by Holly Plum
Landon brushed aside Maple’s overly insistent gesture and quickly moved on to the next table, which was Georgette’s. It gave Joy a feeling of satisfaction to see the vexed look on Maple’s face as she set the cupcakes back down on her tray uneaten. She threw Joy a scathing look, but Joy wasn’t in the mood to taunt her. There was no need.
“You know, I think maybe I was wrong about Landon,” Joy said to Sara Beth, impressed by his calm demeanor despite the chaos going on around him. “He’s not so bad.”
But Sara Beth wasn’t listening. Her eyes were glued to Georgette’s table, where Landon stood gazing on the antique broach while Georgette looked on with a frightened expression. As he opened his mouth to utter the charming anecdote that Joy knew was surely coming, Georgette studied him with a look of intense suspicion.
“Amazing, really,” Landon commented. Joy could almost see the wheels turning in his head as he reached for something flattering to say. “Back home there was a lady who used to sell antiques out of her home. You know who that woman was? My sweet old mother.”
There was an audible awe from the crowd.
"He's so sweet." Sara Beth sighed.
“And one day a very famous man came to our house, I won’t say who it was, but he looked over my mother’s antiques. Do you know what he said? He said, my mother's collection was the finest he'd seen.” Landon grinned.
If Landon had merely told the anecdote and moved on, he might have avoided the scene that followed. As it was, he made the mistake of reaching for the broach. As he did so, Georgette let out a wild hiss and snarled at him.
“Don't touch it,” she shouted. “You'll be sorry!"
Several of the people surrounding Landon stepped back, startled. Joy heard them muttering to one another. But Landon remained unperturbed, and he raised a hand for silence. “It’s alright, it’s alright,” he said in his honeyed voice. “If you don’t want me to touch it, I won’t touch it.”
But even this peaceful gesture wasn’t enough to appease Georgette. “If you so much as lay a finger on it, so help me,” she said quietly. There was a wild menace in her eyes and her normally pale cheeks flashed a rosy red.
“Maybe that broach isn't the problem?” Sara Beth said low in Joy’s ears. "Maybe Georgette is just insane?"
The crowd parted, and Florence Thurston came shuffling to the front of the table with a domineering expression. She was joined there a moment later by Edith Maxwell, still carrying her clipboard and looking even more annoyed than before.
“Georgette, you need to calm it down,” Florence said, her thin lips pursed. “You realize you’re going to have to give this broach up when it’s auctioned off in a few minutes?”
“I can’t,” snarled Georgette. “I've changed my mind.”
“Georgette, you signed an agreement,” Florence replied with miraculous patience. “You’re obligated to sell the broach and donate a portion of your earnings to the Senior Center. You were fine with this yesterday. In fact, as I recall, you couldn't wait to get rid of it.”
“You bullied me into selling," Georgette rudely responded. With her matted hair and blazing eyes, she looked quite mad now. Even Landon, surrounded as he was by his security detail, began to back away. “This broach has cursed my family for over a century. If Landon buys it, it will ruin him.”
“Georgette, that’s a lot of nonsense,” Edith said calmly. “Really, a cursed broach? You’ve been reading too many mystery novels.”
But Georgette was beyond reasoning. “That broach,” she said, her voice rising with each word, “will bring misfortune to anyone who owns it!”
Florence turned to Edith and said, “We need to get her out of here. She’s becoming a nuisance.”
CHAPTER THREE
After the expulsion of Georgette, the silent auction took on a more subdued character. Joy could tell Landon was enjoying himself less because he hardly spoke above a whisper as he walked from table to table. Even Maple seemed to have been momentarily shaken by Georgette’s warning. For a few minutes after the chaos died down, she stood at her table pensively sipping lemonade and eating one of her own cupcakes.
“Just watching all of that was exhausting,” Sara Beth commented. In the wake of her meeting with Landon, she had turned to her sweet tea for comfort. “If I didn’t believe in curses before, I do now. Look at what it’s done to her.”
“No curse did that,” Joy said with a shake of her head. “Her own fears did.”
