Never Thwart a Thespian: Volume 8 (Leigh Koslow Mystery Series) (8 page)

“What is it?” Leigh asked, her own alarm obvious.

Allison held up a man’s leather briefcase, once stylish and probably expensive, but now scorched and blackened along half its width as if it had been tossed sideways into a barbecue pit. Leigh took the case from her daughter’s hands, opened the various pouches, and looked inside.

“It’s empty,” Allison said simply.

“I see,” Leigh replied, noting that all the zippers still worked. The charring was only superficial. Still, it would hardly be of much use to anyone in a professional capacity — unless they wanted to hear wisecracks about tripping into an open flame. “What about it?” she asked finally. “Do you want to keep it?”

Allison shook her head. “You didn’t feel it. Here, right above the latch. See?”

Leigh moved her fingers to the area Allison pointed out. The scorching had made the lettering difficult to see, but the debossed monogram was still intact. Leigh traced the letters with her index finger. “A. J. M?”

Allison’s eyebrows rose meaningfully. “Now you get it, Mom?”

Leigh’s breath caught
. Andrew J. Marconi?

But how could Allison know about —

She broke off the thought. The question of how Allison knew anything was, as always, rhetorical.

“I think it’s strange that the police wouldn’t have removed it from the building when they searched,” Allison said calmly, twitching her nose again. “Don’t you?”

“Yes,” Leigh said uncertainly. “That is strange.” Not that the monogram alone would be proof positive that the case belonged to Marconi — but it was certainly too good a possibility to ignore. “Maybe the case wasn’t here when the police searched. Maybe it got tossed into the pile later. Where did you find it?”

Allison pointed to the same area of haunted house paraphernalia in which Ethan and Mathias were still digging. “It was tucked under the electric chair,” she replied.

“The electric—” Leigh looked over to see a monstrosity that did indeed resemble an electric chair. She hadn’t noticed it earlier, but that wasn’t surprising, given that the boys were still in the process of unearthing it.

“This is so cool!” Mathias crowed. “Hey, Aunt Leigh, do you think my mom would—”

“Not a chance,” Leigh said quickly.

“Ooh!” Chaz cried out, practically leaping across the room to reach them. “It
is
still here! That was my favorite room
ever.
The ‘execution room!’” He plopped down in the seat and placed his arms in the fake straps, smiling from ear to ear. “See, what happened was, we had the whole thing set up just like an execution room in a prison. And when the people first walked in, it was really dim, and they could just see the chair. For a moment, nothing happened. They were just standing there in the dark. But then the chair started to spark and sizzle! And then — this is the really cool part — we had a plant going through with the group, see. He was one of us, but he was dressed up like a businessman who just got off work, with a briefcase and everything. And the people thought he was one of them. But in this room, he all of a sudden jumps the ropes and says, ‘This is so bogus! That’s not a real electric chair! Look, here’s the switch!’ And he goes over to the wall and reaches up and grabs this big switch, see, and then
poof!”

Chaz yelled so loudly, the boys beside him both jumped. He cracked up laughing. “It went totally dark then, you see, and nobody could see anything. But when the light came on again, it was a red light, and a strobe, and there was heat and smoke and steam everywhere, and right where the dude had been standing, there was a charred corpse! Still holding his briefcase!”

Chaz dissolved into laughter again. “Scared the crap out of people, that did. They didn’t realize until then that he was a plant, you see. But we had a swinging panel in the wall, and Josh, he just slipped out and went back to meet up with the next group at the front of the house again.”

Leigh looked down at the briefcase. “So this was the prop you used?”

Chaz nodded. “Yeah, that was the burned one we stuck to the skeleton’s hand. Josh had another one he kept with him.”

“How did you make the smoke?” Mathias asked.

“It was just a fog machine,” Chaz replied, “but we had red lights and space heaters, and a guy on a ladder behind the wall would toss ashes down over the corpse, so it looked and even
smelled
like smoke!”

“That is too cool,” Mathias said with admiration.

“Do you remember where you got this briefcase?” Allison asked Chaz seriously.

