Death By Drama

by Abigail Keam

  Matt looked aghast.

  “But won’t that hurt Franklin’s credibility if his best friend shuns him?” I asked.

  “Yes, it may,” Shaneika replied coldly. “And that brings up another point. Either Franklin gets another lawyer, or both of you do. We have conflicting interests here.”

  Matt did not appear offended. “It’s best Franklin stay with you. Whom shall we contact?”

  “I’ve given you a good reference for a child custody lawyer. Josiah, if you need help with something, I recommend this lawyer.” Shaneika handed me a different business card, which was the same as giving me my walking papers.

  I took the card while snorting like an angry bull seeing red.

  Things were becoming topsy-turvy and out of kilter.

  I wanted clarity.

  But most of all I wanted peace.

  15

  Asa followed Robin Russell into the discount store’s parking lot.

  Robin swirled around. “What do you want? I’ve already talked to you.”

  Asa held up her hands. “Whoa, there. What’s wrong with answering a few more questions? You got something to hide?”

  “Of course not, but you’re not a real cop, and I’ve been interrogated several times by the police. I’m sick of being hounded.”

  “Maybe they think you’re hiding something.”

  “I’m not,” Robin said defiantly.

  “I believe you, but I need some things cleared up.”

  “I don’t know anything. Believe me, if I knew something, I would help. I like Franklin. I really do.”

  “I understand Franklin and Madison Smythe didn’t get along.”

  “That’s an understatement.”

  “Did Madison have problems with anyone else?”

  “She got along with everyone.”

  “Really? Because other players said she was difficult,” Asa lied.

  Robin looked around the parking lot before speaking. “Well, if the others are saying things, then maybe I should, too.” She leaned closer to Asa. “Madison was difficult. This group got together for fun and to put on a little play for our friends, but you’d think we were getting ready for Broadway. I mean, Madison was very demanding. It was ridiculous.”

  “How did that play out? No pun intended.”

  “At first we went along with her, but when it got so out of hand, several of the cast went to John and asked him to speak to Madison.”

  “Who was that?”

  “Well, me. Then there were Zion Foley, Ashley Moore, and Deliah Webster.”

  “How did John react to complaints about his wife?”

  “I don’t know what he said to the others, but with me he said he would talk to her.”

  “How do you know the others went to talk to John?”

  “They mentioned it in passing.”

  “And did he talk to Madison?”

  “I don’t know. John may have, but her behavior only got worse.”

  “What did the rest of the cast do?”

  “Nothing. We were cowed. Only Franklin had the guts to confront Madison.”

  “How many thespians are in this little group?”

  Robin thought for a moment. “Let me see. Somewhere between twelve and twenty. People drift in and out, according to their schedules.”

  Asa nodded slightly. This was similar to the number others had given her. “Why this particular play?”

  “John suggested it. We had never done a murder mystery before, and it sounded like fun.”

  “What part did you play?”

  “I played Madison’s sister-in-law, Lady Elton.”

  Asa raised an eyebrow. “She’s a Kentucky gal who marries an English lord.”

  “Yeah. That’s right. How did you know?”

  “Lucky guess. Now, were you in the scene where Madison drinks from the goblet?”

  “Yes.”

  “Anyone else drink from the goblets?”

  “Zion, who plays her lover.”

  “Did they always pick up the same goblet?”

  “Yes. It’s in the stage directions. The leading lady picks up the goblet on the left.”

  “Why is that?”

  Robin shrugged. “Don’t know. It’s just in the stage directions.”

  “Do they pour from the wine decanter, or does the props manager fill the glasses beforehand?”

  “Franklin always fills the goblets.”

  “Every time? Franklin says John filled up the goblets that night.”

  “He could have. I don’t remember.”

  “Did Franklin fill the goblets every night?”

  “Maybe not, but he’s the props manager, so I just assumed he did.”

  “Why do you think Franklin disliked Madison so intensely?”

  “Her attitude, for one thing.”

