Rehearsal for Murder (Maggie Ryan) (26 page)

“Right. After you’ve done your foolish jaunt for little-girldom. If that doesn’t land us all in prison. But the prop box gives me another idea. Here.” Leaving Sarah on her pad on the platform, he crossed to the box and pulled out the blond wig Edith had used to rehearse Baroness Lehzen, the youthful Victoria’s German governess. “Take this along. Just in case things get tough and you don’t want the police to be making connections between the ransom pickup and the little-girl pickup at Montessori.”

Maggie clapped it on her head with a grin. “Great! Do I look like Jean Harlow?”

He cocked his head, considering. “No. More like a Valkyrie. Or Alice in Wonderland. I can’t decide which.”

“Part Alice, part Valkyrie—Nick, what peculiar taste you have in wives! Well, see you soon. Here I go!” With a toss of the blond curls she pranced toward the door.

It sprang open and Jaymie hurtled in, trench coat flared open, tan tote bag bouncing beside her. “Where’s—where are the checks?” she gasped.

“I’m sorry, Jaymie,” said Nick. “You missed him. He said—”

“Missed him?” There was such a depth of pain and exhaustion in her cry that Nick hurt too. He was glad to see Maggie spontaneously hug her.

He said, “The lawyer told us he’d hold the checks at his office for you and Daphne.”

“Oh. I—I ran all the way.” She was still panting, speaking in little bursts between breaths.

“You can get your check soon, Jaymie,” Maggie soothed her. She looked frivolous in the flaxen wig, but Jaymie seemed too distracted to notice.

“But it’s Daphne, you see. It’s my only chance. I have to give Daphne her check.”

“But he wouldn’t let us do that,” Nick explained gently. “Derek offered to take your checks to you, but the lawyer said he wouldn’t give a check to anyone except the person named on it.”

“Then it’s all over! If you love someone, they leave you!” Jaymie raised her hands to her face hopelessly. “Oh, God, I want to die!”

“But you’ll get the check soon!” coaxed Maggie, flashing a puzzled glance at Nick. “So will Daphne.”

“But she won’t talk to me!” Jaymie pulled away from Maggie, walked to the window, and leaned her hands on the sill, staring out at the grimy kitchen roof below. “She said, ‘All I want from you assholes is my check!’”

Understanding began to flicker. Nick said, “Daphne is sad and angry right now, Jaymie, but I’m sure she’ll want to see you soon. It’ll take a while for her to get back to normal, because she loved Callie very much.”

One of Jaymie’s hands made a fist and she thumped the windowsill rhythmically, as though trying to pound away her thoughts. “More than me, more than me,” she murmured.

“Callie was her niece,” Nick tried to explain. “Of course she was attached to her.”

“But I need her! Mama, Daddy, Loreen. All gone away. And now Daphne. I’m alone. Forever alone.” She gave a little sob and shrugged her shoulder bag forward, clasping it across her chest with both arms. “And I did everything for her.”

“I know it’s hard—”

“And she’s gone anyway! Oh, God!” She twisted away from the window, head turned toward the left, neck arching gracefully, hand to her temple. In the hand was a little gun.

“Jaymie, no!” The tremor of horror in Maggie’s first syllable modulated instantly to a soothing tone. “Things seem bad now, that’s natural. But wait, they’ll look better soon.”

“I did everything! And still—”

Maybe it was Jaymie’s theatrical pose against the backlight of the window that inspired him, maybe the whimper from Sarah on her pad, maybe just the sight of Maggie’s frizzy blond wig as she moved toward Jaymie. Nick opened the piano, soft-pedaled, and began to sing gently, “Vickelchen, nap in your wee elfin cap, sleeping happy with never a tear.”

The gun at Jaymie’s temple wavered, and drooped. Maggie glanced at Nick. He nodded and she eased her arm around Jaymie again while Nick crooned on, “I know a charm that will keep you from harm, and disarm all the demons you fear.” Powerful demons indeed that poor Jaymie was wrestling in her despair. But now she was sinking to her knees as in the show, clutching Maggie’s skirt with her left hand. Maggie, half-sitting on the windowsill and stroking Jaymie’s glossy hair, had succeeded in catching her right hand, gently easing the gun loose and into the bag again. Despite the chill that suddenly gripped at his heart, Nick sang on, “Life, like our stories, has goblins and glories. It’s gentle and hard as a stone. But I’ll be beside you to keep you and guide you. You won’t have to face it alone.”

