Christy Barritt - Squeaky Clean 08 - Foul Play (10 page)

“I was waiting to play that card closer to the time of the play’s release. Timing is everything, and I didn’t want to leak the information to the press too early. This is my chance for a big break, but I wanted to get it the right way.”

Wait—so everyone knew who she was yet she was keeping it quiet? I got it that actors were extremely complicated people, a strange mix of arrogance and insecurity. But she wasn’t making much sense.

“To
clarify—you’re saying you’re not behind any of the vandalisms?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying
.” Her voice sounded crispy. “And I resent your implications, Ms. It’s-Not-What-You-Know-But-Who.”

Maybe she
wasn’t a killer or a criminal, but she was definitely a jerk.

Silence
stretched between us. Awkward, cringe inducing silence. We both sat on the floor of the closet. I pulled my knees to my chest, unable to escape from Arie.

“So, w
hat do you do,
Gabby
?” She said my name like it was a bad word. “Besides butchering my musical?”

Anger started to grow in me
, but I tried to keep a handle on it. Snapping—again—would do me no good. “I have a cleaning, restoration, and renovation business.”

“Really? Kind of like one of those gals on HGTV?”

Exactly like that, only different.
“You might say.”

“Have you ever thought of doing a reality series?”

I laughed a little too hard. “No, someone already talked to me about doing a reality series. I’m not interested.” I almost added that the reality series would be based on crime scene cleaning. I was glad I stopped myself before I got there. Admitting that much would raise too many questions and possibly blow my cover.

“
I guess you have the look for TV.”

I was pretty sure she’d meant that as a compliment. “Thank you?”

“I mean, for a tom boy contractor, at least.”

I scowled
.
Focus, Gabby. Focus.
This was the perfect time to question her because she couldn’t escape. I mentally let out an evil laugh. “How’d you go from soap star to playwright, Arie?”

“I’ve always had an interest
in show business. I figured I needed to strike while the iron was hot.”

So
she’d picked a start up community theater group? Again, I kept my mouth shut. I was slowly learning that I didn’t have to say everything that popped into my mind. It had only taken me nearly thirty years to get that through my thick skull.

“Well, I look forward to seeing it all come together.
It sounds like you have … quite a bit of experience under your belt. I’m sure it will all benefit this production immensely.” It pained me to say the words, but they flowed out anyway.

Silence fell for a minute.

“I guess you’re not too bad. Maybe I can stop discluding you from my party invites.”

“What party invites?”
And is “discluding” really a word?

“The ones you haven’t been receiving.”

“O … kay.”

“It’s true. Almost every night after practice, the cast hangs out. Everyone except you, that is.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Say thank you. You’re a part of the in crowd now, Gabby. But I can quickly disavow you from the group. Keep that in
mind also.”

“
Just so we’re not disclear, I will.”

“What?” Confusion clenched her voice.

“Disregard that.” I smiled, humoring myself.

“Whatever. You’re so weird.” Silence stretched a moment.
“So, if we get out of here tonight, the cast is going to go hang out. Join us if you want. But don’t take this as some kind of professional stamp of approval. I still would have picked a different actress to play Elsa.”

“Understood.”

Maybe this was the “in” I needed in order to find some answers.

CHAPTER 15

Though some kind of wall had seemed to crumble—slightly—between
Arie and me during our confinement together, it had nearly built back up as Arie talked nonstop about herself in the minutes after her party invite.

It
wasn’t that I didn’t want to hear about her Hollywood career, the famous people she’d eaten with, and the gigs she’d almost-but-not-quite gotten, etc.

But I had other things to think about.

Like would the killer come back and finish us off, too? And who exactly had locked us in the closet? Why would someone pretend to be a ghost? Even stranger—Scarlet was dead, but someone continued to sabotage the play. Was Scarlet’s death really about ruining the play? Or was something else going on?

Nothing made any sense.

Plus, I would think that a murderer would be on the run after killing someone. Every time he or she did something else here at the school, it only increased the likelihood of being discovered.

Someone jangled the door handle. A moment later,
dim light flooded the space. I squinted against it.

“Arie? Gabby?”

The figure moved, his head now blocking the bulb directly behind him. “Jerome?” I asked.

“We’ve been looking all over for you guys. Are you okay?” He offered his hand, pulling Arie up first and me second.

