Murder At the Cubbyhole. Alice Zogg
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you can give me a more objective account of the kind of young woman she was.”
“I guess so. And since you’re asking, let me tell you, she wasn’t the easiest person to live with. Stuck-up is what I’d have called her. You couldn’t keep a real conversation going as she walked around the place forever practicing her lines. Every morning she hogged the bathroom, getting herself all dolled up before going to work. Worst of all, she was a neat freak. If I left anything sitting around without putting it away in what she considered ‘its proper place’, she tossed it in the trash.”
Huber glanced around the messy room and remarked, “I take it that your present roommate is not plagued by neatness.”
Amber stated, “I haven’t found a replacement yet.” And she could not hide the resentment in her voice when she added, “Megan left me stranded and I have to come up with the rent money all by myself.”
“Did she have many friends?”
“Not real friends; she mostly hung around her theater group crowd. She did call and text an old girlfriend in Portland a lot, though.”
“Any boyfriends?”
“When she first moved in, a guy hung around, but she wasn’t interested.”
“Do you know his name?”
“I can’t remember.”
“Anyone else?”
“She had lots of admirers and dated some of them. Megan was good looking, I grant her that.”
“But no one serious?”
“Not that I’d noticed.”
“How long have you known Megan?”
“Two years.”
“So the two of you found this apartment to share?”
“Oh please! I’ve been renting here for four years and had other roommates before her. I just put an ad in the local paper, you know, ‘Room for rent.’”
Huber said, “Now tell me what you know about what happened on the evening of the premiere at the Cubbyhole Theater.”
“I have nothing to tell. The explosion was as much of a shock to me as to everyone else.”
“Were you there?”
“Sure. Megan talked of nothing else for days, so I felt pressured to see the play.”
“Did you enjoy it?”
“What a morbid thing for you to ask!” she answered, clearly offended.
“I meant before the explosion.”
“Oh! Yes, I did like the stage performance of From Sin to Virtue. I’ll admit Megan was really good as Vanity.”
“Was her behavior different that day or the days before the opening of the play?”
“She was excited and a bit nervous, but otherwise her usual arrogant self.”
“Do you think she was frightened of anyone?”
“No, and if she was, she wouldn’t tell me. As you figured, we weren’t that close.”
“Did you hear the explosion?”
“It was hardly a thing you could’ve avoided hearing and feeling the vibrations from.”
“Where exactly were you when the blast hit?”
“I was just coming back from the ladies room and we were on our way out of the theater when we heard the explosion. We hit the floor, covering our heads with both arms, thinking it was either an earthquake or a holdup.”
“Who is ‘we’?”
“Me and my boyfriend. I’m sure he doesn’t want to get involved, so I’d rather not give you his name.”
“Did Megan have any enemies?”
Amber thought about it for a moment before she answered, “I imagine that she was a pain in the neck to many people, but I can’t see that anybody hated her enough to want to murder her.”
“Do you have a theory as to the incident at the Cubbyhole?”
“Maybe the bomb was meant to kill someone else and was placed in the wrong spot. The target might have been somewhere else backstage or even sitting among the spectators.”
“That’s an idea. I’ll keep it in mind.”
R. A. Huber got up to leave and said, “Thank you for your time. And good luck with finding a new roommate.”
Before she was halfway down the stairs, she could hear the music blaring out of Amber’s apartment again.
Chapter 7
On her way out of the Pine Forest Apartments, Huber walked by the tenant’s laundromat, located in a separate small structure. The door to it stood open and she heard the noise of washers and dryers in use. On a whim, she stuck her head in. There were three people in the place, tending to their laundry.
She asked, “By chance, did any of you know your neighbor Megan Maguire in apartment 9C?”
Two people shook their heads and squeezed by her with their baskets full of clothing.
Huber was about to retreat too, when the third person, a young man, looked up from folding his towels and said, “Would that be the fitness nut who blasts her audio and jumps around, making the building shake?”
“You’ve got the correct apartment, but I meant her roommate.”
“Oh, you mean the beauty. But she - -” he caught himself and continued “ - - no longer lives there.”
His slight hesitation was not lost on Huber and she prompted, “So you do know what happened to her.”
The young man eyed her with caution and said, “Are you a relative of hers?”
“You don’t have to worry about my feelings in the matter; I’m a private investigator, looking into Megan’s case.”
He scrutinized her from head to toe, then looked all around them and said, “Where’s the hidden camera?”
She reached into her purse and handed him one of her business cards.
He glanced at it and blurted, “R. A. Huber, Private Investigator. Damn right; you are a private eye! I thought it was a joke.”
“Now that we’ve got that straight, what do you know about Megan Maguire?”
“Not much. Just that she was killed.”
“Who told you?”
“I learned about it indirectly.”
He didn’t elaborate and seemed to concentrate on folding his laundry.
Huber took a step toward him, crossed her arms and waited.
“Okay, I’ll tell you,” he finally said, “I wasn’t really eavesdropping; just came to drop off my rent check at the superintendent’s office, when I realized that he was talking to the cops.”
“So what did you accidentally overhear?”
“That the woman in 9C was killed at the Cubbyhole Theater. I heard about the explosion on the news, but had no idea the person who died was actually my neighbor.”
“How well did you know Megan?”
“I didn’t know her at all.”
“May I ask how long you’ve lived here?”
“Close to a year.”
Huber casually walked over to the small window, and, looking out asked, “Which is your building?”
“I