The downstairs lights were off. I flipped the switch, dumped my bag on the kitchen table, and shed my winter coat. The house was warm, but I was chilled to the bone. Even after a shower with the water cranked to boiling, I was still shivering. I guess a near-death experience will do that to a person.
Wrapped in my ratty but comfortable blue flannel pajamas and green terry-cloth robe, I closed my bedroom door, wondering what had happened. The car following me had to belong to the killer, but why had he come after me tonight? If I’d been asking lots of questions at the bar I would almost understand the motivation to scare the hell out of me. But I’d backed off, just like the killer asked, and it hadn’t made a difference. The fact that it didn’t both pissed me off and scared me silly.
Sitting on the bed with my legs crossed, I considered my options. I could call Detective Frewen and report the car incident. While on the surface that seemed like the logical choice, I was pretty sure all it would get me was a condescending pat on the head and a lecture on police department jurisdiction. I could call Mike. He at least would believe my story. Other than looking at the tread marks my car made while sliding across the neighbor’s lawn, however, there wasn’t much he could do. The only real solution to the threatening note and the silver stalker car was to catch the killer and have him locked away. Of course, for that to happen someone would have to figure out the murderer’s identity.
Sliding off the bed, I went downstairs, grabbed a snack of holiday cookies, and then headed back upstairs to my room to fire up my laptop. Munching on one of my great-aunt Gertrude’s famous sugar cookies, I sat at my desk and waited for the computer to boot. The odds of me putting my finger on the killer before the cops were pretty low, but I had to try. I couldn’t just wait around for someone to run me off the road again. I had gotten lucky and no one was hurt. Next time . . .
I clicked open a browser and ran a search on our concert master, Ruth Jordan. Unlike Jonathan and Vanessa, Ruth didn’t have her own website—but that didn’t mean there was a shortage of information. Ruth wasn’t shy and appeared in the local papers a lot. There were articles, reviews, a snide mention of her divorce from a French journalist, and society shots of her and whatever man she was currently dating. The newspaper photographs suggested Ruth liked older men. Much older. Which was interesting, considering her play for Devlyn tonight.
The critics praised Ruth’s playing from coast to coast. Like Jonathan, Ruth had settled here in Chicago when she took a position with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra eight years ago. She wasn’t the principle violinist with the CSO, at least not yet. That probably stung the well-developed ego Devlyn referred to. Ruth was a woman who wanted to be recognized as the best. Which begged the question—why would she take an orchestra position on this production of the
Messiah
? For someone like me, saying yes to this gig was a no-brainer. Singing with a name like David Richard could launch my career. Ruth was the concert master, which had to make her feel good, but this still was a step down for a violinist used to playing at Orchestra Hall. Sure, the production would get press due to David Richard’s performance. That was enough to encourage almost any performer to take the job. But Devlyn said Ruth had threatened to quit when David was hired, which nixed that motivation. She took this gig for a reason. Too bad I had no idea what that reason was.
Since I wasn’t going to have any epiphanies while sitting here in my pajamas, I put my questions about Ruth Jordan to the side and moved on to a more pressing issue: How had the murderer gotten his or her hands on the potassium cyanide used to kill David Richard?
While there were several sources that sold potassium cyanide through the Internet, I was happy to see potential buyers had to provide documentation that authorized them to purchase the poison. Potassium cyanide was most commonly used in gold mining, as a jewelry buffer, and occasionally in photography. The deadly compound was also used in something called electroplating, which had to do with metal ions and electrodes. My mind glazed over after reading the first paragraph about the process. I hoped staying alive wasn’t going to hinge on my comprehension of anodes and anions and a bunch of other words that had never come up in high school chemistry. Otherwise, I was screwed.
Making the executive decision to leave electroplating to Detective Frewen and people way smarter than me and leaping to the assumption that none of my fellow cast members moonlighted as gold miners, I turned to the two things on the list I understood: jewelry and photography. First up: jewelry.
Oy. There was electroplating again. At least this time the article used small, non-technical words. I now understood that electroplating had something to do with transferring metal from one source to another.
