Let's Play Dead Read online

  “I drove,” I said shortly. “We were all worried about you. Hadley, where are you standing?” I really wasn’t sure if the situation was dangerous or simply ridiculous, but there was no point in all of us bumbling around in the dark until we knew what was going on, and I didn’t want to risk running into a Taser.

  “I’m over here,” Hadley responded. At least she hadn’t moved since we’d first seen her. “Will you tell this little bitch to put that thing down?”

  Caitlin spoke up. “Sure I will, now that you’re all here. And it’s not even charged. I wasn’t sure she would stay put until you got here without it. But now that I’ve got witnesses, I don’t think Hadley’s going anywhere.”

  “Caitlin, I was worried about you. Are you sure you’re all right?” Jason said anxiously.

  “I’m fine, Jase. Really. Now you can all hear Hadley’s story,” Caitlin told him, in an incongruously cheerful voice.

  “Darlin’, where the hell did you get that infernal device?” Nolan demanded.

  There was a small clunk as Caitlin set something down on some invisible piece of furniture, on the side of the room away from Hadley. “It’s perfectly legal, you know. I got it when Jason and I moved to Camden-our neighborhood’s not the greatest. Jason, you didn’t need to come. I’ve got this under control.”

  “She attacked me!” Hadley shrieked. “She came into my home and said she had to talk to me, and then she pulls out that… thing. She’s crazy! Do something! Call the police!”

  “First things first,” I said firmly. “Hadley, do you have any flashlights?”

  “Uh… there’s one in the kitchen, maybe, although I’m not sure when I changed the batteries. And another one upstairs next to my bed. I think.”

  “Candles, maybe?”

  “Oh, yes, I have candles-over there in the sideboard.”

  In the darkness there was no way to see where she was pointing. “Can you find them for us, please?” I asked, gritting my teeth-and hoping she wouldn’t take the opportunity to bolt. At least there were several people between her and the door. I heard the sound of movement, then a thud and a muffled “sh… oot.” Then a drawer opening and the rasp of a match, and Hadley emerged from the gloom clutching a candle. “There are more,” she said.

  “Then light them, will you?”

  I could see well enough to notice the glare she sent my way, but she complied without comment, and shortly we had five stubby candles burning, arrayed on a low table in the center of the room-enough light to see by. I checked the room to find the Taser, sitting like a black beetle on a table several feet away from Hadley and Caitlin.

  With light, we were ready to get down to business. Arabella began, “Caitlin, will you tell us why you thought it was necessary to come all the way out here and hold Hadley at… Taser point?”

  “It got you here, didn’t it?” Caitlin said, and then turned contrite. “I’m sorry, I know it was wrong. But I was getting desperate. I mean, she’s the great Hadley Eastman, and I’m a little nobody at the museum. Everybody believes her, and nobody listens to me. And the exhibit was about to open-or not open, if this mess isn’t cleared up. I couldn’t handle the idea of all my-our hard work going to waste, just because Hadley didn’t want to take any responsibility for what happened.”

  In a way it made sense to me. Caitlin had done a great job under difficult circumstances, and I couldn’t blame her for overreacting when it looked like it all might come to nothing. Maybe the Taser was a bit over the top, but as Caitlin had said, it had worked, and here we were.

  Arabella looked from Caitlin to Hadley and back again. Then she straightened up and said gently, “All right, Caitlin, we’re listening now. What is going on?”

  “She”-Caitlin pointed at Hadley-“she’s the one who sabotaged the exhibit. She’s the one who’s responsible for Joe Murphy’s death. The one who nearly killed Jason.”

  “That’s ridiculous!” Hadley said. “Arabella, I hate to tell you, but I strongly suspect that your daughter is mentally unstable. Can’t you control her? If you don’t remove her from my house, I am going to call the police.”

  “Hadley,” I said, “I’m not sure you want to do that-it would make all our lives a lot more complicated. I for one am willing to hear what Caitlin has to say. Besides, I don’t think they’d get here very fast, and I don’t think any of us will be leaving for a bit. If that crash was any indication, I think there’s a pretty big tree down out there.”

