Murder In The Aisle (Merry Summerfield Cozy Mysteries Book 1)

by Kris Pearson

  I looked up at the sky. “Our fine day seems to be clouding over. It’ll be a pity if Heather’s first sight of Drizzle Bay is through actual drizzle.”

  Paul’s far too tempting for a man of God. There’s at least six feet of him, topped by a thatch of short wavy dark hair which matches his mobile eyebrows and dark brown eyes.

  He laughed at my ‘drizzle’ comment. He’s too kind not to. “Do I look okay?” he asked.

  Any other man would be fishing for compliments, but I’m sure he simply wanted assurance that his sister would approve of his appearance. Dark grey trousers, sage green shirt, shiny black shoes. Totally respectable, and not a hint of churchiness about him. Interesting.

  “Very impressive,” I assured him. “You look exactly right for Graham’s posh car. Hop in, because I have a ridiculous story to tell you.”

  He raised one of the aforementioned eyebrows before pulling the passenger door open and settling into the leather-upholstered seat. He sniffed. “Does your brother like roses?”

  I grinned as I navigated out into the road. It’s a beautiful car to drive but I was conscious of its size, not to mention its price tag. “That’s part of the ridiculous story. I went out to the garage early this morning to remove Graham’s golf clubs so there’d be plenty of room for Heather’s luggage and instead I found a quarter of a cow and a threatening notice.”

  I glanced over briefly to see how he’d taken that.

  “Good grief woman, you attract trouble,” he said in a surprisingly mild tone. “I’m guessing the threatening notice wasn’t meant for you, though? Why would anyone have it in for Graham?”

  “It wasn’t meant for Graham, either. Have you come across anyone called Beefy Haldane?”

  I saw him swallow. “Dammit,” he said. “He’s not a good person to know, Merry. A real loner. A wild man. And I mean that in the sense of a man who lives miles away from civilization and seems to live only by his own rules.”

  The lights on the railway crossing ahead of us started to flash, and as I drew nearer the frantic ‘ding-ding-ding’ of the warning signal became audible. Once I’d brought the big quiet car to a halt I turned to Paul and said, “It wasn’t from this Beefy person to Graham. It was telling Beefy to watch out, but someone had broken into Graham’s car and left it there.”

  I found the photo on my phone and passed it over to him while we were stopped. “Graham’s in Melbourne. That’s why I could pinch his car when yours packed up. I tried ringing him, but I timed it really badly because he was on the point of giving a speech. I’d already called the cops and it’s in their hands now.” I looked at Paul more closely. “So how do you know Beefy Haldane? A loner and a wild man? He doesn’t sound like a church-goer.”

  Paul remained silent for a few seconds and then said with obvious reluctance, “There was an incident out at my Totara Flat church a few weeks ago. He smashed the lock with the big stone we use as a door-stop. There’s no money kept there. The old chap who gives me a hand with the lawns called me and said there was a madman inside.”

  I drew a sharp breath at that. “And I suppose you tore off on your own to investigate?”

  He jerked a shoulder. “I expected a teenager with a bad attitude. Instead I found a man who looked more like a bear – all hair and incoherent growls. My church stank of cannabis, and he’d located the communion wine, too. All gone – not that there was much of it. He was waving a rifle around and taking pot-shots at the rafters.”

  For the second time that day my gorge rose and I thought I might be sick. “Paul!” I exclaimed. “He could have killed you.”

  “Yes,” he agreed, and the corners of his mouth pulled up in the faintest of grins. “But I do have heavenly protection, you know.”

  “Does that work with drunken madmen?”

  He nodded very slowly. “There are some benefits to having been a chaplain in Afghanistan, Merry. We had a long talk about guns.”

  I know my eyebrows rose. I almost choked, huffing in a surprised breath and having to cough a couple of times.

  “He was very keen to get his hands on a military style assault rifle now they’ve changed the gun laws,” Paul continued. “Of course I have no idea how to get one,” – he rolled his eyes at me – “but I managed to keep him talking until he calmed down, came to his senses somewhat, and staggered out. He took off across the open countryside on the muddiest motorbike you ever saw.”

  “Thank heavens for that.”

  Paul rubbed a hand across his mouth. “There’s one other thing.”

  If ever I’d seen a man who didn’t want to talk about something, here he was.

  He cleared his throat, stayed silent for a while, and finally said, “You remember I told you about Roddy – the army chap who followed me to New Zealand, uninvited?”

  At that moment the freight train reached the level crossing and roared across, making further conversation impossible until it had rattled by. Even the superior soundproofing of the Merc wasn’t a match for a diesel electric engine at full speed and its following collection of rushing, clanking flat-beds with multi-colored shipping containers and piles of de-barked logs from the forests further north. Paul and I looked at each other with apologetic shrugs, unable to continue until we could hear each other again.

  It gave me plenty of time to remember Roddy. The poor man’s surname was Whitebottom. I’ve heard of Winterbottoms, which are pretty bad, and Ramsbottoms which aren’t much better, but Roddy’s name took the cake. He’d come to Paul for counseling in Afghanistan when his promiscuous behavior got him into trouble, read more into Paul’s concern than religious care, and turned into a real nuisance. Turned up in Drizzle Bay, too, and had to be gently but firmly turned away.

