by Cynthia Raye
A Lesson in Foul Play
A COZY MYSTERY NOVEL
CYNTHIA RAYE
Copyright © 2021 by Cynthia Raye
All Rights Reserved.
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Table of Contents
A Lesson in Foul Play
Table of Contents
A Lesson in Foul Play
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Epilogue
A Look to Die for
Introduction
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
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A Lesson in Foul Play
Introduction
Watson-Collins, a private school for students of high intelligence, is not a place you could easily mess around in. With kids exclusively coming from wealthy and important families, the hierarchy between educator and student is reversed. Theatre teacher, Ronni Adams, is quite satisfied with her position there and knows better than to challenge the established order. This dynamic will take an unexpected turn though, when one day things turn too grim for Ronni to ignore, even in a school already full of dark, hidden secrets. As she enters the building that day, a little earlier than usually, she freezes to the sound of a piercing scream. Rushing towards the source of the horrific noise, she is shocked by the eerily quiet sight of someone lying on the floor. As she approaches them, a cold shiver penetrates her skin, realizing that she is staring down at the lifeless body of her student, Sylvia.
High school senior, Sylvia Hawkins, was not loved by many. Typically for a mean girl like her, all other students hated her, except for a group of followers, who practically worshiped and envied her. Was either hate or worship enough of a motive to kill? Ronni, along with a fellow teacher, is determined to expose who could have committed such a gruesome crime. The list is anything but short and suspects seem to appear everywhere she looks… Was it the boy Sylvia pushed down the stairs or the girl she lied about, causing her to lose a scholarship to Harvard? Could it be Millie, the slightly overweight girl Sylvia called Piggy? Perhaps it was none of these, but one of the many others Sylvia had targeted. Luckily for Ronni, the murderer left one crucial piece of evidence behind… Could this be a head start in the race against the vicious killer?
With the police running around in circles and asking questions, Ronni is faced with unexpected challenges in her quest for justice. Not only that, but time is dangerously running out not only for her, but for the fate of the entire school. To make matters even more complicated, on one hand Peter, her boyfriend, seems to be really eager to help and on the other hand, he acts as a risky distraction from her dedication to the case. Ronni will need to move fast and against all odds, before this murder turns into another dark secret to be buried deep in the school’s tangled past… Will she be able to trace the killer’s steps by piecing together the disclosures of terrified students?
Chapter 1
With a population of 47,000, Las Montañas was different from most communities. Homes there were among the most expensive in the United States. If one word could be chosen to describe the place, it word would be “cultural.” The downtown area featured fine hotels, galleries, museums, high-end jewelry stores, and boutiques. An air of success pervaded the area, a part of San Diego.
In the northernmost area of Las Montañas sat the Watson-Collins School with an enrollment of 407 students in grades nine to twelve. The school was exclusive in that it enrolled only the top students from the area.
Watson-Collins had been founded during the early twentieth century with only four students and over the years kept adding facilities and attendees. It was a day school, which meant all the students commuted, some from as far away as San Ysidro at the border to Baja California, Mexico, to the smaller cities and towns in the northern part of the county.
The student body was made up of a multitude of races, ethnicities, and cultural backgrounds. Most students were from wealthy families, though, through its donors, the school did provide scholarships to students who otherwise could not afford to enroll.
This is where Ronni Adams found her dream job. She had been hired to teach acting and directing and to be artistic director for three productions each year. She felt lucky to get the job, not only because of the school itself but for moving to the drastically different weather of Southern California, where the temperature rarely dropped to freezing point and snow was almost unheard of.
It was now mid-October, and Ronni planned to have her beginning acting class work onstage for the first time. Until now, they’d met in a classroom. As the class sat in the auditorium, she climbed the five steps to the stage.
Except for a tour of the theater when she was interviewed for the job, it had been five months since she’d been on a stage. It was for her last entrance in a Broadway revival of Neil Simon’s Barefoot in the Park. Although she’d been acting since she was a little girl, she decided that teaching was a much more secure profession than trying to make a living in professional theater.
