Laura Bishop Cozy Mystery Boxed Set: Books 1-3

by Grace Topping

  Will had a rapt audience in Tyrone. “What could connect a man who lived outta the country for more’n twenty years and an artist who just moved to this area and probably never met him?”

  “Right now—nothing but pure coincidence.” I finished my sandwich, wadded the wrapper into a ball, and placed it in my bag. “There’s been talk about a serial killer, but with Monica being found as she was, that possibly rules out the serial killer theory.”

  “Lessen you consider Monica could be the serial killer—killing both that Reynolds fellow and the man in the funeral home. Did you ever think that?” Will looked smug as though he had solved both crimes.

  He was another reader, who enjoyed stories of intrigue—the more outlandish the better. To my mind, Monica was the Wicked Witch of the West and could have stabbed Damian. But a serial killer? Not even I could swallow that. Serial bully maybe.

  Nita returned and slumped into a chair. “That was my niece Jaime. She found the home of her dreams.”

  “That’s great. Why are you looking so grim about it?” Tyrone asked.

  “Because her place isn’t ready. If she doesn’t sell it right away, she’ll lose the house she wants.” Nita unwrapped her sandwich. “To top it all off, she just learned about Damian’s murder and is really upset.”

  “Upset? Did she know him?” I stopped gathering our trash and stared at her.

  “That I don’t know.” Nita took a long swallow of water. “She works at the college, so maybe she knew him. But getting back to Jaime’s house, before her husband went on active duty with the Army Reserves, they did all the major things that needed to be done, like making repairs and painting. But it still needs to be staged.”

  “We can help her with that.” I wiped some crumbs from the table with my hands and brushed them into the trash bag.

  “In their situation, she wouldn’t be able to pay you much.”

  “Nita, are you crazy? She’s family. I wouldn’t charge her anything.” Nita’s family had been good to me over the years, and I was willing to help any of them. “As soon as we leave here, let’s go see what her place needs. We can come up with cost-effective ways for her to make the place appealing to buyers. And while there, we can find out why she’s so upset about Damian Reynolds.”

  I called Aunt Kit to let her know I wouldn’t be home until late that evening and asked her to feed Inky. She said she and Anne were going to see a movie and she would see me in the morning.

  With our break over, we returned to work. I referred to our master list to see what remained to be done. Nita and I had developed a routine. We all did certain things, which prevented us from duplicating effort. I always did accessories with recommendations from Tyrone, who always had good ideas. Sometimes a single pop of color could make all the difference in a room.

  Once the rooms were set up to our satisfaction, Will and Tyrone removed all the wrappings we used to protect the items we’d brought with us and took them back to the truck.

  Tyrone shouted goodbye and left to return the rental truck.

  Will waved his hat in farewell. “See ya’ll next time. I’m headin’ home to walk Pinto and do a cleanup along Battlement Drive.”

  Nita and I waved goodbye to Will and then began our final check of the place. We looked for any stray bits of dust or lint, vacuumed the room to fluff up the rugs or carpets, plumped pillows, and checked that the accessories weren’t overdone. Before we left, Nita photographed each room, and we checked the list of items we left there so we could update our inventory. Another job completed. I sent a text to the real estate agent listing the house to let her know the staging had been completed.

  Now, what were we going to do about the emergency facing Nita’s niece?

  Chapter 15

  Home stagers offer various levels of home staging—from giving homeowners a list of things they can accomplish themselves; to staging a vacant home by bringing in furniture; to arranging for work to be done by painters, plumbers, landscapers, etc.

  “Thank goodness you’re here.” Jaime was pacing on the front sidewalk as we drove up. Her red eyes showed she had been crying. When she saw us, she patted her hands together like a small child anticipating a surprise. “I couldn’t believe it when Aunt Nita said you were willing to help me.” Her eyes welled up with tears. “Sorry. This has been a terrible day.”

