Vincent crossed his arms over his chest. “Why are you here?”
“We have some questions for you about Megan.” Savannah motioned to the seat across from them. “Please have a seat and let’s talk.”
“How did you find me?” He held his head in both hands. “Oh no, if you found me then anyone can.” He put his hands to his mouth and turned a shade paler. “How did you find me?”
Edward put a hand on Vincent’s shoulder. “Calm down, buddy. Our friend Jacob found you with a few lucky guesses. He has amazing intuitive skills, and relentless determination. I don’t think anyone else will bother.” He gently pulled Vincent over to the overstuffed chair at a right angle to their settee. “Relax. Sit.”
Savannah leaned forward. “I found Megan’s body on Monday morning and I’m working with the police to catch her killer. We need your help.”
“I moved here to the hotel as soon as I heard about her murder.” Vincent looked at Edward, rubbed his trembling hands together, then leaned back and folded his arms across his body.
Edward glanced at Savannah and she nodded slightly for him to talk. “You were one of her studio assistants, right?”
“Yeah, she was really particular about who worked with her.” Vincent looked directly at Edward. “The pieces she made were extremely difficult and took multiple sessions to complete. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever worked on anything so complicated.”
“When did you see her last?” Savannah softened her voice. “Was it at the festival?”
Vincent glanced quickly at Savannah, but turned to Edward. “Yes, I saw her at her booth pretty much the first thing on Saturday morning. Her booth was spectacular. Did you see it?”
Edward silently shook his head. “Why didn’t you have a booth?”
Vincent sighed deeply. “My work isn’t ready yet. I’m almost there, but not quite.” He coughed and rubbed his forearms briskly. “It’s hard to be almost there. I don’t feel I can show my work until the process is perfected. That was Megan’s approach and it worked like magic.”
“What technique are you working on?” asked Savannah.
Leaning back with a broad smile he continued to answer to Edward. “I’m dabbling with Buddhist forms using colored sand castings. I’m working on using naturally colored sands to enhance the expressions on the Buddha’s face. I’ve been collecting different colored sands all over the world.” He looked down into his spread hands. “I’m almost there.”
Edward looked like he was trying to imagine sand in Buddha’s face. He shook his head to rid it of the distracting image. “Where were you on Saturday night?”
He stood up abruptly. “I didn’t kill Megan! I was working at the Chihuly Museum during my regular shift until eight; then I went to my studio and worked until about two in the morning.”
“Can anyone verify that?” Savannah posed gently.
“No.” Vincent plopped back down into the chair. “No one. But I think I know who the killer is and I think he’s coming after me next.”
“Who is it?” Savannah asked.
Vincent looked at Savannah with a mixture of fear and revulsion. She thought that some woman in his past had been very cruel to him for him to react so oddly to her. She looked over to Edward and tilted her head toward Vincent.
Edward got the message. “Who is it?”
“I don’t think I should say. She’ll know—” Vincent stood for a moment, then started for his room.
Edward and Savannah looked at each other and mouthed She? at the same time.
Edward grabbed Vincent by the arm. “You need to tell us. You won’t be safe until she is caught.”
Savannah stood. “You need to tell the police so they can stop her threats to your safety. That’s the only logical way. You know that.”
“Sometimes logic has nothing to do with real life. I intend to keep mine.”
“Give us a hint. Something. If you don’t, you’re going to stay on the list as a suspect. Tell us where you were and we’ll work it out with Detective Parker.”
He paused for a measured moment. “Okay, I’ve already moved from there, so I can tell you. It’s a collection of hot glass artists who share workspace in the warehouse district. It’s in Gulfport in the Industrial Arts Center. But, no one will be able to confirm that I was there. Most of them work there during the day. I work there at night because no one is around.”
“You never know.” Savannah pulled a business card from her backpack. “Here, if something comes up and you want to talk, give me a call.”
Looking down at the card and back to Edward, he said, “I’m not planning to talk to anyone. That way I’ll stay safe. Now, go away.”
Chapter 20
Thursday Noon
After leaving The Pier Hotel, Savannah pulled into an available parking space in front of the Museum of Fine Arts and across from the Chihuly Museum on Beach Drive. Digging into her cup holder for the hoard of change she kept there, she said, “Let’s eat. I’m starved.”
Edward watched her feed the meter enough coins to max out the time to two hours. “Are you planning to camp out here? Two hours is way more than lunch.”
“I always max it out. That means someone else gets a free hour or more and it’s a nice way to get rid of change. Otherwise, I think I’d be knee-deep in silver coins.”
Edward chuckled and shook his head. “What do you do with the pennies?”
“Oh, those I donate to The Guide Dog Charity using one of those coin-counter machines at the Publix grocery store.”
“That’s good—much better than the pickle jar I have full of coins.”
They crossed busy Beach Drive, Edward holding Savannah by the hand. “Where do you want to eat?”
She scanned the outdoor tables along the street. “How about The Canopy? It’s out of the pedestrian traffic and I love the view of the city.”
“Sure, but it’s pricey.”
“My treat. Say, how are things at Queen’s Head? Have the breakfast hours helped with revenue?”
