Polished Off (19 page)

Pushing to my feet, I brushed off the seat of my khaki slacks and looked around. Dim light ghosting in from the window well showed me a storage room. Labeled boxes were piled high against two walls, and I spotted a spinning wheel, what looked like a church spire, and a stack of boulders. I poked one. Styrofoam. Old props.
Sleeping Beauty
, I guessed for the spinning wheel. I couldn’t figure out what play the church spire came from. I tried to orient myself and decided I must be under the backstage area. If I made my way upstairs, I could go out the front doors and avoid Cujo cat. I’d call Animal Control when I got to my car. A flight of stairs beckoned from the far corner and I made my way to them, keeping my arms close to avoid brushing against the spiderwebs that draped props that probably hadn’t been moved since the Nixon era.

As I climbed the stairs, the odor I’d smelled earlier grew stronger. There was something familiar about it . . . I pushed open the door at the top of the stairs, dismayed to step into almost total dark. Blinking my eyes, I stood still until I could make out vague shapes. I was pleased to discover I was right about my location; I was in a narrow hall, an alcove really, just behind the stage area. Behind me, a wider hall led to the Green Room and the small rooms where Stella and I had beautified the pageant contestants. Crossing the stage would be the quick route into the auditorium. From there, I could make my way to the foyer and escape into the fresh air.

The stink was almost overpowering as I fumbled my way through a gauzy scrim and onto the empty stage. I finally identified it: dead skunk. Anyone who has driven on Georgia’s roads has encountered that smell. But what was it doing here? With rabies on my mind, I wondered if a sick skunk had found a way into the theater and died in a vent or something. Pee-yew. Breathing shallowly, arms extended to keep from bumping into anything, I crossed the stage. The open feeling, the lack of walls or anything to anchor myself with, disturbed me. I could imagine the openness going on forever, a vast Arctic wasteland or a stretch of empty sea. Don’t be a doofus, I chided myself. A creaking noise on my right stopped me. I stood still, listening. Nothing. Hadn’t Marv said something about rats in the theater? I stepped forward again, tripped over something bulky, and fell flat.

I knew without thinking about it that I was draped over a some
one
, not a some
thing
. And the someone’s total lack of response at having my hundred and thirty pounds crash down on him or her scared me more than an outraged, “Get off of me!” would have. Trying not to disturb the body, I pushed hard with my hands on the stage so my torso lifted off what felt like a pair of legs. I stayed on my knees for a moment before pushing to my feet. My knees wobbled so badly I could hardly stand. I couldn’t bring myself to search for a pulse and I would’ve paid a week’s wages to know where the light switch was.

Tears straggled down my cheeks as I half ran, half stumbled toward where I thought the stairs would be at stage left. I didn’t even much care if I fell off the stage. At least I’d be that much closer to getting out of the theater. My right foot suddenly met no resistance when it came down and I thudded onto the stairs. Grateful to have a wall to guide me, I kept my hand against it as I sprinted up the aisle. I was gasping for breath by the time I burst through the swinging doors and into the sunlit foyer. Holding the door open to illuminate the auditorium, I peered back toward the stage and thought I saw a smudge of beard and a flash of plaid shirt on the crumpled figure. He could have been an actor playing Romeo, Oedipus, the Hunchback of Notre Dame, or any number of other tragic heroes dead at the end of the fifth act.

But Sam Barnes wouldn’t be reviving for curtain calls.

I WAS TOO FAMILIAR WITH THE PARADE OF OFFICIALS who show up at a murder scene: EMTs, police, firefighters, coroner, crime scene technicians, and others. After making the 911 call from my cell phone, I huddled in my car, waiting for the parade to begin, and tried to scrub a smear of blood off the front of my sage green blouse with a fast-food napkin I’d found under the seat. It just spread the stain. A rap on the window made me jump and look up.

Agent Dillon stood there, his face full of concern. He pulled open the door. “Are you okay, Grace?”

