Nosy Neighbor: All 7 complete Nosy Neighbor cozy mysteries PLUS: 2 short Christmas stories (A Nosy Neighbor mystery)

by Cynthia Hickey

  “Doubt that will happen.” He finished his drink and crushed the can in his hand. “I’ve got football practice. See you at supper.” He bounded away with all the energy of a sixteen-year-old.

  I sighed and transferred my attention to Sadie digging under a hydrangea bush. “Sadie, stop that.” When the dog ignored me, I pushed off the chair and went to investigate. “I’ve spent a lot of money on this landscaping, you scoundrel. No digging.” I grabbed the dog’s collar.

  Sadie pulled against my grasp. In the dirt, lay a new rawhide bone, still clean and pristine against the mulch. “Where did that come from?” I picked it up.

  “Flowers.” Mom called from the house. “Just arrived for you.”

  Matt! I dashed toward the house, dropping the bone in the garbage on the way.

  On the kitchen table sat a bouquet of spring flowers. I grabbed the note and tore open the envelope.

  “Does your dog like my gift? Careful. You shouldn’t take treats from a stranger.”

  2

  “Call the police.” Obviously, I could no longer wait until Matt could handle my email stalker. The lunatic knew where I lived.

  “What’s wrong?” Mom reached for the wall phone. “Who are the flowers from?”

  “A crazy fan.” I tossed the note on the table and headed to the living room. After pulling the curtains closed against spying eyes, I fell onto the sofa. Being a romantic mystery writer was far more dangerous than plain romance.

  Fifteen minutes later, a navy sedan pulled into the driveway. Two minutes later, the largest black man I’d ever seen slid from behind the steering wheel. His burgundy dress shirt strained over his muscled arms and chest.

  “Mercy,” Mom said. “That is a big man. Are you ready to tell me what’s going on?”

  “I’ll tell you when I tell him.” I opened the front door, not wanting to tell the story once, much less twice.

  “I’m Detective Koontz.” He shook my hand and almost had to duck to step into the house.

  “I expected a regular officer.”

  He grinned, his teeth startling white against his ebony skin. “Not for Steele’s girlfriend. You get the royal treatment.”

  “I’ll make tea. Don’t say anything until I get back.” Mom rushed to the kitchen.

  “Have a seat, Detective. I’ll be right back.” While Mom bustled around the kitchen, I grabbed the vase of flowers and the note and headed back to the living room. Detective Koontz studied the pictures on the mantel.

  “Your sister has made some big changes around the precinct,” he said without turning. “Puts flowers on the desks, makes fresh coffee, brings in donuts.” He shrugged. “She’s spoiling us.” He faced me. “But, you like to make us work.”

  “Give me a little slack. I haven’t found any trouble in six months.” I set the flowers and note on the coffee table. “You weren’t here then, were you?”

  “Nah, but I’ve been filled in.” He grinned and squeezed into an easy chair. “I read your book, the fictional one based on what happened here. Interesting.”

  “Thanks.” I sat on the sofa across from him. An uncomfortable silence filled the space as we waited on Mom.

  Detective Koontz leaped to his feet when she entered carrying a tray and took it from her, setting it next to the flowers. “All right, then. What’s going on?”

  “I got these flowers today.” I handed him the note. “Maybe not too alarming on its own, but for the last few months, I’ve been receiving emails from a fan. I don’t respond to them, except for the first one, and now they’re coming every hour and getting threatening.”

  “You didn’t tell me this!” Mom planted her fists on her hips.

  I waved her to sit down. “While it made me nervous, I didn’t think too much of it until the flowers came. This nut job knows where I live.”

  “Do you have the emails?” Koontz’s brow furrowed.

  “Yes.” I rushed to my office and brought him back a handful of print-outs.

  He flipped through the pages. “It looks as if you have a stalker. May I take these to our computer guy and see what he can find out?”

  “Please, do.” I slouched against the back of the sofa. “What do I do in the meantime?”

  “Continue on as you are.” He stood. “I would advise not going anywhere alone, though. Celebrities don’t always have the easiest time of things.”

