Murder, Most Sincerely: A Romantic Backstage Mystery Read online

  Murder,

  Most Sincerely

  Beverly Nault

  Copyright © 2014 Beverly Nault

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 0615951090

  ISBN-13: 978-0615951096 JUBILEE PRESS

  DEDICATION

  To everyone who works “in the back, in the black.”

  All Titles by Beverly Nault

  Fiction

  The Seasons of Cherryvale

  Fresh Start Summer

  Grace & Maggie Across the Pond

  Autumn Changes

  Hearts Unlocked

  Christmas Bells

  Spring Blossoms

  Cozy Mystery

  Murder, Most Sincerely

  Nonfiction

  Lessons from the Mountain, What I Learned from Erin Walton

  with Mary McDonough

  Visit www.beverlynault.com to learn more about Beverly.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Like any successful theatrical production, no book is written entirely alone, and this one’s no exception. Thanks to my husband, Gary, for supporting me in all things creative, including the years I spent working backstage. Also, thanks to my kids, Lindsay and Evan, who allowed this stage mom to play alongside you in theatre, you’ll always be my favorite performers ever.

  To my critique partners: Ashley Ludwig, Dona Watson and Joanne Bischof, your unstoppable applause keeps me going, and your red penning keeps me growing. Rebecca Farnbach and the every-second-Tuesday-of-the-month critique group, thanks for your input.

  To Karla Ramsey, my first reader. Your eye for detail and all things medical help me so much. Thanks for being willing to read and brainstorm to make the stories believable.

  My sister, Brenda Keller, you are the ultimate cheerleader and my number one fan. I love you.

  To every director and creative team I’ve worked with, you’re the bones and muscle that keep audiences entertained, there’s never enough appreciation for all you do. You never step into the spotlight-unless something’s gone really wrong! Take a bow!

  Now put down the book (after you’ve finished reading of course) and go enjoy a live performance near you. And remember the people whose faces you rarely, or possibly never, see. Your applause rings through to the sound booth, to the prop room, into the wings, and up into the rafters where they work. Your enjoyment and support are the lifeblood that keeps them showing up to work “in the back, in the black.”

  .

  CHAPTER ONE

  Darkness wrapped around Lucy Lambert and she twisted from side to side, checking the path of the tornado as its momentum increased, whirling higher and higher, making her hair stand on end. Blinking against dust and torn bits of paper mixed with insect parts, and whatever the cast carried in on their shoes racing directly for her, she braced for impact as the brunt force of the wind hit her broadside.

  In a flash, it was over, and she righted herself on the stage manager’s stool and delivered a warning “Shh!” The Cowardly Lion and Tin Man huddled nearby in their usual impatience for their cue to enter stage right. The Morgan Valley Community Theater’s matinee performance of “The Wizard of Oz” had the entire cast and crew buzzing with the nervous energy that usually permeated the last show. Despite their energy, she had to keep everyone focused until the final curtain fell.

  In the house, the audience reacted with the expected oohs and ahhs as smart lights spun a tornadic illusion across the stage’s wooden planking, and giant fans blew pre-set papers. Wearing heavy gloves against the thorns, her assistant stage manager, Justin, cut the tumbleweed loose from the temporary curtain hung for the purpose of catching the sticky weed. It was now bedraggled and lopsided from rolling from stage right to left, brittle and half the size it started out three weeks ago. After fifteen shows and countless rehearsals, Lucy was planning a happy dance when it was tossed in the dumpster, by her calculation in less than two hours. She breathed a sigh of relief as the pesky piece disappeared, and Justin handed her the Swiss army knife her dad had given her. “You never know when you’ll need one of these,” he’d said. Although he worried about her financially, her dad seemed to support her dreams.

