Jazzed Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Jazzed

  Copyright © 2013 Annie’s.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews. For information address Annie’s, 306 East Parr Road, Berne, Indiana 46711-1138.

  The characters and events in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to actual persons or events is coincidental.

  _______________________________________

  Library of Congress-in-Publication Data

  Jazzed / by Donna Kelly

  p. cm.

  I. Title

  2012920433

  ________________________________________

  AnniesMysteries.com

  800-282-6643

  Annie’s Attic Mysteries

  Series Editors: Ken and Janice Tate

  Series Creator: Stenhouse & Associates, Ridgefield, Connecticut

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated, in respectful memory, to Herman Leonard (1923–2010), considered by many— including the author—to have been “the greatest jazz photographer in the world.” Thank you for capturing the soul of jazz on film and sharing it with the world.

  1

  Fingers wrapped around a mug of hot mint tea, Annie Dawson inhaled the comforting aroma, hands warming on the ceramic and face tingling as the steam curled under her nose. Gazing out of the living room bay window, she watched the wind whip bare lilac bush branches and bend sugar maple treetops. Beyond the trees, narrow footpath, and rocky beach, the sea rolled relentlessly toward shore, the one constant in a world of change.

  Her walk on the beach earlier that afternoon had been glorious—the juxtaposition of icy wind and brilliant sun offering the hope of coming spring. Winter had been long and harsh, and now was reluctant to release its grip on the weather.

  She stood almost motionless at the window, sporadically lifting the mug to her lips, and was surprised to see the postman winding up the walkway with a small package in his hands.

  Placing the empty mug on the doily-topped table below the window, Annie opened the front door before he had time to ring the bell.

  “Hey, Al,” she said, her Southern accent greeting the native Mainer. “Come in; you must be frozen!”

  Stepping inside the door, he held the box out to Annie after she closed the door against the cold.

  “Not more than usual for this time of year. The wind is fierce, but spring is just around the corner. I feel it in my bones,” the postman said, reaching for the doorknob.

  “I’m glad your bones are better at picking up on weather patterns than mine,” Annie said, laughing as she glanced at the rather flat, square package in her hand. She smiled at the return address. It had traveled all the way from Texas—where her daughter, LeeAnn, and family were already basking in beautiful, mild weather—to blustery Stony Point, Maine.

  “Stay warm, Al. And thanks for bringing this package from back home right to my front door,” she said.

  After she had closed the door behind him, Annie ran her fingers across the box and imagined LeeAnn taking care to align the tape just so before pressing it along the cardboard. Even as a mother of rambunctious twins in constant demand of her attention, LeeAnn was still a perfectionist.

  Annie lifted her head as an odd noise, sounding like a cross between a cat’s meow and a baby’s laugh, came from the hallway.

  “Boots, we have an unexpected present from LeeAnn!” she told the gray, white-pawed cat, now cocking its head and looking at her with what appeared to be amusement. She carried the package to the nearby couch, plopped down on the dark green cushions, and chuckled as the cat jumped up beside her.

  “You’re curious too, aren’t you?” Annie said, scratching the furry head now resting against her thigh.

  Grabbing scissors from her crochet bag nestled on the floor beside the sofa, Annie slit the tape on the box and pulled out its contents—a double CD set of jazz featuring her favorite artists!

  On the back was a note written in LeeAnn’s neat, but embellished, cursive writing:

  Dear Mom,

  I’ll always remember when I’d walk into the living room and see you and Dad dancing your hearts out to jazz music. Remember when I would “dance” with Dad by standing on his feet? When I found this CD set, I just knew you had to have it!

  Keep dancing, Mom …

  I love you,

  LeeAnn

  Smiling at the memory of a young LeeAnn dancing with her father, Annie’s eyes misted. The twins were only four years old when Wayne died unexpectedly from a heart attack. John and Joanna would never know the joy of dancing with their grandfather.

