I could a tale unfold - 13

"It can't be morning already," Kirk groaned when the alarm went off.

Ross agreed. "Two more hours, please."

"Or a day off maybe?"

"Pfft, as if." Rolling over, Ross looked at his lover and laughed, running his hands through Kirk's already very tousled hair. "You going up for the lead in 'Young Frankenstein'?"

"'Fronkensteen'," Kirk replied without batting an eye.

"'You're putting me on'." Ross grinned. It was one of their favorite flicks and they could quote some of the lines verbatim.

Kirk grinned back as they worked it down to, 'You must be Igor.'

"'No, it's pronounced 'eye-gor'.'"

"'But they told me it was 'ee-gor','" they both said at the same time, breaking into full-blown laughter.

Once they'd calmed down, Kirk sighed as he got out of bed. "Someday we'll be rich and famous and not have to go to work until noon."

"Promise?"

"Promise." Kirk bent to kiss Ross before heading to the bathroom.

"One can only hope," Ross muttered tiredly.

A bit over an hour later, the two men were entering the theater, take-away breakfasts in hand. Chandler and Micah were standing in the lobby, talking to one of police officers from the previous day. Several cast and crew members were lurking in the background, trying to find out what was going on. Chandler waved Ross over and Kirk followed along.

The officer quickly filled them in. "The only fingerprints that we could raise on the skull belonged to Mr Vilaró, as well as one of Mr Rolnick's property people, a Miss Swanson, and Mr Jones who is playing one of the gravediggers."  

"So whoever brought it into the building must have been wearing gloves." Kirk said. "Did it come from a graveyard, do you know?"

"That's the presumption at this point. As I was telling Mr Chandler, our experts have tentatively concluded that the skull is at least one hundred years old."

Ross started to raise his hand, realized what he was doing, and dropped it with a wry smile before saying, "Shouldn't that make it easier to find out where it came from? I mean how many cemeteries in the city have been around that long?"

"Two; and we're in the process of checking them out. So far none of the older graves seem to have been tampered with."

Micah chuckled. "Maybe the person who left it here dug it up out of their basement. I mean since there was still dirt on it, it can't have been some souvenir or part of a med school skeleton, right?"

"Correct," the officer agreed as he closed his notebook. "All right, I'll leave you to what you're doing. I just wanted to give you an update."

"And let us know that three of us are suspects since our fingerprints are on the damned thing," Kirk muttered.

"Anything is possible," the officer said with a tight smile. "However, considering Mr Ross's nocturnal visitor, I don't think you should be worried that we'll be arresting you any time soon."

"Let's hope not," Chandler replied before telling everyone to get to work. "I don't want to be replacing my lead at this point in the game. It's only a little over two weeks until opening."