On the sidewalk, I took a deep breath and clutched Huckleberry to my chest. I was in even more trouble than I feared. The police knew about Jefferson’s contract with Bellamy Farm now, despite my trying to keep the rumor mill quiet. I was sure my family affairs were finally fodder for all Cherry Glen busybodies. Would it make a difference that I had not taken any money from him yet? It should. Why would we kill someone whose money would save our farm? Especially money we needed now, not whenever Crocker’s massive estate may be settled in the future. However, I wasn’t sure the police would see it that way. My father had been quite vocal in front of Quinn that he was upset with my decision. Quinn was the chief’s son. It was pretty clear where his loyalties would fall.
A couple passed me as they went into the diner. They didn’t give me a second look. They didn’t know who I was, at least not yet. It wouldn’t be long before everyone in Cherry Glen knew Shiloh Bellamy was back and had gotten mixed up in a murder investigation. If that rumor took hold, my dreams of turning the farm around were doomed.
Up the street stood Michigan Street Theater. I had forgotten it was so close to Jessa’s Place. Where was the best place to go to learn more about Crocker and who might have wanted him dead?
Not to mention Crocker’s wife was also in the play, so it was my best chance of finding her. If Jessa was right, I didn’t think she would be that brokenhearted over her husband’s death. Assuming she went to rehearsal so quickly after her estranged husband had died. That seemed unlikely, but it was the best plan I had. I crossed my fingers that Minnie wasn’t at rehearsal.
Setting Huckleberry on the sidewalk, I clicked his leash on his collar. He looked up at me with concern.
“It’s going to be okay, Huck,” I said, even though I wasn’t sure that was true. “Let’s go.” I tugged on his leash, but the pug wouldn’t move. “What’s gotten into you?”
He whimpered, and then I heard it. It was faint at first but got louder and louder until I spotted the approaching high school marching band. They stomped down Michigan Street in shorts and T-shirts while a band director walked backward in front of them. None of them seemed to be concerned with traffic. Cars pulled to either side of the road to let them pass. They blew into and banged on their instruments with gusto—playing the old high school fight song. It was clear they were already practicing for the coming football season. High school football in Cherry Glen was an obsession that bordered on religious at times. I knew because Logan had played all four years when we were in school. By the twelfth grade, he was big: six five and over two hundred and fifty pounds. He played defensive end and might have been able to play in college too, but he decided not to go. His whole life, all he wanted to do was work his family’s farm. What he wanted and what I wanted had led to our last argument.
Watching the band approach, I felt that familiar guilt boil in my stomach.
Logan and I had been set to get married that summer, but I was starting to balk. After going to college in Traverse City and being exposed to more opportunities to write and work on short film productions through the university, I had gotten the bug to go to Hollywood and work on films. It was something I had been terrified to tell him. It had always seemed to be understood that after we married, I would help manage both his family farm as well as Bellamy. Like Logan would say: “Farming is in our blood. We can’t run from it.”
But I did want to run from it after Grandma Bellamy died from a sudden heart attack. I needed to escape from Cherry Glen. Everything there reminded me of her. I knew that meant leaving Logan too. I never for a moment wanted to break off my engagement. I loved him. He was the best man I had ever met and remained that to this day. But my university called me and said there was an internship for recent graduates in Hollywood to work in production. My professors encouraged me to apply. I never thought I would get it.
So when I found out I had won the internship, I was both elated and devastated. I knew Logan would not understand. If I took the internship, I would leave right after the wedding and be gone for two years. It wasn’t ideal, but I truly believed we could manage it.
As I had expected, when I told him, the conversation had not gone well. We ended up in a huge fight. Although I never lived in Traverse City because I commuted from the farm to all my classes, I had several college friends who lived there. I left and went to see those friends in Traverse City. Six hours later, I learned he died in a car accident on the way to come see me.
