Macdeath (An Ivy Meadows Mystery Book 1) (15 page)

CHAPTER 30

Saucy Doubts and Fears

Jason, Edward, Uncle Bob...My thoughts swirled like the fake mist onstage (I never could figure out what mist was doing in a circus, but that’s neither here nor there). Still, being a consummate professional, I dove into my role.

The first scene went fine, because it was just us witches. Scene II was Duncan’s introduction. Bill Boxer knew his lines now, but his acting hadn’t improved. Then it was the top of Scene III. I tumbled out of the cauldron with the other witches to greet Banquo and Macbeth.

“All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Glamis!” said Candy/First Witch.

The Real Witch was next: “All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor!”

Then me: “All hail Macbeth! Hail to thee, thou shalt be king hereafter!”

A near-sob escaped my lips. I hoped the audience would interpret it as some sort of witchy noise, when in fact I was praying that this Macbeth would not be king hereafter. My true feelings came out along with the line. Guess I wasn’t a consummate professional.

Edward was our new and, please God, temporary Macbeth. He’d only spoken a few lines so far, but, oh boy. His acting veered from wooden to flamboyant. It was as if he’d caught himself sleepwalking and then decided to make up for it with a burst of energy.

“Hail!” Candy said to Banquo.

“Hail!” said The Real Witch.

“Hail!” I said, a beat late. I had no business talking about sleepwalking. I’d nearly missed that cue.

We made it to the end of the short scene. “Stay you imperfect speakers,” yelled Edward, in flamboyant phase. “Tell me more!” He wore Jason’s lion-tamer costume. The tights hung loosely around his skinny legs, like the skin on a chicken drumstick.

We may have been imperfect speakers, but we didn’t stay. The stagehands hauled our cauldron up into the fly space, where we were hidden from the audience. We had to wait there, huddled together in our human stockpot, until the techies could let us down in the blackout at the end of the scene.

“The audience is going to want their money back after this show,” grumbled The Real Witch.

“If he can’t run with the big dogs, he should stay on the porch,” agreed Candy.

I couldn’t get worked up about the show right then. I couldn’t get Edward off my mind. He’d acted so...malevolent earlier. And there was that dead girlfriend thing. I shivered, not sure if it was from the air-conditioning or the thoughts that kept trying to invade my head.

“Have we eaten on the insane root, that takes the reason prisoner?” asked Banquo, onstage below us.

I needed to call Jason. I had to tell him I had lied about not talking to him in the hospital when I spoke with Edward. My cell phone was still out, though.

“Candy, I need to ask you something,” I whispered. I knew she had her cell in the dressing room.

“Shh!” said The Real Witch.

“Hello? You just talked, witchie-poo.” Candy poked The Real Witch with a finger. “You could start an argument in an empty house.” Then to me, “Yeah, I need to talk to you, too.”

At the blackout, we hurried back to our dressing room. Candy shut the door and leaned against it. She spoke before I had a chance to.

“I am so sorry about your uncle.”

My jaw tightened. Uncle Bob. What had happened now?

Candy must have seen the look on my face, because she said, “Oh no, don’t worry. There’s nothing new. I’m just sorry about telling everyone. About your uncle.”

I stared at her, trying to puzzle out what in the hell she was talking about.

“I mean, I just wasn’t thinking, and people asked why you were at the hospital, and I told them and then they wanted to know what had happened to your uncle, so I told them he was poisoned and—”

“You told them he was poisoned?”

Candy cringed. “Yeah. I mean, when you told me, you didn’t say it was a secret or anything, but now, well, you’ve been sorta distant these last few days and I thought maybe you were mad at me.”

I was mad, but just at myself. I should have known better. Candy was sweet, but she had a mouth the size of Texas.

And had I told her I suspected poison? I’d talked to her a few times since Uncle Bob’s accident, but I couldn’t remember what I’d said. I realized I shouldn’t borrow her cell phone unless I was willing to lie to her about who I was calling. And I was tired of lying, at least for now.