  Asa’s ears perked up. “One thing? Was there another thing?”

  Robin looked around the parking lot again. Was she searching for someone?

  Asa did a quick scan too.

  “Franklin told me earlier in the month he thought Madison was pinching things from Wickliffe Manor and asked me to keep an eye on her.”

  “Did you believe him?”

  Robin shrugged. “I didn’t want to get involved, but I told him I would.”

  “Did you keep an eye on Madison?”

  “I told you. I didn’t want to get involved in what was potentially messy, but I did see something.”

  Asa waited and waited until she said, “Well?”

  “I saw John Smythe lift a carved jade trinket from an end table in the hallway and put it in Madison’s coat pocket.”

  “Interesting.”

  “Yes, very.”

  “Did you tell Franklin it was John stealing and not Madison?”

  “No.”

  “Because you didn’t want to become involved,” Asa interjected.

  Robin looked uncomfortable. “I need to get going.”

  “Just give me a minute more. Do you think Franklin murdered Madison Smythe?”

  Robin scoffed, “Franklin is the most gentle man I know. However, if a person was threatening someone whom Franklin loved, then yes, I can see Franklin killing him.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “I don’t think Franklin killed Madison. I don’t even think Madison was murdered. She died of natural causes. This whole thing about arresting Franklin is a farce.”

  “The police think it was murder. They must have their reasons to think that.”

  Robin whinnied like a horse. Yes, she really did!

  “One more question, please. Was Madison seeing someone on the side?”

  Glancing away, Robin replied, “I wouldn’t know, but if she was, ask Zion Foley. Now I’ve got to go.” She opened her car door, was inside and gone before Asa could say Tippecanoe and Tyler too.

  “I seem to have touched a nerve,” Asa muttered to herself before running to her car.

  Why was Asa running?

  She was going to follow Robin Russell.

  16

  Robin turned into a parking lot at Woodland Park in the Chevy Chase neighborhood. She got out of her car, scanned the street, and walked quickly into the park.

  Asa pulled over on a side street, keeping Robin in her sights. She pulled her long hair under a hat and put on a sweater before grabbing a bag and quietly exiting her car. Making way to Robin’s vehicle, she opened the locked door with some thingamajig from her bag. Keeping an eye on Robin walking toward the baseball field, Asa searched the car. It didn’t take long. It was as clean as a whistle. Drats! Robin had taken her phone with her. Before locking the car back up, Asa put a listening and GPS tracking device under the dashboard.

  Then Asa casually strolled down the sidewalk in the direction Robin had taken. Selecting a bench where she had a clear view, Asa sat and pulled knitting from her bag. Occasionally she looked through binoculars, as though birdwatching as well.

  After waiting about ten minutes, a young man in his
early twenties ambled from High Street into the park. He carried sacks of what looked like takeout lunch.

  Robin ran up to him, and they hugged each other tightly.

  “Well, the game is afoot, Watson,” Asa quoted to no one in particular. Like her mother, Asa had a fondness for Sherlock Homes. She twisted her mouth in frustration. She knew Robin was married with one child and in her early thirties. So who was this young guy, and what was he to Robin? Hmm.

  Robin and the young man sat on a bench facing away from Asa and began eating their lunch. Frequently, Robin would lean over and kiss the young man on the cheek.

  Asa decided to get closer so she could hear the conversation. She strolled casually behind their bench, catching snippets and heard Robin call the young man Ashley while discussing his college work.

  Moving behind a tree, Asa fished for a camera and took pictures of the couple.

  When they finished their lunch, they bagged it up and threw it in a trash container. Robin gave the young man money, and the two parted ways.

  Asa decided to follow Ashley. She tracked him to an old, rundown Toyota. He pulled out of his parking spot like a bat out of hell, but not before Asa memorized his license plate.

  Leaning against a ginkgo tree and watching the car speed down High Street, Asa wondered if the young man was the Ashley Moore who also acted in the play. And better yet, why was Robin Russell meeting him for lunch in a park and giving him money?

