Thursday morning I had just stepped out of the shower, dripping wet, when the phone rang. I ran to answer, not wanting to wake Danny, and a no-nonsense voice spoke: “Johanssen?”
“Monaghan?”
“I’d like for you to be in my office one hour from now.”
I looked at the clock. “It’s 8:00 in the morning. No one calls actors at this hour.”
“I do.”
“Actors work nights.”
“So do detectives.”
“I just got out of the shower.”
“When can you make it?”
I thought a moment. “9:30.”
“Don’t be late.” He hung up.
I went to the guest room door and listened. Danny was still asleep. I could hear him snoring. I dressed in a coat and tie, as I was meeting Lance Middlecoff at 10:30 and heading for Stamford on Metro-North at 11:50. Then I checked my emails, paid a few bills, and went downstairs. I stopped by Anton’s coffee shop on the corner, had a quick cup of coffee and a cheese Danish, and headed for the subway.
On the ride uptown, I went over why I thought Monaghan had been so brusque, almost rude, on the phone: he had found out about my history with the NYPD. Going back fifteen years or so, I had helped solve several crimes, always working unobtrusively and out of sight. The cases included a costume designer who was stabbed in his studio; a second-tier actor with AIDS who, out of sheer malevolence, deliberately infected an ex-partner with HIV; and a rather sensational crime called the “Mezzanine Murder,” where a very angry bipolar director shot a rival at a performance and then disappeared. The director was found, but not his weapon, which I assumed now resided at the bottom of the Hudson River.
And then there was the case involving Saved On Stage, better known as SOS. A real estate magnate, Alan Wycoff, had made a fortune on low-income housing in the five boroughs. Along the way, he was constantly accused of being a racist for the way he treated blacks, Hispanics, and other minorities in his ventures. In the hope of counteracting the drumbeat of criticism, he consulted a high-powered public relations firm to help him burnish his image. The scheme the firm came up with was SOS, a plan to set up in three areas—Harlem, the Bronx, and Staten Island—a program using theatre people (actors, directors, playwrights) who, in community halls, churches, and schools, would engage underprivileged kids in theatrical activities. For out-of-work actors and starving playwrights, the stipend they received was most welcome, plus there was the satisfaction of doing something worthwhile.
The project was a smashing success, largely, it was thought, because the PR firm had found a charismatic black man, Brian Barrow, to run it. He turned out to be not only extremely personable but a whiz at organization. The success of the program added to the consternation of Wycoff’s rivals in the real estate world, who knew that, in addition to being a bigot, Wycoff was thoroughly dishonest. He was bound, they were certain, to take advantage of SOS monetarily, probably to launder ill-gotten gains, a practice he had engaged in before. Someone I knew at the NYPD asked me if I could identify three or four young theatre people working in SOS who might serve as undercover operatives to get at the facts. I interviewed the young people I thought most likely, recommended them, and they came up with the goods, sending Wycoff away for a decent stretch at a federal pen.
• • •
Leaving the subway, I walked to the Midtown North police station on West 54th Street, the precinct that handles the theatre district, and was ushered into Monaghan’s office. It looked like a set from a 1950s movie: a scarred wooden desk with three drawers on each side of the kneehole, a series of battered metal chairs with faded green plastic seats, two old-style metal file cabinets in the corner. There were pictures on one wall of Monaghan: one as a cadet, another being promoted to lieutenant, a third when he was made a detective. Family pictures were on a scarred credenza behind his desk.
“Sit down,” he commanded.
I continued to stand. “I feel as if I’ve been summoned to an execution.”
“I’m pissed off,” he said, waving a dossier of four or five pages in the air. “Your history with the NYPD.” He pointed to the document: “Six, seven, eight, God knows how many cases you’ve been involved in. Why didn’t you tell me about this?”
“It was some time ago.”
“Not that long.” He pointed again to the dossier. “You should have told me. Working in secret, investigating on your own. I can’t have people going behind my back, especially people involved.”
“What do you mean ‘involved’?”
“You were there when it happened, you knew the victim, you know her family and friends.”
I finally sat down. “Look, I haven’t …”
“Don’t tell me you haven’t done some investigating—a lot of investigating.”