“Oh, no, I never thought about it,” he answered. “Probably somebody brought an old one.” His eyes sparkled with sudden enthusiasm. “I remember burning it, though! We built a little bonfire out in the parking lot, and we tossed in the case and the extra suit and shoes. Not the corpse, though. It was plastic, so we just had to smear ash on it. But the other stuff we let burn for a while, and then we sprayed the hose on it. The guys wanted to burn other stuff too, so we made a second bonfire, but then some guy threw his lighter in it, and a neighbor wound up calling the police, and then the fire department—”

Chaz’s trip down memory lane was interrupted by a string of Spanish words flung at him by an unhappy Gerardo. Leigh couldn’t understand a word of it, and neither, she suspected, could Chaz. But Gerardo’s caustic tone left no mystery as to his meaning.

Chaz stood up from the chair, his expression sulky. “Fine! I’m getting back to it!” Then he grumbled just loud enough for the kids and women to hear him. “Sheesh, what a slave driver!”

Chaz moved away, picked up an armload of props, and slowly began walking toward the stairs. Gerardo stood still at the bottom of the stairway, glaring at him. Chaz stuck out his tongue, then bolted up the steps. Gerardo shook his head with disgust and got back to work on the trash pile.

Bess leaned over to whisper in Leigh’s ear. “I offered them all a significant bonus if the work gets done on time. But either they all get it, or no one does.” She chuckled. “I don’t have to say a word.”

Leigh’s gaze returned to the case in her hands. It was possible that a member of the Young Businessmen’s Chamber could have donated the case to the cause. But she doubted it. The initials would be an unlikely coincidence; furthermore, the briefcase was real leather, well made, and in good shape before the pyromaniacs got hold of it. Why would its owner give it up? It made more sense that the case
had
actually belonged to Andrew Marconi, but that the police search had missed it somehow.

Leigh tried hard to think of a plausible, non-alarming reason why the man might have left his briefcase not at his home or his office or at one of his other established businesses, but in a vacant building. She failed.

“Mom?” Allison asked quietly, breaking into Leigh’s distinctly unpleasant thoughts. “Do you think we should show it to Aunt Mo? Just in case?”

Leigh suppressed a sigh. “Yes,” she answered bleakly. “I do.”

***

“Chew Man!” Maura cried gleefully as “Chewie,” Leigh’s corgi, barreled into the detective’s bedroom in a frenzy of bouncing, sniffing and surveying. Within seconds he had zoned in on an area of intense interest underneath the bed, and his front half disappeared from view.

“Found that flax seed cracker, did you?” Maura chuckled warmly. “I was wondering where that went.”

After a few seconds, Chewie wiggled his elongated body back out, licked his lips, and jumped up to put his front paws on the side of Maura’s mattress. “Come on up, boy!” she invited.

“I don’t think he needs—” Leigh protested, but she was too late. Allison had already lifted up the dog’s back end and propelled him onto the mattress, where he hustled toward Maura’s head and cuddled obligingly beneath her arm.

“Dog therapy,” Maura announced with a smile. “Perfect. Lowers the blood pressure, I hear.”

“I thought you might like to see him,” Allison said with a smile.

“You were right,” Maura praised. “And I’m glad you came too, Allie. Let’s see that eye… Sheesh, that’s nothing! I look worse than that after an all-night stake out. You feeling all right?”

Once Allison assured that she was feeling fine, Maura’s gaze moved to Leigh. “Did I miss the memo? Are we having a meeting? Discussing methods of arson, maybe?”

Leigh looked down at the scorched briefcase in her hands. Maura always did take note of details.

“We found it at Aunt Bess’s theater building,” Allison explained, hopping up onto the foot of the bed. “The people who ran the haunted houses burned it on purpose, but nobody knows how it got there.” She held out her hands for the briefcase, then passed it up the bed to Maura. “Look at the monogram, Aunt Mo!”

Maura turned the case over carefully, examining the zippers and peering into all the pockets as Leigh had done. When her fingers moved over the debossed monogram, the trace of a smile curved her lips. “Allie,” she said smoothly, “hand me that file marked ‘Marconi,’ would you?”

Allison quickly located the manila folder on the card table and handed it to the detective, who was wedged between the dog on one side and the case on the other.

Maura opened the folder and glanced inside. Her smile widened. “Andrew
James
Marconi,” she announced. “Good work, Allie. I think you may have something here.”

The girl’s face beamed.

“Tell me again what you know about it,” Maura asked. “Are you sure it was found inside the building?”