I skimmed past more electroplating stuff and learned that potassium cyanide was used by jewelers as a cleaning agent. As far as I was concerned, a person had to love sparkly jewelry a whole lot to risk death in order to make her rings and necklaces shine. Then again, who was I to judge?
Pulling out my file on my four suspects, I looked to see whether any of the newspaper articles mentioned one of them having a jeweler in the family. No dice.
Mulling over ways to learn about my fellow performers’ interest in gold, I began my research on the use of potassium cyanide in photography. As a rule, modern-day photographers didn’t tinker with the poison, which in my mind made them smart. But there was a photography technique from the mid-1800s called wet collodion process. It used a potassium cyanide–based solution to create a glass negative, which in turn led to a very detailed print. The style had become obsolete before the 1900s. For some reason, however, modern-day fine-art photographers had revived the historic technique.
Interesting.
I typed in another search and leaned back in my wheeled chair as I read the results. Northwestern University offered several photography classes. They also offered options for independent study in all art disciplines. With Jonathan’s and David’s connection to the university, it might be smart to ask the photography instructor whether she demonstrated the uses for potassium cyanide in her classes. If nothing else, it was a place to start. Comforted by the illusion of being proactive, I shut down the computer and went to bed hoping tomorrow would be a better day.
I woke to the beeping of the alarm clock. Drat. I’d forgotten to turn off the damn thing last night. No early morning rehearsal meant there was no need to get up at the crack of dawn. Eyes closed, I reached over to smack the off button and felt something cold and wet touch my arm. Then the growling began. I shifted, opened my eyes, and came nose to nose with Killer. The festive red and green bow Millie had affixed to his collar did nothing to detract from the scariness of the dog’s currently bared teeth.
The alarm clock continued to beep. Killer continued to growl. Yeah—this day was getting off to a rollicking start.
Determined not to show Killer any fear, I reached for the clock and jumped when Killer’s growl transformed into a pissed-off bark.
“Look,” I said, “I don’t like the alarm any better than you. If you’d let me shut the thing off we could both go back to sleep.” Sleeping in the same bed with a dog that was doing his best to starve me to death didn’t seem like a great option. But I’d learned the hard way that chasing Killer out of the room was fraught with more peril than letting him stay.
The barking stopped. Reaching over Killer’s fluffy white head, I smacked the button on top of the clock. The beeping mercifully stopped, too. Killer let out a whimper, put his head down on his paws, and promptly closed his eyes. I tried to do the same, but thoughts of last night’s threatening car chase and Killer’s whistle-like snores made me give up on my wish for extra shut-eye.
I pulled on a fitted, deep blue sweater, a pair of jeans, and my fuzziest socks and headed downstairs. At least with Killer asleep on my bed I was guaranteed a clear shot at the refrigerator.
“Good morning!” A robe-clad Aldo beamed as I bopped into the kitchen. The white of his teeth gleamed, making the azure tint of his skin more obvious. Whatever skin magic Millie had tried clearly hadn’t worked. The man looked like the Smurfs’ very cheerful Italian uncle. Only I doubted the Smurfs knew how to brew coffee like Aldo.
He handed me a mug doctored perfectly with sugar and cream and pointed to a kitchen counter stool. “Sit. You need a good breakfast to keep up your strength. Millie has been worried about you. I worry, too.”
Guilt gnawed at my heart. “I left messages to let Aunt Millie know I was safe and I was going to be later than expected.”
“Yes. Yes. We get the messages.” Aldo opened the fridge and pulled out a grocery cart’s worth of ingredients. “You’re a good girl, but we love you so we cannot help but worry. First you see David Richard murdered. Then you find your stage manager dead. And tonight you have to convince the school to keep you working for them. Your aunt wants to talk to the school people, but I tell her you no want us to interfere.”
“I really don’t.” My job. My problem. I wanted to handle it my way. The mention of Millie’s possible interference made me think of my conversation with Jonathan last night. I took a large hit of coffee, stared into the half-empty mug, and asked, “Did Millie talk the producer into letting me audition for the
Messiah
?”
Aldo blushed. The addition of the red in his cheeks turned his face a pale shade of purple. The blush also answered my question. Damn. There went my appetite. “Why?”