  Caitlin gave me a long look, then nodded once. “Thank you, Nell. I don’t trust Hadley. I’m sure she could tell you a great tale and convince you of her side of things. After all, she’s a storyteller, or she used to be. I’m not as good with words. All that I ask is that you hear what I have to say. She”-Caitlin jerked her head toward Hadley-“can have her turn when I’m done.”

  I looked critically at Caitlin. She seemed to be under control, and she knew she had our attention. Hadley, on the other hand, looked ready to foam at the mouth. “Then let’s all sit down,” I said.

  Hadley rallied enough to bristle. “Excuse me, this is my house. Who are you to give orders?”

  I spat back at her, “The sooner you sit down, Hadley, the sooner we’ll sort this all out.”

  Arabella and Hadley both sat, as did I. Nolan and Jason stationed themselves against the wall on either side of the arched doorway. Nolan’s eyes were wary, but Jason focused only on Caitlin. Caitlin began to pace back and forth. I hated to admit it, but I did feel better having a couple of men watching my back, at least where Hadley was concerned. Nolan could probably be counted on to side with his daughter in any argument-I just hoped she had something worth hearing.

  I cleared my throat. “Caitlin, you’ve accused Hadley of being a party to Joe’s death. What’s the story?”

  Caitlin continued pacing back and forth, keeping a safe distance from Hadley. “Hadley and I have been working on this exhibit, what, two years now? She’s a bitch to work with.”

  When Hadley started to protest, I gave her a look that shut her up. She could wait her turn.

  “I know I’m not really good with people-I never have been,” Caitlin went on. “But Hadley was something else. I mean, she did everything she could to slow things down, mess things up-and then she tried to blame it on me. I had misunderstood her instructions, she said. I had forgotten to order something, or tell the workmen to do something. After a while I started making detailed notes after each meeting with her, just so I’d know it really wasn’t me. It wasn’t.”

  “Caitlin, darling, why didn’t you tell me about any of this?” Arabella asked.

  Caitlin looked at her mother briefly. “You’d given me this project to manage. I wanted to prove I could handle it. I mean, even I know that difficult people are part of the business, and I wasn’t going to run to Mommy every time I had a problem.”

  “She’s making this up,” Hadley spat. “I made reasonable requests, suggestions, and she ignored them all. She was going to do things her way, no matter what. But Harriet is mine-of course I fought to maintain my vision.”

  So far I thought both women’s accounts sounded equally plausible. So how did any of this bickering lead to a death? “Hadley, this is Caitlin’s turn-let her finish.”

  Caitlin smiled briefly. “Thank you, Nell. So, like I said, I started keeping notes. I can tell you about every conversation we had, and we had plenty. You know, Hadley, I was beginning to wonder just why you spent so much time on-site, ‘supervising.’ ” Caitlin made air quotes. “I mean, I know you didn’t particularly trust me, but there was a lot of day-to-day construction stuff that you didn’t need to approve, not personally. And then there was the whole business with the weasel heads.”

  Arabella and Nolan looked confused, so Caitlin explained. “Hadley pitched a fit the first time she saw the model for Willy the Weasel. Dad, you probably don’t know, but he’s the bad guy in the stories, only he’s not completely villainous, so we didn’t want him to look too smarmy. Anyway, Hadley
thought we got his expression wrong the first time around. Okay, I could understand that. After all, she created him, and I agreed that it was important to get it right. So I asked our fabricators to make another one-at our expense. They did-and Hadley hated that one, too.”

  “He looked mean,” Hadley said, pouting.

  “Maybe he did,” Caitlin replied, “but I thought it was interesting that you didn’t complain about any of the other figures, including Harriet, who’s the centerpiece of the show. But I went along with you, and we had a third head made. So we had three heads, and I showed number three to Hadley, and she still wasn’t happy. Then she decided to take all of three them home and study them for a bit, get to know them, and then decide which one she preferred. I said, fine, sure-just make sure you bring back the one you decide on by the beginning of the month, because we have to install it and make sure everything works the way it should before the exhibit opens for the public. I didn’t want any screwups.”

