I nodded, hating the press corps that invariably materialized at the merest suspicion of a scandal, fully formed and hungry, out of Annapolis’s cobblestones.
“Who…?” Paul was working his way through the five Ws. We’d established the what, where, and when of it; but only time could answer the questions that were nagging at him now. “Who would do such a thing? And why?”
I shrugged, at a loss for words.
After a few moments he added, “When they know why, I suppose they’ll know who.”
“They’ll be looking for people with motive,” I said, following that train of thought to its logical conclusion.
Paul had been studying his thumbnail. He gazed up at me with a wistful smile. “Are you asking if I have an alibi, my dear?” The smile, such as it was, vanished. “It’s not much of one, I’m afraid,” he continued, not waiting for me to reply. “I’ve been home all afternoon, alone, playing with myself.”
I smiled at his little joke, stalling for time. I had told Paul about speaking to Jennifer Goodall, of course, but I conveniently forgot to mention my blowup. I was ashamed of it, for one thing, embarrassed that I’d let her get under my skin like that. But my marriage wouldn’t be worth a plugged nickel if I waited for the cops to come along and tell him about it first.
“Actually, I was thinking about my alibi,” I told him.
Paul’s eyebrows came together. “Oh?”
“That conversation Jennifer and I had the other day? The one where she made up that lie about you?”
“Go on.”
“It wasn’t exactly a conversation, Paul. It was an old-fashioned, back-stabbing, mud-slinging, your-mother-swims-after-troop-ships kind of shouting match.” I flopped back in my chair, rested my head against the rungs. “Oh God, Paul, after what she said to me, I could have cheerfully drawn and quartered the witch.”
“I’ve shouted at a lot of people, Hannah,” Paul said, dismissing my confession, “but I’ve never killed any of them.”
“Yes, but Jennifer’s and my little tête-à-tête was overheard by Midshipman Small and practically everybody in the cast.”
“I see.” Paul squinted at the wall clock. “I suppose a lot will depend on exactly when she died.”
I looked at the clock, too. Eleven forty-five? Nearly midnight. It felt like three in the morning. “She must have died shortly before her body was found. Tim told me her body was still warm.” I shivered, remembering the young man’s valiant but failed attempt at CPR.
A new thought occurred to me. “Jennifer could have been alive when the killer threw her into the trunk, Paul! She might have been lying in there unconscious, all through the first act. It might have taken hours for her to bleed to death.” I remembered the blood covering her face, a dark glistening red.
I buried my face in my palms. “God, Paul, anyone could have done it.”
The teakettle began to scream. Paul rose from his chair to shut it off. “But wait a minute, Hannah,” he said gently. “I’m confused. I thought you told me that the set’s been off-limits to anyone but the tech crew since last night’s rehearsal.”
I followed my husband to the stove, reached into a cupboard and selected two mugs. After I’d dropped the tea bags in, Paul filled the mugs with boiling water.
“That’s true,” I said, plunging my tea bag up and down. “But there’s no security at all, really. The doors were not locked. Aside from the tech crew, anybody could have wandered into the auditorium, even a lost tourist.”
I ran down a mental list of the tech crew. With the exception of me, I couldn’t think of anybody who had a beef with Lieutenant Goodall. They probably didn’t even know her.
As for the cast, the only midshipmen I’d seen talking to Jennifer Goodall had been Kevin and Emma. Had Kevin killed Jennifer to keep her from reporting him for harassing Emma? On the other had, if Emma had confided in Jennifer about her sexual orientation, and Jennifer had threatened to out her, that could have driven Emma to murder her, too.
“What happens now?” Paul wondered, taking his seat.
“We’ll be interviewed, of course. NCIS told us to expect that.”
“When?”
I shrugged. “I don’t have the vaguest idea.”
We finished our tea in silence, while variations on the theme of Kevin and Emma played themselves out in my head.
Paul finally coaxed me to bed, but I couldn’t sleep. As he snored gently beside me, I lay in the dark, staring at the ceiling. The numbers on the digital clock clicked from three to four to five before I mumbled, “This is ridiculous,” crawled out of bed and headed for the bathroom. I filled the tub with hot water, dumped in a quarter cup of lavender bath salts, added another tablespoon for good measure, and settled in for a good long soak.
I was standing at the sink, my head wrapped in a towel, brushing my teeth, when the telephone rang. It was 6:00 A.M.: way too early for someone to be calling. It had to be bad news.
I dove for the telephone, trying to silence it before it could ring a second time. “Hello?” I croaked, and braced myself for the worst.
It was Dorothy, her voice surprisingly bright. “Hannah, I’m sorry to be calling you so early, but I just had to let you know right away!”
“Let me know what?” I whispered, turning my back to my sleeping husband and sitting down carefully on the edge of the mattress.
Incredibly, the Academy had reached a decision about the show. “That woman had nothing to do with the musical,” Dorothy reported. “They think it may be just a coincidence that her body was left there.”
“And, so?”
“We’re still on! They’re finished collecting evidence,” she continued. “We’ll have to get a new trunk for Sweeney, of course, since they’ve taken ours away. Wasn’t there one at Echos and Accents, that place off Chincoteague?”
Quite frankly, I couldn’t remember.
“I’m sure that’s the place!” Dorothy chugged on. “Could you pick it up for me, Hannah? You live so much closer than me.”
Like a good little Do-Bee, I agreed even though I knew that the only way I’d fit that trunk in my LeBaron was on end, and I’d have to put the convertible top down. That would be an adventure in February.
“See you tonight,” she chirped, and hung up without saying good-bye.
I stared at the receiver, too dumbfounded to speak. It was six in the ever-lovin’ morning. How could she possibly know…? Maybe it would make some sense after I’d had some coffee.
I rinsed out my toothbrush and had just hung it up to dry when Paul stumbled into the bathroom, bleary-eyed, his cheeks and chin dark with stubble. “To whom do I owe that wake-up call?”
“Dorothy Hart.” I wrapped my arms around him and squeezed. “Sorry.”
Paul rested his chin on the top of my head and hugged me back. “What did she want at this ungodly hour?”
“It was good news,” I said, feeling a bit light-headed from the combination of heat, steam, and lack of sleep. “The Academy’s decided.” I took a step backward and waved my hand with a flourish. “In the best of theater traditions, sir, the show must go on.”
CHAPTER 11
Sweeney Todd was a smash, selling out from its first night on. Standing room only, too. Morbid curiosity might have driven ticket sales into the stratosphere, of course, but each night after the curtain went down, no one could argue that the show wasn’t worth the price of admission. The collective intake of breath, the seconds of stunned silence, followed by a standing ovation of bravos and ooh-rah-ooh-rahs that seemed to go on forever were proof enough of that.
The Naval Criminal Investigative Service had been busy, as well. Even before the post opening night congratulatory beers we’d downed at Ramshead Tavern on West Street had worked their way out of our systems, two NCIS agents had gathered up their notebooks, tape recorders, and video cameras, and moved from their permanent second floor offices in Halligan Hall to a small conference room in the Academy’s Administration Building. There, in the shadow of the Naval Academy Chapel dome, they could conduct their interviews in neutral (and far more central) territory.