“Another cop has just gone into Tamsin’s office. This one’s in plain clothes.” Nell Bronson, stage manager for Macbeth, walked backwards into the wardrobe room at PTC, eyes still focused on what was happening down the corridor. Carla Hansen stood at a large table cutting up fabric with practised ease. Sadie Williams sat at a table by one of the large windows ranged along one wall, building headdresses for the three witches in Macbeth on Styrofoam moulds, trays of buttons and feathers ranged in front of her. A box of fake autumn leaves.
“Said she was from the RCMP,” Nell continued, closing the door behind her and turning towards one of two comfortable chairs that Carla provided for actors while they waited for fittings. Nell wore typical stage management gear: old, worn jeans, a grey sweatshirt with a Winnipeg Jets logo, comfortable sneakers with quiet soles.
“How come you know that, Nell?” Carla stopped cutting, scissors poised in mid-air.
“Because she told me, Carla,” Nell replied smugly. “When I showed her the way upstairs. A sergeant. Calloway, Galloway, something like that. Got red hair.”
“Wasn’t RCMP yesterday.” Sadie hauled herself out of her chair.
“No. Those guys were all city police. Shall I put on the kettle?”
There was a table in a corner nook, provided with a collection of mugs, a coffee maker, a kettle and all that was required to make tea, including a teapot. Police had been poking around yesterday afternoon. They had mainly talked with Tamsin and Toby Malleson. One of them had been in Gerald Blaise’s office, not for long but enough to send a nervous shiver through the theatre staff. Toby had gone around, confiding in everyone.
“I’ve asked them to be discreet,” he had assured them all. “They’re going to put out an alert about the car and not mention Gerald by name. For now. If the car shows up somewhere like the airport they’ll know he’s just taken off somewhere for a few days.” All the interruptions had taken up precious time. Now they were in, working on Saturday morning, catching up. There were a lot of costumes in this play.
Tamsin had trotted back and forth to the photocopy room the day before, keeping an eye on things as she went.
“She does it deliberately,” Nell complained. “PTC could afford to buy her a printer of her own but it gives her an excuse to walk around and see what’s going on. Had a Canada Council grant to submit but their website was down and she was going to have to courier a hard copy. Priority, she said, and there was me with all my lists.” She had a stack of them, cast members, contacts, rehearsal schedules. “Then the cops kicked me out so they could inspect the place.”
She wasn’t fooling anyone. There was nowhere else Nell Bronson wanted to be but at the theatre when she was working on a show. Carla and Sadie too. Now Nell reached for a box of tea bags. “Thought I’d have the place all to myself on a Saturday morning. Is there any ginger and lemon in here?” The kettle began to boil.
“Couple of board members were in yesterday, talking to Tamsin. She’s got her hands full.” Carla continued to carve up the fabric.
“So, what are they going to do if he doesn’t show up?” Sadie passed a mug to Nell, helped herself to one and sank into the other chair. She dwarfed it.
“Well,” Nell drawled, obviously in the know and dying to tell. “Thom Dyck, the theatre prof, the one that’s on the board, is on standby for Tuesday. He can manage to run a read-through, we hope. Tamsin’s got calls in to Edmonton and Toronto, trying to find out who’s available, just in case. I had Chinese with Tamsin last night. Told me herself.”
Carla put down her scissors once more.
“Do we know why it’s RCMP now?” she asked, folding up the pieces she had cut. “Have they found something out of town?”
“Gerald? He never leaves the city,” Sadie scoffed. “He hates small towns. And the countryside. Doesn’t go outside if he can help it, not even in the summer. Swims in pools. Indoor ones. And goes to the gym. That apartment of theirs doesn’t even have a balcony.”
“Maybe he’s shacked up in a hotel somewhere. Hecla. Riding Mountain. Having a cozy weekend with Lisa Storm before Budgie gets back.” Nell grinned over the top of her mug.
“You reckon? Is that why he cast her?” Carla leaned against the big cutting table. Lisa Storm was to play the First Witch, the youngest one.
“He’s been fussing over her costume. Wants her to look sexy and attractive.” Sadie herself was dressed to kill today, in a short blue skirt, mauve tights and pale blue stilettos with little bows pasted on the front. “That explains it!”
“You bet. She’s in the same play as Budgie? Gerald’s usually more careful.”
“But the RCMP?” Carla persisted. “What are they here for?”
