Treble at the Jam Fest

by Leslie Budewitz

  Kyle watched her walk away, her boot heels ringing on the time-burnished floor. “Don’t tell me. She’s going back to sheriffing.”

  I curved my lips but kept my mouth closed.

  His shoulders sagged. “I get it. The family biz isn’t for everyone. Hey, Adam called, looking for a wrangler.”

  “He called here?”

  “Sure. We hear from lots of kids wanting summer jobs—more than we can hire. That’s cool, as long as he doesn’t poach my kitchen crew. I’ll admit, when he said he was leaving, I wondered if maybe you’d finally give me a chance. But then he said he’ll be back mid summer.” Kyle’s chair legs scraped the floor. His wink didn’t tell me whether he was serious or teasing.

  But hearing that Adam said he’d be back soon eased a tension I hadn’t known I carried.

  I walked out the Lodge’s front door. The white Monte Verde Winery van idled in the narrow drive, Sam stacking boxes of wine on a dolly.

  “Fancy meeting you here,” I called.

  Had it only been two days since I’d seen him? A long two days, judging by the circles under his eyes, the skin the color of old grapes. His jaw sagged, too. “Sam, what’s wrong?”

  “You were right, Erin. They do think I killed Gerry Martin. It’s all over town. He didn’t just fall—he was pushed. They think I was jealous because of the attention he gave Jennifer. But he flirted with every woman. I knew it didn’t mean anything.”

  “She’s told them that, right?”

  “I don’t know what she’s told them. We’re barely speaking.”

  Jennifer’s secrets weren’t mine to tell, but sometimes you have to speak up. Be a buttinsky. “Sam, listen. You have to talk to her. For reasons that have nothing to do with Gerry Martin.”

  I told him what I’d learned from the wine buyer at SavClub and from Donna Lawson. He gripped the handle of the old red dolly.

  “That makes sense of a few things,” he said, sounding both strained and a little relieved. “Jenny always wants more. None of this ‘living in the moment’ stuff for her.” One side of his mouth curved up, then his face turned sober again. “Her dad was always off chasing the next big thing. He lost his shirt over and over, robbing Peter to pay Paul, telling her mom not to worry, he had everything covered. But he never did.”

  “Sounds like she’s fallen into the same trap.”

  “I thought we were living the dream, but it wasn’t enough for her.”

  What could I say? She’d treated him the way her father had treated her mother.

  “Thank you, Erin,” he continued. “Now that I know what’s going on, I can make things right.”

  He tilted the dolly back and rolled it toward the Lodge’s front door, his stride as decisive as his words.

  There are worse things than being a buttinsky.

  Twenty-Seven

  Gabby Drake looped her arm through mine and pulled me through the crowd surging toward the theater’s inner doors. “I was hoping to find you.”

  I’d snuck into the Playhouse lobby late for the Wednesday night concert, hoping to avoid my friends and neighbors. All I wanted was to get lost in the music. The downside of being a buttinsky is spending more effort solving other people’s problems than my own, and I needed to refill the well.

  A young man wearing a student lanyard held the door for us, and Gabby flashed him her million-watt smile as she led me outside. The temperature had dropped several degrees at sunset, and the air held a damp, ominous chill.

  “What’s up?” I tried to step back to face her, but her clammy fingers gripped my elbow. The bright expression she’d given our doorman was gone. From my sideways angle, her dark eyes appeared even larger and rounder than normal, her customary navy blue eyeliner smeared. Traces of coral lipstick clung to the corner of her mouth, and the tangerine cardigan she’d tossed over her floral print dress was misbuttoned.

  “Everyone in town says … ” She paused, then dropped my arm. “Everyone says you’re investigating the—the murder, and that you—you know and see things other people don’t.”

  She made it sound like I had ESP or other superpowers, but this was not the time to laugh it off. I met her gaze and held my tongue.

  “They say you’ve solved crimes before the sheriff’s people did. That you’ve gotten them to understand they were focused on the wrong man. On someone innocent.”

