Ervin Cyr interview #4

Tuesday, November 2, 2021 – 3:30 p.m.

Ervin Cyr is a member of the Yoknapatawpha Players board.

Detectives Magee and Beckwith spoke with him again at the Yoknapatawpha County Sheriff's Department.

Participants:

• Detective P. Beckwith
• Detective J. Magee
• Ervin Cyr

Ervin Cyr: Detectives.

Detective Magee: Good afternoon, doctor. Are you game for answering a few more questions?

Ervin Cyr: If it helps you to find out if we have a criminal in our troupe, I will always be "game."

Detective Magee: Excellent. We'll need your full name and address one more time.

Ervin Cyr: Ervin Cyr. I live at 601 Troon Road in Oxford.

Detective Beckwith: Let's start at the beginning of the "Zombie Escape" rehearsal. Did you know that originally you were assigned to be in the medical group with Heath rather than the soldier group with Cherie?

Ervin Cyr: No. I believe I told you before that we were never informed as to what was going to happen in the play before the show started.

Detective Magee: So you didn't play any role in selecting which group you were in?

Ervin Cyr: Well, hell, if I could have picked, I sure wouldn't have picked to be with Cherie. Why would it matter what group we were in anyway?

Detective Beckwith: It seems that Cherie and Janet were plotting to sabotage the rehearsal in order to rid the troupe of the people they saw as undesirable.

Ervin Cyr: Like Anna.

Detective Magee: And probably Denis as well.

Ervin Cyr: I'm telling you that I had nothing to do with any sabotages. I did the best an old man can do when asked to physically fight and run from people half my age. Surprisingly, it was actually fun … right up to the time I had to perform CPR on a friend.

Detective Magee: Would the other actors characterize your actions that day the same way you do?

Ervin Cyr: I would think so. Plus, I've always been an advocate for Anna. And while Denis has been smitten by an admittedly preposterous plot or two in the past, as a board member, I wasn't looking to get rid of him any time soon. So let me get this right. Are you saying that Cherie and Janet attempted to sabotage the show by killing Scott?

Detective Beckwith: Not necessarily.

Ervin Cyr: That sounds like you still think it's in the realm of possibility.

Detective Magee: You tell us. Do you remember anything that would lead you to believe that Cherie or Janet were sabotaging the show?

Ervin Cyr: I wasn't near Janet that much that day. Cherie, as I've mentioned, was dogging it the entire time. I wouldn't interpret that as sabotage. That's just Cherie. She's always a pain in the ass.

Detective Magee: Did she seem like she was on drugs?

Ervin Cyr: Ha! She sure as hell better not have been. She'd lose a fortune.

Detective Beckwith: What do you mean?

Ervin Cyr: I'm the executor and trustee of Glenn Atkinson's will. The will set up a discretionary trust for Cherie for the rest of her life, but it has a clause that she could never use or possess illegal drugs or she would be removed as the beneficiary of the trust.

Detective Magee: Just like that?

Ervin Cyr: Just like that. Over the rest of her life, it'd probably be a loss of several million dollars … and her seat on the theater board.

Detective Beckwith: Ouch. It's a bummer for her that we have a baggie of magic mushrooms with her prints all over it.

Ervin Cyr: The ones that Heath was using?

Detective Beckwith: The same.

Ervin Cyr: So was Heath in on the sabotage too?

Detective Magee: Not that we have evidence of.

Ervin Cyr: Either way, Cherie's possession of illegal drugs will be enough to cut her out of Glenn's will. Was Woody part of the sabotage? He was doing something rather curious with those props a month back, remember?

Detective Beckwith: No, but we have charged him with several counts of petit larceny. He's confessed to stealing props from the theater and re-selling them.

Ervin Cyr: What's going on here? Theft, sabotage, murder? The troupe is completely imploding.

Detective Magee: Doctor, I don't remember what weapons you selected during the rehearsal. Can you?

Ervin Cyr: Whoa, hold up. I didn't hurt anyone. I was only playing a part in the rehearsal. That's all.

Detective Magee: Then you won't have a problem answering the question, right?

Ervin Cyr: Well, no… I had fake handguns—two of them. I don't really know much about guns, so I don't know what models they were. I picked up a bowie knife in the armory too. I knew it was a fake, so I didn't use it. I put it in a sheath and slipped the sheath onto my belt. It stayed there until I took it off at the evacuation point.

Detective Magee: Was that all?

Ervin Cyr: That was it.

Detective Beckwith: What did Neal have for weapons?

Ervin Cyr: Funny. As he left the hospital lab, I don't remember him having any weapons.

Detective Beckwith: When he left the lab, did he run to a humvee to hide?

Ervin Cyr: Nope, he ran right to a fuel barrel. I'm sure of it.

Detective Beckwith: Was there a humvee out in the camp area where the main battle occurred?

Ervin Cyr: Yeah, it was near the north edge of the open area, close to the place I saw Neal leave backstage.

Detective Magee: Did you see if Neal had a weapon at that point?

Ervin Cyr: No … er, I don't know.

Detective Magee: When you were in the main battle, did you see Denis?

Ervin Cyr: No, I didn't notice him there all day until he was helping get the wall off of Scott's body.

Detective Beckwith: Was he in zombie makeup then?

Ervin Cyr: No. He was wearing clothes typical for him.

Detective Magee: If Denis was around to help Scott, would he have been in or around the theater at some point during the show?

Ervin Cyr: Absolutely.

Detective Beckwith: In the backstage area during the show?

Ervin Cyr: I assume that would've been possible. I wouldn't know for sure, though, since I was never backstage during the play.

Detective Magee: All right, doctor, we're done here for now. We'll let you be on your way.

Ervin Cyr: I guess we'll have a pretty sizable agenda for the next theater board meeting.

Interview ended – 3:49 p.m.