Tamsin Longstaff heard the news that Gerald Blaise’s car had been found, with a body in the trunk, quite calmly. Her eyes widened, her nostrils flared as she inhaled deeply, and her crimson lips compressed into a small, round O. She had worked with Gerald for fifteen years and he was still missing. The body might well be his. But, for now, she assumed her normal, controlled presence. She realized that there was a need for a police presence but her first concern was that operations at the theatre should not be disrupted.
“We have an audience arriving for a matinee at two, and another performance at eight this evening. The same tomorrow. Monday is a dark night.”
She noticed a puzzled look flicker across the face of the woman in front of her—the Mountie, not that she looked like one with her well-cut cap of red hair, neat black jacket and pants, laundered white blouse. Maybe things were finally changing in that venerable Force.
“Theatre talk. The lights are off. We’re closed. Night off,” she explained. “Our production crews have this weekend off, although I see our wardrobe department is at work today. We’re starting to build a new show. Rehearsals begin on Tuesday. Gerald was supposed to be directing it. We’re going to have to find someone to replace him, if he really is dead.” She frowned and tapped a long fingernail on her desk. “Have you spoken to Gerald’s wife yet? Annabel Torrance. She’s working at the Globe in Regina.”
Roxanne Calloway had learned that already. Larry Smith, the caretaker at Gerald Blaise’s condo building, had been helpful and informative. The RCMP were already making an initial search of the apartment, looking for any signs of a scuffle or blood.
Roxanne had arrived at The Locks the evening before, an hour or so after Margo Wishart’s call. The car had been locked but the licence number indicated it was definitely Gerald Blaise’s missing red Audi. It had taken time to call for assistance, get permission to open the trunk and, once the body was discovered, for the medics to arrive and declare death. It had been dark. The technicians had worked by floodlight, examining the body in place. There had been a lot of blood in the trunk. The throat of the man inside had been cut. The provincial medical examiner had taken possession of the remains, but the Ident Unit would be continuing now, on site, in the morning light. So far, they had found nothing else of interest.
“Looks like he was killed elsewhere,” Corporal Dave Kovak, who led the Forensic Identification Unit, had said to Roxanne. “Then driven out here. It probably happened in the city, but it looks like you’ll be stuck with the case.”
The City of Winnipeg Police Service took care of all crimes committed within the city limits. Where the body showed up determined whether it was their case or not. Outside the city, it became the responsibility of the RCMP That had annoyed Inspector Schultz, Roxanne’s supervisor.
“Should be their case, dammit,” he’d almost spat with annoyance, “and now we’ve got it. It’s going to be on my budget. How come you’re involved, anyway?”
She’d received a call. A tipoff. She’d followed up on it. Sir.
She’d had a date last night, with Inspector Brian Donohue, also in the RCMP Roxanne was in the Major Crimes Unit. Brian worked mainly on cybercrime these days and, as an inspector, spent most of his time behind a desk. She’d been going to go over to his place to watch a movie. Her son, Finn, was at her sister’s house, sleeping over. She and Brian both had kids. It was hard to get a night together and she’d had to pass. She could have left the scene in the hands of the Forensic Identification Unit and made a report. But if she did, the case might be assigned to someone else. This was too interesting and an opportunity that Roxanne intended to seize. She was sure that Brian, under the same circumstances, would have done the same. He’d worked in the Major Crimes Unit before his promotion. He got it. So she had texted. Sorry. Work came up. Call later. It had been into the early hours of the morning before she had left the crime scene, too late to make that call.
“Someone from the RCMP in Regina has gone to speak to Ms. Torrance,” she now told Tamsin Longstaff. “Are there other relatives in Winnipeg? We need someone to identify the body.”
Not that there was much doubt as to who it was. The police knew what Gerald Blaise looked like. His photograph was everywhere at PTC, in the theatre programs, in framed photographs that lined the walls. There was one right beside the door in Tamsin’s office, of her and Gerald receiving an award, all smiles. Gerald was a celebrity in Winnipeg, certainly in the arts community. His face showed up regularly in the arts news and on social media. Tamsin sat back and ran her fingers through her hair. “There’s no one. He and Budgie were both only children and they didn’t have kids of their own.”
“Budgie?”
“Oh, sorry. Annabel. It’s what we all call her.” Tamsin’s phone kept vibrating. That could be Budgie herself. She sat up straight again. “If you need me to, I’ll identify him,” she said, tight lipped.
Brave lady, thought Roxanne. She had noticed that Tamsin had not asked how Gerald had actually died or wondered who might have killed him. She had rolled straight into figuring out practical solutions to immediate problems. She recognized that it was one way of coping.