  She returned the knife to her pocket. Should be smooth sailing from here on out. Lucy had developed an almost sixth sense, an uncanny awareness of her surroundings. Her ability meant that she was keenly aware of the unspoken rhythms; she sensed the movements, the subtle ambiance of every light, actor, sound cue, and musical note as they pieced together to make a seamless picture, a story world of imagination and escape for the theatergoer when things were going smoothly. When they weren’t, she was quick to react, a precious gift for a stage manager who must know without stopping to think, how to fix a problem almost before it happened. Certainly before it was evident to the audience.

  This ability, combined with her passion for theater, was something she hoped would make her dream to have a permanent staff position, a reality. Others might want the spotlight; she adored being in the back, in the black. This show, her first large cast musical, the hardest to manage for its scale and precision, would prove if she had the chops.

  “Have a heart.” Lion held giant paws to his chest, and affected the shaky timbre of his character’s signature voice. “Admit you’re glad this is the last time we have to stand here in these stinky costumes.” Nudging her, he lifted a wooly arm and shifted his smelly self toward her.

  “Stop.” She only half pretended to be angry, smirked to herself, and squinted at her binder in the blue light clipped to her podium. It was nice to be kidding around with the cast. Ever since a very public argument—and resulting breakup—with the director, Dillon Chandler, during technical rehearsal week, she’d wondered if she would ever regain the cast’s and crew’s respect. Unprofessional to air their personal problems at work, she knew it was made even worse when he openly doubted her ability to handle thirty-five cast members, a crew double the size of any she’d ever worked with, and all the technical staff necessary for a show of this magnitude. All on her first gig at the manager’s podium.

  Tin Man lifted his prop can, teasing her with a mock dousing of oil. She tried to throw him a good-natured smile, but a crucial call was coming up and her attention was pulled back to the script. From the corner of her eye, she saw him swing his rubber hatchet at the Lion, who flicked his long tail behind him and squared off, paws up.

  “Knock it off, you two,” Lucy hissed at them, trying to sound stern. Their pretend battles were legendary, and when the flying monkeys egged them on, had been a constant reminder that Lucy barely clung to her authority. When they’d placed a rubber spider on her stool the first day of technical rehearsal, she knew Dillon had sold her out to the cast. But her deathly fear of spiders would not keep her down. After collecting herself in the shop office, she’d returned, replaced her headset and commanded authority. She’d been pranked, and welcomed the good-natured initiation, as it meant the cast and rest of the crew was beginning to accept her.

  She rubbed her temples, glad this was the last time she would have to worry about those two hurting each other, or worse, making so much noise Dillon would spring from his seat in the audience and appear at her side and remind her she didn’t have control back here. Despite their breakup, his concerns about her, and some illnesses in the cast, the backstage glitches had been kept to a minimum. The show had been a box office success, and the gig boosted her bank balance until it almost hovered in the black.

  Resisting the urge to celebrate prematurely, she told herself that just like most car accidents happen close to home, her show could go south at any moment before the final curtain fell if she let
down her guard. She leaned close to her monitor, making sure the 2D house façade was sitting on the correct marks before uttering the order to raise the lights. Satisfied the ruby-slippered prop legs indicating the Wicked Witch of the East was dead were suitably visible, she gave the okay, turned the page, and lifted off her headset.

  She had three minutes, more or less, depending on whether Dorothy stumbled on her lines, to escort an increasingly reluctant, yet crucial, actor on stage. Slipping past some gossiping Ozzians, she stepped into the hallway to a small crate underneath a prop table. A pair of round brown eyes blinked at her through the grill. “Come on, sweet girl, it’s time for your close-up.” Even though Lucy’s original contract prevented her from being the animal wrangler on top of all her other duties, when the terrier rescued from the local animal shelter to play Toto had begun losing her reddish brown fur from the stress, Lucy banished everyone else from touching the poor creature. And even though she hadn’t intended to keep a pet because of her odd schedule and limited budget, she’d begun taking the little dog home to try and staunch the poor thing’s alarming hair loss. But the dog still seemed to be failing.

