Aunt Bessie Decides (An Isle of Man Cozy Mystery Book 4)

by Diana Xarissa

  “I think I’m going to have to ask you to wait outside,” John continued. “The Chief Constable is on holiday at the moment, so I just might be okay with letting you sleep in the corner during the first round of interviews, but I don’t think I can risk having you in here for another round.”

  Bessie opened her mouth to protest, but the door opened and the constable ushered Adam into the room.

  John frowned. “I asked for William Baldwin first,” he said to the constable.

  “I’m afraid I rather insisted on being first,” Adam said, before the policeman could speak. “I’m absolutely desperate to get to the hospital to be with Sienna, you see.”

  “No one is going to be seeing Sienna tonight,” John told him. “She’ll be under police protection for at least the next twenty-four hours.”

  Adam nodded. “I think that’s wonderful,” he said in a relieved tone. “I’m glad she’ll be protected, but I want to be there, just so she knows I’m there, even if I can’t see her.”

  “You sound very devoted for a man who was threatening to replace her with an extra before the show,” the inspector remarked.

  Adam flushed. “We weren’t getting along before the accident. I’ll admit to that. She quit the troupe on Friday night and then had to beg for her place back after Scott’s death. But she still wasn’t happy. She kept telling me that she’d be gone as soon as Candy sorted everything out for her. Sienna had, or rather has, big dreams, and she isn’t going to let me stop her from achieving them.”

  “Let’s sit down, “John suggested. “I need to get a formal statement.”

  Adam sighed and sank into a chair. John took a seat on the opposite side of the table and waved the constable into a chair next to him.

  “Miss Cubbon, if you’d like to wait outside,” he began.

  “She can stay,” Adam interrupted. “I just want to get it over with as quickly as possible and find a taxi. I thought I’d run back to the hotel and pack Sienna a bag. I’m sure she’ll be wanting her own nightclothes and things.”

  “I’m sure she will,” John agreed.

  Bessie sank into a chair near the door, and tried to look inconspicuous as John began.

  “When did you find out that Sienna was going to be playing Juliet in that scene today?”

  Adam looked surprised. “When did I.....oh, but that’s genius,” he told the inspector. “I never even thought of that, but you’re right. No one wanted to hurt Sienna. Someone was after Penny.”

  “I didn’t say that,” John pointed out.

  “No, but it’s obvious. No one knew that Sienna was going to do that scene until the very end of the interval. William called us all together backstage with a few changes just before we were due to go back on. He rearranged a few of the scenes and he put Sienna into the Romeo and Juliet skit. As soon as the conversation was finished, we all headed into the tent to get changed. No one would have had time to do anything to the balcony after that. Penny must have been the target.”

  “Did William normally make changes like that in the middle of a show?” John asked.

  “No,” Adam shook his head. “Not normally, although this show hasn’t been anything like normal for us, so it’s hard to be certain. You can’t really rearrange scenes if you’re doing straight Shakespeare, can you? And you usually don’t change lead actresses halfway through a show, either.”

  “Any idea why William made the changes?”

  “He’s trying to persuade Sienna to stay with the company, and if that means making Penny unhappy, well, that’s a step he’s obviously prepared to take.”

  “How unhappy was Penny?”

  “She was devastated,” Adam said with a sigh. “I’m sure she’s convinced that William is going to replace her with Sienna, both personally and professionally.”

  “Is he?” John asked.

  Adam shrugged. “He might be thinking about it, but I’d like to think I’ll have some say in the outcome. I’m not giving up Sienna without a fight. Oh, I don’t mind if she starts getting bigger parts in the shows. She’s worked hard for the group; she deserves them. But I’m not going to just stand by and let William worm his way into her bed, that’s for sure.”

  “So who do you think tampered with the balcony?”

  Adam shook his head. “Are you sure it wasn’t just an accident?” he asked plaintively.

  “I’m positive,” John assured him.