“I’m not mad.” I smiled at her and headed for the door.

“Didn’t you want to talk to me about something?”

“Yeah, but right now I gotta pee like a racehorse. I’ll be right back.” Okay, that was a lie, but a really little one.

Candy and I occupied one of the chorus dressing rooms, which had no bathroom. Usually I complained about having to go down the hall to pee, but this time I was happy for the excuse. Once outside the bathroom, I looked around. Seeing no one, I dashed down the hall toward Linda’s office. I could use her land line to call Jason. I’d tell him about Edward and get at least part of a load off my mind. The dead girlfriend bit I wanted to address in person.

I’d heard Linda’s door was usually unlocked during a show. It was. I slipped into her office and shut the door behind me. I wasted a few precious seconds gawking at her office décor. I don’t know what I’d expected, but it wasn’t...kittens. Lots of kittens, tumbling on posters, crawling on calendars, even ticking at me in the form of a cat clock with a swinging tail. Huh.

I pulled myself away from the kitties littering her office. I needed to do this quickly. I picked up Linda’s phone, then set it down. I needed a phone number for the hospital. I glanced at Linda’s computer, thought about booting it up so I could find the number online, and decided it was a bad idea. It’d be too easy for her to figure out someone had used it, and then there’d be questions. Maybe she still had a phone book. I yanked open a large, likely-looking drawer. I tipped up a couple of loose-leaf binders, to look underneath. No phone book. But I found something else.

Something much more intriguing.

CHAPTER 31

Powerful Trouble

I stared into Linda’s big desk drawer. A tackle box was partially hidden under the few binders I’d picked up. It was brown and beat up from years of service, and it was Simon’s. His makeup kit. What was it doing here? Didn’t Linda say she wasn’t going to move his stuff until the show had closed?

I tried to remember when she’d said that. We’d been in my dressing room, with Candy and...Jason. Jason with two black eyes. That needed covering up. With pancake makeup.

Simon’s pancake makeup. Jason had used it and ended up in the hospital. Simon had used it and ended up dead. I popped open the top of the tackle box. Makeup brushes and eye pencils filled the niches meant for fish hooks and flies. I dug around in the bottom compartment and unearthed a used tin of pancake makeup. I opened it and sniffed. Smelled like makeup. I shut the lid to the tackle box, rearranged the binders, and closed the drawer with my knee. I put the tin of makeup on Linda’s desk next to a Hello Kitty mug and reached for the phone. I still needed to make that call.

I heard the door open. I sat on the desk, covering the tin of makeup with my butt.

“Ivy?” It was Linda.

Damn. It must be intermission. Even so, why was she here? She usually stayed up in the booth.

“Yeah.” I smiled brightly at her and, God help me, giggled. I put on my best dumb blonde voice, hoping it would work on her like it had on Edward. “I needed to make a call, and my cell is dead and I couldn’t find a payphone. Then I remembered you had a phone and so here I am. Have you noticed there are no pay phones anymore? I mean, what are poor people supposed to do?” This last was a feeble attempt at the art of distraction.

Linda didn’t say anything. Her squint had returned, making it difficult to see her eyes, but I swear they flicked toward the drawer that held the makeup. She nodded at the phone.

“Go ahead.”

“Oh, it’s kind of personal.” I smiled again. My cheek muscles were beginning to twitch.

“All right.” She sighed and walked toward me, disentangling a wad of keys from a caribiner clipped to her belt loop. “’Scuse me,” she said, motioning that she needed to get into the desk I was perched on.

I hopped down, palming the makeup. I slipped my hand behind my back. I couldn’t keep my hand there, way too suspicious. I shoved the tin up the leg opening of my leotard so that it rested on the top of my butt. I’m sure it showed—couldn’t hide anything in that leotard—but as long as I faced Linda, she wouldn’t be able to see it.

She locked the top desk drawer with a small brass key and then tried it to make sure it had locked. I wondered if she was securing the office because I was in it. I wouldn’t blame her. I also wondered what else was in that drawer and why she didn’t want me to see it.

