End Me a Tenor (11 page)

“Don’t worry,” Devlyn said as the last teen walked out the door. “They’ll be ready. We’ll have the dress rehearsal after school today, and you’ll be able to go off and sing tonight without a care in the world.”

“I’m glad to hear the
Messiah
hasn’t been canceled. I was worried it was going to be.” Larry dumped a load of papers on the piano and gave me a red-faced smile. “Then again, knowing the cops are close to making an arrest will probably make the audience feel like it’s safe to attend the show.”

“Close to an arrest?” My legs went limp. If I hadn’t grabbed onto the piano, my backside would have hit the floor. “Where did you hear that?”

“I heard it on the news report this morning.”

I swallowed hard. “Did they say who?”

“I don’t think so, but . . .” Several folders of music slid off the piano. Larry tried to catch them, but while Yoga had improved his breathing, it had done nothing for his reflexes. Within seconds, the folders hit the ground and burst open, sending music skittering across the floor and under chairs. With his ears turning the same vibrant shade of red as his sweater, Larry crawled around the floor, collecting papers. Devlyn and I leaned down to help, but Larry waved us off. “Y . . . y . . . you guys have other w . . . work to do. I can take c . . . c . . . care of this. Please.”

Normally, I would have insisted on helping, but the stuttering told me Larry’s embarrassment was at an all-time high. Sticking around would just make it worse.

Since I didn’t have voice lessons until after lunch, I grabbed my stuff and headed for the door. Devlyn looked up and down the empty hall before giving me a kiss on the cheek as we parted ways—him for his office, me on a mission to discover whether Magdalena had been locked up and the show was on its way to being canceled.

First, I checked to see whether Bill had left a message. Nothing. Stepping into the cold air, I debated calling him. Theater people weren’t known for being early risers. Then again, if Magdalena had been arrested, Bill was probably long awake and dealing with the fallout.

With my conscience cleared, I pushed send and waited for an answer. Voice mail. Drat. I’d try again later. Shoving my phone in my pocket, I walked to my car and smiled as I spotted a brightly wrapped gift resting on the hood of my car. The show choir kids had been doing the Secret Santa thing for the last week or so. I’d even helped a couple of kids slip cards or silly little gifts into one another’s bags to keep identities hidden. I couldn’t help feeling a warm glow at being included in the fun.

Getting in the car, I put the package on the seat and revved the engine. While waiting for the heater to kick in, I picked up the box and turned it over in my hands, looking for clues to my Secret Santa’s identity. No card. Just snowman paper and a bright green bow.

I smiled as I ripped the shiny wrapping, flipped open the lid, and dug through the tissue paper. My smile disappeared. Sitting in the box was a Santa ornament with a noose around its neck. Underneath Santa was a note.

If you’re not careful, you’ll be next.

Okay, I knew I should be freaked. I mean, someone hung Santa. But I was pretty certain who had to be behind this. When I first took the job, Chessie had used threatening notes in her campaign to get me to quit. Obviously, she hadn’t learned her lesson.

Neither had I. The warm glow of acceptance I’d felt finding the gift was replaced by icy rejection. No matter how much I tried to succeed at this job, the kids were always going to consider me an outsider. Watching them improve and grow, writing them recommendation letters, and talking about their college dreams hadn’t changed a thing. Chessie might be behind this, but she wasn’t the type to wage battles against popular opinion. Maybe the stress of everything was unhinging me, but, to me, hangman Santa sent a message loud and clear—my team wanted to win and they still thought I wasn’t good enough to help them reach their goal.

My chest tightened. Unexpected tears made my throat ache as I fought to keep them from falling. I wasn’t going to cry over a couple of spoiled teenage kids. Hell, I didn’t even want this job. If things worked out and the
Messiah
went on as planned, I wouldn’t need it. I could quit and make everyone happy.

Brushing aside an idiotic tear, I pulled out my phone and dialed Bill again. Voice mail. Damn. Time for plan B. I fished an Evanston Police Department card out of my purse and punched in Detective Frewen’s phone number.

If he didn’t sound happy to be answering a call at eight o’clock in the morning, he sounded less thrilled when I asked, “Did you make an arrest in David Richard’s murder?”

“No arrests have been made.” Phew. “But we currently have a person of interest in custody.”

Crap. I asked for a name, but the detective wasn’t in the mood to share. Before I could consider telling him what I knew about Magdalena’s medical condition, Detective Frewen thanked me for my cooperation and disconnected.

Double crap. Now what?

Digging through my bag, I came up with the
Messiah
contact sheet, which listed Bill’s phone number and home address. If Bill was sleeping in, he might not know Magdalena had been taken into custody. He could call her manager and have him give the police the information about her zinc allergy. Bill wouldn’t get sued, and the cops would have to think twice about their suspect. Problem solved.

Bill lived in a redbrick bungalow a couple blocks from the Northwestern University campus. I parallel parked my car and tried his phone one more time. Still no answer. Rehearsing my arguments for Bill to get involved in clearing Magdalena’s name, I locked the car, marched up the sidewalk, and rang the bell.

