Murder on the Hoof: A Mystery (Colleen McCabe Series) (7 page)

“You’re also strong-willed and disciplined and expect high standards from others,” Fawn added.

“You got all of that from my aura?” Colleen asked, genuinely amazed at the girl’s accuracy.

“That … and Chip.”

Chip’s face flushed red. “Honey … Chief, I—” he stammered.

“Relax,” Colleen said to him. “So, Fawn, given my understanding pink nature, why not tell me everything you can remember about finding Rich?”

“I don’t like those types of images in my consciousness.”

“None of us does. But you may know something that will help me catch the person who did this before he or she does it to someone else.”

“You think it could have been a woman?” Fawn asked, wide-eyed.

“I don’t know. But one thing I’ve learned is that people, male or female, are capable of almost anything given the right circumstances.”

“You couldn’t murder anyone.”

“We’re not talking about me,” Colleen said, uncomfortable with how much focus she was getting, especially in front of one of her guys. “Tell me about how you discovered Rich in the elevator.”

Fawn glanced at Chip.

“You gotta, honey. Then I’ll take you home. She’s free to go after this, right?”

“Of course,” Colleen said. If Bill needed to follow up with any questions after she had relayed what she had learned, he could do that himself. Maybe the actress would even read his aura.

Fawn closed her eyes, put her hands out in front of her, and began humming softly while her fingers undulated like the tentacles of a jellyfish. What in the world is this girl up to? Colleen wondered.

The actress began speaking in a soft, dreamlike voice with her eyes closed. “I was finishing my prerehearsal yoga and working on my character walk in the hall. I could hear the others doing vocal warm-ups, speaking all together, like distant chanting from a faraway shore.”

Get to when you found Rich, Colleen wanted to scream, but she just smiled pleasantly.

“I realized I had forgotten my rehearsal scarf.” Fawn opened her eyes and said in her regular voice, “I play the wind in the play and use a scarf to create the effect,” and then closed them again. “I went in search of a piece of fabric or clothing that I could use. I thought there must be something in the closet that would do. I didn’t know it was the elevator. Then I saw a foot, a hand, and then…” The actress shuddered and her eyes popped open.

Chip squeezed Fawn’s hand.

“Did you notice anything out of place, other than Rich in the elevator?” Colleen asked.

Fawn squinted, as if trying to recall something.

“Tell her everything,” Chip instructed.

“It doesn’t make any sense.”

“What doesn’t?” Colleen asked, trying not to lose her patience.

“For some reason, when I think about Rich, I see a blue-green color.”

“So?” Colleen said.

“It’s impossible for him to have an aura. Only the living have auras.”

“Maybe it’s not his aura that you’re seeing.”

“But if it’s not his aura … whose?” Fawn’s eyes widened. “You think it’s the killer’s?”

“Is blue-green the color of a killer’s aura?” Colleen asked, unsure how any of this would help the investigation.

“No,” the actress said with a frown.

Colleen was no closer to figuring out what had had happened to Rich than before. She spotted early-morning visitors taking a walk near the water on the park’s self-guided trail. The visitors waved at them and she gave a short wave back.

“Can I take Fawn home now?” Chip asked.

She nodded. “Thank you for your help. I’m sure Sheriff Dorman will be in touch if he needs anything further.”

The couple descended the veranda stairs. “You will figure out who did that horrible thing to Rich.”

“I hope so,” she said.

“You will. Pink individuals hate injustice. You won’t have it any other way.” And with that, Fawn made her way across the lawn with Chip and disappeared around the corner.

What Fawn had said about her was true, but that was no guarantee she’d be able to flush out the killer. Still, in some odd way it gave her confidence that she would. Next you’ll start believing in horoscopes, she thought. The notion that her aura could somehow predict her ability to solve this crime was preposterous. She headed inside to tell Bill what she had learned from Fawn—minus the information about her pink aura.

She entered the Whalehead Club and closed the front door. She saw movement at the top of the stairs. Was that Sparky? She had left him with Bill while she talked to Fawn, but with everything that was going on, she wouldn’t have been surprised if the dog had slipped away. She heard a door creak overhead and peered up the staircase. She listened down the hall and heard Bill still questioning actors. She looked into the adjoining dining room and down the back hall to be sure she wasn’t being watched, then squeezed past a sign at the bottom of the stairs that read
STAFF ONLY
and quickly climbed the steps to the second floor.

