Between eleven p.m. and one a.m.. About the time I arrived at Bill’s place. I walked briskly up Main Street and down Amber. Last night, while I was washing off the grunge of my day as Wonder Woman, a body lay dead in the Etonville cemetery. Above ground. On a brisk, sunny, fall afternoon like this one, it was difficult to imagine a man, as yet unidentified, stabbed in the dark with a metal spike.
I opened the door to the Municipal Building and immediately faced its ego wall of mementos and trophies celebrating the town’s law enforcement and athletic successes. There was an Etonville Standard article about Bill’s involvement with the New Jersey State car theft unit last summer and a photo of him in uniform. Excellent! I took the hallway to the right, stopping at Edna’s dispatch window. I lifted the brown bag. “Lunch.”
Edna raised a finger, indicating I should hang on, then spoke into her headset. “Mrs. Parker, we cannot call animal control to catch a bat you saw flying in the park. There’s no law being broken.” Edna listened, did an eye roll. “It doesn’t matter if you think it’s actually Dracula. Now, you have a good day.” She ripped off her headset. “That woman is three sandwiches short of a picnic.” Edna leaned through the window. “Want me to take that?”
“I’ll deliver it,” I said.
Edna winked. Her phone lit up. “Ralph? Where are you? The chief’s been trying to reach you. There’s an 11-66 over on Anderson and traffic’s backed up in front of Georgette’s Bakery. You’d better get a move on.” She listened. “Forget the Donut Hole. 10-4.”
Everyday mayhem in Etonville.
Suki was at her desk in the outer office, her head bent over a file, her straight black hair swinging forward to cover her face.
I stopped. “I think the Caesar salad belongs to you?”
Suki smiled enigmatically, as usual. “Personal service,” she said.
“The walk felt good.”
“Yes. It’s a nice day.” Her expression neutral, expectant. What else did I want?
“Should I deliver this to the chief’s office?”
Suki rose and accepted the sandwiches for the two state police officers in a conference room farther down the hallway. She buzzed Bill to let him know I was coming in.
I knocked softly.
“Enter,” a tired voice said brusquely.
I stood in the doorframe and took in his office. Whoa. This was a change. Bill’s normally tidy desk was littered with loose papers and files. One guest chair had a stack of yellowed folders that looked as if they’d been resurrected from dusty archives. He still wore the shirt he’d pulled on at three a.m. this morning, tie undone, sleeves rolled up. He rubbed the blond stubble on his chin. “I’m famished. Nothing but coffee since last night.”
He fell on his lunch like a starving man, not pausing until he’d devoured most of it. “Are you making any progress on IDing the victim?” I asked tentatively.
“Working on it. Got the state police from the forensics lab digging into his ID. Fingerprints. Facial recognition.”
“I noticed the kids and their parents are gone.”
“Edna,” Bill said wryly. “I knew word would get out about them.”
“There was a mention in the Etonville Standard.”
“Newshounds! They were sniffing around the cemetery before I even got there. We let the four teenagers go. They didn’t have much to say. They thought the guy was drunk and passed out at first. This black hood thing was draped over his head. His face was covered with a Halloween mask.”
The Grim Reaper costume.
“They got scared and ran. Then one of them, the smart one, insisted they call the police.”
“Didn’t they question the stake in the man’s chest?”
“They claimed, each of them separately, that they didn’t see any stake,” he said.
“Oh?”
Bill stared at the wall opposite his desk. Possibly contemplating this bizarre turn of events or else so exhausted he was distracted by paraphernalia from his NFL days playing for the Cleveland Browns and Buffalo Bills. Caps, banners, and trophies filled bookshelves.
“If they are reliable witnesses,” he added.
I had to tread lightly. My history of helping to solve murder cases in Etonville was a double-edged sword. Bill had come to appreciate my instincts, at the same time he bristled when I pushed too hard or crossed the investigative line. “Do you believe them?”
He sighed. “We’ll see.”
“But the stake was there when you arrived? I was wondering—”
Bill raised a hand like a crossing guard. “Please. It’s early in the investigation. Too early for hunches,” he said wearily. It was a pointed comment on my intuition. He focused on his messy desk.
“Right.” My plate was full and I had no intention of sticking my nose into another murder inquiry. Besides, we needed a wedding site. Bill and I had a lot to discuss… Still, I couldn’t help one niggling thought. “I saw a Grim Reaper at the Halloween party.”
Bill jerked up his head.
“At least I’m pretty sure I did,” I continued in a rush. “I asked a few other folks and nobody else admitted having seen him, but there was one point, about an hour before the awards presentation, when I saw him hanging by the candy corn count and then he…” I stopped and caught my breath.
“He what?” Bill asked sharply, all business.
