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Mollie Cox Bryan’s
Cumberland Creek Mystery series
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Chapter 1
A green velvet dress, the skirt of which was flung over top of the right hip of the victim, revealed that 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, face down on the floor. Her long brown ponytail of curls was askew, but the green ribbon was still intact. A pair of hose was crumpled in the corner of the dance studio. Her underwear, if indeed, she wore any, was missing. One of her shoes was lying next to the hose—and it was without laces, of course, because its laces were 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.
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. Her friend came looking for her and this is what she found. You here officially?”
Annie grimaced. She’d 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—well, to a certain segment of the population, namely those that followed Irish dance.
“Maybe,” she said.
“Not much of a story here,” he went on. “Just a murder of a person who maybe was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. “
“She was sort of in the public eye. And a strangling is a personal act, isn’t it?” Annie twisted a curl around her finger. She was wearing her hair down—all of a 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, still missing.
“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 shoe laces?” 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?”
Annie crossed her arms and glared at him.
The police photographer entered the studio and his camera flashed in the dim room—a large dance studio with beautiful 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 made a splash in town—right away.
A couple of uniformed officers pulled Bryant away to show him something they 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 going to be hard to get good pictures. These mirrors are a problem,” the photographer said as he looked around for another angle. “Can you run and get some sheets from the van?” he said to a younger person who was assisting him.
“Well, that’s an interesting piece of evidence,” Bryant said.
Annie turned around to see the detective reach for a red handbag that looked vaguely familiar to her. She was not a handbag kinda woman—she was more a designer-shoe-turned-into-a-sneaker aficionado. She didn’t 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 the wallet—still there and full of money, credit cards, and the driver’s license, which caused 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—and Vera 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 that?” 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 knew he was right. But she walked away from him nonchalantly. 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 would not kill anybody, especially after seeing the compassionate way she’d behaved over the past few years. Still, a little warning would be nice.
But Vera’s life had changed drastically over the past year. 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 a new man in her life. Vera was alone and claimed she preferred it. But her business income had plummeted 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. 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?” the detective asked, still holding the purse. Annie refrained from smiling at the decidedly manly-man holding the 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?”
“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.”
He started to walk by her and brushed up against her. “Sir,” he said in a low voice. “I like that. If only I could get a little of that respect from you. “
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—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. 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, who held 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 crash 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 two-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 that Annie and Lizzie got along so well. After all, Lizzie’s father was mostly nowhere around.
“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 goodbye and watched as she and Annie left the room, she turned back around to face the handsome but annoying detective Adam Bryant.
“Well,” she said, starting to 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 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?”
“Sit down, Vera.”
“Why? What’s going on?” she said, but sat down on her second-hand 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 it green plaid cushions. In fact, her apartment was full of mismatched, uncomfortable furniture. She had rented her house, fully furnished, which is what her Realtor 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, heh?”
“Yes,” she replied. “At last we have a roof over our head and food for the table.”
He sighed. “Emily McGlashen is dead, Vera.”
She gasped, 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.”
Vera felt the room spin as her mind sifted through the recent murders in her small town. Cumberland Creek had always been so safe. Except for the past few years.
“Vera, your purse was found at the scene of the crime. I’m going to have to take you to the station for questioning,” he said.
“I don’t know anything about this, detective. Why would you need to question me?”
“Vera, you’re the only suspect I have right now. “
“Suspect? Me? I’ve just told you that I was with Mom and Jon last night.”
“What time did you leave?”
“Around eight,” she said. “I had to put Lizzie down.”
“What did you do after?”
“Nothing. I mean, I took a bath and went to bed, if you must know.”
“And what was your purse doing in the studio?”
“I don’t know.”
This is the same detective who took her good friend Cookie to jail because they’d found one of her earrings at a crime site. Could he take her to jail? Who would stay with Lizzie? Who would run the few classes that she had left at her studio?
“It’s a matter of public record that you two didn’t get along,” he said.
“I won’t deny that. I didn’t like the woman,” she replied, meeting his eyes. “Maybe she took my purse. Maybe that’s why you found it there.”
“Maybe,” he said. “I think you better call your lawyer. I’m taking you in for questioning, Vera. Just procedure.”
“Well now, my lawyer happens to be in a love-nest in Charlottesville. God knows when he’ll get back to me. At least our daughter is in good hands. Annie will take care of her.”
The detective looked off into the distance—a stiff, pained expression came over his face. Was it the mention of Annie? Was he still brooding at her rejection of him? What made him think that a happily married woman would give it all up for him?