Rehearsal for Murder Read online

  Rehearsal for Murder

  Maggie Ryan, 1973

  by P.M. Carlson

  Copyright & history

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Rehearsal for Murder

  About the author

  The Mystery Company

  Mount Vernon, Ohio

  REHEARSAL FOR MURDER

  Copyright © 1988 by Patricia Carlson

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental.

  Lyrics fromVictoria R by P.M. and M.A. Carlson used by permission of authors.

  PRINT ISBN-13: 978-1-932325-33-1

  Cover design by Pat Prather

  Cover art by Robin Agnew

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Avon Books first edition: August 1988

  The Mystery Company Kindle edition: September 2013

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  The Mystery Company, an imprint of Crum Creek Press

  1558 Coshocton Ave #126

  Mount Vernon, OH 43050

  www.crumcreekpress.com

  To the Yankee and the Rebel

  with love and thanks for everything

  I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano;

  A stage, where every man must play a part,

  And mine a sad one.

  —The Merchant of Venice, Act I, Scene i

  Acknowledgments

  Special thanks for sharing their expertise go to Dana Mills and Barbara Dean, who against all odds succeed in being fine actors and fine parents simultaneously; and to Robert Bruyr, Senior Business Representative of Actors’ Equity.

  Part One

  LOVE AND DUTY

  Tuesday and Wednesday

  March 6-7, 1973

  I

  Tuesday afternoon

  March 6, 1973

  “Damn!” yelped Ramona Ricci, catching at a nearby elbow to keep from falling. “I’m supposed to be giving birth to a prince. Not an elephant. Not a goddamn woolly mammoth!”

  “Sorry.” Sprawled inelegantly between her feet, the ancient dust of the rehearsal loft gritty in his mouth, Nick O’Connor apologized to her leg warmers. “I tried to make myself tiny and embryonic. But Stanislavsky can only take you so far.”

  “The Prince of Whales,” murmured Larry Palmer, who owned the lean and handsome elbow Ramona was clutching.

  “Har-har.” Ramona jerked her rehearsal skirt clear of Nick’s ears. “Think it’s funny, do you? You’ll think so when we close after three days. You unemployed, and me in debtor’s prison. Hilarious!”

  Ramona was small, vibrant, and still famous at forty. Nick liked her in her better moods. A little body with a mighty heart. But just now she was whirling furiously on the slender black choreographer, eyes ablaze. “Daphne, sweetie, observe! I’m five four. Nick down there is about seven feet tall and weighs hundreds of pounds. How can you expect him to somersault between my legs?” Her angry gaze flicked to the black teenage girl dressed in jeans and a vibrant orange and black dashiki who was sitting quietly against the back wall. “Plus we’re running a goddamn babysitting service for you!”

  “Hey, wait a minute, you skunky bitch!” roared the girl, jumping to her feet. Her hair was puffed into an Afro twice as big as Daphne’s, and scowling, she reminded Nick of an enraged dark dandelion.

  Daphne pointed an imperious finger at her. “Hush your mouth, Calypso Weaver!”

  The girl sat again, lips still curled and eyes fiery with indignation. Ramona said regretfully to Daphne, “Guess I’d better retract all those glowing references I wrote you. Parents need a touch of intelligence.”

  Propped now in a sitting position, Nick could see the sudden angry tears in Daphne’s eyes. Damn Ramona. What was eating her today? Though always opinionated, she had never been vicious. He said briskly, “Daphne, do you think it might work with a slide instead of a somersault? So I could keep my butt down until I was clear?”

  “Maybe. Though the somersaults look good, more surprising.” Daphne was professional again, running lean fingers through her Afro as she squinted thoughtfully at the unpromising configuration of platform, dusty floor, and sweaty bodies in the SoHo loft and somehow visualized a rollicking moment in the theatre. “Maybe we could use the platform, gain eight inches that way.” Nick brushed the dust from his balding head, glad that his dumb question had helped. Though he was not quite as large as Ramona claimed and was in fact quite nimble, he was feeling huge and clumsy at the moment. Brontosaurus Nick. He hoped that disabling the star was not to be added to his other fiascos today.

