Sucker Punch (10 page)

“Well, of course we’re sure,” Vonetta said, her lips drawn into a thin, disapproving line. “What else could it be?”

Colleen moved unsteadily toward a seat in the front of the house. “You’re right, of course. An accident.” She looked up at us, a helpless expression in her eyes. “It’s just that he—he—”

Jason burst though the curtain carrying a thin blanket. He thrust it at Vonetta, then sat beside Colleen and put a hand on her back. “I just realized how tough this must be on you especially. Are you all right?”

Colleen jerked away from him as if his hand had burned her. “Laurence was a
friend
, nothing more. And yes, I’m fine. Just shocked, like everyone else.”

Color flooded Jason’s cheeks. “Oh. Sure. Sorry, I—well, you hear talk, you know?” He looked at the rest of us, as if we might back him up. When no one did, he finished with a lame, “I didn’t mean anything.”

“There’s always way too much gossip around a theater troupe,” Alexander said, his tone frosty. “You might as well learn right now that you can’t believe everything you hear.” Jumping from the stage apron, he nudged Jason out of the way and took over as Colleen’s moral support. “Where the hell is Geoffrey?”

“He left about an hour ago,” Jason said. “I think he was going to the hotel to check on a package he’s been expecting.”

“Somebody ought to call him,” Alexander said. “And one of us should stay with the—with Laurence until the ambulance arrives, but I don’t see any need for us all to hover. Why don’t we go back to the rehearsal hall, Colleen? I’m sure you’ll be more comfortable there.”

With an uneasy glance at the body, Jason tried once again to be helpful. “I’ll stay if you want me to.”

“Thanks,” I said, “but since Vonetta and I have already been near the body, we’re the ones who should probably stay. I’m pretty sure the police will want to look at everything to figure out exactly what happened. It’s probably a good idea not to muddy up the scene more than we already have.”

As if I’d snapped the lock that had been holding her in place, Vonetta started toward the lobby. “You stay. I’ll make sure everyone else in the building stays put.”

“Wait!” I called out before she could reach the curtains. “Don’t you think you should stay here with me?”

Vonetta stopped and turned back. She held back the curtain with one hand, clearly intending to keep walking, and the scowl on her face made it obvious that she didn’t appreciate my suggestion. “I don’t see why. I’m sure you can handle things here just fine.”

“Yeah, but you’re the one who found him and . . . Well
look
at you. If there’s anyone else around, one look at all that blood will create a panic.”

She stared at her chest and hands for a long time. “I suppose I’m a bit of a mess, aren’t I? I should clean up.”

“I’d wait,” I said. “We have no idea what the police will want to see. Why don’t you stay here with me? Just until the police come.” She still didn’t look convinced, so I added some more incentive. “There are probably half a dozen ways into this room alone, not to mention all the different ways someone could get onstage. It’s going to be hard for one person to watch them all, and I’m sure you don’t want people disturbing things before the police have a chance to see that this was all just a horrible accident.”

A horrible, poorly timed, senseless accident. At least, that’s what I hoped it was.

The paramedics arrived about ten minutes later, and the police came with them. Since Jawarski was out of town, the lead in the investigation of Laurence’s accident fell to my old nemesis, Nate Svboda. Nate’s a good ol’ boy and a friend of my brother, who is also a good ol’ boy, though not quite as bad as most of his friends. I’m convinced that Nate resides permanently in the early 1970s, back when the concept of treating women like equals was a relatively new idea, one that men could—and frequently did—ignore.

Since Laurence had been a celebrity, I knew the mayor would be in a panic and pushing everyone to figure out what had happened. Nobody in Paradise wanted the negative publicity the city would get from this, and the more unanswered questions left hanging out there, the unhappier they’d all get.

I was still trying to convince myself that Laurence’s death was an accident and arguing with myself over whether or not to point out the cable to Nate. He’s a notoriously lazy cop, and he never needs encouragement to tie up a case as quickly as possible, which means that “thorough” usually drops by the wayside.

Nate’s creeping up on fifty—a dangerous age for men, in my opinion. I can’t prove it, but I’m also convinced that he’s been miserable for a long time—a dangerous outlook in general. Give a miserable person a little power, and there’s usually trouble.

Nate burst into the auditorium like an invading general, barking orders at the uniformed officers who came with him and swaggering around as if he owned the world. He took a cursory look at the stage, studied the spotlight for a few minutes, and strode out again, leaving a couple of men to keep curious onlookers out. He sent two other men to guard the outside doors, and directed two others to herd all unofficial personnel into the rehearsal hall.

He did all this without saying a word to those of us who’d been waiting for him to arrive, and without asking a single question. Finding Laurence had made us all uneasy, and being herded like cattle into the rehearsal hall didn’t help. Except for Vonetta and I, who sat together on a sagging prop couch, everyone seemed to want to put some distance between themselves and the rest of us.

Colleen had claimed a folding metal chair near the wall of posters. She sat ramrod straight, eyes closed. If it hadn’t been for the occasional shudder that racked her body, I’d have wondered if she were still awake.

Alexander sat in a wingback chair that had seen better days. His gaze traveled steadily from one of us to the next, and I wondered if he had his own suspicions about how Laurence died.

Jason sat at the piano, slumped over the keyboard and plucking at a key now and then. The effect was so discordant and irritating, I wanted to tell him to stop. But he was probably the one person in the room whose image of Laurence hadn’t been destroyed before he died. The one person who was genuinely grieving over the loss of an idol.

Even though we’d left the body on the stage, that sickly sweet smell still filled my nostrils and made me want to retch. I couldn’t get the image of Laurence’s body—or of Vonetta leaning over it—out of my mind. I couldn’t stop wondering if the safety cable had been cut, or keep myself from thinking about the argument Vonetta and Laurence had a few nights earlier.

