Another peal of thunder rocked the building and reverberated through the rolling terrain. Ray looked up at the elaborate framing overhead, huge timbers notched and fitted and pegged in place, carried by massive hand-hewn beams that rested on fieldstone pillars. Between the roar of each thunderclap, the room was alive with voices, voices that were suddenly subdued by the flood of rain cascading off of the long eaves and slamming into the ground.
Ray squirmed in his seat, trying to get comfortable on the hard plywood surface.
“How was dinner?” asked Sue. “Up to your standards?”
“Unusually good. A friend of the host is a Cordon Bleu-trained chef. These people are serious about their eating and drinking.”
The lights flashed on and off three times, alerting the few stragglers that the show was about to begin. A hush fell over the audience as the curtain slowly opened on the interior of a large room. On the left facing the audience was a sofa. Behind it French doors opened to a brightly lit garden. The dinner table stood on the right near the front of the stage. The surrounding chairs, two at the back and one on each side, faced the audience. At the back right of the set was a desk and chair. The walls in this area were surrounded by bookshelves. An old typewriter sat at one corner of the desk and a dial phone at the other, giving the dimly lit area the appearance of an office. Four characters, three men and a woman, came on stage and took chairs at the table. The eldest man, graying at the temples and wearing a clerical collar, sat at the head of the table. A woman, much younger than the man, took the chair at the opposite end of the table. Between them were a teenage boy and a thirty-something man, who was also wearing a clerical collar. The man at the head of the table started a prayer, “For what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly thankful. Amen.”
A young woman, plump and in an ill-fitting cotton dress, entered with a tray and began placing heavy china serving dishes on the table.
Ray looked down at his program studying the list of characters and then reading the synopsis of the first act from the glow coming off the brightly lit stage. He looked back at the scene unfolding in front of him, identifying characters and beginning to follow the narrative, at times struggling to hear the lines as the rain and thunder still reverberated through the building.
As various new characters were introduced, Ray noticed that Colonel Protheroe was part of every conversation. He could see that Agatha Christie wanted the audience to know that almost everyone in St. Mary Mead had a reason to dislike Protheroe.
Ray was on his feet as soon as the curtain closed on the first scene, stretching and trying to extend his back. Sue was at his side. “That was just the opening scene. Are you going to be able to make it?”
Before he could answer, Richard Grubbs, leaning past Hana, said, “I’ll be back in a minute, I need to check on things.”
Ray dropped back into his chair. Hanna said to Sue, “Notice he hasn’t checked his phone for email.”
“That’s not good. Does he have a pulse, Doctor?”
“Are you enjoying the show,” Ray asked Harry Hawkins, not commenting on the repartee.
“The costuming is good,” Hawkins responded with a wry smile. “And the woman playing Griselda is very attractive. I wonder what she is doing after the show.”
“You’ve already got plans,” retorted Sue.
A flash of blue-white shot through the building, followed instantly by the roar of thunder as the building went dark. The screen on Ray’s phone came to life. “You two are lucky I have this. I’ll be able to light your way out of here if necessary.”
The light from other phones began to illuminate the dull interior. Low conversations filled the room for several minutes before the lights came on.
Ray watched as Richard Grubbs, red-faced and agitated, entered the side door of the auditorium, pointed to him and made a beckoning gesture with his hand. Ray pointed to his chest with his fingers. Grubbs made an affirmative nod.
11
“What’s happened?” asked Ray.
“Please follow. Something dreadful.”
Ray trailed Grubbs out of the auditorium through an exit door near the front of the stage. They stayed close to the exterior wall of the building, avoiding the torrent pouring off the long overhangs and ducked back in through a rear entrance, double doors, both propped open. Another set of doors took them into the back of the auditorium. They skirted the rear of the set and entered the room through the door at stage left, the right side of the set as viewed from the audience. The curtain separating the audience from the stage remained closed. Bare bulbs suspended above in the fly space cast an eerie, dull light over the interior.
Ray carefully palpated the neck of a man sprawled over a desk at the rear of the set.
“Who is this?” he asked.
“Malcolm Wudbine. This is where he is supposed to be at the beginning of the second scene, but….”
“Get Dr. Jeffers and Sergeant Lawrence,” he said, looking at Grubbs.
“Oh, my God. What’s happened?” asked Sterling Shevlin, coming close. “Is he…?”
“I need you to get everyone backstage in one place,” ordered Ray. “Everyone! And make sure no one leaves until I tell you otherwise. No one, absolutely no one is allowed to leave. Do you hear me?”
“Yes, of course.”
Ray watched as Shevlin herded a few onlookers through the French doors at the rear of the set. A few moments later Hanna and Sue were at his side, with Grubbs peering over them and Harry Hawkins just behind.
“I couldn’t find a pulse,” said Ray looking at Hanna.
Hanna reached into the soft tissue of the man’s neck with her left hand. Then she went to the other side with her right hand. She pulled her hand back and looked at her fingertips, now red with blood.
“I need some light,” she ordered.
Grubbs switched on the flashlight he was carrying.
“Bring the beam over here,” she instructed.
Ray hovered at her left side. Impatiently, she grabbed the light from Grubbs and ran the icy LED beam along Wudbine’s skull. She looked at Ray.
“What?”
“It looks like there are two wounds, one real, the other…looks like a combination of rubber and makeup. I shouldn’t do anything more. Get the ME here. Let him figure it out.”
“What kind of wound?”
“The real one, something sharp was driven between the vertebrae at the base of his skull. It severed the spinal column. The victim died instantly. But it would take a lot of force.”
“Weapon?”
“I don’t know. I’m way out of my field. The pathologist will be the best….” Her voice trailed off as she continued to inspect the head with the light. Finally she looked up and said, “There’s a third wound here, an exit wound under his forehead. I think that’s fake, too.”
“How would you like to proceed?” asked Sue, standing at Ray’s side.
“We need to get Dr. Dyskin here.”
“I’ve already made the call.”
“Secure this area so you can start working the scene. Given the noise out there, the audience is getting restless. Richard, we need to empty the auditorium.”
“What do I say?”
“Tell them…tell them that something has happened to one of the cast members. Ask them to please leave the area so emergency vehicles can get in here. And say that you will have full details as soon as you have more information.”