Cue the Dead Guy. H. Mel Malton

shoulder and saw that he’d checked off Tobin already. At the bottom he’d added “Rico Amato, antique dealer and hanger-on” and there was a check mark beside that, too. Yay, I thought, with some satisfaction. I knew that list would be useful.

      “Now why would you think we’d need to check the cables for prints, Ms. Glass?” he said.

      “Well, somebody obviously tied the vest to the side of the pool . . . don’t you think?” she said.

      “Never mind what we think. Right now I’m just trying to get some details down,” he said. “How well do you know Jason McMaster, Ms. Glass?”

      “Hardly at all,” she said. “He came up here, when, Polly? About a week before the cast did?”

      “Yup. The SM—that’s stage manager, Becker—is usually contracted for a week before rehearsals start. It’s called pre-week. That’s when they do all their paperwork and stuff. He came up last Monday.”

      “I gather he lives in Toronto,” Becker said.

      “You kind of have to if you’re an SM or an actor,” I said. “There’s not a lot of professional theatre work around here—except for Steamboat.”

      “Where do people stay?” Becker asked.

      “Sometimes they’re billeted with local staff, or they get rooms in B&Bs. Some of them stay in motels until the show hits the road. I think Jason was at the Falls Motel. The address and number are right there on the contact sheet.”

      “Mr. ah . . . Boone said that McMaster is from around here originally, though,” Becker said. “Doesn’t he have family he could stay with?”

      I shrugged. “You’ll have to ask someone who knew him better, Becker. He wasn’t exactly forthcoming about his background.”

      “Well, we’ll have to get in touch with his family and find out if they’ve seen him,” Becker said. “He could have gone back to Toronto.”

      “You mean you don’t think he’s in the river?” I said. “I thought that was obvious.”

      “Look, Polly, we’ve got one wet leather vest and no body. I know you love to get involved in a good murder, but there’s no indication at present that we’re dealing with a death here. Right now, according to you folks, Jason McMaster has gone missing for a few hours. That’s all. It’s hardly worth investigating at this point.”

      “But he’s a stage manager. An obsessive one. Obsessive SMs don’t just blow off a rehearsal. That’s why we called you in the first place,” I said.

      “I know, and we appreciate that,” Becker said. “But until he’s been missing at least 24 hours, this is just a courtesy call.”

      The cast filed in from the wardrobe room.

      “But what about the vest?” I said.

      “I’m not convinced that a vest in a pool of water necessarily means murder, Polly,” he said, in a tone that was so condescending, I wanted to smack him. “Now, you folks are the actors, I take it? Take a seat, everyone, and we’ll have a chat.”