A Shattering Crime (8 page)

I was definitely in need of a night among friends.

*   *   *

B
ack when I told Terry I had no leanings toward being a sleuth, I might have been bending the truth. No, I had no great desire to hang out a shingle as a private detective or join the police force and patrol the county with Diana. However . . .

Yeah, the first time I went knee deep into a crime investigation, it was more of an accident. Grandy had been arrested on suspicion of murder. Sure, the victim and Grandy were definitely on the outs at the time the man was killed, but I knew Grandy was innocent. So I did what I could to figure out who really wielded the murder
weapon. My grandfather . . . Well, I didn't have a lot of family. I wasn't going to lose him.

The second time, okay, I stuck my nose into that one on purpose, too. But the nut job not only trashed my best friend Carrie's antiques shop, but also broke into her apartment, burned down her ex-husband's office, and murdered the ex-husband's law partner. If there was anything I could have done to help identify the miscreant before Carrie got hurt, I was more than willing to give it a try.

Still. I didn't know David Rayburn beyond recognizing his face from the local paper. Even if he had been the victim of foul play, I was content to let the police handle the investigation.

“But what about Rozelle?” Carrie asked when I announced my resolution to keep my freckled nose out of it. “How can you not help her? What happened to being a useful resident or a valuable citizen or whatever it was you wanted to be?”

We sat in one of the few booths at the Pour House, Wenwood village's one and only watering hole. Its décor was all exposed wood and dark leather, and its clientele was as well aged as the top-shelf Scotch. Carrie, Diana, and I met there every Thursday for our girls' night out. With each of us only just north of thirty, we were routinely the youngest demographic in the bar. “Carrie, really. Rozelle? There's nothing to help her with. You know as well as I do she had nothing to do with David Rayburn's death. Everyone knows that.”

“Yes,” she said. “But can we prove that? As I recall, the police are pretty big on proof.”

I shook my head and sighed. “The police took a boatload of samples out of the bakery and I can pretty well guarantee you they won't find anything in the flour other than, you know, flour. I'd take that as proof.”

“I suppose I would, too. You're right. This is Rozelle after all.” She took a ladylike sip of wine. “What does Pete have to say about all this?”

“I don't think he knows yet. If he does, someone else told him.”

“News travels fast around here.”

“You don't say.” I grinned. Briefly. Wenwood was a small town. News traveled faster through its streets than it did on social media. “Well, if he knows, he hasn't said anything to me. Not that he's had a chance with—”

“Oh my gosh! That's right. Your mom is in town.”

“You mean my mom is in my bedroom.” I grimaced. I know, I know. There are way bigger issues in the world than my frustration at having to surrender my room, with my nice, big bed, for the week or so Mom and Ben planned on staying. But it's hard to keep perspective when you haven't slept well.

Carrie chuckled. “It's not that bad.”

I was saved from arguing—and displaying how truly shallow I can be—by Diana's arrival. She dropped her purse on the seat next to me then pointed to me then Carrie and back again. “Sorry I'm late. You guys ready for another?”

Our standard was one drink. One drink was enough to relax and be social and feel like being out was somewhat special. If conversation was really rolling, we'd
move on to club sodas for me and Carrie and diet cola for Diana.

“More wine, please,” I said.

Carrie's eyes widened in surprise.

“Carrie?” Diana asked.

She shook her head—“No thank you”—and waited for Diana to move to the bar before furrowing her brow at me. “A second glass? That's not like you.”

“There's nothing wrong with a second glass of wine.”

“I didn't say there was. I just said it's not like you. What aren't you telling me?”

Worried about what my eyes might give away if I continued to allow Carrie to study me, I angled my head so I could see Diana at the bar tapping her foot while she waited for the bartender to bring her wine.

“Georgia . . .” Carrie tried to sound stern—she always sounded like she was holding back a burp when she attempted this—but failed to pull it off.

“Nothing,” I said. I tried to catch the score on the hockey game playing on the flat screen at the end of the bar. Instead I caught the eye of one of the Pour House regulars. Not wanting to give the impression I was interested in him, I glanced away quickly.

Carrie took in a noisy breath and sat back. “You know, I have a mom who comes to visit, too. It's not easy.”

I flapped a hand at her, dismissing her comment. “I'm fine with my mom visiting. I'm just being a baby about the bedroom thing.”

She narrowed one eye at me.

“There's nothing,” I insisted.

