A Baked Ham (2 page)

“Oh, dear, I don’t like the looks
of that.
 
I’d better go after him,”
Martha said as she headed for the door herself.

“I’ve got a better idea.
 
Why don’t you stay and watch the play with
Victoria, and I’ll go after him myself?”
 
Greg suggested.
 
“Don’t worry
about me.
 
I can handle Moose.”

“No thank you.
 
As much as I appreciate your kind offer,
Greg, I’d better be the one who goes after him.
 
You two stay, though, and enjoy yourselves.”

“I’m not so sure that
I
still want to see this performance
after what just happened,” I said.

“Come on, Victoria,” Greg
said.
 
“You’ve been looking forward to this
for weeks.
 
Don’t let one idiot spoil the
entire experience for you.”

“I agree,” Martha said.
 
“We know how much you love us both, but this
is our battle, not yours.
 
Now, I really
must go catch up with your grandfather before he does something that we’ll all
end up regretting later.”

After Martha was gone as well, I
asked Greg, “Are you sure we shouldn’t go after them?”

“Given the circumstances, I doubt
that either one of us could do much good, and besides, Benny’s as safe from
your grandfather right now as he’ll ever be.
 
Moose wouldn’t dare attack him while he’s onstage.”

“I think that you’re clearly
underestimating my grandfather,” I said, “but I really do want to see this
performance.”

“Then you’re going to do just
that.
 
I’ll even try to stay awake, if
you think that might help matters.”

“Well, it couldn’t hurt,” I said.

But I never got the chance to see
the play at all.
 

It turned out that Benny was dead
wrong about one thing.
 

The show
didn’t
go on after what the sheriff announced to the crowded
theater ten minutes later.

Chapter 2

“Ladies and gentlemen, I’m afraid
that I’ve got some bad news.
 
Tonight’s
performance has been cancelled.”

“What happened?” someone asked
from the front.

“I’m getting to that, if you’ll
just give me a second.
 
It appears that
someone slipped into one of the dressing rooms and killed Benny Booth.”

I grabbed Greg’s arm as I started
to get up.
 
“We need to find Moose and
Martha.”

My husband stood as well just as
the sheriff said loudly, “You all need to stay right where you are until I’m
finished.”
 
Was he looking straight at me
as he’d said it?
 
It surely felt that way
to me.
 
“I’m sorry for the delay, but I’m
going to need to get everyone’s name and address before I can let anyone
leave.
 
Now, if you’ll all file out
toward the back of the theater in an orderly fashion, I have officers stationed
there to take down your information.
 
It’s going to take a while, but bear with us; it can’t be helped.
 
All I can promise you is that we’ll make it
as painless for you all as we can.”

“Greg, we can’t wait that long,”
I said as I rejected the sheriff’s command and headed for the nearest exit
instead of the back of the theater.
 
It
wasn’t going to be easy, though.
 
Everyone else was standing as well, and it appeared that our way was
solidly blocked.

I was about to pull my husband
through the crowd toward the side exit despite what the sheriff had just
ordered when I heard the man himself speak to us from ten feet away.

“Victoria, Greg, I need to see
you both right now, if you don’t mind.”

“From the tone in his voice, I
have a hunch that it doesn’t matter if we mind or not,” Greg said softly to me.

“Let’s just get this over with as
quickly as we can so we can find my grandparents,” I said quietly to my
husband.

“I’ll try to do my part,” he
said.
 

“What can we do for you,
Sheriff?” I asked as I turned and looked at him.

“Not here,” Sheriff Croft said as
he looked around.
 
We were getting quite
a bit of attention where we stood, so Greg and I followed the sheriff back up
onstage.
 
“That’s better.
 
Victoria, where are your grandparents?”

“How should I know?” I
asked.
 
“You saw us in the audience when
you came out to announce what had happened.
 
You were remarkably restrained during your announcement, by the way.
 
What exactly happened to Benny, anyway?”

“I’m not ready to release that
information yet,” Sheriff Croft said tightly.

“You can’t be serious.
 
We’re going to find out soon enough,” I
answered.
 
“Why don’t you just save us
all the trouble and tell us now?”

I wasn’t sure that he’d go for
it, but the sheriff finally shrugged as he said, “Keep it quiet for now; can I
at least ask you to do that?”

“We won’t tell anyone except
family,” I said.

The sheriff shook his head.
 
“That’s a pretty broad exclusion, Victoria.”

“Maybe so, but it’s the best I
can promise you, and you know it.”

“Fine,” the sheriff said, and I
could see the exhaustion etched in his face.
 
I wouldn’t have tried my hand at his job on a bet, though Moose and I
had a little luck in the past solving a crime or two ourselves.
 
Our efforts had strictly been on a volunteer
basis, and
no one
was expecting us to
save the day.
 
Sheriff Croft, on the
other hand, seemed to have a steady and unrelenting wave of crime coming at him
all of the time, while Moose and I had the luxury to be able to investigate
only the cases that had a direct impact on our lives, our family, and our
diner.

Suddenly I was starting to have a
little remorse for badgering the poor man.
 
“It’s okay.
 
You don’t have to
tell us if you don’t want to.”

