Chapter Six
SHE’S DEAD?” Callum’s gaze was fierce, his brow furrowed. “Are you sure?”
Blair turned back toward the piano, the musty scent of the long-forgotten music mingling with her cinnamon-roll candle. “That’s what I heard.”
“That’s an unspeakable tragedy.” Callum picked up the last of the torn-out sheets of music, the sleeve of his crisp cotton dress shirt brushing her upper arm. “Talent like this. Silenced.”
“Yeah. She’d have been in her seventies now.” Blair slid from the bench in the direction opposite Callum.
“And an absolute institution. Probably one of the top choral composers in the world.”
Blair peered over his shoulder. “The voice parts are incredible, I’ll give you that. The piano part is a little clunky, though.”
Callum waved a hand. “That would’ve been easily addressed with the proper training. But the sheer talent?” He held up the fragile pages. “I’ve only seen this kind of thing a handful of times.”
His intensity was infectious, and his curiosity drove her to pull her phone from her pocket.
“Let me see what I can find out.” She opened her browser and typed in a few search terms, then combed through the handful of articles that popped up.
“Oh. Here’s a news article.” Her pulse quickened. “It’s from March 1970.”
“What’s it say?”
Blair spread her thumb and index to enlarge the microscopic newspaper article.
“The Peterson community was shocked and saddened yesterday when seventeen-year-old Iris Wallingford was found dead in her bed. Miss Wallingford was a senior at Peterson High School, involved in choir, glee club, and band, and was the daughter of prominent local businessman Reginald Wallingford III and his wife, Genevieve.”
“A senior in 1970?” Callum’s voice drew her gaze. “Wasn’t that around the time Vic graduated? Maybe he knew her.”
“If she was involved in all that, doubtless he did.”
Callum was already reaching for his phone. “I’ll ask. Does the article say anything else?”
Blair turned her attention back to the tiny screen. “A cause of death has not been released, but no foul play is suspected.”
“No foul play.” Callum leaned in closer to her phone, wafting a not-unpleasant cologne into the air. The flickering candlelight cast a shadow beneath the hollow of his cheekbone. “They think it was suicide.”
Something in his voice drew her gaze. Did he know something about suicide?
She clicked on another article from the same newspaper a few days later. “Unfortunately, yes. They ruled her death a suicide.”
“Did she give any clues?” Callum’s eyes blazed. “What about her friends? Her family? Did someone in her life miss something critical?”
His desperation gave her pause. “Suicide isn’t anyone’s fault, Callum.”
“Yes. You’re right.” He dragged a hand through his hair. “Of course. I just . . . I wonder why she felt she had no other choice.”
“Whatever the reason, it happened more than fifty years ago.” Why was he so concerned about a student gone more than five decades? Didn’t he have enough to think about in the here and now?
“But people still lose hope today.” His voice sounded strained.
“Every day people feel they can’t go forward.
And maybe if I get to the truth about Iris—about this music, even if she’s not the composer—then .
. . I don’t know, but it might help me somehow.
Help me unlock my creativity again. Help me deal with .
. .” He swallowed hard. “This isn’t something I’d normally tell someone I just met.
But my fiancée, Rayne, died by suicide. A little over five years ago. ”
The air leached out of Blair’s lungs, and her stomach plummeted. “Oh, Callum. I’m so sorry.”
“So to move halfway across the country and to have that come up here, in a job I never wanted, never even thought about . . .” He looked up.
“If God really does have a plan, if he really does have a reason for dropping me here, then . . . maybe this is part of it. I want to know why someone so full of life, so full of talent, would be unable to go on. Partly because of Rayne, but partly the universal question as to why. Or what if it wasn’t a suicide?
What if the cops got it wrong? What if Iris .
. . Oh, I don’t know what I’m even saying anymore.
” Gone was the arrogant facade. Pleading took its place.
“But music like this is a glimpse of the Divine, and it deserves to be recognized. To be performed. If Iris Wallingford is the one who wrote it, then Peterson—the world—needs to know that. They need to know her. To learn her story. But I’ll need your help.
You know these students. This community.
You’re an insider here. I’m not and never will be. ”
The reminder that this was just a layover for him, not his final destination, needled her. But at least he wasn’t filling her head with promises he never intended to keep. There was value in being up-front and honest.
If only everyone in her life had been that way.
Callum’s phone buzzed on the desk, and he picked it up and gave it a glance. “Vic says he didn’t know her.”
“Not at all?” Blair frowned. “That’s surprising.”
“He says he knew who she was but that she was pretty quiet. Kept to herself. He said if she indeed wrote music, the piece might be hers, but he doesn’t have any idea how it got in our library.
” He set the phone back down. “So Vic’s a dead end.
But surely someone knew her, someone who would be able to tell us more. ”
“Probably, but we have to be careful,” she pointed out. “We don’t want to cause any of her loved ones further pain.”
“If her loved ones already know what happened, then they can help me. And if they don’t, maybe we can help them.
” He paused. “Besides, what if something we learn could help one of the kids? Surely you know what a crisis teen mental health is in right now. What if one of them is having the same thoughts as Iris? As Rayne?”
She tightened her arms across her midsection. “It’s an awfully low tactic, bringing the kids into this.”
“Tactic?” His brows inched together, and he studied her in a way that wasn’t unkind but was sharp enough to see through the walls she’d spent years building around herself. “Who hurt you, Blair?”