In the same moment, Diana lifted the two glasses of wine from the bar and headed back to our booth. “What's nothing?” she asked.

“My mother being here,” I said before Carrie could. “Apart from the fact that I'm stuck in the tiny guest room for the duration, I'm fine with it. Now tell us what's going on with Rozelle.”

Both of Diana's brows rose high on her forehead. She slid into the booth beside me, gently placed the wine glasses down on the table. “I . . . I don't know what you mean.”

It was my turn to huff. “I was telling Carrie about how you guys took a bunch of samples from the bakery this morning.”

“Don't listen to her,” Carrie said. “She's trying to change the subject.”

“That so?” Diana asked.

“No,” I said.

“Yes,” Carrie countered.

“Look, I'm fine with my mother visiting. It's strange, I know, but I do actually get along with her.”

Diana shifted in her seat so she could face both Carrie and me somewhat equally. “Is it your stepfather then?”

I held up a hand. “Okay, whoa. There is no way we're going to refer to my mother's husband as my stepfather.”

Wrapping a finger around a low-hanging brown curl, Carrie said, “You know, technically, the man your mother marries—”

“I don't care about technically or legally or historically. We will be referring to Ben only as he relates to my mother, not to me, got it?” Wrapping one hand around
the glass of wine Diana had brought me and keeping hold of the remains of my other glass, I lifted my elbows onto the table and pulled both glasses in close. “I've had enough stepfathers,” I said, my voice sounding small even to me. “I prefer not to get attached.”

The wood grain of the tabletop wasn't particularly fascinating, but I spent a little while tracing the swirl with my eye, keeping my head down. Too many frequently buried feelings were threatening to rise to the surface. Old-habit emotions that had no place in the present day.

Neither Diana nor Carrie spoke. The typical Pour House soundtrack of sports television, old man laughter, and outdated jukebox surrounded us and amplified their silence.

“Okay.” Diana tapped her fingers against the tabletop. “Now that we're all clear on what we can and can't talk to Georgia about.”

I opened my mouth to protest but she grinned and shook her head. “I'm only teasing.”

“Yeah,” Carrie said. “It's okay if you don't want to talk about your mom and your step— Ben.”

There was no stopping the sigh that escaped me. “It's not that I don't want to, it's that there's nothing to talk about.”

“Sure,” Diana said.

“Okay,” Carrie added.

Maybe, just maybe, there was a little voice inside that warned me I was wrong, a little voice that knew there was something troubling about my mother and Ben. But it wasn't offering up any specific wisdom, and I had other things to fill my time than trying to chase down answers that were probably best sought in therapy.

“So can we get back to Rozelle? Please?”

For a handful of breaths the noise of the bar was once again the only thing dispelling the silence. I was afraid Carrie wouldn't agree because she was a deeply caring person who could never pass up an opportunity to be the shoulder her friends cried on. And I was afraid Diana would resist on some sort of police department principle. I wasn't sure which surprised me more. Carrie echoing my request with a “Yeah, what about Rozelle?” or Diana asking, “What is it you want to know?”

I settled back in my seat. “All those bags you took from the bakery this morning, you're testing for poison, right?”

Diana shrugged lightly. “You knew that. Nolan told you this morning.”

“So what happens now?” I asked.

“Yes, what's next?” Carrie echoed.

“Well, the Department of Health is going to do their thing,” Diana said. “You know, go in with their inspectors and poke and test and all, but it's really a formality at this point.”

“Because no one else even got sick?” Carrie asked.

Diana nodded. “No one else got so much as the hiccups.”

“Then, how long until Rozelle can reopen?” I took a tiny sip of wine—mostly because that was all that was left in one of my glasses—then slid the empty to the far side of the table.

“She doesn't technically need to be closed,” Diana said. “Or she only needs to be closed as long as it takes to clear out any opened flour and sugar and all that, give
the place a good cleaning, and bake up some new tempting treats.”

Carrie tapped her fingers against the tabletop, lips pursed as she shook her head in slow tempo. “But she'll wait,” she said. “Rozelle isn't the type to take any chances, you know? I mean, we know and everyone else knows she wouldn't intentionally . . .” She made small circles with her hand and waited for us to fill in the blank.

“Poison?” I suggested.

She tipped her head to the side. “Or make anyone fall under the weather.”

Diana rolled her eyes. “Way to tap dance, Carrie.”

