Setting the Stage for Murder

by Robert W. Gregg

  “You ought to talk to these people yourself,” he whispered. “From what I’ve seen and heard, they’re the ones who’ve seemed most hostile to Gerlach.”

  “Okay, but let’s not make it too obvious that anybody in your troupe is a prime suspect. How do I recognize them?”

  Kevin did his best to describe these three members of the company without appearing to do so, no easy feat in view of the fact that most of the restless occupants of the front rows in the auditorium were watching them. He hoped he had been successful.

  “You’ve been very patient,” Carol said as she walked over to face the company, knowing full well that they had not been patient. “Now this is what we’re going to do. Officer Bridges and I are going to talk briefly with each of you, one at a time. We need to know what, if anything, you may have heard or seen that can help us determine just what happened here this afternoon. We’ll also need some personal information, like where you live and how we can reach you. It seems likely that we’ll want to be in touch with you again, and sooner rather than later.”

  Carol paused, aware that what she would say next would not please these people.

  “One more thing. We’re investigating a very serious crime. It’s called murder. Which means that anyone we need to talk with, anyone who might help us, be nearby. What I’m saying is that I don’t want any of you to leave the area. Not until I say so. I’m sorry if this may interfere with your plans, but I’m sure you understand why it’s important.”

  “Are you saying that you suspect one of us having killed Gerlach?” The question was asked by the large and somewhat florid man Kevin had identified as Paolo Rosetti.

  Carol had been careful not to say that, but it was not surprising that Rosetti and almost certainly others had inferred as much.

  “No I’m not. I have no idea who might have killed Mr. Gerlach. But we have to start somewhere, and the logical place to start is with people here at Brae Loch College. That does include all of you. It also includes faculty, students, anyone who had reason to be on campus this afternoon. Like I said, I want you to stay around because I may need to ask more questions.”

  There was a lot of grumbling in the front rows, but Carol ignored it and told her deputy sheriff to start with a man who was hugging what looked like a trumpet case. She then beckoned to the woman Kevin had identified as Janet Myers and escorted her to a corner of the auditorium.

  _____

  “It’ll take me awhile to get to know all of you,” she began. “So let’s see, you are …?”

  “I’m Janet Myers, and let me save you some time. I’m Harley Gerlach’s ex-wife, as you’d have discovered soon enough in any event. We divorced quite some time ago, and it was more than just a matter of incompatibility. He was an incorrigible womanizer. But did I kill him? No, I did not.”

  Carol had known that Myers had been married to Gerlach. Kevin had told her so in one of their conversations about how the production of Gianni Schicchi was going. But she was surprised that Myers had unburdened herself of this information so quickly.

  “So you and Mr. Gerlach had what sounds like an unpleasant divorce. But you both chose to stay in this area. Not exactly neighbors, but not all that far apart. Want to tell me whether your paths have crossed since the divorce?”

  “You don’t understand,” the Myers woman said. “When we were married we lived down in the city. It wasn’t until later that I moved to Southport.”

  “And why Southport?”

  “An old college friend lived there. I guess I needed some comforting, so I sort of invited myself to spend a week with her. One thing led to another. I met a friend of hers, Charles Myers, and we hit it off. Got married a few months later. Believe me, it’s been the difference between night and day, Harley and Chuck.”

  “And how does it happen that Gerlach also lives in this area? Did he follow you upstate? Couldn’t bring himself to accept the divorce or something like that?”

  “I didn’t have any idea that he had moved to Crooked Lake. I never told him I’d moved up here, although I suppose he could have learned it from a mutual acquaintance in the city. I didn’t know he was in the area until one day last summer. They had an arts and crafts show in the town square down in Southport. In one of the booths I saw some watercolors which looked like his style. And they were his—his signature was on them. I was surprised. No, better to say I was shocked.”

  “So Mr. Gerlach was both a singer and an artist.”

