“I do.”

  “That’s flattering, but you’re wrong. He just wasn’t interested. Has he ever gone out with anyone?”

  “Not that I’ve heard about.”

  “There you go, then. He wasn’t going to start with me, either.”

  Rhodes gave up on that idea for the moment, but it was something he’d keep in the back of his mind.

  “Did he say what he was going to be doing here?”

  “No, but he comes down here often to look things over and see what progress is being made. He was probably checking on something or other.”

  “What time did you get here?”

  Aubrey looked at her watch. Rhodes was surprised she still wore one. A lot of people didn’t, not anymore.

  “It’s almost noon,” Aubrey said. “I was supposed to meet Mr. Marley at eleven, but I was early. So I guess I got here about ten forty-five. I came right in, and that’s when I saw him. I went up on the stage, and I could tell right away that he was dead. I called your office then.”

  Rhodes thought about what he’d learned. Not much, but maybe there wasn’t anything to learn. Maybe Marley had just had an accident.

  “It’s funny,” Aubrey said, “sitting in an empty theater with a dead man, I mean. A person starts thinking all kinds of things.” She shivered. “Do you believe in ghosts, Sheriff?”

  Rhodes didn’t want to talk about ghosts. “No, I don’t.”

  “Me, neither,” Aubrey said, “but sometimes I wonder.”

  Rhodes stood up, dismissing the idea, and thanked Aubrey for her help. “I’ll call you if any other questions come to mind.”

  “I’ll be glad to do whatever I can,” Aubrey said. “Mr. Marley was a nice man, not at all like people said he was.”

  “What did people say he was?”

  “You know. Gruff, standoffish. He wasn’t like that at all.”

  “Maybe not with you,” Rhodes said.

  Aubrey picked up her purse and coat. “Not with anybody. You ask people who worked with him here. You’ll see.”

  “That might not be necessary,” Rhodes told her.

  “You should ask anyway. You’ll find out that he was really a nice man.”

  Rhodes could ask Ivy. She’d had a little contact with Marley in working on the restoration. Marley had applied to the insurance firm she worked for to get updated coverage for the building, and Ivy had become interested in the project. She’d had more contact with Marley than Rhodes ever had.

  “I’ll ask around,” he said, and Aubrey put on her coat and left the theater.

  * * *

  Rhodes was on the stage arranging the lights not already pointed toward the grid deck so that they all pointed upward when Ruth Grady came back in.

  “I didn’t find out a thing,” she said, walking toward the stage. “Nobody was at the church, and nobody in any of the buildings up and down the street noticed anybody come into the building or leave it.”

  “Did you ask over at the law offices?”

  Ruth stopped walking and didn’t speak.

  “Okay,” Rhodes said. “I shouldn’t have asked that. I know you always do things right. I guess nobody there saw anything, either.”

  “That’s right. Mr. Marley was probably in here alone and fell from the fly loft. He could have climbed up there and had a heart attack.”

  “We don’t want to make up our minds before we’ve checked everything,” Rhodes said.

  Ruth climbed the stairs to the stage. “I know. I’m just speculating.” She stared up at the fly loft. “I can see things up there a lot better now.”

  She and Rhodes stood quietly for a minute looking up at the grid. It seemed sturdy enough, but a man could easily fall off the edge if he wasn’t careful.

  “There might be a small gap there, but I don’t see any breaks,” Ruth said. “Somebody’s going to have to go up.”

  “I know,” Rhodes said. “I’ll do it.”

  “I was hoping you’d say that, but before you go, I have a question.”

  Rhodes didn’t mind the delay. “What?”

  Ruth pointed to the bare bulb that hung above the stage. “What’s that light for?”

  Rhodes sighed. He wasn’t sure the delay would be worth it. “I wish you hadn’t asked me that.”

  “Why?”

  “Your friend Seepy Benton, that’s why.”

  Seepy Benton, or Dr. C. P. Benton as he was known at the local community college where he taught mathematics, was a dedicated amateur sleuth who believed that by virtue of having attended a citizens’ sheriff’s academy he was practically a member of the department. He was also dating Ruth.

