String of Lies

by Mary Ellen Hughes

  Praise for

  STRING OF LIES

  "Jo McAllister is a wise-beyond-her-years heroine with a big heart ... Mary Ellen Hughes writes with precision, affection for her characters and an obvious talent for using the English language" -- Cozy Library

  "Filled with craft tips, this mystery is an enjoyable tale. Jo and her friends make pleasant companions as well as quick-witted sleuths. With just a hint of a possible romance, this series promises to grow even more intriguing as it goes on."

  -- Fresh Fiction

  STRING OF LIES

  A Craft Corner Mystery

  by

  Mary Ellen Hughes

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright 2012 Mary Ellen Hughes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  CHAPTER 1

  Jo should have been tipped off when things began going much too well – always a danger sign in her life, but one she still somehow managed to ignore. She couldn’t, however, ignore the huge “Closing Soon!” poster pasted in the window of Fantastic Florals by Frannie, just down the block from Jo’s Craft Corner. Jo was on her way to pick up an order of sandwiches at the Abbot’s Kitchen for Carrie and herself, when she stopped dead in front of Frannie’s shop, staring in disbelief at the sign.

  Closing? But Frannie’s place was always bursting with customers. Jo pulled open Frannie’s door and called out without preamble, “What’s going on, Frannie?”

  Frannie, short and plump, and a regular dynamo of creativity with fresh flowers, looked down glumly from the ladder where she balanced on the third rung, holding a Teleflora poster that had previously hung on her wall. “I’m closing shop,” she answered.

  “Why? I thought your business was going great.”

  Frannie stepped carefully down the ladder, the top of her head gradually sinking below Jo’s until it ended about even with Jo’s shoulder. She looked up at Jo, her expression both angry and resigned, and said, “We’re being kicked out.”

  “But don’t you have a lease?”

  Frannie shook her head. “I was just about to renew it, when I found out my landlord isn’t my landlord anymore.”

  “Come again?”

  “My landlord sold the building. He’s not my landlord anymore.”

  “He can do that?”

  “Yup.” Frannie set down her poster and took hold of her ladder, sliding it sideways a few inches.

  Jo automatically grabbed one leg to help. “But what about the new owner? Can’t you rent from them? You’ve obviously been a great tenant.”

  Frannie looked at Jo with an expression of defeat on her face. Jo had never seen this feisty florist, a woman she had once overheard threatening a supplier with throat-constricting consequences if he didn’t get an order of wedding flowers to her pronto, look so down.

  “Parker Holt doesn’t want tenants. Or this building. He wants the property, and all the other properties on this block, so he can tear them down and put up something brand new and fancy. Mine’s the first, or at least the first we know of. Who knows how many other properties he’s gobbling up on the sly? Have you talked with your landlord lately, Jo?”

  Jo felt her insides quiver. This conversation had taken a frightening turn. “Max? No, no I haven’t.”

  “Well, I’d strongly suggest you do. Now, excuse me, dear. I’ve got some more dismantling to do.”

  Frannie reascended her ladder, and Jo numbly left the floral shop, looking dazedly about for signs of other businesses crumbling as she continued on her way to the sandwich shop. How could this be? She thought this neighborhood was solid as a rock, the perfect spot to set up a new business.

  “Parker Holt made us a good offer,” Ruthie Conway, co-owner with her husband Bert of the Abbot’s Kitchen, admitted. She reached out one age-spotted hand over the counter to pass Jo her bagged order of turkey and bacon roll-up and tuna salad on wheat. “It’s tempting, you’d better believe it. Bert and me, we’re not getting any younger, you know.”

  “So you own your building?” Jo asked.

  “Sure do. We bought it over thirty-five years ago, when nobody else wanted it, the condition it was in. But we fixed it up, little by little. It’d be hard to walk away from something we put so much work into. But with Bert’s back acting up more, we maybe should be thinking of retiring. I don’t know. Hate to do it, you know? We’d really miss our customers. They’re like family, most of them.”

  Jo nodded. Ruthie had made her feel welcome in the neighborhood from her very first day last September. And their sandwiches, with Bert’s special sauces, were more than worth coming out for on cold January days like today. What would Jo do for lunch if Ruthie and Bert sold out? She winced as the obvious occurred to her. What if she had no business to take a lunch break from?

  Jo hurried back to the Craft Corner, clutching her sandwich bag closely to her chest as the cold wind whirled about her. “Carrie,” she cried, yanking open her shop door, sending the Christmas wreath that still hung there flying out perpendicularly. Time to replace that with something Valentine-y, she thought as she rushed past.

  “Carrie, who’s Parker Holt and where’s Max McGee’s Florida number?”

  Carrie looked up from the diamond-shaped yarn bins she was filling with newly arrived skeins. “I suppose the number’s in your file somewhere. And why do you care about Parker Holt? Did he grab the last turkey-bacon roll-up at Ruthie’s?”