“He had a…moment with Carlos Villarias.”
Bill leaned back in his chair, showing more interest. “The guy playing Dracula? What do you mean ‘a moment’? They spoke?”
“No. In fact, they were across the room from each other. But it felt like they were…” How to describe the interaction? “Communicating.”
“Communicating?”
“They stared at each other.”
He tapped a pencil on his desk blotter. “What did this Grim Reaper look like?”
“I don’t know. He had the hood over his head. Like the victim,” I finished.
“I’ll make a note of it. Probably going to have to interview half of Etonville, because the vic wore a costume and it was Halloween night and people were out and about,” he grumbled, and ran a hand through his scruffy brush cut. “How many other Grim Reapers were there?”
“None as far as I could tell. See you tonight?” I asked softly.
“I’ll text later. Thanks for lunch.” He shifted his attention back to his desk, then looked up. “Did you do something to your hair?”
I took a chance. “Like it?”
“Cute.”
Yes!
* * * *
I was having mixed feelings about my garlic-themed food. Henry had done a fantastic job with last night’s specials and tonight should be no different: garlic-roasted baked brie for an appetizer and pork chops with sweet garlic relish for the entrée. Could the palates of Etonville take this much garlic? As I wandered the dining room as inconspicuously as possible, I overheard diners’ remarks:
“Garlic again?”
“What else is on the menu?”
“Think I’ll pass tonight.”
“Too bad the murder victim didn’t eat here last night….”
I smiled as politely as I could and whisked dishes off tables, helping Gillian and Enrico’s wife, Carmen, who lent a hand in the dining room on weekends. Murder fever was not going to die down until Bill and his crew determined the identities of the victim and the perpetrator. He didn’t have much to go on.
I dropped onto the bench of my back booth with baked brie on a hunk of bread and a seltzer. I intended to work until the dinner rush ended and then catch the third act of Dracula. I was curious about the stake-stabbing scene and—
“Thought I’d find you here.” Lola slid onto the bench opposite me, dressed for tonight’s opening: a black, silky pantsuit, her hair in an updo.
“Hey! Nice outfit. How did it go today? Walter in control?” I asked, savoring the warm brie. It was delicious.
Lola brushed the lapels of her jacket. “He’s surprisingly calm. No cancellations at the box office. The murder hasn’t dampened enthusiasm for the show.”
“You know Etonville…nothing perks this town up like a good, old-fashioned homicide.”
“You got that right.”
Benny appeared at my back. “Anything to drink, Lola?”
“Or eat? This brie is terrific. Not to mention the pork chops. I think there’s some soup left from lunch.”
Lola waved off my suggestions. “Just water. I’m not hungry.”
Benny ambled off. Something was up. It wasn’t like Lola to skip dinner on opening night. In fact, she usually fortified herself with both food and alcohol. “Want to talk about it?”
She tugged on an earring. “It’s nothing. Well, actually, it is something, but I’m not sure exactly what.” She hesitated. “Maybe I’ll have a half glass of chardonnay.”
I motioned to Benny, pointed to Lola, and mimicked drinking. “So…this ‘something’ that has you in a twist; what’s it about?”
“I saw something that might be important, or might not be. I’m not sure whether to say something and get someone in trouble or let it alone and see where the chips fall. Know what I mean?”
I hadn’t a clue.
Benny set her wine and water on the table and Lola sipped each one in turn. “Should I go to the police?” she asked.
“Let’s start at the beginning.” It was six o’clock. Lola could afford to lollygag in the Windjammer for at least another half hour.
“When I got to the party last night, I noticed my left heel was a little wobbly. I wanted to go back home and change shoes and told Walter to go in without me. But you know Walter. He insisted that we had to make a grand entrance together. It would be more dramatic, give us an edge for the grand prize, which I didn’t care about anyway, blah, blah, blah.”
I was familiar with Walter’s inclination to play a starring role in most situations. Lola must have given in, because they appeared at the door of the church basement together.
“As the night wore on, the heel got worse and I turned my ankle once.”
“Wow. I saw you limping.”
“I made it through most of the night but at eleven, I gave up. I had a pair of flats in my car, so I hobbled out to the parking lot to change shoes. The parking lot was lit by the security lights and I had my cell phone flashlight.”
I took another bite of the brie.
“I got into my car and found my flats in the back seat. When I looked up I saw Carlos…that Phantom costume was so distinctive…walking toward me. I wanted to get out to say hello, but he passed by as if he didn’t see me. He cut across a row of cars and then stopped. And somebody else was…just there. Like out of nowhere.” Lola murmured, “The other person had a long black robe and hood and a hideous white skeleton mask.”
“The Grim Reaper. Like the costume on the murder victim.”
“Yes!” Lola said, agitated. “And the two of them were very…animated. Like maybe they were having an argument.”
