Wild Raspberry Murder: A Donut Hole Cozy Mystery - Book 53

by Susan Gillard

  “It was mine, though he told everyone it was his. He told them that he needed to start earning some more income. He didn’t want to be a starving artist anymore.”

  “What was the real reason?” asked Heather.

  “There was too much drama!” Raymond said.

  “Okay,” Amy said. “Is that bad acting or…?”

  “It was backstage drama. Vinny was a heartbreaker. And it was distracting to my rehearsal process,” Raymond said.

  “A heartbreaker? Whose heart did he break?” Heather asked.

  “All the ladies in the cast,” he said.

  “All of them?”

  “Well, all the ladies under forty,” Raymond clarified. “He never dated Tracy Trigger or Edna Waterbaulm.”

  Heather tried to place the names he was saying and then asked, “Do you have another program from last night?”

  “Of course,” Raymond said, offering them all one. Heather flipped through the cast list to place the real names with the characters she had seen on stage the night before.

  “Edna Waterbaulm played the maid,” Heather said. “She was the older actress with the cane.”

  “And Tracy Trigger played Maisy Mulligan,” said Ryan. “The detective character.”

  “Yup,” said Raymond. “Those two actresses didn’t date Vinny, but every other young lady did.”

  “You’re saying all three actresses who played the sisters dated the victim?”

  “Well, dated and broke up and reunited and hated and loved and caused a major distraction during my rehearsal,” Raymond said.

  “You seem to have some issues with Vinny Unger and your rehearsals,” Heather pointed out.

  “Oh, I did find it so bothersome. I suppose now it doesn’t matter. I never wanted any harm to befall that young man,” Raymond said.

  “Can you account for all your time during the show?” Ryan asked.

  “It’s a small cast and crew,” Raymond said. “I was working the lights as well as directing. Do you think I had something to do with this crime?”

  “We have to ask everybody,” Ryan said. “The murder did happen close by and took place during the show.”

  “Well, I couldn’t have left the theater to commit such a heinous act,” Raymond said. “You would have noticed if the lighting was late or wrong. That’s the thing about lighting. People don’t really appreciate it when it works correctly on stage. Then things just look nice. But when something goes wrong, then it’s all an audience can focus on.”

  “Speaking of the show, did anything go wrong?” Heather asked. “Or not according to plan?”

  “Because you think one of my cast members is a murderer?”

  “Do you think one of them could be?” asked Heather.

  “Well,” Raymond said slowly. “They are good actors.”

  The three investigators exchanged a look. They might have their work cut out for them in their interviews.

  “Did one of them have an opportunity to sneak outside during the show?”

  “I don’t know. I was working the lights all evening. I wasn’t backstage.” He thought about it. “But now that you mention it, there were a few things that went wrong.”

  Heather nodded as she remembered something. “The actress playing Emily wasn’t supposed to enter from behind the audience as she died, was she?”

  “No,” Raymond said. “We had staged all our entrances and exits to come through the door so that we wouldn’t interfere with the food.”

  “Why do you think she did that?” Heather asked.

  “I don’t know,” Raymond said. “I assumed she had a costume issue with the bloodstains and had to enter through the back to make her cue.”

  “We’ll ask her about it,” Ryan said.

  “Was there anything else that went wrong?” Heather asked.

  “Not a big deal exactly. But a prop was misplaced.”

  “Which prop was that?”

  “You might remember the scene when the middle Middlewick sister is so hurt and impassioned after she discovers her love is dishonest? She takes a knife and stabs a love note that he gave her.”

  The trio nodded as they remembered the scene.

  “I remember it,” Amy said. “She used the same dinner knives that we were using.”

  “She wasn’t supposed to use that knife,” Raymond said. “The prop one that she was supposed to use went missing.”

  “When you say “prop knife,” do you mean a fake knife that actors use to pretend to cut things?” Heather asked.

  “In this instance, no,” Raymond said. “She needed to really stab that letter, so it was a real blade. We had kept a good eye on it. I’m not sure when it went missing. I thought it was in the desk before we began the show that night. But Cadence noticed it was missing during the show. She took a knife from the kitchen so that she could complete her scene.”

  “You’re telling us that a knife went missing from the theater?”

  “Yes. It was the perfect prop for the scene. It was a beautiful knife with an ornate ivory-like handle. Unfortunately, it’s missing.”

  “No,” Heather said. “I think we found it.”

  Chapter 10

  “You’re telling me that the prop from the show is what killed poor Vinny?” Raymond asked.

  “Based on the description, we think so,” said Heather.

  “I’d like to show you some photos later,” Ryan said. “So you can make a positive identification.”

