Death at a Talent Show (Book 6 Molly Masters Mysteries)

by Leslie O'Kane

In the background I heard my dad, his voice thick with sleepiness, ask my mom, “What’s going on?”

  “Molly was involved in a shooting!” Mom replied.

  I grabbed a handful of hair—my own shoulder-length brown tresses, now that my costume was fully removed to be labeled and stored as possible evidence. “Don’t put it that way, Mom!” I protested.

  “You mean, somebody shot at her, right?” Dad asked. “Give me the phone.”

  “No! I’ve got it!”

  “Well, hold it out so we can both listen, for God’s sake!”

  “Go ahead, sweetie. Tell us what happened.”

  Through the glass in the office door, I spotted one of the officers and the gun in his holster. Please, just shoot me now. As calmly as possible I said, “One of the teachers at the school, Corinne Buldock, was shot by one of the people in the clown skit with me.”

  “What clown skit? What’s she talking about?” my father asked.

  “That’s hardly the point, Charlie! Who cares about the clowns! I want to know if our daughter was injured!”

  “Mom, I’m fine. I just wanted to leave a message for Karen and Nathan and let them know that I love them and that I’ll see them first thing tomorrow, okay?”

  I hung up the phone and instructed myself to take deep breaths. That entire conversation was my fault, I reminded myself as I tried in vain to stop grinding my teeth. My parents were simply trying to make sure that I was all right. In their inimitable style.

  Tommy, looking tired, entered the room. “You okay, Moll?”

  “Fine. Just…envying orphans.”

  Seemingly with no curiosity regarding my response, he gestured with a slight motion of his head for me to have a seat. “Let’s get your statement and see if we can get you out of here.”

  I launched into a full description of my search for my red gloves, the woman yelling about the doves having escaped, and Danielle rushing off to help; how the killer in a clown costume had brushed right past me. Tommy did not comment, refraining from asking me why I didn’t take some kind of preventive action. His reticence, if anything, made me feel even worse.

  Afterward I asked, “Couldn’t someone else have sneaked into the building, dressed like a clown? Or still be hiding out here in the school, even as we speak?”

  He shook his head. I knew better than to ask a question like that—to make it seem as though I were a professional investigator instead of a civilian witness, but with my awful record of late as a horse pulling the cart of murder, as Tommy had so kindly put it earlier, he had dropped the pretense of treating me as an outsider.

  “We were real lucky in that regard. School security knew y’all were s’posed to be the only ones in the building, and so they had their cameras focused on not just the main exits, but on the only entrances to the wing that houses the auditorium. They double-checked all the emergency exits, and all of the alarms on ‘em were working.”

  “And you’re certain nobody could have hid themselves and snuck out later?”

  “Even if someone could have managed, Lauren picked up those clown suits just this morning, which wiped out the costume store’s entire inventory of that particular design. A killer not in the skit couldn’t have matched the costume so perfectly. It had to be one of you original seven clowns.”

  “Please. It’s one of the six, not counting me. Remember, Lauren was in the front row. She saw the killer brush right past me.” I sighed and pressed my fingertips against my throbbing temples. “I can’t understand how the killer managed to just…blend in with the others.”

  Tommy let out a puff of air and shook his head. “You’re tellin’ me? Started out with every single one of ‘em able to attest for one or two other suspects. Then they each backed down when we asked ‘em to sign a sworn statement to that effect. Decided then that maybe they weren’t so certain which clown they were next to after all.”

  “Why? How come none of them were certain?”

  “The killer must’ve deliberately opened the cages for the magician’s animals as a diversion. They all scattered. Caused a mass of confusion backstage. There’s still a white rabbit missing.”

  “Well, I do know a couple of the clowns had possible motives,” I said. “David Paxton had a onetime love affair with Corinne, and Danielle had some major problem with Corinne, though I don’t know what it was.”