  I felt sorry for the young woman. To have such highs and lows in one day would be almost too much for anyone to handle, much less someone left handling the sale and purchase of a home while her young husband was away. The timing couldn’t have been worse for her. And learning about Damian Reynolds hadn’t helped.

  I used my most soothing voice—the one I used with clients who are desperate to sell their homes and have become stressed. “Let’s sit down and talk about what needs to be done.”

  “Everything,” she wailed. “The house Frankie and I have been watching finally came on the market. I have his power of attorney, so our agent put in a bid for us. The homeowners accepted our contract, but it’s contingent on our selling this place first. And they’ve only given us a few days to sell it. To make it look good enough to sell quickly, I have so much to do. And with Frankie away, it’s all on me. And now, hearing about Mr. Reynolds, I’m so upset I can’t function.”

  I was surprised the homeowners were willing to give Jaime and Frankie time to sell their house and wasn’t sure they could sell it within the short time allowed. But Nita and I would do everything we could to make it happen.

  Jaime went to get a Kleenex to wipe her eyes.

  “What do you think, Nita?” I surveyed the living room while Jaime was gone.

  “I recommend we remove some of the oversized pieces. Right now the rooms look too crowded, making the place look smaller than it is.”

  “Good idea, but what I meant was why do you think she is so upset about Damian?” It felt strange calling him by name since I had never had any dealings with him. But I didn’t want to keep referring to him as that famous artist. “Is she just super emotional and cries easily at someone’s death?”

  Nita shrugged. “Sometimes. It’s hard for young people to deal with death.”

  “It’s hard for any of us, especially when the person was murdered.”

  When Jaime returned, Nita didn’t hesitate to question her. “Jaime, why are you so upset about Mr. Reynolds? You weren’t involved with him were you?”

  Jaime’s head jerked back. “Aunt Nita. Of course, I wasn’t.”

  “Your aunt is only teasing you.” I frowned at Nita. Would she ever learn to be subtle? If she wanted to know something, she’d ask direct questions without any subtlety. Like the time she’d asked Sister Madeleine, our second-grade teacher, what kind of underwear she wore beneath her habit. She hadn’t improved with age.

  “Did you know Damian Reynolds well?” I wondered how broadly she’d interpret my question.

  “I provided admin assistance to him at the college. He’d only been there a short while, but I found him to be very nice. Except for the last time I saw him. He was preoccupied with something, and I had to keep calling his name to get his attention. That seemed to annoy him. It’s just so sad that he was murdered. And no, Aunt Nita, I wasn’t involved with him. He was seeing a lot of that interior decorator he hired. She used to wait for him outside in that red convertible of hers.”

  Apparently, Jaime hadn’t heard about Monica’s involvement in his death.

  “I once saw him get in the car and kiss her,” Jaime said.

  So as we suspected, Monica and Damian had more going on than business dealings. I wondered if I should tell Detective Spangler or let him figure it out for himself. But he probably already suspected Monica had killed Damian during a lovers’ quarrel.

  It was a relief to know that Jaime hadn’t been involved with Damian. Now it was down to business getting her house ready for sale.

 
“Who’s your agent?” In the short time I’d been in the home staging business, I had met many of the agents in town and received referrals from them.

  “Doug Hamilton at Hamilton Real Estate.”

  Doug Hamilton and his movie star good looks. A stunning lookalike for a young Robert Redford, Doug had been involved in the sale of the Denton mansion Tyrone and I had staged. He was a nice enough person, but I still had a deep-seated aversion to handsome men, or perhaps more a wariness. Let’s just say that based on my experience with good-looking men, I steered clear of them. Doug had retired from the Navy and had come home to help his ailing father with his real estate agency. Since then he’d obtained his real estate license.

  “Doug is a nice guy. I think you are in good hands.” I pulled out my tablet and checklist to make notes. “Okay, let Nita and me tour the house on our own, and we’ll work out a plan.” It was better to look at the house without being escorted by the homeowner, who often would talk throughout the tour and be distracting—especially when the homeowner was extremely upset and worried about the sale, causing us to miss things.

