Act V (17 page)

The other four looked at one another as
if wondering which one of them should break the bad
news.

“
What?” she asked. It was
too hot for games. “Just spit it out. Jeff?”

Jeff looked at the ground. “He’s not
here.”

“
Well, duh. Where is
he?”

“
I…we don’t know. He didn’t
call in and we can’t get him on the phone.”

“
You can’t be serious! First
day of outdoor rehearsal and he’s not here?”

“
Aw, come on Glynnis,” Sid
almost whispered. “He’s probably on his way.”

“
This isn’t like him. And we
have the first tech rehearsal tomorrow. He needs to be here today
to get ready.”

“
I’ll try him again,” Jeff
groaned.

“
Good!” She allowed her
pulse to slow. “In the mean-time, let’s get some of the sound cues
set for Act II. Aaron can catch up when he gets here.” She put on a
great face for the rest of the cast, but Glynnis knew that Aaron
wouldn’t miss rehearsal unless something was wrong, very
wrong.

*****

Five minutes after Addy walked in, the
desk officer, Barry, approached the two detectives. “Guys, there’s
been another homicide reported, actually a double, and the chief
wants you on it.”

“
Freakin’ Joseph in a jazz
band! A double!” Addy exclaimed. “Why us? Why not put Washburn and
Harrell on it? We already have a homicide. Ain’t one at a time
enough?”

“
Well, here’s the thing.”
Barry told him. “It’s another freaky one with a stabbing and
something else they can’t identify yet. Chief thinks there might be
a connection to the one you’re investigating already.”

Addy and Brice exchanged a look. “You
say there was some kind of stabbing involved?” Brice
asked.

“
Yeah, but this one’s
different than the Danning case.”

“
How’s that?” Brice wanted
to know.

“
Well this time, the murder
weapon was left behind.”

Addison slammed a flat hand on his
desk. “No kidding! Maybe we’ll have something to go on
then.”

“
Don’t count on it,” Barry
told them. “Not unless he was stupid enough to leave prints.” Both
detectives looked perplexed so Barry explained. “We already know
where it came from. It’s the dagger from the museum
robbery.”

*****

Aaron Shultz sat on the couch in his
brother’s apartment. “Mr. Shultz, this is Detective Gearhart and
Detective Paddix. They’ll want to ask you a few questions.” He
turned to Addy and Brice. “Mr. Shultz is the brother of one of the
deceased. He found his brother Kenneth and Kenneth’s new wife,
Gabrielle, this morning when he stopped by just after
breakfast.”

“
Thanks Casey,” Brice told
him and knelt beside the grieving man who was obviously in a state
of dismay. “Mr. Shultz, I’m very sorry about your brother and his
wife. Do you think you could answer a few questions for
us?”

“
I’ll try.”

“
Okay,” Brice drew out his
notepad. “Why did you stop by here this morning?”

“
I wanted to talk to
Kenny.”

“
Was this something urgent?”
Addison asked him. “Something that couldn’t wait until say, after
work?”

Aaron eyed the two men. “Hold on a
minute. What does that have to do with somebody killing my brother?
Are you thinking I might’ve done it?”

Brice tried to make his voice as calm
and soothing as possible. “Take it easy Mr. Shultz. This is
standard procedure. We’re trying to establish a time of death and
your answers may help us.” That was true but they also needed to
eliminate family members from their list before pursuing anyone
else. “Now, what was so important that you felt the need to come by
here so early?”

Aaron took a deep breath. “Look, I was
supposed to be at work two hours ago, but I just had to talk to
Kenny so I stopped by on my way. There’s been some bad feelings in
the family since he and Gabby got married ‘bout a week ago and I
wanted to sort of smooth things over.”

Paddix jumped in. “They’ve only been
married a week?”

“
Yeah, they ran off to Vegas
and did it. My folks got real bent out of shape about it. Hers did
too from what I hear. He’s such an idiot sometimes. Always doing
things on impulse. Turns out they’ve been dating for a while now,
but none of us knew.”