“Just don’t mess up anything, all right?” she said over her shoulder as she walked out of the office, clipping the caribiner back on her belt loop.

“Sure.” I waved at her. “By the way, I love your cats.”

She stopped and looked at me. Arghh. Why can’t I leave well enough alone?

“Your office cats, I mean. Kitties. I love kittens.”

I was fond of cats, but mostly on posters, where their silky fur didn’t fly off their bodies and straight up my nose.

Linda looked me up and down. It made me nervous, so I sat on the desk again. The makeup tin in my leotard made a soft “thock” as it made contact with the desk.

“Oops,” I said. “Excuse me.”

I waved the air as if I’d farted. It didn’t really sound like a fart, but my ruse worked. Linda crinkled her nose, shook her head, and left.

I jumped off the desk and tried the drawer with the makeup. Definitely locked. Locking the top drawer must have had the effect of locking all of them. Oh well, I had the pancake makeup I needed.

I picked up the phone. Damn. I still needed a phone book, and I needed to make this call now. We witches were on right after intermission. I had about seven minutes before they’d be expecting me to crawl in the cauldron. A quick scan of the room showed no phone books. I went to a bookshelf and moved cat photos and kitty snow globes, hoping that a phone book was hiding behind them. No dice. I looked at Linda’s cat clock. Five and a half minutes until showtime.

I ran back to the phone and tried to dial information. I wasn’t surprised when a recording said I must first dial one, and then, of course, when I tried it, said I couldn’t dial one from that number. I put down the receiver and looked at the phone. There were a bunch of lines, maybe a different one would let me dial out. I punched one. Nope. Another. Nope. Another. Oops. A few seconds too late, I realized I’d punched a button for a line already in use. I started to hang up, when I heard familiar voices on the line.

“So you did talk to her?” It was Edward. My palms started to sweat.

“Yeah. Is there a problem?” It was Jason. They couldn’t be talking about me, could they?

“It depends. Just how close are you two?”

“Listen, if you’re asking me what I’ve told her, the answer is nothing. She knows nothing.”

“About opening night?” Edward’s voice sounded tight, like he wasn’t getting enough air.

“That and...the other.”

There was an uncomfortable silence on the line. My stomach took the opportunity to emit a loud growl.

“What was that?” said Edward.

“What?” said Jason.

There was another silence, as if they were both listening. I twisted my body so my offending stomach was as far from the mouthpiece as possible. I held my breath for good measure.

“Nothing. Must have been a connection issue,” said Edward, finally. “So she doesn’t know where you’ve been these past few days?”

“No.”

My still-growling stomach lurched. Where had Jason been?

“What did you say about this recent...incident?”

“I told Ivy it was peanuts.”

They were talking about me.

“Was it?”

“I don’t think so. I usually react a lot quicker to peanuts.”

There was a crackle on the speaker mounted in the corner of the office. I hung up, hopefully soon enough they didn’t hear Linda’s voice say, “Places, top of Act Four.”

Dammit. I really wanted, needed, to hear Jason and Edward’s conversation. What did they not want me to know? Why was Edward pissed off that Jason had spoken to me? And when had they gotten so close, anyway? If I could find out what was going on, maybe my stomach would unclench.

But I’d have to think about Jason and Edward later. Right now I had to get in the cauldron. It was clear from Linda’s announcement that she was using the sound system, which meant she was back up in the booth where she belonged. Everyone else should be headed to the stage.

I peeked my head out of the office. I waited until the last actor had disappeared, figuring I’d bring up the rear, so I could keep my makeup-tinned ass undiscovered. I could hide the pancake somewhere backstage. I slipped out of the door, pulled it shut, and ran toward backstage.

“Ivy! What’s with your butt?” said a voice behind me.

Shit. I’d forgotten that Riley was always, always late.

“It’s uh...chew.” Wow. Where did I come up with that?

