Murder Takes A Bow - A Betty Crawford Mystery (The Betty Crawford Mysteries) (20 page)

Betty snorted. Of course she was going to wear the jacket. Silly boy.

She replied with a smiley face and headed over to the theater, noting that the unmarked car Bill had mentioned drove a few hundred feet behind her. It was a blue jeep. Betty rolled her eyes. Right. That car wasn’t noticeable. Not at all.

When she arrived at the theater, Clarise was already in the auditorium with the cast and crew, running a rehearsal. Her office door stood open.

Perfect.

Betty sat down at the desk and booted up the computer. After a little poking around, she found that there were two users listed on the computer. The default setting was to the general computer. The other account belonged to Clarise. Betty would bet good money that whoever was conducting the sale of theater equipment would never do so on the main account that anyone could stumble upon, and Clarise wasn’t likely to check the history of her own internet. Hacking into her account was a perfect way to hide in plain sight. Betty typed in possible passwords for Clarise’s account.

"Bundy." No.

"Jarvis." No.

"Wicked Girl." No.

"Mrs. Bundy." No.

"Director." No.

On a whim, Betty typed in her own name. That opened the account. Betty was touched. Betty used her as a password! She didn’t let the little warm fuzzy feeling distract her for long. After all, rehearsal wouldn’t last forever. And, while she wouldn’t mind explaining to Clarise what she was doing on her computer, she’d just as soon not have that conversation in the theater in front of an entire cast and crew.

It took her only a few minutes of searching for hidden files to hit the jackpot. There it was: the record for an entire online business with an emphasis in selling expensive electronics and antique theater equipment. She searched, but there were no records anywhere of seed money or the costs of purchasing the items. There were records of all the people who bought the items, but nothing on the sellers.

From the looks of things, the little company had made over ten thousand dollars selling stolen theater equipment.

In the same folder as the record book, Betty found a blank letter of recommendation for someone looking for work as a stage technician.

Betty heard the sound of rehearsal starting to disperse and fumbled in her purse for a USB drive. She saved a copy of the files onto the drive and shut down the computer, taking care not to rush. The last thing she needed was the draw attention by dropping something and being noisy, or, even worse, to act suspiciously. It wasn’t uncommon for her to check her e mail on Clarise’s computer, so for actors to see her sitting at the desk wasn’t unusual. Her rushing and fumbling would be.

Betty left Clarise’s office, USB drive safely held in her hand. Actors and crew members filed past her, lost in chatter about the rehearsal. She waited in a comfortable nook for Clarise to get out, hoping they’d be able to discuss what she’d found. However, before Clarise left the auditorium the front door opened and Andy came in with a package.

He had circles under his eyes and worry lines that hadn’t been there before. Is he tired from being in mourning for Jarvis, or is it something else? Betty wondered.

"How’re you holding up?" she asked, keeping her voice light.

Andy shrugged, looking down at the clipboard as she signed. "Well as can be expected I suppose."

Betty nodded sympathetically. "We all miss Jarvis," she said. "I have no idea how Clarise is going to put on this production without him." Andy took on a steely expression at the mention of Clarise’s name. Betty pretended not to notice. "Did you know we had to hire three new stage hands just to fill in for what Jarvis normally does?" she asked. "He was that important."

"I’m not surprised," he said bitterly. "Too bad she can’t hire someone else for everything else he did for her."

Betty raised her eyebrows. "Excuse me?" she asked. She could ignore an expression, but not what seemed like a pointed attack on her friend. "Care to explain that comment?"

Andy’s jaw tightened. "She should be behind bars for what she did to him. She killed him!"

"Hey!" Betty exclaimed. "Clarise was released. The police don’t think she did it any more. What makes you think you might know better than them?" She pulled him into the box office and shut the door so that they could speak privately, without the risk of someone walking in on their conversation.

Andy’s shoulders were tense, and his eyes flitted around the room. "Well, I know things they don’t, don’t I?" he said. "I know how they were always arguing. How she used him like some sort of whore, and he kept on coming back time and again for more, even though she kept kicking him to the curb when she tired of him. He was getting sick of it. He was even looking for a job at another theater, up in Richmond, just to get away from her! So, yeah. I think she did it." He yanked his clipboard back and stormed off.

Betty stood where he had left her, frozen. That didn’t sound like Clarise. Not at all.

And Andy hadn’t met her eyes once during the entire conversation.

CHAPTER 31

Betty left the theater without trying to find Clarise. She hated herself for even thinking it, but so far everything that she’d found was connected to Clarise in some way. And, while her gut told her that Clarise would never, ever commit a violent murder, she had to admit that what she’d found thus far would probably lead right back to her friend being arrested. She wasn’t going to hand this evidence over the police quite yet. Not until she had a better idea of what it might all mean. Could someone be framing her friend? Or, perish the thought, was Clarise really involved in this? Betty couldn’t face Clarise until she had straightened things out in her mind. Until being in a car alone with her didn’t include the tiny niggling bits of doubt and mistrust that was starting to ferment in her brain.