  It had not been a good day, despite its promising start. Nick had awakened to a visual feast of long legs, warm breasts, sleepy blue eyes smiling into his. Five thirty a.m. They should have an hour. Groggy but enthusiastic, he had set himself to rousing his friendly partner to share the delights. So conjunctive to my life and soul. Maggie was more than compliant. For a few moments it seemed like the old days.

  Then came the noise.

  “Merde!” she swore, suddenly still in his arms.

  “Ditto,” said Nick, pausing with her.

  But it came again, and swiftly she was gone.

  Nick lay, angry and detumescent, in the abandoned milky bed. His head told him she had no choice; but the rest of him screamed betrayal. “There’sCasablanca,” he called after her. “There’sCyrano. There’s evenSpiderman. A million stories about the conflict between love and duty. Doesn’t love ever win?”

  “How aboutRomeo and Juliet?” Maggie—baby Sarah in her arms—was giving the question due consideration. “OrCarmen? But I think they’re saying if it wins, you lose.”

  “You lose both ways,” grumped Nick, and got up to shower. The disposable lover, O’Connor Interruptus. And all because—

  “Let’s try it from the platform,” Daphne’s voice broke into his thoughts. Poor Daphne, trying to choreograph a steamroller and getting chewed out for her pains. But, plucky creature, she was disguising her rage, saying almost eagerly, “Dive down to the roll on this level, then line up in front of Victoria and Albert instead of behind them.”

  “In front of us?” asked Ramona suspiciously.

  “We’ll be on the platform, Victoria dear. Very regal,” said Larry, striking an appropriate pose. A gold chain winked against his manly chest. Nick, thick and far from handsome, envied Larry’s flair for looking romantic even in rehearsal sweats. A very riband in the cap of youth. Love probably won over duty in Larry’s life.

  Not with Ramona. Not today. Ignoring Larry’s virile charms, she stalked away to slump into a folding chair and light a cigarette. “Well, let’s have a look at this great idea. Jaymie, hop to!”

  Her understudy hurried from the chorus. Jaymie Price, the daughter of a well-to-do Chicago divorcée, was one of the few chorus members who didn’t have to scramble for table-waiting or typing work between jobs. She was as dimpled and dark-haired as Ramona. But she was taller, quieter, and her voice, while lovely, lacked the emotion and power that had lifted Ramona, fifteen years ago, to stardom. On stage Ramona flamed; Jaymie merely glittered. Ramona stopped her now wearily. “No, no, sweeties, from the end of the assassination scene. We have to get up on the platform somehow.”

  “Right, mates.” Derek Morris wiped back his pale hair and shifted to an earlier melody. His piano sat at the side of the big industrial loft, behind one of the peeling steel support columns that marched inconveniently through the battered former factory. The actors scrambled to a different configuration, picking up top h
ats and canes that were incongruous with their shabby rehearsal outfits of old shirts, tights, and sweats. Looped and windowed raggedness. Well, acting was a good way to avoid getting rich. Nick stationed himself at the rear of the scruffy group.

  “Bang!” The young actor who played the assassin aimed a plastic rehearsal water pistol at Jaymie and the others gasped dutifully. “Bang!” A second pistol pointed at her. Then Nick and the others swarmed over him, imprisoning him behind the vertical bars of their walking sticks. He peered out of the sudden cage with mournful eyes.

  “The would-be assassin was jailed immediately,” intoned Cab Collins, the hearty Chairman, from his podium across the stage. “Fortunately he had forgotten to load his pistols.” The others cheered. “Queen Victoria’s popularity soared!” The cheers grew louder. Larry and Jaymie were slipping away from the group to the center of the raised platform, while the others, under Daphne’s direction, lined up at the rear. “And soon there was reason for more popularity still. Because, back in the royal bedchamber ...”

  “Ooh! Albert!” giggled Jaymie.

  “Ooh! Victoria!” Larry pulled Jaymie into a cliché clinch. They both leered happily at the row of folding chairs as Derek launched into the introductory bars of the next music-hall melody.

  “But Albert, will we always be so happy? What does the future hold?”

