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I paused outside the back hall leading to the director’s office. “Is it all out of your system?” I asked. “Because if you wish to talk about Casper or any other ghosts, friendly or otherwise, I suggest you get it out of your system now.”
Ryan gave me a bitter smile. “I’m just fine, thanks.”
We stepped into Director Atkins’ office.
The room was ten feet by ten feet, filled almost entirely by the U-shaped desk and chair. Papers and folders were stacked everywhere, almost to the point of hiding the man who sat in the creaky swivel chair. The room barely had enough space for Atkins and his desk; it was immediately cramped with the addition of three more people, especially one as broad as Ryan.
Most shows had a choreographer, a dance captain, a stage manager, and a musical director. Each of those had one or two assistant directors to help with rehearsals, feedback, and other direction. Our minuscule budget didn’t allow for any of that. It all fell on Atkins’ frail shoulders.
I felt sorry for Atkins whenever I came in here. The stress and pressure he was under would have been intense in the best of circumstances. As things stood for The Proposition…
He rolled his eyes when he saw us. “Oh, so you brought backup. I guess you’re going to threaten me with physical violence if I fire you? I’ve been promised worse by more threatening men, so you won’t intimidate me.”
I felt Ryan tense next to me. I put a hand out to calm him down. Atkins was exasperated and over-worked. This was like defusing a bomb, and Ryan wanted to smash the whole thing with a hammer.
“I know you want to fire us,” I began calmly. “I understand your position. Several technical issues have arisen, all of which falls under our purview. You have to make an example out of someone, especially to appease… people.”
Atkins snorted. “You mean our wonderful lead Tatiana? Believe it or not, she hasn’t called for anyone’s head. It’s worse than that: she’s insisting we move to an entirely new theater. She thinks this one is cursed, or haunted, or something.”
“Wonder where she got that idea,” Dorian mumbled to my right. I elbowed him in the ribs.
“Can you blame her for wanting to change venues?” Atkins asked. “A 100 pound spotlight almost crushed her. I’d be too scared to set foot on stage myself.” His eyes rose toward the ceiling. “I find myself peering at the ceiling now whenever I walk around the theater. We can’t work under these conditions.”
“Is there another theater we could move to on such short notice?” Dorian asked.
Atkins narrowed his eyes. “No. Which is why other solutions have to be identified. Even if it means making examples of people.”
I pressed on. “We have new evidence of what’s causing the technical malfunctions.”
The chair creaked as Atkins leaned back and crossed his arms. “This is your chance to keep your jobs. It better be good.”
Ryan cleared his throat. “My socket wrench kit is missing. I left it in the tool closet the day before, and when I came to work yesterday it was gone.”
I reached into my pocket and held out a shiny metal piece, like a fatter tube of lipstick. “We found this socket on the catwalk. It had rolled under one of the lights. It’s the same size required to loosen the bolts on the housing of the spotlight that fell.”
Atkins swung his gaze back at Ryan. “So this tool you left out caused the lights to malfunction? Was it jamming the servos?”
“I didn’t leave the tool,” Ryan insisted. “I put it back at the end of work. The socket wrench kit has a groove for each socket. I would have known if I had forgotten one.”
“Ryan is OCD about his tools,” Dorian chimed in. “He notices when the scissors are missing from the drawer at home, and bites our heads off until we return it.”
“I don’t think I’m following,” Atkins said.
“The entire socket wrench kit is missing,” Ryan said. “Someone must have stolen it. And one of the pieces was found by the malfunctioning light…”
Atkins blinked behind his thick glasses. “What are you saying? That we have our own phantom of the opera sabotaging the show?”
I chose my words carefully, because I didn’t want to seem paranoid. All of this was logical, and we needed Atkins to believe it. “All we are saying is that there is evidence someone was messing with the lights. The exact tool required to loosen the light from the housing went missing, and a piece was discovered underneath the light. Since the light didn’t fall until I engaged the lighting show program, they must have loosened it enough that it would fail when the spotlight servos were engaged. A delayed reaction to make it occur during rehearsal.”
“And you’ve come up with this hypothesis because of a missing tool?”
“I heard a noise,” Dorian said. “Before rehearsal yesterday there was a sound up in the catwalks, like metal slamming into metal. It could have been someone dropping a heavy tool.”
Atkins stared steadily at Dorian. “Can anyone corroborate that?”
“Do you think I’m making it up?” Dorian asked, offended.
Atkins shrugged. “Sometimes people think they heard something after the fact that they never actually heard it. False memories. And it’s awfully convenient that out of the three dozen cast members working on this show, the one who comes to their defense is their friend and roommate.”
