Setting the Stage for Murder

by Robert W. Gregg

  Happily, his plan for the evening did not call for rehearsing the entire opera. They were concentrating on the part where Schicchi, pretending to be the old man, dictates the will and the relatives react to the shocking realization that he is leaving everything valuable to himself. The plot called for the dispossessed relatives to turn on Schicchi in anger, calling him a robber and a scoundrel. And it was clear from the look on some of their faces that that was exactly what they thought of the man playing Schicchi. To Kevin’s great relief, however, his players stayed in character. No more unpleasant words were exchanged, at least not within his hearing. He had no idea, of course, what was said outside the auditorium, as members of the company headed home after the rehearsal.

  _____

  It was after ten when Kevin arrived home, kicked his shoes off, and opened a bottle of beer. He was almost too tired to eat. Instead, he took his beer out onto the deck to take a look at the moon which had risen above the hill on the other side of the lake. It was a cloudless night, and a white ribbon of light from the moon’s reflection stretched across the dark water from the far shore all the way to his own dock. A beautiful sight. He wished Carol were there to enjoy it with him.

  Two more rehearsals lay ahead, the second being the dress rehearsal which would bring to an end preparations for the opening of Gianni Schicchi’s brief run at Brae Loch College. Of course the label ‘dress rehearsal’ didn’t quite fit this production, inasmuch as there would be no costumes. The decision to present the opera in contemporary everyday clothes had been dictated by the need to keep expenses to a minimum. Few in the audience would know or care that Puccini had set his opera in Florence at the end of the 13th century. The story is, after all, timeless. Greed, it would seem, is forever with us. And all ages and eras have known imposters and con artists.

  It had been an exhausting experience, and Kevin was glad that it was coming to an end. Now if only he could send several hundred, perhaps even a thousand, locals and summer residents home happy, it would have been worth it. Particularly if Jason Armitage, the crime junkie who also served as Brae Loch’s provost, could be persuaded to offer Kevin an appointment as a visiting professor of music.

  CHAPTER 9

  Tuesday afternoon. 5:20, give or take a few minutes. Dress rehearsal was scheduled to begin in just over two hours. Kevin would have preferred to have been at the cottage, enjoying an early dinner. But he was anxious, worried that something would go wrong, something that would signal that his little company needed another week or more to get ready for the unveiling of Puccini’s opera. So instead of having dinner, he was wandering around the Brae Loch campus, stoking his anxiety. There was really nothing he needed to do, nothing he could do at this late date but raise his baton and start the music.

  It was as he was climbing the front steps of Wayne Hall that he heard Lisa Tompkins call out his name in a voice much louder than seemed possible in view of her diminutive size. And it was less than a minute later, in response to her appeal for his help, that he discovered Harley Gerlach, dead, in the big bed on the stage of the auditorium.

  That Gerlach was indeed dead was not in doubt, which made the call he had asked Lisa to make to 911 superfluous. A call to the sheriff was another matter.

  Fortunately, Carol was in her office.

  “Carol, you’ve got to get down here to the college right away. And I mean immediately. We just found one of the members of the cast, dead. Dead, and obviously not of natural causes. It’s Gerlach, and he’s been strangled to death with what looks like a piano wire.”

  He fully expected her to say something like ‘not again,’ reflecting the fact that this would be the third murder on Crooked Lake in just three years. But whatever Carol may have thought about such an improbable development, she didn’t mention it, focusing instead on the problem at hand.

  “No question about him being dead? And strangled?”

  “No, he’s dead all right. The wire’s still around his neck.”

  “Okay, now listen to me. I’ll get my men over there as fast as I can. And I’ll be right behind them. I want you to keep people away from the body. Do whatever you have to do—tell them it’s an order from the sheriff. Just where is he anyway?”

  “He’s in that bed on the auditorium stage.”

  “Anybody else around?”

  “Yes, the woman who found him, a member of the orchestra. The rescue squad should be here soon. And my people will be coming in for the dress rehearsal. It’s scheduled for 7:30.”

  “That’s not good,” Carol said, obviously worried about all these people messing up the crime scene. “You’ve really got to assert your authority. Nobody, not even the paramedics, are to get near the body. Or the bed. Keep everybody off the stage if you can until we get there. Why don’t you call campus security, get some help until my guys arrive.”

  Kevin could hear Carol catch her breath on the other end of the line.

  “Kevin, I’m sorry. Really sorry. You don’t deserve this. But I’ve got to get busy, get the word out to my team. Now. And get myself over to the college. Be tough, okay?”

  Kevin would try to be tough. He wasn’t keen on asking campus security for help, but he knew he would have to tell the provost what had happened. And he’d have to do it immediately. Much as Jason Armitage was a self-confessed crime junkie, he would not be pleased with this turn of events. Any public relations benefit that might have accrued to Brae Loch College would be eclipsed by the negative publicity generated by a murder on campus.

