Back Room Bookstore Cozy Mystery Boxed Set: Books 1 - 12

by Susan Harper

  “The man up north sent me straight here. All thanks to your friend who saw the escaped reindeer!” the elf exclaimed, his hands out front in defense.

  “So, you’re here because the reindeer got out and Isaac posted its picture online?” Holly asked. “Your aunt was right.”

  “That would be the correct assumption. Now let me explain what led to this conjunction. I first arrived four days ago in town, and the reindeer I so soon found. But the mortal’s mind I needed to swipe so as to set his memory right. I waited in what I believed to be his home, when alas I was attacked by a garden gnome. He stole my sweets and did retreat. You found me in my monstrous state, and I met an unusual fate. Trapped in your—”

  “Okay, okay, okay,” Holly said. “We were there for all of that. You were trapped in my laundry hamper. And why the heck is there a garden gnome around here?”

  “When did you see Isaac last?” Monica asked the elf.

  “My dear, you certainly do ask a lot, but I tell you I saw him first the night of the Turkey Trot.”

  “Wait, did you see…did you see what happened? The man who was killed, did you see that?” Holly asked, and the elf started to open his mouth. “Please, no rhyming. I can’t handle it.” The elf simply nodded yes.

  “What did you see?” Monica demanded.

  Suddenly, Monica noticed that the elf’s ears seemed to have started to flop a bit. His black eyes seemed to somehow have gotten even darker, and a few patches of fur started to grow on his cheek. “I see no cookies,” the elf said.

  “That didn’t rhyme,” Holly said.

  “I bite!” the elf exclaimed, and Monica hadn’t realized that had been meant as a warning. The thing jerked so suddenly that she dropped her wand, and he bit her free hand, causing her to drop him as well. “Ah! The little monster bit me!”

  “Bite! Bite! Bite!” the thing screamed and jumped back up onto Holly’s bed and proceeded to jump up and down.

  “Get him!” Monica yelped, and Holly jumped on the bed at the wrong time. It went over her, landed on her rear, and jumped to the ground. Before it ran out, it kicked over a standing lamp and darted out into the open room of the apartment.

  Monica hurried after him after she heard a loud cat shriek from Abigail, and she could see that the elf had picked the cat up and was completely unbothered by Abigail going to town on his face with her claws. “Put her down!” Monica shouted, and the next thing she knew, she was watching Abigail get flung across the room. She landed on all-fours, thankfully, but the elf was still on the loose. He knocked over furniture and threw anything that he could manage to get its hands on.

  Holly now came fluttering out of the room, looking mortified as the elf had found its way to her bookshelf. “No! Not my books!” she screamed in horror and ran over to it, jerking it off the shelf and throwing it onto the upside-down couch. It had a book in its hand. “Don’t you dare! That’s an autographed copy!” Holly pleaded as the elf ripped the cover right off and proceeded to eat a few pages. Holly screamed bloody murder before going and grabbing a frying pan from her kitchen. “Not my books, you little creep!” she shouted and when it ran by her, she bashed it in the face.

  “Oh, well, I’d say she just got herself a one-way ticket to the naughty list,” Abigail said, amused.

  “There really is a naughty list?” Holly asked enthusiastically, then looked down at the elf lying unconscious in her floor. “Crud. I’m pretty sure I am going to be stuck on that for life now, aren’t I?”

  11

  Once Monica and Holly had given the elf some additional sweets to munch on, the little guy seemed significantly more relaxed and less creature-like. He was now seated on the uprighted couch, his little legs dangling off the side as he happily snacked on a sugar cookie large enough that he needed to hold it in both hands. “Okay, so, let’s start over for a second here,” Monica began. “Your boss sent you down here to wipe Isaac’s memory and to try to make sure that he stopped snapping pictures of mystics. You followed him here to Holly’s apartment, and you mistakenly thought this was where he lived. Your reindeer ditched you and went back to the North Pole, and without sugar, you became the little beast that destroyed Holly’s apartment. That about right?”

  “That’s quite right, dear sweet witch. Now it seems, I’ve found myself in quite a hitch!”

