Something Wicked by Carolyn G. Hart Read Free Book Online Page B

and screamed, pointing up. Everyone looked toward the ceiling of the auditorium. Up, up, up,at the beams in their gridwork. A hand dangled from an opening. A limp hand and arm. Max, followed closely by Annie, tore down the center aisle and up the front-of-house steps to the balcony and the door to the light booth. It was open. Into the booth and up the narrow steps to the attic opening, then Max, waving Annie back, inched carefully across the narrow planks that crossed the dangerous ceiling with its square openings for the lights. And finally, as they waited breathlessly, his voice floated eerily through the dusty space. “A dummy. For God’s sake, a dummy!”
    5. May 22,
Annie wrote.
Dangling dummy.
    The laconic notation did not adequately represent the dreadful moments when they believed a body was lodged precariously in the far reaches of the attic.
    Max grabbed up a pen from the coffee table and began to write.
    6. May 31. Quote from
Macbeth
inserted in Shane’s prompt card. Sam goes bananas.
    “Hey, do you have a copy of the rehearsal schedule?” Annie looked around for her purse, but Max was already pulling the mimeographed sheet from his pocket.
    He spread it open and she peered at it. “Look, that’s what I thought,” she said triumphantly. “When somebody let off the stink bomb, it was a rehearsal for Act Two. So that lets out the people who appear only in Acts One and Three. And the stink bomb is the only piece of sabotage that had to have been done by someone in the auditorium at the time.”
    Quickly, Max made a list of the cast for Act II: Henny Brawley as Abby, Janet Horton as Martha, Hugo Wolf as Jonathan, Arthur Killeen as Dr. Einstein, Shane Petree as Teddy, Annie as Elaine, himself as Mortimer, and Eugene Ferramond as Officer O’Hara.
    Annie took another bite of apple. “We have to count T.K. He doesn’t come on as Lieutenant Rooney until Act Three, but he hasn’t missed a rehearsal yet. And, of course, Sam and Burt are always there.”
    “And Cindy and Carla,” Max added. “So we’re backto the same people who were present today. Is that any help?”
    “Well, we can at least drop Father Donaldson, Ben Tippet, and Vince Ellis from consideration.” They played, respectively, Dr. Harper (Act I), Mr. Gibbs (Act I), and Officer Brophy (Acts I and III).
    Max wrinkled his nose. “Sorry to be discouraging, old top, but I don’t think we are making much progress.”
    Annie wasn’t ready to quit detecting. “Look,” she said hurriedly, forestalling suggestions of other pastimes (Max had a certain gleam in his eye), “we’ve got to look at the people involved. That’s the way to go about it. Like Poirot says, running about to and fro like a dog with a bone won’t get you anywhere. We’ve got to look at the psychology of it all.”
    “Okay,” Max said equably. “Who fits the profile?”
    She nodded approvingly. He was getting into the spirit of it.
    She printed PROFILE , then frowned. After all, it was impossible to have any idea of the perpetrator’s personality unless they knew his (or her) objective. She scratched out PROFILE and substituted OBJECTIVE , then wrote busily,
Ruin the season.
Get Shane canned.
Drive Sam berserk.
Raise a little hell.
    Max took her pen and circled the last line.
    She looked at him inquiringly.
    “As a general proposition—” he began.
    Annie shushed him. “Don’t distract me. I think we’re getting somewhere. Let’s see who might fit each category.”
    They didn’t agree in all cases, but they did come up with some possibilities.
    1. Ruin the season.
Harley Edward Jenkins III got top billing. As everyone in town knew, Jenkins vociferously opposed rebuilding the theater on the harbor front. Certainly a lousily produced first play of the season would lessen the chances of a profit-making summer.
    As far as Annie and Max knew, and they chewed this over thoroughly, it would not be to anyone else’s advantageto prevent the theater from rebuilding on the