A Midsummer Eve's Nightmare (2 page)

At the other end of the phone line Victoria alternated sobs and apologies for bothering her.

Elizabeth took a deep breath. “Never mind, Tori. Just tell me what’s wrong.”

“It’s Erin. My roommate. I didn’t want to put all this on you your first night here. I thought maybe with you here things would make sense, and I wouldn’t be so frightened. . .”

“Tori! Tell me what happened.”

“Erin. She’s in the hospital.”

“All right.” Elizabeth managed to keep her sigh almost inaudible. She hoped. “We’ll be right there, Tori.”

Chapter 2

THE APARTMENT VICTORIA AND Erin shared—their digs, they called it—was just at the foot of the long hill behind the theatre. It was easy walking distance, but Richard drove to save time. Tori flung the door open before they reached the top step. Her long black hair, usually worn in a sleek braid or ponytail, hung loose and disheveled around her shoulders. Behind her dark-rimmed glasses her eyes looked watery. Elizabeth took her little sister in her arms. “Now, tell me all about it.”

“The ambulance was just taking her away when I got home. The medic thinks it’s a heart attack.”

“Heart attack? She’s all of what—26? 27?”

“No, still 25. But sometimes young people . . .”

“Had she been sick?” Richard asked.

“No. I tease her all the time about how healthy she is—handfuls of vitamins, natural food, yoga exercises—she does it all.”

“But you said something had been going on.” Elizabeth ushered her sister inside.

“It’s just been little stuff all summer. Nothing you couldn’t brush off as bad luck, coincidence, or dirty tricks by jealous underlings. . .”

“Such as?” Elizabeth and Richard sat on either side of Tori on a sagging brown velour sofa.

Tori shrugged. “A flat fell over on her backstage during rehearsals. She wasn’t hurt, just unnerved. Then a few days later we found a rake laying tines up on the sidewalk in the dark. She didn’t step on it, but we couldn’t figure out where it came from.”

“Don’t tell me—a pin in the greasepaint?” Elizabeth asked.

“No. That one’s too old even for whoever’s doing this. They put ground glass in her powder. She got some pretty severe scratches.”’

“Oh, how awful!” Elizabeth shivered.

“Have you called the police?” Richard asked.

“For nothing more than pranks? They’d laugh at us. Or have us up for wasting police time. We told Trevor, though. That’s Trevor Stevens, one of the directors. He patted Erin on the head and told her to be careful—he couldn’t have anything happening to his star. I expected him to give her a lollipop next.”

Elizabeth started to answer when a clatter of cups and saucers drew her attention to the small kitchen to their right. A tall, slim man with curly blond hair wearing crumpled beige cords and a white knit shirt came in carrying a tray. “Coffee, anyone?”

Tori jumped up and crossed to his side. The transformation that came over her was remarkable. Her eyes sparkled, and her hair even looked less tangled as she announced, “This is Gregg.”

Elizabeth and Richard made all the proper replies and accepted cups of coffee, but all the time Elizabeth was wondering what else her sister hadn’t told her. And where was this Gregg when all these dirty tricks were going on?

“Gregg Parkin.” He set his coffee cup down and held out his hand to Richard. “I’m a member of the company.”

“Gregg, you’re too modest,” Tori protested. “He practically
is
the company. He’s Othello, Orsino and Elbow.”

“My goodness.” Elizabeth gasped. “Is that possible?
Othello
?”

Gregg gave her a charming grin. “Makeup can do wonders.”

“And talent,” Tori insisted.

Gregg almost blushed and Elizabeth readily understood her sister’s obvious attraction. Self-effacement was not a common commodity in the theatre world.

“Did you call the ambulance, Gregg?” Richard asked.

Tori answered. “Erin called it herself. I called Gregg.”

So why did you have to call us?
Elizabeth wanted to say, but instead said, “Well, that’s a good sign if she was able to make a call.” She set her cup down. “Shall we go to the hospital?”

Tori agreed readily, but Gregg said he’d stay behind to call Trevor. “He’ll want the understudy to get right on it. May want me to rehearse with her. We’re on tonight.”

“Where do we go?” Richard asked as soon as they were in the car.“Ashland Community Hospital,” Tori directed. “North on Lithia Way. Then left on Maple.”

