“I thought this was all about the stupid teapot,” Pat said. “I didn’t know that you really thought of me as a suspect. Or that I could have been a victim too. I can’t believe I almost died.”
“If you never drank from the tea, then you wouldn’t have died,” Heather said.
“As long as the killer knew that,” Pat said. “And as long as I wasn’t really thirsty that day. I didn’t know there was poison in the glass. What if I drank it?”
“You’re all right,” Heather reassured him. “You didn’t drink it. You’re fine.”
Pat took a few deep breaths. Slowly, he began to calm down. He seemed to return to normal.
“I’m sorry about that,” he said. “It was scary to learn I had a near-death experience.”
“What happened with the teapot?” Ryan asked, steering him back towards the questions.
“I got rid of it,” Pat said.
“Because you knew of the poison?” Amy asked, confused.
“No. Not at all,” Pat said. “I had no idea there was poison inside.”
“Then, why did you get rid of it?” Heather asked.
“I didn’t want Poppy to see what I did,” Pat said. “It seems like that night was a series of bad decisions now, but they made sense at the time. I brought my glass and the teapot off stage like usual. I emptied my glass and put it back on the prop table. Then I was emptying the teapot, and I dropped it. It cracked. I didn’t want Poppy to see what I did. I figured it was better if I got rid of it, so she wouldn’t know who in the cast took it. If she only saw the crack, she would have known it was me. And I didn’t want her to be mad.”
“What did you do with it?” asked Peters.
“I left the theater through a fire door. There’s one that’s loose and is quiet when it opens. I ran down the street until I saw a trashcan and threw it inside. Then, I hurried back for the bows.”
“During which, Willie Sales fell over dead,” said Heather.
“And we all decided that we should bring him to his house, so it looked like he had a heart attack there,” Pat said. “Another stupid decision. Everything has gotten so out of hand.”
“I’ll check and see if we can find that trashcan with the teapot,” Peters said. “Hopefully we’re not too late.”
“I’m sorry,” Pat said. “I had no idea it was going to be important.”
“This might be just a story to cover up how you tried to get rid of evidence,” Heather said. “We heard that you and the victim had a fight last week.”
“That wasn’t anything that could lead to murder,” Pat said.
“What was it about?” asked Ryan.
Pat hemmed and hawed and then finally explained. “It was about the show and our roles. I was jealous that he was always cast in leading man roles. I wanted to know what his secret was. He told me that I was acting crazy. That upset me.”
“How is this not a motive?” Amy asked.
“Because what I wanted was the role of Doug,” Pat said. “But killing Willie wouldn’t have brought me any closer to it. Digby was the understudy. I’d have to kill him too in order to get closer to the part. And do you think the show would really go on if two actors had been killed?”
Heather considered what he said. Maybe he did have a point. But, if he didn’t kill Willie Sales, then who did?
Lines
Heather munched on a Mint Crisp Donut. She and Amy were commiserating at a table at Donut Delights. Nothing in the case seemed to be lining up correctly, and they were getting frustrated. Heather decided to focus on the chocolate and mint flavor and enjoy the crunchiness of the crisp and green icing for a moment.
Amy had been focusing on her donut as well, but then made quick work of it. After she finished her last bite, she was back to focusing on the case.
“So, what do we know so far?” Amy asked. “Besides that the actors were silly for trying to move the body?”
“We know that Willie Sales was poisoned,” Heather said. “It was a poison that took about ten minutes to take effect and had to be ingested. The only thing Willie Sales ate or drank during that time period was some iced tea that was used as part of the play. His character drank tea in a scene. His death looked like a heart attack, but was really murder.”
“What about suspects?
“Well, it needed to be somebody that knew the show,” said Heather. “The killer needed to know that Willie drank the tea in the teacup as part of the play. The killer also knew that no one else drank the tea.”
“So, the tea was poisoned,” Amy said, nodding.
“But the people who knew the show, the cast and crew, would also know about the theater building and the loose door, so no one can be eliminated as a suspect,” Heather said, sighing. “Anyone of them could have snuck inside before the dress rehearsal to lay the trap.”
“Except Digby,” Amy said. “He was at work with you all day.”
“I guess technically he could have snuck in during the night,” Heather said. “But I didn’t consider him a suspect.”
“Is there anyone else we can discount as a suspect?” Amy asked.
Heather stared at her now empty plate. It was fitting because that’s how she felt about the answers in the case – that there was nothing there.
“We still have too many suspects,” Heather said. “Any of them could have done it, but none have a strong motive.”
Amy nodded and started recapping. “The director Stanley Saymor needed the show to sell a lot of tickets, or he wouldn’t make any money, and getting rid of his leading actor puts the show in jeopardy. Pat wanted to play Willie Sales’s character, but getting rid of Willie just meant that it passed to Digby.”
“Norma and Willie had some disagreements about their scenes,” Heather continued. “Norma does seem a bit like a diva, but could her annoyance with him really lead to murder?”
