Blood Will Have Blood (18 page)

The blue cooled her fiery hair. Stretched out on a shabby sofa, she looked relaxed, but one bare foot tapped a nervous rhythm. The room was lit only by candles.

“Romantic,” commented Spraggue. He took off his tie, stuffed it in his jacket pocket.

“Take off your jacket, too,” she said, eyes amused. “I use candlelight precisely because the place
isn't
very romantic. It's all I could find. I hate hotels.”

Spraggue tossed his jacket on a chair, sat near her on the couch.

She lit a cigarette, put it out after a glance at Spraggue's face. “You don't like women who smoke?”

“I don't like
anyone
to smoke before I kiss them.”

She tossed the pack of cigarettes on an end table. “And unlike my friend, Gregory, you kiss only women.… How nice.”

“What about your friend, John?” Spraggue said.

She looked at him speculatively. “I like what you do with Seward.”

“How about what I do with Spraggue?”

“I don't know. You're still a mystery. Tell me, what do you think of our last scene together?”

“Definitely your best moment,” Spraggue said easily. “Vampirism becomes you.”

“I've often thought that,” she said smiling. “I love being the Woman in White. She makes the rest of Lucy—the simpy side—worth doing. For me, the climax is when I almost get you to betray Van Helsing, to join me and live forever, to let me kiss you and bite your neck.” She leaned forward and ran her tongue over even, white teeth. Spraggue realized how few of the buttons on her pajama top she'd bothered with. Her nipples pressed against the thin blue cloth. She moved closer.

“But I kill Lucy,” he said regretfully. “A stake through her heart, through your beautiful breast.”

Her smile widened. “Seward would never kill me. Van Helsing kills me. Without him, without his power over Seward, the scene would be much different.”

“How different?”

She laughed delightedly. “I love to experiment.”

“Was Greg Hudson one of your experiments, Emma? Do you experiment with
everyone
—or only men?”

“Does it matter?” She leaned over and started unbuttoning his shirt. “Men are much easier.”

“Doesn't anyone ever refuse to play?”

“No. I enjoy that, too.”

“Power, Emma. Right?”

She laughed again. “I just want to make it harder for you to drive your stake through my heart.”

She untied her pajamas. They slipped off as easily as he'd thought they would.

They made love on the couch, on the floor. Emma was always inviting—receptive, passively initiating each beautifully controlled moment. Spraggue felt as if he were being led through a carefully choreographed dance.

When they were through, sated, it was as if he'd never touched her.

They showered together. Emma cupped her left breast, thrust it forward to be kissed. “That's where the stake has to go,” she murmured. “It will be harder to kill me now, won't it?”

“I kill the vampire. Lucy's already dead.”

“But what about Emma?” she said, teasing yet serious.

“I don't understand,” he said.

“You don't suspect me of being the joker now. Not after tonight.”

Spraggue splashed water on his face. Was this ersatz passion an exchange for excluding her from his investigation?

“I heard that tape tonight,” she went on. “You can't believe that voice was mine.”

“I've never heard you whisper. You're a good actress. I give you credit for that. And credit for knowing that you can't prove your innocence by screwing me.”

“Couldn't I prove someone else's innocence?” she said archly.

“How?”

“If he were screwing me.…”

“Who?”

“John Langford. This afternoon. Here, right from rehearsal up until the party. He wouldn't have had time to set up all that stuff.” She paused briefly. “How's that for an alibi?”

“Pretty good. For
both
of you.”

“Of course, John
is
up to something, Michael. He won't say what, but it has nothing to do with me. I'd hate to think
I
was the cause of all this upset.”

Spraggue took her pointed chin in his hand. “You would
love
it, Emma. Look at all the intrigues you've already created in the cast. One of your more successful experiments.”

“You find me cold?” She shrugged. “John only thinks about himself. Wouldn't it be lovely if his dismal past caught up in time to prevent him from playing the Crowning Role of His Career?”

Spraggue grunted.

“You're so noncommittal, Michael.”

Spraggue toweled himself, started to dress. “I have to go home.”

“You can sleep here.”

