THE MURDER IN STALL NUMBER FOUR
Book One
Clara Young Series
RENEE MARSKI
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental..
This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, please visit your favourite e-retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author and publisher.
The Murder In Stall Number Four
Copyright © 2015 by Renee Marski
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of very brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Requests for permission to make copies of any part of this book should be submitted to the publisher at [email protected].
Cover Photo provided by Hisart
Copyright © 2019
Published by Renee Marski
Email us at [email protected]
ISBN: 9781091604384
ISBN-13: 978-1506000374
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
i
1
A NEW TOWN
1
2
THE THREE AMIGA’S
21
3
LEARNING ABOUT THE TOWN
35
4
THE ATTIC
50
5
BETTY’S ENEMIES
59
6
THE MISSING PAGE
64
7
SAMANTHA’S HEARTACHE
67
8
GIRLS’ NIGHT IN
77
9
SAVING SAMANTHA
87
10
MORE VICTIMS
96
11
BETTY’S SECRET
106
12
CLARA’S COFFEE DATE
112
13
DINNER WITH JASMINE
127
14
CLARA’S PLAN
139
15
THE OTHER GIRLS
157
16
HELPING JASMINE
166
17
CLOSURE
170
EPILOGUE: THE FUTURE
178
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
189
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book has taken a lot of time to write, and I revised it several times before I was satisfied with it. When it comes to my writings, I’m my own worst critic. I’d like to thank a few people who helped with this.
To Dana, for reading my revisions over and over again and supporting me in my writing. For encouraging me when I lost motivation. I couldn’t have asked for a better supporter.
To my husband, David, for putting up with my late-night typing and storytelling. For being interested in my stories and asking me about them. For being my bouncing board when I had a new idea. I couldn’t have finished this without you, Baby.
To Kadee Lark, for showing me places where I could share my work and get honest opinions, and for being honest with me about my writings. She knew that I couldn’t improve if I didn’t know what I was doing wrong in the first place.
And lastly, to my parents, for always encouraging me to write and put my ideas down on paper. Look where that led!
1.
A NEW TOWN
“ Mom, I don’t want to live here. Why did we have to move?” Clara asked pleadingly from the bathroom.
Her mother sighed. “Clara, we’ve been over this before. Your father was offered a job here in the sheriff’s department. And there was an open detective position for your brother,” Mrs. Young explained for the third time that morning.
Clara let out a huge, attitude-filled sigh and exclaimed, “Like anything ever happens in a town like this, Ma! He’ll never learn how to be a real detective here.”
Her mother set down the skillet and turned toward the bathroom. “Clara, I know this was a big change for you and that you miss your friends, but could you at least pretend to be happy? For your father’s sake if not my sanity?” Mrs. Young pleaded.
She heard another attitude-filled sigh, followed by, “Fine, I’ll pretend. But if I’m still miserable by Christmas, can I stay with Emma? I can graduate with her back home.”
Her mother closed her eyes and counted to ten, then said quietly, “If her parents are OK with it, I don’t see why not. However, you have to at least try to like it here. I’ll talk with your father once Christmas is closer.”
Clara left the bathroom, still brushing her hair. Her green eyes sparkled with excitement. “Really? You’re serious about this? It would mean so much to me! Thanks, Ma, I feel so much better now.” Giggling, she bounced back into the bathroom.
Before resuming her place in front of the mirror, Clara took a quick look around at the room’s sea green walls and seashell theme. Two sinks stood in front of the long mirror, while a bathtub and stand-up shower stood next to each other against the wall. One small window, with clouded glass, perched above the tub. The tan tile of the floor with matching sea green rugs gave the feel of fake water and sand. Pictures of the beach and fake sand dollars lined the walls. Clara knew it was as close to the beach as she was going to get for a while.
Once ready, with her dark brown hair pulled back into a ponytail, Clara joined her sister downstairs. Jasmine, two years younger, but you never would’ve guessed it by the way the two girls acted. While Clara’s carefree and bouncy attitude attracted people, Jasmine’s stoic and serious attitude tended to push them away. She made it difficult to make her smile, even though when she did, her beauty shined. Today, she held back her straight black hair with barrettes on either side. She wore a black blouse and a flowered skirt with black sandals.
Jasmine looked Clara up and down with a doubtful expression on her face. “You’re going to school in that?” she asked critically.
Clara looked down at her boot-cut jeans and red low-cut top.”What? It’s comfy,” she said with a grin.
“And revealing. Aren’t you gonna be cold?” Jasmine asked with doubt in her voice.
Clara snorted. “That’s what a jacket’s for, silly.”
Jasmine rolled her hazel eyes and got up from the table. “How much longer are you gonna be? We have to carpool together, and I don’t want to be late.”
