Apple Orchard Cozy Mystery series Box Set 1

by Chelsea Thomas

  I took a tiny step forward, trying to de-hunch my shoulders. “It seems different to me.”

  “Well, it’s not!” Gigley slammed his fist down on the bookshelf, and I took a big step back.

  Gigley held up his hands. “I’m sorry. That was…uncalled for. I should not have yelled. Especially not at you, Chelsea. You’re an innocent bystander.”

  Miss May stood her ground. “I don’t think you’re a murderer, Tom. But I do think you’re acting mighty suspicious.”

  Gigley crossed to an armchair, pulled the paint cloth off and plopped down. More dust plumed around him. He coughed. “If you must know, I have an alibi for the night Charles was killed.”

  Miss May waved away invisible dust. “I’d like to know what it is.”

  Gigley sighed. “The police said Charles was killed the night before you found him, right, Chelsea?”

  I nodded.

  Gigley reached into his pocket with an old-man groan and pulled out his cell. “I spent the entirety of that night sending angry emails. Not to Charles. There were… others.”

  Gigley opened his email app, poked around, and handed me the phone.

  I peeked at the phone and tried to swallow my shock. But a squeal slipped out of my lips before I could zip them.

  There were hundreds of emails, sent with under a minute between them, each with an angry subject line, like “HOW DARE YOU!?” or “EVERYONE YOU LOVE SHOULD DIE.”

  I peeled my eyes from the phone and stared at Gigley. “Did you send all these emails to the cable company?”

  Gigley winced. “Four hundred and forty-one emails to Carter Cable, all sent between eight PM and two AM. I took a break for a slice of cake at around ten, but that only lasted five minutes.”

  There was a long, pronounced silence. Then Miss May laughed. “Tom Gigley, you are out of your mind!”

  “I told you I’m not proud of the emails. But Carter’s got a monopoly in Pine Grove, and it’s not fair!”

  “It’s true,” I said. “Carter is the only option in the city too. And their customer service is abysmal.”

  “Do not get me started on that customer service!” Gigley said. “More like customer…annoyance.”

  “What did they do to you?” I asked. “Specifically.”

  Gigley threw his hands up in the air, outraged. “They wanted to charge me extra to watch baseball. Isn’t that ridiculous? Baseball has always come free with basic cable, and that’s how it’s supposed to be. Obviously, I should have handled things in a more professional manner. But the sentiment was spot on.”

  Miss May reached out and took the phone. “Let me see those emails, Chelsea.”

  “You don’t need to read them,” Gigley said. “It’s embarrassing.”

  “One email, then I’ll stop.” Miss May scrolled through the phone with a smile. “Oh boy! These subject lines are killing me. Here’s one: ‘CARTER COMMUNICATIONS: BURN IN A FIERY INFERNO.’ Little redundant, isn’t it?”

  Gigley hung his head. “That one is bad.”

  Miss May cleared her throat and read the email. “Dear Carter Communications: You are despicable. Your CEO looks like a toad, and he is ruining the great game of baseball. I demand free baseball with my basic package. If you do not meet this request, I will have no choice but to burn down the homes of all your employees, post haste. Regards, Tom Gigley ESQ.” Miss May shook her head. “Tom!”

  “I know!” Gigley reddened. “The messages do not reflect well on my character.”

  “There’s an understatement,” Miss May said. “Did you get your baseball?”

  “No,” Gigley said. “They took away my cable, then they threatened to sue. Now I have to go to the electronics store any time I want to watch a game.”

  Miss May and I cracked up laughing. The image of Tom Gigley, in his fresh-pressed, tailored suits, watching baseball in Pine Grove’s dingy electronics store was too much to handle.

  “You do not watch the games in the store,” Miss May said, once she caught her breath.

  Gigley crossed his arms. “Yes, I do. And the employees like it. They watch with me sometimes.”

  Miss May and I burst into a new fit of giggles. Gigley waved us off.

  “Laugh it up, you two. The point is, I have an alibi.”

  “You have over four hundred alibis,” I said.

  At that, Miss May laughed so hard I thought she might pass out. “Four hundred alibis!

