Death Under Glass (10 page)

“We haven't seen you around here in some time, Herb. Been working hard, have you?” Grace asked.

“Oh, you betcha. On vacation this week though. Couldn't resist stopping by for some coffee and one of your cinnamon donuts.”

Grace grinned. “Coming right up. How about you, Georgia honey? What would you like?”

“Just a cup of tea for Carrie and a coffee for me, please.”

“To go?”

“Please,” I said. Herb settled onto the stool to my left. He pulled close a copy of the latest
Town Crier
and scanned the cover page.

“Hey, how about my refill?” Tom shouted.

“Aw, it's coming. Quit your griping.”

While Grace busied herself pouring hot beverages, Tom leaned forward to look past me at Herb.

“Say, Herb, what's your take on all this property Spring and Hamilton are grabbing up?” Tom had a habit of shouting, both when he thought he needed to speak over the noise in the room and when he had forgotten his hearing aid and couldn't even hear his own voice. Whatever the case may have been, I pretended to smooth down my hair, keeping my hand strategically over my ear to muffle what I could of Tom's voice.

“Well, I can't say as I'm opposed,” Herb said without looking up from the paper. “I don't want to see Wenwood turn into some of those other rundown ghost towns. If this new shopping promenade can stop that from happening, then I don't want to be the man who stands in its way.”

“But all those houses, Herb. All those people selling out to that company,” Tom said. “For more shopping?”

“Oh, here we go again.” Grace set two covered paper cups down on the counter, then tugged an empty paper bag free of the stack beside the register. “Not everyone got to retire wealthy like you, Tom.” She winked at me to show her teasing as she nestled the cups inside the bag and pushed the package my way. “Some people still gotta make a living, and a little string of shops on the waterfront could be a blessing.”

“It won't be a blessing. It will be a blight,” Tom said at his default volume. “We can only hope someone doesn't sell. That'll stop the whole project in its tracks. I bet Pete sees it my way. Doesn't he, Georgia?”

I tugged a handful of singles out of the zipper pocket inside my purse and handed them over to Grace. “Why don't you ask me what I think, Tom?” I teased. “I live here, too. Don't I get an opinion?”

He gave me the same dismissive hand wave he had given Grace. “You're new,” he said. “You haven't spent enough sweat here yet.”

“Now Tom,” Herb put in, looking up from the paper. “Miss Kelly has just as much right to an opinion as you.”

“Herb's right.” Grace passed me my change. “Don't listen to this old grump,” she said. “He's still sore about—”

“Police are here,” Tom announced.

“
Police
?” Grace spun to peer through the window, following the direction of Tom's gaze.

I grabbed the bag of caffeinated beverages. “Gotta go,” I said.

“Georgia, do you know something about this?” Grace asked.

I shot her a little smile and hustled out of the store. Rude to leave without answering her question, I guess. But she and Tom would watch out the window anyway and have an excellent view of me approaching—

Detective Nolan.

Dang
it.

“Y
ou got here fast,” I said when I caught up to him in the doorway of the pharmacy. His presence was no doubt a result of my call to the station or he wouldn't have parked in front of Bing's. The marked squad car had rolled to a stop in front of Aggie's Antiques.

He lowered his sunglasses so he could look at me from above the rim. Brown eyes serious and yet amused at the same time. “I've got a flashing red light that lets me exceed the speed limit.”

“Oh. Right.” I peered through the glass door, looking for signs of life within the store. I saw neither Fred nor Carrie, and opened my mouth to ask about their absence when Detective Nolan said, “Carrie went to find the proprietor. I presume he's the one with the keys.”

“Oh. Right.”

Well done, Georgia. Way to be repetitive with the handsome cop.

I bit the inside of my lip as personal punishment for thinking such thoughts.

“You ladies all right?” he asked.

I tried to meet his gaze but he had pushed his sunglasses back in place. All I could do was meet the reflection of my own eyes. “We're fine. That is, Carrie's a little shook up but that's all.”

“And you're made of tougher stuff.” He crooked a smile.

“I didn't go in,” I blurted.

His half smile went to full and the brightness of it hit me like a cool breeze. Oh, this was bad. This was really bad.

For once luck was with me, because Fred was slipping the key into the door lock. The activity distracted Detective Nolan's attention from the blush climbing up my neck and onto my cheeks.

I stalled a few seconds at the doorway, allowing the detective to move well into the store before I followed.

Carrie waited beside the jewelry showcase, arms folded, shoulders inching toward her ears.

“You okay, Ms. Stanford?” Detective Nolan sounded sincerely interested rather than merely polite. At Carrie's nod he continued, “You wanna tell me what happened?”