  “So, what about what you saw at the Turkey Trot?” Holly demanded. “Tell us what you saw.”

  The elf, after swallowing a bite of cookie, began to recount his tale. “In the midst of the Turkey Trot I did land in search for the mischievous blogger man. I saw him tussle with two large men, and dare I say it was clear they were not friends. He and Ms. Holly went their separates ways, but close by Sir Isaac’s side I did stay. Hidden off in the shadows I remained, but it was there I saw something rather insane. A lady followed the soon-deceased, and in his eye, she stabbed him—how he did shriek! The woman took off and down he fell, her muttering swears I dare not retell. Her face I saw not, but her deed I did spot. A murder, right there at the Turkey Trot!”

  “A woman,” Holly said. “A woman murdered Luke?”

  “Why, Ms. Holly, that’s true. I do hope my descriptions do not make you blue. The woman’s face I could not see, but violent and angry most certainly was she. I heard her give a shout, her exact words I don’t doubt. ‘That’s what you get!’ she did say. Whatever he did, she made the poor man pay.”

  “I don’t know how much more of this rhyming I can take,” Holly said.

  “Well then, I’ll cease, for the madam’s ease,” he said.

  “Stop,” she warned, then turned back to Monica. “Okay, so what woman would have wanted to kill Luke, then?”

  “I have no idea,” Monica groaned, thinking of all the women who could have possibly been at the event. “But whoever she was, she managed to get a hold of Isaac’s lucky pen, remember?”

  “So, what do we do now?” Holly asked.

  Monica pulled out her cellphone. “I’m going to call Brian. Ask him to meet up with us and bring photographs from the crime scene and of the murder weapon. What if I mistakenly identified the pen?” Monica suggested. “You’ve seen him write with it before, right? You think you can look at it up close and confirm whether or not I made a mistake?”

  “I suppose I can do that,” Holly said. “Call him up.”

  Monica did just that, and after making sure the elf had plenty of cookies to snack on, they left Abigail behind once again to act as the little creature’s babysitter before heading back to the coffee shop where they had meant to meet with him earlier in the evening. Brian beat them both there, and he gave them a slightly smug look as they sat down on one of the outdoor patio seats. “You two want to tell me what you’ve been up to?” he asked. “You ran out of here so quickly earlier, and the next thing I know, I’m getting a phone call from Monica about needing to meet up about the case again. Everything okay?”

  “Everything’s fine,” Holly said quickly. “Monica left her cat at my apartment, and she tore the whole place up.”

  Brian stared at them with a sort of grin like he had caught them in the middle of a lie. “I thought you said you were having girl problems?” he asked. “Now, you’re saying Abigail was the reason you had to run off so suddenly?”

  Monica cringed a bit. Holly had likely confused what they had told Brian with what they had told Tiff earlier. Monica, a bit perturbed, offered an answer that was sure to prevent him from asking any more questions. “Yes, well, Holly left some used feminine products in her trash bin at the apartment, and Abigail ate it. She was worried Abigail was going to get all sick.”

  The look on Brian’s face was a bit priceless. His cheeks turned a bit green, and he looked humiliated for trying to corner them in some sort of fib. “Oh!” he exclaimed. “Here I thought you were planning some sort of… I don’t know… Christmas thing you weren’t telling me about…” He gagged for a second. “Okay, I’ll admit I have a weak stomach. I really didn’t need to know that. I apolo
gize for prying…”

  Holly gave Monica this very perturbed look as though to silently ask her couldn’t you have come up with a better cover story than that?

  “Okay,” Brian said, eager to change the subject. He put the file at the center of the table and opened it up. “Here is what you asked for. This is pretty much everything I got on Isaac’s case at the moment. Including the picture of the pen… Did you want to see it in the eye or…”

  “Eww. No, I don’t need to see that again. Just a picture of the pen once it was removed from the victim, please,” Monica insisted, and Brian dug through the file for a moment before placing it at the top of all the paperwork and photographs that made up the case file.

  “Take a look, Holly. Does that look like the red pen that Isaac would always use?” Monica asked, hoping that Holly could tell her that she had been mistaken.

