“Dez is getting here with the search warrant soon,” McVie said.
“You know where I bet Pruitt is?” Fenway said. “He and Cygnus are so tight, he’s probably got a front row ticket to Othello. I bet that’s where he’ll be.”
“And even if he’s not,” McVie said, “that’s near where The Guild’s office is, so that’s where we need to go.”
“You think we can get the key from someone? Maybe Amanda Kohl?”
McVie put a hand in his pocket and his keys jingled. “I might have neglected to return the key after we fingerprinted it. Besides, it’s still officially a crime scene. The office won’t open again till Tuesday.”
They walked toward DiFazio Theater but took a left before the entrance and went into the stairwell.
“The scene of the crime,” McVie muttered under his breath.
Fenway looked around as they ascended the staircase to the second floor.
“What are you looking for?” McVie asked.
“I don’t know. I feel like I missed something.”
“This staircase was open all day today and most of the day yesterday. Even if there is something to find here, it’ll be tough to use at a trial.”
“Still.”
McVie reached the second-floor landing and held the door open for Fenway. The corridor stretched out before them. “You know, Fenway, there’s one thing that bothers me. Professor Cygnus said he didn’t have an alibi because he didn’t wake his wife up when he got home.”
“Yeah—that bugs me too. Because his wife was awake, and she just told us he never came home.”
“So what’s that about?”
Fenway thought. “You know, it’s pretty common knowledge that he’s had a mistress for a decade. Leda Nedermeyer—the head of the English department.”
“Hmm,” McVie said. “Maybe he thought we’d uncover his affair, and so that would explain his lie—that he lied to cover up his affair, not that he lied to cover up the murder he committed.”
“You think he coached his mistress to say he was with her all night?”
“Maybe, or maybe he was with her all night.”
“Fine,” Fenway said. “Let’s go find out what she has to say. I bet she’s still here. She’s probably coming to the preview tonight, too.”
“Okay,” McVie said, “I’ll go see if Professor Nedermeyer gives Cygnus an alibi. In the meantime, you go get that super-secret spy hairbrush and see if it’s got something in it.”
“I’ll take pictures and bag it up,” Fenway said.
McVie fished the key out of his pocket and handed it to Fenway, then opened the stairwell door and left.
Fenway turned everything over in her mind as she continued down the hall. She came to the door of the North American Shakespeare Guild’s office and put the key in the lock. She didn’t even have to turn the key before the knob turned all the way.
Fenway paused. Was it really unlocked? Had McVie forgotten to lock it when he left last time? Maybe Dr. Pruitt or a student had gone into the office. After all, it was opening night; perhaps some props or costumes the student actors had stashed in the office were still here.
But Professor Cygnus ran a tight ship. Would he tolerate his students leaving necessary equipment in the office? At a crime scene? Especially after the tantrum he had thrown at dress rehearsal?
Fenway texted McVie:
Did you leave the door unlocked?
She listened carefully at the threshold. There were a million explanations for the door not being locked; she was just being paranoid. Her phone dinged and she cringed—if anyone was inside the office, they might have heard it. She looked at the screen, expecting a return text from McVie.
! Not delivered
Fenway exhaled. It was probably for the best; she didn’t want McVie to think she was spooked—or that she hadn’t thought about the student actors going through the office. She pushed the door open and peered inside. The lights were off, and only the streetlights from outside gave any light to the room.
She flipped on the lights, then stepped over the fallen books and papers and shelves, and over to the closed door of Jessica’s office. Teetering awkwardly, she looked at the ground next to the door, where a stack of binders had fallen, for a place to put her foot.
Wait.
The students wouldn’t access the office in this state. It was far too messy; it would have been impossible to find anything in here, especially in the few minutes before the show. They wouldn’t have unlocked the door.
And secondly, she was positive that she and Dez had left the door to Jessica Marquez’s office open when they had left yesterday.