“In the very first week, the new breakfast hour broke even, and I should be able to hire another server next week to give me and Nicole a break. Since we’ve only been at it this week, that’s a good sign that we’ll be keeping it going.”
They took the elevator to the fourth-floor open-air deck of the Birchwood Hotel. They perched onto bar stools pulled up to a high-top table that overlooked the bay and their waiter took an order for a plate of Chicken-Fried Calamari and the Coast to Coast Artisanal Cheese Plate along with a glass of house red each.
Edward fidgeted in his seat after they ordered and looked like he was about to burst if something didn’t get said.
“Out with it,” she said. “What is it you want to say?”
Their server walked up with the wine and he waited until he left.
“I wanted to make sure you’re . . .”
“I’m what?”
“That you’re fine with my folks coming. They really want to meet you and I don’t want you to misunderstand that this could be a sort of formal commitment. You know, the dreaded meeting-the-parents ordeal.”
“Don’t worry, Edward. Really, I’m fine. I’m sure it will be fine. To family.”
They clinked their glasses and sipped the wine.
Savannah pulled out her phone. “This restaurant is quiet enough for me to call Detective Parker.”
“You aren’t going to wait for Vincent to call?”
“I don’t think there’s a snowball’s chance in hell that he’ll call. He’s a pretty strange character, even for an artist. Besides, he wouldn’t even look at me. Can you imagine him calling Detective Parker, or me? No way!”
She reached him at his office number. “Hi, this is Savannah Webb. My apprentice, Jacob, was able to use the artist applications to get a location for the missing student, Vincent O’Neil. I’m with Edward downtown and I’m putting you on speaker.”
She pressed the speaker button and placed the phone on their table. “He�
��s staying at The Pier Hotel, but we may have spooked him.”
“You went over to talk to him?”
“He seemed very nervous and didn’t want to talk to—”
“Hey! There’s Vincent.” Edward stood and leaned over the glass barrier. “He’s meeting someone. I can’t tell who it is from the top. Can you?”
“Sorry, I gotta go.” She ended the call and Savannah looked down and spotted Vincent down the street on the corner of Beach Drive and Third Avenue North, a block away from the Chihuly Museum.
“No, it’s too far.” She squinted and shielded her eyes with her hand. “This angle is impossible. It might be anyone.”
“Let’s find out.”
“Right.” She lifted up her backpack and pulled out her billfold to pay for their drinks.
“Never mind. They’ve separated and it looks like Vincent is going into work.”
“Where’s the stranger?”
“Getting into that black car over there.” Edward pointed to a late-model generic-looking car. “The car is going to drive by us.”
Savannah pulled a pair of binoculars from a side pocket of her backpack and focused them on the driver. “Okay, I got it. Oh my goodness!”
“Who is it?”
She lowered the binoculars. “It’s Wanda Quitman.”
Edward shook his head and raised an eyebrow. “That doesn’t make any sense, does it? Why would a festival coordinator be talking to an artist from out of town who didn’t even make the cut to have a booth?”
“Maybe she’s the ‘she’ that Vincent thinks killed Megan and is out to kill him. I don’t know. It gets more and more confusing.” She looked back toward the elevator. “I need to eat but I’d better call Detective Parker back and update him. He’s definitely going to give me another lecture. This would be so much easier if I had a viable theory for Megan’s murder.”
“Don’t panic just yet. We still have a ton of leads to follow.”
“I know.” She propped her elbow on the table and rested her forehead in her palm. “I’m so frustrated. So far, all our answers don’t result in anything but more questions.”
Edward rubbed the knot that bunched in Savannah’s neck. “Calm down and call Parker. The news won’t get any better by delaying it.”
“Yep,” Savannah said as she dialed.
“Detective Parker, Homicide.”
“This is Savannah. Sorry for the disconnect. We just saw Vincent meet with Wanda Quitman in front of the Chihuly Museum, but—”
The phone went silent for several seconds.
“Hang on,” followed by silence—a long silence. Savannah held her breath.
“Detective Parker, are you there?”
More silence.
She took a look at the display on her phone, shook the phone, and looked at Edward. “I think the call has been dropped. I haven’t had a dropped call in ages. It—”
“I’m here.” Detective Parker clipped the words sharply. “I’m here. I was getting my file. What student are you talking about?”
“I’m putting you on speaker. Edward is here with me.”
“Fine, fine.”
“When Megan came to St. Petersburg, she was one of three students from the Pilchuck Glass School. Two of them received grants to intern at the Chihuly Museum. Leon was one of them and his work was exhibited in the same aisle with Megan, but Vincent’s work didn’t get committee approval.”
“Okay, so this is the third student from Seattle?”
“Yes, Keith couldn’t locate him right after Megan was killed. He was hiding in plain sight working at the Chihuly Museum under a variation of his real name. His alias is Vincent Henry, but his real name is Vincent O’Neil. He lives at The Pier Hotel in exchange for maintenance work so he’s not registered as a regular guest, but Jacob found him.”
“Jacob, of course. I wish we had a Jacob on the force.” He paused. “Okay, our investigation was very close behind Jacob and we probably would have gotten there sometime tomorrow or the next day.”
