Death Under Glass (6 page)

W
ith the haze of the early morning burned away and the heat of the day not yet hitting its potential, I set a pitcher of tea on the front porch steps to steep in the sun then headed downstairs to my workshop.

Windows on two sides—one facing north, the other east—provided ample natural light by which to work. I had been slacking off a bit in the prior couple of weeks, spending a good deal of time pulling weeds, fertilizing, and otherwise tending to the small garden I had planted along the back fence of Grandy's yard. The herbs took root and flourished almost immediately. And while the vegetables had rooted well, they were only just beginning to offer up their bounty. Fresh cucumber and green beans, a smattering of onions and summer squash. Some very pathetic tomatoes hung on their vine, but I held on to hope
for improvement, while the strawberry patch continued to defy any efforts I made at encouraging it to produce fruit. I loved fresh produce, and gardening was a worthy project but it was time to pick up my stained glass tools and get back to work. Especially if I was going to pull off something as ambitious as a window for a local business.

The worktable centered in the corner of the room stood empty with the exception of a stack of old newspapers I had allowed to pile at one end. I grabbed a dust brush from the shelf hung below the table and swept the dust away from the surface.

At the first
hish
of the brush, a white ball of fluff flew down the stairs, raced across the linoleum floor, and slid into my ankle.

“Easy there.” I paused in the brushing to reach down with my opposite hand and scoop up the kitten. She was still a mite too small to jump onto the table by herself. If I didn't grab her up in time, she would attempt to claw her way up my leg to reach her goal. I had learned this lesson the painful way and still feared permanent scarring.

I deposited Friday the kitten beside the stack of newspapers, where I foolishly thought she would remain. But the
hish-swish
had beckoned her for a reason, and the moment I resumed brushing, I had her wide-eyed attention. Forelegs nearly resting on the table, butt in the air, she followed the motion of the brush for two swipes before she pounced.

Of course, she was no match for anything longer and heavier than she was, but I moved the brush back and forth slowly and gently a few extra times, allowing her to catch the wood back beneath her paw and feel triumphant.
Yes, I was letting her win. If someday she needed therapy to recover from my indulgence, so be it.

I slid the brush back under the table, pulled a newspaper from atop the pile and laid out a few sheets. Friday “helpfully” swatted at the pages so that the newsprint rubbed onto the tips of her bright white paws, matching the natural patch of gray between her ears.

Once the papers were in place I made quick work of lifting my basic toolbox onto the table, setting out the Homasote board—a two-foot square of pressed fiberboard that made an ideal surface for cutting glass and soldering—and retrieving a vinyl accordion folder in which I kept an assortment of patterns that had caught my eye at one time or another.

With the folder splayed open, I flipped through folded papers, sought a pattern that would reinforce some skills and test others. I wanted to create a decorative pane, the sort that would hang in a window rather than be one. I had yet to complete a design for Trudy Villiers's window, but trusted images and ideas would come to me while I took another project from pattern to patina.

The folder's sections held patterns with flowers and fish and birds, art deco and classic and European-inspired abstract designs. I had a precious few patterns for Celtic knots that tempted me, but in the end I withdrew a pattern of a sailboat at sunset.

The image reminded me of the construction going on down at the old brickworks, the construction that promised to take an abandoned, tumbledown factory and give it new life as a boat shop and restaurant overlooking the
piers. More, it made me think of the man at the helm of the renovation: Anton Himmel.

I sighed. Friday blinked big blue eyes at me. It had been weeks since I met Tony for an event best described as a business dinner. He had been kind enough to answer my questions about the deal he'd struck with the Wenwood town council that allowed his construction project to take place. At the time, despite his good looks and easy demeanor, I had been intent on keeping the dinner businesslike, telling myself I wasn't ready for anything else. But now . . .

Now maybe I was. Maybe that readiness to let someone else close again accounted for my new awareness of Detective Nolan. Maybe my subconscious was trying to tell me something. Maybe it was time to stop being alone.