As she recounted the story of our arrival at the antiques store, I pulled her tea from the bag and passed it over. I took my coffee out and bent back the tab on the lid. Maybe I should have been paying attention to what Carrie was saying and what Nolan was asking, but I knew the answers
and could anticipate the questions. Instead, my mind hiccupped back to the luncheonette and Tom's talk of Spring and Hamilton and its bid for a shopping promenade.

When I teased Tom for not asking my opinion, there was perhaps more truth than jest in my words. I had refrained from raising my hand during the town hall meeting out of that same old fear of being an outsider, of thinking it wasn't my place and those around me might call foul. Deep inside, though, I heard an annoying little voice suggesting I was the one responsible for perpetuating that outsider feeling. And having and expressing an opinion on matters affecting the town might help me believe myself more of an insider.

“When the second squad car arrives,” Detective Nolan was saying, “we'll take a look through the store, make sure no one's there—though I doubt anyone is.”

“Why do you doubt it?” I asked.

“It's daylight,” he said. “Anyone looking through the window would see an intruder.”

“There could still be someone in back,” I said. Carrie made a little whimpering noise.

“Could be, but not likely. Still. Can't be too cautious in a situation like this.”

Fred Bing bustled out from the dispensary, tugging the door shut behind him. He held a flat plastic bin filled with small wrapped packages. He scuttled behind the customer service counter and slid the bin out of view. “I'll be opening soon,” he announced in a tone that suggested we should think about other accommodations.

Detective Nolan squared his shoulders. “I want the
ladies to remain here until we've completed a search of Ms. Stanford's store,” he said. “I'm sure they won't be in the way.”

Pharmacist Fred scowled but thought better of arguing with the police.

Once the squad car arrived and Nolan went out to meet the officers, Carrie and I huddled shoulder to shoulder in the passageway to the back door, waiting for an all-clear.

“Don't you think it's weird,” I asked. “First Russ's building and now your shop?”

As soon as the words were out I wished I could have them back. They seemed the sort of idea that shouldn't be uttered in a brightly lit space but whispered in darkness, as one might whisper about conspiracy.

“I don't know what to think.” Carrie sipped at her tea. “I don't know if I want to think.”

I wasn't sure I wanted to think either. But once the idea was out, it seemed to somehow solidify into a concept worth investigating.

We didn't wait long before one of the uniformed Pace County PD officers swung open the back door looking for us, letting us know Aggie's Antiques was free of intruders and we could return. After thanking Fred for his hospitality and managing to keep a straight face as I did, Carrie and I hurried back to the antiques shop.

Anxiety pinched the corners of Carrie's eyes and kept her shoulders tight. I didn't know how she hadn't given herself a headache. But then, maybe she had purchased some aspirin while hiding out in the pharmacy.

The officer tugged open the back door and held it while we passed through.

Every light in the back room was lit. In that brightness, what in my imagination was a tumbled mess was in reality a heartbreaking tableau. The poured concrete floor was coated with little shards of glass that we ground into both the floor and the soles of our shoes as we wandered into the center of the space. Crumpled papers, mangled picture frames, and empty jewel boxes littered the old table Carrie used to pack treasures for shipping. The only part of the room that appeared untouched was the spools of brightly colored curling ribbon affixed to the bottom edge of the table. I fingered a length of brilliant emerald as Detective Nolan stepped over a toppled floor lamp to meet us.

“I'm sorry to have to ask you this,” he said, leaning down a little to catch Carrie's eye, “but I'm going to need you to take a look around and tell me if there's anything of value missing.”

She lifted her chin. “Anything of value? Detective, all my merchandise is valuable.”

Glass ground beneath his feet as he adjusted his stance. “Not valuable enough to have motion sensors installed though?”

In the same moment that her eyes glossed over with tears, she lowered her gaze. “Motion sensors are expensive.”

“Everything in the shop is valuable to someone,” I put in. “But these are antiques, grandma's attic type stuff, not highly prized collectibles. And if there was something
worth stealing, why do all this?” I raised a palm to the ceiling and spread my arm, the gesture encompassing the surrounding destruction.

Nolan folded his arms, a movement that managed to pull his slate-colored tie a little farther askew. “This could be a diversion,” he explained, “calculated to deflect attention away from what was stolen.”

“No.” Carrie shook her head. “Nothing that valuable.”

The detective nodded. “In that case, what we're going to do is I'm going to write up a statement from you, and you're going to have to put together a list of what's missing.”

“Or destroyed,” Carrie whispered.

