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

by Leslie O'Kane

  “If you were warm and fuzzy I wouldn’t recognize you, Stephanie. But what’s happening tomorrow?”

  “Didn’t you get the flyer? I put it in the teachers’ mailboxes. We’ve got a fundraisers’ meeting at school. We’re discussing what to do regarding the variety show—scrap it entirely, reschedule, do a new fundraiser.”

  “A reunion of clowns,” I murmured. An idea occurred to me. Maybe I could flush out the killer tomorrow night by implying that I’d soon have access to a revealing clue. “All of the suspects are going to be there, right? Dave, Chester, Danielle, Nadine, Elsbeth…”

  “Nadine won’t be there. I wasn’t even going to invite her.”

  “Oh, right. Of course. Can you do something to convince her to come? Tell her that one of the parents suggested she sell her dolls at the fundraiser and donate a percentage of the proceeds. And then could you double check and tell the others how important it is that they be present?”

  There was a pause. “Why would you want all the suspects gathered together? You’re not planning on doing something stupid as usual, are you?”

  Her words rankled. “Could be. And would you call Tommy Newton and ask him to be there, too?”

  “You’re putting yourself in physical danger, am I to assume?”

  “Of course not. I simply intend to stir things up a bit, see if one of the suspects takes the bait. Will you call everyone? It’ll be too obvious to the killer that I’m up to something if I were to do it.”

  “Certainly. I’ll call right now.” She added cheerfully, “Thank you, Molly. It sounds as though this is one meeting that will be fun for me to preside over.”

  Chapter 18

  Showing a Prophet

  Olivia Garrett’s funeral services were held the next day. With Jim entrenched in yet another meeting at work, Lauren and I drove together. Tommy joined us toward the end of the service, taking a seat on the other side of Lauren. The moment we found ourselves able to talk privately, I asked about the test results on the clown doll.

  “No fingerprints whatsoever, Molly.”

  “Damn. I was afraid of that. I’d hoped it was just a kid’s silly prank.” I knew I didn’t need to explain to him that if it had been a random prank, the doll would have been rife with fingerprints—mine and Nadine’s, if not the prankster’s.

  He frowned. “At least we learned a couple of things. The suspect can recognize your car and doesn’t like you. Not that that narrows things down much.”

  “Thanks a lot, Tommy.”

  “Just meant you’re stirrin’ things up, as usual. Got an interesting call from Stephanie Saunders. ‘Bout the meeting at school tonight, urging me to be there.”

  “Did she?” I asked as innocently as I could.

  “She did indeed. Also suggested I find some bogus excuse to arrest you immediately and put you in jail for the next twenty-four hours, for your own protection.”

  “Stephanie suggested that?” I paused. That meant she was actually trying to prevent me from putting myself in the killer’s path. “I’m touched.”

  “Listen to yourself, Molly. How many people do you know who would find it touching to learn that their friends are callin’ up the police to ask that they be thrown in jail?”

  “I’m flattered, Tommy. You realize how unique an individual I truly am.”

  “Thank the Lord for small favors,” he grumbled. He glanced at Lauren, then rose. He stuck his finger in my face. “I’ll be watching you like a hawk tonight. You give me the least little cause, I’ll arrest you right in front of the whole PTA.”

  He would never do something like that to me, and we both knew it. “My. That would make me the talk of the town, now wouldn’t it?”

  “Sure would.” He met his wife’s eyes. “You know what Molly’s got in mind for tonight’s meeting?”

  She glared at me and said, “No, she’s kept me in the dark, too.”

  “I’m not necessarily planning anything tonight, Tommy. I merely asked Stephanie to make sure you were there, just in case there was trouble.” I didn’t add that it could be me who was causing the trouble, but then, I planned to play it by ear tonight.

  “Uh-huh,” Tommy said. He gave Lauren a quick peck on the cheek, said, “Like a hawk” to me with another finger wag, then left.

  “I’ve got to get back to school,” Lauren said. “I’ll drop you off at home.”

