A Chorus Lineup (A Glee Club Mystery) (18 page)

As much as Donna Hilty irritated me, I, too, was astonished to learn she was the one behind the ruined costumes. Donna wasn’t a superstar, but she had a strong career. Why put that at risk in order to play Edward Scissorhands? The press would have a field day with the story. Hollywood stars got away with bad behavior on a daily basis, but country music fans tended to be less forgiving of their singers. Especially those whose stars hadn’t risen all the way to the very top. Why take the chance of being discovered? Did winning mean that much to her? And what about Scott Paris? Where did he fit into this whole thing? The miraculously repaired costuming and his close relationship with Donna suggested he was involved in some way. Maybe if I learned more about them, I’d be able to see how the pieces of this fit together.

Once my hair was dry and I had changed into a pair of jeans and a fitted black T-shirt, I headed to the hotel’s business center in search of the information I needed. It was time to surf the World Wide Web.

Or it would be when the curly-haired guy sitting in front of the computer finished printing his boarding pass, checking his e-mail, and logging in to his Facebook and Twitter accounts. When he logged on to eBay, I cleared my throat and shifted my position to remind him that I was waiting for my turn. The guy turned, looked at me, smiled, and placed a bid on an ugly brown glass lamp. When he finally pushed away from the desk, he had placed bids on six more items that ranged from collectable quilting plates to a state-of-the-art weed whacker. Did this guy know how to have a good time or what?

Once he was gone, I settled myself into the still-warm chair and let my fingers do the walking. First up—a search for all things related to Donna Hilty. A click onto her personal website and I was treated to a glamour shot of Donna with big makeup, even bigger hair, and a whole lot of white fringe. Her bio talked a lot about her family’s struggles to make ends meet and the way being discovered by her manager and landing her first recording contract helped lift them all out of poverty.

Following that uplifting story was a list of her accomplishments, including her Grammy nomination for best new artist and a host of other award nods and wins. Also documented were the release dates and titles of her ten solo albums as well as a number of live performances and the year that she took time away from her busy concert schedule to coach show choir. That was three years ago. According to the archived press release, Donna wanted to give back to the type of high school program that taught and nurtured her passion for music. Maybe she did, but after seeing her teach today, I wasn’t sure I bought the public explanation. She didn’t look like a teacher driven to push her students to improve. And she certainly didn’t have the connection with her kids that I saw from the other directors I’d met this season. It was easy to see the difference in the teachers who cared about their students and the ones who were just going through the motions. Which made me wonder—if Donna didn’t like teaching, why was she doing it? It wasn’t like she had my reasons and needed the money.

I thought I might have found the answer when I clicked on an article about Donna snubbing an autograph-seeking young girl on crutches. Donna pushed the pen and paper away hard enough to throw the girl off balance. Thanks to her father, the girl didn’t fall. But Donna’s popularity did. The story was picked up by several news outlets, and lots of blog posts were dedicated to encouraging a boycott of Donna’s concerts and albums. I wasn’t a huge country music fan, so the story had never made it onto my radar, but the furor must have been great enough to push Donna into canceling several of her appearances. Several weeks later, an article appeared announcing Donna’s acceptance of a teaching position at a local Nashville high school. The story included a photograph of Donna in dance clothes enthusiastically rehearsing with high school students. Many of whom were quoted as saying that working with Donna was one of the best experiences of their lives.

The angry articles about Donna’s diva disposition dissipated. Stories were written about her willingness to give up the money she would have made touring in order to help the next generation of singers. A new album was released to a smattering of acclaim, and Donna’s singing career was back on track. Hurray for the power of public relations.

So why ditch all that work repairing her public image to win a competition she wasn’t invested in? Scott said she was competitive, but no one could want to win that badly. Right? It didn’t make any sense.

Putting aside that question, I looked to make sure there wasn’t anyone waiting for computer time and then typed in my next search—Scott Paris. Eek. There were at least two dozen people named Scott Paris on Facebook. I added the name of the high school he taught at and searched again.

