"Really, Greg. Too much caffeine at this time of the night and you won't be able to get back to sleep." I turned my back to hide my grin. The expression on his face was priceless. Oh well. I knew I wouldn't have to worry whether he'd get a nap or not. By midmorning he'd be ensconced in his recliner, Trixie on his lap, and both would be sawing logs.
"So, tell me again why you see a connection." I'd say this for Greg: he knew when to ask questions and when to listen. I began to talk.
"This goes back to the very beginning of the festival planning, when Merry got an email from Sarah Lawson concerning her newest book in her Amish Mystery series. She asked if she could hold her book signing at Murder by the Book, giving the readers of Seneca Meadows first crack at getting a copy."
I paused and waited for a question. When none came, I continued thinking aloud.
"That was a real coup d'etat, I can tell you that. But when Lisa Caldwell called and offered to do the same thing, and she's one of Sarah's biggest rivals, it just felt wrong. I even wondered why two bestselling writers would want to come here instead of being at the Murder and Mayhem conference in New York City." I shrugged, holding my palms up. "It just seemed fishy, for lack of a better word."
"All right, I can see why you'd feel that way." Greg broke off a piece of pound cake and popped it into his mouth, carefully wiping the crumbs from his fingers. "Now explain why you think their behavior, which I agree is odd, is tied to the two deaths."
"Well," I began, "this is where things get a tad murky."
Greg took another bite of the cake, chewing thoughtfully. I sat quietly, knowing that things were beginning to percolate.
"Who might have known about the idea of having a 'solve the murder mystery'?"
"Besides Merry and myself? Well, let's see." I held up one hand and began ticking off possibilities with one finger. "Viviana certainly, because she'd offered to be the corpse. And Victoria as well, since we asked her in place of Viv. Definitely Sarah Lawson, since we had to let her know what we'd be doing in lieu of the book signing." I paused a moment, thinking. "Merry might have told someone that I'm not aware of."
"That's a given, Caro. Think about it." He took another sip of his coffee. "How did Viv know that you needed someone to play a corpse?"
I stopped, puzzled. How did Viv know to volunteer? I couldn't recall how that had even happened.
"I have no idea, Greg. I need to ask Merry."
"Well, let the poor woman rest, Caro. You can ask her later."
"I wasn't going to call her right now," I protested. "I have more sense than that."
"Hmm."
"If that's a comment on the current hour, Greg, you can forget it. As I recall, you followed me out here on your own power."
"And as I recall, you woke me up, then bribed me with coffee. That's a felony in my book."
I got up and sashayed around the table, a mischievous smile on my face and my hands on my hips.
"You want felonies? I'll show you a felony." I grabbed the lapels of his robe with both hands, giving it a good tug. "Follow me, sir. In this house, all felonious behavior happens in the bedroom."
It would be safe to say that neither one of us got much sleep for a while.
* * *
I left my snoozing husband and pet tucked safely away in the family room and headed across the lawn to Merry's house. I'd managed to get a few hours of deep sleep following Greg's, shall we say, investigation into my felonies. When I'd finally crawled out of bed, the first thing I did was text Merry and invite myself over for a chat.
"So what's shakin', Caro?"
Merry sounded chipper and looked as though she'd been up conquering the world while the rest of us slumbered. It made me wish that I had called her at three in the morning just to give me a level playing field.
"I could use a cup of coffee," I said, moving past her and into the entryway. "And less exuberance, please."
"Who's exuberant?" Merry closed the door and followed me to her kitchen. "And you need green tea, not caffeine."
"What I need," I said as I dropped into one of her mismatched kitchen chairs, "is the answer to a few questions."
"You and me both, girlfriend." Merry sat down across from me, and in the light from the window I could see that she'd used a heavy hand with the under-eye concealer. Maybe she wasn't as wide awake as I'd assumed.
"Greg and I had a very interesting conversation this morning," I began. "And I do mean this morning, as in three in the a.m."
