Murder in the Second Row (12 page)

‘You didn’t go
down into the auditorium at all?’

‘No, I didn’t
even bother putting the lights on. The roof doesn’t leak in there –
we fixed that part several years ago. Dripping on patrons is bad
for business.’ She groaned. ‘Dead bodies probably don’t help
either.’

‘What did you
touch? Light switches for the stage? The door handle?’

‘Well, yes. And
the combination lock buttons outside.’ She held up her hands.
‘D’you want to take my dabs then, guv’nor?’

‘Not right
now.’ He patted his pockets. ‘I seem to have left my go-go-gadget
fingerprint kit in my other suit. It’ll keep. For the moment, tell
me about Tamara. Do you have any idea why somebody might want to
kill her?’

‘Oh,’ she said,
slowly and thoughtfully. ‘I don’t know about wanting to kill her,
but I can think of a few people who didn’t like her very much.’ She
stopped short. ‘Hang on, this is just speculation, and I might get
someone in trouble who doesn’t deserve it.’

‘Jessica, you
need to tell me anything that might even possibly be relevant.
Don’t worry, we only act on information when it’s fully supported
by evidence.’

‘You mean you
wouldn’t bang someone up just because I grassed on them? What sort
of cop are you?’

‘Jessica.’

‘Sorry. OK,
seriously then. Tamara was a fairly stroppy young woman, a bit
predatory towards men she fancied. She’d been lusting after Phil,
one of the actors in the show, to the point that his wife was quite
angry about it. Nothing happened between them, and she’d stopped
doing it at least a week ago, after Adam spoke to her.’

‘Who else? You
said “a few people”?’

‘Well, Austin
might have been a bit annoyed with her too. That’s Austin Sudgeway,
he’s the Stage Manager. Tamara told him off rather publicly when he
got a bit suggestive. But really, the way he behaves, he must be
used to that. Oh, and there was some woman in the theatre the other
night who gave Tamara a good talking-to after she’d yelled at
Austin. Other than that I don’t know who might have had a problem
with her.’

She thought
hard, staring at the floor. Then she frowned and shook her
head.

‘What?’ asked
Jack.

‘Nothing.’

‘Come on,
Jessica. Don’t make me go all the way out to the car for the long
baton.’

‘No, it really
was just a silly thought. It’s not worth mentioning, honestly.’

‘Thumbscrews
wouldn’t change your mind?’

‘No. Truly not
worth considering.’

He stood
up.

‘OK. That will
do for now. Jot down your address will you please, so I know where
I can find you for further interrogation once you’ve been lulled
into a false sense of security.’

Jessica shot
him an exasperated glare. ‘Look, I really do want to help you all I
can with this investigation. Please, tell me what else I can do to
get things moving and make your job easier. If this case is going
to be a problem for the Regent Theatre, then that makes it my
problem too.’

He looked at
her kindly. ‘I admire your dedication, and I appreciate your offer.
I’m going to have to get back to you on that one, though. Give me a
day or so and I’ll be in touch, all right? If you think of
anything, give me a call.’ He handed her his card.

‘What happens
now? I mean, in the theatre.’

‘It’s our
territory for as long as we need to investigate the crime scene,
I’m afraid. There’ll be a junior officer here overnight to keep an
eye on things. Once the pathologist has finished his examination
we’ll do the C.S.I. bit, then we’ll let you know that the scene has
been cleared and you can get back to normal.’

‘The junior
officer will be left here in a big dark theatre all by himself with
a dead body? That doesn’t seem very fair. You’d better not tell him
about the theatre ghosts.’

Jack’s eyes
danced. ‘Oh, I think I should. He’s entitled to be fully aware of
any crime scene hazards. Thank you for that.’

He moved
forward and reached out a hand, shaking hers with a warm grip. ‘Now
I should warn you, Jessica Jones, don’t leave town, will you.’

She deduced
from the twinkle in his eye that this time his serious tone was a
put-on.

‘Right you are,
guv. I’ll be dahn my gaff, all roight?’

The thought of
his grin kept her spirits up for the rest of the night.

The following
day was a difficult one.

