Sucker Punch (9 page)

Far from packing up and slinking out of town, it seemed he was going out of his way to make his mark on Paradise. Between picking up on gossip and wondering how Vonetta was feeling now about all of it, I had a hard time concentrating on the work I should have been doing.

I was still trying to convince myself to ignore the talk when I took Max for his walk that evening. The cold front was still firmly settled in our valley, so I bundled up in layers, wrapped the scarf my mother had sent for Christmas around my nose and mouth, and headed into the glacial night air.

Five minutes later, I opened the door of the Playhouse and stomped the frozen snow from my boots before leading Max into the lobby. According to the call-board I’d just happened to notice the other night, the production team would be meeting tonight to discuss scenery. I wasn’t even sure why I’d stopped in, but I hadn’t been able to stay away.

Last time I was here, the building had been bustling with activity. Tonight, it felt deserted and a little creepy. I laughed at the way my imagination could fly off in all directions with very little provocation, but I also decided not to leave Max in the box office. I didn’t intend to stay long, and only a handful of people would be here. Max would be fine sticking with me.

We started off in the rehearsal hall, but the room, like the lobby, felt completely deserted. “Vonetta?” I called softly. “Are you here?” My voice bounced off the walls, and the echo only added to my uneasiness.

If they weren’t in the rehearsal hall, they must have been meeting in the auditorium—which I supposed made sense if they were discussing scenery. Still a little creeped out by the silence, I kept up a steady stream of chatter as Max and I followed the dark hallway that twisted past the green room, turned at the prop room, and circled around the wardrobe and shop area.

The shops, if you could call them that, were areas of one large room separated by temporary walls. Each space was designated for work on the lighting, props, or scenery for the current show. Of course, there were always a few old things hanging around, but Vonetta kept most of the stuff she wasn’t using in a storage space on the edge of town.

Two small rooms in the midst of the chaos were routinely turned into makeshift offices, one for the director and one for the stage manager. I suspected that Laurence outranked Colleen in this case, and that he’d claimed the second office for himself. I glanced briefly into both, but only to make sure I wasn’t missing someone.

Framed pictures lined the desk in Alexander’s office, each one a shot of him with another person, and all posed in front of a poster from some play he’d worked on. A half-empty wine bottle and two dirty glasses sat on the desk of the other room.

I walked a few feet further, and found myself at one of the entrances to the auditorium. If I went through this door, I’d end up in the walkway between the stage and the front row of seats, or I could walk another fifty feet and use the crew’s backstage entrance. While I tried to decide which door to use, I listened for the sound of voices, but all I heard was more of that unnatural quiet and the sound of Max’s panting.

“Vonetta? Paisley?
Anybody
?” I started to move on, but a soft sound stopped me in my tracks. “Vonetta?”

I heard it again, and this time I was almost certain it had come from inside the auditorium. Climbing the gently sloping ramp, I pushed aside the velvet curtain that hid the work areas from the audience. The theater was dark, so I had to wait a second for my eyes to adjust. A couple of emergency lights and three Exit signs were all that relieved the darkness, but they were enough to let me see someone kneeling on the stage. Heavy breathing punctuated the silence, and I crossed mental fingers that I wasn’t interrupting Laurence and some young lady in the middle of a tryst.

“Hello?” I said as I took a couple of steps closer. “Who’s there?”

The sharp intake of breath cut through the relative silence and the panting silenced.

“Nice try,” I said with a laugh. “I can see you, you know.

You’re on the stage.”

“Oh my God.” The whispered words seemed to come out of nowhere, but I recognized the voice immediately.

“Vonetta? Is that you?” I glanced around as if a light switch might have materialized at my side. “What are you doing in here in the dark? Are you all right?”

“Don’t—” Her voice caught, and she broke off. When she spoke again, she sounded shaky. Frightened, even. “Abby, I think we need to call the police.”

“The police? Why? What’s wrong?”

“It’s Laurence,” she said quietly, and sat up, shifting slightly so I could see a figure stretched out on the stage beside her. “I think he’s dead.”

With my heart in my throat, I secured Max’s leash to the arm of a chair in the front row and moved closer to Vonetta and the shadow on the stage. Laurence lay on his side, his body lifeless, face frozen forever in a grimace of pain. A spotlight wrapped in thick metal casing lay a few inches away, and a dark pool of blood spread out across the stage from beneath Laurence’s head.

I took an involuntary step backward. “What happened?”

Vonetta sat back on her heels and shook her head. “I don’t know. He was like this when I found him.”

Still acutely aware of the sweet smell of blood, I forced myself to move closer. I thought I knew the answer, but I asked anyway. “Are you sure he’s dead?”

“I think so. I’ve been trying to revive him, but I can’t get a response.” She reached out as if to touch him again, but drew her hand back sharply before she actually made contact. “We need to call an ambulance.”

If he was dead, an ambulance wouldn’t help, but I didn’t know who else to call. On the off chance he was still breathing, I clenched my teeth and reached past her to feel for a pulse. Laurence’s skin was still slightly warm, but it felt waxy beneath my fingers. He
might
still be alive, but if so he was barely hanging on.

“Is he alive?” Vonetta whispered.

I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”

Lights suddenly blazed on in the auditorium, blinding me momentarily. I blinked, trying to regain my sight as Paisley called out, “Has anyone seen Vonetta? I need to know what to do about the callbacks.”

Shading my eyes with one hand, I tried to focus in the glare. Paisley’s voice sounded far away, and as my vision cleared, the scene in front of me took on a surrealistic feel. It occurred to me that Paisley had been right—something bad
had
happened. What a senseless tragedy.