We stood in a silent triangle, letting the word
destroyed
fade away.

“I'm very sorry, Ms. Stanford.” He paused. “I'm going to go out to the car and grab the paperwork. I'll only be a minute.”

His departure didn't raise the same noise of grinding glass my and Carrie's footsteps had. I glanced over my shoulder at the oddity. Detective Nolan was tiptoeing through the mess, zigzagging his progress in an effort not to do any further damage.

“Oh, Georgia,” Carrie said sadly.

I took a deep breath. “It's okay. We'll get this cleaned up.”

“It's not that.” She lifted a chin to indicate the shelving that ran along the southern wall of the back room. “Your glass,” she said.

Turning, I scanned the shelves against which two of my stained glass pieces had rested. One had been a
rectangular window, a simple fleur-de-lis design. But the other had been far more involved—a sixteen-by-twenty picture frame of white roses from buds to full blooms, with foil flourishes and the occasional soft green leaf. We'd been trying to find an old-timey photo of a bride to use to show off the intention of the frame. I supposed that search was over.

That familiar scratchy ache seized my throat. My nose twitched and my eyes burned. My heart seemed to fall into my stomach at the same moment the first tear fell. I had worked hard on that piece, had been particularly proud of it. And though I had long since come to accept that my own bridal portrait would never be framed by those white roses, still, to see the petals reduced to shards awoke an ache for losses more than material.

I sniffled in a most unladylike way. I wiped away the tear and turned to face Carrie again. “All right. Let's get
started.”

U
nsurprisingly, Grandy felt I should go see Drew in person rather than chat with him over the phone. The job hunt game had changed a great deal since Grandy's day, but there was no telling him things were done differently now. That he had a computer in his office at all was borderline miraculous. Just don't expect him to research job applicants online or open an e-mailed résumé.

Still, I had to admit that doing things Grandy's way had one unexpected bonus: I was forced out of my summer wardrobe of flip-flops, shorts, and T-shirts and into a tailored dress and linen pumps. I took the time to flatiron my hair and tie it back in a neat braid. I even went so far as to apply foundation beneath a soft swipe of blush. When I finished with some mascara and took one final look at myself in the mirror—a look at me as a whole and
not the little pieces I'd been primping and polishing—my breath stuck in my chest.

The image in the mirror might well have had a caption beneath it reading “before.” In the glass was the Georgia Kelly I had left behind all those months before. There was something sharp and sleek and downright smart about that Georgia. Gone were the frizzy red curls that made me look slightly ditzy and unkempt. Gone were the faint freckles and pale eyelashes. Gone were the shoulders rounded in defeat. I let my breath out slowly and wondered if I could still see myself in that image, if I felt more or less like myself in those shoes.

“You're going to be late,” Grandy called up the stairs, derailing my train of thought.

I smoothed down the front of the aqua dress, took one last look in the mirror, and left my room. “I don't have an appointment, Grandy,” I called back. “It's not possible for me to be late.”

“I'm not worried about you being late arriving. I'm worried about you being late getting back with—”

“With the Jeep.” I sighed as I reached the top of the stairs. “I know. I'm going.”

As I clumped down the steps in my heels, Grandy made no secret of looking me over head to toe. “Don't you have a suit?”

“You look nice, too,” I said.

He smiled and looked down at his feet, abashed as a schoolboy. “Quite right,” he said. “You look lovely.”

“Thank you,” I said. “Directions?”

He handed me an index card on which he'd written
directions to Drew's office, complete with hand-drawn images of streets and intersections and a great big X over my final destination.

“Any messages for your lawyer?”

Grandy lifted his chin. “Give him my regards.”

On my way through the living room, I paused by the couch where Friday was stretched out, belly exposed to the sunbeams streaming through the windows. “Be good, kitty,” I said, scratching beneath her chin. She wrapped her front legs around my wrist and curled herself around my forearm. For her, it was probably just a bit of play. For me, it felt like she didn't want me to leave, and that made me feel a little bit special, a little bit loved. “I'll be back soon,” I told her. She didn't let go, and I was forced to pry my arm away, fearful she'd give me a sad-eye look. Instead, she rolled over, sprang to her feet, and flew off the couch on her way to her favorite hiding place under the china cabinet.

So much for missing me when I'm gone.

I grabbed my purse and keys and headed out. The early morning cool had burned off and left the air outside well on its way to steaming. Across the street, leaves on the neighbor's maple tree hung motionless, sun glowing off the green. My luck. A perfect flip-flop day and I was in pumps.

