MASS MURDER (48 page)

“You know, Detective, I’d be careful.
You’re fishing and you know it.
You’re just a small town cop who thinks he’s finally got some big case to show off your stuff.
Well, you don’t have the
stuff
, not here, not with me.
Now, I really have to get ready to go.”
He reached past Giorgio and opened the door.

Giorgio stepped into the late afternoon shadows and paused, turning back to Poindexter.
“Perhaps a polygraph will change that.”

“You really shouldn’t carry the roles you play on stage into real life, Detective.
You’re not
that
good.”
With tha
t, Poindexter slammed the door.

Giorgio turned and headed for his car, smiling to himself.
Halfway there, he met the Southern Belle returning with a few letters in her hands.
Giorgio stopped her, hoping to draw
her into a casual conversation.

“Well, a night on the town,” he smiled.
“Sounds like fun.
Where did you say you were going?”

“Some fundraiser for a kids’
camp
.
After dinner we all go to the Pasadena Playhouse for the opening of some contemporary play.
Cory says he has to be seen at these things.”
She shrugged as if she wasn’t interested.
“He’s trying to move up into the executive office, I guess.”

“Well, that’s how it’s done.
Go out, wear your tuxedo and attract the right kind of attention.”

“Not tonight,” she drawled.
“His tux is still at the cleaners.
He must have rolled in the dirt at that conference the other night,” she said with a smirk.
“
H
e won’t get it back until this weekend.”

Giorgio grinned.
“Too bad.
Well, enjoy yourselves.”

She smiled vacuously in return and continued in the direction of the apartment.
He returned to his car feeling satisfied and more than a little smug.

Chapter Thirty-
Four

Giorgio worked late that night, piecing together information that could eliminate suspects and help determine how the three murders might be related.
Young Father Daniel, though a long shot with no apparent motive, certainly couldn’t be eliminated.
Nor could John Marsh.
Then there was Corey Poindexter and Colin Jewett.
Poindexter had been outside alone at the right time, but was it to kill Mallery Olsen or Jeff
Dorman
?
Even Anya Peter s couldn’t be ruled out as a suspect.
Mallery Olsen was quite small and Peters had both the resolve and the knowledge about the tunnels to have pulled it off.
Lastly, there was Father Damian.
He had opportunity although Giorgio found it implausible he had the constitution for murder.
But he might know more than he was confessing.

It was after eleven when Giorgio finally dragged himself through his front door.
He had one thing on his mind
−
a late supper and a hot bath.
He’d only made it to the kitchen when Angie emerged from the den with a message from the theater.

“Marvin called a half hour ago,” she said quietly.
“Apparently there’s a major problem at the theater.
He wants you to come do
wn as soon as you can.”

Giorgio groaned.
“Damn! I’m beat.”
He shuffled into the kitchen and grabbed a frozen cheese enchilada from the freezer and threw it into the microwave.

“He sounded pretty desperate,” Angie added, finding a plate and silverware.
She set a place for him at the table and then turned and slipped her arms around his waist as he waited at the microwave.
He grabbed her hands and pulled her arms tight around him.

“
How’s our baby?”

She smiled and kissed him on the neck.
“He, or she, is doing just fine.
I was just looking through our old baby name books.
What do you think of Carter or Emily?”

He laughed and turned around, pulling her close.
“Well, they’re not Italian names, but I think you’ve earned the right to name this baby anything you want.”

Just then, the microwave beeped.
Reluctantly, Giorgio released his wife and turned to remove his dinner.
He grabbed a can of pop and sat down to eat.

“I’ll see you when you get home,” she said seductively, giving him a parting kiss on the top of the head.
“Fix whatever it is and come back soon.”

He watched her disappear and quickly stuffed the enchilada down his throat
.
With any luck, Marvin would have the problem fixed by the time he got there.
He and Marvin constituted the entire theater building committee
,
and together they took care of a wide variety of maintenance problems.
Over time they had fixed everything from a leaky roof to a squeaky stage floor.
Giorgio’s uncle had been an apartment super in Brooklyn
,
and he’d picked up a fair amount of do-it-yourself tips.
Marvin worked with his father as an electrical contractor and was a whiz with anything that required wiring.