Jessica spent
the day at home, making personal phone calls to every member of the
cast and crew to let them know what had happened. At lunchtime she
met with Adam to decide on a replacement for Tamara. Fortunately,
with six weeks still to go before opening night there was plenty of
time for a new actor to catch up with learning the lines and moves.
She phoned three possibles and set up auditions with Adam at the
Musical Society clubrooms that evening.

She bought a
sympathy card and addressed it to Mr and Mrs Fitzpatrick, signed it
from the Regent Theatre Society, and posted it at the mailbox on
the corner of her street.

There was one
phone call that she had avoided making.

Nick. She had
absolutely no idea what to say to him. Firstly he’d be embarrassed
about his drunken visit to her house, and secondly, how was she
supposed to sound sympathetic about Tamara’s death when her own
relationship with Nick was so questionable?

After battling
with the problem for a couple of hours, she gave up and asked
Clara-Jane to call him instead. At least condolences would sound
better coming from her. There might be theatre publicity problems
to deal with later but they could wait a while.

As she got into
bed that night, feeling as emotionally wrung out as a damp
dishcloth, there was an odd spark of warmth amid the tiredness.
After puzzling over it for a while, she figured out it was the
memory of her talk with the rather interesting Detective Senior
Sergeant Jack Matherson the previous night. She found herself
looking forward to their next encounter.

It was a quiet
and sombre group that straggled up the driveway to the Musical
Society clubrooms on Thursday night. Greetings were subdued, voices
muted.

Jessica stood
at the door to point people towards the rehearsal room where Adam
was waiting to say a few words. For once everyone arrived in good
time and she didn’t have to wait for any last-minute latecomers.
She slipped in at the back of the room.

‘It’s been a
shock to all of us,’ began Adam. ‘A sudden death is always
difficult to accept, particularly when it’s a young person. You
will all be feeling sad and emotional to some degree. Use it. Work
with it, not against it. You can’t ignore the feelings and you
can’t make them go away, but you can use them to make your
performance stronger.’

Jessica watched
the actors stand up a little straighter. Heads were nodding
thoughtfully. Adam’s voice was strong and compelling.

‘Let this
tragedy unlock your own inner strength and bring it out on stage.
We will all support each other.’

He went on to
introduce the new cast member who was taking Tamara’s role. She
raised a hand and smiled nervously. By the time he finished
speaking, the mood of the group had improved considerably and they
broke into enthusiastic applause.

Jessica caught
Adam’s eye, gave him a smile and a thumbs up, and slipped away. She
was due at another meeting, back at the Bishops Hotel wine bar. The
sub-committee had some public relations issues to work on.

As she pulled
into the pub car park, she checked her watch. Still five minutes
before the meeting was due to start. She didn’t want to find
herself alone with Nick before the others arrived so she waited
until a trail of blue smoke announced that Clara-Jane’s aging
Mitsubishi had pulled up beside her. Jessica got out, pretending to
cough and wave away the smoke.

‘When did you
last get that thing serviced, Clara-Jane? Are you sure it’s fit to
be on the road?’

‘It’s perfectly
fine, thank you very much. I put oil in every three minutes and it
works like a charm. Besides, when it’s like this I don’t get
speeding tickets because the cops can never see my number
plate!’

‘Fair enough.’
They started towards the pub doorway. ‘Hey, how did the phone call
to Nick go? Thanks for taking that on, by the way.’

‘No problem. He
seemed pretty shocked and stunned, as I imagine everyone else was,
but he didn’t seem too personally upset. I don’t think he’d formed
a very close relationship with her – other than physically, from
what we saw the other night.’

Jessica
shrugged acknowledgement and pushed open the door, holding it for
Clara-Jane to go past her into the wine bar. She heard Clara-Jane
exclaim sharply.

‘Good heavens,
Nick – are you all right?’

Nick was
sitting alone at a table, dressed entirely in black, with puffy
red-rimmed eyes. A balled-up handkerchief was clutched in one hand.
On his left cheek where Jessica had dressed his grazes with
sticking plaster, there was a blue bruise, with three raised welts
already scabbed over. His usually smoothly-styled hair was in
disarray, sticking out at odd angles.

While
Clara-Jane fussed and cooed, Nick’s eyes looked plaintively at
Jessica. She couldn’t help feeling that he was aiming for an
effect, wearing his injuries like a badge.