Yikes! Carlos and the Reaper had done more than communicate across a crowded room.
“Could you hear what they were saying?”
“No, and they must have realized they could be seen because the other person pulled Carlos away and they sort of…vanished. Into thin air.”
Or, more likely, into a car. They would have been pretty conspicuous in those getups on a street in Etonville. “I’m torn. What if Carlos was talking to the victim? If I say something to the police, it might take him out of the show. I have trouble believing that Carlos is a criminal. Despite some thinking that he’s a…a…you know.”
“Vampire?”
“Or at least something paranormal.” She gulped her wine. “What should we do?”
We?
“I know you said no more murder investigations, that you had enough to do organizing your wedding, which I know we should be talking about, but we need to clear Carlos of any suspicion so that there’s no interruption in Dracula. I couldn’t handle another canceled production.”
“How do you propose to do that?”
“You know how good you are at digging into people’s backgrounds—”
“Lola, I’m afraid—”
“—and using your instincts to figure out motives and—”
“I can’t get involved. I told Bill that I was done with investigating—”
“—freeing innocent suspects and finding the guilty parties.”
She paused. “If you could only talk with him? Maybe nose around in his background? Find something that might explain why he’d be talking to the dead man.”
“Lola…”
“That’s what best friends are for.” She reached across the table and clasped my hand.
I hated to turn her down. How would I explain this to Bill? Wouldn’t it be simpler for Lola to relate her story, let him have a few words with Carlos, and put the whole event to bed? “Talk to Bill and explain everything.”
As if she hadn’t heard me, Lola continued. “What if you never poke around a murder again?”
“First, I hope that’s true. That there are no more homicides in Etonville…and second, why wouldn’t I ever investigate again?”
Lola shrugged. “After you’re married, it might be awkward for Bill’s wife to be involved in police matters.”
I leaned back in my seat and studied Lola. Was she using a tactic to entangle me in the Carlos situation? Or was she right? Would I have such a different identity in the future that I wouldn’t be free to follow my instincts? I felt a chunk of tension in my stomach that had nothing to do with bread and brie. “Let’s say I agree to talk to…dig around a little…”
“Thank you, Dodie! You can’t believe how much better I feel.” She downed the rest of her wine with a water chaser.
“I’m only agreeing to dabble—”
“You can start tonight. Carlos and Bella are hosting the cast at their place after the show. Maybe you could pull him aside.” She glanced at her watch. “I’ve got to run.” She blew me a kiss and flew out the door.
Now what?
* * * *
The audience of Dracula milled about the lobby, the second intermission underway. It was a nice crowd for an opening. I eased through clumps of theatergoers chatting and nibbling on concession snacks, eavesdropping on conversations.
“That flying bat is something else.” Impressed!
“The green light is creepy.” Yes!
“I love the way Dracula appears and disappears magically into the bookcase.” Yay!
“He’s really scary. Do you think it’s true what they say about him?” Sheesh.
The rumors about Carlos were going to zing around Etonville until Dracula closed. I mulled over potential conversation starters with him, as per Lola’s plea. How old are you? Have you ever lived in Transylvania? What kind of a coffin do you prefer to sleep in? I had to laugh despite the seriousness of his possible predicament. And mine. At what point would I need to share Lola’s revelation with Bill?
“Hello, Dodie.”
A familiar voice brought me out of my Carlos musing. It was Bella, looking very different than last night. The jewelry, bandanna, and multicolored gown were replaced by a tailored maroon skirt and a white turtleneck sweater. Her flowing brown hair was gathered at the nape of her neck in a smart chignon. If I hadn’t seen her reading palms at the Halloween party, I would immediately assume she was a corporate type on an evening out. Come to think of it, I had no idea if she was a corporate type, or where she was employed. As with Carlos, none of us knew much about Bella. “Hello.”
“Are you enjoying the play?” she asked, her tone as feathery as it was last night, her eyes as penetrating.
“I just arrived. I’ve seen a few rehearsals, so I’m third-acting it tonight. I’ll be back before it closes to see the full production.”
She cocked her head. “I sense that I’ve met you before.”
I laughed awkwardly. What was it about the Villariases that unnerved me? “You mean other than last night when you read my palm?” And warned me about surrendering my personality.
She frowned. “Yes. Other than last night. You have a memorable persona.”
I do? “You certainly provided memorable entertainment at the party. People loved the palm readings. Even gave a few customers some unforgettable advice.” I was thinking about Walter. And me.
“I’m pleased Etonville had a good time. It’s a charming little town.”
I was on the brink of inquiring whether her future plans involved long-term residence in our “charming little town” when Lola appeared. She slipped an arm through mine, a frozen grin on her face.
