Apple Orchard Cozy Mystery series Box Set 1

by Chelsea Thomas

  "You were little," Miss May said. "It wasn't a big deal."

  "Sounds like a big deal to me," Teeny said.

  "It's just… It all started with some overdue books," Miss May said. "You know KP. He can be stubborn."

  "So what happened?" I asked.

  "According to KP, the library charged him overdue fees for two books he never even checked out. Way back in the nineties. He called them. Told them he wouldn't pay. But the librarians called him a thief. A liar. They insisted he pay the fees."

  “Stupid librarians," I said. "Why are they all so mean?”

  “Librarians are custodians of knowledge,” Miss May said. “The severity of their attitudes reflects the importance of their calling.”

  "How much did he owe?" Teeny asked.

  "Five dollars. Not even."

  "Then what?" Teeny asked.

  "Over time the five dollars became ten. Then twenty. Eventually he had a thousand dollars in overdue fees for books he said he never took out."

  I hung my head. "Oh God. So what did he do?"

  "Well," Miss May said. "The day he got the notice for the thousand-dollar fine, he finally decided to return one of the books."

  "But I thought he didn't have them!?" Teeny said.

  Miss May threw up her hands. "Apparently he did have them. But he wanted the library to trust him. And he was offended that they accused him of not returning the books."

  "But he didn't return the books!" I said.

  "I know," Miss May said. "I know."

  "Well, so what then?" Teeny asked. "He returned the books. How did he end up in jail?"

  "He returned one of the books," Miss May said, "lodged in a heap of German Shepherd excrement."

  I groaned. "KP."

  “I would have done the exact same thing," Teeny said. "Sounds like those nasty librarians deserved it.”

  "But he had the books!" I said.

  "It's the principle of the matter," Teeny said.

  "But he had the books. What’s the principle?"

  “Do you two want to know what happened next or not?” Miss May asked.

  “I assume that's when KP got arrested. For the book-poop,” I said.

  Miss May shook her head. "Nope. That time they just hit him with another fine. I paid it. The police weren't even involved."

  "So then what?" I asked, dread rising in my stomach.

  "Then he returned the second book," Miss May said. "On fire."

  Teeny laughed so hard, she started to cry. My jaw dangled open. KP had always been impulsive, but I'd never seen him do anything like that.

  "Yup," Miss May said. "And the librarian was married to the police chief. So he got arrested. And ever since then…KP has had a somewhat, uh, contentious relationship with the law. And he's bought all his books brand new."

  "And that's why they won't set bail now?"

  Miss May nodded. "Same police chief now as there was then."

  I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. KP was a tough guy. Army vet. Grew up poor in Kentucky. Knew how to grab onto a grudge and hold it without letting go. But he was getting older, too. And jail is no place for anyone, especially the elderly.

  I turned to Miss May. "So now are you willing to take this case? For KP?"

  Miss May nodded.

  "Let's find that killer."

  8

  Turtle Power

  That night, Miss May made my favorite dinner, baked macaroni with homemade garlic bread. Although our family was mostly Irish, Miss May had learned the recipe decades earlier from her Italian grandmother. And the dish looked and tasted like it had been swiped off a Sicilian table and teleported to Pine Grove.

  The San Marzano marinara was a deep, dark red. The local mozzarella was browned to perfection. And the layers of fresh pasta and milky ricotta were melt-in-your-mouth creamy.

  We stress-ate our first serving in silence. Then I stood to get a second helping of garlic bread, and we began discussing the case.

  "So," Miss May said. “Who do you think is our prime suspect?”

  I shrugged. “Probably Reginald, right? I mean…he left Linda for dead."

  "He literally left her dead," Miss May said. "Did you see him leave that night?"

  "No. But he was definitely gone by the time I found her."

  "I'm not sure he seems like a killer," Miss May said.

  "But none of the murderers have," I said.

  "That's a good point," Miss May said. "It's always a surprise, isn't it?"

  I nodded and sat down with my second serving of bread. As I chewed, I remembered Wayne's claim that Miss May was no longer a lawyer, but I decided not to bring it up.

