A Chorus Line-Up

  Closing my eyes, I could still picture Devlyn in the audience of the Merle Reskin Theatre during opening night of The Messiah. The minute the last notes were sung, I sought out his face in the audience and saw the pride and affection he felt for me. Aunt Millie was the first person on her feet applauding, but Devlyn was right behind her. Mike Kaiser had stayed seated even as the rest of the audience had given us a standing ovation. I thought Devlyn’s response was a sign of his support and that all of the stolen moments since then were leading to something more permanent. This week had shown me how wrong I had been. Devlyn wanted someone who fit into the world he had constructed for himself. Someone who would accept the limitations he placed on his life.

  Someone who wasn’t me.

  I brushed a tear off my cheek, pushed aside thoughts of Devlyn, and went back to the task at hand. Donna had mentioned that Scott had connections to the judges. If that was the case, I was hard-pressed to see what they could be. And since I didn’t have a list of the judges for this competition, I couldn’t look them up. So I did the only thing I could think of. I typed in the name of the person Donna claimed was trying to use Scott’s association with the judges—LuAnn Freeman of Memphis, Tennessee.

  Wow. There was more than I expected.

  Not only did several sites list her home address; there were photographs from both the street level and above views of her house. I wasn’t sure whether property values in Memphis were in any way comparable to those in Chicago, but it was clear LuAnn and her family weren’t hurting for cash. That house was huge. So was the acre or more of land it sat on, complete with flowering trees and an Olympic-sized pool.

  More than a little creeped out at how stalkerish I felt looking at a dead woman’s house, I clicked on an article about a dispute with a local water company. I wasn’t surprised to see LuAnn was the one leading the complaint. The woman had had a forceful personality and hadn’t been scared to use it. However, I was surprised to see the article list her as a former social worker. LuAnn’s disposition seemed far more abrasive than the kindhearted type I typically associated with the job. The house wasn’t what I’d expect, either—unless social workers got paid better in Memphis than they did in Chicago. She must have won the lottery or she married someone with lots of cash. Regardless, according to what I read, LuAnn had decided to step away from social work eight years ago. Instead of kicking back and taking some time off to relax, LuAnn opted to fill her time volunteering for her children’s activities. LuAnn was listed as an assistant soccer coach, a troop leader, team mom for the traveling baseball squad, and the president of the show choir boosters. Her life made me tired just reading about it.

  After several more clicks and no new information, I typed “Kelly Jensen” into the search window. The woman’s eavesdropping behavior outside our staging room and her less than favorable relationship with LuAnn made me curious. According to the competition’s website, Kelly had begun working with the organization just before Christine came on board. Her bio talked about her family’s long-standing passion and dedication to helping expand the influence of the arts in today’s youth. Yay for Kelly’s family. They sounded like people I’d love to meet.

  I clicked on the next article and felt my heart drop. Unless I kicked the bucket, I wouldn’t be meeting Kelly’s family anytime soon. They were dead. According to the article dated almost six years ago, Kelly’s husband, daughter, granddaughter and close family friend were on their way to this very competition, which the Jensens had helped found, when they were hit by a truck whose driver had fallen asleep at the wheel. Kelly had planned on making the trip with them, but had come down with the flu and insisted her family enjoy the show without her.

  Poor Kelly. That kind of loss had to be devastating. I admired Kelly’s ability not only to keep going, but to do so in a job that worked to continue the type of performance her family had been on their way to see. The woman had to have a spine stronger than steel.

  Still bummed for Kelly, I typed in the last name on my list, and information on the head of the United States Show Choir competition filled the screen. I scanned the information on the monitor as one of the hotel patrons appeared in the business center doorway, waiting for his turn at the computer. Quickly, I read the highlights of Christine’s life. The first part had been high-powered. After graduating with her MBA, Christine went on to serve as head of marketing for not one but two different Fortune 500 companies. Then, suddenly, she left her seven-figures-a-year job to run this competition.

  Huh. One had to wonder why. Did she have a long-buried passion for singing and dancing, or had something gone wrong in her corporate gig that made working with stage moms sound like a good idea? Too bad the guy behind me was doing a dance that signaled he either needed to pee or he was getting impatient. Whatever else I could learn from the Internet would have to wait until I could ask my questions when Christine and I met later tonight. Maybe the answers would help me understand why she was so reluctant to believe in Donna’s guilt or was less concerned about the students competing than in the cash that funded it.

  When I got there, the ballroom smelled like a combination of tomato sauce, pepperoni, and chlorine. The attitude of the kids was upbeat as they scarfed slices of pizza and downed gallons of soda. Some of my team members’ parents had arrived early and were joining the festivities. I made the rounds, greeting parents. Once I was done asking about their trips and assuring them that the students didn’t appear emotionally scarred by the events of this week, I settled into a seat next to Aunt Millie and Aldo with a plate of pizza. Thank God Killer was taking a nap in Millie’s hotel room, which meant I could eat my dinner in peace.

