Murder in the Wings

17

As we pulled up in front of the Bridges Theater, Donna said, “Isn’t it kind of late?”

“I guess right now I don’t much give a damn.”

Between us on the seat lay Lockhart’s wallet. It was a cheap brown cardboard thing. Some of his blood was on the fold.

She covered my hand with hers. “It wasn’t your fault, Dwyer. C’mon, now.”

“I should open the damn thing and look inside. But—” I looked down at it. “I can’t touch it. It’s like having some sort of phobia.”

“You want me to do it?”

“I shouldn’t have stepped on his hand so hard.”

She didn’t say anything.

“I shouldn’t have, should I?”

She sighed. In a tiny voice, she said, “No, I guess you shouldn’t have.”

Then I couldn’t say anything.

“I wish you hadn’t asked me that, Dwyer, because I love you so damn much, but I don’t want to lie, either.”

“I know.”

“But it wasn’t your fault he died. I mean, you didn’t push him out into the street.”

“Yeah.”

“Here, I’ll open it.” She picked up the wallet. She got blood on her hands right away. She looked at me. Then she took Kleenex from a box in the glove compartment and said, “It wasn’t your fault, Dwyer. Do you understand?”

She opened the billfold and thumbed through everything. She found a ten and four singles. A picture of Lockhart and a plump girl in a bikini on a summer beach. A Milwaukee Brewers baseball schedule. A Trojan. She held the rubber up to the light and said, “God, that’s really classy.”

“I’ve got one in my wallet.”

“Bull.”

“I do.”

“I know better because I looked through your wallet.”

“You did, really?”

“Yeah, one day I needed money. I guess I should have told you. Does that make you mad?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Really.”

“No.”

“You sure?”

“Positive. Because if I got mad at you then you’d get mad at me.”

“For what?”

“Because one day when you were on the phone talking to Chad I got kind of pissed or jealous, I’m not sure which, and I started going through your purse.”

“God, Dwyer,” she said.

“Hey, you can hardly afford to get sanctimonious.”

“A wallet’s one thing but a purse is something else.”

“You are stone fucking crazy, you know that?”

“No, really, Dwyer. There’s only so much you can find in a wallet, but a purse can be filled with all sorts of things. I mean, there’s a mathematical difference. Looking in a purse is a lot worse than looking in a wallet.”

“Right. So what else is in there?”

She put the Trojan back. The next thing she found was a business card. “Trueblood Medical Supplies,” she read.

She handed it over. I thought of Lockhart being an orderly in the prison infirmary and stuck the card in my pocket.

She leaned over and kissed me. “At least you’re feeling better. Even if you did look in my purse.”

“You’re really pissed about that?”

“Not real really, if you know what I mean.”

“You’re deranged.”

I opened the door and got out. My clothes were wet enough that the constant rain didn’t matter anymore. Donna got out, too. In front of us the marquee was dark, hundreds of dead little bulbs battered by rain. The six front doors leading into the theater were also dark, like the doors on a movie set shut down for the night.

We went around to the side and found Stan. He was sweeping up by the dressing rooms. He nodded hello. “You just can’t seem to stay away from here, can you?” He smiled, rubbing one hand on his gray janitor’s uniform.

“Actually, we’d like to see the Ashtons, if that’s possible.”

“Well, I’ll call up and see what David says,” he said.

“I’d appreciate it.”

While he went over to the elevator, I walked from the nearest wing toward the stage. My footsteps were loud and hollow. I peeked out into the empty theater. Donna came up behind me. “God, if I ever got on a stage, I’d freeze.”

I kissed her. It was like high school. Furtive. And very sweet.

Stan came over. “David said for you to come on up.”

He’d caught us kissing. Donna was blushing.

“We just heard on the news about Wade,” David Ashton said as we stepped off the elevator. He wore a blue polo sweater and tan slacks. With his blond hair and Scott Fitzgerald features, he looked like an aging tennis pro.

I listened for excitement in his voice, but there wasn’t any. He was just reporting the facts. He led us into a living room that in my neighborhood would have passed as a ballroom. Sylvia was sitting in front of a huge TV screen. In red lounging pajamas, her dark hair tousled, she seemed young and quite desirable. Only the dark glasses spoiled the effect. Instead of seeming mysterious, they smacked of neurosis, the tic of a perpetual mental patient.

“Sylvia, Dwyer and his lady friend are here.”

Sylvia raised her head from the screen. She acknowledged our presence by rattling a glassful of ice in our direction. David dispatched himself instantly. He took her glass, went to a dry bar, and with almost chilling medical precision made a drink: three parts this, two parts that. Then he brought it back to her and put it in her hand.

He came back to us and said, “Sylvia’s taking some of her heavier medication. It won’t hurt her to have it with alcohol, but it makes her very drowsy.” How convenient, I thought, in case the police ever wanted to question her about anything.

“It’s odd that you should show up now,” David said. He led us past an almost funereal dining room with a long shining table and a low-hanging chandelier toward the front of the penthouse where he and Sylvia and Evelyn lived.

“Why’s that?”

“About ten minutes ago, Mrs. Bridges asked if I could help locate you.”

I sighed. “Was this right after you learned that Wade had been taken into custody?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Oh, nothing. I suppose I’d better go see her.”

He gave me an ironic smile. “I’d appreciate it, Dwyer. I don’t like to disappoint the old woman.”

I smiled back. “And I thought I had some lousy jobs.”

“It’s not that bad usually. She only gets upset with me when I clearly fail to live up to the ‘Bridges standard,’ as she puts it.”