  Daphne was calling over the music, “Same steps here, Larry, but stay up on the platform. Right, that’s it.”

  “The future?” sang Larry. “The future holds nine children!”

  “Nine?” Jaymie looked dismayed.

  “You’ll love ’em!” Larry twirled her to the front edge of the platform and stood aside while she planted herself, legs apart, rehearsal skirt ready to hoist. “We’ll have, first, a girl!”

  Thickset Edith Bigelow plunged off the platform between Jaymie’s feet, rolled forward, then rose to a kneel, grinned at Ramona and the folding chairs, and shuffled on her knees to the side.

  “Next, a boy!” sang Larry. Nick repeated Edith’s feat without toppling Jaymie. Thank God, he thought, it’ll work this way. He heard Daphne murmur, “Terrific!”

  “Then a girl, then a boy!” Actors dove through to join Nick and Edith until nine knelt in a row. “A dynasty!” exulted Larry. “Vicky, future Empress of Germany! And Bertie, Prince of Wales, future King of England!” He continued the roll call of the grand duchesses, princes, and dukes that Victoria and Albert had spawned. Hopping on his knees in the kick line with the other royal children, Nick had to sympathize with Victoria’s dismay. Even one child could disrupt a life. Could lock into a person’s emotions even while destroying sleep, career, sex life. Nine would be appalling.

  The song ended. Ramona jetted a last fierce stream of smoke at them and ferociously ground out her cigarette with the toe of her laced dancing boot. “Possible,” she admitted. “Let’s give it a try this way. It looks a little dead, of course. But thanks to dearest Daphne, I’ve never missed a performance in my life, and I won’t start now.”

  Daphne’s glance at Ramona crackled with black-eyed fury. Jaymie herself turned away from Ramona with seeming calm and retrieved her can of Sprite. But Nick saw that her hands were shaking.

  Ramona bounded into her place. “Okay, Derek, let’s go!”

  “Right.” Derek was British, a compact, pale-eyed young man in jeans and a fraying Aran sweater. He was composer, rehearsal pianist, and nominal director ofVictoria R. “Take it from ‘Bang, bang!’ mates!”

  They worked through “Nine Children” again on their bruised knees, then on to the act-final “Death of Albert—Widow of Windsor” sequence. Derek talked them through it. “‘Death of Albert’ is a poem, Victorian music-hall style, a few chords under the spoken lines. The poem ends with Albert’s death.”

  “Same business as the old king’s death at the beginning?” asked Larry.

  “Right. You pull on the black gloves and step back into the shadows. Albert and Victoria will do a series of heartrending tableaus while Edith recites, and—”

  “I don’t say anything?” exclaimed Ramona.

  “Not till you sing ‘Widow of Windsor’ at the end.”

  “Ramona, really, tableaus look better when the mouths don’t move,” said Larry.

  The watching girl giggled.

  Ramona didn’t speak for a moment. She bent over the prop box, pulled out the black gloves Larry would use, and then hurled them at his feet like gauntlets. Their eyes met for an ugly instant before Ramona said mildly, “Okay, Derek, Edith recites. But I’ve decided the second act is too long. Let’s drop the Disraeli solo.”

  Nick tensed. In the second act he and Larry played Victoria’s two prime ministers, Gladstone and Disraeli; and Larry’s solo as Disraeli was vital to both plot and character.

  Derek exclaimed, “Ramona, that won’t do!”

  Larry, rage contained except for the bunching of muscles in his jaw, said, “It’s my only solo, Ramona. If I offer abject apologies and promise to keep my mouth shut for the rest of the day, can we keep it? Pretty please?”

  “We don’t want to bore people.”

  Derek said desperately, “Ramona, we’d better talk this over. We need the information in that song.”

  With her dark head flung back, hands on hips, Ramona set the air quivering with unspoken demands. Yet her voice, except for the huskiness, seemed reasonable. “Come, Derek, no need to be totally faithful to your ideals! Besides, we could just add a verse to another song!”