I shook my head mutely and he reached in and pulled me out of the car, wrapping his arms around me. I clung to the solid warmth of him, conscious of a faintly spicy aftershave and the ironed cotton of his shirt beneath my cheek.

“Are you hurt? Is that your blood?”

I shook my head against his chest, slightly comforted by the strength in his arms and the
tha-thump
of his heartbeat.

“Tell me what happened,” he said to the top of my head. “Dispatch said something about a rabid cat and a dead man. Were you attacked?”

Okay, so I hadn’t been a model of coherence when I called 911. I pushed away, suddenly shy about being snuggled against him. He let me go easily. “No. I found Sam Barnes. On the stage. I think he’s dead.” And I explained how I came to be in the Oglethorpe.

“God damn it, Grace! Would you just let us do our jobs?” he exploded when I finished.

I stepped back, feeling like he’d slapped me. “I’m not—I can’t—”

“I’m sorry,” he said, running a hand down his face. “It’s just that I’m worried you’re going to
be
the body one of these days and not just find one.”

The real concern in his voice almost made me cry again. Before I could say anything, though, the rest of the parade showed up, lights flashing and sirens wailing.

“I’ve got to check out the scene,” he said, moving away from me. “Wait here. We’ll need a formal statement.” He signaled to a uniformed officer, who came to keep me company. Or keep me from leaving, I wasn’t sure which.

The cop turned out to be Officer Qualls, the dark-haired woman who’d helped secure the scene after Audrey’s death. The one who had the hots for Hank. She looked trim and competent in her dark blue uniform. “You okay?” she asked as I rubbed at the bloodstain again. “Want some coffee? We just stopped by the Perk-Up and I haven’t even touched mine yet. You’re welcome to it.”

“Thanks,” I said with real gratitude. I trailed her to the patrol car, where she reached in for the mega-sized cup in the holder. Why can’t coffee shops just have small, medium, and large cups anymore? Starbucks uses tall, venti, and grande and the Perk-Up went them one better with mega, giga, and tera, apparently catering to the computersavvy crowd.

“So, you found another body?” Officer Qualls asked a bit too casually, leaning back against the cruiser, arms crossed over her chest.

I sipped the coffee: too sweet, too milky, and with a hint of hazelnut, but comforting nonetheless. “Looks that way.”

“What were you doing in an empty theater at seven in the morning?”

Clearly, her interrogation style ran to blunt. “Escaping a rabid cat.”

Her dark brows drew together. “Come again?”

I told her about Cujo kitty and she called dispatch and asked that an Animal Control officer be sent out. “I had a cousin who was attacked by a rabid raccoon when we were in third grade,” she said. “It came right up to us on the playground. I had nightmares for years.”

“Was your cousin okay?” I gulped more coffee.

“Yeah, but the injections were no fun. That was back when you had to take them in the abdomen. I don’t think they do that anymore. So, you and Hank used to be married?”

I was glad she’d given up interrogating me, so I answered. “Four years.”

“He seems like a really sweet man,” she observed, shooting me a sidelong look. Her eyes were her best feature, a warm brown with tawny flecks, fringed by thick lashes.

“He has his moments.” Few and far between by the time we divorced.

The Animal Control vehicle showed up and a stocky, gray-uniformed woman got out holding a stick with a noose on the end. She pulled on heavy gloves that covered her arms to the elbow. “Rabid cat?” she asked.

“Around back,” I told her. “Black and white.”

With a nod, she trudged around the building, apparently uninterested in the collection of emergency vehicles blocking Pecan Street. I could tell Officer Qualls wanted to follow her, but her mission was to keep tabs on me. Moments later, an unearthly yowl split the air, startling one patrol officer so he dumped coffee on himself. “What the hell was that?” he asked, eyeing the Oglethorpe as if afraid the real phantom of the opera would come floating out.

Suddenly, I couldn’t face seeing the sick cat dragged around the building and bundled into one of the bins opening out of the Animal Control vehicle. Bound for euthanasia. “Tell Agent Dillon he can get hold of me at my mom’s,” I said, dashing toward my car.