  Jaime’s house was typical of one owned by a young couple. A bit bland, too cluttered, and lacked cohesiveness. Fortunately, following Nita’s advice, Jaime and Frankie had recently painted the walls a neutral dove gray and made needed repairs.

  In each room, we noted what we could do immediately, what things we recommended Jaime purchase, and what we recommended she remove. Some of the things we would help her with and others we would make recommendations, and it would be up to her to decide how she wanted to proceed. Nita took before photos.

  After that, we got busy rearranging furniture, boxing up items Jaime didn’t need until after they moved, rehanging prints on the wall that had been hung too high, switched a rug from one room to another, and did myriad things. At the end of the night, we were exhausted but pleased with the result. It was a cute cottage and would appeal to a young couple or a single person. I was hopeful someone would fall in love with it in the next few days.

  As we drove home, I thought again about what Jaime had said about Damian. What had he been so preoccupied with the day he was murdered?

  Chapter 16

  Show off the amount of storage space your home has by clearing out unnecessary items from closets and shelves.

  The next morning, I received a call from Josh, saying he had identified a place in one of his warehouses that might work for us. I made arrangements with him to check it out.

  On my laptop, I pulled up my inventory of furniture and home furnishings. Since we had just furnished two unoccupied houses, we didn’t have as much inventory on hand, but we’d soon be adding to it.

  I’d just disconnected from Josh when another call came in, this one a result of the Small Business Fair, asking if we could meet with the homeowner about staging her place. It was a relief to know the fair and the expense of printing the brochures hadn’t been a waste and that new staging work had come from it. Hopefully, we’d get even more business from the fair.

  The third call I received wasn’t as welcomed. Not the message anyway.

  “Laura, this is Nita. Neil just called to say Monica has been formally charged with Damian Reynolds’s murder.”

  I went through the rest of the day in a fog. If we hadn’t arrived at Damian’s house when we had, would Monica have gotten away from there? Would it be our testimony that convicted her of murder? The thought utterly depressed me. I was thankful I hadn’t been alone in witnessing Monica standing over Damian’s body with a knife. Given our history, my testimony on its own might have been suspicious.

  Later, Aunt Kit and I had a light supper of chicken salad with fresh mixed greens. Neither of us had an appetite for a heavier meal. We left soon after eating for a meeting of the Mystery Lovers’ Book Club being held at Marshall Library. If I hadn’t already invited Aunt Kit to go along, I might have been tempted to stay home—clean the attic, upholster the living room sofa—anything as an excuse to skip it. I was that exhausted.

  Since I didn’t want to miss the talk my friend and former teacher, Sister Madeleine, was giving on clerical detectives in fiction, I decided to go. It had been Sister Madeleine who had nurtured my friendship with Nita, knowing my life at home was dreary and would be perked up by the loving and fun Romano family. She had also been the one who’d introduced me to mysteries, giving me my first Nancy Drew book. After that, she’d introduced me to books by Mary Stewart, Phyllis A. Whitney, and Helen McGuiness and then more recent ones by Elizabeth Peters and Sue Grafton. We’d bonded over our love of traditional mysteries. Since we were both natural-born problem solvers, trying to solve the puzzles presented in real life also appealed to us.

  The parking lot at Marshall Library was nearly filled when we arrived. The book club drew a fair number of people in town to discuss a shared interest and enjoyment of traditional mysteries. A few fans of crime novels, police procedurals, and thrillers also attended. With the topic of clerical detectives in fiction, Sister Madeleine had been the natural choice to give the talk and lead the discussion afterward.

  When we walked into the library, Aunt Kit wandered off to scan the bookshelves while I claimed two seats for us. I always felt that Aunt Kit enjoyed her visits to Louiston primarily because of the Marshall Library’s wide selection of books. She frequently complained about her local library’s small collection and the lack of a bookstore in her village.