Clara looked at the clock and choked out, “Give me five minutes to eat really fast and then we’ll go. You can start the car.” She tossed the keys at Jasmine, grinning at the surprised look on her face. In Clara’s opinion, Jasmine had to learn to drive sometime. That started with turning on the car.
After Jasmine headed outside, Clara jumped up and gulped down the last of her eggs. She kissed her mother on the cheek, then cried out, “Thanks for breakfast, Ma. Super yummy! Gotta run.” She stopped in the downstairs bathroom to double check her makeup, making sure the eyeliner really made her eyes pop and that she didn’t have any powder residue on her small, straight nose. With a wink at herself, Clara
headed out the door.
Jasmine sat in the passenger seat, checking her watch every two seconds. As Clara climbed into the small, two-door, red Mazda, Jasmine started complaining about the time. “I know, I know. We’re leaving, calm down,” Clara assured her.
Jasmine huffed and hunched back in the seat, biting her lip. The fingers of her right hand picked at the tan leather on the seats. Clara rolled her eyes and looked up at the house as they pulled away, admiring it for the millionth time.
The two-story house held enough rooms to accommodate their larger-than-average family. With large bay windows in the living room, and a family room built off the kitchen, there was a room for everyone to enjoy. The two-car garage held both her parents’ cars plus her brother’s motorcycle.
The structure had been built in the early 1990’s and at the time had been painted a light tan color. Time had faded the hue and Clara’s mom planned to paint the exterior bright blue, something to make it stand out. Not that the house didn’t stand out already, with its wrap-around porch and six-foot-tall fence surrounding the one-acre yard. The swing on the front porch acted as the perfect final touch, pulling everything together.
Upstairs, the home had four bedrooms, one for each of them. The master bedroom sat at the end of the hall, with a bathroom attached to it. Clara and Jasmine had rooms right across from each other, with the bathroom next to Clara’s room. Rodney’s room sat next to the bathroom on the other side. A half-bath downstairs rounded out the whole ensemble.
Once at school, Jasmine tore out of the car like a bat out of hell. Clara sighed as she watched her sister run inside. New school, new people, never fun. Clara didn’t mind meeting new people, but the teachers worried her. Some took themselves way more seriously than they should. And girls…they could feel threatened by a new student showing up during their senior year. “Yes, Mother, this was a great idea. One more year; why couldn’t they have waited one more year for me to graduate?” Clara whined to herself. She sighed again as she got out of the car and slowly headed toward the school.
The structure had been built in the 1970’s, as the old high school at that time had been falling apart. Four buildings sat next to each other, connected by sidewalks with awnings over them to protect the students in case of rotten weather. The buildings had been freshly painted a few years earlier, each building a different color to indicate what grade it housed. The cafeteria was in the senior building, where everyone ate together. The school’s mascot, the bald eagle, could be seen painted everywhere. Clara, being a senior, would be taking classes in the blue building, the closest one to the parking lot, while Jasmine, as a sophomore, would be taking classes in the orange building, to the right of the parking lot.
Clara had Government first. She walked in and sat near the back, right before the bell rang. The rooms were all the same—the same size, with the same large windows and the same white boards near the door. The teacher’s desk nestled against the wall, topped with scattered papers. The desk looked like it had been nailed together with plywood and painted the brightest, ugliest yellow that could be found. The students’ desks were placed in front of the white board—each just a chair and a small table attached by a metal arm.
The teacher—a short, stocky, red-headed man—looked up from his desk. He spotted Clara almost immediately and smiled. “Good morning, class, and welcome to another year of awesome. I would like to introduce our new addition, Clara Young. Clara, would you please come up and introduce yourself?”
Clara sighed. She hated talking in front of other students. Standing at the front of the class, she took a deep breath and smiled. “Hey, my name is Clara. My family just moved here from Florida. It’s not as warm here as it is there, but I think I can get used to that. Um, not really sure what else to say. I like chocolate and mysteries.” She grinned as she said that, hoping it had broken the ice. At that last statement, the class laughed, and Clara relaxed a little.
Just as she headed back to her seat, the fire alarm went off. The teacher tossed up his hands and started ushering everyone out of the classroom. Clara turned to follow and tripped over a backpack. Her face turned red and she felt grateful it had happened when no one else noticed. She stood and looked down at the backpack. A standard student backpack, with papers poking out of it, it seemed completely unremarkable. As she adjusted it, someone grabbed her arm. Clara gasped and looked up into the face of a very angry-looking young man.
“What do you think you’re doing?”he demanded.
Clara pulled her hand out of his grasp, shakily replying, “I’m sorry; I tripped over the bag and was just trying to put it back. I didn’t mean to knock it over.”
