A Shattering Crime

by Jennifer McAndrews

  “So I helped the girl, Nicole, put cookies out on tables,” I finished. “Chocolate chip and oatmeal raisin.”

  “And what was Rozelle doing while you were doing that? Do you recall?”

  The door to the bakery swung open and Diana stepped out onto the sidewalk, a cardboard box with filled bags labeled EVIDENCE tucked under her arm. She kept her head down, avoiding eye contact with both me and the detective.

  I watched her for moments only before turning back to Detective Nolan. “You don’t honestly believe that man opposed to building the promenade was poisoned, do you?”

  He set his hands on his hips, hung his head as he sighed. “That’s the preliminary cause of death. It’s my job to investigate based on that finding.”

  “Okay, sure, I understand that part. But . . . Rozelle? Seriously? Come on. Rozelle runs a little bakery that closes by five. What possible motive would she have for poisoning David Rayburn? You’d do better to look for someone who stands to benefit from the promenade. Like someone in building or construction,” I said.

  Detective Nolan’s brows rose high.

  Oh, crap. “Pretend I didn’t say that last part.”

  “Georgia, just tell me what Rozelle was doing while you and Nicole were putting out cookies.”

  “She was directing,” I said. “Or overseeing or whatever else you want to call it. Making sure we separated the cookies and put them on each table.”

  “That’s all she was doing? Giving orders while you did all the work?” Nolan sounded doubtful, as though he couldn’t quite believe someone as diminutive as Rozelle would shout out commands.

  “Come on, Detective. That’s not the way it was at all. She . . .” As I spoke, my mind reviewed the memory of that morning, feeding my consciousness images it deemed relevant. “She was holding a pastry box,” I said, my voice betraying me by going soft. “She had cheese Danish. Special made. Sugar free, gluten free. I think they were for David . . .”

  Detective Nolan nodded. Had Rozelle told him about them? Had he guessed? No spark of surprise or intrigue lit his face; I was telling him something he already knew.

  But it was something I hadn’t put together until that moment. The Danish. The one thing not everyone had eaten. The one thing only Rayburn had access to. All at once my head went empty and light. My thighs went weak and my knees threatened to buckle. I reached a hand toward Detective Nolan.

  He caught my arm and held me steady. “Georgia, what’s wrong? Are you all right? What is it?”

  “Grandy,” I said, nearly a whisper. “She offered to put some aside that I could bring home for my grandfather.”

  My gaze had somehow locked on Nolan’s detective shield while his hands held me steady and vaguely upright. The shield. The gold-colored symbol of protect and serve. I wanted to find comfort in that symbol, but the glimpse of the grip of the revolver tucked into its holster served only to reinforce the threat of danger.

  “It’s all right,” Nolan said. He slipped an arm across my shoulders—more businesslike than tender—and turned me back to the bakery entrance. “Let’s go inside. Have a seat. No one’s going to hurt Pete.”

  I took one step at his urging before digging in my heels in resistance. Straightening, I said, “No, that’s just it. She would never hurt my grandfather. She’s crazy about him.”

  His eyes searched mine. I could almost see a question forming in his brown-eyed gaze.

  The bakery door banged open and my mother rushed to my side.

  “What happened?” she asked. “Are you okay, honey?” She turned and looked daggers at Detective Nolan while trying to pull me free of his hold. “What did you say to her?”

  “Are you sure?” he asked me, tone earnest and gaze intent.

  “A hundred percent,” I assured him before turning to my mother. “I’m fine, Mom. Just a little light-headed.”

  Nolan nodded sharply. “Could still be the bakery.”

  “But not Rozelle.”

  But if not Rozelle, then who?

  * * *

  My mother wanted to drive straight home following my chat with Detective Nolan. She claimed I looked pale. As a redheaded, freckle-faced Irish girl, I always looked pale. It took no small effort on my part to convince my mother I was capable of continuing with the day as planned. At length she determined it was better to go inside the market than to stand on the sidewalk and argue with me, and we spent the brief excursion with her complaining about the lack of selection in between my constant reassurances that I was in no danger of losing consciousness.

