MAY: THE MYSTERIOUS MAVEN
A Tree McDowell Mystery
by
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“Miss McDowell - do you mind if I call you Tree? Wonderful name! So avant-garde, don’t you know.”
Avant-garde?
“Let me introduce you to Letty. You will love her; everyone does. Wonderful woman!” He led us across the lobby past the food and drink tables to an excessively round woman in a tight, shiny red satin dress who was galloping past late middle age as fast as her steed could carry her. The green bow on the back of her artificially black hair and the black stockings on her skinny legs completed the image. A candied apple on a stick! Well, this was certainly the right place - a circus if I ever saw one, and Aaron B. and I were the sad, gray hobo clowns amidst the flamboyantly attired aerialists - not only that - I was the clown on stilts.
Fontaine would certainly be the ring master, appropriately dressed in a white satin outfit - not exactly a suit - probably a couturier’s original - with a yellow rose pinned to his chest. For good luck? He had money, talent and admiration. What did he need luck for? As he leaned close to Letty Whoever, whispering in her ear, I wondered if the candied apple was going to stick to his clothes the way those carnival bestsellers always did to mine. She looked up at us, an interested smile on her face.
“Letty Cameron.” She offered a ring embellished hand - to Aaron B. - not to me.
“Aaron takes care of the bookkeeping for the theater - indispensable - and this delicate jewel is Tree McDowell, the notorious private detective.”
What a statement that was! The first half of it was true enough. Aaron B. does keep books for the theater. But as to the part about me - delicate jewel? Delicate anything? And notorious is hardly a word I would use to describe myself. I have been written up in the paper a couple of times, but so has the local locksmith. However, I don’t think anyone would consider either of us as notorious. Even
It was obvious that Letty Cameron wasn’t interested in delicate little ol’ me. She latched onto Aaron B. and steered him across the room toward one of the other circus rings, leaving me with Gregory Fontaine swinging on the trapeze alone. Aaron B. threw me a desperate glance, but I let it fly by. This was my chance to get Nanna’s information.
“Mr. Fontaine….”
“Greg, my dear girl. Greg.” Aaron B. had been a much more important Dear Boy than I was dear girl.
“Greg…uh, was your father’s name William?”
“Yes. William Wordsworth Fontaine. My grandfather undoubtedly had a literary bias. Why do you ask? Did you know him?”
“No, but my grandmother did. She asked me to tell you how fond she’d been of your father when they were in high school together. She regrets that they didn’t stay in touch after graduation.” Just a small white lie - no hovering lightning bolts ready to strike me dead on the spot - not yet, anyway.
“How kind. It is extremely hard for me to think of my father as having even been in high school. He was a terribly quiet, introverted person, don’t you know.”
“Uh, well…my grandmother’s interested in how he got on, whom he married, what he did - all that.”
“My, my. How extraordinary! Difficult to imagine the old man eliciting such curiosity from a lady. Too bad he has passed on. He would, without a doubt, have enjoyed knowing that someone took such an interest in his affairs.
“So, as to my mother - a fragile soul, I was told. Never knew her, unfortunately. Her name was Mary Smith - ordinary sort of name, I have always thought - from
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About the Book
Reluctant private investigator, Tree McDowell, is pleased when her beau, Aaron B. Abraham, a volunteer at an area amateur theater, receives an invitation to a dress rehearsal party and is asked to bring Tree with him.
The lavish party, hosted by a local patron of the arts, Greg Fontaine, is a prelude to the equally lavish theatrical production.
But Fontaine’s festivities are brought to a halt when one of the important cast members is killed on stage.
The police make an arrest, but some of the members of the cast and crew disagree with their choice of villain. One of those members hires Tree to investigate.
Her examination of the case leads Tree to believe that not all the people at the theater that night were who they seemed to be, and that more than one had reason to want the victim dead.
With the help of a colleague in
In proper literary private detective style, Tree reenacts the crime and discloses the truth.
About the Author
Karol Birchfield is a mental health therapist and a member of The Association for Applied and Therapeutic Humor. A frequent speaker on the value of humor for mental and physical health, she travels extensively giving humorous talks and promoting her latest book.
This is Birchfield’s fourth published novel. Her first, Jesus in Texas, is humor with a gentle message. The second, March: The Missing Model, is first in a series of twelve humorous mysteries covering twelve consecutive months in female private investigator Tree McDowell’s life. April: The Arrogant Antagonist is the second of that series, and May: The Mysterious Maven is the third.
Birchfield, whose stories are frequently set in the South, lives in