Page 89 of Script Swap
The fact that Tinny had stolen the box office take, not the killer.
The fact that Terrence had been more worried about the show than some connection to a crime from forty years ago.
All of it, everything that I hadn’t been able to put together, it made sense now.Even the squabbling about the dressing room.
“Tinny, I need to call the police,” I said.“Not about you.This is about Kyson’s murder.I can prove who did it.”
A whiff of perfume carried a hint of jasmine.And then, behind me, Nora said, “My dear, if that’s not a curtain line, I don’t know what is.”
Chapter 21
I started to turn toward the sound of Nora’s voice, but she made a warning noise, and I froze.
“I like you the way you are, Mr.Dane.Don’t make me do something I’d regret.”
“A bit late,” I said, “isn’t it?”
“You don’t know the half of it,” Nora said with a trace of weariness.“You, tell him what I’m holding.”
In a small voice, Tinny said, “She has a gun.”
“So do you,” I said.“Let me get out of the way, and you two can have an old-fashioned shoot-out.”
“Very droll, Mr.Dane,” Nora said.“But unlike that idiot girl’s, mine didn’t come from the prop department.”
“Are you kidding—” I began.
But the chagrin on Tinny’s face answered my question.
I said a few words that Dick Van Dyke had probably picked up in the Army.And then I said, “Listen, Nora, this is—”
“Please don’t try to convince me it’s all a misunderstanding, or that it’s a terrible situation, or that if I know what’s best for me, I’ll give myself up and confess.I’m afraid I was a lady prosecutor for the last half of the third season ofJust Justice, and I have an idea about how the legal system views murder.”
“I don’t think you’re supposed to call them lady prosecutors.”
“Not to mention the time I spent studying Vivienne Carver and her Matron of Murder series.Trust me, Mr.Dane, I know all about getting the bad guy to talk.”
“That was how it all started, wasn’t it?When you got cast as Vivienne.That’s what gave you—”
“The idea, yes.That’s what gave me the idea.”
“Okay, see, that was my line.”
“But that’s not where it started, Mr.Dane.Not even close.”
(In my opinion, it was starting to sound like Nora had spent more time studying the great Monologuing Villains of History series than Vivienne Carver.)
I tried to keep my voice easy as I said, “I guess it started when your career—”
“When my career died.That’s when it started.”
Under my breath, I muttered a few words you can’t say onNick at Nite.“That was the whole point, wasn’t it?You’d come back here.Nora Day, her career over, a washed-up has-been reduced to doing summer stock theater in her hometown.And instead, now you’re a sensation.You’re a media darling.Everybody wants an interview.Everybody wants an exclusive.The woman playing Vivienne Carver solving a real-life murder, like Vivienne Carver.Let me guess: the agents haven’t stopped calling.”
“There has been some chatter about life rights,” Nora said.“Although I don’t have to tell you what a tricky business that is—look at this whole Daniel Dank production.I dare say there is an interest, though.People suddenly remember who Nora Day is.”
Maybe it was easier to see now because I had been through it myself, and now I was on the other side of it.Like looking through the wrong end of a telescope, so that everything seemed small and contained in a neat frame.The initial success.The steady work.The parts that were rich and deep and meaningful—but that never took her to the next level.The awards she didn’t win.Then, more and more frequently, the parts shedidn’tbook.Every actor’s worst fear, age, creeping up on her.A lifetime of hoping she’d finally become—what?A “real” celebrity?A success?Someone who was actually worth something?
“All it took was murder,” I said.