  I thought once we arrived back at Grandy’s house that I could retreat to my room. I needed a few minutes to myself to allow everything that had happened in the past couple of days to sink in. Between the idea of retreating to my single-bed room—the room I was relegated to in the childhood years I’d spent living with Grandy and Grandma—and the fact of my mother driving me around, a flashback to my teen years loomed large and dangerous. Adjusting to my new life as a permanent citizen of Wenwood had been tough enough; losing my sense of adulthood would no doubt cause a setback.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t tell your grandfather about the police.” My mother made the final turn onto Grandy’s street, and I smiled, remembering Grandy saying the same thing about telling her all those months ago.

  “I think he can handle it,” I said. “He’s pretty used to my run-ins with the police. Besides, the bakery’s going to be closed for a while. He’ll find out. And you know what a bear he’ll be if he even suspects we knew and didn’t tell him.”

  She slowed the car as the house came into view. Cedar shakes in need of a paint job, split-rail porch with a pair of battered Adirondack chairs, and Grandy and my mother’s husband, Ben, standing amid the fallen leaves on the front lawn, looking up at the old cedar tree.

  “Your grandfather.” Mom shook her head, made the final turn into the driveway. “He thinks he’s the only one in this family allowed to keep secrets.”

  She shifted the gear into “Park” and shut off the engine then turned to me with narrow, accusatory eyes. “Not that you’re any better,” she said. “How could you not tell me about your grandfather being arrested? And on suspicion of murder, of all things.”

  For the nine-billionth time I said, “We didn’t want to spoil your honeymoon. What were you going to do anyway? Cut your trip short? And do what? He already had a lawyer and wouldn’t let anyone see him. Besides, it wasn’t like he was guilty.”

  In my haste to escape, I pushed open the door and practically tumbled out of the SUV, bag of groceries in hand. Someday my mother and I would make it through more than forty-eight hours without any reference to Grandy’s blissfully brief and completely unjust incarceration. Until then, I fully intended to run away from her every time the subject came up.

  “Something wrong with the tree?” I called then slammed shut the car door.

  Grandy kept his head tilted back, eyes on the bare branches overhead.

  Ben folded his arms and faced me. “I was pointing out to Pete you’ve got a little fungus up there. It could weaken some of the larger branches. Then all you need is a heavy, wet snow and those branches could fall. They’re a hazard.”

  Grandy rolled his jaw and turned to face me. “We’ll have to get a tree specialist out to have a look.”

  “A specialist?” I repeated. “Because a general practice tree doctor won’t be good enough?”

  “What’s wrong with the tree?” Mom asked, joining us in the middle of the lawn.

  “Apparently it’s a hazard,” Grandy said.

  “You don’t want to wait too long,” Ben said. “You folks get snow pretty early up here, don’t you?”

  “Not that early,” Mom said. “And besides, Dad has a snow blower.”

  I felt my eyes crease in equal depth with my confusion. I had been in and out of the backyard shed about a billi
on times over the summer, planting, pruning, fertilizing. And the garage held every implement too delicate or valuable to be left in the shed. “There’s no snow blower,” I said.

  “Of course there is,” Mom said. She looked to Grandy. “You bought one two years ago, didn’t you?”

  Grandy shot quick daggers at me before he pursed his lips and turned his gaze to the branches overhead.

  “Dad?” Mom prompted. “Dad! Who’s been shoveling the snow?”

  “I’m capable of shoveling snow, Joanne,” he said. “I’m not an invalid.”

  “At your age—” Mom began, but Ben cut her off.

  “Pete, you know that for every five years over the age of fifty, a man’s risk of heart attack increases by twenty percent. You shouldn’t take chances.”

  “Don’t worry about it, okay?” I said. “I’m here. I can shovel the snow.”

  “You don’t have to shovel the snow,” Grandy said. “I’ll hire someone.”