“
So your parents were upset.
How about you? Were you upset too?”

Aaron looked like he might be deciding
whether to tell them the whole truth or not. He shrugged. “You’ll
find out anyway. We had a big fight about it yesterday. My folks
spent a lot of money sending him to school and they wanted him to
finish law school before he got married. It was just really
thoughtless of him to take off like that and get married on the
sly. Truth is, we did some yelling last night, but he’s my brother.
I love him. I came by here to make amends.”

“
What about his wife? Did
you two get along?” Brice asked him.

“
I barely knew her. I mean,
we just met, but I guess she was nice enough.” He glanced at his
watch. Guys, I should call somebody and let them know what’s going
on.”

“
We’ll let you go in a
minute.” Addy said. “When you got to the apartment, was the door
locked? Did you touch anything besides the door handle?”

“
I didn’t touch anything
that I can remember. The door was locked, but I have a key. I
knocked first and then let myself inside. When Kenny didn’t answer,
I started looking for him. Both their cars were still outside so I
knew they were here. Then I went into the bedroom…” He dropped his
head.

“
Alright Mr. Shultz, why
don’t you stop by the station later today to give us your prints.”
Brice told him.

“
Prints? Am I being accused
of this?”

“
No sir,” Addy told him
quickly. “We just need your prints for elimination purposes. You
can leave now but make yourself available for the next few
weeks.”

“
I’m not going
anywhere.”

*****

The bodies were prone on the very
practical double-bed. The boy’s tongue protruded through swollen
lips. The girl lay on her back with the handle of a dagger
protruding from her chest. Her lips also had a slightly swollen
appearance, but not to the same extent as the boy’s.

Brice walked the perimeter of the bed
from where it touched the wall on one side, all the way around to
the other. “Do you think he wanted it to look like the girl stabbed
herself?”

Addy made a noise of doubt deep in his
throat. “I don’t know what he wanted us to think, but ain’t nobody
can stab themselves in the heart. It hurts too much and it’s too
hard to get past the ribs. You gotta know what you’re doing. It’s a
whole lot easier to stab somebody else.”

Brice agreed. “Women usually go for
pills anyway. It doesn’t mar the appearance. No, maybe this was
staged as a double suicide, but it is definitely a
murder.”

Addy sucked on his lower lip. “It’s
just too obvious. It’s like he wanted us to know that it was
staged.” He looked at the boy. “What’s up with the swollen lips and
tongue, more poison?”

“
I guess we’ll have to wait
for police services to answer that one.”

*****

Aaron opened up his cell
phone and pressed the
on
button. A brief jingle told him he was once again
connected to the world. He pressed the nine on his speed dial.
After three rings, Glynnis answered. “Aaron, where are
you?”

“
I’m sorry Glynn. It’s my
brother…Glynn, he’s dead, him and his wife.”

“
What? Your brother? Oh
Aaron, I’m so sorry. What happened?”

“
It…it was awful, Glynn.
Kenny and his wife…I found them this morning. She was stabbed. He
was…I just…sorry Glynn, I can’t talk about it.”

Glynnis let out an audible gasp and was
completely silent for a moment. When she finally found her voice
she said, “Aaron, look, we’ll handle it around here. Do what you
have to do. I’m so sorry.”

“
Thanks Glynn, I’ll call you
later.”

Aaron closed the phone and turned to
see Detective Gearhart standing behind him. “Mr. Shultz,” he said,
“what exactly do you do for a living?”

*****

Glynnis rushed to the bathroom. She
threw up everything she’d eaten for breakfast until she had nothing
but dry heaves left. On her knees on the tile, with her face over
the toilet bowl she had the fleeting thought that she needed to
attack the place with Lysol and a stiff brush. It smelled like a
bathroom. She told herself she was being absurd to think of such
things at the moment. It was just her way of trying to escape the
truth. The couple she had dreamed of, the ones who were brutally
murdered, were Aaron’s brother and sister-in-law. This hit more
closely to home than before.

