Changing the subject, I took Elaine’s hand. “I’m sorry about this afternoon, sweetheart. It’s just that...”
“It’s OK, Daddy. There’s been a lot of tension on the set anyway. Usually theatre people are like a family, but they’ve been fighting worse than cats or dogs.”
“Even Roger Manchester?” I asked.
“Yes,” answered Elaine. “He’s always chewing out someone for stepping on his lines or trying to upstage him. And most of the cast hates Mr. Fields because he treats them like a bunch of incompetent amateurs.”
Reede put down his empty can. “That’s what you get when you put a lot of egotistical people together on a closed set.”
We sat there talking for quite awhile, but when Reede left a little before midnight I had the feeling I didn’t know much about him. It was like watching an actor play a part and wondering about the actor’s real-life identity.
I spent a restless night. Lately, it seemed that Elaine and I were drawing apart, and I wasn’t sure why. About 1:00 a summer storm rolled in from the northwest. As the rain pelted the roof, I thought I heard noises in our two-story frame house. By the time I woke up, though, the storm was gone.
I was fixing coffee when Elaine came in and asked me to give her a ride out to the playhouse. Fields was supposed to pick her up early that morning, but hadn’t shown. She figured he had gotten involved with preparing for their last runthrough and had forgotten.
Seth Fuller had built his playhouse and the guest cottages on the site of his family farm. The war over, Seth had lit out for Hollywood to follow his dream. But, after a few years of waiting on tables and to be discovered, he had packed it in when his parents died leaving him the farm. He sold off most of the acreage and built the little resort. Since then, he’d struggled to make it go summer after summer.
When we drove into the compound, the large converted barn stood like a mother hen amidst the brood of small cottages that in a few days would start to fill up with tourists. Just beneath the playhouse sign, which was in need of paint, was the barrel-chested figure of Seth Fuller standing toe to toe with Mrs. Hanks’ nemesis. Dressed in his usual wardrobe of a black frock coat that looked two centuries old and a broad-brimmed hat, the Reverend Spiker was waving his hands in the dramatic fashion that had brought him from an unknown country preacher to the darling of the Lexington-Louisville media.
I let Elaine out and ambled up within listening distance just to make sure nothing happened. But their quarrel broke up. The Reverend Spiker passed me, pausing only to say, “The hand of righteousness will smite this den of iniquity. Mark my words.”
I continued over to the red-faced owner, half expecting to smell fire and brimstone.
“You’ve got to do something, Sheriff,” bellowed Seth like a wounded bull. “That man’s a fanatic. The more power he gets, the more he wants. He says that if I don’t shut down this ‘place of the Devil,’ he’s going to picket it with that group of his, CAT or CUT or whatever the hell he calls it.”
“Easy, Seth.” I put my hand on his shoulder. Everybody in Clement County knew what a quick temper Seth had.
“Damn it! If that power-crazed preacher surrounds this playhouse with those idiots of his shouting and carrying signs and pointing fingers, nobody’s going to come to the play, Roger Manchester or not. I want this play to be a blockbuster.”
“Daddy, Daddy, come quick!” It was Elaine screaming.
I started running in the direction of her voice. As I rounded the playhouse, I saw my daughter standing in the doorway of Cottage C.
“What’s the matter?” I said.
Elaine just pointed past the open door. Walking through a sweet, incense-like odor, I found sprawled on the hardwood floor Larry Fields. His head was grotesquely twisted to the side and his hair was matted with blood. He looked worse then Herky Sutton the time his block-and-tackle slipped while he was loading hay bales.
I knelt down over the body. Somebody had obviously caved in the back of Fields’ skull. But with what? I glanced around the room. All the windows were locked. It was sparsely furnished with a bed, dresser, couch, chair, table, and a few lamps, all of which looked like they’d been found at a yard sale. A fireplace and woodbox covered one wall. Nothing looked out of place or broken. There hadn’t been a struggle. On top of the dresser I spotted a wallet and some jewelled rings. I pried open the wallet with my pen to find a couple of hundred dollars and Fields’ I.D.
I went back to the body. It was lying in front of the couch that had been set in the middle of the room. The light beside it was still burning. On the drab couch were a pen, a stopwatch, and a green-covered script Death of the Duchess.
I called the state police barracks and the county coroner. While I waited for the Mobile Crime Laboratory and Doc Sloane to arrive, I had another look around. I wanted to search a brown suitcase I found under the bed, but as I had discovered to my embarrassment in the Rhodes robbery case a few years ago, it was “hands-off” until the lab boys were through. I moved on. The fireplace hadn’t been used in a year. I glanced into the woodbox. Beneath the kindling gleamed something golden. I hadn’t played pick-up sticks in years, but I managed to lift off some wood to reveal a small metallic statue. Smeared across the base were smudges of red.
I kept everyone out of the cottage till the lab boys arrived. I pointed out such things as the hidden statue to them, then stayed out of their way while they went through their routine. Doc Sloane Finally showed to take control of the body and promised me the autopsy report as soon as possible, which would be the next day unless he found an unemptied scotch bottle.
I couldn’t help but notice the atmosphere was one of relief, not grief, when I assembled the cast and crew. I questioned everyone there, though no one had much to offer me. Seth said that when he went to bed shortly after midnight the light was still on in Fields’ cottage, but then, he noted, the director stayed up late every night. Reede, who was staying in Cottage B, said he had last seen Fields around 8:00. When Reede had gotten back from my house, he had noticed Fields’ light, but had gone straight to bed. I had to wake Roger Manchester in Cottage A. Having taken a sleeping pill because of a nerve-wracking day, he had gone to bed around sundown, and no, he hadn’t heard a thing during the night. Seth introduced me to the rest of the play’s cast and crew when they arrived during the commotion. They were staying at Emma Sowders’ Boarding House in town, and, having gotten into an all-night poker game, they could vouch for one another.
Then I had time for Elaine. She still seemed shaken up about the whole thing. I was glad when Reede brought some coffee and started to talk to her. It settled her down, and I didn’t feel so bad about going to the office.
Technically this was my case, but in reality the State Police would handle most of the investigation. When they’d digested all the evidence they could get their hands on, they’d throw me a bone and let me make any arrests. They were content to let elected amateurs like me take care of such serious matters as school crossings and picking up the local winos on Saturday night, but real crimes, they loved to remind me, were the province of professionals.
Sometimes I think they’re right. My life seemed an endless parade of traffic citations and pie-judging. Potter was a decent deputy, though he’d been injured in the recent softball game with Barlow County and would be laid up for a couple of weeks. So I had to listen to another of Sarah Pricker’s fantasies. Some teenage boy with a red hunting hat facing backwards had stared through her bedroom window. Her call was interrupted by Mrs. Hanks, who told me I just had to do something about CUT. One of its memebers, acting on orders from Reverend Spiker of course, had walked away from the stacks with Catcher in the Rye. Since I planned to talk to our famous preacher anyway, I told her I’d go see him right away.