Method actor murder, p.1
Method Actor Murder, page 1
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METHOD ACTOR MURDER
a Merry Wrath Mystery
by
LESLIE LANGTRY
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Copyright © 2023 by Leslie Langtry
Cover design by Janet Holmes
Gemma Halliday Publishing
http://www.gemmahallidaypublishing.com
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.
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CHAPTER ONE
"Derek the Sparkly Unicorn Ninja?" I read from the flyer.
Pint-sized child Mayor Ava nodded. "That old theater building on Main Street has been totally renovated. The new owners have started a community theater, and they're going to have tryouts!"
"Okay…but Derek the Sparkly Unicorn Ninja?" I asked again.
"That's the play." Ava rolled her eyes. "Ophelia and Dante are going to produce it."
"Who are Ophelia and Dante?" Suddenly I felt a bit out of touch with the goings-on in Who's There.
"The new owners!" Ava seemed exasperated. It seemed fair to me, since the girl had been exasperating me for six or seven years now. "Ophelia is an off-off-off-Broadway director, and her husband Dante is a method actor!"
"Off-Broadway huh? That is impressive." We didn't usually get dignitaries like that moving here. Oh sure, we once had the guy who voiced Elmo's housecleaner's third cousin come to town for the county fair, where there was also a chicken who got two callbacks for a role in Field of Dreams (but didn't get the part because it's all about who you know, even with chickens), but this seemed to be a step up.
"That's right." Ava smiled, apparently happy that I was finally catching on. "Broadway in Peoria. We're lucky to have her."
My brain caught up. "Wait, did you say the old theater was renovated?"
Ye Olde Opera House had at one time been a nice movie theater that over the years turned into a crap movie theater that shut down sometime in the 90s. Up till now I thought it still stood with the marquee frozen in time, perpetually offering Rocky V.
Ava looked at me with deep pity in her eyes. "I know you guys start getting demented at age thirty, but you kind of seem worse than normal. Ye Olde Opera House was renovated this year. You didn't notice?"
Ignoring the dig, I held up the flyer. "What does this have to do with me?"
"The whole troop is either trying out or working on the crew," the diminutive mayor explained. "We need you to be the stage manager."
"But I've never done that before," I protested.
Okay, that wasn't entirely true. I had done community theater before, during a brief stint in Estonia. There was a little village populated almost exclusively with sheep herders. As a spy, I was sent there to watch the place, because some idiot informant told the CIA it was a hideout for terrorists.
I didn't find any terrorists, but the villagers talked me into helping them put on the musical Grease, since I was American. Apparently, being American was the only requirement for this particular show. I threw something together, and the entire town performed to a room full of sheep. We got a standing ovation…I think. It's very hard to tell with sheep.
Ava flipped the flyer over and pointed out a specific paragraph. "Be there tonight at 6:30 for a meeting." She spun on her heel and went back to her mother, who was parked in her car in the driveway.
My name is Merry Wrath Ferguson, and I'm an ex-CIA agent who was accidentally outed by the vice president and came home to Who's There, Iowa to feel sorry for myself having to quit my chosen career so early. My best friend, Kelly, who could convince me of beating up Scotty Warner in kindergarten for stealing her Halloween candy, convinced me that running a Girl Scout troop would be an appropriate equivalent to chasing down a Moldovan nuclear terrorist through a Bangkok alley—and she was kind of right about that. While there was plenty of drama in the CIA, there's a lot more of that here in the middle of nowhere. Now, apparently, it was going to be literal.
I closed the door to my house. Well, my other house. I lived with my husband, Rex, across the street from the house I owned when we met. I kept the old house, and it was currently home to six elderly Girl Scout hermits we'd liberated from a hidden camp. They'd spent fifty years in the woods, and when they got out, they became celebrities of a sort.
I was helping them pack up because they were all moving to Florida. I say helping, but actually Kelly and I were doing most of the work because all of them were in Florida looking at houses. They'd recently binged all of the episodes of The Golden Girls and believed that they were meant to be in the land of sunshine and oranges.
"Who was that?" Kelly, my co-leader and best friend, asked as she stuffed an I Love Davy Jones comforter into a box.
"Ava." I went back to the box I was packing. "Apparently there's a new couple in town running the new community theater."
Kelly had an a-ha look. "Oh right. Ophelia and Dante. I've met them."
I nearly dropped a Fabian lamp. "You have? You knew about them and didn't tell me? And why didn't you tell me Ye Olde Opera House had been renovated?"
She shrugged. "You've never been interested in theater. Remember, I did theater in high school and college."
I held up the flyer. "That shows what you know. I'm the new stage manager for the premier play."
Kelly practically tore the piece of paper from my hands. "Derek the Sparkly Unicorn Ninja?"
"Yup. It's a commentary on how American commercialism has seeped into and distorted small-town life," I explained.
Kelly's right eyebrow rose halfway up her forehead. "You made that up."
