Chapter Twenty-seven

With a quick glance in the rearview mirror, Spraggue pulled to the left, into the narrow alley beside the theater. The right wheels bounced up on the curb, tilting the car at a rakish angle. Spraggue held his breath, but the Volvo cleared the tall buildings on either side by a good two inches. No scrapes, no scratches.

The alley sloped downhill, opened into a tiny trash-filled yard. Spraggue killed the engine and coasted to a stop. Five forty-five. Record speed.

He got out and pushed the door shut without slamming it. A fine snoop’s car, Aunt Mary’s Volvo; its deep blue exterior melted inconspicuously into a dumpster. Spraggue retraced his path up the alley.

The predawn chill was more like October than August. Spraggue wished he’d tossed a jacket over his black turtleneck. His left foot stepped on a shard of broken glass. He halted in front of the sheltered side door.

An amateur job, all right. The small window next to the door had been clumsily smashed. No glass cutter, no neatly shaped knob of putty, just rock versus glass. The hole wasn’t large enough to admit a midget’s hand. And whoever had made the hole had taken to his heels at the approach of a prowl car, giving the game away. If he’d stayed put, stayed quiet, the police would never have known.

Spraggue worked at the door with his picklocks, his face pressed close enough to hear the tumblers click. Once he thought he heard footsteps, but it could have been his imagination, or his heartbeat.

The handle turned. With a faint creak, the door opened. The small foyer was vaultlike, cold, damp, and still. Spraggue closed the door behind him, focused the beam of his tiny pencil flash on the floor. Karen kept flashlights on the pegboard in the wood shop. The wood shop was downstairs.

He padded lightly over the uneven floor toward the stairs. The damp chill rasped his breathing. He passed the costume shop, the storage rooms, the paint room.

Downstairs. Right turn. The trapdoor lift loomed in front of him, left open in last night’s confusion. He’d come too far. He turned back, fumbling with his hands along the right-hand wall, until he located the pegboard, found a more suitable flashlight.

The new beam was clear and strong. Spraggue muttered a quick prayer for the contined good health of its batteries and set out for the stairs.

One hour. He’d have to be gone before seven, before the police arrived. One hour to search the cavernous theater, the offices, the dressing rooms, the storage closets, the workrooms.… Might as well have stayed home.

One hour. Just have to trust to intuition, instinct, and luck. Something might work. Something was there.

What? Something that hadn’t been in the theater when all the cast members had left at four, but was mysteriously there by five-fifteen? Mail sure as hell didn’t come that early. No. Something that had been in the theater at four, but was too unusual, too incriminating to be removed under the eyes of the cops? Or something that didn’t have to be removed, that had to be altered, changed.…

Spraggue decided to take care of his own business first, personal business. Maybe his intuition would be working by the time that was finished.

He jogged down the narrow hallway, turned right, and took the next flight up to Darien’s office.

The door was locked, but the next office down, probably Spider’s, had a communicating door that stood ajar. Spraggue shielded the flashlight, kept the beam low. The lone window in Darien’s office was filthy and blocked by a mess of fake greenery; still, just as well not to risk a curious onlooker.

Darien’s office was empty, still as a cat waiting to pounce. The faint outline of the missing daggers stood out against the far wall. Darien would have told the police when he’d last seen the two daggers, whose idea the trick replica had been.

Spraggue reached deep in the pocket of his jeans, pulled out thin plastic gloves, carefully smoothed them over his fingers. Then he followed his flashlight beam straight to Darien’s single filing cabinet. He riffled the contents; all he wanted was one thing. There: Karen Snow, 2412 Westland Avenue, 555-7687.

He toyed with the idea of calling her now, waking her. Hell, what would that accomplish? Make sure she was home, find out what Menlo had pried loose. Later. He had fifty minutes left for the search. Damned effective search you could pull off in fifty minutes.

He played the flashlight around the room. Nothing. Papers. If Darien, or anyone else, had wanted a file, a slip of paper, that badly, he’d only have had to slide it between the leaves of a magazine, or into a roomy pocket. No need for a clumsy burglary attempt. If the burglar’s target was one of the offices, why use the side entrance at all? The employees’ door was closer, almost as well-hidden from the street.

Okay, intuition, time to get going. The side door … closest to the dressing rooms. Personal belongings would be stored in the dressing rooms. No valuables, of course. The assistant stage manager collected rings, watches, and wallets before each show. No locks on the doors. Too many anonymous individuals hurrying to and fro.

Langford’s dressing room would be the first stop. Spraggue moved as he decided. If Langford had been killed because he’d caught on to X, he might have made some notes on his investigation, left some clue as to his “psychological insights.”

Langford’s room had been searched, a careful, polite, nondestructive police search. The evidence remained: heavy curtains pulled slightly away from windows, drawers barely ajar, carpet rolled up, crookedly replaced. The leading man’s clothes were all jammed together at the end of the single rod; Langford had been a fastidious dresser. Spraggue’s hands searched each jacket pocket, patted and probed. Nothing.

