Fatal Fiction (A Book Barn Mystery)

by Kym Roberts

  I picked up some of the stuffed bumblebees and placed them in as neat a display as I could manage, then moved the A-frame chalkboard that read The Book Barn Princess Is Open! to the courtyard, where the arrow could point to the side door. With one last look, I went back in the store and got ready for the crowd of customers that would hopefully be pouring through my door at ten o’clock.

  A wistful smile crept across my face. I’d always liked to dream big.

  I put the fifty dollars of start-up cash in the antique register my mom had picked up at an estate sale when I was seven years old. She said it was worth a week of us eating fried bologna. At the time I didn’t think so. I ate the bread and dropped the meat in my napkin. Now I loved the ornate scrolls of the machine and the sound of the ding when I opened the drawer of the register.

  I still avoided bologna at all possible costs.

  I swept the floor since we hadn’t gotten to it the previous night, and returned the dustpan to the back room, refusing to think about walking over the spot where Marlene lost her life. I didn’t have to worry about it too long, though, because I soon found Princess tearing out pages on a first edition of the Nancy Drew mystery The Secret of the Old Clock.

  The noise I made sounded like a ghost dying, which in and of itself was a little spooky. Princess jumped straight up in the air—the only way to describe it would be a hunched-over cat on a hot tin roof, the Texas sun included in that image.

  She even made a noise that competed with mine on the spooky scale.

  “Princess, no!” I waved my finger at her as if she was a five-year-old. She pouted, turned around, and waddled out the curtain.

  I picked up the pages and wondered if it could be rebound, which would cost me an arm and a leg I didn’t have to spare. I thought about Scarlet’s tea set crafted out of Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple mysteries. Could she make something out of this too? The woman was a creative genius—Scarlet, that is. Ms. Christie was beyond genius.

  I hung up the dustpan and broom and returned to the register with the book and ten torn pages in hand. They were all legible except for the very last page. It had a hole in the middle the size of my fist. Apparently, Princess liked the taste of Nancy Drew. Then I noticed that one page was completely missing. It was no doubt in the digestive tract of a hard-shelled rodent.

  Glancing at my watch, I was shocked to see that it was five minutes to ten. I quickly stashed the pages inside the book and stuck it under the counter. I looked around to make sure everything was in order and made my way to the door. With any luck I’d get a handful of customers who would pay for dinner. It wasn’t exactly the best way to do business, but I had to pay myself somehow.

  I took a deep breath to get myself in the right frame of mind. I pulled down my skirt and unlatched the top half of the door from the bottom. The door originally had been designed for a horse to hang its head outside, but since The Barn didn’t have any equestrian inhabitants, a human head would have to do.

  The first thing I noticed as I started to push open the door was the noise. Voices carried and bounced off the stone buildings and I couldn’t fathom what could create such a stir. When I got the door halfway open, someone grabbed it from the outside and pushed it open the rest of the way.

  “Excuse me,” Mr. Draper said as he pushed the door against the exterior wall and a crowd of people stepped out of his way.

  The entire courtyard was full. Not that it was a large courtyard; it could only hold about fifty people, but there were more people there than I had ever seen in town. Most of them were familiar, and if not readily recognizable, I knew by the people they were standing with where they belonged. Scarlet was in the middle of the crowd, flanked by Joellen and Aubrey, who I was pretty sure should have been in school.

  Tracy and LouLou from the bakery were talking about a new cinnamon roll recipe and still had on their aprons. Franz, the baker himself, was helping Mrs. Walker with a shopping cart. I was pretty sure it said Country Mart on the seat, but it’d been spray painted blue.

  Coach stood next to them with his assistant coach and Mrs. Phelps, my high school English teacher, who had to be approaching eighty.

  Joe Buck stood behind Cade. Joe’s smile was bright and he had his arm around Mike Thompson’s shoulder like he’d dragged him there and wasn’t about to let him sneak off. Mateo was there, although I’m not sure why. Maybe he and the blond female deputy with him were there to keep the peace. Or they expected my father to show up.

