Death in a Summer Colony by Aaron Stander Read Free Book Online Page B

Shevlin made a modest bow to Ray and Hanna. “Nice meeting you both. I must run. The director can’t get smashed before the show. Hopefully, I’ll see you at the afterglow. We’ll have a big bonfire on the beach.”
    “Since you’re our special guests, I want to get you two in the front of the buffet line,” said Grubbs, as he led Ray and Hanna through the crowd.
     
     

10
     
     
     
    A fter the buffet dinner, Ray and Hanna, accompanied by Richard Grubbs made their way to the Assembly Hall where the play was being staged. They waited for Sue Lawrence and her date, Harry Hawkins, and then found their seats, assisted by one of the teenage ushers. They had just settled in when a flash of lightening shot through the building from the windows that lined the walls, followed immediately by a roar of thunder. The ground shook, the lights flickered, dimmed, went out momentarily, and then came back on.
    “Perfect,” said Grubbs, sitting next to Hanna and directing his comments to Ray. “Don’t you think that sets the tone for something sinister.”
    “What would happen if the lights stayed out?” asked Ray.
    “I think we would sit quietly for five or ten minutes, then Sterling Shevlin would slowly make his way to the center of the stage, carrying one candle that would illuminate just his face. He’d wait until he had absolute silence, and then in his rich baritone voice he’d announce that the play would resume tomorrow evening, and that the ushers—equipped for the event with, he’d probably say torches rather than flashlights, will help with a row by row exit, just like our Sunday services. We are a very disciplined group, Sheriff. The building would be emptied expeditiously and the afterglow would start, this time by candlelight in cottages all across the colony. And tomorrow we’d all be back. That’s why this place is so magical. A little bad weather or most calamities in the outside world don’t affect us. We have this wonderful respite here for a few months each year that’s quite disconnected from our usual lives.”
    Another peal of thunder rocked the building and reverberated through the rolling terrain. Ray looked up at the elaborate framing overhead, huge timbers notched and fitted and pegged in place, carried by massive hand-hewn beams that rested on fieldstone pillars. Between the roar of each thunderclap, the room was alive with voices, voices that were suddenly subdued by the flood of rain cascading off of the long eaves and slamming into the ground.
    Ray squirmed in his seat, trying to get comfortable on the hard plywood surface.
    “How was dinner?” asked Sue. “Up to your standards?”
    “Unusually good. A friend of the host is a Cordon Bleu-trained chef. These people are serious about their eating and drinking.”
    The lights flashed on and off three times, alerting the few stragglers that the show was about to begin. A hush fell over the audience as the curtain slowly opened on the interior of a large room. On the left facing the audience was a sofa. Behind it French doors opened to a brightly lit garden. The dinner table stood on the right near the front of the stage. The surrounding chairs, two at the back and one on each side, faced the audience. At the back right of the set was a desk and chair. The walls in this area were surrounded by bookshelves. An old typewriter sat at one corner of the desk and a dial phone at the other, giving the dimly lit area the appearance of an office. Four characters, three men and a woman, came on stage and took chairs at the table. The eldest man, graying at the temples and wearing a clerical collar, sat at the head of the table. A woman, much younger than the man, took the chair at the opposite end of the table. Between them were a teenage boy and a thirty-something man, who was also wearing a clerical collar. The man at the head of the table started a prayer, “For what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly thankful. Amen.”
    A young