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Theodosia figured priority one had to be code for a big bad emergency.
Both EMTs worked feverishly on Morro, following the ABC protocol of checking airway, breathing, and circulation.
“I’ve got a faint pulse,” Elmore said. “But it’s…” He shook his head.
Singer dug in her med pack and pulled out a syringe and a small bottle. “Epinephrine,” she said as she carefully filled her needle, then plunged it directly into Morro’s heart.
Still, it didn’t look good. Even though they worked frantically for another five minutes, Josh Morro wasn’t responding to anything the EMTs were doing and his lips were starting to turn blue.
Elmore placed his stethoscope on Morro’s heart.
“Anything?” Singer asked.
Elmore looked stricken. “I think we lost him.”
“No!” Ted Juniper shouted, clearly distraught. A few others shuffled forward, horrified and disbelieving.
“Get back, everyone stand back.” A gravelly voice suddenly boomed out an order in the small room.
“Tidwell,” Theodosia murmured to herself.
Burt Tidwell, head of Charleston PD’s Robbery and Homicide Division, stormed into the room. A big, bearish man, he was dressed in a saggy, oversized jacket that was a cross between brown and purple (burple?), baggy olive drab slacks, and black steel-toed cop shoes. He looked down at the two EMTs and said, “Anything?”
“He’s gone,” Singer said. “We even tried…”
Tidwell cut her off with a thrust of his hand. “What happened here?” he asked as his beady eyes roamed about the room.
Of course everyone tried to speak at once, which forced Tidwell to hold up a hand and yell, “Quiet!”
At which point everyone quieted down and watched as Tidwell circled a very dead Josh Morrow and studied the scene. Finally, Tidwell turned to the group and thundered, “Who gave him this chair?”
A sea of blank faces stared back at him. It would seem no one had handled the hot-wired chair.
“Come on,” Tidwell urged. “Gaffers, was it one of you?” He turned his bulk slightly as sharp eyes scanned the room and several crew members tried to shrink into the shadows. “Lighting guys? Talk to me, people. Someone must have seen or done something.”
Even with his hectoring tone, Theodosia knew that Tidwell was trying to encourage a witness to step forward, to reveal what they’d seen. But nobody moved a muscle. Nobody wanted to take responsibility for tangling up the metal chair in the wires.
Or was this not an accident? Theodosia wondered. She let that nasty thought percolate in her brain for a few moments. Could this have been intentional? Could it have been…murder?
She peered at the chair again. Copper wire had been wound around the legs, more wire around the seat and back. Suddenly, Theodosia didn’t think this was random at all. In fact, it did look downright intentional. As if someone had really wanted to electrocute Morro. She gazed at Burt Tidwell and saw the same notion lurking in his dark, piercing eyes. Yes, he suspected murder as well.
With no one stepping forward to offer an eyewitness account, Tidwell froze the scene. And five minutes later, a half dozen more uniformed officers came pouring in along with two Crime Scene techs.
The officers herded the onlookers into small groups, took down their names and addresses, and fired questions at them. The Crime Scene team shot photos of the victim from different angles, then made a video of the entire scene. A kind of movie within a movie.
When it was Theodosia’s turn to be questioned, Detective Tidwell stepped in to interrogate her himself.
“You are here, why?” he asked.
Theodosia was well acquainted with Tidwell. She’d bumped heads with him on several other occasions. And though he was often brusque and short-tempered, he was also clever, keenly analytical, and dedicated to his job. The investigators who worked under Tidwell—and that included Theodosia’s current boyfriend—feared and respected him and would probably walk barefoot across hot coals if he asked them.
Tidwell cocked an eye at Theodosia and said, “Well?”
Theodosia hastily explained how she and Drayton had been tapped to handle the craft services table. That her friends Delaine and Helene, who both served on the Charleston Film Board, had arranged this catering gig for them.
Tidwell looked skeptical. “And you were doling out tea and cookies in that costume?”
“Well, no. It just so happened I was offered a very small role in the movie,” Theodosia said. “To read the tea leaves and deliver a single line.”