  Holly’s shoulders slumped. “Unfortunately…yeah. It looks just like what Isaac would always carry around.”

  Monica sighed heavily, and Brian looked just as disappointed with her answer. “I don’t know if there is anything in this case file that could point us in the right direction. I think this is really going to be a matter of finding out whose stories don’t line up.”

  “If I could find Tiff, she might be able to tell me a bit more,” Brian said.

  “She was at the bookshop earlier,” Monica said. “Didn’t sound like she heard much of anything. I wonder if there were any other reporters at the Turkey Trot that night who might have spoken to someone more useful than who Tiff managed to get a hold of?”

  “That is a good point,” Brian said. “Maybe we should head down to the newspaper office and see if anyone else was there that night? I didn’t even think about asking that. Sometimes reporters can be helpful when working a case. I mean, a lot of them are trained in investigative work as well. You never know what they might have dug up that the police haven’t.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Monica said, and the three of them headed to Brian’s patrol car.

  It was a short drive to the office where Isaac worked. It being a small, local paper, it was only a small building that didn’t host too much activity day-to-day. When they entered through the front door, Monica could see about half a dozen desks as well as two office doors on either side of the large room. There was a large back area full of bookshelves that displayed various papers and informational magazines for writers and editors to reference. A woman in a pantsuit came marching up to them the moment they came through the door. “Officer Brian,” she said in a somewhat monotone voice. “Is there something I can help you with?” She then looked to Monica and Holly. “I know Holly. Who is your other friend there?”

  “I’m Monica Montoya,” Monica said. “I’m a friend of Isaac’s.”

  “Elizabeth Thorn,” the woman said. “Chief Editor of the Bankstown Press. What can I do for you three?”

  “I’m sure you guessed that we’re looking into Luke’s case,” Brian said.

  “Yes, awfully difficult story for us to be covering with one of our top writers being jailed for the crime,” Elizabeth said. “I’m sure you guessed that we are trying our best to remain unbiased, but it’s proven to be a rather impossible task. If you read the most recent paper release, you will probably notice all of my writers being a bit snarky about the local police work being done. None of us here believe Isaac is guilty, but I do still try to sound unbiased nevertheless.”

  “I’m not really hear to question you about the paper’s policies,” Brian said. “I wanted to see if you knew whether or not any writers other than Tiff and Isaac had been at the Turkey Trot and whether or not any of them interviewed anyone who had any decent information we could use in our investigation.”

  “It’s the Turkey Trot,” Elizabeth said with a smirk. “Bankstown only has so many interesting traditions. I doubt there was a single person in this building who wasn’t there. Feel free to speak to anyone who’s here to see if they have anything useful for you. Personally, I left that evening thanks to…” she grunted, looking a bit embarrassed. “Thanks to a little too much funnel cake, I’ll admit, so I can’t say I personally spoke to anyone who would have seen anything. But a number of my writers and editors were present, and several of them conducted interviews with people present at the Turkey Trot during the time of the murder.”

  “I appreciate your willingness to help,” Brian said.

  “Please, it’s for Isaac,” she said. “We look out for our own here. Go on. You’ve got free range.”

  “Thank you, Ms. Thorn,” Brian said, and he gave Monica and Holly an approving nod. The three of them split off from one another, and they immediately got to work—divide and conquer, talking to everyone who was present in the building. Tiff, Monica noticed right away, was in one of the offices speaking with one of the head editors about a story she wanted to run. Tiff gave Monica an approving nod after seeing she was present.

  Monica spoke with two writers, neither of whom seemed to be able to offer her any additional information, when she came across what she assumed to be Isaac’s desk. There was a picture of him and a group of people she assumed to be his family pinned up on a corkboard as well as a long strip of photobooth pictures of himself and Holly making goofy faces. Next to it was another picture of what she assumed to be a young Holly and Isaac—Holly was in pigtails, and Isaac was missing his front two teeth. “Aww,” she said, grinning at the picture, realizing that the two of them really had been friends for a good, long time.

