A Chorus Lineup (A Glee Club Mystery) (17 page)

“Oh, you know Eric.” She shrugged.

I did. The all-American boy was completely devoted to Chessie. The only thing he was more devoted to was his passion for the law. Ever since he’d been questioned as a potential murder suspect, Eric had ditched his desire to go into music education and replaced it with a passion for righting wrongs. If Eric was upset with Chessie now, my guess was it had something to do with her doing something he felt was legally questionable. And I had a sinking suspicion I knew what that something was.

“Chessie, what do you know about the ruined costumes?”

“Nothing.”

The flushed cheeks and clenched hands were a dead giveaway. The girl was lying.

“Chessie.” I put my hands on my hips and gave her the Aunt Millie look I had practiced for months in my mirror.

“I don’t know anything.” Her eyes flashed with a combination of fear and defiance. “Honest.”

I crossed my arms over my chest and waited for several beats, trying hard to mimic the way my aunt made her eyebrow twitch upward. I waited for Chessie to cave, but she just stood there, looking at me. My Millie look needed more practice.

“Chessie,” I sighed. “Don’t make me find Eric and ask him what he knows. It’d be better if I heard whatever this is directly from you.”

Eric still believed he owed me for helping keep him out of jail. Between that and his respect for authority, Chessie’s secret would be out in the open in no time.

Chessie must have come to the same conclusion because she dropped the defiant pose and said, “I didn’t have anything to do with ripping up the costumes.”

“But you saw who did.”

She bit her lip and nodded.

“And Eric knows you saw them. Does he know who it is?”

Chessie shook her head. “Eric wanted me to tell him so he could report it to you or Mr. DeWeese.”

“Which is why the two of you aren’t speaking.”

“Eric doesn’t understand that a performer has to take advantage of every professional opportunity.”

Okay, now I was confused. What kind of opportunity could witnessing a fabric-shredding session yield? Wait . . . The only way Chessie could turn witnessing the costume cutting into a professional opportunity was if the person doing the shredding was in some way connected to the performance world. And there was only one person at this competition I could think of who fit that description.

Nashville’s own country music sensation—Donna Hilty.

“You saw Donna Hilty defacing the other teams’ property?”

Chessie let out a dramatic sigh. “Yes. I mean, I didn’t realize it was her at first. I got bored at the dance master class and asked if I could go to the bathroom.”

Oy. The bathroom break trick was the oldest excuse in the book. Hell, I’d used it more than once in my time to get out of class. The beauty of the excuse was that even if the teacher believed the student was faking the need to pee, the request couldn’t be turned down. Not without a really good reason. What teacher wanted to be responsible for a bulging bladder? And even more problematic was that there was no way to set a time requirement on a bathroom break. Some things just couldn’t be rushed.

“I take it you didn’t go to the bathroom?”

“Well . . .” Chessie hesitated for a moment, clearly remembering the times she claimed she had to pee during Music in Motion rehearsals. “Not exactly. I mean, I was going to use the bathroom in the hallway by our staging room. The ones in the lobby can get really crowded.”

And hell was the perfect place to build a ski resort. However, as much as I wanted to call Chessie on her creative storytelling, there were bigger issues at work here.

When Chessie realized I wasn’t going to question her miraculous control over her kidneys, she gave a bright smile. “Anyway, I went through the doors into the hallway and was going to stop in our staging room really quick when I heard a noise from the room next to ours.”

“What kind of noise?”

“It sounded like fabric ripping, kind of like when I got my heel caught in my rehearsal skirt doing that backwards hitch kick during the run of the musical last week.”

I remembered. The sound of Chessie’s dress ripping echoed through the theater loud and clear. So did the sound of Chessie’s backside hitting the wooden floor.

“Anyway, I decided to find out what made the sound. The door to the room next to ours was closed, but I could hear more ripping coming from there. I thought about opening the door, but I figured whoever was inside had the door closed for a reason. So I went back to our staging room and waited for them to come out. When I heard the door open, I waited a minute and then peeked around the corner and saw the back of a woman walking in the other direction. There was something familiar about her so I snapped a picture with my cell as she went into the room two doors down. That’s when I decided to take a look in the room next to ours. I mean, it seemed pretty obvious that she was up to something. And that’s when I found the ruined costumes. I took a picture of those, too. Just in case.”