  “Yes, and to be perfectly frank, he was pretty good at both. Too bad he wasn’t as nice a human being. After I discovered that he lived in the area, I made some inquiries and learned that he had moved here about two years ago. Bought a house up on the bluff down near the fork in the lake. It became a studio for his painting.”

  “Seems strange, his resettling in the same area you’d moved to. I’m not one who believes in coincidences. Especially when the place you both ended up is practically no man’s land where most people are concerned. Did he make any effort to contact you before this opera business?”

  “Never. I’m not sure he even knew I lived in Southport. Until we both found ourselves in the cast of Whitman’s opera, that is.”

  Carol studied Janet Myers, expecting to see what—a hint that the woman was not being entirely honest with her? That it hadn’t been a rare coincidence that had brought them both to Crooked Lake? That they had had some kind of relationship since the divorce?

  “I understand that Mr. Gerlach had a career with the Metropolitan Opera,” she said, not offering an explanation of how she had acquired this information about Gerlach’s life. “If you knew he was living in this area, you must have figured that he’d be interested in the opera here at Brae Loch. That there was a good chance that he’d be in the cast. Did that give you pause? About trying out for the opera?”

  “Look, I’m a pretty fair musician myself, and I liked the idea of doing something with my voice besides singing in the church choir on Sundays. The news about the opera was intriguing. I tried out, Whitman liked my voice, and he put me in the cast. When I realized that Harley was going to be in it, too, I asked the professor to get rid of him. I told him it was him or me, but I guess that was asking too much. Anyway, I stuck it out.”

  Janet Myers suddenly burst into laughter.

  “Quite a joke, isn’t it? Now there won’t be any opera. Not for Harley, not for me.”

  Carol had not had time to give much thought to the matter of whether Gerlach’s death would cancel Kevin’s production of Gianni Schicchi.

  “I have no idea whether the opera will be cancelled,” she said. “Professor Whitman has invested a lot of his time and energy in it. The college has a stake in it, too. Maybe it can be salvaged.”

  “No offense, Sheriff,” Myers said, “but you can’t imagine how hard it would be to shuffle parts, especially when the lead character is gone. There aren’t any understudies hanging around on Crooked Lake. No, take my word for it; there will be no opera at Brae Loch this summer.”

  It was time to change the subject, to find out what Janet Myers had been doing during the time when her ex-husband was being strangled to death.

  “I need to talk to you about what you were doing today,” Carol said. “I’ll be asking everyone the same thing. I’m hoping that maybe somebody will be able to help me figure out what happened—you know, how Mr. Gerlach met his death. So why don’t you tell me about your day.”

  “Not much to tell, Sheriff. Chuck and I had a lazy morning, we had lunch around—oh, I’d guess one o’clock—and then he went off to the office. I think he was going to catch up on some paperwork.”

  “And you?”

  “I took a drive.”

  “A drive? Want to tell me about it?”

  “There’s nothing to tell. I was uptight. You know, butterflies about the dress rehearsal I suppose. I wasn’t going anywhere, just driving around—thinking about my part, going over my lines.”

  “And where did you go?”

 
“Nowhere in particular. You know, the back roads around here. They’re pretty quiet, making it easy to get away from whatever’s bothering you.”

  “And was something bothering you?”

  Myers’ face reflected the fact that she wasn’t happy with this line of questioning.

  “No, it’s like I said, I just needed to think about the opera.”

  “Okay. How long were you out driving around?”

  “I can’t be sure. Maybe an hour and a half, maybe two hours. I like that road up top of the bluff, and—look, I wasn’t really thinking about the time.”

  “While you were driving around, did you go to the college?”

  “No, not until this evening when I came over for the dress rehearsal. But by then I’d been back home, cooked dinner, said good-bye to Chuck.”

  Carol had tried to contain her mounting frustration with this recital of Janet Myers’ afternoon. She knew what the answer to her next question was going to be.

  “Did you see anyone during your drive? I mean people you know, friends, members of the opera company?”