The funeral had been massive. I only had a vague recollection of how many people were there, but it was easily the whole town and every farmer in the county. Logan had been beloved in the farming community and a hometown football star. He was the golden boy of Cherry Glen, and he was dead.
I thought in some ways Quinn had loved Logan just as much as I had. He showed up drunk at the funeral, forced his way to the front of the room when the pastor was giving the eulogy, and pointed at me in the front row where I sat next to Logan’s parents. “It’s your fault he’s dead. He was never good enough for you. The life he’d planned was never good enough for you. Do you know he was driving back to Traverse City to talk to you? He loved you, and it cost him his life. You want to go to California now? Go! No one is stopping you!”
I sat there in shock, frozen in place.
After his funeral, I took the internship in LA and never looked back. Yet here I was in Cherry Glen again.
I let out a breath. Quinn had every right to think it was my fault his best friend was killed.
Huckleberry hid behind my legs as I watched the marching band go by. Even in the heat of the summer’s day, I wrapped my arms around myself to fight off the chill that suddenly overcame me. I knew Huckleberry hid from the high school marching band because of the loud noise. I wanted to hide because it was such a flashback to a time in my life—a time I could not separate from memories of Logan, even if I tried.
The band passed, and although I could still hear them, when they disappeared in the distance, I let out a sigh of relief. I looked down at my pug, his face buried in my calf. Perhaps he thought if he couldn’t see the band, they couldn’t see him.
“Huck, it’s okay. They’re gone. I think this is a sign that taking you to any high school football games is out of the question.”
He buried his head deeper in my leg.
Although I was cold a moment ago, I was now hot. The sun was beating down on my bare head. The heat was different here from in LA. The humidity was high. We were right in the middle of summer, the middle of the growing season, and Bellamy Farm had nothing to show for it. I hoped that next year, we would actually have cherries and other crops to harvest and take to market. The only way I was going to be able to do that would be to stay out of jail and on the good side of public opinion. I had always been a rule follower. It was almost impossible for me to imagine myself in the situation I was in.
Huckleberry and I walked along the new, even sidewalk that led to the theater, sidewalk that I guessed Crocker had a hand in installing. When I was young, the theater had been an eyesore. Today, with what I assumed a lot of hard work by my cousin, it was in much better shape. The marquee was new and shone brightly in the sunlight. The front doors were polished, and giant red all-weather mats had been placed in front of them. I wondered if the mats were there to cover the cracks in the sidewalk.
If it was locked, I would leave and go back to the farm, make a new list of suspects and how to get out of this mess, and maybe fix the blasted fence at the entrance of the farm that seemed to mock me.
I pulled the door handle, and it opened easily. There was another set of double glass doors in front of me, leading into the theater. Those were unlocked too. Tinny music played somewhere deep in the theater. A poster advertised the play that weekend. The Tragedy of Julius Caesar was produced and directed by Stacey Bellamy. Below her name, it read, “Set in the turbulent time of the Michigan Frontier.”
To my right, the ticket booth stood. It was clean, and a roll of tickets sat on the counter. A cash register and laptop were just on the other side of the window.
A stack of playbills sat on the counter as well. I walked over to the window and picked up one of the playbills. On the back were the names, photos, and short biographies of all the actors. I saw my dad’s picture and the mayor’s. Shannon Crocker’s was also there. Even in the black-and-white picture, I could see she was beautiful, with dark hair and long bangs that swept over her face. Below her photograph, it read, “Shannon Crocker as Calpurnia.”
* * *
My footsteps and the click of Huckleberry’s nails echoed on the clean but cracked parqueted floor. I could see all the hard work Stacey had put into the place. The theater was in the process of being saved by my cousin, but there were spots where it still showed its age. I guessed it had to be at least one hundred years old. All things considered, it held up very well.
There was a wide staircase leading to a second floor. It was covered with clean but threadbare red carpet. The theater setup was such that the main lobby was at ground level, and the entrance of the theater was on the second floor of the building. Inside the theater, the seating sat tiered, so the aisle was a long downward ramp that led to the stage and into the orchestra pit.