  I highly doubted it.

  Several of the servers from the diner stood together off to one side, taking turns glancing at their watches and cell phones since it was getting close to lunch and that meant their time to earn the most tips.

  I looked at Scarlet, who nodded in Cade’s direction. and my eyes returned to my high school sweetheart.

  “On behalf of the citizens of Hazel Rock, we’d like to give you a formal welcome home and wish you the best with The Book Barn Princess,” Cade said and handed me a key.

  “Wh-what’s this?” I asked, unsure of what he was giving me the key to. His heart? The store?

  “It’s a key to Hazel Rock. We know you’ve run into hard times since coming home, but we wanted you to know that we appreciate everything you’ve done to the store to make it fit in with the rest of the town.”

  “I . . . I . . . thank you,” I finally spat out. It was about as far from eloquent as it got.

  Coach wasn’t about to be outdone. “And for the art classes these two lovely ladies are going to start, I’ve made something special.” Coach and Joe Buck moved to the side and exposed an eight-foot table sitting in the courtyard.

  “Isn’t it beautiful?” Scarlet asked.

  It was beyond beautiful. I wasn’t sure what type of wood it was, but the planks were rounded on the bottom like uncut logs bound together, with a flat, smooth satin finish on the top surface.

  Scarlet beamed. “And this here,” she said as she scooted past Mateo with what looked like an elbow to the ribs, “this is for donations to your dad’s legal fund.” She handed me an old safety deposit box converted into a bank. On the front, scrolled on the clear glass in gold it read BOBBY RAY’S LEGAL FUND. Bills of every denomination—including hundreds—filled the interior.

  I didn’t know what to say. The town was stepping up and supporting my dad—and me. My eyes filled with tears. I tried to blink them away, but two spilled down each cheek.

  Scarlet wiped her own eyes and handed me a tissue. “OMW. I think you’d better open up that store before the floodgates open up around here.”

  I laughed, and there was a loud whoop from the crowd.

  “The Book Barn Princess is open for business,” I proclaimed. “Step on in and enjoy your trip to a whole ’nother world!”

  Chapter Twenty

  It took every able-bodied man and woman to get the new table to the second floor. When Scarlet mentioned we needed a second one, a collective groan filled The Barn. At that point, Coach looked at me and told me the next one would be built in place. I heartily agreed.

  The day turned out to be a huge success. Every piece of book art sold except for one pumpkin. But it wasn’t just any gourd; this one was special. Made out of a Cinderella book, it was above and beyond what fairy tales are made of.

  The pumpkin was shaped into Cinderella’s carriage, with the tips of the pages embossed in gold leaf and lit from the carved-out interior, which held a battery-operated candle. The wheels were made of heavy gold jewelry wire that scrolled around so smoothly I had a hard time imagining anyone could bend it without putting in at least one kink. Scarlet had papier-mâchéd two toy horses with several book pages and curled thin strands of more gold-leaf paper edges for the manes and tails. It made the hair look ablaze with fire. The horses’ bridles were made of gold ribbon and draped delicately over the carriage seat. The hooves were also in gold leaf, and I had no doubt the entire project had to have cost her a chunk of change and time.

  Scarlet had snuck it over o
n her lunch hour and it now sat on the shelf above the register. I was glad she had proclaimed it property of The Book Barn Princess and not for sale to several of the big-haired customers who just happened to follow her to the store. While she was there, Scarlet told me the gossip about Marlene had hit an all-time high at the beauty shop that morning, but she wouldn’t go into detail.

  “I think it’s time you were reintroduced to the Tool Shed Tavern,” she said. “I’ll come by to pick you up at seven. Monday Night Football will mean an early crowd.”

  No one ate the cookies I’d set out—except me. I would have eaten more, but Mateo had shown up with grilled chicken and a side of broccoli salad for me at lunchtime. He didn’t want to get a call for service about a young woman passed out behind the counter.

  Scarlet, who’d stuck around until after he left, said Mateo was smitten.

  Seriously? I laughed it off, not ready to think of the man in that way.