“Well, anyway,” Sara Beth continued, “after watching Georgette's performance, you couldn’t pay me money to buy that broach.”
Judging from the nervous faces of their fellow participants, Joy was inclined to think they agreed. She wondered how the broach was going to be auctioned off if no one wanted it. “On the other hand,” Joy said to herself, “maybe that will increase its mystique.” Which, come to think of it, was probably what Georgette had wanted.
As the auction winded down, Edith and Florence went around and collected all the silent bids. After a ten-minute intermission, Florence took the stage at the back of the room near Georgette’s table and announced that she would be reading the winners of each item. A faint buzz of anticipation filled the room.
“First item,” Florence began, reading the front of the first envelope. “An incense burner with the image of a bird carved onto it.” She turned the envelope over and tried opening it with her nail. When that proved difficult, she rolled her eyes.
“Here,” Edith muttered, running up and handing her a letter opener from her purse. “See if this will work.”
“Thanks,” Florence responded. She snatched the letter opener out of her hand and tore open the envelope. “The winner of the incense burner is Maria Clemons.”
There was a polite smattering of applause as Maria ran to the front of the stage, a delighted look on her face, and took the incense burner from Florence.
Over the next twenty minutes, Florence read the rest of the names without any interruptions. A pair of giant crystal bowls went to Old Joe, one of Joy’s regular customers at the bakery. Madame Deedee who ran a fortune-telling business for tourists won a striped scarf and a skeleton cat candle. The cursed ruby broach went to a young woman named Noelle Grant, who had bid on it before Georgette’s outburst and didn’t look thrilled to have won it.
Maple’s cupcakes were auctioned off to a Navy veteran who had just returned home from overseas, while Joy’s and Sarah Beth's cookies were awarded to Bob Bryce who owned a local bed-and-breakfast and who cooked the finest lamb shanks Joy had ever tasted. She was pleased that the cookies went to him and even more pleased that her cookies made more money than Maple’s cupcakes. Five cents more.
“Will you look at that?” Joy said to Sara Beth with a triumphant gleam in her eyes as Maple stalked past their table without acknowledging either of them. “Someone’s not too happy with us.”
“I don’t see why,” Sara Beth replied. “It was only five cents.”
“Five cents is five cents."
Finally, after another ten-minute intermission, Florence strode breathlessly back onto the stage. She carried a pale pink foldout fan in one hand, with which she fanned her face rapidly. “I know this is what you’re all here for,” she said, “the moment you’ve been waiting for since this auction was first announced. We’re about to auction off the man himself, Landon Park.”
There was a fresh eruption of applause as music began playing and Landon strutted onto the stage. Sara Beth leaned forward, gripping the edge of the table tightly. All around them women sat straighter in their chairs as though having been called to attention. One old woman whom Joy recognized from the Senior Center let out an ecstatic hoop. Landon winked at her, and she fell back in her chair, resting a hand on her chest.
“You know, I’ve got to tell you,” Landon announced, “I’ve seen a lot of crowds, but I’ve never felt the love in a room like I do right now. One time a good friend of mine had the privilege of performing at the Super Bowl Half-Time Show. I wo
n't say his name, but he invited me along. And right as he launched into his signature song, it actually started raining, and the crowd went nuts. It was a beautiful moment. And that was probably the most I’ve ever felt loved by a group of people, until today.”
“Shall we start the bidding?” Florence responded, taking the microphone back. “We will start at one hundred dollars. Anyone? One hundred dollars for a date with Landon Park.”
To Joy’s surprise, Sara Beth's hand immediately flew up into the air.
“Sara Beth, you can’t be serious,” Joy whispered.
“What?” Sara Beth shrugged. “I want that date.”
“Two hundred dollars?” Florence went on. “Okay, Edith … we talked about this… anyone else, two hundred dollars?”
