Death Takes the Stage (A Rose Harbor Cozy Mystery Book 2)

by Ella White

  “If you won’t come out to see me, at least come and talk to the chief.”

  Lydia was surprised that he had shown up so soon after the murder had been confirmed. She walked out to the store’s main floor to find Chief Wyatt leaning on the counter breathing heavily. She couldn’t understand why a man of his age and weight would subject himself to such a hard lifestyle. His retirement fund was quite large, she knew that much, and his wife and family were increasingly supportive of him retiring, so it was a puzzle she had yet to solve of why this aging man would not give up such a terrible job.

  “Chief Wyatt,” she said smiling. Lydia took note of the grease stain on his uniform shirt and the way his belly wobbled as he walked. She had no idea why he walked as if his skin was being pulled and stretched from behind, thus inhibiting his ability to walk.

  “Miss Lydia, nice to see you.” His smile was far from genuine, which she knew, but she couldn’t let him throw her off; she needed to know that he would handle the investigation professionally even in his old age.

  “I heard you did a good job with the boys today,” he commented sarcastically.

  “Well, yeah. Of course there is no substitute for good police work,” she responded, doing her best to keep the judgment out of her voice.

  “I just stopped by to find out if there is anything you might have gotten from the scene that you have not told us about.” Something in his voice was slightly accusatory, and Lydia had to force herself to keep from making a comment on the stains his bleeding hair dye had left on his collar.

  “I would love to help you, chief, but I told the officers everything this morning.”

  “Well, an officer saw you talking to that reporter today. You do understand that if there’s anything you have left out, you can be charged, right?”

  “I’m well aware of that,” Lydia said, gritting her teeth. “But as your officers should have told you, I gave a full statement and also assisted in the crime scene field work. As you may know from the resume I sent to the station, I am certified as a scene of crime analyst, even if you refuse to hire me.”

  Lydia could tell she hit a nerve when his eyes narrowed, but she wasn’t going to back down from him even if it meant she had to wave her red flag in front of the bull.

  “All right, you two. Play nice,” Barbara interrupted as she walked up to the counter holding two servings of pie on a platter. “Just have a bite to eat, chief. As for the matter at hand, my poor Lydia did her best today. We will just have to take care in handling the details from here on.”

  Lydia felt the childish compulsion to roll her eyes but refrained from it. She didn’t want to give the chief any other reason to oppose her abilities.

  “All I’m asking is for a bit more cooperation from your daughter.”

  “And as I’ve told you, I have told your officers everything I know,” Lydia said, trying to remain calm.

  Having reached a stalemate, they ate in silence until the chief was done and took off.

  “You have to give that man a break,” Barbara scolded her daughter while cleaning up the remnants of their snack. “You know he’s as old as time.”

  “Yeah, and so are his methods,” Lydia mumbled, finally taking a look at the items they had brought back from the scene. Their flowers were packed into buckets of cold water with their cutting tools in bags close by. She examined to see if any evidence had mistakenly made their way into her bags and went about unpacking everything. She restocked the unused flowers and began organizing the orders for the next day. In the midst of her work, Lydia looked up to see Gwen’s face peeking through her window and went over to open the door and let her in.

  “It’s about time you got here,” Lydia said.

  “Just got a chance to leave the office,” replied Gwen, undoing her scarf and shedding her coat. “What do you have for me?”

  Lydia led her to the office where she had organized all the evidence and theories into a neat storyboard.

  “Wow! You really outdid yourself,” Gwen exclaimed. Lydia blushed, trying to divert attention from herself to the board.

  “I think I want to head down to the theatre to see the play rehearsal tonight. I want to see how everyone is reacting to the recent event,” Lydia said, as she scanned the paper faces before her. “We will need to pay close attention to these two.” She pointed at pictures of Delilah and Jason Smythe. “They both had the most to gain, provided the killing was motivated by the play.”

  “My source says that the cops have been questioning this young lady,” Gwen said, motioning towards the wall. Lydia followed Gwen’s finger to a picture of a young actress with a small role.

  “Jenny Simpson,” Lydia mumbled half to herself and half to Gwen, “who most people claimed to be the last person they saw when they were leaving.

  “That’s odd. Why would she even need to be there late if her role was just to be a space saver?” asked Gwen.

  Lydia puzzled over it for a minute.

  “Did she have an alibi?”

  “Her roommate alibied her saying she got home about the time Tim had been murdered.”

  “I think that might just lessen the pool of suspects considerably,” Lydia said, rubbing her chin.

  Lydia took a few notes from everything Gwen had to share before they both left to go to the theatre. When they got there, the rehearsal had not yet begun. Lydia looked at the stage and admired the arrangements they had put together.

  “This should be interesting,” Gwen said, raising her eyebrows and taking her notepad out.

  The play began with a single monologue performed by Jason. He appeared uncomfortable playing the role, which might have been attributed to the fact that the last person to have played that role was currently dead. After that, the play continued effortlessly, as she assumed it would have. There was no indication on any of the actors’ faces that they had recently lost a member of the cast.

  “What’s the plan when this is over?” Gwen asked.