  Killer wasn’t the only one absent. Devlyn had opted to skip mealtime or find sustenance elsewhere. On the happy front, Chessie and Eric seemed to be back on good terms. They were seated next to each other, holding hands. The handholding made for awkward pizza eating, but it didn’t look as if either of them cared as they talked with Chessie’s parents. The only thing that made Chessie pout was when I said she couldn’t have her phone back until later tonight. But that frown was quickly turned into a smile when Eric complimented her willingness to sacrifice her needs for the good of the team. Score one for truth, justice, and a boyfriend who knew how to placate his girl.

  All in all, everyone was having a good time. Strike that. There was one person sitting at the far end of one table with her eyes firmly fixed on the untouched food in front of her. An overly bright smile was plastered on Megan’s face, but I’d lay odds that there were tears in her eyes. After taking one last bite of pizza, I wiped my hands on my napkin and pushed back my chair. It was time to play teacher.

  “Megan, can we talk?”

  The stab of panic in her eyes made my heart hurt, but I kept my smile pleasantly neutral as she stood and followed me out of the large room and into the hall.

  “How are you feeling?” I asked, even though I was pretty sure I knew the answer.

  “I’m great.” Megan smiled. “The vocal rest is helping.”

  I could tell how much she wanted me to believe her, and I hated that I didn’t. “Sing the opening of the first song for me.”

  Megan swallowed hard. “You want me to sing?” Her speaking voice sounded better than yesterday, but the deeper timbre and slight rasp in the sound told me that Megan had yet to recover fully.

  I nodded and listened carefully as Megan sang the opening notes to our competition set. “That’s enough.” I sighed. “Claire will do the run-through after dinner, and as much as I hate to do this, I’m going to have her compete with the team in the preliminary round.”

  “No. I’ll be okay by tomorrow. I promise.”

  The trembling lip almost made me cave. “Yes, but if you sing tomorrow, it’s doubtful you’ll have a voice for the final competition on Friday.”

  Overtaxing swollen vocal cords would only lead to additional problems.

  “But
we might not make it to the final round.” Tears bloomed in Megan’s eyes.

  Ugh. No one ever told me that feeling like the Grinch who stole Christmas was part of a teacher’s job description. “I have to put the best performers on the floor tomorrow in order to make sure that we do. Keep resting your voice. By Friday you’ll be one of those performers. Okay?”

  “Okay.” Megan’s voice cracked. Yep. By doing my job, I’d officially broken her heart.

  More than anything, I wanted to take back my decision. After all, this wasn’t brain surgery. No one would die if tomorrow’s performance wasn’t perfect. But my job wasn’t simply to make these kids look good onstage. It was to make sure that those entering the world of performing beyond their high school walls would be prepared for what lay ahead. Megan was going to be a musical theater major. Megan wanted to make a career out of performing. She was ready to study and sweat and do whatever it took to succeed. But hard work was only one of the necessary ingredients in this business. Luck was another.

  I gave Megan a hug. Over her shoulder, I spotted Devlyn walking down the hallway toward us. He was the one who taught me that I needed to be more to these kids than their friend. That I needed to teach them that sometimes a performer got lucky and the performance brought the house down.

  As Devlyn glanced my way and then turned and walked through the ballroom doors, I though about the other times when—no matter how much you wanted to make something work—the show went on. And how you couldn’t help when it went on without you.

  Chapter 18

  The run-through with Claire standing in for her sister went great—if you didn’t take into consideration Megan’s depressed face, Devlyn’s aloof attitude, and the parents’ helpful suggestions that made the rehearsal three times longer than it should have been. But by the time I’d dismissed everyone, I was confident that the students were as prepared as possible. Megan might hate sitting on the sidelines, but it was the right decision. How teachers did this year in and year out was beyond me.

  Larry gave the kids a final pep talk and told everyone they had to be in their rooms by ten o’clock. While he spoke, I noticed Christine McCann standing near one of the ballroom entrances. She’d changed out of her work attire. In her light blue denim capris and yellow T-shirt, she blended in with the parents. Except for her eyes. Those were all business as they took in the way the students listened to my aunt discuss the makeup process for the next day.

  When the notes had been given and the departure time for tomorrow morning announced, I gave the kids one final warning to get some sleep and called an end to rehearsal. The kids gathered their things and raced out of the ballroom to get in one last swim before bed. I headed in Christine’s direction.

  “What’s she doing here?” Larry grabbed my arm and pointed toward Christine. “Do you think someone else d-d-died?”

  Everyone still in the room turned toward us. Oh no. Larry’s less than subtle volume had struck again.

  “I asked Christine to meet me here to discuss backstage security. The last thing we want is for our costumes to be tampered with. We also don’t need parents getting involved in this issue.” I sent a deliberate look at Chessie’s parents, who had gotten out of their seats and were headed in this direction. “I don’t think either of us want our team to get booted before they ever get the chance to compete.”

  Larry got the hint. He headed off to intercept Chessie’s parents while I crossed the ballroom to where Christine McCann waited.

  “Your team is impressive.” Christine smiled. “I thought they were good when I watched their videos online, but they’re better live.”

  “I’d think most teams are. It’s hard to capture the energy of a live show and the mix of the voices on cell phone video.”

