Coached in the Act

by Victoria Laurie

  “Oh, my,” I said. “Did you cut yourself?”

  He stared at me with those big bug eyes and furrowed brow, so I pointed to his hand.

  The man looked down and quickly covered his injured appendage with his other hand. “It’s fine!”

  I bit my lip, concerned for him, but also fearful of making him even more agitated. “All right,” I said gently. “Would you like me to get you a coffee or a bottled water?”

  The elder gentleman was quivering and pale, and I was fearful he was having some sort of episode.

  “No,” he said, again glancing back toward the door. “I just need to get to the men’s room.”

  It was my turn to look over my shoulder, where a sign above a dark hallway said RESTROOMS.

  Pointing to the sign, I said, “I believe it’s that way.”

  He gave a sort of half-hearted nod, glanced back behind him one last time, then headed toward the men’s room.

  I hoped he’d be okay and vowed to ask him to sit a spell with me so I could assess if he needed some kind of medical assistance. He’d been awfully pale, and I’d noted that his whole body had seemed to be trembling. I worried that he could be having either a heart attack or a stroke.

  After getting up from my seat, I approached the counter to get another bottle of water which I intended to offer to the gentleman when he came out of the men’s room, but the store’s barista was nowhere to be found. Leaning over the counter, I could hear some rustling behind a curtain leading to what was likely the stockroom. At last, the curtain parted, and out came the young man who’d waited on me, carrying an armload of coffee cups in all three sizes.

  “Did you need something?” he asked when he paused to set down the cups on the counter.

  “A bottled water when you get a moment,” I said, fishing out a five-dollar bill from my purse.

  The barista got the water, took my five, and gave me change. I went back to the table and waited for the stranger to come out, but minutes ticked by, and he didn’t appear.

  I bit my lip again, anxious to know if he was all right, and after another five minutes had passed, I approached the counter again and got the barista’s attention.

  “Excuse me,” I said. The young man turned around from where he was wiping down the espresso machine to raise a brow in question. “A gentleman came into the shop about fifteen minutes ago and headed to the men’s room. He hasn’t come out yet, and when he went in, he looked unwell. Would you mind checking on him to see if he’s all right?”

  The barista blanched, and I could tell that, after hearing an older gentleman had been in the men’s room for fifteen minutes, that was likely the last thing he wanted to do. “Aw, man,” he said. “I hope he didn’t get sick in there. I just cleaned it.”

  I nodded, even though it irritated me to hear the young man complain when I’d just expressed concern over a patron in the restroom. Still, he moved from behind the counter and headed toward the hallway leading to the restrooms.

  I went back to my seat but turned so I could see one or both of them come out.

  The barista appeared again and approached me. “There’s no one in there,” he said.

  I blinked in surprise. “There isn’t?”

  “No, it’s empty.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes, ma’am. No one’s in there.”

  “All right. Thank you for checking,” I said.

  Once the barista was back behind the counter and busy with his side work again, I slipped from the seat and quietly made my way to the hallway leading to the restrooms. It wasn’t well lit, but I easily found the men’s room door, first on the left. After pushing it open, I peeked inside. A vacant row of urinals and two empty stalls with the doors open showed me clearly that the barista was right. And there was no window through which the stranger could’ve climbed out of, either—not that he would’ve, but still the thought did cross my mind.

  After backing out of the men’s room, I made my way a bit farther down the hall to the ladies’ room and pushed that door open as well.

  Four empty stalls and two vacant sinks were all that were in there. While backing out of the ladies’ room, I glanced a bit farther down the hallway, and there I saw a door marked with a faded EXIT sign.

  I walked to the door, checked it for any OPEN ONLY IN AN EMERGENCY signs—there were none—and pushed it open, revealing a darkened alley.

  A shudder went through me as I looked up and down the alleyway. It was creepy back here, but there was no sign of anyone either coming or going.

