A Sadie Kramer Flair Mystery 02 - A Flair For Drama Read online

  Roxy shrugged. “Maybe. Personally, I think it’s Alex, Russell’s understudy, though he’s way too nice a guy. He deserves better. But I really don’t care one way or the other. I try not to get wrapped up in the soap opera around here.”

  After a sharp knock, the door opened, and Coop stuck his head in. “Sorry to interrupt, Rox, but do you want red or blue lights in that second scene?”

  “Blue,” Roxy said. “The red is too warm. I don’t understand how that got mixed up. It was blue all along.”

  “The lighting tech said part of the cue sheet was torn off. I’ll print and tape down a new one.” Coop ducked out, closing the door behind him.

  Roxy turned back to Sadie, shaking her head. “It’s always something with this show. Listen, where are you staying? Maybe we can get together for a drink later.”

  “I’m right down the street at a hotel…Seaview…Seaside…Seavista…Seasomething,” Sadie said. She bent down and reached into her tote bag, searching for the hotel’s registration receipt, knowing the name would be on it, but came up with a Milkbone, instead. She dropped it back in and looked up at Roxy.

  “Um. I have a bit of a problem,” Sadie said. “I’m missing something from my tote bag. Do you mind if I have a look around the theatre to see if I, um, dropped it on my way back here?”

  “No problem,” Roxy said. “I really have to finish working, but I know where you’re staying. Give me an hour to wrap things up. I’ll meet you in the hotel bar. It’ll be easier to talk there without the whole crew around at Curtain Call. Can you find your way out?”

  “Sure,” Sadie said.

  Roxy left the dressing room door open, and as she disappeared, she called over her shoulder, “And if you’re hungry before then, I recommend the potato skins over that stash of snacks in your purse.”

  Sadie took a breath, looked in the tote bag again and sighed. No Coco. She left the bag and crept down the hall, peering into dressing rooms, hunting for the little escapee. As she wandered by, some of the actors looked at her curiously, especially since she was hunching over a little so that she could be closer to Coco’s level.

  Coop came around the corner and stopped in front of her. “Can I help you?”

  “No, no, I was just looking around, so curious. Everything back here seems magical.” She backed her way down the hall to the dressing room where she and Roxy had been talking, left the door open a crack and stared at her tote bag. There was Coco, gazing at Sadie from the tote, as if she’d been waiting for her for days, looking as if she’d never left.

  * * *

  The Sea Urchin bore all the trappings of a typical hotel bar: a sleek counter with tall stools, half a dozen circular high tables, a side row of booths, and medium to low lighting. Every few seats a bowl of salty snacks waited, aimed to encourage thirsty guests to linger over refills before retiring to their rooms. A flat-screen television showed recaps of the day’s sporting events. Only the fishing nets and model ships on the wall hinted at the watering hole’s seaside location.

  Sadie sat in an empty booth and ordered the recommended potato skins — “extra cheese, please” — and an Irish coffee — “extra whipped cream, please.” She made a mental note of the chocolate lava cake on the menu, which could make a fine after-show treat the next night. It seemed an unusual offering for a bar, but she never judged when it came to chocolate, her biggest addiction.

  Slipping a pretzel into her bag, she pulled out her cell phone to check messages. The rhinestones on the hot pink case sparkled under the bar lighting. Given a choice, she would have gone with a zebra print case, or perhaps lime green, but Coco did love pink and, after all, Coco was the one who had to reside with the phone half the time.

  There were only three messages on her voicemail, not bad for a full day away from home. Amber, her assistant at her fashion boutique, had called to say the day had been uneventful, though there had been several good sales and Matteo, their favorite chocolatier, had made a new batch of raspberry truffles. The second call was a telemarketer; Sadie hit delete immediately. The last was Roxy, saying she was on the way, a true enough statement, as she slid into the booth just as Sadie put the phone away. Roxy ordered a draft beer, which arrived at the same time as the potato skins.

  “Glad the night is over,” Roxy said, slumping against the booth’s cushion.

  The two women had aged differently: Sadie was all soft curves and smiles while Roxy was lean, all sharp elbows and cheekbones, though she had an open, honest face.

