And Justice for Some

by Joanne Sydney Lessner

Isobel sat in the pavilion, hunched over, arms tight across her stomach, listening as Jemma, Tony, and Peter reeled off their basic information to Officer Gonzalez. Her mind was racing with fantastic schemes to prove Delphi’s innocence, but before she could form a coherent plan, Vitelli returned with Delphi, who sank into a chair, trembling.

  “The bullet did not come from Ms. Kramer’s gun,” Vitelli announced. “Both chambers still have blanks in them.”

  Isobel felt her whole body release, and she threw her arms around her friend. “Thank God! Are you okay?”

  “I will be as soon as you let go of me,” Delphi rasped.

  Vitelli turned to Peter. “Do you have any other weapons with you?”

  “One.” Peter carefully set his derringer, the twin of Delphi’s, on the table. “It’s a single round, and the blank is still in there.”

  “How did you transport the firearms?” Vitelli asked.

  “I have a bag. It’s in the private dining office, along with a box of blanks. No ammo.”

  “Show me. I need to do a body search as well. We can do that in the office.” Vitelli turned to Officer Gonzalez. “Stay here. Bag his gun.”

  “Will I get my weapons back?” Peter asked as they left the room.

  They didn’t hear Vitelli’s answer.

  Isobel turned to Delphi. “Thank God you didn’t fire the gun.”

  “Right before the show, Peter told me to let the joke land first. Not that it’s much of a joke.”

  “I never thought I’d say this, but thank God for his cheesy sense of humor.”

  “Are you going to search all of us?” Tony asked, wiping his brow.

  “Not without sufficient reason,” Gonzalez answered. “Your boss admitted to owning the firearms he supplied you with, so unless one of them is missing, there’s no reason to search you.” Gonzalez eyed Tony for a moment, as if wondering how much to read into his perspiration. Then he finished sealing up the evidence bag.

  They sat quietly until Vitelli returned with Peter.

  “Blanks,” Vitelli confirmed to Gonzalez, setting Peter’s carryall gently on the floor. He took a chair and surveyed the group. “Did any of you notice another person pointing a gun?”

  “I was only paying attention to Delphi,” Isobel said. “She was supposed to shoot me, and I was supposed to fall.”

  “When the shot came, could you tell which direction it came from?” Vitelli asked.

  Isobel shook her head. “I was so hyped up waiting for it that I just hit the ground.”

  “It sounded like it was everywhere,” said Tony, whose powder had melted off unevenly, giving his face a ruddy patchwork appearance.

  “If the shot was fired near one of the ambient room mics, the sound would have been amplified by the speakers, which are all around the room,” Peter said.

  Vitelli made a note and turned to Jemma. “How about you?”

  “I was already dead,” Jemma said. “I was in the small dining room near the front entrance, checking my email.”

  Vitelli perked up. “Did you see anyone leaving the building?”

  “Sorry, no. Just you all coming in.”

  Vitelli turned to Peter. “I understand you made some kind of announcement before the show. What exactly did you say?”

  “It’s a standard part of the show. If you see someone waving a gun, don’t try to disarm them because we have cops in the room.”

  Vitelli gaped at him. “Why the hell would you say something like that?”

  Peter’s voice rose defensively. “I don’t want some moron who isn’t smart enough to figure out they’re watching a play tackling one of my actors. Someone could get hurt.”

  Vitelli held his breath for a moment, and Isobel suspected he was counting silently to ten. Finally, he said in a tight voice, “In this day and age, it never occurred to you that there might be some crazy waving a real weapon around?”

  “No, it never occurred to me,” Peter snapped. “I’ve been doing this for fifteen years: weddings, bar mitzvahs, any kind of private event. What kind of idiot would shoot someone in a room full of people?”

  “And yet that’s exactly what just happened,” Vitelli said, seething. “If you hadn’t made that announcement, this might have been prevented.”

  “I didn’t do anything different from what I always do.” Peter’s voice wavered slightly.

  “And you didn’t notice anyone else aiming a gun?” Vitelli asked.

