Dead of Winter Read online

  Several other people come into view, and I do a quick scan to assess the crowd. Standing to Dom’s left is a heavyset woman wearing a purple feather boa, a matching purple wide-brimmed hat, and a garish yellow dress with matching shoes, all of it circa 1920s. I try to guess at her age, but it’s hard to tell because of all the heavy makeup she has on her face. Her dark hair is generously laced with silver, but I’m not sure if it’s her natural color or done up for her role. Her arms are in front of her, and she is grasping her left wrist with her right hand, an attempt, I think, at folding her arms over a chest and belly that are too large to accommodate the gesture. One bright yellow foot is tapping impatiently, and she huffs loudly several times in a period of a few seconds, just in case we missed the first one or two signals indicating her high level of irritation.

  Standing next to her is a middle-aged man who is tall and quite thin. His cheeks are hollow, his eyes sunken, his graying hair sparse, and his shirt and pants hang off his lanky frame like clothing on a scarecrow, the pants held up by a pair of suspenders. My nursing alarm starts to clamor, but as we draw closer, I see that while the thinness of his body is real, it’s not as severe as I originally thought. Some very artful makeup has created hollows and depressions on his face, and the clothing he is wearing is purposefully sized much larger than he is. Beneath that makeup, I see a few zits trying to sprout, and a pair of lively, dynamic eyes. I realize then that the man isn’t a man at all, but rather an adolescent boy momentarily trapped in that awkward gangliness that occurs between puberty and adulthood.

  Seated in a folding wooden chair next to the boy-man is another woman, mid-thirties, with shoulder-length black hair. She is very pretty and, from what I can see, has a very nice figure. She is wearing a snug-fitting T-shirt—snug enough that I can tell she isn’t wearing a bra—beneath a blue angora cardigan sweater. Her outfit is finished off with a pair of gray corduroy pants and ankle-high blue suede boots. Despite the fact that no smoking is allowed in public buildings, she is puffing away on a cigarette she is holding in one hand, and flicking the ashes from it into a plastic cup of some liquid she is holding in the other hand. She looks like she’s been crying.

  Standing behind these three are two others: a bespectacled man, who’s probably in his thirties, dressed in a pullover sweater and jeans, which may or may not be a costume. He is whispering to a third man, who might be gay, judging from his posturing, facial expressions, and mannerisms. Though I do have to concede to myself that my judgment might be clouded a smidge by the fact that he’s dressed in women’s clothing: a flapper-style skirt, which hits just below the knee, with a long-sleeved, straight-hemmed white blouse over it, and a pair of sensible pumps. Between the hem of the skirt and the pumps is a pair of very hairy legs encased in stockings. Long blond hair waves down over his shoulders, but I’m certain it’s a wig, thanks to the very dark five-o’clock shadow on his chin and cheeks. He is wearing makeup—eyeliner, eye shadow, mascara, foundation, and lipstick—but it’s poorly applied, making the sight of him an incongruous one.

  I finally shift my attention to the only other person in the room: our victim. He is lying on the floor in a prone position, though his head is turned slightly to one side, revealing half of his face. With the exception of the small pool of blood that has seeped from his mouth, he looks oddly peaceful, as if he simply stretched out there on the floor for a nap and is now enjoying a dreamy REM state. Of course, the fact that both of his legs are bent in directions they were never meant to go destroys the effect somewhat, but if one were to keep her eyes above the waist, things didn’t look so bad.

  I know that the broken legs alone wouldn’t have killed him, though the pain might have been severe enough to make him lose consciousness, so I kneel down and study him closely, just to make sure he isn’t breathing. I see no movement, and after donning a pair of latex gloves, I feel along his neck for a pulse. I don’t find one, but I do find a significant step in his cervical spine—a deformity that occurs when bones in the spine are displaced—and realize our cause of death is likely a broken neck. On his left wrist is a watch, its face broken, the second hand still, giving us a precise time of death. I take out my video camera and start filming, beginning with the watch.

  Hurley takes out his little notebook and a pen. “Has anyone touched the body?” he asks with a frown.