"TMI," Merry said, holding both hands over her ears. "I don't need to know what you two do in the middle of the night, Caro. And that's definitely the middle of the night, not morning."
"Don't be silly, Merry. We were in the kitchen, sitting at the table."
"I don't know what you think is silly," she said, her eyes wide. "But that sounds absolutely asinine to me, definitely not silly."
"Look, Merry. Do you want to know why I came over or not?"
"I think I'm the one who needs the coffee, and I don't even drink the stuff on a daily basis. But by all means, please tell me: why did you come over?"
I looked at her for a few moments and shook my head. This was going to be even more convoluted than my early morning confab with my husband. "All right," I said slowly. "I'm trying to figure out who all knew about our plans to have a murder mystery included in the fall festival, corpse and all."
Merry stared back at me, and I could see her trying to process the reason behind the question. "And this is important why?"
"I thought you wanted to get to the bottom of things, Merry, as in who is responsible for Vic's and Viv's deaths. I happen to think that it's important because whoever knew about our plans probably killed both of them."
"Whoa. Hang on." Merry pushed away from the table and headed to the fridge. "We need chocolate before we get too far into this discussion, Caro."
I watched with interest as she took out a large covered plate, placing it on the counter and slicing off large portions of something that appeared to be chocolate cake smothered in chocolate icing and topped with chocolate pieces. This, apparently, was going to be a very serious conversation.
"Here," she said, sliding a plate in front of me. "Get some of this inside you while I make coffee."
She didn't have to tell me twice. Using the fork to cut off a big bite, I popped it into my mouth, closing my eyes as I savored the taste.
"This is absolutely delicious, Merry. Did you make it?"
"Yep. It's one of my mom's recipes. It's called 'Death by Chocolate,' by the way."
"How apropos," I said with a grin. "And not such a bad way to go at that."
"Isn't that the truth," said Merry dryly. "Unfortunately, I don't believe that Viv or Vic had the choice."
"No," I replied, pointing my fork at her. "And that's exactly the basis of this entire issue. I can't see why either of them was murdered. What did they have in common? Besides being our pretend corpse," I added as I licked the excess fudge frosting from my fork. It was absolutely delicious. "Merry, do you think I could have this recipe? Greg would just about die for a cake like this."
"Of course." She carried a mug of coffee over to me, adding, "It's decaf, by the way. You really need to cut the caffeine cord, Caro."
It was a good thing that chocolate mellowed my temperament, otherwise I might have protested. Decaf was really no problem as long as I could die by chocolate. Metaphorically speaking, of course.
"Let's start over again," I said, scraping my fork along the bottom of the plate, gathering any crumb I could. "Tell me who you told about our murder mystery plans."
"Well, I know I mentioned it to Candy when I dropped by to pick up a coffee cake one day." Merry took a sip of her coffee and looked up as though the answer was somewhere on the ceiling. "And I brought it up at the last chamber meeting just to make sure it was all right with the rest of the booth sponsors."
I wanted to groan at her words. That alone exponentially increased the number of people who knew about the
plan.
"Oh, I almost forgot." She turned around to face me, her eyebrows drawn together in a frown. "Sarah Lawson's agent and personal assistant both knew as well. I had to run the plot by them to make sure it jibed with the new book."
"Hmm." I tapped the tines of the fork against my front teeth, a habit that tends to drive my impeccably mannered hubby insane. "Speaking of which, have you heard from either agent or P.A. since yesterday?"
"Caro, I am an absolute ditz this morning. I completely forgot: Sharon Henderson, Sarah's P.A., will be here sometime today."
"And that concerns us why?" I eyed the cake platter, mentally calculating how many days I'd have to give up real food in order to have just one more piece.
"She's coming to pick up all of the books and publicity doodads that were shipped to the bookstore."
"Oh, really." My brows lifted, and Merry nodded.
"Yep. I told you I wasn't going to carry her books anymore and I meant it." She gave a little toss of her head and nearly sloshed the coffee out of the two mugs she was carrying to the table. "As they said in Walt Disney's Aladdin, we don't take kindly to riffraff or street rats here in Seneca Meadows."
