Death Under Glass (15 page)

“But you mistake me, my dear. I quite like this floral mix.” She centered the drawing over the table and released her hold, allowing the paper to float down among the other renderings. “It's the colors.” Her attention remained fixed on Carrie. “Would you be able to incorporate these colors in your search for decor? Nothing large. Perhaps a few accent pillows or lamps.”

A better, more experienced businesswoman than I, Carrie confined her response to a sage nod.

Trudy blew a breath through her nose—the subtlest of huffs—and shuffled the other drawings around.

I raised a hand to my cheek, allowing me to cover my mouth with my palm and preventing me from speaking. Better to let her reach her own decision.

At last she lifted the first drawing, the one of
MAGNOLIA
surrounded by an oval of blossoms. “Can you add roses to this design?” She raised her eyes to look at me and her face fell slack. “My word,” she said on a whisper.

I dropped my hand and slouched a little.

Carrie half rose from her seat. “What is it? Trudy, are you all right?”

For a moment she sat as frozen as a statue of a queen, holding forth the drawing, chin dropped. “So familiar,” she murmured.

I sneaked a peek at Carrie, but her attention was fixed on the older woman.

“
Kelly
, you say your name is?” Trudy asked.

Wheels spun in my mind and I offered the information I determined she was after. “My mother was Patricia Keene. She was Peter and—”

“Florence's daughter,” Trudy finished for me. She bobbed her head slowly, a physical motion that seemed to say the pieces had come together for her. “Flo's granddaughter. That's why your appearance is so familiar. I didn't see it until . . .” She laid a hand alongside her cheek.

That made twice in one week someone had remarked on my resemblance to my grandmother. I conjured a memory of her—standing in front of the range top, wooden
spoon in hand and grinning over her shoulder. Over her dress she wore a pink apron with little images of poodles drawn in black and on her feet a pair of low-heeled black shoes. Her hair lay in tight curls against her head, and her lipstick was a vivid red. In this memory my grandmother was the image of at-home elegance, and I wondered if I would ever feel as self-assured as she always seemed to be.

“We played mah-jongg together, Flo and I,” she said. “Oh, my. I haven't thought of that in years.”

“Did you know my grandfather—Pete—also?” I asked.

She let out a short laugh. “It was another time,” she said. “I never met Peter. I never met many of the husbands, only those whose wives I was very dear friends with. Dotty Crawford. Adele Chesterton. Madge Heaney.” Her voice softened with each name until it faded away entirely. Her gaze drifted around the room. “It's Madge's generosity that's allowing me to make these changes. Yet all I have to remember her by is a dog I can't keep.”

Then she took a breath that halted any melancholy and smiled. “At least Betty Weeks is still among the living. She's the last of that old crowd. Apart from myself, that is.”

Once more, Trudy extended the drawing toward me. “Please make this.” She pulled another sheet from the table and passed that to me as well. “With these roses added in.”

The blooms in the drawing were yellow and coral and a delicate sienna. Their color would offset prettily the slight pink and lavender and bright white magnolia blossoms. A tremor of excitement danced through my veins at the prospect of finding those colors in glass. If I didn't linger after Carrie dropped me back home, I could easily drive
to the stained glass shop and return in time for Grandy to leave for the dine-in.

I gathered up the sketches while Carrie asked a few additional questions about the antique pieces she would be on the lookout for. I was anxious to get to work, ready to put fires and break-ins and murders and devastatingly handsome construction foremen behind me.

Someday I would have to learn to adjust my
priorities.

W
hen I arrived home, Grandy was ensconced in the kitchen, daily paper spread before him on the table, coffee and toast with jam at his elbow.

“What's news?” I asked. I dropped my portfolio on the counter and grabbed an empty coffee mug from the cabinet.

“Our best pitcher tore a rotator cuff during last night's game. Might as well end the season right now.” He took a man-sized bite of toast, more than half the slice disappearing into his mouth.

“Yankees?”

“Of course Yankees,” he grumbled through a mouthful of bread and jam.

I lifted a shoulder. The Yankees may have been Grandy's favorite team, but so were the Dodgers, the Padres,
and the Brewers. He could have been talking about any one of them but there was no need to point that out.

“Where were you this morning?” He pushed his plate of toast toward me and made a little noise meant to tell me to help myself. After spending months under the same roof we were beginning to operate in shorthand.

I helped myself to a triangle of toast. “Went out to Trudy Villiers about the glass project.”

He looked up from his paper, looked at me with sincere concern and a hint of hopefulness. “Oh? How did she like the designs?”

“She liked them. Liked the roses.” I couldn't stop the little smile pulling at my lips.

Grandy grinned and nodded. “Very good. She'd have been daft not to.”

“You have to say things like that. You're my grandpa.”

“I don't have to do or say anything. I'm an eighty-year-old man and I've earned the right to silence or honesty as I see fit.” He gave one more short, firm nod then looked back to his paper.

As I took a bite of toast, there was a soft tap on my leg. I glanced down, unsurprised to see Friday balanced on her hind legs, one foreleg tucked close to her body, the other braced against my calf. “Meew,” she said.