Erin appeared to be all round green eyes and high, sharp cheekbones against the whiteness of her pillow when they entered the hushed room a few minutes later. Tubes ran from her nose, arm and chest to various bottles and monitoring machines. “So sorry for the melodrama,” she smiled at them weakly as she indicated the equipment. “I’m so glad you came. They said I couldn’t have visitors. How’d y’all manage?” Too tired to worry about stage diction, her Texas accent came through.

“Didn’t ask—just walked in. How are you?” Tori asked.

“I’ll be fine. Does Trevor know?”

“Gregg’s calling him now.” Tori introduced Elizabeth and Richard.

Erin’s eyes brightened. “Tori told me you were coming. She told me how you solved that murder weekend thing. Maybe you can help me.”

Tori grabbed her friend’s hand. “Erin, you said you were all right. This can’t possibly be another dirty trick, can it?”

Erin attempted a smile. “The doctor thought I was raving when I suggested it. He thinks I just forgot to take my pills. But I didn’t. You know I never forget.” She looked at Tori. “Somebody must have switched them or something.”

“Pills? You mean those vitamins you take?”

“Well, yes, they’re all natural stuff, but I have this deficiency. If I don’t take potassium chloride I get symptoms like a heart attack. Like I just had.”

“So they gave you some here?”

Erin indicated the drip bottle attached to her arm. “Yes. Like I said, I’ll be fine. But that’s not the point.” Her voice rose and she attempted to raise her head off the pillow. “Look, you’ll see. I took my pills. Look on the shelf in the kitchen, next to the big bottle of calcium. You’ll see them—white capsules. Bottle about half full.” She dropped her head back, exhausted, gasping for breath.

“I don’t understand.” Tori shook her head.

“I took them like always; I’ve thought and thought about this. Those pills couldn’t have had potassium chloride in them. Somebody did something to them.” Her voice rasped weakly, her eyes grew wide with alarm. “I know they did. Someone is trying to kill me.”

Why would they do that?
Elizabeth wanted to ask. But before she could break the stunned silence in the room, the door swished open behind them. “How did you get in here?” the starched voice of a nurse demanded. All three visitors took a step backward.

“I have brought you
one
visitor, Miss Renton. He
says
he’s the closest thing you have to family here.”

European skier
was Elizabeth’s first thought as she looked at the man standing behind the nurse holding an armful of white flowers. Elizabeth tallied up his cobalt blue eyes in a tanned face, his wavy brown, sun-streaked hair and twill sports jacked tailored to show off his day-on-the-slopes physique. “Dirk,” Erin said.

The Adonis moved toward Erin’s bed while the nurse stood, hands on hips, staring at the others as they retreated.

Richard laughed when they were in the hall. “That’s what you call a strong-eyed dog.”

“What?” Elisabeth asked.

“In New Zealand. They breed dogs that can herd sheep just by staring them down.”

But their chuckles faded when Elizabeth asked, “What about those pills, Tori?”

“Oh, I’m sure she took them. She’s religious about her vitamins.”

“Then we’d better check it out.” Richard ushered them to the car.

A few minutes later the three of them stood by the kitchen counter and stared at the capsules Tori dumped into her hand, holding the bottle with a cloth at Elizabeth’s direction. “I don’t know, they look the same to me.”

“I’ll take them to the police. They can have they analyzed. And check the bottle for fingerprints.” Richard slipped the bottle into a plastic baggie.

Richard had secured the pills just in time. Victoria gave a startled cry and flung out her hands in a gesture that would have landed the entire bottle in the sink. “I forgot! Erin’s understudy. Sally’s at least two inches shorter. I have to adjust the costumes.” The door banged behind her as she left at a run.

Elizabeth sighed and turned to the one cushioned chair in the living room.

“Don’t worry, my love.” Richard picked up her hand and kissed it. “Erin’ll be all right.”

“I know. It isn’t that. It was when you mentioned the police. I don’t want to get involved in another intrigue. I mean, the mystery weekend thing was all right—in the end it was wonderful because it got us together. But now we are together, I just want to enjoy
us
. After all, this is our honeymoon.”

Richard pulled her to her feet and into his arms. “I hope you don’t think I’ve forgotten that fact. What you need, Mrs. Spenser, is a nice country French dinner and an evening with the Bard to make you forget your troubles.”

“What I need, Mr. Spenser, is a kiss.”

OTHELLO

When devils will the blackest sins put on,

They do suggest at first with heavenly shows.