  Dom starts nervously. “Not since I’ve been here,” he says. “But there were others here before me.”

  “Why didn’t any of you call 911?” I ask. “How did you know he was dead?”

  The people in the group exchange a bunch of nervous glances. Finally the heavyset woman with the purple hat says, “I was the first one here. I used to work as an EMT. I could tell just from looking at his neck that he was dead and there was no point in calling for an ambulance.”

  “Did you touch him?” Hurley asks.

  Heavy purple lady shakes her head. “There was no need. I wasn’t that far away when he fell. I heard him hit the floor. And when I got here, the catwalk above us was shaking slightly.”

  Everyone looks up toward the catwalk for a moment, and then in unison, as if someone had given them a cue, they all shift their gaze to the dead man on the floor.

  Hurley gives me a questioning look, and I nod. The story makes sense. But what we have to figure out now is how and why he fell.

  “Let’s start with some identification,” Hurley says, pen poised.

  I finish filming the body and begin filming the people in the room. This earns me a few dirty looks and one pose—not surprisingly from the heavyset woman—as a result.

  “Dom, I know who you are,” Hurley goes on. “Who is our victim?”

  Everyone starts talking at once and Hurley holds up a hand, squeezing his eyes closed. This earns him a few eye rolls and looks of disgust. As soon as everyone is quiet, Hurley opens his eyes and zeroes in on Dom. “Dom, can you please tell me the name of our victim?”

  Dom nods, a spastic movement. “His name is Roger Dalrymple. He wrote this play we’re working on, and he was trying to direct us as well.”

  “Okay,” Hurley says, scribbling in his notebook. He looks over at the heavyset woman in the purple hat. “And you are?”

  “Darlene Fisher,” she says in a smoky, British-accented voice. She unclasps her wrist and flings one end of her boa over her shoulder. “I am the matriarch of the Fisher family,” she adds, casting a glance at the others. “Mother to this entire ragtag band of misfits.”

  Hurley and I both stop what we’re doing for a moment, though I leave my camera rolling and aimed in the general direction of Fisher, and we stare at the woman, gauging her. Then I look over at Dom with my eyebrows raised in question. Dom rolls his eyes and shakes his head.

  “We’re not here to play games, ma’am,” I say to the Fisher woman, my tone irritable. “This is a death investigation, not a play. The death is very real. We need your real name, not your character name.” Out of the corner of my eye, I see Hurley look over at me, his brow furrowed.

  The woman stares back at me with a haughty expression before letting out a heavy sigh and shaking her head with dismay. “You people are no fun,” she whines, her voice suddenly several notes higher on the scale and lacking the British accent.

  I give her a chastising look. “Untimely deaths aren’t generally fun.”

  “Whatever,” she says, clearly unimpressed. “A little whimsy couldn’t hurt.” She looks at us, gauging our reaction to this comment. Apparently, it’s not what she hoped. “My name is Helen Niehls.” This is uttered quickly and flatly, and she then starts to pick at one of her fingernails. Hurley asks her to spell her last name, and she does so with a huff of irritation.

  “How long ago did you find Mr. Dalrymple? How did you find him? When did you last see him? What were you doing when you found him? Who else was nearby?” This rapid-fire series of questions is a tactic I’ve seen Hurley use before. He claims it rattles the interviewee to some degree, and that whichever question they an
swer first is often telling.

  Helen claps a hand to her chest and smiles. “Oh, my, so many questions. Let’s see . . . I found him when I was on my way to the bathroom. It’s down the back hallway there.” She points over Hurley’s shoulder to the hallway we used coming in. “I was walking across the stage and heard the horrible sound of him hitting the floor. When I pushed aside the curtain, there he was.” She makes a fist with one hand and bites the side of it, her expression suddenly distraught and distressed. “It was awful, just awful,” she utters breathlessly. Her British accent has suddenly returned, and it’s met with a series of groans from nearly everyone in the room.