  Gigley squirmed in his chair. “Stop laughing, May! Those terrible emails are the only thing standing between me and incarceration. They might very well be the best thing that has ever happened to me.”

  “So why dig up your money and run?” Miss May asked.

  “I told you! They’re embarrassing. Everybody already knows about my ridiculous emails to Charles. I can’t have them find out about this cable company nightmare, too. I’ll lose clients. My reputation will be irrevocably soiled.”

  “Alright,” Miss May said. “Don’t run yet. Let us catch the real killer. Then you can burn the emails in a ‘fiery inferno,’ and we can all pretend it never happened.”

  “Deal,” Gigley stood. “Now let’s get out of here. This place is haunted.”

  29

  Hide Nor Hairdresser

  The next day, I woke bright and semi-early to the sounds of Miss May baking. Miss May often baked to declutter her thoughts when she had a big problem to solve. I hoped that in the wee hours of that particular morning, she had come up with a new theory about the murders in Pine Grove. I also hoped there might be some fresh Appie Oaters for breakfast.

  When I stumbled into the kitchen, my nose confirmed my hopes, at least about the Appie Oaters. Miss May had a dozen mixing bowls lined up beside jars of preserves and nutmeg and cinnamon. A dusting of flour coated her entire body. She’d been at this for a while.

  “Morning,” she said when she saw me. “You’re just in time to help. Measure six cups of flour into that bowl?”

  I grabbed the flour and took my time measuring it out.

  “We got a rush order this morning,” Miss May said. “Five hundred pumpkin, five hundred chocolate chip. By tomorrow.”

  “Oh,” I said. “I figured you were stress-baking. Contemplating the investigation.”

  “Oh no, I am stress-baking,” Miss May said. “I’ve already made enough dough for two thousand pumpkin, two thousand chocolate chip. And fifteen batches of Appie Oaters.”

  I laughed. “And? Has it worked? Have you had any breakthroughs?”

  Miss May thudded dough onto the counter and punched it.

  “I’ll take that as a no.”

  Miss May glanced up at me. “You’re so perceptive.”

  “I try,” I said, attempting to lighten the mood. I continued with a gentler approach. “Would you like to, perhaps, talk about the case? It might help to bat some theories around.”

  “I thought you’d never ask.” Miss May tasted a little fleck of dough. “Vanilla?”

  I handed the vanilla over, and Miss May added a dash to her dough.

  “So,” she said. “The way I see it, we have two dead bodies and no good suspects.”

  “That’s not true,” I said. “All this investigating we’ve done…we have to have a good suspect.”

  “Who?” Miss May asked. “It wasn’t Gigley. He was too busy sending rage-mail to kill Charles, and he had no motive to kill the bookie. And it wasn’t Florence. She’s deep in the throes of mourning, and everyone knows it. Who does that leave?”

  I picked a chocolate chip out of the dough and ate it. “Uh…I have no idea.”

  I reached out to grab another chocolate chip, but Miss May smacked my hand away. “No dough until we figure this out! Or at least until we figure out what we should do next.”

  I pouted. Miss May pulled the dough further away and shielded it from me.

  “What about the mayor?” I asked.

  Miss May balled up the dough and laid the cookies out on a baking sheet. “Vlad tried to extort her, so she call
ed the cops. What about her?”

  “I don’t know. Vlad did show up dead the next day. And he did have information the mayor wanted to hide.”

  “So she killed the guy, risking her life and her freedom, to keep the public from seeing photos of her dancing with her husband-in-a-wig? She’s too smart for that.”

  Miss May slid the tray of cookies into the oven. “Besides, Delgado said she didn’t have any money with Charles. And I’ve got to believe that the same person killed both these men.”

  “Then all we have to do is figure out who had the motive to kill both Charles and the bookie,” I said.

  Miss May gasped and turned back from the oven. “Jennifer.”

  I scrunched up my face. “You think? I mean, she’s catty. But double homicide catty?”

  “You said it yourself,” Miss May said. “We need to find someone who had a motive to kill both men. Jennifer was having relations with Charles, right?”

  “Yeah…”

  “And the whole reason we tried to find the bookie is because she described him to us as the guy who ransacked her house.”

