The Final Curtain Read online

  “But you put it back in the cabinet, not in your pocket?”

  “That’s right. As a matter of fact, Lieutenant, Mickey was getting his umbrella out of the prop room. He saw me take the gun. Even said, ‘Don’t blow my brains out with that thing!’ He can tell you. But anybody could have come in and put real bullets in the gun.”

  Goldman sat quietly in his chair, studying the other man’s face. Finally he said, “Miller, I’ve got to charge you—but you’ll be bondable. Don’t try to run away. That’s all.”

  Miller got up and turned to leave, but Ainsley entered. Trey glared at him with hatred. “I’m through with you and your play. Get yourself another man, Ainsley!” Then he left the office without waiting for a reply. When he passed down the hall, he paused at the door marked WAITING ROOM and suddenly went inside.

  The cast and crew of the play were gathered, with the exception of Lady Lockridge. They all looked up at him, and Mickey asked at once, “How’d it go, Trey?”

  “How do you think?” Miller answered, shaking his head. “They’re going to charge me with the murder.”

  Most of the cast showed some shock, and Ringo growled, “They won’t be able to hang it on you, Trey!”

  “I know that, but I’m through. I’ve had it with this play and with Ainsley.” He hesitated, then his voice and his face softened. “Just wanted to say—you guys are all right. Wish you all the best, but I’m outta here!” He turned and left, closing the door almost violently on the room, as if shutting out part of his life.

  Dani had been sitting beside Sir Adrian. The room was L shaped, and the two of them had taken chairs in the short, lower section. While they could hear the subdued mumble of voices from the others, they had some privacy.

  “Do you think they’ll find him guilty?” Sir Adrian asked anxiously. He looked older, under the harsh fluorescent lights, and his hands were not steady. He seemed tired, almost ill, at close range. He had left twice, to go to the rest room, he said, but had come back smelling of the powerful licorice breath mints he used. It was so pitiful, Dani thought, the way he tried to cover up his drinking!

  “Oh, no,” she said quickly. “They’ll never get him into court.”

  “Really? How can you know that, Danielle?”

  “Why, Trey denies putting the live ammunition into the gun. As he says, any one of us could have done it. They don’t have any hard evidence. So if the district attorney had little enough sense to try him for murder, he’d be smothered by the NAACP and the ACLU—and every other civil-rights outfit. And the D. A. doesn’t want to get the black community upset, because he’s going to run for governor, next election. The department had to charge somebody, but Trey won’t ever see the inside of a jail, Sir Adrian.”

  He stared at her in amazement. “My dear Danielle—how do you know all these things?”

  Dani suddenly realized she had stepped out of character. “Oh.” She quickly made up an excuse. “Tom Calvin’s been talking to the lawyers. He told me about it.” She evaded more questions by turning to another concern, “I can’t stop thinking about Amber, Sir Adrian. I—I can’t believe she’s dead!”

  “It was very tragic—an awful thing!”

  “I’m hoping it will turn out to have been an accident,” Dani almost whispered. “I’ve been blaming myself for being so distant with her. You see, Sir Adrian—I believe that we all have to meet God. And as a Christian I didn’t show any concern for Amber.”

  Lockridge stared at the floor, his features roughed by the sleepless night. “I doubt she would have listened to you, Danielle,” he finally comforted her. “She was a very hard woman.” He shook his head. “I shouldn’t speak that way of the dead. But I knew Amber better than most.”

  “You’d performed with her?”

  The question caused Lockridge to lift his eyes to meet Danielle’s, and she saw a flash of blind, unreasoning anger in him. It was a sudden glimpse into the depths of the kindly man—a side of him she would not have dreamed existed. He slashed out at her, “You’re mocking me! I didn’t think you were cruel, Danielle!” When he saw the confusion that swept across her face, at once he reached over and touched her hand. “Forgive me, my dear! I—I’m not myself.” He licked his lips, slumped back in his chair, and with his eyes closed, confessed, “I forget you’re not in the theater. If you were, you’d know all about my foolish ways.”

