Blood Will Have Blood (5 page)

She paused. “There
was
a resemblance. The doll had long dark hair, a pale complexion. But she also had a two-inch gap between her head and her body.”

Decapitation. Nice little fixation for our prankster to have, thought Spraggue. The bat, Greg's mask, now beheaded dolls. “You changed hotels.” he said.

“Yes.”

“Was there anything else about the doll that frightened you?”

“The head was stuffed with garlic. There were two small marks on the neck, white with red centers, just like in the script. A trickle of blood from the mouth. Fake, like today.… Oh, and the doll was in a rather immodest position, dress hiked, legs spread, and anatomical details added with great care.… There was a little piece of paper stuck to the doll's breast with a toothpick type of thing. A stake right through the heart.”

“Anything on the paper?”

“Just numbers, I think. Three or four different numbers. Not even threes and sevens and mystical numbers. Just regular numbers.”

“A phone number, maybe? Did you save it?”

“No.” She was definite about that. “Not enough numbers.” She looked up. The story was finished. “What time is it?”

“Nine-fifteen. Are you late?”

“I suppose. I never wear a watch. Time is so intrusive, you know. But I like to be in bed before midnight and I do an hour of yoga before I sleep. My cat howls if I don't feed him on time. I'd better go. And I don't think you should stay here all alone.”

“If you can—” Spraggue began.

“But I'm not at all afraid of ghosts, Michael Spraggue. Are you?”

“No.” Spraggue kept his gaze level. “Ghosts don't bother me much.”

“Not even the ghosts of suicides?”

“You mean old Phelps?”

“You know about him.” Deirdre nodded approvingly. “Suicides are funny. They can just
become
vampires. No need to get bitten.”

“Spontaneous vampire generation,” said Spraggue gravely.

She laughed. “It's not that you're unafraid of ghosts. You just don't believe in them; that's a very different thing. If I were you, I wouldn't stay here alone tonight.”

“I don't intend to stay long,” Spraggue said. “Once over tomorrow's blocking and I'm gone. I'll probably catch up with you before you get on the trolley.”

To his relief she picked up a jacket off a chair. “Good-bye then,” she said. Her high-heeled shoes made no sound on the steps or the carpeting. She disappeared into the lobby. Spraggue heard the door swing shut. Silence.

He moved quickly. The switch that turned off the work lights was near the double doors. Thank God for that. At least he wouldn't have to wander across a pitch-black stage hoping Deirdre didn't rehearse with the trapdoors open. He climbed up the stairs to Darien's office.

The lock was old and rusty. Spraggue worked carefully with the picklocks for ten minutes before it yielded.

He pulled the shade on the window overlooking Huntington Avenue, resisting the impulse to open it and disperse the office's stuffy sick-sweet smell, before flicking on the faint overhead bulb. The desk, the sideboard, a single two-drawer file cabinet; the search shouldn't take long. Facts. He needed facts: résumés, programs, financial data. If he waited for Darien to “ascertain the propriety of releasing such documents,” the damn show would be over.

The bottom drawer of the file cabinet was the bonanza. Résumés neatly filed in alphabetical order, a program mock-up on oversized cardboard sheets. The file folder marked
FINANCIAL
was empty.

He searched the other drawers again. Maybe Darien had taken the stuff to his hotel room to glance over. Maybe the fat house manager kept those files. By the time he got the paperwork over to the all-night photocopying place in Harvard Square, replaced the originals, had that nightcap with Aunt Mary.… time for rehearsal again!

He paused for a moment with his hand on the light switch. A red leather blotter lay slightly askew on the desk. He retraced his steps.

The missing file wasn't underneath. Financial records wouldn't be stuffed into a small unsealed white envelope.

Spraggue straightened the blotter, then lifted it again. The printing, that's what was familiar. There was more to go on here; this letter had been through the mail. Three whole lines of letters and numbers in penciled block caps. Not just a name, not just a few numbers.…

Spraggue slid the letter out of the envelope, spread it on the desktop. This one was easy to understand, too:

MR. DARIEN
, the letter read.
IS ONE SUICIDE ENOUGH FOR THIS THEATRE??? ENCORE
!!!

