A Baked Ham (24 page)

“Is something wrong?” I asked.

“No, everything’s fine,” she
snapped out.

“Well, thanks again for coming
by,” I said with another bright smile.

Amanda was two steps from the
door when she stopped, turned, and looked me dead in the eyes.
 
“Victoria, did you come by my house last
night and leave me a note?”

“A note?
 
Why would I do that?” I asked with as much
innocence as I could muster.
 
“What are
you talking about?”

She reached into her bag and
deftly extracted the note Moose had written.
 
“I’m talking about this.”
 

“I didn’t write that,” I said as
she tried to hand it to me.
 
It was true,
too.
 
After all, Moose had penned it, not
me.

She looked a little deflated by
my denial.
 
“Blast it all, I was sure
that it was you.”

“What does it mean?” I asked,
stretching even my breaking point when it came to protesting my innocence.

“Who knows?
 
Some madman is on the loose killing my
ex-boyfriends.
 
How should I know what it
means?”

“Have you had more than one die
lately?” I asked.

“I don’t like to talk about it,”
she said as she stuffed the note back in her purse and closed it.

What was this all about?
 
Had another of Amanda’s boyfriends been
dispatched prematurely?
 
That might bear
looking into.
 
“I’m a good listener, or
so I’ve been told,” I said.

Amanda bit her lower lip, and
after a moment’s pause, she said, “I don’t know what it would hurt to tell you
at this point.
 
Somebody has up and
killed the last two men I’ve dated.
 
The
first, Kyle Keveler, was hit by a drunk driver, and you know what happened to
Benny.
 
I’m afraid that I’m cursed,
Victoria.
 
They caught the woman who
killed Kyle, but if they don’t catch whoever murdered Benny, and soon, I’m
going to lose my mind.
 
If there’s
anything I can do to help you investigate, just let me know.
 
I want that murderer caught more badly than
you do; I can guarantee you that.”

Oddly enough, I believed
her.
 
“Amanda, I’d love to take you off
our list of suspects, but you have to admit, it doesn’t look good for you.
 
You and Benny had a bad breakup, and you were
thrown out of the theater the night he was murdered.
 
Anyone
could have picked up that award, so you have motive, means, and
opportunity.
 
Is there
anything
that you’re not telling me?”

“Nothing,” she said.
 
“I don’t blame you one bit for not believing
me.
 
I didn’t kill Benny, but I can’t
prove it.”

“That’s a shame,” I said.

“Hang on a second,” Amanda said
with a frown, and then she bit her lip.
 
“I never made it to Benny’s dressing room that night.
 
The police should be able to confirm when I
got to the theater, and when I was thrown out.
 
After that I was in the alley beside the building, but I never went to
the back until Fred showed up.
 
Do they
have an exact time of death for Benny yet?”

“I don’t, and if the police do,
they haven’t shared it with me yet,” I said.

Amanda grabbed my arm.
 
“Could you ask them for me?
 
It would mean the world to me if I could get
my name off every suspect list in town.”

“All I can do is try,” I
said.
 
I grabbed my cell phone and dialed
the sheriff’s number.
 
After he picked
up, I asked, “Did you ever get an exact time of death worked out for Benny?”

“We just did.
 
Why do you want to know?”

I couldn’t bear the thought of
telling him the truth in front of Amanda.
 
“Could you take this one on faith?
 
I’ll tell you the next time I see you.
 
I promise.”

There was a longer hesitation
than I liked, but he finally said, “I don’t know what it can hurt, since I just
told Nate Barton at the paper, so everyone’s going to know soon enough.
 
We’ve narrowed it down to a fifteen-minute
window between the last time Benny was seen alive and when his body was
discovered.”
 
The sheriff gave me the
parameters, and I compared it to what Amanda had just told me.
 
She was in the clear, and if I hadn’t already
discovered it, so was Garret Wilkes.

“Amanda Lark didn’t do it.
 
She was being chased by Security backstage,
and then she was being thrown out when Benny Booth was being murdered.”

“Bravo.
 
I was wondering if you were going to figure
that out without any help from me.
 
Nicely done.”

“So, does your suspect list look
like ours?” I asked.
 
“We’ve got Marcus,
Sandra, and Fred left.”

“I can’t confirm or deny that,”
he said, but I could hear the smile in his voice nonetheless.

“Thanks,” I said.

“What for?
 
I didn’t tell you anything that wasn’t public
knowledge,” he replied.

“Thanks anyway,” I said.

After I hung up, I said with a
smile, “You’re in the clear.”

“Thank goodness,” Amanda
said.
 
“How did you manage it?”

“You were being chased by
Security and thrown out by Garret Wilkes around the time that Benny was
murdered.
 
That means that you’re both in
the clear.”

Amanda frowned.
 
“But doesn’t that mean that Fred Hitchings is
off the hook, too?
 
After all, I didn’t
see him out back until well after I was thrown out of the theater.”

“Not necessarily,” I said.
 
“He could have lost something and had to come
back to get it, or he could have been staging his alibi after Benny was
dead.
 
For now, he stays solidly on our
list.”

“Who does?” Moose asked as he
walked in.

Amanda surprised everyone,
including herself, by hugging me.
 
“I
don’t know how to thank you, Victoria.”

“I really didn’t do much of
anything,” I said honestly.