  Logically, I knew that the elderly man had either bypassed the men’s room and exited out the back or had used the facilities and exited out the back without my seeing him go. My back had been to the hallway leading to this exit, so it wasn’t surprising that I hadn’t seen him leave.

  Still, something really bothered me about the entire interaction. He’d seemed to be in such a heightened state of anxiety, and when I’d looked into his eyes, there’d been the unmistakable note of fear there.

  With a shudder, I closed the door and decided there was nothing more I could do for the poor man. I had no idea who he was or where he’d gone, so worrying over him was an effort in futility.

  Yet, as I made my way back toward my seat, I couldn’t help but worry over him. It was an unsettling encounter all around.

  When I came out from the hallway, I was surprised to see a bustle of energy toward the front door. Patrons were streaming in and buzzing loudly with conversation. All were well dressed— clearly the theater crowd—but one glance at my phone to check the time told me that Yelena was only about thirty minutes into her second act.

  “What the devil . . . ?” I muttered after I reached my chair. Just then I saw someone waving out of the corner of my eye.

  I glanced toward the motion and saw Gilley pushing his way through the crowd over to me, his face flush with excitement. “Cat!” he began.

  “What’s happened?”

  “Yelena’s dead!”

  I gripped the top of my chair to steady myself from the shock of that announcement. “Dead? What do you mean, she’s dead?”

  “She’s been murdered!” Gil shouted above the din of the crowd.

  “Murdered?” I repeated. “How is that possible?”

  “She was stabbed backstage during intermission!” Gilley exclaimed, still clearly excited by this turn of events. “Someone murdered her, then fled the scene!”

  I stared at him with big wide eyes before looking over my shoulder toward the hallway leading to the exit. “Oh, my God,” I said, focusing on Gilley again. “I think I just met the murderer!”

  Chapter 4

  “What?” Gilley shrieked. Several people nearby glanced our way.

  I grabbed up my belongings from the table and took Gilley by the hand, and then we weaved our way through the crowd to the exit and outside. I walked with him a little way down the street until we were sufficiently out of earshot.

  “Tell me everything you know,” I instructed him.

  “Hold on,” he said, his hands finding his hips in a defiant posture. “Tell me what you meant by ‘I think I just met the murderer!’”

  I clenched my teeth, impatient to hear the details of what’d happened at the theater. “I will, but you tell me what you know first.”

  Gilley scowled at me, but he complied. “Right after the audience was seated for the second act, there was some kind of commotion that we could hear coming from backstage. After another lengthy pause, a guy showed up onstage and told us to sit tight because there’d been an incident and the police were on their way.

  “One or two people got up and tried to leave the theater, but they were stopped by the ushers. It was all really unnerving until your main squeeze appeared onstage and told us that the star of the show had been violently attacked and that the police would need to get everyone’s name and phone number before they’d be allowed to leave.”

  “He said she’d been attacked? How do you know she w
as actually murdered?”

  “Shepherd spotted me, front row, center, and called me up onstage. He gave me the skinny, or as much as he knew, and then he asked where you were, and told me to come find you and take you home—immediately, as he put it.”

  “Why the rush to get me home?” I asked.

  Gilley shifted on his feet. “Um, mind you, these are his sentiments and not mine, but he said that he wanted me to take you home immediately because right now there’s a killer on the loose, and when trouble comes to town, you’re usually at the center.”

  I scowled. “That’s not true.”

  Gilley gave me a doubtful look. “This coming from the woman who just said to me that she thought she met the murderer.”

  I growled. “Fine. I just hate it when he’s right.”

  “Me too,” Gilley said, but I could tell he was still mocking me a little. “Now, come on, fess up. What makes you believe you’ve already met the killer?”

  I explained my strange encounter with the gentleman at the coffee shop, and Gilley’s eyes bugged wide. “Wow. He actually had blood on his hands?”

  “Hand. Just the one, but truly, Gilley, the more I think about it, the more it could’ve been quite innocent. I mean, he was fairly short and somewhat frail to be a killer, now that I think about it. Maybe he cut himself and didn’t realize it until I pointed it out to him.”

