Macdeath (An Ivy Meadows Mystery Book 1) (14 page)

CHAPTER 29

Can the Devil Speak True?

“Did you know that Louis the fourteenth used to hold court in bed?” said Uncle Bob. Thanks to Candy MoonPie, he was holding court from a rented medical bed. He wanted it in the living room so he could see out the front window and watch TV at the same time. I wouldn’t be surprised if he kept it there.

“Did you know that Shakespeare, in his will, left his wife his second-best bed?” I replied.

“Ha!” said Uncle Bob, who was now playing with the bed’s electronic adjustment. They must have doped him up pretty good for the ride home.

My cell rang. Uncle Bob lay back, grinning, as the head of his bed slowly dipped.

“Hello?”

“Is this Ivy Meadows?” The woman sounded like she was afraid someone was playing a joke on her.

“Yes.”

“I’m a volunteer at St. Joseph’s, calling for Jason Birnam.”

“Yes?” I said. “Jason,” I mouthed to Uncle Bob. He brought his bed upright.

“He asked if I could call you, to let you know he’s all right.”

“Oh.” I hadn’t realized how tense I was until all my muscles relaxed at the time. I sank into the kitchen chair I’d placed next to my uncle’s bed. “Can I speak to him?”

“He’s sleeping now, but he can receive visitors. Room 304.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” I said.

“You’re welcome, dear. Goodbye.”

“Bye.” I hung up.

“He doin’ okay?” asked Uncle Bob.

“Yeah. He can have visitors now.”

My uncle looked me in the eye, his goofiness gone. “I wish you’d stop seeing him. I’m afraid he might be involved in whatever’s going on.”

I didn’t reply.

“But, hey, who am I to mess with a budding romance?”

I hugged the old poop around his neck, careful to avoid his splinted nose.

“But,” he said. “I want you to be careful. Something smells fishy and I want you to stay clear of it. Any funny business, you pull back, right?”

“Right. No fishy funny business.”

He tried to hide a smile. “And I did mean it about the investigation. Pink and I’ll take care of it. Not you. Got that?”

“Got it.”

I didn’t wait for him to mention quitting the play. “When’s your aide coming?” I said.

Uncle Bob looked at the clock mounted on the wall above the TV. “In about an hour,” he said.

This distraction thing did work.

“So...” I began.

“So go see your boyfriend,” said my uncle. “Just bring me my phone first.”

I grabbed his phone from its charger in the kitchen. “You sure you’ll be alright?”

The bathroom and bedrooms in my uncle’s 1940s house were situated off a hall two steps above the rest of the house, rendering them inaccessible for the six weeks he’d be using a wheelchair.

Uncle Bob took stock of the situation. The TV tray next to his bed held several bottles of pills, a water bottle, a package of Oreos, and the TV remote. A urinal was tucked in along his side, and a portable commode near his bed. “The key’s in the mailbox?” he asked.

I nodded. The aide needed a key to get in. Per his instructions, I’d hidden it between a few folded pieces of paper, stuffed the whole thing into an envelope, and addressed it to Robert Duda. It was now in the mailbox by the front door, along with a few old pieces of mail I added for cover.

“I think I’m set,” Uncle Bob said. I headed toward the door. “Except for one thing.”

“Yeah?” I turned.

He pushed a button and the bed rose like a magic carpet. “Can I keep this?”

I
drove back to the hospital. I made several wrong turns in St. Joe’s maze of corridors before finding Jason’s room. He was asleep. I was so relieved to see him breathing normally that I sat there and watched him sleep for awhile. When he finally awoke, he smiled groggily at me. I kissed him lightly on his swollen lips.

“How are you feeling?”

“Like someone hot-glued marshmallows to my face.” He touched his face gingerly, swallowed and grimaced. “And to the inside of my throat.”

I poured him a glass of water from the blue plastic pitcher that sat on his bedside table. He took it gratefully, though from the face he made, it didn’t help that hot marshmallow feeling.

Jason squinted, looking around the room. I’d discovered last night that his beautiful blue-green eyes were the result of contacts. Without them, his eyes were mud-gray and myopic.

“You’re in the hospital,” I said helpfully.

“Yeah, I can see that,” he snapped, then sighed. “Sorry, I’m just pissed off. It was stupid.”

“What was?” Being an egocentric ninny, all I could think about was us.

“I forgot to check with the bar about peanuts. I’m allergic.”

Peanuts? I searched my memory for peanuts. I remembered eating some sort of snack mix, but...

“I usually make sure to ask, but, well,” he smiled at me as best he could, “I had other things on my mind.”

I breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn’t about us and he hadn’t been poisoned.

Jason, still peering around the room, said, “What time is it?”

