the road crew?”
“That’s right.”
“Anyone else hurt?”
Madigan wasn’t inclined to answer and used a nearby deputy as an excuse to turn away and have a very quiet conversation with him, leaving his boss to respond to the interloper as she liked.
Sheriff Gonzalez offered, “Only Bobby.”
“And what happened?”
Madigan rejoined the conversation. “We’re in the preliminary stage. Not sure at this point.” He definitely didn’t want her here but since she was with a senior agency he had at least to act deferential. Dance was a large dog wandering into a picnic-unwanted but possibly too dangerous to shoo away.
“COD?”
A pause then Gonzalez said, “He was doing some work on the stage last night. It seems he slipped and fell, a spotlight landed on him. It was on. He caught fire. Cause was blood loss and the burns.”
Lord, what a terrible way to die.
“Must’ve burned for a while. The alarms didn’t go off?”
“The smoke detectors down there, in the pit, weren’t working. We don’t know why.”
The first thing in her mind was the image of Edwin Sharp, glancing toward Bobby Prescott, with that fake smile and with eyes that could easily reflect a desire to turn the roadie into a bag of dust.
“You ought to be aware-”
“’Bout Mr. Sharp, our stalker?” Madigan asked.
“Well, yes.”
“One of the boys with the crew, Tye Slocum, told me that there was an incident yesterday at the Cowboy Saloon.”
Dance described what she had seen and heard. “Bobby confronted him a couple of times. And Edwin probably overheard Bobby say he was going to come back here later last night and check out some equipment malfunction. It would be late because he had to go to Bakersfield to pick something up.”
Madigan added absently, “Edwin’s on our radar. We know he’s renting a house near Woodward Park, north part of town. For a month.”
Dance recalled that Edwin had been quite forthcoming about his residence. She was still curious why he’d rented for that time length.
Dance noted too that both Madigan and she herself tended to refer to the stalker by his first name; this often happened when dealing with suspects who were potentially ED, emotionally disturbed. Dance reminded herself that whatever name they used, not to sell the young man short.
The chief detective took a phone call. Then he was back with Dance, though only for the briefest of times. And with the briefest of smiles-just as phony as Edwin’s, she reflected. “Appreciate you stopping by. We’ll give CBI a call if there’s anything we need.”
Dance looked over the stage, the misty air above the pit.
Gonzalez offered, “So long now.”
Despite the double-barreled good-bye, Dance didn’t feel like leaving just yet. “How did the light fall on him?”
The sheriff said, “Maybe tugged it after him when he fell. The cord, you know.”
“Was it a strip light?” Dance asked.
Madigan muttered, “Dunno what that is. Take a look.” The last sentence was delivered with a bit of challenge.
Dance did. It was indeed a hard thing to see: the scorched body. And, yes, the unit was a four-lamp strip.
“That might’ve been the one that fell yesterday.”
“Tye mentioned that,” Madigan said. “We’re looking into it.” He was clearly growing weary of her. “Well, all righty then.” He began to turn away.
“How did it come undone?”
“Wing nuts worked loose?” He nodded up to the scaffolding.
Dance said, “And I wonder why Bobby
Over his shoulder Madigan offered a dismissive, “Lot of questions, you betcha.”
Then a woman’s loud, haunting voice from the back of the hall: “No… no,
Kayleigh Towne sprinted down the aisle to the stage where her friend had so horribly died.
Chapter 10
DANCE HAD SEEN the young singer a half dozen times and she’d always been carefully, if not perfectly, assembled.
But today she was the most disheveled Dance had ever seen. No makeup, long hair askew, eyes puffy from crying, not lack of sleep (there’s a difference, Dance knew). Instead of her ubiquitous contact lenses, she wore thin black-framed glasses. She was breathless.
Detective P. K. Madigan instantly became a different person. His fake smile of irritation at Dance became a frown of genuine sympathy for Kayleigh. He stepped down the stairs and intercepted the young woman on the floor before she could get to the stage. “Kayleigh, dear. No, no, you shouldn’t be here. There’s no reason for you to be.”
“Bobby?”
“I’m afraid it is.”
“They told me… but I was praying it was a mistake.”
Then Sheriff Gonzalez joined them on the main floor and put her arm around the girl’s shoulders. Dance wondered if all friends and next of kin got this treatment, or only celebrities, and then decided the cynical thought was unkind. Kayleigh Towne was the city’s star, yes, but she was at the moment a woman in terrible distress.
“I’m sorry, Kayleigh,” Gonzalez said. “I’m so sorry.”
“It was him! Edwin. I know it! Go arrest him. He’s parked in front of my house. Right now!”
“He’s
“He’s parked in the lot of the nature preserve across the street. He’s just sitting there in that goddamn red car of his.”
Frowning, Madigan made a call and told a deputy to check it out.
“Arrest him!”
“We’ll have to see, Kayleigh. May not be as easy as that.”
Dance noticed Darthur Morgan standing, arms crossed, in the back of the theater, looking around carefully.
“The hell’s that?” Madigan grumbled, catching sight of the man.
“My bodyguard,” Kayleigh said, gasping from the crying.
“Oh.”
Dance returned to the edge of the stage and looked down. The nausea rose again from the smell, here concentrated, but she ignored it and studied the scene carefully: the strip light, six feet long or so, lay atop the scorched remains of Bobby Prescott. Dance knew the messages the body gave off-in life and in death. She now assessed the broken bones, the claw shape of the hands, partly due to the typical fire victim’s contractions, the pugilistic attitude, but also because he’d been trying to drag his broken body out from underneath the edge of the stage. He was headed away from the stairs-not the logical direction one would crawl if he was just seeking help.
“He fell first,” Dance said to the deputy standing next to her, softly, so Kayleigh would not hear. “A few minutes