  “I was watching my actors. That’s what a director does.”

  Vitelli turned to Tony. “Did you see anything?”

  The red parts of Tony’s face grew redder. “I was eating.”

  Vitelli looked around their little circle. “Let me get this straight: you two were watching each other, you were watching your actors, you were eating, and you were dead.” He sighed heavily. “You rehearsed in there before the dinner started, right?”

  “Again, that’s what we always do,” Peter said. “We get about an hour before the gig so we can figure out how the staging is going to work in the space.”

  “Anyone watch your rehearsal?”

  “Tons of people, but I couldn’t tell you who they were.”

  “I can,” Isobel piped up. “A few of them, anyway.”

  The others looked at her with interest.

  “I’m listening.” Vitelli waved his notebook. “You all listen, too. She might jog your memories.”

  “The judge’s assistant, Bethany. She was annoyed that we were rehearsing when she was trying to set up, and she thought the whole murder mystery idea was terrible and the judge would hate it. And the judge did seem to hate it. He made a few comments at the table.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t remember exactly…something about somebody being very sorry. I think that was the only specific thing he said, but I can’t be sure. At some point I stopped listening and started worrying about my death scene.”

  “Anything else?”

  “His clerk, Maggie, the one in the green taffeta dress and the gold platform sandals that totally don’t work with it. She’s the one who hired us. There were also lots of waiters around. They all saw us. But why would one of them kill the judge?”

  “Everybody is somebody outside of their job,” Vitelli said pointedly.

  “I don’t understand why it matters who was watching,” Jemma said, gnawing a long, red pinky nail.

  Isobel turned to her. “Because whoever fired the shot knew when to do it so it would look like part of the play.”

  “Anyone else see you practicing?” Vitelli asked.

  “I suppose it’s possible some of the guests arrived early.” Isobel frowned. “I don’t remember seeing her, but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t there.”

  “Who?” Vitelli prompted.

  “Candy, the judge’s ex-wife. I wasn’t supposed to be sitting next to her. There were place cards set out. My spot was next to the judge, but there was an empty seat, and she insisted I sit in it.” Isobel felt a chilly tingle across the back of her neck. “If I’d been in my original seat, the bullet might have hit me.”

  “If you’d been in your original seat, the murderer might not have taken the shot,” Delphi said, her voice still shaky.

  “Maybe she was just being friendly,” Jemma suggested.

  “We’ll be talking to Candy Harrison, don’t you worry,” said Vitelli.

  A young policewoman came into the dining pavilion. “Sir, the bullet went clean through and lodged in the table. We were able to extract it. No way it came from a derringer.”

  Vitelli exhaled, obviously disappointed. “Right. You can all go. Except Ms. Spice. I’d like to speak with you alone.” He handed around his card. “If you remember anything else, call me. Anytime, day or night.”

  Isobel put a hand on Delphi’s arm. “Can Delphi stay? We’ve both had such a shock, it would be great if we could leave together. We’re roommates.”

  Vitelli eyed Delphi as if he still wasn’t convinced she was innocent. />
  “Yeah, okay.” He waited for the others to clear, then continued to Isobel. “Why were you at the judge’s table?”

  “Peter said he likes the action to be as close as possible to the guest of honor.”

  “I’m interested in what the vibe was. Any tension? Anyone say anything that seems significant in retrospect?”

  Isobel thought for a moment. “There was something, but it wasn’t at the table. I went over to talk to the judge during the cocktail hour. We were supposed to do improv conversations with the guests. I wouldn’t have picked him if I had any idea who he was, because Bethany had already said he was probably going to hate our show. But I didn’t know, so I went over.”

  “And?”

  “He said something like ‘What the hell is he doing here?’ and then he stormed off.”

  Vitelli looked up from his notepad. “Any idea who he was looking at?”

  “No. Maggie was blocking me.”

  “The woman who hired you?”

  “So I’ve been told.” Isobel sat up. “No, wait! The judge asked Maggie where she had gotten the idea, and Candy admitted she’d been the one to suggest it to her. And Candy moved me out of the way. That’s got to be significant.”

