Death Under Glass

by Jennifer McAndrews

  I refrained from pointing out that what’s-his-name had rattled Trudy last time we saw her. Better to have Carrie following the strong example in her mind.

  As ever, the bell overhead jingled when I pulled open the door. Carrie entered first, walking past the counter to the left and the spinning rack of postcards to the right to stand at the center of the dining room and peruse the booths.

  The air smelled faintly of French fries and disinfectant—neither of which struck me as appealing. When Carrie started moving for a booth and I caught sight of Russ Stanford, still more of my appetite fled.

  Though Russ was clearly three-quarters the size of his brother, he was undoubtedly Gabe Stanford’s sibling. Dark hair, sharp blue eyes, and the kind of expansive posture I often saw in dine-in customers who thought they belonged to some higher echelon. Couple that with the knowledge that he had cheated on my best friend and my instant dislike was sealed.

  He held a cell phone to his ear and waved Carrie closer with big, sweeping gestures.

  I trailed along behind her, waited until she’d slid all the way into the booth before I took the seat next to her. Russ raised his brows at me, looked to Carrie with the question, all the while continuing his telephone conversation.

  “Sweetheart, I understand. I promise I’ll be there as soon as I wrap this up. I promise.” He was one of those people who didn’t know how to conduct a cell phone conversation quietly. “Absolutely, I’ll bring home Chinese food. You want those little fried wontons?” He held up a finger to indicate he’d be right with us, and I turned to Carrie.

  “Was he always this rude?” I asked.

  “Maybe,” Carrie said, softly. “I wouldn’t know. I used to be the one on the other end of the line.”

  I sucked in a breath, nudged her gently with my elbow. “Trudy Villiers,” I reminded her.

  She nodded and sort of wriggled her way to a more upright pose.

  “Okay. All right. Love you, too. Bye, honey. See you soon.” Russ disconnected the call and tossed the cell phone onto the table. “Who are you?” he asked, squinting at me.

  Before I could open my mouth, Carrie said, “This is my friend Georgia. I invited her to join us.”

  “What’d you do that for?”

  I swear she sounded just like Trudy when she said, “I didn’t want the evening to be completely unpleasant.”

  “Why would you . . . ? It’s not going to be unpleasant, Car. We’re past that, aren’t we?”

  Carrie’s right eye twitched, and I couldn’t tell if she was dubious or trying not to cry.

  “Okay, kids,” Grace began before she’d even reached us, “what can I get you?” She set three glasses of water on the table, then stood, hand on her hip. “I got open roast beef with a side of fries on special tonight.”

  “Just coffee for me,” Russ said before Carrie or I could speak.

  It was a little thing, a minor thing. Maybe I was still a little raw over having to wait for him to conclude a cell call. Maybe I’d been living too long with Grandy and his values were rubbing off on me. Maybe I’d always had my own ideas about what constituted a gentleman and Russ was simply reminding me of them. Regardless the reason, I couldn’t stop the little sting of insult I felt at Russ giving his order first instead of politely deferring to the ladies at the table.

  “A bowl of today’s soup, please,” Carrie said in the tone of a minor royal.

  I ordered the same, and Grace held herself to one disbelieving look before walking away.

  Russ leaned back, rested his arm atop the back of the booth. The woman in the booth behind him turned to glare before shifting to her left, out of range of his elbow. “You look good, Car,” he said.

  The compliment hung in the air a few seconds before Carrie responded. “Thank you,” she said carefully.

  A busboy strolled by, slid the cup of coffee onto the table with practiced ease.

  “I guess this whole fire-and-murder thing isn’t really bothering you, huh?” Russ tugged the cup closer to him.

  Carrie huffed and shook her head. “You still have no idea how to say something nice without saying something worse.”

  “Fine. You’re right. I’m sorry.” He poured what I considered an excessive amount of sugar into his coffee. “Okay? I’m sorry.” He stirred his coffee, the spoon clanging against the porcelain cup. “Look, I gotta get home, so let’s make this quick,” Russ said.