The door swung open and a book—a big, heavy hardback book—came hurtling at her head.
Fenway tried to duck, but not in time, and the book hit her in the jaw, knocking her off-balance onto her rear, flattening a file box.
A figure, cloaked in black, leaped out of the office, bounding over the papers and books and holding a black cylindrical object in its right hand like a relay baton.
The hairbrush.
And that wasn’t Professor Cygnus. The figure was too short, too agile, too feminine to be Virgil Cygnus.
Fenway tried to pull herself up, but the thief was already out the door, and she could hear the footsteps racing away. She swore at herself and got unsteadily to her feet, tripping over another box, pain shooting through her knee again. She reached the door and broke into a run down the hall, just as the door to the stairwell was closing.
How had she been so wrong about the professor?
She reached the stairwell and slid down the first rail, almost falling on the dismount, and heard the sound of an opening door below. She couldn’t see who it was—and then, the sound of a different door opening. She ran down the last flight of stairs and reached for her phone.
It wasn’t there.
She must have dropped it when the book hit her—in fact, she was sure of it. She’d had it in her hand when she saw the book come at her, and her hands had been empty when she got up.
She got to the ground floor and looked at the two doors: one going out to the portico in front of the DiFazio Theater, and one leading inside to the hallway with the dressing rooms on one side and the theater lobby on the other.
Fenway opened the door to the portico. The night was dark, with excited opening night patrons milling around in front. No one was looking shocked, as if a black-clad woman had just sprinted by.
She slowly opened the door from the stairway into the hallway next to the theater lobby. Fenway looked through the glass doors on the right; two of the student actors were warming up, running lines from the looks of it, but neither of them was behaving as if a strange figure had just run through.
The door in front of Fenway, leading to the greenroom and the dressing rooms, and ultimately the stage, was closed. Fenway had a hunch the thief had gone through the door.
The mystery figure could be armed. Fenway had no way to contact McVie, but also knew that there were perhaps fifteen or twenty students behind that door who might be in danger.
Taking a deep breath, she strode toward the door, and yanked it open.
An empty hallway.
She could hear students’ voices in the dressing rooms, and the doors were all open. She walked down the corridor and stuck her head in the first one. Denise Delatasso looked up from hand-sewing a section of a cream-colored fabric.
“Miss Stevenson?”
“Hi, Denise. Did you happen to see someone come by here, dressed all in black, maybe twenty seconds ago?”
“Uh—I can’t be sure. I was sewing up a rip I found in Iago’s tunic.”
“You can’t be sure?”
“I think I heard footsteps and saw a shadow, but I have no idea who it was.”
Fenway cocked her head. “You’ve been here for a few minutes?”
Denise chuckled. “For three hours. Apparently, I’m the only one who can sew.”
“Okay. Break a—I mean, best of l
uck tonight.”
“Thanks.”
Fenway walked on; in the next room, Xavier was rehearsing an early scene with another actor. The next room was empty. Amanda was in the final room, doing vocal exercises. She glared at Fenway.
“What do you want now?”
“Did you see somebody dressed in black run by here?”
Amanda nodded. “Yeah, about thirty seconds ago.”
“Did you recognize who it was?”
“I’ve seen her around, yeah. But I don’t know who she is.”
“It was a woman? You’ve seen her around?”
“With Jessica. She’s come into the office a couple of times, and I think they go to lunch together.”
“You know her name?”
Amanda scrunched up her face, thinking.
“Is it Rose Morgan?”
Amanda’s face sparked with recognition. “Maybe. Rose sounds right. I don’t think I ever heard her last name.”
“Thanks, Amanda.”
“When am I getting my award back?”
Fenway didn’t answer, but ran.
She came to the end of the hallway and there was nowhere to go except up the three steps that flanked stage right. The front curtain was closed to the audience. She took the stairs cautiously and pulled back the dark side curtain.