  She moved Boots, who blinked her green eyes in displeasure, with one hand and rose with the CD case in the other. Annie’s grandmother, Elizabeth Holden, had purchased a small, portable CD player in an attempt to keep up with the modern world. Not quite able to let go of the past, she kept it perched on top of the huge, old, walnut-encased record player.

  Annie chuckled at her own inability to let go of the old wooden dinosaur as she slipped the disk into the sleek plastic player. She had made great progress in cleaning out and renovating Grey Gables, the old Victorian home Betsy—“Gram,” as Annie called her—had bequeathed to Annie, but some stuff just couldn’t be discarded like unwanted trash. Betsy and Annie’s grandfather, Charles Holden, had also passed down a love of jazz, a love Annie had shared with Wayne.

  She began to sway as the notes of Glenn Miller’s In the Mood spilled into the air. By the time the saxophone had been joined by trumpets and trombones, Annie had grabbed her tea mug from the table and was dancing down the hallway for a refill. The dance continued with less animation as she added a fresh tea bag to her mug, filled her new electric tea kettle with water, and switched on the kettle with a flourish. Turning around as the kettle began its job, Annie found Boots staring up at her.

  “What? Haven’t you ever seen a woman dance while making a cup of tea before?”

  Boots shook her head as if to respond and strolled to her food bowl, mewing.

  Annie laughed and poured kibble into the bowl. She watched the cat nibble the food with dainty bites. When the kettle chimed, she poured water into her cup. The dancing resumed while her tea steeped, and she laughed as the cat took refuge under the kitchen table.

  “Boots, you do so amuse me,” she said before retrieving her mug and heading back to the living room.

  Curled on the sofa with her legs tucked under, Annie closed her eyes as the music vibrated through her body. LeeAnn had sent the perfect gift; with the music came memories. They flipped through her mind like pages in a history book—the happiness of LeeAnn and Herb excitedly announcing, over backyard barbecued burgers and lemonade, the impending arrival of twins; and months later, pacing the hospital waiting room while drinking strong, black coffee with Wayne until an exhausted but grinning Herb entered with the news that mother was doing well and children were beautiful and healthy.

  Wayne had had plans for the twins—fishing trips, bicycle rides, and kite fly
ing—and he started spoiling John and Joanna as soon as they arrived home from the hospital. Although she had expected to love her grandchildren, she hadn’t foreseen the overwhelming joy they brought into their lives.

  The bittersweet memories brought more tears to Annie’s eyes. Wayne didn’t have a chance to fulfill all those dreams with the twins before he was called home to God by a heart attack. But his quirky smile and color-changing eyes lived on in the twins. Those eyes, much like the old seventies-era mood rings that switched colors, morphed from gray to blue to hazel, depending on his disposition.

  Engrossed in her reverie longer than she realized, Annie brought the mug of tea to her lips and nearly choked. The hot tea had turned decidedly cool, and it brought her back to the living room in Grey Gables.

  Thank goodness LeeAnn was good about calling, sending photos, and emailing; otherwise she’d go crazy being so far from them. A sudden urge to call her daughter swept through Annie as Billie Holiday lamented lost love, singing, “The way you wear your hat; the way you sip your tea; the memory of all that. No, no, they can’t take that away from me.”

  Annie punched in the number, and as Billie’s voice faded and the CD stopped spinning, LeeAnn answered the phone.

  “Mom! How are you?”

  “Oh, LeeAnn, the CDs were such a marvelous surprise! I just had to call and tell you how much I’m enjoying listening to them.”

  “When did they get there? I took the package to the post office after I dropped the twins off at school on Thursday. I’ve been dying to call you, but I figured you’d let me know.”

  When did LeeAnn’s Southern accent get so thick? Annie glanced at the grandfather clock. “Oh, the postman delivered it about an hour or so ago. I’ve been listening to it ever since. The songs sent me on a trip down memory lane and had me daydreaming of the day you and Herb told us we were to be grandparents—of twins! Has it really been more than eight years?”