  “If there had been more time after William’s announcement and before the second half started, I think I’d suspect Penny, but as it happened, Penny had to be the target. The only person who could benefit from something happening to Penny is Candy.”

  “Candy?” John’s face revealed nothing. Bessie knew that if Adam looked at her, he’d see shock written all over hers.

  “Yeah, Candy,” Adam repeated. “She’s trying to get her old job back, you see. I guess if you’re a manager and your only client dies, you suddenly find yourself without any income. She wants to rejoin the troupe, and if something happened to Penny, William would have no choice but to hire her.”

  “Killing Penny seems a bit drastic,” the inspector replied. “I mean, surely she could just ask William for a job?”

  Adam shook his head. “She probably didn’t mean to kill Penny,” he argued. “She was probably just trying to get her out of the show for a little while. Penny and Candy have a sort of love-hate relationship, because Candy had an affair with William when she first joined the troupe.”

  “Well, that’s one theory,” John said. He asked Adam a few more questions, pinning down everything the man had done that day, which Bessie found incredibly dull. Really, it seemed that Adam had done nothing but eat and rehearse for the entire day until time for the show.

  “And you’re certain you didn’t see anyone doing any work on the balcony today?” John double-checked as the interview wrapped up.

  “I’m certain,” Adam replied. “But I probably wouldn’t have paid any attention to anyone if they had been hammering or sawing or whatever. The crew moved everything yesterday from the old location to the new one and they were adjusting things all day yesterday and then again this morning.”

  John nodded. “If you think of anything that might help, please get in touch,” he told the man.

  Adam nodded. “Can I go see Sienna now?” he asked anxiously.

  “You can certainly go to Noble’s,” John answered. “But, as I said, no one will be seeing Sienna tonight, except, hopefully, me.”

  “What did you think of all of that?” the inspector asked Bessie after Constable Clague had escorted Adam from the room.

  “I just don’t see Candy being that desperate,” Bessie said.

  “I’m not sure she was sober enough to do any carpentry,” John said. “Although she is an actress. Could she have been pretending to be drunk?”

  “She certainly smelled drunk.” Bessie gave a small shudder as she remembered. “And I’m pretty sure it wasn’t just her clothes.”

  The knock on the door interrupted the conversation. The young constable ushered William into the room.

  “I must say, I am getting quite tired of seeing you,” he said to the inspector in a crisp upper-crust British accent.

  “Likewise, I’m sure,” John muttered under his breath as he stood up to greet the man. “I’ll try to keep this short,” he said out loud. “Please have a seat.”

  After checking that William didn’t care about Bessie’s presence, the inspector walked the man through his day, checking that he hadn’t seen anyone near the balcony at any time.

  “I suppose there might have been,” William said. “I can’t say I pay all that much attention to the crew and the extras. Really, Adam handles most of that sort of thing.” He waved a hand dismissively. “I’m running the troupe. I have far more important things to worry about.”

  “When did you decide to give the Juliet role to Sienna?” John asked.

  “Oh, heavens, last night. Penny was terrible last night. She missed he
r cue and then she garbled up her lines. I almost fired her on the spot, but, well, we’ve been through a lot together, so I decided to simply cut her part.”

  “When did you tell her?”

  “I told everyone between acts. I called all of the principal actors together and told them that I was rearranging things slightly and swapping Sienna into Penny’s place in the balcony scene. I had to rearrange the scenes in order to give Sienna time to change into the Juliet costume, you see.”

  “I’m surprised Sienna was ready to take on the part. Surely there were lots of lines for her to learn?”

  “She’s been Penny’s understudy for years,” William replied. “We often run rehearsals where Sienna would stand in for Penny, just to change things up. I knew Sienna was more than ready to take on the scene.”

  “So who do you think tampered with the balcony?”

  William shrugged. “I should think it’s obvious,” he said. “Adam wants to keep Sienna with the troupe at all costs. He didn’t know I was going to be expanding Sienna’s role; he was targeting Penny, of course. I assume he thought if he could get Penny out of the way, Sienna could move into the starring role and then she wouldn’t want to leave anymore.”