Iago

Chapter 3

THE
COQ AU VIN
with tiny pearl onions, carrots and potatoes, was followed by tender butter lettuce leaves dressed in a light garlic oil and vinegar, then Pears Hélène, and finally thin wedges of camembert cheese. Elizabeth leaned back in her chair as a Mozart air floated around her. “Mmmm, if I’d known this was what honeymooning was all about I wouldn’t have turned you down so many times.”

Richard reached across the table and squeezed her hand. “It’s part of what it’s about, anyway.” His smile gave a promise of things to come.

They sat for a moment just grinning at each other while Elizabeth’s heart pounded in her throat. Then Richard stood. “Come on. The Bard calls.”

Hand-in-hand they walked past tiny shops of handmade toys, imported china and antiques, then turned in to Lithia Park, running green and natural for more than a hundred acres up the gentle hill from which Ashland Creek tumbled through the center of the wooded grounds. Children’s laughter rang from the playground and other couples strolled or sat reading and talking under the trees. Elizabeth and Richard turned toward the left where the back of the four-story Elizabethan Theatre stood in its half-timbered elegance. Although it would still be full daylight for more than an hour yet, gaslight-type lamps glowed along the stairway leading up the steep incline to the theatre.

Elizabethan-costumed ushers welcomed them as soon as they entered the ivy-covered walls encircling the seating area of the outdoor theatre, and the music of a sprightly Renaissance dance called them to the open area behind the seats where costumed dancers cavorted with the fluttering ribbons of a maypole to the accompaniment of recorder, crumhorn and viole de gamba.

“Would you like a chess pie, sir?” A serving wench with a tray of tarts around her neck smiled at Richard.

He cocked an eyebrow questioningly at Elizabeth, but she shook her head, too full to be tempted.

The dancers finished with a neatly wound pole and scampered off to the applause of their many watchers. Then a young man in hose and doublet stepped forward and sang to the accompaniment of a small harp, “A dark and pretty maiden has my heart. . .” Richard’s arm tightened around Elizabeth, and she laid her head against him. In contrast to the tortures the maiden in the song led her lover through, Elizabeth knew there was nothing she wanted more than to make Richard happy.

When the song ended they found their seats in the vast open-air arena, down front center. They were just seated when a fanfare sounded and a bright yellow flag made its way up the pole above the heavens of the stage, signifying, as such a pennant had since the time of Shakespeare, that a play was to be performed that night. The actor who had raised the flag stuck his head out of the tiny upper window and doffed his hat to the applause of the audience.

Richard looked at the multilevel Elizabethan theatre. “Is it the Globe?”

Elizabeth shook her head. “The Fortune, circa 1600. The enclosure,” she indicated the walls defining the arena, hung with yellow shields listing the plays performed every year since the festival began in 1935, “is the foundation of the old Chautaque dome.”

Richard made an appreciative sound and looked around him as Elizabeth continued. “William Jennings Bryant, Mark Twain, everyone who lectured on the old Chautaque circuit spoke here.”

“Ah, yes, but none more eloquently than our Shakespeare.”

A few minutes later the somber beating of a drum followed by the solemn tolling of a bell announced the beginning of
Othello
. From the first moment Elizabeth was swept fully into the world unfolding before her on the stage. Trevor Stevens was a director who believed in lavish use of spectacle, and he did not disappoint. From each side they came, dressed in stark black and white, the corteges of mourners. One bearing the body of a woman, the other of a man. The sorrowing processions passed in silence, the drumbeat and bell toll punctuated only occasionally by a sob or a wail. And then they were gone. Leaving the stage in total blackness.

With a change of mood as abrupt as a turn on a roller coaster, the lights blazed on a sumptuous feast in the Venetian palace of Desdemona’s father. Richly clad servants ran hither and yon bearing torches, platters of food, and golden urns of wine. Jesters jumped and frolicked to spirited music while, in an exposition that was the director’s own, Othello was entertained by Senator Brabantio while the maidenly Desdemona looked on with rapt attention.

Elizabeth couldn’t believe the elegant, dark-skinned Moor who held everyone in fascination with his stories of valor was the blond, understated man she had met a few hours earlier at her sister’s apartment. The fragile Desdemona, in a gown of gold as pale as her long, blonde hair, could easily have been the Erin she knew was still in the hospital. Elizabeth commented as such to Richard, then the magic of the theatre reclaimed her.