THE SPIRIT IN QUESTION Read online

  Praise for the Lila Maclean Academic Mystery Series

  “The best cozy debut I’ve read this year. An engaging heroine, a college setting that will have you aching to go back to school, and a puzzler of a mystery make this a must-read for cozy lovers.”

  – Laura DiSilverio,

  National Bestselling Author of the Readaholics Book Club Series

  “A pitch-perfect portrayal of academic life with a beguiling cast of anxious newbies, tweedy old troublemakers and scholars as sharp as they’re wise. Lila’s Stonedale is a world I’m thrilled to have found. Roll on book two!”

  – Catriona McPherson,

  Multi-Award-Winning Author of the Dandy Gilver Series

  “Takes the reader into higher education’s secrets and shadows, where the real lesson is for the new professor—how to stay alive. If you’re smart, you’ll read this book.”

  – Lori Rader-Day,

  Anthony Award-Winning Author of The Black Hour

  “College professor Lila Maclean gets an A+ for her detecting skills in this twisty mystery set at a Colorado university. With suspects and motives galore, solving the murder of department chair Roland Higgins won’t be easy, but Lila’s got brains and guts to spare. A great book.”

  – Maggie Barbieri,

  Author of the Murder 101 Series

  “Entertaining, intricate, and oh-so-smart! The talented Cynthia Kuhn treats mystery lovers to an insider’s look at the treacherous world of academia—seething with manipulation, jealousy, and relentless ambition. A terrific plot—with a surprise around every corner.”

  — Hank Phillippi Ryan,

  Mary Higgins Clark Award-Winning Author

  “A very intricate, cool story featuring the depth of an institution where everyone is dying to climb the ladder of success.”

  – Suspense Magazine

  “Tightly plotted with a deliciously memorable cast of characters, The Art of Vanishing kept me guessing from start to finish, and Kuhn’s smart sense of humor made every page a pleasure.”

  – Marla Cooper,

  Author of the Kelsey McKenna Destination Wedding Mysteries

  “Whether Stonedale University English professor Lila is confronting a backstabbing colleague or investigating a murder attempt on a cantankerous bestselling author, readers will root for this enormously likeable heroine.”

  — Ellen Byron,

  USA Today Bestselling Author of Plantation Shudders

  “This is the second book in a series that began with the incredible tale, The Semester of Our Discontent, and as it was with the first, this plot never lets the reader down. Between the covers is absolute humor, yet under the funny stuff lies a serious suspense-filled story…After all, it’s not very often that you enter a university where people are being erased instead of climbing the ladder of success.”

  – Suspense Magazine

  “Incomparable manuscripts and competitive colleagues unfold into a surprising mystery about love, loss, and betrayal. Author Cynthia Kuhn schools us in the art of duplicity, and the grade is A+.”

  — Diane Vallere,

  National Bestselling Author of Pillow Stalk

  The Lila Maclean Academic Mystery Series

  by Cynthia Kuhn

  THE SEMESTER OF OUR DISCONTENT (#1)

  THE ART OF VANISHING (#2)

  THE SPIRIT IN QUESTION (#3)

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  Copyright

  THE SPIRIT IN QUESTION

  A Lila Maclean Academic Mystery

  Part of the Henery Press Mystery Collection

  First Edition | October 2018

  Henery Press, LLC

  www.henerypress.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including internet usage, without written permission from Henery Press, LLC, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Copyright © 2018 by Cynthia Kuhn

  Author photograph by Angela Kleinsasser

  This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Trade Paperback ISBN-13: 978-1-63511-406-5

  Digital epub ISBN-13: 978-1-63511-407-2

  Kindle ISBN-13: 978-1-63511-408-9

  Hardcover ISBN-13: 978-1-63511-409-6

  Printed in the United States of America

  For my family

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Heartfelt thanks to...

  Everyone at Henery Press for your terrific work and general fabulousness! So grateful to have the chance to work with you.

  The Hen House, Sisters in Crime, Malice Domestic, Mystery Writers of America, International Thriller Writers, and Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers. Very much appreciate the community and inspiration.

  Readers and bloggers who have connected with Lila and/or introduced her around—you are wonderful.

  Gretchen Archer, Mary Birk, Becky Clark, Annette Dashofy, Sybil Johnson, Leslie Karst, Julie Mulhern, Gigi Pandian, Keenan Powell, Renée Ruderman, Angela M. Sanders, Meredith Schorr, Craig Svonkin, Wendy Tyson, Kathleen Valenti, and James Ziskin for assorted kindnesses; Ann Perramond, Mariella Krause, and Dotty Guerrera for thoughtful manuscript readings; and Chicks on the Case—Ellen Byron, Marla Cooper, Vickie Fee, Kellye Garrett, and Lisa Q. Mathews—for sharing wisdom and laughs on the regular.

