“Where were you last night, Mr. Evans? An hour either side of midnight?”
“What? I’m a suspect now?” He sounded slightly offended by that.
“We just need to eliminate you from our inquiry,” Paige said. “The sooner we do that, the sooner we can be out of your hair and let you open up again.”
That seemed like the best incentive to offer him right then.
“I was watching the fights over at the Chester Casino. It was a good card. I’m friends with the owner. We had a few drinks. I was there until maybe two.”
“We’ll need contact details for your friend,” Christopher said.
It was obvious to Paige though that he wasn’t particularly interested in Mr. Evans as a suspect now that he’d produced the possibility of an alibi. Nor, honestly, was Paige. She was convinced that the sight of the murder scene horrified him, even if he was hiding it well.
The stagehand with after-hours access to the theater was a different matter. A man who viewed this place as his own private spot, and who liked to bring women here while no one was around? A man who worked in the theater, and who had presumably helped to set up plenty of magical effects, given the show that was going on? That sounded like someone who might easily have the means to do this.
“Tell us about Lucas,” Paige said.
“There’s not much to say. He does his job.”
“You’ve never had any trouble with him?” Christopher asked.
Evans shrugged. “He comes and goes at odd hours. He doesn’t always show up when he’s meant to. We had a couple of complaints from women about the way he’s hit on them, I guess.”
“You guess?” Paige said. “Did you or didn’t you?”
“Well, yes,” Evans said. “I just didn’t figure it was that big a deal.”
Unless it was more than that. Whether he had a motive or the kind of obsession with magic that would be required remained to be seen, but at the very least, he was someone who might have seen something, someone to whom Paige and Christopher definitely needed to talk more.
“Where can we find this ‘Lucas’ now?” Paige asked. “We’ll need his full name and as good a description as you can give us.”
“Lucas Francisco. He has a day job over at the Illustrious,” Evans said. “It’s a casino over on the strip. I have a photograph of him somewhere.”
Then that was where they needed to go next. If Lucas was the only other person with a key to the theater, then they needed to speak to him at once.