She’d had the acting bug as far back as she could remember. As a child, she had auditioned for every show that came along—in school, in community theater, and in summer stock. Having grown up near Somerset, Pennsylvania, she had naturally auditioned to be part of the summer company at the Valley Playhouse. Her first starring role, at age twelve, was the eleven-year-old Annie in the musical of that name.
Unlike most actors, she managed to scrape by without working on the side as a waitress or grocery store clerk. But she was tired of doing road shows and living from a suitcase for weeks on end. She was tired of going for long stretches of time with nothing to do except go from one unsuccessful audition to another.
Many other actors, she supposed, would consider her a success. A success who sometimes existed on little more than peanut butter sandwiches or instant top ramen soup and worried constantly about being able to pay the rent. Hence the switch in her career.
Today the acting class would start on a unit that was to teach them to be constantly aware, to pay attention, to learn to be “in” the moment. They were going to do improvi
sation - “improv” for those in the business..
Ronni stood onstage facing the class. “Can anyone define improvisation?” she asked. She was twenty-seven years old, five foot-seven, and had brown hair, and a sculpted face, sometimes likened to that of a Roman goddess. Charismatic, she was vivacious and optimistic, the sort of person others liked immediately on meeting.
Ronni was not at all surprised that Sylvia Hawkins raised her hand to answer the question. Sylvia was an eighteen-year-old senior who was set on becoming a professor of French Theater—her grandmother had been a French actress—and was probably the smartest student in a sea of smart students. She was attractive and personable, so much so that she had a group following, girls who wanted to be like her, who emulated her in dress, actions, and attitude.
“Yes, Sylvia,” Ronni said.
“Improv involves acting without a script…or even an outline for a scene. The leader provides a set of circumstances the actors are to follow. Based on the circumstances, they enact a scene. Or it may be simpler than that. At its basic stage it simply involve reacting in a certain way—exhibiting an emotion, imitating another person or being. Or most often reacting to what another actor says or does. The idea is to keep the scene moving.”
“Very good,” Ronni said but noticed several students rolling their eyes. Why? Were they jealous? She shook her head mentally. Though Sylvia seemed to be the ideal student—at least from a teacher’s point of view—Ronni noticed that other kids in the class and the school reacted negatively around her—frowning when she passed by, shaking their heads. She wondered why. Sylvia seemed to have everything—looks, brains, personality. What was it anyhow that caused such negative reactions from other students?
“Well, today,” Ronni said, “we’re going to start out with simpler exercises—portraying emotions. But there’s a catch. You can’t do it in a stereotypical way. For instance, don’t just stomp your feet and pinch in your mouth and frown to show anger or scrunch up your face and rub your eyes to show you’re sad. Find another way to convey the emotion.” She smiled. “I’ve written out different emotions on slips of paper. I want you to choose one, take a moment to think, and then come up on the stage and portray that emotion.
“Okay, are we ready to start.” She looked from face to face and nodded. She’d pick Carlos Rodriquez first, the one student in the class she felt sure had a chance to succeed as an actor. He was a shy sixteen-year-old, born in Tijuana. His family moved to Chula Vista when he was six years old, and Ronni knew that more than anything Carlos wanted to be in in theater.
“Carlos,” she said, “are you up to it?”
“Sí,” he answered, his voice barely audible. “His face flushed. “I mean yes.”
Carlos had told Ronni that at home his family spoke only Spanish, and sometimes in public he forgot to use English.
“No hay problema,” Ronni answered, and he grinned. She’d taken Spanish as a minor in college, which seemed to surprise everyone when she spoke the language.
“You speak Spanish!” Carlos said.
“Un poquito.” ‘A little’, she explained to the rest of the class.
“¡Que Bueno! Now I won’t have to worry about using the wrong language, at least in acting class.”
Ronni smiled. “So, come up and draw a slip of paper.” She laid the pieces face down, on a small table. Carlos picked up one of them and immediately his shoulders sagged.
“What’s wrong?” Ronni asked.
Carlos didn’t answer. Instead his head dropped, and he let his hands dangle at his side. He walked slowly to the steps up to the stage, as if he could barely make it, his face expressionless.