  Christine laughed. “You haven’t been in this business long enough to understand how far some directors will go to ensure their team looks like the one to beat. I know several who have spent a great deal of money overdubbing the vocals and touching up the video with enough imperfections to make it look as if it was recorded live.”

  Wow. If I had that kind of money, I’d find a better use for it than creating a fake version of our team’s musical numbers. Who wastes their bank account on that kind of thing?

  “Two years ago, a team from the West Coast was invited to this competition based on their moderate competition success and a video that was sent for the selection committee’s review. When they got here, it was clear that they weren’t in the same league as the rest of the teams. They were eliminated on the first day, but based on their ‘success’ their coach was offered a position at a private and better-paying school.”

  Yikes. Although after what I knew about some of the coaches, including the dearly departed Greg Lucas, I guessed I shouldn’t have been surprised. I’d thought succeeding in show business was bad. Add academics into the mix, and it brought the stakes to a whole new level.

  “Maybe Donna had a similar reason for her actions yesterday.” I pulled Chessie’s cell phone out of my purse. It took me a few minutes to find the gallery icon, but soon the small screen was filled with Donna’s brown-wigged figure coming through a door. “One of my students was playing hooky from her master class and went to our staging room. She heard the sound of ripping cloth coming from nearby and decided to see what was going on.”

  I slid my finger across the screen and the image of ripped satin appeared, followed by another shot of Donna’s back as she headed down the hallway. The photos had been taken in a hurry. I doubted they would hold up in court if it ever came to that. But the widening of Christine’s eyes said that she had recognized Donna’s face despite the off-kilter photography and all that curly brown hair. The time stamp on the photograph sealed the deal.

  “Donna had a family emergency yesterday.” Christine’s voice lacked the authority she normally had. “She wasn’t in the performing arts center.”

  I flipped back to the first picture. “It looks like Donna was dealing with an emergency closer to home. One that involved Scott Paris.”

  Christine’s head snapped toward me. “Scott? Do you have a photograph of him, too?”

  “No, but I’m pretty sure he and Donna are in this together.” Quickly, I ran through the things I’d discovered. The perfectly repaired costumes. How Scott warned me off my investigation for Christine. Finally, the look on his face after I accused him of being involved with the sabotage.

  Christine shook her head. “There might be a simple explanation for those things. Something that has nothing to do with the damage from yesterday.”

  There could be, but off the top of my head I couldn’t come up with what that might be. Especially not when I factored in Donna’s willingness to be blackmailed by a teenager in order to keep her actions confidential. I was going to say that, but Christine was on a roll.

  “Donna is such a recognizable face around here.” She looked down at the phone in my hand. “It’s almost impossible for her to go anywhere without being noticed. She probably didn’t have time to deal with the usual fanfare when she came to the theater yesterday. That must be why she chose to wear a wig.”

  Wow. Christine had earned an A in justification. I almost hated to burst her creative bubble, but there was a lot more at stake than Christine’s well-developed fantasy.

  “Why don’t you call them and see what they have to say?”

  Christine’s head snapped up. “Do you know what would happen if word got out that I accused a country-western star or one of the most celebrated choir directors of wrongdoing without more proof than this? The sponsors would pull their support for sure. School districts would no longer be interested in sending their students to our program. The competition would be finished. I can’t let that happen.”

  “You also can’t risk anything worse happening.” I slid Chessie’s phone back into my purse and pulled out my own. “What would the press and the sponsors
say if another incident occurred tomorrow and they learned you had information that could have stopped it? Unless you want to leave that up to chance, I say we call Donna and Scott now and ask for an explanation.”

  Christine’s eyes narrowed, and I stepped away to give her a chance to think. Christine struck me as the type who hated being backed into a corner. No doubt that feeling was the reason she had forced me to look into yesterday’s incidents. I’d done my part, but if she felt like I was being too pushy, she could still make good on her threat to have my kids blackballed.

  As Christine mulled over the possibilities, I looked around the ballroom. Larry must have successfully smoothed the feathers of Chessie’s parents. They were now gone. The only person remaining was Devlyn. He was seated in one of the chairs, watching me. The anger I’d seen earlier was gone. Now there was curiosity and a hint of wistfulness that, despite my resolve, tugged at my heart.

  “You’re right.” Christine blew a lock of hair off her face. “None of this will get reconciled without talking to Donna and Scott, which I plan for us to do right now.”

  Christine pulled out her cell phone and started messaging the parties involved. One thing I would say for the woman was that when it came to rapid-fire texting, Christine had skills. I could never manage to get my fingers to hit the right buttons on the first try. Thanks to autocorrect I had a tendency to send messages that meant something completely different from what I’d intended. Christine must not have that problem since moments later her phone dinged. Donna had texted back. She and Scott would be here as soon as they could get across town.

  “They’ll meet us in the front of the hotel. Is there somewhere more private than this where the four of us can talk?” Christine asked, sending a deliberate look toward Devlyn. “I think we’ll have an easier time learning the truth if Donna isn’t worried about being recognized.”