13 - Knock'em Dead

Table of Contents

 

 

I shut the door to the costume room, stopping the cold wind. Because the room was so neat and organized, my eye caught a black shoe overturned under a clothing rack. I crouched and grabbed it with the intention of setting it with the others, but it wouldn’t move—because there was a foot in it.

 

I was tempted to shut my eyes but forced them to stay open as I wheeled the rack away from the wall. It was Harry Schrumm,
Knock ’Em Dead’s
producer.

He was slumped against the wall, a round circle of blood oozing around the knife in his chest. His eyes were open; he was looking directly at me, as if asking for help.

Too late for that.

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First Printing, October 1999

Copyright © 2003 Universal Studios Licensing LLLP. Murder, She Wrote is a trademark and copyright of Universal Studios. All Rights Reserved.

eISBN : 978-1-440-67352-8

Excerpt from
Gin and Daggers
copyright© 1989 Universal Studios Licensing LLLP. Murder, She Wrote is a trademark and copyright of Universal Studios. All Rights Reserved.

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Preface

 

 

“What’s new in that city you call home?” Dr. Seth Hazlitt asked my publisher, Vaughan Buckley, and his wife, Olga. They’d taken a week that summer to drive through New England and had stopped for lunch in Cabot Cove.

“Hot and humid,” Olga said. “Nothing new.”

“I was pleased to read that the murder rate in New York is down,” I said as we sat in Mara’s dockside restaurant enjoying her rich, thick New England clam chowder and home baked bread.

“It’ll start going up again if they don’t catch that Broadway serial killer,” Vaughan said, pouring the remains of a chilled bottle of California sauvignon blanc into our glasses.

“Broadway serial killer?” I said. “I hadn’t heard about that.”

“It’ll probably hit the national press,” Olga said, “now that he’s taken his third victim.”

“It’s a man?” Seth asked.

“A sexist assumption on my part,” she said.

“Three murders?” I said. “Why do you call him, or her, the
Broadway
serial killer?”

“Because all three killings have taken place backstage in Broadway theaters,” Vaughan explained. “First a young actress, then a middle-aged actor. The one just as we were leaving the city involved an up-and-coming director. All very bizarre in the way they’re carried out. He—I have to assume it’s a man—always leaves a calling card of sorts that reflects the play with which the victims are involved.”

“The middle-aged actor was doing Shakespeare,” Olga said. “He was stabbed to death in his dressing room wearing only underwear, according to what I read. But the killer took the time to place the headpiece the actor wore in the show on his head.” She turned to Vaughan. “What did he do with the actress?”

“Posed her with a martini glass in her hand and a cigarette dangling from her lips. She was playing a high-priced prostitute.”

“Any leads?” I asked.

“Evidently not,” Vaughan said, “at least not any the police have reported.”

“I’m surprised more of it doesn’t happen in theaters,” Seth said, sitting back and dabbing at his mouth with a napkin.

We looked at him.

“What do you mean by that?” I asked.

“Well, it seems to me that in order to be an actor or actress, you have to be a little ... strange.”

We laughed.

“I take it from your comment that you think the Broadway killer is an actor or actress,” Olga said.

“Ayuh.
Makes sense. Actors and actresses live in their own little fantasy world. They have to be playing other characters all the time instead of being themselves.”

Vaughan glanced at me and smiled.

“Maybe Seth has a point,” I said defensively. “Actors and actresses would have access to backstage areas. And, their sense of the dramatic could fuel a need to use props on the deceased.”

We dropped the subject, finished our lunch, and the Buckleys spent a few hours at my house before heading off for an inn a hundred miles up the coast.

“Wish you could stay a while,” I said, kissing them on their cheeks.

“Maybe another time, Jess,” said Vaughan. “I hope the talk about the Broadway serial killer hasn’t upset you.”

My laugh was not entirely genuine. The truth was, it
had
upset me. “Of course not,” I said. “After all, I write murder mysteries.”

“Maybe your next one will be about killers on Broadway,” Olga said.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “Broadway is furthest from my mind as a setting for murder. Drive carefully, and stop in on your way back if you have time.”

I watched them leave my driveway, waved, and went inside for a cup of tea. Visions of the murder victims as described kept flashing in front of me.

Whoever is doing the killing on Broadway must be a very sick individual, I thought. The whistling tea kettle broke my reverie, and those grotesque images disappeared in the bracing aroma of the tea and happy contemplation of what was left of the day.

 

“Bravo!”

We jumped to our feet and applauded as the conductor of Cabot Cove’s symphony orchestra, Peter Eder, took his bows after leading the ensemble through Benjamin Britten’s “Four Sea Interludes” from the opera,
Peter Grimes.
It was the final in a summer series of concerts. Labor Day was only days away.

Dr. Seth Hazlitt leaned over to me and said, “Peter is truly amazing, what he can coax from the orchestra.”

“He’s our gain, Connecticut’s loss,” I said.

That the small town of Cabot Cove had a symphony orchestra at all was remarkable, and to have lured Peter Eder from where he’d been musical director and conductor for the Connecticut Symphony Orchestra only enhanced the experience.

The decision to fund an orchestra came after months of heated debate within the town council. The mayor, Jim Shevlin, was firmly committed to the undertaking. Others on the council considered it folly. Our chamber of commerce tipped the scale in favor of it. Its president, Tony Colarusso, eloquently stated at the pivotal meeting: “Summer tourism in this area is on the upswing, and we have an obligation to provide more than lobster bakes, sandy beaches, and salt water taffy. An orchestra will draw from all the surrounding communities and bring money into Cabot Cove. Tourism will increase, our citizens will benefit from having a rich musical resource in its midst, and Cabot Cove will gain a reputation as a coastal cultural haven.” He presented the council members with a petition supporting an orchestra signed by every member of the chamber.

Actually, launching the orchestra and bringing Peter Eder to town were only part of a cultural boom in that area of Maine, which includes Cabot Cove. Our regional theater had become more adventuresome in the plays it chose to perform, and a writer’s retreat had opened, wooing some impressive names for its faculty from New York City.