Winter in June: A Rosie Winter Mystery by Haines Kathryn Miller

Author:Haines, Kathryn Miller [Haines, Kathryn Miller]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, Historical, Adult
ISBN: 9780061880353
Amazon: 0061880353
Goodreads: 10247759
Publisher: HarperCollins e-books
Published: 2009-05-19T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 16

The Command Performance

I angled a chair in the wings so that I had a good view of what was going on. The show started seamlessly. Beneath a star-filled sky and before an audience full of men we’d met over the course of our weeks there, and the few we’d unfortunately encountered that evening, Kay, Violet, Jayne, and Gilda sang the songs, did the steps, and told the jokes that had become second nature to them.

I was the only one aware of my absence. I had become expendable.

The small amphitheater was packed, which necessitated putting men up in the cliffs that surrounded the performance space. As though they sensed the tension in Gilda’s performance, the enlisted men laughed a little louder and hooted with more enthusiasm than we were used to. The army air force officers had been seated in a special section with real chairs and a table to rest their after-dinner drinks on. While the majority of the group seemed to be enjoying the show, Van Lauer remained expressionless. Part of me wondered if he hadn’t fallen asleep.

I had verification that he was still conscious halfway through the show. As Gilda sang her second solo, he got up and left the theater. Gilda must’ve noticed as well because her voice made a peculiar skip, faltering on a note she’d never had problems with before. Someone else in the audience got up. Dotty. He left the same way Van had and disappeared.

Gilda’s song ended, and Jayne joined her for “Anchor’s Aweigh.” As Gilda gave the song all her gusto, Jayne shim sham shimmied before the appreciative crowd. Up in the cliffs a flash of light grabbed my attention. Could it be the Japanese again, watching us the way they’d watched at Guadalcanal? But they weren’t on Tulagi, where they?

A crackle sounded across the theater. Somebody screamed. Gilda stopped singing and the piano quickly came to a halt. The rat-a-tat of Jayne’s tap shoes could no longer be head over the sounds of the audience.

“Medic!” someone screamed.

“Sniper on the hillside. Two o’clock!”

A wave of people stormed the stage and filled the wings, pushing me back into the dressing area. Violet was in the middle of a costume change and covered her upper half with her arms while screaming for a little privacy.

“Oh it’s you,” she said. “What the hell is going on?”

Another crackle sounded somewhere in the distance.

“Gunshots,” I said. “Someone’s throwing lead.” I tried to force my way onstage, but the crush of people wouldn’t let me pass. Where were Jayne and Gilda? I grabbed the arm of the sailor nearest to me and tried to get an answer from him, but he shrugged me off and told me to get out of the way so the medic could get through.

I shoved him back, twice as hard, until he had no choice but to look at me. “Listen, Buster, I need to know what’s going on here. Has someone been shot?”

“It looks like the two women on stage are down.

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