I don't own Phantom. I do, however, own the uniformed officers (who featured in previous chapters - I owned them then, too), the fictional cast of Phantom and anyone else NOT featured in the TV show. Mine, all mine. Thanks to delgaserasca for betaing.
LULLABY OF BROADWAY
(sleep tight, let's call it a day; listen to the lullaby of old Broadway)
(xx 6 xx)
"Why were you at the theatre on Tuesday, Rick?" A long night of CCTV-watching, database searching and questioning various people had brought Don Flack to a Wednesday afternoon in an interrogation room, face-to-face with a man he could only describe as 'sleazy'. Rick Sutton looked just as Jools had described him, although he had changed his shirt since they'd met.
"I wanted to see a show. That a crime, now?" Rick settled back comfortably into the hard, plastic chair. He grinned smugly, convinced he'd won.
"I got proof you didn't just see a show last night."
Rick's expression turned defensive. "What'd that bitch tell you? I hit her? I held a knife to her throat?"
"Did you?" Don's eyes blazed as he leant over the table. His voice grew louder as he grew angrier.
"No! I tried to talk to her."
"You told her you're a journalist, Rick. You lied to her!"
"I didn't lie! Not entirely." Rick protested.
"You're not a journalist, Rick. You're a lowlife piece of scum, and if nothing else, you're being charged with assault. How did you know those details about Holly Cassidy?"
"What details?" Rick asked.
"Let's see," Don began, flipping open his notebook and reading from his interview notes. "Bullets, witness statements—"
"I don't know that! I never told her any of that!"
"So how did she know it, huh?" Don's fury intensified.
"Maybe she did it!"
"You're accusing her?"
"I don't know! I don't know anything!"
"You said it, Rick." Don motioned for the uniformed officer by the door to take Rick back to his cell.
(xxx)
"Every theatre in the city has tightened its security, Don. What do you want me to do, post officers at the doors of every single one?" Mac's eyes blazed, teetering on the edge of fury as he raised his voice. Even Don knew he was being unreasonable but he couldn't seem to help himself.
"If that's what it takes," he responded stoically.
"Don, this is getting at all of us, but you have to be reasonable. You know as well as I do that we're doing everything within our power right now." Mac turned abruptly and left Don in the corridor, trying to reign in his temper. It took all of his self-restraint not to stamp his feet and scream in frustration. He couldn't bear to see Lissa after her show – he didn't know how to face her, knowing she was still potentially at risk and they were no further in their investigation.
(xxx)
"Imagine all the people-uh!"
"Adam?"
Adam spun around to see Stella standing in the doorway, a smirk on her face. "Sorry," he apologized sheepishly. "No one else was in the lab and—"
"Have you got anything for me?"
"Right, yeah. The trace on your vic is mayonnaise."
"Mayonnaise?" A spark of recognition flashed across Stella's face and Adam watched her curiously. She took the sheet of paper from him and fled the room, narrowly missing a small group of technicians on their way home.
"You're welcome," Adam announced to the empty room. The computer in the corner signalled a successful database search, and as Adam read it, his eyes widened.
He ran from the lab, yelling.
(xxx)
"World still turns, Flack," Danny stated, tossing a baseball between his hands. He sat in the visitor's chair beside his friend's desk and watched as Flack massaged his temples. "People still killin'."
"I can't just let this one go."
"No one's askin' you to – we're still workin' on it. It's just not the most pressing case right now. It's been six weeks since Sophie Bennett's murder, Flack, and we still got nothin'."
"I can't even look at her," Don admitted after a moment of silence. "She's lost and hurting and I can't even look at her."
Danny didn't have an answer for that. He patted his friend's back awkwardly, before standing up to leave.
(xxx)
"Your vic had skin cells under her fingernails – they weren't her own. Neither were the nails, for that matter. Anyway, I ran the cells for DNA and found a perfect match – Frederick Lake."
Stella frowned. "Good work, Adam. Very good work." She pulled her cell phone from her belt and scrolled through her phonebook. "Flack, we have a lead."
She looked back before leaving the room completely. "Get me an ID on this girl, Adam."
(xxx)
"You know this girl?" Don pushed a photograph across the table. Freddy shrugged.
"Don't lie to me, Freddy. Your DNA's all over her."
"Yeah, I knew her."
"She got a name?" Stella asked. She stood against the wall in the corner of the room, arms folded defiantly across her chest.
"Jenny Martin. We went out a couple times. Well, sorta."
"And then she turned up dead."
"I guess so. Look, last time I saw her was two nights ago, she stopped by my place, we had a little fun, then she left for an audition or somethin'."
"She was an actor?" Don glanced quickly at his watch. Three fifteen – Lissa would be on stage. He squared his shoulders and took a breath.
"Dancer. Graduated from Syracuse last summer."
"You don't seem too cut up about your girlfriend being dead, Freddy," Don pressed.
"I wouldn't call her my girlfriend. We had a little fun, that's all."
"How did you meet her?"
"She's my sister's best friend. Look, Kitty didn't know Jenny and I were seein' each other and she'd flip her shit if she found out. Can we keep this on the D-L?"
A knock on the door interrupted the conversation before either Flack or Stella could answer. The visitor didn't wait for an answer before walking in and whispering in Stella's ear.