At the top of the steps, she contemplated which way she should go. She crept down the narrow hall and peeked into a room. Unlike the areas that were open to the public, this room was sparsely furnished and had a lonely feel despite the cheerful robin’s egg blue paint on the walls. It reminded her of times when she had moved into a new apartment. The room was missing the furniture and personal touches that made a place feel like a home. Something darted to her left and she tiptoed in that direction.

She reached the end of the hall and entered a lovely room directly above the library. An Art Nouveau bed was covered in a floral comforter and atop the bed lay a pair of women’s riding breeches. Given the meticulous display of items in the room, Colleen suspected that she was in the bedroom of the former mistress of the house, Mrs. Knight. She could hear the sound of Bill questioning someone in the room below, crossed to a vent near the far wall, and listened. She was surprised by how clearly she could hear the conversation. It was as if she were in the library with them.

“So you were the first person to arrive this morning?” Bill asked.

“That’s right,” a male voice replied.

She pushed on the vent lever in an attempt to open the slats so that she could see the person Bill was speaking to, but the vent wouldn’t budge. She lay on the cork floor and put her ear to the opening.

“And you didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary?” Bill continued.

“Not really. It was pretty quiet,” the man responded.

The voice didn’t sound familiar. Since she knew all the members of the theater group, she wondered whom Bill could be speaking to and then it occurred to her that it could be Nellie’s nephew, Adam. It would make sense that he had been the first to arrive at rehearsal. He was the show’s director.

“If you can think of anything, even if it seems trivial, please don’t hesitate to contact me,” she heard Bill say, but her attention was now drawn to the curtains hanging before the window a few feet away.

She lay, cheek to the floor, studying the teal drapery. The lily pad pattern sewn into the material reflected beautiful craftsmanship. She slowly rose, her eyes scanning the fabric from floor to ceiling. One of the panels seemed to be more loosely tied than the other. What if Fawn did have psychic or mystical abilities? What if the blue-green color she saw wasn’t the dead Rich’s aura, but a vision or clue to the murder weapon? Despite the absurdity of the idea, she inched toward the curtain to get a better look at the tasseled rope tiebacks.

Suddenly, Inky bolted from behind the curtain and ran from the room, claws digging into the floor as he took off down the hall. Her heart raced and she took a deep breath. Clearly, she hadn’t had enough sleep last night. She resumed her inspection of the tiebacks and curtains. The rope on the left had a light layer of dust and the folds in the panel appeared well set, as if the curtain had been hanging there for some time. She scanned the other panel and her brows furrowed. The right tieback lacked the left’s dust, the wrinkles in the drape revealed that it had been recently disturbed, and the tassel was missing fringe. Was this the rope that had been used to kill Rich?

“Can I help you?” came a voice from behind her.

She whipped around and discovered Kyle Prescott, a wiry museum intern who led the ghost tours of the Whalehead Club, observing her from the doorway.

“Sorry,” she said, embarrassed at having been caught snooping. “I know I shouldn’t be in here.”

“If you’re looking for Sparky, he’s down in the kitchen.”

“I hope he hasn’t caused you any trouble.”

“He’s fine,” Kyle said. “Was there something else I could do for you?”

“This curtain,” she said, indicating the right-hand panel. “Have you or one of the staff adjusted it recently?”

Kyle crossed to the window and donned glasses to inspect the drape. “No, but I can ask my boss when she gets in,” he said, and reached to rearrange the curtain.

“Don’t,” she blurted out.

He froze.

“I’m sorry. It’s just that … well, I’d like to get Bill up here if you don’t mind.”

Kyle glanced at the rope, puzzled for a moment, and then his eyes widened in understanding. “I’ll be right back,” he said, and hurried from the room.

Moments later, he returned with Bill.

“Kyle says you want to see me.”

She stepped aside and gestured to the right curtain panel. “I can’t be sure, but I think that rope might be what was used to kill Rich.”

Kyle gulped and his hand went to his own throat.

