“Sounds perfectly ghastly to me, actually,” Grandfather said. “Give me the real thing any time.”

“—that they lost interest in the real nightingale, and forgot to close the door to her cage, and she flew away back to the forest.”

“Excellent.” Grandfather nodded with approval, clearly assuming this was the fairy tale’s obligatory happy ending.

“But the emperor played the golden nightingale so much that it began to wear out,” Ivy went on. “And the watchmaker called in to fix it couldn’t. He warned the emperor that every time it sang could be its last. So they put the golden nightingale on a pedestal and only played it once a year. And the emperor began to pine away and grew sick, and all his courtiers and servants deserted him to flatter the one who would be the next emperor.”

I had been watching Ivy’s careful brushstrokes, but I suddenly realized that Grandfather had stopped interrupting. I glanced up and saw that he was intent on Ivy’s words. Probably more worried about the real nightingale than the emperor, but still.

“The real nightingale heard of the emperor’s illness and came to perch on a branch outside his window to sing to him,” Ivy went on. “She found Death sitting on the emperor’s chest, and she sang so beautifully that she charmed Death into leaving. And the emperor promised her anything she wanted as a reward. And she asked only that she be allowed to stay free and to perch on the branch and sing to him every night of what was happening in his kingdom.”

“No more cages?” Grandfather asked.

“He’d learned his lesson,” Ivy said.

“So they lived happily ever after,” Grandfather said. “They always do in fairy tales.”

“Not always in Andersen,” Ivy said. “Some of his are downright depressing. But I imagine the emperor and the nightingale lived happily for a good long while. The story actually ends with the emperor saying good morning to all the servants who had run out on him the night before. Leaves it to your imagination what happens next.”

She’d been working all this time on the emperor, and I had to smother a giggle when I realized that she’d given him Grandfather’s face. There he sat, incongruously dressed in elaborate court robes and sitting on a bejeweled golden throne, his face rapt with wonder as he listened to the nightingale that was perched near the ceiling.

“Very nice,” Grandfather said. “You’ve got the nightingale pretty accurately. But I’m not sure about the foliage. Doesn’t look like anything that would grow in China. I can recommend a nice botanist if you’d like some accurate information.”

“Ah, but I’m not trying to portray real Chinese foliage,” Ivy said. “Andersen was a Victorian, a child of poverty, and a native of the frozen north. I’m painting the China of his imagination.”

Grandfather didn’t try to argue with her, and we both stood there for quite a while watching Ivy paint, until we heard Caroline calling downstairs.

“Monty? We’re leaving. Where’s that old fool got to now?”

“On my way,” Grandfather said. And then nodding to Ivy, he said, “Nice bird.”

Then he ambled back downstairs and left.

Vermillion appeared out of her room. She paused as if she’d like to watch Ivy, then nodded to us and left. I noticed, as I always did, her elegant, expensive-looking coffin-shaped black leather purse. But I waited until the door had closed behind her downstairs before saying what came into my mind whenever I saw the purse.

“She’s got to be putting us on,” I said.

“Vermillion?” Ivy looked puzzled. “What do you mean?”

“Everything she does is over the top,” I said. “The coffin sofa, the Spanish moss, the bats, and most of all that coffin purse. Would a real Goth actually carry a coffin-shaped purse?”

“I’m not sure a real Goth would carry anything else,” Ivy said. “And it’s very nicely made. Your mother says she has a good eye. ‘If she ever gives up this macabre obsession with death and spiderwebs she could be quite a good designer.’”

Her imitation of Mother’s gently regretful tone was spot-on. I burst out laughing.

“And if she doesn’t give up her obsession?” I asked.

“Then she will continue to be her very interesting self.”

I watched Ivy paint for a few moments. It was curiously restful, watching the mural slowly come to life under her brush.

She glanced over her shoulder at me, and I suddenly remembered that she didn’t always like onlookers.

“I can leave if I’m bothering you,” I said.

“You don’t bother me.” She turned back to her painting. “Not like that reporter.”

“Jessica? The one from the student newspaper?”

“That’s the one.” She nodded, and took a step back to study what she’d been working on. “She was driving me crazy last night.”

“Last night?”

“Between eight and ten o’clock,” she said. “She got on everyone’s nerves after a couple of hours, so Rose Noire kicked her out—ever so politely. But someone must have let her back in and then gone off without making sure she was gone. She was driving me crazy—asking questions, darting around the house, tapping on things, coming up behind and startling me. But maybe it’s lucky for me she came. I’d been planning to work as long as it took to finish ‘The Nightingale,’ but after just an hour with her underfoot I had such a headache that I went home early. Maybe Jessica saved me from encountering the killer.”

Or maybe she’d cleared the field for the killer to work.

“Was she still here when you left?” I asked.

“Of course not,” she said. “I kicked her out, and checked all the doors and windows before I locked up.”

I tried to imagine Ivy kicking out so much as a stray kitten and failed. Clearly she had hidden depths.

“She shouldn’t have been hanging around here at all after Rose Noire made her leave.” I pulled out my notebook and began making a note. “I’m going to complain to her editor.”

“Good idea,” Ivy said.

“Meanwhile, we seem to be the last ones here,” I said to Ivy. “And I’m about to leave. Should you be staying here alone?”

“Oh, nobody will notice I’m here,” she said.

“I’ll make sure all the doors and windows are locked,” I said.

I made the rounds, checking every room, every door, and every window. Everyone had gone, and everything was locked up tight. I had the nagging feeling I was supposed to be somewhere else, doing something in particular, but then I’d felt that way at the end of most days lately. Time to head home for some rest.

As I headed for my car, I realized I wasn’t sure if I should be pleased with my day or frustrated. On the positive side, I felt a lot more certain that none of the designers I was working with day-in and day-out had killed Clay. The only ones for whom I hadn’t heard a plausible alibi were Vermillion and Ivy, and neither of them had ever been at the top of my list of suspects anyway. As the day wore on and as I talked to each of the designers, I’d started feeling less tense. Less apt to start if someone walked up behind me.

On the other hand, if none of the designers had killed him, who had?

“The chief’s problem,” I muttered to myself as I got into my car. He’d be spending the coming days—or weeks—digging into Clay’s life. Interviewing disgruntled clients, angry exes, and rival decorators. Poking and prodding the decorators’ alibis to see if they held.

I had other things to worry about, I told myself as I set off for home.

Though I should probably tell him that Jessica had been hanging around only an hour or so from the time of the murder.

I was only a block from the show house when my phone rang. I glanced down—it was Michael. And I suddenly remembered what I was supposed to be doing—tonight was the first night of his one-man performance of Dickens’s A Christmas Carol.

I felt guilty. Last year, on the day of show, I’d spent the whole day pampering him and distracting him. And this year I’d left him to take care of the boys all day. Well, at least he’d had the distraction part.