The Apostrophe Thief (6 page)

But saving the world was going to have to be somebody else's job; she just wasn't up to it. She'd do what she could about what she thought of as Kelly's minor problem at the Broadhurst and then get out. She'd explain why, in great detail, to anyone who'd listen, and then she'd go. If she could open somebody's eyes to the type of cop Captain DiFalco was—great. If she couldn't, too bad. But she wasn't going to waste one more minute of her life agonizing over the problem. It wasn't worth it.

She carried her box down the stairs to the first floor of the stationhouse, where she was surprised to see Kelly Ingram, wearing a visitor's badge and sitting disconsolately on a wooden chair. The Ninth Precinct didn't get a lot of celebrity visitors; every cop in the place seemed to find an excuse to walk by. “Kelly,” Marian said, “why didn't you come upstairs?”

“I didn't want to disturb you.” Kelly looked up and saw the box in Marian's arms; her eyes grew wide. “Does that mean what I think it means?”

“You didn't want to
disturb
me? I can't believe you said that. Come with me while I put this stuff in the car.”

Kelly caught on that Marian didn't want to talk in front of the other cops. She returned her visitor's badge and held the door open for Marian, and they trooped across to the other side of East Fifth to the stationhouse parking lot. There were shadows under Kelly's eyes; she'd gotten up too early. Kelly's workday began at about the time other people were thinking of dinner.

Marian stowed the box of belongings in her car and said to Kelly, “I haven't resigned yet—I'm just not going back there again, thank god. I've been temporarily assigned to Midtown South. To check into your missing scripts et cetera. I'll do what I can there, before I quit.”

Kelly groaned. “That's why I came—to apologize.”

“For what?”

“I tell you in no uncertain terms that I want you to resign
right now
—and the first thing that goes wrong, I scream for you to come make it right. I just didn't think about the resigning business, Marian, not until you were already on your way. The minute I saw we'd been burglarized, the only thing I could think was
Call Marian
.” She paused. “You must think I'm terribly two-faced.”

Marian smiled. “No, I think you were scared. A stranger invades your private space and helps himself to your things … that scares everybody.”

Kelly made a face. “Do you have to be so damned understanding? I'd feel much better if you'd yell at me a little.”

“No way, kiddo—you gave me a perfect excuse for walking out of that place. Without those scripts to go looking for, I'd be over there telling people off and getting into all sorts of hot water.”

Kelly glanced across the street at the stationhouse. “And you're really never going back?”

“Really never. How'd you get here, by taxi? Get in—I'll drop you off.”

They climbed in the car and Marian pulled out of the parking lot. Kelly said that new costumes were being made, and all the missing props would be replaced in time for that evening's performance. “Do you want to see the play again?” she asked Marian.

“You bet! You said you'd let me know when a few remaining rough spots got ironed out.”

“Well, we're pretty close to that now. By Saturday we ought to have everything right. Is Saturday night okay?”

“Saturday's fine—thanks, Kel.”

Kelly hesitated. “How many tickets?”

Marian thought a moment. “Make it two.”

“Terrif. Who're you bringing? Whom.”

“Oh, I'll find somebody.”

Marian dropped Kelly off at her building, and then headed for the Midtown Precinct South stationhouse on West Thirty-fifth Street.

Captain James Timothy Murtaugh had a lived-in face and graying temples; he sat behind his desk like Authority Incarnate, a man who'd long ago stopped being surprised by what he saw. The captain looked as if he didn't smile often, but his manner of speaking was friendly enough. “I thought the first thing I'd say to you would be an apology for the highhanded way I preempted your services last night.” He paused. “But now that doesn't seem like enough. Last night I didn't know you'd taken down a perp Sunday and were on personal time. If you're not ready to come back, say so. I'll get somebody else to take the Broadhurst case.”

Marian shook her head. “Not necessary, Captain. I don't need any more time off.”

He leaned back in his chair. “Internal Affairs says it was a clean shoot. You saved your own life and that of an FBI agent who was working with you in what was an unusually messy situation. You harboring any guilt feelings?”