Carrie moved her wineglass a finger-length closer. “What I'm saying is, even if some sort of, like, crazy germ got into the dough, Rozelle wouldn't take a chance on anyone else getting sick. And she wouldn't want any of her regular customers to worry. She'll wait until there's some kind of lab result.”

“
If
there's some kind of result,” I said. “And what if there's not? What if there is?”

“We're investigating this death,” Diana said. “We're looking at more than the samples from the bakery. That's just a logical place to start. But if the samples don't tell us anything, that doesn't mean we give up. I mean, c'mon. Give us a little credit.”

“Wow.” I leaned back, away from the table, out of Diana's reach. “Things getting a little tense down at the precinct house?”

Diana took a long drink of wine, banged the glass back down on the table. “Nolan might be all smooth and
friendly with you, but let me tell you, that man can be a complete jerk.”

“He's kind of like your boss now, right?” Carrie asked.

“He's supposed to be my mentor. He's supposed to train me, and help me get ready for the detective's test. I doubt how he takes his coffee is on the detective test.”

“Okay, so not your boss,” Carrie said. “How much longer until the test?”

“It'll be four weeks from this coming Monday.”

“And by that time you'll have solved the case of who killed David Rayburn and it won't be Rozelle,” I said.

“Absolutely,” she said. “Or
you'll
have solved it while I was back on restricted duty for assaulting a police detective with a cup of coffee-black-no-sugar.”

I lifted my glass. “Here's to solved cases.”

H
uddled in my bathrobe and some newly unearthed sweatpants, I carried a fresh cup of coffee down the stairs to my workshop.
Fleece-lined slippers
, I thought.
What I need is fleece-lined slippers.
Only October and already the overnight lows made walking through the house without a hat and scarf a questionable activity.

Shuffling to the table, I set the mug of coffee down then stood and watched the steam rise for longer than I should have. Some mornings weren't meant to be started in a hurry. Some were meant to be eased into like a leisurely stretch.

Beside the door leading to the yard, I kept a small bookcase. Its shelves were filled with old books on art and gardening that belonged to my grandmother, a couple of
volumes I'd picked up at museums, and a very few softbound books filled with stained glass designs. I ran a finger along the stapled “spines” of the design books until I came to the one with the pine green cover. That one I pulled from the shelf.

It wasn't titled
The Big Book of Christmas Designs
but it may as well have been. Poinsettias and holly, angels and candles, candy canes, snowflakes, cardinals, and Santa Claus. If the symbol represented Christmas even remotely, it was incorporated into a pattern within that book. Even snowmen. Why was it snowmen were associated with Christmas when those round and frosty giants hung around all winter?

Shaking my head, I carried the book over to the table and set it down at the center. I was going to have to do an Internet search to find patterns suitable for Chanukah.

Carrie had suggested I create small holiday pieces for the shop. Handmade ornaments and sun catchers that celebrated the season and she could sell as the perfect gift for someone who has everything. Or in my opinion, the perfect gift for someone you don't know well enough to buy for. In fairness, that opinion had come up toward the end of my third glass of wine.

Lifting my coffee cup with one hand, I flipped open the cover of the pattern book with the other. While I sipped at my coffee, I studied the images on the inside of the cover. Santa, holly, candy cane. Red, green, silvery white.

The beams overhead creaked, and I let out a sigh. Someone was up. And not someone as in Grandy, who first of all rarely got up early in the morning. And on the
rare occasions he did get up early, he tended to leave me in peace. With Mom and Ben visiting, all manner of disturbance was possible.

I held my breath and listened, hoping the footsteps I heard would follow the path to the bathroom, but no such luck. The squeak of floorboards moved down the hallway and down the stairs.

Mentally preparing myself for an eventual interruption, I flipped to the inside back cover of the book. Here there were angels and snowflakes and a Christmas tree. More green, some blue, clear.

Images of the clear glass greenhouse came to mind, but I shook them away.

The greenhouse required perfectly clear glass. Snowflakes, on the other hand, were none so plain. They required a textured glass—maybe glass with smooth lifts and curves like the surface of water, or that ripple-looking glass usually found in bathrooms. I took another sip of coffee, a big one, but still the proper name for the ripple glass escaped me. No matter. I would have to make a trip to the glass store to stock up on the holiday colors I would need. I could look at the clear glass options then.

As I flipped to the book's centerfold, where a pattern for a Santa in a half-moon spanned both pages, someone sneezed.

That someone was not me.

