Nightbird by Edward Dee Read Free Book Online Page A

knew she didn’t have to say anything else. “Besides, she probably knows more about this than
     you do.”
    “According to Danny she doesn’t have a clue about his love life.”
    “Is that what Danny told you? Nancy knew it long ago. It was obvious. All of a sudden he develops this big interest in theater,
     going to more plays than a critic. Who else but a woman could drag Danny Eumont to Off Broadway? One day Nancy asked him about
     the Gillian on his speed dial, and he almost wet himself lying. We put it all together this morning, when he called looking
     for you.”
    Leigh shuffled
Playbills
around the floor, looking for something in particular. She had saved them since the first play she went to with her young
     husband, both of them awed by live theater.
    “We saw Gillian Stone in
A Chorus Line
,” she said, handing him one of the programs folded over to the cast page. “The last time we saw it, just before it closed.
     She played Sheila.”
    Leigh and Anthony Ryan had tried to expose their kids, Margaret and Rip, to all the wonders of N.Y.C.: plays, concerts, restaurants,
     parades, exhibits, museums, ball games. Rip loved Yankee Stadium, a place he roamed like an explorer; he made a point of sitting
     in every single section for at least one at bat. Their daughter, Margaret, always told them she missed the theater. Margaret
     and their granddaughter, Katie, were living in Dublin for the year, unearthing the family roots.
    “Was it definitely suicide?” Leigh said, lacing up a pair of Reeboks that were the same exact model she’d worn for twenty
     years. She had to scour the outlets and discount stores to find them now. Then she bought every pair in her size.
    “Suicide is the early consensus,” Ryan said.
    “Had she been depressed?”
    “Not according to her father. But he also denied she had a drug problem. No problems whatsoever.”
    “Gillian had been away from home for a long time,” Leigh said. “So maybe Mom doesn’t know, either. One of the TV reporters
     said there were rumors she was going to be fired from this show. Maybe she was more brittle than anyone realized. She gets
     the first bad news of her life and snaps.”
    “Danny doesn’t think so.”
    “Men do not notice subtle changes. Ask a woman.”
    Ryan wondered if Evan Stone noticed the identification room in Bellevue morgue. Would he remember its fake leather couches
     and low tables? Did he read the religious pamphlets or notice the boxes of tissues, the pitcher of water and two glasses?
     Would he recall the glass partition that separated the room from the one next door? The dark blue curtain that covered the
     partition? The bright light that came on when the curtain slid back? The single gurney covered by a blue sheet? The attendant
     in blue scrubs who pulled back the sheet?
    “People handle bad times differently,” Leigh said, standing over him and putting on her linen blazer. “Gillian might have
     been one of those who just couldn’t deal with it.”
    “If she was that fragile, somebody should have been looking out for her. I’d like to know who.”
    “What would that accomplish, Anthony?”
    “Whoever it was should be called on it.”
    A TV reporter stood in front of the Broadway Arms, explaining how Gillian Stone fell to her death. Ryan put his face between
     his knees. Leigh wrapped both arms around her husband. “Come on, we’re not going to mope tonight.” She reached for the clicker.
     “I can’t watch this anymore.”
    The images faded to black. But the image unerased was the one in Anthony Ryan’s mind: of himself as he listened to the Utah
     Public Safety officer explain how their son, Rip, had died.
    The official Utah verdict was called PIO, pilot-induced oscillation. Pilot error. The police had ascertained from witnesses
     that young Rip Ryan, in his inexperience, was unable to make his final turn into a turbulent wind. He hit the ground at approximately
     fifty miles an hour. In the