  “How much blood was there?”

  I bit my lip. His hand and nail beds had been smeared with it. “Quite a bit, actually.”

  “Whoa,” Gilley said. “And you say that he kept looking back over his shoulder? Like he was nervous about being caught for the crime?”

  “Well, I didn’t say that, but yes, he did seem preoccupied with who might be coming through the door at any moment. And he did slip out the back door into an empty alley, which probably was so that he wouldn’t be seen or further questioned by me.”

  “Cat, I think you have to tell Shepherd about this.”

  “But what if I’m wrong, Gilley? What if this man was just having some sort of medical episode and is innocent of any crime?”

  “What if he wasn’t, though?” Gilley replied. “I mean that truthfully, Cat. What if he really is the killer?”

  I sighed heavily, feeling the weight of the responsibility to report what I’d seen to Shepherd, but concerned that I might spark unwarranted suspicion of an innocent man.

  “Listen,” Gilley said, obviously sensing my indecision. “If this guy with blood on his hand who was acting all suspicious had nothing to do with Yelena’s murder, then Shepherd can clear him quickly and move on to another possible suspect.”

  I weighed the argument out in my head one more time, then said, “Okay, Gil. Let’s go find Shep.”

  Gilley glanced across the street, where the crowd was still snaking its way out of the theater’s exits. “Good luck getting through that,” he said.

  After taking out my phone, I placed the call to Shepherd. It rang twice and went to voice mail. “He’s not picking up,” I said while the outgoing voice-mail message played.

  “He’s probably really busy working the case. Text him that you need to talk and it’s urgent.”

  I hung up the call and texted Shepherd, then set the phone in my open palm so that Gilley and I could watch the screen for any telltale bubbles with his response. We waited at least two minutes in silence, and nothing but a “delivered” notification indicated that my text had gotten to Shepherd.

  “Jeez, what’s taking so long?” Gilley whined.

  “He’s probably ignoring his phone.”

  Gilley again looked across the street. “The crowd’s starting to thin out. Should we head over and try to find him?”

  “Yes,” I said and took up Gilley’s hand again to cross the street, now determined to tell Shepherd what I’d seen.

  Gilley and I checked for traffic before trotting across the street to the theater, which was now blocked off by yellow crime-scene tape and at least half a dozen EHPD officers, who were keeping onlookers at bay.

  I led us straight to a female officer, smiling as I neared her. “Officer Labretta,” I said, recognizing her from the station.

  “Catherine Cooper,” she replied coolly. “What’re you doing here?”

  I pointed to the theater. “Gilley and I caught the first act, and I may have seen something suspicious at the coffee shop down the street during intermission that Shepherd would want to know. Can you ask him to come out here and meet us? Just for a minute?”

  “You saw something?” she asked. “You mean, related to the homicide?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “Either way, it was pretty suspicious.”

  Labretta nodded and raised her radio, then turned slightly away to speak into it. I tried to make out what was said, but a lot of it was in police code and somewhat garbled.

  Turning back to me, she put away her radio and said, “He’ll be right out.”

  Sure enough, Shepherd appeared a few minutes later. He looked stressed and not exactly pleased to see me. “I’m working,” he said quietly when he got to us. “So, if this some sort of a social visit . . .”

  Gilley sucked in a breath, and I raised my brow and scoffed at Shepherd. “You’re kidding me, right?” I snapped. “Do you really think I’d interrupt a homicide investigation simply to say, ‘Howdy-high-ho!’ to my boyfriend?”

  Shepherd winced. “Sorry,” he said. “That crime scene has me on edge. I didn’t mean to take it out on you.”

  But I was still a little miffed. I’d come over here with the sincerest of intentions, and it hurt my feelings that Shepherd would think me so self-involved. “Whatever,” I said moodily.

  Shepherd rubbed his face with his hand. It seemed like he was frustrated that I was still miffed. With a sigh, he said, “How about you tell me why you called me out here?”