I turned in time to see my mother stepping slowly down the stairs, her own cup of coffee in hand.

“Bless you,” I said.

She smiled her thanks as she reached the bottom step. “Am I interrupting anything?”

I looked from her to the book opened up on my table, gave the question a moment's thought. Apart from my morning peace and quiet time, I wasn't exactly involved in anything that required concentration. And once she and Ben were on their way north in the next week, I would have that quiet back again. It was not a sacrifice to give one morning to my mom.

“I was hoping we could talk,” she said, shuffling into the room and coming to stand beside me at the table. “Just us. What are you working on here?”

I lifted a shoulder. “Nothing yet. Getting ready to start in on some Christmas pieces for Carrie's shop.”

She let out a breath that other people might have turned into a low whistle. “Christmas already? Boy, it gets earlier every year, doesn't it?”

“Early for carols and egg nog, yes. But by some crafters' standards I'm already behind. Handmade takes time.”

“I'm sure it does.” She gave me a brief one-armed hug before passing behind me and circling around the far end of the table to where a work desk and chair sat tucked beneath the corner windows. With an audible sigh, she lowered herself into the chair. “You enjoy this stained glass thing then?”

I grinned. “Yes, I enjoy this
thing
.” I glanced down at the open pattern, admiring the curved shapes used to form Santa's beard.

“And you're making money at it, your grandfather says.”

“Some.” I nodded without assurance.

“What are you working now, Georgia, three jobs?”

Trepidation set in. I turned the page in the pattern book slooowly. “What's on your mind, Mom?”

Leaning forward, she said, “Don't you think it's time to get back to, you know, the life you had? Get back to living?”

“I am living,” I said. I took a sip of coffee.

“This isn't living,” she said with a sweep of her hand.

“What are you talking about?” I felt my forehead crease above the bridge of my nose. If I wasn't careful, my face was going to freeze like that.

“This is not living. A handful of part-time jobs and no place of your own isn't living, Georgia. It's hiding. This is you hiding out in your grandfather's basement waiting for the thunderstorm to pass.” Her eyes blazed into mine. “It's passed. It's over. It's time to get out and enjoy life again.”

I took a breath, scratched at my head. “I am enjoying life,” I said. “I like it here. I have good friends, I—”

“You have friends in the city, too, or do you not keep up with them?” She did not pause for an answer. “You had a good job and a successful fiancé. You were on the verge of having a wonderful life.”

“Yeah,” I said over a laugh. “And then I lost my job and my fiancé kicked me out and I was on a whole different verge. Thanks, but I'll pass on that wonderful life.”

She started to lift her coffee cup to her lips but stopped along the way. “All right. So things took a bad turn. That doesn't mean it will happen again. But you'll never know what heights you can reach unless you get out there and try.”

I sighed. “Look, Mom, I don't think . . . That life I
had, it's not what I want anymore. I'm not sure it's what I wanted then.”

“That's just the bitterness talking.”

“Is it? What if it's more truth than bitterness?”

Her eyelids lowered ever so slightly, enough to give her the appearance of a wise old woman. “It's easier to let yourself believe you didn't want something than to face the pain of losing it.”

“I faced the pain,” I said, not a little bit dramatically. “I'm over it.”

“Then get back out there. You have an excellent degree, go do something with it. Get back to civilization. Go to museums. Meet people. Ben says the urban environment in Los Angeles is really on the rise and it's ideal for young professionals like yourself. It could be perfect for you.”

“Los Angeles? California?”

She pulled in a breath and her eyes lit. “You could go for a visit. See for yourself. I bet you'll love it there. A couple of weeks in the sunshine and you won't ever want to come back here.”

“What is it with you and Ben?” I snapped. Finally. “Why are you so dead set on getting me out of Grandy's house? What is so all-out awful about me being here? Isn't it a good thing I'm here? Doesn't it ease your mind at all to know I'm watching out for Grandy? And he's watching out for me? We're family. Why are you so bent on me leaving?”

The telltale sound of doggie nails on wood warned of Fifi's approach, and more, it warned that Grandy was awake. But Mom didn't know that.

“Because I don't want you to get stuck here,” she said at last, coming to her feet. She closed the distance from the chair to the table with the speed of a mother rescuing her child from danger. Coffee sloshed as she banged her cup down on the table. Palms on the tabletop, she leaned across the surface and said through gritted teeth, “This town will pour cement around your feet if you let it. It will drag you in and drag you under and you'll be stuck here in this decrepit little hamlet while the world gets smaller and smaller around you. I want more for you.”

