"Even if he does know," Jane said, "it might not help him figure out who was responsible."
"He'll find out eventually," Shelley stated. "He always does."
"But a few times we've managed to provide a clue not available to him."
"And you know how angry that makes him, Jane. I think we should probably stay out of this. It's not as if we're deeply involved with thesepeople. We hardly know most of them. And when the two weeks of rehearsals are over, we're probably not ever going to see any of them again."
"Except for Gloria Bunting and Tazz Tinker, I wouldn't care. I like both of them. And while I admire Evelyn Chance, I wouldn't want to be chums with her. You don't have to keep catering when the production of this awful play starts, do you?" Jane asked.
"No. It won't start until seven forty-five. That gives everyone involved plenty of time to provide their own dinner before they go on stage. Now they have to be there at six, which is why they need the snack supper."
"Has doing this helped you with your catering problems?" Jane asked when they'd thrown their cups and napkins in the trash and started walking toward Shelley's minivan.
"Unless someone does a whole lot better than tonight's catering, this catering company is the one I'll use for Paul's employee dinners. They were only slightly more than the cost of the first two, and much, much better at presentation, taste, imagination, and timely, efficient cleanup."
When the rehearsal was over, Mel stepped out onto the stage and said, "I'm sorry, but you're all going to be a bit late getting home. I need to question everyone. I'll post an officer in the room with the big table and will summon you one at a time.
You may use your cell phones, if you have one, to call home and warn your family."
Clearly no one liked this, Mel included. This was just the first set of interviews he'd do himself, and it had been a long day already. He had an officer sitting behind the interviewees taking shorthand notes on what was said.
The first person Mel called for was Norman Engel, the young man who was now the substitute for Denny' s role. Mel gave him the standard warning. Norman said he didn't need an attorney.
He launched into his explanation without any prodding. "I'm one of Professor Imry's students. He asked me to turn up last night at the rehearsal. I had no idea why he wanted me there. So I obediently showed up. That's it."
"He didn't explain that you were to replace Denny?"
"Not a word. I went back to the dorm, wondering what the point had been. It wasn't until Imry called me early today that I understood. That's when he admitted he was going to drop Denny and replace him with me."
"He didn't mention that Denny was already dead?"
"Not until the end of the conversation. I'd told him I didn't think it would do my career any good to be secretly hired to replace another actor. That's when he told me that Denny had died, so Ihad to fill his shoes. Imry didn't even mention that it was murder."
"Had you known Denny Roth before this production?" Mel asked smoothly, not commenting on the murder.
"Not really. We were in one theater class together, but it was the one for all the students of the drama school. Not one of the small classes."
"What are your feelings about Professor Imry?" Mel asked.
"Not good ones. I never liked him to begin with, and when I learned what he'd planned to do, replacing another actor with me, I didn't like it. It's not professional."
"Thank you, Mr. Engel. If I have other questions, I'll ask them later."
The Buntings, together, were next. He gave the same warning, which they both waived. Mel asked them the same question he'd asked Norman Engel at the end of his interview. "Did you know Denny Roth before you got here?"
Both said they hadn't.
"What is your opinion of Professor Imry?"
Gloria Bunting fielded this question. "We learned early in our professional lives never to give opinions of our co-workers."
Mel had a grudging admiration for her speaking so plainly.
"Where were you on Wednesday night?"
John Bunting took over. "I was out late with
old prep school and college friends." He named the bar and grill where they always met when he was in town.
"And you, Ms. Bunting?"
"Sound asleep. It had been a long day and I knew John wouldn't stagger in for hours."
Mel dismissed them and doggedly worked his way through the rest of the cast and crew. Nobody admitted to knowing Denny before the rehearsals started. Nobody liked Professor Imry.
When Jane arrived home, she tried to write another page or two of her manuscript, but her mind kept wandering back to the real murder.' Everything Shelley had said was true. They didn't have enough knowledge of any of these people to even guess who had committed the horrible act. Professor Imry was, in both their minds, the primary suspect. Which wasn't really fair.
They'd made up their minds, as had most of the cast, that he wasn't a nice person. But that proved nothing. Lots of offensive people went through life without killing anyone. Hurting their feelings, yes. Maybe harming their career, yes, very likely. Though people like him, Jane guessed, never gave a thought to how much they'd harmed anyone with words alone.
Shelley was also right to say that Mel would find out about everyone's background, and thatshe and Jane should stay out of it. Even petty crimes often showed up in legal records. And if not, acquaintances remembered them. Mel would have to dig deep into everyone's lives, even those who weren't actors. Denny might have done something awful to one of the other people involved in the production. Stagehands, the volunteer students who were making the set. Even Tazz or Evelyn Chance.
On the other hand, Shelley and Jane had often provided information to Mel that only they knew. He'd seldom asked for their opinions. This time, he had asked Jane what she thought of Imry and even agreed with her. That made things different.
Or did it? Jane and Shelley, like others, didn't like him. But Imry wasn't the victim. He was the primary suspect. Denny Roth was the victim. And they knew very little about him. He wasn't much nicer than Imry. Though he'd committed only one offense they knew of, which was telling off Imry about his bad grammar in front of others. Hardly a good motive for Imry to actually kill Denny. Unless this criticism hit Imry in his heart and ego so hard that it unbalanced him.
She hadn't written a word. She had to stop worrying over this. Shelley was right. They weren't likely to become good friends of any of the people involved. The cast and crew would disperse in a matter of weeks. And Jane and Shelley themselves would step out of their involve‑
ment as soon as the rehearsals were over in another week. But she'd like to keep in touch with Ms. Bunting and Tazz, if she could.
Jane closed down her computer, went upstairs. She'd been so absorbed in her book that she hadn't been aware of the battle going on between her son and her daughter. Mike had his bedroom door open, music blaring. Katie was standing in the doorway, shouting, "I'm trying to talk on the phone. Could you hold the noise down?"
Todd, at his own computer, was staying out of the fray.
"Mike, Katie's right," Jane said. "Turn it down and close your door, please."
The din of drums and screaming lyrics died down and finally stopped. Jane prepared for bed and went back to reading a Martha Grimes novel she had somehow missed finding till now. It was a very early one, in which Jury and Melrose had met only one time before. How could she have not read it yet?
Ten
Mel called at ten-fifteen Friday evening. "Is it too late to talk to you?" he asked.
"It's never too late when it's you. I was reading a mystery novel I hadn't known existed. What's
up?"
"I have the preliminary report from Pathology."