Voices in the Wardrobe (28 page)

Dr. Judy looked a lot better on the big screen in the auditorium than she had in person. She never turned her back on the audience or the cameras so her hump didn't show. She merely highlighted points on the small screen with a clicker and turned her head toward it as she spoke. She wasn't glamorous but she was compelling and convincing—at least when you couldn't hear what she said. It was disconcerting to be hearing other people on the sound system instead.

“We happen to know that you, as her Hollywood agent, had intimate knowledge of Dr. Judd's financial dealings, Ms. Ridgeway. If you cooperate we could perhaps—”

“You'll have to take that up with her lawyer, her accountant, and financial advisers. As an agent I have knowledge only of her performance contracts and commitments and am not permitted to discuss such unless subpoenaed in a court of law.”

“Oh, come now. Hollywood is hardly known for its integrity, morality, or sincerity. You can't expect us to—” This was the guy who'd dripped condescension at the coffee gathering in the dining room last night. Okay, one of the guys.

All the while Dr. Judy motioned, stepped from side to side, nodded and squinted knowingly, tilted her head, mouthing words with studied lip, tongue, and teeth coordination you probably wouldn't have noticed had there been sound.

Libby nudged Charlie's arm and pointed down into the auditorium seating where a shadow man sat, with his back to them, not watching Dr. Judy. By the exaggerated tilt of his head, he was either asleep, unconscious, or dead like the doctor.

Charlie feared it might be Keegan but was afraid to slip down and take a look because she didn't know who else might be in the fringes of shadow left by the flickering of the screen on the stage or who was running this show from the control room.

“So, Charlie Greene, what do you think of the show so far, humm?” Ruth Ann Singer asked and if you looked closely at the window of the control room you could see blonde hair in the colored glow of flashing monitors and blinking consoles. There had to be another door into it from outside the auditorium.

Didn't there? The one behind the screen wouldn't hide traffic to and from and would be a distraction for an audience being filmed. Of course they could edit the videos—still, it would be very handy to have direct access. There had been so much money lavishly wasted on this place, hard to believe that would have been overlooked. Symmetry didn't appear to be a high priority.

Charlie backed out of the auditorium tugging Brodie and Libby with her, then putting her index fingers on each of their lips as her daughter had done to her a short time ago. Her inner voice was not so easily stilled, however.

Do we have a clue what's up? That anyone is safer out here than in there? I have the feeling that wasn't Keegan Monroe slumped over in the theater seat, don't you?

Charlie wasn't about to answer herself at all. Someone could be picking people off or out of the halls one by one. If it was the federal types why was snappy number running the show from the control room? Charlie so wished she had the mind of a detective and at the same time so wished she didn't need to. Her calling was not danger and weirdness, violent people doing unexpected things.

Which reminded her of her vibrating cellular. What if Kenny or Mitch was trying to contact her? She should be able to listen to her messages without making noise. She motioned to Libby and Brodie with the cell in hand that she wanted to hide behind them to reduce the glow of the screen.

There was a message from Kenny. She slid her shirt up over her head to hide any sound. He was lost in the walls someplace, trying to get out. “Stay away from the main building and Jerry Parks, the reporter. Try to get out of here and get help. Don't know what happened to Hilsten.”

She couldn't return the call without making noise. How did he get lost in the walls? Had he been drugged too, didn't really know what he was saying? He'd sounded tired, but not slurred or incoherent. The other messages weren't worth opening now.

Charlie came out from under her shirt to hear the PA system over the exaggerated drumming of her heart and to see Libby walking down the hall into the shadows.

“You do see the futility of refusing to cooperate with the full might of the United States Government, surely,” some guy said from the speaker overhead.

“I don't see the United States Government. I see one dumb-ass bureaucrat where last night I saw three,” Kenny Cowper said. “Things aren't going so good for you guys either, huh?”

Charlie followed Brodie who had crept off in the same direction as had Libby. They mustn't get separated. But they did. When she caught up with Brodie, he'd already lost Libby.