“The other two women had stronger motives,” Amy said. “Eve was having an affair with him. Maybe she got tired of sharing him with his wife.”
“She did seem upset, but she is an actress,” Heather agreed.
“And Poppy used to have an affair with him about a year ago,” Amy said. “But he never told her that he was married. That would certainly make me mad.”
Heather sighed. “Of course, there’s one problem with all these suspects and motives.”
“What’s that?”
“Despite any ill feelings any of them might have had towards Willie Sales, all of them really wanted the show to do well. That’s why they were willing to move the body to save the show.”
“But it had to be someone involved with the show, right?”
“I think so,” Heather said. “But the timing feels very strange to me. This murder doesn’t seem to help anyone in the case who had the knowledge and access to the theater to commit the crime. In fact, it hurts most of them.”
“By hurting the show,” Amy said, nodding.
“So, why did the killer decide to kill him during the dress rehearsal?” Heather wondered aloud. “Why at that time?”
Heather’s cell phone rang, and she answered Ryan’s call. “Shepherd.”
“It’s good to hear your voice,” Ryan said. “Any break-throughs?”
“Unfortunately, not,” said Heather. “We’ve just been wondering about the timing of the murder. Why kill him during the dress rehearsal when it hurts the show that all the cast and crew care so much about?”
“A good question,” Ryan said. “I’m afraid I’ve discovered something that might cause more confusion.”
“And what’s that?” Heather asked, frowning. She wasn’t sure she wanted to add any more confusion to the case.
“The results of the toxicology report came back,” he said. “There was poison found in the teacup, but there was none in the other glass.”
“Could it be because the other glass was rinsed?”
“No. The would still be some trace of it. There was no poison in the glass at all.”
“That’
s interesting,” Heather said. “I’m not quite sure what it means.”
“Me neither at this point,” Ryan said. “But hopefully, we’ll make sense of all of this soon.”
They said their goodbyes, and Heather hung up her phone. She repeated what she learned to Amy.
“Does this mean that the tea wasn’t poisoned?” Amy asked.
“It still had to be in the tea that Willie Sales ingested,” Heather said, thinking aloud. “But maybe it wasn’t in the teapot’s tea. If the full batch of tea that was in the teapot wasn’t poisoned, then it wouldn’t have gotten into the glass.”
“But how did it get into the teacup?”
“It must have been put there directly,” Heather said. “The killer must have put some poison in the cup. Willie Sales added the tea to it as part of the scene and created a deadly mixture.”
“If that’s the case, then the killer didn’t need to know that Pat never drank from the glass,” Amy said.
Heather thought about it. That was an interesting idea. She pondered this and everything they knew about the case as she looked around the shop. It was a slow period of the day in between lunchtime and snack time. Nina and Digby were finished tidying up, so they were running lines together.
Nina held the script and read all the character’s lines besides Digby’s. He tried to recite his lines from memory. It seemed like he was doing a good job. There were only a few times that Nina had to correct him on what he said.
They paused after a scene and Nina commented, “This is rather a strange play.”
Something clicked into place in Heather’s head. She headed over to her assistants, saying now what was so obvious to her.
“You know what happens in the play,” Heather said.
Nina nodded. “I’m reading it as I go along, helping Digby learn his lines.”
“Helping me practice my lines,” Digby countered. “I already learned them. Mostly. And I’m almost ready. Mostly.”
Heather didn’t have time to assure Digby that he would be ready by opening night. She needed to take action to make sure that opening night did occur.
“She said that she helped him run lines for the play, but I didn’t realize the ramifications of it until now,” Heather was saying to herself.
“Did she just solve the case?” Digby asked.
“Looks like it,” said Amy.
“The problem is going to be proving it,” Heather said, trying to come up with an idea. She looked at Digby and smiled.
“Digby, how would you feel about another acting challenge?”
The Trap
Heather and Amy stood by the fire door of the theater, staring at the street. Heather hoped that her plan had worked.
Digby had done wonders with his part. He really was a talented actor. She just hoped it would be enough to convince the killer to give herself away.
Digby had called the woman just like she asked and relayed her message. The show should be opening, and they wanted to dedicate the performance to Willie. They would even have a memorial in the lobby for him. Yes, he was confident that the case would be closed soon because a detective who was now in the cast had let information slip. They suspected the stage manager because she was the one who made the tea for the show. She would have had plenty of time to add the poison to the teapot, and then poor Willie poured it into his teacup and drank it. The detectives just needed to find the teapot to link it back to her, and they suspected it was in a trashcan on the street. They were going to find it in the morning after their protective gloves arrived.
“I hope she falls for the part about the protective gloves,” Amy whispered.
“Me too,” Heather said. “But she needed to think that she had a window of time to find the teapot.”
They continued waiting, knowing that Ryan and Detective Peters were doing their stakeout from a car parked on the street.
“Look,” Heather said, quietly. “There she is.”