I glanced at the clock with its senior-sized numbers. He really needed those contacts. “Six-thirty. I’d better get going.”

“What’re they doing about the show? Going to cancel it?”

I froze. Omigod. I hadn’t told anyone.

“Ivy?”

“Tell you later. Gotta run.” I blew him a quick kiss (which he probably couldn’t see), dashed out of the room, and pulled out my cell phone. Damn. Dead battery. I rushed to the nurses’ station.

“Could I use your phone? It’s an emergency.”

A large nurse, stuffed into her uniform like a sausage, looked at me skeptically. “Why didn’t you ring for a nurse?”

“It’s not that kind of emergency.”

“What kind is it?”

“A...uh...theatrical emergency.”

She gave a little “phh” of disapproval. “There’s a pay phone in the basement.”

After spending fifteen minutes trying to find the damn pay phone, I gave up and ran to my car. When I got to the parking garage toll booth, the gum-chewing cashier said, “Five dollars, please.”

“Five?” I hoped I’d heard wrong.

She didn’t even look my way. “Yeah. Five dollars.”

I looked in my wallet, even though I knew what I would find. Three one dollar bills and some change. I pulled out the bills, dumped the change into my palm, and shoved it at the cashier.

She looked at it. “You’re a dollar forty short.”

“It’s all I have and I’m really late. It’s an emergency.”

“What kind of emergency?”

I wasn’t about to go through that again. “Listen, can’t you please just let me out?”

She chewed her gum lazily, like a cow who’d heard it all before. “This is my job, lady.”

The car behind me honked. Like that was going to help. My air conditioning started blowing hot air. Damn. I’d just spent a couple hundred bucks on the stupid thing. The car behind me honked again. I looked pleadingly at the cashier. She seemed perfectly content to let us all stay in her garage forever. I reached into the back seat for my duffle bag, scrounged around through makeup and tights, and found four quarters. I held them out to the cow triumphantly.

“Good,” she said.

I waited for the gate to go up.

“Now you’re only forty cents short.”

The driver behind me really laid on the horn. I was about to flip him off when I had a better idea. I yanked my scoop-neck T down to show some cleavage, hopped out of my car, and ran to the big black SUV behind me. A tinted window slid down, revealing a forty-something driver with enough product in his hair to withstand a hailstorm.

“I am so sorry,” I said breathlessly, bending over and squeezing my arms together to ensure maximum cleavage. “But I’m a little short today.” I watched his eyes go straight to my chest. “Could you possibly help me out? I just need three dollars.” I wasn’t going through this for forty cents, let me tell you.

“Um, sure.” He said, fishing out his wallet, his eyes flickering to mine for a second. He pulled out a twenty, as I’d hoped he would, and handed it to me.

“Thank you so much!” I gushed, with a little wiggle. After all, he was paying for it.

I ran up to the attendant booth, gave her the twenty, and waved at the SUV driver, who was now staring at my ass. Staring so hard, in fact, that he nearly missed seeing the cashier give me change. But he did see. He honked as I hopped back into my car. I waved at him and hotfooted it to the theater with an extra nineteen dollars and sixty cents.

I squealed into the theater parking lot, jumped out of my car and ran toward the theater. I had just passed the guy we called Homeless Hank when I had an idea. I ran back, pulled the SUV driver’s bills out of my shorts pocket and handed them to him.

“Just call me ‘Robin Hood,’” I said.

Hank whistled in appreciation and attempted a bow, wobbling dangerously. I made sure he was steady, then hurried on my way.

I finally skidded into the theater. Linda was already there, prepping for the show. This was going to be bad. I flagged her down as she headed backstage to check on props.

“Linda? Can I talk to you a minute?”

“Only if you can walk and talk. I got business to take care of.”

I trotted after her as she headed to the darkened backstage area, toward the butcher-paper-covered prop table. Each prop was outlined on the paper in bold black marker so that the table looked like the crime scene for lots of tiny dead bodies.

I couldn’t figure out how to tell her about Jason without pissing her off, so I didn’t say anything, just hovered. I watched her move Genevieve’s dagger to its proper place on the prop table.

“What is it? Spit it out, Ivy.”

“Jason’s in the hospital. He can’t do the show tonight.” I spat it out, just as she requested.

Linda turned, squinting at me in the low light. I guess she was trying to see if I was kidding.

“I would have called earlier, but my cell battery ran out and I couldn’t find a pay phone.” I sounded lame, even to myself.

Linda looked at me a moment, her expression unreadable, then said, “I’ll meet you in your dressing room in two minutes. Go, and do not tell anyone what you just told me.” She pulled out her cell phone.

I walked to my dressing room, eyes to the ground, past the cast members who had arrived. I was afraid to make eye contact with anyone for fear I’d spill the beans. I felt bad letting all these people prep for a show that wasn’t going to take place.