  Dani had a sudden thought. “You and Amber were. . . ?”

  “Yes! I made a fool of myself over her.” His voice sounded weary, but he seemed unable to stop. “It was years ago, Danielle. I was a star, and she was a beautiful young girl. I don’t want to go into the sordid details. It almost killed Victoria. That was the worst.” His head rolled from side to side, and he whispered, “We’ve been married twenty-five years, and I’ve been faithful to her always—except for that one time.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Dani apologized gently. “But I’ve learned that God can take away guilt. Did you know that, Sir Adrian?”

  He opened his eyes and stared at her. “God may forget it, but I never can!” He spoke bitterly. “She blackmailed me, Danielle. I didn’t care what the world thought of me—but I cared desperately what Victoria would think. So I paid and paid, but in the end she told Victoria. She left me, Victoria did—for a year. I almost died, and so did she. Because, Danielle, we have one of those great loves, the kind you read about. I love her more today than I did when we first met—and she feels the same about me.”

  “I think that’s wonderful, Sir Adrian!” Dani whispered. “Thank you for telling me.”

  “You’re an easy person to talk to, my dear. You really should be a psychologist—or perhaps a minister. And I’ll remember what you’ve said about God taking away bad memories.” He sobered. “God knows we need it, Victoria and I!”

  At that moment, the outer door opened, and both of them got up in time to see Ainsley and Goldman enter. Ainsley’s face was set, but he managed a smile. “I am being charged, but will be out on bond at once. The funeral will be at two o’clock tomorrow at Stevens Funeral Home. I know you’ll all be there. Now, Lieutenant Goldman has something to say to you.”

  “I’m going to ask four of you to stay. The rest can come back and give your statements tomorrow. Miss Morgan, Mr. Nero, Mr. Trask, and Miss Rio, you will remain. The rest of you can go. Miss Morgan, come with me, please.”

  Dani followed Goldman into his office, and her eyes widened as she took in the expensive furniture. He saw her reaction and countered, “Didn’t Sharkey warn you that I’m not your average policeman? Everything here is legal, so don’t worry that this is a shakedown.”

  “No, he didn’t say a word.” Dani sat down and looked at the painting, then back at him. “You must be loaded to have a genuine Turner. I didn’t know police work paid so well.”

  “Doesn’t.” Goldman offered her a cigarette from his case, and when she refused, he explained, “I play the stock market. But it bores me, making money. I like being a policeman.”

  “Most people like power.”

  “Do you, Danielle?”

  She gave him a startled look. “I suppose I must—though I know I shouldn’t. Who was it that said, ‘Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely’?”

  He grinned at her. “You know who said that. You’re still trying to play dumb. But I’m on to you, Danielle. The only way you could fool me is to pretend to be smart. That would confuse me, because I know you’re a smart girl trying to play dumb. For some reason.” He studied her before asking, “What’s the reason? Want to tell me?”

  Dani did want to tell him and almost blurted it out. But she had to talk with Ainsley first, so she just smiled and tried to throw him on the defensive, “You just like to make things complicated, Lieutenant. All public officials are like that.”

  He leaned back in his chair, and ignoring her ploy, asked suddenly, “Call me Jake. Will you go out with me?”

  The question caught her off guard. Her cheeks flushed, and s
he said too quickly, “No, I won’t.”

  “Is it because I’m Jewish?”

  “No! Of course not.” She didn’t know how to explain that it had nothing to do with his background, but everything to do with her faith in Christ.

  “Why so large a no? Is it because you’re a Christian?” He laughed then. “How does he know that? you’re thinking. I have my methods, Watson.”

  “Tom Calvin told you.”

  “Sure he did.” He leaned forward and put his chin in his hands. “Did you know the Bible says that money will buy anything?”

  “It doesn’t say that.”

  “Sure it does. In Ecclesiastes 10:19. It says . . . ‘Money answereth all things.’”

  “It doesn’t mean that!” Dani insisted.

  “Why does it say it then?” Goldman asked. He was, she knew, toying with her. His dark eyes were fixed on her, and she could not read what was in them.