It felt good to stretch my legs. I wiped granules from my back, my hands, and my arms, and stepped out.

I’d never been so glad to
see my old middle school hallway.

“Looks like the phantom has struck again,”
Jerome muttered as we began walking down the hallway.

“The phantom? You really think a ghost is behind this?”
He seriously couldn’t believe that. If he did, then there were just too many people around here who were a few rungs short in the ladder leading to logic land.

He shrugged. “Seems a likely excuse to me. The ghost of Rose doesn’t want the show to go on. I don’t know about you, but I’m almost ready to run and give her what she wants. I’ll never be a famous actor if I’m dead.”

“There have been plenty of plays at this school,” I began. “Why would she just target this one?” Not that I thought ghosts were real. But in order to connect with certain cast members, I had to get on their level, which meant I had to hammer out this ghost theory.

“Those were middle school plays,”
Arie said, turning up her nose.

“They were some pretty good plays!” I argued.

Arie raised an eyebrow. “How would you know?”

I remembered that I was undercover. “I mean, I acted in middle school and the work my drama troupe did was pretty impressive. I bet it was the same here.”

“Hm.” She eyed me. “I think Rose is afraid we’ll make history and outdo her.”

Outdo her? No one here had even heard the story about her! I kept my mouth shut.

I really needed to check with Clarice to see if she’d done any research yet. Was there any truth at all to this crazy story?

“Where is everyone?” I decided to change the subject.

“They’re all quarantined in the choir room. We didn’t want anyone else to disappear,” Jerome said.

Paulette looked like a nervous
wreck when we arrived. She walked over to me and pulled me into a hug. I wanted desperately to remind her that we weren’t supposed to know each other, but I kept my mouth shut in order not to draw any more attention to the situation.

I noticed
a smudge of dirt on Paulette’s cheek and some dust in her hair. Just where had Paulette been and what had she been doing?

Mrs. Baker clapped
to get our attention. “I know the past few weeks have been crazy—to say the least—but we only have a week to pull this together. We’ve got a lot of work to do, gang. I’ll need to make sure you’re all committed.”

I glanced around. Arie, Jerome,
The Shining Twins, and Bennie all nodded. Paulette stared off into space. Was the guilty party in this room? I hated to think it could be true, but that’s what I was leaning toward more and more.

“We need to get back into the auditorium and run through this from start to finish
,” Mrs. Baker continued. “We don’t have much time and we still have a lot of kinks to work out.”

“Tickets are on sale and we’ve
nearly sold out. But I can’t afford to refund the money to people and go in the hole,” Paulette said.

Sold out?
A couple of articles had run about Scarlet’s death. Had the bad publicity bolstered sales? Would that give Paulette motivation for murder? The thought startled me. How could I suspect my old friend? Being objective was so hard sometimes. Of course I didn’t want to doubt the innocence of someone I considered a friend.

“The future of this theater is riding on the success of this play
,” Paulette continued. “I’m going to up the security here at the school and do everything in my power to prevent any more of these vandalisms from occurring and acting as obstacles to our success.”

Everyone nodded again. A new somberness had come over the cast. I’d
have bet more than one person was considering getting out while they could.

Mrs. Baker’s eyes met mine
, and I saw the concern there. She was as worried about all of this as anyone else.

We filed silently back
into the auditorium and took our places, everyone’s movements wooden, stiff, almost hesitant.

Bennie
placed her hand on my arm. “You okay? You look a little shaken.”

I nodded. “I’m fine.
”

“Not
everyone stayed in groups, you know,” she whispered.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that I saw several people wandering around by themselves or slipping out to the bathroom. It makes me wonder if one of them locked you in that closet.”

“Like who?” I
whispered back. I glanced around to make sure no one was paying attention.

“Like Jerome, for example.
Arie mentioned that he was alone when he found you. Isn’t that suspicious?”

It w
as true. But what reason would Jerome have to be behind these acts? Then I remembered that I hadn’t found out anything about him when I did my Internet search. Maybe he wasn’t who he claimed to be. That would explain why he had no web presence. Actors usually wanted as much attention as they could get.

“Elsa, you’re up.”

I cleared my throat and swirled on stage while the chorus began singing, “What Do You Do with a Slightly Flighty Nun.” This was the opening where everyone at the convent gave me their blessing to go off to the theater and, in the meantime, out of their hair—or maybe I should say their “wimples.”

