Boy, was he ever. Last year, while searching for a missing little girl, I had teamed up with, among others, an investigator from Los Angeles. An investigator from whom I had received a very strange psychic hit. An investigator who vaguely looked and sounded like the King himself.
Turned out, the old guy had secrets of his own, secrets I would take with me to my grave, whenever the hell that might be.
Now as I sat in the parking lot in my minivan, shrinking away from the daylight, I closed my eyes and cleared my mind and cast my thoughts out and directed them toward the theater. Yes, I was getting good at this sort of thing.
Now, as my thoughts moved through the theater, I could see various people working together in small groups or individually. Actors and stage hands and set designers, anyone and everyone needed to put on a show.
So far, no hit. Nothing that made me take notice.
I pushed past the main stage to the backstage. Still nothing. I meandered down a side hallway and into a storage room. Props were everywhere. Rows upon rows of wardrobes hung from racks and hangers. Still nothing. I was about to snap back into my body when something appeared at the back of the theater.
A shadow.
It appeared suddenly from the far wall, scurried up to the ceiling, then down a side wall, then huddled in a dark corner, where it waited. I sensed that it always waited, that it was always afraid.
I shivered. Jesus, what the hell was that thing? I'd seen my fair share of ghosts and spirits, but never a shadow. Never this.
And it came from the mirror hanging from the back wall. No, not the mirror. Behind the mirror. There was a doorway there. A hidden doorway.
I tried to push through the secret door, but I was just too far away. My range is limited, and I was at the far end of it.
I snapped back into my body and, briefly disoriented, gave myself a few moments to get used to seeing through my physical eyes again. The sun was still out, which meant that the next few moments were not going to be very fun. When I had mentally prepared myself, I took a deep breath and threw open my minivan door. I dashed across the parking lot, keeping my head down, leaping over cement parking curbs like a horse at a steeplechase.
When I finally ducked under the marquee and into the blessed shade, I was gasping and clutching my chest and maybe even whimpering a little. The sun was truly not my friend. And that was a damn shame.
When the burning subsided enough for me to think straight, I pushed my way into the theater's main entrance.
Chapter Twelve
The theater looked much the same as it had in my thoughts, except for the details.
The same crew was on stage, hammering and sawing away on a wooden cut-out of a pink Cadillac. The same group of actors were going over lines off to the left of the stage.
No one noticed me. No one cared. And why should they? They were all busy putting on a stage show about Elvis, and what could be cooler than that?
With murder cases, you always interviewed those closest to the victims, then worked your way out. I would let the police interview any family members, although precious few showed up in my preliminary research. Still, most people tended to open up to an official murder investigation. Not everyone opened up to private eyes.
Go figure.
So as I stood there and surveyed the darkened theater, watching workers carry props and pull cables, actors read and re-read lines, and various stage hands in group meetings, I realized why I was here. Why I had jumped the gun and come here on my own. Against Sherbet's wishes, no less.
He's here, I thought. The killer is here.
Before me, the stadium seating sloped downward. The Fullerton Playhouse wasn't huge. I would guess that it could seat maybe one thousand. The seating itself was arranged into four quadrants, with two aisles leading down and aisles on each side. I was standing on a platform near a metal railing. Wheelchair seating, if my guess was correct. Various lights were on throughout the theater, but certainly not all of them, as much of the seating was in shadows.
A quick count netted me twenty-four people. And one of them was the killer. I was sure of it.
How I knew this, I no longer questioned or doubted, and as I stood there scanning the theater, I felt that something was off. And I was pretty sure I knew why.
There was more than one killer.
It takes a certain kind of personality to be an actor, or even hang around the theater. You had to love masks, the ability to pretend to be something other than what you were. Which was a pretty useful trait for a killer, too.
As I stepped forward, a small man appeared out of the shadows to my left. Holding a clipboard and mumbling to himself, he nearly ran into me before looking up. He was exactly an inch taller than me.
I held out one of my business cards. "Hi. My name's Samantha Moon, and I'm looking into the murder of Brian Meeks."
He looked at the card and blinked twice. "Are you with the police?"
"I'm a private investigator." One of the stipulations with Sherbet was that I was never, ever, to state that I was working with the police. It was a gray area he wanted to avoid. My official employer was the City of Fullerton. In fact, my checks had been issued by the city clerk's office.
"Working for whom?"
"An interested party."
He finally took my card. "What are they interested in?"
"Finding the killer." I tried not to be sarcastic, because that never helps. What did he think, the cops wanted to know his favorite picks to win the Oscars? "Can I ask you a few questions about Brian Meeks?"
He looked at my card, looked at me, looked over at the stage. I sensed his hesitation, his pain, and finally his resolve. "Okay, but only for a few minutes. We're putting on a show in a few days. Opening night. Crazy as Lady Macbeth here."
"Gotcha. We'll hurry this along. Did Brian Meeks work here as an actor?"
"For a few years now."
"Did you know him personally?"
"Not necessarily personally, but professionally. Then again, in the world of theater, personal and professional lines tend to get blurred. We're all so close."
"I bet. Are you an actor?"
"Director only."
"Gotcha. Did you direct anything Brian was in?"
He nodded. "Our last show, Twelfth Night. Brian was supposed to be in this new show, but..."
"He's been missing."
The little director rubbed his face. "Right. Missing. Until we heard the news this morning that he was found dead. Murdered."
"Did Brian have many friends?"
"Funny you should ask...I was just trying to think who his close friends were. I was thinking of doing some sort of memorial for him. Something either before or after our opening show this weekend..."