  “What does Seepy have to do with a lightbulb?” Ruth asked.

  Rhodes was tempted to make a joke about the number of mathematicians it took to screw in a lightbulb, but he knew it wouldn’t be a good idea. So he said, “It’s a ghost light.”

  “A ghost light? What’s that?”

  Ivy had told Rhodes about the superstition, and of course Jennifer Loam had written about the light on her Web site.

  “I thought everybody knew about the light,” Rhodes said. “Hasn’t Seepy told you?”

  “He might have, but I don’t remember that he’s mentioned it.”

  “It’s been written up on A Clear View of Clearview.”

  “The only articles I read on that site are the ones about you.”

  Rhodes wasn’t sure whether she was leading him on, and he wasn’t going to ask, so he explained about the ghost light. “It’s what they call a light that’s left burning in a dark theater.”

  “I don’t see what that has to do with ghosts.”

  Rhodes didn’t want to talk about that part of it because that was what interested Seepy Benton, but he continued anyway. “Some people believe that all theaters are haunted. The ghost light is left on so the ghosts can give performances. That way they’ll be happy and won’t curse the theater.”

  “That doesn’t make sense,” Ruth said.

  “I agree,” Rhodes said.

  Ruth grinned. “Everybody knows that ghosts can see in the dark.”

  “Don’t start with that,” Rhodes said. “You’ve been hanging around with Seepy too long.”

  In addition to being a math teacher, Seepy Benton had started a ghost-hunting business as a sideline, which was why the ghost light was of particular interest to him. Rhodes had hoped that Seepy would forget the ghost hunting when school started again, and it seemed that he had. Recently, however, he’d taken it up again.

  Rhodes had to admit that Benton had been helpful in a previous case involving a ghost, not that anybody had proved it was a real ghost. Rhodes didn’t believe in ghosts, or so he kept telling himself and anyone who asked him, including most recently Aubrey Hamilton. Anyway, he didn’t want Benton getting involved in this case or looking for any ghosts.

  “The light would have had to be on for a long time to keep the ghosts happy in this place,” Ruth said. “It’s kind of a creepy old building.”

  The length of time the light had been on was another thing that Rhodes didn’t want to talk about.

  “All that was in Jennifer Loam’s story. You could look it up.”

  “Or you could just tell me and save me the time.”

  “Well,” Rhodes said, and stopped.

  “Well, what?”

  “Well, when the building was opened up for the first time, they found the light on,” Rhodes said. “It seems that it had been on all the years that the building was closed.”

  Ruth looked skeptical. “The bulb would’ve burned out.”

  “Maybe not. It seems to be a very old one, but somebody looked up the record on the Internet and found out that some lightbulbs have lasted for a long time. There’s one somewhere out in California that’s burned for more than a million hours. It even has its own home page. Jennifer Loam wrote about it in her story.”

  “I can never tell when you’re kidding me,” Ruth said.

  “I’m not kidding you. That’s something else you could look up.”

  Ruth shook her head. “I’ll trust you. What about the electricity in this building? Are you telling me it’s been on all the years that this place was shut down?”

  “That’s right. The bill was always the minimum charge, and the owners never bothered to have it shut off.”

  “They must have money.”

  “Probably,” Rhodes said. “If they didn’t before, they do now, since Jake bought the building.”

  “The bulb was really burning all that time?”

  “I was told that it was on when the first people came in after the boards were removed from the front of the building.”

  “That’s really odd. I’m going to ask Seepy about ghost lights.”

  “He already knows.”

  “He does?”

  “He reads Jennifer’s Web site. He’s been wanting to come in here with his ghost-hunting equipment and check things out. He didn’t want to ask Marley, because he was sure he’d get turned down. So instead, he’s been trying to get me to ask him.”

  “He never mentioned it to me,” Ruth said.

  “He will now.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “Because,” Rhodes said, looking down at the floor where the body had been, “now he’ll think there’s another ghost.”

  “Another one?”

  “You know what I mean. I don’t think there ever was a ghost or that Jake Marley’s going to haunt the place. That’s just what Seepy will think. I know how his mind works.”

