“Anything else?”

“Well, you know Dr. Dyskin is usually so dour. He almost seemed jolly last night. He was intrigued by the other wounds, the rubber and greasepaint ones. He made some comment about never seeing a murder victim with fatal fake wounds before.”

“You seem to be tolerating Dr. Dyskin much better these days.”

“I’m getting used to him. And now that he doesn’t reek of cigar smoke anymore….”

“He didn’t get any more specific about the murder weapon?” pursued Ray.

“He said the forensic pathologist should be able to give us a description of the cutting part of the weapon, that it almost looked like a chisel or push dagger. He also went through a whole array of other kinds of weapons with sharp edges, said he’d seen them all in Detroit and Wayne County.”

“You’re done photographing the scene?”

“Yes,” said Sue. “I need to go through the pictures again, and perhaps I’ll shoot more today. But nothing jumped out at me.”

“And the weapon?”

“You would’ve known last night,” said Sue, taking a yogic lunge pose and holding it for a number of seconds before continuing. “I did look around the stage area and the offstage wings. I need to do that again today. We’ve got to get some light in there. The place is just filled with dark corners and nooks and crannies where you can get rid of something.” She paused and looked at Ray. “What’s the plan?”

“Tell me what you think about this. You start with the stage area, then move on to the dressing rooms, greenroom, costume loft, carpentry shop…everything backstage. Then do the front of the Assembly Hall and the outside grounds. We’ll get the whole place taped off. I’ve got Ben Reilly, Brett Carty, and our summer intern Barbara Sinclair scheduled to come in and help you today and tomorrow. We will add days as necessary.”

“And what did you learn last night?” asked Sue.

“I talked to the whole group. They were all in shock, or at least appeared to be. No one had seen anything unusual, and no one remembers seeing anyone in the theater who shouldn’t have been. The crew and cast members were mostly in the green room before the beginning of the second scene.”

“Why the long scene break?” asked Sue. “They were really taking their time. It was like the end of an act.”

“My question also. As Grubbs explained that, people had been eating and drinking for quite some time, and then went off to the performance. And that most of the audience is of an age where….”

“You don’t have to explain, Ray.”

“But there’s more. The restrooms are in two buildings adjacent to the Assembly Hall, women’s on one side and the men’s on the other. It takes some time to negotiate back and forth.”

“But it was pouring rain. That would make people go faster.”

“Yes,” said Ray, “but the weather wasn’t a factor in the original thinking. The director said the opening scene was overly long and did what the first act usually does, so he decided to treat it like an act and put a break there.”

“Okay, so while I’m finishing up the scene and searching for the weapon, you’ll start the interview process?”

“Yes,” said Ray. “And as soon as you’re done I need major help. Richard Grubbs has given us the use of the colony library.” Ray pointed off at a building nestled in the woods about 50 yards south of the Assembly Hall.

“This is going to take a lot of time. There are 12 cast members and 10 or more members of the crew. And then there are the young women who worked as ushers, a custodian, and several maintenance men. And that’s probably only part of the iceberg. We’ve never had anything like this before.”

“So give me the rest of the iceberg.”

“Based on what Grubbs said in a previous conversation, a lot of people in the colony hated Wudbine.”

“What was the basis for their enmity?”

“He didn’t go into the specifics. There’s a long history here that we are going to have to probe. And in addition to the colony people, Wudbine has a personal staff and assorted family members living with him in his compound and in several cottages in the colony. We have to find out about those people, too.”

“So where do you start?”

“Cast and crew. I scheduled them last night, and I’ll start talking to people one at a time. I’m starting with Grubbs at ten o’clock, there are things I need to go over again, background info. Then it’s every half hour. Will you help me set up the audio equipment right now? It’s in the trunk.”

“Sure. Let’s get it done. I’m eager to get started in there,” Sue pointed toward the Assembly Hall.

13

Ray pushed the oak table against the timeworn umber wainscoting that covered the lower half of the wall in the colony library building. He placed a recorder near the paneling, turning it on, repeating, “testing,” several times, and then playing his voice back. His distrust of recording equipment went back to an incident early in his career, and the new digital devices—without any overt sign that anything is going on within, no turning of the cassette reels, just the bouncing of small bars on a miniscule screen and one small glowing red diode—did little to reassure him.

He looked up from his seat facing the door as Richard Grubbs entered and collapsed in the chair across from him. He studied Grubbs’ face. The margins of his pale blues eyes were bloodshot. The gray-black stubble of a day-old beard covered his face. Ray noted how much older this Richard Grubbs looked from the gregarious, energetic man he had met a few months earlier.

“I will be recording our interview,” he said, hitting the red button and reading a boilerplate intro as he turned his head toward the machine.

“How are you today?”

“Stunned, still stunned. Nothing really bad has ever happened here before. Well, that’s not quite true. That incident in May, that was almost beyond the realm of possibility.” He pulled himself up in his chair, leaned back and inhaled deeply. “Unbelievable…that kind of savagery…here. It’s a violation of this sacred land. I never even imagined the possibility….”

“Didn’t you tell me that you had several cases of suspected arson?”

“Well, yes, but that was years ago and doesn’t compare. I mean, they were old cottages, unoccupied, probably just bad wiring. This…murder…right here. And on our stage. Why not…if they wanted Malcolm dead…kill him up in that big house of his. Sabotage his helicopter. Put a bomb in his car. But not here, not where we worship. Why do this to the colony? Why make us victims, too? I mean, there were children out there, teenagers, too.”

“Did you get any sleep last night?”

“Very little. Everyone wanted to talk to me. Or maybe, more correctly, people wanted to talk, needed to talk. People of my generation and near generations, we have so much history, so many years here. We’re struggling with the shock and horror of this event, and yet I feel there is kind of a shared shame and guilt.”

“How so?”

“I need to think about that a bit. A big part of it is that we didn’t like Malcolm, none of us. We tolerated him. He was sort of a boogeyman. It was safe to make jokes about him because everyone felt the same way. Even this play was sort of a joke. Colonel Protheroe, the most disliked man in the village gets murdered.”

“I’ve been wondering about that,” said Ray. “I can’t imagine that Malcolm Wudbine wouldn’t have noticed the nature of the character he was playing.”

“Yes, I’m sure he noticed. I kind of think he would relish that. Colonel Protheroe gets murdered during the course of play, but Malcolm gets to go to the cast party. And even though lots of people won’t be too sad to see his passing, no one would have wanted it to happen this way.”

“Well, Mr. Grubbs, someone obviously did. Do you have any idea who might have been angry enough to kill him?”

“That question kept running through my head when I was trying to sleep. First I thought about the people who had the longest history with him, especially his first wife. You’ve met Verity. You’ve talked with her on two occasions. Can you imagine her as a murderer?”