Murder at Ford's Theatre (25 page)

THIRTY

“T
HAT
’
S A WRAP.
”

Ford’s Theatre’s stage crew had spent much of the day preparing for Thursday’s
Festival at Ford’s
telecast. Tours of the theatre had been cancelled for that day and the rest of the week leading up to the show. Sydney Bancroft had arrived at one that afternoon and attempted to inject himself into the process, to the chagrin of others.

“Why doesn’t he just go to a bar and get drunk, get out of our hair?” Johnny Wales muttered to a colleague as they completed erecting a flat. “He’s not worth a damn around here.”

“That flat should be moved a titch to the right,” Bancroft said from where he stood at the edge of the orchestra pit. The musicians had run through musical scores and were packing their instruments.

Wales ignored Bancroft.

“To the right,” Bancroft repeated, louder this time.

The director of the show, who’d been brought in from New York by ABC-TV, came to Bancroft’s side and said, “It looks good the way it is, Sydney. I think it’s fine.”

Bancroft failed to disguise his anger. “I’ve spent my life in the theatre,” he said, lip curled. “I know the way a stage should be dressed.”

“Yeah, well, this is TV, Sydney. Time to undress. We’re finished here for the day. See you tomorrow.”

Bancroft watched him walk away and involuntarily clenched his fists at his sides. “Television, indeed,” he mumbled. “Fools!”

Disdain for him and his suggestions were in abundant evidence that day. All his suggestions had been summarily dismissed, and the snide comments whispered behind his back weren’t lost on him. Clarise had told him he was associate director of the festival, which should have carried with it at least a modicum of respect. The truth was, she’d thrown him another bone, and he’d had to lobby even for that. He was impotent; he might as well be invisible.

H
E
’
D STAYED IN BED
until almost noon, although he’d awoken early and wasn’t tired. He lay under the covers paralyzed by fear, afraid to step out of bed and face another day of frustration and defeat. It was insufferably hot in the apartment, yet he shivered, and cried once when thinking about his childhood in England during the war.

He was three years old when his mother sent him from London to a safer place, a farming community two hundred miles north of London, where he stayed with a distant relative for the duration of the war. Even there, the roar of German planes on their way to bomb Liverpool struck fear into the hearts of everyone in the community, and Sydney and his surrogate family routinely took shelter beneath a large oak kitchen table whenever the planes were heard.

His bedroom in London had had wallpaper with a frieze of lions and tigers resting in a jungle setting, and they would come alive in his dreams as a small boy living with strangers, coming down from the walls and clawing and ripping at him. He would wake up screaming, bringing Mrs. Watterson running into his small room beneath a stairwell and holding him until the nightmare had passed.

After the war, he was brought back to London to reunite with two sisters who’d also been provided safe passage to areas outside war-torn London. His father had been killed in one of the nightly raids, and his mother had died of natural causes, he was told, of an unspecified kidney disease. An uncle and aunt had completed the raising of the Bancroft children; he’d stayed with them until leaving to attend a theatre school in Manchester, and then to hit the road with a traveling Shakespearean troupe that appeared throughout the British Isles.

He thought of his childhood more often these days, never pleasant, happy thoughts.

“Y
OU HAVE A CALL,
Sydney,” a theatre intern told him.

“Oh? London?”

“I don’t know. It’s a man who said he wants to speak with you.”

Bancroft went to the phone dangling from its cradle on a backstage wall. “Hello?”

“Mr. Bancroft, this is Detective Rick Klayman.”

“Oh, yes, that nice young man who asks all those questions.”

“Mr. Bancroft, I’d like to get together with you again.”

“To do what, ask more questions? I can’t imagine what there is left to ask. You’ve admirably solved dear, poor Nadia’s murder, and I applaud you for that, you and your charming partner with the mellifluous voice. But I am very busy, as you can imagine. I’m directing the show to be televised Thursday on the ABC network. You’re aware of it?”

“Ah, yes sir, I am. That’s quite an assignment.”

“Well within my capabilities, I assure you.”

“I’ll try not to take too much of your time,” Klayman said.

Johnson sat across the desk from Klayman at headquarters, where he made the late-afternoon call to Ford’s Theatre. Attempts to reach Bancroft at home had failed. Johnson’s amused grin summed up his reaction to the call.

