Mike Shayne Mystery Magazine, Vol. 46, No. 11, November 1982

Roger Manchester seemed so different from the actor I had seen so many times in the movies. He had been up there for years with Gable, Flynn, and Cooper. When a new generation of leading men had come along, though, he showed up in more mature roles, on TV guest spots, and in the papers — always with a young starlet at some Hollywood party. He had always played the humble good guy, but in person he seemed the opposite. How had Seth Fuller, the owner of the playhouse, gotten an actor of Manchester’s stature to come to Clement County, Kentucky?

I apologized to Fields and the rest of the cast, then got in my car and headed for the office. I had made a mistake, but with Elaine I was used to that. Since her mother had died a few years ago, raising Elaine had become solely my responsibility, and I was usually a little overprotective. I had always been able to keep my temper in check, except when it came to my daughter.

Things at the office were slower than a checkers game on the courthouse steps. Sarah Fricker registered what had become a daily complaint — someone was peeping through her bedroom window. Given Sarah’s spinster looks, I could never figure out whether she was complaining or bragging. Then Mrs. Hanks over at the library stormed in during her lunch hour to tell me that another book on the Citizens United against Trash’s so-called “hit list” had disappeared. Over the last few months the Reverend Harlan Spiker and CUT had stirred up more trouble with their campaign than a hungry bear in a hornet’s nest. Later that afternoon Clem Riddle had me come out to his farm. Seems those no-count Bowser boys had been fooling around his cornfield. I’d watched Tod and Rod climb up the ladder from tying tin cans on alley-cat tails to hot-wiring cars. Who knows what they were up to this time? I’m not complaining, mind you. This town’s been like a family to me, helping me raise Elaine. I’ve never once regretted coming back to Woodhole after college and making my life here.

I found nothing at Clem’s. When I got back a little after dark Elaine still hadn’t returned from the playhouse, so I pulled some chicken and potato salad from the fridge and popped a beer open-. Bench had just ended the Reds’ seventh with a liner to short when I heard a car.

A minute later Elaine came into the kitchen followed by a tall man of about thirty wearing khaki pants and a blue shirt. Real Ivy League. She introduced him as Philip Reede, the man who had written the play she’d been so excited about since getting the part.

“Did you know, Daddy, that Philip, Mr. Reede, won a Tony last year for his very first play and The New York Times said he was ‘the prime candidate to become the next Eugene O’Neil.’ ”

“Some overnight success,” said Reede, accepting a can of beer. “The only reason they thought it was my first play was that nobody would read the ten I had written earlier.”

He filled the air with a hearty laugh.

“What brings a successful writer like you out to Clement County?” I asked.

“Seth Fuller did me a favor a few years back, and I owed him one. Besides, I wanted to try out Death of the Duchess on ordinary folks before opening it to the self-proclaimed sophisticated New York audience.”

“Elaine hasn’t told me much,” I said. “What’s the play about?”

“Have you ever read Robert Browning’s ‘My Last Duchess’?” he asked.

“Back in college, I think, but I don’t remember much about it.”

“Basically it’s about a Renaissance duke named Ferrara who has just lost his wife and is negotiating to secure his next duchess. The poem’s a psychological study of Ferrara. You see, for over a century since the poem was published, one question has troubled readers: what happened to the Duke’s last duchess?”

“And you play is going to tell us.” I popped open another beer. “Listen, I appreciate your bringing Elaine home. Even though Wood-hole’s no New York City, I still don’t like my daughter out there alone.”

“They’re not too far apart,” said Reede. “I saw two creeps in a blue pickup out at the playhouse tonight who look like they just crawled out from under a 42nd St. rock.”

Changing the subject, I took Elaine’s hand. “I’m sorry about this afternoon, sweetheart. It’s just that...”

“It’s OK, Daddy. There’s been a lot of tension on the set anyway. Usually theatre people are like a family, but they’ve been fighting worse than cats or dogs.”

“Even Roger Manchester?” I asked.

“Yes,” answered Elaine. “He’s always chewing out someone for stepping on his lines or trying to upstage him. And most of the cast hates Mr. Fields because he treats them like a bunch of incompetent amateurs.”

Reede put down his empty can. “That’s what you get when you put a lot of egotistical people together on a closed set.”

We sat there talking for quite awhile, but when Reede left a little before midnight I had the feeling I didn’t know much about him. It was like watching an actor play a part and wondering about the actor’s real-life identity.