  Tommy said nothing, but was glaring at me. He hated when I volunteered my opinion of how he should do his job. But I wanted this murder solved, and if there was some clue I possessed about the suspects, he was getting my help whether he wanted it or not. I went on, “Olivia might have thought Stephanie was in that booth. Nadine could have had a big beef with Corinne. Nadine is always pretty abrupt with people. On the other hand, Elsbeth is my daughter’s piano teacher, and as far as I know, she had no problem with Corinne. I don’t know Chester Walker well. I recently hired him to install a sunroom, though.”

  “So you see most of the suspects on a regular basis. Meanin’ you got both your big feet and your nose stuck into my murder investigation, as usual.”

  The visual image of both my feet and my nose “stuck” into something at the same time gave me pause. “It’s not intentional, Tommy. It’s a small town. Everybody knows everybody else’s business.”

  “Uh-huh. And occasionally somebody gets killed as a result.” He leaned forward on the table to stare directly into my eyes. “One of these days, Molly, you’re going to push one of these loose cannons too far. And it’s gonna explode right in your face.”

  Chapter 3

  When the Circus Comes to Town

  I finished giving my statement to Tommy and left, though if “my statement” had been entirely of my own choosing, it would have been: “Catch this murderer now, before anyone else at my kids’school gets shot!”

  Despite the outrageously late hour, Lauren was waiting for me in the lobby. We had carpooled to the school that evening, but that now felt so long ago.

  “How are you doing?” I asked.

  She mustered a smile on her attractive, round face and tucked her straight, brown, shoulder-length hair behind her ear. “I’m okay. How about you?”

  “Hanging in there.” We pushed out the door and trudged through a chill March breeze to her car. In truth, I felt so numb that it was hard to believe I was still able to walk. Yet even though part of me was appalled by my compulsive need to joke when times were at their worst, I heard myself reply, “With the police confiscating seven costumes tonight, I sure hope there isn’t a run on clowns for birthday parties anytime soon.”

  She unlocked the door to the passenger side and I got in, grateful to be alone with her, away from clowns and magicians and Stephanie and policemen. “They kept your costume as evidence, right?” she asked, sliding behind the wheel. “I don’t know what good it’ll do, though.”

  I fastened my seat belt, though with the weight of the world on my shoulders, the seat belt seemed redundant. “I’m sure they kept the suits in the hopes that they’ll find trace evidence—gunpowder residue.”

  “Oh, right. Of course.” She started the engine.

  “I wonder if Jim’s home yet. He’s supposed to come back from Boston sometime late tonight. The kids are sleeping at my parents’ house.”

  “Joey and Jasper are home with Rachel,” she replied. Tommy’s sons from his previous marriage served as occasional sitters for Lauren’s daughter, though she, like my daughter Karen, was fourteen now and a baby-sitter herself.

  We pulled out of the lot. There was no traffic at that hour, and the school was less than three miles from our houses. I tried to shut my eyes, but was instantly unnerved by the memory of Corinne’s body when I first threw open Martin’s box.

  I jerked upright in my seat, remembering something. “Those gloves. The killer’s gloves. They had those clear plastic gloves over them. Like those plastic Baggie gloves they wear in the cafeteria.”

  “Pardon?”

  “The killer wanted to make sure gunpowder r
esidue didn’t pass through the fabric of the gloves. Maybe it was someone at the school, the art teacher or Nadine, who pinched a pair of those gloves.”

  “Molly, anyone could have gotten disposable gloves like those from the school cafeteria. People have been coming and going through the cafeteria kitchen all night. They kept a coffee urn operating tonight for cast members.”

  I frowned. “Whoever it was thought this through to the letter. If only Corinne hadn’t insisted on us all looking identical.”

  “Bet the killer put that idea in her head, back when she was first planning the skit.”

  “Probably,” I murmured, leaning back in the passenger seat once again. I felt drained of all energy. “Maybe Tommy will be able to trace the owner of the gun.”

  “I hope so. But let’s face it—if the gun were much of a clue, the killer wouldn’t have dropped it in plain sight, after being so careful to hide her…his identity in every other respect.”

  She was right, of course, and I shuddered at the helplessness I felt. “This was so…insidious. Why do this in front of witnesses? On the stage like that? It’s just crazy. What’s happening to our world? Why are people so evil?”