  “That’s what you said year after year, Dad, and it was a lie every time. You finally agreed to buy a snow blower, and then that turns out to be a lie, too.” My mother raised her arms, let them fall with a slap against her thighs. “What am I going to do with you?”

  “How about we go shopping for a snow blower later in the week, huh, Pete?” Ben suggested. “Give me a chance to see more of the area.”

  “Please, Ben,” Mom said, and for a minute I thought she was going to ask him to stay out of the conversation, but no such luck. “Maybe if you’re there, he’ll really get a snow blower.”

  “I can shovel the snow,” I repeated. “There’s no reason to spend all that money on a machine.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Ben said. “What happens when you move out? A snow blower will make things a hundred times easier.”

  “Why—” I began, but Grandy met my eyes, shook his head ever so slightly. “No harm in looking,” he said. He pointed to the reusable grocery bag I held. “More food?” he asked. “I don’t suppose you got me any more of Rozelle’s cookies.”

  I noted that he avoided asking about cookies for us. Us would include Ben, who had eaten his way through all but the one mini Linzer tart Mom had eaten, leaving Grandy with none for his after-dinner indulgence.

  “Rozelle didn’t open today,” I said.

  “And the police insisted on talking to Georgia.” Mom sounded angry about it, as though her taking offense somehow proved the insanity of the police.

  Grandy shrugged. “The police always want to talk to Georgia. Don’t worry,” he said with a grin. “You get used to it.”

  Mom looked back and forth between us. “The two of you!” She huffed. “I have groceries to put away.”

  I had a bag of groceries, too, and would have to follow her into the house. Just how lucky could one girl get?

  6

  In the days and early weeks after I had arrived in Wenwood, I divided what belongings I hadn’t put into storage between my bedroom and my workshop. My summer clothes and personal items I unpacked right away. My stained glass supplies I left in boxes but labeled each carton carefully and kept them unsealed. Glass wasn’t the sort of thing you left lying around. But I had worked my way through much of my stash in making pieces for both Carrie’s shop and special orders, and when I moved the last carton out of its corner in the spare room—the tiny room to which I had been banished thanks to Mom and Ben’s visit—three remaining boxes were exposed. Each bore the same scrawled word: AUTUMN.

  Now after leaving the boxes sealed like there was some final slim chance I would cart them back to the city before the temperature dropped below seventy, I dragged the boxes out of their corner and tore open the tape keeping them closed. I needed sweatshirts and sweaters, a proper coat to keep me warm, and maybe a nice pair of boots. It didn’t occur to me to view the opening of the cartons as some sort of defiance over Ben’s conviction that I should be leaving. I supposed if I asked him, he would have recommended keeping the boxes closed until I found a new place as a means of adding an urgency to my move.

  So when I found a paper-wrapped bundle of glass sheets tucked between a bulky cardigan and a Florida Gators sweatshirt, I got the shivering sense that whatever was in the package, I needed to use it to make something for me, for this new phase of my life.

  I set the package of glass on the bed and tore away the masking tape holding the folds of paper together. Carefully pulling away the paper, I sucked in a surprised breath.

  Van Gogh glass. How had I forgotten? How was that possible? The glorious swirls of blue and gold were painted on the glass with metallic auto paint, its opposite side sealed with a layer of black paint—a method used when making mirrors that gave the glass the same illusion of depth. Unlike most of the glass I worked with, this was opaque and not intended to have light shine through to bring out its beauty. I had fallen in love with it the moment I saw it. How could something so unique have escaped my memory? But of course, the placement within a box of clothes answered that question. I had bought the glass after all my other supplies had been packed and left in storage, when I was job hunting and sharing a two-bedroom apartment with three other girls and I should have been conserving my funds for rent and food. And yet . . .

  Sometimes when life is at its toughest, finding a thing of beauty makes the struggle easier to bear.