  The Guerreras, Crichtons, Kuhns, Rowes, Peterkas, West-Repperts, Hundertmarks, Abneys, and Welshes—for your amazing support; to Mom, Dad, and Wen for your loveliness and generosity on so many levels; and to Kenneth, Griffin, and Sawyer for absolutely everything, including being your beautiful selves and my sunshine. xoxo

  Chapter 1

  “Commence the murder!” Everything went dark, a shot rang out, and something crashed to the ground.

  I held my breath, unable to move.

  “No!” the man next to me yelled, disgusted. “The effect’s all wrong. Let’s reset.”

  So we reset. For the twelfth time.

  I honestly couldn’t tell the difference among any of them.

  But the director Jean Claude Lestronge could. And that’s all that mattered. He was an intimidating man who had achieved a level of celebrity most of us couldn’t even imagine–globally recognized for his directing work, both on stage and screen. In many ways, he reminded me of a bear, with his large build and his dark, shaggy hair. Plus, when he was displeased, he roared.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to let them run through the whole scene?” I ventured. “Maybe we could come back to this later.”

  He turned to me, his thick eyebrows raised almost to the top of his head. “Did I ask for your opinion, Lila?”

  “No,” I admitted. It was my first time working as a dramatic consultant, but so far, my contributions had been comprised of offering opinions that he ignored and telling him that his own decisions were brilliant.

  While the crew scurried about, preparing for our next attempt to perform up to Jean Claude’s standards, I gazed around the Stonedale Opera House. Built in 1878, it was definitely showing its age. The ceilings still soared, but t
he gilded paint on the beams was chipped and the red velvet seats were downright tattered. On either side of a center aisle, the house rows angled sharply toward the wooden stage, which had several candle boxes set into the floor. Electricity was used nowadays—though every time a stagehand turned on the main lights by lifting the large metal lever protruding from the box, sparks shot out.

  My thoughts were interrupted by the director’s loud voice. He was barking at everyone as he settled on the arm of the chair next to me. The table that had been placed in front of the first row lurched slightly when he slammed his clipboard down on top of it.

  “Show me murder!” He thundered as though he were presiding over a gladiator event, and the theater went black again. A shot rang out, this time accompanied by a larger burst of light, and a loud thud was heard.

  “Finally,” he said. He mumbled something else, but I ignored it. He was always muttering things under his breath. I’d often catch random syllables that I suspected belonged to French swear words—I’d studied the language in school, and one does acquire a certain amount of vocabulary not printed in textbooks but whispered from student to student.

  The lights came up, the actors professed surprise, then broke into a rousing chorus of “Once the Body Drops, You’ve Got a Story.”

  I watched as they performed the high-energy clog dance, more in unison than they’d appeared the previous week. Jean Claude sat through the entire number without stopping them, which was a first. Maybe he was realizing that it should be cut.

  In fact, the whole play should be cut.

  It was a disaster, from start to finish.

  Puzzled: The Musical was the brainchild of Tolliver Ingersoll, a Stonedale University professor who once had a play produced off-off-off-off-Broadway and had somehow transformed that success into a tenure-track job at the same school where I taught English. From what I’d heard, the Theater department was less than enthusiastic about his work, but since he was a campus fixture, they had no choice but to every so often allow him to put on one of his plays. The local small theaters were more excited about his writing, as they were made up of younger folks who found his incomprehensible plotlines to be great fun.

  This particular show was a misguided blend of just about every mystery trope, character, and author you could imagine. Sherlock Holmes sang a duet with Agatha Christie, femme fatales and hard-boiled detectives performed a square dance at another point, and there were murders, thefts, and cons happening left and right while the protagonist was hot on the trail of some MacGuffin. To make matters worse, Tolliver had even named his main character, Oliver Zingerzoll, after himself.

  Although I could not make head nor tail of the story, the songs were quite catchy. My particular favorite was “Waiter, I Believe I Ordered the Red Herring,” in which all the diners in an elegant restaurant simultaneously leaped from their tables to do a spirited swing dance.

  Off to the side of the stage, I could see the playwright scribbling furiously on his script. The first thing Jean Claude had done was to reduce Tolliver’s ability to comment throughout the rehearsals. He’d seen to it that Tolliver was set up at a little table in the wings rather than out front with Jean Claude, and that he did not possess one of the headsets used by the crew members. Tolliver was told that they didn’t want him to be distracted by the cues as he watched his masterpiece. It was done with such finesse, though, that he appeared to embrace his special seating arrangements.

  Finally, the number came to a halt and Jean Claude decided it was time for us to stop. He called out directions to the cast and crew, and I saw more than one look of relief.

  As I gathered up my coat, he said, “Do you have time to go over a few things?” By which he meant “listen to me rant about how terrible everything is and take notes because I’m too important to write them down myself.”