“Are you okay?” Ronni asked. Had something happened to him before class to make him react this way? Maybe something bad had happened at home.
Carlos didn’t answer. Instead, his body sagged even more as he moved very slowly up the steps. He walked to center stage and turned toward Ronni, never looking up.
Now Ronni was really concerned.
Suddenly, Carlos straightened up. He broke into a big smile as he handed her his paper. She started to laugh. “You fooled me!” Ronni said. “I thought something about the exercise had really bothered you. Instead, what you did was brilliant.” She turned to the class. “So, what emotion do you think Carlos was projecting?”
Devonte Woods raised his hand.
“Yes, Devonte,” Ronni said.
“It’s what I feel sometimes when I try and try to write a new computer program, and no matter what, it just doesn’t work.”
“Or when I’m looking forward to going to a play or a concert and I’m grounded,” a girl said.
“So what is that emotion?” Ronni asked.
“Depression,” Devonte said.
Very good, Devonte. And again,” she turned to Carlos. “Great job. Now who wants to be next?”
Sylvia, of course, raised her hand.
The last person to choose an emotion was Millie Petrosky, a girl almost totally lacking in self-confidence. She was overweight and very sensitive about it. So much so that she always dressed in dark clothing. Near the beginning of the year, she had come to Ronni’s office to discuss an assignment. As they talked, Millie admitted that she kept attempting to lose weight because she felt self-conscious about her size. “I’ve tried every diet you can think of, but worked,” she told Ronni. Her face turned red. “Actually,” she said, “I’d signed up for the acting class to try to build my self-confidence.”
For that, Ronni admired her.
Millie’s strode self-consciously to Center Stage and faced the class. Her eyes opened wide. She started to smile—slightly at first but building to a full-fledged grin. She opened her mouth little by little as she raised her eyebrows and quietly laughed. The laughter increased in till her entire body shook with it. Slowly, the laughter began to fade till she stood there with a big grin on her face.
Ronni was amazed. This was the best Millie had done so far in the class. It was like she had become a different person—not a character, but a different Millie Petrosky.
“Millie!” Ronni said. “That was wonderful. Absolutely wonderful. And you conveyed the emotion perfectly.” She turned to the class.
“So what emotion do you think she was portraying?
“Happiness,” Devonte said. “Or joy. And she really nailed it, didn’t she?”
“She certainly did,” Ronni replied. “Okay,” she said. “That’s it for today. Tomorrow we’ll try some different exercises—portraying an animal—but in a non-stereotypical way, just like today with the emotions. Slowly we’ll build into longer scenes.
“For homework, I’d like you to come up with an animal. Spend a little time figuring out how you want to show this animal and give it a few practice runs at home.”
As Millie left the stage, Sylvia turned sideways in her seat. Unfortunately, her foot stuck out and tripped Millie as she went past. Millie stumbled and almost fell but managed to right herself by grabbing onto the back of a seat. She turned and gave Sylvia a stern look.
The bell rang, and Ronni started to gather up her notes. “I’m tired of her calling me names,” she heard someone say. She glanced up to see a small group of students near the wall in the center aisle. She noticed it was Millie. “And trying to trip me. I’m sure Ms. Adams thought it was an accident.”
“Sure, like knocking Justin Sears down the steps and making him fracture his arm and pelvis.”
“Calling people names and making fun of them are becoming way too much,” someone else said.
“Like making fun of Ginny Sanders because she limps.”
“Or picking on Floyd Wilson when he lost his hair because of chemotherapy.”
“Yeah, but all the teachers think she’s a perfect little angel.”
“With horns instead of a halo,” a boy named Ken said.
The others in the group laughed.
“Well, I’m sick of her calling me Piggy and mocking, ‘oink, oink, oink.’”
&n
bsp; It sounded to Ronni as if Millie were about to start to cry.
“Hey, Millie, it’s okay. You’re not fat.” It was Devonte’s voice. “And even so, just look at how many overweight people have made it big. Singers. Actors. Remember Wilford Brimley?”