  “I’m not so sure anybody knows that,” Ruth said, “and I’m not so sure you don’t believe in them, too. Ghosts, I mean.”

  “I’m sure, though,” Rhodes said. “I don’t believe in them.”

  It was already cold in the auditorium, but as Rhodes spoke, the temperature dropped. He and Ruth turned toward the entrance, expecting to see someone come in, but no one did.

  “I thought somebody had opened the front door,” Ruth said.

  “So did I,” Rhodes said. “It must have gotten colder outside.”

  “That can’t be it. It’s already gotten warmer in here again. What happened?”

  “It’s just drafty in here,” Rhodes said. “Old buildings have a lot of cracks in them.”

  That wasn’t what Seepy Benton would have said, Rhodes was sure. Seepy would have brought up spectral presences and ectoplasm and things like that, but Rhodes wasn’t going to get into that discussion.

  “It was nothing,” he said. “Let’s see about getting up into the fly loft.”

  “You mean, let’s see about you getting up into the fly loft.”

  “Exactly,” Rhodes said.

  Chapter 4

  The only way to get to the grid was by climbing straight up a metal ladder that was bolted to the back wall of the building. Rhodes stood beside the ladder and looked up. He estimated that the roof of the building was about fifty feet from the stage. The grid was lower than that, but Rhodes wondered if someone as tall as he was would have any headroom at all. He didn’t think there would be much.

  “You could always call Buddy and have him climb up there,” Ruth said.

  Buddy was another of the deputies. He was smaller than Rhodes, and younger, too.

  “I’m already here,” Rhodes said. He took one of the ladder’s rungs in his hands and tried to shake it. It didn’t move. “Marley climbed up there, or we think he did. If he can do it, I can do it.”

  “I believe it,” Ruth said. “There’s a lot of stuff up there, pulleys and ropes and stuff. I wonder what Mr. Marley was doing?”

  “Inspecting it, probably,” Rhodes said. “To be sure it was safe.”

  “I guess it wasn’t as safe as he thought.”

  “You’re just trying to cheer me up,” Rhodes said, and he started up the ladder. He was still wearing the nitrile gloves, so he had a good grip on the cold iron rungs.

  The climb wasn’t bad, and soon Rhodes poked his head through the opening onto the grid. It was colder up there than it had been on the stage, and it was draftier. Rhodes heard the wind blowing across the roof and rattling things around up there.

  The illumination from the LED lights came up through the gaps and cracks in the grid and threw shadows all around. Rhodes could make out numerous ropes and pulleys, and he was glad he didn’t have to work up there and try to figure out how to use them. He’d probably get tangled up in the ropes and create havoc down below.

  He climbed on up and stepped off the ladder onto the catwalk. The headroom was adequate, but only barely. If he’d been wearing a hat, he’d have had to remove it. Even in the poor light, Rhodes could see dust and dirt everywhere, and he could tell that it had been disturbed on the catwalk. Someone had been up there, all right, and it had probably been Marley.

  “Are you all right there?” Ruth called from below.

  “I’m okay. I’m going to look around a little.”

  The problem with the catwalk, as far as Rhodes was concerned, was that it lacked a railing. He could imagine some agile young fellow from early in the last century roaming around and handling ropes, lowering scenery flats and pulling them back up, but Rhodes wasn’t young, and he wasn’t agile. He’d have to be careful, as Marley would have had to be.

  The catwalk appeared to Rhodes to be none too sturdy. He didn’t like the way it sagged and trembled a bit under his weight, and he didn’t like the way some of the boards creaked when he stepped on them. He wondered if any of the boards were rotten. If one of them broke and he fell over the side, he could try grabbing one of the ropes. Tarzan could have done it without any trouble, but Rhodes wasn’t too sure about himself. He didn’t have a lot in common with Tarzan.

  He worked his way to about the center of the stage to check the gap they’d seen from below. A man of Marley’s size could have slipped through with room to spare. Rhodes knelt down. The dust and dirt were disturbed, sure enough, and that meant someone could have fallen at that spot.