Bill inspected the rope. “You got a clean plastic bag anywhere?” he asked the intern over his shoulder.

“I’m sure I can find one,” Kyle said, and disappeared.

Bill sighed and shook his head.

“What is it?” she asked.

“There were fibers this color on the collar of Rich’s shirt.”

A heavy silence settled over the room. The murderer had likely been standing on this very spot when he or she had removed the rope from the curtains, used it to strangle Rich, and then returned it to its original location. Whoever murdered Rich must have known about this room.

“The killer is one of our own,” she uttered.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Bill warned.

“Found one,” Kyle said, appearing in the doorway with a Ziploc bag.

“Why don’t you stay right there,” Bill said. Despite his admonition not to jump to conclusions, she could tell by his tone that he was considering the likelihood of Kyle as a suspect. “You’ll need to close the Whalehead Club today,” he said. It was an order, not a request. “And I’ll want to speak to you later about who has access to this area. That’s all.”

Kyle stole an uneasy glance around the room and retreated down the hall.

“You think one of the staff killed Rich?” she asked.

“I have no idea.” He carefully collected the rope into the plastic bag and zipped it closed. “What made you notice the curtains anyway?”

“Fawn said something about seeing a blue-green aura, so when I—”

“Hold on,” he said, interrupting her. “A blue-green what?”

“Fawn has some rather unusual notions—crystals, horoscopes, auras, that kinda thing. I don’t understand it any more than you, but she said she saw a blue-green color and thought it was someone’s aura.”

“What does an aura have to do with your being up here or someone strangling Rich with this rope?”

“I thought I saw Sparky up here and wanted to get him before he got into trouble. Turns out it was only Inky hiding. As for how the aura is connected to the rope … all I know is that when I saw the curtains, something told me that the fabric was the same color Fawn had seen.”

“I’m still not sure I understand, but I’ll have the guys get up here to dust for fingerprints. Did Fawn share anything else?”

“Only that she was doing her warm-up ritual, went to look for something to use as a costume in what she thought was a closet, and discovered Rich inside the elevator.”

“Nobody I spoke with saw anything, either, but I heard a lot of complaints about the production.”

I’m sure you did, she thought. “So you don’t suspect anyone in the theater troupe?” He didn’t respond. “Or do you?”

“There’s something going on with that group, but I’m not sure it has anything to do with Rich’s death. I got a sense people are keeping secrets.”

The image of Bill kissing Hayley at the police station flashed through her mind. “You don’t keep secrets,” she said. “They keep you.”

“What?” he asked, confused.

“Nothing,” she said. “Well, if you don’t need me, I should be getting home. I’m overdue at work.”

“You want a ride?” he asked, following her from the room and down the stairs.

“Don’t you need to stay here or get that processed for evidence?”

“You’re on the way, and Rodney’s downstairs.”

They reached the bottom of the stairs, slipped past the sign, and found Sparky asleep on the kitchen floor. “Come on, boy,” she said.

“Is something wrong?” Bill asked.

“Why?”

“You got quiet all of a sudden.”

Yes, something’s wrong. Your ex is in town and you still haven’t told me. Why is that? But she couldn’t say that. Not if she didn’t want to come across as insecure and possessive.

“A ride would be great,” she said, and the two of them and the dog exited the building, heading toward Bill’s pickup.

The ride home would be the first time they had been alone without the possibility of interruption since she had discovered Bill’s past relationship with Hayley. She hoped they wouldn’t get into a discussion about the film crew. She knew herself well enough to know she might have a hard time hiding her feelings. She wasn’t exactly known for her poker face.

Chapter 6

“If you’re searching for
a friend without faults, you will be without a friend forever.” This was the Irish saying her mother often quoted to her whenever a childhood pal had done something Colleen didn’t like, and it was the one running through her head now as Bill drove her home. Why was she feeling so disappointed in him? What had he really done, after all? Not told her about an old girlfriend? So what? She hadn’t told Bill about her loves. He might have a perfectly good reason for not revealing his past liaison with the celebrity. Maybe it hadn’t been a pleasant breakup—not that it was any of her business. Besides, it wasn’t like she and Bill had a commitment of any sort. This thinking was rational and helped ease some of her uncertainty, but she still felt the urge to withdraw.