We took my Bronco. Pollard sat up front with me and navigated. The Loghouse Theatre was in the old Fort William section of town. It took us fifteen minutes to get there. When we arrived, the parking lot was almost empty.
“Too late?” Schanno said.
“Lights are still on in the lobby. Let’s give it a try.”
The doors were locked, but we could see two kids inside, early twenties. The young man wore an old-fashioned white shirt with a black string tie, and his hair was slicked down and parted in the middle. The young woman wore a calico dress and had long gold curls with bangs. They were straightening up the lobby. I knocked on the glass of the front door.
The woman turned toward us and I saw her mouth the word closed.
“Please,” I called. “It’s important.”
Her chest heaved with a theatrically tired sigh, but she came to the door. The young man went on with his work.
“I’m sorry, folks,” she said as soon as she unlocked and opened up. “The performance is finished. We’re done for the night.”
She was pretty and heavily made up. Her golden Shirley Temple curls were a wig, I could see. One of the actors, I guessed.
“We’ve come a long way,” I told her. “We’d like to see Preston Ellsworth. Please. Even just for a minute.”
“You’re fans?” She sounded surprised.
“Yes. Fans. His biggest,” I said. “Even if we’re too late for the performance, could we at least get an autograph?”
“You want Preston Ellsworth’s autograph?” She glanced at the young man, who studiously avoided looking at her. “Well, okay, I’ll tell him,” she said. “Wait here.”
The kid with the slicked-down hair grabbed a Bissell sweeper and began to push it back and forth over the carpet with a crisp zip of the brushes inside. I turned away from the door where the young woman had gone. I wanted my back to Ellsworth when he walked in so I could surprise him and see the look on his face when he recognized me.
“Here we are,” said a cheery voice a minute later. “I understand you’ve come a long way.”
It didn’t sound like the same man who’d spoken to me at the mansion, but I supposed a good actor ought to be able to disguise his voice. I turned to him.
He was fiftyish, with a thin handsome face and pleasant gray eyes. He’d thrown on a tan sport coat over his white T-shirt and he wore jeans. His face was still heavily made up for performance. He appeared fit, not at all like the sickly madman in the white robe who’d screamed bloody murder when I’d approached him in the mansion. I’d thought the similarities would be obvious, but he looked so different. If he recognized me, he hid it well.
“Yes,” I said. “From the States.”
“Is that so?” He took in our wet clothes. “Did you swim here?” He smiled at his joke, showing beautiful, capped teeth. The teeth of the man on Manitou Island had been like moldy cheese. “Where in the States?”
“Minnesota,” I said. “But then, you already knew that.”
He looked puzzled, but still pleasant. “I did?” He shrugged it off. “Gloria said you were fans. Is that right?”
“Of one performance in particular,” I said. “I think you know which one.”
The puzzlement morphed into confusion laced with just a hint of annoyance. “I’m afraid I’m not following you at all.”
“This isn’t a bad performance either, Mr. Wellington.”
“Look,” he said, with a note of exasperation. “Is this a joke or something?”
“No joke. Although it might be a little funny if murder weren’t involved.”
Hands on his hips. Perturbation now. “Who are you and what’s this all about?”
The kid with the Bissell sweeper kept at his work, but he wasn’t missing a word.
“Me, you’ve already met,” I said. “We almost did battle over a pocket watch, on Manitou Island. These are my colleagues. Wallace Schanno, former sheriff of Tamarack County, Minnesota. Trinky Pollard, formerly with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. And this is Henry Meloux, the real father of the real Henry Wellington. As for what this is about, Mr. Ellsworth, it’s about the attempt made on Henry’s life the day after I spoke with you in the Wellington mansion on Manitou Island.”
His brow furrowed. He eyed me in a threatening way. “I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about.”
Trinky Pollard said, “You can talk to us, or you can talk to one of my friends in the RCMP.”
He hesitated. “You’re talking about that crazy recluse on the island out there in the bay, right?”
We stared at him.
“I have no relationship whatsoever with Henry Wellington. All I know about the man is what I read in the papers. If you want to call your RCMP friend, fine. When he gets here, I’ll ask him to charge you with harassment. Good night.”
He turned away.
“Does this mean we don’t get an autograph?” I said.
He slammed the door behind him.
“Is it him?” Schanno asked.
“I don’t know, Wally. I thought if it was, I could bluff it out of him.”
“He had me convinced,” Schanno said.
“Either he’s telling the truth or he’s a very good actor.”
The kid with the Bissell snorted.
Pollard turned his way. “You know him?”
The kid looked up at us and feigned surprise. “What?”
Pollard walked toward him. “Do you know Preston Ellsworth?”
The kid watched her approach and thought about it. “Oh yeah, I know him,” he said with a smirk.
“Was he lying?”
“Hey, I don’t-”
Pollard was very close to him now. “Was he lying?”
The kid leaned on the handle of his Bissell. “What you just witnessed was a performance.”
“Thank you,” she said.
“Here’s something else for you. He drives a Ferrari. He does seasonal melodrama for a living, but he drives a Ferrari. How do you figure that?”
“Yes,” Pollard agreed. “How do you figure that? I think we’ll go back and talk to Mr. Ellsworth further.”
The kid shrugged-no big deal to him-and went back to cleaning the lobby. “Through that doorway and down the hall. His dressing room’s on the right. His name’s on the door,” he said without looking at us again.
The door was unlocked, and we went in without knocking. Ellsworth was at his dressing table. He’d removed his sport coat and was in his T-shirt. He was in the process of wiping cold cream off his face when he saw us in the mirror. He was clearly startled, then angry.
He swung toward us. “What the hell do you think you’re doing here?”
“We came to congratulate you on a pretty good performance,” I said. “And to get the truth from you.”
“If you don’t get out of here, I’m calling the police.”
“Fine,” Pollard said. “And when you do, maybe you can explain to them how an actor in local theater gets the kind of money it takes to buy a Ferrari. And if the police aren’t interested, I have friends with the CRA who’d love to follow up on that.”
“I pay my taxes.”
By that time, I’d had enough. I was on him in two long strides. I grabbed a handful of his T-shirt, bunched it at his throat, and shoved him against the back of his chair. I put my face an inch from his. I could smell the greasepaint, the cold cream, the ghost of whiskey on his breath. His eyes bloomed with surprise and fear.
“I’m tired of being fucked around,” I said. “That goon Morrissey followed me back to Minnesota and tried to kill my friend Henry. Morrissey’s dead, but I want to know if there are going to be any others trying to make sure the killing gets done. I swear to God, what I’m about to do to you isn’t a performance you’ll soon forget. You want that face to be in shape for the stage tomorrow night, you’ll answer my questions now. Who hired you?”
Ellsworth gave me no answer. I lifted him out of the chair and slammed him against the wall. The drywall behind him crunched.
“I can’t tell you,” he squawked.
“Can’t?”
“Breach of contract. If I tell you, I lose everything.”
“Everything’s already lost, pal. The gig is over. We’re busting Wellington wide open, and I’ve got no problem busting you open first. Who hired you?”