The Cumberland Creek Mystery series
by Mollie Cox Bryan:
SCRAPBOOK OF SECRETS
SCRAPPED
DEATH OF AN IRISH DIVA
DEATH of an IRISH DIVA
Mollie Cox Bryan
KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.
http://www.kensingtonbooks.com
All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.
Table of Contents
Also by
Title Page
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Glossary of Basic Scrapbooking Terms
Scrapbook Essentials for the Beginner
SCRAPBOOK OF SECRETS!
Copyright Page
Dedicated to Emily Oleson and Matthew Olwell,
two of the finest dance teachers (and people)
I’ve ever known.
Acknowledgments
Thanks so much to all of you, the readers of this series. You make the magic happen for me. My husband, Eric, and my daughters, Emma and Tess, deserve a huge amount of gratitude for their support. Also, a huge thanks goes to Jennifer Feller, Christy Majors, Chrissy Lantz, and Leeyanne Moore for reading early versions of this book and giving me much-needed thoughtful feedback. Special thanks to John Craft for hours of talk about police work while our daughters were in dance class. Thanks to attorney John Hill for answering legal questions.
My daughters participated in Irish dancing for many years and were blessed with a fabulous teacher, who went on to marry another fabulous teacher. I am grateful for the time Emily Oleson and Matt Olwell spent in our lives. We are sorry Emily left the area to find her bliss—but we are happy she found it. Thanks to both of them for the inspiration and for answering my questions all those years ago. I feel like I should point out that Emily McGlashen is a character and is not based on Emily Oleson. They just share first names.
A huge hug goes to my fabulous agent, Sharon Bowers, for her steadfast belief in my writing. Another big hug goes to Martin Biro, a dream editor, and to all the Kensington team: Alexandra Nicolajsen, Adeola Saul, and all of you who work hard to promote, sell, and edit the Cumberland Creek mysteries.
A very special thanks to the folks and readers at Malice Domestic for the Agatha Award nomination for Scrapbook of Secrets.
In Gratitude,
Mollie
Chapter 1
A green velvet dress, the skirt of which was flung over the top of the right hip of the victim, revealed she was naked from the waist down. Her white thigh and buttocks were so muscled, taut, and perfect that she almost looked like a statue, lying twisted, facedown, on the floor. Her long brown ponytail of curls was askew, but the green ribbon was still intact. A pair of tights was crumpled in a corner of the dance studio. Her underwear, if, indeed, she had worn any, was missing. One of her shoes was lying next to the tights, and it was without a lace, of course, because its lace was still wrapped around Emily McGlashen’s neck.
“How long has she been here?” Annie asked Detective Adam Bryant after settling her stomach with a deep breath and calming thoughts.
Poor woman. So young. So talented.
And just yesterday Emily astounded Annie with her high leaps, twirls, and fast footwork during the St. Patrick’s Day parade and festival. The green velvet dress had swung in off rhythm to the Irish music against Emily’s in-sync movements. Bursting with life. Hard to believe that same skirt was now askew across Emily’s lifeless body.
He shrugged. “As far as I can tell, maybe all day. We think it happened sometime early this morning. She was supposed to be at a meeting this afternoon, and her friend came looking for her, and this is what she found. You here officially?”
Annie grimaced. She had been working on her book about the New Mountain Order and had taken a leave of absence from her freelancing, and he knew it. But her editor called her to see if she’d cover this. Big news to a certain segment of the population, namely, those who followed Irish dance.
“Maybe,” she said.
He went on. “Not much of a story here. Just the murder of a person who maybe was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“She was in the public eye. And strangling is a personal act, isn’t it?” Annie twisted a curl around her finger. She was wearing her hair down, which was all part of the newer, more relaxed version of her former self. She didn’t need to pull it back. She didn’t need to control it. It was a relief. Chalk that bit of advice up to her mysterious friend and yoga teacher Cookie Crandall.
“Most of the time, yes,” he said, his blue eyes sparkling. “But there was a robbery. Looks like the safe was ransacked. Maybe she surprised the perp. Maybe he didn’t have another weapon.”
“So he used her shoelaces?” Annie said. “C’mon.”
The detective’s mouth went crooked.
Still, it probably had nothing to do with the NMO. There were none of the symbols they had used in the past. Maybe it was true. Maybe they had really cleaned up their act.
