Authors: Terri Reid
Tags: #Romance, #Paranormal, #Romantic Suspense, #Mystery & Suspense, #Suspense, #Ghosts
Final Call
Final Call
Stanley peered up into the
shadows above the stage.
There was a
colorful blaze of fabric amidst the burgundy curtains and canvas backdrops. He
moved closer, trying to get a better view from a different angle.
“Hey, what’s this play about
anyway?” Stanley asked. “Is it a Western?”
“No, it’s a drama,” Rosie
replied.
“How come you need a dummy
hanging from a rope?”
She looked over quickly. “No one
gets hanged in the play.”
“Sure looks like it. Up there.”
Rosie looked up to where he
directed and saw the caftan and silk pants ruffling in the slight breeze of the
theater twenty feet over the stage.
“Oh,
sweet heavens!
Stanley,” she screamed. “That’s
Faye!”
# # # #
Faye McMullen was murdered in cold blood at Winneshiek
Theater and Mary O’Reilly and Police Chief Bradley Alden have to discover who
done it before the murderer gets the chance to get rid of the prime witness –
Mary O’Reilly.
Final Call
A MARY O’REILLY
PARANORMAL MYSTERY
By Terri
Reid
“But men
must know, that in this theatre of
man's
life it is reserved only for
God
and
angels to be lookers on.”
~Francis Bacon
This
book is dedicated to all of us who play a part in the theater of life. May we
remember that there are no small parts and that each actor is essential and important
in God’s
eyes.
FINAL
CALL – A MARY O’REILLY PARANORMAL MYSTERY
by
Terri Reid
Copyright
© 2011 by Terri Reid
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under
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without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above
publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places,
brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination
or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and
trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which
have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is
not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
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is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This
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Table of Contents
“Idiots!
Nothing but
no-talent, pedestrian, second-class thespian wannabes!”
Faye McMullen
stood center stage, her high-pitched shrieks echoing against the auditorium
walls of the historic Winneshiek Theater in downtown Freeport.
The cast of the current play stood transfixed on the stage,
all staring at their leading lady.
“You!” she screamed, pointing to an elderly woman near the
edge of the stage. “Twice you have walked across the stage in front of me when
I was delivering my lines. If you do that one more time, I will push you into
the orchestra pit.
“And you,” she continued, turning towards a middle-aged
woman sitting in a chair, stage right. “I don’t give a damn about your children
and their needs. If you can’t be at a rehearsal on time, with your lines
memorized, you have no business trying out for a part in a play.”
She turned to a young man trying to hide his large girth
behind the bureau that was stage left. “You, fatty,” she taunted. “Perhaps you
could come to rehearsal without the smell of onions and garlic on your breath.
“And,” she paused for a moment, “it would be a real treat
for the rest of the cast if you took a shower on occasion, so we don’t have to
smell you before we even see you.
“And you,” she sneered, bearing down on a young woman in her
late teens. “I don’t know what misguided fool told you that you could act. But,
sweetie, if I were you, I’d think about changing my major. Perhaps you ought to
be someone’s secretary. You can make coffee, can’t you?”
The young woman dissolved into tears and ran from the stage,
the sounds of her footsteps running up the stairs to the Green Room echoing
behind her.
Faye turned back to the rest of the cast and crew. “Get out
of my sight,” she screamed. “You all disgust me.”
The dozen or so men and women eagerly left the stage and
followed the young woman upstairs.
Faye walked to the center of the stage. “I don’t know why I
continuously allow myself to be subjected to such imbeciles.”
“Perhaps it’s her fun-loving, generous spirit,” Carl White
whispered to Donald
Saxer
, standing next to him at
the back of the auditorium watching the rehearsal.
Donald forgot himself and laughed aloud.
Wrath-filled eyes turned toward him. “You dare laugh at me?”
she seethed. “You think this is funny? Perhaps your wife and three children
will think it’s funny when you are dismissed from your job.”
He blanched as an equal feeling of resentment and fear
filled his gut. He looked up at the woman on the stage. Nearly skeletal, she
was the epitome of the saying, “You can’t be too rich or too thin.” Her
bleached blond hair swirled around her shoulders and looked out of place on the
fifty-plus year old woman. She wore a silk caftan and flowing silk pants Donald
knew cost more than a month of his paychecks. Her fingers held rings with
jewels worth a king’s ransom, her skin was perpetually tanned and her face had
been tightened so many times, he was sure that if she sneezed with any gusto it
would split in half. She was one of the wealthiest women in town and used her
wealth and position like a yoke around the neck of the entire community.
“No, Faye. I mean Ms. McMullen,” he said. “I wasn’t laughing
at you. It was...”
“I don’t care what it was, moron,” she spat. “I will visit
your employer on Monday morning.”