  After ringing up my last customer a few minutes after six, I locked up the store and balanced my register. The big news of the day: there was $257 inside the cash drawer and $1,500 in the box for my dad’s defense fund. Not too shabby for my first day’s work.

  I paid myself fifty dollars and hoped that would be enough to get me through the week. It was definitely below minimum wage, but a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do to bail her daddy out of trouble. I put fifty dollars back in the register and locked it up. The rest of the money went in a bank bag we left under the register and then I headed for the tearoom to lock up the funds in the safe.

  Except the safe wasn’t there.

  All I found was a stack of dusty, damaged books hidden in its place under the counter. It looked like the safe hadn’t been kept there for years. I made a mental note to locate the safe tomorrow and said good night to Princess, who crawled out of her bed and yawned in my direction. I never would have thought an armadillo could yawn until I saw her do it. I let her outside to roam around the dry riverbed in back before heading upstairs to grab a quick bite to eat.

  Scrambled eggs never tasted so good.

  I brushed my hair and my teeth and was swiping on a fresh coat of mascara when I heard a scratch at the door. I looked out the glass-paned door and found Princess sitting on the porch, waiting patiently to get in. At least I assumed she wasn’t irritated. It was kind of hard to tell when I didn’t know what an impatient armadillo looked like.

  “That was awfully fast.” I opened the door wide enough for her to enter.

  Princess cocked her head and waddled past me to the kitchen. Before I had the door locked, I heard a bowl scooting across the floor.

  “I take it that means you’re hungry.”

  Princess pushed her bowl with her snout in response.

  About that time, I got a whiff of her special scent and ran for the sink with her tubs. “First, you bathe.”

  Ten minutes later she was clean and pushing her bowl around the floor again.

  “What flavor do you want tonight? Tuna? Chicken? Liver and other gut innards?” I asked as I opened the cupboard that contained stack upon stack of canned cat food.

  I held out two cans of food for Princess to choose from, one red can and one blue. She stood on her hind legs and rested her front paws on my wrists. The feel of her claws digging into my skin was worse than that of a cat, but I held my comments to myself. Her ears twitched as she sniffed both cans, looked at me, and blinked before nudging my right hand, which held the blue can of tuna.

  “Tuna it is.” I pulled away, trying not to topple her over, and opened the can. She started eating before the bowl touched the floor and I had to admit her skinny little tongue was kind of dainty and cute in a weird sort of way as it slid out and gathered one small bite at a time. But it was the food dish that held my attention as with each lick it squeaked across the floor.

  I couldn’t help but wonder if Marlene had made it. The jewels were haphazardly attached to the aluminum dish, some in clumps and others spread too far apart to form a pattern. The whole thing appeared to be done in the style of a five-year-old’s art project. Not that I was judging it—just noticing whoever’d made it didn’t have my momma’s eye for design.

  I hate to admit that the idea of another woman living in the apartment ate at my craw. This was my family home. A home that belonged to the original three amigos. No one else.

  Even if two of the amigos were gone.

  My phone rang and I grabbed it off the counter, expecting Scarlet to tell me to get my butt in gear. “Hello?”

  “Princess?”

  If Scarlet were here she’d say, OMW. My response wasn’t quite so polite.

  “What the . . . Daddy?”

  “It’s me, darlin’. I can’t tell you how good it is to hear your voice.” He sounded the same as he had the day I left.

  “Where are you?” I asked. I wasn’t sure yet if I was happy he was calling or mad that he still hadn’t shown up in person.

  “I think you’re better off not knowing.”

  “But—”

  “I know Mateo is looking for me. I don’t want you to be accused of harboring a fugitive.”

  “Then come home. We can get this straightened out.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why can’t you?” I asked, my voice tight with a growing sense of irritation.

  “There’s something I need to do first.”

  “What could possibly be more important than Marlene’s murder?” I demanded. The silence on the other end immediately made me regret my angry outburst. “I’m sorry.”

  He sighed, as he always did before a particularly tough explanation. “It’s okay. I deserved it.”

