Death of an Irish Diva (16 page)

“Whoa,” Bryant said when he walked into kitchen and saw Vera standing at the sink in her black dress and heels. “Vera?”

When Beatrice walked in, Vera was smiling. Was she just imagining that blush on Bryant's face?

“Well, are you going to get down to business, or are you going to stand there, ogling my daughter?” Beatrice said, pulling out a chair. “Sit down, Bryant. Can I get you something?”

“Um, er, no thanks. Can I see the object you found in your bag?” he said, sitting down and clearing his throat. “I barely recognized you in that dress. I've never seen you dressed up. That's all.”

Yes, he was obviously taken aback by Vera in that black dress. Interesting. Once again, Beatrice found Bryant intriguing. She used to not like him at all. But here he was, youngish, good-looking, no wife, no relationship, that she knew of. He was certainly dazzled by a beautiful woman, so he probably wasn't gay. She reddened at the thought, as if it were any of her business.

When the tiny gillie landed with a small thud on the table, it was as if he was snapped back into reality.

“What is that? One of those Irish dance shoes?”

“Yes,” Vera said. “I found it in my purse this evening, when I came home.”

“From where?”

“I was at Luminosity with Eric tonight.”

“Eric?”

“Dr. Green,” Beatrice interrupted.

“Did you leave your bag at all tonight?” he asked.

“I've been thinking about that, and we did dance once. I left my bag at the table.”

“Hold on,” he said, dialing the buttons on his cell. “Can you get a guest list and a list of the employees at Luminosity tonight?” Pause. “If they give you any grief, tell them we can get a warrant.”

“What will you do with the list?” she asked.

“This is where detective work gets exciting,” he said and smiled. “We'll go through and see if any names look familiar. If anybody had a record, that kind of thing. If not, we'll need to start contacting people. What about this Dr. Green?”

“But he was with me, on the dance floor,” she reminded him.

“Did he lead you onto the dance floor? Or did he come up behind you?”

She thought for a moment. “I remember the way his hand touched my back.... He must have been behind me.”

“But why would he put ghillies in her bag? That makes no sense,” Beatrice said. “It must have been a restaurant person.”

“Not necessarily,” Bryant said. “We need to check out this doctor.”

“Someone that works at that restaurant could have killed Emily,” Vera said after a minute.

“Does anybody from Cumberland Creek work there?” Beatrice said.

Vera shrugged.

“Let's not get carried away,” Bryant said. “Your vandal or stalker might not be the same person as Emily's killer.”

Did he just say stalker? Beatrice bristled.

 

 

The next day was a glorious spring day, exactly the kind of day that made Beatrice want to get her hands in the soil. But her yard was still too torn up from the pool construction. At least today they were working, and they thought if the weather held up, the pool might be finished in a week or two. They were confident that all the archeological finds had been found. They just weren't sure what any of it was or what it meant. And they would have to leave the old house foundation in place until they knew what it was. But for now they could ready the other part of the pool.

“You are losing your mind over that, aren't you?” Jon said, motioning to the pool area.

“Yes.” She smiled. “I'm just eager to get the pool in. And get my life back. I want to get the landscaping and gardening started.”

She spread butter over her pancakes. They were enjoying a quiet breakfast, with Vera and Elizabeth gone for the day.

“Well, let's do something today. Visit Rose? Go to the park?”

Just then the doorbell rang.

Paige stood on Beatrice's front porch with a beat-up manila folder.

“You found something?” Beatrice said, opening the door.

“Oh, boy, did I,” Paige said “I can't stay long. Gotta get to the school at some point.” She glanced at her watch.

“Well, come on in.”

Paige sat at the table and spread out her papers, with Jon and Beatrice looking on.

“You've gotten this done quickly,” Beatrice said.

“Evidently, someone had already been researching her, and the information was there.” She placed her glasses on her face. “Now, this is very interesting.”

“Go on, please,” Jon said with impatience.

“Willa Rose McGlashen is listed in the Civil War directory as a war hero.”

“What? But—” Beatrice started.

“Yes, yes, I know. Women didn't fight in wars. Well, that's a bogus notion. There were several women who fought in our Civil War. Of course, they pretended to be men.”

“Is that what she did?” Beatrice said.

“No, dear. Willa Rose McGlashen was a spy of sorts.”

“A spy?”

Paige nodded. “A spy for the other side. Some might call her a traitor.”

Well, that's very cool,
Annie thought. Maybe Emily was interested in helping children. If so, that would be the first kind facet to her personality that Annie knew about. But then again, she often wondered how well she knew anybody. Who would have thought that Vera's marriage would fall apart and her husband would be living with a very young law student? Who would have thought Emily McGlashen would meet her death by strangulation in her own dance studio? Who would have thought that she herself would awaken in the middle of the night because of passionate dreams about Adam Bryant?

Life was full of surprises.

Annie skipped over a few paragraphs—she could spot PR fluff from a mile away—to this.

Annie looked at the clock.
Okay.
Thirty minutes until the kids came home from soccer practice. She had plenty of time to make a connection with this reporter.

“
Baltimore Herald,
” the voice said on the other end of the line.

“Hi. I'd like to speak to Maya Simmeth.”

“One moment please.”

A very young-sounding voice came over the phone. “This is Maya.”

“Maya, this is Annie Chamovitz, I freelance for the
Washington Herald
occasionally.”

“How can I help you?” she said after a pause filled with the sound of a computer keyboard. She was Googling Annie. Now, that made her smile.

“I'm interested in the Alicorn Agency,” Annie said after clearing her throat.

Maya guffawed.

“Pardon?”

Pause.

“Well, that was so long ago. And to tell you the truth, I don't remember much, except that something was really weird about it.”

“What was weird about it?” Annie asked.

“Well, first, the name . . .”