"I did." I nodded. "And it would be an improvement, I'm guessing, over the reality."
Kelly sealed the box with packing tape. "When are the movers coming?"
"End of the week," I said. "Why don't you go with me tonight to the meeting?"
She considered it. "I really shouldn't. Finn's starting second grade next week, and I'm gone enough as it is."
I stared at her. "Finn's going into second grade?" What? How?
Kelly sighed. "You knew that."
"I guess she'll always be a baby to me," I muttered as I reached for the packing tape.
Later that evening, the opera house was filled to the brim. It was pretty nice, actually. The lobby was filled with art deco décor, and the whole place was saturated with the heavenly aroma of hot buttered popcorn. I snagged two buckets.
"Looks like everyone wants to be part of this," I told Kelly, who'd decided to come after all because Finn wanted to spend the night at her best friend's house.
Literally everyone I knew was in attendance. There was the Cult of NicoDerm, a group of surly teenage druids in their druidy robes. Also present were Ron and Ivan—a couple of Chechen meatheads who cracked bones before settling down here with my husband's twin sisters, Randi and Ronni. Town mouth-breather, Officer Kevin Dooley, was there pouring a bag of malted milk balls down his throat without chewing, as was our newest member of the police force, Officer Joanna Priestly. Dr. Soo Jin Body, the medical examiner, chatted cozily with her new boyfriend, Officer Troy Wallace.
Psycho reporter and candidate for sheriff, Medea Jones, scowled at Sheriff Carnack, who leaned against a wall, arms folded over his chest. Riley Andrews, my former handler and the town's PI, was sitting with his latest protégé, Kurt Allan Hobbs III Esquire. On the other side of him was Teo the Tapir—a former Colombian drug lord and his daughter Elena.
My troop's parents were even there. Betty's parents, Roderick and Carol Ann, were in attendance, as were all four Ashleys, the mothers of all four of my Kaitlyns.
We said hello to people as we passed down the aisle, settling ourselves in the fifth row from the front with my entire troop. Besides Betty, Mayor Ava, and the four Kaitlyns who all had the same last initial and looked improbably alike, there was Inez and Lauren. The girls gave us a nod as we sat down.
To say my troop was precocious would be a gross understatement. Ava, the mayor, was very competitive and goal driven. She'd declared at a very early age her desire to be the CEO of an insurance company before she turned the ancient age of thirty. The Kaitlyns were four girls who looked so much alike I couldn't tell them apart after seven years, and I was convinced they operated with one hive mind. Inez was sharper than most adults and never failed to call me out on stuff. Lauren was our junior zookeeper whose knowledge of animals sometimes ran to the fantastical. And then there was Betty—who idolized Huey Long and G. Gordon Liddy and was destined to found a CIA kids' program where she'd be doing black ops in middle school.
"Oh no," I groaned. "Harold's here."
"Why are you surprised?" Kelly's eyes lit on the large, dough-faced man. "He single-handedly runs the community theater in Bladdersly."
Harold had a brief stint in the CIA, where he fumbled a meet up in Honduras so badly he was drummed out on his first day. Bladdersly was the perfect place for him…a depressing nearby rival town that everyone in Who's There equated with the loathing usually reserved for a Russian gymnast. I mean, come on…it's named Bladdersly—home of the Raging Bladders.
Of course, Who's There had the Fighting Whorish—an unfortunate combination between our name and the original Irish settlers. Apparently naming towns in Iowa could be a crapshoot at times, ranging from the mundanity of my alma mater, the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa to the joyous nonsense of What Cheer.
"Merry!" Harold raised a meaty arm over his bulk and waved. Then he spent three minutes extricating himself from the seat across the aisle and wandered over to plunk down in front of me.
"Hey Harold." I tried to make it sound like I didn't loathe the arrogant idiot.
"Isn't this just a travesty?" The man scowled. "I mean, we already have a world-class thespian program ten minutes away!"
The people of Bladdersly weren't very supportive of any arts, including our state's most beloved art media—butter sculpting. They referred to the woman who did the butter cow for the state fair every year as a Communist who was trying to influence politics by using Iowan's most beloved condiment.
"How did your one-man show go last month? Sorry I didn't get there to see it"—I wasn't—"but I was kind of tied up." And by kind of tied up, I mean that I didn't want to go.
"You mean My Life As A Theater Legend?" Harold's eyebrows went up. "It was a tremendous success, of course! We had double the audience we had last time!"
"I heard you had ten people," I said dryly.
Harold nodded eagerly. "That's twice as many! I consider it a smashing success. Only four people walked out at intermission! But then, my cutting-edge performance can be difficult for some people to understand."
I'd heard about the show from Kurt Allen Hobbs III, Esquire, who told me it was a huge snoozefest. The only reason the other six didn't walk out was because they'd been fast asleep.
