Something Wicked (5 page)

Shane’s blue eyes narrowed, indicating heavy thought.

Burt hurried onstage, his glance jerking from Sam to Shane, his grayish face creased in a scowl. “What’s wrong, Sam? Somebody sick?”

“I’m sick,” Sam growled. “This idiot”—he stabbed his forefinger at Shane—“he quoted from
that play.”

Burt’s face registered instant comprehension, but Shane clearly remained bewildered. The watching faces now included those of T.K. and Eugene, who had surged onstage from the auditorium.

Everyone gathered in a circle, except for Henny Brawley, who edged around the group to study the white index card taped to the top of the table. Just a moment ago, as Abby, her movements had reflected gentility and, bony as she was, she had exuded an aura of pleasing, elderly plumpness. Now, as she arched forward, her dark eyes avid, she was a bloodhound on the scent.

Janet pressed a hand against her lips. But, of course, she would take the incident to her breast and hug it lifeless, Annie thought. She adored drama, real or manufactured. Her beefy husband shook his head in disgust, whether at Shane’s stupidity or at the breaking of the theater taboo, Annie couldn’t tell. Hugo’s dark eyes glittered with irritation. Arthur, who was such a charming Dr. Einstein, suddenly looked enormously weary, as if he longed to be back at his drugstore. Eugene leaned forward, his orange brush mustache quivering with eagerness, hoping, of course, that this would be the final straw. Cindy, craning past Annie’s shoulder, obviously didn’t care what had happened or why. Her eyes were too busy fondling Shane.

“You have to know what you said,” Burt said flatly. He usually affected an uneasy geniality, a product of his years as a merchant, but he shed it now like a bill collector dunning for a bad debt. His lips thinned into a tight, angry line.

Shane shrugged, a gesture not even bothering to hide his disgust. “What the hell’s wrong with everybody?”

At that moment, as Annie feared violence might actually erupt, Henny stepped forward to fill the crackling silence. She spoke so precisely that Annie suddenly pictured her in another milieu, wearing a crisp navy blue dress with a white ruffled collar and standing before a class. “It’s a quote from a famous Shakespeare play, Shane. Those extra words in your line. And it’s considered bad luck, the very
worst
kind of bad luck, ever to quote from this particular play in any theater.”

Sam’s bleary eyes focused on Shane with sheer hatred. “Bad luck! You’d better believe it’s bad luck. The time I was in Chicago and we were producing it, God, the leading man got mugged in an alley back of the house, the lead actress got malaria. You
ever
heard of anybody getting malaria in Chicago? Oh, Jesus, it was a disaster—and that’s just what this play is, a damn—”

“Sam!” Burt spit out the name like an expletive.

The director swung to face him, his eyes wide. “Burt, I tell you, we got trouble, baby. This is just the tip of the iceberg. What’s happened so far will make the
Titanic
look like a Sunday afternoon row on the river!” He jerked around to glare again at Shane. “And you can’t tell me this Hollywood yo-yo didn’t do it on purpose.”

Ignoring Sam, Shane elbowed through the watchers to the table and stared down at the prompt card. Then he grinned. “You people are a bunch of dingdongs. Three little words and all hell breaks loose.” He surveyed the grim-faced assemblage, his mocking eyes moving from Janet, hand still pressed against her mouth, to Sam, livid with anger. “What a bunch of crazies.” He snickered. “Out damned—”

Sam bellowed and lurched forward.

Max dodged between them, and over the rising tide of imprecations, Burt’s reedy voice announced, “Rehearsal’s over!”

Annie measured the expresso-grind chocolate Viennese coffee to the two-cup level, plugged in the mini espresso-cappuccino machine, and switched it on. As she poured
half-and-half (fat content be damned, glory be to calcium) into a pitcher, she glanced through the kitchen doorway. Max was stretched out happily on her rattan couch, the most comfortable pillows bunched behind his shoulders.

“Max,” and she knew her tone was half plea, half demand, “we have to
do
something!”

The first drops of luscious brew spattered into the carafe, so Annie tilted the cream pitcher beneath the steam nozzle and turned it on. With a rushing, hissing sound, steam roiled into the half-and-half and foam began to rise like a spume on a breaker. The steam nozzle emitted more vapor with a piercing squeal that reminded her uncomfortably of poor, tormented Sam’s final shriek. She yelled over the rising whistle, “Don’t you think we should?”