So he'd been checking up on her
. “Regrets, but not guilt,” Marian said. “I wish there'd been another way of handling it, but I know there wasn't. It was him or us. No, I don't feel guilty.”
Since I didn't shoot anybody
.

Murtaugh nodded. “That's good enough for me.” He sat up straight. “I'll tell you, Sergeant, we wouldn't bother investigating the theft of a few playscripts, but the value of the costumes puts last night's little bit of chicanery into the category of grand larceny. Then there's a couple of paintings taken from the dressing room walls, an antique shaving mug—”

“Ah, I think some of those dollar-value estimates are a mite inflated,” Marian murmured.

“Probably. But we have to check them out just the same. Go see Lieutenant Overbrook—you'll be reporting to him. And Sergeant … glad to have you with us.”

“Thank you, Captain.”

After a little searching, Marian found Lieutenant Overbrook's office. The lieutenant was almost a stereotype of the grizzled old cop—sloppy, overweight, overworked, and losing his gray hair; Marian thought he must be near retirement. DiFalco's voice suddenly spoke in her head:
Another Mick, something starting with
‘O.' Asshole. Overbrook surprised her by shaking her hand and then waved her to a seat.

“Glad you're taking this on, Larch,” he said, picking up the lists of missing property she'd collected the night before. “We're godawful squeezed for manpower here. Any idea what's behind this?”

“Three possibilities,” Marian said, getting down to business. “Number one, Abigail James—the playwright—thinks it's play piracy. Steal copies of a play before it's published and skip paying the royalties.”

“Um. Number two?”

“Souvenir-hunting, plain and simple. As for number three, the stage manager hinted this kind of petty theft was a good way to sabotage a play.”

“Did it?”

“No, they went on last night with hastily rented costumes and improvised props. It could be nuisance sabotage, somebody with a grudge against the play who just wants to make a little trouble.”

“What's your choice?”

“We can rule out number one,” Marian said. “I can see a thief coming in to steal the scripts and then picking up a souvenir or two as an afterthought. But all the doors had been pried open with a crowbar and the dressing rooms systematically looted. Whoever did it—and there had to be more than one of them—came prepared to carry away a lot of stuff.”

Overbrook nodded. “Sounds right. That leaves possibilities two and three.” He leaned forward over the desk, his weight on his forearms. “What does it
smell
like?”

Marian grinned. “It smells like souvenir-hunting.”

“Then start with that. See if there's a market for things like”—he looked at one of the lists—“Kelly Ingram's old sneakers.” He raised two shaggy eyebrows.

“There probably is. Do I get any help?”

“Sporadically, when it's available. I can let you have Perlmutter for the rest of the morning, but he's due in court at two o'clock.” Lieutenant Overbrook heaved his considerable bulk up from the desk and stepped over to the office door. “Perlmutter! In here.”

Marian looked at her watch: after ten. An undernourished-looking man in his thirties with a nimbus of wiry black hair appeared in the doorway. Overbrook introduced him as Detective Perlmutter, no first name, and brought him up to date. “Sergeant Larch is in charge of the case. You help her whenever you can squeeze out a spare minute.”

Perlmutter nodded noncommittally at Marian. “What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to find out how the thieves got into the theater. They used crowbars to break into the dressing rooms but all the outside doors are intact. Check watchmen, people in the box office, whoever.”

“Okay. Where'll you be?”

“I want to talk to the play's director. Another play he once worked on had all its scripts stolen.”

Lieutenant Overbrook raised his hands, palms up. “Have fun.”

Marian and Detective Perlmutter set out to walk the nine short blocks uptown to the Broadhurst Theatre. If the director of
The Apostrophe Thief
wasn't there, somebody would have his home address.

“Where'd you transfer from?” Perlmutter asked.

“Ninth Precinct, but I'm here for just this one case.”

Perlmutter made a sound of surprise. “For stolen play-scripts? That's all?”

“Costumes, too. And personal belongings.”