  “I can’t believe this,” Raymond said. “If it was someone who took the knife from the stage, then that means it had to be one of my cast members.”

  “We’ll be speaking to all of them today,” Ryan said.

  “I can’t believe I was typecasting the show when I chose a murder mystery,” Raymond said. “I thought it would be fun. I didn’t think it would encourage anyone to kill a former company member.”

  “The show you chose isn’t responsible for the murderer’s actions,” Heather said. “Only the killer is responsible for what he did.”

  “I’ve thought about death so often,” Raymond said. “Your mortality is often a theme of great art. And yet I never considered a death like this. He was so young. He probably made no plans for his death. Myself, I have made plans. I wish to donate my skeleton to the theater. May I play Yorick often and with many encores.”

  “Yorick?” Amy asked.

  “The skull from Hamlet,” said Heather.

  “Oh, the “alas, I knew him well” guy,” Amy said.

  “I don’t think Vinny would have had such plans,” said Raymond. “Who could have ended his life so suddenly?”

  It was then that Tracy Trigger made a grand entrance. She slammed the door open with great ado.

  “Is it true what I’ve heard?” She asked.

  Out of her Maisy Mulligan costume, Tracy Trigger was still quite a character. She put a hand to her head as she looked around the room. She was a little older than Heather and had wavy locks of dark hair. It was no longer piled up in a Victorian bun on her head but flowed around wildly.

  She suddenly marched into the center of the room and demanded an answer.

  “Was there a murder?” She asked.

  “Yes, there was,” said Ryan. “We’re investigating it now. The death of Vinny Unger.”

  “The young man who used to be a part of our company until he decided to drive cars for money?” Tracy asked.

  “That’s what I was just telling them,” Raymond said.

  “This is all too shocking,” Tracy said.

  Heather wanted to point out that she was the one who had barged into the room and asked these “shocking” questions herself, but she held her tongue.

  “And I can’t believe that nobody came to talk to me,” Tracy continued.

  “We were going to talk to everyone in the cast,” Ryan.

  “Of course,” Tracy said. “But you should have spoken to me first. Obviously.”

  “Do you have information about Vinny Unger’s deat
h?” Heather asked.

  “Not yet,” Tracy said. “But I will. That’s why you should have come to me.”

  “I’m not following,” Heather said.

  “It’s a bad script,” Amy muttered.

  “I’m the detective in the show,” Tracy said with a flourish.

  “Yes,” Ryan said. “And we were going to talk to all the actors in the show.”

  “No. I’m the detective. Don’t you see what this means?” Tracy asked to the group who had no idea what she meant. “I’m supposed to solve this crime.”

  “Thank you for your enthusiasm,” Ryan said. “But the Hillside Police are on this case. And I already have some licensed private investigators who are willing to assist. I’m afraid your help isn’t necessary other than to answer some questions about the night of the death.”

  “How can you say that?” Tracy said. “I’m playing a detective in a show, and then a man who used to be an actor is murdered. How can it not be fate? I am supposed to find this killer.”

  “Maybe you can help us,” Heather said. “We need to know if anyone slipped away during the show last night.”

  “Slipped away? To commit the murderous deed?” Tracy said. She thought about it. “There was a moment where I thought Cadence would help me with a costume change and she didn’t. It’s possible she was away then.”

  Amy made sure to make a note of this. She consulted the program too. Cadence played the middle Middlewick sister in the show.

  “I’m afraid I was onstage for most of the rest of the show. I couldn’t tell what was going on backstage when I was onstage,” she said.

  “Do you know anyone who had a motive to hurt Vinny Unger?” Heather asked.

  “Not really,” Tracy said. “He was well liked when we all worked together on our last play.

  “Too well liked,” Raymond said.

  “Oh, flings were flung,” Tracy said. “But you don’t really think those silly things would lead to murder, do you?”

  “I don’t know what to believe anymore,” Raymond said. “I cast a murderer.”

  “Miss Trigger,” Ryan began.

  “Is Trigger your real last name?” Amy interrupted.

  “I’ve taken it on,” Tracy said. “Isn’t it a great stage name. Especially for someone who performs in murder mysteries? Especially for someone who is about to solve a real live murder mystery?”

  “As I already said, the best thing you can do to help solve this case is to let the professionals do their job,” Ryan said.

  “Tracy Trigger was born to solve this crime,” she said. “You can’t get in the way of destiny.”

  “Your destiny might be getting in the way of our catching a murderer.”

  “I see that there is nothing I can say to change your mind,” Tracy said, and with that, she began to make her exit.