So, she tried to ignore the ridiculous police tag a long and headed down the street to an empty parking lot next to a Panera’s. Then she set out to hunt down the only bit of information she could possibly verify from Andy’s version of the story.

She accessed the wireless internet and pulled up a list of all the theater companies in Richmond. Then she started making phone calls.

"Could I speak to human resources? … Hi. Thank you so much for your time. I just have a quick question. Have you received an application from a person in Lofton recently? … Well, we’ve recently had a death in our community, and I’m trying to track down anyone who might be affected…"

She talked and took notes for hours. Finally, Betty sat back against her seat with a sigh. She nearly fell asleep.

Uh oh. Betty forced herself to wake up and check her blood sugar. Sure her enough, it was low. It was already mid afternoon, and she hadn’t eaten anything since that omelet in the morning. She reached into her glove compartment and pulled out her sandwich. It was made on Joseph’s low carb Lavash bread and had all the makings of a good diabetes friendly Italian sub. She’d even used Dole’s Rainbow Slaw and a low carb slaw dressing. The cole slaw added substance, the meat and cheese protein… it was just the thing to bring her blood sugar up without sending it through the roof. Betty dug in, savoring the juicy crunch and delicious mix of flavors while she reviewed her notes thus far.

Three theaters she’d spoken to had no idea what she was talking about.

Six had received applications from Jarvis, but hadn’t wanted to hire him.

Two had interviewed him and were seriously considering hiring him. The first of these was a woman who asked to send her regrets to Jarvis’ family and left it that. But it was the second person, a man who sounded like he should have a handlebar moustache and a tweed suit, who had let slip some very interesting information.

"I’m so sorry to hear that!" He’d exclaimed at the news of Jarvis’ death. "We wondered why he didn’t return our phone call. We wanted to hire him! He’s been so reliable in sending us our orders, we wanted to keep on working with him."

"Orders?" Betty had questioned, her pen poised above the paper.

"Yes, the antique theater equipment he’s been getting to us. Oh, but the lights must have been sent after he died. Please make sure to thank his business partner? It’s good to know there are good, honest folks out there still. Most companies would have dropped the order when the handler passed away, but not his company. If there’s any way you can get me the contact information of the person who sent the lights, I’d like to send them a personal thank you note letting them know they have our business for as long as they want it!"

Betty had hung up the phone from that call in something of a daze.

She felt very, very stupid for not thinking that Jarvis himself may have been the one stealing from the theater.

And, apparently he had an accomplice.

Any way she looked at it, that accomplice was looking more and more like Clarise.

Betty sent Bill an e mail outlining what she’d found on the computer and the results of her phone inquiries. She left out her conversation with Andy and her growing suspicions about Clarise. She was certain there had to be another explanation. A different partner. And she was going back to the theater to find out who it might be.

CHAPTER 32

At the theater, Andy’s delivery truck was parked outside again. And what, she wondered, was in the packages he was delivering? And if she and Clarise were both gone, who was he giving them to? She stormed into the theater, immediately stumbling upon Andy giving packages to, surprise surprise, Walter Payone.

Walter, the actor. Walter had confessed to Jarvis’ murder in such a way that no one, not the police or even Betty herself, had taken him seriously as a threat. It was the perfect cover, really. Hide in plain sight. Make yourself a laughingstock, and no one will ever think you’re a murderer. Not even when all the press of the murder is perfectly to your advantage.

A white hot rage filled Betty and she stormed over to the pair, who watched her descend on them with expressions indicating a level of fear more appropriate to watching a rampaging dragon.

"Open it," Betty snarled, pointing at the package Walter held in his arms. How could she ever have been so stupid as to believe his sob story? She was willing to bet that box held the stolen items. Well, theft from the theater ended right here and now! And when she’d confirmed her suspicions, Betty would be only too happy to send Walter right back to jail.

Walter clutched the package to his chest.

"Open. It." Betty ground out.

Walter puffed his chest out. "It’s my mail. I don’t have to."

"You’re getting your mail delivered to the theater, which makes it falsification of address," she said, glowering. "If you’re going to get packages here, you better damn well let me know what’s in them! Something’s going on in this town, and it’s all tied to shipments coming to and from the theater. So open the box, before I get the police to confiscate it and open it at the station!"

By the end of her tirade, Andy was no where in sight. That was perfectly fine with Betty. Andy wasn’t the one in trouble here. Walter was the one with the illegal package. He wasn’t leaving until she knew for sure if he was the accomplice she was looking for.

Walter deflated. He trudged over to a table and set the box on the table. "Fine, if that’s what you really think. But," he looked at Betty with vulnerability written over every part of his features. "Just don’t judge me for it, if you please. I didn’t want anyone to know."

Betty looked at him uncertainly, some of her rage ebbing away. She approached the table cautiously, muscles tensed in case she had to make a quick getaway. Walter pulled his keys out of the package and swiped through the packing tape.

He opened the box to reveal medical supplies. Glucose strips, to be exact.