  “You have to get home? You’re the one that asked me to meet you,” Carrie said. “And now you’re in a rush?”

  “Gimme a break, Carrie, huh? I had a long day.”

  “You?” Carrie asked.

  Russ ignored the question. “I come home from what was supposed to be a relaxing vacation to find out my office has burned to the ground, my partner’s been murdered, and the police think I had something to do with it. Then I spend the whole afternoon at the police station answering questions for some uptight detective before—”

  “And my shop was broken into and half my stock destroyed,” she put in.

  “Before . . .” Russ paused, tipped his head in concession. “And your shop was broken into. I was sorry to hear that,” he said. He had the shred of decency necessary to wait a polite amount of time before returning to his own agenda. “But at least your business is still standing.”

  “Oh come on, Russ.” Carrie huffed and slumped a little, totally breaking character. “Don’t turn this into a competition.”

  He held up a hand. “I’m just saying—”

  “What did you tell the police?” I asked, reaching for my glass of water.

  “What?”

  “What did you tell the police?” I repeated. “What did they want to know?”

  Russ’s forehead furrowed, his brows crinkled and dimmed the blue of his eyes. “What business is it of yours?”

  “It’s just a curiosity question,” I lied. “We’ve—Carrie and I—we’ve spent no small amount of time answering questions for the police. I wondered if they asked you the same questions they asked Carrie.”

  He cut his gaze to Carrie. “And what questions would those be?”

  I spoke up quickly, forcing him to return his attention to me and keep it there. “How much the building was insured for, whether you owe anyone any money, whether you had any kind of damning evidence in your office that would be better off not found, that sort of thing.”

  As soon as the extensive fibbing left my lips, Russ’s jaw dropped. He swiveled his head toward me, the motion exaggerated, and he lowered his arm from the back of the bench. “Are you . . . are you insane? No, I don’t owe anyone any money and no I’m not defending any kind of underworld criminal.” Innocence seemed writ large in his wide eyes and easy breathing. If I was still harboring any suspicions about Russ Stanford burning down his own business, they would have faded to nonexistent. “What kind of a friend are you?” he asked.

  “The best kind,” Carrie said. “She’s just looking out for me, Russ. The police have been asking me those questions about you for days, questions about your work and why I didn’t sell my half to you and who we knew in our past that might want to ruin us.” She took hold of a glass of water and downed a few gulps. “It hasn’t been easy.”

  He let out a long sigh. “Okay, okay, maybe you’re right. I’m sorry, okay? It’s . . . this is all still a . . . I’m still adjusting to all of this. It’s not easy coming home and getting hit with all this either, you know.”

  “I know,” Carrie said softly.

  “And we still got the insurance thing to do and then figure out . . . how am I going to work? What . . . my whole business.” He snapped his fingers. “Poof.”

  Beside me in my seat, my purse vibrated a split second before the factory-preset electronic ringtone of my cell phone blared from its depths. “I’m so sorry,” I muttered, without any degree of conviction. I was mostly thankf
ul for the interruption, for the brief respite from Russ’s blather. “I’m sure it’s no one.”

  It had to be no one. Factory preset meant I didn’t have the incoming phone number stored in my contacts. No doubt another wrong number for “Shorty.”

  I lifted the phone free and read the display: Stone Mtn. Const.

  Tony Himmel.

  I glanced at Russ, glanced at Carrie.

  I couldn’t leave her; I was her moral support. But I didn’t want to have to ignore the call. And it would be rude to take the call at the table.

  I glanced at Russ again, and raised the phone to my ear, pressing to connect the call as I did so. “Hi there,” I said with a smile.

  Tony’s voice reached deep inside me, hot cocoa on a cold day. “Hi yourself. How are you?”

  “Pretty good now that I’m hearing from you.” I said it (a) because I meant it and (b) because I thought Russ deserved a little of the same treatment he’d given us. Except I suspect I couldn’t keep from my voice the little thrill I felt at receiving Tony’s call.

