The Last Dance (28 page)

“Whenever there's a hit play,” he said, “or movie, or novel—or
poem
for all I know—someone comes out of the woodwork claiming it was stolen from an obscure, unpublished, unproduced, undistinguished piece of crap scribbled on the back of a napkin. It's
Dadier's Nose
all over again.”

“Sir?”

“
Le Nez de Dadier,
a play written by a Parisian scissors grinder named Henri Clavère, in the year 1893, four years before Edmond de Rostand's play opened.
Cyrano de Bergerac,
hmm? Well, Clavère brought suit for plagiarism. He lost the case and drowned
himself in the Seine. If I responded to every lunatic who feels his or her work was later appropriated, I wouldn't be able to do anything else.”

“But you are, in fact, producing a show called
Jenny's Room,
aren't you?” Shanahan asked.

Jaws clamped tight on the idea already formed in his mind, whatever that idea might be. His partner standing by deadpanned, listening, learning. Zimmer wanted to kick both of them out on their asses.

“Yes,” he said patiently, but unwilling to conceal the faintest of sighs. “I
am
co-producing a show titled
Jenny's Room,
that is a fact, yes. It is also a fact that the show has nothing to do with this pathetic woman's play.”

“Have you read her play, sir?”

“No, I have not. Nor do I intend to.”

“Then how do you know there are no similarities between her play and the play
Jenny's Room,
upon which your musical …”

“First of all, the play wasn't even
called
‘Jenny's Room' when it was written. It was called ‘
Jessie's
Room.' And ‘
Jessie's
Room' was a highly autobiographical play written by a woman named Jessica Miles …”

“So I understand.”

“… and not anyone named Margaret Coleridge.”

“
Martha
Coleri …”

“What
ever
her name is.”

“Whose play is also highly autobiographical.”

“Oh, is it?”

“Yes. ‘My Room.' The play she wrote. Which she claims was stolen by Jessica Miles.”

“How do you know it's autobiographical?”

“I read it.”

“I see. Did you
know
this woman?”

“Not until I read her play,” Shanahan said.

“You knew her when she was alive?”

“No, sir, I did not,” Shanahan said. “I got to know her after I read her play. It's a very good play.”

“I see. You're a theater critic, are you?”

“There's no need to get snotty, sir,” Shanahan said, and his partner blinked. “A woman was killed.”

“I'm sorry about that,” Zimmer said. “But I'm getting tired of detectives coming in here with their questions. What the hell am I producing? The Scottish play?”

“What detectives?” Shanahan asked, surprised.

“What's the Scottish play?” his partner asked.

“To ask about Martha Coleridge?”

“No, to ask about Andrew Hale.”

“I'm sorry, who's …?”

“Tell you what,” Zimmer said. “Go talk to your colleagues, okay? Carella and Brown. The Eighty-seventh Precinct.”

“What's the Scottish play?” Long asked again.

THE DETECTIVES
were waiting in the lobby of Fitness Plus when Connie Lindstrom walked out early Thursday morning, her mink coat flapping open over black tights and Nike running shoes as she sailed past to start her working day. Her eyes opened in surprise when she saw Carella and Brown sitting on the bench. She broke step, stopped, looked at them, shook her head, and said, “What now?”

“Sorry to bother you again,” Carella said.

“I'll bet.”

“Ever see this?” he asked, and handed her a copy of the letter Shanahan had passed on to him late yesterday afternoon. Connie took it, began reading it, recognized it at once, and handed it back to him.

“Yes,” she said. “So?” and hurried past them to the exit door.

They came down the steps and into the street, Connie leading, glancing at her watch, walking quickly to the curb, looking up the avenue for a taxi. It was eight-thirty in the morning on a very cold day, the sky bright and cloudless overhead, the streets heavy with
traffic. At this hour, it was almost impossible to catch a free cab, but the buses were packed as well, and getting anywhere was a slow and tedious process. Connie kept waving her hand at approaching taxis, shaking her head as each occupied one flashed by.