  “He might be grabbing more than that.” Jo peeled off her jacket on the way to her office cubicle at the back of the shop. She dropped the sandwich bag on her desk and her jacket on the chair, then pulled open a file drawer, rifling through it for her landlord’s phone number.

  “What’s going on?” Carrie asked, unwittingly echoing Jo’s very words to Frannie as she followed Jo to the back, still clutching a skein of heather blue wool in her hand.

  “That’s what I have to find out.” Jo looked up at her longtime friend and part-time employee, dressed in a loose denim jumper to accommodate, she’d explained that morning with a woeful grin, her added holiday pounds. “Parker Holt bought Frannie’s building out from under her. She’s closing up shop.”

  “What!”

  “And he’s made an offer that might be too good to refuse to Ruthie and Bert. He’s trying to buy up the block, according to Frannie, to tear it all down.” Jo pulled her hands from the file drawer and looked at her friend. “Carrie, what will I do if I can’t stay here?”

  “But you have a lease,” Carrie said, her tone hopeful.

  “Only for six months, remember? I thought I was being so clever, not tying myself up to the business in c
ase it didn’t work out. But after four months, and a surprisingly good Christmas season, my books are actually starting to show some black. I want to stay, Carrie. And with all the money I’ve sunk into the place, I need to stay.”

  “Oh, Jo.” Carrie looked as woebegone as Jo felt. After her husband Mike’s tragic death, Jo had come to Abbotsville mostly because of Carrie who had suggested that Jo, with her art background, could make a go of an arts and crafts shop in the town where Carrie and her husband, Dan, had settled.

  They had both helped scout out this location, and Dan, a home improvement professional, had stretched Jo’s meager funds wonderfully by setting up the shop’s interior – shelves, lighting and everything else – for her. Carrie, with her vast needlework skills, had even volunteered to run that part of the shop, which Jo was convinced had made all the difference in drawing customers to her fledgling store.

  Carrie and Dan, therefore, had good reason to feel as much pride in the Craft Corner’s budding success as she did. And would take the blow of its demise as hard.

  “Well, let’s not panic until we have to,” Jo said, trying to sound a little less worried than she was. “Maybe Frannie’s landlord is the only one who’s caved in to Parker Holt. Who is this guy, anyway?”

  “He’s a big developer.” Carrie set down her skein of wool on Jo’s desk and pulled up a chair. “You’ve seen Holt Meadows, haven’t you?”

  Jo nodded, remembering driving, on one of her early trips down here, through the winding roads of the impressive community just outside of town. She had drooled over the houses but knew there was no way she could afford one, needing to sink most of Mike’s modest life insurance payment into her business.

  “Well,” Carrie said, “Parker is the Holt behind it.”

  “Oh. Wow.”

  “And he’s behind that new office building that’s going up near the center of town, where the old library used to be.”

  “I’ve heard people complaining about that, how it’s changing the character of the town, and all.”

  “And,” Carrie stopped, looking uneasy.

  “What?”

  “He’s also Dan’s employer, for the time being, anyway.”

  “He’s the well-to-do homeowner that gave Dan the big remodeling job?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “And here I was, prepared to hate him. But I know how excited you were when Dan got the job.”

  “It’s an important one, for what it could lead to as much as for what it’s paying.”

  Jo nodded. Her old school friends Carrie and Dan had made sacrifices to get Dan’s business off the ground, including moving away from family and friends in tiny Glenn’s Crossing to the broader possibilities of Abbotsville. It had been slow going, but Dan had gradually built a reputation for fine, honest work, and in his business, word of mouth was everything.

  “Well,” Jo said, “we at least know that Parker Holt has the good sense to hire the best.”

  Carrie grinned. “Yes, indeed. At least as far as his own home is concerned. Dan doesn’t have much to say about the work on some of his other projects. 'Slapdash' and 'corner cutting', I believe were words he used. But when it comes to his place, Parker Holt pinches no pennies. But he also checks every inch of work with a magnifying glass, according to Dan. And interrupts him all day long with constant phone calls.”

  “A real control freak, huh?”

  “Sounds like it.”

  “Oh,” Jo said, glancing down, “duh! Here’s Max’s number. It’s right here on my blotter, circled and everything. Let me call him, and we’ll see just how much control Mr. Parker Holt actually has.”

  The shop’s door dinged, and Carrie left to take care of the customer. Jo punched in the Florida number and waited. “Come on, Max. Climb out of that pool and answer your phone,” she grumbled, drumming her fingers on her desk. But when the answering machine kicked in she calmly said, “Max, it’s Jo McAllister,” then hesitated, unsure what else to say. Are you selling my business out from under me? Sending my life once again into a tailspin? Tempting, but she added only, “It’s very important. Please call me back,” and gave her number. She hung up, feeling dissatisfied. Should she have explained her reason for calling? Would it get her a return call sooner? How soon should she try again if she didn’t hear from Max?

  Too many questions. Especially on an empty stomach. Jo reached for the half-forgotten bag of sandwiches, and opened it up. The best answer to almost everything, at least for the moment, was turkey and bacon with Bert’s special sauce. She unwrapped it and bit down, savoring the flavors that spread across her tongue, then groaned as yet another question popped up.