  LeeAnn chuckled. “Yep. Remember the crazy names Herb and Dad kicked around that night—Chip and Dip, Tater and Mayo, Ham and Burger?”

  “How could I forget?” Annie asked, wiping happy tears from her eyes. “How are our little condiments, anyway?”

  “Sweet and salty,” LeeAnn said without missing a beat. “And they are bouncing off walls, wanting to talk to you.”

  “Oh, put them on, honey. I’d love to hear their voices!”

  A bit of confusion ensued before the children came on the line.

  “Hi, Grandma!” the twins said in unison.

  “What’s shakin’, bacon?” John’s voice piped.

  “Not much, little man.” Annie smiled. The things kids pick up at school and on television never ceased to amaze. “Boots and I are just listening to the wind and hoping it doesn’t blow Grey Gables out to sea, furnishings and all!”

  “For real, Grandma?” John said, his voice filled with disbelief.

  “No, not really. But the wind blew me around a bit during my walk earlier this afternoon. So, has baseball season started yet?”

  “Just started. I’m on the Rangers this year. We have our pictures taken next Saturday. Do you want one?”

  Annie’s heart did a little flip-flop. John and Joanna were growing up, and she was missing it.

  “Absolutely, I want one! And I want to see some videos from your games. Joanna, are you there, sweetie?”

  “Yes, Grandma. I’m here; we’re on speaker phone. And Ariel says hi too,” she said in a voice much softer and higher pitched than her brother’s. “Ariel wants to know if you’ve finished her sweater. She can’t wait to see it, you know.”

  A bit of guilt crept into Annie as she looked at the unfinished fluffy pink dog sweater sticking out of her crochet bag. If she didn’t get it done soon, the weather in Texas would be too warm for the little peke-a-poo to wear it until next fall.

  “It’s getting there. I’ll make it a top priority,” Annie promised. “How’s the dancing going, Joanna?”

  “Swimmingly,” she replied with a flourish. “I talked Mom into letting me take ballet and jazz. I love to dance. Oh, Mama wants to talk to you, again. Gotta go. I love you, Grandma!”

  “Me too,” John chimed in.

  “I love y’all too!” Annie replied just in the nick of time before hearing a click as LeeAnn took the phone off speaker to talk privately with her mother.

  “They really miss you, Mom. We all do.”

  Annie could tell significant tongue biting was happening on the other end of the line. LeeAnn was making a concentrated effort to refrain from nagging her about returning to Texas.

  “But isn’t it great to have cellphones and speaker phones and email and instant messaging?” Annie replied, hoping her words sounded lighthearted. The last thing she wanted was an argument about her decision to remain in Stony Point.

  LeeAnn sighed. “I need to get going, Mom. But we’ll talk soon, OK? I’m really glad you like the CDs.”

  “I love the CDs,” Annie said. “In fact, I’m going to listen to another one of them while I eat dinner. And I love you too! Bye for now.”

  Annie put on the second CD of the jazz set, turned up the volume, and headed back to the kitchen, switching on more lights as she walked from the living room down the hall to the kitchen. Late afternoon had turned to darkened early evening, and her growling stomach wanted sustenance as surely as her soul craved the music.

  Opting for expediency, Annie ladled leftover homemade vegetable soup into a pottery bowl and put it in the microwave to heat. A wonderful invention, the microwave, she thought. Whatever did people do without it? By the time she had set a place at the table, fixed a glass of ice water, and fetched a box of oyster crackers from the cupboard, the microwave wizard had worked its magic. Dinner was ready.

  Louis Armstrong’s punchy trumpet tone on Stompin’ at the Savoy filtered into the kitchen, bringing a smile to her lips. Wow! He sure could play that trumpet! What a perfect match with Ella Fitzgerald. They just don’t make music like that anymore, Annie thought.