There, in the middle of the stage, stood Rose Morgan, dressed all in black, facing the front of the stage, arms stretched out to her sides, the hairbrush in her right hand.
Fenway took four steps out onto the stage and stopped.
Professor Virgil Cygnus was pointing a gun at Rose.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“That’s far enough, Coroner,” Professor Virgil Cygnus said.
“What the hell is this?” Fenway looked at Rose.
“This is where I take what I deserve,” Cygnus said. “Hand me that brush, dear,” he said to Rose.
“No,” Rose said. “You’re not getting the files, and you’re not getting away with robbing us.”
“You’re using the scholarship fund to launder money,” said Fenway.
“No,” said Rose.
“Yes,” said Cygnus.
Fenway nodded. “And you’ve taken more than your agreed-upon share, Professor.”
“Yes,” said Cygnus.
Rose’s eyes narrowed at the professor.
He laughed. “You think a dirty look will stop me? You think that will hurt me? Don’t be ridiculous.”
“We were paying you well,” Rose said.
“It doesn’t matter,” the professor said.
“No one gets a raise,” Rose sneered. “You agreed to the terms. No surprises.”
“Yes, yes,” he said, waving the statement away with his left hand as his right hand held the gun steady. “Too bad my financial circumstances changed.”
A questioning look appeared on Rose’s face before she replaced it with a stoic countenance.
“An experimental treatment for Judith,” Fenway said. “Insurance wouldn’t cover it.”
“Very good, Coroner,” Cygnus said. “I obviously hadn’t hidden that secret well enough.”
“The health care records are sealed, of course, but the billing records go to your house.” She pointed at Rose. “And she’s got the last backup of the files that show how you embezzled from the money launderers.”
“What good is it to give my wife another six months if I can’t spend it with her?”
“That’s kind of selfish, Professor.”
Cygnus chuckled. “I am not bound to please thee with my answers,” he quoted.
Fenway’s mind raced. Surely McVie would be back soon, see The Guild office, and come looking for her. Maybe he’d even call her and find her phone on the floor and know something was wrong. She wanted to keep Cygnus talking.
“How do you plan to get out of here, then?” Fenway asked. “Rose knows you’ve taken the money. I know you’ve taken the money. Are you going to kill us the same way you killed Jessica?”
A grin spread over Cygnus’s face. “I have a more effective weapon this time. I find a gun isn’t quite so messy as a blunt object.”
“So you won’t brain us with the award you got for The Merchant of Venice,” Fenway said.
Cygnus chuckled. “Your reputation as an excellent detective is well-earned, Miss Stevenson.”
“You said you went home that night, but you didn’t. You didn’t even tell your wife to lie for you. Jessica found out about the money and confronted you that night, didn’t she? She waited until after rehearsal, and then she threatened to destroy you.”
“I built the North American Shakespeare Guild from the ground up,” Cygnus said. “If I hadn’t come along, this university would be a podunk bottom-rung college famous for intramural dodgeball.”
“So ask Pruitt for a raise. Or an advance. Or better health insurance.”
“He’s just waiting for me to retire,” Cygnus said. “When Global Advantage came to me—”
“Don’t say anything else, Virgil,” Rose warned.
“I agreed to their terms, but I fear I was tricked. I didn’t agree to have a babysitter for the transactions, and certainly not one I had to pay like a staff member. It cut my profits down considerably.” He shook his head. “In a way, it was self-defense. Jessica told me how those others ended up dead last week. The boy who was killed in the car bomb. The doctor bludgeoned to death in his office. I won’t end up like that. My wife won’t end up like that.”
“Okay,” Rose said, jerking her hands up. “You win. I’ll give you the hairbrush. But you have to let us go.”
Cygnus considered it for a moment. “Promise to call off your dogs.”
“I promise,” said Rose.
“And you,” he said to Fenway, “shall arrange for my wife and me to go to Mexico without pursuit. There’s a clinic there. Then I promise to come back after she’s gone.”
