Murder in the Past Tense (Miss Prentice Cozy Mystery Series Book 3) by E. E. Kennedy Read Free Book Online Page B

them.” Infuriatingly, I could feel tears start to form yet again. “Want more milk?”
    I rose and turned my back so he couldn’t see me. I hated how pregnancy made me so emotional at the oddest times, but the story of the last leaf had always touched me.
    ~~~
    Back then I also had tears in my eyes as the final chords of The Last Leaf faded on the big piano. I didn’t look around but somehow sensed that I wasn’t the only one.
    “That was neat!” said Elm DeWitt gruffly into the quiet that followed. “Real neat.”
    Neat? How naive , I thought, remembering another high school vocabulary word as I blew my nose into a tissue from my pocket.
    We were dismissed for a dinner break and told to be back by seven. “Just a short meeting of the tech crews,” Terence informed us. “We’ll be through before dark tonight.” Which meant we’d finish before nine.
    “I’m glad we’re ending early,” I told Lily as we filed out of the theatre.
    “Why? You tired already?”
    I might as well tell her, she’ll find out soon enough . “No. It’s just that if I have to leave here after dark, I’m supposed to call home so my father can walk me back.”
    Lily’s reaction was predictable. “You’re kidding! That’s terrible! He’s treating you like a baby! You’ve got to put your foot down. Just tell him what’s what!”
    “Easier said than done,” I murmured sadly.
    She was right, though. There was absolutely no defense for my father’s attitude.
    “Take it or leave it, Peanut,” he’d told me. “If you want to be in summer theatre, them’s the rules.”
    Papa liked to pretend to be folksy, but it in no way indicated indecisiveness on his part. In fact, the cornier he got, the more stubborn he could be.
    My reaction had sounded shrill, even to myself, “Papa, I’m fifteen! Practically a grownup! How can you do this to me?”
    “With difficulty,” he’d said, and put the evening newspaper between us.
    Lily was unusually sympathetic during the walk to my house. She changed the subject and speculated about the identity of the girl in the yellow dress. I didn’t respond. I was pretty sure Terence wouldn’t want me to.
    Everybody else was telling me what to do. When would it be my turn? My petulant sense of injustice followed me all the way home. Once there, I trudged sullenly and silently upstairs to my room to wait for supper.
    Barbara was in tonight, so now I didn’t even have Jim Croche to comfort me.

CHAPTER SIX
     
    The next morning, Lily and I were looking at three large utility tables and two ironing boards in the forlorn storage room behind the unused projectionist’s booth, high upstairs in the old theatre. There were several shoeboxes filled with well-used patterns and an old Singer sewing machine that had definitely seen better days.
    “This is the costume department,” said Pat Gerard with a broad gesture. Her other arm was carrying a bale of light beige material.
    An eye-catching arrangement of boards and half-driven nails on one wall provided storage for dozens of spools of thread and several pairs of scissors, while one of the tables was laden with stacks of folded cotton material in a dizzying array of plaids, florals, polka dots, and solids. An ironing board occupied one corner, and there was a semi-circle of four old theatre seats in another. Off to the side was a screen, presumably for changing clothes.
    “It smells like our basement up here,” said Lily, grimacing. “Clorox.”
    “True,” Pat admitted, waving her free hand in front of her face and looking up. “There’s a leak in the roof. You’ve got no idea how hard we had to work to get it smelling even this good.” She directed a cerise index fingernail downward to indicate an empty metal bucket standing at an odd spot on the cracked linoleum. “Please, nobody move that, especially when it rains. We’ve got to keep the mildew out of here.” She unloaded her fabric burden on one of the tables.
    “What’s this for?”