“Just a minute, Faye,” Carl interrupted, “you can’t destroy
a man’s livelihood over a stupid amateur play.”
“And that’s the problem with you, Carl,” she said, walking
to the edge of the stage. “You don’t take this art form seriously. It doesn’t
matter where the stage is, the only thing that matters is the art.”
“You can’t ruin a man because he shared a difference of
opinion with you,” Carl argued. “Besides, it wasn’t his fault, it was mine.”
“Oh, so you think you can laugh at me too?” she asked, her
pencil-thin eyebrows lifting over her sharp, piercing eyes. “What do you think
your dear wife would say if she knew about the fling you had with our little
rising starlet?”
Carl started forward toward the stage. “You bitch,” he
yelled. “There is nothing between Amy and me. It was all in your mind.”
She laughed at him. “Actually, as I recall, she was all in
your arms.”
“I never touched her,” he insisted. “I never once touched
her.”
Crossing her thin arms in front of her, she lifted one
pointy finger to her chin. “But not because you didn’t want to, right, Carl?”
she purred. “Was it because you were afraid? How does it feel to play the part
of the Cowardly Lion your whole life? Too bad you never got a chance to play
the part of a real man.”
“You nasty bitch.”
“Careful, Carl, you’re repeating yourself and that is so
tiresome,” she lifted a hand to her open mouth and patted it several times.
“And I hate when you’re tiresome.”
“Listen, Faye,” Carl said, trying to fight the panic and
nausea rising in his stomach. “I know this rehearsal didn’t go the way you had
planned, but I think we can work things out.”
Faye crossed to stage left and stood beneath a spot light.
Turning to a mirrored bureau on the set, she preened for a moment and then
spoke to him, watching her own reflection as she enunciated each word. “You’re
right, Carl, it didn’t go well,” she replied calmly, smiling gently. “And as
the director of this production, I hold you entirely responsible. The cast does
not respect you and they certainly are not inspired by you. We have three weeks
until we open and most of your so-called actors are still on book.”
“I’m aware of that,” Carl replied. “They have promised...”
“Promised!
Promised,” she spat, turning
back to him. “Their promises mean nothing. They have missed their blocking and
their cues, stumbled over their lines and have made a farce of this entire
drama. They don’t take this production seriously, because you don’t take it
seriously.”
“I assure you, Faye, I do take this seriously.”
She cocked her head slightly. “Oh, do you?” she asked.
“Well, then, if you’re serious, I want you to replace Amy. We both know she can’t
act her way out of a paper bag.”
“She’s got a lot of potential, Faye, she’s just young,” he
argued. “Besides, she needs to be in this play in order to keep her
scholarship.”
Shrugging, she strolled across the stage, glancing at her
manicured nails. “Well, I suppose that’s her problem, isn’t it?”
“You can’t do this.”
Turning and sinking gracefully into a chair, she smiled.
“You’re right,” she said gaily. “I can’t, but you can and you will. We don’t
want me to talk about your little secret, do we?”
Carl looked anxiously around the room. Donald had already
left the theater through the lobby door. “You promised,” he whispered.
“But I’m getting so old, Carl,” she said with a pout. “I
often forget what I promise.”
She laughed lightly. “Oh Carl, I just love being me.”
“Faye, please, you can’t...”
“She’s upstairs in the Green Room,” she interrupted. “I’ll
give you ten minutes. If you haven’t done it by then, I’ll come up to share a
few interesting facts with the cast and crew.”
She heard his heavy footsteps on the wooden stairs that led
up to the Green Room and took a deep breath of contentment. She loved it when
things went her way.
She walked across the stage to gather her props and put them
in place for the next day’s rehearsal. She, at least, was going to be a
professional.
She laid her purse and scarf on the shelf backstage right,
next to the large panel that held the electronics for the staging and lights.
On the wall next to the panel was a line of curtain riggings with thick hemp
rope tied down securely. Each line controlled the movement of one of the
curtains or backdrops.
Faye stopped to look closer at the ropes. There was
something wrong. The end of one of the ropes lay loosely against the wall.
Didn’t those amateurs understand that was a safety infraction?
“Idiots,” she muttered, storming over to the thick hemp rope
to tie it down.
The stage went dark and Faye froze. She counted to ten and
waited for them to turn back on. She tapped her foot impatiently against the
wood boards.
Really?
Did they forget she was still on
stage? Another head would roll.
“Hello! I’m still on stage.”
She heard a noise behind her.
“It’s about time...” she began.
She gasped when she felt the rope against her neck. “Stop,”
she cried, reaching up to pull it away.
Her hands were pulled behind her and bound. “Who are you?”
she cried. “What are you doing to me?”
She heard the sound of the electric winch motor starting up
and felt the rope tighten on her throat. “No, wait, please,” she cried. “I can
pay you. I can give you things. Please don’t...”