“I have to be downtown in ten minutes,” she said. “Whatever this is, I'm afraid it'll have to …”

“Woman who wrote that letter was murdered,” Carella said.

“Jesus, what
is
this?” Connie said. “The Scottish Play?”

“What's the Scottish Play?” Brown asked.

“We have to talk to you,” Carella said. “If you want a lift downtown, we'll be happy to take you.”

“In what?” she said. “A police car?”

“Nice Dodge sedan.”

“Shotgun on the back seat?”

“In the trunk,” Brown said.

“Why not?” Connie said, and they began walking toward where Carella had parked the car around the corner. She was in good shape; they had to step fast to keep up with her. Carella unlocked the door on the driver's side, clicked open all the other doors, and then threw up the visor with the pink police notice on it. Connie sat beside him on the front seat. Brown climbed into the back.

“Where to?” Carella asked.

“Octagon,” she said. “You've been there.”

“More auditions?”

“Endless process,” she said. “I don't know this woman, you realize. If you're suggesting her murder …”

“When did you get her letter, Miss Lindstrom?”

“Last week sometime.”

“Before the Meet 'N' Greet?”

“Yes.”

“How'd you handle it?”

“Dadier's Nose,”
she said, and shrugged.

“What's that?”

“Too long a story. Too long a
nose,
in fact. Suffice it to say that
plagiarism victims surface whenever anything smells of success. I turned the letter over to my lawyer.”

“Did he contact her?”

“She. I have no idea.”

“You didn't ask?”

“Why should I care? We're talking about a play written in 1922!”

“We're also talking about a play that seems to inspire murder.”

The car went silent.

Connie turned to him, her face sharp in profile.

“You don't know that for sure,” she said.

“Know what?”

“That the two murders are in any way connected. I suppose you'd both take a fit if I smoked.”

“Go right ahead,” Carella said, surprising Brown.

She fished into her bag, came up with a single cigarette and a lighter. She flicked the lighter into flame, held it to the end of the cigarette. She breathed out a cloud of smoke, sighed in satisfaction. On the back seat, Brown opened a window.

“I know what it looks like,” she said. “Hale refuses to sell us the rights, so he gets killed. Woman writes a letter that could seem threatening to the show, and
she
gets killed. Somebody wanted both of them dead because the show
must
go
on,”
she said, raising her voice dramatically. “Well, I have news for you. The show doesn't always have to go on. If it gets too difficult or too complicated, it simply does
not
go on, and that's a fact.”

“But the show
is
going on,” Brown said. “And that's a fact, too.”

“Yes. But if you think any of the professionals involved in this project would
kill
to insure a production …” She shook her head. “No,” she said. “I'm sorry.”

“How about the amateurs?” Carella asked.

Sometimes it was better to deal with professionals.

A professional knew what he was doing, and if he broke the rules
it was only because he understood them so well. The amateur witnessed a murder or two on television, concluded he didn't have to know the rules, he could just jump in cold and do a little murder of his own. The amateur believed that even if he didn't know what he was doing, he could get away with it. The professional believed he had
best
know what he was doing or he'd get caught. In fact, the professional knew without question that if he didn't get better and better each time out, eventually they'd nail him. The irony was that there were more amateurs than professionals running around loose out there, each and every one of them thriving. Go figure.

The way Carella and Brown figured it, there were four amateurs involved in the musical production of
Jenny's Room,
and three of them were still here in this busy little city. The fourth was somewhere in Tel Aviv, driving his taxi through crowded streets and hoping a bus bomb wouldn't explode in his path. There was nothing that said an Israeli cab driver couldn't have hired a Jamaican from Houston to hang an old man in his closet and later break an old lady's neck, but that sounded like the kind of stuff a neophyte might devise. Distance also would have disqualified Felicia Carr from Los Angeles and Gerald Palmer from London had they not both been here in the city when Martha Coleridge had her neck snapped.