  In any event, there would now be no performances of the Puccini opera at Brae Loch this summer. Kevin could imagine that Paolo Rosetti might offer his services as a replacement Gianni Schicchi, but who then would assume Rosetti’s part, and the part of whoever stepped into that role. But Kevin knew that all of this was mere idle speculation. It may have been an old theatre tradition that the show must go on, but that tradition was irrelevant in this situation, in this place, at this time. No, twenty-nine singers and instrumentalists would go home without adding an appearance in an opera on Crooked Lake to their modest resumés. And one of those twenty-nine might be a murderer.

  It was way too soon to be thinking about the odds on who among the company’s members would turn out to be Gerlach’s killer. The guilty party might be someone uninvolved in the production of the opera. After all, Brae Loch’s students, faculty, and staff all had access to the auditorium in Wayne Hall. Even the provost could have done it. Hypothetically, of course.

  Kevin shook off these thoughts, left an urgent message for Jason Armitage, and took Lisa Tompkins aside to tell her what she must not do. He then turned his attention to the delicate matter of how he was going to keep the paramedics from doing what they had been summoned to the college to do.

  Happily for Kevin, Officer Barrett of the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Department arrived before the paramedics, followed within three minutes by Deputy Sheriff Bridges. Kevin had known from the moment he realized that Harley Gerlach was dead that he would be much involved in the investigation of who had killed him and why. After all, he had been a front-row observer of the frictions that had beset the company from the moment it first assembled back in late May. He had been witness to the hostility which Gerlach stirred up in others, and while he could not imagine anyone hating the man enough to kill him, he was aware that while he had initially been shocked by his death, he had not really been surprised. But for now, however, he was glad to step aside and let the professionals take charge.

  _____

  When Lisa Tompkins discovered Gerlach in the big bed, she was the only person in Wayne Hall. When the sheriff arrived, it was one of the busier places on the Brae Loch campus. Some of the opera company had trickled in and were sitting in the first few rows of the auditorium, thinking their thoughts and talking quietly among themselves. The paramedic team was on the stage, behind the drawn curtain, its life-saving mission thwarted by Gerlach’s death and not quite sure what to do next. The provost and several members of the
college administration were over on one side of the auditorium, engaged in conservation with Deputy Sheriff Bridges and conspicuously anxious to have the body of the opera’s deceased star removed from the premises as quickly as possible. Bridges’ colleagues were scattered around the building, urging the restless to be patient and making sure that no one left until the sheriff granted permission.

  Kevin had stepped outside for a much-needed breath of fresh air, having assured the officer on duty that no, he wasn’t leaving, and that yes, the sheriff would approve of this violation of her instructions. She pulled into a No Parking zone already occupied by four other official cars. A small but growing crowd of students had gathered nearby, and a few of them tried to get the sheriff’s attention as she stepped out of her car.

  “What’s going on in there?” one of the students asked.

  “Not sure,” she said as she hurried up the steps to where Kevin was standing. “You’ll hear about it soon enough.”

  In other circumstances, Carol would have run into Kevin’s arms. But not with all those students behind her. Or with a recently murdered man waiting somewhere just beyond the heavy doors that were the entrance to Brae Loch’s auditorium.

  “I can’t believe this,” she said.

  “Neither can I,” Kevin agreed. “Thank God you’re here. It’s not bad now, but there are a lot of people in there who are going to get frustrated just sitting around. I can see it coming.”

  “Well, they’ll just have to get used to frustration,” Carol said. “Let’s get inside.”

  She surveyed the scene from the back of the auditorium. It confirmed her fear that this was going to be a long evening.

  “I’m afraid I’m going to have to talk to the members of your company. All of them. And one at a time. I need to know where they were this afternoon. Whether any of them could have been here, killing your man Gerlach.”

  “You don’t think somebody’s going to confess, do you?”

  “Highly unlikely, but I can’t just tell them to go home, have a nice evening. Not when one of them might well have been the strangler.”

  “It’s really a mess, isn’t it?”

  “I take it the body is onstage, behind that curtain. One of my men had better be there with it. Let’s go.”

  Sheriff Kelleher was in her take-charge mode as she strode down the aisle. When they reached the front of the auditorium, she stopped and addressed the members of Kevin’s small company.

  “All of you people are here for the opera production, right?”

  Heads nodded and several members of the company mumbled what sounded like ‘yes.’

  “Okay. I’m the sheriff, and I’m going to want to talk with each of you, just as soon as I take a look at the situation backstage. So just stay in your seats, make yourselves comfortable. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  “I have to be getting home, Sheriff. How long before we can go?” It was a man at the end of the front row.

  “I’ve no idea. According to Professor Whitman, you all came here for a dress rehearsal, so I assume you planned to spend the evening. It looks like you’ll be doing just that, minus the rehearsal.”

  There was some predictable grumbling, but no one challenged the sheriff. She and Kevin went up the steps to the stage.

  “Am I glad to see you,” Officer Barrett said as Carol pushed her way through the curtain. The members of the paramedic team looked as if they agreed.

  “I assume no one’s touched the body.” It was more a statement than a question.

  “Not since I arrived,” Barrett said. “These guys figure they’re not needed. They’d like to go.”

  “Yes, I’m sure they do, and I think that should be possible,” Carol said, turning to the man who appeared to be the head of the rescue squad. “Sorry you had to wait. There’s just one thing I’d like you to do. You are trained to recognize rigor mortis when you see it, is that right?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “That’s good, because the coroner isn’t here yet. Let’s take a look at our victim.”