“I admit I’ve been trying to find out about Warren.”
“And …? I don’t believe that’s all there is. I have no idea where you’re snooping around, who you’ve talked to, who you’re tracking down. If this were not a special situation, I would order you to quit forthwith. If I have any inkling whatsoever that you are a rogue investigator, out on your own, I won’t hesitate to arrest you and throw you into a cell.”
“What do you mean ‘special situation’?”
“Your history with these people in the theatre, in Warren’s business, in the family. Under those circumstances I’d rather have you inside the tent than outside, but if I’m going to do that, we have to have some ground rules. First, I want you to tell me what you’ve done so far. Second, I want to be clear about what you can and cannot do going forward.”
I was not about to tell Monaghan of my ventures in the lounge and basement of the theatre or about the walkway that connects to the alley leading to 50th Street. Nor would I mention my pursuit of Sybil’s activities or my exchanges with Gina and Drew at the Times. But I could talk about Warren. “I’ve been focused almost exclusively on Warren, who seems quite elusive right now. Also, no one appears to have a handle on what shape he’s in these days.”
“We finally found him. It took some doing, but we discovered he has some kind of financial company in Stamford, although he lives in Greenwich.” Monaghan consulted a piece of paper. “He’s living in the carriage house of a friend, on Round Hill Road. We finally talked to him at his office this morning. He says he and his young partner, Stuart Ross, were working late that night, until 8:30, in their office in Stamford. We checked with the young man, and he supports the story.”
“My first update under your rules. I was planning on going to Stamford this afternoon to check with a friend of mine. Is that all right?”
“As long as you report to me everything you find out.”
“In the meantime, is there any news about Danny’s friend Mikey?”
“The most slippery one of all. Danny insists Mikey was at some gay bar in Tribeca that night.”
“And?”
“We checked the bar. They know Mikey well, and he wasn’t there that night.”
“Do we know where he was?”
“We’re working on it. One thing seems sure: Mikey wanted Danny boy to think he was at the bar. Originally, Mikey said he had a buddy who would vouch for him, but so far the buddy is nowhere in sight. Until the buddy appears, Mikey is near the top of the list.”
“Speaking of Danny, I saw him last night just before rehearsal. He says he was supposed to meet his mother at the theatre at 9:30. They had exchanged text messages, it seems.”
“And the murder was discovered fifteen or twenty minutes before that. Which means it would have taken place, say, ten to thirty minutes before that.”
“Exactly.”
“So she came earlier than her appointment with Danny, and either someone knew she was coming earlier or they arranged it so that she would come earlier.”
“Looks like it. And Roger Morehead, the hophead—any news on him?”
“It took a while, but yes. Danny gave us a lead, and we found Morehead in the apartment of a friend near Columbia, a student there.”
“And?”
“He doesn’t have much of an alibi. Also, he’s a very angry young man. He probably is off-the-wall enough and mad enough to consider something like this. But we decided he’s so unstrung he would have trouble planning it, let alone executing it.”
“If it’s okay, I might try to contact him. I know the parents.”
“I’m not sure it’s worth it, but be my guest.” Monaghan handed me a paper with Roger’s address and cell phone number and continued, “But I want to throw out another idea. I’ve been thinking. This could have been someone else, you know, even an outsider.”
“Oh?”
“Those rehearsals were going on for several days.”
“At the theatre, yes, and before that at a rehearsal hall.”
“I’m only interested in what was happening at the theatre. Usually, I understand, only the stage door offers access to backstage, but for a few days the front doors were open so crew members could easily get out to the street to have a smoke or take a break. Is that so?”
“Yes, now that you mention it.”
“So someone—either connected with the show or someone completely from the outside, a person looking to score in some way—could see all this, drift in with the group, hide somewhere, and when they saw a mark come in, a well-dressed lady like Mrs. Tremayne, go after her. They manage to get her off alone, grab her, silence her, drag her downstairs, try to rob her or get something from her, and it goes bad. Or, maybe someone slipped inside and went down to the lounge to hide. When she came in and went downstairs to the ladies’ room, the person hiding had a perfect target. As I say, this person could be someone who knew her, or someone who had never seen her before. That sort of thing happens all the time. And whoever it is ends up throttling her.”