  He saw Ruth below, looking up at him. Dust motes drifted through the beams of light.

  “I think Marley did fall from here,” Rhodes said. “It’s a long way down.”

  “You know what they say about falls and sudden stops,” Ruth said. “It’s a sad thing to have happened. Just a stupid accident.”

  “Maybe so,” Rhodes said.

  He stood up and made his way back to the ladder. He was glad it extended well up through the opening so that he could step right onto it. He didn’t like the idea of having to feel for the rungs below with his feet.

  When he was back on the stage, Ruth came over to the ladder.

  “Case closed?” she asked.

  “We’ll have to wait for the autopsy,” Rhodes said, pulling off the gloves and stuffing them into his jacket pocket.

  “I know, but he did fall, didn’t he?”

  “Looks that way. Why he fell is another question.”

  “He could’ve gotten disoriented and slipped. Or he could’ve had a heart attack.”

  “Both of those are good possibilities.”

  “It could even be suicide.”

  “That’s true,” Rhodes said. “Unlikely, but possible. He did call Aubrey and ask her to meet him here. Suicides sometimes do things like that, I’ve been told.”

  “You sure don’t like to commit yourself,” Ruth said.

  “I just like to keep an open mind until we know everything we can know, but I’ll give you this much: It was probably an accident.”

  “I don’t see how it could’ve been anything else.”

  “Are you sure about that? Give it a little more thought.”

  Ruth opened her mouth to speak, then shut it. She stood there looking at Rhodes.

  “What?” Rhodes asked.

  “I get it now,” Ruth said. “I didn’t miss it. I just didn’t think enough about it.”

  “About what?”

  “About that place on Mr. Marley’s forehead just above his eye.”

  “What about it?”

  “You know what. You’ve been thinking about it all along. If Mr. Marley fell from up in the grid, he’d have been knocked unconscious when he hit, most likely, if he wasn’t dead already. He wouldn’t have turned his head over. So where did that abrasion come from?”

  “You’re right,” Rhodes said. “That’s been bothering me. That’s the suspicious thing about his death. We’ll need the autopsy to tell us more about that abrasion or whatever it is, but I don’t want to take any chances.”

  “He could’ve hit his head on a board in the grid when he fell off the catwalk,” Ruth said.

  Rhodes nodded. “A definite possibility.”

  “He could’ve had a heart attack up there and fallen because of that.”

  “Another good possibility.”

  “Here’s a thought. A ghost might’ve pushed him.”

  “Don’t start that,” Rhodes said.

  “Just kidding.” Ruth said. “I should’ve thought about that contusion to begin with, though.”

  “You thought of it now, and that’s soon enough.”

  “I’m not so sure.”

  “Trust me,” Rhodes said. “It’s not going to change a thing for Marley or our investigation. For now we’d better put the lights back where they were and then turn them off. I don’t know what’s going to happen to the theater with Jake Marley out of the picture.”

  “The show must go on,” Ruth said.

  “Not unless somebody pays for it,” Rhodes said.

  A fresh breeze blew through the theater, and Rhodes looked toward the back to see Jennifer Loam coming inside.

  “I’m too late for the excitement, I suppose,” she said.

  Jennifer was young, sharp, and ambitious. Her youth, blond hair, and wide blue eyes might have led some people to think of her as being more decorative than businesslike. They would be badly fooled if they made that mistake. She’d been a reporter for the local newspaper, but it had been sold to owners who downsized the staff to almost nothing and cut the publication schedule from five days a week to three. Rhodes figured the next step would be to make it a weekly.

  Instead of leaving town when she lost her job, Jennifer had started her Web site, which at this point was read by everybody in the county who had a PC, a tablet, or a smartphone, and which had an audience in other counties as well. She had a lot of advertisers, probably more than the newspaper, and Rhodes’s only problem with the site was her tendency toward sensationalism. She had explained that the tabloid nature of the site was necessary if she wanted to get a lot of page views, and she needed the page views to attract advertisers. Rhodes understood, but he didn’t like it, especially when she was exaggerating about him or something he’d done.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23