Ha! Found him. Scott didn’t maintain a website of his own, but he did have a page on the one run by the high school. Scott was in his eighth year of directing the choir program. He also worked on the musicals and had not only instituted the show choir program but had taken his team to this final competition in their first year. Go Scott.

Not only had Scott made his mark as an instructor, according to several websites; he was also an up-and-coming show choir music arranger. The rates he charged made me wonder whether I shouldn’t have paid better attention in music theory class. Four-part harmony. A couple of dance breaks. A key change at the end. How hard could that be? Clearly, it must be harder than I thought or more people would be doing it.

Most of the links were about the competitions his choir performed in. More often than not, his team won. I was about to give up after surfing through several pages of links when one of them caught my eye. It was a review of a small, dinner-theater production of
Guys and Dolls
from ten years ago. The critic didn’t like much about the show, but he did like Scott Paris’s delightfully rollicking rendition of “Nicely Nicely” and predicted big things for Scott’s performance career.

Well, either the critic’s crystal ball was broken or Scott had his fill of performing, because not long after that he hung up his character shoes and devoted himself full-time to teaching. At least, that was what it looked like from the articles in the archives of the school newspaper. Although, I’d known more than one teacher in my time who swore they gave up the dream of the bright lights of Broadway for the love of teaching, when in reality they still harbored the hope that someone would discover their talent and take them away from parent-teacher conferences and grading papers.

I clicked around the other links, looking for more information about the man. According to the write-ups, he grew up in the Atlanta area, attended the University of Memphis, and graduated with a double major in musical theater and music education. As far as I could tell, Scott had never been married. His work was his life, which showed in the number of accolades he received for his direction and mentoring of the students at his school. Despite his smarmy attitude, there didn’t appear to be a hint of impropriety attached to Scott’s dealings with his students.

I was struck by this fact for reasons that had nothing to do with my investigation. Devlyn wore pink and hid our relationship because he claimed it was the best way to avoid come-ons from overenthusiastic high school girls and potential misunderstandings. Past experience had made Devlyn overly cautious, which I understood. When he was first starting out, he’d seen a teacher brought down by a girl’s false claims of sexual impropriety. And, as he said more than once, a single man who spent lots of time around his students was a perfect target for overeager teenage fantasies and parental paranoia.

Scott was single. As far as I could tell, he was straight. Eight years into teaching he was well respected and sought after for show choir workshops and special master classes. And he wasn’t the only one I’d seen on the competition circuit who wasn’t married and had managed to avoid scandal. Devlyn was smart. He was attractive and talented and really good at making me feel as if I was doing something important by teaching jazz squares and triple turns to these kids. If it hadn’t been for him, I would never have survived a week at this job.

Closing my eyes, I could still picture Devlyn in the audience of the Merle Reskin Theatre during opening night of
The
Messiah
. The minute the last notes were sung, I sought out his face in the audience and saw the pride and affection he felt for me. Aunt Millie was the first person on her feet applauding, but Devlyn was right behind her. Mike Kaiser had stayed seated even as the rest of the audience had given us a standing ovation. I thought Devlyn’s response was a sign of his support and that all of the stolen moments since then were leading to something more permanent. This week had shown me how wrong I had been. Devlyn wanted someone who fit into the world he had constructed for himself. Someone who would accept the limitations he placed on his life.

Someone who wasn’t me.

I brushed a tear off my cheek, pushed aside thoughts of Devlyn, and went back to the task at hand. Donna had mentioned that Scott had connections to the judges. If that was the case, I was hard-pressed to see what they could be. And since I didn’t have a list of the judges for this competition, I couldn’t look them up. So I did the only thing I could think of. I typed in the name of the person Donna claimed was trying to use Scott’s association with the judges—LuAnn Freeman of Memphis, Tennessee.

Wow. There was more than I expected.

Not only did several sites list her home address; there were photographs from both the street level and above views of her house. I wasn’t sure whether property values in Memphis were in any way comparable to those in Chicago, but it was clear LuAnn and her family weren’t hurting for cash. That house was huge. So was the acre or more of land it sat on, complete with flowering trees and an Olympic-sized pool.

