“I do not dither, especially when someone might have been killed.” I glowered at him for a moment, then glowered at the vast blackness above our heads. “I want to see where the weight was hanging. I presume there is a way to climb up there to adjust things or whatever.”
“There's a spiral staircase that leads to a metal walkway, but I doubt you want to go up there.”
“Then you doubt incorrectly. Are you going to show me the staircase, or shall I find it without your cooperation?”
He recoiled enough to give me a flicker of satisfaction. “I don't care if you want to break your neck by climbing around up there. That's why I've got insurance.” He led me to the darkest corner of the stage and pointed with his thumb at a rusty metal staircase that almost disappeared in the gloom above our heads. “I replaced most of the bolts that hold this and the walkway to the wall. It might hold you.”
I grasped the rail and shook it, steeling myself not to react to the appalling amount of give. “You replaced
most
of the bolts and it
might
hold me? How encouraging you are, considering the fact that someone managed to climb up there and cut partway through your rope so that your weight almost killed someone in your theater.”
“Close only counts in horseshoes. And the rope might have been gnawed by a rat. Lots of rats up there. Big, skinny, hungry ones with red eyes.”
I will admit I hesitated, but only long enough to decide he was trying to bully me. No rat worth his whiskers
would climb up that rusty staircase. I beckoned to Caron and, when she came over, said, “If something happens to me, call Peter and tell him. The will is in the lockbox. And you and Inez behave yourselves and stay off the telephone until you've done your homework.”
Caron regarded me levelly. “Okay. Can I have your hair dryer?”
“It's going to charity.” I began what felt like a descent into hell, except for the paradoxical sensation of climbing upward. The staircase clinked and wobbled, but did nothing more dramatic than that, and I reached the narrow catwalk that stretched across the stage. The catwalk swayed as I moved down it at a turtlish pace while busily wondering what I was doing up there without a flashlight or a parachute. Or a brain larger than a protuberance on a righteous rump.
There were all sorts of ropes and cables dangling like the root system of a plant. I gripped the rail and forced myself to look down at the stage thirty feet below me. The girls were still huddled on the stage, and I could see the top of Cyndi's head in the middle of them. As I watched, Luanne came onto the stage to join in the audible clucking over Miss Thurberfest. Mac was gone from the bottom of the staircase, but Caron was staring upward with her mouth agape. The stage was covered with chalk marks; from my perspective it resembled the mysterious scrawls on the blackboard in a football locker room.
When I reached the middle, I saw an unencumbered rope within a foot or so of the rail. I again made myself look down, and decided it was positioned over Cyndi's mark on the stage. This end of the rope was frayed in much the same manner as the other end. Whether it was in that condition from the attentions of a rat or a knife
was beyond me, although I couldn't imagine why a rat would creep to the rail, fling itself into the darkness like a flying squirrel, and cling to the rope long enough to do substantial damage.
But Luanne did not seem to think any of the girls disliked Cyndi, much less had any motive to hurt her. Mac was disinterested in the pageant and its outcome. No one else was allowed in the auditorium. I decided I was behaving in a foolish, reckless, overly imaginative fashion, and carefully made my way back to the staircase.
Luanne hobbled across the stage as I reached the bottom. “What on earth were you doing up there?”
“I was checking for rats trained in guerrilla tactics. We can all rest easy. You can do so in the office, or we can send everybody home and seek solace in scotch at my place.”
“I do think we'd better quit for the day. This accident has upset all of the girls, including this middle-aged one.” She studied me with a pinched expression. “You didn't find anything up there, did you?”
“I found the other end of the rope. Mac said there were rats up there, so I suppose one might have gnawed at the rope enough to cause it to break at an inopportune moment.”
“And it was a coincidence that the weight hit one centimeter off Cyndi's mark?”
“It could well have been a coincidence,” I said with more confidence than I felt. “Just like the nail. You're the one who's had experience in this milieu. I have no idea to what extremes a girl will go in order to win an utterly insignificant title and a year's worth of appearances at the Miss Applecore festival.”
Luanne gazed at the girls, then shrugged and shook
her head. “You're right, Claire. It's one thing to steal mascara or splash water in another girl's high heels, but to do something this dangerous is senseless. Cyndi's reign is over on Saturday night. Why would anyone want to hurt her?”
