A Baked Ham (19 page)

“I’m positive,” she said.

“Okay, suit yourself.”
 
As I walked by his seat, I smiled brightly
and said, “Ellen will be right with you.”

“Don’t worry about me.
 
I’ve got all the time in the world,” he said
with a grin.

“You might think so, but I wouldn’t
take
too
long, if I were you,” I
said.

Wayne looked at me oddly, and
then Ellen brushed me away with her apron.
 
“There are folks stacking up at the register, Victoria,” she said.

I looked over to see old Mrs.
Clarenton teetering toward the register, and judging by her pace, she might get
there by closing tonight, or she might not.
 
“I’ll take care of it,” I said with a smile as I walked back to my usual
position by the register.

“How was everything today, Mrs.
Clarenton?” I asked as I rang up her bill.

“Wonderful, as always.
 
That husband of yours sure knows how to
cook.”

“I’ll tell him that you enjoyed
your meal,” I said as I handed her back her change.

“You be sure to,” she said, and
then she started her trek back to her car.
 
I held the door open for her, and as I watched her make her way to her
car, I couldn’t believe who I saw heading straight for the front door of the
diner.

It appeared that Fred Hitchings
was going to save me the trouble of tracking him down.

Grabbing my cell phone, I held my
breath waiting for Moose to answer, but it ended up going to voicemail.
 
At the sound of the beep, I said hurriedly,
“Moose, this is Victoria.
 
I don’t know
where you are or what you’re doing, but you need to get over here.
 
I’ve got a couple of new developments that
you need to know about.”

“I don’t care who you’re talking
to,” Fred said as he entered through the front door.
 
“This is important.
 
We need to talk.”

“I don’t doubt that we do,” I
said.
 
“Come on inside.”

Fred just shook his head as he
stood there blocking the exit.
 
“If you
don’t mind, this needs to be in neutral territory.”

I pointed to a nearby bench that
some folks liked to use to picnic in nice weather.
 
“How about over there?
 
I should warn you, though; I can’t wander off
too far.
 
I’m needed inside.”

“That’s fine,” he said, and we
made our way to the bench.
 
It was still
close enough to the diner for me to retreat if I needed to, but I was pretty
certain that I could handle Fred.

Then again, maybe Benny had felt
the same way, to his eternal regret.
 
I
vowed to keep my eyes open, and at the first sign of trouble, I was going to
race into the diner.
 
I didn’t care how
it looked, either.
 
Being safe was what
mattered now.

 
“What can I do for you, Fred?
 
Did you come by to confess?”
 
It was a bold move, and one that I hoped I
didn’t regret later, but it was worth a shot.

“What are you talking about,
Victoria?
 
Confess to what?”

“Killing Benny, of course.
 
I’ve got an eyewitness who placed you at the back
of the theater around the time that Benny Booth was murdered.”

“Of course I was there,” he said
with obvious disgust.
 
“I may have been
his understudy, but I was in the play in my own right myself.
 
I had every reason to be there.”

“Inside the theater, yes, but
I’ve recently spoken to someone who saw you outside near Benny’s dressing room
door.”

Fred shook his head.
 
“Who is this supposed eyewitness?”

“I’d rather not say until I need
to reveal their identity,” I said, being careful to keep Amanda’s gender out of
it.
 
“Do you care to comment?”

Fred smiled softly.
 
“It was all one big mix-up.
 
I was in the prop room looking for a
briefcase I could use in my first scene.
 
Someone grabbed mine, and I needed it for the play.
 
While I was in the prop room, some idiot
closed the door, and the light bulb in there has been burned out for
months.
 
I couldn’t see my way around,
and when I found the back door, I opened it for some light.
 
It didn’t do much good, though, so I stepped
outside to look at the briefcase I’d found, and I was out there just long
enough for it to close on me.
 
Before I
knew what was happening, I was locked out of the theater.”

“Is that when you decided to use
Benny’s dressing room door to get back in?” I asked.

“That’s the thing.
 
I didn’t,” he explained.
 
“As a matter of fact, I never even
tried
his door, so I couldn’t even say
if it was locked or not just then.”

“How did you get back inside in
time for the play, then?” I asked.

“I used the other dressing room
door.
 
It was open a bit, so I slipped
inside, and no one was the wiser.
 
At
least that’s what I thought at the time.
 
Apparently someone saw me, but I can’t imagine who it might have been.
 
The killer, maybe?”

That was an intriguing thought,
one I hadn’t even considered given the nature of the admission.
 
“Fred, whose door did you go through?”

“That’s why I’m here.
 
I know I should have told you before, but I
didn’t want to point fingers at anyone.
 
I need to tell somebody, though.
 
I walked into Sandra Hall’s dressing room, and then I made my way out
into the hallway and got ready for my first scene.”

“Didn’t anyone say something to
you when you barged in there?”
 
This was
the perfect opportunity to find out if what Sandra and Marcus had told me was
true.

“No, I was ready to apologize,
but I didn’t have to.
 
The room was
empty.”

“
No one
was there?” I asked.
 
“Are you certain?”

“Positive,” he said.
 