  “You’re a peculiar sort of policeman,” she said suddenly. “Do you ever catch any criminals—or is this just a way you have of getting dates?”

  “I catch lots of criminals.” He smiled back. “And you’re the only suspect I ever wanted to take to dinner.”

  “I’m not a suspect,” she jeered. The only way to handle Jacob Goldman was to match his wit. “You may be a spoiled, rich cop, but you’re not thick enough to think I had anything to do with killing Amber LeRoi. Why, you can’t even make the charges stick on Trey and Jonathan. You just have to do something to satisfy the captain and the police commissioner, until you get something real to go on.” She laughed outright at his expression, which for once was filled with surprise. “See, I really am as smart as you are, Jake!”

  He grinned at her, before retaliating, “That proves I was right, doesn’t it? Now, what about this killing. Who did it?” He leaned back and went over the facts, admitting at last that it would be idiotic for either Jonathan or Trey to kill Amber LeRoi. “But we’ve got a corpus delecti, Danielle, and somebody’s got to go down for it. That’s what the D.A. says, and around here that’s as if it’s handed down from Mount Sinai. So you can give me some help.”

  “I would if I could.” Dani sobered and continued, “I can’t stop thinking about Amber. She had enemies, but I think she might have changed.”

  “Changed how? And who are these enemies she had?”

  “Oh, I don’t have anything but a feeling. I talked to her just before she went out on the stage. She seemed vulnerable. I think she was tired of the way she was living.”

  “What enemies?” Goldman pressed her.

  “She—wasn’t a gentle person, Jake. I’m sure you can get the details from the cast. I don’t really know much. Can I go now?”

  “Sure, Danielle.” He got up and went to open the door for her. “I’ll see you at the funeral tomorrow.” He added quickly, “Sure, I’ll be there. I want to watch the faces. That’s what us homicide cops are like—just a bunch of vultures.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think that’s true, Jake. It’s not true of you.” Dani paused before amplifying it, “Most of us smart people don’t seem to have much in the way of hearts, Jake—but we do, you and me.” She walked away, leaving him to watch her, with a look of admiration in his dark eyes. Then he shook his shoulders together and barked, “All right, Sharkey, get Nero in here!”

  A pale iron-gray sky covered the mourners’ grief. As six hefty men carried the casket from the sleek ebony hearse, the cast of Out of the Night stood awkwardly around the gaping hole in the earth. The rich green of the carpet surrounding the cavity was as obvious as the layer of rouge on the cheeks of a withered crone.

  The funeral had been ornate, but the crowd of show-business people that had filled the small chapel had not come to the cemetery. However, the number of poorly or thinly dressed fans who came to stand in the fine sleet that stung the cheeks impressed Dani.

  The minister took his place, read a psalm, then offered a brief prayer. When he was finished, the crowd turned and moved hastily away, threading their ways cautiously through ancient, mossy stones that seemed to reach upward with harsh fingers.

  Once they got to the cars, Jonathan invited, “Ride back with Nero and me, Danielle.”

  She got in, sitting between the two men, and none of them said a word all the way back to the funeral home. She got out of the black limo, and Jonathan said, “My car’s over here. I’ll take you home.”

  She nodded and got in the front seat. Nero slid in the back. As Jonathan drove through the city, he spoke of his student days and of the hardships of getting into the world of drama. Dani listened with part of her mind, while the rest of it wrestled to shake off the gloom that had fallen on her at the cemetery.

  Caught up in her own thoughts, she was surprised to see that Jonathan had stopped in front of her apartment. Dani got out. “Thanks for the ride, Jonathan,” she tossed to him. But he surprised her by asking, “May I come in? We need to talk.”

  “Well—it’s not a fancy place, you know.”

  “Doesn’t matter.”

  Leaving Nero in the car, Jonathan followed her, and Dani was glad that she had cleaned the small rooms before leaving. She took him inside and motioned to the couch. “Sit down,” she offered. “I’ll fix coffee.”