Moving to the corner of the room, I switched on the radio I kept there, always tuned to the greatest hits of decades past. An old Pearl Jam tune dispelled the quiet of the room and helped me force my thoughts away from Chip Nolan and Tony Himmel.

But no sooner had I relegated the men to the back of my mind than memories of Russ Stanford's burned-out building took over the front spot. Despite his careful use of “probably” and “likely,” the fire marshal had seemed certain the blaze was purposefully set. What would anyone gain from burning down a law office? “Who would do that?” I asked Friday.

The kitten yawned.

“Pay attention. This could be important,” I told her. I stooped down to locate some poster board and carbon
paper. Noting I was running low on both, I set the supplies on top of the table while I dug a three-quarter-inch-thick piece of wood from an untidy stack I kept propped against the wall. Last up, a hammer. “What reason would someone have to burn down a building, huh?” I asked.

Friday hopped up onto the stack of newspapers. I reached over to her and scratched the bunny-soft fur atop her head. She squinched her eyes closed in kitty bliss and a quiet purr rumbled through her.

“Do lawyers keep evidence? No, the police keep the evidence, right?” Sadly, I knew that from having marathon-watched Court TV during a particularly long battle with the flu. I smoothed Friday's fur flat and went back to my project.

With the pattern on top of the carbon paper, poster board below, I pinned the assemblage to the piece of wood with tacks and gently tapped the tacks with the hammer—hard enough to hold, loose enough I'd be able to remove them.

“So there's probably nothing incriminating in the office. Nothing I can imagine, anyway.”

One more yawn and Friday curled herself into a circle the size of a honeydew melon and closed her eyes.

“Fine,” I said, eyeing the kitten. “Have a nap. I'm the crazy person talking to a cat anyway.”

Though I kept quiet while tracing a pen across the pattern, the pressure and the presence of carbon paper transferring the design to the poster board below, my mind continued to ask the same questions I had no answer to, until I hit the point where I reminded myself I was focused on the wrong thing.

Trudy Villiers wanted a window. A custom-made, custom-designed window. I should be worrying about that.

My pen traced over horizontal lines that curved to resemble waves, over the gentle slope of the sailboat's hull and the swell of the sail. But the images in my mind were swirls of pinks and lavenders, the cluster of a blossom, the turn of a petal. Magnolias. There were a few varieties, I thought. Weren't there?

I forced myself to finish tracing over every line in the pattern on the table before giving in to my mental wandering. As I had expected, even hoped, I was suddenly eager for a sketchbook and pencils.

After tucking the pen into my toolbox, I crossed to a little bookcase underneath the north-facing window. My grandmother—who had used this same space for painting when she was alive—had a collection of field guides and encyclopedias of flowers. They may have been outdated, with the glue along the spine dried and the pages pulling away, but the appearance of the blooms hadn't changed.

I selected two of the flower books, grabbed my sketchbook, and scrounged around the bottom of my toolbox until I came up with a pencil.

Toolbox closed and locked, I said to the sleeping kitten, “I'm going outside. Stay here.”

Friday did just as she was told. Nothing short of a wrecking ball had a chance at waking her.

Heading up from the basement the
thunk
of a pipe startled me, a pipe that banged only when a water spigot was turned off. Grandy was up and had just finished a shower.

Though he had finally given in and reduced the number
of nights he spent working at the Downtown Dine-In theater he owned, he had yet to retire completely. As a result, he often slept long into the morning after locking up the theater then driving home the night before.

I detoured to the kitchen to grab a pair of tea glasses, then doubled back through the circa 1960 living room and out onto the front porch. One look told me the iced tea was ready. After dropping my books and pencil on the little rickety wooden table, I made a quick run back into the house for a bowl of ice, then took the pitcher from the steps before settling into one of the two Adirondack chairs and pouring myself a glass of fresh-brewed sun tea.

