Ellen Hart Presents Malice Domestic 15: Mystery Most Theatrical. Karen Cantwell

      The editors would like to thank John Betancourt at Wildside Press for his constant and unwavering support to Malice Domestic and these editors.

      The editors would also like to express their special thanks to the selection committee—P. J. Coldren, Carla Coupe, and Maureen Jennings. As a result of their hard work and dedication to excellence, we present for your reading enjoyment Malice Domestic 15: Mystery Most Theatrical.

PREFACE

      ELLEN HART PRESENTS

      Apple pie and ice cream. A hot summer day and a cold beer. A wintry evening and a cozy fire. I think we can all agree that some things are simply meant to go together. Continuing with that theme, what could be more delicious than a mix of mystery and the theater?

      The backstage lore of an ancient craft; theatrically poisonous gossip; a small, glittering world filled with masters of disguise strutting on and off the stage; big egos throwing tantrums, flinging tiaras, and a singular ghost light shining from the darkness of an empty stage—these are some of the elements that compel us to settle into the magic and keep on reading.

      It’s always fascinated me that writers go through much the same process in developing a character as an actor does. To inhabit a persona, to understand an individual’s inner life, plan their actions, and make them believable, a writer, like an actor, asks questions. What does this person look like? Sound like? How do they dress? Move? Most important of all are the questions that get at world-view and intent. What does this character want out of life? What does she want in the story, why does she want it, and why does she want it now? Both the writer and the actor have to dive deep to find those answers. Sandford Meisner, the great acting teacher, once said, “Acting is doing things truthfully under imaginary circumstances.” I think that’s a powerful statement, as well as an ambitious undertaking, for both an actor and a writer.

      One of the main characters in my Jane Lawless mystery series is a theater director—a woman aptly named Cordelia Thorn. This vivid, outrageous, sometimes egotistical, always larger-than-life persona has fought to wrestle the limelight away from my main character since the first novel appeared on bookstore shelves. In my fourth mystery, I used Cordelia’s personal history as a backdrop.

      A Small Sacrifice begins with a flashback. We’re introduced to two acting students, both in their final year of drama school at the University of Minnesota. Each man, filled with youthful, testosterone-fueled bravado, boasts that he has more acting talent than the other. Since they have no real way to prove such a thing on stage, they decide to take their superior abilities out into the real world. They each devise a crime they will commit, trusting their skills to carry them through without being caught. (I pilfered the general idea from an article I’d once read in People magazine.)

      One of the young men in question ends up being arrested and sent to jail, while the other stumbles over the woman of his dreams while committing his crime, which is never discovered. The mystery then moves to the present, to a theater in a small town in rural Wisconsin, where these two men, along with their theater department pals, have gathered—not for a reunion, but for something much darker and more difficult. Cordelia Thorn is one of the pals. By the end of the novel, theatrics have taken a backseat to a more poignant, nuanced truth about life, sacrifice, and the depth of the love these friends still feel for each other.

      We all have our favorite theater mysteries. Those written by Dame Ngaio Marsh come to my mind, as do several by Simon Brett, Reginald Hill, and Anne Perry. We love the humor and the fun. We’re drawn to the settings and the personalities. And that’s why I ask you to consider the volume of short stories you’re holding in your hand. As you read, I guarantee you’ll find these stories are all part of that same long and hallowed tradition. After all, the theater is where we sit in the dark and watch people in the light teach us about what it is to be human. Theater mysteries are where we go to be both enlightened and entertained.

      And thereby, as Shakespeare once said, hangs the tale.

      —Ellen Hart

THE ROCK STAR, by Frances Aylor

      Past and present collide in a fiery community theater fundraiser when a dedicated insurance agent relives the thrill of his rock band youth.

      He practiced hitting the high notes in the shower, where the swirling steam caressed his vocal cords and the loud whoosh of water gave him privacy to belt out his warbling falsetto, without his teenage children complaining that he was “pitchy.” They had picked up that criticism from one of those television talent shows where amateur singers waited, with wide eyes and nervously clenched fists, for the judges to decide if they were on their way to stardom.

      Buck Wheeler wasn’t looking for stardom. At least, not now. Back in his early twenties, his band had crisscrossed through the South, playing small towns and clubs, wherever they could corral together enough fans for a road trip that was tantalizingly close to breakeven. He’d pranced in tight pants in front of a microphone, guitar firmly in hand, standing center stage with his drummer and keyboard player as they grinned at their adoring audience.

      Their band was good. Everyone said so. Buck still had the newspaper clipping that proclaimed them “the best new rock band of our age,” a treasured bit of hyperbole that was carefully framed to protect it from wrinkling, yellowed just a bit after being proudly displayed for years on his bookshelf before he finally shoved it to the back of a drawer. The band was good. Just not good enough. Not good enough to justify the expense of months on the road. Not good enough to support a wife and new baby.

      After the baby was born, he and Margie returned to the county of Foreman where he had grown up, to the job his dad had held for him in the family business. Buck surprised himself by slipping easily into the role of insurance salesman, content to protect people’s homes, cars, and businesses against the everyday accidents and misfortunes that threatened to derail their comfortable lives. He joined community organizations, donated generously to various worthy causes, coached Little League baseball, and was elected to the county Board of Supervisors on a platform of protecting traditional values and the rural way of life.

      Older residents of Foreman County still remembered him as the long-haired high school heartthrob whose penetrating high notes once caused tears to run down the cheeks of quivering teenage girls. When local thespians scheduled a summer musical, they pressed him to take the lead part.

      At first, he turned them down. He was too old, he said. Too out of shape, with a softening belly and prominent love handles. And his voice tended to squeak out on the high notes. But they insisted. It was for a good cause—a fundraiser to support the 18th century building that began life as a colonial tavern and was now home to a popular dinner theater.

      The tavern had been an important gathering spot in its early years, a welcome destination for men who traveled as far as their horses could take them in a day, in search of a warm meal and a spot to spend the night, even if they had to double or triple up on straw-stuffed mattresses. Local legend said that George Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette had plotted battle strategy there during the American Revolution.

      Unfortunately, modern roads and fast cars had made the tavern obsolete. Abandoned by its owners, it perched unsteadily for years by the side of the highway and was scheduled for demolition when it was discovered about fifteen years ago by a group of New York actors. They found the warren of tiny rooms and uneven floors charming, and could see beyond the rotten beams, crumbling plaster and leaking roof, envisioning the tavern as the perfect home for a dinner theater. They bought the ramshackle place and began renovations.

      The old tavern sucked up money as it was grudgingly transformed to meet modern codes. The more obvious improvements of new paint and plaster, of getting rid of mold and patching the roof, were not enough. The guts of the building needed an overhaul. The antiquated electrical system had to be updated. New air conditioning was needed to make muggy summer nights endurable. Each time the owners felt they finally had finished the updates, a new problem surfaced. Fundraisers became a way of life for the theater managers.

      Buck’s