“Did she say anything?” Charlie whispered.

“She wondered why the PA system wouldn't be in the office instead of mixed in with the auditorium sound system. What we were hearing came from speakers in the halls. I don't know if I can take much more of this.”

“Charlie? Why did you leave me?” Maggie said. She was crying.

“I'm not sure I can either, Brodie.” About the time they reached the office, the lights came on. Everywhere. It was blinding. Somebody must have found the switch.

“Caroline, come out now. Stop this madness,” Warren VanZant pleaded with his wife. “Just leave the rifle and come to the office. We'll help you, I promise.”

Charlie saw no sign of a PA system but there was one shoe in the air above the desk with a pant leg attached. Charlie walked around to see the rest of the Fed sprawled across the tipped-over desk chair instead of Warren VanZant. Charlie wondered if he had been part of “we” with VanZant. Hard to tell which of any of the broadcasts were new or just prerecorded. If they were both, there must be two systems or two or more accesses to the one.

“Oh God.” Brodie turned away from the body on the floor. “Who's that?”

“A federali. If my hunch that the guy slumped over in the front row of the auditorium is one of them and is dead—all three that questioned us last night are dead plus one way out back I'd never seen—you'd think they'd send in the marines by now. And at least two members of the San Diego County Sheriff's Department were real close to being fatally poisoned. There are deputies on the premises and last I knew an ambulance sitting out in the parking lot. Seems like everybody's waiting for word of what to do and meanwhile sweet little Caroline VanZant is running around killing people with a rifle and my daughter's here somewhere.”

“Plus your two boyfriends. And your star client, don't forget. Me even.”

“I didn't forget all you guys, it's just—”

“I know, it's the mom thing. Sure glad my mom's back home. If we get out of this alive, will you—”

“I promise I'll read your treatment.”

“She talked, Warren. I know who killed Dashiell. You thought she was dead but she talked. Where is he?”

“I don't know where he is. I thought you killed him already. Caroline, please stop this. Meet me in our room. But don't bring the rifle. I swear everything will be okay.”

She was on the PA. He was yelling from somewhere close. Charlie's phone vibrated in her pocket again and she pulled up her shirt to talk in it again. “Mom, where are you?”

“In the office. Where are you?”

“I'm in the walls with Kenny and Mitch. Have you seen Keegan and Brodie?”

“Brodie's with me. I don't know where Keegan is. How can we get to you? It's getting dangerous out here.”

“Mom and Brodie are in the office. What do I tell them?”

“Charlie?” Mitch took over, “there's a men's room right around the corner to the right and across the hall next to it is a janitor's closet. Jump in the closet quick and the wall behind the utility cart is open. We'll wait for you. And move fast, sounds like some heavy artillery out there.”

“Tell me about it.” Another gunshot just as they reached the closet and the door opened by itself and someone yanked Charlie into darkness. “Don't forget Brodie.”

Thirty-Seven

They sat on stacked boxes, under a dim lightbulb stuck in a white socket thing with a chain attached, enough box stacks to seat them all. Brodie had dropped the gun when he was yanked into the closet so they were now disarmed. At least he hadn't shot off his foot. Mitch and Kenny thought they should all wait it out until the shooting was over and everybody was dead and then they could just walk out of the place.

Charlie had a few problems with that. “One, the gun battle sounds like it's winding down to two combatants—the VanZants—both of whom must know of these lost spaces in the architecture, since they oversaw the most recent remodel job, and must have overseen or carried in themselves the furnishings upon which we lounge. Two, I don't know where Keegan is. Three, if I'm guessing correctly, there are at least four murdered federal investigators on the property and a few sheriff's deputies awaiting word on what to do when Washington sorts all this out. There's going to be a lot of bad blood between local and national agencies and we small folks are not going to count for much in the fracas.