In the end, however, neither Sara Beth nor Edith won the date with Landon Park. The prize went to a willowy woman with dark hair named Raquel Malley who had paid over two thousand dollars for the honor. Joy shook her head in disbelief. She didn't have that kind of money to donate. But Raquel looked utterly transported as she glided onto the stage and shook hands with Landon for the first time. Raquel acted as if she might faint.
“It's the magic hands,” Sara Beth commented, raising her eyebrows.
As the photographers crowded around the stage, their camera bulbs flashing, Florence returned to the microphone looking jubilant. “That concludes our auction,” she announced. “Thank y'all so much for coming. Please, feel free to stay as long as you want, and help yourselves to more of the hors d’oeuvres. And donate to the Senior Center if you haven’t already. Thanks again and good night.”
The mood in the room seemed to lighten considerably now that the auction was over. Even Georgette, who had quietly crept back into the room, seemed to be enjoying herself as she stood at the snack table eating asparagus vol au vents and prosciutto crostinis. The other guests snuck past her, piling their plates high with a variety of cheeses and speculating about where Landon and Raquel would go on their date.
Joy and Sara Beth stood talking to Old Joe for a few minutes while Sara Beth bounced on her heels trying to get a final look at Landon Park as he carved a path through the crowd. After about twenty minutes, the banquet hall began to empty, and the overhead speakers played a mournful jazz number. Joy noticed that Edith was kneeling by herself on the stage with her purse in hand. She nudged Sara Beth in the ribs and motioned for her to follow.
“Do you need help with anything?” Joy asked as she approached the stage.
Edith ran a hand through her hair, casting a dark look on the assorted pens, pencils, and notepads that were scattered around her. “I’m just trying to remember what I lent out today,” she replied. “I know my letter opener is in here somewhere.”
Sara Beth ascended the ramp leading onto the stage and knelt down beside her. Joy, however, kept a nervous eye on Georgette, who was shiftily making her way through the crowd in search of the exit.
“I can’t imagine she’s doing too well right now,” Joy said to Sara Beth. “She really seemed to think Florence had bullied her into giving up that bracelet thing.”
"It was a broach, dear," Edith corrected her.
"Right." Joy watched as Georgette left the banquet hall.
Joy clambered up the steps to help Edith and Sara Beth.
“How did this happen?” Edith muttered. “I had at least twenty pens when the day started, and now I’m down to two.”
“You threw one of them away because it wasn’t working,” Sara Beth said helpfully.
“I threw out the half that wasn't working, and now the other half—”
But her words were cut short by a loud, piercing scream.
Immediately the music stopped. The guests who were still present glanced nervously toward the door of the banquet hall. One of the photographers hesitated to snap another photo.
“What on earth?” Joy commented, looking sharply around the room. “Did you both hear that?”
“Yeah, it would’ve been hard not,” Sara Beth replied, clutching the side of her head with a pained look. “My ears are still ringing.”
Another scream rang through the room, even louder than the first one. Joy turned to look at Sara Beth, her hair standing on end.
“What's going on?” Sara Beth asked, rising to her feet.
“I don’t know, but I think it came from outside.” Joy gulped.
Together they ran from the stage, with Edith following close behind.
CHAPTER FOUR
Joy, Sara Beth, and Edith ran outside onto the sand-strewn patio. There they found Georgette standing in the bright sunlight. She was motionless with shock, and her face was a ghostly shade of white. She was standing over something, pointing down at it with an expression of complete disbelief.
Sara Beth gasped and grabbed Joy’s arm, digging her nails into her flesh. Edith let out a yelp.
Perhaps because of the shock, or because she had been temporarily blinded by the light when she ran out onto the patio, it took Joy a moment to realize what they were looking at.
It was the body of Raquel Malley.
“That’s … that’s the woman,” Sara Beth stammered. “The one who won the date with Landon Park.”
“And she was so happy about it, too,” Edith said sadly. “What a horrible shame.”
They both whispered in the sort of hushed and sorrowful tones that were usually reserved for the dead. But Joy wasn’t convinced that Raquel Malley was dead yet. Kneeling down at Georgette’s feet, she felt along the side of Raquel’s neck searching for a pulse.
