Chapter 9

The overhead bell announced Melender’s arrival with a soft jingle as she pushed open the door of Fox’s Music Store in Falls Church, Virginia. She loved coming to the shop, crammed with musical instruments, sheet music, and old record albums, especially near the end of the day when the store emptied of customers. It was her rare foray into the world, but she found the musty air of the shop comforting, as if musical notes hovered on the dust motes that danced in the sunlight.

“Hey, Mel. How are you today?” Jimmy Stork, the long-time owner of the independent shop, smiled from behind the counter. With a pencil tucked behind one ear and his reading glasses perched on top of his balding head, Mr. Jimmy, as he was known, appeared more like an absentminded professor than a musician. But the talented man could play nearly every instrument in his store, much to the delight of children who came in with their parents to rent or buy instruments for school bands and orchestras.

“I’m doing okay.” Melender wandered over to the counter. “Anything new?”

“Ah, I have something that I think you will enjoy.” Mr. Jimmy’s eyes sparkled as he moved from behind the counter to one of his worktables. With the flourish of a magician, he whipped off a cloth covering a boxy object.

Melender gasped. On the scarred table lay an Appalachian dulcimer. The three strings of the instrument stirred memories of sing-a-longs with family and friends. The old instrument had a battered black-walnut finish. For a long moment, she simply stared at it. It had been way too long since she’d touched, let alone played, one.

Closing her eyes, Melender could hear her grandmother ripple her fingers over the strings of a dulcimer as they sat on the porch in the cooling evening after a long day of canning in a hot kitchen. Blinking away tears, she pushed down those precious memories and sucked in a deep breath to regain her emotional balance.

“I see someone else admires my latest find as much as I do.”

A male voice behind her made Melender jump. Turning, she faced an older man in his late fifties with short salt-and-pepper hair and a closely trimmed goatee, who stood a few feet away from the table.

“She’ll be ready to join your fine collection soon enough.” The shop owner moved aside to allow the other man to examine the instrument. “Nolan Trent, this is Mel Harman.”

She nodded acknowledgement of the introduction, then both men studied her expectantly. Melender cleared her throat to banish the thick emotion that hovered there. “It reminds me of my grandmother’s dulcimer.”

Mr. Trent pointed toward the curved body with his forefinger. “I found this in a pawn shop and recognized its worth right away. Got it for a song, pardon my pun.” Mr. Trent winked at her.

No wonder the instrument had called to her like a mother’s call to her children at dusk. “Do you play?”

Mr. Trent shook his head. “I’m only a fan of the music.”

“Don’t let Nolan fool you.” Mr. Jimmy waggled a finger at Mr. Trent. “He’s a renowned scholar of American folk songs.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” the man protested. “It’s been a pleasure of mine to have studied the origins, lyrics, and instrumentation of ethnic American music.”

“What he’s not saying,” Mr. Jimmy rejoined, “is that he’s written numerous articles and several books on the subject and is considered one of the foremost authorities on this type of music.”

“Do you collect folk songs?” Melender’s curiosity overcame her normal reticence to talk with a stranger.

“Most of that work was done in the early part of the twentieth century by men like Cecil Sharp and James Madison Carpenter, who went into the mountains of West Virginia, Virginia, and North Carolina to write songs that had only been passed down orally among small communities.” Mr. Trent ran a finger down the side of the dulcimer’s smooth wood. “Their work, along with later scholars, provided the basis for continued scholarship on the subject.”

“Nolan is always on the lookout for unknown folk songs.” Mr. Jimmy kept his eyes on Melender.

Melender bit her bottom lip at the silent question behind Mr. Jimmy’s words. She rarely shared her music anymore, but the instrument’s silent strings beckoned to her as clear as the morning song of a bobwhite to its mate. Almost against her will, she stretched out her fingers to pluck the strings.

“Do you play?” Mr. Trent observed her, but for once, Melender didn’t feel like her privacy was being invaded by a stranger’s interest. His perusal had a more scholarly feel to it.

“Yes, she does.” Mr. Jimmy spoke before she could, a challenge in his eyes.

Melender started to shake her head, but the dulcimer drew her heart, its strings promising sweet memories. “May I?”

Mr. Trent nodded, and Melender gently drew the instrument toward her, leaving it on the table. Deftly, she tuned it, then she paused, closing her eyes briefly to consider which song would best fit this moment in time. The haunting tune of “Forsaken Love” overwhelmed her senses, and she played the simple melody on the dulcimer’s strings, using only her fingers as Sudie had taught her, rather than a pick. Without fully realizing it, she broke into sing.

They stood in the moonlight near by the gate.

Goodbye, my darling, I know you’ll wait.

She ceased her weeping and smiled through tears

Saying, “I’ve been true love through these long years.”

For on tomorrow at the break of day,

He was to journey far, far away

He held her closer, his promised bride.

Her voice choked as memories of Sudie singing that same song in her quavering voice flooded her mind. Melender’s fingers slipped off the dulcimer, and one of the strings snapped with a ping. In the sudden silence, the shop’s grandfather clock chimed five o’clock.

“That was magnificent.” Mr. Trent spoke softly, as if hesitant to intrude.

“I broke one of the strings.” Melender brushed the back of her hand across her wet cheeks, then bowed her head. She hadn’t cried this much since her first night in prison, when she vowed never to cry again, a promise she’d kept for seventeen long years.

“Jimmy can fix it,” Mr. Trent said.

Melender met Mr. Trent’s gaze. “Thank you for letting me play this beautiful instrument.”