After I
was whisked out of my home at the abbey, the lights went down. Stagehands wearing all black moved flats and set pieces for the next scene, a theater within the actual theater.

I mentally ran through my lines as I stood on the black stage, waiting for the lights to come back up.

You’re the Spector. Please don’t hurt me. What do you want? Why can’t you leave us all alone?

My mental voice deepened as I silently repeated Jerome’s lines also.
You’re all I’ve dreamed about, Elsa. You came to me. I knew you would.
I’ve been waiting.

The lights came up
. In the blackness, I hadn’t even realized that my gaze was fixated on the orchestra pit below. With no live music, the space was used for storage now and filled with old chairs and music stands.

Something else in the pit caught my eye.

As the music started for “Climb Every Steeple,” I did a double take.

There was a body in the pit. A dead body.

I let out a blood-curdling scream.

CHAPTER 16

“I’m telling you, if that body had been down there for more than a few hours, we would
have smelled it. It was placed there some time between when the lights went out and when play practice started,” I whispered to Detective Charlie Henderson.

“I assure you, we’re investigating, Gabby,” Charlie said.

Everyone else had been sequestered back in the choir room, but I remained with both Paulette and Mrs. Baker.

No one was allowed to leave until after they were questioned.
Which essentially made everyone a possible suspect or witness.

Bennie’s words kept coming back to me, though.

Not everyone stayed in in groups, you know.

Jerome.

As I glanced over at the body of the man from the pit, I realized I’d never seen him before. He could possibly be the man I’d seen in the parking lot that day, but I couldn’t even be sure of that. He definitely wasn’t a cast member, and Paulette confirmed he didn’t work here at the building.

“May I?” I asked Charlie as the gurney came closer.

She stared at me uncertainly.

“I did work for the medical examiner before budget cuts,” I
reminded her.

As if to confirm my theory, Danny—the medical legal death investigator—paused to say a few words. We’d worked together on a couple of cases, which I hoped only helped my
credibility.

“Go ahead,” Charlie muttered. “But make it quick.”

Danny pulled the sheet back. I soaked in the man’s face. It was round and thick like his neck, giving him a stocky, heavyset appearance. He had a scar on his cheek and a sleazy looking mustache boasting long strands of sparse hair.

I quickly examined the rest of him.

There were no signs of foul play. No blood. No visible bruises. No swelling or knots or anything.

“We should have the results in a few days,”
Danny told me. He must have read my thoughts.

“How long has he been dead?”

“In my estimation, just based on factors determined here at the scene like body temperature, livor mortis, and rigor mortis, this man has been dead about five hours.”

I nodded, and
Danny continued to wheel him away. I walked back over to Charlie, who was talking to some of the crime scene techs. My mind turned over the facts again and again.

“Did you find Scarlet’s cell phone?” I whispered.

“Yeah. Why?”

“I suppose you checked her messages
for anything suspicious.”

“Of course I did. It had been wiped clean, though.”

“Were you able to recover anything?”

She
crossed her arms. “No, we weren’t.”

“Didn’t you find that strange?”

“Of course. Either she was very careful or she didn’t like texting people.”

I stored that information away. Was it a clue? Or a coincidence? “Most people her age love texting.”

“There are exceptions, though.” Charlie shifted. “There’s something I need to ask you about, Gabby.”

“Anything.” I figured she’d ask about cast members or
suspicions—my gut instinct about the case.

“Why was your business card
found on the man?”

I blinked. “Excuse me?”

Charlie continued to stare. “We found your card in the man’s pocket. Did you question him?”

“I’ve never seen that man before.”

“Then how did he get your card?”

I shook my head, dumbfounded. “I have no idea. I promise you, I have no
clue who he is.”

“We’re going to need to question you, Gabby. You know that, right?”

Dread pooled in my stomach. This was just part of the routine, I told myself. However, I didn’t feel any better. “Am I a suspect?”

“Just a person of interest.”

“That means suspect,” I told her.

“Not always.
I’m asking you to do this on your own free will.”

I bit back a sigh. “When do you want me to come
in?”

She glanced at her watch. “Thirty minutes? Give me more time to wrap up things here.”

“Are you bringing everyone else in also?”

She shook he
r head. “Not unless we have reason to.”

