“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 shoelaces?” 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?”
Flashes of Riverdance played in Annie’s mind. There was nothing “fancy” about those dancers. They were in extraordinary physical condition. A hugely successful international dance show consisting of traditional Irish dance, Riverdance was spurring Irish dance classes across the country. And Emily McGlashen was in one of those big productions and had made a name for herself, which was one reason the kids in Cumberland Creek loved her. Besides all that, she was young and hip.
Annie crossed her arms and glared at Bryant.
The police photographer entered the studio again, and his camera flashed in the dim room, a large dance studio with beautiful polished wood 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 had drawn attention to herself right away.
A couple of uniformed officers pulled Bryant away to show him something they had 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 hard to get good pictures. These mirrors are a problem,” the photographer said and looked around for another angle. “Can you run and get some sheets from the van?” he said to the younger person who was assisting him.
“Well, that’s an interesting piece of evidence,” Bryant said.
Annie turned around to see his gloved hands reach for a red handbag that looked vaguely familiar to her. She was not a handbag kinda woman; she was more a designer shoe devotee turned sneaker aficionado. She didn’t really 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 a wallet, still there and full of money, credit cards, and a driver’s license, which inspired 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. She 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 it?” 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 walked away from him. 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 hadn’t killed anybody, especially after seeing the compassionate way she’d behaved over the past few years. Still, a little warning would be nice.
Vera’s life had changed drastically recently. 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 the new man in her life. Vera was alone and claimed she preferred it. 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, her business income had plummeted. 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?” Bryant asked, still holding the purse as he approached her. Annie refrained from smiling at the decidedly manly man holding the evidence 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? The one that claimed ballet was an archaic dance form and that Vera was ripping kids off?”
“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.”
Bryant started to walk by her and brushed up against her. “Sir,” he said in a low voice. “Just how I like it.”
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, and 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 on which to stand. But he knew.
He knew what he was doing to her. And he was enjoying every minute of it.
Photo by Christy Majors
Mollie Cox Bryan, author of the Cumberland Creek mystery series, is also the regional bestselling author of Mrs. Rowe’s Little Book of Southern Pies and Mrs. Rowe’s Restaurant Cookbook: A Lifetime of Recipes from the Shenandoah Valley. An award-winning journalist and poet, she currently blogs, cooks, and scrapbooks in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia with her husband and two daughters. Her first Cumberland Creek mystery Scrapbook of Secrets was nominated for an Agatha Award for best first novel. Please visit her at molliecoxbryan.com.
Having traded in her career as a successful investigative
journalist for the life of a stay-at-home mom
in picturesque Cumberland Creek, Virginia,
Annie can’t help but feel that something’s missing.
But she finds solace in a local “crop circle”
of scrapbookers united by chore-shy husbands,
demanding children, and occasional fantasies of their
former single lives. And when the quiet idyll of their
small town is shattered by a young mother’s suicide,
they band together to find out what went wrong . . .
Annie resurrects her reporting skills and discovers that
Maggie Rae was a closet scrapbooker who left behind
more than a few secrets—and perhaps a few enemies.
As they sift through Maggie Rae’s mysteriously
discarded scrapbooks, Annie and her “crop” sisters
begin to suspect that her suicide may have been murder.
It seems that something sinister is lurking beneath the
town’s beguilingly calm façade—like a killer
with unfinished business . . .
The ladies of the Cumberland Scrapbook Crop
are welcoming an eccentric newbie into their fold.
A self-proclaimed witch, Cookie Crandall can whip up a
sumptuous vegan meal and rhapsodize about runes
and moon phases with equal aplomb. She becomes fast
friends with her fellow scrapbookers, including freelance
reporter Annie, with whom she shares shallow roots in a
community of established family trees.
So when Cookie becomes the prime suspect in a series
of bizarre murders, the croppers get scrappy
and set out to clear her name . . .
Annie starts digging and discovers that the victims each
h
ad strange runic patterns carved on their bodies—a
piece of evidence that points the police in Cookie’s
direction. Even her friends begin to doubt her innocence
when they find an ornate, spiritual scrapbook that an
alleged beginner like Cookie could never have crafted.
As Annie and the croppers search for answers, they’ll
uncover a shockingly wicked side of their once quiet
town—and a killer on the prowl for another victim . . .
Spring is in the air, but the ladies of the Cumberland
Creek Scrapbook Crop hardly have time to stop
and smell the roses. Not when famed Irish dancer
Emily McGlashen is found murdered in her studio
just after the St. Patrick’s Day parade—and one of
the Crop’s own members is the prime suspect.
Vera’s dance studio may have suffered when Emily
waltzed into town, but the croppers know she’s not a
vengeful murderer. Lucky for her, co-scrapbooker Annie
is a freelance reporter eager to vindicate her friend.
What she discovers is a puzzling labyrinth of secrets
that only add question marks to Emily’s murder.
Just when it seems they’ve run out of clues,
an antique scrapbook turns up and points the croppers
in the right direction—and brings them face to face
with a killer more twisted than a Celtic knot . . .
Summer’s in full swing, and it’s time once again
for the Cumberland Creek County Fair Pie Competition.
DeeAnn Fields just knows this is her year to finally win
with her brilliant apple green chili pie.
But after the judges take one bite and spit it back out,
ordering DeeAnn to leave at once,
she’s baffled as to what went wrong . . .
until she discovers someone sabotaged her pie.
Banding together to find out who hated DeeAnn
enough to ruin her chances of winning,
the ladies of the Cumberland Scrapbook Crop
scrap their summer plans to get to the bottom of this
mystery so that they can return to what they do best—
cropping and crafting!
KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2014 by Mollie Cox Bryan
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the Publisher and neither the Author nor the Publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat & TM Off.
ISBN: 978-0-7582-9356-5
First Kensington Mass Market Edition: October 2014
eISBN-13: 978-0-7582-9357-2
eISBN-10: 0-7582-9357-7
First Kensington Electronic Edition: October 2014
A Crafty Christmas Page 25