On most days, the tall old trees thriving on the property kept the house cool. But sometimes the stillness of summer days meant the leaves served only to cocoon the house in damp and heat. I hadn't realized how hot and stuffy the inside had become until I felt the difference in temperature from the basement to the porch.

Encyclopedia open to an image of a saucer magnolia blossom, I lost myself in attempting to re-create its subtle beauty in my sketchbook. I was no artist, but enjoyed the experience of moving my pencil across the page and I could approximate the shape of the flowers in the space where I thought they might look best in the overall window design.

I had briefly switched my sketching to the lettering of
Magnolia Bed and Breakfast
when the front door opened.

“Georgia, is it really so hard for you to remember to write a note when you take the Jeep?”

Grandy strode across the porch that stretched to the right of the front door and dropped into the other chair.
Even in the open air the scent of his soap tickled my nose. His tanned and faintly wrinkled skin shined from the fresh scrubbing, and his deeply receding hairline terminated in damp, silver hair.

“I wrote the note. It said I went to pick up tea bags and eggs,” I said. “I left it on the dining room table. I didn't think to put the note where you were guaranteed to see it, like, next to the strudel you think I don't know about.” I looked over and up at him from below my brows. In other words, I gave him my “stern” look.

He snorted and settled back in his chair. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Of course you don't.” I looked back to the sketchbook opened across my lap. “There's iced tea there if you want.”

Grandy lifted the pitcher free of the ring of condensation marking its place on the table. “I don't suppose you put any sugar in this tea?”

“You don't suppose correctly.”

He grumbled but poured a glass all the same. “What are you working on there?”

Mostly I preferred to keep my novice attempts at sketching to myself. After all, they were only ideas, concepts, beginnings. Down the line I would refine the sketch as best I could, trace images from the encyclopedias, magazines, or photographs to piece together the vision in my head—a picture that I would transform into Trudy's stained glass window. Grandy understood my sketches were baby basic, but he had that grandparent's knack for seeing the intention on the page and not judging the skill.

I tipped the sketchbook in his direction.

“Are those pansies?” he asked.

Anyone else, I would have been mortified. But like I said, he didn't judge skill. Plus, I didn't know how much knowledge he had of flowers, if any. “Magnolias. I may be doing a window for a new bed and breakfast if I can come up with a decent design.”

The tone of Grandy's voice equaled a verbal eye roll. “A new bed and breakfast. What will they think of next?”

Smiling, I picked up my pencil. “Gotta get with the program, Grandy. Once the marina's complete this little hamlet could become quite the getaway destination.”

“Lord save us.”

Glass in hand, ice clattering, he sat back in his chair and closed his eyes. Grandy wasn't opposed to the marina project; he understood its importance to the future of Wenwood and supported any efforts to restore the town to its earlier vitality. But as someone who had been employed by the brickworks for years on end, supporting progress didn't make it easy for him—or others like him—to see the old building torn apart and reshaped into something new.

In its heyday, the brickworks had set the pace of life in Wenwood. The residents were either employed directly by Wenwood Brick or worked in a supportive capacity for those who were—doctors, grocers, pharmacists, mechanics. After the low cost of imported brick slowly put the Wenwood works out of business, the town began a gradual decline that drove most of its youth to relocate and most of its older residents to sell and take early retirement in southern states.

But since Stone Mountain Construction had begun
work on the new marina, the faintest air of hope had settled over Wenwood. Though residents were sad to the point of heartbroken to see the old brickworks building transformed into a tourist-targeted landmark, little by little, folks had accepted the inevitable and some even warmed to the project, and now . . .

“Who's going to run this bed and breakfast?” Grandy asked.

“Trudy Villiers? Do you know her?”

He hmmed, head tilted back, eyes still closed. “Can't say as I do. May have known her husband, back in the old days.”

“The old days,” I repeated on a chuckle. “I don't even know if she is, was, or was ever married.” She had had too many rings on her fingers for me to guess if one represented marriage. “I'll try and find out next time.”