  “He is totally in love with that chick,” a voice said from behind, and Monica turned to see that one of the writers had popped his head out from behind his own desk.

  Monica nodded. It wasn’t exactly a secret to anyone except perhaps Holly. The man laughed and pointed toward Holly with the pen. Holly was speaking with another writer from across the room. “Amazing how you can be friends with someone that long and not realize they like you,” he said. “We’re kind of work buddies. He talks about her a lot. Name’s Rufus. Yeah, I know, don’t laugh at it, but—”

  Monica wasn’t listening to the man. Rather, she was staring at his pen. “Where did you get that?” she asked, stepping toward his desk and putting her hand out to take the pen.

  He handed it over to her. “Oh, these?” he asked. “It’s the Bankstown Press’s pens. See, that little mark right there is our logo.”

  Monica’s jaw dropped. Isaac’s so-called lucky pen was hardly as one-of-a-kind as they had originally thought. Looking around, Monica saw dozens upon dozens of them lying all over the place. “Isaac, you idiot,” she said under her breath before rounding up Brian and Holly, showing them the pen she had borrowed from the man who sat next to Isaac in the office. “Guys, the pen that was used to kill Luke was exactly the same as all of the ones here. I thought it was his pen in Luke’s eye, but it could have just been another duplicate.”

  Brian didn’t waste any time. He called the local jail and asked them to look through all the belongings that had been on Isaac after his arrest, telling them to specifically look for a red pen. Sure enough, Isaac’s pen was found in his jacket. Brian hung up the phone, looking annoyed. “I can’t believe I didn’t think to check to see if Isaac still had his stupid lucky pen on him. He never lost his pen. The pen he showed us earlier that evening was still in his jacket pocket. Do you two realize what this means?”

  Monica looked out across the room that was full of writers and editors—all of whom would have had access to duplicates of Isaac’s lucky pen. “It means our killer is more than likely in this room.”

  12

  It really did not take Monica long to figure out who they were looking for exactly. Holly and Monica had insider information that it was indeed a female who had killed Luke. The elf had told them that, but they couldn’t share that information with Brian. With that tidbit of information, Monica was able to eliminate over half of the people working there at the office. Her eyes were then drawn to Tiff. She had most certainly been there. Sh
e knew a few details from the case. And Monica was able to arrive at a motive. “Tiff,” she said under her breath to Brian and Holly.

  “Tiff?” Holly asked. “I don’t even know if she knows Luke.”

  “But she knows Isaac,” Monica said. “You heard her earlier today, Holly. She’s got feelings for Isaac, and she saw what Luke and Jehu did to him earlier that night. I think she might have confronted Luke about punching Isaac, and he probably got a little handsy or aggressive toward her. And, well, stab.”

  “Dang,” Brian said, gazing across the room toward Tiff, who was just now coming out of one of the editor’s offices before finding herself a seat at one of the desks in the center of the large room. “I think you might be onto something, but honestly…” He looked around the room. “I don’t know, Monica. It could be anyone here. We should see if anyone here knows Luke personally. The murder weapon definitely came from here, but there are a lot of other people who work here other than Tiff or Isaac.”

  “I agree with Monica,” Holly said. “I think we need to talk to Tiff first. You should have heard her earlier today, Isaac. She’s pretty wound up about this case, and it might just be because she’s upset that the guy she’s crushing on wound up getting blamed for something she did.”

  Brian hesitated, but at last, he gave a nod of approval. “Monica, I think you should talk to her. She doesn’t know me that well, and I think she might get aggressive if Holly accuses her of anything.”

  “Why would she get aggressive with me?” Holly asked.

  “Because she probably views you as competition for Isaac,” Brian said bluntly, and Monica’s cheeks turned red.

  “Why?” Holly asked.

  “Isn’t it obvious?” he asked and upon realizing that Holly did not find anything obvious, he seemed to almost bite his tongue.

  “What?” Holly demanded.

  Monica slapped her own forehead. “Oh, come on, Holly. He’s into you, and I don’t mean as friends. And Tiff probably knows that. Everyone else in this office seems to know it. I know it. Brian obviously knows it.”