Vengeance Is Mine: A Chautauqua Murder Mystery: Mimi Goldman Chautauqua Mysteries, #5

By Deb Pines

Vengeance is Mine is the fifth book in Deb Pines' traditional whodunit Chautauqua Mysteries featuring the wise and witty reporter sleuth of a certain age Mimi Goldman.

"An Agatha Christie for the text-message age," IndieReader calls the series.

It's the Fourth of July in 2017 when this mystery starts with a bang. Maureen Donahue, a Black Lives Matter filmmaker and speaker at the historic Chautauqua Institution, is killed at a raucous holiday concert -- amid the orchestra's roar and audience's popping paper bags, to simulate cannon fire at the end of Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture."

A stalker who followed Donahue to Chautauqua, a peaceful, leafy, cottage-filled, lakeside summer arts community, is quickly arrested.

The stalker's brother asks Mimi to help clear him. She's skeptical. She has her own wedding to plan. But, of course, the Chautauquan Daily reporter and relentless snoop, can't resist.

With help from her computer-savvy son Jake, Mimi sifts through layers of secrets -- of a shadowy piano teacher, a racist personal trainer and chatty chime-master, among others -- and realizes: she's been asking all the wrong questions.

The right ones unearth an ugly secret that puts Mimi close, maybe too close, to the real killer.

Fans of Agatha Christie and Louise Penny and "Only Murders in the Building" will enjoy this twist-filled mystery Kirkus Reviews calls, "An engaging mystery with a late twist and an especially satisfying ending." 
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Deb Pines
• Release date: Jan 14, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201032616

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

FOURTH OF JULY felt perfect for the murder.

The symbolism was right being Independence Day. And the logistics felt right, too, watching from the nearest cottage as crowds entered the Chautauqua Amp for the 8 P.M. holiday concert.

Through a north-facing window, it was easy to see young families racing down the aisles for seats. And older people moving more slowly, holding the handrails, or sitting in folding chairs at the top.

It was 7:50 P.M. There would be about another hour of daylight. And already it was easier to pick out shapes than faces.

The burner phone dinged right on time: 7:55 P.M. The text said what it had to:

Back row, right

Below the words was a photo of the target’s navy-blue baseball cap, pulled low, so low there was little space between cap and dark jacket collar.

The same head was visible through binoculars. In the band between the bulb-lit Amphitheater roof and the road. On the south side, back row, four seats to the left of an aisle.

Now, it was a matter of waiting. And not losing nerve.

Starting here in the cottage called The Box Seat, was turning out to be a good idea. Once the owners left for the concert, it was easy to slip in. And head up to the second-floor bedroom.

There, the views were perfect. The décor, Amish quilt, highboy dresser, pale-green hummingbird-patterned wallpaper, was familiar. A good place to bide one’s time, like a performer’s green room, before going on.

Eventually, orchestra members took their seats onstage. There were announcements. And more announcements. And still more announcements.

The oboe played the tuning note. A singer did a never-ending show tune medley followed by never-ending applause. Vets were honored. America the Beautiful was sung.

The singer’s bows at 9:17 P.M. were the cue.

On came the XL puffy black coat and stocking cap. The .22 was shoved in a jeans pocket. Next to the charm, grabbed last minute, for inspiration.

After another deep breath, another Xanax was dry-swallowed.

And it was time.

To get downstairs. To mix with the crowds. To end the wait for justice. And to go seize it. Now, now, now.

CHAPTER TWO

MIMI GOLDMAN, THE Chautauquan Daily’s sports editor, was reaching the Amp late, too.

She was sorry to miss the show tunes. But she was swamped with work and wedding preparations.

Yes, wedding preparations. And even with her beloved Walt doing most of the work for a low-key second wedding for both of them, everything was turning out to be ridiculously time-consuming.

The next day, for instance, Mimi was expected at her noon wedding shower two hours early. For hair and makeup. So, in the words of Walt’s sister Lil, the shower’s host, Mimi could have a shot at looking presentable.

Mimi found a spot to stand in the back of the Amp as the guest conductor asked the crowd, How many of you have done this before?

Maybe three-fourths of the spectators waved their hands with giddy enthusiasm.

Chautauquans, lovers of tradition, were clearly up for one of their favorites: when they’re asked to pop brown paper bags to simulate cannon fire at the raucous finale to the finale, Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture.

The bag-popping wouldn’t start until later, the conductor said. After he gave two signals: one for people to blow up their bags and a second for them to pop them.

Not yet, the conductor said. Be patient.

So, of course, two bags popped, one after another in different sections of the Amp.

The audience, especially the kids, giggled.