“But she was a famous Irish dancer,” Annie said, almost to herself.
“And?” he said with a crooked smirk. “One of her fancy-dancing competitors offed her?”
Flashes of Riverdance played in Annie’s mind. There was nothing “fancy” about those dancers. They were in extraordinary physical condition. A hugely successful international dance show consisting of traditional Irish dance, Riverdance was spurring Irish dance classes across the country. And Emily McGlashen was in one of those big productions and had made a name for herself, which was one reason the kids in Cumberland Creek loved her. Besides all that, she was young and hip.
Annie crossed her arms and glared at Bryant.
&
nbsp; The police photographer entered the studio again, and his camera flashed in the dim room, a large dance studio with beautiful polished wood floors, a mirror along one wall, and bars that ran along the side of it. Posters of Irish dancers, medals, and trophies decorated the facility. You could say what you wanted about Emily—and many townsfolk did—but she knew her Irish dancing. An international champion who came to Cumberland Creek and opened a new studio, Emily had drawn attention to herself right away.
A couple of uniformed officers pulled Bryant away to show him something they had found. Annie stepped out of the way of another officer, now bending over the body. A glint of a flash from the camera reflected in the mirror.
“Damn, it’s hard to get good pictures. These mirrors are a problem,” the photographer said and looked around for another angle. “Can you run and get some sheets from the van?” he said to the younger person who was assisting him.
“Well, that’s an interesting piece of evidence,” Bryant said.
Annie turned around to see his gloved hands reach for a red handbag that looked vaguely familiar to her. She was not a handbag kinda woman; she was more a designer shoe devotee turned sneaker aficionado. She didn’t really pay much attention to purses, given that she avoided carrying one as often as possible.
But she was certain she’d seen that bag somewhere.
The detective reached in and pulled out a wallet, still there and full of money, credit cards, and a driver’s license, which inspired a huge grin to spread across his face.
“Vera Matthews,” he said and looked at Annie. “And I think we all know what Vera thought about Emily McGlashen.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Annie said, but her heart sank. Vera had made no attempt at hiding her feelings about Emily. She hadn’t been herself. But still she was far from being a cold-blooded killer. Vera? Not likely. “Vera Matthews may not have liked Emily, but she didn’t kill her.”
“But, Ms. Chamovitz, her purse is here. How do you explain it?” Bryant smirked as he placed the handbag in a plastic evidence bag.
“I don’t have to explain it. You do,” she said.
“You’re wrong about that, Annie. She does,” he said, slipping off his gloves.
She walked away from him. It took every ounce of restraint she could muster to not run out of the studio and call Vera to warn her that Bryant, or one of his underlings, would be stopping by to question her. As if it mattered, really. She was certain Vera hadn’t killed anybody, especially after seeing the compassionate way she’d behaved over the past few years. Still, a little warning would be nice.
Vera’s life had changed drastically recently. Her ex-husband, Bill, had moved in with a woman in Charlottesville and was rarely around to help with their daughter, Elizabeth. Her mother, Beatrice, was also living with the new man in her life. Vera was alone and claimed she preferred it. After Emily McGlashen came to town, stealing many of Vera’s students by offering cheaper classes and preaching against the “archaic” dance form of ballet, her business income had plummeted. Vera was in such financial trouble that she was renting her house out, hoping to sell it, while she and Elizabeth lived in the apartment above her dance studio.
“Didn’t she write a letter to the editor recently about Ms. McGlashen?” Bryant asked, still holding the purse as he approached her. Annie refrained from smiling at the decidedly manly man holding the evidence bag with the purse in it.
“Yes. Wow, you read,” she taunted him. “Did you also see the letter she was responding to? The one that Emily wrote? The one that claimed ballet was an archaic dance form and that Vera was ripping kids off?”
“Oh, gee, I must have missed that,” he said. “I’m sure I’ll be reading it in about an hour, right, Johnson?”
“Yes, sir. Right on it.”
Bryant started to walk by her and brushed up against her. “Sir,” he said in a low voice. “Just how I like it.”
His breath skimmed across her neck as he walked by. Telling him that she was a married woman, again, would do no good. He had been blatantly flirting with her for months, and sometimes right under Mike’s nose. If they hadn’t shared that one kiss during a moment of drunken weakness, she’d have more solid ground on which to stand. But he knew.