I kissed Donna on the cheek and followed Ashton down the hall. At the doorway leading into Mrs. Bridges’ part of the penthouse, the servant took over again.

“I should warn you,” he said on the way to her room. His shoes squeaked.

“I don’t think you have to.”

“You have upset her.”

“So has the rest of the world.”

He laughed. “At least you have a sense of humor.”

“I’m assuming that I get a blindfold and a cigarette.”

“Mrs. Bridges doesn’t approve of smoking.”

He knocked once on her door and then stepped back. Far back. He was no fool.

She was still a kewpie doll. Tonight she wore a powder-blue nightie. She had painted her nails. She was still surrounded by photos of the famous from the first half of the century and by the flowers that covered the odor of her illness. Her blue eyes blazed so intensely they were almost comic. “Young man, you have let me and this theater down very, very seriously.”

I couldn’t help it. She — or her money or the room or her age or her illness or all those things put together — intimidated me. I said, “I,” but that’s all I said. I didn’t seem to have another word to put with it. She took advantage of my mealy mouth by applying her own words to the silence.

“I wanted you to save the reputation of this theater and you didn’t.”

“No, I haven’t,” I said, finding my voice. “Not yet.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Wade didn’t kill Reeves.”

“You sound awfully certain of that.”

“I am.”

“And you have evidence of it?”

“No, but I have a lot of facts that point in a lot of different directions other than Wade.”

“Such as?”

“Such as Michael Reeves was probably blackmailing somebody.”

“Who?”

“Maybe several people.”

“I don’t want your damn games. I asked you a direct question. Who?”

I let her have it, and with no small degree of relish. “You, for one.”

“Me? You’re suggesting that Michael Reeves was blackmailing me?”

I took the envelope from my pocket, the one with her personal logo on it. “I found this in his apartment.”

She snatched it from me and looked it over. “You’re a liar.”

I shook my head. “You said you didn’t want any games, Mrs. Bridges. I’m not playing any. I found that envelope in Michael Reeves’s apartment. You must have sent it to him.”

Her cute little face was fiercer than ever now. “And I’m saying to you that you’re a liar.”

“There’s only one other way that it could have gotten there.”

“And how would that be?”

“Sylvia took it there the night of the murder.”

I’d gotten the impression that Mrs. Bridges was very good at keeping her face from revealing secrets, but a big, cumbersome secret struggled across her features then. She looked guilty as a little girl with her fingers in Mommy’s jewelry box.

“So you know,” I said.

“Know what? You’re playing games again.”

“No games, and you know damn well what I’m talking about.”

“Don’t speak to me in that tone,” she said.

“Then don’t try to waste my time.”

“Exactly what is it, Mr. Dwyer, that you’re accusing me of?”

“I’m not sure yet.”

“Well, that’s a very impressive piece of detective work.”

“All I know for sure is that your daughter went to Michael Reeves’s apartment the night he was murdered. Now I’m beginning to believe that she brought him an envelope from you that contained money. That would lead me to suspect that you, directly or indirectly, were paying blackmail to Michael Reeves. And that’s exactly what I’m going to tell the police when I leave here, Mrs. Bridges. They’ll want to talk to Sylvia.”

She reached over and pressed a button. David Ashton’s voice came on the intercom. “Yes?”

“David, I want you to give Sylvia that new prescription from Dr. Kern. I want you to give it to her immediately.”

“Is something wrong?”

“Don’t ask me any of your damn foolish questions. Just give it to her.”

“All right, if that’s what you want.”

She looked triumphant. “Sylvia won’t be interviewed by anybody for quite some time, Mr. Dwyer. As a matter of fact, before the night’s out I strongly suspect that she’ll be in Dr. Kern’s clinic. And Dr. Kern can be very persuasive.”

“Is that how he kept her from going to prison when she stabbed one of his workers?”

“How did you know about that?”

“You wanted me to look into the case, remember? When you start looking into things, you learn secrets sometimes.”

“I want you to leave.”

“What was Reeves blackmailing you with?”

“Did you hear what I said? I want you to leave.”

“There’s an innocent man in jail tonight.”

“I’m beginning to wonder if he is innocent. He sounds more and more guilty to me.”

“You’d ruin the theater’s reputation to save Sylvia, wouldn’t you?”

The anger faded. She looked old. “Do you have children?”

“One. A boy.”

“Wouldn’t you do nearly anything to save him?”

“Of course.”

“Then don’t be foolish. Of course I’d save Sylvia before I would the theater.”

I was suffocating in the flowers. “He was blackmailing you, wasn’t he?”

The hand she flung at me scarcely had any strength. “Just leave, Mr. Dwyer, leave now.”

On our way back to Donna, the servant said, “I’ve never seen her so exhausted like this. You must have disturbed her a great deal.” He was smiling as he said it. When we reached the other half of the penthouse, Donna explained that David Ashton had had to excuse himself. I knew what that meant. He was busy putting his wife into a form of brain death so that nobody, especially the police, could ask her any questions.

In the car, Donna said, “Dwyer, we’ve got to get some rest. Think of all we’ve been through in the last twenty-four hours.”

“I’ll drop you off.”

“Dwyer, you too, all right?”

“I feel fine.”

“You look like shit.”

“Thanks.”

“We’re not that young anymore.”

“I’m thinking of Stephen,” I said.

She was silent. Then she said, “I’m being selfish.”

“So I’m not dropping you off?”

“Right,” she said, sounding weary. “You’re not dropping me off.”