Death Masque

Dan Andriacco

Description

Small town controversies can be murder. When a newcomer to Erin, Ohio, proposes to tear down the historic Bijou Theater and erect in its place a boutique hotel, Sebastian McCabe adds "civic activist" to a long resume that already includes magician, mystery writer, professor, and amateur sleuth. With the strategic help of brother-in-law Jeff Cody, Mac launches a far-reaching campaign to "Save the Bijou." The issue becomes highly political when three eccentric mayoral candidates stake out their positions - which one of them switches after a hefty campaign contribution."The plot machinations of grand opera seem positively guileless by comparison!" Mac cries. Can homicide be far behind? The opera comparison is a natural one, for the new Erin Opera Company is staging an original work with a Mardi Gras theme. As murder strikes again, this time back stage, Sebastian McCabe becomes aware that many of the actors in this real-life drama are wearing metaphorical masks as well.Lynda Teal, Jeff's wife, records much of Mac's sleuthing for a podcast series, never imagining that the most dramatic audio of the concluding episode will come from the murderer.

Informations

• Publié par: Andrews UK
• Date de parution: 04 septembre 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781787053144
• Langue: English

Extrait

Death Masque
A Sebastian McCabe - Jeff Cody Mystery
Dan Andriacco




First edition published in 2018
Copyright © 2018 Dan Andriacco
The right of Dan Andriacco to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998.
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without express prior written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted except with express prior written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended). Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damage.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and not of MX Publishing.
MX Publishing
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London, N11 3GX
www.mxpublishing.com
Cover design by Brian Belanger




This book is dedicated to
Deacon Ken Ramsey, Sr.
soldier, lawman, cleric, and McCabeophile