  Inquiring minds wanted to know.

  Asa’s inquiring mind, to be exact.

  17

  It didn’t take Asa long to track Ashley down. He lived in a downtown apartment near the University of Kentucky with two roommates.

  Asa watched the comings and goings from Ashley’s apartment for several hours. There was so much foot traffic, Asa was beginning to wonder if Ashley and his roommates were selling drugs.

  Suddenly two boys, one of them Ashley, and a girl, exited the apartment and walked past Asa’s car, probably going to dinner.

  Asa saw this as an opportunity to snoop and took it. The lock was weak, so Asa used a credit card to get in.

  It was a typical college apartment. Dirty dishes in the sink, clothes draped over chairs, and empty beer bottles tossed on the makeshift coffee table, but no evidence of drugs.

  Asa checked the bedrooms. The first one belonged to a female. A bra hung over a chair while an open makeup bag and a basket of clean laundry lay on the bed, a biology textbook opened on the desk next to a computer—typical college girl room.

  Asa moved on to the next bedroom. It was a pigsty. Beer bottles strewn on the floor. Clothes scattered everywhere. Unmade bed. Asa picked up a pair of jeans off the floor. Too big for Ashley. This must be his roommate’s bedroom.

  She tried the door to the last bedroom. It was locked. No problem. Asa slipped her credit card in the lock. Voila!

  Asa stepped inside one of the cleanest bedrooms she had ever been in. “Someone has OCD,” she muttered, picking up a silver frame. It contained a picture of Ashley with two older individuals whom Asa surmised were his parents. Asa put the frame back on the dresser. She moved to the desk where she whispered, “Uh oh,” when she saw a wallet.

  Ashley had forgotten his money.

  Asa moved to leave the apartment when a shadow fell across the threshold. She looked up and saw Ashley between her and escape.

  “Who are you?” demanded Ashley, looking somewhat confused and a little afraid.

  Since Ashley was tall and muscular, Asa was thinking of ways to knock him unconscious, but would prefer to get out of the apartment on her own steam and not hurt the kid.

  “I’m Mary Sharp. I live in 4B. I was about to leave when I noticed your front door was open.”

  “It was?” Ashley narrowed his eyes. “Okay, but what are you doing in my bedroom? I lock it when I go out.”

  “Is this your bedroom? Oh my goodness!” exclaimed “Mary” while moving toward Ashley as he took a step back into the hallway. “I called out to let someone know the front door wasn’t closed properly, and when I didn’t hear anyone, I came in to check. To make sure no one was hurt, you know.”

  Mary brushed by Ashley into the living room. “You can’t be too careful. I watch all those crime shows, and I wanted to make sure no one was injured or dead. Do you watch any of those shows?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “You know what I’m talking about, then?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Looks like everyone is okay, and seems the front door was left open by mistake. You should be thankful that it was me passing by, and not some opportunist thief. That’s a blessing, isn’t it? Well, I’ve got to go. I’m having dinner with my boyfriend, and I’m late. See ya later.”

  Asa gave one last wave and bounded down the wooden apartment steps.

  Ashley followed her out and watched her, giving a feeble wave.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him head for apartment 4B, but by the time he would find out “Mary” didn’t live there, Asa would be long gone.

  That was a close call.

  Asa thought she must be losing her touch, allowing herself to be discovered by a college boy.

  She’d been caught snooping twice in one week—once in Hunter’s house and now in Ashley’s apartment.

  This was not a good thing in her line of business.

  Not good at all.

  18

  I got stuck with Emmeline again, but I still had to repair and paint my pasture fences, so I gathered up the baby and my Baby, along with Ginger.

  Malcolm, one of Charles’ grandsons, met me in the front pasture by the road and helped me lift the pop-up playpen out of my golf cart. Baby jumped out and tried to get into it. I shooed him away and unbuckled the baby from her car seat, put her in one of those bouncy/learn playgrounds toymakers make for babies nowadays, and sat it in the middle of the playpen. “Baby. Ginger. Guard,” I ordered.