If the police had checked out the victim’s dressing room, Spraggue doubted they’d neglect the suspect’s. He entered Eddie’s room and noted, with a sinking sensation, the same subtle signs of disarray. Still, he searched. Why the hell not? What could a well-trained group of cops find that Hawkshaw Spraggue couldn’t? He quickly emptied all drawers, fondled their undersides. Nothing.

Eddie’s makeup kit lay on the counter. Spraggue checked each jar and bottle, praying for something, anything out of the ordinary. Tubes numbered and labeled Max Factor and Jack Stein, tiny tins of color, crepe hair, spirit gum, contact-lens solution—

Contact lenses. That’s how Eddie had pulled off the dark-eyed, caped apparition at the theater. That’s why he’d seen the trip wire. Spraggue grunted, cursed. Height, weight, eye color: the first questions the cops always asked, the first things the trained observer looked for. You can shave a mustache, but you can’t change your eye color. Sure. So much for the old maxims of the trade. If he hadn’t trusted his own eyes so much, maybe.…

Six thirty-five. Langford’s room and Eddie’s had taken too long, yielded nothing. A cop at seven, Hurley had said. Time to leave. He focused the flash beam reluctantly on the door.

Damn. Suddenly he knew, knew where the clue would be. Intuition, late, but still cooking. Caroline’s dressing room. Too much had happened in Caroline’s room: orchids stolen, room ripped apart, dog killed. Karen had sworn Eddie had never touched that mutt. Spraggue believed her; he’d seen the boy’s face.

He pushed open the door to Caroline’s room. No signs of search here. But then the police weren’t working with the old Spraggue intuition.

The flashlight picked out the broad shelf running along the right-hand wall, the radiator, the vast expanse of mirror, the makeup-stained sink. Costumes hung neatly along a rod at the end of the room, headless corpses in the gloom. Caroline’s last-act dress lay crumpled on the floor; her oversized makeup case on the shelf. Aside from some smeared tissues, it cast no reproach on its owner. Each item was neatly placed, closed, wiped clean of painted fingerprints. Spraggue removed a large jar of pale face powder, opened it, sniffed. His nose wrinkled at the smell—flowery, overripe, decayed.

He studied Caroline’s photographs, ran his hands behind the frames. Caroline Ambrose receiving the Tony Award … with various stars, gushingly inscribed … with Darien, arms entwined, he minus the silver in his hair. Spraggue hesitated over a small image of a younger Caroline, embraced by a dark, mustached Latin. De Renza, that would be, the Colombian former husband.…

Nothing. He could find nothing in the room. Five minutes to seven. Nothing! Spraggue closed his eyes, leaned back against the shelf.

What was he looking for? Something different, something unusual. He pressed his gloved fingers hard against his temples. Two days ago, three days ago, he’d been in that very dressing room. Was anything different now? He played it as an acting exercise. Start with yourself: what had he been wearing? Yes. He felt the nubby tweed of the jacket against his wrists, the smooth cotton of the cream-colored shirt. What sounds had he heard? Faint hammering from the wood shop. Yes. Caroline in blue, a silky royal-blue dress, belted, and precariously high heels. Smells: her cloying perfume and—

Spraggue opened startled eyes, flashed his beam of light into all the corners of the room, clicked it off. Faint sunlight trickled through the one high slit of a window. The orchids were gone.

Orchids in a vase. Orchids in Caroline’s hair. Orchids stolen. Orchids delivered daily. Spraggue touched his bare knuckles to the inside of the vase. Dry. No box, either. No square white florist’s box lying under the counter.…

But he’d seen a box, seen it just moments ago, a sudden shape in a cone of light. Where? Langford’s room? Eddie’s? The office? No. The room next to Darien’s office; the one with the connecting door. There, on the desk—

A sudden noise overhead shattered Spraggue’s reflections. Footsteps thumped across the ceiling. Too late.

“Looks okay,” came a distant voice, “but check it out real careful. I don’t like that car parked back there.”

“Right, Captain.”

Spraggue didn’t need the rank to recognize the voice: Menlo.

More steps. They went up, to the second-floor offices. Flat feet marched in the corridor: Menlo, patrolling the only path from the basement to the main floor.

Just get from a basement dressing room to a second-floor office and then out of the building without being spotted. Sure thing, Spraggue. While you’re at it, walk on water.

Spraggue traced the plan of the theater in his mind. One staircase from basement to first floor. Another staircase, twenty feet away down a straight corridor, from the first floor to the second. No other way up.

Menlo couldn’t stay all day, wouldn’t waste a man on stakeout. He could hide until the police were satisfied, wait them out.