  “Here we go again,” Mom said. She rubbed her hands together. “Time for the Hickory Hellos to start investigating.”

  “No, ma’am.” Koontz shook his head. “You ladies will stay out of it. We don’t want any danger to come to you.”

  The poor man didn’t know my mother. “I have no desire to be at the receiving end of a gun again.” I rubbed the scar on my leg. No more short shorts for me.

  He shook our hand again, reminded Mom to heed his words, then left. I wanted to ask him what he would charge to be my bodyguard until Matt returned. No one in their right mind would wrestle with Koontz, or Matt for that matter. But Matt wasn’t there.

  “I bet it’s those people who moved into the Edgars’ house.” Mom peered through a crack in the curtains. “If it is them, I won’t be giving them a welcome basket.”

  The Edgars’ had lived next door until everything hit the fan. Then, with them being in the Witness Protection Program, they’d had to move. A new family, a husband and wife, had in last week.

  “I don’t think my stalker would be dumb enough to move next door.” I hugged a throw pillow.

  “Ms. Henley had lived right across the street, and you didn’t suspect a thing.” She gathered up the undrunk tea and headed back to the kitchen.

  Good point. I’d suspected her simple-minded son as a killer long before I knew Ms. Henley was responsible for the rash of killings in Oak Meadow Estates. She’d offed several people, all because folks got tired of her son Rusty peeping in people’s windows and were going to have him arrested. Miss Marple, I’m not.

  “My phone rang. I tossed the pillow out of my lap and grabbed my phone. “Twice in one day, Matt? I’m thrilled.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me you had a stalker?”

  Of course Koontz couldn’t wait to tell him. Undercover or not, the police had a way of getting a hold of Matt where I couldn’t. “I didn’t want you to worry. You have enough on your mind.”

  “Are we in a relationship or not?”

  “Well, yes, but—”

  “Am I in a position to help you?”

  “Usually, but—”

  “You should have told me. It hurts that you didn’t.” He was silent for several long seconds. “Keep Koontz’s number close. He’s a good man. I’ll call when I can. Love you.” Click.

  Ugh. Now, I felt like a horrible person. Sometimes, you just couldn’t win. What if Matt got into a dangerous situation and lost concentration because of worrying about me and something happened to him? I’d never be able to live with myself.

  “What do we do now?” Mama perched on the edge of the seat Koontz had vacated.

  “There isn’t anything we can do.” I set my phone on the table. “I know you’re itching to start gum-shoeing again, but we’ve nothing to go on.” Besides, I couldn’t erase the horror of the last time we tried our hand at crime solving. I wasn’t eager to put myself, or my family, into that type of situation again.

  “Pity.”

  “Don’t you have enough to do with your baking?”

  “Sure, but a little detecting during down time wouldn’t hurt.”

  “It could kill us.” I pushed to my feet. “I’m taking Sadie for a walk.”

  The moment I slipped the leash from the hook beside the back door, Sadie came running. She leaned up on me, bringing her face even with mine. “Yes, we’re going.” I laughed and clipped the leash to her collar. Despite the circumstances of finding the body of Sadie’s former owner, I counted myself blessed to have such a loyal friend. I chuckled at remembering how the dog and I had hid in a dog house together, both too afraid to com
e out and face the attacker.

  Without glancing toward the Henley house, which still stood vacant, I headed down the street. My new next door neighbors puttered in their backyard, stopping as Sadie and I got close. I tossed them a smile and a wave and started past.

  “Good evening.” A tall statuesque brunette got off her knees beside a flower bed and came toward me. A man, only a couple of inches taller than his wife, turned off the lawnmower.

  “Good evening,” I replied, trying not to sneeze at the tickle of freshly mown grass.

  “I’m Diane Wood.” She peeled off a pair of pink gardening gloves. “That handsome man is my husband, Mark. What kind of dog is that? It’s huge.”

  “This is Sadie, my Irish Wolf Hound. Don’t worry about her size. She’s a big baby.” Sadie leaned against me.