“Your voice is astounding.” Mr. Trent touched the instrument. “I don’t suppose you would be willing to sing and play for a little gathering I’m having for some of my academic friends?”

Melender frowned. “I don’t sing in public.”

“It’s not open for the public.” Mr. Trent didn’t keep the eager note from his voice. “Next month, I’m previewing parts of a new book I’m working on about modern American folk songs to some of my musicology colleagues.”

“I don’t know any modern folk songs.” Melender tried to discourage the well-meaning Mr. Trent. If he knew her background, he wouldn’t be asking her to perform.

“You could sing whatever you’d like. I would be honored to lend you the dulcimer for practice.” Mr. Trent smiled. “Once it’s fixed.”

Drat the man for tempting her with the lure of the instrument, but Melender firmed her resolve. “I’m sorry, Mr. Trent. I can’t accommodate your request.” She turned to leave. “Mr. Jimmy, see you later.”

Melender fled the store as fast as she could without breaking into a run. Behind her, Mr. Trent discussed her decision with Mr. Jimmy, but she ignored them both. If she stayed a second longer, she would cave and accept his offer for the chance to take home that beautiful instrument. But Mr. Trent’s reputation would have been in shreds had her identity as a convicted felon been revealed. She might have the voice of an angel, but her background labeled her a devil.

* * *

Quentin frownedas he paced on the veranda, the only place he could be assured of privacy. The private investigator Quentin had hired that morning to keep an eye on Melender’s movements was late in calling with an update. The sun might have set an hour ago, but the temperature had barely dipped below ninety degrees. He hated August in Northern Virginia. Usually, they spent the month in their summer home near Bar Harbor, Maine. However, his chief lobbyist had recommended sticking closer to Washington to solidify their strategy for getting the votes to pass a bill that would bring his energy company a lot of business. Even though Congress wasn’t in session, there was enough behind-the-scenes strategizing to set the stage for September’s return to session.

His phone buzzed, and Quentin answered with a clipped, “Yes.”

“She went to Fox’s Music Store in Falls Church,” said P.I. Dillion Raines.

“What did she do there?” The last thing Quentin needed was more surprises from his niece.

“Talked to the owner, a Mr. Jimmy Stork, and a customer, Mr. Nolan Trent.”

“Who’s Trent?” Quentin paused near the far end of the porch to gaze out into the landscaped backyard. Lightening bugs blinked in the gloom, the flashes of light more annoying than soothing.

“A musicologist.”

“A what?” Quentin didn’t care that he sounded irritated. With what he was paying Raines, the man should call on time and not expect common courtesy.

“Trent collects and studies American folk music. He’s considered an expert on Appalachian folk songs and has written several popular books on the topics.”

“Anything else?” Who cared if Melender visited music stores in her free time? He was hoping for something meatier that he could use against her in case she started causing trouble.

“I checked out that reporter, Brogan Gilmore.” Raines didn’t offer any more information.

“Am I going to have to pull every last bit of information out of you?” Quentin snapped, his irritation inching closer to volcanic. “What did you find out?”

“He’s been with the Herald for nearly a year, writing mostly local news stories, such as the one on the Kwikie Mart robberies.”

“He seemed older than someone just starting out as a journalist.” Gilmore had phoned Quentin’s office earlier this morning to schedule a brief meeting for Wednesday. Quentin had instructed his secretary to fit the reporter in right before lunch to give him an excuse to cut their meeting short if necessary. He wanted to find out all he could ahead of time.

Raines cleared his throat. “Gilmore spent his early years as a journalist bouncing around in the Midwest at medium-sized city papers in Nebraska, Indiana, and Kentucky, where he was a finalist for a Pulitzer in investigative reporting for a series on the abuse of mentally ill adults in state-regulated homes. That landed him a job as an investigative journalist for the New York Dispatch.”

“Why did he leave New York?”

“Ten years ago, he wrote a series of sensational stories that showed prominent board members of a national charity headquartered in New York diverting the organization’s funds to their own pockets. That series snagged Gilmore another Pulitzer nomination. But then a reporter at the Washington Leader writing her own story on the scandal discovered that Gilmore had based his reporting on a single source, which had fed him altered documents showing the misappropriation of funds. That single source, a disgruntled former employee of the charity, had spun circumstantial evidence into corruption. Gilmore would have found out the same thing had he actually investigated the story instead of relying on that one source.”

“I bet the Dispatch wasn’t too pleased to find out their star investigative reporter had done such shoddy work.” Quentin resumed his pacing. A clearer picture of Gilmore began to emerge.

“The paper launched a full investigation and discovered that not only had Gilmore neglected to corroborate the source’s accusations in the charity scandal, but he also had fabricated unnamed sources to collaborate his findings in the Kentucky series that netted him the job in New York.”

Quentin allowed a small smile to cross his lips. People like Gilmore he understood—always looking to get ahead any way they could. “He sounds like a rather shady character.”

“That he was. After the Dispatch booted him, he didn’t work in journalism until the Northern Virginia Herald hired him.”

“Good work.” Quentin’s irritation with the other man’s delivery style had vanished with the information on the reporter.

“Do you want me to keep following Harman?”

“Yes.”

“What about Gilmore?”

Quentin debated whether or not having someone keep tabs on the reporter would be worth the expense. “Not yet. But send me daily updates on the woman’s activities.”

Raines agreed, and Quentin ended the call. Now that he knew what kind of man Gilmore was, he knew just how to ensure the reporter wouldn’t be overly eager to help his niece.