Sedona Law 4 by Dave Daren (ready to read books TXT) 📕

blocking. Tour rehearsals had started to become very difficult.”

“So you were unaware of what the root tension between the two of them might have been?” I asked.

I wanted to find out if she knew about Gabriel.

“No,” she shrugged, “other than personality differences.”

“So, go on,” I said. “What else happened that night?”

“We were told that there were protestors outside,” she said. “We weren’t strangers to controversy. Our act has always been met with a certain degree of skepticism. Beyo thrives on it. He saw himself as a revolutionary, pushing artistic boundaries. I think he thought the more resistance he had, the more he was ‘lifting the veil of ignorance,’ as he called it. He assured us that Mr. Iakova had them under control. But, we were asked not to go outside for our own safety.”

“Chloe explained that the performance was late because of a protestor?” I prodded the story along to get it moving.

She drew a deep breath. “I was in my dressing room, getting into costume, when all of a sudden I heard a noise at the window. A woman dressed in an animal print costume and a can of paint in her hand was climbing through the window.”

“Judith Klein,” I sighed.

“Is that her name?” she asked. “Well, I immediately screamed for help, and she fell in through the window and tried to shush me. She said that she was here to rescue me from a life of wantonness and sexual immorality.”

I smirked. I hadn’t realized that Judith had interacted with any of the dancers prior to her green paint fiasco.

“She tried to tell me that I was under great deception and that my life was worth so much more,” she said. “I told her that I quite loved my life, and my work and career which were very important to me. She began to yell at me and call me dirty names. I immediately left the dressing room to look for security, and then the next thing I knew, the woman was running down the hall with green paint to ‘clothe our nakedness’ as she called it.”

“And this was before the performance?” I clarified. I already knew the answer, but it was important to make sure all of the stories coincided.

“Yes,” she said. “Security chased her, and I am not sure if they ever caught her. I believe she was the one who killed Beyo.”

“What exactly happened after the performance?” I asked. “Can you give me a timeline of events leading up to you finding out about the incident?”

“Well,” she sipped her tea and looked off into the distance of the room. “I exited the stage after the curtain call and went to my dressing room to change into street clothes. Mr. Iokava had instructed us we were to have a ‘meet and greet’ after the show for some of the community leaders. So, I changed and was waiting for everyone else to arrive, when Mr. Iokava came looking for us, and then Chloe alerted us to the death.”

The last bit of the story I remembered. She was sitting in the green room, alone when we all found out about the murder.

“That’s all that you remember?” I asked.

“Oh,” she said, “one other little thing. What did you say her name was, Judith?”

“Yes,” I said, “Judith Klein.”

“I heard her in the hallway having strong words with Beyo before you arrived.”

“You did, huh?” I asked. “What were they saying?”

“I couldn’t make out the words,” she said. “Only that they were arguing.”

“You believe it was Judith Klein who committed the murder?” I asked.

“No doubt,” she said.

I glanced at Landon who switched off the recording.

“Thank you for your time, Olivia,” I said.

“Thank you,” she said. “Do you have any idea when they will let us go home?”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m not with the prosecution. I’m only with the defense, so I couldn’t tell you.”

She looked disappointed. “Thank you.”

Landon and I rose to leave, and we headed out to my car. As soon as we got outside, I searched for the blueprint layout of the PAH on my phone. It was harder to find than I had expected.

“What do you make of that story?” Landon asked.

“I think it all checks out,” I said. “Except for one part. The open window we saw was in Beowulf’s dressing room, not Olivia’s.”

“There could have been two open windows,” he said.

I shook my head and tapped around as I tried to find the floor plans.

“I’ve performed at the PAH,” I said. “The large dressing room was the only one with windows. The rest of the dressing rooms don’t have windows at all.”

“She’s lying,” he stated.

I winked and nodded. “At least about that.”

“That’s big,” he said.

“This may be bigger than we thought,” I said.

“Ahh,” he threw up his arms and practically yelled. “I knew it!”

He switched on the camera. “Say it again! Come on, say it again. Say, ‘You were right, Landon.’ Come on, let me get it on film.”

“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” I laughed as I beeped my car unlocked.

I drove back to the office, with Landon narrating his thoughts on the interview in diary format.

“...But, there was no window in the dressing room,” he said. “We’re going to get floor plans to prove that, or footage of the PAH itself. So that’s where we are people, and it’s about 3:12 in the afternoon, and now we’re going back to the office to rendezvous with the rest of the team.”

He clicked the camcorder shut, and I snickered. “You make my life sound so much more dramatic than it actually is.”

“This is great stuff,” he said. “I don’t know why you’re not, like, totally into it.”

“This isn’t my first go around with this,” I said.

“That’s what makes it