  “Gabby, what’s going on?”

  “I know that man didn’t kill Gerry Martin. The drummer, I mean. Sam.” She spoke so quickly I had to lean in close to hear. “I think—Erin, what would you do if you thought you knew who the killer was? But you couldn’t stand it. Because if they did it, they did it for you?”

  A couple dressed for a night out rushed past us and into the theater. I led Gabby to a bench on the edge of the garden, away from the door. Away from the ears, if not the eyes, of the patrol deputies roaming the village streets. I dug an unopened water bottle out of my blue bag and handed it to her.

  She took half a dozen small sips. Her skin glinted with a touch of sweat, a deep flush riding the top of her cheekbones. Tracy would adore her shoulder-grazing beaded earrings. Ann would hate them.

  “Now, start at the beginning and tell me what’s got you so anxious.”

  Her breath had returned to normal, but her voice was thin and ragged. “My parents went to the ends of the earth for me. Literally. To an orphanage in the outback of China. You know, you never quite forget that. I mean, I don’t remember it—I was fourteen months old. But when you’re obviously Chinese and your parents aren’t, everyone knows your story just by looking at you.”

  I’d come from a town where everyone knew my story, but I sensed that this was different.

  “My mom gave up her career for me. And my dad closed his financial business so they could help me build my career.”

  So she didn’t know about the legal trouble. She wouldn’t hear about it from me.

  “They don’t think I know they got me into music school. I flubbed the audition, but my mom is an alum and understudied for a woman who’s a major donor. I heard her on the phone, practically pleading. They let me fly out and repeat the audition. I found out from other kids that they never do that.”

  “You must feel pretty lucky.”

  “Yes, but I also feel terrible. They came out with me two years ago, when I got chosen to study guitar with Gerry. Last year, too. Now they’re buying a house here.” She fiddled with the cap on the water bottle.

  “You’re going back to school in the fall, then wherever music takes you. They’re moving on to the next phase of their lives.”

  “They’re buying the house so they can worm their way into the jazz world. You should hear them. Whenever they meet someone, they’re all on about me, and how I’ve sung at this festival, and played with that artist. They never shut up.”

  “They’re proud of you.” They were overbearing control freaks.

  “Like today. This amazing bass player is here. He tours with everybody, and I decided even though I’m kinda half dropping out, I’d go to his Master Class. She came. The Master Classes are for students, and my mother came. Afterwards, she wouldn’t stop telling him how much I could learn from him and what a good backup singer I am.”

  And then they’d argued, as Kyle had heard.

  “Isn’t that what you want? A new teacher? A new mentor?”

  She leaned forward, pointing her finger at her chest. “I want to earn this. Myself. Not get favors because my parents made a big donation so they could get five minutes to brag about me to some famous guy.”

  A suspicion darted through my brain. “Is that what happened with Gerry Martin? Is that how you became his protégée?”

  Her narrow chin quivered, and a tear rolled down her cheek.

  I put my hand on her bare knee. “Then tell them that you’re grateful for everything they’ve
done. That you need to choose your own path, but you’ll always look to them for—”

  “What if they killed him?”

  “Your parents?” I leaned forward, lowering my voice. “Why—how?”

  “Saturday morning.” She rubbed a knuckle against the side of her long straight nose, and sniffed. “I went for a run. I saw them, talking to him. I could tell they were upset.”

  “He died up on the River Road,” I said.

  “My parents walk on the River Road every morning. They get their coffee and they go for a walk.”

  Would fastidious Ann Drake have dropped her cup, or tossed it in the bushes? I’d already dismissed the idea that she and Grant had gone up on the River Road with Martin and argued over Gabby’s future and their role in it, but if Gabby thought it possible …

  I’ve never pushed a man to his death down a cliff above a raging river, but I’m fairly sure that if I did, I wouldn’t be worried about littering.

  “Did you tell Undersheriff Hoover?”