  What she meant, of course, was whether anyone had seen her and would be in a position to vouch for where she was and when.

  “No, I’m afraid not.”

  When Harley Gerlach’s ex-wife departed from the auditorium, Carol had learned two things. One was that the Myers woman had no alibi for the time period when Gerlach had been strangled. The other was that it was going to be a very long evening.

  CHAPTER 11

  Carol looked at her watch for probably the tenth time that evening. It was 11:20. It had been a long day.

  She looked around the auditorium. It was now nearly vacant. Sam Bridges had just concluded the last of his discussions with members of the company and was leafing through his notes, waiting for the sheriff to call it a night. Kevin Whitman was sitting down in the front row, talking with an unfamiliar young man. The man was presumably one of the provost’s staff, somebody who had been asked to stick around to represent the college until the sheriff had concluded her interviews. Kevin had spent much of the evening trying to keep the lid on the discontent of the dwindling numbers of his small company. But now they had all gone, as had everybody else, including the late Harley Gerlach, and Kevin, too, was ready to go home.

  “Come on, Sam, let’s get out of here,” Carol called out as she got up and walked down to where Kevin was sitting. It was much too late for her to be going back to the cottage with him, but she needed to have a word with him before she left.

  She thanked the Brae Loch staffer for his patience and the college’s help, and turned to Kevin.

  “My God, what a night. I’ll bet you’re exhausted, physically and emotionally.” She said it quietly but with feeling. “We’ve got to get together tomorrow, okay? I need to sit down with Sam, go over his notes with him, then spend some time with you. I’ve found out a few things that might be interesting. Hope Sam has as well. But it’s important that you and I discuss what we’ve learned from these people. You’ll know better than I will what to make of what they’ve told us. Whether it rings true or not. At least I hope you will.”

  “Of course. Anytime you’re ready.” Carol thought he sounded numb, as well he might be.

  “I can’t be sure how long it’ll take for Sam to fill me in, but I’ll give you a call as soon as I’m ready to leave the office.”

  Carol reached out and touched his arm.

  “I really am sorry this happened, Kevin.”

  “I know. We’ll talk about it tomorrow. Let’s get some sleep.”

  By 11:30 the auditorium in Wayne Hall on the Brae Loch College campus was empty and dark.

  _____

  “Ready?” It was Carol, calling from Cumberland, and Kevin, anticipating the call, had just started a second pot of coffee.

  “I’ve been ready since the middle of the night. Spent most of it trying to figure out who might have killed Gerlach. I’m no further ahead than I was when I left the college last night.”

  “Neither am I. But I’m on my way. Looks like I could be staying over the lunch hour. Have anything in the frig for a hungry girl?”

  “Always.”

  It was at best a thirty-minute drive from Cumberland to Blue Water Point, and Carol would usually have treated it as a welcome break, a time to enjoy a beautiful August day. But today her mind was reviewing the results of what she and Sam had learned—or not learned—the previous evening.

  Sam had interviewed most of the company, and with two exceptions had learned nothing which would seem to have any bearing on Gerlach’s murder. And neither of those exceptions looked to be particularly dramatic. She herself had spoken with only ten of Kevin’s troupe, and three of the ten had taken most of her time. That was more because Kevin had singled them out for special attention than because they had told her anything that seemed to have a bearing on the case.

  Before she reached West Lake Road, Carol decided to add a few minutes to her trip and swing by the college to make sure that Wayne Hall had indeed been secured. It had been, and Officer Barrett was busy asserting his authority. He was talking with some students when she pulled into a reserved parking space in front of the building. A brief conversation with her colleague made it clear that the Brae Loch people were cooperating, but that the provost himself had come around three times to ‘see what was happening.’ Of course nothing was happening, and Barrett looked bored.

  It was close to one o’clock when Carol pulled in beside Kevin’s Camry.

  “How’d you sleep?” she asked as she disengaged from their first hug in two days.