They saw the suspect take the lid off of a trashcan. Then, Ryan and Peters emerged from their car and approached. Heather and Amy hurried out to join them.
“Officers,” Jen Sales said, hiding something in her hand. “What are you doing here?”
“We’ve been keeping an eye on these trashcans,” Peters said.
“What a strange coincidence seeing you here then,” Jen said. “I was headed to the theater to pay respects to my husband, and I just happened to pass the cans on this street. As I was walking by, I thought I heard something in the can. I read somewhere about kittens getting trapped in a trash can before, so I wanted to check and help if needed. But, false alarm. No kittens.”
“Nice try,” Heather said. “We know that you are here, trying to plant evidence to frame someone else for your husband’s murder.”
“What a terrible thing to say,” Jen said.
“But it’s true, isn’t it?” asked Heather.
“Why would I kill him?” Jen protested.
“The affairs,” Amy said. “With Poppy. With Eve. With other people from different shows that we don’t know about. It sounds like this was a common thing for him.”
“I didn’t know about it,” Jen said.
“I’m pretty sure that was your reason for killing him,” Heather said. “And you made your plan when you were running lines with him. You told us that you didn’t know anything about the play or the theater. But you also told us that you would run lines with your husband to help him memorize his lines. If you did help him with lines, then you did read the script.”
“I must have been confused when I spoke to you before,” Jen said.
Heather continued. “You realized that he drank from a teacup in the play and that was the only teacup in the show. You could poison it, and it would guarantee that only he died. You thought it was perfect to kill him a dress rehearsal because he would be surrounded by other suspects.”
“You might also have gotten some pleasure from killing him in front of his new girlfriend,” Amy added.
“You thought the death might be seen as a heart attack, but if it was ruled a homicide, then there were plenty of people in the theater that night who could take the blame,” said Heather.
“How would I have gotten into the theater to do this?” asked Jen.
“Willie told you about the fire door at the theater where you could break in,” Heather explained. “You knew everything you needed to in order to commit your crime.”
“You don’t have any proof of this,” Jen said with a smug smile on her face.
“You just brought it to us,” Heather said. “Or isn’t that a vial of poison you’re hiding in your hand?”
The smugness disappeared from Jen’s face. She clenched what was in her hand tighter.
“You thought the detectives suspected Poppy and that if you planted some poison in the trash, especially if you could find the missing teapot, that you could frame her for the crime,” said Heather.
Ryan held a hand out. Jen hesitated, but then handed over the vial in her hand. Ryan confirmed it was the poison.
He and Detective Peters read Jen Sales her rights and led her towards the car. Heather and Amy walked the opposite direction together.
“Wow,” Amy said. “What a production!”
The Outing
Heather was happy that the chaos of an investigation had subsided. The actors had gone back to rehearsing, and Heather went back to spending time with her family.
Inspired by the arts, they had decided to all visit some other theaters in the Key West area. She and her friend and family were enjoying looking at the architecture of the impressive buildings and collecting brochures about the upcoming shows.
Eva and Leila were discussing how the senior center should have a trip to see a show, and Lilly agreed but added that her school should have one too. Heather walked along with Ryan, holding his hand. It was nice to have a relaxing day where they could amble along together.
Amy and Jamie were mostly in agreement.
“I l
ike that we’re getting a chance to spend more time together,” Amy said. “But I do want to get home soon. I miss my dog!”
“Our dog,” Jamie said good-naturedly.
Heather smiled. “Just one more theater to admire. Then, let’s head home. We can still hang out together, but we can add the pets and some donuts to the mix.”
“Sounds perfect,” Amy said.
“After all the craziness of tracking down a murderer,” Jamie said. “Are you still excited to see the show?”
“Of course,” Heather said. “I want to see Digby in his new leading role.”
“And Detective Peters making his acting debut,” Ryan added.
“But I have to admit that I am glad that they’re no longer rehearsing in the shop,” Heather said.
“Me too,” Amy agreed. “Moving those tables back and forth was hard work.”
Heather laughed. She had been thinking more along the lines of having her shop acting like a business again instead of a rehearsal space. She was also glad that there wasn’t a potential murderer in their midst.
“It was fun seeing some of the rehearsals,” Heather said. “And I’m sure that the cast will get even better with practice.”
“We’ll see Peters and say look how far he’s come,” Amy joked. “In under a week.”
They all chuckled. They had gotten their tickets and planned to be at the show opening night to support their friends. Even if some mistakes were made because some people were new to their parts, nothing on stage could be as crazy as the moment Heather first saw all those actors trying to hide a dead body.
She was glad the case was over and that all the drama would only be happening on stage now.
“Good thing that the killer wasn’t somebody in the play,” Amy said. “If one of the actresses had been guilty, they would have needed someone to fill the role. And then, we might have seen Heather on the stage.”
“No, no,” Heather said, shaking her head. “I’m already playing the roles I love: wife, mother, baker, investigator.”
“Best friend,” Amy added.
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