  “I think I can get us backstage to talk to the director under the guise of floral arrangements, but you’re going to need to find that Jenny girl and interview her alone.”

  Lydia and Gwen pushed their way through the crowd of actors who had gathered in the sitting area and entered the backstage area, which was quieter than she assumed it would have been. The play rehearsal was a success, and given the director’s response, she was sure the next few nights would be just as successful. Standing in the backstage area, she finally could feel the sadness amongst the crew members.

  An hour later, Lydia was ready to go. She had spent her time sitting with the director, who was more torn up about the whole situation than she had originally thought. The crowd of actors lingered a bit longer, but they all dispersed leaving Lydia with Delilah. She took special note of Jason, who looked the most unhappy, but she could not find Gwen. She got up and began searching for her friend, praying the worst had not happened. If the killer struck again, and it turned out to be her fault because of her meddling, she was not sure if she would be able to forgive herself.

  “Ready?” Gwen asked, sneaking up behind Lydia.

  “You have got to stop doing that!” Lydia cried, taking a few calming breaths. “Where have you been?”

  “I couldn’t get my hands on Jenny for more than five minutes, but I have been talking to a few of the other actors, and they all have alibis.”

  “So we can go now?” Lydia asked.

  “Yeah,” Gwen replied cheerfully.

  Lydia drove by Gwen’s house, which was only a block away from her store, and dropped her off.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow for a mystery sleuth meeting?” Gwen asked teasingly.

  “You will not call it that!” Lydia remarked.

  “I can call it whatever I want,” Gwen teased before breaking into a sprint and running up the driveway.

  By the time Lydia got home, her mother was already in bed and her cat Melvin was fast asleep on top of her comforter.

  Chapter 3

/>   Lydia took a good look at her story board as her mother handed her a cup of coffee. She had called Gwen to come over that morning to review the evidence and cast statements, since they had gathered a lot of new information the previous night on the main suspects.

  “These are the three?” her mother asked, taking a seat and studying the board.

  “Yeah, pretty interesting set isn’t it?”

  “You bet. I have a good feeling about this one,” Barbara said, rubbing her hands together. Today she wore a purple floral dress that almost trailed on the ground.

  “I’m just waiting on Gwen to get here.”

  Just as Lydia spoke, there was a chime from the front door.

  “I think that’s her,” Barbara chuckled.

  Gwen walked in and hugged them both before throwing a big folder on the table.

  “Here is all the information I was able to get on everyone without setting off any alarms.”

  Lydia took the folder and began flipping through it to see if she could identify anything out of the ordinary.

  “I know about his connections with Delilah and Jason,” Lydia said, sipping her coffee.

  “Well,” Gwen elaborated, “I know you have some of the information, but what you don’t know is that the three were constantly at odds. Delilah preferred Jason, but the board preferred to hire Tim because he was both more professional and much more popular than his understudy.”

  “Wow! That’s interesting,” exclaimed Barbara. “Maybe one of them got angry enough to murder.”

  “The things is,” Gwen continued, “everyone in the cast remembers seeing both Jason and Delilah leaving at some point, but none of them have any idea if either of them had returned at any point. A few even remembered seeing Jenny there when they were leaving. So far, she is the last seen person at the scene.”

  “Do you think they were both in on it?” Lydia asked. That scenario seemed most likely to Lydia. Here they had two people who had constantly been working together over the years with a shared dislike for each other and a young female actor with no strong roles and even less convictions.

  “Maybe they planned together to get rid of Tim so that Jason could have his role,” Gwen conjectured. Everyone sat and pondered this new theory in silence.

  “Well, it would be awfully strange of a director to kill off her main actor the night before the premiere,” Barbara said after a few minutes.

  “Strange, but not unheard of or impossible. Who knows why people kill?” Lydia chimed in.

  “Not to mention that Jason had no alibi for the night. He still remains the prime suspect,” Gwen said.

  The three ladies sat in silence again, contemplating what Lydia had just said. There was no significant reason as to why the director, after working so long and hard with the cast, would kill the main actor.

  “Then we have little miss over there,” Barbara said, interrupting the silence again. “She has nothing to lose and nothing to gain.”

  “Yeah, most of the people I spoke to last night said of all the women in the cast with small roles, she was the only one who wasn’t all over Tim,” offered Gwen.

  “That’s interesting. You think they had something going on?” Lydia asked. “It’s not unheard of for lovers to be distant in public spaces.”

  “Well, from what I heard, Tim did not mess around with the ladies. Everyone kept saying he kept to himself and formed few friendships. Even his co-star tried to get at him, but he rejected her.”

  “That must have been harsh. Are you sure she didn’t off him?” joked Lydia.

  Lydia and Barbara laughed.

  “I’m sure. A few actors said she had been in a pub with them having drinks after rehearsals.”

  “What else do we know about the girl that could lead the officers to be suspicious?” Barbara asked.

  “Well, she didn’t do too well in television roles after college, which led her to stage productions. She tried the stage once and never returned to screen acting. It says here that eighty percent of the stage performance jobs she has done were with Delilah,” Gwen recited from her notebook.