The bubble and hiss of the steam nozzle drowned his reply. She tipped the pitcher as the half-and-half frothed, and smiled in anticipation. It took only a moment more to pour the rich dark coffee and the foamy half-and-half into yellow pottery mugs, sprinkle a dash of cinnamon, and load the tray. She paused thoughtfully, contemplating a package of Oreo cookies. Max was much too rigid in his approach to food. Still, she
was
using half-and-half. Feeling virtuous, she added a plate of lemon tea cookies and carried the tray into the living room. (She could always munch an Oreo later.) (If he wanted home-baked cookies, he could marry the kind of girl who bought a food processor with Green Stamps.)

The late afternoon sunlight flooded through the eleven-foot windows in her hexagonal living room. Max still laughed at her tree house, but Annie knew she would miss it after the wedding, when they moved into the home they were building near the twelfth green of the Island Hills Golf Course.

She paused, glancing around the tiny, cheerful living room at her bookcases filled with paperback mysteries, with most of her very favorites, the Mary Roberts Rinehart and Leslie Ford books, plus some by the new mistresses of mystery, Charlotte MacLeod, Dorothy Simpson, and Linda Barnes. Her most recent photographs, including a marvelous shot of a rare Canada goose, strikingly beautiful with its black neck and head and white cheeks, were pinned to the corkboard. She had a funny feeling for just an instant, a moment of breath-lessness, the scary kind of feeling that precedes any new
adventure, any step into the unknown. But, for heaven’s sake, Max wasn’t an unknown. Marriage with Max would be … She grinned, recalling the day’s events. Lively, that was for sure.

The subject of her thoughts was looking up at her quizzically. “When you withdrew to the kitchen, you were consumed with angst about the future of the play. Did the joy of cooking,” here she decided to ignore the irony in his voice, “drive away your dark thoughts?”

She pushed aside the latest copy of
The Armchair Detective
and put the tray on the rattan coffee table in front of the couch.

“I was just thinking about this fall. After we get married.”

“Good thinking. Lots more fun to speculate about than the identity and/or motives of the prankster who’s making life miserable for Sam.” He sat up, grabbed her hand, and tugged her around the coffee table to sit beside him. “You know, I was afraid you’d forgotten there was a world that existed after June twenty-eighth. Let’s focus on what really matters. We’re getting married in September, and it’s going to be a
blast.”

“It would be difficult to forget our upcoming nuptials, since I am in almost daily consultation with your mother,” she pointed out.

“Mother
is
excited, isn’t she?” he exclaimed cheerfully. “You know, she’s really throwing herself into it.” Whistling “Get Me to the Church on Time,” he slipped his arm around her and managed a sip of the cappuccino in one smooth move.

“Dexterous, you are,” she commented.

“Oh, you bet. I can kiss a girl and drive a car at the same time. Chew gum and think. Star in a play and—”

The phone rang.

They looked at each other. Two minds with but a single thought: Laurel.

It rang again.

After four rings, the answering machine would play her recorded message.

But, after all, if she married Max—and she was going to marry Max—Laurel would be her mother-in-law. It behooved her to remain on good terms with her prospective family
member. Especially since the dutiful son was regarding her with mild but prompting inquiry.

She poked off the answering machine, managing to smile as she did so. The smile might possibly be a trifle strained.

“Hello?”

“Annie, my sweet.” There was a moment’s pause, then the golden voice asked gently, “My dear, did I catch you at a bad moment? I do feel that I detect stress.” The words became muffled. “When I press my hands to my temples, I can sense emotions. Annie, I sense confusion!”

Annie pictured the receiver cradled between chin and shoulder and almost said she sensed contortion. But, looking at Max, whose lips were curved in a fond smile, she thought better of it.

“Actually, Laurel, I’m so glad you called now. Max and I are having coffee and discussing the wedding. Here, you can talk to him.” She thrust the receiver determinedly at her beloved.

After an exchange of delighted greetings, Max began to nod and say, “Mmmm. Mmmm.” He took occasional sips of his cappuccino and once said, “Not really!” And finally, “Oh, that’s a
grand
idea.”

Annie regarded him like Pierre Chambrun sizing up a flashy gent in the bar at the Beaumont.

