Page 34 of Reckless Chance
“What happened?”
“He’s over there. You should ask him. Hey, Reese, come here for a minute.”
“What’s up, Kenny?”
“This is Lowri Upton. She’s an attorney investigating the accidents we’ve had. She wants to ask you questions about when the silk ripped during the last show.”
“Okay,” he says skeptically.
“Nice to meet you, Reese. Where did the silk tear? At the top?”
“No. For that scene, the silk is rigged with a loop at the bottom where I put my foot. The loop ripped open. It caught me off guard. I tried to hold on with my hands, but I slipped before my grip took hold.”
“How did it tear?”
“I don’t know. The rigging specialist inspects the silks before each show. Originally, I assumed the silk caught on something sharp, but no one has found anything that could have snagged it. I wonder if someone messed with the silk on purpose.”
“Kenny, is that what you think?”
“Of course not. The silk likely had a weak spot or tiny tear that the rigging specialists missed.”
Fisting his hands at his side, Reese says in a slightly raised voice, “They are professionals. They wouldn’t miss anything that important. Besides, it’s my life on the line, so I double-check my equipment. It was fine before the performance.”
“From a distance, your silk looked like a vine. Was it one of these?”
“Vines were intertwined with a silk for that scene,” Reese explains.
“I see. Could the leaves have hidden a weakness?”
“No. If you don’t have any other questions for me, I’ll get back to work. I’m rechecking all my silks,” Reese says.
“That’s all. Thanks for your time,” I say.
“Kenny, how can you prevent accidents in the future?”
“I’ll have a second rigging specialist double-check every silk during the rigging. It’ll slow down the setup, but I can’t afford another fall. Reese was lucky he only dropped about two or three feet. It would have been much worse if he’d been higher when the silk tore,” Kenny says.
I shiver at how close we came to two dead men that night. That brings me back to the main reason I’m here. “Is the tree still backstage, or did the police take it as evidence?”
“It was too large for them to haul away, so they wrapped it in crime scene tape.”
“That’s too bad. I hoped you could demonstrate exactly how it was supposed to work.”
“I can point out the general idea from the outside. Follow me.”
“Thanks. Why didn’t you use the tree during the first two nights of the show? Was there a problem with the hatch door or the platform where the audience member was supposed to stand?”
“No, that wasn’t the issue. There was a wiring issue that prevented the lever from setting off the fireworks. We gave up ontroubleshooting it and completely rewired it the morning of the show you saw. That fixed it.”
“Had you tested the platform?”
“Of course. We had been on and off the platform several times that day. There wasn’t anything wrong with the platform.”
“Then how did the trap door in the platform fall open when Mr. Brentwood stood on it?”
“I have no idea. I’ve been racking my brain trying to figure it out.”
“Have you inspected the interior of the tree? The night of the accident I saw several screws on the inside floor of the tree trunk. Could they have fallen out under Mr. Brentwood’s weight?”
