back of the papier-mâché, then tilted the mask to look up inside its white interior.
It was easy to see the dark stain inside. Right where the piece had been crunched inward in a violent indent…and below it. As if something had smeared or trickled down.
Vivien’s breath caught, and she flipped the mask the other way so she could look down into it with the kitchen light shining inside, but what she saw only supported her theory: that it was a bloodstain inside the headpiece, and that the blood was from whoever had been wearing it when they were hit on the head from behind.
So the actor had been hit on the head.
Maybe he’d been killed too, because she was pretty certain the Sugarplum Fairy had been stabbed to death. The bloodstains were pretty big.
And maybe that was why the headpiece had been hidden in the bottom of a trunk, pushed away under the stage in the orchestra pit and locked up tight where no one would find it.
She was so intent that she didn’t hear Jake close his laptop and come up behind her.
“What’s all this?” he said, eyeing the headpiece.
“Take a good look at this,” she said, gesturing to the mask. “Tell me what you think.”
While he did that, she retrieved the Sugarplum Fairy’s costume and the military coat from where she’d left them on the sofa.
“So?” she said when Jake put the mask aside. “Thoughts?”
He tilted his head. “Oh, I have thoughts, all right.”
“Well, don’t leave me in suspense.”
“It looks like someone was hit on the head while wearing the headpiece. The position and type of indentation, the stains—which look like old blood to me—and their position would bear out this theory. Is that what you wanted me to say?”
She nodded. “Yes. Is that really what you believe?”
“It’s plausible. More than plausible—”
“And the fact that it was locked in the bottom of a trunk that was basically hidden in a crawlspace way beneath the stage…doesn’t that follow too?”
“It certainly doesn’t do anything to debunk the theory.” He picked up the mask again, turning it around carefully in his hands. “But the question is, was it an accident, was it fatal, and was it purposeful?”
“That’s three questions, but I concur that they’re all vital. Now, look at these.”
She laid out the other two costumes. Jake picked them up, one at a time, and gave a low whistle. “These rents in the back of both of them—and the stains—”
“From stab wounds, don’t you think?” she said. “The stains are harder to see on the red military coat, but it’s really obvious on the Sugarplum Fairy’s costume.”
“So you think someone killed both of the people who were playing these characters—and that’s who’s haunting the theater,” he said. “Makes sense to me.”
She hugged him exuberantly. “Oh, good, oh thank goodness you agree. I thought I might be going a little crazy.”
He shook his head. “This whole thing is crazy, but this actually makes a lot of sense—as far as ghosts are concerned.”
“Exactly. I mean, they are logical in their own twisted way.”
“So then it also follows that whoever is sabotaging you is trying to keep the theater from opening because they don’t want the mask to be found—because they attacked and possibly murdered the Nutcracker,” Jake said. “The two things have to be related…otherwise it’s just too much of a coincidence.”
Vivien felt spikes of relief and excitement that he agreed with her. “It just makes sense—the mask was hidden away—and Iva, I think it was, said no one really knew what happened when the theater suddenly closed down and never opened again.”
“Maybe. But if someone killed the actor who played the Nutcracker,” he said with a quirk of a smile, “and the actress playing the ballerina—wouldn’t the owner of the theater or the producer or someone notice they went missing? It would have been all over the news, I’d think.”
“Unless that’s who killed him. The person in charge—the producer or troupe leader or owner of the place. And Iva, I think it was, said they heard the Sugarplum Fairy—that’s whose costume that is; it’s just as iconic as the Nutcracker’s—ran off with the Nutcracker. What if that’s not what happened, but that they were both killed, and the story was just put out that they ran off together or were sick or whatever happened—and that was why the show was canceled.”
She brought over the poster-sized blowup of the cast photo for The Nutcracker. The date was December 1994, so she knew it