  As proof, Carrie turned to me and mouthed, “Who is it?”

  I shifted the speaker away from my mouth. “Tony Himmel.”

  Evidently I didn’t move the speaker far enough. Even as Carrie shooed me out of the booth, with a “Go talk to him,” Tony asked, “Am I interrupting something?”

  I asked him to give me a minute, covered the phone. “Are you sure?” I mouthed to Carrie.

  “Go,” she said.

  I gave Russ a fake smile and did my own Trudy Villiers impersonation. “Excuse me won’t you? I’ll just take this outside.”

  Sliding free of the booth, I ducked around Grace as she made her way past with a plate of spaghetti and meatballs and hustled out of the luncheonette.

  “I’m back. Sorry about that,” I said when I’d reached the outdoors.

  “Is this a bad time?” he asked. “I know you said to call later in the week but—”

  “It’s fine. It’s a fine time.”

  “I can call back.”

  “No, no, don’t,” I blurted. “What I mean is, now’s fine. I’m at the luncheonette. I just came outside so I could hear better. What’s up?”

  He pulled in an audible breath. “Uh, here’s the thing,” he began.

  That fast, such a simple phrase, and the thrill drained away. My shoulders sagged and I let my head drop forward. “What?”

  “Thing is, truthfully . . .” He paused, I leaned against the building behind me for support. “I’m really not that big on coffee. It’s crazy, I know. I’m in construction. I should have very strong feelings about coffee, positive feelings. But that’s just not me.”

  “And so . . . ?” What did this mean? He’d decided he didn’t want to see me again? And he was using coffee as an excuse?

  “And so I was hoping you might reconsider dinner,” he said.

  My eyes slid closed and I shook my head. Stupid telephones. So much easier to stand face to face with someone, read their expression, evaluate their body language. Over the phone I had no way of knowing if Tony was being earnest about the coffee, or cute. I sighed. “I don’t believe this,” I said.

  “Is that a no?”

  “You couldn’t have started with that? You had to do a whole bit about coffee?”

  “I wanted to be honest,” he said. “And if you could accept my honesty about that, you might accept my honesty when I tell you I didn’t want to wait until some vague day in the future to call you and then wait for another vague day to see you. I feel like I’ve lost enough time with you. I don’t want to wait.”

  I kept my eyes closed, let the smile spread across my face. He was good. He was very good. “So what is it that you’re honestly saying?”

  “I’m honestly saying let’s have dinner. Me, you, Cappy’s Seafood, tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?” My voice might have cracked a little.

  “Yeah, I know, it’s short notice. But tomorrow’s Sunday and Sunday’s pretty much all I have for now. I’m at the marina site every other day. So what do you say? Take a chance on a short-notice, honest guy?”

  There was no stopping my humiliating giggle. “Can I order crab legs?”

  “You can order whatever you want.”

  “Okay. Tomorrow. Cappy’s. You’re on.”

  I gave him the address at Grandy’s house and we said our good-byes and the smile was still stuck on my face.

  Yes, the timing was terrible. I was frightened for Carrie, worried about what was going to happen next, sad to be facing another wake and funeral for a Wenwood resident. But really, who was I kidding? No timing was ever ideal. And maybe, very likely, taking a chance on a little happiness was just what was needed.

  Sucking in a deep, cleansing breath, I looked up and down Center Street, at the little village of Wenwood and nodded to myself. Happy was just what the doctor ordered. Not that Tony was any sort of guarantee, but it would be nice to find out.

  I headed back into the luncheonette planning to rejoin Carrie and Russ. But before I’d even drawn level with the counter, Russ was moving fast toward me. Worry instantly gripped me. “What happened?” I asked.

  “Nothing,” he said. “I told you I had to leave.”

  He shook his head like he couldn’t understand how I would forget such a thing, then pushed past me and out the door.

