A Midsummer Night's Scream Part 7

"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."

"Does it tell how he died?"

"Sort of. He'd taken some whiskey. Quite a lot. And tranquilizers. There's no way to tell, at least yet, if the whiskey had the tranquilizers in it, or if he took them at different times."

"No whiskey bottle?"

"No sign of one. Not a bottle of pills either. He was unconscious. He'd apparently put his head down on the makeup table in his dressing room. Then someone took something heavy and vaguely oblong to the back of his head. Crushed the connection to the spine and disabled all of his nervous system. He must have died instantly. The blood-spatter pattern indicated that his head was on the table when he was struck. But he might have died of the whiskey and tranquilizers anyway."

"How horrible," Jane exclaimed.

"Slightly better than being on a respirator and a feeding tube for life," Mel said. "If he'd been hit a little bit lower, that's what could have happened."

Jane thought for a moment, debating which of many questions she should ask. "Would this have taken a huge amount of strength?" was her first.

"It depends. If the perpetrator was strong and accurate, it could have happened."

"What else could it be?"

"Something like a pendulum. Not so heavy, but delivered with a swing of a rope or chain. Almost anyone could do that."

"I a.s.sume all such items have been looked for in the Dumpster outside?"

"The whole thing has been searched, of course. No sign of rope, chain, or a bottle of anything, just empty plastic cups and plates and empty water bottles. They've all been taken in to be tested for contents and fingerprints. Nothing that looks like an oblong weight."

"Wait a minute, Mel. How is the word 'oblong' being used?"

"What do you mean?"

"I once ordered a long rectangular tableclothfrom a catalog, and when the package arrived it was labeled as being 'oblong.' Before I even opened it," Jane said, "I called the place where I ordered it and said that it looked rectangular in the picture. I was told that 'oblong' meant rectangular."

"I thought 'oblong' was a thing that was longer than it is wide, and curved into circles at the end," Mel said.

"So did I," Jane said. "Another perfectly good word trampled. 'Rectangular' is apparently not politically correct. Or maybe the people at the catalog thought they were synonymous-and maybe they are."

Mel was silent for a moment, then asked, "Who would have thought a murder could cross over into grammar? I'll ask the pathologist exactly what 'oblong' means to him. There is a weight missing."

"What kind of weight?"

"Something to do with raising and lowering the background scenery that goes up or down depending on the scene. Of course, there hasn't been a play there for a long time, and it could have been missing for years. Or only days. The young men who are painting the background of the room this play takes place in were looking for the rope and counterweight and couldn't find it."

"Would the missing weight be the oblong object?"

"Maybe. But if it had been there for a long time, there probably would have been signs of dust or rust in the wound."

"Was it a sandbag, maybe? Didn't old theaters use those?"

"I haven't the slightest idea," Mel said.

"Neither do I," Jane admitted. "It was just a fleeting thought. Probably because I saw some black-and-white movie that was set in a theater and a sandbag was dropped on somebody to kill them. Or maybe it was some mystery novel I read."

"Not through the ceiling of a dressing room, Jane." He said this with a hint of a yawn. "I'll ask about the definition of 'oblong' in the morning."

"Wait a minute. There are two things you haven't mentioned. Who found Denny and when?"

"The janitor from the college. He apparently comes in late at night or very early in the morning to replace toilet paper and paper towels, sweep the floors, and clean makeup off the counters in the dressing rooms before anyone's using the place. Around six o'clock in the morning, he said."

"How long had Denny been dead? Could the pathologist tell?"

"At least since midnight. Maybe earlier. Why do you ask?"

"Just because I didn't know, I suppose. Does everybody connected to this play have a good alibi?"

"We're still questioning everyone. So far, almost everyone involved in any manner claims they do. Except you and Sh.e.l.ley. I've crossed both of you off my list of suspects," he said with a laugh. "But I'm always more inclined to believe the ones who admit that they simply went home and fell asleep in front of the television. Good night, Janey. Wish you were here with me. It's a nice cool evening for a change."

"Me too," she said with what she meant to sound like a kissing noise but ended sounding more like s...o...b..ring.

Jane went back to her book and found herself thinking about the murder weapon. It could be her definition of "oblong," but also rounded. So it could be a bottle. But a gla.s.s bottle would be sure to shatter if it were swung with a hard enough blow to break bones, wouldn't it? And a plastic water container would have burst. Surely the police would have noticed broken gla.s.s right away or puddles on the dressing table. Same for a sandbag. It would surely have lost some of the sand and the floor would have been gritty. She'd glanced into some of the dressing rooms early on and none were carpeted.

Not my problem, she kept telling herself, and

went back to wondering about what the sharp double-p.r.o.nged object that had killed someone in the book she was reading might have been.