  Baby sneezed and meekly lay down by the playpen, putting his massive head on his front paws. Within moments, he was lying on his side snoring. Ginger sat beside the playpen alert, taking her guarding duties far more seriously.

  Emmeline jumped up and down happily in her bouncy seat, gurgling. As long as she could see me, the baby was content.

  “Where are we?” I asked Malcolm.

  “All the repairs to the two front pastures are done. I finished this morning. We can paint anytime you want.”

  “Do you have the paint sprayers ready?”

  “All I’ve got to do is get them out of my truck and pour in the paint.”

  “Okay, let’s do it. I’ll take this pasture so I can keep an eye on the baby.”

  Malcolm frowned. “Won’t the paint blow on the kid?”

  “Don’t worry, Malcolm. I have raised a child of my own, and I used to babysit you, remember?”

  Malcolm rubbed his backside. “I sure do.”

  I gave him a playful punch on his shoulder. “You know I never gave you a spanking. I just ratted you out to your grandfather when you were bad.”

  “That was enough to keep me in line,” said Malcolm, grinning.

  “It was like money in the bank to get you to behave.”

  Malcolm chuckled while he pulled out the paint sprayers and poured paint into their buckets.

  My horse fences were common to the area—six-inch, round oak posts about eight feet apart attached to four sixteen-foot-long horizontal planks. Here’s another little tidbit I bet you didn’t know . . . all horse fences have to be rounded at the corners. There are no right-angle fences where horses are concerned, since they like to run along the fence line. They must have fences that curve so they won’t run into them.

  Also, pastures where stallions are kept must have double rows of fences to keep them apart. Stallions are not friendly with one another.

  When I was growing up, all farms painted their fences white, but that had died out due to the high cost of repainting them every two years. If you didn’t keep the fences looki
ng pristine, folks knew you had fallen on hard times. Nowadays, most horse fences are painted black with creosote paint because it requires less upkeep and expense.

  I was a couple of years overdue for painting my fences. They were looking kind of ratty, but then I had fallen on hard times.

  The pasture I was painting used to be home to Comanche. There was a doubled-rowed fence in the front to keep people from the road having any contact with him, and doubled-rowed fence in the back to keep him from having any contact with other horses.

  Comanche’s current pasture was closer to the Butterfly, since he was now very valuable. Horse rustling is not unheard of in the Bluegrass.

  I didn’t care for Comanche. He always tried to bite me. The only people he cared for were Shaneika, her son Linc, and his trainer. Even jockeys didn’t like him. He was too ornery, but Shaneika was now winning races with him.

  Shaneika was doing the unthinkable. Most horse people make their money from the breeding fees. That’s where the money is. They don’t let their champions race after a few years, because they could be injured and limit their ability to “cover” a mare.

  But Shaneika didn’t care about that. She wanted a champion that would go down in legend like Man o’ War, Seabiscuit, or War Admiral.

  Personally, I didn’t think Comanche had it in him to become the racehorse of Shaneika’s dream, but he was winning important stake races. I had to admit Shaneika had done a superb job with him, especially after his disastrous first race where he came in dead last.

  But she charged ahead with him, and Comanche lost the Kentucky Derby by a nose. A nose! The defeat was hard for Shaneika to swallow, but she rebounded, as did Comanche. Since then he had been on a lightning streak, winning ninety percent of all races Shaneika entered him in.

  At the moment, I didn’t have to bother with him, because Comanche was training at Keeneland. I used this opportunity to remove any muck from the fields, repair the fences, and clean his stall until it shone like a star from heaven.

  I was about finished painting the first row of fence line along the road when I began picking up trash. It disgusted me that people threw their drink cups and fast food sacks alongside the road. The litter cluttered the countryside, was filthy to look at, and could injure animals that might be attracted. I just don’t understand people who throw garbage out of their cars. I really don’t.