Chapter One

The lights from the ambulance and police cars reflected off the theater’s stained glass windows. The black tinted windows of the luxury cars parked outside became visible to the two people who pulled up to the scene of the crime. Officers guard the area lifted up the tape as the pair walk to the door of the theater.

The lobby of champagne walls, crystal chandeliers, red velvet carpets, and people decked out in their finest attires and jewels. People milled around in the lobby, some being questioned by officers and some collecting their items from officers that had finished looking in their belongings for evidence. Expressions varied from muted confusion to

shock, anger, sadness, frustration, and boredom.

The groups were motioned to be silent for a few moments while one of the two women spoke.

The woman in forest green blazer, charcoal black pants, and ankle boots stepped forward brushing one of her long braids out of her face. Her dark brown eyes gave a soothing and serious look to the crowd in the foyer of the theater. Her dark skin reflected the light coming from the chandeliers hanging from the ceiling.

“I’m Detective Carter and this is my partner Detective Castello, we will be questioning you on the events preceding the incident. Please be patient and cooperative with us and the officers around you. If you have any information you believe may be pertinent to the issue at hand please find me, my partner, or one of the officers.” Her hands moved with a slow purpose in her effort to show the people around her that they could trust her and the people questioning them around them.

She turned around and motioned to her partner to follow her to the scene of one of the two crime scenes.

They entered the front mezzanine with one of the officers that first arrived on the scene.

The first thing they saw was the woman’s body slumped in her seat, her head lying on the rail that separated the seats from the air above the seats below it. Her blood ran down the rails and seeped into the red velvet carpeting blending in almost completely with color.

Detective Castello stepped forward pulling on her blue elastic gloves so she could touch the crime scene without contaminating it. Her hands pulled back some of the hair on the victim’s head looking at the bullet wound at her temple. Her pale blonde curls spilled into her line of sight as her head was tilted down.

“Do we know who the victim is?” She pulled back from the body and turned to face the officer standing near one of the entry points to the front mezzanine. Her almond brown eyes and light brown eyebrows expressed curiosity and interest in the victim.

“A Miss Adeline Bellamy. African-American, 37 years of age, and engaged. Her fiance was sitting next to her during the performance. He didn’t see who shot her but he says when she came back from intermission she looked anxious but she didn’t tell him what the issue was.” The officer was dragging his pen along his notes as he read what he had written just to have something to do with his hands.

Detective Carter turned from checking out the scene and scoping for evidence missed by the teams that had moved down to the second crime scene or left the theater altogether.

“Adeline Bellamy....that name sound familiar. Doesn’t she have something to do with FBI and Jasper Lebario?”

“She took over as head of the New York branch of the FBI when Lebario got demoted and transferred to the Florida branch. She was the runner up for the position back when Lebario first got the job. Lebario was ”rumored” to have bribed some people or something involving shady behavior with money. To be honest I wasn’t really paying attention when people in the office starting pushing the rumors through the mill.”

Detective Castello stood up after she had finished replying to Detective Carter. She rolled her left ankle and shoulders once she was standing.

“Hmm...well you were paying more attention than I was. I tend to give very little attention to things that have to do with the FBI. They act like they’re so much better than us because they’re federal and all we do is the local business.” Detective Carter brushed a braid of her shoulder as a sneer rose on her lips at the conversation of the FBI.

Castello snorted, “Let’s go check on the costume room before you blow a vein having to talk about the FBI.”