  “That’s true,” I said. “Maybe he came after her again, so she killed him in self-defense.”

  “Or maybe he knew something,” Miss May said. “And she wanted him dead.”

  Miss May was on her phone before we even got out to the van.

  “Who are you calling?” I asked.

  “Trying Jennifer at the salon, but it keeps ringing. No answer.” Miss May hung up.

  “Is that unusual?”

  “I’d say so. That girl picks up the phone at least twice every time she cuts my hair.”

  “Sounds like her,” I said as I climbed into the passenger seat of the bus. “Does Jennifer have a haunted house in Connecticut we can visit?”

  Miss May shook her head, ignoring my effort at levity. “I don’t think so.”

  “So what do we do now?”

  Miss May flomped behind the steering wheel. “Drive around and try to find her.”

  I scoffed. “That’s it? That’s the plan? Not a very scientific process.”

  “It’s a small town,” Miss May said. “If she’s in Pine Grove, we’ll spot her.”

  “Unless she took off for good,” I said.

  “Right,” Miss May shifted into drive and headed off the farm. “Unless she took off for good. With all our money.”

  ----

  Before we drove into town, Miss May decided to swing by Jennifer’s salon ‘just for good measure.’ We pulled up to an apocalyptic scene.

  A line of shaggy-haired customers milled about like zombies on Jennifer’s driveway, tapping on the windows, or pacing back and forth, confused. Jennifer was no longer overseeing her business, or at the very least, she hadn’t been there all morning.

  Although I had suspected Jennifer wouldn’t be at work, my skin still clammed up like a moist towelette when I saw all those baffled costumers. It was not like Jennifer to leave money on the table. Unless she took off with Charles’ stolen fortune, I thought. Better that than stick around and go to jail.

  After we checked Jennifer’s, Miss May and I headed to Grandma’s to pick up Teeny. Teeny had been downright furious that she’d missed catching the last bad guy, so Miss May planned to invite Teeny along on the hunt for the missing Jennifer.

  When we got to the restaurant, there was such a mob in the vestibule that we had to elbow our way through the front door. And when we finally got inside, we couldn’t find Teeny anywhere…Until she ran past us so fast it blew up my skirt like an NYC subway breeze.

  “Teeny!” Miss May called out.

  “No time, May!” Teeny crossed the restaurant, grabbed a mop and wiped up a spill under a vacant table.

  “You’re going to want to make time for this, Teeny,” Miss May said.

  Teeny turned to us with her blue eyes in a manic panic. “I can’t make time, May! Do you see this? Do you see what that hashbrown lasagna has done to me? I just want things to go back to normal. Why won’t they go back to normal!?”

  “OK, T. Calm down.” Miss May took Teeny by the shoulders. “Your restaurant is successful. This is a good thing. Don’t worry about me and Chelsea. Just keep calm and hashbrown on.”

  Miss May turned to go, but Teeny caught her arm. “Wait!”

  Miss May turned back.

  “You’re not about to take down the bad guy…are you?” Teeny shrunk and made her most pitiable face.

  Miss May hesitated. I could tell what she was thinking: Should we tell a little white lie to protect Teeny’s fragile heart? But we didn’t get the chance. Miss May’s momentary uncertainty was all the answer Teeny needed.

  “No!” Teeny tossed her mop against the wall. “You have to wait!”

  Miss May shook her head. “We can’t. There’s a killer on the loose.”

  “Darn…tootin’!” Teeny stomped and crossed her arms. “This damn restaurant is ruining all my mystery fun! You at least have to tell me who it is. Please.”

  Miss May looked over her shoulder to make sure no one was listening. Then she looked over her other shoulder. The coast was clear, so she leaned in and whispered the name of the suspect into Teeny’s ear.

  Miss May’s subtle whisper was an exercise in futility. As soon as Teeny heard Jennifer’s name, she smacked her knee and yelled, “That little hair-cutting brat!”

  “We don’t know anything for sure,” Miss May said. “In fact, we don’t even know where she is. That’s part of why we came here.”

  “Has she been into the restaurant today?” I asked. “Or yesterday?”

