Final Curtain: An Edna Ferber Mystery (Edna Ferber Mysteries) by Ed Ifkovic

never met—the first Evan, conveniently—died and the money was delivered this morning. Didn’t you see me skipping out of the Maplewood Bank & Trust?” A grin plastered to his face. “You probably missed me at rehearsal. I had a bit of shopping to do.”
    “You’re a lucky man.”
    “Luck ain’t got nothing to do with it.” His own words sounded puzzling to him because he paused, furrowed his brow, and then announced, “Well, yeah, I guess so. I mean, it pays to have rich relatives, even if you don’t know them.” He grinned stupidly. “It’s like my hard work has paid off.”
    With that, he scooped up his packages and disappeared into his new room. As I stood there, pondering his last puzzling line, the door to George’s room opened, and a fuzzy head popped out.
    “Edna, really, making a scene in the hallway.”
    “You didn’t hear my boisterous voice.”
    “But you seem to attract a rag-tag element to perform for you.”
    “Did you hear Evan? He’s awash in cash.” I lowered my voice. “A dead uncle or…”
    “Edna, you’re so gullible.”
    “I didn’t say I believed it. I’m just reporting…”
    “There is no dead uncle. You forget I know the family. There’s a struggling widowed mother who bothers Bea with long, weepy letters and mournful phone calls. She was an only child.”
    “Then…”
    “A fabrication, Edna.”
    “But why?” I glanced in the direction of Evan’s closed door. I could hear bureau drawers opening and closing.
    “You should ask him. He seems to follow you around.” A pause. “Or is it the other way around? You’re one of those giddy swooners after matinee idols? Did you weep at Valentino’s casket? I thought I recognized your prostate body in the news photos.” He closed his door behind him and buttoned his sports jacket. “Lunch, Edna? My treat. You can tell me why you missed a cue this morning at rehearsal.”
    “George, I’m an actress now.”
    He laughed. “Keep telling yourself that, my dear.”
    Moments later, standing on the sidewalk, we watched Evan run around a parked Studebaker roadster, gleaming metallic blue and white, top down. He circled it as though it were elusive prey, just out of reach, but painfully tantalizing.
    His voice bubbly, he yelled to us. “The car’ll take me back to Hollywood.” He danced around it, a little drunk.
    I walked by, but George deliberated, bending to look at a fender. Now George never drove—didn’t believe in driving. Automobiles alarmed him. He would gladly be driven places, but the idea of his getting behind the wheel of a car was ludicrous and unacceptable. Bea drove, and poorly. George kept his eyes closed. He had to be dragged onto airplanes. Boats sickened him, yet he worshiped taxicabs because they had backseats. I drove lumbering town cars at my Connecticut estate, usually with the seats crammed with egg cartons or pool equipment—or, sometimes, my carping mother.
    “Get in,” Evan roared, opening a passenger door.
    To my surprise, George slipped into the car, and Evan motioned for me to occupy a backseat. Reluctantly, offering George a disapproving look, I sat in back, and Evan, whooping like a back-lot Indian in a two-reel oater, sped off, the wheels of the car spitting pebbles and dust into the air. George had rested his arm on the back of the driver’s seat and I tapped it, leaning forward. “We’ll be killed, of course.”
    “Really, Edna!”
    “I’d rather die a different death. Or, at least, with a companion less annoying.”
    George laughed. “Sit back, Edna.”
    Evan spun around town, passing cars, blowing through stop signs and lights, waving at strangers. A child, really, and not a very bright one. Yet a child propelling two tons of metal toward some dark abyss. We’d crash and I’d be strangled by my three strands of pearls, or, worse, be impaled on a gearshift. He pulled into the parking lot of a White Castle hamburger stand, just off Springfield, and pointed. “Anybody