Just in case of what, I wasn’t sure. What I was sure of was that Chessie’s story had a lot of holes in it, which told me more had happened in that hallway than what she was saying. And the stubborn look in her eyes told me I wasn’t going to find out what that something was. Chessie must have been up to something, but at the moment I was less concerned about whatever that was. I wanted to see the photographs.

“Do you have your cell phone with you?” Do pigs like mud?

Chessie pulled out her cell, pushed buttons on the screen, and handed the phone to me.

“The woman in this photo is a brunette.” Which, other than her curvy backside, was the only thing I could tell about her.

“She was wearing a wig. I was able to get a profile shot of her coming out of the second room. It’s a little crooked because I had to stick the phone out of the door and snap the shot without looking, but you can tell it’s Donna Hilty. See.”

She handed the phone back to me. The photo was off center and a little fuzzy, but the face in the middle of all that brown hair was unmistakable. As far as evidence goes, the photograph was circumstantial. There was no law against wearing a wig or going into rooms that belonged to other teams. The date stamp and time of the photo was more damning. Not only was it the same period in which the sabotage took place; it was also the day that Donna claimed to have been called out of town due to a family emergency.

“Why didn’t you tell Mr. DeWeese or me about what you saw?”

Chessie flushed and my stomach sank.

“You told Donna that you saw her. That’s why she picked you to sing at the master class this morning.” I didn’t need to see Chessie’s nod to know that I had hit the mark. Scott mentioned Donna mostly selected her own students to perform. Scott had sounded surprised at Chessie’s power and polish. At the time, I’d taken his astonishment as a slight against my teaching abilities. I should have realized he was saying something more, but I didn’t know the guy well enough to understand the subtext. I did, however, know Chessie. She wasn’t the type to let Donna off the hook with just a master class solo.

“What else did you get Donna to promise you?”

Chessie sighed. “She promised to land me an audition with her manager and to let me rehearse and maybe sing with her backup singers for one of her concerts this summer.”

I shook my head. “The woman ruined the costumes for most of the teams competing against hers and you’re taking her word that she’ll keep her promise?”

“Of course not.” Chessie straightened her shoulders. “I insisted she call her manager in front of me and arrange the audition. After she left, I looked up his website, called the number listed, and confirmed the audition. I meet with him in two weeks. I also had my mother call him and confirm so that we didn’t make travel arrangements to New York City for nothing.”

Chessie might be a lot of things, but stupid wasn’t one of them. I found myself both horrified by her powers of manipulation and proud at the way she covered all her bases. Too bad I was going to throw a wrench into those plans.

“I’m going to need to borrow your phone.”

“What?” Chessie clutched the yellow-cased phone to her chest. “No. You can’t let anyone know that I told you about Donna and the costumes or she’ll cancel my audition.”

Chances were she’d cancel it anyway. Donna didn’t strike me as the type who liked to share. Especially not with a girl half her age.

“I have to let Christine McCann know about the photos. It’s the right thing to do.” It was also the one thing that would guarantee our team would be scored fairly tomorrow. I held out my hand and waited.

Chessie’s lip trembled as she put the cell in my hand.

“You never know,” I said. “Donna’s manager might still give you an audition. If not, that’s okay. You have college to get through. I’m betting a lot of opportunities will present themselves then. And you’ll be even better prepared to take advantage of them. Now, go tell Eric that you talked to me. He’s going to be really proud of you.”

Making your boyfriend happy wasn’t exactly the same as getting an audition with a big-time manager, but hey—sometimes you had to take what you could get. Chessie gave the phone in my hand a wistful gaze before hurrying off to find Eric.

For a minute, I just watched her go. I couldn’t help wondering whether if I’d had her desire to succeed at all cost, my career would have taken off years ago. If so, I would never have needed to move in with my aunt or take this teaching job.

As strange as it was to admit, I was glad I’d had this chance. No matter what happened in the future, I’d learned a lot from this job. I’d always thought that teaching was for those who couldn’t make it on the stage or got tired of the endless rounds of rejection and auditions.

I was wrong.

