Chapter Two

The costume room was filled with fur coats, long and short dresses, all types of shoes and fake jewelry, and a dead body. A certain scent of must and old fabric clung to the fleur-de-lis patterned wallpaper.

“Damn...that’s a lot of blood.” Detective Castello looked around the room looking at the dead man on the floor laying in a large pool of his own blood.

“I suggest you examine the body before the room so the guys can take the body away and crime scene photographers can take the final pictures of the scene.” The police officer stood aside holding the door open for the two detectives as they walked around the face-up head and into the room.

“Who’s the deceased?” Detective Carter examined the body this time while Detective Castello looked at the officer who focusing on his notes.

“Mr. Kieran Di’Ode, 45 years old, Caucasian American, divorced, and he is a defense lawyer or attorney. I don’t know the difference.” The officer shot an apologetic look to the two women.

“Don’t feel bad Heath most people don’t know the difference and most people don’t know that attorney and lawyer are the same damn thing.” Her voice trailed off into an absent-minded tone as she inspected the victim's chest. Detective Carter trailed her hand down the victim’s torso and felt a bump near the fourth rib.

Not on the skin but inside the lining of the jacket. Her eyebrows scrunched together.

“He has a 21-year-old son and a 19-year-old daughter.” Heath looked back at his notes as he had been speaking and watching what Carter was doing. “Adam Di’Ode and Josephine Di’Ode. According to friends of the victim who were at the show as well, Josephine has been in Japan for the last few months and was previously traveling around Europe, Eastern, and Western for about a year. Adam-”

Detective Castello cut him off, “Has been missing for four months. No leads as of late.”

“Not entirely true Kacey, there was a lead but our chief refused to follow because it was too sketchy. We had more important missing peoples cases like Amber Jaques and Lucas Xanders, missing kids.” Detective Carter motioned the crime scene photographer to come and take a picture of the inside of the victim’s jacket. “If we could have followed the sketchy lead we got on Adam’s disappearance we would have. If we had more people in the office who were capable of following it we would have...that’s what chief said.”

Once done she used a small pair of scissors to cut through the red thread that closed a tear. Reaching in she pulled out a diamond ring. Silver banded, a large diamond in the middle, and three small pearls on either side of the large diamond. Each pearl, (each was the size of a little less than half of a grain of rice), with a cluster of even smaller diamonds around them.

“An engagement ring most likely, but what was it doing sewed inside his jacket..especially a jacket of this quality?“Detective Castello voiced what Detective Carter had been thinking.

An evidence bag with the ring inside was passed it off to one of the members of crime scene investigators.

Both detectives scoped the room and Castello noticed blood on one of the sleeves of the costumes that had been worn by the cast of the show that had been playing that night.

Pulling it off the rack she examined it briefly before passing it off to a girl from CSI.

“Was anything found or noticed at the scene of interest before we arrived?”

“A partial footprint in the blood was noticed when the body was first found by theater staff, a Mikala Graff. No obvious weapons were found, but a few possible ones were taken from around the theater for testing. As the victim bleed out from a stabbing we are looking for sharp and medium-sized objects based on the size of the wounds. Nothing else of interest was found or noticed.”

They left the room and while Heath and Carter walked down the hall Castello stopped to talk to one of the guys who had come to take the body away.

“How’s Charlotte? Did she get over her stage fright?”

“Yeah, that advice really resonated with her. Thanks a million, it would have broken her heart if she would have missed out on performing because of stage fright.”

“No problem Jake, I was glad to help. I remember when I had stage fright. To be honest...still do.” She gave a soft smile and her eyes twinkled.

“I gotta go and take the body back to the boss so I see you again sometime. I know Charlotte and Eddie would love to see you again too.”

As he walked into the costume room she didn’t know it but her eyes were drawn to the very spot Adeline had been sitting at just a few hours before.

“You coming Kace?”

“Yeah, just had to say hi to Jake.”

“Let’s go talk to some of the witnesses and the fiance. Both victims came here with company so this is a good opportunity to learn some more about them.”

“Gee thanks for the tutorial on detective work.” Castello ran down the hallway to catch up with them and flicked Carter’s shoulder.