A Baked Ham by Jessica Beck Page B

asked with a
smile after a few seconds of silence.
    “I hope you’re not spooked by it,
but it’s the outside door into Benny Booth’s dressing room,” Peter said.   “I don’t know if you know this about me, but
I’ve always been interested in the theater.”
    “Do you want to be an actor?” I
asked.
    “No, what goes on behind the
scenes is what interests me.   I’ve even
worked the spotlight on a few shows recently.   That’s kind of how I found out about the door being unlocked and
all.   I’m here so much that nobody even
notices me when I go wandering around the building.”
    “Isn’t Fred Hitchings using
Benny’s dressing room tonight?” I asked.
    “Nope.   Evidently he was too spooked to get dressed
there, so he’s staying right where he was the night before.   The room is empty right now; at least it was
the last time I heard.”
    I nodded, and then I said,
“Thanks so much.   Come by the diner
tomorrow, and I’ll give you a free slice of pie.”   Peter was crazy about our pies, and he
especially liked Greg’s Crumb Apple.
    “You’ve got yourself a deal,” he
said.
    “Let’s go, Greg,” I said as I
started toward the exit.
    My husband asked, “Are we really
going to sneak into a room where someone was murdered last night?”
    “Do we have any choice?” I
asked.   “You’re free to be my lookout if
you’d like, but I’m going in there.”
    “Then I am, too,” Greg said.
    We walked outside and around the
theater.   The temperature was
unseasonably chilly, and I was glad that I’d had Greg bring along my cape for
more than just as a disguise.   “Can I
have my cape now, please?”
    He handed it over, and I wrapped
it around my shoulders, pulling the hood up over my hair in one easy motion.
    “Now it’s like being out with the
Phantom of the Opera,” Greg said as he checked out my new look.
    “Laugh all you want, but this
might come in handy, just you wait and see.”
    “I don’t doubt it for one
second,” Greg said as we made our way around the building.   There were several doors along the back of
the building, but only one had a makeshift star stenciled on it.   That had to be Benny Booth’s door, and
knowing the man even just a little, it wouldn’t have surprised me one bit to
learn that he’d most likely put that star there himself.
    I tugged on the handle, but at
first it resisted, and I wondered if someone had locked the dressing room door
after Peter had spotted that it was unlocked.
    It was just stuck a little,
though.   It released suddenly, and if
Greg hadn’t been standing there to put a hand on my back, there was no doubt in
my mind that I would have taken a hard tumble, most likely ruining my fancy
cape in the process.
    “Thanks for that,” I said.
    “All part of the bodyguard
service,” he replied.
    Taking a deep breath, I took one
step forward into the room that had so recently seen a murder.   I hadn’t given it much thought until Peter
had said something, but now I was downright spooked by the idea of going
inside.   Still, I’d spouted brave words
before when I’d told the two men that I didn’t mind doing it, so I had no other
choice but to press ahead.
    I could swear that there was a
chill in the room that I could feel even through my cape as I walked across the
threshold.   “It’s really cold in here,
isn’t it?”
    “That’s because they shut off the
heat,” Greg said.   “Is it safe to flip on
a light so I can open up a vent or two?”
    “I’d really rather not.   Besides, we won’t be here that long.   Let’s press on.”   I pulled a small flashlight from my purse,
and it came in handy once the dressing room door closed on its own behind
us.   “Let’s get out of here as fast as we
can.”
    “I can heartily go along with
that,” he said.  
    When I got to the door that led
out into the hallway, I opened it slightly.   There was a great deal of hustle and bustle going on backstage at the
moment, and I