He brushed his hand on his jeans and stood up straight, towering over her. His grey eyes glowered with mistrust. Clara noticed that when he wasn’t glaring, he must be quite attractive. With his square jaw and dark brown hair, he cut quite an imposing figure. “Just leave it, we have to go outside,” he said as he turned, leaving her standing there, looking utterly confused.
Once the alarm shut off and the class had returned to their seats, Clara pulled out her notebook. Making sure no one was looking, she wrote the date at the top of a fresh page. Underneath that, she wrote, “First day of school stinks. Had to introduce myself and then I managed to trip over a backpack and there was a fire drill. What could possibly happen next?” Clara tucked the notebook back into her bag and returned her attention to the teacher.
By the end of class, Clara decided it wasn’t going to be so bad. The teacher, Mr. Moyer, managed to be very interesting. Not only that, he made Government seem interesting. After the bell, she headed to the closest girls’ bathroom she could find. The only empty stall happened to be the fourth one, so Clara headed toward it. She had barely touched the door when one of the girls standing at the mirror shouted, “No! Don’t go in that stall!” She grabbed Clara by the wrist while two other girls blocked her path.
“What’s going on?” Clara asked, confused.
“Don’t use that stall, OK?” demanded the girl, leaning in closer to Clara so that Clara could see the veins in her dark brown eyes.
“Is it broken or something?” Clara asked innocently.
“No! Just don’t go in there, OK? Just leave it alone,” the girl huffed, like it should be easy to understand.
Clara shrugged and said, “OK, fine.” She turned to another stall, making sure to lock the door behind her. Finishing as quickly as she could, she hurried out of the bathroom, under the watchful eyes of the group of girls. Some wore cheerleading uniforms, so Clara assumed they were all on the squad and this must be some sort of weird cheerleading thing that she wasn’t privy to.
Her head down, Clara headed to her next class. Once at her desk, she pulled out her journal and wrote, “Something weird is going on here. I can’t use a particular stall in the bathroom. I wonder if it’s the same in all the bathrooms.” She put away her journal and watched the teacher walk in. He (yes, another male teacher, shocking) was an older gentleman with wispy white hair and sad blue eyes. He sat at his desk and told the students that for their first English assignment, they were each to write an essay about themselves, which would be due at the end of class. Clara turned hers in right before the bell rang.
By the time lunch rolled around, Clara felt drained. She ate as quickly as she could, then headed to the library to check out the selection. She became so lost in reading that when she got to the next class, she could barely stay awake. It took all she had to not fall asleep the rest of the day. Relief flooded Clara when the last bell rang and she could head out to the car.
Jasmine sat in the car waiting for her. Clara smiled at her sister and got in the car. She offered to buy them both something to drink on the way home, but Jasmine didn’t seem interested. She didn’t seem to feel like talking either, so Clara blasted the music and sang along. When she got home, she almost missed the note waiting on the door. Pulling it off, she looked at Jasmine with a silly grin. “Maybe I already have an admirer?” sh
e said.
Jasmine rolled her eyes and headed inside. Clara opened the note and snorted.
It read, “Stay away from the stall.” Clara crumpled it up and ran inside.
Her parents still believed that the house should have a land line and a physical answering machine. Jasmine hit play just as Clara walked in.
A muffled male voice said, “Don’t even think of going near that stall.”
Jasmine looked at Clara with wide eyes. Clara rolled hers, grabbed the tape out of the machine, tossed a new one in it, and headed upstairs.
In her room, Clara stashed the tape in her dresser and pulled out her notebook. She wrote, “Got a voicemail. From a guy. But not the kind I’d like to get. He said to leave that stall alone. Need to figure out what’s going on there.”
Clara heard the front door open and quickly stashed the notebook.
She headed downstairs just in time to find her older brother, Rodney, messing up Jasmine’s hair. If looks could kill, he would’ve been dead on the spot. Rodney looked up as Clara came down. He grinned. Rodney stood a head taller than both girls, with light brown hair and grey-green eyes that twinkled with humor. His face was thin and slight stubble grew along his square jaw. With cheekbones that faded into his eyes, Rodney’s face wasn’t as distinct as Jasmine’s or Clara’s. He blended in better than either of the girls did; while cute, it managed to be forgettable.
“How was school, sis? Meet any hot, eligible girls for me?”he asked cheerily.
Clara wrinkled her nose at him. “Not any who would be interested in you.”
He stuck out his tongue at her and headed up to his room.
“Oh yeah, Rod, that’s real mature,” she called after him.
Clara went into the kitchen to grab a snack. As she popped a chip in her mouth, the phone rang. “Hello?” Clara answered, trying to sound sweet around the chip in her mouth.
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