“I’m really not interested in the murder anymore,” Klayman said, sounding sincere. “As you say, we’ve solved it. Actually, I’d enjoy chatting with someone like you about Abe Lincoln.”

“Lincoln? You wish to discuss President Lincoln with me?”

“Yes, sir. I’m a bit of a Lincoln buff, and I know you’re quite an expert on his assassination. You told us you’d made a study of John Wilkes Booth and his role in the assassination.”

“Oh, yes, Detective, that is quite true, quite true, indeed. And I do recall you saying you had some minor interest in Lincoln. An unofficial visit is it, then?”

“Yes. Unofficial.”

Johnson’s thick salt-and-pepper eyebrows went up.

“Let me see. Yes, I shall find the time for you, Detective. Shall we say at six?”

“Okay. At your apartment?”

“No. I’m suffering—what is it you call it?—cabin fever? I’ve been working here at the theatre all day. The incompetence surrounding me is staggering. I intend to treat myself to a proper drink at the Star Saloon, and a spot of dinner. Will you join me?”

“I’d love to have dinner with you, Mr. Bancroft. Six it is, the Star Saloon.”

“I’m appalled,” Johnson said when Klayman hung up. “An officer of the law lying to a citizen.”

“I wasn’t lying. I’d enjoy having dinner with him.”

“An ‘unofficial’ visit?”

“Exactly. It’s my day off. I’m not on duty.”

“Shameless!” Johnson said with exaggerated disgust. He laughed. “I’m going home,” he said. “Told Etta I’d take her out to dinner. If you change your mind about Bancroft, come join us. We’ll be at B. Smith’s in Union Station.”

“Bancroft says you have a mellifluous voice.”

“Then give him my best, by all means.”

Klayman arrived at the Star Saloon, across the street from the theatre, a few minutes before six, and took a seat at the bar. He would have ordered a Coke but decided at the last minute to have something alcoholic to indicate he was off-duty. A white wine was placed in front of him.

Bancroft arrived twenty minutes late.

“So sorry, dear chap, but I had to run home for something before coming here.” He wore the tan safari jacket usually reserved for when he traveled, jeans, and a blue button-down shirt open at the neck. Theatrical makeup had been heavily applied, giving his face the color of a gnarled tree trunk. A well-worn leather satchel hung from his shoulder, which he placed on an empty stool next to the one he took at Klayman’s side.

“The usual, Sydney?” the bartender asked.

“Yes, yes, please.”

The restaurant was sparsely populated. The cancellation of tours at Ford’s Theatre because of preparations for Thursday’s
Festival at Ford’s
had been bad for business in the area, the Star no exception.

Bancroft lifted his glass: “To my new friend,” he said. Klayman touched rims with him. “I assume you know the historic meaning of where we sit, Detective.”

“I think so,” Klayman said. “And please, it’s Rick.”

“Of course. And I am Sydney.”

Bancroft took in the room with a sweep of his head. “The infamous Star Saloon,” he said. “It was originally across the street, you know, where the box office now stands. Owned by a chap named Taltavul. After the president had been shot, it was suggested he be carried into Taltavul’s saloon, but the barkeep said it wouldn’t be fitting for the president of the United States to die in such surroundings.”

Klayman nodded and took a tiny sip of wine.

Bancroft took a healthy swig of his drink and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He turned and looked Klayman in the eye. “Historians have it all wrong, Rick. They say John Wilkes Booth had a few drinks before shooting Lincoln in order to fortify himself, to fill him with needed confidence. The truth is, young man, he went into Taltavul’s establishment to enjoy celebratory drinks for the heroic act he was about to engage in. Whiskey and water, unusual for him. He generally drank brandy.”

“Heroic? Booth was demented.”

Bancroft finished his drink and ordered another. “No, my new friend, he was not demented.” He placed his hand on his chest. “Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.”

Klayman looked quizzically at him.

“Hamlet. Do you know what he said at the bar that night?”

“I’ve read various accounts.”

“A drunk said to Booth, ‘You’ll never be the actor your father was.’ And Booth smiled”—Bancroft adopted what Klayman assumed was a facsimile of that smile—“and said, ‘When I leave the stage, I will be the most famous man in America.’”