He knew what he was doing to her. And he was enjoying every minute of it.
Chapter 2
When Vera opened her apartment door to Detective Bryant holding her purse in a plastic bag, her first thought was one of relief.
“You found my purse,” she said. “Oh, thank heaven. I was looking everywhere for it.” When she went to reach for it, she was interrupted by a crashing sound. “Oh, shoot,” she said, taking off toward where the noise was coming from. “Come in, Detective,” she managed to say, waving him in.
“Oh, Lizzie!” she said to her grinning daughter, who was sitting in the middle of a huge stack of CDs that had been piled nicely in several stacks around the floor. They were just too tempting for an inquisitive three-year-old. At least the silver disks were all still inside the covers. Lizzie hadn’t gotten around to that yet.
Vera reached for Lizzie and pulled her up to her hip. She looked at the detective, who stood by awkwardly with her purse. Annie had just walked in behind him.
“Hey,” she said.
Lizzie squealed and squirmed down from her mother. “Annie!” She ran to her.
“You want to come and play at my house?” Annie said.
“Yes!”
“Annie, why do you want my daughter? Don’t you think you should check with me first?” Vera asked, smiling. She was so glad Annie and Lizzie got along so well. After all, Lizzie’s father was mostly never around these days.
“Detective Bryant wants to talk to you. I just thought I’d help out by taking Lizzie home with me for a little while. Do you mind?”
Vera sighed. “Look at this place. No. I don’t mind. I’m still trying to unpack.”
Lizzie grabbed Annie’s hand.
“Her diaper bag is in the hall closet there, just in case,” Vera said. Lizzie was mostly potty trained. Mostly. Sometimes Lizzie was indignant at the thought of diaper bags, because she took great pride in using the potty.
After she kissed her daughter good-bye and watched as she and Annie left the room, Vera turned back around to face handsome, but annoying Detective Adam Bryant.
“Well,” she said, straightening out the stacks of CDs on the floor, “what can I help you with?”
“How long has your purse been missing?” he asked.
“You know, it’s the craziest thing,” she replied, stacking up the last group of CDs. “I woke up this morning and thought I should charge my cell. I meant to do that last night, when I got in, but I was exhausted. I just fell into bed. So I looked for my purse this morning and couldn’t find it. I thought maybe I left it downstairs. “
“Your cell is usually in your purse?”
“Usually,” she replied. “So where did you find it?”
“Before I tell you that, can you tell me where you were last night?”
“After the Saint Patrick’s Day parade and show, Lizzie and I went to my mother’s house. We had dinner with Jon and Mom. Why?”
“Any reason your purse would be in Emily McGlashen’s studio?”
“What? Why? No. That bitch. Did she take my purse? I knew the woman had some screws loose, but to take my bag? As if ruining my business wasn’t enough, she had to steal my purse?”
Vera had hoped that Irish dancing was a fad, and that Emily McGlashen would have moved on by now. For God’s sake, ballet was so much more important to the development of a dancer. Why would her dancers leave her studio to study with Emily? Okay, the dancing looked like fun, with its jumps and turns and precision footwork. And then there was the fact that Emily made sure her classes were cheaper than Vera’s. How did she do it? Vera couldn’t discount any more classes and make financial ends meet.
“Sit down, Vera,” Bryant said and gestured with his arm.
“Wh
y? What’s going on?” she asked but sat down on her secondhand couch. Oh, how she longed for the comfortable, light blue, deep-cushioned couch sitting in her house. This couch was uncomfortable and stiff. Not very pretty, either, with its green plaid cushions. In fact, her apartment was full of mismatched, uncomfortable furniture. She had rented her house out fully furnished, which was what her Realtor had advised. And it went quickly: a visiting University of Virginia professor snapped it up.
He looked deflated momentarily. His eyes scanned the room. “You really do have your hands full, don’t you? Big changes, huh?”
“Yes,” she replied. “At least we have a roof over our head and food for the table.”
He sighed. “Emily McGlashen is dead, Vera.”
She gasped, and her hand went to her mouth. “What—what happened to her? So young . . .”
“Twenty-eight, to be exact,” he said. “She was strangled. Murdered at her studio late last night or early this morning. Time of death is inconclusive.”
Death of an Irish Diva (A Cumberland Creek Mystery) Page 1