ACT ONE
1. A Big Fish
The first mystery about Hunter Davenport was why my boss, the redoubtable Lesley Saylor-Mackie, summoned me to a meeting with him on that Monday morning in mid-April. I’d never met the man, although I’d heard his name bandied about town plenty.
“Oh, yes, the PR guy,” he said when Saylor-Mackie had pronounced our names to each other. “Good to meet you, Jeff.”
My wince was partly from hearing my position as communications director at St. Benignus University dismissed so blithely, and partly from a handshake that indicated Davenport had put in serious gym time. I never trust a man with a grip that disables me from picking up a pen afterward.
Davenport was a hard-charging businessman who had golden-parachuted into Erin after being pushed off the top of the Amalgamated Brands corporate ladder in Chicago. What had brought him to small-town Ohio was his wife, Erin-native Nadine Lattimore. The former beauty queen had longed to return to her hometown after a stint as an Emmy-winning TV reporter in the Windy City. Now she was an anchor in Cincinnati, forty miles downriver from her new home just outside of Erin and making a far less stressful daily commute than she’d faced in Illinois.
Her somewhat-older husband, his age somewhere north of fifty, had meanwhile reinvented himself in Erin as a developer. His inaugural project was a proposed boutique (as in “expensive”) hotel about which everyone in town seemed to have an opinion, most definitely including Sebastian McCabe. Mac had dragged me into this controversy as well, despite my initial indifference. I’d heard that the former Fortune 500 honcho was determined to become a big fish in a small pond. Mac had strongly suggested that the fish in question was a shark. And I don’t think he meant “shark” as in entrepreneurs who invest in promising businesses. He never watches that show.
“Please sit down,” Saylor-Mackie invited both of us. She moved out from behind the aircraft carrier-sized desk dominating her office, a legacy of her predecessor, and occupied a stuffed chair herself.
Just short of my six-one, Davenport had a full head of suspiciously dark brown hair and steely eyes magnified by rimless glasses - eyes that missed nothing. He looked impressive even sitting beneath a painting of President Taft. The portrait of the great Ohioan had come with Saylor-Mackie when she’d inherited the large office at the beginning of the academic year as our new executive vice president and provost. This followed a long and successful stint as head of SBU’s history department and almost two terms as mayor of Erin.
A historian with an extraordinary talent for administration, she’d authored an award-winning biography of Taft’s later life called William Howard Taft: Mr. Chief Justice . And she looked the part of the accomplished administrator - a perennially elegant woman with never a formerly-sandy gray hair out of place. My awe of her had only grown in the short time I’d been reporting to her. Never mind that parade of racy romance novels she’d written under a pseudonym. Everybody needs a hobby.
“I’m sorry to pull you in on such short notice, Jeff,” she said, “but it’s a surprise to me, too. Mr. Davenport is here to discuss a major contribution to the popular culture program.”
So that was why I’d been invited to this party! Since becoming my supervisor, Saylor-Mackie had been gently encouraging me to be more proactive in pushing out the good news. Or, as she put it, speaking more as a football fan and former politician than as an academic, “It’s time to play offense.” With that as the game plan, my brain immediately started crafting a press release without any instructions from me: St. Benignus University, a four-year Catholic liberal arts institution, is pleased to announce a generous donation of...
“Fifty thousand dollars, to be exact,” Davenport said, grabbing control of the conversation.
I would have raised an eyebrow, Mac-like, but I’ve never mastered the trick. The popular culture program at St. Benignus is Sebastian McCabe. He teaches most of the courses and hires adjunct instructors and guest lecturers for the rest. It’s a very small program and much despised by our former provost, the recently departed Ralph Pendergast. So why would Hunter Davenport, of Davenport Development, be donating money to the nemesis of his pet project? That’s one reason for the eyebrow I would have raised. The other is that, while an amount like that would get lost in the rounding for a large state or private university, it was big enough for SBU that our president normally would have been involved in the handover.
“Father Pirelli asked me to meet with Mr. Davenport,” explained Saylor-Mackie, who apparently had already worked with me long enough to read my mind.
If we’d been alone I would have observed to her that Fr. Pirelli, who had passed normal retirement age during the Clinton Administration, had been looking tired lately. He’d confided to me that he wanted to step down from his essentially figurehead position, but he thought that SBU had already undergone too much change lately with Ralph’s departure. Saylor-Mackie, upon taking over the number two spot in the university hierarchy, had managed to get “executive vice president” added to the front of her job title to reflect the power of her position.
I pulled out a notebook to make a few scribblings. “I don’t recall seeing your name on our donor lists, Hunter.” If I’m “Jeff,” you can be “Hunter.” What’s euphemistically called “development” or “advancement” in non-profit circles isn’t part of my job at the university, but I’ve always figured it doesn’t hurt to know where the money comes from. So, I pay attention to the names of our biggest backers. There aren’t so many that it’s a chore.
“No, this is my first contribution to St. Benignus.” Davenport sat forward a bit, looking very earnest. “I’ve been supporting other civic causes since I came to Erin - St. Hildegarde Health, the local opera, the art museum, and so forth. But I’ve long been a reader of Sebastian McCabe’s mystery novels.”
Another surprise. “I wouldn’t have taken you for a Damon Devlin fan,” I said, keeping it light.
“Who?”
I gave Saylor-Mackie what I hoped was a meaningful look, the meaning being, “What game is he playing?” That annoying magician-sleuth Devlin is the hero of every one of Mac’s twenty-six implausible books, including the latest, The Devil and Damon Devlin . Although Mac’s greatest creation is and always will be Sebastian McCabe, any real McCabe reader would know the name of his protagonist. Ergo (as Mac might say), Davenport was having us on.
“Of course,” the faux fan added without waiting for me to answer his question, “I would expect that with added funding for his department Professor McCabe would be quite busy and no longer have time to spend on extra-curricular activities.”
Saylor-Mackie sat back as if she’d been slapped, although her face remained an emotionless mask. “Extra-curricular activities such as?”
She knew where Davenport was headed with this, but she wanted him to say it.
“I don’t mean to imply that he would or should stop writing books.” Heavens no! “But he should stick to that and leave the civic activism to somebody else. He’s made a fool of himself by opposing my plan to redevelop the Bijou Theatre site. That ‘Save the Bijou’ nonsense of his is standing in the way of progress. If we greatly expand the existing bike trail along the Ohio, and add my new hotel, Erin could capitalize on the river to pull in regional tourists from Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, and even West Virginia. They would spend a few days and more than a few dollars in this town, which is why the Convention & Visitors Bureau supports my plan.”
He was in full salesman mode. Heck, I could just imagine myself breezing along the river on my Schwinn. But Saylor-Mackie wasn’t buying.
“Your plan to tear down the Bijou building has been rather controversial,” the Provost understated. In fact, it had been the biggest local controversy since the St. Patrick’s Day parade the year before. [1] The populace of Erin was sharply divided between preservationists, led by Mac, and those who favored development the Davenport way. With city elections seven months off, candidates for mayor and City Council had firmly staked out their positions - as had the denizens of all our bars and beauty shops.
“Professor McCabe’s position is not the position of St. Benignus University because we don’t have one,” my favorite historian continued. “We try to be a good cor