  “Molly, it’s just one person. There’s always been a small percentage of people who choose evil.”

  “Not at my kids’ school, though,” I insisted, shaking my head. “This can’t happen here. I won’t stand for it.” I took a deep breath to try to calm myself.

  We reached my driveway. The garage door was open. To my relief, both our red Toyota and the Jeep Cherokee were in the garage. Jim had made it home safely. I said goodnight to Lauren, then let myself in through the garage, shutting it behind me.

  Jim was sound asleep in front of the TV. He woke ‘as I sat down beside him on the couch. “You’re back,” he murmured sleepily. “Where is it you said you were tonight?”

  “Weren’t you listening yesterday when I reminded you that I’d be at the school?” I closed my eyes and rubbed my forehead. The horrid vision of what had happened that night passed in slow motion before me. The killer with gun in hand, walking right past me, an arm’s length away. An arm’s length that, had I closed the gap, could very likely have saved Corinne’s life.

  I took a halting breath. Talking to myself, I protested once again, “This is a school! I won’t sit back and watch while things like this happen in a place where children go to learn!”

  “I’m sorry I forgot, Molly, but I didn’t realize you’d get quite this upset. You were rehearsing for that variety show, right?”

  Jim had the volume on the television set turned way low, but the image on the screen now caught my eye. They had interrupted normal late night programming to show a live telecast of the investigation. A couple of men in white uniforms were rolling out a human-sized form on a gurney. Obviously this was Corinne’s body. The television reporter was standing in front of the high school, her face reflecting the tension of the scene. Across the bottom of the screen, a banner headline declared that school was closed tomorrow due to the shooting death of a teacher.

  “I was playing a clown,” I said, tears forming in my eyes.

  Jim murmured, “Oh, no,” as he stared at the screen. He put his arm around me and said gently, “Tell me all about it.”

  The next morning at six forty-three sharp my doorbell rang. I bolted upright in bed, but Jim managed to sleep through the sound. A moment later I heard the door open and my mother call, “Molly? It’s your mom.”

  She always identified herself first, as if I couldn’t recognize her voice after all these years, not to mention that she and Lauren were the only people we’d entrusted with copies of our house keys.

  “Be right down,” I yelled, and glanced over at Jim, whose eyes were still closed and his breath, heavy. Yeah, right. He wasn’t that solid a sleeper.

  Come to think of it, if he wasn’t going to get up, neither was I. Surely my mother was only there to drop my children off and would let herself out, now that she knew I was home. I lay down again and pulled the covers up to my face.

  Downstairs Karen and Nathan were arguing about whose turn it was to get the dog out; we lock her inside her crate in the kitchen at night. “MOM!” hollered Karen, who’d taken to speaking in capital letters now that she was a teenager. “School’s canceled today!”

  She threw open Jim’s and my bedroom door. Our Cocker Spaniel, Betty Cocker, BC for short, dashed in, so excited to see her family after a night’s sleep that her entire back half was wagging along with her tail. She thrust her cold, wet nose into mine, but I merely rolled over. The trouble was, unlike the rest of the family, I’d been unable to sleep and had only gotten two or three hours of shut-eye.

  To Karen, I muttered, “I know. There was an incident at the high school last night.”

  “Mom?” Nathan, my twelve-year-old, asked. “Are you getting up?”

  I shifted my position in bed and opened my eyes a crack. He was leaning in the doorway behind his sister. He was taller than she was, and had a string-bean frame, wavy brown hair, freckles, and dark-brown eyes. Karen was so pretty and petite that those who didn’t know her well assumed she was immature and fragile. In actuality, she was as headstrong as her mother, but had a solid, positive self-image that my husband and I could only envy.

  My head throbbed from lack of sleep. “Let’s all just go back to sleep, okay?”

  “But we’re already awake!” Nathan said. He had inherited the tendency to point out the obvious from his father. “We walked over here from Grandma’s. She’s downstairs. She says she wants to talk to you, right away.”

