Death at a Talent Show (Book 6 Molly Masters Mysteries)

by Leslie O'Kane

  “Hello, Danielle,” I said cautiously, wondering if I was about to get chewed out once again for being in the same room with her son.

  “Molly,” she said evenly.

  Elsbeth had what had to be the phoniest-looking smile I’d ever seen plastered on her face. She looked at my daughter. “Karen, why don’t you do some warm-up scales, dear. I’ll be right in. I just want to walk my guests out.”

  Brian helped adjust the piano bench for Karen, then left the house without a word of goodbye. Tamara clicked her tongue at her mother and groaned, slumping farther down on the couch. Danielle walked up to Elsbeth in the foyer and said in a low voice, “I’m so sorry that Tamara’s quit taking lessons, Elsbeth.”

  “She has simply decided to focus on her academics for a couple of months until school ends. When she’s at Stanford next year she’ll need all the practice she can get.”

  “I’m sure she will. Brian is going to Dartmouth. He chose that over Juilliard, despite his scholarship. Did he tell you?”

  “Yes. I’m happy for him.”

  “As I am for Tamara,” she replied, shutting the front door behind her.

  “That bitch,” Elsbeth murmured. “You know, my daughter is every bit as good a pianist as her son.”

  Tamara had made her way unnoticed into the foyer.

  “No, I’m not, Mom. Don’t kid yourself. Brian’s a musical genius.”

  “A genius? Please! He is not. The only person who thinks he’s a genius is his mother.”

  “Corinne used to call him that all the time, too. She’d have him play for our class.”

  Elsbeth set her dark features into a scowl. “She was hardly a judge. Everyone knows what the two of them were up to.”

  “That’s just a nasty rumor, Mom. They were friends. Period. And he is a genius. I’m not. I’m only talented enough to be able to recognize the difference between good and great pianists. You can tell, too, Mom, and we both know it. Why can’t you just accept the truth?” Tamara’s voice had risen with every sentence. She stared at her mother, whose mouth was set in a thin line. Tamara stormed off toward her bedroom, slamming the door behind her. Elsbeth wrapped her arms around her chest and stared after her, but stood there frozen.

  “Elsbeth, maybe we’d better reschedule today’s lesson,” I offered.

  “That won’t be necessary.”

  I glanced at Karen, her cheeks bright red as she pounded out the notes of her scales in an apparent attempt to drown out our voices. Then I looked Elsbeth directly in the eye and said firmly, “Yes, it is.” I softened my tones and said, “Karen? We’re going to reschedule. Let’s go home.”

  “Have it your way,” Elsbeth said, marching toward the piano. She was smoldering, largely because of my comment when I assumed Tamara was at the piano.

  For Tamara’s sake, I pleaded, “I’m sorry that I said anything about the quality of anyone’s playing, Your daughter is a wonderful pianist and a really wonderful person. You must be really proud of her.”

  She turned toward me and nodded, but her eyes had a distant look, as though she hadn’t heard a word. “Brian’s overrated.”

  She sat down on the bench next to Karen and said, “Karen, before you go, let me share my idea for what I think you should begin working on for the next recital, all right? It’s perfect for you.”

  She started playing some piece that I recognized and knew I should instantly identify, but I was too distracted by her hands. Three of her fingers had scabs from small abrasions.

  Come to think of it, she’d worn those long white gloves at the recital as if she’d been hiding her hands, and she’d worn gloves both when we were signing in for career day and in the teachers’ lounge after our presentation.

  I looked at my hands and verified the similar appearance of our respective injuries. Hers were further along in the healing process.

  A few days ago, Elsbeth’s hands had been bitten by birds.

  Chapter 12

  Inflated Attendance Figures

  I drove Karen home, having made no mention to Elsbeth of the marks on her hands. What bothered me most was that I’d noticed no such marks on her hands while we were getting ready for the dress rehearsal. She could only have gotten them just as the birds were released the distraction before the shooting took place.