“Chew?” Riley stared at me, his astonished gaze on my ass.

“You know, chewing tobacco.”

I leaned into Riley, trying the art of distraction once again. This time it worked. His eyes were now fixed on my breasts. I was glad he was so predictable.

“Please don’t tell anyone, okay?” I said.

“That’s nasty.” Riley’s eyes gleamed.

Great. Who would have thought chewing tobacco was a turn on? I considered using this newfound knowledge, but just couldn’t go there. I do have some standards.

“It
is
,” I said in my most innocent-girl voice. “I’m quitting. Tomorrow. So you won’t tell, right?”

“Scout’s honor, nasty girl.” He grinned and slapped me on the butt where the tin of makeup hid. I began walking backstage. “Hey!” he said. Dang, not off the hook quite yet. “I did a gig at a car show the other day. Ladies’ Day.”

Where was this going?

“You know,” he said, making a muscle man pose, “sat on the hood of a car with my shirt off? Paid pretty good and they gave me NASCAR tickets for doing such a good job. You want to go with me?”

Oh dear God. “I’d love to, but—”

The pre-curtain music began to play. Shit! I left Riley in the dust as I ran toward the stage. I took advantage of the darkness to shove the tin of makeup under a platform and crawled into the cauldron. As soon as I was in, a stagehand hauled us witches into the air.

The Real Witch was so pissed off at my tardiness he wouldn’t even look at me. Good. That way he didn’t see me sticking my tongue out at him. Candy saw it, though, and giggled. “You fall in or somethin’?” she asked.

My mind raced to remember what I’d told her, but it didn’t have to go far. I’d told her I’d gone to the bathroom. I didn’t need long to remember, because now I really did have to go. Bad. I nodded at Candy, bit my lip, crossed my legs, and hoped that once onstage, I’d be so into character I’d forget all about it.

Ha. Every time I tumbled out of the cauldron onto the stage, I prayed I wouldn’t pee.

I guess my distress helped my performance. “I’ve never seen you writhe so beautifully,” said Edward as he passed by us witches after our scene was over. I nodded my thanks, crawled out of the cauldron with my legs crossed, stood up, and sprinted for the nearest bathroom, as well as I could with my knees together. I felt Edward watching me as I ran.

I made it to the bathroom with only seconds to spare. I sat on the cold toilet seat, my mind spinning. How was I going to get the makeup out of its hiding spot backstage? Had Linda been hiding the makeup on purpose? What was up with Edward and Jason? I didn’t even want to think about the dead girlfriend thing. Maybe that was Edward trying to scare me off. But scare me off from what?

I finished my business, left the stall, and nearly ran into Candy, who had slipped silently into the bathroom.

“You scared me!” I said, with an enthusiasm I didn’t feel. Had I told Candy that my uncle was poisoned?

“Sorry, darlin’,” she said. “Hey, I heard Edward say Jason should be back for the Sunday matinee.”

“Thank the gods of theater,” I said. “Much more of Edward as Mac, and I would’ve tried to behead him myself. I think we should toast our good fortune. You going out for a drink after the show?” I wanted to get her talking, see what she knew.

“Nah.”

I waited. Candy always cheerfully disclosed information, often way more than anyone wanted to hear. Not this time, though.

“Hot date?” I prompted.

“Nah.” I stared at her until she met my eyes. “Just need my beauty sleep. Got a long day tomorrow.” I saw her flinch as she said the last sentence, the physical equivalent of “Oops, shouldn’t have said that.”

“Why so long?” Damn, I’d spoken before thinking and asked a direct question. “Just work,” she said, and slid past me into a stall. “Gotta tinkle before curtain call.”

Uncle Bob was right. Direct questions didn’t net you much.

I shuffled back to the greenroom, mentally crossing Candy off my list of people I could trust. Did I need to cross off Jason, too? I’d promised Uncle Bob to pull away if there was any “funny business.” I didn’t know what to do. Last night with Jason—had it only been last night?—I’d felt special, chosen. Now, after listening to Edward and Jason’s conversation, I felt duped. I thought of the night before, the way he’d touched me, kissed me. My eyes started to fill. I willed them to stop. I couldn’t mess up my makeup.