"People, the conductor pleaded. I get it. You’re excited. But try to hold your fire."

When three more bags popped, the audience laughed even harder.

The conductor, shaking his head, laughed, too.

Let’s practice, he said. "By clapping, not popping bags just yet. When I point to your section, clap once."

The conductor pointed his baton left. People on the left clapped. He pointed right. People on the right clapped. He turned to point at the choir loft. Same thing.

The conductor, usually the orchestra’s principal timpanist, nodded like a pleased parent.

Mimi took a moment to look around.

The Amp, Chautauqua’s 5,000-seat, roofed and open-sided main venue for a nine-week summer season of lectures, concerts, church services and other activities—some called summer camp for adults— looked great.

The stage was polished to a high gloss. Four pots of red, white and blue flowers (carnations, spider mums and delphiniums, Walt had once taught Mimi) sat along the front. Flags and bunting hung everywhere.

The musicians, who played with symphonies around the world in the off-season, wore dark jackets over their standard white clothes because temperatures would be dropping to the 40s.

Mimi, no lover of the cold, wore even more layers: a long-sleeved shirt, sweater and windbreaker with her usual jeans and sneakers. She zipped her windbreaker higher. And smiled at her new young friend, Betsy McLaughlin, a freckly, red-haired Daily photographer, doing a Fourth of July video for the Daily’s website.

When Mimi refocused, the conductor’s baton was hovering in the air. One of her favorite moments.

When the baton lowered, the musicians took off. Cheeks puffed. Lips pursed. Hands bowed or plucked at strings. Or raced along keys and frets. Or banged. Or clashed.

Snippets of Russian folk tunes gave way to parts of the French national anthem. Followed by stirring militaristic blasts of drums and horns.

As the music got louder and faster, the crowd shifted restlessly. Then, hallelujah, it was time. The conductor turned. He waved one finger, the signal for blowing up the bags. Bags were blown up. The orchestra played its part. The conductor pointed right.

Bang!

Paper bags exploded.

As the music got louder, he pointed left.

Kaboom!

When it was Mimi’s section’s turn, the sound was deafening.

A glance to the left, and Mimi could hardly believe it. A white-haired man in a folding chair one section over was fast asleep. His chest gently rose and fell, amid the noise and chaos.

A glance to the right was even more surprising.

Two EMTs were racing off with a young woman on a stretcher. A familiar young woman. A woman, it suddenly dawned on Mimi, who was that morning’s 10:45 lecturer, a filmmaker who discussed her latest documentary on the Black Lives Matter movement.

Instinct kicked in for Mimi, a lifelong journalist—from The Moment (at Brooklyn’s James Madison High School) and The Kingsman (at Brooklyn College), before 35 years as a reporter and copy editor at the New York Post.

And, before she knew it, Mimi was off and running after the EMTs out the nearest exit.

North toward Bestor Plaza. Then east, past the United Church of Christ House. To the ambulance that often stands by at Bowman and Roberts for emergencies.

As Mimi caught up to the crew, the 1812 Overture was reaching its frenzied, bag-popping climax. The orchestra shifted to The Stars and Stripes Forever.

The Amphitheater crowd roared, probably for the annual unfurling of a giant American flag over the stage. Many people applauded. Others headed for the exits.

The EMTs, patient loaded, looked ready to go, too.

What happened? Mimi yelled to the driver.

Don’t know yet, he said. We’ve got an unconscious lady we’re taking to Westfield.

CHAPTER THREE

BETTINA WATERS, WHO had the old-timey title of Chautauqua chimemaster, was grateful the next day for the relentless nature of her job.

She didn’t have to think. Bettina just had to be out her door by 7:35 A.M. Unlocking the 75-foot-tall redbrick Miller Bell Tower, overlooking the lake, 10 minutes later. And seated at her wooden keyboard by 7:50 A.M., ready to play 14 ½ minutes of hymns and songs on the Bell Tower’s 13 bells at exactly 8 A.M.

Bettina had no choice. The job required her to play three times a day on weekdays (8 A.M., noon and 6 P.M.). Three times on Saturdays (9 A.M., 12:15 P.M. and 6 P.M.). Four times on Sundays (9 A.M., 12:15 P.M., 6 P.M. and 10 P.M.) Plus on a few other occasions like the Fourth.

Morning, Bettina.

Hank, part of Chautauqua’s landscaping crew, ducked through the arched doorway and sat in his usual spot against the brick wall to Bettina’s left.

Awful news, Hank said. Just awful. But you still gotta start banging those keys.

Morning, Hank, she said. Four minutes.

Morning, Hank and Bettina.

