Isobel arrived home to find Delphi kneeling on the floor wearing a long, ruffled rehearsal skirt with her Nine Inch Nails T-shirt. It made a nice change from the jeans and bustier look, although it wasn’t, strictly speaking, an improvement. Isobel tried to tiptoe around her, but Delphi, sensing her presence, swung around, clenched her fists and intoned:
Grief fills the room up of my absent child,
Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me,
Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,
Remembers me of all his gracious parts,
Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form;
Then, have I reason to be fond of grief?
Fare you well: had you such a loss as I,
I could give better comfort than you do.
Delphi melted to the floor in a heap, and Isobel, recognizing her cue, applauded enthusiastically.
“That was great! What was it?”
Delphi sat up and pushed a nest of blond ringlets out of her eyes. “Constance from King John. What else? We open next week.”
Isobel threw her bag and phone onto the kitchen counter. “Will you think I’m a philistine if I say they all sound the same?”
“The same might be said of your precious Gilbert and Sullivan,” Delphi grumbled. “You are coming opening night, right?”
“Of course! Wouldn’t miss it.”
In truth, Delphi’s monologue was far better than Isobel expected. She really did have a knack for Shakespeare. Delphi’s musical instincts stood her in good stead when she didn’t have to match pitch.
Isobel opened the fridge and pulled out a can of Diet Coke, which she popped open. She leaned on the counter.
“I’d never even heard of King John until you were cast in it.”
Delphi hitched up her voluminous skirts to perch with modern abandon on the kitchen stool. “It’s not done very often, which is why Graham chose it. We’ll have a better chance of getting agents and casting directors in to see it than if we do Richard III or something.”
“Why not do a comedy? Or at least one of the tragedies?”
“They’re overdone.” Delphi jumped down from the stool and yanked off her skirt. “This thing is starting to bug me.”
“You, too?”
Delphi gave her a dirty look and threw the skirt across the room where it landed on her bed. “Besides, the histories offer dramatic opportunities you can really sink your teeth into, plus the language is more oblique. If we can pull it off, we look that much better.”
“Who is Willy Loman playing?” asked Isobel.
“The title role, of course.”
“Of course.”
“So what’s new at the spin shop?”
Isobel filled her in on the highlights of her day, minus the confidential business portion.
“Do you really think Angus poisoned Jason Whiteley with his own heart medication?” Delphi asked, unpiling her hair from its messy topknot.
“Not Angus, necessarily.” Isobel, in sympathy, undid her ponytail and wound the rubber band around her wrist. “But if he keeps a supply of digoxin in his office, anyone could know about it. Anyone could have taken it and—”
“And what? Gone to Jason’s house that morning and fixed him a digoxin omelet? And what about the Demerol? Where did that come from?”
“So you think it’s a coincidence?”
Delphi pulled a pile of takeout menus from behind the cutting board and rifled through them.
“Maybe he had a heart condition that nobody knew about. And maybe he also had a bad back. He was taking both drugs and overdosed accidentally.” She held up a menu. “Chinese?”
Isobel nodded and tapped her soda can on the counter. “I suppose that’s possible, but stay with me for a moment. Barnaby was pushing for the merger to go through, and he knew Jason was going to give them the old heave-ho. He saw Jason as a threat, so he helped himself to Angus’s medication and…”
“You’re back where you started. The coffee in the office was clean. Nobody from Dove & Flight killed him.”
“Just because the coffee was clean doesn’t mean it wasn’t somebody from Dove & Flight.” Isobel grabbed the menu from Delphi. “Maybe somebody there had a relationship with Jason outside work. Kung pao chicken.”
“Okay, but you’re still faced with the question of where and when.” Delphi shook her phone. “Shit. I’m out of charge.”
“Here, use mine.” Isobel handed over the menu and her phone.
“I think you’re getting hung up on coincidences,” Delphi said. “Hello? Yes, that’s us. Scallion pancakes, one moo shu beef, one kung pao chicken. Brown rice.” Delphi hung up. “Half an hour, but you know it’ll be here in ten minutes.”
Isobel’s phone rang in Delphi’s hand, and before Isobel could wrest it from her, Delphi answered.
“‘How now, wit? Whither wander you?’”
“Give me that!” Isobel snatched her phone back. “Hello? This is Isobel.”
“Not Rosalind?”
Isobel paused, confused by the reference and by the British-accented voice she didn’t recognize. “I’m sorry, who is this?”
There was a sigh on the other end of the phone. “How easily one forgets the smile-tapped heart.”
Isobel groaned. Not another one. “Is that Shakespeare?”
“No, it’s Fremont. I just made it up on the spot.”
Isobel felt a delighted flush. Hugh Fremont, the audition pianist from Phantom. Surprise of surprises, he had called.
She shot a glance at Delphi who was eyeing her quizzically.
“That was my roommate,” Isobel explained. “She’s a bit of a Shakespeare nut. Emphasis on the nut.”
“No, no, it was refreshing,” Hugh said. “It’s been a long time since anyone called me a wit.”
“It’s nice to hear from you.”
Isobel turned away, but Delphi stalked her, panther-like, mouthing, “Who is it?”
“I meant it when I said I’d like to hear you sing under better conditions,” Hugh said. “I’m putting together a little cabaret of my own songs. I’d like to try you out on a few—if you think that might interest you.”
“Definitely! I love singing new music. I’m so flattered that you thought of me.”
“Yours was one of the more memorable auditions of the day.”
Isobel winced. “For all the wrong reasons.”
Hugh chuckled. “I wouldn’t say that. Are you free tomorrow evening? I’ve got studio space uptown. Can you meet me around seven?”
“Sure,” Isobel answered, her voice brimming with excitement. Under normal circumstances, she might have tried to check herself, but it was her exuberance that had caught his attention in the first place. She wrote down the address on Claremont Avenue, near Manhattan School of Music.
“I did my Master’s there and never left the neighborhood,” Hugh explained. “So I’ll see you then?”
“Yes, looking forward to it. Thanks so much for calling!”
Delphi downed the rest of Isobel’s Diet Coke with a loud sucking noise and slammed the can down on the counter. “Who, pray tell, was that?”
Isobel gazed up at the ceiling to short-circuit an imminent rush of giggles, then contained herself and looked at Delphi.
“I think it was Romeo.”