  “Just one more, and I promise, no more acting gigs for you.” Lucy unlocked the door beneath her hand-scribbled sign, “Only SM handles dog!” and lifted the mutt into her arms. Craning her neck from a slobbery kiss, she football-carried the pup, keeping her other hand free to hold off the youngsters dressed as munchkins, who invariably wanted to touch the dog as she passed.

  She managed to skirt them, and settled on the stool at her podium. Penny, as the dog had been named by the Animal Friends rescue shelter, was a lethargic lump in her lap. Lucy rubbed her head. “Almost final curtain, baby,” she reassured her.

  Headset repositioned over her ponytailed hair, she saw Lion from the corner of her eye. He’d once suggested she could donate her own hair to the balding dog since they were oddly the same color. Cheeky actors.

  Script pages flipped over as she caught up to the dialog. Ten weeks of rehearsals, one very long hell week that lived up to its name, and fifteen performances later, Lucy was ready to put this show away. She’d promised to visit her dad, who would, of course beg her to move closer to his senior community in Phoenix so he could watch out for her. But now that her first show was a success, she could prove to him she could make it on her own.

  A musical cue sounded, and she sat up straighter, adrenaline surging. The next few moments were what made working on a stage the wildly creative, exciting, and yet frustrating profession that Lucy adored.

  As the orchestra neared the end of a measure, she and the crew would have less than five seconds to perform their magic. Dorothy would exit, a dresser would whip off the gray and white gingham apron to swap with its techni-colored twin, taking care not to disturb her hair and body microphone. Someone else would grab Penny from Lucy while the crew removed the house, place the dog, set flower boxes and fake trees. Tin Man and Lion would hurry out onto the stage to hide behind set pieces, and Lucy’s heart would beat a staccato while she waited for the all clear from Justin so she could order the lights brought up. All this before the audience had a chance to consider even squirming in their seats.

  Beyond the anticipation of the quick change, it was also Lucy’s favorite moment in the show. When the lights hit Dorothy and Penny standing on the yellow brick road, Oz arose beyond the fields of poppies in the distance. The magic of live theater could never be surpassed, in her mind, by moments like this.

  Proud to be part of the team, she knew their small town was blessed with talent capable of pleasing even a finicky audience within an hour’s drive of Hollywood.

  The moment had arrived. The dog was lifted from her grasp. Leaning back, Lucy checked to see if Dorothy was out of the way as the crew pushed off the house. Waiting for Justin to announce Tin Man and Lion were placed, she prepared to give Matt the go-ahead to bring up the lights on the yellow brick road, and Dorothy and Penny would be on their way to Oz, albeit meeting with several pages of peril along the way. Lucy heard what she needed to know, gave the order, and the overhead lights blazed a wash across the stage.

  Instead of the expected gasp of appreciation, though, a giggle started in the front row of the audience, followed by a wave of laughter as the matinee crowd saw what Lucy had feared, but somehow expected and dreaded, as the little dog’s stress level caught up to her until she was unable to cope any longer with the demands of working the boards.

  Lucy’s own stomach churned as Penny squatted, her rounded back to the crowd, and did what no doggy actor should do while on stage during a live performance, forcing Lucy to do what no Stage Manager ever wanted to do during a live performance.

  “Close the main! Don’t ask questions, just do it!” The words barely out of her mouth, she flung the headset down, grabbed a shop towel, and hissed, “Someone go get Barnie, 9-1-1!” at a huddle of flying monkeys. They gawped, and then pushed and shoved toward the door, each one eager to be the first to find the maintenance man.

  The velvet curtain whooshed closed as Lucy sprinted over and knelt next to Penny. Ears back, tail still tucked, Lucy could tell the dog was aware she had done something wrong. The mutt shivered, and someone in the audience heckled, “I guess the wicked witch slipped her some eye of newt!” and the crowd laughed again.