  Her jaw tightened, and she gave a quick shake no.

  “You have to tell him.”

  At the very least, if Grant Drake’s prints and DNA were in a nationwide database, because of that business in New York, Ike could run a comparison. It might not prove anything, but it would be evidence. But he’d need solid legal reasons to compel Ann to give him prints and a DNA sample. I’d learned that much from Kim.

  Gabby’s parents had been in Le Panier yesterday around eight—much earlier than the window of Gerry Martin’s death. If they were the creatures of habit that Gabby insisted, wouldn’t they have gotten their coffee and taken their walk at the same time Saturday as on Tuesday? Wouldn’t someone have seen them?

  And if they’d been late, wouldn’t Michelle have remembered them?

  “What time? Tell me exactly what you saw, and where they were.”

  “I can’t say what time. I didn’t sleep well. He upset me Friday night, ripping into me. I kinda deserved it, I know—it was his gig, and I played my own piece instead. I came running through town, in the street.” She gestured toward Front Street, a few feet from our bench. She’d been headed back to their condo on the bay.

  “And where were they?”

  “Outside the bakery.”

  “Did they see you?”

  “I don’t think so. There were cars parked on that side of the street, and they were pretty intent on him. Gesturing and stuff.”

  “Did they have coffee cups?” I held my hand as if holding a paper cup.

  “I don’t know. They usually sit and enjoy their coffee. But Gerry?” She closed her eyes briefly. “I don’t think so.”

  Then he hadn’t gone inside the bakery yet. They could have waited for him, and gone on a walk together. Or they could have left him and gone about their business, whatever that was.

  “Gabby, is there something else you’re not telling me? Some reason …”

  She whipped her face toward me, her full brows raised. “They wouldn’t have meant it. But he was so angry. And so were they. All this week, they’ve been so secretive. I know they’re hiding things from me.”

  “And you’re sure it involves you and Martin?”

  Her brows dropped, bending toward each other, and her shoulders sagged. “What else could it be?”

  Just because you’re self-centered doesn’t mean everything isn’t always about you, but I had my doubts this time.

  “The house?” No surprise that Gabby thought the house was about her, too. “Your mother seemed pretty certain they’d found one, when she bought the pottery in my shop.”

  “On the lake, I think. An old orchard? Tearing down, or remodeling—I don’t know. Erin, you can figure this out, can’t you? I mean, it’s my parents. They can’t be—killers. But if—well, I don’t want that other guy blamed if he didn’t do it.”

  Her hands felt so small in mine, and she looked so young. “I don’t know who killed your teacher, Gabby. For what it’s worth, I don’t think it was Sam or your parents. But I’ll do everything I can to figure out who did.”

  Only after she’d air-kissed my cheek and dashed back in to the theater did I realize that, like nearly everyone else who’d known Gerry Martin, Gabby Drake hadn’t actually expressed any sorrow over his death.

  ∞

  I emptied Gabby’s water bottle on the nearest rose bush, then checked my phone. It had buzzed with a text during her tearful wail, and I’d ignored it.

  Home from the hills, Adam wrote. See you at Red’s after the show?

  Walking in now and climbing over half the row to get to my seat might not earn me too many dirty looks—this was festival world, not the Metropolitan Opera—but I’d fallen out of the musical mood.

  Oh, pooh. I’d given the other ticket to Lou Mary, who would fret up one aisle and down the other if I didn’t show. And I couldn’t text her—she took great pride in not owning a cell phone.

  The woman behind the ticket counter promised to give Lou Mary a note at half-time: Sorry I couldn’t stay—fill me in tomorrow!

  Then, head down and hands in my pockets, I marched through town and over the bridge, not stopping to watch the river meet the bay. I needed to think, and to move. And call Ike.