Meanwhile, Sara Beth and Edith rushed to comfort Georgette, who still hadn’t spoken a word.
“I understand if it’s hard to talk about,” Sara Beth said, gently guiding Georgette to a nearby chair. “But it would help if you could tell us what happened. Did she faint? Was she attacked?”
Edith shook her head and motioned to the upstairs balconies, one hand shielding her eyes to block out the sunlight. “It looks like she was either thrown or pushed. Did Raquel have any enemies that you know of?”
“Had you ever met Raquel?” Sara Beth asked Georgette.
But Georgette only whispered, “This is all my fault.”
Edith and Sara Beth turned to each other, looking equally puzzled.
Joy’s examination of the body had confirmed the worst. There was no pulse. Raquel was definitely dead. Her eye darted to a wound in Raquel's side.
“Look at this,” Joy said quietly so as not to disturb the other onlookers. “I don't think she fell. I think someone wants us to think that she fell.”
“Are you saying she was murdered?” Edith asked. Although she tried to hide them in the folds of her skirt, Joy could see that Edith's hands were shaking.
There was a terrified silence during which Sara Beth gazed up at the balconies as if expecting to find the murderer standing there surveying his grisly handiwork with a twisted smile of satisfaction.
Before Joy could give a definitive answer, the doors leading out onto the patio slid open, and Landon came running out, surrounded by a throng of fans and photographers. He let out a low moan of anguish and dismay as he knelt down beside the body and deftly placed his suit jacket over her. The crowd pressed around him, exchanging worried glances and whispering unhappily. A member of his security team yelled at everyone to stay back.
Joy felt anger boiling within her as she watched Landon shudder theatrically. She felt sure he was about to perform some grand, self-serving gesture and she didn’t think she could stomach any more of his antics. But to her surprise Landon maintained a steady composure, only saying in a quiet voice, “She was a beautiful woman.”
As Landon stepped away from the body, clearly wracked with grief, Joy began thinking quickly. Could Landon have been the one to stab Raquel and push her over the railing? It seemed unlikely, given that he had just met her. And given that he hadn’t had a moment to himself since entering the hotel, it was unlikely he could have found a private moment with Raquel.
/> But it seemed clear to Joy that someone had killed her, which meant the murderer had been present at the auction. Georgette made an unlikely suspect, as she had been standing on the ground floor under Florence's watchful eye. But as Joy combed through the list of potential suspects, none of them seemed very likely. Old Joe? Florence? Edith? Who among them had even known Raquel, and who would have wanted to hurt her?
The patio doors opened again, and the crowd parted to make way for the police. At their head strode Detective Sugar in his beige coat, his eyes narrowed in a look of intense concentration. As he usually did in these situations, he made a beeline for Joy.
“I’m not the one you want to talk to,” Joy said, motioning to Georgette. “She is the one who found the body.”
Detective Sugar raised his eyebrows. Reaching into his coat for his pencil and notepad, he turned to Georgette, who continued to stare at the body with a worried look. “Your name, ma'am?” he asked.
“Her name is Georgette,” Edith said. “Georgette Bell.”
“Thank you,” Detective Sugar replied in a voice of mild exasperation, “but I think we can let the woman speak for herself.”
Edith shrugged.
The detective studied Georgette. “Ma'am, I know how hard this must be. You never quite get used to seeing the deceased. One minute you and your colleague are just standing there, monitoring the bank vault; the next minute she’s dead on the floor, and you’re being held hostage.” Wiping his face with the sleeve of his coat, he added, “And you never saw it coming, and you never got to say goodbye.”
Joy felt that Detective Sugar must be deluded if he thought these reflections were going to have any effect on Georgette. But to her surprise, Georgette opened her eyes wide and said, “I didn’t see who pushed Raquel over the balcony. I don’t know if she was murdered or not. The only thing I know for sure is who’s responsible.”
The detective smiled a grim smile. “Well, if you could tell us that,” he said, “then this case would be over very quickly, wouldn’t it? Who did this?”