More than a little creeped out at how stalkerish I felt looking at a dead woman’s house, I clicked on an article about a dispute with a local water company. I wasn’t surprised to see LuAnn was the one leading the complaint. The woman had had a forceful personality and hadn’t been scared to use it. However, I was surprised to see the article list her as a former social worker. LuAnn’s disposition seemed far more abrasive than the kindhearted type I typically associated with the job. The house wasn’t what I’d expect, either—unless social workers got paid better in Memphis than they did in Chicago. She must have won the lottery or she married someone with lots of cash. Regardless, according to what I read, LuAnn had decided to step away from social work eight years ago. Instead of kicking back and taking some time off to relax, LuAnn opted to fill her time volunteering for her children’s activities. LuAnn was listed as an assistant soccer coach, a troop leader, team mom for the traveling baseball squad, and the president of the show choir boosters. Her life made me tired just reading about it.

After several more clicks and no new information, I typed “Kelly Jensen” into the search window. The woman’s eavesdropping behavior outside our staging room and her less than favorable relationship with LuAnn made me curious. According to the competition’s website, Kelly had begun working with the organization just before Christine came on board. Her bio talked about her family’s long-standing passion and dedication to helping expand the influence of the arts in today’s youth. Yay for Kelly’s family. They sounded like people I’d love to meet.

I clicked on the next article and felt my heart drop. Unless I kicked the bucket, I wouldn’t be meeting Kelly’s family anytime soon. They were dead. According to the article dated almost six years ago, Kelly’s husband, daughter, granddaughter and close family friend were on their way to this very competition, which the Jensens had helped found, when they were hit by a truck whose driver had fallen asleep at the wheel. Kelly had planned on making the trip with them, but had come down with the flu and insisted her family enjoy the show without her.

Poor Kelly. That kind of loss had to be devastating. I admired Kelly’s ability not only to keep going, but to do so in a job that worked to continue the type of performance her family had been on their way to see. The woman had to have a spine stronger than steel.

Still bummed for Kelly, I typed in the last name on my list, and information on the head of the United States Show Choir competition filled the screen. I scanned the information on the monitor as one of the hotel patrons appeared in the business center doorway, waiting for his turn at the computer. Quickly, I read the highlights of Christine’s life. The first part had been high-powered. After graduating with her MBA, Christine went on to serve as head of marketing for not one but two different Fortune 500 companies. Then, suddenly, she left her seven-figures-a-year job to run this competition.

Huh. One had to wonder why. Did she have a long-buried passion for singing and dancing, or had something gone wrong in her corporate gig that made working with stage moms sound like a good idea? Too bad the guy behind me was doing a dance that signaled he either needed to pee or he was getting impatient. Whatever else I could learn from the Internet would have to wait until I could ask my questions when Christine and I met later tonight. Maybe the answers would help me understand why she was so reluctant to believe in Donna’s guilt or was less concerned about the students competing than in the cash that funded it.

When I got there, the ballroom smelled like a combination of tomato sauce, pepperoni, and chlorine. The attitude of the kids was upbeat as they scarfed slices of pizza and downed gallons of soda. Some of my team members’ parents had arrived early and were joining the festivities. I made the rounds, greeting parents. Once I was done asking about their trips and assuring them that the students didn’t appear emotionally scarred by the events of this week, I settled into a seat next to Aunt Millie and Aldo with a plate of pizza. Thank God Killer was taking a nap in Millie’s hotel room, which meant I could eat my dinner in peace.

Killer wasn’t the only one absent. Devlyn had opted to skip mealtime or find sustenance elsewhere. On the happy front, Chessie and Eric seemed to be back on good terms. They were seated next to each other, holding hands. The handholding made for awkward pizza eating, but it didn’t look as if either of them cared as they talked with Chessie’s parents. The only thing that made Chessie pout was when I said she couldn’t have her phone back until later tonight. But that frown was quickly turned into a smile when Eric complimented her willingness to sacrifice her needs for the good of the team. Score one for truth, justice, and a boyfriend who knew how to placate his girl.