Murder by the Book (A Chloe Boston Mystery Book 15) Page 4

  I strolled over to a short man dressed in the red coat, white pants, and black boots of a circus ringmaster.

  “How do you do? My name is Chloe Boston,” I said, extending my hand.

  “No it’s not.”

  “I beg your pardon.”

  “I saw the table you came from. You’re Detective Sherlock Holmes.”

  “So I am. My apology.”

  “No harm done,” he replied, finally accepting my hand and bowing.

  “I wonder if you might be able to tell us anything about the circus that just came to town.”

  “Indeed I can. I am the ringleader of that circus, Henry Percival. We just pulled into town the other night and already we have a dilemma.”

  “Really? What is it?” And after some thought I added, “Maybe I can be of some help.”

  “It seems a group of apes has disappeared along with their trainer.”

  “You don’t say.” I almost giggled at the preposterous plot element.

  “Yes. Now they’re said to be roving town causing mischief.”

  I would have asked more questions, but at that moment there was a loud cry from Lady Winters across the room.

  “My jewels, they are gone!” she declared loudly. “This gentleman has just pointed the fact out to me.”

  Standing before a horrified Lady Winters was none other than Colin Collins. He was smiling broadly and holding the lady’s hand in support. Jeeves could be seen behind them. I’d noticed the jewelry was gone from around her neck and wrists the moment she stepped back into the room. Mr. Collins had apparently noticed as well and subsequently pointed it out to the Lady Winters. Looking around the room I found that Archie and Hingis had conveniently disappeared from the scene.

  While the others flocked to interview Lady Winters, I moved on to a closer character standing alone in the corner. It was the woman in red.

  “How do you do? I’m Detective Sherlock Holmes.”

  “Detective Holmes, I’m so pleased to meet you. I’m Marian Westwood. I dance at the local club and am currently dating Archie Winters.”

  No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop feeling that I knew her from somewhere. Perhaps it was the makeup that was hiding the person I would instantly recognize as a good friend. Then it struck me.

  It was Supervisor Janet Daniels, the lioness of our city council. Ms. Daniels was well known for taking aggressive action to solve the city’s problems. She was known for being staunch in support of the people’s rights and sticking to her guns once she’d made an important decision. I respected her and now here I was interviewing her for the first time as a dancehall girl. At first I didn’t know what to say.

  “Have you placed me yet?” she asked, out of character.

  “You’re Supervisor Daniels.”

  “And I’ve always wanted to meet you, Chloe Boston,” she said, extending her hand.

  I shook the hand in the red elbow-length glove, which made the fringe along the bottom wobble.

  “Care to ask me any questions?”

  “Where are you hiding the jewels?”

  “Nice try, but we’re not going to make it that easy for you to uncover the villain.”

  “I had to try,” I explained. “Suppose you tell me about your boyfriend, Archie Winters.”

  “What is there to tell? Archie is a lot of fun and that’s what this girl needs. Besides, he gives me trinkets.”

  “Valuable trinkets?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Where do you keep these trinkets?”

  “In the hotel safe.”

  “Smart girl.”

  “Very.”

  I couldn’t tell if it was the character she was playing that I was reacting to or the woman beneath the role; in either case, I liked Ms. Daniels. I would have liked to have had an extended conversation with her, but at that moment there came the series of reports from a gun out in front of the inn followed by the screeching tires of a car pulling away at high speed. Everyone rushed to the front doors, followed by me. When I made it outside, I found that people had fanned out in a circle around a fallen man. There was fake blood in a pool beneath his body and holes oozing blood from his back. I looked for the Chief and was pleased to see that he hadn’t drawn his firearm in the excitement.

  “Good God, Archie,” Lady Winters proclaimed as she ran to stand beside the body.

  “Did anyone see what happened out here?” the Chief asked.

  “I think the person who shot Archie got away in a fast car,” Colin Collins presumed.

  I felt like slapping my forehead to express my contempt at Colin’s obvious observation. An even stronger feeling slapped me before I got a chance. I had lived through this experience before. I’d never had such a powerful sense of déjà vu in my life. As strong as this feeling was, I had an even stronger feeling that the story was playing itself out behind me, in the lobby of the Morningside Inn, not out here in the customer drop-off area. This was a clever distraction.

  I rushed back through the doors as fast as the doormen could open them. The lobby was as I’d left it, with one notable exception. A body lay face down on the stage. She was dressed all in red. The color of her dress helped to hide the dark stain forming around the knife sticking out of her back. Unlike the scene created for our amusement out front, this one appeared real. I approached hesitantly.

  “Look, Chloe’s found another body!” someone called.

  This prompted a rush of game players from outside the inn back into the lobby. Again, the group formed a ring that slowly closed on the scene of the crime. I knelt beside the body to take a pulse. There was none.

  “I don’t believe you’re supposed to touch the actors,” Colin scolded.

  I looked up to see Colin Collins not three feet away from where I knelt, hands on his hips and looking down at me disapprovingly.

  “But, Colin, she’s dead.”

  “Of course she is. Why do you think they call this a murder mystery dinner?”

  “No. I mean she’s really dead.”

