Gail Oust - 'Til Dice Do Us Part

The sheriff raised one eyebrow. “What happened next?”

The sheriff might as well have been speaking Swahili at this point. Bernie picked at a hangnail. Bill scuffed the toe of his shoe on the carpet. Monica returned just then, looking teary eyed and weepy. Upon seeing her, Rita started digging through her pockets for a tissue.

I shot a nervous glance at Claudia who remained ghostly pale and unmoving. Was she in a catatonic state? I didn’t have the foggiest notion of what a catatonic state was, but I bet my diagnosis wasn’t far off the mark. I made a mental note to Google this when I got home-if I ever got home. Right now my house on Loblolly Court seemed as far away as the moon.

At last it was Rita who rose to the challenge. Rita’s like that. She’s a take-charge kind of gal. That was the reason Lance had appointed her stage manager. If anyone could make a production and rehearsal run smoothly, it was Rita. She was organized, efficient, and… courageous.

“Claudia came to the part in the scene that called for her to shoot the man who killed her lover and was threatening to blackmail her.” Rita absently smoothed a hand over her slacks. “She said her lines and pulled the trigger.”

“Just like in the script,” I added, trying to justify the whole terrible chain of events.

Claudia began rocking back and forth. “Oh my God,” she wailed. “I killed him.”

I put my arm around her. “Honey, it’s not your fault. It was just a horrible accident. All of us know you never meant to hurt Lance.”

Monica was next to burst into tears. “I never should have gotten involved in any of this. I don’t know the first thing about being a prop princess.”

I didn’t have the heart to correct her. If she wanted to be a princess, it was fine by me.

“Was it at this point one of you placed a nine-one-one call?”

We looked at each other rather sheepishly. No one was eager to relate what occurred next.

“Ah, not exactly,” I muttered when no one else seemed ready to cough up the information.

Now it was my turn to be the recipient of the sheriff’s one-eyebrow lift-a gesture cultivated to intimidate; a gesture reminiscent of a Sister Mary Magdalene when she spotted one of her students chewing gum during algebra.

“Kindly define ‘not exactly.’ ”

I stared down at my hands while the seconds ticked away. In the far reaches of my mind, I noticed I could use a manicure. Clearing my throat, I forged ahead. “Claudia told us Lance was only pretending to be dead.”

“Pretendin’?” the sheriff thundered. “Who in their right mind ‘pretends’ to be dead?”

“All of us thought he was pretending,” Bill responded, quick to back me up. “We thought Ledeaux was trying to impress us with what a great actor he’s cracked up to be.”

I patted Claudia’s shoulder. “He was experimenting with dye packs.”

“Dye packs?” The sheriff’s eyes narrowed to slits. “What the hell are dye packs?”

“They’re used in the movies for special effects-like bullet holes,” Rita explained.

“Except the red on his shirt turned out to be real blood, not some Hollywood food colorin’,” the sheriff concluded.

Claudia’s wails had lapsed into sobs. Tears streamed down her face, leaving dark tracks of mascara. I searched the pockets of my slacks for more tissues but without success. Bill, seeing my dilemma, reached into his back pocket and produced a handkerchief, which I gratefully accepted and passed to Claudia.

“Back to the matter of the gun.” The sheriff widened his stance as if hunkering down for the duration. “Other than Miz Ledeaux, who handled it?”

“He did.” Bernie pointed at Bill.

Bill pointed at Bernie. “He did.”

The sheriff sighed and duly made a note of this. “Anyone else?”

Monica seemed to shrink back into her seat. “I, ah, think I did, too.”

“Me, too,” Gus admitted sheepishly.

Rita cleared her throat. “I might’ve picked it up and returned it to the prop table.”

“Think? Might have?”

The sheriff rolled his eyes. If I could’ve read his mind, I’d have said he was praying for forbearance.

“So six of you admit to handlin’ the murder weapon?” I detected a cutting edge to his usually smooth baritone. He pinned me with a look. “How come you’re not on the list, Miz McCall? You afraid of guns?”

“No need to get testy, Sheriff. You have plenty on your list already without adding my name,” I reminded him acerbically.

“Can’t argue with you on that point, ma’am.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Gus Smith mechanically shuffling and reshuffling his worn deck of cards, seemingly impervious to the drama around him. He was so quiet, I’d nearly forgotten he was present. He probably wished he’d never heard of Serenity Cove Estates.

The sheriff addressed the group at large. “Hope all of you had the good sense not to disturb the crime scene.”

“Of course,” Rita said indignantly.

“What do you take us for? Morons?” So spoke Bernie, king of the morons.

Bill leaned forward in his chair, hands interlaced on the table, and asked quietly, “How is it possible for one to knowingly disturb a crime scene when one doesn’t know a crime’s been committed?”

Sheriff Sumter Wiggins heaved a sigh. I wondered whether he was weighing the merits of running for reelection. “Suppose y’all tell me what happened when y’all first realized Mr. Ledeaux wasn’t playactin’.”

Not bothering to check how deep the water was, Bernie dove in headfirst. “Gus helped me shove the prop table out of the way so you guys had room to work. There’s not a lot of space backstage. Tends to get crowded.”

The sheriff, an aggrieved expression on his face, jotted this down.

“I found a blanket and covered the body,” Rita offered. “If I didn’t, Monica threatened to throw up. Believe me, you don’t want that to happen to your crime scene.”

Bill drummed his fingertips restlessly on the faux mahogany table. “I dragged a chair from the set for Claudia to sit in. Didn’t want her passing out.”

“I went into the ladies’ room and got her a glass of water,” I recounted. “Claudia, the poor dear, was shaking so badly, she spilled it all over her hands.”

Bernie’s narrow face broke into a smile, the smile of the self-righteous. “Instead of standing around wringing our hands, we all pitched in to help. Like I said, we’re not a bunch of morons.”

“Let’s see if I got this straight.” The sheriff made a production of scanning his notes. “Six of y’all admit to handlin’ the murder weapon.” He paused. “And y’all, in one way or another, admit to contaminatin’ my crime scene.”

I nodded. “Yup, that about sums it up.”

Just then the door opened with a bang, and a gentleman who looked like he knew his way around a buffet table entered the room. A mane of snow-white hair was combed straight back from a wide brow. In spite of his age, which I guestimated to be mid-sixties, his face was as pink and unlined as a baby’s bottom. He wore dark pants, a navy blazer, and a pale blue shirt with a red and white polka-dot bow tie. I thought I heard the sheriff suppress a groan at the sight of him, but I could have been mistaken.

Ignoring the sheriff, the man addressed the group in general. “I’m Badgeley Jack Davenport the Fourth, attorney-at-law. Sheriff Wiggins, heah, likes to refer to me as ‘Bad Jack’ ’cause I’m a real badass, pardon the expression, in court. Friends call me BJ.” He turned shrewd gray eyes on Claudia, who stared up at him dumbfounded. “Don’t say another word, darlin’, without the advice of your attorney, who in this instance happens to be me.”