  The next morning, an electrician came and restored power to my kitchen. He took great delight in telling me how stupid this was of the builders. He got no argument from me, of course, but the difference was that he was earning a hundred bucks for a two-minute repair job, whereas I’d eaten too much ice cream the previous night. With no working freezer, Jim and I had agreed that “the bears” would eat our mint-chocolate-chip ice cream if we put it outside in the snow with the rest of our most perishable items. With all that sugar in our systems late at night, the bears had slept better than we had.

  With electricity and refrigerator contents restored, I brainstormed card ideas by forcing myself to doodle and to write down words and phrases as they popped into my brain. No matter how often this method succeeds, I never believe that the process will work this time.

  Soon my thoughts were focused on Martin’s sparsely attended performance at the hospital, and how much better it would have felt if the chairs had been filled—even if the attendees had been asleep. There was a potential cartoon there. Now I just needed to find it.

  Eventually, I settled on a drawing of a television reporter, microphone in hand, who says, “Organizers of tonight’s rally are claiming a full house. However, this reporter has reason to believe that those attendance figures have been inflated.” Behind him are the auditorium seats, almost all of which are occupied by silly-looking inflatable dolls.

  Before I could complete the cartoon, my mother called to invite herself over, which was fine with me but unusual behavior on her part. During her visit, she was uncharacteristically chatty. She kept glancing at her watch, inspiring me to mention more than once that if she had someplace to be, I had plenty of work to keep me occupied. She ignored the hints.

  Eventually, the doorbell rang, and Mom said, “I’ll get it,” then all but raced me to the door. She flung it open and, though I could see so for myself, announced, “It’s your father, dear. Listen, Molly, I’d better run. I’ll see you later, all right? “

  “All right,” I replied. “Thanks for coming over, Mom.”

  My father had stepped inside, but was rotating his fishing hat in his hands and shifting his weight from foot to foot. My mother always insists that he wear a hat when he goes out, for he’s bald and she is certain the hat prevents sunstroke. He looked at me and said, “Er, we didn’t get a paper this morning. I was wondering if I could read yours.”

  “Of course,” I said, retrieving it from the kitchen counter where Jim had left it. “Go ahead and take it. We’ve already read it.”

  “I’d rather read it here.”

  “Dad, you don’t mean that. Just take the paper with you.”

  “I, er, how about a cup of tea?”

  “Is there something specific you want to talk to me about, Dad?”

  “No, just thought we could…shoot the breeze.”

  That suggestion was so uncharacteristic of my father that it cemented things for me. Someone had put my parents up to keeping me safe at home. “That’s nice, but I have work to do. Tell Jim that I’ve absolved you of your personal duties to keep an eye on me, but that I’m already planning to stay home and work this afternoon.”

  “Will do.” He returned the newspaper to me. “Already read it.” He turned on a heel and left. At last I got back to my drawing. I had all of fifteen minutes to myself before the phone rang.

  When I recognized Lauren’s voice, I had the immediate thought that Jim must be out of his mind if he honestly believed he could secretly join forces with my best friend to keep me in the house. Those thoughts were quickly laid to rest when she asked, “Do you have any interest in a short girls’-night-out kind of thing?”

  “I don’t k
now. This is just for short girls? I’m five-six, so I might not qualify.”

  Lauren ignored my joke and said, “It’s Nadine’s birthday. I told her I’d take her out for drinks at The Captain’s Table after she gets off work. I can’t find anyone at the high school who’s free to join us. Or, more likely, willing to join us. Nadine is not exactly Miss Popularity. Will you come?”

  My instincts were telling me not to go, but Lauren obviously wanted me there. “All right. Just as long as you and I don’t wind up as her only friends in the world, if you know what I mean. There’s something about Nadine—an edge to her personality that’s always bothered me.”

  “Tell me about it,” Lauren muttered. “Thanks a bunch, Molly.” She told me the time and place to meet them, then hung up quickly, as if afraid I might change my mind.

  An hour later Jim came home for lunch. “Hi,” he said, peering around the corner of the doorway to the living room as if looking for someone. “How’s your morning been?”

  “Fine. Uneventful.”

