A Canary in the Canal Georgie Shaw Cozy Mystery #8 (Georgie Shaw Cozy Mystery Series)

by Anna Celeste Burke

  “I don’t remember his name, but he charged the lunch to a company account. Arts and Entertainment, I think. Melody was hanging onto his every word, especially when he was describing the boat he owned. I guess it was a big one because she said she’d never cruised on anything that big before.”

  I had to swallow quickly to avoid spewing my herbal tea. I still dribbled a little and had to wipe my mouth before I could speak, so Carol stepped in.

  “Could he have been telling Melody about a big boat, as in a yacht?” Carol asked.

  “It’s possible. He was wearing a Rolex, so it’s obvious he wasn’t hurting for money,” Jenny observed. “Over dessert, Melody was saying how inspiring it would be to visit the Sea-something. I’m so bad at names, sorry.”

  “You remembered Melody’s name well enough, didn’t you?” Carol asked.

  “Well-enough to get her to hate me. At least she didn’t set me up with one of her pranks.”

  “Ready for dessert?” Brenda asked as she joined us again.

  “I am,” I said. “We were just about to hear Jenny tell us what she remembered about Melody back in school before she changed her name. If you join us, you can tell us what you remember too.”

  I should have skipped dessert, but they serve a roulade meringue stuffed with praline cream, which is irresistible. In minutes, we were stuffing our faces with dessert. With a caffeine-free cappuccino, the roulade was divine. As Carol and I ate, Brenda and Jenny took turns telling us stories from Melody’s past. Given what I’d heard from Jack and Doug, there wasn’t much that surprised me. Carol was listening intently.

  Her story was what I imagined a troubled childhood to be—a father who drank, and a mother who alternately doted on Jackie and ignored her. Reading between the lines, I gathered that her father might have been inappropriate toward her when he’d had too much to drink. Her mom would throw him out, but then let him return.

  They also told stories about the trouble Jackie had gotten into. Even before the police arrested her for shoplifting, she’d been helping herself to items in the local stores. Sometimes she needed what she stole, but other times she did it for the thrill. The so-called pranks began then too.

  Jackie would have been kicked out of school or would probably have dropped out if she hadn’t discovered that she could sing. Unfortunately, her great voice, along with her beauty, made it easier for her to get away with things when she should have been disciplined. Things changed at the end of the tenth grade when a store clerk called the police about her shoplifting.

  “She was in and out of court after that. Her parents didn’t have any money, so I’m not sure how she was able to get released. That didn’t stop her from getting into more trouble. When they talk about jails having a revolving door, they must have been talking about Jackie.”

  “She was a juvenile, so no jail could hold her for long,” I said.

  “She must have moved on to older men by then too. I saw her hanging on to this middle-aged guy in a great-looking suit. Flashier than the one the boat-owner had on when I served them at Versailles Veranda. He was a little rougher looking too.”

  “Just shut up, will you? Isn’t it enough that she’s dead?” A young woman with long, curly blond hair said as she rushed to our table and leaned over close to Jenny. Her cute, freckled face was flushed with anger, and there were tears were in her dark eyes. Dressed in a backstage costume, she wasn’t a server. When she stood up, I could see her name tag and my heart sank. So much for breaking it to her gently.

  “Rebecca, I’m so glad you found me. Please join us, won’t you?”

  “No, I won’t. The only reason I’m going to speak to you at all is to set a few things straight about Melody,” Rebecca folded her arms. “Not while they’re here, though. I’m going home. Here’s how you reach me when you’re done listening to them gossip about the dead.” With that, she tossed a piece of paper onto the table and stormed out.

  “Should I go after her?” Carol asked.

  “No, she can take care of herself. Trust me,” Jenny said. “I’m sorry if we upset her, but you wanted to know what we remembered about Jackie, and we told you the truth. Rebecca is always taking Melody’s side.”

  “Even after Melody stole her boyfriend,” Brenda offered.

  “Yeah, Greg something. He’s a real cutie. He used to be a bass player with the Bayou Balladeers before he joined the jazz band,” Jenny added. “Did Rebecca give you an address or just a phone number?”