  Vitelli gazed thoughtfully at the ceiling. “It’s certainly a coincidence, although she couldn’t have shot the judge without everyone else at the table noticing.”

  “Then nobody at the judge’s table could have done it,” Isobel pointed out.

  “Well, yes and no,” Vitelli said cryptically. “Anything else you remember?”

  “Nothing specific. Just that the mood was pretty tense for what was supposed to be a celebration.”

  Vitelli flipped his notebook shut. “You’ve been very helpful. Sorry to put you through this. But, hey, aren’t actors always looking for new experiences?”

  “Sure,” Isobel said, stifling the impulse to point out that this was, in fact, her third murder investigation. But if she had learned anything during the first two, it was when to keep her big mouth shut.

  FOUR

  “Oh, my God, I need a drink!” Delphi flopped onto her daybed in the studio apartment she and Isobel shared in Midtown. She held out her hand, palm down. “Look! I can’t stop shaking.”

  Isobel retrieved a half-empty bottle of Bushmills from the pantry and poured out two generous glasses.

  Delphi knocked hers back in one gulp and wiped her mouth. “I can’t even tell you what it felt like when I thought I’d shot him. You hit the floor, and then everyone started screaming.” She closed her eyes, squeezing back tears. “I saw my whole life flash before my eyes.”

  Isobel let the whiskey burn away the last layer of fear still tightening her throat. “But you didn’t pull the trigger.”

  “I know, but in that moment, I don’t know…I thought somehow I must have done it without realizing it.” Delphi shuddered. “I told you this gig was a terrible idea.” She gestured toward Isobel’s blouse with her empty glass. “You look like a refugee from a Wes Craven movie.”

  Isobel glanced down at the sticky combination of fake blood and dried Brioschi that ran from her collar to her waist. “I really hope this stuff comes out. Otherwise, that’s two blice ruined.”

  “Two what?”

  “Blice. Plural of blouse.”

  Delphi yawned. “You are so weird.”

  “No, don’t go to sleep on me yet! We have to talk about what happened.”

  Delphi opened one blue eye. “Must we?”

  “Yes. Now, while our impressions are still vivid.”

  “We already told the police everything we know.”

  “That’s not the same as hashing it over.”

  “You start, then.”

  “I want to know who the judge saw,” Isobel said. “Seems like that’s a giveaway.”

  “Probably someone who shouldn’t have been on the list. Makes you wonder who screwed up.” Delphi stood up and stretched her arms over her head. “What was Harrison like?”

  “Very stern, totally humorless. According to Bethany, he didn’t appreciate our silly little skit, because to him crime and punishment are not entertainment, they’re life and death.”

  “Yeah, well, tonight they were all of the above.” Delphi disappeared into the bathroom.

  “They all seemed a little scared of him, except Candy,” Isobel called after her. “She seemed to be challenging him in some subversive way.”

  Isobel unbuttoned her blouse and threw it in her laundry bag, then put on her Phantom of the Opera T-shirt to sleep in. She puttered around the L-shaped studio, gathering used glasses. How many guests had there been at The Hostelry—two hundred maybe? Plus the restaurant staff and her murder mystery colleagues…

  Struck by a sudden thought, she set the glasses on the kitchen counter, raced to the bathroom, and yanked the door open. Delphi squealed.

  “Jesus Christ! Can’t a girl take a dump in peace?”

  “Sorry!” Isobel slammed the door and leaned against it. “What about Andrew? He ran out into the park through one of the other dining rooms.”

  “I know you love this stuff, but can’t you at least wait until I’m done?” Delphi shouted and then grumbled something Isobel couldn’t make out.

  Peter knew Andrew had run off, and he was supposed to be in charge of his actors. He should have said something to the police.

  “Why didn’t he?” she said aloud.

  The bathroom door opened suddenly and Isobel stumbled backward. Delphi emerged in her bathrobe, her blond curls cascading from a haphazard topknot. She brushed past Isobel into the tiny galley kitchen and started rummaging in the fridge.