I closed my eyes. This wasn’t good. It wasn’t good at all.

**
*

I crossed my arms over my chest as I sat in the interrogation room. I’d dreamed about being in this very place many times—but in all my fantasies, I’d been on the other side of the law. The
right
side of the law.

Right now, I felt exposed. There was no table between
Charlie and me. I desperately wanted to put something between us, but crossing my arms over my chest was the best I could do at the moment.

“Are you sure you’ve never seen this man?”
Charlie repeated, pushing his photo toward me.

“I’m positive,
Charl—I mean, Detective Henderson. Besides, I was locked in a closet when this happened. I couldn’t have done it.”

“Apparently, you were only in the closet the last thirty minutes. There were thirty minutes prior to that when no one saw you.”

“That’s because I was looking for Arie!” I insisted.

I had to keep my voice down. I wasn’t doing myself
any favors by getting wound up, and I knew that. Applying it was much harder.

“Then how did you
r business card get in his pocket?”

“It’s like I’ve told you already: I have no idea. I guess someone put it there? Maybe we have mutual
acquaintances. I’m not sure.”

“Is there anyone involved with the play who you’ve noticed acting suspicious
ly?” Charlie asked.

I let out my breath. At least the spotligh
t was off me for a minute. Should I mention Paulette? She’d had dirt on her cheek. But that didn’t make her guilty.

Arie? Again, I had suspicions but no proof. If I mentioned either of their names and happened to be wrong, then I wouldn’t be doing myself any favors.

“I heard several people went out by themselves searching for Arie,” I said instead. “I suppose any of them could have had the opportunity. I still have no idea what anyone’s motive would be, not to mention the means. There was no sign of foul play on the man.”

“His body didn’t end up in the orchestra pit by accident.”

“I agree. I think someone put him there to make a statement.”

“About what?”

“Quite possibly about me! He was planted there to make a point. I think it’s obvious he didn’t die in the pit.”

Charlie squinted.
“Why would you say that?”

“
He wasn’t there during the first act, for starters. It looked like he’d been positioned on the floor. If he just happened to be vandalizing the school and fell, the scene would have been much uglier.”

Another detective
entered the room and slid a file toward Charlie. I held my breath as she opened it and read something there.

I hated this. I hated being on the opposite side of the law—even if I wasn’t really on the opposite side. The justice system was supposed to work in favor of the good guys, not condemn the innocent.

Jesus, who was innocent, was condemned for your sins and paid the ultimate price.

The thought slammed into my mind and I drew in a deep breath. The trials I faced on this earth were just temporary, no matter how consuming they could feel. All the hardest moments in life could lead to some of the deepest character growth.

I’d learned that time and time again over the past couple of years. I couldn’t let myself forget it now.

“Does the name
Oliver Cartwright mean anything to you?” Charlie asked.

I thought about it a moment and then shook my head. “Nope. Not a thing. Who is he?”

Charlie glanced up, her gaze no-nonsense. “He’s the man from the pit, and he’s got a list of petty offenses, apparently. No real job. That doesn’t explain why he was in the school.”

Silence fell,
and I rubbed my temples as the seriousness of the whole situation hit me even more. I could be in big trouble. I hoped I was overreacting, but better safe than sorry. “Do I need to call a lawyer?”

Charlie shook her head. “No. A
business card isn’t enough to book a person for a crime. But you should stay in town, Gabby, just in case we have more questions.”

I leaned closer. “You don’t really think I’m guilty, do you?”

Certainly she knew me better than this. We’d
had dinner together. I’d given her and Parker my blessing, even when Parker was dating me and had feelings for her. I’d fussed at Parker for being irresponsible and not marrying her. Basically, I’d been on her side.

For a brief moment, I regretted that.
I regretted misplaced loyalties. I regretted kindness that wasn’t returned.

“My feelings have nothing to do with this, Gabby. My job is to follow the evidence. I thought you knew that.”

At that moment, I realized that Charlie wasn’t my friend. She was my ex-boyfriend’s scorned baby momma. Any ties we’d had were gone. In fact, Parker’s betrayal of her might even make her dislike me more.

“Of course I know that you have to be objective. But—” I stopped myself. Arguing would be futile. “Never mind. I’m not going anywhere. I’m not guilty either.”

Now I just had to prove it.