  “Must be a lot of work, putting on a show like this,” Sadie said. She reached for a potato skin and took a bite, closing her eyes and sighing at the thick layer of cheddar cheese. “Gotta love carbs.”

  “It’s not the show itself that’s work,” Roxy said. “Of course, that is work. It’s no small feat putting on a full musical like Songs to the Sun. But the drama! And I don’t mean the show itself. This cast and crew have more theatrics offstage than on. Take Brynn, for example, such a prima donna. It’s not enough for her to drive Sid crazy, though he drives her crazy, too. She’s always demanding special treatment. Even I’m expected to kowtow to her.”

  “Really?” Sadie finished off one potato skin and started in on another.

  “Absolutely,” Roxy sighed. “Sid wants her happy, if for no other reason than to keep her from complaining. So when she wants props moved around, we move them. When she wants the lights ‘just so,’ we adjust them to her wishes. And heaven forbid a curtain rises or falls at the wrong time if it’s her entrance or exit.”

  “Sounds dreadful,” Sadie said. “Potato skin?” She held the plate out, setting it back down when Roxy shook her head. “I take it she hasn’t made many friends with others in the show.”

  Roxy laughed. “Hardly, although both Russell and Alex fawn over her like adolescent boys. She loves the attention, of course, so she laps it up. Quite a competition those two have over her.”

  “Nevada doesn’t get the same attention?” Sadie dropped another pretzel in her tote bag, and Coco chirped a thank you.

  “Not nearly as much,” Roxy said. “She’s not as demanding. She’s probably the easiest to get along with, pretty easy going. Though…”

  “Though what?” Sadie leaned forward, intrigued.

  “Well, she has…an edge to her,” Roxy said, clearly searching for the right words. “That’s the best way I can explain it. It’s subtle, but it’s there. I figure she resents not getting the lead. Everyone knows she deserved it. Even Brynn, I’m sure. I did overhear her calling Brynn a less than complimentary name tonight when she was talking about her to one of the other actresses. No love is lost between those two, that’s for sure.”

  “That must make things tense,” Sadie mused.

  “Not for Brynn.” Roxy snorted. “She thinks it’s funny, and Nevada’s mostly subtle anger just feeds Brynn’s sense of entitlement. Anyway, it just is what it is.” The cell phone she’d placed on the table when she first arrived vibrated. “Sorry,” she said, looking at the screen. “It’s Coop; I’d better answer.” After a short conversation, she disconnected and sighed, turning to Sadie. “The potato skins are all yours. Coop thinks he forgot to lock up the theatre. I need to go back.” She stood up, slipped her phone in her pocket and gulped the rest of her beer. “Like I said, it’s always something. I’ll see you tomorrow. Glad you came down.”

  “Same here,” Sadie said. She watched Roxy leave and dropped one last pretzel into her tote bag. “What do you think, Coco? I’m starting to believe more acting is going on off the stage than on.”

  Whether the yip that followed was a vote of agreement or a plea for another salty treat, Sadie nodded. “Two, two, two shows in one, Coco. That’s what we’re getting. The question is: which will turn out to be more interesting?”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Sadie reached over to the night stand, her hand slapping blindly across the surface, knocking off a pair of rhinestone-studded reading glasses, a dog-eared fashion magazine, and a half consumed
bag of peanut butter chocolate cups before landing on her cell phone. Annoyed the Dragnet ringtone had interrupted her dream of starring in Annie, she looked at the caller ID, surprised to see both that it was 1:30 am and Roxy’s phone number on the screen.

  Coco stirred in her “palace,” an elegant travel crate decked out with silk lining, a velvet pillow and a china water bowl. Sadie soothed her after the quiet whine. She knew Coco hadn’t been pleased when she changed the ringtone. But there was only so much “La Bamba” one could take when calls came in. And, after all, Coco had her own favorite music, always Salsa, on her Shuffle, clipped to her collar.

  “Roxy?” Sadie sat up and clicked on the bedside light, temporarily startled at the sight of her neon pink flamingo pajamas. Why hadn’t she thought to pack the ones with pastel poodles? Those were much less shocking when viewed unexpectedly from a half asleep state.