  “Killing Penny seems extreme,” John said.

  “Oh, I’m sure he didn’t want to kill her,” William answered. “He just wanted her out of the show for a short time. I’m sure he thought that Sienna would get rave reviews once she took over Penny’s job and then I wouldn’t be able to put Penny back into the lead role again once she’d recovered.”

  “Where does Candy fit into all of this?”

  William shrugged. “I haven’t the faintest idea,” he said. “I know she was here today, but I don’t know why.”

  “It’s been suggested to me that she wanted her old job back.”

  “Really?” William sounded shocked. “What an interesting idea.”

  “Would you take her back?”

  “I simply don’t know,” William said, still sounding surprised. “I mean, the thought never occurred to me. I’ll have to think about it. Of course, now, with Sienna out of the show, we are rather desperately in need of some talent.”

  The inspector asked a few more questions, but William had nothing useful to add to his statement. After Clague showed him out, John sat back in his chair.

  “I need a couple of digestives now,” he said with a sigh.

  Bessie grinned and handed him the biscuit packet. After John took a few, she grabbed one herself.

  “None of them are shy about accusing others, are they?” Bessie asked.

  “It’s interesting that no one seems to think what happened today was a murder attempt,” he said in reply.

  “Do you think it was a murder attempt?” Bessie asked.

  “I’m keeping an open mind,” John replied. “The bigger question, for me, is whether it’s tied to Scott’s murder. No one we’ve talked to yet seems to think it is, but it certainly could be.”

  “There can’t be two people in the troupe with murder on their minds, can there?” Bessie asked.

  The inspector didn’t get to reply. Instead, Penny swept into the room with the constable almost chasing behind her. She was back in her basic black T-shirt and trousers with black trainers on her feet.

  “Oh, thank goodness,” she gasped, rushing towards Inspector Rockwell. “I thought you’d never get around to me, and I’m so scared.” She sat down across from the inspector and took his hands in hers.

  “Someone tried to kill me,” she said in a quavering voice. “I’ve never been so frightened in my life.”

  John cleared his throat and then looked at Bessie. She nearly chuckled at the desperation she saw in his eyes.

  “Penny, please calm down,” Bessie said, leaning over to rub her back gently. “Take a deep breath and just relax. Whatever happened tonight, you’re completely safe in here.”

  Penny looked over at Bessie and then blinked back the tears that welled up in her eyes. “Bessie, thank you so much for being here,” she said. Penny let go of John’s hands to grasp Bessie’s tightly. “But what can I do? I’m so scared.”

  “Why do you think someone was trying to kill you?” John asked, his voice clipped and professional now that Penny had released his hands.

  “Well, who else could they have been targeting?” Penny asked, letting go of Bessie’s hands to wave hers in the air. “I was supposed to be on that balcony, not Sienna.”

  “When did you find out that Sienna was doing the part tonight instead of you?” the inspector asked.

  “Just before the second half started,” Penny said quietly. “Just before we were due to go on.”

  “I’ve been told you were quite upset,” John told her.

  “I guess you could say that,” Penny replied with a shrug. “I should have seen it coming. It’s exactly the sort of thing that William does. It’s all about what’s best for the troupe and he won’t let emotions get in the way of what he thinks is best. Sienna was threatening to leave, and by giving her a bigger part, he was hoping to keep her. Intellectually, I understand why he did it, even if emotionally I’m devastated.”

  Now that she’d calmed down, the inspector ran her through her day. Like the others, Penny didn’t recall seeing anything out of the ordinary during the day.

  “Just one last question, then,” John told her. “Who do you think tampered with the balcony?”

  Penny flushed and looked down at her lap where she had been wringing her hands throughout the conversation.

  “I’m not sure I feel comfortable speculating,” she said softly.