  “How lucky is she. Getting to work with one director so often must be easy,” said Barbara.

  “What do you mean?” asked Gwen.

  “Well, the thing about directors is that you never quite figure them out. You spend the entire time you’re working with them trying to understand them, but it really takes time and effort to get used to their demanding personalities,” explained Barbara, recalling her single past attempt at theatre arts. “So to work with one director for the majority of your acting career is a lucky chance.”

  They were all quiet for a while.

  “What if the two ladies got to know each other in that period of time, and Delilah convinced Jenny to kill for her?” Gwen asked.

  “It still would not explain why the director would want to kill her star actor the week before the play,” responded Lydia.

  Just then, the bell rang over the doorway, signaling that someone had come in. Since they had thirty minutes until opening time, Lydia assumed it was Charles, her assistant manager. Without knocking he swung the office door open and walked in balancing a box of doughnuts and some chocolate in his hands. His curly brown hair had grown out making his looks more boyish than ruggedly handsome.

  “Uh, I thought…” he stuttered.

  “Oh wow, you got us chocolate!” Gwen cooed.

  “Well… uh... Yeah, I guess.”

  Lydia tried her best not to laugh, but she was pretty sure that the chocolates were not meant for everyone.

  “Thanks for the chocolates,” Lydia interrupted, trying to spare him. “I’ll be out in just a moment.”

  “I… uh, I’ll be waiting,” Charles sputtered before awkwardly leaving the same way he came.

  Not a second after the door shut, Lydia locked eyes with Gwen and they both laughed.

  “That boy has got it bad for you,” Gwen said between giggling fits.

  “I don’t know what you mean. Charles is just a sweetheart,” Lydia retorted, feeling heat rush to her cheeks.

  “If only you weren’t so blind,” Barbara said, getting up and heading to the door. “I better get outside to help the poor thing recover.”

  Lydia waited until her mother was gone before she turned to Gwen.

  “If it was up to her, she would have married me off to Charles the moment we hired him.”

  Gwen’s bright laughter rang throughout in the small office space, causing Lydia to smile. She could always count on Gwen to laugh at her distress.

  “I guess I should be heading to the office now,” Gwen sighed. “I think I have some leads I can run down on Delilah and Jason through some journalist friends. I met a few members of the cast last night, and as it turns out, I already know a bunch of them, so I’ll get to calling them from my office to see what else they can tell me.”

  Lydia began stacking the papers on her desk to clear the clutter for her work day.

  “I think I might stop by the theatre today to talk with Delilah again. Maybe I can even go over to the station to get something out of the chief,” Lydia said playfully.

  “Well, we can hope.”

  They shared a comical look of mutual exasperation before Gwen walked through the door. The next few minutes Lydia spent going over all the information she had compiled on the three suspects in hopes of finding new clues. She gave up after fifteen minutes, giving in to exhaustion. She walked out of her office into the store where her mother was chatting away excitedly on the phone with who Lydia presumed to be a client. She passed her and went into the main area where they did the arrangements to find Charles hard at work.

  “Hey, Charles,” she said, trying to be as quiet as she could, lest her mother think she was accepting a proposal.

  “Oh, hi,” he said while craftily cutting a flower stem. “I’m sorry about this morning. I was a bit caught off guard.”

  “That’s all right. It was Gwen’s fault.”

  “I
want to go down to the theatre to check a few things out. You think you’ll be all right here by yourself?”

  “Oh yeah. I just have a few arrangements to finish and deliver. Your mom said she would get the wedding arrangements started so that by tomorrow we can finish them up and put them in the freezer.”

  “Thanks, Charles. You are a gem.”

  Lydia leaned over and planted a kiss on his cheek. She was grateful for him and all the work he did at the store, but she never really thought she had much in common with him.

  “Anything for you,” he whispered under his breath as she walked away.

  She headed to the counter where he mother had finally ended her conversation and had begun working on the origami that was to go with the wedding arrangement.

  “I’m heading to the theatre to talk to the director now, Mom. I’ll pick Gwen up and see if she wants to use her lunch break to do a bit of sleuthing with me, so I won’t be back before the afternoon.”

  “You be careful now. There’s still a killer on the loose, so don’t get too comfortable.”

  “I’ll be safe, Mom,” Lydia promised, leaning over the counter and kissing her mother’s cheek. “You worry too much.”

  Chapter 4

  “So, how has everyone been taking it?” Lydia asked Delilah while taking a sip of yet another cup of coffee.

  “It’s been tough. Most people are torn up, you know. Not many of them have been this close to death before. They have no idea why he was killed or if any one of them might be next.”

  Lydia considered what she had said. There was a real possibility that whoever killed Tim might be after other members of the cast.

  “That should be unnerving. It’s a wonder it doesn’t show in their acting,” Lydia remarked, feeling a bit more sympathetic towards the innocent members of the cast.

  “Well, they are professional actors. They know or at least should know how to switch it up.”

  “Yes, they are actors,” Lydia said haltingly, considering if Delilah herself might be capable of a greater deception than she had originally thought.

  “What can you tell me about the last play you were in with Tim?”