I sat in my dressing room, depressed. If I kept making mistakes like this, I was going to need another career. I caught sight of myself in the mirror. I didn’t have any makeup on—my mad dash to the hospital had precluded that—and with my blonde hair, pale face and no visible eyelashes, I looked like someone out of a Vermeer painting. Maybe I could be an art school model. I wondered how much they paid. I wondered if I’d have to get naked.

Linda, true to her word, showed up in two minutes. She said, “Edward’s on his way.” And then didn’t say anything more. She just stood behind me, flannel-ensconced arms crossed. How could she stand to wear flannel in this heat? I surreptitiously studied her in the mirror. Ah, she wore a white T-shirt under the flannel shirt. She probably wore that outside and put on the shirt to fight the air-conditioned chill indoors. Linda’s hair was reddish-brown and cut in a severe, boyish style. She was fit, almost muscular. She didn’t have on any makeup either, but she looked more Vin Diesel than Vermeer.

Candy swept into the room, taking in Linda as she did. “So how’s our Diet Coke today?”

Linda squinted at her.

I looked at the plastic cup full of soda sitting on the dressing room counter. “Didn’t check,” I said. Candy came over to look for herself. Linda squinted again. Maybe she needed glasses.

I cleared my throat. “Someone told my uncle Diet Coke would dissolve a nail. We thought we’d test it for ourselves.”

“And?” She looked interested. An image flashed into my mind: Linda at rehearsal with, yep, a Diet Coke in hand.

“Nail’s still there,” I said. We all peered intently into the cup, as if testing my veracity. The nail was still there and looked in good shape, no rust that I could see.

“Hmph,” said Linda. “Looks like a waste of Diet Coke to me.”

Edward knocked and entered. It was the first time I’d ever seen him without a carrot.

“Why do y’all knock if you’re just gonna come in anyway?” said Candy, hands on her hips. Her outrage disappeared when Edward said, in a dangerously soft voice, “I need to speak to Ivy. Alone.”

Candy huffed a bit under her breath as she went out into the hall. Edward jerked his head at Linda. “
Alone
.” I saw Linda’s reflection. Her look of surprise mirrored mine. She left, pulling the door shut hard behind her, just short of a slam.

I faced the mirror. I could see Edward glaring at me, but I didn’t turn around. It was easier to face him this way.

“Why in the name of God did you wait until an hour before curtain to tell us we have no lead?” he said. “Are you as stupid as you appear?”

Ouch. What do you say to that? I stayed silent.

“What do you expect us to do now?” Another angry rhetorical question. I wasn’t biting.

Edward paced behind me. I could see his wheels turning, thoughts flitting one way and another. He was no actor. Everything showed on his face. I reminded myself to invite him to a poker game when he’d forgotten about all of this.

“Why you?” he asked, turning to face my reflection. I could feel his breath on my neck, smell a faint whiff of brandy. I’d heard Pamela was out of town, maybe he was living it up. “Why did Jason call you?”

Something hard and brilliant in his eyes gave me pause. It reminded me of the villains in the cartoons my brother used to love when we were kids. That—and the fact he hadn’t asked what happened to Jason or if he was okay—influenced my answer.

“This whole thing was a big coincidence.” I put on my dumb blonde face. If he thought I was stupid, I was going to use it. “I was there to pick up my uncle.”

“Yeah, I heard about that. How is he?” Edward actually looked concerned. That was weird. Really weird. I filed it away for later.

“Fine. I was going to get him a pop from the cafeteria when I saw Jason being wheeled down the hall.” I cringed inwardly. Even I wouldn’t believe that.

“They were wheeling him to the cafeteria?”

“No, no, I was in the hall. They were taking him to his room. He was still unconscious.”

“Unconscious.” Did Edward smile? “So you haven’t spoken to him?”

That glint was back in his eyes. “No,” I lied, thinking I’d call Jason ASAP and let him in on my deception. “I came back later, but he was sleeping. I talked to a nurse. She said there was no way he’d be released today.”

Edward’s director face replaced his villain face. “Shit, shit, shit. We have a full house tonight.” He glanced at his watch. “Shit.” He yanked open the dressing room door, shouting “Linda!” He nearly ran into her. She must have been standing there the whole time. “Assemble the cast in the greenroom. Now.”

Linda strode off immediately. I could hear her knocking on dressing room doors. I got up, meaning to join the rest of the cast. But Edward still stood in the doorway, blocking my way.

“Ivy?”

That soft voice again.

“I’d stay away from Jason if I were you. He’s dangerous. Just ask his last girlfriend.” He looked me in the eye. “Oh, that’s right. You can’t,” he said. “She’s dead.”