Sketch a Falling Star by Sharon Pape Page B

me destitute, and as I said—I blame myself most of all. Truth be told,” he added with a sheepish grin, “I couldn’t bear to leave the troupe. I do so love acting—all the strutting and fretting, you know.” He drained the last of his tea and set the cup down on the inlaid mahogany coffee table in front of him.
    “You mentioned earlier that some of the other Players didn’t care for Brian either. Why was that?”
    “Mostly soap-opera stuff—liaisons, heartbreak, the usual.”
    “Nothing specific? Nothing that made you think one of them was heartbroken enough to be interested in revenge?”
    “No, that didn’t even occur to me at the time of the flood. Let’s face it—what normal person hears that someone died in a flash flood and immediately thinks, ‘Aha, sounds like murder to me’?”
    Rory would have loved to see Zeke’s expression at that moment. She was pretty sure he’d take exception to being classified as abnormal. Her next thought was that he’d damn well better not show his displeasure by tossing objects around the room. She breathed an internal sigh of relief when everything in the room went right on obeying the laws of physics.
    Richard seemed to be momentarily lost in thought. “I suppose I could pick the Player I think the likeliest to resort to such an extreme measure,” he said finally, “but it would be a rather arbitrary guess. And I’d probably be doing that person a grave injustice.” He chuckled. “Pun not intended but quite delightful nonethe—my apologies,” he cut himself off, his smile vanishing. “That was dreadful of me. I certainly didn’t mean to treat Brian’s death or your investigation as fodder for grade-school humor.”
    In spite of Rory’s assurances that he was being too hard on himself, Richard looked chagrined and miserable. Given his mood and the fact that she’d run out of questions anyway, she wrapped up the interview and thanked him for his time. Just because he wasn’t devastated by Brian’s death, it didn’t automatically mean he was guilty. If that was how justice worked, a majority of the world’s population would be doing hard time.
    When Rory climbed back in her car, it was well past rush hour, and the traffic had thinned out dramatically. With her radio tuned to her favorite FM station, Rory merged onto the Meadowbrook Parkway and was settling in for the trip home when the dashboard lights flickered, and she was no longer alone in her car.

Chapter 11
     
    “A re you sure you want to be wasting your energy this way?” Rory asked the marshal, who was now occupying the passenger seat. Any time away from the house was problematic for Zeke, and he’d already spent more than an hour at the interview with Richard Ames. Although he didn’t expend as much energy when he was invisible and therefore didn’t need as much time to recoup, they still had a long list of suspects ahead of them.
    “I’m not stayin’ long. Just wanted to get your thoughts on the doc while they were fresh.”
    Rory shrugged. “He seems like a nice enough guy, pretty laid-back, and like he said himself—a bit naïve for his age.”
    “Maybe a bit too naïve for his age? He’s no Easter Bunny, you know.”
    “I think you mean ‘spring chicken’,” Rory said, trying to keep a straight face. “I suppose that’s possible. On one hand, you wouldn’t expect doctors to be naïve, what with all the miseries they see. But on the other hand, some of them are so wrapped up in the medical world that their social skills aren’t what they should be.”
    “Just don’t you forget these people are actors, darlin’. The doc might not actually be a nice guy. He might have just learned how to act like one.”
    She considered that possibility for a minute but found it hard to accept. “Are you saying you think he’s guilty?”
    “Nope, I’m sayin’ you can’t be gettin’ bamboozled by a snappy accent. I imagine the redcoats we fought gettin’ our independence sounded