Criminal Case: Grimsborough

Chapter 50: Snakes on the Stage-Part 2

"I've been working as an animal trainer for the opera house for years now, but they'll never see me as their equal or my snakes as nothing more than props! Those stupid people they just get what they deserve!"

After they were done talking to Harper, Marie brushed her powder over the dressing room key until a bunch of fingerprints were visible. She then turned the prints over to Alex so he can help identify them. While Alex was analyzing the prints, Jones was resting the lump on his head with an ice pack. He winced a little from the coldness and he said, "That phantom didn't have to throw that brick so hard! I'm glad I didn't get a concussion otherwise I can't work."

Marie looked up from her what she was doing and said, "Well if it weren't for him, we wouldn't have known all that stuff about Harper and her snakes." And she looked back down and continued.

Jones got curious and went over to Marie's desk and he asked, "What are you doing baby girl?"

Marie showed it to him and he saw that it was a sketchbook. Marie smiled and said, "I sometimes like to sketch when things get too busy. I've had it ever since I was a kid; My nana was the one who gave it to me."

"Did she teach you ho to draw too?" Jones asked and Marie nodded putting the last finishing details on her drawing.

When she was finished, Jones saw that it was a picture of him and he smiled and thought, that's really good! Marie then went on to tell him that she was quite the Van Gogh in her class; as well as a good Hemingway cause her stories were really detailed even though Hemingway spent some of his life fighting in the war and it took him a while to get inspiration back before he wrote 'The Old Man and the Sea.' Jones thought that it'll be quite different around Grimsborough once Marie transfers. He then thought, if only there's a way she could stay.

After a while, Alex was done analyzing the prints and he called Marie and Jones to the tech lab to tell them what he found. Once they were in front of him, Marie asked, "So what did you get from the key Alex?"

It was then that Alex explained, "Well it wasn't easy to find a match, but I finally managed to isolate one fingerprint from the key that you found at the opera house. Turns out, the fingerprint belongs to Annabel Stewart, who's an understudy at the opera."

After they heard that, Jones thanked Alex knowing that the key was a goldmine and soon they headed out to talk to Annabel. As soon as they were lead to Annabel's dressing room by one of the stage hands, Marie and Jones entered it just as they heard the young woman practicing her part. When she heard them come in, she looked at the two officers and asked, "What is it that you two want? Is it about Roland's death?"

Jones nodded and said, "We found your fingerprints on a dressing room key that might be connected to the murder."

"The keys pass along to different members of the cast and since I'm an understudy, I've handled it like everyone else. But Roland was a nice man, even though we never saw eye to eye sometimes," Annabel said to them.

Marie then asked her, "What were you and Roland in a conflict about?"

"What do you think?! I want the leading role and I need it! I'm rehearsing with everything I've got but no matter what I do, it's never good enough! I've been working day and night to become an opera singer. Plus, I'm training more than anyone else, but he never saw that," Annabel explained.

After their talk with Annabel, Jones and Marie were heading back to Roland's dressing room. Jones then looked down at the key in the evidence bag and said, "Well, it seems that this dressing room key has helped us get one step closer to the truth about Roland's murder."

"And the only way to find out more about his killer is to have another look in the dressing room he died in," Marie said and Jones highly agreed.

After they got there, they looked around the vanity table when Marie spotted a teacup and when she took a whiff, the cup smelt a little strange. She also found a safe on one of the shelves that might have some sort of connection to their victim. The first thing Marie did, was type in the code to unlock the safe. Once she got the code correct and the safe unlocked, she and Jones looked inside and saw that the safe contained a lit of files. Knowing that they couldn't look through them all, they sent them to Alex to be analyzed.