“Beats me,” I murmured, quoting the irritating man with the rats. “I suppose I could talk to Cyndi and ask her if she can think of anyone who might want to frighten her. She's too upset now, but I'll have a word with her tomorrow.”
“Frighten herâor kill her?”
Before I could answer, she hobbled back to the girls and told them rehearsal was over for the day. Cyndi was on her feet, although Julianna and another girl were clinging to her elbows and the other girls were hovering at a convenient distance should she opt to topple.
“I'm sorry to be so silly,” she said to Luanne. “I mean, it's not like it actually hit me or anything. It just scared me.”
“What's going on?” boomed a voice from the corridor entrance.
We all turned to stare at the stout woman who marched into the auditorium and onto the stage. She appeared to be in her late fifties, and her tweed suit of the same era. She had peppery hair cut off with no concession to her appearance, a square face, and a chin that hinted of a bulldog in her lineage. Two shrewd eyes regarded Cyndi, then turned on me.
“Why is she white and shaking like an hibiscus in a hurricane?” the woman barked at yours truly.
“A weight crashed on the stage. It came close enough to frighten her, but there was no harm done.”
“What weight?”
I pointed to the side of the stage, but found myself
pointing at a flat expanse of wood. “It was over there, but someone seems to have moved it. It was just a standard sandbag,” I added, resisting the urge to retreat under the woman's beady glare. “Who are you?”
“I am Eunice Allinghamâand Cyndi's trainer. I've been out of town at a trade show, but I see now I never should have left her in such incompetent hands. The girl is near collapse, which cannot be good for her. She needs to lie down until the color comes back to her cheeks.” The woman went over to Cyndi and assessed her as if she were an item on a sale rack. “She appears to be unharmed, although what emotional damage there may be will surface in time. Her hair, most likely.”
Cyndi produced a glittery smile that must have impressed ( if not blinded) many a judge. “Oh, Eunice, please don't worry about me. I'm just fine, but I would like to lie down. Perhaps Julianna and Heidi will be sweet enough to help me down to my dressing room?”
Julianna and Heidi nodded enthusiastically, and the three slowly made their way across the stage and down the stairs. The rest of the girls rubbed their hands and muttered among themselves as they wandered away.
Once the queen and her attendants were out of sight, Eunice let out a gusty sigh. “Her hair goes limp when she's upset. The curl just slips out of it until she looks worse than a wet dog. I've tried and tried to get her to put it up like they do in the Big One, but she thinks it looks old-fashioned. Of
course
it looks old-fashioned. That's called tradition. I can't begin to tell you how many times she's limp when a nice curl would have cinched the finals or even the title.”
Luanne nodded, thus earning a continuation of the limp hair dilemma. I went over to the place where the sandbag had been and looked around for it. I checked
behind the stairs and in the dark corners of the stage, then went over to Caron, who was now gaping at Eunice.
“What happened to the weight?” I asked her in a low voice.
“How should I know? Who is that woman, Mother? She is totally bizarre, and making no sense whatsoever. Did she say she was Cyndi's trainerâas in German shepherds?”
Inez made a small noise. “I think it's more like an agent.”
“Just because your sister is in the pageant doesn't make you an expert,” Caron said without mercy. “She used the word
trainer,
as in dog tricks. Besides, I think she's crude.”
I left them and joined Luanne, who was looking increasingly pale and wobbly as the woman lectured in her face. “You'd better go back to the office and sit down,” I said, ignoring Eunice. “If you don't, you'll end up with your head between your knees.”
She nodded, then hobbled away, leaving me to smile vaguely as Eunice muttered, “We can't have that sort of thing. Bad for the complexion. Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad.”
“You're Cyndi's trainer?” I asked, not sure what was bad for the complexion and not wanting to find out at length. “What does that entail?”
“I manage her career, and see that she makes as many of the local and regional pageants as possible. We've got our eye on the Big One, but she needs more work before we take a run at it. I may let her try the first round this year.”
“I don't know what you're talking about,” I said politely.
“Are you the pageant director?” Eunice huffed.
“Luanne Bradshaw is the official director. I'm helping
out because of her ankleâand I have no experience with beauty pageants. I've never been to one, and I'm afraid I don't understand the jargon.”
