeve and jumped. Desiree appeared soundlessly at her side. The new bride was drowned in black. Her shapeless mourning clothes seemed to swallow her. Her eyes had dark rings under them.

Desiree grabbed Helen’s hand and pulled her away from Margery. “I must talk with you. After the show,” she said in a tense whisper. “Someplace where the people here won’t go.”

“There’s Lester’s Diner,” Helen said. “But I’m with a friend. She’s my ride. Can Margery come with us?”

“No, I want to talk to you about my mother’s death,” Desiree said. Her eyes had a frantic, feral look. “It’s important. Don’t worry. I’ll take you home. Meet me in the lobby after the show.” She vanished through the backstage curtains.

“What was that all about?” Margery said.

“Desiree wants to meet with me and talk about Kiki. She wants someplace where the theatergoers don’t usually go. I suggested Lester’s Diner.”

“You’re asking a woman worth thirty million dollars to go to Lester’s?” Margery said.

“It will be a new experience for her.”

“That’s for sure,” Margery said. “Well, I don’t mind. I like Lester’s pancakes.”

“She doesn’t want you there. She wants to talk to me alone. She insisted and I said yes. She might tell me something useful.”

“I don’t like this,” Margery said. “Let me follow you. I won’t even come in. I’ll sit in the parking lot. I can keep an eye on you through Lester’s plateglass windows.”

“No! Desiree will see your car and get suspicious.” Margery drove a white Cadillac the size of a sunporch. It was hard to miss. “She’ll bring me home. She’s not going to hurt me, Margery. She knows I’m telling you where we’re going. Her request is a little weird, but she’s perfectly safe.”

“Helen, that woman scares me,” Margery said.

“She scares me, too. But she might know who killed her mother.”

“Probably just has to look in the mirror,” Margery said.

“Do you really believe that?” Helen said.

“I believe she is one sick chick. I don’t like this,” Margery said. “If you’re not home by midnight, I’m calling the police.”

“Good,” Helen said. “That’s exactly what I want.”