Read Online Murder Came Second by Jessica Thomas - Free Book Online Page B

Vermont during a blizzard, with a young priest and a black drag queen, whom the priest thought was really a woman until Act Three! She looked just like Queen Latifah. It was fabulous! We saw it in Boston. It has become an absolute cult piece with gay men.”
    “I can imagine,” Cindy said dryly. “But didn’t Carlucci have a flop just last winter?”
    “Well,” Wolf admitted, “He produced The Second Mrs. Tanqueray by Sir Arthur Wing Pinero . . . called it The Tanqueray Tragedy . In the original, around 1910, I think, this rich guy divorces his wife of many years and marries a young thing. He insists his social clique accept her, and he is powerful enough to get compliance, at least on the surface. But behind his back they make her life hell. She finally commits suicide.” He got up and went to pour another brandy.
    “Who cares?” Cassie asked. “People don’t place that kind of importance on divorce or social acceptance today. They just make new friends. Today, Tanqueray is just good gin.”
    “You have a point. So, Carlucci updated the play and made the sweet young girl a sweet young lad.” Peter sighed reminiscently. “It was deemed a great succes d’arte, a most moving piece.”
    “An artistic success?” I teased. “Isn’t that French for box office failure?”
    “Worse than that,” Cindy recalled. “I remember reading one review that said, while the poor laddie offed himself in Act Three, the audience, unfortunately, had already done the same thing in Act Two.” That got her a roar from the lesbian contingent and scowls from Peter and the Wolf. “Who’s Carlucci’s next victim, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farms ?” My lady was on a roll.
    “ Hamlet .” Wolf almost spat. “And it will be earthshaking, I can tell you. It’s set in a small town down in Georgia, where the old King Hamlet lived. He owned a bunch of discount stores throughout the south. His cousin and wife want to sell out to a big national chain. They kill the old man, but young Hamlet isn’t sure exactly who killed him, isn’t sure they should sell, feels—like his father— it would be unfair to the employees. Hamlet and Horatio are gay lovers, of course. Take it from there. Can’t you just feel the tension! Oh, and it’s a musical. Can’t you just see it?”
    “Hamlet is a musical, set in the rural south, about discount stores. Who is Ophelia, Miss Georgia Peach of 2007? I can’t wait. ‘To be or not to be,’ set to rockabilly.” Cindy stood and looked at me. “Take me home to Tara, darlin’, I can’t stand no more classic tragedy tonight, y’all.”
    We made our farewells and went home to an ecstatic Fargo. I let him out for last patrol and turned to ask Cindy if she wanted a drink or some coffee. Usually, when we got home from any party or such, we dissected the evening over one of the two, and had fun all over again. This time Cindy shook her head. “I think I already had too many brandies or something. I feel numb.”
    “That may have been the subject matter, not the brandies,” I suggested.
    “Poor Ibsen. Poor Maugham. Poor Shakespeare. Poor Pinero. Nobody’s done Pinero since 1930. Hell, no one has thought of Pinero since 1930. And Rain —I guess Wolf said they called it Snow —with a drag queen. I shall take to my bed with a case of the vapors. Good night, my love, and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.” She put her arms out, mimicking an airplane and giggled as she made a little misstep turning into the hall.
    She stopped and gave the doorjamb an owlish look. “Damn door always was in the wrong place.”
    She continued toward the bedroom, singing a little song I devoutly hoped she would forget by morning:

    The last camel died at noon,
    Humming an old Cole Porter tune.
    And while the trail was steep and sandy,
    We all enjoyed the Napoleon brandy.

    Alas, my ladylove was looped.

Chapter 7

    I hate it when the phone rings in the middle of the night. I can never find it before the second