Murder at Ford's Theatre - Margaret Truman [2]
“Dull theatre!” some critics said.
Certainly noncontroversial. Avant-garde playwrights need not apply. Nothing to ruffle the feathers of members of Congress who decided how much to include for the theatre in the yearly congressional budget, particularly eighty-six-year-old Alabama Senator Topper Sybers, chairman of the Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources. Unlike some “reviewers” who never saw a play or painting or book they didn’t like, Sybers had never seen a play or piece of art that wasn’t lubricious. But Clarise had more than financial reasons these days for not wanting to provoke the elderly, feisty senator from Alabama. The president, Lewis Nash, Clarise’s lifelong friend, had recently nominated her to chair the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). Sybers’s Labor and Human Resources Committee would conduct her confirmation hearing.
Clarise’s appearance that morning was surprising to the assembled. She seldom set foot inside the theatre, delegating virtually every creative aspect to others. Her time was better spent, she often said, squeezing money out of wealthy patrons, individuals and corporations alike.
“Good morning,” she said brightly to the half-dozen stagehands marking time.
“‘Morning, Clarise,” they responded.
Because of her status on the Washington scene—not only was she a personal friend of the president and headed for the NEA, she’d once been married to Bruce Lerner, senior senator from Virginia, a handsome, sixty-year-old bachelor often seen on the arm of beautiful, high-profile women—there was the natural tendency for younger people at Ford’s to address her as Ms. Emerson. But she’d put an end to that shortly after taking up her post there, and everyone called her Clarise.
That she was youthful in appearance and manner helped. People took her to be considerably younger than fifty-four. Good genes had given her not only beauty but boundless energy; Clarise didn’t walk, she moved at an almost constant trot, up on the balls of her feet, looking as though she might suddenly decide to become airborne. She stood military erect, like her father, who’d served twenty years in the air force, retiring to their small farm in Ohio to die of a coronary three years after exchanging his blue uniform for coveralls. She was, in fact, like her father, Luke Emerson, in almost all ways, physically and philosophically, except for her sense of humor, which was decidedly her mother’s, a short, plump woman better suited to the role of farmer’s wife than military spouse, subservient to her dour husband when in his presence, but wickedly prankish about him when chatting with women friends.
“Early start,” Clarise said. “What’s the occasion?”
“Sydney called a meeting,” a stagehand said.
“Oh?”
“The teenage show, I guess,” Wales said.
“Is there a problem with it?”
“Not that we know of, Clarise.”
“Sydney’s not even in town,” she said.
“That’s just terrific,” Wales said, dropping his empty cup into a trash can. “Anybody got an aspirin?”
“Do you know why Sydney called a tech meeting?” Clarise asked.
Shrugs all around.
“Well, sorry you’re here so early for nothing. I’ll speak with Sydney when I see him.”
Clarise turned and retraced her steps to the door connecting the buildings. The four men and one female apprentice watched her retreat from