THE SOUND OF MURDER (8 page)

CHAPTER 16

I did not like Colonel Carl Marks. It had nothing to do with the fact that I distrusted men with mustaches. It wasn’t his too-young wife with the perfect body and belly ring. It wasn’t even the fact that he’d painted an entire room black. It was his eyes.

Carl’s eyes weren’t windows to his soul. They were locked doors and I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what occupied the rooms beyond. I’d watched his eyes as he talked, to look for the lies. If Uncle Bob’s theory held water, Carl looked me in the eye when he lied. Cheri had outed the first one, about black being her favorite color. I couldn’t figure out why he lied about it. Habit, maybe? And Carl looked directly at me two more times: once when he said he was retired, and again when he said he didn’t know which policies Charlie had with him. Plus he chewed his gum faster and played with his clothes. Yep, pretty sure he was lying both times.

Why? As I pondered this on my walk back to Bernice’s house, I got a prickly feeling on the back of my neck. Something wasn’t right. I slowed my pace and concentrated on my surroundings: wide streets, cactus gardens, and…a flash of red in Arnie’s spy sunglass mirrors. A red convertible about a block behind me, going way too slow. Following me.

The prickly feeling invaded the rest of my body, while my mind flipped through options. I could call someone. I could knock on someone’s door. I could run back to Bernice’s house. Or…

I turned and waved at the car. “Hi!” I shouted. “What’s the matter? Doesn’t your car go any faster?”

The Ferrari convertible revved its engine and zoomed past me, Carl at the wheel. I fumbled around in my purse for a pen to write down the license plate number. Dang. Must have left it at the colonel’s house. Bernice’s pen-filled house was still a few blocks away

“D…OD…one five six eight.” I sang to the tune of “Do Re Mi.” Why was Carl following me? It must be something to do with Charlie. His insurance policy?

“D…OD…one five six eight,” I sang the license plate number again. I learned this musical memorization trick in high school, when I had to learn the table of periodic elements while I was also in a production of
Oklahoma!
My science teacher was so impressed with my method that he used it himself. I’m very proud of the fact that students all over Arizona now sing the elements to the tune of “The Surrey with the Fringe on the Top.”

“D…OD…one five six eight.”

“Or ‘Dough, the bucks, the rent I owe,’” sang a voice behind me. I turned to see Roger in a t-shirt and shorts that showed off his muscled legs. “Your turn,” he said.

“Ray, the landlord that I hate,” I joined in, keeping one eye out for that red Ferrari.

“Me, the one who foots the bills,” Roger chimed back in. In
The Sound of Cabaret,
this song was all about us Vaughn Katt Dancers being down on our luck.

“Fa, a—”

“I think you have the words wrong,” said a gray-haired lady who was walking her schnauzer.

“No, it’s
The Sound of Cabaret
, a brand new musical.” Roger took the opportunity to put his arm around me. “Captain Vaughn Katt and Teasel the dancer at your service. Come see the show at Desert Dinner Theatre. It opens on Friday.”

The lady waved over her shoulder as her determined dog pulled her away. “Sounds nice.”

“Maybe she’ll bring her bridge club,” Roger said to me, his arm still draped around my shoulder.

“If her dog lets her.” The lady’s schnauzer charged ahead of her, like a mustachioed general on a mission. “What are you doing in this neck of the woods?” I spoke metaphorically, since there was not a tree to be seen unless you counted palm trees. Which I did not.

“Just out for a run.” Roger released me, thank heavens, then stood on one leg, bent his other behind him and grabbed it, as if to punctuate his point. “The theater puts me up in a nice little townhouse over on Lee Trevino Court. It’s about a mile away.” He stretched the other leg. “What were you singing?”

“A license plate.” Should I tell Roger I was being followed? No. He might hug me or something. “I better go write it down.”

“What time should I come over for pool duty and dinner?”

“We’d better do dinner tomorrow. Keith called an extra music rehearsal later this afternoon.”

“Just for you?’

“What? No.” At least I hoped not. “He said it was for all of us non-union types.” Equity rules put a cap on union actors’ hours. The theater could ask the rest of us to rehearse 24/7.

“Are you worried?”

“Nah,” I lied.

“The theater will start serving meals on Thursday,” Roger said.

“Yay. I’d forgotten about that.” Free food was one of the perks of dinner theater and was especially exciting to those of us who ate beans three times a week.

“So as far as our dinner for pool arrangements…” Oh please, God, he
had
to take care of the pool. “Why don’t you just feed me on our nights off?” Arghh. After the show opened on Friday, we’d have just Monday and Tuesday nights off. Only two nights a week, and I wanted to keep them open for Jeremy. My discomfort must have showed, because Roger said, “I’m sure we can work something out. See you in a few hours.” He jogged away.

I watched him for a moment, legs pumping, white running shoes flashing. Something tugged at the corners of my mind. Jogging? Legs? Shoes! That was another thing that bugged me about Colonel Carl. His shoes.