  “Oh. Good.” He smiled and grabbed the makings of a turkey sandwich. “Did you get any work done today, then?”

  “A little. Started on a new cartoon.”

  “Just started one? You usually work faster than that when you’re not interrupted.”

  “Oh, I was interrupted plenty. Mom kept me occupied. You made a mistake when you sent my father over here to relieve her, though. He’s totally guileless. I had him convinced to desert your plan not two minutes after he arrived.”

  Jim sighed. “I’m just trying to keep you out of trouble, Molly.”

  “And I appreciate that, but the thing is, trouble will find me one way or another.” I decided to tell him something that I hadn’t even wanted to admit aloud to myself. “Jim, every night since Corinne was murdered, I’ve had this recurrent nightmare. I see the shooter in the clown costume, gun in hand. On the stage are you and Karen, Nathan, and Lauren. The clown tries to hand me the gun, but I’m too scared to take it. So he shoots everybody—you, the kids, Lauren. And he laughs at me, puts the gun in my hand, and walks away. That’s when I wake up.”

  Jim pulled me into his arms. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I won’t take any foolish chances, Jim. It’s not like I’m going to risk getting myself killed.”

  He started to rub my back, then stopped when I winced as he touched one of the injuries from the shards of porcelain. He dropped his arms. “No cause for me to worry. Just a pipe bomb in the backseat of my wife’s car.”

  “I’m not trying to claim that—” I stopped, distracted by the sight through the glass door. The dodo birds were returning to roost. They were entering the backyard. I pulled away from Jim and slid the glass door open.

  Oops grinned at me. “Good news, Mrs. Masters. We mis-ordered another customer’s panels, so we’re free to work this afternoon on your room.”

  Pauncho said, “We’ll get the roof and walls up before we leave.”

  “Yippee,” I said in a deadpan voice, glancing back at Jim.

  Jim spread his hands. “They may as well keep going. It’s not as if they can do a whole lot more damage.”

  By the time Karen and Nathan arrived home on their respective buses, we had the shell of a room, and no builders. I gave the kids my usual set of instructions and left, feeling a bit seedy to be leaving my children alone while I went to a bar, even if this was for a good cause.

  The Captain’s Table was located in what would have been considered Carlton’s downtown, if only we had a downtown. Instead it was simply the busiest intersection in the area, with the shopping mall across the street and the edge of the school campus nearby.

  I had my typical gag reaction from the air that was thick with cigarette smoke. The bar was depressingly crowded, considering that it was only a few minutes after four. Lauren had ordered a glass of chardonnay, and Nadine was gulping what looked like whiskey on the rocks. I’m such a lightweight when it comes to alcohol that even the smell of whiskey makes me shudder. Nadine, however, already looked more than a little looped, and stood up and gave me a hug when she spotted me.

  “Why, ‘s Molly! Hey, I was just telling Lauren here that I realized something.”

  She shut her eyes and touched her nose as if giving herself a sobriety test. During the brief pause, Lauren clasped her hands together and mouthed: “Thank you” to me.

  I expected Nadine to announce, “I’m drunk!” but, surprisingly, she centered her finger squarely on her button nose. Then, she opened her eyes and said, “I’m older than I can count while holding my breath.”

  “Fortunately, holding your breath while you count your years is not a required life’s skill.”

  She laughed and slapped a chair, indicating I should sit at the seat that I was already lowering myself into.

  “Happy birthday.”

  “Thank you. It’s been one hell of a past few days, but I’m sure the best is yet to come.”

  “True. Things can’t get much worse,” Lauren said.

  “My point exactly,” Nadine said with a drunkard’s enthusiasm. “You two and our illustrious principal go way back, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” Lauren replied. “We went to school here together.”

  “You don’t have a thing to worry about then, Lauren. But I am going to have my neck out there when the ax falls over this stupid double-honors class business.”

  “Which business?” Lauren asked.

  Nadine was referring to classes such as Corinne’s; what the elementary school called “TAG,” the high school called “double honors.”

