Read Online A Midsummer Eve's Nightmare by Donna Fletcher Crow - Free Book Online Page B

It was her first time with OSF,” Gregg answered, his eclair finished. “We visited a little on the set of Othello , but I didn’t know her well. She seemed like a really nice kid.”
    “What else was she doing here? Just understudy?”
    “Oh, no. Everyone does tons of things here—that’s what repertory theatre is all about,” Tori said. “Let’s see, she was an extra in Henry and An Enemy of the People, and in something at the Black Swan, I don’t remember which one. Her best part, though, was Juliet in Measure for Measure .” Everyone was silent for a moment, then Tori added. “I can’t imagine why anyone would want to kill her. It just doesn’t seem possible.”
    But Richard had taken on the deeply-furrowed-brow look that Elizabeth called his thinking face. “Hmm, that’s an interesting idea,” he said at last. “Juliet—the young woman who was to bear Claudio’s child. How close were she and Larry? Is it possible she was pregnant?”
    “Wouldn’t the autopsy have shown that?”
    “Do we know that it didn’t?”
    “But why kill her even if she were? Blackmail?”
    “Is Larry married?”
    Tori shook her head. “I’m pretty sure he isn’t.”
    That seemed to end that line of thought.
    “Back to Dirk.” Elizabeth tried to focus the conversation as she refilled the teacups from the china pot the waitress had set in front of her. “Would he have any reason to kill Sally?”
    Tori frowned. “I don’t think he even knew her.”
    But Elizabeth wouldn’t leave it alone. “Could she have been an old girlfriend? Maybe she was threatening to tell Erin something.”
    Richard shook his head and grinned. “Another elaborate blackmail plot? I’ve always told my darling wife she reads far too many murder mysteries.” Now he clasped her hand where it lay on the table beside her teacup. “Let’s leave Sally out of this unless we find out her death wasn’t natural. For now, let’s focus on the earlier stuff. The flats falling could have been an accident, I assume?”
    Tori and Gregg both nodded. “Right. And Erin could be imagining she’s being followed?” Everyone nodded. “But she didn’t imagine the glass in her face powder, did she?”
    “Definitely not. I saw the scratches on her face.” Tori licked the last bit of chocolate off her fingers. “One of them was really deep. Didn’t need stitches, but looked awful for a few days. She complained a lot about how tricky it was to put on her makeup over it.”
    “But could it have been intended for someone else? Her understudy, for example?”
    Tori’s eyes lit up and she leaned forward. Then she sat back, shaking her head. “Great idea, but I don’t see how. She carries her makeup in a pink-and-purple case that is distinctively hers.”
    “Would she have kept it locked backstage?”
    “No, of course not. Anyone could have tampered with it—but they would have known it was hers. And no one else would have used it by accident.”
    Richard nodded. “And we know the pills were meddled with. So who has a motive to harm Erin?”
    The lilting strains of James Galway, now playing a tin whistle accompanied by a Celtic harp filled in the silence around the table.
    Finally Tori sighed. “I suppose Sally had the best motive—she got her part.”
    “Lot of good it did her.” Everyone winced at Gregg’s words.
    “Maybe there’s something from Erin’s past,” Elizabeth probed. “Her father sounds capable of hiring someone to scare her.”
    They looked at each other, processing the thought. No one spoke.
    Finally Richard said, “Dirk?”
    “He seems the best choice,” Elizabeth agreed. “But he couldn’t be working for Wooton, could he? Erin said her father hated Dirk.”
    Tori nodded. “Erin as much as said that was Dirk’s main attraction for her.”
    Elizabeth pursued that line of thought. “Funny that Erin would want to annoy her father after she had such a perfect childhood. . .or funny that her childhood could have been so