  Colin guffawed at me.

  “Is she really dead?” a male character in a flamboyant New Orleans-style party mask asked.

  “Yes, she’s really dead,” I verified. “Look, Colin. Whether you believe me or not, go find the Chief.”

  “I’m right here, Boston,” the Chief said, pushing to the front of the crowd and taking a knee beside me.

  “She’s dead,” I declared.

  “You mean, she’s really dead?” Colin asked, backing away.

  I heard the heel of his shoe crunch down on something that broke beneath his weight. Before he lifted his shoe to reveal the piece of evidence he’d destroyed, I already knew that he had stepped on a small handmade glass ballerina that was meant to be found beside the murder victim’s hand.

  “What is it, Boston? I can tell by the expression on your face that you’ve come up with something.”

  “I have, Chief. This woman was murdered and what’s more, I know who murdered her.”

  Chapter 7

  “What do you mean you read it in a book, Boston?” the Chief demanded.

  “Like I said, I read it in a book. Murder in One Act by C. J. Masterson. I read all of the C. J Masterson when I was young. Haven’t you read them?”

  “No, I can’t say that I have. But I fail to see how a book relates to this murder.”

  “But Chief, it’s all the same. From the murder mystery party, to the shooting out front, to the stabbing of the woman in red. It’s all the same. Look, even the glass figurine found by the hand of the true murder victim is the same.”

  “But come on; murder someone at a murder mystery dinner party? Isn’t that a little too public?”

  “Having so many people here with many of them acting suspiciously is the perfect cover for murder,” I explained patiently. “Just look at the predicament we’ve had trying to secure the crime scene.”

  “So, what about this C. J Masterson. Tell me about him.”

  “First,
he is a she, and second, I can do better than tell you about her. I can introduce you to her.”

  I stepped into the crowd, and when I returned I was leading Mrs. Agatha Graves by the arm. The Chief raised an eyebrow and I nodded my head.

  “Chief Wallace, I’d like you to meet C. J. Masterson,” I said in introduction.

  “Oh my. I haven’t heard that name in so many years,” exclaimed Agatha.

  “You’re C. J. Masterson?”

  “Yes, I am, or at least I was.”

  “The author of Murder in One Act?”

  “Strange you should mention that particular title,” Agatha replied. “I’ve begun to notice similarities between my book and the occurrences of this evening.”

  “Me too.” I added. “Similarities like they’re exactly the same.”

  “Oh no, dear. My novel took place at a posh country club. The Morningside Inn, no matter how quaint and comfortable it is to us, would never do for that clientele.”

  “But what about the other elements that are identical? The murder mystery dinner. The shooting to distract the guests. The stabbing of the woman in red. And most important of all, the murderer.”

  “I seem to remember the murderer made a brief appearance at the scene of the crime. He was wearing an elaborate party mask.”

  “Like they wear in New Orleans,” I added, thinking back. “Chief, I wonder if you could assign your officers to cordoning off the building. We have to find someone before he’s had a chance to leave.”

  “Boston, I doubt he’d be wearing the mask if it’s a dead giveaway that he’s the murderer. Besides, several of the guests have already left. We have the list of all the actors, guests, and servers at the inn during the time of the murder, but the party has already started to break up. I don’t know how long it would take to assemble a crew large enough to cordon off the building.”

  I looked around the room to see that there were far fewer people crowding the murder scene. Colin Collins was sitting in a chair at one of the tables looking pale and nauseated while his wife fanned him with her handkerchief.

  “So, what do we do now?” asked Agatha.

  “We talk with the author of the murder mystery dinner script. Chief, we need to speak with the actors.”

  “Bryce did manage to gather them before they got away. Come this way.”

  The Chief led the way to a nervous group of actors sitting at the Sherlock Holmes table. I nodded my head in acknowledgement as I approached. Lady Winters still had tears in her eyes from what must have been a serious cry.

  “Hello. My name is Chloe Boston. I’m assisting with the investigation into the murder of Supervisor Daniels. I wonder if I might speak with the author of the script for tonight’s performance.”

  “I’m the director,” a young man said, raising his hand.

  “Who wrote the play?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure. The script was passed to me by somebody. I don’t remember who. I assumed the script had already been reviewed and agreed upon. I flipped through a few pages and thought that it would work well for our purposes.”

  “I’d like to speak with the character who wore the elaborate New Orleans-style party mask.”

  The cast discussed the request between one another and in muted voices.

  “There is no character in a mask, elaborate or otherwise,” the director concluded.

  I looked to the Chief. He appeared to be as frustrated as me. I shivered to think that I’d been so close to the murderer and yet let him get away. I looked to Agatha who appeared pale.

  “What’s the matter? Are you feeling alright?” I asked. Have you been poisoned? I wanted to add.

  “I feel as if I’m the architect of a murder.”

  I hadn’t thought of that. I suppose that in a sense she was right. She had laid out for the murderer how to get away with the crime and even when to make a brief but dangerous appearance. I could only imagine how Agatha must be feeling.

  “Just remember that none of this is your fault,” I assured her.

  She returned a timid glance that showed she wasn’t convinced.