Teaching didn’t get applause, but it did bring a sense of deep satisfaction. No matter what happened in my career, I would know that I’d mattered to people like Chessie, Eric, and Megan. I’d made a difference. It wasn’t Broadway, but maybe Broadway and the Lyric weren’t the only important things out there for me. I still wanted to perform. Nothing could make me give up that dream. But maybe . . . just maybe . . . the dream could be expanded and changed so that I could do even more. Maybe not this, but something . . .

Well, before I could contemplate what I was going to do with my future, I needed to worry about the present. I texted Larry, asking for Christine’s phone number. A few minutes later, I was dialing.

“Christine McCann speaking.”

I let out a sigh of relief at the sound of Christine’s voice. Though Larry said he’d talked to her, part of me had still remained concerned. She was safe, and I now knew the identity of the person behind yesterday’s sabotage. Both made me feel better. There was still LuAnn’s death to worry about, but I’d think about that later. For now there was only one thing on my mind.

“It’s Paige Marshall. I know who sabotaged the costumes yesterday, and I even have proof.”

“That’s great news, although I admit I was about to call to say not to concern yourself with the favor I’d asked.”

Christine and I clearly had different definitions of the word “favor.”

“You see,” she continued, “I had a meeting with a new sponsor. He’s already signed papers of intent, which will be formalized after the competition closes this weekend. I’m sorry I wasted your time.”

“Congratulations on the new sponsor. That’s great. And you didn’t waste my time.” Not really. “I feel a lot better knowing the identity of the person behind the instrument and costume damage. Now no one will have to worry about leaving their staging room unguarded for the competition. And I’m sure if you talk to Donna—”

“You think Donna Hilty was responsible?” Christine laughed. “I sincerely hope you haven’t repeated that accusation to anyone else, seeing as how Donna wasn’t even in town yesterday. She was called away on a family emergency.”

The laughter irked me. First she blackmailed me into investigating. Now she was laughing at my conclusions without giving me a chance to explain. I guess it shouldn’t come as a surprise that I sounded put out when I explained, “I know Donna claimed she went out of town. But she lied. And I have the picture of her coming out of one of the staging rooms yesterday to prove it.”

“You’re mistaken.” Christine’s voice cracked like a whip. “Donna’s a celebrity. Her career doesn’t depend on how her team ranks nationally, so she has no reason to impair the chances of the other teams. Besides, if she’d been in the performing arts center yesterday, someone would have recognized her and made me aware that she had returned.”

“Not if she was wearing a disguise.” I took a deep breath. “Look, I understand that Donna Hilty’s an important name in show business. You wouldn’t want to accuse her of wrongdoing without proof. But you wouldn’t want people to realize that you turned a blind eye when you were informed of Donna’s actions. So, why don’t we meet? Then you can see the photograph and decide for yourself.”

“Is that a threat, Ms. Marshall?”

Threat? “No, of course not.” Although, now that I thought about it, maybe it was. Turnabout, after all, was fair play. “I just want to make sure nothing else happens to ruin this experience for the students. They’ve worked hard to get to this point and shouldn’t have to look over their shoulders because they’re worried about what might happen next.”

Christine let out a loud sigh. “Fine. I have to meet some of the board members for dinner tonight. But just so you’re aware, I’ve known Donna Hilty for years. She would never stoop to the kind of behavior you’re accusing her of.”

Experience told me that rarely was anyone aware of what some people were truly capable of. I only had to look back to the murders of Greg Lucas and David Richard to know that.

Christine asked what hotel I was staying at and agreed to meet there at eight. I should be finished rehearsing with the students by then. If not, Christine would simply have to wait.

After hanging up, I slipped both my phone and Chessie’s into my purse and headed to my room. After the day I’d had, I needed a shower and a few minutes to think. Despite the mounds of poorly stacked instruments, my hotel room felt like an oasis of peace and tranquility. After rolling up my sleeves, I stacked the cases against the far side of the room and felt a spurt of pride that the chore took me only ten minutes. A little more practice and I’d be ready for a gig as a roadie.

Now that I had a clear path to the bathroom, I grabbed a change of clothing and a towel and headed for the shower. As the hot water eased the tension out of my shoulders, I thought through the events of the day.