  I figured Miss May would broach that subject in her own time. And Wayne was likely mistaken, anyway.

  Although Wayne was the hunk to end all hunks, with his blue-green eyes, broad shoulders, and tree-trunk physique, he hadn't proven to be the most astute investigator. Anyone with even a quarter of a brain could tell that KP wasn’t a murderer. Although, I remembered, he did leave the candy apple table and come back with a “special” apple for Linda. I shook off the worm of doubt that had just niggled its way into my thoughts and refocused on my annoyance at Detective Hudson.

  The moment Wayne had arrested KP, he had gone from friend to enemy. And I wasn't sure he'd ever make it back.

  ----

  The next day, we drove to Reginald's house. The place was in disrepair. The home was on Manor Drive, the fanciest street in all of Pine Grove, so I had expected the Turtle’s to be dwelling in the typical opulent grandeur of the neighborhood. But the home was a modest old colonial. Paint peeled off the siding. Loose shingles clung to the roof. And weeds dominated the small yard.

  The Turtles didn't strike me as the fixer-upper types, so I hesitated as I pulled up to the driveway. “Are you sure this is the right place?”

  Miss May checked her notebook. “I'm sure. They bought this house from Petunia. You know her. The woman who owns the flower shop? Barely a month ago."

  "It's small," I said. "And kind of falling apart."

  "There were only two Turtles,” Miss May said. “I guess they didn't need much space."

  "Still," I said. "This house looks condemned!"

  "Chelsea. Be nice."

  I threw up my hands. "Sorry. I’m just saying. How could this possibly have met Linda's standards?"

  Miss May shrugged. "Seems like something we should ask Reginald about."

  I climbed out of the pickup just as a buzzard whooshed down from the sky and landed between me and the front door.

  Yikes. Not a good sign.

  “Can we wait for the buzzard to fly away before we ring the bell?”

  Miss May rolled her eyes. “Sure.”

  Miss May reached across my lap and honked the horn. The buzzard flapped its wings but didn’t budge. Miss May honked again and the buzzard took off with an eerie quietude.

  “Why’d you have to do that? I wanted to use that time to gather myself.”

  “If you’re not gathered by now, it’s not going to happen.” Miss May pulled her hair back into a ponytail and trudged toward the front door.

  I followed behind Miss May and tried to take a calming breath, but I noticed the buzzard circling above us and the air stalled in my windpipe.

  Did that buzzard know something I didn't know?

  ----

  Reginald came to the door before we rang the bell. I shot a look at Miss May. Next time, perhaps we could refrain from honking the horn just before we meet a suspect?

  Reginald was wearing plaid pants, along with a sweater-vest and a short-brimmed hat. A bag of golf clubs was slung over his shoulder.

  He looked at us brightly. “Can I help you?”

  Miss May pulled an apple pie from her purse and handed it to Reginald. “We're sorry to bother you. We're just here to drop off this pie. I know you must be going through a lot right now. Thought a little Dutch Apple might be a comfort.”

  I marveled as Reginald took the pie fr
om Miss May. Somehow, I was still surprised whenever my aunt produced a pie from her bag. She had done it on every case we’d worked so far, but it always caught me off guard.

  The pies always endeared me and Miss May to our suspects, and Reginald was no different. He held the pie to his nose and took a big smell.

  “Cinnamon. Apple. Shortbread crust?”

  Miss May nodded. “You have a good nose.”

  “I studied to become a sommelier. That's how I met Linda. So many years ago. I poured her an earthy red, which she spat all over the tablecloth and condemned for its 'essence of tire and filth.' I agreed with her assessment and asked her on a date.”

  Reginald looked down and picked at a fingernail. But when he looked up, he was grinning like he had just won the Powerball. “Boy oh boy, am I glad she's dead!"

  Miss May laughed in shock. “I'm sorry. What?”

  “If I had to spend one more fraction of a second with that woman, I would have ruptured. I would have turned inside out. Truly! My guts would have evacuated my body.”

  Miss May and I must have worn identical expressions of shock, because Reginald straightened up and clicked his tongue at us.