“You're an amateur? How on earth do you plan to run a good pageant with no experience in the necessary details? Why, even the little local ones require diligence, hard work, and attention to an incredible number of issues. Last year this utterly incompetent woman tried to stage the Miss Chicken Drumstick with no ideaâno idea at allâabout the problems she would encounter. It was a nightmare from the judges' luncheon to the final scoring. She even had someone use low-wattage lightbulbs in the dressing rooms, if you can imagine. It wasn't even worth our time.”
“Well, this one will be a shambles,” I said with a bright smile. “Luanne was in a couple of pageants years ago, but neither one of us knows what she's doing. It's somewhat of a lark for us.”
Eunice snorted at my charming candor. “We shall see. I'm going down to the dressing room to check on my gal, then I'll come back here so you and I can discuss what's been done and what needs to be done. You go fetch a notebook and a pencil; I'm sure I'll have a long list for you and that other woman. Exactly which pageants was she in?” Her voice fell to a chilling whisper. “She surely never made five, did she? Her cheekbones are unruly.”
“Five what?” I hissed back.
“The top five finalists.” Eunice turned and stomped across the stage, no doubt appalled by such ignorance. Once she had vanished down the stairs, I told Caron and Inez to go home. I then stopped at the office and repeated Eunice's threat to help those of us who were deficient in the language and clearly unlikely to make the top five.
Luanne grabbed her coat and locked the office door. As we reached the small lobby surrounding the box office, we heard Eunice's booming voice.
“What's this about a nail?” she demanded loud enough to be heard anywhere in Farberville, or perhaps the immediate county.
I went home.
W
hen I picked up Luanne the next morning, she was gray about the gills. It took her a long while to find her purse, make sure her house keys were in it, lock the door, and make her way down the sidewalk to my car. I hardly expected her to break any hundred-yard-dash records, but each step was tentative and clearly painful.
“You don't have to go to the dress rehearsal,” I said. “You can stay home for the day and rest, and then make a grand appearance tonight.”
“I'll remain in the office. I have a million telephone calls to make, and my ankle won't feel any worse there than it will at home.”
“Maybe Eunice will help you.”
“Maybe I'll lock the office door.”
I dropped her off in front of the theater, then drove down to the Book Depot and ascertained that the student who'd promised to clerk was clerking as promised. She had everything under control. As I walked the two blocks to the Thurber Street Theater, I noticed that the shopkeepers were all busily setting out racks and tables for the Gala Sidewalk Sale. They were doing so without a report, in triplicate ( or duplicate, or even singlicate) , from their fearless chairperson.
I increased my pace as I passed Sally Fromberger's cafe, but it did no good. Said proprietor popped out the
door, her body covered with a sparkling white apron and her nose with a smudge of what I suspected was stone-ground, whole-wheat flour. No additives or preservatives.
“I'm so glad I caught you, Claire. I still need your committee report. The sale officially begins right after the parade and opening ceremonies. I'm not sure what we can do without the report; it's much too late for an ad hoc.”
I waved at the activity on both sidewalks. “Everybody knows what to do, and is in the midst of doing it. I'll write you a letter about it next week, since I'm occupied for the moment with the beauty pageant. It seems someone volunteered me.”
She beamed at me with the delight of a kindergarten mommy at graduation. “Luanne is so lucky to have you for a friend. She finally admitted she couldn't handle the pageant without help, and I knew you'd be thrilled to be her assistant. Wait here for a minute and I'll give you the menu report on the luncheon. I think you need two copiesâone for the file and one for the notebook.”
“You're catering the luncheon?” I managed to say in a perfectly civilized voice.
“Yes, and it'll be simply wonderful. The girls will be bubbling with energy for tonight's preliminary round, and the judges will feel ten years younger. We're having tofu lasagna and a salad of alfalfa sprouts with sesame honey dressing. No nasty carbohydrates to slow us down.” She went inside and returned with the copies.
I took them and stuffed them in my purse, reminding myself that I could easily discover a pressing need to dash down to the Book Depot to rescue my clerk from some horrible fateâsuch as a real live customerâand also find a minute to grab a sandwich and a can of soda.
It was too early in the day to ponder the implications of something called tofu lasagna.
Once at the theater, I stopped at the office. Luanne was on the telephone, arguing with an unknown party about flower arrangements and a bouquet of one dozen long-stemmed obligatories that seemed to have increased in price. I left the Xeroxed menus on her desk, picked up the notebook, and dutifully went on to the auditorium with the degree of enthusiasm I usually reserve for sessions with an oral hygienist.
