Murder in the Wings

9

We ate at Denny’s.

“I could never do that,” Donna said over her fish sandwich and fries.

“What?”

“Climb down a three-story wall the way Lockhart did.”

“You could if you were desperate enough to get out.”

“He must have been very desperate.”

“He was.”

“He really used a hacksaw?”

“Probably.”

“I thought that was only in Heckel and Jeckel cartoons.”

“Heckel and Jeckel?”

“Yeah, they were always on the tube when I was a girl. They were always getting out of jail with hacksaws people would bring them inside birthday cakes.”

“Gosh,” I said, “I’m sorry I missed all those laughs.”

“Well, what cartoons did you watch?” She was getting mad.

“The Warner stuff. Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd and all those guys. Sylvester.”

She said something, but she mumbled it intentionally so I wouldn’t hear.

“What?”

She looked as if I’d just beaten her at bridge. “I said, ‘Yes, the Warner stuff is better than Heckel and Jeckel.’ ”

“So what’re you so pissed about?”

“It just seems weird to me that everything you do is innately superior to everything I do.”

“Uh-oh.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just that I was right.”

“About what?”

“About what time of month it is.”

“God, you keep track?”

“You bet. For reasons of self-defense.”

She frowned. “Don’t say it, Dwyer. My personality doesn’t change when I get my period.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” I said, wanting to avoid our usual argument. I stood up.

“Where are we going?”

“The Bridges Theater. There’s something I want to check.”

“What?”

“If our friend Keech has ever spent much time with Anne Stewart.”

David Ashton was wearing bib overalls with a paint-spotted T-shirt underneath. He was standing on a ladder painting with a wide brush and humming along to a beautiful-music radio station.

“David?”

He looked down from the flat he was painting and nodded to us. “Give me a minute.”

Donna walked around and looked at the set for Long Day’s Journey. It was very well done, as were most things at the Bridges Theater.

By the time David came down from the ladder, it was apparent from his gaze that he still remembered being humiliated in front of me by his mother-in-law.

“That was quite a little scene last night,” he said. “You looked really distressed by it. I just wanted to tell you that I’m used to it by now.”

“I told her what I thought about it.”

“I wish I could say it would do some good. She still sees me as the interloper. Connived to win myself a fortune and succeeded.”

I smiled. “Seems the painting helps you forget. I heard you humming.”

“Oh, yes. My two brothers are painters.” He looked melancholy for a moment. “The closer I get to fifty, the more I wonder if I shouldn’t have spent my life as a laboring man. I mean, after acting didn’t work out.” He glanced at Donna. “Well, you look beautiful as ever.”

“Thanks.”

“You two come to take me to lunch?” he laughed.

“Afraid not. I needed to ask you a question.”

“Oh? There isn’t any more news on Wade, is there?”

“None that I know of.”

“The poor bastard. Michael really was insufferable.”

“I wanted to ask you about Anne.”

“Anne?” He went over and turned the radio off. He looked like a blue-collar man ready for a big lunch. That sort of life seemed to make him happier than running the theater, where he always looked tense. “Nothing’s happened to her, has it?”

“No, but something did happen to a man named Lockhart.”

“The man who was here the other day?”

“Yes.”

I explained what had happened at the halfway house.

“My God. You think it has any connection to Michael’s death?”

“I do,” I said. “But I’m not sure the police will. At least not at this point.” I had decided against telling him why I was suspicious of Anne, so I said, “Have you ever seen Keech and Anne spending any time together?”

He thought a moment. “No, not really. Except during rehearsals they might have had a cup of coffee together. You know how Keech is. If there’s a woman, he has to flirt with her. I know he tried coming on to Evelyn right in front of Michael. Michael got very upset.”

I thought of Keech trying to hit Michael the other night in the parking lot. Could that have been over Evelyn?

“But nothing between Anne and Keech, no,” David said.

We were standing just behind a flat. We couldn’t see the east wing, so when somebody bumped against a chair, I couldn’t see who it was. But I had a feeling that somebody might have been standing there listening for some time.

I walked around the flat. It was Evelyn.

“Sorry to interrupt you,” she said.

David and Donna came around.

“Hello, hon,” David said. She came over and let him kiss her. Apparently they’d made up from last night. But maybe not entirely. As usual, David handled his daughter with a certain unease.

“I just wondered if I could borrow your car,” she said.

“Sure,” David said. “The keys are in my sport coat in the office.”

“Thanks.” She stood on tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek.

Then she turned to me. “They haven’t found Wade, have they?”

“Not yet,” I said.

She looked at me frankly. “I hope they take him without hurting him.”

Her attitude puzzled me. Wade had supposedly killed her lover. For the first time I began to wonder about Evelyn.

“Well,” she said, “see you.” She nodded and was gone.

Quickly, I said to Ashton, “Well, David, thanks for the information.”

“Afraid I wasn’t much help.”

“Thanks again.”

I took Donna by the elbow. We were in the parking lot within two minutes. I fired up the Honda, whipped around the corner of the lot, and sat there with the engine running.

“I feel confident that you’re going to tell me what the fuck is going on, Dwyer.”

“Evelyn.”

“Gee, that’s a good clue. ‘Evelyn.’ What about Evelyn?”

Ordinarily, Donna would accept the mystery a bit more gracefully than this. I dropped all the coy stuff.

“Say somebody shot me. Wouldn’t you be pretty angry with him?”

“Not necessarily.”

“Very funny.”

“So what’s that got to do with Evelyn?”

“Well, she’s very bland when the subject of Wade comes up — yet he’s the one who everybody thinks killed her lover, Michael.”

“Yeah, I guess that sort of makes sense. But I still don’t understand why we’re parked here.”

“We’re going to follow her.”

“Evelyn.”

“Right.”

“God, Dwyer, if I didn’t have to think about poor Stephen out there somewhere, this would be a lot of fun. It really would.”

I patted her hand. “I’m happy for you.”