“But you can’t—” Officer Qualls started, only to be drowned out by the squeal of my tires as I pulled away from the curb.

 

 

IT FELT LIKE HALF THE DAY HAD ELAPSED, BUT IT was still shy of eight o’clock when I slipped into Mom’s kitchen through the screen door. Mom and Stella sat at the table in their robes, syrup-smeared plates in front of them and the smell of pancakes in the air. Mom took one look at me and rose to hug me. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

For a moment I just hugged her hard, snuffling back tears. Her soft bosom and the smell of the Jean Naté powder she’d used forever gave me comfort, and the feeling of Barnes’s body under mine receded. I sat. As I started to tell what had happened, she slid a mug of tea in front of me and started mixing another batch of pancakes. I didn’t even try to stop her.

“At least,” I finished, dousing my pancakes with syrup, “this should put Darryl in the clear. No way he could’ve murdered Sam Barnes from jail.”

Silence greeted my silver-lining pronouncement. I looked up to see Mom and Stella staring at me, identical expression of dismay on their faces. “What?” I asked.

“Simone got Darryl out on bail late yesterday afternoon,” Stella said.

“The judge granted bail?” That surprised me, given the nature of the crime and Darryl’s disappearance afterward.

“Simone’s good,” Mom said simply.

Too good, maybe, I thought.

“I’ve got to call Darryl,” Stella said. “Excuse me.” Dabbing her lips with a napkin, she rose and hurried up the stairs by the pantry.

Rapping on the screen door grabbed our attention. Agent Dillon stood there, white shirt sleeves rolled to his elbows, looking hot and tired.

“Good morning, Mrs. Terhune,” he said as Mom let him in.

“Good morning, Agent Dillon.” She gave him a lovely smile, not one whit discomposed at having him drop by while she was wearing her robe and slipper socks.

“Please, call me John.”

I stifled my surprise. That was new. During last May’s investigation of Constance DuBois’s murder, he kept things very formal. Maybe you got to call him John if you weren’t a murder suspect.

He turned to me. “You ran off.” He sounded exasperated rather than mad.

“You found me.” I didn’t want to tell him about feeling sorry for the cat and overwhelmed by the whole finding-a-body thing, but something in his face told me he understood at least part of it.

“Those pancakes sure smell good,” he told Mom with a hopeful look.

“Coming right up,” she said. “Violetta’s short-order service, at your beck and call.” She said it good-naturedly and I knew she was happy to cook for anyone who appreciated her food. She ladled batter on the griddle and the yummy aroma filled the kitchen. “So, was it really Mr. Barnes that Grace found?”

He nodded, washing his hands at the sink. “Yes.”

“Dead?” I asked, even though I knew the answer.

“Very. Shot twice at close range.”

I shuddered and warmed my palms on my tea mug. “When?”

“We won’t know until after the autopsy. Analysis of his stomach contents should give us a more definitive time, assuming we can find someone who knows when he ate last. Probably after eleven, though.”

I was glad I’d already finished breakfast because the thought of analyzing stomach contents made me queasy.

“Do you think it was the same person who attacked him yesterday?” Mom asked, sliding a plate of pancakes in front of Agent Dillon.

“Definitely not,” he said. He forked up a bite and chewed slowly, enjoying our impatience.

“Why not?” I asked before he could take another bite.

“No one attacked him yesterday. He staged it.”

“However could he do that? Why ever would he?” Mom wondered.

I sat back in my chair, studying the men’s restroom again in my mind’s eye. Dillon watched me with a hint of a smile, prompting me to figure it out.

“He banged his head underneath the sink, didn’t he?” I said. “To make it look like someone hit him. That’s why the blood was near the sink and on the paper towel—he’d wiped it off the sink.”

Dillon nodded his approval. “Exactly. The luminol showed traces of blood on the underside of the sink. He must have crouched beneath it and stood up hard.”