Greg looked at me with his mouth
agape, but before he could say anything, the sheriff said, “No, it’s okay.
 
Somebody hit Benny in the back of the head
with a trophy of some sort.
 
Whoever did
it scored a perfect hit, and he died right there on the spot.”

“What kind of trophy would there
be in a dressing room backstage?” Greg asked.

“One of my officers told me that
it looked like a Jasper Award.
 
I’d never
heard of it myself, but it turns out that it’s a local award they give to the
best actor of the year in Community Theater, and Benny just won the thing.
 
Evidently he took it with him everywhere he
went.
 
Anyway, that’s what killed
him.
 
Now, can you help me find your
grandparents, Victoria?
 
I really need to
track them down.
 
Do you have any guesses
where the best place to look for them might be?
 
We’ve checked their home, but they aren’t there.”

“You don’t seriously believe that
either one of them could have had anything to do with this, do you?
 
Sheriff, you’ve known them both your whole
life.”

“Frankly, I hate this part of my
job,” he said heatedly, “but you heard them both out in the lobby.
 
There were threats flying around the room
like seagulls tailing a trash barge.”

“Check the diner,” Greg told the
sheriff.
 
I stared at my husband for three
seconds before he reluctantly said to me, “Victoria, I agree that this is
ridiculous, but the sooner the sheriff talks to Moose and Martha, the sooner
they’ll be off his list of suspects and he can go after the
real
killer.
 
I’d stake my life on the fact that neither
one of
them
did it.”

“Thanks for the tip,” the sheriff
said.

I planned to have words with Greg
about what he’d just done, but I wasn’t finished with the sheriff yet.
 
“How did the killer get into the dressing
room without being seen by anybody?
 
That
hallway must be jammed with people so close to the curtain.”

“You’ve clearly never seen the
dressing room Benny was assigned.
 
It has
its own entrance from the outside.
 
Whoever killed him could have easily slipped in from the alley, hit him,
and then tore out of there before anyone but Benny even knew that they were
there.”

“I didn’t realize that,” Greg
said sadly, his features sinking into despair.
 
He looked at me and added, “Victoria, I figured that there was no way
either one of them could have gone backstage without a dozen people recognizing
them, so I thought that they’d both be safe.”

“Don’t worry about it, Greg,” I
said.
 
“Neither one of them did it, so
you’re right.
 
The quicker they talk to
the sheriff, the better off everyone will be.”
 
I pointed to the mass of people jamming up the rear of the
auditorium.
 
“Sheriff, we helped
you.
 
Can you return the favor and let us
out a side door so we don’t have to go through that?”

“I don’t see why not,” he
said.
 
“Follow me.” After a few steps, he
hesitated, and then the sheriff turned to look back at us.
 
“One thing, though.
 
I don’t want either one of you calling them
to warn them that I’m coming.”

“We promise not to do that, but
you can’t keep us from tagging along with you,” Greg said.
 
“I owe them at least that after I told you
where they might be.”

The sheriff just shook his head,
but he didn’t say no, so I was going to take that as a strong yes.
 
Once we were outside and in our car following
the police cruiser to the diner, Greg asked, “Are you sure that you’re not
upset with me for giving the sheriff an idea where he might look for your
grandparents?”

“Don’t beat yourself up about it,
Greg.
 
He would have thought of it
himself in another five minutes,” I said as I patted his hand.
 
“No one’s going to be upset.”

Greg laughed.
 
“Have you even
met
your grandfather, Victoria?”

I smiled slightly.
 
“Well, he won’t be upset about
just
that,” I said.
 
“I figure tonight he’s going to have enough
mad to go around for everyone.”

“True,” my husband said.
 

We pulled into the diner’s
parking lot just as the sheriff got out of his cruiser.
 
The place was supposed to be dark and closed
down at that time of night, but instead, we found that the lights were all on.
 
Inside, Martha was on a barstool, and Moose was
standing on the other side of the counter, sipping a cup of coffee.
 
They looked for all the world like a pair
without a trouble between them, but I knew better.
 
Things were about to happen pretty quickly,
and I hated that we were about to interrupt the last moment of peace either one
of them was going to have for awhile.

“Let me handle this,” the sheriff
said as we approached the door together.

“Hang on one second.
 
I’ll unlock the door for you,” I said as I
reached for my keys.

“There’s no need to do that,”
Greg said.
 
“Moose is coming.”

My grandfather opened the door,
and there was a quizzical expression on his face.
 
“What’s going on?
 
Is the play over already?”

“Somebody killed Benny in his
dressing room at the theater,” I said, not meaning to just blurt out the news
like that.

“What happened to letting me
handle it?” the sheriff asked softly.
 
It
was pretty clear that he was angry about my outburst, but I couldn’t just let
Moose and Martha be ambushed like that without at least knowing what had
happened.
 
“You need to leave, Victoria.”

“She’s not going anywhere,” Greg
said, “and neither am I.”
 
He then turned
to my grandfather and said, “Moose, I told the sheriff that you’d probably be
here.
 
I figured the sooner we got this
foolishness over with, the better.
 
I’m
sorry if I let you down.”

My grandfather put a friendly
hand on Greg’s shoulders.
 
“Nothing to
apologize for, Son.
 
You did the right
thing.”