  I shuddered at the thought of an inquisition from my mother this early in the morning. “Has she had her coffee yet?” I asked cautiously.

  “Yes,” Mom called from below. She must have been planted at the bottom of the stairs listening to all of this.

  “Okay. I’ll come down. Right away.” Accepting the inevitable, I rose. I stepped into my pseudo-sheepskin slippers. Meanwhile, the kids and dog scattered for parts unknown. Now that Karen and Nathan were older, they wandered farther more frequently, and unlike our Cocker Spaniel, they didn’t come running to me when called. After a few rudimentary morning routines, during which I verified in the mirror that I was indeed a sight to cause sore eyes, I made it down the stairs without incident.

  Mom, her tall, thin frame in its usual ramrod-straight posture, awaited me at the bottom of the steps with hands on her hips. “I just wanted to make sure you were really all right. I heard about the shooting on the early morning news.”

  I had a horrid image of the morning newscasters chuckling about the killer being disguised as a clown. “Did they say anything about the suspects?”

  “Only that the police were in the process of interviewing witnesses and possible suspects.” She looked me up and down, but at her height of five-eleven to my five-six, it was mostly down. She smoothed her short, salt-and-pepper hair. “Well, now that I can see for myself that you’re all right, I’d better get going. Is there anything you need?”

  “Just some sleep.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Join the club.”

  “Sorry I woke you last night.”

  “I’m glad you did. I’d have panicked when I listened to the news this morning, otherwise.”

  I brightened a little at this. “That’s what I figured.”

  “See you later,” she said, letting herself back out again.

  “Someone got shot?” Nathan asked. His voice was emanating from the stairway. Evidently, he had been eavesdropping on the conversation.

  I peered around the corner and saw that both Karen and Nathan were sitting on the stairs.

  “Yes. Nobody you know. She was a—” I hesitated, not wanting to use the word “teacher” and make him afraid in his classroom, and searched for another term. “—curriculum coordinator at the high school.”

  “Did you know her?” Karen asked gently, restoring my faith that she hadn’t changed all that drastically from the sweet
little angel girl I’d known.

  “Not well. She was the director of that variety show the PTA was putting on.”

  She leaped to her feet. “Hey, Mom. Since school’s out, I’m gonna invite Rachel over.” Karen was, alas, fourteen once again.

  “That’s no fair!” Nathan immediately chimed in. “I want a friend over, too,”

  “No friends over this morning. Your friends are too young to be traumatized by the sight of me operating on this little sleep.”

  “Thanks a lot, Nathan! Mom just doesn’t want any boys to see her in her ratty old bathrobe! And now I don’t get to have Rachel over!”

  While the two of them continued to argue, I, in my ratty old bathrobe, staggered into the kitchen in search of Jim’s caffeine cache. My lone “delicate” feature—my stomach—had caused me to have to give up caffeine, except in emergencies such as now.

  The morning progressed. Jim grabbed a breakfast bar, yogurt, and his briefcase and, after receiving my reassurances that I intended to stay home all day, left for work. Karen watched some stupid game show on television, while I diverted questions from Nathan. He tended to stew about things and was certain that it was no longer safe for him to return to the Carlton Central School campus. Not an avid student, he eagerly jumped on any excuse to stay home. Meanwhile, I was in a daze. Witnessing someone’s murder was the most horrific thing that had happened to me, and I’d meant it when I said that I intended to stay safe at home.

  The doorbell rang. “I’ll get it!” Karen hollered over the sounds of our ferocious, barking little dog, who raced her to the door. “I hope this is Rachel.”

  She looked out the front window and turned to me, crestfallen, while I trudged toward the door. “It’s some lady,” she grumbled. “So you get to traumatize your friends with your appearance but I don’t get to traumatize mine.” She opened the door and said, “My mom’s coming,” then spun on a heel and marched back to the family room.

  At the door was Olivia Garrett. Unlike me, she was fully dressed in khakis and a navy-blue V-neck pullover, but she, too, looked haggard. Her long, strawberry-blond tresses were pulled up in a haphazard ponytail, and her eyes looked puffy.