20
After Verity Wudbine-Merone departed, Ray looked over his notes, adding a few more observations. The things Verity had worked into the interview intrigued him. Although not happy about being trapped inside a musty old building for so many hours, he was fascinated by how Verity and the other people he interviewed before her represented themselves. Everyone’s story always puts them in the best light, he thought. Ray had seen this so many times over his career, whether he was dealing with a minor infraction of the law or a major felony.
“Lunch?” asked Sue, standing outside the screen door.
“Sure,” he answered, looking up. “Want to run into town?”
“I’ve got a cooler of food, things you’ll approve of. I was planning a romantic picnic with Harry.”
“Can’t you use them…?”
“Not tonight. Harry is going up to Fishtown for some fresh lake trout. He wants to show off his skill at the grill. It’s a guy thing.”
“Obviously, you didn’t find anything in the trash, or I would be hearing about it,” observed Ray.
“We found many things, but nothing that could pass for a possible murder weapon. I can tell you this much, these people eat way too much pizza. I don’t think they do much cooking.”
“I’ve never known you to comment on other people’s eating habits.”
“I’ve spent too much time with you.”
“Where do you want to eat?” asked Ray.
“On the beach, looking out at Lake Michigan. See, your influence continues.”
Sue drove them to the colony’s beach in her gear-laden Jeep, and they carried the two coolers to the top of a small dune overlooking the shore. She unfolded a large blanket and carefully arranged the contents from the coolers in the center: a loaf of peasant bread, cheese, olives, grapes, apricots, and chocolate. “You can have mineral water or sparkling wine,” she teased.
“Sorry to mess up a romantic weekend.”
“It’s okay. He’s getting an idea of what I do, and who I am. How’s the interviewing going?”
“I’m pretty much through the cast and crew.”
“And?”
“Means and opportunity, everyone. Motive, that varies. It seems that Malcolm Wudbine had, at a minimum, annoyed most of the colony members in one way or another over the years.”
“And at a maximum?” asked Sue.
“Look,” said Ray, motioning toward a small group of gulls floating peacefully in the wind. An eagle, wings partially folded, talons extended, dropped out of the noonday sun, grabbing one of the gulls, then opening its wings, and carrying its prey inland. A single feather, a piece of downy fluff, marked the spot of the kill for a brief moment, then was carried toward shore in the breeze.
“How did you know that was going to happen?”
“I didn’t. I’ve never seen an eagle go after a gull before. I wouldn’t have thought it would be worth the trouble. Gulls weigh next to nothing. Can’t be much meat there.”
“The killing was so fast.”
“A fraction of a second.”
“Means and motive, a quick lunch. A target of opportunity.”
“Motives for killing Wudbine are starting to emerge. I keep pushing the financial question, but no one is accusing Wudbine of leaving their retirement in ruins. He wasn’t a Madoff. It’s been intimated that several decades ago he seduced a number of the colony wives. Passions cool over the years, but who knows if some long festering wound might have suddenly propelled an assailant to take action.”
Sue gripped the round loaf and tore into the bread, handing a chunk to Ray. “So how many suspects are there?”
“I’ve got to start charting this. With the crew and actors, about twenty. Then there’s Richard Grubbs. They would all have had easy access. And that certainly doesn’t preclude someone coming from the outside. Then there is also Wudbine’s family and various employees. I haven’t even factored them in yet.”
“One assailant?”
“That’s what I fell asleep speculating about. We need to walk through possible scenarios with a stopwatch. My gut feeling is that two people were involved. Too much could go wrong with only one person. With two, the assailant could be at the ready when the power was switched off. Picture this, the killer is offstage, just a few steps from Wudbine. The lights go out and the fatal thrust follows in a few seconds. Then they make their escape back to the green room or out the door into the blackness.”
“How do they find Wudbine in the dark?” asked Sue.
“I’m not sure. The assailant would need a few moments for their eyes to adjust. Maybe they had a small light. Night vision glasses—but then that would be one more thing to hide or get rid of. The fatal strike required great precision. I don’t have an answer. Our perpetrator, or perpetrators did a lot of careful planning.”
“And if the perp was a member of the cast, he or she had to get rid of the weapon and slide back into the green room or dressing rooms without being noticed.”
“They could have carried the weapon out with them. We should have sent everyone through a metal detector last night before we let them leave,” said Ray. “Verity Wudbine-Merone made a big point of telling me that the crime couldn’t have been committed by any colony member, it had to be an outsider, maybe the mafia, foreign agents….”
“Who arrived on the beach during the storm in black helicopters,” suggested Sue with a wry smile.
“Actually, she had them flying in on private jets. She also told me that Wudbine’s daughter-in-law was Richard Grubbs’ daughter. Strange that he never mentioned it.”
“Any other major revelations?”
“Yes, for a few minutes the hits just kept coming. According to Verity, years ago Malcolm had a fling with Grubbs’ wife. The woman died a few years after their affair.”
“Not mentioning the daughter is strange. The affair, probably not something anyone would mention.”
“The weapon,” said Ray, “you mentioned it earlier. Tell me again what Dyskin said.”
“Well, you know how he sort of mutters to himself as he looks things over. He said the weapon might have been a chisel, an extremely sharp one. There was no tearing, just a clean cut. He also mentioned a bayonet or a dagger. I think we have to brush up on knives and other sharps. The important thing he said was that the killing was done with great precision. The assailant knew where to place the blade, and they had the strength to push it through the connective tissue to effectively sever the spine and instantly kill Wudbine. He said the perp was a trained assassin.”
“Black helicopters,” said Ray, reaching for more bread.
“So where does that leave us?” asked Sue.
“The choice of weapons, the scene of the attack. The whys and wherefores. We’re doing our usual early investigation wheel spinning. I need paper or my white board. We have to slow down, but I think that if we don’t solve this one quickly, it will slip out of our hands. People will start going away. The trail will cool.”
“Lemon Perrier?”
“Sure.” Ray leaned back, sipped on the bottled water, and looked out at the lake. “Why there? Why in the theatre? And why the chisel or knife? This whole thing is fairly exotic.”
Sue started to giggle. She looked at Ray affectionately.
“Where’s the humor in that?”
“I was thinking,” Sue responded, “what if someone shot a picture of the two of us right now, think about how that would play before the next election. Put a caption on it like, Sheriff and detective sergeant enjoy a romantic lunch on the beach while killer runs wild in community.
Ray didn’t respond, his focus elsewhere. “We’re looking for an eccentric, nothing here is conventional.”
“Have you interviewed any eccentrics?”
“They’re all eccentrics, so I guess I need a better term. An outlier, someone not constrained by conventional patterns of thought. I’m back to the location, weapon choice, motive. Verity, the first Mrs. Wudbine, said Malcolm was usually surrounded by security, that only up here did he move without it. And his position onstage, with his back to an attacker, made him completely vulnerable for a short period of time.”