  “Not so good. I still can’t believe that twenty-four hours ago I was worrying about the dress rehearsal, afraid we’d sound pretty ragged.”

  “I’d be willing to bet there’s someone else who didn’t sleep that well either. What are we going to call him, the Puccini strangler?”

  “Him or maybe her. I don’t know. Maybe he slept just fine, having put Gerlach out of his misery. Let’s have some lunch.”

  Having finished a pedestrian lunch of tuna fish sandwiches, coffee and an apple, Kevin and Carol settled down on the deck to go over the results of the interviews. It was only with some difficulty that they managed not to be lured into the water by the warm afternoon sun and the light waves that were quietly lapping on the shore by Kevin’s dock. But there was a murder to be solved—a murder which had brought to an abrupt end any thought that Crooked Lake would be the setting for an opera production this summer. And neither the sheriff nor the professor had any idea who had snuffed out Harley Gerlach’s life the previous day.

  “Learn anything at all last night?” Kevin asked. He didn’t sound as if the answer would be yes.

  “I suppose you could say so, but damned if I know whether it’s the truth or simply what some of your people want me to believe is the truth.”

  “Well, let’s hear it. Anyone tell you he was in or around Wayne Hall at any time during the afternoon?”

  “Just one. And it’s a she. A young woman named Heather Merriman told Bridges that she was on the campus much of the afternoon. Said she often spent the afternoon there. Since the rehearsals began, that is. Sunbathing, I guess. Claims she needed to get away from an annoying brother over at her family’s cottage. And occasionally to go over stuff about her role with a guy who plays her sweetheart in the opera.”

  “Yeah, that figures,” Kevin said. “I’m not so sure she needed to go over what you call ‘stuff,’ but this guy—his name’s Sean Carpenter—looked like he’s interested in her for more than her voice. He tried to act as if he was simply being paternal, protecting her from the bad guys like Gerlach. But I think he had the hots for her. She’s attractive, and he struck me as one of those men who have a thing for pretty girls. Even if they’re young enough to be his daughter.”

  “Anyway, Merriman was there. She wasn’t sure for how long, but it was from some time after lunch until around four. She told Sam she didn’t see anyone, but that may have been
because she was down on the beach, not up in the auditorium. But she did hear someone. Gerlach.”

  “No kidding?”

  “She said she had to use the bathroom, so she went back up to Wayne Hall where she knew there was one. She heard Gerlach singing in that little practice room off the stage.”

  “She heard him but didn’t see him?”

  “Right. Apparently the door was closed, and there was some sort of informal rule among the cast that you didn’t bother someone when they were exercising the vocal cords.”

  “When was this?”

  “She wasn’t sure. Probably sometime between two and three.”

  “How did she know it was Gerlach?” Kevin asked.

  “The way she told it to Sam is that what he was singing was from Gianni Schicchi’s role. Of course Sam had never heard of Gianni Schicchi, so he had to get her to spell it out for him. Anyway, she was sure it was Gerlach practicing his part. Which doesn’t help us very much, does it? We know he was there. Probably warmed up his voice, then went out onto the stage and crawled into that bed—where our murderer found him and strangled him.”

  “What about Carpenter, the guy who’s acted interested in Merriman? Did he show up during the afternoon?”

  “Not yesterday. At least she didn’t mention him. Do you think maybe he did and she decided not to mention it?”

  “I don’t really know her very well—or him, for that matter,” Kevin admitted. “But I’d be surprised if she’d be covering for him. If anything, she seemed to find his attention uncomfortable.”

  Carol reached over and picked up her small pile of notes on the interviews.

  “Who’d you like to hear about next?” she asked.

  “How about the people I wanted you to interview? The ones who’ve said things that make it clear they didn’t like Gerlach. That would be his former wife, the man who wanted his part—that’s Rosetti, and Conklin, the guy whose wife Gerlach had apparently had an affair with. It’ll probably turn out that none of them had a damn thing to do with his death, but it gives us a place to start.”