“The name?”

“Yes. Alicorn.”

“I'm sorry, but I don't follow.”

“It has a mythological meaning. It's the horn of a unicorn.”

“Humph,” Annie said. The unicorn. A symbol of purity. Why hadn't that come up in her search?

“Yes,” she said. “And you know they were freaks about reviewing my article before it went to press, which is why—”

“It seemed like PR,” Annie interrupted.

“Nabbed,” Maya said and chuckled. “Look, I can check into my files and get back with you. I'm on deadline and need to go.”

“Okay, yeah, sure. I'd appreciate anything you can tell me,” Annie said.

She sat back in her chair. What did any of this have to do with Emily? Anything? She grinned. She was investigating a murder, and here she was, looking up unicorns and alicorns.

She flipped through Web sites and checked her e-mail and saw an interesting ad. An Irish dance and music festival was scheduled to be the first event next weekend in the new amphitheater. It was a big deal for Cumberland Creek. The festival was being dedicated to Emily McGlashen. According to the ad, her parents would be there. So would the Reillys, who were also listed as one of the sponsors.

Vera took a sip of wine, set her glass down, and finished telling the scrapbookers about her perfect date.

“So he kissed you?” DeeAnn said, then bit into a huge oatmeal cookie. “Not bad,” she said as Vera nodded.

“Boy, did he ever. We made out in the car like two teenagers,” she said, her face hot and reddening.

They laughed.

Sheila was hunched over her laptop. “I can't even remember what that was like,” she said.

“I hear ya,” DeeAnn said. “You know, these vegan oatmeal cookies are a lot better than I thought they'd be. I'm surprised.”

Annie spoke up. “Why vegan?”

“It's this new baker I hired. Young. Made me start thinking about this vegan stuff. They have a point. It's probably healthier for us and the planet. But most of it has always tasted like crap,” she said. “But the vegans have come a long way.”

“Speaking of vegan, where is Emily's mother?” Paige said, her voice a whisper because she had a sore throat. “I went to the apartment, and they weren't there.”

The room grew silent.

“Nobody knows. I've not seen her in a few days. Maybe she went back to wherever it is that she's from,” Sheila said. “Oh my! That looks gorgeous, DeeAnn!”

“You think?” DeeAnn held up her page of cookies. “Cookie Love.” She was working on her bakery scrapbook. She'd made a cutout cookie jar, which she'd placed on its side, with photos of her cookies coming out of it. The page was bright pink and sparkly. DeeAnn loved her pink.

“Check this out,” she said, still holding up the page. She untwisted a pink ribbon from a clasp, and a flap opened. Inside the flap was a handwritten recipe card, which was an actual card that had been placed on the page—not one specifically made for scrapbooking. “I'm really getting into these hidden elements on pages. It's so much fun. And so easy to do. You just fold the paper or cardstock and place it on a page with the clasp and ribbon. But you don't even have to do that.”

“Did you put the recipe card on after you placed the element?” Sheila asked.

“Not in this case, but I guess you could,” DeeAnn said. She held up her work and admired it.

“They've not had a funeral for Emily? A memorial service? Nothing?” Paige asked after a few moments.

Nobody answered.

Vera glanced around the table at her friends, took them in. DeeAnn and her pink. Her shop had a lot of pink in it, too. Cocoa and pink. Every time Vera saw those colors together, she thought of DeeAnn standing behind the counter, fussing over some icing or scone or something. She was a great baker, an even better businesswoman. Vera admired her sense of business and needed to get some of that herself. She'd not raised the prices for dance classes in years, so she really needed to catch up to where she should be. Now with the economy so down, her dance families—those that were left—were struggling, too.

Sheila was another good businesswoman. She opened her home to the crop every Saturday night. Of course, they ended up keeping her in business, buying all her paper, embellishments, and doodads. It used to be that Sheila's dream was to open a scrapbooking store, but no more. Now she wanted to create her own line of scrapbooking products. That would be amazing.

“I saw that there's going to be an Irish music and dance festival next weekend over at Riverview Park. They are going to use the new amphitheater,” Annie said as she smoothed over the page.

“Really?” Paige said.

“It's the first event,” Sheila said. “They are hoping to start an annual thing. In fact, they wanted to have it ready for the St. Patrick's Day Festival. Something happened to slow it down. Some permit problems or something.”

Vera rolled her eyes. She knew that damned Dr. Reilly would be involved.

“Yeah. Interesting,” Annie said after taking a swig of beer. “The festival is dedicated to Emily. Her students will be performing. Her parents are going to be there, along with the Reillys.”

“That leaves me out,” Vera said. “The bastard pinched my hind end while standing in my mother's kitchen.”

“Well, how many times do we need to hear that story?” Sheila said, looking up from her computer and laughing. “Shouldn't stop you from going and having fun.”

Vera waved her off.

“We're going,” Annie said. “If anybody wants to hang out.”

“You'll stick out like a sore thumb with all the blond-haired and blue-eyed people there,” DeeAnn said.

“DeeAnn!” Paige said.

“Well, it's true!”

“I'm used to that by now,” Annie said. “The Greenbergs are not blond-haired and blue-eyed, by the way. And besides, I'm counting on sticking out.”

“You know, Emily colored her hair and wore blue contacts,” Vera said. “Did you know that?”

Annie made a mental note.

Paige leaned across the table. “What's going on, Annie?”

Annie proceeded to tell the crop what she'd found out about Alicorn.

“So what do you think is going on, and how does this relate to the case?” Sheila asked.

“I have no idea,” Annie replied. “But I just have a strange feeling about this.”

DeeAnn groaned. “The last time you had a strange feeling, well, we ended up on the mountain, chasing a cult . . . and I ended up beating the living crap out of some weird cult dude.” She smiled. “I'm in.”