She was incredibly beautiful, hair damp, a towel draped loosely around her. He refused; there was work to be done. But he hadn't minded being experimented on for a few hours.

He called a cab.

As he walked down the front steps ten minutes later, a small dark car pulled away suddenly.

By the time he got to his aunt's, it was five
A.M
. She'd left the porch light on. Spraggue thanked her silently as he fumbled for his little-used key.

The handwriting on the pages, carefully folded under the jade bowl in the library, was Pierce's—the finished timetable of the suspects evening activities. No note from Aunt Mary; she must have pried nothing out of Karen. Spraggue mastered the desire to call the stage manager, but couldn't control the wish that she, not Emma, had invited him home.

Wait. There was a note in another hand, not Aunt Mary's; an unfamiliar rounded, schoolgirl scrawl. Half a torn-out notebook-page signed “Georgie.”

Michael dear,

Exonerated at last! Now admit it, I couldn't have gotten all that sound stuff and bought all those rats and set the whole thing up when I was right here in your lovely house all afternoon. Your aunt, who is a darling, will alibi me.

See how right you were to trust me? And I appreciate it, appreciate it,
appreciate it
! Believe me.

Spraggue smiled, tucked the folded sheet of paper in with Pierce's report, added them to Hurley's envelope, and headed for the kitchen. On the top shelf of the refrigerator, from a small silver tray, a frosted glass of milk and a tiny strawberry confection stared at him. Mary must have told Dora that he'd be in late.

He took the pastry and the tray, substituted a Pepsi for the soporific milk, and went up to the tower, the bedroom he'd had as a boy. He tiptoed past the south guest room. He wasn't sure where Mary had put Georgina.

In the tower, the sheets were turned down. Fresh towels and soap in the bath. Spraggue stripped off his clothes and settled into bed, stuffed two plump pillows behind his back, and turned the reading lamp on full.

Pierce's timetable was neatly margined and columned, printed in his tiny, precise hand. The first column, headed “Suspects,” listed the cast, the director, and the house manager. The second column read: “Location at 11:15.” The third: “Seen by.” The fourth: “11:55.” The fifth reiterated the third: “Seen by.”

The “stars” of the evening had been quickly vouched for. Langford, Ambrose, Darien had ways of making their presence felt. Dennis Boland, the plump Spider, had danced attendance continuously on Darien. Emma Healey hadn't been quite so loyal to John Langford. She'd moved around a lot, but in that red dress she'd had plenty of observers. Both Mary and Pierce reported positively that she hadn't left the room.

Spraggue pulled the thin blanket up over his knees; the late summer nights were getting chilly. He stretched his arms over his head and yawned, took a long sip of his caffeine-laced drink.

The other actors, according to Pierce's table, were harder to place, less colorful. Greg Hudson, Pierce thought, had been too drunk to carry out any action needing a modicum of finesse. Deirdre, no one could place exactly. Eddie was vouched for by Karen, dancing with her. Damn … Gus Grayling, Mary was sure, hadn't left his clutch of admirers or released Georgina's hand for more than an instant. So much for the timetable.

The second document was in another hand, bold sweeping capitals, sprawling grandiose loops. Arthur Darien's sketchy cast list for that 1974 production of
Macbeth
. A lot of good that would do; Darien seemed to remember so little. Maybe he had blocked it out of his mind. A few of the names Spraggue recognized. Darien had by no means used a cast entirely composed of unknowns. Alison Arnold had flown in exalted company. No one from Darien's
Dracula
cast had been involved in the ill-fated
Macbeth
. Spraggue shrugged. He'd expected as much. A drive for revenge seven years later spoke of more than a colleague, more even than a friend. Who in the company was related to Alison Arnold?

Spraggue ran the parade of suspects through his ever-sleepier mind.

Caroline. Had she a niece, a daughter named Alison? None of her husbands had been named Arnold. A niece, more likely. But she had been such a good friend of Darien's—and for so long, years before '74.
If
you believed her stories. Her tale about Darien and Spider and their shared Brooklyn boyhood, had been contradicted by Darien himself.

Langford. Was John up to something, as Emma had said? Screwing someone else in the company, determined to infuriate Caroline further? What had he meant by that remark at the party, that quick, cryptic “I was afraid you might be too late”?