“Thank you,” she said. “I’ll let them know we’re coming. In an hour?” Tamsin nodded but her eyes had already strayed back to her computer screen. She wanted to get back to her own job. “Could someone show me around the building for now?” Tamsin looked relieved.
“Nell Bronson, one of our stage managers, is around. I’ll ask her to give you the backstage tour.”
Roxanne had never been behind the scenes in a theatre before. A labyrinth of corridors led to different areas. The “shop” was at the back of the building. It was where they built and painted scenery and was connected to the stage via large hydraulic doors. Roxanne scanned the room. There were tools ranged on wall racks, including sharp knives and cutters. The paint area had big sinks and a drain in the floor. There was even a hose hooked up to a wall spigot. It would be so easy to carry out a murder here. Protective clothing hung on pegs and a fan extractor removed toxic substances from the air. The smell of blood could have been eradicated at the flick of a switch. Double doors at the back of the shop led to a loading dock, outside, on the back lane behind the theatre. It would have been simple to drive up, load a body into the trunk of the car and drive off. There were even dollies at the back door for transporting heavy items.
“There’s surveillance out here?” she asked the stage manager. Nell Bronson seemed a sensible sort, hair cropped short, casual clothes, a woman in her forties. She’d been stage managing for over twenty years, she had told Roxanne.
“Sure,” said Nell.
“How many entrances?”
“To the building? There’s the front door, to the lobby. Box office is open there until eight-thirty if there’s a show on. It has a twenty-four-hour camera. The stage door has one too. It opens onto the parking lot, east side of the building. Did you come in that way?” Roxanne had. She’d needed to buzz in. “There’s a fire exit back of the lobby, only opens from the inside. No camera there. And there’s another exit, from the office area upstairs, that comes out just to the right of here, onto the lane.” She pressed a button beside one of the large doors and it rolled up revealing the lane outside. Roxanne peered out. The wall was blank concrete but there was a row of small windows, high above. A door with a single step down could be seen further along it.
“Gerald used that one a lot,” said Nell, her hands tucked into the pockets of her jeans. She nodded across the lane to a red brick building. A doorway was almost exactly opposite. “He lived over there, right? He and Budgie have a condo.” The building had once been a warehouse. It had been converted years before.
“And there’s no camera?”
Nell shook her head. “Guess not.”
Gerald Blaise could have entered or left the building where he worked at any time without anyone knowing.
Nell led Roxanne back into the shop and through a side door onto the stage. It was pitch black inside. “Stay where you are. Don’t touch a thing.” She hit a switch and work lights came on. Roxanne looked around. Black drapes separated the stage from the backstage area. There were tables with items used in the present production, each one in a labelled spot. “Props,” said Nell. They walked out onto the stage. It was set up for the evening’s performance, with furniture in place. It all looked quite ordinary in plain light. Roxanne looked out into the auditorium. She had sat there once last year. Her sister had brought her to a play. “Just over eight hundred seats,” Nell informed her. “See up there?” She pointed to a row of windows up behind the seating. “That’s the control booth. We call the show from there.”
“Call it?’
“Light cues. Sound. Entrances. You know.”
Roxanne didn’t. Was she going to have to learn some of this theatre jargon? “Everything’s very neat and tidy,” she commented.
“You bet. Dead organized. Pedro, the director of production here, is a freak for cleanliness, and safety. Everything in its place.”
That could be helpful, Roxanne thought as she was led out of the stage area at the other side, past racks of stage lights to a vast room that Nell Bronson called the rehearsal hall. It soared up two stories and was painted entirely black. Metal pipes criss-crossed the ceiling. The grid, Nell called it. Some big black lamps were bolted to them. A row of drapes covered windows along one wall and lines were taped out on the floor.
“The floor plan for Macbeth,” Nell explained. “It’s the exact same size as it will be on stage. Different colours for different scenes.” She turned to face Roxanne. “Did Gerald off himself?”
“I don’t know.” Roxanne looked at her in surprise. It was highly unlikely. Someone had closed the trunk lid on the bleeding body that was inside it.
“But he’s dead? For sure?”
“I can’t say. Not yet. What makes you think he could be suicidal?”
“I didn’t say he was.”
“You thought he might be.” Nell Bronson went to a cupboard and looked through papers on a shelf, avoiding answering. She handed a couple of sheets to Roxanne.
“That’s a floor plan of the building. We give it to actors so they don’t get lost while they’re here. And this is next week’s rehearsal schedule.”
Roxanne took the papers and waited. Nell hoisted herself onto a table and sat, looking at the floor, before she spoke.