“Beggar.” I scratched between her ears and she pushed back against my fingertips, eyes half closing.

“She's nearly out of cans,” Grandy said.

He blustered about Friday being in his way, sitting on his favorite chair, or swatting at the ticker running across
the bottom of the television screen. But he kept an eye on her food and water and now and then I would catch him with telltale white hairs clinging to the breast of his navy bathrobe. Let him claim he never cuddled with the kitten; those white hairs were strong evidence.

“There's some in the back of the Jeep. I'll bring it in.” I took a careful sip of coffee—Grandy's brews tended toward hair-on-your-chest strength—and the heat nearly scorched its way down my throat.

“You've got a lot of junk floating around the back of the Jeep,” he said, eyeing me over the top of his reading glasses.

“I know. Sorry. It's all this rain. I'll bring them in later.” Apart from the case of kitten food and a gallon of all-purpose cleaner, better known as white vinegar, I had two twenty-pound tubs of cat sand and an industrial pack of paper towels in the back of the Jeep. It was practically extended storage.

“Hey, by the way, are you certain you never met Trudy Villiers?” I asked. Holding my hands over the now empty toast plate, I brushed the crumbs from my fingers.

“I said no such thing,” Grandy murmured. “I said I don't remember her.”

Half grinning, I rolled my eyes to heaven, making no effort to hide the gesture.

“You try remembering everyone you ever met, see how you do.”

I sighed. “She said she knew Grandma. Said they played mah-jongg together.”

He thought for a moment then smiled, the way he often did when a particular memory of Gram overtook him. “Oh. Oh yes, she did play mah-jongg for a time. Every Wednesday lunchtime. That was some years ago, though. The brickworks was still running back then. Your mother was still in school.”

I braved another gulp of coffee. “I didn't know Gram played mah-jongg.”

Grandy nodded. “That she did. And rummy and canasta. She and her lady friends used to sit at that table”—he pointed to the dining room, where a heavy mahogany table for six waited for a big family to gather around—“playing cards and laughing until all hours.”

As Friday nimbly leaped into my lap and curled into a little ball, there was no keeping the smile from my face. The look of happy memory lighting Grandy's eyes, taking years from the wrinkles in his forehead and cheeks made shared happiness irresistible.

“She loved a good game, your gran did.” He tipped his head and gave me a contented smile. “She would have enjoyed having you here. You would have lost every cent you have to her playing gin but she would have been happy.”

“I would have liked that, too,” I said.

Grandy turned his gaze back to the paper. “Maybe this Trudy person would like to teach you.”

I thought of Trudy and her perfect posture and pristine home. “She doesn't strike me as the laughing-until-all-hours type,” I said. I shifted in my chair, lifting one foot to tuck under my opposite leg. Made of liquid as she was, Friday simply sloshed from one side of my lap to the next without
protest. “But she did say the same thing you did, that I look like Grandma.”

“So you do.”

“Why did you never tell me that before?”

“You never looked like her before,” he stated, calmly turning the page.

A most unladylike bark of a laugh escaped me. “Are you serious?”

“Georgia, it may surprise you to know I didn't know your grandmother when she was a little girl. It's only now you're grown that the resemblance is clear.”

“Yes, but you must have some idea what she looked like as a child. You must have pictures somewhere.”

He nodded and turned the page on the news. “Somewhere.”

A strong urge to see the pictures swept through me. Did I really look so much like my Grandma as a woman? Were we that dissimilar as children?

I would have to take some time to locate Grandy's old photo albums. But there were more pressing matters to see to first.

“Would you mind if I borrowed the Jeep for a while? I'd like to take a ride out to the glass shop.”

“For this new project?” he asked, turning the page on the paper.

“And to make some new pieces for Carrie's shop.”

Looking up from the news, he questioned me on whether there had been any police progress following the break-in, and when I informed him there was no news, he asked after Carrie's well-being and how she was
bearing up under the strain. I informed him she appeared to be doing as well as could be expected.

“I just don't understand why someone would break into her shop and destroy . . .” Sighing, I scooped Friday up into my arms. “It doesn't make sense. Russ's office, Herb Gallo, Carrie's shop . . .” I tucked the kitten below my chin and against my chest and snuggled her close. “Russ and Carrie aren't together anymore,” I said, stroking Friday's soft fur, thinking aloud. “So what's the connection?”

“Georgia.” His voice was strong, stern, forcing me to meet his eyes. “You're not thinking of getting involved in this, are you?”

“I'm kind of already involved, Grandy. Carrie's my friend. I'm worried about her.”

“Then be involved as a friend. Be supportive, keep her spirits up, give her a shoulder to cry on. Do not go poking into places only the police should.”

“I wouldn't—”

“You would. And I'm telling you not to. You could have got yourself killed sticking your nose in over that whole Andy Edgers affair.”

“You were in jail,” I squeaked. “Did you honestly expect me to do nothing?”

“I expect you to use common sense and not put yourself at risk. Especially not for me. Promise me you'll keep your nose out of this one and let the police do their job.”