  “Of course.” I sat back down and prepared to transcribe onto the script with the pen he handed me.

  An hour later, the script ran mad with red ink as if it were bleeding, and my hand was cramped. He had deleted a good fifty minutes from the three-hour play—which was an improvement, in my opinion—and the cast members had their work cut out for them.

  After he turned on the so-called “ghost light” left burning at center stage either for safety or paranormal reasons, depending on which tradition you subscribed to, we gathered up our things and chatted as we moved up the aisle into the lobby. When I pushed open the glass door to leave the theater, the sound was overwhelming.

  We were walking right into an angry mob.

  I stood perfectly still, taking it all in. A white-haired woman was on the highest stone step. She was leading a chant, shouting through a megaphone in one gloved hand and spinning her other arm energetically to encourage the others to join in. Her considerable frame was stuffed into a tailored blue suit topped by a rope of pearls around her neck, and the curved feather on her large hat shook with every gesture as if longing to take flight. Next to her, a round man with a white beard held up his cell phone, videotaping the event. Trade out his golf shirt and khakis for a Santa suit and he could have easily scored a holiday gig at any department store.

  There was chanting—it sounded like “Save Old Stone!”—and ten people were marching in a circle in front of the Opera House, waving hand-lettered signs. The protestors seemed to be people of a certain age, not college students. Their signs had slogans like “Heck no, the play must go!” and “You’re in OUR house!”

  I looked at Jean Claude. His normally ruddy face was even redder, and his bristling eyebrows were drawn together.

  “Mon Dieu. What is this?” He gestured for me to follow him and walked up to the circle of protesters.

  “Excuse me,” he said. The words were polite but the tone was gruff.

  The marchers didn’t stop; in fact, they moved faster.

  “LET US THROUGH!” His fierce bellow stopped them in their tracks.

  At that, the woman with the megaphone addressed the small crowd. “Look everyone, it’s Professor Lestronge. Let’s see what he has to say about what’s happening here.” She stepped down and rushed over to him.

  Jean Claude scowled at her. “What is the meaning of this?”

  “That’s what I’d like to know,” she said angrily, still speaking through the megaphone. “Why is this play happening?”

  He glanced at me, and I lifted my shoulders. No idea what she meant.

  “Who are you?” he asked.

  “I am Mrs. Clara Worthingham, president of the Stonedale Historical Society, and this is my husband and vice president Mr. Braxton Worthingham—” she gestured to the man who held the phone, then paused as the crowd cheered “—and we are here to preserve our beautiful theater from destruction.”

  “Destruction?” Jean Claude threw his hands into the air. “We are simply staging a play.”

  “Exactly. But we are the guardians of this treasured piece of history.” Clara put her hand to her breast melodramatically. I wondered if she had had some acting lessons herself at some point. “Like many of the small-town theaters calling themselves ‘opera houses’ in the 19th century, it has hosted not only opera but all manner of performing acts, everything from Greek tragedy to vaudeville to contemporary drama, featuring both amateur troupes and professional companies. It is a sacred site.”

  The crowd shouted in support.

  “You should not be here. You did not ask our permission,” she hissed.

  The crowd applauded even louder.

  She took a step closer until she was within touching distance of Jean Claude and raised the megaphone to speak again.

  His hand shot out, and he pushed the megaphone down. Her mouth fell open.

  “Please, Madame, it is too loud. Let us speak like human beings.” He had taken stock of the situation, apparently; his energy was down about a hundred notches, and he sounded like a fair-minded person. “I
don’t know what permission is needed from your group. I’ve never heard of you. The university, who owns this building, scheduled the production.”

  “The university,” she said, drawing herself up, “does not have the right to do that. Productions are not to be staged at this location. We have an agreement.”

  He nodded. “Again, I don’t know about this, but I will call the chancellor. May I have your information to follow up?” He held out the script and handed her the pen that was stuck behind his ear. She refused to take it, but handed him a business card, which he shoved at me. It was good white stock with elegant black lettering that announced her presidency and, beneath that, the words Etiquette Expert.

  “I appreciate your willingness to listen,” she said. “But at this point, we are determined to stop the production of this play altogether.”

  “What seems to be the problem, exactly?” he asked.

  “We’ve received reports,” she said. “About strenuous dancing. And hammering at all hours of the night. The building is fragile.”

  “We do have dancing, and we do have sets, but they are not hurting anything.” He shrugged.

  She shook her head. “We’re very concerned about the effects to the building. The university has given us the right to approve or deny any production, and you should have applied for permission so that we could determine the potential dangers and make an informed decision.”

  There was scattered applause in response.

  She shook her finger at him. “Professor Lestronge, you must follow the proper channels. Our first priority is to keep our building safe.”

  He nodded and turned to leave, waving for me to follow.