Uncle Bob has his eye theory—I have a shoe theory. I believe a person’s footwear provides a plethora of clues. Take me, for example. You could pretty much get an idea of my age (twenties) and income (not much) by looking at my usual footwear: Dollar Store flip-flops. You could also tell that I lived in a hot sunny place (the bottoms were slightly melted from walking on hot asphalt) and that I walked with the weight on the outside of my feet (the edges of my flip flops were smooshed more than the rest of the shoe). I had pretended to drop my pen so I could get a good look at Carl’s shoes. They were white athletic shoes, pretty new, not a scuff on them. They were also made by Gucci and cost more than the theater paid me for a week. Those shoes, the enormous flat screen TV, and the Ferrari added up to more than a mid-life crisis. How much money did insurance agents make, anyway?

CHAPTER 17

“Wa
nna take a trip?” my brother asked over the phone.

I sat at my dressing room counter putting on makeup before rehearsal. Or
trying
to put on makeup. Those of us who had to attend the extra afternoon rehearsal had a really short dinner break before tonight’s full-fledged rehearsal, so Arnie had brought in pizza. I was finding it difficult to apply lipstick over pizza-greased lips.

“Sure,” I said. “As long as I—”

“Don’t have rehearsal.” Cody finished my sentence. He knew me all too well. “Matt says Candy doesn’t. It’s tomorrow.”

“Where are we going?” I scrubbed off my oily lipstick and tried again.

“It’s a secret. Meet us at the house at…” He stopped. “When are we going tomorrow?” Cody shouted into the phone. I pulled my cell away from my ear. I could still hear him, even holding the phone a good two feet away. “Matt says to meet us at noon.”

“Okay. Later, gator.”

“In a while, crocodile,” said Cody.

I hung up, finished getting into costume and makeup, and crossed my fingers about tonight’s rehearsal.

I should have crossed all my toes too. My singing was passable, but someone had tattled on Hailey, who was now forbidden to feed Marge lines. In her first scene, Marge walked onstage and smiled at the huddle of nuns. And smiled. And smiled. Opened her mouth, and…nada. Shut it again and smiled, tighter than before. When it became obvious Marge was not going to say her first line, Keith started up the music, the nuns skipped the beginning of the scene and Bitsy launched right into, “How do you solve a problem like a nightclub?”

Marge’s performance did not get any better. The cast and crew were on pins and needles the entire night.

After rehearsal, as I passed Marge’s dressing room, I heard Arnie’s voice from within: “C’mon, doll, this is…”

“This is CRAP!” Marge could probably be heard in the front of the theater.

I felt sorry for everyone involved. We only had one more rehearsal without an audience. Then preview on Thursday and opening on Friday. The show wouldn’t work unless Marge’s memory improved overnight—or Arnie replaced her.

“I’ll get them, OKAY? I’ll get my EFFIN’ LINES!”

I scurried out the stage door. A red convertible drove slowly past the parking lot.

“Ready?” I jumped at the voice at my elbow.

“Sorry,” Roger said. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

The convertible was nowhere in sight. Was it Carl? Too dark to tell.

I turned to Roger. “No worries. I’m just jumpy because it’s…late.” I never was good at improv.

“Let’s get at that pool then.”

“I thought since I couldn’t cook you dinner—”

“I’ll take a rain check. You can’t let pools go, you know.”

The health department shut down the pool at my apartment building last summer after it had turned lime Jell-O green. “Right,” I said. “Follow me.”

I was actually glad Roger was coming over. I kinda wanted someone with me.

When we got to Bernice’s, Roger pulled his white Audi into the drive next to my VW.

“Nice car,” I said as he got out.

“It’s Arnie’s. It’s something, huh?” The car alarm tweeted as he locked it remotely.

“Arnie loaned you his car?”

“My agent negotiated it,” said Roger. “Normally when I’m on the road, I just ask for travel expenses and housing—plus my wages, of course—but you really can’t get around this city without a car.”

Hmmm. Housing, travel expenses, and a car, plus Equity wages and free dinners on the nights we had shows. Maybe all actors didn’t live on beans.

My phone rang as we walked through the front door. Jeremy! I picked up and motioned Roger to go on ahead of me.

“Hey, you done with rehearsal?” said Jeremy. “I’m over on your side of town. I know it’s late, but maybe a drink?”

“Oh, sorry. It’s—”

“Ivy?” Roger called from the back of the house, too loudly.

“You still at the theater?” Jeremy said.

“No. A friend came over to take care of the pool.”

“At eleven o’clock at night?”

“It’s the only time he had.”

Silence.

“I really needed him to help me. You know how I am about water.” It was a pretty pathetic shot, but true all the same.

“I understand,” said wonderful, thoughtful, gorgeous Jeremy.