  “Why didn’t who do what?”

  “Why didn’t Peter tell the police there was another cast member who fled?”

  “He forgot. We all did.”

  “He didn’t forget! I reminded him.”

  “You reminded him, and then you forgot. So did Peter.”

  “It’s not the same. Vitelli asked Peter to round up his actors. He didn’t forget he was missing one. No way.” Isobel pulled out a stool and sat at the counter. “What did you make of Andrew?”

  Delphi brought over a wedge of cheap deli Brie and some crackers. “Totally stoned. Which, come to think of it, is not a bad way to approach a gig like that.”

  “Don’t you think it’s weird that he kept disappearing during rehearsal? Peter had to hunt him down every time we needed him. Where was he going?”

  “I think it’s pretty obvious.” Delphi mimed smoking a joint.

  Isobel spread some Brie on a cracker, pressing so hard it broke in two. “I want to know who did this.”

  Delphi wiped up some cheese and licked it off her finger. “Why? You didn’t find the body this time. You practically were the body. You don’t have to clear your name—nobody thinks you did it.”

  “But people might still think you did it.”

  “The cops know I didn’t, and they’re the only ones who count. Let’s just forget about this and move on. I don’t ever want to see, speak, or think about any of these people again.”

  “This thing about Andrew disappearing is troubling, though. Don’t you agree?”

  “No. You know what’s troubling? Peter never paid us. That’s troubling.” Delphi pushed the cheese away. “I don’t even want this. I’m going to bed.”

  But after she polished off the Brie, Isobel sat up for several more hours, replaying the evening in her mind. She couldn’t shake the sense that there was some important detail she wasn’t recalling, but she knew the more she worried at it, the deeper it would bury itself in her consciousness. She finally gave up and curled up on her air mattress across the cramped studio from Delphi’s daybed. As she listened to Delphi’s light snoring, it occurred to her that Delphi would have to speak to Peter again if she wanted her check. Unless Isobel took charge and got it for her.

  She rolled onto her stomach and laid her head in the crook of her arm. That was what she’d do. She would call Peter and
ask about their paychecks. And maybe sneak in one or two other questions as well.

  FIVE

  After four months, the office of Sarah Hollister, attorney-at-law, had begun to feel like home to Isobel. Her temp agent, James Cooke, had placed her there in May as Sarah’s semi-permanent assistant—primarily, Isobel thought, so he wouldn’t have to deal with her anymore. She and James had been on dodgy terms since the winter, when an ill-timed romantic overture had derailed their cautiously developing friendship. What was left of their relationship had taken a further hit when James left Temp Zone in August to matriculate as a second-semester sophomore at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. He was finally finishing the undergraduate degree he’d been forced to abandon a decade earlier, when Columbia had booted him because of his problems with alcohol.

  As Isobel waited in front of the grand, polished-brass elevator doors, she wondered how James was doing. She liked to think she’d had something to do with his return to higher education and was sorry they’d parted on such frosty terms. Without ongoing professional contact, there seemed little chance of reconciliation. Although, she thought, on her way up, he couldn’t hate her too much. He had done her a good turn placing her with Sarah. A long-term assignment with flexible hours was the brass ring of temp jobs for an actress with an unpredictable schedule.

  Isobel greeted the receptionist on the twenty-third floor and started down the long hall, which was lined on either side with offices for solo practitioners engaged in an array of legal specialties. Their assistants were tucked in the center of the floor in clusters of four cubicles that reminded Isobel of the folded paper fortune-tellers she used to make as a kid. Sarah was all the way at the end of the hall, where there was only one other office and one other cubicle, both currently empty. Isobel was glad of the privacy. When Sarah was in court, Isobel could spend her time researching auditions without another lawyer’s harried assistant appropriating her.

  Sarah’s door was ajar, so after Isobel dropped her bag at her desk and switched on her computer, she announced herself with a gentle knock.

  “Come on in,” Sarah said. Isobel could just see the top of Sarah’s head from behind the pillar of books in the center of her desk. “Sorry, I’m trying to rearrange…”