Harold waved his arm in the air, nearly clocking an elderly lady next to him. "This is outrageous!" He scanned the theater. "They should've asked me to take over! Instead of these charlatans!"
As if on cue, one of the alleged charlatans, a tall woman in an elaborate kimono, reeking of manufactured dignity, glided out onto the stage to wild applause. She held up her hands for silence, and the audience complied. How did everyone know about this? And how didn't I know about this?
"Good evening," she intoned in an aristocratish voice. "My name is Ophelia, and I am honored by the turnout tonight for our debut drama!"
"What's her last name?" Harold sneered. "Rosencrantz?"
"Shhh!" the old woman next to him said. That's when I noticed she was dressed like a geriatric Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz.
Ophelia threw her arms straight up in the air. "Allow me to introduce my husband, Dante!"
A tall, thin man with his hair in a bun sauntered onto the stage, dressed in a huge, multicolored coat. He twirled for the audience before giving a deep bow. People applauded raucously, and I wondered if the audience had been influenced by LSD. My hand froze midair over the popcorn bucket. Then I decided it was okay, I'd been dosed before and survived. This popcorn was worth it.
"We come to you from the sophisticated theatrical paradise of Peoria!" Ophelia announced.
Peoria? Theatrical paradise?
"We bring a long-needed dose of high culture to Who's There," she added.
This had mixed results. Some clapped. Some frowned, most likely from the suspicion of the word culture.
Behind Ophelia, a diminutive ninja who looked suspiciously like Betty, swung from stage right to stage left, holding a sign that said Applause.
The crowd burst into a standing ovation.
Ophelia gave a small smile. She kind of looked like a Disney villain as she turned dramatically and stalked off the stage.
Dante pulled a notepad from his pocket and consulted it. "Anyone staying for auditions, please remain seated. Is there a Mrs. Wrath in the audience?" He held his hand up to protect his vision from the glare of the theater lights.
I sighed. "Here," I called out.
Dante's eyes danced over to me. "Yes! Can you come up onstage, please?"
Kelly laughed. Harold sulked. Geriatric Dorothy looked at me with interest and giggled. She didn't sound so much like a girl but an asthmatic senior with a three-pack-a-day smoking habit.
I got to my feet and walked up onto the stage, forcing a smile that begged for someone in the audience to rescue me. I did not like to be the center of attention. In the CIA, you are trained to blend into the wallpaper. Hopefully this gig wouldn't require me to be on stage any more than this one time.
"Mrs. Wrath, ladies and gentlemen!" Dante held his arms to the side to frame me as if I was a new refrigerator.
"It's actually Mrs. Ferguson," I corrected.
There was a smattering of polite applause. Kelly whistled and made a smart remark I couldn't quite catch. Betty did not swing past again with the Applause sign, and I was a bit let down.
I whispered to Dante, and he gave me a quick nod.
He raised one arm in a flourish. "Mrs. Albers! Please join us on the stage."
If I was going to go through this, so was she.
Kelly's smile was gone as she stepped onto the stage. "What's this about?" she hissed. "It's like you can't heckle anyone anymore!"
"Your stage director and assistant stage director!" Dante called out, and we bowed.
He motioned for us to step into the wings, so we did. Just as Kelly was probably about to unleash a string of expletives into my ear, Dante joined us.
"You need to stay for the auditions," he said without the dramatic flourishes. "We don't know this town like you do."
"Wouldn't that be better since it would be like a blind audition?" Kelly frowned.
He shook his head. "That would seem to be the right way to do it, wouldn't it? But years of doing this makes you realize you need someone who knows everyone. That way we weed out the unreliable, the people who would quit just before production because of nerves, anyone who might set fire to the stage or steal our cat…"
"Set fire to the stage?" Kelly asked, astonished.
"Steal your cat?" I added.
He waved us off. "Forget I mentioned it. Anyway, the playwright said you were perfect, and we have to protect their genius."
"Who's the playwright," Kelly pressed.
Dante looked embarrassed. "We haven't really met them. Only their representative. Oh! There she is!" He waved to someone off stage.
"Hey. 'Sup?" Betty joined us, still dressed like a ninja.
Betty was involved? We were really in trouble.
CHAPTER TWO
"Betty wrote this," Kelly decided as we made our way offstage to the second row. "Why am I not surprised?"
I looked at the script Dante had handed to each of us. "SeBasquetian deCatalonia Braveheart?"
That ticked all the boxes. Betty had always been obsessed with liberating the Basques, Catalans, and Scots from whom she'd perceived as their oppressors.
"It's French," Betty explained as she appeared in front of us.
"Why didn't you write it under your own name?" I asked.
"They wouldn't take it seriously unless it was written by an adult." Betty looked at us. "And I'm not an adult."
My eyebrows went up. "Derek the Sparkly Unicorn Ninja didn't tip them off?"
"Nope. Weird, huh? I guess they're not that smart," the kid said. "Anyway, I've got to go. Auditions are starting."