  “Both,” I said. “I’ll call her. She just lost someone she considered to be a friend no matter what went on between them.”

  “I agree,” Brenda added. “She obviously wants to talk, or she wouldn’t have told you how to reach her.”

  “Unless you have more questions, we should get back to work,” Jenny said.

  “Just one more,” I said. “May I call you if I think of something else or if the police have questions for you?”

  “Why not?” Jenny replied.

  “Yeah, although I don’t know how much we can help with their investigation. Most of the information we gave you is old news about stuff that happened years ago in high school.”

  “You’ve been more help than you know. Melody didn’t completely leave her past behind as you’ve both revealed. You also know much more than you realize about her present.”

  Carol eyed me as I gave both Jenny and Brenda two business cards each. I wrote my cellphone number on the back of one and told them to keep it handy and call if they came up with anything we should know about Melody. They each handed the second card back to me after writing down phone numbers I could use to contact them.

  My mind raced as we said our goodbyes. I struggled to maintain enough focus to be gracious as we parted company. As I told them, the conversation had been useful in many ways. Now if I could only make sense of it all.

  I felt Rebecca might be able to help me do that if I could get her to agree to speak to me. If she refused, the police could always interview her. I’d try again before I’d let Jack or Doug do that.

  14 The Dragon Bird

  Carol and I were silent as we walked back to the hidden elevator. A wave of my employee I.D. triggered the elevator. The doors slid open, and we stepped inside.

  “Spill it!” Carol said the moment the doors closed.

  “Spill what?”

  “The bass player in the jazz band’s a no-brainer. Greg Bustos was with the band at the party. He is cute. I figure the rough-looking guy she met in high school must be Duke.”

  “I do too. Duke, whoever he is, has to be the lawyer who kept Melody from going to jail, given all the trouble she caused that Jenny and Brenda described. Not only were some of the pranks not funny, but they were crimes as well,” I said, shaking my head as the elevator doors opened to the basement.

  “So, who owns a yacht?”

  “Shush!” I said, looking around to make sure we were alone. I lowered my voice as we walked toward the spot where we’d parked. “No jokes and not a word about this until we speak with Jack, promise? In fact, you and Brett better come over half an hour early so we can check with Jack about how much to say in front of Ann.”

  “Promise!” Carol said as she crossed her heart.

  “Our yachtie has to be Bill Yeats. I’ve put it off long enough. I’m going to call Max when I get back to my office. My hunch is that Bill is the mentor Max referred her to. What I don’t know is if their mentor-mentee relationship didn’t work out because she visited his yacht, or he said no, or something else went wrong.”

  “Can’t Jack find out?”

  “He and Doug are interviewing people today who were at the party. Apparently, Helen wasn’t thrilled about watching Melody flirt with her husband, maybe she had a reason to be upset about it. Divorce is an easier way to express her anger than murder, though, if Bill and Melody were involved in an inappropriate way.”

  “Bill could have dropped his wife at home and returned to have it out with Melody about something. Ooh! Wha
t if she was blackmailing him?”

  “Don’t jump to conclusions. Max could have it wrong. For all we know, Bill Yeats is still her mentor, and it was his idea for Melody to sign with Ernie at this point in her singing career. When Doug speaks to Bill and Helen, he’ll ask the routine questions about what time they left the party and when they arrived home.”

  “That doesn’t mean Bill didn’t do it. His wife could give him a phony alibi,” Carol added as we climbed into the Park Kart and headed back to my office in the administration building.

  “The police will check out their story. I know where Bill lives. The shortest way home would have taken him through the tollbooth on Highway 57. I don’t see how he could have gone home and returned in time to kill Melody.”

  “If his wife is angry with him, she won’t give him an alibi. There is a small window of time in which she could have been killed, isn’t there?”

  “Almost impossibly small,” I responded.

  “Come on. What else?” Carol prodded.

  “There’s something about Rebecca. Why would she carry on like that about a woman who stole her boyfriend?”