Cynthia Keating always loomed first and foremost.

Mousy little Cynthia, who'd hoisted her father off that bathroom door hook and lugged him over to the bed. Dear little Cynthia, who'd been worried about a suicide clause depriving her of a lousy twenty-five grand when there were hundreds of thousands to be coined in a hit musical.

They already knew where they could find Cynthia Keating. They knew that Palmer was staying at The Piccadilly because he'd mentioned it at Connie Lindstrom's party. From the ever helpful Norman Zimmer, they learned that Felicia Carr was staying with a girlfriend here in the city. Because both Felicia and Palmer were
leaving for their respective homes this weekend and time was running out, they split the legwork into three teams.

Whether a person was guilty or not, he or she always seemed surprised—and a little bit frightened—to find policemen standing on the doorstep. Felicia Carr opened the door to her girlfriend's garden apartment in Majesta, saw two burly men standing there flashing badges, opened her big green eyes wide and asked what seemed to be the trouble, Officers?

“We're investigating a homicide,” Meyer said, because that often caused amateurs to wet their pants.

“A double homicide, in fact,” Kling said genially. “May we come in, please?”

“Well … sure,” Felicia said.

They followed her into a spacious, sunny living room overlooking the Majesta Bridge not far in the distance. The furniture was still wearing summer slipcovers, the fabric all abloom with riotous red and yellow and purple flowers against a background of large green leaves. The summery decor, the sun glaring through the big windows made the day outside appear balmy. But the temperature was in the low twenties, and the forecasters had predicted more snow either late tonight or early tomorrow morning.

Felicia told them she was just on her way out …

“So much to see here,” she explained.

… and hoped this wouldn't take too long.

“Though I'm sorry to hear someone got murdered,” she added.

“Two people,” Kling reminded her.

“Yes, I'm sorry.”

“Miss Carr,” Meyer said, “can you tell us where you were this past Sunday night?”

“I'm sorry?”

“This past Sunday night,” he repeated.

“That would've been the fifth,” Kling said helpfully.

“Can you tell us where you were?”

“Well … why?”

“This is a homicide investigation,” Meyer said, and smiled encouragingly.

“What's that got to do with me?”

“Most likely nothing,” Kling said, and nodded regretfully, as if to say
I
know you had nothing to do with these murders, and
you
know you had nothing to do with them, but we have to ask these questions, you see, that's our job. But Felicia Carr was from the motion picture capital of the universe. She had seen every cop movie ever made, every cop television show ever broadcast, and she wasn't about to get snowed by a song-and-dance team doing a dog-and-pony act.

“What do you mean, most
likely?”
she snapped. “Why do you want to know where I was on Sunday night? Is that when someone got killed?”

“Yes, Miss,” Kling said, trying to look even more sorrowful, but the lady still wasn't buying.

“What is this?” she said. “Los Angeles? The LAPD Gestapo?”

“Do you know a woman named Martha Coleridge?” Meyer asked. Bad Cop suddenly on the scene. No more smile on his face. Bald head making him look like an executioner with an ax. Arms folded across his chest in unmistakably hostile body language. Blue eyes studying her coldly. Didn't know he was dealing with Wonder Woman here, who'd sold three houses in Westwood only two weeks ago.

“No, who's Martha Coleridge?” she asked. “Is she the person who got killed last Sunday? Is that it?”

“Yes, Miss Carr.”

“Well, I don't know her. I never heard of her. Is that enough? I have to leave now.”

“Few more questions,” Kling said gently. “If you can spare a minute or so.”

Good Cop with the flaxen hair and the hazel eyes and the cheeks still glowing from the cold outside, gently and persuasively trying
to lead the lady down the garden path, not taking into account that she was from Tinseltown, USA, where if people ever walked anywhere they actually waited on street corners for lights to change.

“I don't think you're allowed to do this,” she said. “Barge in here and …”

“Miss Carr, have you ever been to Texas?” Meyer asked.