  “Where are you going?” Heather asked.

  “Why to get my magnifying glass, of course,” Tracy said.

  Heather, Amy, and Ryan exchanged a look. It looked like this case was about to become a good deal more difficult.

  Chapter 11

  Heather and Amy stood outside the actress Cadence Henry’s door. They had split up in interviews according to gender lines. Ryan and Hoskins were interviewing the male actors in the cast, which included the actors portraying the father, the three young beaus and the neighbor who turned out to be the killer. Heather and Amy would be interviewing the actresses who played the sisters.

  They had already talked to Edna Waterbaulm. She was a kind older actress who was not able to offer much help in regards to the case. She needed her cane to support her, and Heather didn’t think it would have been physically possible for the woman to have stabbed anyone. She also didn’t wear her glasses during the show because she didn’t think it “fit her character” so she wasn’t quite sure who was where backstage.

  Heather and Amy hoped they would have more luck getting information out of Cadence. However, when the door was opened for them, they became less optimistic.

  “Hello?” Cadence wailed. She was dressed all in black and mascara ran down her face.

  “Hello. I’m Heather Shepherd, and this is Amy Givens. We’re private investigators working with the Hillside Police to investigate a murder. Do you mind if we ask you some questions?”

  Cadence cried some more, and all that Heather could make out was “murder,” “questions” and something that sounded like “hot dog.” However, she opened the wider for them and waited for them to follow her inside.

  “I’m sorry to display my emotion so openly,” Cadence said. “As an actress, I am in touch with my feelings. As a human, I am devastated by this murder.”

  “So, you knew Vinny Unger?” Heather asked.

  “Intimately,” Cadence said before fresh tears flowed down her face.

  Heather looked for a box of tissues and handed them over to the crying actress. Amy decided to hide behind the tablet and take notes during the interview rather than deal with the tears.

  “You were dating?” Heather prompted.

  “We were in love,” Cadence said, pushing her red hair away from her face. “Madly in love.”

  “We heard that he was a bit of a ladies’ man,” Heather said.

  “Not anymore,” Cadence said. “He dated other people in the cast and couldn’t find happiness. Then he found me. He no longer needed to wander. He loved me.”

  “How did the other cast members feel about this?” Heather asked.

  “Do you think one of them killed him?”

  “We just want to know more about the cast,” Heather said. “We need to look into every possibility.”

  “I guess Rhonda and Deb might have been a bit upset that Vinny was so happy with me. Rhonda would give me dirty looks every so often. And Deb looked like she wanted to fade into the wall.”

  “Did Vinny say anything about them recently?” Heather asked.

  “Only that I was a more talented actress,” Cadence shrugged.

  Heather switched gears. “Did you leave the theater at all last night during the show? Maybe just to get some air?”

  “No,” Cadence said. “I was in the middle of a show. I wouldn’t have left.”

  “Tracy Trigger said that you were going to help her with a costume change but weren’t around when the time came.”

  Cadence groaned angrily. For a moment, all the tears and sorrow dissolved in annoyance. “She said that?”

  Heather nodded.

  “That is so like her. She is such a diva. We went back and forth about whether she needed that stupid costume change and whether she needed help or not. She told me she didn’t need help. Now she’s trying to throw me under the bus? She’s a hack and a mean one.”

  Heather didn’t want her tirade to continue, so she changed subjects. As she did Cadence instantly became the grieving girlfriend again.

  “Did you notice if anyone else left the theater?”

  “I didn’t notice,” Cadence said. “I was so focused on my character and the show. Perhaps I should have been focused on Vinny.”

  “You played the middle Middlewick sister, right?” Heather asked.

  “I did. Did you see the show? Did you enjoy it? What did you think of my performance? Tracy thought I overdid it while stabbing the note, but I thought it felt natural. What did you think?” Cadence asked before sniffling and raising a tissue to her face again.

  “It was a great show, and you were great,” Heather assured her. “But we would like to know more about that scene when you stabbed the note. What happened to the knife?”

  “That was something strange,” Cadence admitted. “When I first arrived at the theater for call, about an hour before the show starts, I checked all my props. The knife was in the desk drawer. Then while we were performing there is a moment where my character opens the drawer while looking for a letter. That’s when I noticed that the knife was missing. I had to borrow one from the kitchen in order to do my scene.”

  “Do you have an
y idea who took the knife?” Heather asked.

  “Anyone at the theater could have,” Cadence said. “But, why would they?”

  Cadence excused herself to fix up her makeup, and this allowed Heather and Amy a moment to talk.

  “It does sound as if everyone in the cast had a chance to grab the murder weapon,” Amy said.