  “I saw something that looked very suspicious,” I said curtly.

  “Suspicious?”

  “Yes.”

  “Suspicious how?”

  I pointed to the coffee shop a block down the street. “I was sitting at Thanks a Latte, waiting for Gilley to finish up watching the second act of Yelena’s show, when a disheveled man, who appeared to be upset, came into the shop, stumbled at my table, then dashed into the men’s room before heading out the back door before I could question him further.”

  Shepherd blinked at me, then rubbed his face with his hand. “That’s it?” he said. “Cat, are you kidding me with this?”

  Again, I was taken aback by his tone, and my defenses went up. Crossing my arms, I adopted a clipped and curt tone. “Yeah, Detective, that’s exactly what I’m doing. Kidding you. A woman was brutally murdered this evening, and I couldn’t wait to prank you about it!”

  “Cat?” Gilley said next to me.

  “What?” I growled. I was in no mood for Gilley to take Shepherd’s side.

  Gilley cleared his throat. “Um . . . you forgot to mention the man had blood on his hand.”

  Shepherd had been wearing a scowl since I snapped at him, but his brow lifted the minute Gilley offered up that additional clue.

  “Wait a second, Cat, you saw blood on his hands? How much blood?”

  “His left hand was smeared with it. When I initially noticed it, I thought he’d injured himself.”

  “Was it dried blood?”

  “No,” I said, making a face. “It seemed to be . . . fresh.”

  “And he went into the restroom?” he said, glancing down the street toward Thanks a Latte, which now had a line out the door.

  I turned to look too. “Yes,” I said, gulping a little.

  “Damn,” he swore through gritted teeth before looking to his left at Officer Labretta. Shepherd whistled loudly to get her attention, and she hurried over. Pointing to the coffee shop, he barked, “That’s a possible crime scene. Take Winnacker, get those people out of there, and secure that entire area.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said and ran to get another officer just down from whe
re she’d been standing.

  Shepherd again rubbed his face, and I could see the strain of such an unruly crime scene, one spreading out to two separate locations, with literally hundreds of possible suspects, was beginning to take a toll on him.

  Still, he flipped out a little notebook he carried and a pen and asked, “Give me a description of this guy, in as much detail as you can remember.”

  I spent a few moments with my eyes closed, recalling every detail of the man in my memory, and described him as well as I was able to.

  “You’re sure he was only about five feet six or seven?” he asked me when I’d finished.

  “Yes,” I said. “He was right around Gilley’s height.” For emphasis, I looked at Gilley, who was trying to stand as straight and tall as he could in an effort to squeeze a little more height out of himself.

  “I’ll have you know that I’m only an inch under the average,” he said.

  Shepherd ignored him and kept his focus on me. “And you used the word frail. Did you mean thin?”

  “Yes,” I said. “There wasn’t much to him. Just a little old man in an oversized raincoat.”

  “Did the coat have any blood on it?”

  “No,” I said.

  Shepherd snapped the cover of his notebook shut. “None of that fits with what I’ve seen of the actual crime scene, Cat.”

  “No?”

  He shook his head. “Yelena was stabbed repeatedly and in quick succession. At least six times, by my count. Believe me when I tell you that that kind of attack takes some brute strength. It also would’ve left more of a mark on the killer. No way did he leave the scene without a lot of blood on his clothing.”

  “Could the raincoat have been covering up his clothes?” Gilley asked. We both turned to look at him. “Maybe he grabbed the raincoat from somewhere to cover up the blood on his clothing.”

  I thought back to the stranger stumbling into the table, and for the life of me, I couldn’t remember if the raincoat had been buttoned at the chest or not. It seemed like it should be an easy thing to remember, but all I could see in my mind was the man’s extremely stressful expression and the bloody hand.

  Finally, I shook my head. “I don’t know, guys. I’m sorry, but I don’t know if his clothing underneath the raincoat was bloody.”