  When she joined me and plunked down a large stack of books on the table in front of us, my heart sank. She would have to stay for weeks to read all those.

  Will Parker sat down near us, and I introduced him to Aunt Kit. He tipped the cowboy hat he was never without. “Howdy, ma’am.”

  When I discovered Will enjoyed reading mysteries, we had some good discussions about the authors we liked, and I invited him to the library’s book club meetings. He had been attending the meetings ever since.

  Aunt Kit looked up in surprise at Will’s southwestern accent. “What brought you to this part of the country. I would imagine it is quite different from what you are used to.”

  “You can say that again. Everything is so green here. I settled here ’cause my daughter Claire thought I was getting too old to look after myself. A lot she knows. I think she wanted someone to help her with all those kids she has.”

  “Whose books do you enjoy, Will?” Aunt Kit asked.

  “I’m partial to Tony Hillerman’s books. They’re set out West in an area I’m familiar with. Sure was sad to learn he’d died.”

  “But you should know that Hillerman’s daughter Anne picked up the Leaphorn and Chee series,” Aunt Kit said. That resulted in a discussion of the merits of that series.

  While we waited for the meeting to begin, Will and Aunt Kit discovered they were also fans of conspiracy theory books. They quickly became fast book friends.

  The meeting began, and after a few business affairs were discussed, the leader of our book group turned control of the meeting over to Sister Madeleine.

  On her way to the lectern, Sister Madeleine paused next to my chair and whispered, “Stay after the discussion. I need to talk to you.”

  What could that be about?

  Sister Madeleine gave an amusing and informative talk about amateur clerical detectives, such as Father Brown, Sydney Brown from Grantchester, Brother Cadfael, Clare Fergusson, Rabbi Small, and others. I never realized there were so many clerical detectives. Sister Madeleine knew her subject and drew on her experience as a teacher to keep certain members of the group on the topic. One member kept trying to steer the discussion to which was better, the books or the TV series featuring the detectives discussed.

  Sister Madeleine’s presentation captured the groups’ interest, and the discussion continued afterward even when members moved over to the refreshments table. It made me wonder why she hadn’t tried her hand at writing detective fiction. Maybe she had.
I’d have to ask her. She had so many varied interests it wouldn’t surprise me.

  I left Aunt Kit talking to Will Parker, discussing the latest conspiracy theories, both in fiction and real life, and went in search of Sister Madeleine. I found her sitting away from the other members at a table near the back of the room and took a seat across from her. The look on her face was quite solemn.

  Uh, oh. I had a feeling this was going to involve something I wouldn’t like and sure enough it did.

  Like Nita, Sister Madeleine wasn’t subtle and didn’t mince words. “You know they’ve arrested Monica Heller for Damian Reynolds’s murder? She didn’t do it.”

  I was too stunned to talk. When I recovered from my surprise, I could barely get words out. “I’m one of four witnesses who found Monica standing over Damian’s body with a knife in her hands. I hate to say this, Sister, but she looked pretty guilty.”

  “Did you see her stab him?”

  “No.” I squirmed in my seat, remembering the image.

  “Then how do you know she did?”

  I sighed. “There can be no other logical alternative. We caught her red-handed. Literally. As much as you would like to think she’s innocent, how can we believe otherwise?”

  “Because she told me she didn’t kill him.”

  It took all I could do not to roll my eyes. When was I ever going to be able to break myself of that bad habit? Sister Madeleine wanted to think the best of everyone, and it was obvious she didn’t want to think Monica, one of her former students, could be capable of murder. Nita, Monica, and I had been in the first class Sister Madeleine taught as a young nun. She had a special fondness for us, and as she watched us grow, we became like the children she never had.

  “When did she tell you she didn’t kill him?” I asked.

  “As soon as I heard she had been arrested, I went to see her at the jail. At first, they weren’t going to let me in, but I convinced them I was her spiritual advisor, so they relented.”