“There are a lot of ‘ifs’ in there.”
“When you’ve been in this business as long as I have, you realize you can never rule out coincidence: a man goes into a house in Queens to kill his ex-wife and her boyfriend; a moment later, a neighbor from three doors down drops by to return a bottle of olive oil and is killed too. A man in the Bronx plans to rob a 7-Eleven, goes inside, and runs into an off-duty cop buying donuts. I’ve asked my people to go back to the actors and technical personnel to ask if they saw anyone strange or unfamiliar coming in or out of the lobby or hanging around. That doesn’t mean I’m not doing everything to keep on top of all the people you gave us.”
“You’re right, of course, to follow those other leads.”
“I have to.”
“Meanwhile, I won’t go off the reservation. I’ll stick to the people we’ve talked about, and I’ll keep you fully informed.”
“You’d better.”
• • •
From Monaghan’s office I headed for my meeting with Lance Middlecoff. He had been the CEO and major stockholder in a large insurance company that dealt not in auto, home, and theft but in the more rarefied stuff: corporations, investment banks, and manufacturers, insuring them against the occasional catastrophe. At a certain point in the late 1990s, he sold the company to AIG and walked away with a cool $130 million or so. He had always been interested in the theatre, from the days when he was active in Mask and Wig, the undergraduate theatre group at Penn. Even before he retired from business, he had invested in theatre productions. Lance was discerning, with a clear preference for and keen appreciation of quality. He never wanted to be what is known as the “lead producer” who initiated a Broadway production. Usually he invested in a production that had been successful abroad, in London’s West End for instance, or was being put together by a producer he trusted.
About six feet two, broad-shouldered, and fairly heavyset, Lance was built like a tight end on a college football team. His full head of dark hair was graying at the temples, and he had a flat nose above a square chin. He could easily have been in TV ads for products aimed at middle-aged achievers. His office, interestingly enough, was in the high forties on Sixth Avenue: a strategic as well as symbolic location, roughly halfway between the legal offices on Park and the theatre district in the West 40s. When I ran into him at the visitation for Dorothy, I asked if he would mind seeing me. He knew Dorothy and Warren well, but also Sybil Conway. Shortly after he had sold his insurance business—when he first opened his current office—Sybil, not surprisingly, offered to introduce him to the theatre business. This, of course, was before she had become involved with Dorothy. She tried, some said desperately, to get Lance to join her in forming a production company. He was the ideal candidate—lots of money, a love of theatre, and almost no practical experience. He talked to her about it, but eventually declined.
Lance’s office was on the twelfth floor: a small reception area with a secretary, who was probably an administrative assistant, and after that, Lance’s office itself. A comfortable, male office: plain dark orange carpet, walls painted a greenish gray, framed posters of plays, but also a framed picture of a Fortune magazine cover that featured Lance. A side table with family photos in silver frames: his wife and three children, two boys and a girl, when they were young, and now with their spouses and small children.
I told him first of all that I wanted to get caught up on Warren. “Ah, Warren,” he said. “Haven’t seen him lately, but from what I hear, he’s not in good shape.”
“Financially or emotionally?”
“Both, I gather. After his fund went under, he walked away with a good deal of money he had salted away separately. But, when the derivative and credit default swap fever started in 2005, ’06, and ’07, he couldn’t resist jumping in the pool with the young Turks, and in the summer and fall of ’08 he went down hard. Ever hear of Arthur Ross?”
“Doesn’t ring a bell.”
“No reason it should. From St. Louis. Runs a manufacturing plant: batteries. One of the companies Warren had in his original fund. Unlike others, it’s been a steady earner, and now, with the whole green thing, it’s better than ever. He has a son, must be thirty by now, who’s been a problem for years. Last year Arthur’s son got into deep trouble with a young woman out there, so Arthur wanted to get him out of town. He asked Warren if he would take the kid under his wing: Arthur would put up a fair amount of capital to underwrite a modest fund that Warren and his son would run. I don’t think Arthur had any idea how things were with Warren. Not surprisingly, Warren jumped at the chance. They’ve got offices in Stamford, I understand.”