  As we got into her car she asked, “What’s the real scoop about tonight’s meeting? Are you going to announce that you know who did it and see if anyone bolts for the door?”

  “Not exactly. Unless I change my mind, I plan to claim that I’m going to be hypnotized by the police, and that I’m sure that will allow me to remember enough minor details to be able to identify the gunman or gunwoman in the clown costume.”

  “Molly, no! I don’t think you should do that.”

  “Why not? It’s not as if the current course of action…sitting around, while someone else gets shot…has been effective.”

  Lauren pursed her lips and said nothing more. We pulled up to my house.

  “Don’t tell Tommy my plan. Okay? If you do, he’ll handcuff me to my kitchen chair, and this might really work.”

  “It’s too dangerous!”

  “No, it isn’t. I’ll have Tommy there to protect me. And who knows? If it doesn’t work, maybe he’ll decide to go ahead and have me hypnotized, and that will give the police an important clue.”

  “Except that Tommy once told me that hypnosis doesn’t work as well in real life as it does in Hollywood, and it isn’t admissible in a court of law, so even if you could pick the killer while under hypnosis, Tommy would still need corroborating evidence.”

  “I doubt the killer is going to realize any of that, though. Thanks for the ride.” She drove off.

  I tried hard to get some work done, but the friction between Lauren and me was too distracting. Maybe there was a safer means for me to help with the investigation. There had to be a due someplace, something I’d forgotten.

  I drove to the school and swung behind the elementary building. Puttering along at the back edge of the parking lot, I peered at the path into the farmer’s property where we’d been the other day.

  The center of the grove itself was well out of sight from any angle, which is why it had become such a popular make-out location in the first place. Someone, however, who happened to be driving between buildings at the right time could have glimpsed one of us on the path. Maybe if I went to the auditorium, something would ring a bell.

  When I went to the office to sign in, Lauren was already looking frazzled, but she said hello to me. “Do you really think my plan for tonight is a stupid idea?” I asked.

  She tilted her head, her personal version of a shrug.

  “Maybe since Tommy will be right with you, it won’t be that dangerous. He’ll probably insist on taking you straight to the station in the squad car and actually bringing in a hypnotist on the spot.”

  “Which would be fine by me.”

  All lines on both phones were now ringing, with every button illuminated. Exasperated, Lauren said, “Jack better hire somebody to replace Nadine soon. I had no idea how much that woman did in a day.”

  “You’re not thinking of trying to get yourself fired, too, are you?”

  She shook her head. “If I get too overburdened, I’ll simply quit. But I’ll tell you one thing…if I actively tried to get fired, it wouldn’t take me more than a day or two. Jack barely glances at the reports he sends out before he signs them. It’s practically a rubber stamp.”

  She answered the phone just as a couple of female students I didn’t recognize called to her about needing access to the copy machine, their voices blending into an annoying high-pitched whine.

  I left the office, and down the hall I tried the doors to the auditorium but discovered they were locked. Now what?

  I still intended to drop into Dave Paxton’s class again. I headed for the art room and found him in the midst of a rather no
isy class that appeared to be freshmen or sophomores. The class was standing at easels circled around a model—a tall thin boy in a T-shirt and jeans, carrying a grocery bag. They were working in charcoal.

  Dave had been at Olivia’s service earlier, and was still wearing the same rumpled-looking slacks and royal-blue shirt, his tie and jacket now absent. He paused from working with a student and gave me a smile. “Ah, Molly, this is well-timed. Class, we have a professional artist who’s just joined us. I’ll have her take a look-see at your work. If she has any comments for you, you’d be wise to listen.”

  He gestured for me to go in a clockwise direction to view the students’ work. I nodded and did so, not about to admit that charcoal had been my worst medium. Next to pottery. Never could “throw” a pot successfully, except out the window. Artists must be meticulous to work with charcoal. In no time I’d always have smudges and black fingerprints all over the drawing and would turn my sticky eraser solid black.