Her eyes flew open, and she drew back. How did he know? She learned to read every nuance, every gesture, of whichever director she worked with, but that level of mind reading was not supposed to be reciprocated. “It doesn’t matter.” She studied the carpet. “Besides, it was a long time ago.”
“Sounds like maybe not long enough.”
The husky tenderness in his voice caressed her wounded heart.
Well. Maybe he wouldn’t be here past this year. But they were stuck together for the next nine months.
He needed this, and the kids needed him. And if digging five decades into the past would help him, then that was what they’d do.
“Okay. I’ll help you. But you have to trust me and not go barreling into this town guns blazing.”
“So . . . the opposite of how I’ve handled the choirs so far.”
His sheepish grin, against her will, tugged out a smile of her own. “Basically, yes.”
His smile widened, provoking unexplained warmth in the center of her chest. “Then, Maestra, I will follow your lead.”
Blair held back a snort. She’d believe that when she saw it.
“Finally.” Stationed by the hallway leading to the parking lot, Joy made an exaggeration of looking at her watch, the band festooned with burgundy alto clefs.
Blair rolled her eyes. “Oh, enough with the drama. I’m not that late.”
“Yes, but I’ve got a schedule, ma’am.” Joy shouldered her enormous tie-dye bag and started toward the exit.
No lie. Joy did have a tight schedule. In fact, the only nonwork time the two frequently had together was their 3:30 p.m. gym trip, squeezed between the final bell and when Joy needed to pick up her kids from day care.
With Joy’s chaotic home life and stressful job, Blair was constantly amazed at how she continually made everything work. It was a busy life.
Busy, but full.
“And I’ve got a cat.” Blair lengthened her stride to keep up with her fast-paced friend. “Who’ll get yowly at me if I’m not home in time to feed him.”
Joy gave Blair a sidelong glance. “Doesn’t Walter have a self-feeder?”
Blair sighed. “You’re right.”
“Hey.” Joy paused and gave Blair’s forearm a gentle squeeze. “You’ve got a freedom I’d kill to have sometimes.”
“And you’ve got a family.” The nose-to-the-grindstone approach that had driven Blair through college and graduate school had reaped rewards in her job, leading her to be full-time salaried staff instead of hourly, like most accompanists were.
But the rest of it . . . the husband, the kids, the Sheltie . . . so far all of that had passed her by.
“So what did take so long?” Joy shoved the door open, and a blast of humid air hit them both.
Squinting against the summer sun, Blair dug her sunglasses from her bag. “Callum discovered our choral library, and we picked out some music for the fall concert.”
“Well, you’re still calling him Callum and not Gollum, so maybe there’s hope.”
Blair laughed. “Gollum?”
“You seriously hadn’t thought of that?”
“No, because I’m not a terrible, horrible person.” Blair gave Joy a gentle shove. “But I may keep it on file for the next time he hacks me off.”
“Speak of the devil . . .”
Across the parking lot, exiting through the front—he evidently didn’t know about the shortcut from the music hallway—strode Callum, messenger bag draped over one shoulder, scrolling his phone and walking toward an aging BMW that, despite the luxury label, had clearly seen better days.
Hmm. Maybe he really did have money issues.
In which case maybe his temporary status here was indeed far more about returning to the life he knew and loved than anything to do with Peterson.
A chirp sounded as Blair unlocked her car. “Hey, do you remember ever hearing anything about Iris Wallingford?”
Joy paused beside a maroon, bumper sticker–plastered minivan. “Iris who?”
“Wallingford. She died by suicide during her senior year in 1970. The newspaper said she was a music student.”
“A music student. Wow.” Joy’s expression turned pensive. “Maybe that’s why the auditorium is haunted.”
“The auditorium is not haunted. You just don’t understand the light board.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s not haunted.” Joy opened the backseat of her van, strewed as usual with toys, empty juice boxes, and stray french fries.
“It’s a known fact that every auditorium has a ghost. Or at least a gremlin.
Especially if a student who frequented said auditorium was later found dead under mysterious circumstances. That’s ghost hunting 101.”
“Most people don’t watch ghost shows to relax, Joy.”
“Most people don’t have their career success depend on the cooperation of teenagers either. And yet here we are.” Joy tossed her bag onto the floor of the backseat and turned to face Blair. “How did Iris Wallingford come up, anyway?”
Blair leaned against the door of her car.
“Callum and I found a piece of sheet music in the choral library today. It’s handwritten and unfinished but utterly gorgeous.
I got goose bumps when I played it. The piano part is a little clunky, but the choral writing, the harmonies . . . oh. They were something special.”
Joy’s brows lifted. “What makes you guys think Iris Wallingford wrote it?”
“I remember hearing rumors growing up that she wrote music. And if she really was the composer, that might explain why it was never finished.”
Joy pursed her lips in thought. “Hmm. Did you guys ask Nelson?”
“Callum did. Vic says he doesn’t really remember the piece or the girl, so that’s a dead end. But Callum’s determined to investigate.”
“Poking at old wounds? That won’t backfire at all.”
“Right? That’s what I told him. He didn’t listen.”
“Of course he didn’t.” Joy opened her door. “Conductors.”
“Well, you’re not so bad,” Blair replied.
“That’s because I’m a teacher, not a conductor. And Gollum over there?” Joy jerked her head toward the far exit, where Callum’s car was pulling out of the parking lot. “He is definitely a conductor.”