  The sheets of glass were not bank-breaking expensive. They were, in fact, reasonably, even low priced. The glass contained no precious metals to drive up its value, and held no rarity. And yet the swirl of color had reached right to my heart and I couldn’t resist, even though I really didn’t have money to spend on glass. That made the Van Gogh sheets an indulgence, or perhaps an investment in the belief that I would land on my feet somewhere and either have space big enough for a studio or enough money I could rent a corner in a glass shop at which to work.

  With a mix of reverence and determination, I rewrapped the glass and left it on the bed. It had been forgotten in a box long enough.

  Returning my attention to the carton, I selected a half-dozen sweaters and placed them, folded, upon the end of my bed. I dug a little farther until I came up with a pair of sweatpants and a faux-shearling-lined jacket and tossed them to the other end of the bed, reasoning that would be enough to keep me warm for the next month, at least. After tucking the box top folds so that the flaps wedged tightly together, I took the sweaters and the paper-wrapped glass in my arms and crept down the stairs.

  Fifi was sound asleep in the low sunbeams streaking through the living room window. Her legs were stiff straight, her tongue lolling against the side of her muzzle. When she’d first come to live with us, Grandy and I had each, separately, taken this position to mean she’d either dropped dead of a heart attack or the cat had scared her stiff. Fortunately, all it took was a few seconds of careful focus, and the rise and fall of her chest became easily visible. At which point, both Grandy and I decided she was trying to give us, or the cat, a heart attack.

  But looking at Fifi renewed my awareness of how long it had been since I’d left Friday at the vet’s. Those were low sun beams coming through the window, and my dog was sleeping when she might otherwise be chasing the cat.

  Of course, I was carrying large sheets of glass, so rushing was out of the question as was dropping everything to call the office to check on Friday. I continued on my way, making the turn and taking the stairs down to my workshop. There, I gently set down the paper-wrapped glass on my worktable before carrying my sweaters down the few steps to the laundry room. I tossed them in the dryer and threw in a scented fabric softener sheet. With the dryer set to “Fluff” and the stored-in-cardboard scent of my sweaters on its way to being evicted, I was finally free to make the call.

  I raced back up to my room to grab my cell but waited until I was once again in the workshop before I scrolled for the vet’s number and hit the “Dial” icon.

  Listening to th
e phone ring on the other end, I reached for the scrapbook storage box in which I stowed glass patterns and design ideas and kept beneath the worktable.

  “Wenwood Veterinary. Can you hold?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  I tugged the lid off the box, reached inside, and lifted out a stack of papers. Folded glass patterns mingled with pages torn from magazines and printouts of images found during one computer search or another. Back issues of stained glass “newspapers” peppered the collection, each featuring a free pattern-of-the-month. I evaluated the page on top of the pile—an image of a peacock paper-clipped to a copy of its crinkled and folded pattern. The peacock was one of those pieces I intended to make “someday.” I collected patterns the way some people collected books, with plans of taking the time at some point in the future to lose oneself. I turned the peacock aside to reveal another “someday” pattern, this one of water lilies and reeds. I would have to consider making them for Carrie’s shop, but first, I wanted something suitable for the Van Gogh glass.

  I turned aside the water lilies and a wistful sigh escaped me. There sat not a traditional pattern, or cartoon as they were known in the stained glass world, but a list of measurements. At the left edge of the page I had clipped a picture of the finished project: an elaborate, albeit miniature, greenhouse, its style reminiscent of Great Britain’s Crystal Palace. The pattern called for nothing but clear glass and a steady hand with lead. It was the need for perfectly straight lines and delicately angled corners that made the piece challenging. That, and the fact that once complete, it wasn’t the sort of piece to be packed up and moved from place to place. It was a piece for a permanent home.

  “How can I help you?” The voice on the other end of the phone broke clear through my wandering thoughts.

  “I’m just calling to check on my cat, Friday. Last name Kelly,” I said. “I left her for x-rays. I wanted to be sure she was all right.”

  My shoulders sagged as I held the greenhouse plans, ready to turn them aside. I had a flash of a vision where the completed greenhouse sat upon the sideboard in the dining room . . . in Grandy’s dining room. But Grandy’s house wasn’t part of “someday,” was it?