Phyllis, another regular, sat beside Hank as Bruce, her yellow Labrador retriever, curled up at Bettina’s feet.

Morning, Phyllis and Bruce, Bettina said, slipping Bruce a Milk-Bone treat.

Morning, Phyllis and Bruce, Hank said. Can’t get over the thing at the Amp. It’s just—

Lord have mercy, Phyllis said. Hope there’s not some serial killer on the loose. Or a terrorist. My daughter says no. That the police say it’s a one-on-one thing. Maybe a boyfriend. But it’s . . . so hard to believe.

Bettina nodded.

Usually a chatterbox, Bettina didn’t trust her voice as her hand shook reaching for her laminated hymns. The sheet music was on a side table between an alarm clock and vase of plastic pink carnations. Next to several mini Bell Towers and a photo of Bettina’s 2012 eighth-grade history class, the only We the People Indiana state champs she had in 32 years of teaching.

At 8 A.M., a computer directed the Bell Tower chimes to bong the time, its job every fifteen minutes between 8 A.M. and 10 P.M. during the season.

Then Bettina was on.

For her first hymn, she chose In the Garden, one of her grandmother’s favorites, which she could normally play in her sleep.

To be on the safe side, she followed the music, carefully making sure she hit the right keys that electronically directed the right hammers to strike the right bells.

Mid-hymn, she nodded hello to two kids who entered and huddled together shyly by the door.

When Bettina felt her focus slipping, she sang the words to herself:

I’d stay in the garden with Him/Though the night around me is falling/But He bids me go; through the voice of woe; His voice to me is calling/And He walks with me/And He talks with me/And He tells me I am His own/And the joy we share as we tarry there/None has ever known.

When Bettina moved on to How Great Thou Art, she choked back tears.

The news was awful.

And a total shock.

Nothing from what Bettina’s landlady Ashley Pinkney, an Amphitheater usher, had told her the night before had prepared Bettina. Ashley had just said that an ambulance had rushed someone to the hospital.

The morning news filled in the details.

The person sped to the hospital, the news said, was Maureen Donahue, an up-and-coming documentary filmmaker and former actress, who had been Tuesday morning’s Amphitheater speaker.

Maureen was 36 years old. And she wasn’t just rushed to the hospital hurt. She was dead. Shot dead sitting among thousands of Chautauquans in the Amp for the Fourth of July concert.

CHAPTER FOUR

HOW IS THAT possible?

As Mimi did her favorite perimeter walk around Chautauqua’s gated, leafy, pay-to-enter historic Grounds in far western New York State before her 9 A.M. Daily staff meeting, Walt, on the phone, asked the question many Chautauquans were probably asking each other over coffee. A woman was shot in the Amphitheater and no one noticed?

It sounds crazy, Mimi said. But you know how loud that concert gets?

I do.

Explosions. Bags popping. Drums. It was so dark and chaotic, I guess no one heard a gunshot.

Or noticed a woman bleeding? Walt said. How could that be?

I don’t really know. I wasn’t far from her and I didn’t notice anything. It made me think of what people say after a mass shooting in a concert hall or nightclub—

That they thought the shots were part of the show?

Exactly. Or fireworks. Apparently, there weren’t many shots. Or just one. So it might have blended with the show.

Maybe.

Anyway, somebody covered her chest up fast. Probably the EMTs who seemed confused, too. Or were lying to me when they said they didn’t know what happened. I never saw cops.

So the shooter got away?

Apparently.

Mimi paused. She was done with her favorite part of the walk. Past Miller Park’s adorable Victorian gingerbready cottages to the lake. Then along the lake, past the Bell Tower, Athenaeum and other lakefront properties to Club (the kids’ day camp), the baseball field and tennis courts.

Now Mimi had to face the hill. And the fact that climbing it, was getting harder for her each year.

She huffed and puffed her way to the top where she paused again to catch her breath.

What’s the sheriff saying? Walt asked.

"Nothing to me. Remember the photographer who worked at The Daily with a brother at the sheriff’s department?" Mimi asked.

The long-haired kid with a crush on you?

Mimi smiled.

I think he’s just a flirt, she said. But, yeah, that’s the one. Donovan Hanafee. He called me with an update, off the record, from his brother. In case I was interested.

And?

He said his brother heard the woman was shot from behind. As she sat in the back row. So they don’t think it was something random. More like someone sought her out, shot her and fled.

Walt grew silent.

On another subject, Mimi said when she reached Massey. I’m about to pass the Farmers Market. Want anything for the weekend?

No, thanks, Walt said. "I’ll get what I need on my way back Friday. If you have time for one errand, though, my one request is—

"A