  “Oh, come on,” Helen whines. “The accent works. It just does. Just because Dalrymple didn’t like it, doesn’t mean it isn’t so. The rest of you don’t need to use one. We can use a story line that has me from England, like Cass’s character, but the rest of you born here.” She pauses, looking bright-eyed and hopeful at the rest of the group. Her cluelessness is beyond the pale. Either that, or she’s a complete sociopath. Whichever it is, Hurley quickly shifts Helen’s attention back to the matter at hand.

  “You and the victim were having some sort of disagreement?” he says, his voice laden with innuendo.

  Helen shoots him a wide-eyed look. “Nothing serious,” she says dismissively. “Just artistic differences.” She looks affronted all of a sudden and claps a hand over her ample bosom. “What are you suggesting?”

  Hurley looks up toward the scaffolding over our heads. “Based on your story, the piece of material I can see stuck on that railing up there, and the tear in Mr. Dalrymple’s shirt tail, a shirt that appears to match the material above, it would seem our victim fell from that catwalk. I’m guessing someone pushed him, because that looks like a high enough railing to make an accidental fall unlikely. And if someone wanted to commit suicide, I’d imagine there are a number of better ways to do it. A fall of this distance isn’t guaranteed to be fatal, even though it appears it may have been in this case. So I’m thinking Mr. Dalrymple might have had a bit of assistance with his fall.”

  Hurley watches the group as this sinks in.

  The gangly kid is the first one to speak. His face breaks into an eerie smile and he casts a glance back toward the people behind him. Then he turns back to Hurley. “You’re saying you think Dalrymple was murdered?”

  Hurley doesn’t answer.

  “Looks like life is going to imitate art, instead of the other way around,” the kid says.

  “How so?” Hurley asks.

  “Well, Dalrymple wasn’t happy just writing and directing the play, he had to have a part in it, too.” The kid pauses, and Hurley thrusts his head toward him, eyes wide, brows arched in question. “Come on, you have to admit it’s a bit ironic,” the kid goes on. “Dalrymple’s play is a murder mystery. His role was that of the victim. And all of us are the suspects.”

  CHAPTER 19

  Christopher and Izzy arrive at the scene, with Junior Feller in tow. After asking where everyone’s coats and such are, Hurley sends Junior to scrounge them up while he herds the potential suspects out front to the seating area of the theater, separating them so they can’t gossip and compare notes. Dom gives Izzy a desperate look before following the others.

  “Go and talk with the detectives,” Izzy says to Dom, his voice calm. “Just tell them the truth.”

  “But I don’t know what happened,” Dom says, looking like he’s about to cry. “I came in the back door and walked in on Helen and the others all standing here staring at Da—”

  Izzy holds up a hand to stop him. “Dom, listen to me. I don’t want you to tell me any of this before you talk to the detectives. We need to make sure everything is strictly by the book on this, okay? Go on, you’ll be fine.”

  Dom rolls his lips in and nods, though he doesn’t look convinced.

  “Come on, Dom,” I say, my voice soothing. “This is all standard procedure.”

  Dom, his shoulders slumped, his face toward the floor, shuffles off after the others. I look over at Izzy. “He’ll be okay,” I say.

  “I know,” Izzy says. “It’s just that he gets so worked up over things sometimes. I’m going to be trying to calm him down for days, maybe weeks over this.” He pauses, and takes on a dreamy, faraway look. “You know, there is an upside to this,” he says after a moment. “Dom tends to want to cook a lot when he gets upset, and he leans toward comfort foods during times of stress. That means there may be some good food coming down the pike instead of this healthy crap he’s been fixing ever since my heart attack.”

  “But that healthy crap has you looking and feeling pretty good,” I say, although I’m as excited, if not more so, than Izzy over the prospect of Dom’s cooking. Some of his standout, specialty dishes are from my favorite food group: Italian. And I have no compunction about inviting myself over for dinner. “And you’ve lost some weight.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Izzy says with a dismissive wave of his hand. “A little indulgence now and then isn’t going to kill me.”

  “We just need to learn moderation,” I say, and he nods, rolling his eyes. Izzy and I both struggle with our weight, so this rah-rah, team-building speech is one we’ve engaged in numerous times in the past. We’re far better at the speeches than we are on the follow-through.