  Finally the signal gave up its frantic dinging and the lights stopped flashing.

  “We had to mend a few holes in the roof,” Paul said. “Good thing it was corrugated metal and not hundred-year-old slates or Marseilles tiles. We’d have had a job matching those.”

  I accelerated smoothly away and onto the main highway. The rear view mirror told me there were plenty more vehicles following us. It’s amazing how traffic builds up, even in such a small place. “So he took off on a motorbike and you were okay?” I was much more interested in Paul’s safety than the state of the church roof.

  “I called the police of course, but as he wasn’t on a public road and seemed to be heading for the hills, I think they concluded he’d be safely out of everyone’s way for a while.”

  “And was he – um – ‘known to the police’ as they say?”

  Paul nodded. “Known many times over. As a nuisance rather than a criminal, but the gun got them rattled. I don’t think they’d tied him to firearms before.”

  I wasn’t letting him get away with raising a topic like troublemaker Roddy and then dropping it. “Yes, so what about Roddy?”

  Paul wiped a hand across his mouth again, still holding the words in, but eventually said, “It turned out Beefy Haldane was who Roddy went bush with.”

  “Well, they’ll make a great pair,” I said unkindly. “A hairy bear and your delicate friend.”

  “Not my friend,” Paul grated. “He’s a good shot, though. And a mischief maker. I don’t imagine they’re up to any good together.”

  I gnawed on my bottom lip. “There was nothing about the church break-in in any of the news feeds.”

  “No. They told me they thought he was part of something bigger and they wanted to stay quiet about it for a while.”

  I immediately thought of the possible rustling on Jim Drizzle’s farm. Lord Drizzle, to be correct. As the last surviving member of a noble old English family he’s inherited the title, but seems a lot happier being a New Zealand farmer than an English lord. He does pop over to England periodically though and do a bit of voting in the House of Lords – no doubt on matters that influence the sale and importation of the beef and lamb he produces.

  I looked sideways and caught Paul’s eye. “Well, I’m swearing you
to silence on this, but I dug a little nugget out of DS Carver this morning. They’re investigating some local rustling. Part of a cow left in Graham’s car… beef of course… and a warning message for Beefy Haldane. Possible, you reckon?”

  His eyes narrowed. “Rustling? Good grief – are we in the Wild West?” He reached up and adjusted his sun visor against the bright overcast sky. “I wouldn’t put it past them though.”

  We were coming up to a notorious bend where the Police often waited for speedsters. Sure enough they were there again, right as the lime green and black ‘boy-racer’ car that had been following me too closely chose to overtake with a great roar and a cloud of stinky smoke. I hope they got a good shot of its registration plate.

  “Pack of fools,” I muttered.

  Paul nodded, and then surprised me by grinning. “We were all young once.”

  “I was never that young,” I protested.

  “I’m sure you were a very proper young lady,” he said, smile undimmed.

  I turned the ventilation up a notch in the hope it would hurry the departure of the cloying rosy fragrance and the new whiff of stinky smoke. And possibly cool down any extra pink in my cheeks. “I would have been trying to evade the clutches of Duncan Skene at that age. And not entirely succeeding.”

  “Your barely lamented ex?” His gaze sharpened and I wondered, not for the first time, if Paul was interested in me as more than a friend. I also wondered if I would ever make a suitable wife for a vicar. They might not be allowed to marry anyone who’s been divorced – another thing I needed to Google, although Prince Harry now has his Meghan…

  And I’m probably getting way ahead of myself here.

  XMAS MARKS THE SPOT – Merry Summerfield Cozy Mystery No 2

  *

  Contemporary romance by Kris

  The Wellington series –

  http://krispearson.com/the-boat-builders-bed

  http://krispearson.com/resisting-nick

  http://krispearson.com/seduction-on-the-cards

  http://krispearson.com/the-wrong-sister

  http://krispearson.com/out-of-bounds

  http://krispearson.com/hot-for-you-games-for-two

  http://krispearson.com/ravishing-rose

  http://krispearson.com/wicked-in-wellington-books-123

  http://krispearson.com/wellington-series-2

  The Heartlands Series

  http://krispearson.melting-his-heart

  http://krispearson.com/christmas-holiday-hearts

  http://krispearson.com/cowboy-wants-her-heart

  http://krispearson.com/3-novels-the-complete-heartlands-series

  And –

  http://krispearson.com/taken-by-the-sheikh

  http://krispearson.com/desired-by-the-sheikh

  http://krispearson.com/all-for-love-3-series-starters

  http://krispearson.com/kiwi-summer-christmas

  The Scarlet Bay Series

  http://krispearson.com/summer-sparks-scarlet-bay-book-1

  http://krispearson.com/summer-secrets-scarlet-bay-book-2

  http://krispearson.com/summer-spice-scarlet-bay-book-3

  The Merry Summerfield Cozy Mysteries

  http://krispearson.com/cozy-mysteries