The stage was lit from a row of lights along the ceiling of the auditorium. The contestants stood in a row, their expressions perplexed as Eunice Allingham bellowed out instructions and demonstrated a series of kicks. Her short, thick legs, sturdy shoes, and sensible hemline made the scene macabreâat best.
“You can,” she puffed, lapsing into a less demanding box step, “all learn this if you concentrate. You must learn to concentrate if you wish to succeed.” She stopped and slapped her hand across her bosom until she caught her breath. “There is no room in the finals for gals who cannot concentrate,” she added with a stem look. “You must be prepared to follow instructions from the first moment you're chosen for the honor of representing your town or organization in a pageant. There's no time for shirking your obligation to train, train, train. Cyndi follows a strict regime for one month before each pageant. She diets, works out, sleeps twelve hours a day, and keeps a healthy distance from any male distractions. I trust you girls have prepared with equal seriousness for the Miss Thurberfest pageant?”
There was a great deal of shuffling and averted eyes. Faces were studiously guileless, hands clasped, necks red. Eunice marched over to the group and put her hands
on her substantial hips. “So we haven't prepared, I see. Some of you will have limp hair tonight, and others of you will be trying to disguise dull complexions. Your eyes will not glitter with excitement, and your voices will lack that vivaciousness the judges look for in a winner. You, for instance,” she said, pointing at Julianna, “have you concerned yourself with cellulite? If I were handling you, I'd put you on celery, water, and three hours a day in the gym. Let me see you walk across the stage.”
Julianna lifted her chin and produced a tremulous smile as she took a few steps. “My God, no!” Eunice shrieked, sending several girls into the back wall. “You must glide. Roll your hips but don't stride; this is not a football field. Look up and out, and keep your chin level to the floor. Relax those shoulders to downplay your shoulder blades, but don't slouch. And tuck in that derriere if you don't want bad scores for fanny overhang. Now all of you glide. Glide, gals, glide.”
Julianna and her sisters were gliding like ice skaters as I went onto the stage. “Thanks for the help, Eunice,” I said, striding with the wild abandon of a neckless hulk in a football helmet. “We're scheduled for a technical and dress rehearsal now, so I'll have to ask you to leave. It's a closed rehearsal.”
She stared at me as if I'd just suggested she wiggle into a tutu and twirl away. “I shall sit in the front row and take notes. Afterward, we can go over them and make the necessary adjustments. You admitted you have no idea how to run a pageant, my dear Mrs. Malloy. I've spent twenty years training gals for this sort of thing, and my advice will be most valuable.” She gave me a modest smile. “I was once Miss Cherry Tomato, although
that was years and years ago, when I myself was a mere slip of a gal.”
I told myself that the pageant would be history in slightly more than thirty-six hours, which was not an eternity. Any reasonable person could survive for that fleeting number of hours, unless being stretched on the rack or poked with a hot cattle prod. Eunice was a mildly irritating woman, not a hooded rackkeeper from the dungeon. Surely I could bite my lip for the next day and a half, after which Luanne and I could laugh merrily over pretzels and pitchers of beer in the sunny beer garden. It was no big deal, I concluded to myself in a resolute voice.
“Are you going to rehearse in the next millennium?” Mac said from behind me. “As unbelievable as it may seem, I do have more important things to do than to wait around while you broads glide and roll and fret over your fannies.”
One broad harrumphed and stomped toward the edge of the stage. I turned around and smiled. “Did you take the weight that fell yesterday afternoon?”
“Why would I do that?”
“I really don't know,” I responded sweetly. “We might need it for evidence, though. Would you be so kind as to search for it instead of lurking around the stage insulting everyone?”
“And miss all the fun?” He strolled away.
Sighing, I opened the notebook and read the outline of the evening's festivities. For those intrigued by the machinations, we were slated to experience ( in ascending order of spine-tingling drama) : the opening, the swimsuit competition, the talent presentations, and the evening-gown competition, the last in conjunction with the interviews. There would be no respite in the form of
an intermission, which meant certain of us would be wastedâif not blatantly unconsciousâby the time they announced the seven finalists. Which would take place around midnight, I suspected.
I repeated the schedule for the girls, told them to prepare for the opening number, and went down to join Eunice in the middle of the front row.
“Who is that dreadful man?” she asked loudly.
“David McWethy. He's owned the theater for almost a year, and done an admirable job restoring it. As rude and abrupt as he seems to be, he's a fine craftsman.”