  “You’re the author, right? Stormi Nelson?” She grinned, showing professionally whitened teeth. “I’ve read all your books, even the murder one. That’s what attracted us to this house. I feel as if I already know all the neighbors, despite you changing their names.”

  I kept a smile plastered to my face, despite the new chatty Cathy who I feared would be a regular disruption to my life. “Thank you. Well, we’re off on our walk.”

  “Okay. We’ll find time later for a good long chat.”

  I felt her gaze on my back until I turned the corner. Please, God, don’t let my new neighbor be the stalker. At least not an evil one. I’d dealt with avid readers before, they didn’t worry me. It was those who came at me without showing their face that set spiders skittering up and down my spine.

  A car pulled alongside me. I turned to see Detective Koontz grinning from behind the wheel. “Should you be out alone? It’s getting dark.”

  “I’m not alone. I have my dog.” But not my phone or the gun and mace Mom had bought me months ago. “Did Matt tell you to keep an eye on me?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He turned off the ignition and exited the car. “Mind if I walk with you?”

  I shrugged. “It’s your feet that will be blistered in those dress shoes.”

  He laughed. “I can handle it.”

  His shoes beat out a steady clip-clop to my gym shoes’ softened slap. I could tell something was on the man’s mind, but decided to wait until he was ready to talk again. We strolled through the gates leading into the community and turned right. When we approached the coffee shop, he stopped.

  “Mind if we sit? I’ll get us both something to drink. What will you have?”

  “The biggest mocha flavored drink they have.” I pulled out a wrought-iron bistro style chair and sat, looping Sadie’s leash around the table leg. We didn’t usually venture out of the gated community on our walks, but if it would take time for Koontz to talk, I wanted to give it to him.

  The long-ago, once busy, Main Street sported a women’s boutique, floral shop, drugstore, ice cream parlor, and Ma and Pop convenience store. Too many of the store front windows were blank. It was easy to envision Mom’s bakery filling one of them. Her store would be one more step toward Main Street becoming the gathering place it had once been.

  Ordering Sadie to stay, I peered into the dark window next to the ice cream shop. Empty display stands filled the front half, while work tables occupied the back. I couldn’t see much more than that, but it looked perfect. I noted the number on the window to memory and returned to the table where Koontz sat watching me.

  “Okay, you can spill the beans now.” I sat and sipped my drink.

  “The IP address where the emails came from belongs to this coffee shop.”

  Smart man. While I’d thought I was leading him, he was steering me right to where he wanted me. I glanced toward the shop’s door. “You work fast.”

  “Matt asked us to rush it. Problem is … we have no way of knowing whether it’s one of the employees, or a customer, sending the emails.” He removed the lid to his cup and added cream.

  The delightful scent of roasted coffee beans pleased my senses.

  He caught me watching, and shrugged. “I like a little coffee with my cream.”

  I laughed. “That’s why I stick to the froo-froo drinks. I love the smell but the taste is too bitter.” I twirled my straw in my drink. “Where do we go from here?”

  His dark eyes met mine. “You be careful where you go and who you’re with until we catch this guy. Most stalkers aren’t dangerous, physically, but once in a while—”

  “You find one who goes off the deep end.”

  3

  The next morning, despite Koontz’s warning, I took my laptop to the coffee shop and settled down to write. I figured not much harm could come to me in a crowded place, right? This gave me the opportunity to scope out the other customers. I pretended to be involved in my work, while in all actuality, I continuously peered over my laptop and spied on the other customers.

  A young man typed furiously on a tablet, an elderly couple conversed while sipping coffee and eating pastries, while others simply sat and read. Quiet murmurs drifted from the other tables as patrons took advantage of free wifi and great coffee. Not a single person looked like a dangerous stalker to me.

  The male Barista appeared kind of creepy with dyed black hair under a hair net, more piercings than I had fingers on one hand, and dark eyeliner, but that wouldn’t necessarily mean he cared about how quickly I wrote my next book. Although, he would make an interesting secondary character.