  Another layer of clouds had rolled in, blocking the stars and moonlight. Solar-powered lights, the kind you stick in the ground where you need them, lit the trail that skirted the south side of the bay. Jewel Bay had been blessed for decades with foresighted people who preserved this greenbelt, built the nature trail, aka the River Road, and kept the Playhouse running. They established the shops and galleries and restaurants. They created the festivals that made the town so much fun, and brought tourists from near and far to fuel our economy.

  Would I be able to continue that legacy? Would my children want to do the same?

  I hoped I’d have the fortitude, when the time came, to let them do what they wanted, with encouragement but without pressure. As my parents had done.

  Poor Gabby. Her parents had made her the center of their world, and now she struggled to make the world turn on her own.

  And she couldn’t imagine them focused on anything other than her. But I was getting my own reminder these days about letting go of our parents, seeing how their lives continue on, independent of their children. They don’t stop changing and growing—they pick up passions once set aside, move across the country, find new loves.

  As it should be.

  The light from the Harbor condos brightened this stretch, and my footsteps made soft thumps on the path. I ran my hand along a hedge of dwarf lilacs, and drank in their scent.

  Had the Drakes argued with Martin on the street, then gone up to the River Road with him and continued the argument until it turned tragic, as Gabby feared?

  Doubtful. One argument on the village sidewalk, I could buy. But stalking the man? Not the elegant Ann’s style, despite her flair for the dramatic. And Grant Drake’s misdeeds had been financial, not physical.

  They doted on their daughter, and they would stand up for her. But push a man to his death and keep it a secret?

  It didn’t seem possible.

  What about Gabby herself? Her confession of her fears seemed genuine. But a child that spoiled, that over-indulged, might think her parents would happily take the fall for her.

  I heard movement behind me. Too much noise for a squirrel, although deer did occasionally meander through driveways and bound over the seawall to drink from the bay.

  I glanced back but saw nothing. A cat, I decided, and strolled on.

  What a day. My ride with Kim had been both energizing and draining. I could not recall seeing her sob like that since we were kids. Young kids, when we’d witnessed a horse break a leg. Her father had sent us home while he put it down. If she had cried when my father died, she’d kept it from me.

  I hoped we we
re through keeping things from each other.

  That thought led me to Sam. Could he confront his wife and get her to scale back their dreams to a mutually agreeable level? I crossed my fingers. I liked them. And their winery was a boon to the village.

  I stepped into darkness—a missing light, or one out of order.

  My musing returned to the brilliant idea I’d had earlier. Who better than me to help Tanner create a detailed business plan, one he could implement after he recovered his strength, or tailor to declining health? One that a future owner—Adam, an outside buyer, or a group of employees—could revise and adapt to fit their own needs. One that would keep the staff employed, the T-shirts rolling off the line, and Tanner’s dream a reality.

  From somewhere in the shrubbery came a rustling sound, then the crack of a branch. Before I could see what was making the noise, a hard object hit me in the middle of my back. I cried out, staggering forward, half bent.

  The thing struck me again, this time from the side. The jolt knocked the breath of out of me, and I stepped sideways, struggling to regain my balance.

  To keep myself from toppling into the bay.

  My feet back under me, I spun toward my attacker. In the semi-darkness, I saw a shape about my height, and an arm ready to hurl a dagger at me. No, not a dagger—the missing solar light. I ducked. The light flew past me and splashed into the bay.

  I wriggled my bag off my shoulder and grabbed the straps with both hands. I swung. The bag hit something—someone—who uttered a loud sound. Not quite a word, but clearly a cry of pain.

  I drew back and let loose. Hit a second time. Heard a second cry.

  Then footsteps, running away.

  Leaving me alone in the dark, on the path above the bay. Me and my trusty blue bag.

  Twenty-Eight

  I’m fine,” I repeated. “And sit down. You’re making me nervous.”

  “He didn’t say anything?” Adam did not sit, rocking from one foot to the other in the Merc’s courtyard. The guys were headed to Red’s when they spotted me charging up the street, shaken and stirred. Our beers sat on the table. “Like ‘stay out of it’ or ‘mind your own business’?”