  “What?” Sadie sat up straighter, suddenly wide-awake. Coco lifted her head off the velvet pillow in her crate. “Oh, my!” Sadie stood up. Coco sprang to her paws. “How awful!” She began to pace. Coco mimicked her, changing directions each time Sadie did an about face. The call lasted only a minute, after which Sadie hurried to the restroom to splash cold water on her face while Coco tapped one paw impatiently.

  “Coco, we need to go right now,” Sadie said as she rushed back into the room. “There’s been a terrible accident. Roxy is beside herself. It looks like Nevada will be playing the lead, after all. Oh my, oh my.” Sadie shook her head as she traded the pink flamingos for a bright yellow jogging suit. “Oh, my,” she said again. She scooped Coco out of the crate and deposited her in the tote bag, tossed in a few treats, and headed to the theatre.

  Roxy waited on the sidewalk, uncharacteristically wild eyed and frantic, arms waving. A man who was obviously a plainclothes policeman stood nearby with a notepad and pen. “As I said before,” Roxy stated, “I came down to the theatre to check the outside stage door. My assistant thought he might have forgotten to lock it.”

  “And then what happened, ma’am?” The detective scribbled while waiting for a response. Sadie peeked over his shoulder at the notepad and got an odd look from him. His nametag said, “H. Higgins.”

  “It’s not ‘ma’am’, officer, it’s Roxy, Roxy West. Like Mae West, but without all the curves.”

  “Yet just as outspoken. And it’s ‘Detective,’ not ‘Officer.’ Detective Henry Higgins.”

  “You’re kidding,” Roxy said.

  He ignored her and made another note, stepping away from Sadie as he did. “I’ll ask you again: what happened after you came down to the theatre?”

  “The door was locked,” Roxy said. “So I knew Coop had locked it when he left after all.”

  “But you decided to go in, anyway.”

  Roxy crossed her arms. Sadie thought this odd, yet it probably made sense given the detective’s accusatory, interrogating tone. The two definitely hadn’t gotten off to a good start.

  “Yes,” Roxy said. “I figured I might as well. I was already here. It made sense to double check everything.”

  “So you went inside. What happened next?”

  “I reached for the light switch, but then realized the lights were already on. That was strange, because Coop would have turned them off before he locked up.”

  “You’re sure about that?” Higgins kept writing.

  “Yes, of course I’m sure about it,” Roxy huffed.

  After Roxy spoke, someone barked twice, and the detective glanced first at Sadie, then at her tote bag, then back to Sadie. She shrugged. He turned back to Roxy. “Go ahead.”

  Roxy frowned and rubbed her forehead “I’m trying to remember.” She raised an arm in the air, as if retracing her attempt to turn on the lights. “When I realized the lights were already on, I called out for Coop, figured maybe he’d decided to come back on his own.”

  “Even though he’d called to ask you to do it?”

  “Yes, why not?” Roxy said. “He’s responsible that way. In any case, he didn’t answer. No one did. So I went to check the wings, to see if someone else was there and just didn’t hear me.”

  “The wings?” Detective Higgins lifted an eyebrow and kept his pen poised over the notebook.

  “The side areas of the stage,” Roxy explained. “I thought someone might have left something behind after the rehearsal. And that’s when I saw…” She choked up, forcing out the words. “She was just there, in the middle of the stage. I ran over, thinking she’d fainted, but…the blood…it was horrible!”

  “Can you verify the victim’s name?”

  Roxy nodded and stuttered. “Br…Brynn Baker.”

  “Is there anyone who didn’t like Ms. Baker, who had a grievance with her?”

  Roxy coughed. “She could be hard to get along with sometimes.”

  “Thank you. Please don’t leave just yet, in case we have other questions.” Higgins clicked his pen, inserted it into his suit pocket, and went into the theatre.

  “Roxy!” Coop rushed up. His hair was in dire need of a comb, and his jacket hung open, revealing a T-shirt sporting the words “Are you supposed to be touching those props? I didn’t think so.”

  “Thanks for coming down, Coop,” Roxy said.

  “Of course!” Coop hugged Roxy. “Is it true? Is Brynn … dead?”

  Roxy nodded. She looked both distraught and exhausted, as if the adrenaline rush of the initial shock was wearing off.

