Free A Toast Before Dying by Grace F. Edwards

Onstage, she appeared taller than I remembered. She squeezed her eyes shut and pushed her hair into a tight ball, back from her face—a gesture vaguely familiar, though I couldn’t remember where I’d seen it. Finally she sighed. “Okay, that’s it for today.We’ve been working hard since this morning. This was good but we can make it better by Friday, okay?”
    Nods and murmurs as the group, three men and two women, rose and gathered their things. The network of klieg lights criss-crossing the ceiling blinked once and the stage went dark. In the dim glow of ordinary lighting, the group filed past me and I caught the low murmur.
    “Where’re we eating?” the woman who had been onstage asked.
    “Billy’s, I guess.”
    “Yeah. Kendrick’s not home and—”
    “Damn, he got a bad break …”
    They glanced at me and nodded as they filed past. I waved and smiled quickly as I made my way down front and across the small stage to the back, where Teddi had disappeared. I didn’t know if there was another exit and I wasn’t taking any chances. She hadn’t returned my calls and it was time to find out why.
    The dressing room was not a dressing room in the strict sense: no star on the door because there was no door, only a space cleared in a corner for three small tables with makeup mirrors and unshaded lamps, a half dozen folding chairs stacked near two coat-racks hung with costumes, and a large steamer trunk stuffed with wigs, gloves, hats, and other accessories. Coils of electrical cable ringed the area like thick snakes, and I trod over them carefully. I was a foot away when Teddi leaned close to the mirror, then turned to face me. “Hi?”
    It was a question more than a greeting, whichmeant she didn’t remember me. “I’m Mali Anderson,” I answered, “a friend of Kendrick’s sister. I’ve been trying to contact you—”
    “Oh.” Her face brightened at the mention of Kendrick. “Come in. Come in.”
    I looked around and stepped across the imaginary boundary that defined the perimeter of the dressing area. She closed the lid of the trunk and waved her hand.
    “Here. Have a seat. I apologize for not returning your calls. I …” She spread her hands wide. “I’ve been so …”
    I eased down onto the trunk but couldn’t get comfortable. A part of an old-fashioned hand fan was sticking out and scratching my thigh when I moved. I smiled anyway. “That’s all right. I know how it is. I only caught part of the rehearsal, but what I saw, I liked. Kendrick talked about the group all the time and I’m glad I finally got a chance to see you folks.”
    I said this with what I hoped was a straight face. Kendrick had never mentioned a thing to me until today in court, when he’d given Elizabeth the company’s address. I wondered if he’d even mentioned it to Alvin. Probably not. This was a small group and perhaps he was waiting for a part in a larger production before inviting friends and family. I thought of asking Alvin, but that might lead to other, more complicated, questions.
    Teddi had been brushing her hair when I’d approached and now she placed the brush on the table near a wig stand.
    “How’s he doing?”
    “As well as can be expected, I guess. The judge refused bail.”
    “Oh, God.” She closed her eyes and touched her hair with her fingers, and there was that oddly familiar gesture again. “Everyone’s just devastated over this. We … miss him so much. We can’t understand how this could have happened.” Her eyes shone and she blinked rapidly. “What’s going to happen? He didn’t do it. He’s not like that. He told me himself that they were just friends.”
    I gazed at her and right away translated all those plurals—we miss him, we can’t understand,
we
—to a single voice. Her voice.
    “How long have you known him?”
    She rested her elbows against the cluttered table, busily calculating a time and date she probably had already encoded in a special place. Finally,