  Dumbfounded, I walked to where Carrie stood, arms folded at the end of the table.

  I tried the same question on Carrie. “What happened?”

  “I asked Grace to bring to-go containers for the soups,” she said. “This was . . . Russ left and I just . . . I just want to go home and get into bed and forget this week ever happened. Is that okay?”

  I wrapped my arm around her shoulders. “Yeah, it’s okay. You deserve the break. You’ve been through a lot.”

  With the hot soups stored in paper containers, one bagged for me and one for Carrie, we retraced our earlier steps, back through the alley and into the parking strip behind the shops. Not a word passed between us as we got into the car. Not a word passed as Carrie drove me back to Grandy’s.

  I broke the silence only when I stepped out of the car. Leaning back in I said, “I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”

  She gave me a half smile. “You know where to find me.”

  I slammed the door closed and made my way up the brick walk and into the house. All the while, I tried to keep from my mind a sudden, troubling thought.

  Who else knew where to find Carrie? And would they go looking?

  18

  The soup lost none of its blistering temperature in the short ride home from the luncheonette. I poured it into an oversized cappuccino mug, and the sound of the splashing drew Friday from whatever furniture she’d been napping under . . . or on top of. I dished some of her canned food into her little kitty bowl and set it down on the floor in front of the sink.

  “Live it up, kitty. Celebrate. It’s Saturday night.” I made stupid six-shooter motions with my hands. Friday twitched one ear and nibbled daintily from the bowl. She was unimpressed. I didn’t blame her. Saturday night and what was on my agenda? An evening of stained glass. Just me and the kitten.

  After switching on the radio I kept in the corner, I opened the packaging on the glass I’d purchased that morning. The pinks I wanted for Trudy’s window, once located, I stored on end in an old apple crate I kept for such purpose. Left with the glass I had selected for antiques store projects, I looked from a white, gold, and blue mottled glass I’d bought more for its possibilities than for a plan to the glass I had cut for the sailboat panel.

  When I began the piece, I had done so because the pattern caught my eye. I thought working on the project would be a good way to stir my creativity so I could design a window for Trudy. In the back of my mind I saw the piece one day hanging from one of Grandy’s windows—
a just-for-fun piece turned into something decorative. Now I supposed it would do more good hanging in Carrie’s shop.

  The temptation to start work on a new pattern, to begin cutting the glass I’d bought on impulse, coursed through me with the same allure as “just one more cookie” or “just one more pair of shoes.” The desire was both hard and easy to overcome. All it took was a deep breath, closed eyes, and the firm action of closing the paper wrapping over the exciting new glass and setting it aside. Best not to jump into anything, anyway.

  I gathered up a small handful of already cut glass, aqua and vermillion and gold-flecked white strips that curved like waves on the water, and carried them into the garage.

  Grandy had built a tool bench at the back of the garage, against the common wall between the garage and the workshop. With his permission, I’d cleared a space at the near end of the bench, closest to the doorway that led to the workshop, and there set up my glass grinder. Now, after making sure the water reservoir was full, I nudged the foot pedal out from under the bench with my toe and powered on the grinder.

  At the center of the hard plastic grating, a diamond-head grinder bit spun at a respectable three thousand rpm as soon as I applied pressure to the foot pedal. I grabbed the first blue glass wave, set it flat on the horizontal grating, and pushed the edge of the glass against the whirring bit.

  Water sluiced across the surface of the glass, gently washing away the miniscule shards being dislodged by the grinder, splashing them against the square of plexiglass I’d leaned against the wall to protect the pegboard.

  Splashing.

  I lifted my foot from the pedal and huffed. Safety goggles. Why did I never remember to put on the safety goggles first?

  Taking a step to the right, I searched the tool-covered pegboard for the safety goggles I typically hung there. Not finding them, I sifted through the bits of miscellanea that had collected atop the workbench, but still had no luck. I really wouldn’t leave the workshop or garage with—