“Look,” she finally said, “I’ve worked with Gerald on and off for years. He’s okay most of the time but sometimes he’s not. Things get him down. Like most of us, right?” She shrugged her shoulders.
“What kind of things?”
“Well,” said Nell, “he gets edgy sometimes before we start on a new show. One that he’s directing himself. And this one, Macbeth, there’s a lot riding on it. Expectations, you know? Gerald’s always farmed out the Shakespeare plays that we’ve done to other directors but he decided to do this one himself. And he usually directs comedies. He was a bit more uptight than usual. He’d have been fine once we actually got into rehearsals and started working on it. So, if he didn’t kill himself, what happened to him?” Her frank gaze homed in on Roxanne once more.
“I can’t tell you that right now.” Roxanne looked straight back at her.
“Jesus Christ. Someone’s done away with him?” Nell’s mouth fell open. “With Gerald? He can be a bit of a jerk sometimes but who would want to kill him?”
“We don’t know that that’s what has happened,” Roxanne replied. But that wasn’t true. She knew that someone had definitely killed Gerald Blaise.
Upstairs, in her office, Tamsin Longstaff was talking to Budgie Torrance on the phone.
“Are you coming home?” Tamsin asked.
“How can I?” Budgie responded. She snuffled, like she actually had been crying. “I can’t abandon the show so close to the end.”
“Budgie,” Tamsin reasoned. “You have a matinee in a couple of hours. How are you going to go on? Can’t someone cover for you?”
“Never.” Budgie’s voice turned steely. “I shall do it.” Tamsin could hear Budgie assuming the role of brave trouper as she spoke. “It’s best I do it. And maybe it will keep my mind off what’s happened to poor Gerald.”
“They don’t know it’s him yet, for sure.” Tamsin tried to sound reassuring.
“Don’t be ridiculous!” Budgie snapped back. “Of course they bloody know. The stupid idiot’s gone and got himself killed, hasn’t he? What did they do to him?”
“I don’t know.” Tamsin didn’t. Sergeant Calloway hadn’t said how the person whose body was in the car had died and Tamsin hadn’t asked. “So, you’ll be coming home on Sunday night as planned?”
“Got a plane at six, right after the matinee.” Budgie paused to blow her nose. “Tamsin,” she asked. “Who’s going to direct Macbeth now?”
“Not sure yet,” Tamsin replied cautiously. “You’re still planning to do it? I can cancel the contract if you need me to, under the circumstances.”
“I certainly am doing it! People are looking forward to it. They’ve bought tickets. How can I let them down? And Gerald would want me to, wouldn’t he?”
“Okay.” Tamsin was relieved that she didn’t have to find a new Lady Macbeth. Not that there wouldn’t be a lot of actors eager to take it on. That wouldn’t have been a problem, but there were few of Budgie’s calibre. It would take someone exceptional to replace her.
“You know Nathan Simkin?” Budgie prattled on. “You should talk to him. He’d be fantastic.” Tamsin knew what she was getting at. Gerald had complained to her that Budgie wanted Simkin to direct instead of himself over a boozy dinner one evening not long ago.
“Not available,” she fired back. She didn’t know if that was the case but she wasn’t going to ask him. She had ideas of her own. And she couldn’t believe what Budgie was saying. Was she in shock or something? She’d just found out that her husband of over thirty years might be dead, possibly murdered, and here she was, angling for Tamsin to hire the director of her choice, the one she wanted to replace Gerald?
“Budgie,” she said, changing the subject. “What do we do about the cats?”
“Oh, fuck the cats!” Budgie burst into tears. “I don’t know,” she babbled. “Put them in a kennel or something. Ask Larry, the caretaker. He’ll know what to do with them. I’ve got to go now.” She was still sobbing as she hung up.
Tamsin put in a call to Stratford, Ontario. Jazz Elliott had just wrapped up a show there. It was almost certain that PTC needed another director for Macbeth. Jazz was available. She could fly in on Sunday, be in Winnipeg to start work on Monday. Tamsin would confirm later tonight. Jazz was going to cost but she’d be good. And she could cope with Budgie Torrance, no trouble at all.
Roxanne Calloway showed up in her doorway. “You ready?” she asked. Soon they were seated in Roxanne’s little RAV4, turning into traffic, heading towards the morgue.
“I have to warn you,” said Roxanne. “It was a brutal murder. His throat was cut.”
Tamsin Longstaff swallowed. “Well, at least it would have been quick,” she said.