  “Boston, how can you be so sure you encountered the murderer? After all, it could be someone who’s still here. Maybe one of the actors or the employees at the inn.”

  “Because he appeared and then disappeared exactly as he did in the novel. Because he was wearing the mask.”

  “But still, Mrs. Graves pointed out that there are differences between the plot of the book and what took place here tonight.”

  “But Chief, a masked man appearing at my side as I checked the murder victim? Unless someone was assigned to play that role, which they weren’t, I’d say it was the murderer making his appearance. Wouldn’t you?”

  The Chief knew when to give up. There was no way he was talking me out of being positive that the killer was the masked man.

  “Who was the last person to speak with the supervisor?”

  “I was. Unless one of the other actors talked with her later.”

  “What did she say?”

  “Archie Winters gave her trinkets.”

  At this time we were asked to leave the lobby to make way for the crime scene investigation unit sent out by the county. I knew that it irked the Chief to have to hand off the investigation to another jurisdiction, but until we had our own CSI unit the county guys were the best we could muster. I didn’t think they were going to find very much. I was wrong.

  From the room used by the actors to change and do their makeup came a copy of the script and an elaborate New Orleans-style mask, the exact one that I saw the murderer wearing. No prints were found on the knife that I presumed to be the murder weapon. After pictures and prints were taken, the supervisor was bagged and carted away to the county coroner’s office where an autopsy would be performed to determine the official cause of death.

  The Chief and I stood out front for a while discussing possibilities, but for me it all kept coming back to the man in the party mask. By letting him get away I’d missed an opportunity to bring this case to an early conclusion. We broke our conversation when the Chief was called inside to discuss the situation with Dave Larson, the managing owner of the Morningside Inn. I noticed Agatha, Lawrence, and Alex standing together at the curb and came to join them. Alex, who’d fetched my coat for me, slipped the thing around my shoulders. It was dark outside and getting cold. The sodium vapor lights over the parking lot provided the bulk of the light. I felt that there was someone outside the pools of light watching me. I shivered more out of nerves than from the cold.

  “I’m so sorry to have your bridal shower ruined in this way,” I said, hugging Agatha. “And with the wedding just two days away now.”

  “Don’t you let it worry your head,” Agatha insisted. “We’re going to have a marvelous weekend. I refuse to let anything like this ruin it for us.”

  Not for the first time, I wished that I had her spirit. I for one was feeling let down by the evening. Sure, I’d gotten to wear a pretty dress and heels, but I thought the party would be less like work.

  “Yes, this weekend will be fine,” I said.

  I didn’t want to mention what was in the forefront of my mind; namely, why did the murderer follow a C. J. Masterson plot? What involvement did Agatha Graves have in this murder? Was the use of one of her books only a coincidence? And foremost of all, were she and Lawrence safe?

  Chapter 8

  I sat at the kitchen table with my hands wrapped around a mug of hot coffee getting them warm. I was wearing a flannel nightgown, a terry cloth bathrobe, and fuzzy slippers against the cold. Still I shivered in my seat before yawning. I was exhausted. I’d spent the previous night rereading Murder in One Act by C. J. Masterson. After I’d finished the short novel, I couldn’t fall asleep. I kept rerunning the two murders in parallel through my mind, the one from the book and the other from the reenactment. In many ways they were identical, at least up through the murder. In some subtle ways they were different. I reviewed the solution t
o the case from the book in detail, hoping that I might find some help in solving the case.

  I raised my gaze from the tabletop and focused on the front page of the paper that Alex held up blocking his face from view. Half the front page was covered by a large picture and the more lurid details of the Supervisor Daniels murder. The other half provided in-depth speculation regarding rumors of influence peddling surrounding the new Rankles and Edwards construction project downtown. Mr. Randolph Rankles was denying all allegations of fraud. Mr. Edwards was unavailable for comment as he’d died the year before. I focused back on the tabletop. I was a little depressed.

  The Chief had already called this morning to tell me that he wanted me to spend the day at the station going over the cold murder cases for the county to see if there were any more tie-ins with murder mystery plots by C. J Masterson. I scanned the bindings on the novels I owned to refresh my memory on the plots. I determined that I would have to reread a couple of them before I had all the plots freshly in my mind. I also noted which copies I would have to borrow from the library if I needed to reread them.

  “So, what do you think of this Rankles and Edwards construction project?” I asked Alex.

  “A typical example of big government getting in the way of progress,” he said, delivering the straight Republican party line.

  “What about the rumors of staggering cost overruns, payoffs, and construction materials and practices that aren’t up to code?”

  “They’re all just that, rumors. This has all been hatched by the preservationists who don’t want to see any changes made to downtown.”

  “I suppose you could be right,” I said, suspecting that he was wrong but never having been particularly interested in politics.

  “Anyway, I suppose there will be no one blocking construction now that Supervisor Daniels is dead. The vote by the city council should be unanimous to cease all investigation and begin construction immediately.”

  “You mean that Supervisor Daniels was the only thing standing in the way of the project?”

  “Yep. It seems that way.”

  “Don’t you find it strange?”