Aldo gave an exaggerated shrug and cracked an egg into a glass bowl. “Your aunt only wanted to help you. She always say you are too talented to not be discovered. If only the right person would hear you sing . . .” His voice trailed off as he cracked egg after egg. By my count, nine eggs went into the bowl. Either Aldo was distracted or he was expecting a barbershop quartet to turn up for breakfast.
“Millie offered to help me in the past,” I said. “I turned her down.”
“I know.” Aldo kept his eyes on the cutting board as the knife he wielded skillfully slashed across an onion. “She was worried you’d get too busy teaching and forget to pay attention to your career.”
“I’m only teaching to pay the bills.” And after today, that might not even be the case.
“She has money, and you won’t take it.” Aldo put down his knife and met my eyes with his deep brown ones. “I understand why you won’t. I would no take it, either. But my Millie thinks of you as a daughter. She wants the best for you. It frustrates her when you won’t allow her to help. She talked to her friend just this once and asked for you to have an audition. The friend told her you wouldn’t get the job, but she told him that was okay. She just wanted you to have a chance to shine.”
I understood Millie loved and believed in me. In fact, I counted on Millie’s unshakable faith in my talent when I had to face the hope of another audition only to find rejection. But getting this job had boosted my confidence because I’d believed I had gotten it. Me. On my own. That I hadn’t cut deep. Knowing my aunt had a hand in my casting took away the faith I had gained in myself. I wasn’t sure what to do about that.
“Are you going to tell your aunt that you know?” Aldo poured the egg mixture into a pan and then looked over his shoulder at me.
“No.” I wanted to, but telling my aunt wouldn’t change a thing. It would just upset her. There was no reason for us both to be unhappy.
“Good.” Aldo beamed as he slid the pan into the oven. “Millie is planning on doing some Christmas shopping today. Shopping always makes her happy. The happier she is, the better chance I have when I give her my Christmas gift.”
“What gift?” The glint in his eye had me guessing the gift wasn’t a pair of hand-knitted socks.
He sat down his spatula, hurried over to the kitchen door, and peered into the hallway. After verifying the coast was clear, he turned and announced, “I bought your aunt a ring. I am going to ask her to marry me.”
Uh-oh. “Aunt Millie said she never wants to get married.”
“She does not mean it.” Aldo laughed. “Every woman wants to get married.”
Not Millie. The last guy who had asked for her hand in marriage found his ankle clenched between Killer’s jaws moments before being escorted to the door. Killer didn’t draw blood, but Millie’s “Let’s be friends” kiss-off before slamming the door did. I was fond of Aldo. I didn’t want to see him meet the same fate.
“Maybe you should give Aunt Millie a little more time before popping the question. You two haven’t been dating all that long.”
Aldo shook his head, and he grabbed three plates from Millie’s polished oak cabinets. “Years ago, when I first met your aunt, I told myself to be patient. Not to rush her. Back then, your aunt slipped through my fingers. This will not happen again. This time will be different.”
This time was going to be a train wreck.
The telltale sound of Millie’s heels against the hallway floor cut off the conversation before I could take another crack at convincing Aldo to hold off on his proposal. I’d have to find another time to have a heart-to-heart with him. As Millie stepped into the kitchen and said good morning, Aldo slid a plate filled with fresh fruit, potatoes, and a perfectly browned omelet onto the kitchen table. He added a mug of coffee. Then, with a flourish, he pulled out her chair, kissed her on the cheek, and pushed the chair in after she was seated. A second heaping plate of food followed right behind and was placed in front of me. Yeah—if Millie didn’t say yes to Aldo, I probably would.
“This looks lovely, Aldo,” Millie said, but instead of picking up her fork, she laid her hand over mine. “I’m glad you’re here so I can see for myself that you’re all right.”
There was fatigue and worry shimmering in Millie’s eyes. Both meant she hadn’t slept until I’d gotten home, and maybe not even then. My heart sighed. There was no way I’d tell Millie she’d been outed for getting me the gig. While my mother loved me, it was Millie who understood me.
“I’m okay. Honest.” As though to prove the point, I picked up my fork and dug into the eggs. Ham, peppers, onions, and pepper Jack cheese. Yep—Aldo was a keeper.