  Her heart melting, Lucy cooed, “Come here, honey,” and held the soiled pup at arms’ length from her black t-shirt and jeans. No need to whisper. The “front of house” beyond the closed curtain now resonated with animation worthy of a NASCAR crowd after a pile up. A mop and bucket appeared, and Lucy checked Madison, the pre-teen girl playing Dorothy. “Are you okay?”

  Ammonia and detergent wafted as Barnie’s mop swished around their feet.

  “Ew, it stinks out here now.” Dorothy pinched her nose shut.

  Lucy’s forefinger flew to her lips. “Shh, your mic’s still hot.” Whispering into Madison’s ear, she avoided the tiny microphone taped at her hairline so as not to broadcast their conversation. She gently steered Madison out of the way and peered seriously at her, still holding her nose. “You’re going to have to use the prop dog. I know it’s not the same, but this little girl needs her understudy to go on, she has a tummy ache.”

  Casts invariably traded viruses because of their close quarters, and shared germy water bottles. Illnesses often worked their way through a show, but Lucy wondered why the dog had to get sick as well. Just her luck.

  The props mistress had supplied a stuffed dog for the early rehearsals, and wisely left it at the theater in case of emergency. Justin appeared like magic, a lidded picnic basket on his tatted arm with the stuffed animal inside. “Dillon’s going to be P.O’ed,” he whispered. “They’re taping this for his director’s reel.”

  His warning sped up Lucy’s already racing heartbeat. “Don’t remind me.” Dillon was desperate to move up the next rung on the director’s ladder to Broadway, and under the circumstances, Lucy didn’t want anything holding him back. He would have to find another ex-girlfriend’s back to climb over; after doubting her every move, this was the last show she’d ever work for him.

  She knelt down to check the ruby slippers for any doggy soilage. Satisfied the shoes were clean, she stood, and reminded Madison which line to pick up, lifted the basket’s lid to pull out the stuffed Toto’s head so it would be visible, and with a caution to act as if nothing had happened, returned to the manager’s stool to restart the show.

  Barnie exited, mop in hand, gave Lucy the A-OK signal, and disappeared into the wings.

  Into the headset, Lucy told her crew she would first settle the house, and where to pick up the cues. She said a quick thanks to them for doing their jobs under the unusual circumstances. If anyone ever questioned the presence of an intelligent Creator of the universe, she wondered if they’d ever witnessed the fine-tuning it took to put on a live production, emergencies and all.

  As she formed the appropriate words to address the audience, Dillon’s imposing fra
me suddenly filled the open doorway. He strode over, the daggers in his gaze piercing through her. “What is going on in here? Can’t you get this show to the end without a major f—”

  “Children in earshot!” Lucy warned.

  “Fiasco!” he finished, now nose to nose with her. “I told you to keep an eye on that dog, and see what happens? Are you trying to ruin me?” He reached up to push back the strand of her hair that always found its way out of any clip.

  She brushed his hand away, and settled the mic next to her lips, wondering when he’d started smoking again. “Get off my stage.” Eyes locked on his, she reminded him with her posture that the backstage domain was hers, and he was an intruder. “It was an accident. Everyone is doing their best to recover. Now back off while I get the show going again.” She drew up straighter to telegraph her message. In her mind’s eye, she could see his chiseled jaw clenching and unclenching. But he knew better than to interfere while she ran the show. Before she had to repeat herself, he took a step back.

  Flicking the switch to broadcast, heart thrumming in her eardrums, she spoke calmly, apologized for the interruption, and asked the audience to return to their seats as quickly as possible.

  When she’d finished, Dillon had disappeared, and she indulged herself and everyone else in five seconds of peace before taking a deep breath, and giving the order for the curtain to be reopened.

  As she kept pace with the dialog and music, flipping pages as the show progressed, she wondered why she had the worst luck. After months of waiting, of convincing the theater director, Edith, she could handle a show herself, of taking her turns as runner, assistant stage manger, this was her first real job from pre-show production to final curtain, and she was in danger of becoming Morgan Valley’s worst ever stage manager.