Truly I hadn't had any urge to go poking my nose anywhere . . . not until Grandy said I shouldn't.

“I promise,” I said. “I will let the police do their job.”

*   *   *

A
variety of roads led from Grandy's house to the interstate. Some were back roads, one was a highway, and one was fairly out of the way but ran alongside the river for a good stretch.

I pretended to myself that I had elected to take the scenic route, and stubbornly ignored the voice that insisted I'd chosen a route that would take me past the old brickworks. Whichever was the truer of the two, the riverside route was the path I took.

This far north of the city, the Hudson River was a rich blue with sparks of sunshine glinting off the swells. Sailboats slid through the water with the effortless motion of gliding birds while speedboats raced past, bows bouncing against the subtle waves.

With the press of a button, my window slid down, and the rich, crisp scent of the river's muddy banks filled the interior of the Jeep. I took a deep breath of the clear air, let my head fall against the headrest, and smiled. There was something simultaneously soothing and energizing about being so near the water, so close to nature. You know, despite the whole SUV-and-paved-road thing.

I guided the vehicle around one of the many wide curves that seemed to lead away from the river and tried to picture the land side of the road remade to include a shopping promenade where now there was only the occasional bungalow. I thought in some respects the change in view would be a good thing, a move toward the twenty-first century.
But in other respects, the loss of the bungalows and their hint of the area's history seemed sad and shortsighted.

One more curve back toward the river and there, at last, rose the old brickworks. Except . . .

The building I had known, the building that featured so prominently in Wenwood's history . . . the only thing the structure retained from those long-gone days was its view of the river.

I lifted my foot from the accelerator, flipped on the turn signal in a move more reflex than choice. The Jeep bounced merrily along the broken-down road that led to the place that I needed to learn to think of as the marina. Eight-foot-tall chain-link fencing wrapped the site as it had the last time I ventured out that way. And just like the last time, inside the perimeter a Jaguar sat in front of a trailer.

Turning the SUV parallel to the fence, I drove a short distance off road and cut the engine. I took the time to swipe a little extra sunblock across my nose before I stepped out of the vehicle, hand to my forehead to deflect the strong rays of the sun.

With my back to the marina, my new vantage point afforded me an unbroken view of the riverside property Spring and Hamilton was busily acquiring. Whether they would be able to convince the town to allow them to build was another matter. But yes or no, the property they were accumulating was marginally scenic. Stunning? No. The slight rise away from the riverfront could only be called a hill in exaggerated terms, and the view of the other side
of the river was less than idyllic. I began to suspect that a promenade of shopping and casual dining might not be the worst addition.

Behind me came the
clink-clank
of the latch on the chain-link fence being opened. I took in a breath, shoulders going rigid. Footsteps crunched across loose pebbles and then Tony Himmel's voice said, “Nice view.”

I glanced over my shoulder to find his gaze fixed in the same direction mine had been. Willing myself to exhale, I asked, “What are you doing working on a Saturday?”

He grinned and looked down at me. “What are you doing checking up on me?”

Heat flooded my cheeks. “I'm not checking up on you. I just wanted to see the—the—” I waved a hand in front of my mouth as though that might draw out the words. Tony laughed.

Darn it, he had a nice laugh. And he looked as good in today's faded black T-shirt as he did in the suit he wore the first time I'd encountered him—and when Friday had tried to adhere herself to him. Smart kitty.

“I'm teasing you,” Tony said, humor lacing his tone. “Relax. It makes sense you'd want to have a look.”

“It does?”

“After your interrupted questions last night, of course.”

“After my . . . ? Oh, no, that's not what . . . I wanted to see the progress you were making on the brickworks. I mean, on the marina.”

Smiling, he tipped his head in the direction he'd come and spun away from me. He pushed his fists into the front
pockets of his loose-fit cargo shorts, ambling toward the gate. “It just so happens I'm the one person who can grant you exclusive, behind-the-scenes access.”

It took me a few scrambling steps to catch up to him. We passed side by side through the wide gate onto property that appeared transformed since my last visit. Where not six weeks ago the main building had been a mix of bare wood framing beneath a half-open roof, now the walls were closed, the roof cleanly halved with a full added story on the land side, and a flat, finished balcony space on the river side.

“Patio dining,” I said, eyes on the roofline. “That's going to be nice.”

A small measure of his cheer dimmed. “I hope so. I really hope so.” He took long strides forward, forcing me into a half jog trying to keep up. “The marine shop beneath is nearly ready for occupation. Last I checked there were—”

“No, wait, wait.” I hustled to get ahead of him. “What do you mean you hope so? You've seen the drawings or plans or whatever it is the construction crew works from. You've approved them. You've had this planned since . . .” I didn't remember how long he told me he had harbored dreams of rebuilding the marina, but it wasn't a recent idea.

He pushed a stray hank of hair back off his forehead, let it fall. “Once Spring and Hamilton secure all the property, they're likely to get approval for their retail plan. This restaurant needs to build a steady customer base before any competition arrives.”

“I don't think you need to worry,” I said, wrapping my
arms around my belly. “What's your competition now, the luncheonette?”