Running Out of Time. Suzanne Trauth
was a shrug here and there, a couple of “I don’t knows” and a frustrated exhalation from the costumer. I hadn’t seen her since the end of the play.
“Chrystal,” I said, “I don’t think she was in the curtain call.”
“You know, come to think of it, I didn’t see her there either,” Chrystal said.
“Maybe she left early. Was she sick or something?”
“Sick of this show,” Vernon groused at my back.
“Oh, Vernon, bring it down a notch. You have the biggest role and the most lines. You should be happy.” Mildred thumped his back and gave him a shove toward the exit.
I stifled a chuckle. “I guess Mildred’s taking no prisoners tonight.”
“Everyone’s kind of fed up with the play,” Chrystal confided.
“That’s nothing new at the ELT, from what I’ve seen during the last two years.”
“This time it’s a little different.” She lowered her voice. “People are afraid the town won’t come to see it. Once everyone finds out how long it is. And how it’s…you know…”
I hesitated. What was the right word? “Kind of mind-numbing?”
Chrystal tittered and trundled off. “If you see Sally, tell her I’m gunning for her. No one’s supposed to leave without checking with me or Penny first.”
Penny! I scanned the house that was fast emptying out. Lola, onstage, was twisting a length of hair and listening to Walter pontificate about a piece of stage business. He flopped on the ground to demonstrate his point. Behind them, Penny tapped her leg with the clipboard and pushed her glasses up her nose. I waited until Walter was flat on the ground, practically licking the floor, while Lola watched with her “Oh brother” expression, to walk to the front of the house and signal Penny.
She walked importantly to the lip of the stage. “What’s up, O’Dell?”
“Penny, have you seen Sally?” I asked.
“Sally Oldfield? Third chair, second row of the graveyard?”
“Yes.”
“O’Dell, final dress is over. It’s after midnight. Where do you think she is?”
Was this a quiz? “Home, right?” I said.
“Duh!” Penny loved to stump me.
“Okay but she wasn’t here for the curtain call and Chrystal was looking for her. No one seemed to know where she went. Did she check in with you—?”
Penny smirked. “She was in the curtain call. Everybody’s in the curtain call.”
“I didn’t see her.”
“O’Dell, actors are not allowed to miss the curtain call. She had to be here.”
“But Chrystal didn’t see her either,” I said.
Penny’s eyes narrowed as she checked her clipboard. A note of alarm crept into her voice. “Actors gotta tell me if they leave early,” she blustered.
“I know,” I said sympathetically. Obviously Penny had no idea where Sally Oldfield had gone. I couldn’t help thinking about Sally staring across Main Street at a strange man. And despite saying she thought he was someone else, Sally looked like she’d seen a ghost.
4
Opening night. I spent the morning prepping the Windjammer for the weekend crowd and reserved the late afternoon for setting up the mulled wine and hot apple cider. I figured I could work at the theater uninterrupted: JC had finished final touch-ups on the scenery this morning and Lola had an early afternoon appointment at Snippets to get her roots dyed before the curtain rose on Eton Town.
I’d already combined the ingredients at the restaurant and allowed the mixture to boil for a few minutes. At four thirty I enlisted Enrico to help me haul the gallons of hot drinks to the theater—to simmer on the hotplate—along with twelve apple pies. The cast would be showing up in the next hour or so, and I wanted to have everything set before the organized chaos of actors and crew and Walter disturbed my serenity.
I gave the mulled wine one last quick stir before I went to the women’s dressing room backstage. Reluctantly, I had agreed to don the same early American costume as the cast, one more way to tie the theme food to the play, Lola had said. Chrystal had laid out a black skirt, white bodice, and mob cap with a full crown and a ruffled edge. My great-aunt Maureen wore something like the cap to bed whenever she had a cold. I never knew why.
I caught a glimpse of myself in the dressing room mirror, my wavy, auburn hair tucked up inside the mob cap. I had to admit, it wasn’t the most attractive get-up I’d ever worn. But I was taking one for the team.
I walked into the hallway outside the dressing room and cut through the green room. Soon the lounge would be filled with the noise of actors getting into costume and makeup, rehearsing the hymns, and running through the wedding square dance. But now the backstage was deathly silent. I walked onstage and inhaled the sharp aroma of paint and sawdust and a hint of mold. Work lights cast a dim wash of illumination over the scenery, already set up with the Act One side of the turntable facing the house. On the opposite side of the platform, the crew had set up the seats for the graveyard scene. I gazed at the set, wondering what Walter and the rest of the cast would do if the rotating stage stopped rotating. They might have to—
A gasp.
I whirled to my right. “Hello?” Chills ran down my spine.
There was no answer. I made a tiny move forward and listened. I could have sworn I heard someone panting. Must be the draftiness of the theater, air currents flowing into and out of the space.
Scram, I told myself. No sense creating scary scenarios. I’d had several run-ins with the theater, chased and chasing. And nearly getting killed. I should have learned my lesson and stayed away when the theater was empty. But the fall skirmish with two murderers seemed like a lifetime ago.
I hurried to the staircase that led from the lip of the stage to the front of the house and had one foot on the first step when I heard it again: sharp intakes of breath, as though someone were crying. I spun around. “Who’s there?”
A shadow moved behind me and my blood ran cold.
“Dodie,” a voice whispered.
I squinted into the semi-dark. “Sally? Is that you?” Relief flooded my body, my heart moving out of my mouth, its rhythm slowing down. “You scared me. Where have you been? I know you missed the curtain call last night even though Penny swore that…”
She slid out from the shadow of the front drape. And then I gasped. Her face was blotchy and tear-stained. She stared at her hands as if she didn’t recognize them. One palm was covered with dark streaks, the other hidden in a closed fist. My pulse quickened. “Sally? What’s wrong?”
She looked up, her eyes darted wildly. As I ran toward her across the stage, my shoe caught in the hem of my skirt and I tripped, falling forward. I reached down to break my tumble and when I looked up again, she had disappeared. I yelled after her, “Sally, wait!” But she’d had a good head start. I hiked up my skirt and ran down the stairs into the house after her.
Walter appeared from the green room. “What are you doing here?” he asked coldly.
He hadn’t gotten over my digging into a murder last spring that revealed his playing fast and loose with the box office till. If it wasn’t for Lola running the show now, I’d be banned from the ELT. “I was setting up the concession stand,” I said with as much dignity as I could muster.
“In here?” Walter asked sarcastically.
I dropped my skirt. “Never mind about me. Sally just ran out of here.”
Walter looked puzzled. “Sally?”
“Oldfield.