I hesitated before going up the steps and had to tug on Huckleberry’s leash to convince him to come up behind me. I had promised both Stacey and my father I would come to visit the production, but now I regretted it. What if while I was there, the mayor arrived for rehearsal? I did not want to run into him so soon after fleeing Jessa’s Place. My thoughts were so jumbled and confused over the murder, I didn’t know what to do.
“Get a grip, Bellamy.” I shook off my misgivings and marched up the steps before I could talk myself out of it. The stairs creaked under my weight. At the top of the stairs, there was a wide hallway. Across the hallway were three double doors. Each set of doors led into the theater.
Instead of opening the middle doors that would have me looking straight onto the stage, I went to the one on the left, hoping I would have a better chance of sneaking in and gathering my bearings before being seen.
I opened the door, wincing as its hinges screeched. I poked my head in, and when no one said anything to me, I picked up Huckleberry and slipped inside the vast room.
I found myself in an aisle, looking down at the stage. The end of the front rows butted up against the orchestra pit. There were five people on the stage in the bright lights. One was my father, sitting in his frontiersman costume on a folding chair, and there were three others who I assumed were actors all standing around Stacey. My cousin wore a headset and held a tablet in her hand. Not one of them turned their head in my direction. Perhaps the door noise wasn’t as bad as I thought.
“We all need to give our very best,” Stacey told the actors. The sound of her voice bounced off the ceiling and the walls. “This play must go on. Now, I know there’s been a bit of a setback because Shannon had to withdraw from her part, but I can step in. This is Shakespeare. We have to live up to the bard.”
My ears perked up when she said the name Shannon. She had to be talking about Crocker’s wife. I wondered if I should leave now that I knew Shannon, who was the main reason I was there, was not at the theater.
“Now, I wanted you all here this morning because you are the lead actors in this production. We need to go over the script from the top. I’ll read Shannon’s part as Calpurnia and any bit parts that aren’t present. I just want to test the flow with me in Shannon’s part before Thursday’s dress rehearsal. It’s important we have chemistry onstage together.”
Overhead, the theater ceiling had been painted to look like the night sky. A memory came back to me of breaking into the closed theater with my friends the last week of high school and staring up at that ceiling. We’d drunk cheap beer and talked about our hopes and dreams after graduation. I could almost taste the bitter beer in my mouth.
“Let’s begin from act 1, scene 2,” Stacey said, frowning. “No, that won’t work. We have to wait for the mayor to arrive and play Julius Caesar.” She scowled at her tablet. “Baker, where is your father?”
A man I hadn’t seen until then stepped out of the shadows at the side of the stage. He held a tablet in his hands and was tapping on the screen. He wasn’t in costume like my father or in casual clothing like the other actors at the rehearsal. He wore expensive-looking pants and a freshly pressed dress shirt. He was even wearing a tie. He was tan, and his blond hair was perfectly styled. He lifted his hand from the screen. “How should I know?”
Stacey put her hands on her hips. “He’s your father, and you work in the same office.”
The man placed the protective case over his tablet. “We work in the same building, not the same office.”
Stacey opened her mouth like she was going to say something back.
“I can see that you are in the middle of rehearsal, and this is probably not a good time to talk to you about the building code,” he said, walking down the steps from the stage. He turned and looked up at Stacey. “I’ll be back later today. We have a lot to talk about if you think this building is going to be ready for Friday’s opening night.”
Stacey glared at him so hard he should have been vaporized on the spot, but that man in a tie just turned around and headed in my direction. “I’ll give you a punch list. I’m not saying you won’t be able to do it, but you are going to have work day and night to get it done. I’ll be checking.” He looked at his watch. “I have to head out to my next meeting. I’ll be back later.”
“I’m sure you will,” Stacey said angrily.