"He's done it again," she relayed the message to Don, quietly, just outside the door.
(xxx)
The Majestic theatre was a hive of activity when Stella and Don pulled up outside and pushed their way through the doors. Danny and Lindsay followed miserably, Lindsay having been called in from an afternoon off.
"Okay, guys; everyone in the first five rows needs questioning – plus cast, crew and anyone else who works in the building – especially if they were in the auditorium when it happened." Don addressed a group of six uniformed officers standing in the wings. He sent four away and ordered the remaining two to stand guard at the wings.
"I don't want anything left untouched," Stella instructed Danny and Lindsay. Lindsay nodded solemnly, while Danny pointed his nose in the air and squared his jaw, ready to work.
(xxx)
"Tell us what you saw," Rachael Cohen encouraged with a small sigh. She had been at the scenes of all three theatre murders and had heard the same story from every witness. "Take your time."
Maurice Baylis stared at his hands and willed himself not to cry. "I saw a blinding light and for a second, I thought I was about to pass out on stage again."
(xxx)
"Boom," Danny announced. He climbed out of the wooden boat in the middle of the stage and sealed a small brown envelope. He waved off the coroner's assistant as he wheeled a gurney into the wings.
"I think I found our shooter's seat," Lindsay responded. Danny knelt on the edge of the stage and peered down at her. Stella rushed over.
"There's a little GSR on these two seats – more on this one, though, so I'm thinking he sat here and held the weapon in his left hand as he shot."
"Great work, Lindsay. We got ourselves a left-handed shooter."
(xxx)
"You were watching the show, though, right? How did you not see anything?" Officer Omar Bailey was becoming frustrated. Normally, he knew that hearing the same story confirmed or disproved a suspect's story, but this case turned everything around.
"I was three rows back and almost right over to the side. With all due respect, I wasn't watching my fellow audience members."
"Miss Truth—"
"Katy-Jane."
"—Katy-Jane, I need to know exactly what you saw."
"Beatrice was singing, Maurice was encouraging her, there was a flash like a camera and a bang like Jimmy dropped his cymbals again."
"Who's Jimmy?" Rachael stepped in. She sensed her partner's frustration and put a reassuring hand on his shoulder.
"He's a percussionist, he doesn't usually play for us – he's just a stand-in. He gets a little nervous and drops his shit sometimes, but he's a decent guy, I guess. I've only spoken to him once or twice. I just know that he's never played when I've been on."
"You and Ms Stein alternated the role – how did that work?" Rachael asked.
"I do afternoon performances and any extra shows. Christine is too demanding for one person to do eight shows a week, so she does six and I do two – and I cover if she's ill or on vacation."
"Kind of a shitty deal, isn't it?"
"At least I have a job. I get paid for sitting on my ass drinking tea and playing on Facebook six nights a week."
Omar cracked a smile. "Nice work if you can get it, huh?"
(xxx)
"I just heard this bang next to me," she sobbed. Don sat stoically, waiting for the girl to continue. He took note of her long, straight hair and braces, her face free of make up – he decided she couldn't have been much older than fourteen.
"There were screams and when I turned to see what happened, there was no one there."
(xxx)
"This is crazy, Stel," Danny broke the comfortable silence. Lindsay pulled a hair from the backrest of the GSR-covered seat. "I mean, this guy shoots and disappears? Talk about opera ghost."
Lindsay looked up with a raised eyebrow. Danny said nothing else.
(xxx)
"So, all I got is a flash and a bang," Officer Bailey reported.
"We know where our killer sat," Lindsay chipped in. "We haven't found that in the previous cases – perhaps he was antsy, waiting – sitting on the edge of his seat and not fully blocking the way for residue."
"The girls in the seats surrounding our shooter say he – or she, indeterminable gender – was white, possibly around five-ten, maybe six feet – and wore all black with a beanie." Flack added.
"Basically, we have no more than we had eight weeks ago when Holly Cassidy was killed." Rachael ran a tired hand through her hair and sighed.
"Basically, we're screwed." Another uniformed officer concluded.
(xxx)
"Natalie Frost – she played Meg, Beatrice's best friend – told me Beatrice studied at Marymount." Flack paced around the layout room impatiently.
"No connection whatsoever to our other two victims," Stella mused, sifting through items collected from Beatrice Stein's dressing room. "We have two dead CCM grads, one dead Marymount grad and a seemingly unrelated dead Syracuse graduate. The only link between them is performing arts."
"You reckon Jenny Martin is connected to this?"
"I don't know, Flack. I believe Freddy Lake's story, but something about him… I don't believe he's as innocent as he's leading us to believe. I just can't pin anything on him yet."
"If it's any help, Katy-Jane Truth – the alternate Christine – mentioned Beatrice joined Phantom recently from Legally Blonde."
"Workplace of Freddy Lake," Stella finished.
"What a small world."
(xxx)
Lissa flew into the break room at the lab and flung herself at her boyfriend.
"Don't mind me," Hawkes greeted her, and she looked up sadly. Sheldon smiled at her and nodded at Don before taking his water bottle and heading for Stella's office. Don led his girlfriend to the couch and pulled her into his lap.
"What's up, Liss?"
She glared at him, before succumbing to a fresh bout of tears. She buried her head in his chest and sobbed quietly. All he could do was hold her.
to be continued.