  Several tunes later, Annie rinsed her dishes in the sink, turned off the kitchen light, and settled in the living room for more jazz. Remembering Joanna’s question about Ariel’s sweater, Annie reached for her crochet bag, determined to finish and mail the peke-a-poo’s dainty pink sweater by the end of the week.

  Ariel. The name Joanna had picked for the family pet gave her a sense of déjà vu. LeeAnn, who had been about Joanna’s age when Disney’s animated film The Little Mermaid was first released, had named her goldfish after the young mermaid who had wished to become human and marry her handsome prince. LeeAnn had passed her infatuation with mermaids on to Joanna, who had amassed her own collection of the mythical half-woman, half-fish creatures.

  “A dog named after a mermaid. I find that quite amusing, don’t you?” she asked Boots, who cocked her head as if befuddled by the question.

  The CD ended, but Annie continued creating loop after pink loop until the phone’s ring pierced the silence.

  “Hello?”

  “Hello, dahling,” said Alice in her best impression of a glamorous Hollywood star of the 1940s. “Would you perhaps be available to breakfast at The Cup & Saucer with your dear old friend tomorrow?”

  “Oh, let me check my schedule, dearie. I must not overbook. I’m frightfully in demand, you know,” Annie replied, attempting to stifle a laugh. “I think I can work you in.”

  Alice chuckled and returned to her native Maine accent. “I’ll pick you up at nine o’clock. That should give us enough time to eat, catch up, and still slide into A Stitch in Time for the Hook and Needle Club meeting. Will that work for you?”

  “Yes indeed,” Annie replied. “I’ll be ready and waiting when you arrive in your chariot. But now I’m going to work a bit more on Ariel’s sweater before heading to bed. I look forward to breakfast, dahling.”

  Annie hung up the phone and picked up the sweater in progress, marveling at God’s ability to soften great loss with blessings. Losing Gram so soon after Wa
yne’s death was almost too much to bear. But leaving her family in Texas and returning to Stony Point to put Gram’s affairs in order also brought a reunion with Alice, her constant companion during childhood summers spent with her grandparents in their rambling old Victorian-era home.

  When sleepiness set in, Annie carefully placed her crochet supplies and the sweater in the bag.

  “I’ve made good progress,” she told Boots, who was bathing nearby on the braided rug with one leg poised over her head. “Would you like a cute pink sweater to wear in cold weather?”

  The cat’s leg immediately lowered. With narrowed eyes and twitching ears, she groaned a meow and dashed out of the room, leaving a laughing Annie behind to turn off lights before heading upstairs to bed.

  2

  Navy Hospital Corpsman Charles Holden collapsed on his bunk, too tired to take off his shoes. He should be caring for the wounded—the bloodied but breathing men struggling to survive as they clung to life in the belly of the ship. He hadn’t wanted to leave them, but orders were orders. His commanding officer had told him to get some shut-eye. After eighteen hours of tending the wounded and the dying, he knew his reflexes weren’t what they should be. His CO was right; he was more of a hindrance than a help in his current state.

  His eyelids closed, but his ears still heard the cries, and visions of shattered limbs and vacant eyes wouldn’t leave him. Many of these men, he knew, would never see home again. When would he see the family farm in Connecticut? Smell fresh-cut hay? Taste his mother’s beef stew? Hear the roar of his dad’s tractor? How long would the constant stream of wounded flow into the ship? And when would the waters off the coast of the Philippine Islands be far behind him?

  Sleep wouldn’t come. He rolled on his side, trying to count backward from one hundred in hopes of banishing the horror in his head. Reaching zero, he returned to his back.

  “I thought you’d be asleep by now.”

  Startled, Charlie looked up to see his buddy, Mike, standing at the foot of his bunk.

  “Couldn’t sleep.”

  “You said to wake you if the lanky chest wound regained consciousness,” Mike said, stifling a yawn. “His eyes flickered a bit. He wasn’t coherent enough to give him water. He’s stirring.”