It wasn’t that I suspected Vonetta of killing Laurence. The very idea would have made me laugh if the situation hadn’t been so serious. Vonetta wasn’t the type to commit murder. Oh, I know, I know. Anyone can be driven to kill with the right provocation. But we were talking about
Vonetta
! It just wasn’t possible.

Was it?

Paisley came to stand behind us, muttering constantly. “I
knew
something bad was going to happen. Didn’t I say that, Abby? I just
knew
it.” She nudged me in the back and waited expectantly, so I agreed that she had, indeed, predicted trouble. Which didn’t shut her up, but only made her start all over at the beginning. “I
told
you there was going to be trouble, didn’t I?”

I rubbed my forehead and wished I could step outside for a few minutes. Maybe that would take away the smell. “You told me,” I said again.

“I just knew it.
Now
look what’s happened.”

Vonetta twisted the hem of her blouse nervously in both hands. “People are going to blame me, aren’t they? They’re going to say this is my fault.”

“It’s nobody’s fault,” I said firmly. “There’s been an accident, and yes it’s a tragedy, but it was just an accident.”

Vonetta shot me a look of pure derision. “You heard Alexander. Laurence hadn’t been dead ten minutes and he was already talking about negligence on my part. And Geoffrey Manwaring will probably be even worse.” Her shoulders sagged. “The press will crucify me, won’t they?”

“I knew it,” Paisley muttered. “I just
knew
it.”

I ignored her and stayed focused on Vonetta. “You haven’t done anything wrong,” I said with a reassuring smile. “You can hardly be blamed if there was an equipment malfunction.”

Vonetta’s lips curved slightly. “I wish that were true, but the press just loves to play the blame game—or haven’t you noticed?”

“I’m just trying to stay optimistic,” I said.

Vonetta covered my hand with one of hers and gave it a squeeze. “I appreciate that, but I’d rather have you be realistic.”

Unfortunately, reality looked pretty bleak to me. A dull ache formed in the back of my head, and my nerves were stretched so thin they threatened to snap when Paisley launched into another chorus of the I-told-you-so blues. To make things worse, Nate positioned himself near the main door of the rehearsal hall, slid a fresh toothpick between his teeth, and asked, “All right. Who found the body?”

Nate and I get along much better when we don’t interact, so I waited for Vonetta to say something. When several seconds passed and she still hadn’t spoken, I caved in and raised my hand. “We did.”

Nate’s mouth pursed around the toothpick, and I suspected he was no happier to see me than I was to be seen. “You have something to do with this, Abby?”

“Not really. I just happened to walk in a few seconds after Vonetta found Mr. Nichols lying on the stage floor.”

“Yeah? What are you doing here?”

I hesitated, but only for an instant. “I’m in the play. I came to pick up the script.”

Vonetta shot a look at me, but she didn’t contradict me. Nate shifted the toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other and ran a glance over Vonetta’s bloodstained clothes. He nodded toward the door and said, “I need both of you to come with me.”

This wasn’t the first dead body I’d seen, but I hadn’t been around enough of them to take away the horror. My knees buckled as I stood, and my head swam.

Nate led us into the hallway and closed the door on the rehearsal hall. “We’re trying to figure out what happened to Mr. Nichols before the press starts hounding us for details. You got some place where we can talk in private?”

“Of course.” Vonetta smiled as if Nate had just invited her for tea. “Feel free to use my office. It’s the second door on the left.”

Nate jerked his head toward the door, and a young man in his midtwenties wearing a black suit, white shirt, and tie hurried off to conduct reconnaissance. He came back a minute later, pronounced the office clear, and we were ushered inside.

Vonetta’s office isn’t large, and what space there might be is taken up with copies of screenplays, broken props, and bits of costumes. I expected Nate to claim her desk for himself, and he might have tried if Vonetta hadn’t made a bee-line for it first.

She linked her hands together on the blotter pad and waited while Nate and I settled into the two old wooden chairs facing her. The young man who’d given us the all clear stood sentinel at the door in case one of us decided to make a break for freedom.

Nate pulled a notepad and pen from his shirt pocket and got down to business without missing a beat. “So the two of you found the body, eh?”

I shook my head. “Not exactly. Vonetta got there a minute or two before I did.”

Nate switched the toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other. “In the other room you said it was a few seconds. Which was it?”

I shrugged. “I guess minutes.”

“I see.” He turned away as if I’d outlived my usefulness and focused on Vonetta. “
You
found the body, then.”

“I did.”

“You want to tell me about it?”

Vonetta seemed surprised by the question. “I went into the auditorium and found him lying there.”

Nate smiled—almost. “Maybe you could give me a bit more than that.. He was dead when you found him?”

“I assumed he was.”

Nate quirked an eyebrow and ran another glance over her bloody clothes. “You’re covered in blood. How do you explain that?”

“When I found Laurence, he was bleeding profusely. I tried to revive him, but he was already gone.”

Nate exchanged a glance with the young man by the door, and I wondered if her answer meant something to them. “You tried to revive him,” Nate said as he turned back to Vonetta. “How did you do that?”

“I don’t remember exactly,” Vonetta said. “As you can imagine, I was quite upset.”

“Is this really necessary?” I asked. “Couldn’t she go to the station tomorrow and answer your questions?”

Nate jotted something in his notebook and looked up with an almost friendly smile. “I’m afraid not. There’ll be reporters sniffing around by tomorrow, and I’d like to have my ducks in a row by the time they show up.”

He was acting almost reasonable, which wasn’t like him at all. Usually, he struts around like a banty rooster, waving his authority in everyone’s face. I had no idea how to deal with Nate Svboda if he didn’t do that, so I sat back in my chair and bit my tongue.