  Carol carefully pulled the spread down, revealing Gerlach’s face and upper torso. The appearance of the face made it clear that he had been strangled. The presence of the wire that had choked off his life removed any doubt.

  “Now,” Carol said to the paramedic, “tell me whether you see signs of rigor and how far it’s progressed. But be careful. Don’t touch the body any more than you have to.”

  She was reasonably confident that she could have made the determination herself, but it would be better if someone trained to spot rigor mortis could do it. She knew that it typically started in the face and gradually moved downward to the larger muscles. What was important in this case was what it could tell her about the time of death.

  “I’m no expert,” the paramedic said, “but it looks like the process has begun but not progressed too far. He’s been dead, oh, probably four hours, maybe five at the most.”

  Carol looked at her watch, which told her it was now just minutes before seven. Gerlach had been dead since mid-afternoon, possibly as early as two. Which information would help her a bit when she questioned the members of the opera company. She turned to Kevin.

  “You found him at five something?”

  “That’s about right,” he replied.

  “Okay, so by then he’d been dead two or three hours. His killer could have done the deed, had plenty of time to go home, then come back in time for the rehearsal. Or maybe he never left the college after strangling Gerlach. I’ll be interested to see what they say when I ask them to account for their afternoons.”

  “I’m not sure some of them could have killed him and then gone home before rehearsal. Too long a drive, like for a guy who lives in Rochester. Even for people from around Ithaca. I’d bet whoever killed Gerlach stayed right here. The interesting question is whether anyone saw him. Or her.”

  And, Kevin was thinking, what had Gerlach been doing on campus hours before the dress rehearsal. Even more importantly, how his killer would have known he’d be there.

  “Putting on your sleuth’s hat, are you?” Carol asked.

  “Just trying to figure out how it happened that somebody managed to hang a ‘show cancelled’ sign on Gianni Schicchi only hours before the dress rehearsal.”

  “I really am sorry this is happening to you,” Carol said, and she said it with feeling. “But right now I’d better start asking questions of those musicians out in the auditorium. Why don’t you get busy smoothing ruffled feathers with the Brae Loch people.”

  The sheriff thanked the paramedics for their help and their patience and headed out to the auditorium to begin her investigation of Harley Gerlach’s murder.

  CHAPTER 10

  When Carol reemerged from behind the curtain in the Brae Loch auditorium, the murmur of voices in the front rows quickly ceased. People straightened up in their seats, some of them clutching their instruments, others starting to get up as if the sheriff’s appearance signaled that they might now be free to go.

  It was not to be.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting, but there were a couple of things I had to take care of first,” Carol said in a conversational tone of voice. “Give me one more minute while I speak to the provost over there.”

  The restless members of the small opera company settled back in their seats while Carol and Kevin walked over to join Deputy Sheriff Bridges in conversation with Jason Armitage.

  Introductions over, Carol proceeded to make clear to the provost what was going to happen to heretofore quiet little Brae Loch College.

  “Sorry we have to inconvenience you, but this building is going to have to be off limits to everyone except the police. We’ve got a crime scene here, and it’s going to include the whole stage, the wings, and that small rehearsal room Professor Whitman’s people have been using. Maybe it should be even larger. In any event, you’re going to have to lock the building down and let me have the keys. I regret this as much as you do, but I’m sure
you understand the problem.”

  The provost could not be expected to be happy with the sheriff’s edict, but Kevin thought he caught just a momentary gleam in Armitage’s eye. Probably picturing one of those yellow crime-scene ribbons backstage, imagining the Brae Loch auditorium as a real life version of some back alley in Law & Order. For a brief moment the provost’s love of the drama of crime and law enforcement might almost have outweighed his professional concern for the college, but the unpleasant reality of the situation quickly reasserted itself.

  “How long do you expect this to last?” Armitage asked.

  “I really can’t say,” Carol answered truthfully. “A man has been murdered, and a lot of people could have done it, most of them right over there in the front rows. I hate to think of the possibility that he was killed by somebody from the college community.”

  “You can’t possibly think—” Armitage began.

  “Oh, but I can,” Carol interrupted. “Highly unlikely, so let’s not start imagining the worst. Officer Bridges and I are going to start asking some questions of those restless members of the opera company. All of them. I’d guess it’d take about two hours, maybe three. By that time the coroner will have come and done his job and the body will be gone. What I’d suggest is that you go outside and see what you can do to disperse that crowd of students. They’ll know this isn’t something routine—too many police cars. No need to alarm the student body, though. This isn’t one of those horrible campus shootings everyone knows about. You’ll think of something sensible, I’m sure.”

  The provost didn’t look as if he would be able to think of something sensible to say. And he was clearly not pleased with the thought that the sheriff and her men might still be on campus for another three hours. And after that for how many days?

  Before fading into the role of fifth wheel in the sheriff’s investigation of Harley Gerlach’s death, Kevin slipped her a hastily scribbled note containing three names, those of Myers, Conklin, and Rosetti.