  Christopher chooses that moment to loudly pass some gas, and the smell quashes the visions of sugarplums—or, rather, stuffed manicotti—dancing in my head. It’s a good six on the sphincter scale.

  “So where do you want to begin with Mr. Dalrymple here?” I say, switching subjects. “I’ve already done a brief preliminary examination, and it appears he has a pretty serious neck fracture along with two broken legs.”

  “You’ve done pictures already?” Christopher asks.

  “Video,” I say, with a nod toward the body. “But I suppose I need to do some up there.” I look up at the catwalk.

  Izzy looks above us with a ponderous expression. “Why don’t you do that, and Christopher and I will start bagging his hands and getting him ready for transport.”

  I head off toward the far end of the backstage area we’re in, searching for a way to get to the upper level of the scaffolding and catwalk. I finally find a doorway leading to a set of stairs and take them up to what is essentially the third floor of the building. Here there is access to a narrow catwalk made out of metal mesh, which gives me the heebie-jeebies when I step onto it. Not only can I see through the floor of the catwalk to the stage below, the whole thing wobbles a bit as I move along it. My shoulder isn’t very happy about the climb, either, since I’m gripping the side rail for all I’m worth.

  I turn the video camera on and hold it in front of me with my good hand while I grip the side railing with the other. The railings are high—nearly to my waist—and that means an accidental fall is, indeed, unlikely, just as Hurley said earlier. But railings aside, the catwalk is not for the faint of heart or the acrophobic. Heights are not my favorite thing, and I have to force myself to focus on the mesh floor in a nearsighted way that doesn’t let me see through it to the stage below. I nearly drop the camera at one point, and my efforts to catch it make the catwalk sway even more.

  I finally reach the area directly above Dalrymple’s body and see the swath of material Hurley had pointed out earlier. It’s snagged on a small piece of wire on the outside of the railing that was used—ironically—to attach a small metal caution sign to the inside wall of the catwalk.

  I make the mistake of looking down below, where I see Izzy and Christopher squatting beside Roger Dalrymple. The dizzying height makes me squeeze my eyes closed momentarily, and I grip the side rail tightly. But then I find that with my eyes closed, I can feel the slight movement in the catwalk and that gets my adrenaline pumping. I open them again and force myself to stay focused on the items in my immediate vicinity and not look down.

  I start to shoot video of the surrounding ropes, pulleys, and scaffolding, all of which control various lights and scene
ry boards, but as I look through the lens, I notice the image is cloudy and blurred. I turn the camera around to examine the outside of the lens and see that there is an oily smudge on it. Puzzled, I look at my gloved hands and discover the same oily substance on several of the fingers on the left-hand glove, the one I was using to grab the railing. I have no idea what it is, but figure I must have gotten it on my glove on the way up here.

  I clean off the camera lens with the hem of my shirt and then I slowly backtrack the way I came, filming my excursion, and examining the railing that is now on my right, but would have been on my left before. I find the source about five feet from where Dalrymple went over. There is a smear of a flesh-colored, oily substance on the railing that I surmise is probably stage makeup.

  I shoot some close-up video of the makeup smudge on the railing, and when I’m done, I stand for a moment, imagining how the fall could have occurred. It wouldn’t have been easy to get someone over the side, and Dalrymple wasn’t a small man. I figure he is somewhere around six feet tall and weighs in the neighborhood of two-fifty.

  What was he doing up here? I study the ropes and pulleys, and notice a backdrop suspended nearby that is lower than the others. Had Dalrymple reached for the rope to lower this particular piece of scenery? If so, it wasn’t beyond the realm of possibilities that he could have leaned out over the side railing far enough to lose his balance and fall, or been easily pushed.

  I go back down to the main floor and venture over to where Izzy and Christopher are. I remove my makeup-smeared glove, placing it in an evidence bag.

  “Why are you bagging your glove?” Izzy asks.

  I explain about the substance I found on it and on the railing. “Any chance our victim is wearing anything like that? Some stage makeup, perhaps?” I ask.

  Izzy shakes his head, and then takes another closer look at Dalrymple’s face, and then his hands, which Christopher is about to bag. “Nope, nothing,” he announces.