I wouldn’t for a second want to be the guy giving Stacey a punch list. However, he didn’t appear to be the least bit phased by her anger and didn’t glance in my direction as he pushed his way through the exit.
Stacey folded her arms. “I don’t know what he is even talking about. We have done everything the town has asked to get the theater up and running.”
“Calm yourself, Stacey. They are probably very tiny things on that list,” Dad said.
She huffed. “I don’t have time for him or his list.” She clapped her hands. “Places, everyone. Let’s do a scene without Caesar then.”
“I could say one of my speeches as Brutus.” One of the actors cleared his throat. “‘Since Cassius first did whet me against Caesar, I have not slept. Between the acting of a dreadful thin and the first motion, all the interim is like a phantasma or a hideous dream—’”
“No.” Stacey stopped him midspeech. “There’s no need. I know you have your lines memorized.”
Huckleberry looked up at me and barked as if he was asking what we were doing there. It was a soft bark, but in the theater’s acoustics, it was amplified tenfold. I froze. Everyone on the stage looked in my direction.
“Huck,” I muttered.
He whined.
“It’s okay, buddy.”
Stacey shielded her eyes from the stage lights. “Who would bring a dog into the theater?”
I didn’t see how I could slink away now. I set Huckleberry on the carpet at my feet. I walked down the aisle and waved. “It’s just me. Shiloh.”
My pug toddled down the aisle behind me.
“Shiloh, I’m glad you came. I didn’t expect you so early though,” my father said.
“I drove into town on an errand, and I promised to stop by, so…” Huck put his nose to the floor and inhaled all the delicious new scents.
Stacey frowned. “And you brought your dog?”
“Huckleberry is always with me. I used to take him to work at the studio.”
She pressed her lips together. “Okay, everyone, let’s take a ten-minute break.”
The younger actors didn’t have to be told twice as they bolted from the stage. I had a feeling my cousin was a tough director.
“Shi, come up on the stage,” Stacey said. It sounded more like an order than a request.
I edged around the empty orchestra pit to the steps to the left of the stage.
“The theater looks great, the best I’ve ever seen it,” I said as the steps creaked under my weight.
Stacey pressed her lips together. “I don’t know if that’s a compliment, since it was abandoned when we were growing up.”
“It was meant to be—a compliment, that is.” I wondered how I could have so quickly have gotten on my cousin’s bad side since returning to Michigan.
“They were going to bulldoze the place until Stacey stepped in and saved it,” my father said with pride in his voice.
A knot tightened in my chest, and I told myself to relax. So what if my dad and Stacey were close? He spent much more time with her than he did with me. In many ways, I had been gone so long from Cherry Glen that I had become a stranger to my own father, and he was a stranger to me. Not for the first time, I wondered if Dad should have turned the farm over to my cousin and not to me. He was a traditional man, so I could see him thinking his own child should get the land, but was that really the right choice? I knew Stacey had inherited the other half of the farm from her own father. Maybe she should have been given the whole property. I surely had made a mess of everything I’d touched since coming back home.
She folded her arms. “Bulldozing the place was Crocker’s idea. It took some quick thinking on my part to stop it. I’m quite pleased that this is one building he didn’t own in town.”
Ah, yet another reason my father and Stacey were so down on Crocker.
“Well,” I said. “You did an amazing job, Stacey. I’m so impressed.”
She smiled, and some of her iciness thawed. “This is just the beginning for the theater. I have big plans for it. Community events, movies, and more. This is a large facility, and the possibilities are endless, and I’m working on an agreement with the public schools to use the space for a discount as well. This theater is the crown jewel of the Glen.”
“The crown jewel?” I asked.
She eyed me. “You have to have noticed how the Glen has changed. Did you see all the new businesses and shops on Michigan Street? The new brewery too? All this has happened in the last few years. Cherry Glen isn’t a little farming hamlet any longer. It’s a place where people want to visit, shop, and be entertained. The theater will provide that entertainment for them.”