“That’s not true, and we both
know it.”
 
She surprised us all again by
reaching up and kissing Moose on the cheek on her way out.

“What was that all about?” Moose
asked me.

“Sit down.
 
We have a lot to talk about.”

“So, the list continues to
dwindle,” my grandfather said after I finished catching him up with what had
happened in his absence.
 
To his credit,
Moose wasn’t the least bit resentful that he’d missed out on the new developments.
 
“At least it’s getting a little more
manageable now.”

“True,” I said, “but the three
suspects we have left each had their own reasons to want to see harm come to
Benny Booth.
 
Marcus could have killed
the man out of jealousy, Sandra because of the nature of her tryst with Benny,
and Fred because of his rivalry with the actor.
 
But how do we narrow our field down to one?”

“I don’t know offhand,” Moose
said.
 
“You said that you have tickets
for tonight’s performance, didn’t you?”

“Yes, I got them from Mrs. Murphy
when she was eating here earlier.
 
She
was a big Benny Booth fan, who knows why, and she couldn’t bring herself to
watch Fred in his place.”

“I’m sure that you’re planning to
take your husband again, but do you think that he’d mind if I accompanied you
tonight?
 
Now that Garret is off the
hook, there shouldn’t be any problem with me showing up.”

“Mind?
 
Greg would be thrilled.
 
You’re on, Moose.
 
I just hope it’s not a waste of time.”

“Right now, it’s the best we can
do,” he said.

“This is quite a bit different
than the last time we were here together,” Moose said that night as we walked
into the theater lobby.
 
“It’s hard to
believe all that has happened in such a short amount of time.”

There were more than a few
furtive glances our way, and I had to believe that they were because Moose was
still a prime suspect in the murder investigation in a lot of people’s
minds.
 
I knew he hadn’t killed Benny,
and he knew it as well, but we might have been the only two people there who
believed in my grandfather’s innocence.

“I wish we could get backstage
again,” I said.
 

“I agree that any respite from
all of these stares would be nice,” Moose said.
 
“Does everyone think I’m guilty, or is it just my imagination?”

“No, I don’t think that you’re
imagining anything at all,” I said.
 
My
grandfather believed in direct talk, and I wasn’t about to sugarcoat anything
for him.
 
“It’s pretty clear that they
all think you could have done it.”

Moose smiled a little at my
frankness.
 
“You are my granddaughter in
more than name only, aren’t you?”

“We’ve got a lot in common,” I
said.
 
“We both appreciate candid
conversation.”

“We do,” Moose said.
 
He sized up the football players stationed at
both sides of the stage, barring anyone who might try to mount those steps and interfere
with the cast in their last minute preparations.
 
“They’re a big an ungainly lot, aren’t they?”

“I doubt that anybody’s going to
try to get past them, so they serve their purpose, don’t they?
 
We could always try a distraction, if you
think it would help.”

“Maybe if I were thirty years
younger,” Moose said.
 
“Hang on.
 
I’ll be right back.”

Before I could stop him, he
disappeared out the side door.
 
I debated
whether I should go after him or not, but in the end, I didn’t want to go
racing through the alley in my best dress.
 
Where had he gone, though?
 
A few
minutes later, Moose returned to his seat, and from all outward appearances, he
was no worse for the wear.
 

“What was that all about?”

“I wanted to try all of the
exterior doors,” he admitted.
 
“Unfortunately, they were all locked up
tight.”

“That was good thinking,” I said,
“but next time, you might give me a heads up about what you’re doing.”

Moose looked over at me and
smiled slightly.
 
“Are you scolding me,
Victoria?”

“No, I’m just reminding you that
we’re a team.”

He nodded.
 
“I apologize.”
 
My grandfather turned in his chair and looked
around the auditorium.
 
The seats were
nearly full, and we still had three minutes before the performance was set to
begin.
 
“Mrs. Murphy secured some good seats,
didn’t she?”

We were two rows from the stage,
and I wondered just how good our view would be.
 
It felt as though we’d be staring up at the actors.
 
“Actually, we’re a little too close, for my
taste.”

“We’re not here to watch the
play, though,” Moose reminded me.
 
“We
are trying to find a killer.”

“And you honestly think that us
sitting this close will help our cause?”

He shrugged.
 
“You never know.”
 
He tapped the program with one finger.
 
“Just how bad is this going to be?”

“Well,” I said after a moment’s
thought about how to put it, “based on what I saw two nights ago, even though
Benny was not that great an actor, he was still head and shoulders above
Fred.
 
We’re going to be in for a long
night, but at least you haven’t already sat through this thing once.
 
I’m not sure how I’m going to make it.”

“The things we do to solve a
case,” Moose said.

The lights began to fade, and I
waited for the performance to begin.
 
Maybe it would be better the second time, somehow.
 
As it was, I was beginning to lose my taste
for our community theater. Maybe one day Greg and I could afford to go to a
real play on Broadway, but in the meantime, I’d have to adjust my expectations.

The curtain opened, and I watched
again as Fred Hitchings was illuminated by a single spotlight.
 
“In the course of a lifetime, a man leads
many lies, I mean lives.
 
This is one of
them.”
 
His voice was shaking as he
spoke, and muffing the opening line didn’t help.
 
I looked over and saw Moose grimacing.