  By and large, Dave’s students suffered from the typical beginning artists’ tendency to spend too much time focusing on their drawing instead of on the model. They would detail one small section far too early. I threw some catch phrases at a few of the students while being largely complimentary, and spent the most time with one girl who had charcoal smudges on her face and all over her drawing. She had real potential as a future cartoonist.

  Having circled in opposite directions, Dave met me at the girl’s easel and laid his hand on my shoulder. I was wearing an off-white, three-quarter-sleeve, knit blouse and hoped he hadn’t been handling charcoal, but resisted the temptation to check. “Sorry to put you to work like this, Molly. I hope you weren’t just here to deliver a message to me or something.”

  “No, no. I just wanted to drop in on your class again.”

  “Good. I appreciate—”

  “Mr. Paxton, I feel dizzy,” a girl whined. “I’d better go to the nurse.”

  “I’ll go with her,” a second girl immediately piped up. “Just in case she faints, she shouldn’t go alone.”

  Dave shot me a quick glance, and I nodded. He turned back to our future fainter. “I’ll have Mrs. Masters accompany you, Tara.”

  The “dizzy” girl’s face fell. “I’ll be all right. I think I should just lie down for a while.”

  After a couple of additional exchanges, Tara shuffled off with me to the nurse’s office. She hadn’t a thing to say to me as we walked along, obviously displeased that her escape with her girlfriend had been foiled.

  En route I heard some lovely piano music emanating from the music room, and on my return trip I headed that way so I could hear better. The door was cracked open, and through the inner window I saw Elsbeth, playing to an empty room. Not being a sophisticated music connoisseur, I didn’t know what she was playing—something with a lot of notes. I paused, listening, until she stopped. When she looked up and saw me, she frowned.

  I pushed the door open. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. It was a treat to listen to you, though.”

  “Thank you. Playing calms me. Helps me focus.”

  “I’m the same way with drawing.”

  “You’re comparing cartooning to Johann Sebastian Bach?”

  “Not exactly, no. Was he any good at caricatures?”

  She glowered at me, not responding.

  “I’m surprised to see you here.”

  “I’m subbing for the music teacher today,” she said. “He’s under the weather. This is his free period, which is about to end.” She regarded me for a moment. “Did you find a new teacher for Karen?”

  “Just till fall, then he goes out of town for college.”

  “Brian Underwood?” Without awaiting my answer, she shook her head as if at my foolishness. “Molly, what are you doing to your child? I’m the best piano teacher in the area. Don’t you realize that?”

  “It’s nice that you’re confident in your abilities. But I’m confident in my abilities to make good decisions regarding my own children.”

  She resumed her playing, simultaneously speaking in time to the metronome. “You made a mistake by firing me. But I suppose nobody gets every note perfect.”

  “Karen? Dinnertime,” I called for the fourth time that evening. When there was still no acknowledgment, I pushed the “phone finder” button on the base of the portable phone, which emitted a shrill noise on the handset even when the phone was currently in use.

  By the fifth time I pressed the button, Karen opened her door and yelled, “All right, already! I was on an important phone call! I’ll be right there!”

  “Wash up for dinner,” Jim called back. “And be polite to your mother.”

  Nathan thought this last admonishment was hilarious, but we ignored him.

  “Yikes,” I said to Jim. “I feel like I’m the caretaker to a hibernating bear these days. I prod her with a stick upon occasion just to make sure she’ll emerge from her cave and growl at me, and reassure myself that she’s still alive.”

  “Don’t worry. She still needs us to keep her supplied with nuts and berries.”

  “I hate nuts. And berries,” Nathan grumbled.

  Karen came frumping and slumping down the stairs just as I was rising from my chair, already having eaten. “You can use my seat, Karrie Bear,” I told her. “I’ve got a mini PTA meeting tonight.”

  “You do?” Jim asked. “On a Friday?”

  “The planning committee. For the variety show.”

  “Maybe I should come.”