After telling him where to pick up his ticket for opening night, I hung up, grabbed the pool instructions from underneath the stereo, and met Roger, who stood waiting by the sliding glass door. We went onto the patio and Roger, directions in hand, flipped a switch on the stucco wall beside the doors. The dark hole that had been the pool now glowed turquoise, a calm presence in the black night. I wasn’t fooled. It was still water, deep enough to drown in.

I waved at the deathtrap. “All yours.” I sat down in a chair with beige-striped cushions, a good fifteen feet from the water.

“No problem.” Roger found a kit mounted on the back patio wall next to some other pool implements, and brought it and the instructions to a table near me. “It’ll be good practice for me. My new house is going to have a pool.”

“You’re buying a house? Back east?”

I only had a vague idea of where Roger lived.

“I’m building a house,” he said, straightening up. “In Mexico. Cheaper there, you know.”

“You speak Spanish?”

“Un poquito.”

Though most of my knowledge of Spanish came from watching telenovelas, I was pretty sure that meant “a little bit.”

“Are there jobs for English-speaking actors in—”

“I’m retiring,” Roger said. “This is my last gig. Then I’ll be off to the land of sun and cerveza.” The Spanish word for beer I knew. Roger grabbed a pool skimmer from the wall. “So you’re afraid of the water?”

“No. Terrified. Truly, deeply terrified.”

“May I ask why?” He skated the skimmer across the surface of the pool, working around an inner tube that bobbed on its surface like an innocent toy.

“Maybe some other day.” Probably not. Cody’s accident was not something I talked about lightly. “Let’s talk about fame and fortune instead,” I said. “Tell me what I have to look forward to.”

“Hard work, rejection, and poverty,” said Roger, the blue light from the pool reflecting a too-serious face. Then he laughed, “Don’t listen to me. It’s not a bad life, if you play your cards right.” He hung up the dripping skimmer and retrieved a couple of clear plastic vials from the pool kit on the table.

I waited for him to go on. Sometimes the things Uncle Bob taught me worked in real life too.

“I’ve done okay for myself, but just because of some lucky investments.” He dipped the vials into the pool, then brought them back to the table. “I missed the boat when it came to real success.”

“You don’t think of yourself as successful? You travel free of charge, you make your living doing what you love, and you’re building a house in Mexico. Seems like a pretty nice life to me.”

Using a dropper, Roger dripped some chemicals into the clear vials. “I could have done better.” A trace of bitterness crept into his voice. “I should have been on Broadway, or at least off-Broadway, but I was…unlucky. Not like some.” He jerked a chin in the direction of Marge’s house next door. He put down the pool test kit and stood in front of me. “You, though…you have a chance.” Before I knew it, he had cupped my cheek in his hand. I gulped, not sure what to do. “You’re so pretty,” he went on, turning my face from one side to the other, like a cowboy checking out a new horse. He dropped his gaze to my legs. I bet cowboys do that too. “And you have the most magnificent legs I’ve seen in ages. Which brings me to the real reason I wanted to help you out with your pool.”

He was making me nervous, but I waited, not saying anything. I was getting good at this.

“I’d like to be your…”

Please God don’t let him say “sugar daddy.”

“Mentor.”

Phew. “What exactly do you mean? I’ve never had a mentor before.” Of course Uncle Bob was my mentor, but he only taught me things that dealt with PI work, like patience and observation and perseverance.

“I’d like to offer you advice on your acting career, help steer you. I think you’ve got talent—and great legs—and with some work, I think you can have a successful career.” He sat down across from me and leaned in. “And I think I can jumpstart it for you. An old New York producer friend of mine is going to fly in and see the show later this month. He heads up Mooney Productions—maybe you’ve heard of them? They produced
Mother Teresa, The Musical
.”

I nodded. Everyone knew
MTTM.

“He’d like to mount
The Sound of Cabaret
with plans to take it off-Broadway, and he’s looking for new talent. I’d like to introduce you.”

For once, words escaped me. This could be my big break. But why me? Hailey, who played Mary, had a singing voice that sounded like clear water over rocks in a mountain stream, plus she was a true triple threat—an actor who could act, dance, and sing. I was more of a 2.5 threat.

“What do you think?” Roger asked.

“I’m…wow…It’s…” I still struggled with the idea that this was a real possibility. “An amazing opportunity. I can’t thank you enough.”

“Good,” he said. “But we have work to do. And the first order of business is to get you some voice lessons.”

“Oh. I…” Lessons were expensive and my budget was stretched to its limit.

“I’ll teach you. Gratis,” said Roger. “We’ll start tomorrow. I’ll meet you at the theater a half hour before dinner. Sound good?”

It did and it didn’t. Free singing lessons and an introduction to a New York producer sounded pretty great, but I had a nagging doubt about Roger’s real intentions. But hey, I’d handled unwanted attention before. I could certainly handle Roger.

“You bet,” I said.