"I don't think that the Disney song said those exact words, Merry, but I get your point. How did the P.A. take it?"
"That's the odd part, Caro." Merry slipped into the chair opposite of me and picked up her mug, taking a small sip and making a face. "This stuff is awful. How in the world do you drink it?"
"I completely agree, Merry," I said fervently. "Decaffeinated is not my style."
"I'm talking about…never mind. Back to Sharon What's Her Name: she didn't seem unhappy one way or the other. I guess as long as she gets a paycheck, she'd good."
"But wouldn't her pay be based off of Sarah's royalties? As in, the more she sells, the more she makes?"
Merry nodded. "In a roundabout way, I suppose it is. But she seemed okay with getting the books out of Podunkville—my word, not hers—and taking them back to New York City. In fact," she added thoughtfully, "she made a big deal about Sarah's bestseller status and wondered why she'd come here instead of Murder and Mayhem."
"I actually wondered that myself, if you recall." I nodded over at the cake platter. "Do you mind sliding that thing over here? I think I'm going to need more chocolate."
If I'd known where my investigations were going to take me, I'd have asked for more than a slice of cake.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Merry and I ended up at the bookstore that afternoon, waiting for Sharon Henderson to show up. When she did, I took one look at her and had to turn my face before she saw the huge grin. The woman was built like an old-fashioned clipper ship and she moved like one as well, her front end pointing the way.
A rather imposing bosom, followed by a very generous backside, heaved itself out of her car and onto the sidewalk. Her hair was a sight to behold, an artistic masterpiece of color and bobby pins amassed on her head. There didn't seem to be any particular style, just a mountain of hair that shook as she moved, her personal banner waving in the wind.
Merry shot me a warning glance and went to open the door for the oncoming Sharon. She sailed in the door, giving Merry a gracious nod that threatened to send her hair sliding down her forehead.
"Good afternoon, ladies." She turned to look at me, giving me a very through once-over with her small brown eyes, and addressed herself to Merry. "I'm assuming that you have dear Sarah's books and bling ready for me to take?"
I almost laughed aloud. Hearing the word "bling" come from those painted lips was amusing, and I could hardly hear what Merry had to say about "dear Sarah's" books.
"Actually, Sharon—"
"Ms. Henderson, please," came the command from the clipper ship.
"—Ms. Henderson, I've saved the boxes that her books arrived in. I can show you where they're at, but you'll need to pack them up yourself. My assistant and I are busy with inventory at the moment."
Her assistant (that was me, attempting to keep my face straight) and Ms. Henderson looked around the bookstore. Not one inventory tag could be seen. Having a fertile imagination, though, I jumped right in with both conversational feet.
"Merry, I've got the tags ready to go. All we'll need to do is count by author and we're good." I pointed toward the back of the store in a vague manner, trying to appear knowledgeable about all things inventory.
Merry nodded at me, her expression neutral but her eyes twinkling. "Sounds good, Caro. Thanks." She turned to face the personal assistant, motioning for her to follow. "Ms. Henderson, I'm headed to the back right now to grab those tags. Can I show you where to get a few boxes?"
The ship's prow began to heave in a most unsettling manner as waves of emotion began pummeling her personal equilibrium. I sincerely hoped that she wasn't going to drop dead of a heart attack in the middle of the store; two bodies were definitely enough to contend with. Her face looked as though a series of thunderclouds had blown in and had taken up residence there, and she all but stomped her way to the rear of the store.
That was one woman I wouldn't want to cross, I thought. I could imagine that she was an absolute pit bull in the office when she didn't get her way. I wondered if she and Sarah Lawson had crossed metaphorical swords over the author's decision to launch her newest book here in Seneca Meadows. It wouldn't surprise me.
With Sharon Henderson finally packed up and gone, Merry and I collapsed onto one of the comfy sofas she kept scattered around the bookstore. It was as if Sarah Lawson's personal assistant had sucked the oxygen out of the room, leaving the two of us gasping for air. Of course, that was simply a figure of speech, but Sharon Henderson was one of those folks whose very presence could make those near her feel unsettled.
