Chapter 12: The Director's Office

Philippa Lowrie did not stand when we came in.

She sat behind her desk with her cane across her knees and watched the four of us file into her office.

Wallace laid his phone on the blotter, screen up.

"I would like to talk about this statement," he said.

Philippa looked at it for about two seconds.

"I wondered when you would ask," she said.

"You told me the witness's name was confidential."

"I told you it was prudent. Miss Maddox was frightened. She had watched her closest friend's career end in front of her."

"She was twenty-two," Sutton said. "A grown woman."

Philippa inclined her head, as though conceding a minor point in chess.

"I took her account seriously. I do not regret it."

"What does it say?" I asked.

Wallace turned the phone toward me.

Typed lines, neat as a legal brief.

I, Lydia Maddox, saw Margo Fenner alone at the dancers' cubbies at six o'clock on the evening before the casting.

She was holding a box cutter and looking over her shoulder.

My breath left me.

"A box cutter," I said.

"That is what she saw."

"I have never owned a box cutter in my life."

"She is quite sure."

"I was in the cubby room at six o'clock because I put my own shoes in Sutton's cubby," I said.

"I was holding shoes. I wasn't holding a blade."

Philippa folded her hands.

"Miss Fenner, with respect, it is your word against hers."

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