The Phantom of Oz, Installment #30
Oops!
Ack - I forgot to post yesterday! It’s been a week, let me tell you, but it just got better. My wonderful friend and fellow author Laura Stanfill just sent a pic with her and Rosanne Parry (another friend and fellow author) from the American Library Association Conference. It seems that Echoes of the Lost is an Ingram Librarian Selection - woo-hoo! I LOVE libraries, so this is a big deal to me.
Since I’m late with the newsletter this week, I want to invite you to a couple of upcoming events, give you some Random Stuff to Make You Laugh, and get to this week’s installment of The Phantom of Oz*.
Fun (and Free!) Bookish Events Today and Tomorrow
Tonight! June 27th, 7:00 p.m. - Jennie and I in conversation at BOLD Coffee and Books, Portland, OR
June 28th, 1:00 p.m. - Free writing workshop with me and Jennie Bricker - “What Makes a PNW Book? Place as a Character in Storytelling.” Cedar Mill Community Library, Portland, OR!
Random Stuff that Makes Me Laugh
Gotta love wombats.
*As most of you know, I’m serializing The Phantom of Oz here in a bit of an experiment. Once a month, you’ll still receive the “regular” Slightly Silly News. If you missed earlier chapters of Phantom, you can find links to all of the earlier installments here.
And if you’d like to read my new book, Echoes of the Lost, you can …
And now, on to Phantom!
Chapter 22
What Is This New Business?
“Nine thirty in the morning. Awfully early for an actor,” said the Grand Phoenician’s stage door security guard.
“Don’t you know it.” I signed my name on the clipboard, sipping coffee from a cup I’d brought with me. The warm liquid felt good on my scratchy throat. “I’m meeting Arrestadt Giry.”
“Love his movies.” The guard buzzed me in.
Arrestadt had asked me to meet him as soon as possible, so I’d taken a quick shower, hoping the steam would help my plugged-up head, and grabbed a cup of coffee and a package of string cheese for breakfast on the road. So much for taking care of myself. I’d get an orange later.
Why was Arrestadt so worried about Candy? He wouldn’t say much on the phone. I was worried too, but also strangely excited. Little jolts of adrenaline bombarded my system as I made my way through the back halls of the theater to the dressing rooms. I was always excited when I took on any case, but something else lay under this particular flutter in my chest. Hmm. I was walking through a haunted theater—could that be it? I stopped and stood absolutely still. No sign of a ghost, no feeling of anything unnatural, at least not right now. So no, not that. I was walking through a haunted theater to have a conversation about Candy...but no, the worry about Candy had been with me for days. That wasn’t it. Let’s see, I was walking through a haunted theater to have a conversation about Candy with a famous director whom I’d always admired. That was it. I was excited about talking to Arrestadt. Sheesh. Sometimes my actor’s ambition raised its head at the most inappropriate times. Luckily, now that I had IDed my buzz, I could beat it down and focus on what mattered.
The dressing rooms were right ahead of me. The door to Candy’s was ajar. Arrestadt sat in a chair facing the mirror. His reflected mouth was slack and drooping, his eyes focused on the counter. I sat down in on a chair next to him, and he met my eyes in the mirror.
“She never called,” he said. “Last night or this morning.”
“She usually does?”
“Yeah.” He almost smiled. “We talk to each other every night, a good night call.” I almost smiled too, thinking of my nightly calls with Matt. “And if one of us misses it—we’re at a party or something—we always call in the morning. But she didn’t. So I went to her hotel room—she always gets me an extra key—but she wasn’t there, and it didn’t look like her bed had been slept in. I came down here to her dressing room next.” He stood up. “Didn’t you say you’d seen her things here yesterday?”
“Yeah.” I looked around the empty room. “They’re not here now. Or at least not in the same place.” The dressing room’s counter had a few drawers built underneath. I opened each one.
“Already did that.” Arrestadt pushed his hair off his face. “Her things aren’t here. Hey, what’s up with your voice? You feeling okay?”