  “Oh, don't look so surprised. You saw the way she treated me. Like I was nothing but an earthworm. No! Lesser than an earthworm. What's lesser than an earthworm?”

  “I don't know.” I contemplated. “A beetle?”

  Reginald scrunched up his face. “No. Beetles have legs. By virtue of that fact, they are superior to earthworms. By default. She treated me like a...”

  “Slug?” I asked.

  Reginald pumped his fist into the air. “Exactly. She treated me like a slug. And not a good slug, either.”

  I snuck a look over at Miss May. Her eyes were still wide, and she was unwontedly speechless. I tried to continue the conversation. “She treated you like a bad slug?”

  “We covered that, Chelsea. I was a slug, yes. But I am a slug no longer! Today, I am, for the first time, not a slug. I am a man. And as such, I am going to work on my horrible putting game. My way of celebrating the death of my putrid wife, you see?”

  I stammered. “Well...I would say I'm sorry for your loss but...”

  “Not a loss, but a gain! Everyone who has ever met my wife should take today as a holiday. Do you know that every night she made me clean her feet? I did it once and from there, it blossomed into a hideous tradition. One of the innumerable hideous traditions of our insufferable marriage. For which I sacrificed my career as a sommelier.”

  “I don't understand,” I said. “If all of that is true, why did you stay with her?”

  “How could I not? For she was Linda Turtle. Of the Manhattan Turtles.”

  “Hold on. I thought your last name was Turtle.” Uh-oh… was this some sort of royal inter-marriage? Could the Turtles be kissing cousins?

  “Sadly, you are mistaken. Linda forced her name upon me after our nuptials. I was but a lowly student when we met. Riches like hers I had never imagined. She dazzled me for the first year, maybe two. Lobster for breakfast. Lobster for lunch. Lobster for dinner and lobster for snack. We often enjoyed Broadway for our evening entertainment. She even paid for my sommelier training, at first. But once we wed, all my shiny playthings went away, as did the funding for my education as a somm. And from then on, I was a prisoner. Bound by golden handcuffs, as were so many Turtle men before me.”

  I didn't know what to say. But, as was my habit, I spoke anyway. “That's a lot of lobster.”

  Reginald gazed into the distance for five seconds, as if to say, “it certainly was,” then he zipped back to reality. “Yes. Now, as I said, I'm off to the putting green.”

  Reginald brushed past me, down the front walk and toward his waiting sports car. But Miss May snapped out of her trance just as Mr. Turtle got to the driver’s side door.

  “Wait!” Miss May said.

  Reginald turned back. “Well hello! The large elderly one speaks. I was beginning to think you had lost your voice like I lost my wife. I imagined, perhaps, that you had made a deal with the devil, as they say. Your voice in exchange for her life. That would have been sad, for you, but a necessary sacrifice for humanity on the whole.”

  Miss May balked. “Don’t call me elderly, sir. You’re older than I am!”

  I swallowed a laugh. It was rare for Miss May to be so catty, but it looked good on her.

  “And you should be ashamed,” she said. “Talking about your dead wife like that. Maybe she was right to treat you like a slug. Did you ever think of that?”

  “I was not a slug! I had merely begun to think of myself in a slug-like way. But that was because I was a prisoner. And if you knew the bare facts, if you knew how she treated me... If you knew how she cheated? You would join me in a joyous jig upon her grave.”

  Miss May raised her eyebrows. “Linda cheated on you?”

  “Twice a week. It was in her appointment book.”

  “She had adultery in her appointment book?” I asked.

  “Yes. I wish I’d had the gall to confront her about her lover. I did follow her there once. To some ramshackle home deep in the Pine Grove forest. Alas, I did nothing to stop the affair. By that point, I was a shell of a man. No turtle pun intended. But, if you wish to give me credit for said pun, I will gladly accept. Can I go now? Why have you held me in such a way? At the precipice of my vehicle, at the precipice of the rest of my life.”

