Ellen Hart Presents Malice Domestic 15: Mystery Most Theatrical. Karen Cantwell
Door after door appeared, some to the right, some to the left. I tried a couple and they were locked. One swung open slightly and I stepped in, just in time to see a streak of black ahead as my quarry turned another corner.
I lost track of how many turns I’d made and in which directions. Suddenly I skidded to a halt. The passageway ended and across the hall a swinging door led to a stairway going up. I could hear footsteps pounding up the stairs ahead of me and I followed. The stairway led to the second floor, and as I reached the top, gasping for breath, I could just see Felix entering another door. The lighted sign above it read Balcony B.
He tried to hold the balcony door closed, but I put my shoulder to it and heard him stumble backward. As I burst through, I saw him running toward the front of the balcony, a desperate look on his face.
“Give it up, Felix,” I said as I advanced. “I heard everything Vivian said. You can’t get away with this.”
“No one will believe you, Harry,” he said, a sneer turning up the corner of his mouth. “You’re just a down-on-your-luck gumshoe. I’m somebody. I brought a lotta jobs and money to this one-horse town with my work on this theater.” He squared his shoulders and preened a bit. “Anyway, I made sure Vivian won’t be doing any more talking. So it’s just your word against mine.”
“Clarissa was my friend, Felix.” I let the words hang in the chill air. “I’ll make sure you pay.”
With a roar, he lunged for me. His hands reached for my lapels and he almost had me, when suddenly his eyes widened and he started to shake. I realized he was looking over my left shoulder. The unmistakable scent of lilacs filled the air and out of the corner of my eye, I could see a flash of white.
Felix put his hands up, shouting, “No! No! Get away from me,” and tried to back up. He stumbled on the balcony stairs when his foot caught on the first row of seats and he started to tip, arms flailing.
“Felix! Grab my arm,” I shouted, reaching out to him. But it was too late. With a scream, Felix toppled over the balcony’s brass railing.
* * * *
Later that evening, after the police had sent a badly shaken Vivian to the hospital and Felix off to the morgue, they recorded my statement.
An electrician working on the lighting for the evening show had seen it all, and testified that I’d tried to save Felix, clearing me of suspicion.
“Any way to keep this out of the papers?” I asked the cop. “There’s nobody left to prosecute, and releasing the story will only harm the theater and bring Clarissa’s family even more sorrow.”
“It does seem like justice has been served,” the detective said, closing his notebook. With a tip of his hat, he set out to clear off a gaggle of reporters just outside the theater door.
Drained, I retrieved my fedora and headed for the exit. Once again I caught a whiff of lilacs. It was probably just the rush of outside air as I pulled open the doors of the theater, but I could have sworn I felt the gentle brush of a curl against my cheek as I stepped out onto Salina Street.
“Bravo, Claire de Vianne,” I muttered, as I realized I’d finally kept my promise. I’d been there to witness Clarissa’s debut performance at State Theater. Somehow, I didn’t think it would be her last.
DRAMA-RAMA FLIP FLOP, by Cindy Brown
Directing kids at the Phoenix’s Drama-Rama summer theater camp should be fun. Unless you have to deal with a 12-year-old psychopath.
I love kids.
Really, I do.
Even—especially—theatre kids. Omigod, their energy—I caught two of them literally swinging from a chandelier last week—but when that energy is channeled, they amaze me with their creativity and touch me with their vulnerability and make me laugh hard enough that I snort Diet Coke out my nose. (BTW, do not try this at home. The bubbles sting.)
But try as I might, Henry… well, Henry was hard to love. In fact, at times I wanted to kill the kid. Sure, he was creative and imaginative, but his ideas tended toward the gross and scary, like rat zombies. He was a born leader, but one who would merrily walk his followers into the deep end of the pool (which he nearly did before I stopped him). He was smart and talented and charismatic, but in all the wrong ways, like a twelve-year-old Lex Luthor. Henry was going to grow up to be either a super criminal or a star.
I first met Henry last year, on the opening day of summer theatre camp for Phoenix Parks and Rec. It was my third year running the camp, so I was feeling pretty confident as I walked onto the stage of our school-sized auditorium. “Welcome, theatre geeks!” I said to the assembled middle schoolers. “Are you ready to have an awesome time at Phoenix Drama-Rama?” A few yesses from the kids, most of whom were buzzing with energy. “I can’t hear you,” I said. “Are you ready to have an awesome—aah!” Whatever had landed on my head was gloppy and green and running down my face so I couldn’t see—and was that a spider inside it?! “Aah!”
The kids laughed as I frantically wiped at my face. “You got slimed!” said a voice from above me. The little demon I’d later come to know as Henry had managed to sneak up to the definitely out-of-bounds catwalk with a Big Gulp cup full of slime. When I learned that he’d made the gooey stuff himself and added a few plastic spiders to it, I was impressed in spite of myself.
That was just the beginning. Besides the slime and the aforementioned aborted pool escapade, during the three weeks of camp, Henry:
Pretended to barf all over his friend’s lunch, using a jar of cooked oatmeal he’d secreted away in his backpack (surprisingly realistic).
Filled a piñata with SpaghettiOs and blew it up with contraband firecrackers. You can imagine what that looked like.
Convinced all the kids I was a private investigator (I am, part-time) with the FBI (I am not) who was trying to uncover a kangaroo smuggling ring (kangaroos? How do you smuggle kangaroos?).
And of course, Henry never missed a day of camp, always arrived early, and often stayed a few minutes late. (His parents frequently picked him up at the last minute. I completely understood. If I had to have Henry with me 24/7, one of us wouldn’t live long.)
So, I was simultaneously worried and relieved when Henry wasn’t at camp on time one morning. “Anyone seen Henry?” I asked. Head shakes all around. When he showed up an hour later, he wore a sling on one arm and a hoodie (even though it was a hundred and ten outside). When asked what had happened, all he’d say was, “You should see the other guy.”
And omigod, was he in a mood—frowning and touchy and ten times more annoying than usual, and that’s saying a lot. “We should be doing Blood Eaters,” he must have said a half dozen times while we were working on props. (Blood Eaters was Henry’s movie script—he was a budding psychopath and filmmaker.) “Snow White and the Seven Aliens is the stupidest play ever.”
“Too bad. And stop that.” We were cleaning up after making props, but Henry was careening around like a bumper car, purposefully running into the walls. Yes, literally bouncing off the walls. I stood up, dusted the glitter off my jeans skirt, and clapped my hands. “All right, everyone. Finish cleaning up and get ready. Places for the top of the show in five.”
The kids put the last prop materials into the cardboard boxes marked “Drama-Rama!,” and then walked, ran, and skipped backstage. Henry followed them, scuffing his feet so that his sneakers squeaked loudly on the wooden floor. “Stupid play.”
It hurt that he kept saying that. Yes, I was getting defensive over a twelve-year-old’s comments, but Snow White and the Seven Aliens was my baby. I wrote it specifically for the class so everyone could have a speaking part, and I thought it was pretty clever. I borrowed the space parody idea from a Wizard of Oz production I’d worked on, but put my own spin on the idea: Snow