Spraggue wrinkled his nose. The room's odor seemed suddenly stronger. He crouched. Near the wastebasket, it was almost unbearable.

Using the tips of his fingers, staying an arm's length away, he tossed aside a few discarded sheets of paper.

The bird was large, black, and dead. No signs of violence on it. Terrible stink, all the same.

At least, Spraggue thought, it's not an albatross.

Chapter Six

A dark slim silhouette decorated the cover page of the program, a three-quarter back view of a man enveloped in black velvet. The long cape swirled fantastically into a border design. To the right of the figure, in bold, black caps, the title,
Dracula
. Underneath, in elegant script: “Directed by Arthur Darien.”

“I like it;” Spraggue's Aunt Mary said. “Very Aubrey Beardsley.”

Spraggue turned the page. The cast list was next, in order of appearance:

Spraggue let his eyes close while his aunt pored over the list, shutting out the vast proportions of the balconied, two-story library of the old Spraggue house. Even the Cézanne over the marble fireplace offered no relief to exhaustion-blurred eyes. What time was it? One o'clock? Two? Never too late for Aunt Mary.

He grinned at the back of her variegated head. She had hoped for a smooth transition, a graceful fading from red to silver. But the process seemed to have halted halfway, leaving untidy patches of both colors. Oddly enough, it suited her perfectly.

“Well?” she said, her clear voice belying her sixty-seven years.

Spraggue took a long sip of syrupy amber wine, a '59 Beerenauslese Aunt Mary had brought up from the cellar to celebrate his new job. He smiled his appreciation. Mary tapped the cast list sharply with a painted fingernail.

“That,” said Spraggue hastily, “minus one, plus one, is the list of suspects.”

“Who's out?”

“Frank Hodges. I've got his part. He could have been playing the tricks up until last week, but he had nothing to do with today's games. Definitely in New York. I spoke to him on the phone. He wished me luck.”

“Did you tell him you were investigating the—”

“No. Things like that have a way of getting around. I called to humbly ask him for any character insight he might offer me on Dr. John Seward. I had a hard time getting him off the line.”

Aunt Mary crossed off Hodges's name. “And whose name gets added?”

“Don't scrawl it on the cast list. She's crew. The stage manager. Woman named Karen Snow.”

“Nice name.”

“Seems a nice person,” said Spraggue shortly.

“What about the rest of the crew?”

“Darien says they're out. There's a fat guy named Dennis, the house manager. I'd like to know more about him. But Darien assures me he's out of the running.”

“And how reliable is Mr. Darien?” asked Aunt Mary mildly.

Spraggue yawned. “How reliable is anyone in this business?”

“What I meant was, is he drinking?” Spraggue's eyebrow went up again. “You know about that?”

“Doesn't everyone? Don't you remember that business with the auto crash? The Boston papers hardly touched it, but the New York press went after Darien with a vengeance.”

“An accident—” Spraggue said, dredging up bits and pieces of the story from his memory.

“A woman was killed. I don't recall the name. An actress, I think. Unknown.”

“And Darien was charged?”

“No,” Aunt Mary said positively. “The public prosecutor wanted to go for vehicular homicide. Said Darien was drunk. He so often was at that time. But someone slipped up. I forget. Either no breathalyzer test was given or the results were lost or tampered with. A police officer lost his job over the mixup. Darien got off with bruises and bad press.”

“As far as I know, Darien's stone-cold sober.” Spraggue pulled a folded scrap of paper out of his pocket. “But even if he isn't drinking now, this could encourage him to start.”

He handed a facsimile of the note he'd found on Darien's desk to his aunt. “It came attached to a dead bird.”

She fingered the note thoughtfully. “Whose suicide does this refer to?”

“Samuel Borgmann Phelps.”