Aaron had complained recently of his
brother’s insensitivity to their parents, how they’d been upset
with him, but he’d never explained specifically what it was all
about. Why hadn’t he told her that his brother had gotten married?
She was almost certain that she knew now what all the flap had been
about. If he’d just told her before, she could have warned them.
But that was ridiculous. She couldn’t stop Claude Danning’s death
and she’d known his identity. It wasn’t likely that she could have
stopped theirs either. She was more distressed than
ever.

It was time to call the cast and crew
together and explain what had happened. She would give them the
rest of the day off. They would try again tomorrow, but she didn’t
think she had any rehearsal energy left today.

Chapter 13

Kenny Shultz’ parents and Gabrielle
Richardson Shultz’ parents came in to answer questions that
afternoon. It became very apparent that this was a case of the
haves versus the have-nots. The Shultzes were on the have-not end.
They were blue collar workers whose sons had grown up to excel in
their chosen fields; Aaron in theatre and Kenneth headed for law
school. Brice couldn’t wait to get Glynn’s take on Aaron, who
apparently worked with her. They were from a conservative, Southern
Baptist background and had been shocked when their youngest son had
run off and married that “little Catholic girl”. Mrs. Shultz made
it clear that her son had been “trapped” into marriage by the
oldest ploy in the book. “You just check,” she had wailed, “that
girl was pregnant. I’m sure of it…or at least she was pretending to
be.” Mr. Shultz had nodded his agreement.

The Richardsons were more subdued but
just as angry and upset. They were from the highest levels of
society. They had expected their baby girl to achieve her M.A.
degree in some form of English or perhaps business, and then go on
to marry into a wealthy, Catholic family. The only things they had
in common with the Shultzes was that they had also been shocked by
the recent marriage and that they were certain this wouldn’t have
happened if their baby had done as they had asked. Of course they
blamed “that low-life Shultz boy” for luring their daughter into
marriage.

After both sets of parents had left,
Addy looked to Brice who was searching his desk for some ibuprofen.
“You got a headache?”

“
Yeah, and it’s just getting
started.” It was five in the afternoon, time to go home and both
men were tired and fed up. “Addy, don’t laugh when I say this, but
does this whole thing sound like something you’ve heard
before?”

Addison nodded and ticked off the facts
on his fingers. “We got two young kids from opposite sides of the
tracks who run off and get married.” He held up a second finger.
“They know their parents will be furious so they do it in secret.”
He held up finger number three. “The kids wind up dead in what’s
designed to look like a double suicide.”

“
Romeo and Juliet,” Brice
confirmed. “I think it’s time we talked to Glynnis again. I need to
brush up on my Shakespeare. Considering her dream last night and
her connection with Aaron Shultz, she’s probably pretty broken up
right now anyway. I need to check on her.”

“
Sounds like a good idea.”
Addison agreed. “In the meantime, I want to check out your boy,
Aaron. Seems to me that he’s got plenty of reasons to hate his
brother. Maybe he hated him enough to want him dead.”

“
Good point,” Brice agreed.
“Check and see if he has any history with Danning too, just in case
the two crimes are connected.”

“
Will do, sir!” He saluted
and turned to his computer. “Can’t believe I didn’t think of that
myself.”

Brice chuckled and headed for the door.
“I think I’ll give the neighbors at the apartment complex a yell
after I talk to Glynnis. Maybe somebody saw something.”

“
Humph,” grunted Addison.
“And maybe pigs will sprout wings and fly up my butt.”

“
That would be worth
seeing.”

*****

Glynnis had her cell phone off and
Brice couldn’t find her at the theatre, though that was where she
normally would have been this time of day. He finally found her at
her house. He tried ringing the doorbell but when she didn’t
answer, he tried the knob. It was open so he went in to check on
her. She was curled up on the couch, wrapped in a blanket, her eyes
swollen. To Brice, she was all the more beautiful for her empathy.
Carl lying dutifully at her feet, was also in a somber mood. He
barely let out a yip when he saw Brice.