  Like a fatal accident? Or a murder? “Then Hadley made a decision?” I prompted.

  “Yeah, at the last possible minute. She sat on them for weeks, and then finally, after about seven reminders, she came waltzing in with head number two and told me that she thinks it’s the one that best captured the spirit of Willy, even though it wasn’t perfect. So I gave the head to the installers to, well, install. Which they did, that same morning. That was the day that Jason almost got killed.”

  “Wait a sec-we’d tried it out that morning and it worked just fine. And then I got zapped in the afternoon,” Jason protested. “What happened in between?”

  “Good question, Jason,” Caitlin said to him. “Well, you might recall that Hadley here just happened to stop by at lunchtime that day, to be sure we had it right.”

  “Caitlin, love, would you mind telling me just what goes on with this Willy creature of yours?” Nolan said.

  “Oh, right-you haven’t seen it. It’s what we call an interactive exhibit. The kids can touch the figures and make them do something. Since Willy’s the villain of the piece-the one kids love to hate-the kids get to twist his nose. It’s a switch-if you twist it hard enough, Willy says Ow! It’s hard on the piece, so we had to make it sturdy, and we’ve got lots of spare parts on hand so we can replace them regularly.”

  “We want children to be able to play with our exhibits, Nolan,” Arabella explained. “That’s the philosophy of Let’s Play. We don’t want to keep telling them, Be careful, don’t touch.”

  “So you’ve got a simple switch rigged up in Willy’s nose,” Nolan said, “and when the nose is twisted, the circuit is closed, it activates the voice recording that goes Ow?”

  “Exactly,” Caitlin said. “Willy’s bending down to shake hands with the children, and the kids can grab his nose easily. It worked fine the first few times we tried it. Then Mom invited Nell to see it in action, and Jason was trying to demonstrate how it worked when he was knocked out. He grabbed the nose and zap!”

  Nolan looked troubled. “Sounds like a simple connection-hard to go wrong with it. You’ve worked with your installers before?”

  Caitlin nodded. “Plenty of times. Plus we’ve had the city inspectors in more than once, to make sure everything was up to code. I’ve got the paperwork. We didn’t cut any corners.”

  “So you’re saying that nothing could go wrong, but it did,” Nolan said slowly. “And you think Hadley here had something to do with it?”

  “I can’t believe what I’m hearing!” Hadley jumped out of her chair, then retreated behind it when Caitlin glared at her. “I’m an author, for God’s sake-not an electrician. I wouldn’t know where to begin to tamper with it.”

  “I’m not so sure about that,” I said. “What about one of your boyfriends?”

  Hadley’s stricken face was a treat to observe.

  CHAPTER 30

  “Who told you?” Hadley snarled. “That little twit Chloe?”

  I wasn’t about to rat out Chloe. “You know, if you were nicer to the people who worked for you, they might be a bit more loyal to you.”

  “They’re all out to suck my blood. All of them. They think working for a successful author will jump-start their tiny careers in publishing. Ha! It takes years of trying, and swallowing a whole lot of rejection, to get where I am today.”

  “And where is that, Hadley?” I asked.

  She glared at me. “I’m a New York Times bestseller! My Harriet books are in stores everywhere! A generation of children has grown up with her tales as bedtime stories. Harriet’s been optioned for animated films, and there’s some interest in a television series. Everybody knows me!”

  Hadley’s tone was becoming increasingly shrill, and I was beginning to wonder how much longer she could delude herself about her success. Sure, the world knew of Harriet the Hedgehog, and had for a generation. But that was part of the problem: the world had moved on, and Hadley couldn’t or didn’t want to accept that. She was yesterday’s news now. As Chloe had pointed out, she needed this exhibit as much if not more than the museum did.

  But if that was true, why would she try to destroy it? That didn’t make any sense. “All right, what do you think happened at the exhibit, Hadley? Why did Jason get shocked, and why did Joe die?”

  “Why do you think I know? She”-Hadley pointed at Caitlin-“she was the one in charge. Ask her!”