Paisley saw the two of us—or should I say the three of us—and stopped abruptly. One hand flew to her chest and her eyes grew round with shock. “My God! What happened? Is that—?”

I tried to shake off the mental heaviness, but it clung persistently. “I think he’s dead,” I said, surprised at how calm my voice sounded. “If not, he’s seriously wounded. You need to call 9-1-1.”

“Right,” Paisley said, bobbing her headful of cherry curls a few times before she realized I meant for her to make the call. When the dots finally connected, she raced from the room and left me alone with Vonetta again.

Splotches of Laurence’s blood stained Vonetta’s blouse and hands, but she didn’t seem to notice. Obviously in a daze, she sat on the floor and stared at his still form. “Dead. What a nightmare. We’re going to be blamed.” Her head snapped up and her gaze met mine. “
I’m
going to be blamed for this, aren’t I? Once the press gets hold of this the theater will be ruined.”

The media would be on the prowl, all right. They’d be looking for someone to fault. And Vonetta was the person most likely to take the brunt of the blame. “I wish there was a way to keep this quiet,” I muttered. “At least until we figure out what happened.”

Vonetta turned a deep scowl in my direction. “Isn’t it obvious? That spotlight came loose and hit him.”

“You’re probably right,” I glanced at the fly system overhead, and wondered where the light had been. I couldn’t see any obvious holes in the lighting system, but I was no expert. The C-clamp was still attached to one end, and the safety cable stretched away through the pool of blood. I couldn’t be sure, but it didn’t look to me as if the cable had snapped. The loose end, which should have been shredded or frayed, looked as if someone had sliced through it with a knife. And if they had, Laurence Nichols’s death was no accident.

No
, I told myself firmly. There was a reasonable explanation for the way the cable looked. But I suddenly found myself wishing that Jawarski hadn’t picked this week to leave town.

I realized that Vonetta was watching me closely, but I didn’t want to start a wholesale panic so I tried to hide my suspicions. “I’m just confused, I guess. What were you doing in here with the lights out?”

She looked at me, her eyes blank. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“You were in here with the lights out when I came in,” I said. “You were kneeling beside Laurence . . . Leaning over him.”

Her expression turned to stone. “What are you implying?”

“Nothing,” I said quickly. “But I thought you were all in a meeting. That’s what the call-board said. So why were you in here with Laurence alone?”

“I told you. I found him like that.”

“Yes, but—” The sound of running feet reached us, and I swore under my breath. Don’t get me wrong—I didn’t for one minute think Vonetta had bashed Laurence over the head with that light fixture, but thanks to the arguments Laurence had been involved in over the past few days, I was having a little trouble buying the accident theory.

The footsteps came closer, and I just had time to warn Vonetta, “Don’t let anyone onstage,” before Alexander Pastorelli burst through the velvet curtains that separated the auditorium from the lobby. Jason, the David Beckham look-alike, came in hard on his heels, with Colleen Brannigan right behind him.

Alexander jumped onto the stage before I could stop him, demanding, “What the hell happened here?” The words were barely out of his mouth when he saw Laurence and bolted toward the body. “Larry? Are you all right?”

“Don’t come any closer,” Vonetta warned. “I think he’s dead.”

Alexander stopped abruptly, his face a mask of disbelief and horror. Colleen let out a whimper, covered her mouth with both hands, and dropped heavily onto the steps stage left. Even from a distance, I could see that her whole body trembled. I thought about her husband’s suspicions and wondered again if he had reason to doubt her.

But that didn’t matter right now. What mattered was keeping people out of the auditorium, preserving the scene, preventing widespread panic. Or maybe I just wanted to keep myself busy so I wouldn’t have to think about the body on the stage.

Noticeably shaken, Alexander ran a hand through his hair. “He can’t be dead. I just saw him ten minutes ago.”

I knew how he felt. After I’d walked in on my ex-husband and his girlfriend having sex on
my
bedroom floor, I’d struggled for months with how quickly life could change. It seemed inconceivable that the man who’d once inhabited the lifeless body in front of us could have been striding around the theater barking orders just a few short minutes ago.

“Call the police,” Colleen said softly. When nobody moved, she struggled to her feet and shouted, “Call an ambulance. Do
something
. Don’t let him just
lie
there like that.”

“Paisley’s calling 9-1-1 right now,” I said, hoping I sounded reassuring. “We’re doing everything we can. Why don’t you all go back to the rehearsal hall—?”

Colleen folded her arms and jerked her chin in stubborn refusal.

Jason stared at the grisly scene. “Are you sure he’s dead?”

“Not 100 percent,” I admitted, though it was harder to believe there was even a flicker of life left in Laurence’s body now that I could see it in the light. The kid moved closer, but I blocked his path. “I don’t want to be rude, but unless you’re a doctor, I don’t think you should touch him. I checked for a pulse, but I couldn’t feel one. I don’t think there’s anything we can do for him.”

Jason nodded without taking his eyes from Laurence’s inert form. “Okay. But shouldn’t we—” He pulled his gaze away and looked at me. “Shouldn’t we cover him up or something?”

Vonetta slowly got to her feet. “That’s a good idea. Why don’t you see if you can find a blanket or something in the back?”

Obviously happy to be useful, Jason dashed from the auditorium.

Alexander watched him go, a deep scowl on his broad face. “How did this happen?”

“It looks like a spotlight came loose and fell,” I said.

“I can
see
that. What I’m asking is how a spotlight could
come
loose. What are we looking at here? Negligence?”

Vonetta bristled, but I didn’t want a scene, so I answered before she could. “It was an accident. That’s all.”

“An accident?” Colleen’s head bobbed up. “Are you sure?”