Heads bowed.
He looked over at a young woman whose white-blond hair contrasted dramatically with her tanned skin. “Ms. Chessy, right? You were at the hostess stand, taking money?”
Cindy Chessy, a nice enough girl Mo barely knew, nodded vigorously.
“Did you see anyone who looked out of place?” Aidan asked.
“No. No one weirder than usual,” she replied. “People aren’t allowed to wear costumes when they come here. Only the actors can wear costumes. That way, no guests can try to freak people out or get into anything.”
“Makes sense. What did you do after you sold the last ticket?”
“Closed the entry gate and took the lockbox to the office. Sondra wasn’t there, but I didn’t think anything of it. She slips out to observe sometimes.”
“And then you left?”
“Yes.” Tears welled in her eyes. “Then I left. I’m always first out of there. I’m not an actor—and I’m not paid as much as the actors. They know I leave early and no one cares.”
“I’m sure they don’t.” He had a group of folders in front of him, folders containing each person’s work file.
“Let’s see. Phil and Ron, we talked last night. So let me start with Joshua Kirbin,” Aidan said.
“Me?” Joshua squeaked. He was sagging against the wall. There were only about twelve chairs at the conference table and the people who weren’t in them either leaned against the wall or sat on the floor.
“You were in the coffin,” Aidan said.
“Whatever happened, it happened after I was gone,” Joshua insisted. “I had plans last night, so I got out of there as fast as I could. The Ripper—Jack the Ripper.” He pointed at Phil. “You saw me.”
“I told them I saw you leave, yes,” Phil said, “and that was maybe...ten minutes before I saw the body. Or rather, that there was something in the coffin.” Aidan swiveled in his chair to look across the table. He gestured at a tall boy, a senior at the local college, Mo thought. His name was Harry Pickford.
“Harry, you were playing the mad doctor. Do you remember somebody going by to get to the doorway behind you?”
Harry stood up, opened his mouth and then sank back in his chair. “Yes,” he said. He glanced over at Phil. “I thought it was you— Someone in a sweeping black cloak like yours but with a hat lowered over his face. I thought...I thought it was a new gimmick.”
“Me!” Phil protested. His voice sounded like a squeak, too. “I never left my place. I was outside all night.”
“Weren’t the historical characters inside, and outside it was the legendary characters and well-known ghosts?”
“Mostly, yes, but...Jack the Ripper was supposed to skulk through the cemetery and show up unexpectedly. So I did my little walk around one of the tombs. Like Mo,” Phil said.
“Anyone else see this Jack the Ripper character slipping past?” Aidan asked.
“I’m pretty sure I saw him go by,” another young man, Perry Lichtman, said. He raised his hand as he spoke, as if they were in school. “I’m the one being operated on by the mad doctor. I saw something—but I’m in this boxlike thing, poking my head out, screaming most of the time. I saw someone out of the corner of my eye. He seemed to be bent over.”
“No one would think anything of it,” a girl, Mindy Myers, who played Countess Bathory, told Aidan. “The Grim Reaper—Tony over there—flits around the place all the time.”
“Did any of you see anyone go to the office last night?” Aidan asked next.
The room was silent as they looked at one another, shaking their heads.
“No, but I thought that the person moving around like a hunchback and carrying a big sack was Tony,” Ron said. “The Grim Reaper.”
“So, you saw it, too?”
“Yeah, I usually sit in the dressing room and read magazines or whatever, waiting to clean up at the end. I leave with Sondra. Or, if she’s already gone, I make sure everyone else is out before we close up. Sometimes during the show I wander through to see how people look in their makeup and do costume checks. I saw the figure moving—and I thought Tony was doing a hell of a job,” he added dryly.
Mo had been standing by the back wall, Rollo obediently crouched beside her. She suddenly felt weak and decided to sit on the floor. They’d all been there, at the mausoleum; they’d all been there while a killer had snuck in on Sondra and killed her. Then that killer had come through the place, carrying Sondra, to behead her in the mausoleum. After that, he’d crept back through the whole site with the head and the body. He’d left the body—and gone on to display the head. And no one had noticed him, seen what he was doing, even when he’d been right in front of them.
“So, the killer slipped into the office, killed Sondra and came out among you, without anyone thinking he was anything but part of the show?” Aidan asked.