She herself had a set of double-p.r.o.nged sharp forks to lift a big turkey out of her deep roasting pan. But the book she was reading was set in Yorks.h.i.+re, England, and there had been no mention of anyone cooking a huge turkey or an enormous roast beef.

She finally gave up on both the real murder weapon and the one in the book and turned the light off. An hour or so later, she rose again and turned on the attic fan while she was roaming around. The heat wave had finally broken.

Sat.u.r.day morning, Jane stayed in bed late to finish the book she'd been reading, and found out what the weapon had been in the book. The clue had been well buried. She hoped she could bury her own clues that well. She went back to typing up a few other ideas for the book she herself was writing. None involved the weapon in the mystery she'd read.

When she'd put her new ideas into the outline and finished another half chapter, she cleaned up the mess the kids had made of the kitchen table, then succ.u.mbed to the lure of her needlepoint project. It took her a full hour to replace the triangle that had been such a failure before. And thecanvas had lost some of its stiffness, so she had to be very careful not to let it stretch or sag.

There was another rehearsal already planned for Sat.u.r.day. This time they wouldn't cater, because Sh.e.l.ley said most of the students didn't have late Sat.u.r.day cla.s.ses and could find their own dinners. She was only providing bottled water, a few sodas, a large carafe of coffee, and would bring along some chips or store-bought cookies.

But Imry threw another wrench into the mix. "Since we missed one rehearsal," he announced as they a.s.sembled, "I'm rescheduling for Sunday afternoon from one to four."

"I'm sorry, but we're not available then. I'm spending Sunday with our daughter and grandchildren," Ms. Bunting said quite firmly. "I've promised to take them to lunch and the zoo since it's cooled down a little."

"And I'm committed to taking a group of schoolchildren on a walking trip along the lakesh.o.r.e," Jake said. "They're inner-city kids I volunteer to take somewhere every Sunday afternoon."

Denny's replacement, Norman Engel, had other plans as well. He had his parents visiting from Indiana for a family wedding. Joani also claimed she was busy, declining to explain what the appointment was.

"Then we'll do it Sunday night. You can provide catering, can't you, Ms. Nowack?"

"Not on such short notice," she replied. "And the rest of the group will probably still be busy. Afternoon weddings go on forever. And anyone who takes on a mob of kids for a whole afternoon is ent.i.tled to rest later. I myself have other commitments as well. A bake sale at our church."

Jane looked surprised, then realized this was simply Sh.e.l.ley's way of thwarting Imry.

"Then we'll just have to meet earlier Monday, and work later," Imry said.

This raised another storm of protest. Most of the college volunteers were enrolled in the intensive summer-school session, in which cla.s.ses started early and went on until at least five-thirty to qualify for the credits for a full semester.

Imry was forced to give up-slightly. "Then we'll just add an extra half hour to each evening's work."

Apparently the people who had objected to Sunday had no good reason to object as strenuously to a half hour here or there for a few days.

"A bake sale?" Jane said as she and Sh.e.l.ley left the theater later.

"I thought it was an honorable excuse."

"I don't imagine anyone believed it," Jane said, eating the last two chocolate chip cookies that were left. "Didn't you see Tazz and Ms. Bunting exchange smiles?"

"I'm sure you're mistaken," Sh.e.l.ley huffed. "Probably neither of them has ever been to a church bake sale."

"But we've done our share of them," Jane said, tossing the paper plate into the trash.

Eleven.

Mel came over Sunday morning to have a big breakfast with Jane and her kids. She'd really gone all out. It was what she called "a dining room meal." Not something to crowd around the kitchen table to eat.

There were homemade corn m.u.f.fins, an egg ca.s.serole with scallions in a cheese sauce, sliced ham with a thick black-cherry sauce, and crispy baked new potatoes with rosemary, as well as orange juice for the kids and mimosas for the two adults.

Everyone was impressed and all the food was quickly gone. "That was wonderful, Mom. A long way from dorm breakfasts. You must have been down early to get all this done," Mike said.

"Nope. Most of it was made yesterday and just put in the oven at the right times to come out at the same time, fresh and hot." , Mike had to leave right after they ate. He was working again this summer at the garden center,and Sunday was their biggest sale day of the week. Katie was going to the town pool. She'd pa.s.sed her lifesaving course and was actually being paid to sit around and get a good tan. Jane didn't really approve of tans anymore.

"You must slather yourself with sunscreen," Jane said. "I'll drop in later and see if you're good and greasy."

"Oh, Mom," Katie objected, patting her mother's hand in a patronizing way.

Todd had arranged for two of his friends to come over and play games on the living room television.

"I should load the dishwasher," Jane said, "but it's such a nice day, let's finish off the mimosas on the patio."

"Are you going to use sunscreen?" Mel joked.

"No. We'll be shaded by an umbrella."