At least the Jeep had air-conditioning. It kept me nice and cool while I struggled with the adjustments necessary to smoothly depress a gas pedal while wearing heels.

The ride to downtown Wenwood passed with the speed of familiarity. One minute I was backing out of the driveway, the next I was cruising past the grocer's where
a large
UNDER NEW OWNERSHIP
banner stretched across two windows. Opposite the grocery was Rozelle's Bakery and, I suspected, the cause of Grandy's new strudel habit, Rozelle herself, sitting on a lawn chair in front of the shop chatting with a passerby. There was Grace's luncheonette, catty-corner to Carrie's shop, Aggie's Antiques, where Carrie had placed a pair of my stained glass panes in her window, and finally the vacant hardware store that Regina and Stella would soon take over with their candy and jewelry shop. From there the strip shifted from retail to private businesses—real estate (by appointment only), medical (same), and barber (both appointment and walk-in).

At the end of the strip, for the first time in memory, I turned left. Grandy's written instructions began at that turn, and I followed the left-right-straight indicators on his map until I reached the little white Cape Cod house with the shingle that read
DREW ABLE, ESQ., ATTORNEY AT LAW
hanging from a signpost. A smaller version of the same sign was propped in the picture window beside the front door.

I parked the Jeep at the curb, switched off the air conditioner in the last possible second before turning off the engine. With a deep breath and a self-deprecating shake of my head, I walked up the cracked concrete path to the front door and let myself in—per Grandy's further instruction.

The door opened into a small waiting room as nondescript as Drew himself. White blinds, beige walls, brown faux-leather couch. A coffee table held a selection of magazines guaranteed to never become dog-eared—
Scientific American
,
American Law Journal
, and
The Real Deal
.

Opposite the window was another door, this one open and showing a continuation of the riveting decor of the waiting room. A pair of button-tuck leather chairs faced the broad cherrywood desk behind which sat Drew Able—brown hair, white polo, pale skin.

“Georgia.” He grinned and stood, revealing his customary khakis, these with a stain along the thigh that looked suspiciously like coffee. “Come in. Come in. What brings you by?”

I crossed the threshold into his office, then grasped the hand he extended in my best all-business shake. The little knot of nerves twisting in my belly gave an insistent tug. How best to approach him about hiring me for a job that didn't exist?

“To be perfectly honest, Gran—er, Pete Keene suggested I talk to you, but, uh . . .” Other than needing a brightly colored print or, ideally, a stained glass lamp or two, Drew's office didn't appear as disorganized as Grandy led me to believe.

“How is Pete?” Drew gestured to the visitors' chairs as he circled around me to close the door.

“He's well,” I said, eyes on the door. “Am I interrupting anything? Are you expecting a client?”
In other words, can I change my mind and escape
?

“Oh, no, no. Not for another”—he checked his wristwatch—“twenty minutes or so.”

It had not occurred to me that a small-town lawyer would have clients in on a Thursday morning. I somehow pictured Drew as having more time on his hands than work to do. Foolish, but not knowing much about how a
lawyer keeps busy I'd come to my own conclusion. And yet . . .

A memory gnawed at the back of my mind, a passing comment Grandy made when he told me why Drew was his lawyer. He'd described Drew as the only decent lawyer left in Wenwood. I wondered if Russ Stanford had ever maintained an office in Wenwood. And if he did, was it important? Did it have a link to the fire at his office? Were Russ and Drew competing for the same client pool? Where did the break-in at the antiques shop fit in?

“What's on your mind?” Drew prompted.

I mentally shook myself back into the moment, gave a delicate little cough to buy time to recall why Grandy had suggested I seek out Drew. “I, um, Pete was concerned about not getting billed for your time from . . .”

“Ah.” He nodded. He leaned back in his chair, its springs making a soft creak. “From the . . . yeah. Well. I didn't really do much, did I? You did more to get him exonerated than I did.”

“You did plenty and Pete would like to pay you what you're owed.” Even as the words came out of my mouth, they disintegrated. Then I really did shake my head. “I don't believe it. How stupid can I be?”

Drew leaned a little away from me. “Sorry?”

“Grandy—Pete—sent me here because he's convinced you haven't sent out a bill because you're completely disorganized and in need of my help. But in reality, you're being kind, aren't you? You know he's been low on funds, but really, business at the dine-in is picking up and—”

“Georgia.” The tips of Drew's ears flushed red. “I wish I could agree to being the kind person you think I am but . . .” The red swooped down his neck. “Truth is, Pete's right. Sort of. Look, I know Pete doesn't have a lot of ready cash but he really needed my help. You, of all people, know how he is. He won't take anything for free.”