  “Call her and see if she’ll meet with you this afternoon. Maybe it’ll come to you if you spend more time with her.”

  “All right. I’ll do that after I call Max and make sure Bill Yeats is the person that he insisted Melody consult about her career. I dread calling him because he’s going to want a thorough and complete update about the investigation.”

  “I can hear his voice as you speak, Georgie. Can’t you tell him to call Doug or Jack?”

  “No. I’m the point person when it comes to keeping Max from interfering with the police investigation. Max didn’t hit it off any better with the detective than you and Brett did.”

  “Or than Ann either from what you said about inviting her to dinner. So far, he’s batting a thousand when it comes to sticking his foot in his mouth,” Carol quipped. “I can help you out with Max. Why don’t I give you five or ten minutes to speak to him, and then I’ll interrupt the call, and you can tell him you have to go because something important came up. That won’t be a lie because I’m going to type up notes from our interviews today. I’m bound to have questions. Any question I have will be more important than what he wants to know.”

  “I’ll try telling Max I need to consult with Jack about what he learned today before I can give him ‘a thorough and complete’ update. If that doesn’t work, I’ll resort to deceit. I won’t involve you, though. I’ll tell him I have a call on my cellphone that might give me some additional information for him. That’s close to the truth, although it’s a call I need to ‘make’ rather than ‘take.’”

  “You are the ‘Max wrangler,’” Carol said, bowing her head. “I’d bow before you on bended knee if we weren’t in a mole-mobile.”

  “Ha-ha!” I said, chuckling. “That’ll go over great with the powers that be—on bended knee isn’t why the company handbook wants us all to be on a first-name basis.”

  “Well, I wasn’t planning to call you Your Highness. Knight of the Realm, maybe. It’s about time we women took our rightful place among members of chivalric orders. I’m done with that ‘dame’ stuff, aren’t you?”

  “I appreciate your humor, but I’m still not completely recovered from my collision with the burglar. Laughing hard hurts.”

  “How about St. Georgie d’ Arc-adia?”

  “Enough! You’re going to make me crash,” I said as tears of laughter blurred my vision. Max’s astonished face popped up in my mind. “Please don’t ever call me that around him. What if he likes it?”

  “It’ll be better than hearing him sing a few bars of ‘Hey, there, Georgie girl.’” By then, Carol was laughing as hard as I was.

  We reached the administration building not long after our laughing spell ended. I checked my reflection in the Park Kart mirror to see if mascara was running down my face before getting into the elevator that took us to the lobby. In between greeting people in the building, I thanked Carol for writing up notes based on our interviews. I also asked her to print out a copy of Melody’s records from HR for Jack, including the formal reprimand Cicely had submitted.

  “Will do. I thought I’d see what I can find about Greg Bustos in the company newsletters and bulletin boards.”

  “That’s an excellent idea. Maybe Rebecca will have more to say about the guy who dumped her for Melody.” We were upstairs on the floor where my office is located when another of the zillion questions reeling through my mind flashed an alert.

  “Will you make sure we discuss the issue of the odor left behind by the cleanup in the cold storage room?” Carol and I stopped speaking when the receptionist greeted us. When she handed us mail and a few phone memo notes, we thanked her in unison and hurried to Carol’s office.

  “Are you wondering about the timing of the assault on Melody?” Carol asked as she unlocked the door to her office. I followed her inside before responding to her question.

  “Yes. There wasn’t much time for anyone to assault Melody after Frederick and Ann were in the room because I found the body around ten-thirty or a few minutes after that at the very latest. I don’t see how the cold storage room could be the murder scene, if Frederick didn’t smell bleach when he locked the door.”

  “What if he locked the door without opening it?” Carol asked.

  “I’m sure he told us he checked the room, that doesn’t solve the bigger problem that Melody supposedly got into the limo around the same time Frederick locked the door,” I replied, shrugging. “Let’s hope the crime lab has found new evidence to explain what happened and when.”