“Hello, Bella,” she said.
“Lola.”
“So lovely of you to host the cast tonight. Is there anything we can bring?” Lola asked brightly. Too brightly.
“It’s our pleasure and, no, I think we’re all set,” she said graciously. “I’m happy you’ll be joining us, Dodie.”
How did she know that? Had Lola mentioned anything? The lights in the lobby flicked on and off, signaling the impending start of Act Three. Bella headed back into the house.
“What’s up? I recognize that fake smile.” I had a similar one that I whipped out whenever I was in over my head. Usually about once a week. “How’s it going out there?”
Lola tightened her grip on my arm. “The French doors in Act Two were stuck and Dracula had to practically bash his way in. Then Lucy’s gown ripped. She almost had an R-rated scene with Carlos. The flying bat ran into a light batten and several instruments wobbled. I’m holding my breath until the curtain call. Wish I could run next door to the Windjammer…” she added wistfully.
“Pull yourself together. I’m sure things aren’t as bleak as you make them sound. I overheard people raving about the show.” I gave her a thumbs-up.
She straightened and squeezed my hand. I trailed her into the theater, where the lights were already dimming. Lola moved swiftly to her seat down front, while I sat in a chair in the last row next to the ELT photographer. “Hey,” I whispered to Pauli.
“Hey,” he whispered back.
I settled in as the house lights went dark. In the blackout, dogs howled as they had earlier in the play. Truly a chilling effect. When the lights rose, the play was back in the same setting as Act One—the library of Dr. Seward’s sanatorium. Walter and Vernon pleaded with the Attendant—Abby—to find the bug-eating Renfield so they might use him as bait to catch his master, Dracula.
A trick chair swung upstage, then downstage, while curtains fluttered as though some invisible force had entered, stayed for a bit, then exited. Supposedly the vampire. Van Helsing, Dr. Seward, and Harker plotted to kill Lucy, if necessary, to save her soul. When Janice entered, looking healthier and more vital than in the previous act, due to an unnatural transfusion, she fluctuated wildly in a Jekyll-and-Hyde routine depending on when Dracula’s influence overcame her. I was transfixed, as was Pauli. He angled his body forward in his seat as if drawn like a magnet to the stage. Janice’s Lucy was riveting as she bent her lover’s neck, dogs wailing, her mouth heading toward his throat. Walter and Vernon enter in the nick of time to save Romeo’s life.
I exhaled. The tension level ratcheted up another few notches when the devil himself appeared in evening clothes, mocking Van Helsing, Seward, and Harker, threatening to take Lucy with him to the other side and make her his bride for centuries to come. Talk about a marriage not made in heaven! When the three heroes attempted to keep Dracula in the room until daybreak—at one point they were down to ten seconds—to destroy him with the metal stake, the Etonville Little Theatre performed its best feat of magic. In a flash of smoke, the vampire vanished through a trapdoor in the floor, leaving his cape behind. The onstage characters were stunned. So was the audience.
In a brief blackout, the house erupted in a vibrant hubbub, releasing the tension of the previous scene.
I turned to Pauli. “Wow.”
His eyes were shining with excitement and pride. “Totally. Isn’t Janice…” Words failed him.
“She sure is.” I patted his shoulder.
The final scene was played behind a scrim, the actors in dim light and shadow. A bright flashlight guided them downstairs and into an underground chamber where the coffin containing Dracula was located. As Van Helsing and Seward hover by the casket, placing the stake over Dracula’s heart, Harker swings a hammer and strikes the metal with an awful force. An offstage groan indicated the spike had hit the sweet spot. All executed smoothly, consistent with Penny’s explanation of the Dracula dummy and the spike being fitted into a sandbox. Possibly a new spike?
When the lights burst on, the stunned crowd sat in silence for a moment, then erupted in cheering, clapping, and shouts of “Bravo!” By the time Carlos took his bow, spectators were on their feet. The ELT had a bona fide triumph.
Folks drifted out of the house, caught up in the energy and exhilaration of the last scene, the noise level rising steadily. Lola was stuck in the aisle between two enthusiastic fans. I caught her eye and gave her the okay sign. She smiled sheepishly.
After announcing that he’d see me at the cast gathering—he’d wheedled an invitation as the ELT photographer—Pauli squirmed his way through the mob to reach Janice backstage. I was happy for the two of them. For everyone.
As I watched the happy horde exit the theater, something in the first scene of Act Three pricked at my imagination. Something someone said… I reran the scene in my mind. Dracula explained to his three nemeses that the stake-in-the-heart routine only worked if the victim died by day and not by night. Hmmm… The man in the cemetery definitely died by night. If I believed in vampires, which I certainly didn’t, I’d have to acknowledge that the victim might have become one of the undead…I gulped.