Read Online Set Change: A Nina Bannister Mystery (The Nina Bannister Mysteries) by T'Gracie Reese, Joe Reese - Free Book Online

never was in Russia and she never trained to be an assassin.”
    “You’re no fun.   But go on.”
    “Salzburg got to be Salzburg because of a guy named Max Reinhardt, who looked at the city and said, ‘Hey, let’s put on a play!’ And they did. And they are still.”
    “What did Salzburg have that Bay St. Lucy doesn’t have?”
    “Maybe a few old castles, Jackson pointed out, “but we’ve got the ocean. We’ve got a beautiful little town full of artists.”
    “And we have money.”
    “That we do. Anyway, it turns out Alana had already started contacting people—she’s good at that—and a miracle happened. Whole bunch of them, actually. Alana somehow made contact with The New York Shakespeare Society and offered them a cool million dollars if they would come down here and produce Hamlet .”
    “Had you authorized her to make such an offer?”
    “Of course not; you think we’re crazy?”
    “My fault. I’d just forgotten for a second or so that Alana was Alana.”
    “Well, she is. Anyway, apparently the New York Shakespeare Company has bills to pay too, and the Reddington/Barrett couple has their ten thousand dollar a month upper West Side apartment to maintain—and they all just said, “We could use a million dollars, let’s go to the beach!”
    “Ok, but I still don’t understand…”
    “Other people got wind of it.”
    “What other people?”
    “The Arthur M. Vining Foundation.”
    “Who are they?”
    “A foundation. They give money to support art. So, by the way, does Amalgamated Petroleum, who just happens to have an offshore drilling rig two miles out from here.”
    “Publicity, publicity.”
    “Everybody found out about it; and everybody wanted to be involved, nobody more so than the entire state of Mississippi.”
    “The state is involved?”
    “Of course.   That’s why the governor is here today.”
    “The governor of Mississippi is here today?”
    “Nina, you just walked right past him.”
    “I thought that was the president of France. I guess I should know those two people apart, shouldn’t I?”
    “Well, you’re retired.”
    “I guess that justifies it. So why does the state want to get involved in a Shakespeare production?”
    “Mississippi is sensitive about our reputation.”
    “Our reputation?”
    “Yes. The word around the country is that the people of Mississippi are, well…”
    “Stupid.”
    “Well, intellectually challenged.”
    “We have learning differences.”
    “Yes, or at least that’s the reputation. So a great cultural event by the sea could be extremely valuable.”
    “Wow! So Alana Delafosse waved a million dollars around…”
    “And we’re going to make ten times that.”
    “Incredible.”
    And, just as she said that word, the rain stopped.
    And after it did, nothing noteworthy happened in the rest of the month of May.
    Except there was one memorable event.
    It happened Thursday evening, when she visited Hope Reddington, for a light dinner.
    She and Frank had always fit into the Reddington’s circle of friends, so mutual invitations had been frequent. She had been in the house several times, and had always loved it. It was not the Robinson Mansion. It was in a different section of Bay St. Lucy, where the trees were not as stately and magnificent and the people were not as stately and magnificent. But both sets of living creatures––trees and people––had done all right for themselves. They were upper middle class trees and people, who exuded in comfort and conviviality what they might have lacked in lineage and wardrobe. They shaded each other. Low to the ground, hard working, and efficient, they shared a flora/fauna appreciation for cracked-with-time sidewalks, ambulatory and not decorative. The trees shaded these sidewalks not because they were obligated by God to do so, but because the sidewalks seemed to attract them down, invite them as it were. And the people walking on the sidewalks shared something in common with the trees