Junior barked, “All of y’all step back, and nobody touch anything!” We obeyed, and I looked away from Seth’s body. Mrs. Gamp had started sobbing, and I pulled her away, then let her hold on to me while she continued to cry. More members of the cast and crew came down the hall toward us, but Richard waved them away. I don’t know if they realized how serious it was or if they were afraid of another one of Richard’s tantrums, but they moved back without questioning him.
Junior reached into her pocket, pulled out a cell phone, and dialed. “Hey, Mark. I’ve got something for you.”
At first I was surprised Junior would hand over a murder to her deputy, but then I remembered that she was on vacation. Even though Junior was there on the scene, investigating Seth’s death was going to be Mark Pope’s job, not hers.
“You’ve got yourself a situation at the recreation center,” Junior was saying. “The fatal kind. You know we’re rehearsing a play down here? One of our actors got himself killed… . Seth Murdstone … Of course, the scene is secured … I am going to let you handle it… . Yes, I touched something—how do you think I knew he was dead?” Junior’s sigh was loud enough for Mark to hear it. “I’ll be here when you get here.” Junior broke the connection and put the phone back in her pocket.
The people down the hall started asking questions, and I realized that Junior, Mrs. Gamp, Richard, and I were blocking their view of Seth’s body. “Richard, we can’t let David and Jake see their father like this,” I whispered. Both of Seth’s sons were in the play.
“We’re not going to let anybody see him like this,” Junior said firmly. “Not yet, anyway.” In a louder voice, she called out, “People, we’ve had an accident.”
My Aunt Maggie yelled back, “What kind of accident? Who is it?”
Junior ignored the questions. “Help is on the way, so y’all can go on back to the auditorium.” She added, “Richard, take Laurie Anne and Mrs. Gamp out, too, and make sure nobody leaves before Mark gets here.”
“What do we tell them?” I asked.
“Exactly what I just said, and not one word more.”
“They’re going to figure out that Seth is missing,” I pointed out.
“Probably, but it’ll take them a while. Mark should be here by then, and he can worry about it.”
Mrs. Gamp still had her head buried on my shoulder, and as I was wondering how I was going to extricate her, Junior said, “Mrs. Gamp, I sure would appreciate you looking after my sisters’ children for me.”
Once she had a job to do, Mrs. Gamp promptly dried her eyes, and said, “Don’t you worry. Mrs. Harris and I will take care of them.” She started marching down the hall, fluttering her hands to herd people in front of her. Richard followed, holding himself as wide as he could to block as much of the line of sight as possible.
I stayed long enough to look around. The wall of the hall was lined with shiny off-white tiles up to eye level, and then with beige-painted concrete blocks the rest of the way to the ceiling. The flat ceiling was painted a darker color and punctuated with ceiling fixtures. There were no new marks on the walls or elsewhere on the well-scuffed linoleum floor, and other than Seth’s body, there was nothing in the hall but Junior and me.
“Junior, how did Seth hit his head?”
“You tell me.”
“Maybe he slipped and ran into …” I looked around, but there was nothing he could have run into. “Maybe he hit the floor … or the wall.”
“Look at the shape of that knot on his head. He didn’t get that from a flat surface. I’m guessing it was something long and not too wide.”
“But there’s nothing like that in here.”
“That’s right. So unless whatever it was he hit himself on walked away afterward …”
“Then somebody killed him,” I finished for her.
“That’s what I’m thinking.”
“But who?” I knew that nice people get murdered as often as nasty ones, but I couldn’t imagine why anybody would have wanted Seth Murdstone dead. “Did the killer come in that way?” I asked, nodding at the door to the back parking lot. The smokers had been going out that way for cigarette breaks.
“Whoever it was had to have come through one of these doors,” she said neutrally. “It’s too soon to say which one.”
I’d really wanted her to say that the killer must have come from outside, meaning that it wasn’t somebody involved in the play.
“Laurie Anne, are you all right?” Junior asked.
“This isn’t my first dead body,” I reminded her.
“I know, but you’ve never been pregnant before. Mark will never let me hear the end of it if I let you get sick all over his crime scene.”
“I’ll have you know that I quit having morning sickness months ago.
“In that case, do me a favor and wait outside for Mark to get here, and send him in my direction.”
“All right.” Despite what I’d said to Junior, I was just as glad to get away from Seth’s body.
Richard had everybody out of the hall by then, and I had to tap on the door at the end to get him out of the way so I could get through.
“Junior wants me to go meet Mark,” I whispered to him.
“I’ll hold the fort here.” He leaned down to give me a quick peck on the cheek. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” I said firmly.