“Ah.”

“You knew him?”

“
Of
him. When I was a teenager, attending a performance at Phelps's Boston Rep was
the
thing to do. He held the most marvelous parties, right up until the end. Thought he'd turn Boston into Broadway. No one knew how badly off he really was. The family had generations of wealth behind it. Or so everyone thought.”

“What happened to them?”

“The Phelps family? I don't know. He had children, I'm sure.' There was a huge turnout at the funeral. Would you like me to find out?”

“I can—”

“I would like to help, Michael. And I do enjoy snooping. One of the few vocations eminently suited to the elderly.”

“Well, I could use someone to do a résumé check. See if these folks have all done what they've claimed.”

“Wonderful.” Aunt Mary beamed. “And what about money, Michael? Who has a major financial interest in Darien's success or failure? He's no Sam Phelps; he can't handle everything on his own. I could ask around Massachusetts Council of Arts membership, a sound credit rating, a reputation as an eccentric, and dithery ways go far when asking impertinent questions.”

“Terrific.” Spraggue smiled at his anything-but-dithery aunt. “I'll keep my eye on the cast. If my eye will stay open.”

“Early rehearsal tomorrow?”

“Two-one, Two-two, and Two-three. All scenes I yak my head off in.”

“Don't drive back to Cambridge then,” Mary said earnestly. “The tower room is always ready for you here. Dora cherishes the thought that someday you'll get fed up with your own cooking and move back.”

“If I ever do, it'll be for Dora's strawberry tarts.”

“Seriously, Michael, it is your house—”

“And you live in it for me. It's too damn big, Mary. I'm uncomfortable here. We've been through this—”

Aunt Mary rang the bell on the desk top. Pierce ushered Spraggue out, wished him a safe drive. The butler refused to respond to Spraggue's wink. Sometimes the dignity of his position overcame the memories of the hide-and-seek games he had played with Michael many years before.

Spraggue drove home at a leisurely speed. The wine had left him relaxed, a little high. To pass the time, he recited his lines, enjoying the baritone echo in the small space. Act Two, scene one finished. Now Two-two. Then Two-three. Numbers.

He pulled the car off to the side of Hammond Street, flicked on the dome light. Then he began to fumble methodically through his pockets. The note, Greg's note in the bloody sack. What were the numbers?

He found it finally, carefully placed in his wallet. Yes. Four numbers—one Roman, three Arabic. The first one, Roman: that would be the act number. Then the scene. Then the line. Act One, scene five, line thirty-eight.

Spraggue's fingers scrabbled through the blue-bound
Dracula
script. Act One. Act one, scene two. Scene three. He flipped the page, stopped, turned back.

He was wrong.
Dracula
had no fifth scene in the first act.

He drove the rest of the way home in silence.

Chapter Seven

For the fourth time in two minutes, Darien glared at his wristwatch.

“I've called his apartment twice, Mr. Darien,” Karen Snow said. “No answer.” She hesitated, then added, “Look, he only lives a few blocks from here. I could walk over and—”

“I'm sure you have a great deal of work to do here!” said Darien loudly. “Technical rehearsal tomorrow. Don't tell me you can spare the time! If Eddie Lafferty isn't ready to go onstage in ten minutes, we'll rehearse with his understudy. And make sure Lafferty is fined!”

“Arthur—” The stage manager's voice was soft, but the protest was there.

“It's his business to be here! What's the matter with you, Karen?”

The stage manager's face became stonier than ever. Only her mouth moved as she snapped, “I'm worried. Eddie's never been a minute late before. With all the weird events around here.…” Her voice trailed off.

“Karen's been like a sister to Eddie,” Georgina said quietly. She and Spraggue sat five rows behind and slightly to the right of Arthur Darien, waiting for rehearsal to proceed. “He's the baby of the company. Karen showed him the ropes.”

“At least that's what
he
says,” interrupted Greg Hudson. “It's
my
opinion that older sister, for one, is ripe for a little incest!”