“I thought it odd at the time that Sandra was
gone, but I didn’t really give it much thought.
 
The more I thought about it, though, the more I realized that she could
have gone next door through the back way, killed Benny, and then made it back
to her dressing room without anyone knowing what she’d done.”

“It sounds as though it’s a
possibility,” I said.
 
“Have you told the
sheriff this?”

“No, I’m on my way there
now.
 
I just thought that you should
know.”

“Thanks, I appreciate that,” I
said as Ellen came outside.
 

“Victoria, is everything all
right?”

“It’s fine,” I said.

“Greg was just wondering where
you’d gotten off to, and I didn’t see you leave,” she said.

“I’ll be inside in a minute,” I
said.

“Okay,” she replied, but she
didn’t look all that sure about it.

“You might as well go on in,”
Fred said.
 
“That’s all I had to tell
you.
 
Watch your back around that woman,
Victoria.
 
Sandra might look pretty and
harmless, but that woman’s got a mean streak as wide as a river.”

“I’ll do that,” I said.
 
“Thanks for coming by.”

After Fred Hitchings left, I had
to wonder about my list of suspects.
 
It
seemed that nearly all of them had cast pointing fingers in other directions,
and the case was muddled more now than it had been from the beginning.
 
It was almost as though it was a concerted
effort on all of them to stymie our investigation.

Well, it wasn’t going to
work.
 
Moose and I would press on until
the killer was found.

I just didn’t have a clue as to
what we should do next.

Maybe Moose would.

At least that was my only hope at
the moment.

“Can you watch the register
again?” I asked Ellen.
 
“It won’t take a
minute.
 
I promise.”

“Go on, take your time,” she
said.
 
I looked over and saw that Wayne
was gone, though I didn’t know if that had anything to do with her willingness
to watch the register for me or not.

I grabbed my cell phone and found
an empty booth away from our customers.
 
I still had the gym’s number in memory, and as I dialed it, I found
myself hoping that Sandra didn’t answer it.

I was in luck.
 
It was Marcus.

After I identified myself, I
said, “Marcus, I have one more question for you, and then I’ll leave you
alone.”

“For good?” he asked.
 
Evidently I hadn’t made too good an
impression on the man, if he was that eager to get rid of me.

“How about for now?
 
Is that good enough?” I asked.

“What is it?” he asked
grumpily.
 
“I may or may not answer it
after I hear it.”

“You told me earlier that you
were in Sandra’s dressing room the entire time everyone was backstage, and just
before she went onstage.”

“Yes, it’s true.
 
I was there.”

“Are you sure you didn’t step out
for ten seconds?
 
Maybe to use the
restroom, or something else you might have forgotten about since?”

“I was there the entire time,” he
said emphatically.
 
“You can bet on it.”

“Did you see anyone try to come
in or out while you were there, from either door?”

“The
only
person I saw was that fool telling me that Sandra was due on the
stage in five minutes.
 
I muttered that
she wasn’t there, but I don’t think the man heard me.
 
Why do you want to know?”

“I have my reasons,” I said.
 
“Thanks.”

“Aren’t you going to tell me
anything?” he asked.

I chose to ignore the question
and hung up.
 
With any luck, he wouldn’t
even realize that I’d heard his question.

“I’ve got it now.
 
Thanks,” I told Ellen as I looked at the
clock.
 
“You’ve got twenty minutes left
on your shift, but I worked you extra hard today.
 
Why don’t you go ahead home, and I won’t
punch you out until two.
 
How does that
sound?”

“Are you sure?” Ellen asked.
 
“It would be perfect.
 
I could stop off at the store and pick up a
box cake mix and a dozen eggs without dragging the kids to the store with me.”

“Making a cake, are you?” I asked
with a smile.

“Actually, it’s a dozen cupcakes
for the bake sale tomorrow,” she said.
 
“Your husband has been kind enough to donate two of his pies to the
cause, and he’s even offered to deliver them himself.
 
He’s a good man.”

“Thanks.
 
I think so.
 
Off you go now, before something comes up here.”

“It’s warm enough out.
 
I won’t even go in back for my coat.”
 
She was gone before I could stop her, not
that I blamed her one bit.
 
Time off was
rare enough, and I knew that she would make good use of it.

I didn’t mind.
 
Jenny wasn’t due in until four, but I could
manage well enough by myself until then.
 
If not, I could always call Martha back.

In the meantime, I’d wait on my
customers, check them out at the register, and in my downtime, I’d try to figure
out which man had lied to me this afternoon, Marcus Jackson or Fred
Hitchings.
 
One of them hadn’t told me
the truth, since they
both
couldn’t
have been in Sandra’s dressing room without one of them seeing the other.
 
It was real progress, even though I didn’t
know which one was lying, and which one wasn’t.
 
All I had to do was to prove the liar, and then carry on the
investigation from there.
 
It didn’t
necessarily make the liar the killer, but it wouldn’t hurt my investigation
with Moose to discover which one of them had something to hide.

Chapter 12

I thought about calling my
grandfather, but before I could dial the number, the man himself walked in,
with Martha in tow.