“Rude is a mild term.” She huffed for a moment, then said, “I've heard of him. He used to be involved in local politics, which gave him an opportunity to offend almost everyone in town. He was most successful in that aspect of his job. A friend of mine tried to get a little bit of cooperation about curbside garbage collection. Cooperation, mind you, not a concession, and this McWethy man practically accused him of bribing a city official. It goes to show you what was on his mind, if you ask me.” She stood up and brushed at the wrinkles in her skirt. “We don't have time to gossip. The gals are taking much too long to change, and I haven't even seen Cyndi this morning. Let us go to the dressing room area and hurry them along. If left unsupervised, they do tend to giggle and dawdle rather than attending to more important things.”
Having been properly chastised for gossiping, I meekly followed Eunice down the stairs to the basement area below the stage. It was a damp tunnel of unadorned concrete, and reeked of mildew and disuse. A door on each side led to the communal dressing rooms, and from behind the doors we could hear the squeals and squeaks that seemed to be the norm these days. The door on the
end was Cyndi's private room, I remembered from the sketch I'd studied. It was adorned with a yellow construction-paper star.
Eunice opened the side doors and barked sternly into each room. The squeals and squeaks stopped. Giving me a satisfied nod, she continued down the hall and rapped on Cyndi's door. “Let's go, my dear. You know how important it is to cooperate with pageant officials with their petty schedules and demands. Besides, I want you to take a nap before the parade. We can't have any squints or droopy smiles on the back of the convertible.”
The door opened. Cyndi's face was streaked with tears, and her mascara had left black dribbles down her cheeks. “Oh, Eunice,” she whimpered, “I can't go out there like this. There's something you'd better see. You, too, Mrs. Malloy.”
Eunice and I crowded into the tiny room. A dressing table took up half of the floor space, leaving room for a chair in front of it and a second to one side. Several cosmetic bags were scattered under the table and clothes hung like meat carcasses from hooks. A battered gas space heater did little to dispel the cold damp air that contributed to the dreary ambiance. On the wall behind the table was a mirror, and scrawled across the mirror in red letters were the words: DEATH TO A ROYAL BITCH!
“Oh, my God,” Eunice gasped, stepping on my foot.
I bit back a shriek of pain. “When did you find this, Cyndi?”
“When I first came down to change,” she said. She managed to step on my other foot as she turned around to blink at the menacing message. “It's been fifteen minutes or so, but I couldn't move. It was like I was glued to the floor or something like that. I stood here and stared for the longest time, and then I just burst into
tears. I can't stand the idea that anyone would be so mean and hateful, Eunice. I've tried so hard to help the girls. They're all such really, really nice girls.” She snatched up a wadded tissue from the table and began to sniffle into it. “Someone wants to kill me. I'm so frightened, Mrs. Malloy. What am I going to do?”
The sniffles evolved into wails. Eunice patted the girl's shoulder and offered a few dire words about puffy eyelids and self-control. I leaned over the formidable array of cosmetics and appliances to examine the message. It was printed in lipstick, I realized, and a distressingly sanguine shade. The crude block letters implied no gender. Other implications were harder to miss.
“I'm going to call the police,” I said. “Don't wipe it off for any reason.”
Cyndi broke off the wails and rubbed her cheeks hard enough to leave scarlet streaks among the black marks. “Oh, please don't do that, Mrs. Malloy,” she said earnestly. “That kind of publicity would be awful for the pageant. It's supposed to be a wholesome, family event, not some sleazy carnival show with policemen and armed bodyguards. We don't want to ruin some really nice girl's opportunity to be crowned Miss Thurberfest, simply because a sick person is doing these horrible things.”
Eunice leaned forward with a particularly beady look. “As we say, the show must go on. You must think of the gals and all the hard work they've put into their preparation, not to mention the cost of the evening gowns, swimsuits, and talent costumes. They can hardly concentrate if policemen are leering at them every moment of the pageant, or hounding them night and day. We simply can't let them down.”
“I have a friend in the Criminal Investigation Department,”
I said. “I can have a quiet word with him. He'll look around and perhaps speak to Cyndi, but I doubt he'd order us to close down the pageant.” I did not add that he'd be laughing too hard to do such a thing. I'd been hoping to get through the pageant without telling him about it, since he was aware of my feminist sensibilities. We'd had lots of invigorating conversations about them.