  “Not for me,” Jonathan said. He walked to the window and stared out. Dani stood there awkwardly, wondering what had brought him here.

  “What is it, Jonathan?” she asked finally.

  He turned, and she noticed his bloodshot eyes. “I’m going to go on with the play, Danielle. And I want you to help.”

  “I don’t see how you can do it,” Dani objected. “It’s pretty obvious that a homicidal type is in the cast. I’m not sure the police will let you perform.”

  “I’ve been through all that—with our lawyers and with the police,” Ainsley explained quickly. “The police don’t like it, but legally there’s no way they can close us down.”

  Dani shrugged. “That may be so—but you don’t have Trey Miller. That set can’t be operated by just anybody. Most of all, you don’t have a leading lady. How long will it take for someone to take over? Two weeks? And I’m not sure that all the rest of the cast will stay. Some of them are pretty shaky, Jonathan, and I don’t blame them.”

  Jonathan nodded. “I know, Danielle. Do you think I haven’t told myself all that and more a thousand times? Humpty Dumpty’s broken, and all the king’s horses and men can’t put him together again!”

  He fixed a sudden, penetrating stare on her and quietly stated, “I want you to stay, Danielle.”

  “Goldman has to be told that I’m a private investigator,” Dani stipulated. “If I stay on, Goldman will have to know. Policemen are funny about things like that. He could get my license revoked.”

  “Jake will be all right,” Jonathan assured her. “He’s a friend of mine. Besides, I think he already suspects you’re more than a prompter. He’s pretty sharp.”

  Dani studied him. “That’s got to be done—but I still don’t think I should stay. You need police protection, if you go on with the play. I can’t watch you all the time.”

  “Neither can they,” Jonathan pointed out. Then he moved closer and said, “Danielle, I want you to stay, but not as a prompter.” He saw her think that over and interjected, “We can get someone to do the sets, but I want you to take over Amber’s role.”

  Nonplussed, Dani stared at him. She had known that something was in his head, but this? After emitting a short, humorless laugh, she shook her head. “That’s out of the question.”

  “Why is it?” Jonathan asked.

  “Well, the obvious reason—and I’m surprised you haven’t seen it—is that I’m not a good enough actress.”

  “Yes, you are.” He nodded at her and added emphatically, “You know the role, as far as the lines are concerned. And the night you walked through in Amber’s place, I saw at once that you had the ability.”

  Jonathan saw Danielle’s expression and began to speak persuasive
ly. “Danielle, listen to me, please! You’ve got so much! You’ve got your career, your family. You’ve got God. All I have is the theater. And if I don’t make it with this play, I’m lost. I know you can do this part!” His voice had begun to rise, and she saw that he was having difficulty controlling himself.

  He dropped his head, struggled for a few seconds, then lifted his eyes to hers. “You’re a strong-willed woman, Danielle. I know you won’t do this thing unless you think it’s right. I—I’m not accustomed to dealing with people who think like that—what’s right! It’s always, What’s in it for me? So all I can do is beg. Something I’ve not done much of,” he added ruefully. “Will you help me, Danielle, please?”

  Everything told Dani to say no at once, but instead she walked to the window. As she stared out into the cold, gray sky, her mind swarmed with thoughts so varied and thick that she could only wait. Finally, when she could pray, she asked God to make the decision. I have no wisdom to use in this case, Lord, she explained humbly.

  Jonathan stood there silently, his face tense and pale.

  Finally Dani took a deep breath and turned to face him. “All right, I’ll do it,” she agreed evenly.

  “Thank God!” Jonathan’s face and voice both expressed relief.

  “And I can help you with two of your other problems,” she said. A smile touched her lips. “You need two men—one to be a bodyguard, the other to run the sets. And I have a recommendation.”

  “Who are they?” Jonathan demanded.

  “Their name is Ben Savage,” Dani spoke emphatically and laughed at the expression on the actor’s face. “You haven’t forgotten your last meeting with him, have you, Jonathan?”

  “No!” Ainsley said ruefully. “I can see the bodyguard role well enough—but can he run the sets? They’re pretty complicated.”