The Old Deep and Dark by Ellen Hart

in the water?”
    â€œOh, for sure. I had him checked out. He’s worked as a janitor for every theater group that’s been in this building since the beginning of recorded time. Received high marks from everyone.”
    â€œWhat about the unauthorized grandson thing?”
    Cordelia waved it away. “Everyone’s allowed a few eccentricities.” She returned her attention to the brick wall. “What do you think’s behind there?”
    â€œA dead body,” Jane deadpanned, folding her arms and wondering when she could— politely—take off.
    Red returned carrying a sledgehammer. “The right tool for the right job,” he announced, moving back behind the bar and motioning for Cordelia to step away. After taking off his suit coat and removing his wire-rimmed glasses, he took a couple steps back, planted his feet and then whacked at the bricks until the middle section crumbled inward. Peeking inside, waving the brick dust away from his face, he said, “Anybody got a flashlight?”
    Jane continued to sit at the bar as Cordelia edged in front of him, shining a beam into the darkness. “I’m not sure what I’m seeing. Looks like a heap of crumbled bricks and mortar on top of a ripped black plastic bag.”
    Red took a couple more whacks, filling the air with even more dust.
    Cordelia squinted back into the hole. “Is that—” She worked the light until her entire body froze. “Someone better call 911.”
    â€œWhy?” asked Jane.
    â€œThe police will want to see this.”
    â€œSee what?”
    â€œA skull.”
    â€œA what ?”
    â€œIf I’m not mistaken, there’s a nice round hole smack in the center of the forehead. Not to put too fine a point on it, but the body count around this place appears to be rising.”
    *   *   *
    Up on the third floor, in the lobby outside the theater, Booker stood in front of the great arched window and looked down at the street, watching two uniformed police officers emerge from a squad car and enter the building under the marquee. His natural instinct when seeing a cop was to walk—swiftly—in the opposite direction. It was a habit from his youth, one that didn’t serve him particularly well as an adult.
    Because he’d stayed up most of the night reading his father’s so-called novel, he was tired. Thus the idea of doing anything quickly didn’t appeal. The book was so poorly written, so amateurish and overwrought, that if it hadn’t been for the periodic revelations, he would have tossed it in the wastebasket.
    Booker was aware that his sister wanted to discuss the book with him, though what he wanted, from the moment he’d stepped out of the shower until he’d jumped in his rental car, was to get away from Frenchman’s Bay. He needed a beer, or maybe a joint—something to undo himself a little. Without any real plan, he’d simply driven into town and ended up here. He’d been thinking that he should take a look at the theater before he met with her highness, the Empress Cordelia. Her shiplike physical size and persona had a way of dominating conversations. He wanted to form his own conclusions about the place before she could tell him what he was supposed to think.
    Booker had known Cordelia since he was a kid. As a teenager, he had thought she was weird, though in a generally good way, always flouncing around in outrageous costumes, the center of every summer party his parents had ever given. In his late teens, he’d come to respect her achievements, even found that he liked her. She was the one who’d suggested he check into Boston University. He’d been thinking about pursuing a degree in stage design and dithering about which college would best suit his needs. Cordelia explained that BU was where she’d worked on her graduate degree, that it had one of the best theater programs in the country,