“I’m sure Vincent knows something about Megan’s death that he wouldn’t tell me. He referred to the killer as a she.”
Parker’s voice pitched high. “You’ve talked to him?”
“Well, I wanted to make sure we were on the right track. Jacob came up with a list of seven artists calculated by different probabilities—all weighted and prioritized, with Vincent O’Neil at the top of his list.”
“You could have given me the names. We should have confirmed them. It would have been, perhaps, safer for you and your little posse.”
“But—”
“No buts.”
“But—”
“Savannah. Listen carefully. I want you to stop investigating Megan’s murder. I don’t think that attack this morning was a random mugging. If you keep poking around, it’s going to get you in trouble.”
“I’m already in trouble.”
“What? Has something else happened since this morning?”
“No, no. Another thing that Jacob discovered is that there is a lot of cash missing from the proceeds of the Spinnaker Art Festival. At least ten grand and probably a lot more since the beer and wine sales are mostly cash.”
“That’s a serious charge. Does he have proof?”
“No—he has the data from the records I was able to get him from my account as a Spinnaker judge.”
“Is there anything else you think I might need to know?”
“No, but I’m still a suspect, aren’t I?”
Silence.
“Aren’t I?”
“Yes, but that’s merely a formality.”
“But I’m still on the list.”
“No one is actively investigating you right now.”
“Okay, I understand.”
“The point is that investigating a murder is dangerous and you could get hurt. Worse, one of the members in your posse could get hurt. Have you thought of how you would feel if something happened to Jacob or Edward?”
Savannah looked at Edward. “I haven’t—”
“Exactly my point. Stop investigating. If I catch you, I will charge you with interfering with an ongoing investigation or perhaps obstruction of justice. In fact, if you so much as litter or jaywalk, I’m going to put you in a holding cell. Have I made myself clear?”
Nodding at the phone, she replied, “Yes, very clear.”
She heard a clunk followed by the dial tone and imagined a very annoyed Detective Parker slamming down his desk receiver.
“He’s not taking this very well, is he?”
“Not as grateful as I would have expected.”
Edward grinned. “I’m not sure how grateful I’d feel if you were doing my job better than me at every turn. If fact, I’d be well put out.”
Savannah stuck out her tongue.
“No wonder he wants to arrest you for jaywalking.”
“Never mind that. We’ve got to figure out what’s next. I think a regrouping is in order. Let’s round up the posse this afternoon and brainstorm our next steps.”
Edward looked at his watch. “Can we do that at about four? I’ve got some vendor calls to make this afternoon. Unfortunately, we need a new bakery supplier and I’ve got to do that quickly. In fact, I’m already in trouble—most of them close at around now.”
“Right, I’ll drop you off in front of your motorcycle. Good, here comes our food. I’m starved.”
* * *
After leaving Edward, Savannah drove south on Twenty-Second Street to find the studio space that Vincent mentioned. She parked across the street from a single-story building painted the ugliest shade of burnt ochre ever invented.
Wandering around the back side of the mustard monstrosity to the demonstration area, she came upon a group sitting by the hot glass furnace. They were in the planning stages of a new piece and were making sketches of a vase.
“Excuse me, but do any of you know Vincent Henry O’Neil? I think he works here at night. He makes glass castings in sand.”
A wiry woman looked up from the sketch. “You mean Henry? The one who casts Buddha heads?”
“Buddha heads. Yes, that’s the one. Have any of you seen him lately?”
“Not lately. He works real late at night. Alone.” The woman stood and put her hands on her hips. “Why? What’s he done?”
“Nothing, I’m trying to reach him to offer him a place at my new studio.” She handed the woman one of the new business cards she had made for Webb’s Studio. “If you see him, can you give him this?”
The woman took the card and turned it over in her hands. “I’ll put it up on the message board, but if you really want to see him come down here after midnight.” She walked over to the left-hand wall and pinned the card to a corkboard overstuffed with notes, cards, a single athletic sock, and advertisements for items for sale with telephone numbers ready to tear away.
Savannah nodded thanks and left. Why would someone leave a sock in a studio?
Chapter 21
Thursday Afternoon
At Webb’s, Savannah slipped in through the back door and dropped her backpack on the floor beside the creaky oak desk chair. She stepped into the doorway that led to the classroom and found Amanda standing behind the instructor podium grasping the sides with white-knuckled hands.
“Amanda?” She walked up and waved a hand in front of her chalky white face to break the frozen expression. “Amanda, what’s wrong?”
“It’s broken.”
“What?”
“My favorite dish. He broke it.” Amanda gathered up the pieces from the top shelf of the podium to show Savannah.
Savannah looked at the pieces cradled in Amanda’s hands. “Who broke it?”
“Dale dropped it,” burbled from a throat ready to throw up. “I know it was an accident, but I’m—”
“I know, you’re very upset.” Savannah patted her on the shoulder and looked at the damage. The fused platter had split into four pieces, all of which were along the fused seams where the different colors met.
As Savannah looked at the pieces, it brought back a memory of her teenaged self crying over another broken platter. In a soothing tone, she said, “You know we can fix this.”
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