  “Take for example the fact that you have, what, four contenders for valedictorian, right? You’ve got four parents or sets of parents ready to murder one another just to give their child the edge. Then you’ve got a teacher murdered by one of those same four parents, one of whose sons had been sleeping with her.”

  “You think one of the parents killed her?” I asked.

  “Of course. What do you think? That Dave Paxton did it? He’s a mild-mannered, artsy-fartsy teacher type. He wouldn’t know how to fire a gun if his life depended on it.”

  Nadine was also a suspect in my eyes, but I kept my mouth shut. Lauren gave me a sheepish smile.

  The waitress came over and I ordered a glass of tonic water. Nadine ordered another Rusty Nail, though she called it a “Russy Snail,” which was no less appealing a name for a beverage.

  “The way I see it,” Nadine continued, “Jack’s going to have to do something, sacrifice somebody, to gain the impression of control on the school.” She held up her nearly empty glass. “So, this is to me, on my last days here at gold old Carlton. Good and old, I mean.” She giggled at her verbal slip, then elbowed Lauren. “Good thing you’re buying, Lauren. I won’t be around to be taken out for drinks this time next year.”

  “Of course you will, Nadine,” Lauren replied.

  She shook her head emphatically. “Don’t patronize me. I’m right. I am now what was once my favorite subject in school…history. Jack Vance is going to fire me. And good riddance to the whole of it.”

  I thanked the waitress and paid for the round before Lauren could get her money out. “Is that all you’re drinking, Molly? Tonic water?” Nadine asked, as if appalled while watching me take a sip.

  “Yes, but it has a fermented lime in it. Quite potent, actually.”

  She laughed. “I’m going to miss you, Molly. You were my favorite parent at Carlton High.”

  “Thanks, but neither of my children is even in high school yet.”

  “My point exactly.”

  “Well,” Lauren said. “On a cheerier subject, Jasper has a new girlfriend.”

  “Does he?” I said, wondering if this could be Tiffany.

  Come to think of it, Lauren would not be thrilled that Stephanie, Lauren’s least favorite person, was her stepson’s girlfriend’s mother. I was starting to reconsider my decision not to drink. “Who?”

  “Believe it or not, I don’t know yet. Of c
ourse, it’s only a matter of time till I do. That’s one of the benefits of working in the high school office. I learn about the romances pretty quickly. Not that they’re all that interesting to me, mind you, except when we’re talking about my own stepson.”

  “Now, which one is Jasper?” Nadine asked. “Maybe I can tell you who he’s seeing.”

  Uh-oh. I really should have told Lauren that I’d inadvertently brought Jasper and Tiffany together. There was no way I could gracefully do so now, with Nadine present. And I certainly didn’t want the news to come secondhand.

  Nadine continued, “I’ll bet he and this girl haven’t been nearly as careful about holding hands, and so on, during your off days. Or days off, rather. Such as today.”

  “Tommy’s boy,” Lauren said. “Red hair. Nice looking. Tall. Kind of—”

  “Speaking of Tommy, Nadine,” I interrupted, “did he tell you that the shrapnel in the bomb in my car was fragments of porcelain dolls?”

  “Yes, he did.” Nadine reached over and laid her hand atop mine on the table. “I hope you don’t think for a second that I had anything to do with it. Anyone could’ve gotten porcelain pieces from Corinne. She was very generous with the dolls she made, and gave them away for almost every conceivable occasion. That was one of the reasons I knew our partnership could never work. I mean, what kind of business sense is that? To give away the expensive product you’re trying to sell?”

  “Not very sensible, all right,” I said.

  “See, that’s just it. Not smart. Here’s this teacher in charge of the smartest students at Carlton, and she was a dummy herself.”

  Lauren and I exchanged glances again, and I knew she was equally disturbed by this posthumous put-down of Corinne. We finished our drinks quickly and agreed that we had best be going. Lauren, thankfully, insisted on driving Nadine home, freeing me from having to do the dishonors.

  I told Lauren to call me as soon as she had a few minutes; I wanted to tell her that I did have a very good guess as to who Jasper’s mystery girlfriend might be.