“It’s possible, but didn’t you find clothes that a stagehand might wear when you found Nancy Porter’s robe?”
“Yes.”
“Everyone is pretty busy during a show, so someone dressed like a stagehand might not have been noticed.”
“What’s on the other side of the loading dock?” Robin asked.
“An alley broad enough for a truck to drive through,” Chow said. “One end leads to Fenimore Street, and the other leads to Marsh. It goes past the alley that runs by the stage door to the street in front of the theater.”
“David Turner could have gone into the tunnel on his side of the aisle after ditching the robe and back to his seat,” Carrie Anders said.
“When would he put on the stagehand clothes?” Jeff asked.
“Maybe never,” Anders answered. “He or his accomplice could have hidden them near the loading dock to make it look like he was wearing them.”
“Or the real killer could have disappeared through the loading dock and got away,” Robin answered.
Anders just smiled.
“How’s that accomplice thing going?” Robin asked.
Anders’s smile faded.
Robin walked past the loading dock and looked into the first dressing room. “Who used this?” she asked.
“Bobby,” Dobson answered.
“This is where the star changes,” Norman Chow said.
Robin stepped inside and looked around. The room was large with a dressing table, a couch, and racks for clothing. Robin went into the next dressing room, which was much larger and had several dressing tables.
“This is where Maria, Sheila, and Nancy changed,” Dobson said.
“Where was Miss Porter found?” Jeff asked.
Anders pointed to a section of the floor in the center of the room.
“Where was her inhaler found?” Robin asked.
Anders pulled out a drawer at the end of the row of dressing tables. “This dressing table was used by Maria Rodriguez,” the detective said. Anders moved over two tables and pointed. “Miss Porter used this table. She said she put the inhaler on top of it.”
Robin looked around for a few minutes. “Can you walk me to the curtains where Mr. Turner says he was hiding when he watched the Chamber of Death?” she asked Norman Chow.
Chow led the way to the front of the stage. Robin walked behind the curtains. Then she walked down the stairs at the side of the stage that led down to the audience and stood next to the seat Turner had occupied.
“I’ve seen enough,” she said after a while. “Jeff?”
“I’m good.”
“Thanks again. We won’t keep you any longer.”
Norman Chow headed for his office, and the rest of the group walked up the aisle to the front of the theater.
“Have you cracked the case?” Anders asked Robin when they had returned to the sunshine.
“It’s the butler,” Robin answered, “but don’t tell Peter. I want to do the big reveal during my closing argument, like Perry Mason.”
Anders laughed. “Looking forward to it,” she said. Then she walked away.
“Well, boss?” Jeff asked when they were alone.
Robin shook her head. “You?”
“No big insights, but our guy could have run around through the tunnels on his side of the audience once he got behind the curtains.”
“I thought of that.”
“It doesn’t help us.”
“Neither does anything else we learned today.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Jeff had to talk to a witness in one of Mark Berman’s cases, so Robin walked home alone. There was leftover Thai food in the refrigerator, and Robin warmed it in the microwave. Then she grabbed the remote and found some UFC bouts to watch while she ate.
The matches ended at ten, and Robin switched to the local news. A reporter was standing in the street in front of a driveway that led to a house in Dunthorpe, which Robin recognized instantly.
“Behind me is the home of Regina Barrister, the legendary criminal defense attorney. An anonymous source has told this reporter that an attempt was made to poison Ms. Barrister with cyanide-laced chocolates. More than twenty years ago, the magician Robert Chesterfield was accused of murdering a woman with cyanide-laced chocolates. Mr. Chesterfield was stabbed to death onstage last week while performing his greatest illusion, the Chamber of Death. Are the two crimes linked in some bizarre way? The police and Ms. Barrister have refused to comment for this story.”
The newscast moved on to another story just as Jeff walked in.
“They just had a story on the evening news about the attempt to poison Regina.”
“How did they find out?” Jeff asked as he walked over to Robin.
“The reporter said she got the info from an anonymous source,” Robin answered as she switched off the set.
Jeff sat down next to Robin.
“It was probably someone in the PPB,” Robin said. “I wonder who.”
“I don’t,” he whispered in her ear.
Robin stared at him. “Don’t tell me you’re horny. We made love this morning.”
Jeff smiled. “I can’t help it if I find you incredibly sexy.”
“God—men!” Robin said as she feigned a lack of interest, but she couldn’t believe how lucky she was to have Jeff in her life. He was smart, definitely sexy, and really nice—a terrific trifecta.
Jeff kissed her ear. “We could watch the weather station.”
Robin laughed. “I give up,” she said as she folded into him. Moments later, they had their clothes off and had tumbled off the sofa and onto the shag rug that covered the living room floor.
* * *
Robin was exhausted by the long workday and the round of very athletic lovemaking. She assumed she would fall asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow, but the scene in front of Regina’s house intruded on her peace of mind as soon as her eyes closed. Someone had tried to murder Regina the same way Sophie Randall had been murdered. Chesterfield, the chief suspect in Randall’s murder, had been murdered. But how were the crimes linked?
Robin tried to block her thoughts so she could sleep. Eventually she succeeded, but weird dreams plagued her. When she woke up, she opened her eyes and the dreams evaporated like morning mist. She tried to remember them because she was certain that the dreams had sent her an important subconscious message, but they were gone.
What had been so important? She was certain that one of the dreams had been about a murder—not Sophie Randall’s or Chesterfield’s but some other murder. She just couldn’t remember the name of the victim.
CHAPTER FORTY
When Morris Quinlan was in high school, he had been a third team all-state linebacker. That had not been good enough to draw attention from a school like Alabama or Ohio State, but he did get scholarship offers from a few Division II schools and ended up in Idaho. In high school, Morris was smart enough to get decent grades without studying too hard, so he had never learned how to study. Morris did know how to party, so he joined a fraternity. Several of the brothers had a perpetual bridge game going in the basement of the fraternity house, and one of them explained the game to Morris, who soon became addicted to it.