"So that went fairly well." Merry looked at me with a wry expression on her face. "And I was glad we could actually find some inventory tags in all that mess back there. Except," she added thoughtfully, "I'm not even sure why I felt like I had to lie to her."
"I know why," I said with feeling. "She reminded me of one of the nuns from my grade school. Even if we just had to use the bathroom, Sister Christine made us feel as though we needed an entire book of explanations before she'd let us go."
Merry giggled. "I can just see that, Caro. Although in my case it wasn't a nun, it was my granny. She was the principal at my school, and I swear she watched me and my cousins like a flippin' hawk."
"How did you survive?" I asked, giving her a friendly poke in the arm. "And that was rhetorical, by the way. I have a feeling you're a lot like your gran."
"That I am." Merry jumped to her feet and reached down to pull me with her. "Let's get Lisa Caldwell's books pulled too. Might as well have them ready when she or whomever comes to collect, right?"
"How is Lisa, by the way?" I trailed her to the section beginning with "C" and found the three books under "Caldwell" that Merry had stocked. "I wonder if we can call the hospital and find out her status."
"Maybe." Merry shrugged. "I'm just glad to get this entire fall festival over and done with. And to think that I thought it was such a great idea."
"Merry," I began, feeling slightly sheepish. "It was a great idea. I was the one who encouraged the 'murder mystery' angle, remember?"
"Did you also line up the fight night card we had going on?" She reached over and squeezed my arm. "Don't worry about it, Caro. Those two clowns should have known better and acted a bit more professional."
"Very true," I agreed. "They certainly make the rest of the writing world appear like—I don't know, Merry. What would be a good description?"
"Like idiots?"
I nodded, grinning. "Like idiots."
"Well, I'm gettin' the idiots out of here." She held out her arms for the books I'd pulled from the shelf. "I wonder if I should call Lisa's agent."
I shrugged. "Maybe her editor at the publishing company would be a better route."
"Sounds good. I've got her number somewhere." She headed for her office and then stopped, looking
over her shoulder. "Can you call the hospital for me?"
"Why don't we go see her?" I glanced at my cell phone. "It's only two o'clock. We could get some flowers for her in the gift shop. Or a punching bag."
"I like your style, girl." With a huge grin, Merry disappeared into the back.
I wandered back over to the couch and stretched out, noticing how dirty my shoes were. What had I stepped in? I reached down to rub at whatever it was—and stopped cold. It was dark, almost brown, and it looked like…
"Merry," I called out. "Could you come out here a moment?" I wanted a second opinion before I began edging closer to coming unglued.
"I was just gone for two minutes, Missing me already?" She headed for the couch and plopped down next to me.
I mutely pointed to the offending shoe.
"What the heck?" She leaned in closer, her eyes narrowed. "What is that stuff, Caro?"
"Well, what does it look like to you?"
"If I had to stake my life on it, I'd probably guess it was clay or something along those lines. But, and stop me if I'm wrong, it looks like dried blood."
"That's exactly what I thought." I looked from my foot to the floor. "And where would I have picked this up, Merry? Greg was still in one piece when I left this morning, and I haven't injured myself. Or you either," I added.
"Stay put, will you? I'm going to go check something out." She jumped to her feet. "Be right back."
I watched her walk to the door and out to the front of the store. We'd come downtown in her cool little Mini Cooper, and by craning my neck and lifting myself up off the couch a few inches, I could see her walk straight to the car and open the passenger's side door.
She must be checking the floorboard, I thought. I hoped that I hadn't left anything unsavory behind. Trixie was known for catching the odd squirrel or two and leaving various body parts scattered around our yard.
"Did you see anything?"
Merry had come back in, a puzzled expression on her face. "No, not in my car, but I did find this."
You Can Lead a Horse to Water (Proverbial Crime Mysteries Book 3) Page 7