  I ducked back behind my screen when Sarah Thompson strolled in. Don’t let her see me, don’t let her see me … she plopped onto the seat opposite me.

  “Hello.”

  I took my lower lip between my teeth and did my best not to grimace. “Hello.”

  “I didn’t think you came here to write.” She set a laptop on the table and opened it. “What fun. We can write together.”

  Oh, goody. “I can’t really write with distractions. I’m actually here to observe.”

  “The perfect place.” She grinned. “I come here all the time. The barrister, Tyler, he’s actually in my book. I changed his name of course, but he has an unhealthy obsession with one of my characters. Then there’s a young girl who sometimes comes in here, and she’s got a secret crush on him. In my book, of course. The story is all about her sexual fantasies. Brilliant, right?”

  I shuddered. Since I didn’t know what to say, I chose to keep my thoughts to myself, although I was dying to ask her how she planned on researching her current story. The woman’s imagination was eerie and horrifying. The answer might scare me into next week.

  “What are you working on?” Sarah asked.

  “My next mystery.”

  “Oooh, are you looking for a killer here?” She turned in her seat.

  If she only knew. “I’m only studying body language and such right now.” Too bad she couldn’t read mine. It was screaming for her to leave. “I need to use the restroom.”

  “Go ahead. I’ll watch your purse. You can trust just about anyone in here.” She waved a hand signaling for me to go.

  Despite my reservations, I went. I had nothing in the purse that couldn’t be replaced with a few phone calls, and I rarely carried more than twenty dollars in cash. When I’d completed my business, I headed back to the table, surprised to see Sarah at the front of the store conversing with a young girl in too short of shorts and a barely-there top.

  I grabbed my purse and checked my watch. Ten o’clock. Time to head across the street and see about renting the vacant storefront for Mom. “It was nice chatting with you, but I’ve an errand to run,” I called, closing my laptop. I slid it into its quilted bag. “Happy writing.” I flashed what I hoped was a grin rather than a grimace, and got out of there as fast as I could.

  Maybe it was wrong of me, but I didn’t want readers to think I wrote in the same, sick, twisted genre she did. My books might contain a little steam, but they were clean for the most part. Something I prided myself on. Anyone could write smut, it took a real author to create sexual tension without the reader having to
endure all the private details.

  I stood outside the empty store and dialed the number on the sign.

  “Weston Realty, this is Jane speaking.”

  “Hi, Jane. I’m interested in the property located at 302 Main Street. Could you tell me how much it rents for?”

  “It’s actually not for rent. It’s a commercial sale priced at one hundred thousand dollars.”

  Ouch. I could afford it, but it would take a big chunk of my savings. “I’m standing outside of it now. Could you possibly meet me here?”

  “I’ll be there in ten minutes.” Click.

  In eight minutes, a platinum blond, her red suit straining over ample curves, tottered toward me on stilettos. Her ruby-red lips parted in a grin. “I’m so happy to see someone interested. It’s a shame so many places on this street are empty, but one-by-one, we’re selling them.” She dug a massive key ring from her purse and unlocked the door. “I’m Jane Winston.”

  “Stormi Nelson.” I followed her inside. It was just as it looked from outside except for a small bathroom tucked into a corner and a slightly larger storage room opposite it. “I’ll take it. Can I write a check?”

  Her eyes bugged. “You want it now? Oh, wait, you’re the author.”

  I smiled. “I’m purchasing this for my mother. Is the seller willing to pay for any renovations?”

  “I’m afraid not. The previous owner died years ago.” She pulled my mystery book out of her purse. “Will you sign this for me? I’m halfway finished and loving every word. For you, I’ll drop the price to ninety-thousand. It actually belonged to my uncle.”

  “Thank you.” I signed my name on the cover page with a flourish and dug in my bag for the checkbook. Mom would be so thrilled.

  A few minutes later, I headed home with a receipt in my purse. The official title of ownership would arrive in the mail in a few days. I could hardly wait to see Mom’s face that evening when we had cake and presented our gifts.