“In the meantime, I wanted to ask you about Sybil.”
“Ah, yes. The sinister siren. Is she a suspect in the case?”
“Not really.”
“What’s happening with the case, by the way? Any progress? Any leads?”
“Very slow going so far, but it’s still early in the investigation.”
“You mentioned Sybil.”
“I’ve always wondered: What’s her story? Where did she come from?”
“Originally from Cincinnati, she went to the University of Ohio, where she was a beauty queen: Miss Buckeye. Her last year in college she married the university’s reigning playboy, Clyde somebody. Apparently she thought this would be her meal ticket out of her humdrum, lower-class life, because Clyde’s family had megabucks. But Clyde let her down by up and dying three years out of college—too much drugs and booze. She got a small cash settlement and with that began a residential real estate business in Cincinnati. She became a paragon of small business and active in social causes. One was the local theatre. She became the treasurer of the board and found out she had a feel for how to handle their budgets. A few years later, a larger real estate company bought out her firm, and she took off for New York to begin her producing career here.”
“How did you learn all this?”
“When she began pressing me, I thought I’d look into things, so I called a friend, head of one of our affiliates in Cincinnati. By the way, I understand she has a new target.”
“I heard something about that: Wilbur? Willard?”
“Wilfred Covington, from Tulsa. His grandfather was a key developer of the Andarko oil basin in the panhandle, and Wilfred hasn’t had to work a day in his life. He and his wife recently bought a penthouse somewhere in the East Sixties. He likes big, brassy musicals, and, as you know, Sybil can swing either way, so she’s helping him get into that.”
“Another notch in the belt.”
“Right. But I also hear the wife keeps Wilfred on a short leash.”
“A good challenge for Sybil.”
“Right.”
As I was leaving, I thanked Lance, and he asked me to keep him posted on progress in the investigation; I promised I would.
“See you at the funeral,” he said.
• • •
From Lance’s office I rushed to Grand Central and bought a ticket for the 11:50 to Stamford. Once on the train, I began to go over what I did and didn’t know, or, in the parlance of my bridge-playing friends, to “review the bidding.” The more I thought about it, the more I realized that Monaghan had every reason to investigate individuals who might have wandered in or out during tech rehearsals. I had been so fixated on the cast of characters I knew about—in theatre and in finance—that I had blocked out other possibilities, but he had a real point.
Before the advent of computerized tickets, there used to be a group known as “second acters”: students, young professionals, impoverished theatre enthusiasts. They knew exactly when the intermission of each Broadway show occurred and would arrive in front of the theatre at just the right moment to mingle with audience members gathering on the sidewalk. Unobtrusively, just before the second act, they would wander into the theatre and spot a few unoccupied seats, easily identified by the lack of programs or rain coats. When everyone returned from intermission and the lights began to dim, they quietly slipped into a vacant seat and enjoyed the rest of the show free of charge.
More to the point, during a production like The Unwitting Executor, there is a great deal of back and forth during the tech period. I don’t go out often because I don’t smoke, but I do go outside to get a breath of fresh air or maybe just sneak down the block to buy a coffee. So, yes, people were coming and going that night, and they weren’t dressed up—certainly not the designers and the techies. And a vagrant or someone with mischief on his mind could easily have blended in with the group.
Looking at it from a different angle, the theatre world is a small world, a highly competitive one, with a fair quotient of paranoia. There are only so many slots in a theatre’s schedule during a season, only so many parts in a play, and only so many productions for which a director or designer can be chosen. It’s not difficult for someone who missed out repeatedly to believe that another person got a break because of favoritism, nepotism, or whatever. Under this scenario the disgruntled individual, knowing about our tech rehearsals, could have mingled with the group out front, been assumed to be a friend of someone in the cast or crew, and drifted into the theatre without undue suspicion. Dorothy would have been a natural target, not necessarily as the one who committed the presumed offense but as someone who could exert pressure, maybe in the future if not right now. Perhaps the person never expected her to put up resistance, and she surprised him.
I was suddenly roused from these thoughts by the fact that the train had stopped. Looking out the window, I saw that we were already in Stamford. I barely managed to get off before it was moving once again, on its way to Bridgeport.