  John exchanged glances with Bessie, who picked up on his cue. “Penny, John just wants your opinion. You know these people. They’re your family. He’s got to try to figure this out from the outside looking in. You’re on the inside and you must have some thoughts about who might have done it. Nothing you say is going to get repeated outside of this room, and you might just help the police figure out not only who sabotaged the stage, but who killed Scott.”

  Penny nodded at Bessie and then covered her face with her hands for a moment. When she pulled her hands away, she lifted her chin and inhaled sharply. “The only person I can think of that might have done it is Sienna,” she said, gazing into Bessie’s eyes.

  “Why Sienna?” Bessie asked, doing her best to hide her surprise.

  “She wants my job and my boyfriend,” Penny answered. “Getting rid of me would get her both things.”

  “Surely if she’d damaged the balcony, she wouldn’t have been willing to go on it,” John suggested.

  “She probably thought it would just shake and scare me or something. I’m sure she didn’t expect it to collapse,” Penny argued. “Anyway, from what I could see, she’s barely got a scratch on her. It could have been, maybe should have been, a lot worse. She must have realised what was happening and braced herself or something.”

  “Thank you for your time,” John said. “You’re free to go now.”

  “But what about protection?” Penny gasped. “You can’t send me back out there without any protection. Someone tried to kill me.”

  “You said yourself you thought Sienna did it,” John pointed out. “She’s safely tucked up in hospital. She won’t be able to get anywhere near you for at least a couple of days.”

  “But what if it wasn’t her?” Penny asked, tears beginning to flow down her cheeks. “What if it was someone else?”

  “Would you like to suggest anyone in particular?” the inspector asked.

  “Oh, no,” Penny said, swiping ineffectually at her tears. “I can’t imagine why anyone else would want to harm me in any way.”

  “Then you should be absolutely fine,” John suggested.

  “I’m just so frightened,” Penny sobbed.

  Bessie sighed. “I have a friend that runs a small hotel in Douglas,” she told Penny. “Let me see if he has any rooms for tonight.” She pulled out her mobile and made the quick phone call. When she hung up, she
gave Penny a smile.

  At Bessie’s request, the inspector tore a small sheet of paper from his notebook for Bessie to write on. “Here’s the address,” she told Penny, handing her the slip. “I’m sure Inspector Rockwell will have a constable escort you back to your hotel and then wait while you pack a few things. My friend, Harry, is expecting you. You’ll be safe enough tucked up there for the night. Maybe things will look brighter tomorrow.”

  Penny’s thanks went on long enough to start annoying Bessie, and it seemed to her like hours before the woman finally left.

  “She thinks William tried to kill her,” the inspector said, as the door finally shut behind her.

  “It certainly seems that way,” Bessie agreed. “And she must know that we suspect as much.”

  “It was kind of you to help her out. I hope it won’t be too costly. I can’t see Penny paying for the stay with your friend, and I can’t see her moving out in a hurry.”

  Bessie shrugged. “Harry is a very good friend. He’ll give me a good deal on Penny’s room, no matter how long she stays.”

  “But will he still be your friend after Ms. Drama Queen descends upon him?” John asked.

  Bessie laughed. “Oh goodness, I hadn’t thought of that,” she said.

  Moments later Constable Clague was back again, this time with a seemingly sober Candy in tow.

  “I have a terrible headache,” Candy announced as she sat down across from the inspector.

  Bessie offered her tablets, but Candy demurred. “I took some of my own stuff a little while ago; it just hasn’t kicked in yet,” she told Bessie. “But thank you anyway.”

  John ran her through her day, which didn’t take long, as Candy had spent much of it sleeping.

  “I wanted to get here for the whole show,” she said, “but I overslept and then, after I’d had some lunch, it was already nearly two. By the time I arrived the door was locked.”

  “A lot of people came to see the show today,” John said.

  “Yeah, but luckily for me, not many of them wanted to stay for the second half,” Candy said, laughing. “As soon as the first act was over, the door flew open and I was in.”

  “Why were you backstage between the scenes?” the inspector asked.