Jaymie was sobbing as the last chords sounded. She tensed, groping at her tote bag. Nick went back to the beginning of the lullaby and she relaxed again, almost hypnotized by the childish tune and the gentle hand on her hair, sliding into the role as she had at rehearsals. Maggie’s foot crept out and nudged the tote bag away from Jaymie and back along the wall.

“Things will be better, Vickelchen,” she murmured as the last chords sounded, instinctively improvising to keep Jaymie in the character of the compliant Princess. “I’ll take care of you. You won’t be alone. Now, come, I want you to find something for me.” She stood, very slowly, and coaxed Jaymie to the costume box. “Where’s your wee elfin cap?”

Automatically, a little-girl look of wonder on her face, Jaymie pulled out the cap.

“Good.” Maggie, all comfortable earth-mother, tied it under Jaymie’s chin. “We have a special treat today, Vickelchen.”

Sarah whimpered again and doubt flitted across Jaymie’s face. But Maggie’s words soothed her. “We’re going to go out now, and we’re going to get you a cuddly bear!”

“No!” exclaimed Nick involuntarily. Maggie couldn’t know, might not have guessed. That gun in Jaymie’s hand had been Ramona’s.

And in Jaymie’s disintegrating half-fantasy world, who could guess what she might do next? Little Hedvig, shooting herself for fear of losing a father? Annie Oakley, who might shoot anything? But that gun was not a prop. They had to keep her away from it, to call the police somehow, to get Jaymie into professional hands.

Maggie was smiling at him serenely. “Yes!”

“But—” But how could she still be concerned about the kidnapping now? How could she suggest taking a killer away with her?

“It’s all right, you see. People should take care of little girls.” She was patting Jaymie’s shoulder, but Nick’s mind jumped at last to comprehension. Maggie was protecting Sarah by taking the dangerously unpredictable Jaymie away. Protecting Jaymie by separating her from the gun in the tote bag. And calmly, still acting the solicitous governess, leading the unsuspecting Jaymie to the team of police who were doubtless watching the ransom pickup.

He nodded his understanding and Maggie picked up her briefcase and led Jaymie away.

The closing door seemed to renew Sarah’s fussing. Nick checked, discovered that she’d thoroughly messed herself, and reflected a moment. He couldn’t do anything this minute anyway, because Maggie needed time to get Jaymie down the stairs and out the door. He mustn’t follow yet, mustn’t even call the police from the phone on the top landing until they had left. In any case he couldn’t be too close to the activity with his beloved, yowling, vulnerable infant. Potential hostage, potential victim. He’d have to trust Maggie and the police. Meanwhile, might as well see if he could reduce the yowl factor.

In record time he rushed through the diaper change and got Sarah mobile again in the carrier. Then he trundled her out to the hall phone and called Perez.

“Sorry, sir, Sergeant Perez is not available,” a chipper young voice informed him.

“Well, tell him that I’ve found Ramona Ricci’s second gun.”

“Okeydoke. Who are you and where?”

“Nick O’Connor. Tell him it’s at the rehearsal loft.”

“Sure thing!”

“It’s a homicide case,” said Nick, suddenly dubious about the knowledgeability of a police officer who owned such a cheery outlook on life.

“Hey, natch, it’s Perez, right? Thank you, sir,” said the voice.

“Okeydoke,” said Nick, and hung up with a worried look at the receiver.

He walked Sarah back into the loft and looked at Jaymie’s tote bag. Might be a good idea to be sure that gun was unloaded before people began poking around in the bag. He took Sarah back to the piano, arranged her carefully on the side away from the bag, and then went back to open it gingerly.