  Nick could see that they were pushing her into a stance she’d regret in a sunnier mood. Time to attempt a daring rescue. Enter Bozo O’Connor, superhero of petty squabbles. Or superklutz? Nick leaped to stage center and exclaimed, “Hey, great idea! We could add the whole second act to ‘Nine Children!’ ‘First a girl, then a boy, then an empire, then a death!’” His mimicry of Larry’s voice was exact as he flipped a prop crown onto his bald head only to cover it in turn with the pair of black gloves. They drooped rakishly over his eyebrows.

  For a quaking instant Ramona stared at him. Then she guffawed, slapping her knee. The tension in the room dissolved into chuckles.

  “All right, you clowns, let’s get on with this rehearsal!” Still smirking, she abandoned the fight and moved on. “What’s the first tableau?”

  Nick watched from the sidelines as Derek and Daphne worked with Ramona and Larry to set the first pose. A handsome pair: Ramona’s riveting intensity set off by Larry’s languid virility. Surely the critics and the public would be enchanted too. Nick allowed himself the luxury of a little hope. He could use a long run about now. Even a medium run. His fortieth year could be glimpsed on the horizon. And although he had a solid reputation among casting directors and producers, he was not famous, not bankable. He still had to make the rounds, had to attend dozens of auditions for every job he landed. And there were new responsibilities. A smidgen of security would taste very good just now.

  Derek and Daphne were still adjusting the pose when Ramona’s expression darkened again. Following her gaze to the door, Nick saw a man in a pinstripe suit, jowly and regal as a Great Dane, reminiscent of President Nixon himself.

  “Well, Simon! Slumming?” asked Ramona, breaking the pose.

  “I want to know what you’re doing.” The big man sounded sad.

  “None of your business.”

  “It’s my money.”

  She laughed. “Sorry, honey. Not a penny is yours.”

  “Prove it!” Sadness turned to anger; gray brows bunched. A shiver of unease ran through the company.

  Ramona lifted her big Italian shoulder bag from a rickety chair, rummaged in it, and pulled out a desk-size maroon leather appointment book. “I will, Simon, at—let’s see, eleven thirty tomorrow. I’m seeing Martin about the property division. He’s got all the proof you’ll need.” She smiled again, but Nick was aware that she was trembling a little. “Don’t worry. It’s watertight. The money belongs to the production company, free and clear. Nobody can get it bac
k now.”

  Ramona waggled the embossed leather book right under the man’s nose, and he turned and strode out. “Sorry, sweeties,” she said to the actors as she slid the appointment book back into her bag. “Ex-husbands can be difficult. Especially when they aren’t quite ex. Come on, Derek, let’s get on with it.”

  They got on with it.

  Steve Bradford paced the damp streets of SoHo. It wasn’t raining, though it was humid as the jungle. Cooler, of course. Couldn’t mistake the Hudson for the Orinoco. Self-portrait of Steve: thirty-five, a handsome man with blue-gray eyes, a first touch of gray in his hair, a solid job that made use of both his ready smile and his logical mind. Logical. Yes, thought Steve, but passionate too. Adventurous.A ruddy fire-eater, as Hemingway would describe it. Ready to take on great lions or jaguars. He stepped around a pile of drizzle-soaked lumber on the sidewalk. SoHo was booming now. Seemed like every third building was being renovated. That was all right with him. His firm had its share of investments here.

  He turned the corner and stopped abruptly. A pair of female ankles hovered just above his startled eyes. Lean ankles in neat business-height heels. A lanky young woman, dark hair and red scarf stirring in the misty breeze, was balanced on the bar of a builder’s scaffold, fingering the pattern in the cast-iron facade.

  “Note the acanthus leaves,” said Steve.

  Blue eyes, quick and intelligent, glanced down at his cashmere scarf and Burberry and classified him as harmless. “I was noting the floral swag, actually. I wanted to see how it turned the corner above the door.”

  “Yes, interesting design. Do you need a hand getting down?”

  “Nope. But thanks.” She turned a little and for the first time Steve noticed that a carrier holding a small baby was strapped half under her coat. But she grasped the bar and sprang down easily to the sidewalk before he could protest, her black curls and red scarf blowing, bright as toucans.