A second scotch in front of him, Bancroft continued to lecture Klayman on Booth and his actions leading up to the assassination. He had a few facts wrong, Klayman knew, but didn’t bother to correct him. Bancroft claimed that a German named Atzerodt, one of two conspirators working with Booth, had been assigned to assassinate Secretary of State William Seward, but Klayman knew that Atzerodt’s target was Vice President Andrew Johnson. Seward was to be killed by a brawny, violent man, Lewis Paine. Booth reserved Lincoln for himself. All three assassinations were to occur simultaneously, at 10:15
P.M.

“You haven’t touched your wine,” Bancroft said, taking a break from his sermon.

“I’m not much of a drinker,” Klayman said, “but I am hungry. Can I buy you dinner?”

“That’s very generous of you,” Bancroft said. “Yes, much obliged.”

They took a table and placed their orders, a shrimp cocktail, onion soup, broiled bay scallops, salad, side orders of French fries and spinach, and custard pie for Bancroft, pasta and a salad for Klayman.

“Let me pick your brain a little about the Nadia Zarinski murder,” Klayman said. “Why do you think she would go out with a lowlife like Jeremiah Lerner?”

Bancroft seemed pleased to be asked his opinion. He replied, “Who can ever determine why pretty young things take up with the men they do?” He slipped into his thespian mode. “Rebellious hell, If thou canst mutine in a matron’s bones, to flaming youth let virtue be as wax and melt in her own fire.”

“Shakespeare?”

“Hamlet again. Youthful lust. Nadia was a sensuous woman, Rick. I’m afraid it led to her unfortunate and premature demise.”

“Do you feel—I mean, really feel in your bones, Sydney—that Jeremiah killed her?”

“No question about it, sir. You and your colleagues should be immensely proud of your accomplishment in bringing him to justice. I salute you.” He motioned for another scotch.

“Did Nadia seem to have money, Sydney? I mean, lots of available money?”

One of the actor’s eyebrows arched impossibly high; Klayman was tempted to try it but knew he’d fail, and look foolish in the process.

“Money? Oh, yes, she always seemed to have money, Rick, flashing it around. I often wondered about it.”

Klayman came to the conclusion during dinner that Bancroft pretended to know a lot more about Nadia than he actually did. He’d seen that same tendency in other people he’d interviewed about crimes. For whatever reason, perhaps to inject interest into otherwise mundane lives, they offered testimony far beyond their actual knowledge, necessitating caution on a detective’s part in culling truth from fanciful thinking.

“What about other young men working at the theatre?” Klayman asked over Bancroft’s dessert, and two coffees. “Any chance one of them had something against Nadia?”

“I thought you had your man, as they say.”

“Oh, we do, but that doesn’t mean we don’t keep looking, if only to come up with witnesses to use at trial.”

“She died in Baptist Alley, where Booth’s horse was tethered,” Bancroft said absently, as though not hearing what Klayman had said. He became animated, and leaned into the table. “Are you aware, my intelligent and curious young man, that Booth had accomplices at the theatre who aided him in his escape—his getaway, as you would say?”

“I’ve heard that,” Klayman said.

“And John Wilkes Booth would have made a faster getaway had he not broken his leg leaping from the presidential box after putting a hole in Mr. Lincoln’s head.”

Klayman looked away and adjusted himself in his seat. Bancroft’s description of the killing of Abraham Lincoln was almost joyful. He’d termed Booth’s murderous act “heroic.” It caused Klayman discomfort.

“Come,” Bancroft said after Klayman had paid the bill. “We go to the theatre, where your lesson will continue.”

“My lesson?” Rick asked, laughing.

“Yes. Your lesson in how one great man was slain at the hand of another.”

As they crossed Tenth Street, Klayman asked how Bancroft’s one-man show was shaping up.

“Splendid, Rick, splendid. I am on the verge of obtaining significant financial backing. Unfortunately, money rules, even in the arts. The learned pate ducks to the golden fool.”

“Translation?”

“Even geniuses must toady to rich idiots.
Timon of Athens.
Of course, Shakespeare was a genius
and
rich. Pity I can’t say the same—about being rich.”

“Neither can I,” Klayman said pleasantly as they entered the theatre, where a park ranger sat behind the tiny ticket window.

“Good evening, Mr. Bancroft,” the ranger said.

“Good evening.”

The ranger came from his position to ask Klayman for identification.

“A detective,” Bancroft said with authority.