No answer, but I could see a light on inside. Time to knock. I banged on the heavy wooden door and was surprised to feel the door shift and open a crack.

“Bill?” I yelled.

Okay, this was getting spooky. Pushing the door open the rest of the way, I peered into what had to be a living room. Worn brown couch. Scarred wooden coffee table. On the table was an open binder, two empty coffee cups, and a dish with a crumb-filled muffin wrapper. Bill’s winter jacket hung on a coat tree just inside the door. Bill wouldn’t go outside in this weather without that coat. Not unless he wanted a spectacular case of frostbite. That meant he had to be somewhere inside.

“Bill?” Still no answer. If the guy was in bed, he slept like the dead. I headed for the hallway at the back of the living room, calling Bill’s name, and stopped cold in the doorway. My stomach rolled, and my knees went weak. I sucked in air and felt a scream build inside me.

Swinging on a rope from the kitchen’s ceiling fan was Bill. I had been wrong. He wasn’t sleeping like the dead. He was dead.

My brain screamed at me to jump into action. To cut Bill down and get him help. But my feet wouldn’t move—and even if they would, I could see Bill was beyond assistance. His face was pale. His head hung to one side. His body was still.

Hands shaking, I found Detective Frewen’s number in my call log and hit send. I had to swallow twice before I could speak and even then I barely recognized the thin, terrified sound. The minute I identified myself, Detective Frewen sighed. “I appreciate your interest in this investigation, Ms. Marshall, but I’m not at liberty to discuss any details.”

“Bill Walters is dead.” Once the words started, they flew out of my mouth. I gave the detective the address, assured him I hadn’t and wouldn’t touch anything, and promised to go outside and wait for his arrival—all while feeling like I was being watched by Bill’s lifeless eyes. I needed to get out of here. After the sadistic Secret Santa gift and seeing Bill hung from the ceiling, I was about to completely lose it.

Wait . . .

A part of my brain that had shut down after seeing Bill’s lifeless body turned back on. Could the similarity between that gift and Bill’s death be a coincidence? If so, it was a pretty big coincidence, and while coincidences were possible, this didn’t feel like one. That meant a pissed-off Chessie hadn’t given me the gift—the killer had. A killer who warned me I might be next.

Shit.

The room swam in front of my eyes, and I hung onto the doorjamb for support. Finding a dead body was bad. Learning the person who killed that person might want to kill you, too, was even worse.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed a piece of paper with black writing scrawled on it on the kitchen table. A suicide note? I took two steps toward the scarred wooden table and squinted to read:
I never meant for anyone else to take the blame. David Richard deserved to die, and so do I.

Next to the paper was a mostly empty bottle of wine and a bottle opener. But no wineglass. Huh.

Trying my best to ignore Bill’s corpse, I peered over the counter into the sink. No dirty dishes. No dishwasher, either. Did I think that Bill wrote his confession, downed most of a bottle of wine, and washed and put away his glass before taking his own life? No way in hell.

Taking several deep breaths, I scanned the kitchen one more time before heading back to the front stoop to wait for the cavalry. My nose was frozen by the time Detective Frewen pulled up in a black SUV. He instructed me to stay where I was and went inside. A few minutes later he was back and barking into his phone for assistance. When he hung up he glanced at me. “You look cold.”

You think? Red, runny nose. Arms wrapped around myself, shivering. No wonder he was a detective.

He crooked a finger toward the street. “We can sit in my car while I get your statement.”

The SUV had heated seats, which had my butt thawing long before the rest of me. But even warm and toasty, my hands continued to shake. Detective Frewen shifted to look at me. “Tell me again why you came to see Bill Walters this morning?”

I took a deep breath and weighed what I should say. Telling everything meant risking my career—a career I’d worked hard to get off the ground. But a man had died. As far as I was concerned, my would-be career paled in comparison. So I spilled. I told Detective Frewen about Bill’s mention of Magdalena’s secret medical condition. My concern that the information would impact the investigation. My hope that talking face-to-face with Bill would convince him to share the information with Detective Frewen himself or beg Magdalena’s manager to do it.

I could see the vein in the detective’s neck begin to pulse under his scarf. To his credit, his voice was calm as he walked me through the events of the morning, including the hangman Santa I’d unwrapped. I could tell he wasn’t sure whether the two events were connected, but he retrieved the items from my car anyway. More emergency vehicles arrived, filling the street with blinking lights. As police officers and paramedics climbed out of their cars, Detective Frewen told me to call him if I remembered anything else. Then he headed into the house, leaving me out in the cold.

Back in my car, I looked at the empty seat beside me. The more I thought about it, the more I was convinced Bill’s death and the mysterious gift were connected. And while I hadn’t had the opportunity to compare the writing on both notes, my gut was telling me the same person wrote them. But why? Why threaten me? I barely knew the victim.