Fifi raced down the steps and commenced her morning let's-go-outside dance at my feet, rising up on her back legs and bouncing back to the floor.

“You deserve more than run-down old luncheonettes and pharmacists that still dispense Coke syrup and a house that can't hold in heat,” Mom continued. “This town will suffocate you, and I won't stand here and watch that happen.”

“Standing and watching was never your way,” Grandy said. At the top of the half staircase he stood with his hands in the pockets of his deep blue bathrobe, looking more imposing than a five-star general in full dress uniform. “You were more the don't-look-back type.”

He took each step with an intimidating sense of purpose, bringing with him a cloud of anger that shuddered through the room and woke a seed of fear deep within me. Even Fifi stopped her happy morning dancing and pressed herself against my legs in hopes I would protect her.

“Dad,” Mom said. “What are you doing up so early?”

“The dog,” he said. “Knew someone was awake and
wanted out.” He had yet to look at me, instead keeping his gaze locked on my mother. “I know how you feel about this town, I know you never liked it, thought it was a second-rate, hick place to live, and you couldn't wait to leave. You took every opportunity that came along.”

Shaking her head, she lifted her coffee cup. “It's too early to do this, Dad.”

“Is it? It's too early for you and I to talk but not too early for you to denigrate my town? My house?”

“You don't mean talk, you mean argue,” Mom said. “And we'll only say the same things we always do and end up angry at one another like always.”

“I wouldn't be angry if only you'd stop talking about my home like it's something to be avoided at all cost.”

“And now you're exaggerating,” she said on a sigh. “So can we do this another time? If you don't mind, I'm trying to have a conversation with Georgia.”

Grandy turned to me then, his jaw tight, but said nothing.

I pulled in a breath, reached one hand down to the smooth fur on Fifi's head. “I have to walk the dog,” I said.

“Georgia,” Mom said.

I held up a hand, long-buried memories of the two of them shouting at each other floating to my awareness. “If I remember right, this is where I make myself scarce,” I said. “Let's stick with the script, huh?”

I snatched up the pattern book from the table, avoiding eye contact with both Grandy and my mother. “Come on, Fifi. Let's go outside. Outside? Yes? Yes, let's go.”

I kept up my monologue of pet-owner speak as I jogged up the stairs, ignoring my mother repeating my name and
my grandfather telling her to let me go. The living room seemed to tilt and freeze as I stutter-stepped through. It might have been déjà vu. It might have been the memories coming awake, making me see that I'd been in this place—this emotion—before.

There was a difference this time, though. I knew it as I pulled Fifi's leash down from its hook then snapped it onto her collar. This time I was an adult, and making myself scarce didn't limit me to my little yellow bedroom. I had all of Wenwood to get lost in.

*   *   *

B
y a miracle of full house, needy bulldog, and cat in heat, there was enough confusion for the early morning that there simply was no opportunity for my mother and me to revisit our conversation. No surprise, that was fine by me.

I managed without interruption to pack a fisherman's tackle box that I had repurposed to carry some stained glass supplies. The deep main compartment easily held two types of cutters, a ruler, marking pens, a spool of lead, a soldering iron, and assorted other tools I liked to have on hand. I used a basic cotton tote bag to carry sheets of glass and a roll of poster paper and carbon paper and I tucked in
The Big Book of Christmas Designs
as well.

All of this I loaded into the car with the intention of heading into the village and using the back room at Carrie's antiques shop to get some Christmas pieces started.

Through the summer, when weekends could get crowded with antiques hunters, I had spent long hours
working out of Carrie's back room. Doing so allowed me to be on hand to help out should a rush of customers arrive while at the same time allowing me to keep busy with my own work during lulls. And though I was pretty sure there wouldn't be any big rush at the store and Carrie truly wouldn't need me, I was certain she wouldn't be averse to me hiding out in her back room.

I briefly considered bringing Fifi with me—the shop had become a second home to her—but decided against it. After thinking I had all of Wenwood to wander through, I didn't want to limit myself to places where dogs were allowed should I decide against staying at Carrie's.

The mail was in the box as I left the house and I grabbed it and carted it along with me into the car. There were no pieces of personal mail in the bunch, only a postcard from a real estate agent, the weekly coupon circulars, and the latest issue of the
Town Crier
. I tossed the lot of it onto the passenger seat and headed on my way.