I didn’t say it, but it seemed to me that Stacey was putting a lot of pressure on herself to revitalize Cherry Glen. What if the theater failed?
“I wish you all the luck then,” I said. “I’m sure it will be great.” Then I heard myself say, “If I can help you in any way, just let me know.” As soon as they were out there, I wished I could reach out, pluck the words out of the air, and shove them back into my mouth.
Stacey cocked her head. “That’s very kind of you, Shiloh. Perhaps we do have a job for you if you’re up to it.”
I inwardly groaned. There was no getting out of helping now, and I had so many things I needed to accomplish these first few days back in the Glen. That list didn’t even include solving the murder.
“What’s that?” I asked with a smile I hoped appeared sincere.
“We expect to have a full house. Since it’s the first play in the theater for over forty years, we sold discount tickets just to get people in the door,” Stacey said. “It was a gamble. It’s always a gamble with discounts. It won’t even pull in enough money to cover my overhead, but I hope everyone in town and from around the region will see what a gem Michigan Street Theater is.”
I nodded and waited for her to tell me what she wanted me to do, because I knew it was something I most likely would not like.
“I could use someone to run the ticket booth opening night. The person I hired for the job had a family emergency and can’t do it now. I’ve been trying to find a replacement, but no one seems willing to do it yet.”
“What would be involved?” I asked.
“Not much. Most of the tickets were sold online, so it’s just a matter of scanning the barcodes and being there if any issues come up.”
I glanced at my father, who had a smile on his face as he looked at me expectantly. I really didn’t have any other choice.
“Sure, I’d be happy to help. Just let me know when you want me to be here.”
Stacey’s eyes brightened. It was the first time she gave me a real smile since I’d been home. That was all the proof I needed that I made the right decision. Who needed sleep anyway, right? “Be here Thursday at nine in the morning at the ticket booth. I’ll show you everything then.” She started to turn away. She was trying to dismiss me.
I shifted my feet. “When I came in, I happened to hear you mention that Shannon had to drop out of the play. Would that be Shannon Crocker?”
Stacey frowned, and it seemed all the good will I garnered had evaporated in her eyes. “It is. She had to back out because of her husband’s death. Of course, we understand that. This is a very difficult time for her.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Shannon is a sweet woman,” my father said. “She shouldn’t have been married to Crocker in the first place. He wasn’t kind to her.”
My eyes went wide. “Do you mean he was abusive?”
“No, not that I know of, but I know Shannon had wanted a divorce for a long time, and Crocker refused to give it to her. He was the one with the money, so he held all the cards. At least she won’t have to bother with that any longer.”
At least, I thought. Shannon was definitely on the very top of my list to speak to, but I had to find her first. By Stacey’s expression, asking my cousin was a bad idea. That was fine. There were other ways to track down a person.
“I should get back to the farm,” I said.
“What’s the rush?” Stacey asked. “What can you do there without Crocker’s money?”
I scooped up my pug. “Quite a lot.” I glanced at my father. “It might take longer to bring the farm back than I thought, but I’m sure it can be done.”
Dad scowled and was about to open his mouth and say something, but I was faster. “Good luck with the play.” I skipped down the stage steps and for the door before they could stop me.
I had just reached the exit when the door opened, and Mayor Loyal stepped inside. “Julius Caesar has arrived!”
I pulled up short.
“Oh. Miss Bellamy, what are you doing here? I do want to speak to you about our conversation earlier at Jessa’s Place.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry. I have to go.” I slipped around him, practically running through the theater’s foyer and out the front door. Again, just like outside the diner, I doubled over on the sidewalk to catch my breath. I took big gulps of air. Running away from the mayor was becoming a habit I really needed to address.
I set Huckleberry on the sidewalk, and the pug appeared to be as bewildered as I felt. “Oh, Huck, I’ve made such a mess of everything. Let’s go back to the farm and regroup.”
He started down the sidewalk in the direction of my car. At least Huckleberry was on my team.