“And nobody is going to want to admit that a pissed-off mother can wipe out such important investigations. It's either going to be totally hushed up or spun out of control and witnesses will have to be discredited or destroyed. And four, I have not found Maggie yet, dead or alive.”

“Charlie, this is not Hollywood,” Kenny said. “This is reality. There are lives on the line here—whether Maggie is dead or not.”

“You bet there are and you're looking at them. You have any idea of the ‘collateral damage' to the presently assembled there could be if somebody decides a fire would solve the problem? How is this space vented, do you know? Any loss of life here could be chalked up to the crazy mom up there getting even for the murder of her son. And we sit here inside the walls.”

After a silence in which everyone stared at Charlie and then sideways-glanced at others to check out how crazy things were getting, Mitch said, “Charlie, you got to stop handling mystery writers.”

This from the producer of
Jane of the Jungle
yet. Oh boy.

This tunnel-like space dead ended around a curve Charlie would bet came about when the circular auditorium was added and it was fitted with the lightbulb because it had already been wired as part of a room and was now used for storage. Kenny had found this one because it had an entrance to it off the men's room as well and the light had been left on, so he saw it through the crack at the back of a cupboard where toilet tissue and paper towels were stored. He'd stepped into the cupboard when he heard someone approaching.

It was Mitch. They had both been interrogated by the gentlemen in suits, their conversations recorded by someone and mixed with others in the past to entertain Charlie and company. The suits were called out of the room by someone behind Kenny and Mitch who were warned not to leave their seats. But the inquisitors never returned. The two had gotten into a “spat” and separated. Both being unarmed, they'd hidden in odd places and found other holes in the walls used for storage, some lit, some not. Both were looking for Charlie and her daughter.

“I saw you guys get captured. Who were those people?” Charlie asked.

“Sheriff's guys, apparently. They delivered us to the Feds and I haven't seen them since. I don't know what happened to them.” Kenny's beard was growing out. On him it looked good, even with the dark patches around his eyes and the smudges.

“I do,” Mitch said. “They were ordered to the parking lot, until priorities got untangled.” He didn't look to have any more bruises than before. Charlie's life was sure hard on her friends.

“Kenny, why did you call to tell me to stay away from Jerry Parks?”

“He's a lunatic, that's why. He was moaning—all tied up in a closet and I let him loose. Tried to ram me, sock me. You'd think he'd been grateful but—”

“You let him loose? He tried to kill me,” Brodie said. “He's probably going to find his gun and come after us again.”

“Just because Charlie stuffed his cell phone in the used tampon receptacle in the ladies' room at the Islandia?”

“I vote we try to make a run for the parking lot. We're not that far from it here.” Libby stood up to brush her tight little tush, not one male eye in the room ignoring the gesture, and then bent over to take a closer look at the writing on her box.

“What if he's got Keegan? And I have to find Maggie or what happened to her,” Charlie insisted.

But Libby was too busy examining the contents of the box, pulling out smaller boxes to read labels, lifting the top box off to investigate the box beneath. “Like, you could put together a sweet little meth lab with all this. All you'd need is a chemical or two and a hot plate.”

“You know how to make meth?” Charlie's voice gurgled like she'd never known it to do before.

“I don't know what the chemicals are or how long to cook it, but I could find out easy enough. Lots of other good ingredients here though.”

“You could find out? Who are you running with now who'd know that?”

“Mom, don't start. We're in enough trouble without you losing it. You're driving me crazy.”

“I'm driving
you
crazy?” Now Charlie was sputtering. Just like Edwina used to do. “Ohgod, when's your grandmother's plane due in?”

“I don't know, but she's a big girl. She could get a van or taxi from the airport. Jacob has a key to let her in.” Libby shook her straggly hair in despair, ran her fingers through it and shook it again into perfect place to cup her face. Must have dried.

“I vote for Libby's idea,” Mitch said. “And I think we better move before the shooting starts again.”

“You got it,” Kenny agreed.

“I'm in,” Brodie added his blessing. “You're outnumbered, Charlie. You know it's best for Libby.”