The reflected sunlight from the window was strong. He needed it; the bag was chock full of the necessities of an actor’s life. A scarf on the top. Hairbrush. Umbrella angling up from the lower depths; don’t touch that yet, in case it in turn touched the gun. The first few of many lipsticks and makeup pots. A script fo
r
Victoria
R
. The appointment book he’d seen her use for casting notices. Curious, using the scarf to keep from obliterating fingerprints, he opened the dark leather cover and flipped through the pages. Here was February, here was March. March 6.

5:30, RR
—
L’Etoil
e
.

Somehow he hadn’t fully believed it till this moment. Jaymie, so sweet-faced, so hardworking. How could she? And yet—what was it she’d said of Daphne
?
I did everything for he
r
.

Ramona’s death had been an accident, then, as they’d conjectured. The shot had been fired, not to kill her, but to keep Ramona from retracting her letters and harming Daphne’s court case, to keep her temporarily out of the way. How stricken Jaymie must have been to hear of Ramona’s death—but yes, he could remember her anguished cry: that’s impossible! All day she’d been struggling to cope with the sudden horror, the shock that an action meant only to delay instead had killed. She was right; she needed Daphne, needed mothering, needed someone to get her to the help she needed.

But Daphne, floundering in the pain of her own problems, could not respond; not only the loss of Ramona, of the job, but also the tension of the court hearing, and now—worst of all—Callie’s death.

Callie’s death.

Goddamn it. A weary certainty flooded through Nick even before he pulled the ski mask from the bag. He could remember Daphne’s brusqueness: “Callie comes first. You understand?” And the desperate tears in lost Jaymie’s eyes: “I understand.”

Thank God they’d got the gun away from her!

But where was it?

Carefully he pulled out the rest of her things. Then he checked for other compartments. Nothing.

One by one, he replaced the objects from the pile beside him. Still nothing.

He jumped to his feet, hunted in burgeoning panic along the wall, and then all over the loft. Nothing.

He remembered Jaymie groping for her bag while they sang the lullaby.

Then he snatched Sarah from behind the piano and frantically strapped her into the carrier.

Maggie had gone out there, cosily hand in hand with a deranged killer.

And the killer was armed.

XVI

Friday, 5:10 PM

March 9, 1973

Steve looked at his watch. Five ten. Where was Maggie?

He had left the coffee shop where he’d told her to meet him and was back at the bar. It would be easy from here to cross the street and get the bear as soon as she’d lured the police away. But where was she?

Could she possibly suspect him? No, there was no way she could have found out about the kidnapping. She didn’t know his name. She didn’t know Muffin was missing. Even if for some reason she had tracked down Elaine or Mitzi, they knew to say that Muffin had a cold. No, Maggie was the ideal Good Samaritan. José Santos had been right.

But then where was she? There were four women at the Ming Bazaar: one with a stroller, one inspecting house slippers, and a tall blonde talking to a dark-haired friend, then leaving her to nod to the Chinese vendor. Steve squinted at the friend. Trench coat, yes; was it Maggie? But Maggie did not droop that way; she moved gracefully, breezily, like the athlete she was. Nor did she wear a frilly cap. Steve scanned the street again. No one. Then he glanced back at the shop and froze.

The tall blonde had moved to the shelf of pajama bags and was looking carefully at the purple one.

She turned and called to the vendor, and Steve realized that it was Maggie. Damn! Why the hell was she wearing that wig? Now Lugano would think the pickup had been made by a blonde! But, his José Santos side whispered, it was not vital; the important thing was that she distract the police. Blond or black-haired, she would lead the police to the coffee shop where he’d said he’d meet her, then to her job or wherever she went next. That was all Steve needed. And she was doing the right thing, carefully comparing the two pajama bags, noting that the one with the torn ear was in better shape, preparing to keep the one he’d handed to her.

Time to call Elaine, said the plan. Hands shaky with anxious anticipation, Steve dialed. As it rang he stepped out of the booth, receiver tight on his ear, so that he could peer out at Maggie. Elaine said, “Hello?”

Why that blond wig? And who was the other woman? He was so rattled that he forgot to disguise his voice. “Hello,” he said.

“Oh, Steve! Thank God! I didn’t know how to reach you!”