“Still not big enough to import a sergeant for. I don't get it.”

“I was on the scene last night,” Marian explained, “and Captain Murtaugh pretty much shanghaied me into taking it on.”

The other detective laughed. “That sounds like Murtaugh. At least he bucked the case down to Lieutenant Overbrook instead of running it himself.”

Marian shot him a look. “That's an advantage? What's wrong with Murtaugh?”

“Nothing, really. He's a good cop, good to work for. But he does have a reputation for being kind of hard on his sergeants.” Perlmutter paused.

Marian knew a cue when she heard one. “In what way?”

“Well, a sergeant he was working a case with once took a shotgun blast meant for Murtaugh.”

“Good god. Did he live?”

“Yeah, if you call spending the next forty or fifty years in a wheelchair ‘living.' The blast guaranteed he'd never be a poppa, and a fragment got all the way through to nip the spinal cord. Can't walk, can't screw. Can't bloody do anything. Of course, that was back when Murtaugh was still a lieutenant.” As if that made a difference.

Marian was silent a moment and then slid her eyes sideways toward her companion. “Is that the story you scare all the new kids with?”

Perlmutter grinned. “Yeah, but it's true just the same. Just thought you ought to know, you bein' a sergeant and all.” His tone changed. “Look, I can give you only a few hours today—I have to be in court by two.”

“The lieutenant told me.”

At the Broadhurst, one of the two people in the box office said that John Reddick, the play's director, was backstage. Perlmutter lingered to interview the box office crew while Marian made her way through the auditorium. The curtain was open; the stage set loomed dim and shadowy under the minimum-wattage work lights. The place was utterly silent.

Reddick's office was a windowless cubicle next to the prop room. The director was on the phone when Marian stepped into the doorway, in the midst of trying to soothe whoever was on the other end of the line. “Relax, Gene, it's under control. Most of the new costumes have been promised for four o'clock—that leaves time for fittings and whatever small adjustments have to be made. And the rest of the costumes will be ready by tomorrow. It's all taken care of.” He held the receiver away from his ears and rolled his eyes; a man's voice chattered unheeded from the receiver.

Marian cleared her throat and held up her badge.

Reddick's reaction was one she'd never run into before; he positively beamed at her. “Gene, I've got to go—the police are here. Catch you later.” He hung up with a sigh of relief. “Producer,” he said to Marian with a scowl. “He's supposed to take care of this kind of thing, but I end up doing it and he bugs
me
about it.” Reddick tried to peer around Marian. “Should I have said the police
is
here?”

“My partner's out front. I'm Sergeant Larch, and I want to ask you about a play called
Three Rings
.”

“Ah, somebody told you about that. Have a seat, Sergeant. Yeah, those scripts were stolen too, but that's all. No costumes or anything.”

“Did you ever get them back?”

“Nope.”

The only other chair in the office was piled high with bound papers; she picked them up and put them on the corner of Reddick's desk—and then realized what they were. “New copies of the script?”

“They just came in. Some actors get panicky if they don't have scripts, even after a play's opened. Security blanket.”

Marian sat down. “Why were the originals stolen, do you think?”

“Oh, they'll be worth a few bucks on the black market. People will steal anything—hell, people will
buy
anything, anything at all connected with show biz.”

“Even though they're so easily replaced?”

Reddick shifted his weight. “Well, you see, the originals are all marked up. A script with Ian Cavanaugh's stage directions written throughout in his own hand has value to collectors of stuff like that.” He gestured toward the new scripts on the corner of his desk. “Now those, without anything written on them, aren't worth anything.” He grinned. “Don't tell Abby James I said that. I meant they wouldn't bring anything on the collectors' market.”

“And that was why the personal stuff was taken too?”

“Absolutely. That old shaving mug of Ian's wouldn't be worth two cents if it belonged to Joe Blow.”

Marian thought back. “You didn't lose anything, did you?”

“No, they didn't even bother breaking in here.” He laughed. “I feel insulted—they didn't think I was worth stealing from.”