  “No, why don’t you stay home with the kids? Tommy and Lauren will watch over me.”

  “Just the same, I think—”

  The phone rang, and I outraced Karen to answer it. The call was for Jim. “Your boss,” I said. “See you guys later.” After giving Jim a quick peck on the cheek and handing him the phone, I turned my attention to the children. “I’m not sure what time I’ll be home tonight. It might be after your bedtime.”

  Still angry at me, Karen shirked away, but Nathan let me kiss him goodbye on the cheek.

  The group of people I’d requested were already there by the time I arrived. What struck me immediately was the contrast in appearance between Tommy, who looked utterly exhausted as he sat beside Lauren, and Nadine, who sparkled. I also couldn’t help but notice that Nadine had three different dolls displayed on the table in front of her; we were clearly in for a sales pitch, but at least this had gotten her to show up.

  Dave Paxton, Chester Walker, and Elsbeth Young were sitting in different corners of the room, making a point, I felt, of distancing themselves from one another. Danielle Underwood and Martin were chatting amiably amid the group of twenty other parents and teachers present.

  Though she never glanced at the clock on the wall, precisely as the minute hand reached the hour, Stephanie said in officious tones, “At the last meeting I presided over, for the PTA at large, the subject was brought up that a new PTA president should be found. No one has volunteered since then, but I thought it’d be best to begin this meeting by asking if anyone objects to my remaining in charge until the next regular meeting, when I’ll insist we hold an election.”

  I generally found having Stephanie be “in charge” objectionable, but I doubted that was what she meant, and so I kept the comment to myself. She scanned the room and raised an eyebrow at me as if to dare me to speak up, but I resisted the obvious baiting.

  “All right, then. We have a decision to make regarding the variety show. My original hope, as I’m sure would be echoed by most in this room, was that we would wait until such time as our”—she paused to gesture in Tommy’s direction—“illustrious police force made an arrest in the case. Unfortunately, no such happenstance appears to be forthcoming.”

  “You’re not trying to put yourself in charge of the investigation, are you?” Tommy asked, his voice rife with sarcasm.

  “My dear man, I wouldn’t dream of such a thing. Though we would all sleep better if there was more progress.”

  I decided to leap on the openi
ng. “I have a suggestion about how that might happen.”

  Tommy shot me the dirtiest look I’d ever seen.

  I ignored him and said, “I came into personal contact with Corinne’s killer. He or she bumped right into me, and I got a good look at the person. There were subtle differences in all of us that night. I really believe that if the police were to hypnotize me, I’d be able to recall the kind of minutiae that could identify Corinne’s killer once and for all.”

  “That sounds reasonable to me,” Stephanie immediately chimed in.

  I glanced at her, and she raised an eyebrow in haughty defiance. I now knew that she wasn’t really anxious to see me put myself at risk but was only pretending to be. She was the only person I knew who was nice to me when my back was turned but insulting when we were face-to-face.

  Tommy spread his hands and said through clenched teeth, “Far be it from me to stop you from giving this a try, Molly.”

  I scanned the room, hoping for some telltale change of demeanor on the part of the suspects, but the only person whose facial expression had changed noticeably was Lauren. She’d paled and was also surreptitiously studying the others’ faces.

  “I propose,” Stephanie said, “that we go ahead and schedule the show for Friday, two weeks from today, and assume that Molly’s strategy will work and someone will be under arrest by then.”

  “Wouldn’t put that much stock in Molly, here,” Tommy grumbled. “Hypnosis doesn’t work every time. Might not work at all on Molly.”

  “Tommy’s right,” Lauren chimed in. “In fact, I think there’s almost no chance Molly will remember anything significant.”

  “If that proves to be the case, we can always cancel the show for good next week,” Stephanie said.

  There were general nods and agreement from the group, and Stephanie took this as a done deal.

  “Can we all agree that we need to ax the clowns?” Dave Paxton said. “The gag’s been ruined anyway by the articles and pictures in the paper.”