Murder on the Potomac Read Free Page B

modest for Beckett, dinner-theater performances in which badly scripted murder mysteries competed with bad food for audience attention—until Wendell Tierney caught one of their whodunit dinner performances at a Maryland Holiday Inn and recruited them to reenact Washington crimes from the past for his Scarlet Sin Society, “the scarlet sin” being Shakespeare’s label for murder.
    The society, commonly known as Tri-S, represented a special
agacerie
for Tierney. An inveterate crime buff with special interest in historical misdeeds, he often explained, “With all the crimes committed in D.C. these days, most of them connected with drugs or government or both, it’s nice to focus on what the man called a kinder, gentler time when crimes of passion and jealousy prevailed.”
    Eventually, Tri-S developed into one of Washington’s premier fund-raising groups. The newspapers and TV programs enjoyed the recall of crimes less current than the Six O’Clock News. But Tri-S’s staged reenactments, despite patches of bad acting, were historically accurate and drew large audiences and generated considerable sums of charitable money. When not playacting, members of the society enjoyed lounging around Tierney’smansion in the Potomac Palisades discussing and dissecting crimes, old and new.
    Despite Tierney’s infusion of steady money into Potomac Players, Seymour Fletcher, Madelon St. Cere, and other guiding lights were unhappy on his payroll. The Tri-S productions did not constitute theater as they defined it, preferring Mamet, Albee, Shepherd.
    But money talked, and art walked. Tierney’s subsidy was generous and didn’t demand full-time commitment. Once the historic murders had been performed for their adoring public, the players were free to perform other, less distasteful productions.
    “Monty, please,” Fletcher yelled from the stage.
    Professor Jamison, a heavyset man whose front bowed out like the Hitchcock caricature, pushed himself up from his cramped seat and waddled down the aisle. He wore what was his “uniform”—heavy tan twill pants, blue button-down shirt, Paisley vest, brown Harris-tweed jacket, and one of hundreds of bow ties from a proud collection. His white beard and fringe of white hair were trimmed short. Tortoiseshell glasses were thick.
    Jamison cleared his throat before speaking, as he always did. It was as though a tiny pump needed to be primed before each sentence. “I’ve done some additional reading on the Sickles-Key case, and I must admit, Seymour, that the body of evidence grows heavier in favor of ‘house.’ In his 1976 book, Kelly has Sickles saying, ‘Key, you scoundrel, you have dishonored my bed—you must die.’ But in Nat Brandt’s excellent re-creation of the sordid affair, he has Sickles saying, ‘Key, you scoundrel, you have dishonored my house—you must die.’ Other trustworthy sources favor the useof ‘house,’ rather than ‘bed.’ I can cite these other sources if you’d like.”
    “
Please
, no,” Fletcher said.
    “What the hell does it matter?” St. Cere said haughtily. “The dishonoring took place in Teresa’s hot bed. ‘Bed’ and ‘sex’ are synonymous. ‘House’ can be the little house on the prairie, for Christsake.”
    Fletcher gritted his teeth and clenched his hands at his sides as he glared at Stuart. “I can’t get this excuse for an actor to say house
or
bed. All he wants to do is call everybody bastards.”
    “I’ve had enough,” said Stuart. He slammed his script to the floor and walked away.
    Fletcher now directed his wrath to Carl, who played Philip Barton Key. “And when Sickles shoots you,” Fletcher said, “look as though you’re in
pain
instead of dumb and confused.” Then, salt for the wound: “And be bloody careful when grabbing the tree for support. It’s as shaky as your performance.”
    Carl, too, disappeared into the wings.
    “Please, please,” Jamison said after a false start. “We had already decided that