“Okay, it’s a deal.” Fenway’s eyes darted back and forth between the professor and Rose.
“Superb,” Cygnus said. “Give me the hairbrush, and we’ll initiate the first stage in this agreement.”
Rose, her arms above her head, took several small, deliberate steps toward Cygnus. She was now within arm’s reach.
“That’s good,” Cygnus said. “Now slowly, slowly, open up the top of the hairbrush.”
Rose lowered her arms carefully and twisted off the cap of the brush. She turned it upside down, and a usb drive fell out into her hand.
“Now hand me that usb stick,” Cygnus said.
Rose reached out toward the professor.
And Cygnus grabbed her wrist and forced her down to the floor. Fenway could see the muscles in his arms flex.
“Hey, hey, hey!” Rose yelled, dropping the usb drive. “That’s not—”
“Shut up,” Cygnus growled. “Now get up. Slowly. Leave the usb stick where it is.”
Rose stood, and Cygnus, still gripping her wrist, held the gun to her head. “No sudden movements. I’m old. I wouldn’t trust my reflexes, if I were you.”
“You said you’d let us go,” said Fenway.
“But I need to make sure the agency won’t come after me for the money,” Cygnus said. “Right now, she’s the only one at the agency who knows that the money is even missing.”
“Is this what your wife would want?” Fenway said. “Do you think she’d want to spend the last six months of her life with a thief and a murderer?”
Cygnus smiled. “My dear,” he said, “I am assured of it.”
He stepped forward, hard, and the usb drive made a nauseating crunch underneath his shoe.
Rose’s face was livid. Fenway saw the barrel of the gun against her temple, the young woman straining against Cygnus’s hold.
Even in his sixties, the Shakespeare professor was strong; Fenway could see his sinewy biceps bulge large and taut under the short sleeves of his red-and-black plaid shirt, easily holding Rose.
“Professor,” Fenway said, straining to keep her voice ev
en, “this isn’t what you want. You’re better than this. You think there are exigent circumstances? That’s fine. But don’t force our hand. We can show you mercy, but you have to meet us halfway.”
There was a whispering sound from the roof. It had started to rain, gentle and soft.
“They wouldn’t give me what I needed,” the professor said. “My wife is dying, but Jessica didn’t care. None of them did.”
“This isn’t the way to do it,” Fenway said, taking a step closer to the professor. “You let Rose go, and the sheriff and I will make sure the d.a. understands the circumstances.”
“You might understand the circumstances,” Cygnus spat, “but unless I have a hostage, no one will care. No one will let me extend Judith’s life.” He tightened his grip around the handle of the gun. Fenway saw it digging into the flesh at Rose’s temple.
“Oh, but we do care,” Fenway said. “My mother died from cancer earlier this year. I was lucky to be able to spend her last days with her, even though I didn’t know what my future held for me.” She took another step toward Cygnus. “I was angry at the world, I was angry at God, I was angry at my father, I was angry at everyone. Just like you must be angry. Just like you must be pissed off at every Jessica, at every Rose, at every Fenway who gets between you and your loved ones.” Fenway held her hands at her sides. “But letting go of that is the only way you get better, Professor. Healing yourself is a decision you have to make.”
“I was ruler of this kingdom,” whispered Cygnus. “The director chair my throne, the cap on my head the crown, the pencil in my hand the scepter. I had power. My students were in awe of me. The actors in London respected me. The rich bastards on those Stratford trips sat in dread and fear of me.”
“And now you have to look in your heart for mercy for others,” Fenway said. “Look above all of what you have. Look at everything you’ve learned about human nature through the plays you’ve taught. The plays you’ve devoted your life to understanding. You know that rising above those feelings of revenge and pettiness is something that’s bigger than you. It’s bigger than your enemies. It’s even bigger than your wife’s cancer.”
The Upstaged Coroner Page 29