“No,” I agreed. “Free is the same as charity to him.”

“Exactly. So we came up with a structured billing plan where he pays me—”

“A little each month,” I put in.

“Exactly. But, I haven't sent out any bills because Pete's right. I really am disorganized.”

With an effort at appearing overly obvious, I cast my gaze around the room. Sure, the furnishings were sparse, but that only enhanced the everything-in-its-place decor. The one aspect that hinted at disorganization was the closed file on Drew's desk, and that only because paper edges were sticking out at random points. “Yes, I can see you have a real problem.”

Sighing, he stood, and crooked a finger at me. He led me to a narrow door in the corner of the office that I had presumed opened onto a water closet. But as I bravely followed Drew (because who wants to walk into a tiny bathroom with a lawyer?) I realized we were moving into another full-sized room. Filing cabinets big and small lined the walls. A table with four chairs gathered around it sat at the room's center. And atop the table, stacked on cabinets, in piles on the floor, were papers and files and files and papers. Every surface was covered.

I might have gasped.

“Current cases are on the table,” Drew admitted in a small voice. “The rest . . .”

I nodded my understanding of the implication. “Grandy's file is in there somewhere.” I took a moment to let the extent of the mess sink in. Then I turned to face Drew. “Have you ever billed anyone?”

“Of course!” He tucked his head back, affronted. “I've just been really busy lately.”

“How long is lately?” I asked, eyeballing a collection of papers that had yellowed under accumulated dust.

“I keep meaning to get this cleaned up.” He pushed a hand through his hair, sighed. “There's just no time.”

I shouldn't have been surprised that Grandy had been right in his theory on why he hadn't received a bill. Grandy was sharp that way—and very likely had stumbled into this room at some point in a search for the bathroom.

“Isn't it, I don't know, dangerous to leave these papers lying around like this?” I asked, tracing my finger along the edge of a file.

He lifted one shoulder in a noncommittal shrug. “Doubtful. Rules of disclosure make these files practically public record.”

I raised my brows.

“All right, not public record. But nothing is lying around that needs to be kept under lock and key. For those I have a fireproof safe.”

“Fireproof?” I repeated.

Drew gestured to the far corner, where a boxy black safe huddled beneath a stack of phone books. Real,
tangible phone books. I wondered if Carrie could use them for atmosphere at the antiques store. “I may be sloppy,” Drew said, “but I'm not careless. Wills, prenups, powers of attorney, my computer passwords . . . all the important stuff goes in the safe.”

My mind spooled out the memory of Russ's fire-damaged office. If the truly important papers needed to be kept in a fireproof safe, what good would it do to burn down the office? Nothing within the safe would be destroyed. Whatever the firebug had been looking for would have to have been tucked into a desk or a filing cabinet or something similarly minimally secured for the fire to do its job. Which meant whatever the arsonist was trying to destroy wasn't sensitive enough to warrant being stored in the safe. But then, what was easier to burn than steal?

Drew's voice shattered my musings. “Pete thought you could help with this?”

I nodded, distracted, thoughts shifting back to “the only decent lawyer” comment. What kind of lawyer was Russ? What if, despite being the nice guy Carrie claimed him to be, as a lawyer he was unscrupulous?

“Do you know Russ Stanford?” I asked.

Drew blinked rapidly, whiplashed by the question. “Wh-what?”

“Russ Stanford. Also an esquire. Do you know him?” I faced him, arms crossed against my chest, as he adjusted to the change in topic and considered the question.

His answer came slowly. “I knew him. Not well. Why do you ask?”

Why indeed? “Is he a good lawyer, reputable?”

Drew straightened a little, his shoulders squared. “I make it a point not to comment on the work of my fellow attorneys.”

“Is that a no?”

“It's a no comment.”

His face was inscrutable. And I was really looking. But his calm brown eyes and softly squared jaw revealed no emotion. I surmised his expression to be his “lawyer face.” I bet it worked really well in front of judges. “Why did you come here, Georgia? To ask me about Russ Stanford, to settle Pete's account, or to offer to help me organize my office?”

Sadly, my bank balance was in no shape to settle Grandy's account. But he was right on the other two. Since I'd asked about Russ and got a politician's response, there was only one thing left. The nerves in my gut gave another twist. I ignored them. “All of the above, actually.”

“You do filing?” he asked.

“I do books, Drew. I'm an accountant. And if you want to actually earn money as a lawyer you need someone to handle your books.” I glanced around the room. “It doesn't look like you're much of a do-it-yourselfer in that area.”