  And if Bert decides to sell? What then?

  <><><>

  By late afternoon, Jo had attempted to reach Max twice more without success, hanging up on the answering machine each time. She tried to take her mind off of it, telling herself the man was semi-retired, after all, and wasn’t sitting at a desk all day, taking calls. But the little bit of stock tidying she busied herself with between customers wasn’t doing it for her. So when Carrie began to talk about Sylvia Ramirez and her tote bags, Jo welcomed the distraction.

  “I told you about Xavier, didn’t I,” Carrie asked, and when Jo nodded, said, “Dan’s been so glad to find him, says Xavier’s the best worker he’s had in ages, and so reliable. Anyway, Sylvia is Xavier’s wife, and they’re expecting their first baby soon, so she’s recently stopped working. But she’s been making these amazing hand-made bags, quilted and beaded and such, for family and friends. I saw them the other night and thought how she could make a little money from them if she had the right outlet.”

  Jo caught where Carrie was going. “The right outlet such as Jo’s Craft Corner?”

  Carrie grinned. “Only if you like the idea, of course. Sylvia and Xavier have been having a tough time of things, ever since they lost everything in Hurricane Katrina. And I mean everything. They’re still struggling to get back on their feet. Dan isn’t able to pay Xavier very much yet, and they could probably use the extra income. But aside from that, the bags Sylvia makes are really quite beautiful. I think they’d be a terrific draw for customers.”

  “Let’s ask her to bring some in, then,” Jo said.

  “Really?” Carrie looked delighted. “I could probably get her in today, have her bring a couple samples for you to look over.”

  “If you say they’re good, Carrie, I’m sure they are.” Jo thought it wouldn’t hurt to put a couple bags near the needlepoint kits, and who knows? Maybe someone would be attracted by their novelty and actually buy one. She could see how much this meant to Carrie, who cared as much about her friends’ well being as her own. So Jo was willing to help Carrie help Sylvia, in this small way. At least, that is, as long as she had a shop to do it in.

  Two customers walked in, and Jo took care of them while Carrie called Sylvia. The two had come mainly for scrapbooking supplies, and gathered a modest pile of purchases on the sales counter. But one, the slimmer of the two, hesitantly added a small kit Jo had packaged up for a bead-trimmed key ring as well.

  “You shouldn’t have any trouble with this,” Jo assured her, “but come on back if you do, and I can help you out.”

  The woman’s face brightened. “Oh, thank you!”

  “Plus, we’ll be starting a few beading workshops soon if you’re interested in something a little more intricate.” Jo slipped a flyer printed with information on the workshops into the woman’s bag, and handed it over to her.

  Carrie hung up the phone as the customers left and turned to Jo. “Sylvia said she can be here at four.”

  “Terrific.” Jo said, taking in Carrie’s happy face. She hoped she herself would be as pleased by 4:30 or so.

  <><><>

  Pleased was not the word for it. Sylvia Ramirez could have been pulling rabbits out of a hat and not amazed Jo more. The “hat” was a simple, white plastic trash bag Sylvia had used to transport her quilted bags, and her modest demeanor displayed
none of a magician’s flamboyance. But she might as well have cried “abracadabra!” as she pulled one handbag after another out and placed it on Jo’s counter. Even though the basics of handles, pouch, and zippers were identical, each bag was so different from the others. The uniqueness came from the designs Sylvia had stitched into them with her quilting and trims. One had a delicate flower pattern, another took on a charming animal face, and a third simply swirled with rainbow colors.

  “I love them,” Jo declared.

  Sylvia, her dark hair pulled back and held simply with a white scrunchie, beamed, rounding out her face to a near perfect circle.

  “You think you can sell?” she asked.

  “Definitely. How fast can you make them?”

  Sylvia laughed, a light ripple that ran up half an octave. “Now, I have nothing else to do, mostly. I was cleaning houses, but with the baby coming, Xavier wants me to stay home. Our little place I can clean in two minutes. Rest of time, I can make bags.”

  “Perfect. Let’s figure out what a good price for them would be. What do your materials cost you, Sylvia?” Jo grabbed a clean sheet of paper and wrote down the figures the young woman pulled out of her head. Jo reached for her calculator to total the numbers up and work out percentages, and before long came up with a price that would give both the Craft Corner and Sylvia a reasonable profit.

  “We’re going to start a fad right here in Abbotsville, mark my words,” Jo declared.

  “A fad?” Sylvia looked puzzled. “What is a fad?”

  “A fad means every woman in town is going to want her own signature “Sylvia” bag before long. They’ll be pounding at the doors, money clutched in their fists, waiting for our next shipment to come in.”

  Sylvia spilled out her musical laugh. “No ships. I’ll carry them over myself.”

  “Well, at least they’re light. I wouldn’t want you to overburden yourself.” Jo looked at Sylvia’s rounded middle. “When is the baby due?”