Leigh and Allison explained what little they knew about the history of the briefcase, and Maura’s brow furrowed. “Not much chance of decent prints,” she said thoughtfully, “after all this time and so many people handling it. The fact that it’s been smeared with ash doesn’t help either. But I may send it to the lab anyway. It definitely raises suspicion that Marconi could have met with foul play at that location.”

Allison puffed up with pride, but Leigh felt her heart sinking into her shoes. Call her crazy, but she would be happier if the number of unsolved homicides occurring inside her Aunt Bess’s theater remained at its current total of one.

“You know, it’s odd,” Maura continued, musing. “If this is Marconi’s case, he wouldn’t have carried it around empty. At some point, somebody else must have dumped its contents, and it’s highly likely that something in those contents would have identified him by name.”

“It could have been somebody working at the haunted house who’d never heard of Marconi or the mystery about him,” Allison suggested. “They could have just seen it as one more piece of junk in the pile.”

“True,” Maura agreed. “Although I’d wager a guess that most of the population of West View is familiar with the name, what with all the press about the strip club and the entire community pretty much waging war on the man.”

“People know the name, yes,” Leigh remarked, suddenly thoughtful. “But that doesn’t necessarily mean they would assume this briefcase was important to the police. Now that I think about it, everyone I’ve talked to about Marconi has had the impression that he skipped town. Whether he’s dead or alive now, no one seems to know or care, but they don’t talk about him like he was a victim of…” Leigh hesitated. She really did hate even saying the word. “Murder.”

Maura nodded. “You’re right about that, Koslow. In the department, we saw the investigation turn from missing person to possible homicide, but in the community, the story was already legend as it stood. The little people had won the battle, and the big bad Marconi had run away like a thief in the night. The suggestion of foul play against him didn’t surface for some time, and even then, what evidence did trickle in never got much traction in the press.” She patted the briefcase at her side. “Not until the Morton women came on the scene, anyway,” she said wryly, her eyes twinkling at Allison.

Leigh’s imagination flashed with an image of her daughter wearing a blue uniform and leaping about with a gun. She felt a strong surge of motherly panic. “Allison wants to be a veterinarian,” she blurted.

Both Maura and Allison turned and stared at her.

“Yes, well,” Leigh murmured, before either could comment. She stepped forward and retrieved Chewie from where he had nearly fallen asleep, his tawny muzzle draped across Maura’s baby bump. The dog eyed her reproachfully as she set him down on the ground and reattached him to the leash in her pocket. “We need to get back home, Allison, and your Aunt Mo needs her rest.”

Maura made a rude snort. “Rest? What do you think I
do
all day?”

Leigh threw her friend a meaningful look. She had more she wanted to discuss, including the claims of the neighbors regarding mysterious after-hours activity inside the building. But she had no intention of adding any more tidbits to the building’s already-macabre history within 500 yards of Allison’s hearing.
Can I call you later?
Her gaze begged. The kids were enjoying themselves, they were earning money, and with luck they would be done in two or three more days. She could accept that situation if she must, but surely the less they knew about the building’s dark side, the less likely they’d be to go looking for trouble.

Maura responded to Leigh’s unspoken plea with a tight-lipped frown. “I guess maybe I could use another snooze,” she said dutifully. “But thanks for coming, Allie, and for the dog therapy. Oh, and thanks for the physical evidence in the cold case — not just everybody delivers that sort of thing to my bedside, you know.”

Allison smiled back at the detective, and her dark eyes flashed. A look of understanding passed between the two of them.

Leigh sighed. The sooner the Pack got the basement cleaned up, the sooner they — and she — could get the hell out of that building and start spending the rest of the kids’ spring break someplace a little more wholesome. Someplace brighter, maybe. More uplifting.

Like, say, a mortuary.

Chapter 6

Leigh watched as her son stepped backwards, wound up his pitching arm, and hefted a thoroughly disgusting mold-ridden, broken-spoked umbrella up into the air and towards the top of the now-towering trash pile. The missile hit a ceiling tile, displacing it sideways and chipping its edge off. Then the umbrella bounced down onto the top of the stack and slid along its length to the bottom, creating a mini avalanche of refuse that spread out across the floor underneath a shower of dust and fiberglass from the ceiling.