Greg Hudson and Eddie Lafferty were both more likely suspects than Caroline or John. Prospective younger brothers to Alison. Arnold? Had that been Greg's car out in front of Emma's apartment?

Spraggue shook himself as his head fell forward. Still one more document to study: the
Dracula
script. Combination dress rehearsal-press preview tonight, and he was still unsure of several lines and cues. He'd certainly have done a great job if, despite no disturbance at the performance, the play bombed because he'd never bothered to learn his lines!

He studied until eight, then thought about breakfast. Too tired to eat. Just one phone call. Fred Hurley.

Hurley must have just gotten to his desk. Spraggue could hear him slurping coffee, almost smell it over the line.

Spraggue sat up straight, tried to make his voice sound alert. “Hurley, good stuff you sent me.” The detective always responded well to early-morning praise.

Hurley took time out from coffee drinking to answer, “Wait'll you get the bill!”

“Just wanted to make sure you'd received the passes.”

“Yeah. Thanks. My wife's looking forward to it.”

“Bring her backstage afterward.”

Hurley's voice turned wary. “Sure. And I did what you said with those other passes, too. You expecting something to blow up tonight?”

“No,” Spraggue said easily. “But I want to make sure.”

“Okay,” Hurley said gruffly. “Then I'll see you this evening. I've got work to do, you know.”

“Anything on Alison Arnold's family?”

“Yeah. Telex from New York. You'll love it. Father died, mother remarried, moved out of state, name unknown.”

“Great,” Spraggue sighed.

“Anything else comes in, I'll call you.”

“I'll be at my aunt's.”

Spraggue hung up. He stretched back out on the bed. Now, if Mary could just get someone to send along those last two résumé photos. No problems with John, Caroline, Gus Grayling. They were well known; so many people could guarantee that the woman posing as Caroline Ambrose for Darien's production was the same Caroline Ambrose they'd seen on Broadway, on TV. But the others were more difficult. That man up at Theater Calgary had finally sent an old photo of Deirdre. Different hairstyle, but definitely the same person. And Emma … No trouble there. Everyone who'd worked with Emma Healey remembered exactly what she looked like. Spraggue indulged in some remembering, too.

The others.… Was Greg Hudson the real Greg Hudson? Had he done what his résumé said he'd done? Or did the résumé belong to another actor—to the
real
Gregory? And Eddie.… How well could he really see without his glasses? Eddie and Karen … Karen and Eddie.…

At nine o'clock, the morning of the press preview, Spraggue fell into a light, uneasy sleep.

Chapter Twenty-three

“So glad you could make it,” Greg Hudson said as Spraggue sat down to apply his greasepaint. “It
is
seven o'clock; Arthur expects us in the green room at seven-fifteen, so you'd better step on it.”

Spraggue ignored him, opened his makeup kit, laid out pencils and brushes in a neat row. Hudson didn't want an elaborate explanation of his sporadic rehearsal attendance any more than he wanted to know the exact number of laboratory-animal-supply houses in Boston. He just had a case of pre-performance jitters.

“Do you think my base is too pale?” Greg asked petulantly.

“Light's bad down here.” Spraggue stared at Hudson critically. “Looks okay. If Darien throws up, you can change it for opening night.”

“Not before some press creep writes that I look like a pasty-faced turkey.”

“You don't like the critics?”

“Love 'em, love 'em all.” Hudson posed in front of the mirror, adjusted his cravat, ruffled his hair. “You should have been here earlier. Fur's been flying. The great Gustave doesn't like his program credit. Wants his name up with the immortal Langford and Our Lady of the Orchids.”

“Gus?” Spraggue checked his base. Good color. He hoped he'd have enough time for the spirit gum on his chin to set properly. It itched.

“I've worked with Gus before,” said Hudson with a sigh. “This is general procedure. He mouses around all rehearsal, just begging you to step on him. And then when you finally
do
, he throws a tantrum. Much too late to do any good. Stalked right out of his dressing room. Called it ‘a dim and nasty closet' unsuited to his position in the company.”