  “Caitlin’s already given us her side of the story, Hadley. What’s yours?” Arabella said with surprising patience.

  “I didn’t want to do it,” Hadley muttered, her shoulders slumping. “The exhibit, I mean. Sure, I’ve known about your tacky little museum for years. I didn’t want Harriet to be cheapened by showing up there.”

  “We have tens of thousands of visitors each year, Hadley,” Arabella replied tartly. “How many books have you sold in the past year?”

  Hadley brushed aside Arabella’s comment. “I don’t pay attention to that kind of thing. But my publisher thought it was a good idea, and they hinted that they might be reluctant to publish the next book unless I agreed to promote a bit more aggressively, so I went along with it. And once I’d said yes, of course I spent a lot of time there, making sure your people got the details right. Obviously there were problems with that.” She sniffed.

  “Was Caitlin correct about the Willy heads?” I asked.

  Hadley shrugged. “More or less. The first version was completely unacceptable-Willy looked positively evil, and I couldn’t have that. So we tried again. And again.”

  “And did you in fact keep the heads here, in your house?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you still have the others, the two that didn’t go into the exhibit?”

  Hadley cocked her head. “Yes, they’re in the basement. Do you want to see them?”

  She stood up, and I held up a hand to stop her before she could go any farther. I didn’t want to let her out of my sight until we had the whole story. She sat again. “Why don’t you tell Nolan where to find them?”

  “The basement. The door is off the kitchen, at the other end of the house.” Hadley pointed vaguely back the way we had come in. “I’m sure you can find it. Don’t touch anything else.”

  I wondered briefly if Hadley’s remark had rankled; did she expect him to steal the silverware? I looked at Nolan, and he gave me an odd half smile before turning and heading toward the other end of the house. “Can I have a torch, darlin’?” he said. “Oh, that’d be a flashlight to you.”

  When Hadley didn’t answer, I said, “Take a candle and check the kitchen.” He complied and disappeared down the dark hallway.

  I turned back to Hadley. “Go on, Hadley. You decided which head you wanted to use. Did you deliver it to the museum yourself?”

  She nodded. “That Chloe person was still around then. I’m going to have to replace her, especially with this exhibit opening. It will go forward, won’t it?” she asked, glancing at Arabella.

  Arabella didn’t reply immediately. “It all depends on whether we can dete
rmine how this death occurred.” I noticed she didn’t use the word murder. “If we can’t convince the public that the exhibit and the museum are safe, then no one will come.”

  “I’ll sue!” Hadley shrieked. “Look at the contract-I made sure I had a good lawyer, and I’m sure there’s some sort of default clause in there.”

  “Hadley,” Arabella said with something like pity, “do you really want to be associated with an exhibit where somebody died? What kind of a message does that send to your young readers-or their parents, who actually buy the books?”

  As I watched them talk, I wondered if that had been Hadley’s plan all along: scotch the exhibit, then collect whatever compensation she had wangled into the contract-and maybe enjoy a resurgence in sales as a result of the publicity. That would beat holding an exhibit that no one visited. I wondered just what else was in that contract, and how Arabella and the museum would fare, if this sad event weren’t cleared up quickly. Would a failed exhibit and a cloud hovering over the museum be enough to force Let’s Play to close its doors permanently? Arabella didn’t deserve that. Nor did she deserve to have her daughter-and employee-accused of murder.

  Did it all come down to money? And if so, who benefitted? Hadley would receive widespread local and possibly national exposure, which I had no doubt she would milk as far as possible, maybe resulting in increased book sales. Assuming, of course, she wasn’t arrested for murder. The museum? If Hadley turned out to be the villain, then Arabella and her crew would benefit from the same publicity, if it was spun right, and a combination of curiosity and sympathy could attract droves of museum-goers, and therefore boost revenues. And what about Caitlin? No matter how things went, she had certainly gotten her parents’ attention. Would she have gone as far as killing someone to achieve that? The only person I was willing to rule out at the moment as a suspect was Nolan. Maybe. After all, he had been in town at the right time. But for the life of me, I couldn’t see any reason why he would bear a grudge toward Arabella.