It was almost midnight when Giorgio arrive
d to find the two-story building sitting
in the dark.
The nearby streetlights outl
ined
the bloodless fingers of ivy that crawled up th
e brick exterior
.
Giorgio suspected that an electrical cable had blown and silently hoped it hadn’t interrupted a rehearsal.
Since Marvin was an electrician by trade, he assumed his job would be to hold a flashlight while Marvin fixed the problem.

The side parking lot was empty except for Marvin’s old gra
y sedan
.
Giorgio grabbed the flashlight from his glove compartment and s
tepped out next to
Marvin’s car.
A crisp breeze rustled the trees overhead, making Giorgio think of the night the button had bounced to within an inch of his foot.
His fingers sought out the small piece of metal in his pocket before he climbed the short set
of stairs to the side entrance.

The door was propped open with a block of wood, as they often did during a perf
orman
ce.
He found
the light switch just inside the door, but as he suspected, flicking it up and down produced nothing.
He called out Marvin’s name
. O
nly a penetrating silence called back.
Giorgio passed
the door to the
dressing rooms and moved to the end of the hallway where a door led to the south side of the two hundred-seat auditorium.
He paused in the curtained doorway, playing the beam of light over the empty seats.

There was something intoxicating about a theater, even when it was empty.
Every night was different.
Mistakes were made.
Lines were read with passion, or not, and the audience, though sometimes feared and hated by the actors, was always the wild card.
Each one of those seats held the promise of another laugh, a gasp, a tear, or the threat of awkward silence.
Giorgio loved it.

He glanced around.
The exit lights were dark, leaving the entire room as black as the bottom of a dry well.
Giorgio called Marvin’s name a second time.
A noise drew his attention to the back of the stage where a door led to the basement and the fuse box.
He moved down the side aisle and up the steps when an inner voice told him to stop
.

Giorgio allowed the flashlight to inch across the stage where the theater company had begun building the set for their annual production of
“
A Christmas Carol
”
.
The skeleton of a
London street
scene rose out of the murky depths of the stage floor at irregular angles.
Here
a pawn
shop.
There a bakery.
Giorgio stepped onto the stage and drifted to his right, moving behind the stage-left curtains and toward the back wall.

T
he basement door st
ood
ajar.
He peeked around the doorframe into the basement.
Marvin’s red toolbox sat on the floor next to a battery operated work light.
A can of gasoline sat next to the theater generator, along with the small CD player Marvin always carried.
The breaker box was open on the wall above.
Although Marvin wasn’t visible, Giorgio relaxed
.

“Marvin,” Giorgio called out.
“It’s me.
Where the hell are you?”

He moved down the steps, peering into the shadows filled with boxes of stage props.
A piece of paper lying next to the toolbox caught his eye.
He picked it up, using his flashlight to read a short, hand written message.

I told you, you weren’t that good!

Giorgio
immediately reached for
his gun
, but too late. A
hammer
slammed his forearm
almost cracking the bone a
s he brought it out
and
sending the gun skidding across the floor.
Giorgio spun away, tripping over the stool and landing on his back.
A man in a hooded sweatshirt and ski mask
lunged at
him from the shadows.
Giorgio fish-tailed sideways and clamped his feet around the man’s lower leg, yanking him off balance and bringing him down
right
on top of him.
His attacker rolled sideways, jumping back onto his feet
and
lifting t
he hammer again
.
Giorgio jack-knifed backwards, getting himself clumsily to his feet.

The man lunged a third time
, but
Giorgio grabbed the hammer with his left hand.
The two
s
truggled back and forth, bumping first against the generator and then slamming into the hot water heater.
The other man was taller by
several
inches and felt younger and more agile.
Was it Poindexter?
At one point, Giorgio yanked one of the man’s hands behind his back and then smashed his face into the fuse box.
The cry of pain was a voice Giorgio recognized.