My great-aunt pounced on me then. Nobody is quite sure how old Aunt Maggie is. Her hair had been salt-and-pepper for as long as I could remember, though maybe there was a bit more salt than there used to be. I didn’t know how Vasti had talked her into supplying props for the play, since she wasn’t known for her willingness to volunteer or for her Christmas spirit. Her sweatshirt said, “BAH! HUMBUG!” in bright green letters, and she’d owned it long before she started working on the play.
She said, “Laurie Anne, what in the Sam Hill is going on? I heard Sarah Gamp scream like she’d seen a ghost, but all she’ll say is that I shouldn’t frighten the children.”
I might have been tempted to tell Aunt Maggie the truth, just to ensure family peace, but there were too many people listening in. The entire cast and crew were clustered in the auditorium, and I could see Florence looking around as if trying to decide who was missing.
“There’s been an accident,” I said, going toward the door to the parking lot. “Just like Junior said.”
“What kind of accident?” Aunt Maggie asked, walking along beside me.
“Help is on the way,” I said, still moving.
“Laurie Anne …” Aunt Maggie said.
I dropped my voice to a whisper. “Junior asked me not to say anything until Mark Pope gets here.”
“Why did she call her deputy for an accident?”
“Please, Aunt Maggie. Junior doesn’t want people getting worked up.”
“They’re already getting worked up.”
I just shrugged. She was right, but there wasn’t anything I could do other than what Junior had asked me to do.
“All right,” Aunt Maggie said, “but I expect you to tell me the whole story later.”
“I will,” I promised, and I finally made it out the door.
I stood on the sidewalk in front of the building to wait, again rubbing my tummy. “Well, baby,” I said, “you’ve seen your first dead body. Okay, not seen, but been around. They do pop up now and again.” That was true enough, but it sounded too flippant for the circumstances. “Not that Mama and Daddy go looking for murder victims, mind you, but we have gotten mixed up with this kind of thing before.” That wasn’t much of an improvement. “Sometimes Mama and Daddy solve mysteries.” Great, the kid was going to think that her parents rode around in a van with a Great Dane named Scooby Doo.
Before I could confuse my unborn child further, a blue-and-white police cruiser tore into the parking lot, siren blaring. The driver didn’t so much park as screech to a halt, blocking three parking places in the process. Then Mark Pope got out of the car.
Mark Pope is one of the most forgettable-looking men I’ve ever met. Medium height and build, with medium brown eyes and hair. If his job had ever called for following somebody on foot, he’d have been great, because nobody would remember him ten minutes after seeing him. He strode over to me, his hand perched on the handle of the nightstick at his belt.
“Where’s the alleged body?”
I was tempted to tell him it was allegedly in the alleged recreation center, but I settled for, “Inside. Junior asked me to take you there.”
“Good enough.” Then he stopped, and looked me over. “You’re one of the Burnettes.”
“That’s right.” Actually, it was my mother who’d been a Burnette, but people around Byerly and Rocky Shoals tend to trace people back at least two generations in order to place them correctly. “I’m Laura Fleming.”
“Right. Laurie Anne.”
I winced, but I knew it wasn’t worth the trouble to correct him any more than I could correct my family.
“You’re the one who keeps butting into police business.”
“You might say that.” Richard and I had clashed with Mark after a flea market dealer was murdered. Mark had been on the wrong track entirely and hadn’t been pleased when we beat him to the killer.
“Is that what you’re doing now?”
“No, I’m here because my husband is directing the play.”
He didn’t look convinced, but he said, “Let’s get on with it,” and started toward the door.
“There’s something I should tell you. Mr. Murdstone’s sons are inside, and they don’t know he’s been—that he’s been hurt. I don’t know how you want to handle it, but—”
“Well I know how I want to handle it.”
“Whatever you say.” I hadn’t been trying to help him anyway—I’d only wanted to make things easier for David and Jake.
All conversation stopped when I led Mark into the auditorium. He swiveled his head around like a spotlight, as if relishing the attention. David and Jake were standing together, with Florence’s hand in David’s, and I was sure that they’d realized Seth was missing. Everybody watched while I showed Mark the way, but it seemed to me that the Murdstones were watching us more closely than the rest.
Richard was still guarding the door to the hall, but he stepped aside when he saw us coming.
“Junior is down—” I started to say, but Mark cut me off.
“I’ll take it from here.” He turned back to the people in the room and raised his voice much louder than was necessary. “I don’t want any of you people leaving the premises until we sort out the situation, and nobody is to come down this way unless I tell them to. Is that understood?”
When nobody answered, he took that to mean that it was, and he went into the hall, shutting the door in our faces.