He looked around. Not in Caroline’s dressing room. Menlo’s boots plodded overhead. Quickly, smoothly, Spraggue crept down the corridor, holding his breath as he passed the staircase. Destination: the wood shop. Full of machinery, piles of lumber, roomy closets: a far better locale for a game of hide-and-seek.

He recognized the trapdoor lift, passed it on the right, without thinking. Then he stood absolutely still, a faint smile twisting the corners of his mouth.

The lift was completely silent; it had to be. Several times no music covered its ascent during the show. The lift could get him up to the main level. After that? Who could say?

He abandoned the borrowed flashlight on a workbench. It was light enough now to do without. How did the lift operate? Surely not from the distant lighting booth; communication would be too difficult. Not from backstage. The elevator platform was bare of switches or levers. That would be too simple. But there, eight feet to the left, clamped to the wall: a power box. Yes. Dracula would assume his position on the platform. A stagehand would hit the button, propel the vampire magically upward.

Could he do it alone? Press the button, jump onto the platform, taking care to leave no dangling limbs behind. If the main power switch was on. He got ready—right hand back, extended toward the button, knees flexed, prepared to run.

The platform responded faster than he’d imagined. No startup drone, no gathering speed. It took off. By the time he threw himself aboard, it was shoulder-height.

Thank God the wooden platform was uneven. He got a good grip on a raised board, swung his right foot up. The ceiling came closer, the open square allotted to the lift a mere postage stamp. Spraggue’s left leg inched upward. His knee found solid ground. As the lift joined the stage floor, Spraggue lay thankfully huddled center stage.

With no windows, no lights, the stage was darker than sin. Spraggue cursed softly, regretted the lost flashlight. Intuition and instinct. Instinct had better get ready to take charge.

The staircase was temptingly close, just outside the double doors, but it might as well have been on some South Sea Island while Menlo’s boots beat drum messages on the floor.

Was there a direct route between the stage and the second-floor offices? The stage house went up three floors, catwalk at the top. Too high. The side boxes; those were about the right height. The theater plans flashed back into Spraggue’s head. The stage-left box. If there was any doorway, any window, it would be there.

A steel spiral staircase, little better than a fireman’s pole, was the only path to the box. Spraggue groped his way up the narrow flight on hands and knees, tiny pencil flash clenched between his teeth.

The box was hung with heavy velvet curtains, a six-by-twelve room perched over the stage. The back wall should be the closest point to the offices, even a common wall. But was there a way through?

The velvet hangings were loose tapestries, covering bare walls. Choking with dust, Spraggue investigated beneath them, patting the walls with his hands in the impenetrable dark.

The voices were so muffled, Spraggue wasn’t sure they were real. But as he straightened up and moved to the right-hand corner of the box, they got clearer, louder, until he could make out sentences, distinguish tones.

“Nothing up here.” Menlo’s assistant.

“We’ll check out the basement.” The captain himself.

Just over his head, Spraggue could see a faint grillwork of light. No doors, no windows, just an innocent heating vent. Maybe three feet by two. Big enough, once the cops went below.

Holding his breath, he waited for the sound of the slamming door and the footsteps on the stairs, then reached up and began prodding the screen. One corner was loose. He pulled it back, leaving a five-inch open triangle. He’d need more room than that.

With a stepladder, full light, pliers, and a screwdriver, the job might have taken three minutes. Working in the dark, half-smothered by velvet curtains, arms stretched uncomfortably over his head, fumbling at the screw heads with a dime, Spraggue lost all sense of time. One screw dropped to the floor, muffled by carpeting. Two. Three. Another loose one gave way with no effort. Sweat dripped down his face. He wiped his hands on his pants. One more. Then he’d bend the screen back, find out exactly what was on the other side.

Done! Spraggue listened carefully, then thrust his hands through the opening. The wall was maybe six inches thick. His fingers could grab the other side. He pulled himself up, spreading his elbows to take his weight, resting on the sill.

It was an office, one he hadn’t seen before, empty except for a few sticks of furniture. He took a deep breath, hoisted himself up and through the narrow opening. Halfway, he rolled over, painfully. The vent was close enough to the ceiling to allow him a grip on the molding. Surprisingly, it took his weight. His hand found a water pipe, perfectly located. He chinned up on it. His legs scraped through the hole and he dropped silently to the floor.

This office, like the others, had connecting doors. He wouldn’t have to risk the corridor. He went through another deserted office, then found the one he wanted. He froze, listening. Footsteps, yes, but far away. The police were still in the basement. He was almost afraid to look around. What if that momentary image of a white florist’s box had been just that, an image only, a memory suggested by a square of white paper on a desk?

The box was there. Spraggue scooped it up, tucked it under his arm. Police in the basement; then this was his chance. He walked out of the office, took the steps in a reckless dive, and was out the employees’ entrance before he’d really weighed the risks of an escape.

Once outside, the path was clear. 2412 Westland Avenue. With a jaunty step, he headed toward Karen Snow’s apartment.