  Reginald spoke so quickly, and so much of it was nonsense, that his train of thought was tough to follow. But we got the gist. Linda had been cheating on him with some guy in the woods, and Reginald had never confronted her about it. What a sham of relationship the two Turtles had had.

  Why is it that rich people always seem to have the most complicated relationships? Mo’ money, mo’ problems, I guess.

  Miss May tried to bring the conversation back around to cordial. “Sorry for holding you up, uh, Reginald. I know you're not upset about Linda now. But her death might hit you hard later. You're new in town, so you may not know many people. If you need to see a familiar face, feel free to stop by the orchard. If we're not there, we’re probably hanging out at Grandma's restaurant. Do you know it?”

  “Yes, I have seen the restaurant. Cozy and quaint. Not for me. Besides, I’d rather not familiarize myself with anyone in this town. I plan to empty my social calendar entirely until my son Germany is back in the states.”

  “Jeremy?” I asked.

  “Germany,” Reginald said. “Germany Turtle. He's a good child. A scholar who has spent the better part of a year studying in Africa. Brilliant. He will prove more than company enough for me. Until then, I shall be a lone putter out on the greens. So please, no more invitations. Thank you for the pie though. Dutch Apple. How homely.”

  Reginald got in his car and pulled out, leaving us alone on his overgrown front lawn.

  “Did he just insult my pie?” Miss May asked.

  I shrugged. “I have no idea.” I turned to Miss May. “We never asked why they bought this broken-down house.”

  “No need,” Miss May said. “We're going to find Linda's lover.”

  9

  Crystal Ball

  Miss May grabbed my keys and jumped behind the wheel of the pickup. I lagged a step behind.

  “Where are we going? Shouldn't we sneak into Reginald's house and try to find that appointment book? If we want to find Linda's lover... That seems a good idea.”

  Miss May started the car. “Breaking and entering is far from a good idea. Especially now that we've made an enemy of the police.”

  “That's not my fault!”

  Miss May peeled out of the driveway and the truck rumbled toward the main road. “No one said it was your fault, Chelpie. Calm down.”

  “If Wayne didn't want to make enemies, he shouldn't have treated KP like a murderer. Even if he did have evidence or something. He should've talked to us first.”

  “Why would he talk to one of us first? Do you think one of us has a special relatio
nship with Wayne? I certainly don't.”

  I blushed and my voice rose two octaves. “That's not what I'm saying, no. But we have worked with him on the past two big cases in town.”

  “And I'm not so sure he likes that,” Miss May said.

  “Whatever. Will you just tell me where were going?”

  Miss May turned onto an old country road headed out of town. “There's only one place in Pine Grove that anyone would describe as a 'treehouse in the forest.' So that's where I'm driving. If you must know.”

  “Thank you.” I looked over at Miss May. “And you think whoever lives there was, uh, the object of Linda's affection?”

  Miss May took another side road. Deeper into the forest. “No,” Miss May said. “I don't think she was cheating at all. The man who lives in the treehouse...is Salazar.”

  Miss May said Salazar with dramatic flair. The moniker was exotic, especially for Pine Grove. But I had never met anyone with that name, and I had no idea why it should mean something to me.

  “Don't tell me you don't know who Salazar is?”

  I shrugged. “Should I?”

  “Salazar is Pine Grove's best, and only, psychic.”

  “Pine Grove has a psychic? How did I live my whole life not knowing that? Is he good? Have you had a session?”

  Miss May shook her head. “Heck no. I hate psychics. They know more about me than I do.”

  “So you believe in them, then?” Sometimes my aunt surprised me.

  “I didn’t say I believe in psychics, Chelsea. However...”

  I laughed. “...yes?”

  “I find it's best to believe in everything, so long as it doesn't hurt you. It's good to keep your door open to the Universe. Otherwise, how will you know when the Universe shows up with a gift?”

  I glanced at Miss May. She was a practical, hard-working woman. Not prone to discussions of the Universe with a capital U. Yet somehow her philosophy on openness made sense to me.

  That's what I love about Miss May, I thought. Practical but imaginative, caring yet carefree, and perhaps a bit...spiritual. I made a note to emulate those qualities in my own life.