reexamine all the facts that we had.
“Make yourself useful, Max,” Mike said. “You take dictation?”
“No, but—”
“I’ll talk slow. Turkey and Swiss hero. Lettuce, tomato, and mayo. Plenty of onion. Two Cokes. Big bag of chips. Get everybody’s order and have lunch here at one sharp.”
“I can handle that.”
She wrote down his order and passed the pad around so we could add our choices while he talked.
“Let’s all get on the same page.” Mike spent the next ten minutes summarizing the minister’s interview for the others. “Faith’s going to try to track down some of the women who knew Ursula best, who may have been with her last week. And get more info on these extreme ministries.”
“Faith sounds so interesting,” Nan said.
“Yeah,” Mike said. “I think I’m in love.”
“That would be a full-time ministry for the good woman,” I said. “You were making a good play for Chastity.”
“A bit more of a challenge there, I’d have to say. I like the idea of a sister act,” Mike stroked his chin and pretended to be giving the choice between the women a serious thought. “Have you given Max copies of those scraps of paper that Daniel Gersh tried to flush down the toilet?”
“I got them from Laura last night.” Max reached for one of my folders and extracted a much thicker stack than I recalled assembling. “I’ve put together a few hundred words and phrases, just pushing around the letters. I can refine the search once I hear more about what you know. Maybe certain words will make sense.”
“What else is new?” Mike asked, looking to Mercer. “What have you got to say for yourself, my man?”
“I stopped at the Chelsea Square Workshop on my way in this morning,” Mercer said, flipping open his notepad. “Lucky to find anyone there at all. Nothing running at the moment, so the house was dark, as they seem to say in the theater.”
“Who’d you talk to?”
“Guy says he’s the stage manager. He doesn’t have anything to do with the business end of the shows, but he hires the crews to work them.”
“Daniel Gersh?”
“Yes.”
“Does he know where that weasel is?” Mike asked.
Mercer shook his head. “Just like Gersh told you, he got to town in the late fall. He worked a couple of shows in November and December.
“He must have information on Gersh,” I said. “Where he lives and how to reach him, no?”
“Unfortunately for us, it’s not a union operation. The place is like a funky, oversized coffee shop. The stage is just a raised platform with a homemade curtain. Doesn’t look ready for prime-time.”
“Latte and lowbrow drama,” Mike said. “How’d Gersh get to him?”
“They advertise in all those supermarket giveaways. Don’t pay scale and don’t really care who signs up to work. When they haven’t got a live play, they show classic cinema. This guy runs the projector and his wife makes the brew.”
“What does he remember about Daniel Gersh?” Nan asked.
“Precious little. He’s the cranky sort. He didn’t like anything to do with Ursula Hewitt’s play — not the subject, not the script, not the shots at the church. So he kind of shut down to everyone around him.”
“How about the team who worked the show with Gersh?”
“Two regulars — he gave me names and numbers — and another drifter.”
“Did he describe the drifter?” I asked.
“Nothing distinctive. You know the type. You could ask him to describe his wife of thirty-two years and he’d probably say ‘nothing distinctive.’”
“He’d probably be right,” Mike said. “Was there a Christmas party? I think maybe that’s what Daniel was talking to us about. A party after the performance Naomi attended.”
Mercer held a printout of the story that Nan had pulled up on the computer the night before, about the play. “I showed him this. He remembered that night because — you’re right — there was a celebration of sorts after the show.”
“That’s a start. Did he recognize anyone in the picture, besides Ursula Hewitt?”
“No. But it reminded him there was a man in the audience that night who got really angry during the performance.”
We all sat up at attention.
“How angry?” Nan asked.
“Angry enough to stay for the party so that he could have it out with Ursula Hewitt. A loud argument that Gersh and the other hands had to break up. He thinks Gersh took him outside to cool him down, maybe even left with him. My witness says the guy was about as angry as the thick red blisters on his cheeks.”
THIRTY-FOUR
“IS there a credit on that photograph?” I asked.
“I printed out a copy for each of you,” Max said. “No credit listed.”
“Whoever took this picture must have other snaps from that night. Call the newspaper, pronto.”
She nodded at me and walked to the corner of the room with her cell in hand.
“Was he wearing a clerical collar?” I asked Mercer.
“The stage manager couldn’t recall another thing about him except sunglasses, even though it was indoors, at nighttime.”
“If he really has no eyebrows, then maybe the frames of the glasses conceal that. Maybe it’s why he wears them.”
“I want Daniel Gersh,” Mike said. “I’ll call Peterson and tell him to send somebody over to the offices of Local One.”
“What’s Local One?” Nan asked.
“IATSE. International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees. The stagehand’s union,” Mike stood up to speed-dial the lieutenant and started pacing. “Someone will know if that scab is still working in this town.”
I took notes while Mike talked.
“Loo? We need a guy over at Local One. Yeah. It’s on West Forty-Sixth off Tenth. See if the Gersh kid has signed up there. See if anyone can help us hunt him down.”
“But if he didn’t join the union—” I started to say.
“But if he did, Coop, they’ll have him. They do scenery, sound, and light for every show in town, from Radio City to the Met, Broadway to network television.”
Mike and Mercer were meticulous about the need to run down every lead.
“You, Coop, you need to call the kid’s stepfather.”
“I’m the last one he’ll want to hear from — a sex crimes prosecutor. I’m sure Daniel has confronted him by now about the pictures of him in bed with Naomi.”
“Then call the mother, okay? Worm some information out of her. Tell her that her boy is likely to get hurt if she doesn’t help us find him. What else?”
I fished through my notes to find the name of the suburban Illinois town to get to work on reaching Daniel Gersh’s mother.
“I’m tracking the guy from Highway Patrol,” Nan said. “Every precinct in the city turned out on the day shift with orders this morning to look for abandoned trucks as possible crime scenes. They’re doing stops at the bridges and tunnels too. He’ll check in on the hour.”
