Page 88 of Script Swap
“No!Oh my God, I can’t believe you thought I killed him!”
“Well, to be fair, I didn’t until I saw you—wait, why are you here?”
“Fingerprints,” Tinny said proudly, holding up the wipe.“I forgot to wear gloves, so I figured I’d better make sure I got rid of them before I left.”
Ah.A criminal genius.There didn’t seem to be any point to explaining that the sheriff had already tried to lift prints from the safe, but I couldn’t help asking, “With the door open?”
Tinny tilted her head likeIwas the crazy one.“The theater is supposed to be empty.The play got canceled.”
“Right, but the back door was propped open.You didn’t think—you know what?Never mind.Why did you steal the money?I thought Terrence was buying you whatever you wanted.Fox said you’re practically bankrupting him.”And as soon as I said it, I knew.The argument in the lobby on opening night.Tinny wanting different paint, and Terrence’s frustration, his attempts to placate her.The fact that nobody at The Foxworthy was getting paid.“You did, didn’t you?You burned through all his money.”
“It’s not like he had a lot.And hewantedto spend it.Helikedbuying me things.Just ask him.”
The fact that Terrence was laid up in a hospital bed, still in critical condition, didn’t seem to register for her.But other details crowded in: missing equipment, an aging sound board, the light controls that were outdated and being used as a backup.Betty’s complaints and requests and suspicions.
“That’s what those pictures were on Kyson’s phone.That’s why Terrence got so freaked out when Kyson changed the lines in his script.Terrence was stealing equipment from the theater and—what?Pawning it?”
“It’s not like it was easy,” Tinny said.She seemed to have forgotten about the gun because she tried to use that hand to adjust the scarf on her head and, in the process, almost clobbered herself.“We had to drive all the way to Portland because he didn’t want somebody to recognize him.”
I said a few words that Mary Tyler Moore never said.“Are you kidding me?We spent all that time chasing Kyson, trying to figure out what those photos meant, and it didn’t have anything to do with the murder?”I hesitated.“Wait, Terrence didn’t kill Kyson, did he?”
Tinny’s look suggested infinite scorn for my detecting abilities.
“But I don’t understand,” I said again.“Kyson had those pictures.Kyson knew about Terrence stealing.Kyson tried to blackmail him.Kyson changed the script to try to scare Terrence into—what?Paying up?Helping his career?It doesn’t matter.If you didn’t kill Kyson, and Terrence didn’t kill Kyson, then who did?And what about Nora?What about Ray stealing the money, and the parallels between the crimes, and—and all of it?There’s got to be some connection that he saw—that’s why someone stabbed him.”
“Who’s Ray?”Tinny asked.
I swallowed a scream.“Tinny,” I finally managed, “what happened after you stole the money?Did Terrence find out?”
“I didn’t steal anything,” Tinny said.“And anyway, he was way too upset about Kyson getting killed to think about anything else.That’s all he’d talk about.How it was going to ruin the play.I mean, he was relieved because now Kyson couldn’t tell anybody what he’d been doing, but he wasn’t going to say that.He kept saying his career was over.”
“What about the articles, though?All those clippings he kept from the first robbery?What did he figure out?”
“What articles?”Tinny was trying to fix her hair with the gun again, and I was starting to suspect that this might be my most embarrassing held-at-gunpoint.(I needed to start a list.) In that same distracted voice, Tinny continued, “All he cared about was the play.He wasn’t reading any articles.”
I was about to argue the fact that I had seen the articles, and they had been in Terrence’s desk, and I knew Terrence had figured out something because someone had tried to kill him.
But the orange shag carpet caught my eye.
And the pine paneling behind the wallboard.
I had seen this room before.
The thought was so disorienting that I forgot what I’d been about to say.I’d seen this room before.But not like this.Without the desk.There had been a counter, instead.Ladder-backed stools.And instead of the plain gray wallboard, pine paneling.No office-style carpet squares, but orange shag carpeting.
“Why’d you break the wallboard?”I said.“What were you doing in here?”
“Huh?”She blinked.“Oh.Joey said there’s treasure in here, but you know what?I think he was making that up.”
I honestly couldn’t process that statement; my brain was trying to tell me something, and I heard myself say, “There was a theft here.”
“Uh, yeah,” Tinny said.
“No, the theft.The theft was here.This was the crime scene.”
And then it all fell into place:
The fact that someone had swapped Kyson’s script to include that threatening message.