  “How awful,” Coop said. “I couldn’t believe it when you called me. Everything seemed fine when I left. I checked all the stage areas carefully.”

  “You were worried you’d forgotten to lock the door,” Sadie pointed out. “Why is that?”

  Coop looked from Sadie to Roxy and back to Sadie again.

  “I rushed out to meet the rest of the crew at Curtain Call.”

  “And nothing seemed off to you when you closed up…” Sadie’s voice trailed off as she watched the medical examiner’s car pull up.

  “Who are you?” Coop asked.

  “I’m sorry. I saw you backstage tonight, and Roxy told me you’re her right-hand man. I’m Sadie Kramer, Roxy’s friend.”

  “Oh, yeah! I know about you. And, no, nothing seemed off. The cast and crew had all left. The theatre was empty. It was like any other night, quiet, at least at that point.”

  Sadie raised her eyebrows at the last comment. “At least at that point? What about earlier?”

  “Well,” Coop said, thinking back. “I did hear a lot of shouting from inside Brynn’s dressing room just after the rehearsal. But I didn’t think much of it. I heard yelling before rehearsal, too. It was probably just Sid reading Brynn the riot act about one thing or another, like always.”

  “It’s true,” Roxy said. “That’s not unusual. Sid does that all the time, especially since Brynn dumped him. I don’t like defending her, but he shouldn’t take personal grievances out on people by nitpicking things that have nothing to do with what’s really upsetting him.”

  The conversation paused as Detective Higgins stepped outside the theatre and called out. “Anyone here who can explain some of the stage set-up for our report?”

  “I’ll go,” Coop said, holding up one hand to stop Roxy from responding. “You’ve had enough trauma for one night.” He jogged over to the stage door and disappeared inside with the policeman.

  “I should be helping,” Roxy said, “But I don’t want to go back inside.”

  “I don’t blame you,” Sadie said. “It looks like your assistant can handle it.”

  “Coop? Oh yeah, no question. He knows this theatre inside out, every inch of it. He’s worked here for years.” Roxy rolled her head from shoulder to shoulder. The move reminded Sadie of something she’d attempted in an exercise class once, back when her doctor had suggested — quite strongly — that she either give up her chocolate addiction or get moving, preferably both. Neither had lasted long, but she did gain several new customers for Flair, classmates who were drawn to her fuchsia
workout clothes and light-up sneakers.

  Sadie glanced around, spying a low brick wall alongside the next building. “Come sit down, Roxy. I’ll stay with you.” She led Roxy to the wall and settled beside her. Although eager to help comfort her friend, Sadie’s curiosity also fed her desire to linger at the scene. Tragic as it was, this was a sideshow she’d never imagined, a puzzle with multiple possibilities. She wasn’t about to miss out. She’d been known on occasion to solve a crime, catching some sort of tiny clue that detectives overlooked.

  A black Porsche squealed to an abrupt stop in front of the theatre, and a man Sadie assumed was Sid, the director, jumped out. How gauche, Sadie thought. At least her own red Mustang convertible was a classic, not just a fancy car for show. So far she’d heard nothing to endear her to the show’s director. The flashy vehicle didn’t help the matter.

  “I think your director is here,” Sadie said. “Wonder how he knew? The police must have called him.”

  “No,” Roxy said. “I called him right after I dialed 911. He doesn’t even have twenty-four hours to pull the show back together. He’d have my neck if I didn’t get him on it right away.”

  Sadie looked at Roxy with surprise. “You mean the show will still open tomorrow night? Er, I mean tonight, I guess. Even after this?”

  “I’m sure it will.” Roxy let out a laugh that sounded half humorous and half resigned. “You know what they say: ‘The show must go on.’ I’m sure we’ll have some sort of emergency meeting in the morning, but that will be the decision. If only because of Sid’s ego and Ernie Palmer’s refusal to risk losing money.”

  Coop emerged from the theatre just as Sid approached, almost knocking a paper cup out of Sid’s hand.

  “It looks like your director stopped for coffee on the way down here,” Sadie observed. It struck her as odd that he’d take the time to pull over at a convenience store.

  “And undoubtedly added a shot of brandy to it, as well,” Roxy said. “You know those miniature bottles? He keeps a stash in his trunk.”