  “Not this time.”

  “No, but in the past I have.”

  I couldn’t argue with that, but I’d come home in order to move forward with my life. I needed to move forward. Funny how you make those sudden realizations when you least expect it. “We can talk about that later. Right now we need to go talk to the sheriff.”

  “Mateo’s a good man; I’m not worried about him.”

  “I am!”

  “Don’t be. What I want you to know . . . no, that’s not right. I need you to know that I didn’t mean to hurt you, but I was wrong. I screwed up. I should have known J. C. was behind that unexpected shipment of pregnancy guide books. A gift horse is never a gift. I should have sent those books back,” he confessed.

  “Yet when the rumors started you didn’t say a word. You kept those books out in the store window and told me to just ignore them. To walk through town with my head held high!” I sounded like an angry teenager.

  My dad’s voice was low, he sounded almost ashamed. “I couldn’t beat J. C. I owed him.”

  “Owed him for what? What could you possibly owe Cade’s daddy? What was more important than my reputation, Daddy?”

  There was a long pause, and I didn’t think he was going to answer. When he finally did, his voice was just a whisper. “The roof over our heads.”

  “Wh-what?” I knew I’d misunderstood him. We owned our roof—didn’t we?

  He finally broke the silence. “When your mother died, her medical bills broke us. That’s why I wanted to sell The Barn after she was gone.”

  I closed my eyes, unable to face what I’d done to my dad, my family. “But I wouldn’t let you.”

  “It was all you had left of her. You were only ten.”

  My anger was gone, replaced by a sense of foreboding. “So you turned to J. C.? Why not the bank?”

  “The bank wouldn’t refinance The Barn. We didn’t have any equity in it. I got a loan from J. C.”

  Even though I knew why he’d done it, I had to ask. “Why?”

  I could hear his voice cracking as the tears poured down my cheeks. “Because I’d do anything for my little princess.”

  “Oh, Dad. Why didn’t you tell me? If we’d only talked it through . . .”

  “It was my burden to carry, not my baby girl’s.”

  “But all
these years I thought you conspired—”

  “I wasn’t innocent.”

  “You weren’t guilty then, just like you aren’t guilty now. Come home. We’ll work it out.” My voice cracked on old emotion I’d wrongly thought was gone. I missed my daddy.

  “I can’t.” I could almost see him shaking his head.

  “Why?”

  “Just promise me you’ll be careful. I think I know why Marlene was killed—”

  “Then go to the sheriff and tell him everything.”

  My father wasn’t swayed. “I have to take care of something first.”

  “What?” I’d tear my curls out if he didn’t answer. “What could possibly be more important than this?”

  “Your future.”

  Fuzz buckets. I closed my eyes, wishing all this would just go away. I was just as responsible for all of it as anyone. “Daddy . . .”

  “I’ll call you before I come home—just to make sure you won’t swing a bat at me by accident when I show up.”

  “Daddy—” I started, but he was gone.

  “I love you.” The dial tone didn’t respond. I shoved my phone into my purse and threw it over my shoulder. Then I blew my nose and looked in the mirror. No one at the bar would notice I’d been crying. The lights would be too dim.

  I walked back into my bedroom, grabbed a scarf and wrapped it around my neck. Then I grabbed the keys off the counter before telling Princess, “Don’t wait up. I may be late.”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Scarlet was in the courtyard waiting for me when I went through the gate. Her red hair pulled up off her neck in a messy updo that turned spiky at the top. Her long bangs were no longer smooth, silken curls but appeared brash and edgy, just like the rest of her. Jessica Rabbit was gone. I was now looking at a younger, shapelier version of Scarlett Johansson as the Black Widow in a black leather miniskirt and five-inch stilettos that still didn’t bring her up to my height. Her breasts were threatening to spill out of a royal blue peplum blouse that hugged every curve. I’m not sure she wouldn’t have fallen out if it hadn’t been for the sheer black lining that looked like a long-sleeved blouse underneath and gave the illusion of respectability.