“Just allergies,” I lied. Didn’t want Arrestadt keeping me away from the theater or the cast while I was looking for Candy. I pulled out my phone and called her number. It rang into my ear, but not anywhere in the room. Her cell phone was definitely gone. “Did you talk to security?”
“Yeah. Candace never signed out last night. And the only people who have signed in since then have been technical theater personnel.”
“She could’ve walked out the front doors after the reception last night.” I said it to reassure myself as much as Arrestadt. “And one of the theater personnel could have grabbed her things for her.” Maybe Candy and Logan made up? “Plus there were a ton of people here last night for the reception. Maybe one of them came back here with a cast member.”
Arrestadt brightened. “That’s possible. We can check with the rest of the cast this afternoon.”
“We can check? Does this mean you want to, um, hire me to find Candy?”
“Yes.” Arrestadt turned to me. “I’d also like to hire you to understudy all the female roles in the show.”
“You want me to go undercover?” I shook my head. “I don’t think—"
“No. Undercover won’t work. Candace told too many of the cast that you’re a PI.” Good, we were on the same page. “But if you’re here all of the time, you’ll have a better excuse to talk to the cast and really check out the theater. You can begin at this afternoon’s rehearsal.”
“Another rehearsal?”
“Probably a couple.” Unusual for a show already on tour. Guess Arrestadt was a perfectionist. “With everything happening last week, we only managed one rehearsal on set,” he said. “We still need to rehearse the two new munchkins we hired, plus Eden and the new Scarecrow could use some stage time. It works out well: you can talk to the cast, maybe find out a little bit more about the theater too.”
“The building, you mean?”
Arrestadt nodded. “I’m also concerned about the accidents. We’ve had a few in other venues.”
Hmm. Had Desirée downplayed them? “I’ve been meaning to ask about the old Scarecrow.”
“That was different.”
“Different how?”
Arrestadt waved the question away. “Doesn’t matter. What does matter is that the accidents have ramped up since we’ve been in this theater. It’s a miracle that chandelier didn’t kill anyone. Or that no one was hurt during that runaway incident. I don’t know if any of it could be connected to Candace’s disappearance, but…” His face blanched. “Hey. Do you hear that?”
I held my breath and listened. Nothing. “I can’t hear anything. My ears are stopped up because of my allergies, and—”
“Shhh.” Arrestadt leaned forward, neck outstretched like he was trying to get close to something. Then he shook his head and sat back.
“What was it?”
“Singing. I heard a woman singing. Behind the mirror.”
I didn’t say anything. After all, people sang in theaters all the time.
“It sounded like…Do you know if the Lady in White sang?”
“Uh, not sure. Do you want me to check?”
“No, no.” He gave me a tremulous smile. “I think I’m a little spooked, what with Candace disappearing and all these accidents.”
“I’ll do my best to find out what’s going on.”
“Good.” Arrestadt rose. “So we’ll see you at rehearsal—from one to nine with a dinner break. Okay?”
“Sure, but…” We were forgetting something. I just knew it.
“Oh.” Arrestadt took something out of his briefcase. A script. Yeah, that was it.
“Thanks, Ivy. Hope you like the script, and the cast. Oh, and… ” Arrestadt took another sheaf of papers out of the briefcase. “Your contracts.”
I glanced at the three sheaves of stapled papers he gave me. The first was a standard Duda Detectives contract for PI services I’d emailed him after our call this morning. The second paid me for rehearsal time as an understudy for the amount of time the tour would be in Phoenix. And the third...I flipped through its pages.
“Um…” I held up the contract. “This contract? I think there’s a mistake. It’s for the entire six-month tour.”
“Yeah. Look it over. You’ll see I didn’t sign it yet. We can talk about it at the end of the week, see how you’re working out.”
“Still a little confused.”
“The way things have been going, we could use an understudy for the tour. And we may need a Glinda right away.” Arrestadt closed his briefcase. “In case Candace never comes back.”
Watch next week for the next installment of The Phantom of Oz!
And if you haven’t read the first four books in the Agatha-nominated Ivy Meadows series:
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