‘What happened,
Nick? Are you hurt? Have you been to the doctor?’ Clara-Jane sat
next to him with a plump arm round his shoulders.

‘I’m fine,’ he
said bravely. ‘Really, it’s nothing. Looks worse than it is.’ His
eyes were still on Jessica. ‘I got a bit drunk at the weekend,
Clara-Jane. Fell over on some rocks, but it’s OK, my face broke my
fall. Jessica patched me up.’ He smiled wanly. ‘Then when you rang
the other night and told me about – about Tamara, well I went to
pieces a bit. Stupid, really. Can’t cure grief with alcohol.’

‘Oh, you poor
silly boy. You should have told me how upset you were when I rang
you. If I’d known, I’d have come over to make sure you weren’t
alone.’

MaryAnn Daniels
came in then, tall, elegant, and fresh from the hairdressers. She
made similar soothing comments to Nick after getting the short
version of events from Clara-Jane, then took a seat on his other
side and patted his arm maternally.

Austin made his
entrance soon afterwards, plaid shirt strained tightly across his
belly. He stared at Nick.

‘Jesus Christ,
mate, look at you! Did she fight back or something?’

Four
sharply-indrawn breaths alerted him that he just might have put his
foot in it.

‘What? It was
just a joke, all right? It’s what you say when a guy has a black
eye, isn’t it? Doesn’t mean anything. Sorry for any offence.’

‘It’s all
right, Austin,’ said Nick wearily. ‘None taken. Shall we just get
on with the meeting?’

They settled
themselves round the table and pulled out pens and notebooks.
Jessica put in Phil’s apology for being at rehearsal and not being
able to make it to this meeting.

‘Have you heard
anything about the enquiry?’ asked Clara-Jane. Jessica shook her
head.

‘All I know
from the police is that Stewart and Nathan found Tamara’s body in
the back row of the stalls on Tuesday night. I talked to Stewart
yesterday when he was a bit less shaken, but he was still feeling
the effects of it. He said that he and Nathan had gone in early to
do some painting, and for some reason went in through the main
auditorium instead of along the corridor. They saw a foot and some
clothes in the back row and thought someone had broken in to sleep
there. Of course they went to wake the person up and move them out,
but found that it was Tamara, and she was dead. The poor kid still
went white when he was describing it to me. Nathan called the
police on his cell phone and they stood guard to make sure nobody
else came near the body.’

Jessica shook
her head. ‘It’s hard to believe something like that could happen in
such a public place. I mean, people are in and out of the theatre
all the time, you’d never know when you might be interrupted, would
you?’

‘When exactly
did it happen, does anyone know?’ asked Nick.

‘Early guess is
sometime Saturday night, I think. The scary thing is I was in the
theatre on Monday drying the stage after Sunday’s rain.’

‘And you didn’t
notice anything?’ Clara-Jane asked Jessica, incredulously. ‘Didn’t
you feel any bad vibes at all? Nothing remotely creepy about the
place?’

‘Not a thing,
I’m afraid. I guess I’m not as sensitive to the Other Side as you
are.’

‘I shall
perform a Cleansing Ceremony as soon as we’re allowed back in. The
theatre magnifies emotions and we don’t want harmful feelings
clouding the atmosphere.’

‘That sounds
like a very good idea,’ said Nick. ‘Now, shall we get down to the
meeting, if everyone’s had a chance to let their feelings out?’

Everyone
nodded.

‘I know they
always say there’s no such thing as bad publicity, but I’m at a bit
of a loss about how we proceed with this. Putting our own painful
feelings aside,’ Nick said, with a sideways glance at Jessica, ‘it
does give us an opportunity as far as Appointment with Death goes.
The hard part will be to capitalise on the publicity without
seeming to be exploiting Tamara’s murder. Does anyone have any
ideas?’

‘You’re not
thinking of tours of the murder site, are you?’ MaryAnn’s tone was
sharp. ‘Ghost nights at the theatre? Having ghoulish members of the
public pay to sleep where a young girl was killed? I don’t think
that would be right.’

‘Good God no!’
Nick was aghast. ‘No, I was thinking of something as low-key as
publishing a letter of sympathy to the Fitzpatricks in the paper.
It’s genuine, but has the added benefit of keeping our name in
public view.’