  “I hope so too. Nothing makes much sense yet. Another thing I’m going to do is search for a defense attorney in the area named ‘Duke.’ It doesn’t sound very professional. Cicely has to be right that it’s a nickname. Journalists and bloggers love to discover details like that. I’ll bet I can find out who he is.”

  “I don’t doubt you for a minute. The police must have tracked him down by now, and Jack probably already knows who he is, so don’t worry too much about it.”

  “What the heck! Who knows what else I’ll find lurking in the Internet gossip about a rough-looking lawyer called Duke,” Carol responded.

  Carol was excited as she slipped into her chair and switched on her computer. I wish I had her energy. The lingering effects of the burglar body-slamming me were taking their toll.

  Georgie, you should have had a real cappuccino instead of decaf, I chided myself as I walked to my office and unlocked the door. Then I chuckled realizing how much I do talk to myself now that Jack had mentioned my “inner dialogue.”

  “I wonder if that’s normal,” I mumbled aloud.

  Unless you start answering yourself, I thought. And only if you reply out loud. I slipped into my chair and called Max. Like Carol, I was excited—excited to put my call to Max behind me.

  “Hi, Max,” I said when he answered my call. “I have a quick question for you.”

  “I’m so glad you called, Georgie Girl.”

  Uh-oh, what now? I immediately wondered.

  “I don’t have much time,” I said, ignoring the silky tone in his voice that meant he was about to coax or wheedle me into doing something.

  “Go ahead, ask your question,” he replied.

  “You must have told me, but it’s slipped my mind. Was Bill Yeats the person you suggested Melody speak to about her career?”

  “Why, yes, it was. I made that suggestion at the same meeting where I introduced her to you. I called Bill yesterday. He told me she did that, but you were right when you said she was signing with Ernie Meyer instead. Bill said she was more interested in advancing her singing career than pursuing a career in the movies.”

  “That sort of makes sense, doesn’t it?” I asked.

  “I don’t believe so, but Melody may not have been mature enough to realize that. Besides, Ernie said she hadn’t signed with him either before she was killed.”

/>   “I wonder why not.”

  “Ernie wouldn’t discuss it with me. He gave me some mumbo jumbo about client privilege.”

  “Well, I doubt that applies to clients after they’re dead,” I said. “It’s possible Ernie doesn’t know why he couldn’t get her to sign on the dotted line, or he’s embarrassed to tell you. My guess is that he won’t be able to evade direct questions from the police.”

  “Your hunches are often right on the money,” Max said. “I hope you’re making headway finding Melody’s killer. This is another sad day for the Marvelous Marley World family.”

  “We’re all doing our best. I haven’t spoken to Jack since this morning. He and Doug had so much to do today, Jack must have lots of news to share with me tonight. My plan is to call you first thing tomorrow morning with an update.” I tensed up, waiting for Max to object. To my surprise, he didn’t.

  “I understand entirely! After I told him during my interview that I expected to be kept informed, Doug called me this morning about several items on their ‘to-do’ list today. He also told me you were acting as a liaison and would keep me in the loop,” Max added. “I’m delighted since I’d much prefer to speak to you than Detective Kingsley.”

  Max’s solicitous tone was back. Ping! Ping! Ping! Alarms went off.

  “While you have Jack all to yourself this evening, I’ve come up with a delightful idea for you to discuss with him about celebrating your first anniversary. It’ll be the most wonderful time of the year at what I hope will soon become known as the most magnificent place on earth to live—New Arcadia! Since you were married at the New Arcadia Visitor Center, for me there’s something nostalgic about the idea of celebrating your first anniversary there.”

  For you? Whose wedding anniversary is this? I wanted to say but bit my tongue.

  “Jack and I have already made plans to get away for a few days. Since our anniversary will fall on the weekend right before Christmas, we booked our getaway early.”

  “No problem! Add a trip to New Arcadia for the entire week before that, and you can leave from Palm Springs. The corporate jet can take you wherever you’re going for your anniversary. I’ll book a penthouse suite for you at the Grand Arcadia Gardens Resort Hotel & Spa. You know how amazing it is. Imagine staying there as a guest.”