Makeup. Right. No time to mourn lost love. I needed to get that pancake out of its hiding place backstage without being seen. It’d be easier to do it while the show was running. Backstage was always dark during the show.

I trotted back to my dressing room, where I kept a sweater. A lot of us Phoenicians stash sweaters in our cars or offices. It seems weird to newcomers until they’ve spent their first summer here, going from 110 outside to an overly air-conditioned 65 degrees inside. Then it just seems smart. It seemed especially smart today, as I needed a way to hide the tin of pancake. Inside the dressing room, I grabbed my black sweater from off the back of my chair, tied it around my waist, and headed backstage.

Once there, I found all the soldier/clown actors milling about, waiting for their time in the spotlight. I elbowed past them to the place where I’d hidden the makeup. I knelt down and slid my hand under the back edge of the platform and felt nothing. Nada. I lay down on the floor, thick with sawdust, and extended my arm all the way underneath. I swept it back and forth, finally feeling the cool metal of the makeup tin. I curled my fingers around it and pulled it toward me. Kneeling, I slid the tin up the butt of my leotard, like before. I stood up and readjusted my sweater around my waist, only to see Genevieve watching me. She wore her sleepwalking costume, a filmy white, almost completely see-through negligee. Edward had said she could wear band aids to hide her nipples, but she’d gone without. Modesty was clearly not one of her virtues. Her breasts clearly were. Even in the dark, I could see them plainly. So could all of the soldier actors who made no attempt to pretend they weren’t ogling her.

“Witch?” said Genevieve, one eyebrow raised. I brushed the sawdust off me, slowly, trying to come up with a plausible explanation.

“Lost one of my earrings,” I said. I hoped the sweater covered my pancake-shaped butt. “Maybe it came off in the dressing room.”

Genevieve smiled at me. And screamed.

I jumped about a foot in the air. The soldier actors sniggered. From onstage I heard Edward/Macbeth say, “What was that?”

“It is the cry of women, my good lord,” said the actor who played Seyton.

Of course. It had been time for Lady M.’s suicide and the accompanying off-stage shrieks. Candy and I were supposed to scream along with Genevieve, but I’d been preoccupied. I looked around and saw Candy surrounded by a troop of soldiers. She’d obviously remembered.

I smiled “silly me” at Genevieve and the still-chuckling soldiers, and made my way back to my dressing room. I hoped Genevieve had been distracted by my unintentional buffoonery and wouldn’t realize my costume didn’t include earrings.

I had the dressing room to myself, so it was easy to bury the tin in my duffle bag without anyone noticing. I’d figure out what to do with it later. In the meantime, no one else was going to wear tainted makeup if I could help it.

I shed my sweater, threw on some earrings I found in my bag, and got backstage in time for curtain call. I’d just made it. The actors with the smallest roles, mostly soldier actors, were onstage taking their bows. I stood in the wings beside The Real Witch, and looked around for Candy. I saw her, huddled in conversation with Genevieve. Weird. Candy typically avoided her, claiming Genevieve’s “Method” got on her nerves.

Candy’s voice floated toward me. Wait, did she say, “Murder?”

I quickly turned away so they wouldn’t see me watching them. I strained my ears to hear more of their conversation, but couldn’t catch any more. Then Candy was beside me, just in time for our curtain call.

As I bowed, looking into the bright stage lights, I felt my throat constrict and my mind spin. I desperately wanted, needed, to talk to someone I could trust. Candy was out. Jason, out. Uncle Bob, well, he probably didn’t need anything else on his mind right now. I made it through bows and got offstage. I stood backstage for a minute watching the next round of actors take their bows, my mind still roiling. I felt like I’d burst if I couldn’t talk through my suspicions and feelings. I knew then I needed to go talk to the one person I could trust. My brother.