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Authors: Josh Lanyon
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Mystery: The Dark Tide
33
The next three phone calls were local media outlets requesting tours of the building.
Uh-huh.
I wondered how long Alonzo's vindictive streak was going to last. Even a week of this was liable to put a serious dent in my finances. If Lisa hadn't chosen to shell out an ungodly amount of money, my hospital bills would have already left me in serious fiscal jeopardy.
I trailed up and down the aisles of books, facing a title out here, reshelving a book there…
The building creaked emptily as I took another turn around the floor. Outside, the street was busy with traffic; people strolled along the sidewalk. It was sort of like being walled up inside the building, and I thought of Jay Stevens—if that's whom the skeleton belonged to—
waiting to be found all these years.
That started me thinking. I went into my office and, shrugging off the illogical feeling of guilt, turned on my laptop. I wasn't going to work , merely glance at my e-mail and maybe check our Web-site orders. No harm in that.
However, as I watched an alarming amount of e-mail loading into my in-box—sure enough Mel's e-mail address flashed by—a better thought occurred to me, and I clicked onto the Internet and Googled “Jay Stevens.”
I was quickly reminded of why I hadn't pursued the puzzle of Stevens's disappearance when I'd first taken possession of Cloak and Dagger Books. Not only had I had my hands full trying to get a new business up and running, but “Jay Stevens” was a popular name. A lot more popular than, for example, “Adrien English.” Not that I wasn't happy about that.
Never mind all the Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn Jay Stevenses. There was the hair-salon Jay Stevens, the big-and-tall Jay Stevens, and the assorted writer, historian, photographer, and other business-owner Jay Stevenses.
Mama, don't let your babies grow up to be Jay Stevenses.
Four pages in, there was still nothing on a missing 1950s clarinet-player Jay Stevens. I remembered what the elderly shutterbug had said about a jazz band called the Moonglows, so I plugged that into Google.
To my surprise, I scored. My search brought up a small and now-defunct record label by the name of Vibe. Vibe as in vibraphone , not good vibrations . Vibe had been based in Los Angeles and had only managed to stay afloat three years, but in its stable of talent was a jazz ensemble called Jay Stevens and the Moonglows, featuring Jay Stevens on clarinet, Jinx Stevens on vocals, Orrie New Orleans on trombone, Paulie St. Cyr on piano and guitar, and Todd Thomas on drums.
The Moonglows had made one recording, titled Kaleidoscope . There was a miniature black-and-white photo of the record cover, which I was totally unable to make out.
I jotted down the names of the other members of the Moonglows. Next I tried a search for
“The Moonglows” and “Kaleidoscope” and got a couple of hits. One was a passing reference on a jazz discussion board to Paulie St. Cyr's “locked hands” style of playing, but the other was for an eBay sale long passed. I was able to zoom in on the record cover, which featured an enraptured-looking lady in a slinky cocktail dress, lying on what appeared to be a red carpet. She was spying through a kaleidoscope. The back of the record cover offered a small black-and-white photo of the uncomfortable-looking Moonglows (probably thinking about that kaleidoscope) grouped around a piano. I was able to pick out who was whom based on the instruments they held. The man holding the clarinet was tall and thin and fair. His suit looked too 34
Josh Lanyon
big for him. He had an engaging grin. The chick singer, Jinx Stevens, leaned with easy familiarity against his shoulder. She wore a ponytail and a cocktail dress. She looked too much like Jay to be anything other than his sister.
Surprise. I'd automatically assumed wife.
I tried another search for the Moonglows and their sole album. All that came up were references made in passing to
33
The next three phone calls were local media outlets requesting tours of the building.
Uh-huh.
I wondered how long Alonzo's vindictive streak was going to last. Even a week of this was liable to put a serious dent in my finances. If Lisa hadn't chosen to shell out an ungodly amount of money, my hospital bills would have already left me in serious fiscal jeopardy.
I trailed up and down the aisles of books, facing a title out here, reshelving a book there…
The building creaked emptily as I took another turn around the floor. Outside, the street was busy with traffic; people strolled along the sidewalk. It was sort of like being walled up inside the building, and I thought of Jay Stevens—if that's whom the skeleton belonged to—
waiting to be found all these years.
That started me thinking. I went into my office and, shrugging off the illogical feeling of guilt, turned on my laptop. I wasn't going to work , merely glance at my e-mail and maybe check our Web-site orders. No harm in that.
However, as I watched an alarming amount of e-mail loading into my in-box—sure enough Mel's e-mail address flashed by—a better thought occurred to me, and I clicked onto the Internet and Googled “Jay Stevens.”
I was quickly reminded of why I hadn't pursued the puzzle of Stevens's disappearance when I'd first taken possession of Cloak and Dagger Books. Not only had I had my hands full trying to get a new business up and running, but “Jay Stevens” was a popular name. A lot more popular than, for example, “Adrien English.” Not that I wasn't happy about that.
Never mind all the Facebook, MySpace, and LinkedIn Jay Stevenses. There was the hair-salon Jay Stevens, the big-and-tall Jay Stevens, and the assorted writer, historian, photographer, and other business-owner Jay Stevenses.
Mama, don't let your babies grow up to be Jay Stevenses.
Four pages in, there was still nothing on a missing 1950s clarinet-player Jay Stevens. I remembered what the elderly shutterbug had said about a jazz band called the Moonglows, so I plugged that into Google.
To my surprise, I scored. My search brought up a small and now-defunct record label by the name of Vibe. Vibe as in vibraphone , not good vibrations . Vibe had been based in Los Angeles and had only managed to stay afloat three years, but in its stable of talent was a jazz ensemble called Jay Stevens and the Moonglows, featuring Jay Stevens on clarinet, Jinx Stevens on vocals, Orrie New Orleans on trombone, Paulie St. Cyr on piano and guitar, and Todd Thomas on drums.
The Moonglows had made one recording, titled Kaleidoscope . There was a miniature black-and-white photo of the record cover, which I was totally unable to make out.
I jotted down the names of the other members of the Moonglows. Next I tried a search for
“The Moonglows” and “Kaleidoscope” and got a couple of hits. One was a passing reference on a jazz discussion board to Paulie St. Cyr's “locked hands” style of playing, but the other was for an eBay sale long passed. I was able to zoom in on the record cover, which featured an enraptured-looking lady in a slinky cocktail dress, lying on what appeared to be a red carpet. She was spying through a kaleidoscope. The back of the record cover offered a small black-and-white photo of the uncomfortable-looking Moonglows (probably thinking about that kaleidoscope) grouped around a piano. I was able to pick out who was whom based on the instruments they held. The man holding the clarinet was tall and thin and fair. His suit looked too 34
Josh Lanyon
big for him. He had an engaging grin. The chick singer, Jinx Stevens, leaned with easy familiarity against his shoulder. She wore a ponytail and a cocktail dress. She looked too much like Jay to be anything other than his sister.
Surprise. I'd automatically assumed wife.
I tried another search for the Moonglows and their sole album. All that came up were references made in passing to
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