When the fond farewell was complete and the receiver once again rested innocently in its cradle, he cleared his throat and said, a little tentatively, “Now, Annie, I’m not going to try and sell you on any idea you’d regret….”

It was her turn to say, “Mmmm.”

Max slid his arm again behind her shoulders.

Annie sat up very straight.

“But Laurel does have interesting ideas….” he ventured.

She could have changed the subject, discussed her latest issue of
Mystery Readers of America Journal,
shared her excitement over a new divine mystery,
The Unorthodox Murder of Rabbi Wahl,
or wondered aloud what Ngaio Marsh would advise in regard to the
Macbeth
quote, but the Gordons’
Undercover Cat
had nothing on Annie when it came to curiosity.

“What is it this time?” she demanded.

“Laurel is an enthusiastic traveler.”

Annie considered this observation in silence.

Max cleared his throat. “She had a wonderful trip to China last year.”

Annie’s eyes narrowed.

“Lovely wedding customs there. Visually quite striking.”

Annie tensed.

Max raised his dark blue eyes to study the ceiling, remarking conversationally, “Red’s a jolly color, isn’t it?” His eyes moved to her face, then quickly away. “Of course, in China red signifies joy and love, and the bridal dress and candles and gift boxes—”

“No.”

“No?”

There was a moment’s silence, before Annie asked, in a strangled voice, “Where else did Laurel travel last year?”

“Mmmm. Here and there.”

She looked at him steadily.

“Let me see. Thailand. East Pakistan. The Congo Republic. Cameroon. Algeria. Nicaragua.”

At the mention of the last country, Annie stared at him in surprise.

“Just a fact-finding tour. For her local world peace group.”

“Maybe she’d like to go back. In September.”

Max’s dark blue eyes were reproachful.

“Just kidding,” she said grimly. But she felt enmeshed in a gossamer web, and she had a dreadful fear—one she hesitated even to put into words—that Laurel would prevail. Even the thought triggered a shudder, and she knew she must not permit her mind to envision the awesome possibilities of a wedding successfully engineered by Laurel.

She would not think about it. She would not. What had they been doing before Laurel called? Oh, of course. The play. The quote from
Macbeth.

“Max, we’ve got to figure out who’s sabotaging the play.” She handed him the plate of cookies.

He scooped up three. “Why?” he asked mildly. “Let good old Burt take care of it.”

“And what if he doesn’t? Does Burt have our expertise? Max, I love that play, and I don’t want to see it ruined. Come on, let’s think. Surely we can figure out who’s causing this trouble.”

He popped a cookie in his mouth and crunched. “Hmm. Pretty good. You make ’em?”

She merely stared at him.

“Oh, sorry. Didn’t mean to say the wrong thing.” He grinned.

She would have admired the way his eyes crinkled when he was amused, but he got too much attention as it was. Instead, she sucked the froth from the top of her cup.

Max drank more of his cappuccino, then asked suspiciously, “Did you put cream in this?”

“Absolutely not,” she said indignantly. Half-and-half wasn’t
cream.

She took a big sip, then popped up and crossed the room to root in the telephone desk for paper. The more active she was, the harder she thought about the play, the more Laurel’s latest
outré
proposal receded in her mind. She found book order forms, copies of programs from last summer’s plays, muttered “Damn,” when she pricked her finger on an errant needle (What was a needle doing in there?), and was burrowing beneath a mound of bank statements when the front doorbell was prodded sharply three times.

Sucking on her finger and still scanning the living room for something to write on, she reached out and opened the door.

A high-pitched voice burbled as Henny Brawley swept inside. She wore a large gray flannel skirt with a droopy hem, a full blouse with a lacy panel down the front, a shapeless rust-colored cardigan, lisle stockings, and extremely sensible brown shoes. She looked twice as big as she actually was. Her salt-and-pepper hair blossomed in springy sausage-roll curls.

“Annie, Max, there’s no time to be lost. It’s imperative that we investigate at once. I know that if we fasten our teeth into this problem, we shall shake out the truth, like pigs hunting truffles.”

Annie was, for once, at a loss for words. She gaped.

“Henny, how are you?” Max asked cheerfully as he got to his feet.

“Dear boy, I am in full cry.” She marched across the room. As she hurried, an apple tipped out of her skirt pocket and bounced on the floor.