  Teeny narrowed her eyes and looked into the distance. Then, after twenty seconds, she turned back. “Nope. Haven’t seen her. But I’ll tell you if I do.”

  “Thanks,” Miss May said. “And Teeny? Enjoy your success.”

  Teeny’s shoulders relaxed a bit, but she waved Miss May off. “Yeah, yeah. This HBL will be the death of me!”

  “Worse ways to go,” Miss May said. “Now you better get back into that kitchen, because something’s on fire.”

  My gaze snapped to the kitchen, where smoke blossomed from an unknown source. Teeny pushed her way through the crowd to extinguish the fire, and Miss May and I slipped out the back, laughing.

  30

  Beach Bunny

  The next stop on our whirling dervish tour of Pine Grove was the Brown Cow, our cozy little coffee spot right in the heart of town. When we entered, I was glad to see Rita working behind the coffee bar. Rita hadn’t always been an ally of mine, but she’d recently become a single mother, and parenthood had shifted her attitude from too-cool-for-school to please-be-my-friend-and-give-me-free-diapers.

  “Chelsea! Hey!” Rita came out from behind the counter and hugged me and Miss May as we approached. “I haven’t seen you two in forever!”

  “How was maternity leave?” I asked.

  “Are you kidding me? More like maternity-don’t-leave-your-house. I’m so happy to be back at work!” Rita sighed. “Don’t get me wrong, Little Vinny’s a blessing. But I can only handle so many poop-filled blessings per day!”

  Rita’s single mom-dom was not by choice. Her baby-daddy had been kind of a deadbeat. And he was also, well, dead. So she’d had it kind of rough.

  Rita shook off her self-pity and mustered her best customer-service-smile. “What can I get you two?”

  Miss May ordered a couple drinks, heavy on the cream, heavy on the sugar, light on the coffee. Once Rita started making them, Miss May leaned on the bar and adopted her most casual tone.

  “Hey uh, has Jennifer Paul been in here today by any chance? I’m dying for a haircut but can’t get through.”

  “Yeah,” Rita said. “Jennifer was here like twenty minutes ago. She was acting weird, though.”

  I tried to imitate Miss May’s casual tone, but my voice came out like a choking cat. Maybe Wayne had been right about me having hairballs. “Weird how?” I squeaked.

  “Weird weird.” Rita emphasized the second �
��weird’ like it would explain something. It didn’t.

  “Totally,” I croaked. “Double weird.” What does that mean?

  Rita foamed Miss May’s drink and dusted cinnamon on top. “She was wearing little jean shorts and a crop top, for one thing. Oh! And a big summer hat.”

  “That qualifies as weird,” Miss May said. “It’s ten degrees outside.”

  “I know,” Rita said. “My fake eyelashes froze in the car over night!”

  “What else was weird?” I asked, getting a handle on my strangled cat vibe.

  “She was wearing a bikini under that crop top,” Rita said. “I saw the polka-dots. And she kept talking about how she’s a certified lifeguard. She even asked me if I had sunscreen!”

  Miss May and I exchanged a worried look.

  “So by weird you meant like, insane,” I said.

  “I try to stay away from words like that,” Rita said. “But yeah, something shattered inside her angry brain. Did you say you wanted cream in this?”

  Did I want cream? Who could answer a question like that at a time like this?! Our prime suspect was losing her marbles. She could strike again at any moment!

  “Chelsea?” Miss May said. “Do you want cream?”

  I snapped out of it. “Cream. Yes. Lots, please. I don’t want to taste the coffee at all.”

  “You got it,” Rita handed me the drink. “Take a sip and tell me if you want it any different.”

  I sipped and offered a weak, “Yum.”

  But I didn’t register the taste at all. I was too preoccupied with Jennifer and her summer adventure. In the freezing cold.

  ----

  When we got to Hastings Pond, I knew Jennifer would be there. But I was still stunned to see her sunbathing on the shore like we were knee-deep in the dog days of summer.

  The weirdest part was that Jennifer looked comfortable. Relaxed, even. She was wearing a cute polka-dot bikini, she had earbuds in her ears, and she thumbed through a copy of a tabloid like it was a typical Sunday Funday. An iced latte from the Brown Cow was wedged into the snow beside her.