Craft Circle Cozy Mystery Boxed Set

by Stacey Alabaster

  "Don't worry, Georgina, it's still your group," Brenda said with a condescending little tap on the arm.

  Mmm-hmm.

  My group. Sure.

  I didn't even have a chance to say hello to my new “friends” before Brenda called a close to the meeting, clapping her hands together and announcing that they'd all meet again next week. I just stood there open-mouthed while the rest of the women stood up and thanked Brenda for being such a gracious host.

  They giggled and chattered like a pack of hens while I stood on the outside of the group, close enough to hear them laughing but not close enough to actually hear what they were saying.

  I was a forty-four year old woman, for crying out loud. Far too old for any of this junior high-level ridiculousness.

  I cleared my throat. "Well then, Brenda, I'm sure that you won't mind my leaving now. Jasper needs to be fed. Please take care of 'my group' for me, won't you?"

  She grinned. "Oh, I will, Georgina."

  It was still light when Jasper and I returned to my large, glass house by the lake, so we retreated to the backyard so that Jasper could get some exercise. At first, distracted by the events of the meeting, I didn't realize anything was amiss. I threw a ball for Jasper to fetch, which he happily and proudly returned to my feet. I have a sizeable yard and Jasper appreciates all the space. I'd rescued him two months earlier, when I first moved to Pottsville, and even though he could occasionally be a lot to handle, he was my best friend and hardly ever left my side. I had another dog as well, another rescue, a tiny white fluffy terrier called Casper who was a bit shyer and quieter, more independent.

  "I wonder if I’m ever going to fit into this town, Jasper. Oh well, at least I have you and Casper. You guys always keep me company." I tossed the ball for Jasper to fetch again so that he could get some more exercise after being cooped up for much of the day. "And on my toes."

  My own legs were aching so I stretched them. Maybe I was 'young' compared to the women Brenda had gathered for her new group—sorry, 'my' group—but I still wasn't as young as I used to be and day after day spent on my feet took its toll. I leaned back against the back porch and let the sun hit my face, basking in the last few dying rays of the day.

  Jasper put his paws on my knees and started licking my face, which brought me back to life. "Okay, okay," I said, laughing as I tried to push him away. "You don't need to eat my face off."

  I could tell he was getting hungry. "Okay!" I said, slapping my thighs before I climbed to my feet. "You've made your point. Let's get you some dinner."

  I pulled the dry dog food out of the pantry and opened up a can of wet food while Jasper bounced up and down trying to get to it. "Wait! Sit down!" I commanded him in vain. I had to push the food out of his reach while I went and fetched the two dog bowls. "It's not just you that needs food," I called out to Jasper. "Your little sister needs some too!"

  "Casper!" I called, banging the metal spoon against her dog bowl. "Time for dinner!"

  Where was she? I'd assumed she'd just been sleeping somewhere when I'd got home. Unlike Jasper, who never left my side, Casper was a little more independent and could keep herself occupied for hours. She'd definitely make herself known when it was dinner time though!

  "Casper!" I called again, louder this time. "Dinner is ready!"

  Strange. She never failed to come when she heard the magic D word. Jasper was bouncing up and down at my feet, whimpering for me to dish the food out. "Yes, boy, just hold on a minute," I said as I opened the door to the yard and went back out.

  Now I was getting worried.

  Jasper obediently followed me, even though his food was on the other side of the door. "Jasper? Where is Casper?" I asked as I slowly walked out into the yard. Of course, he couldn't answer me. And he'd been with me all afternoon so he wouldn't know even if he could speak. I was just hoping he had some kind of doggie instinct that would allow him to magically know where Casper was, which would allow him to find her for me.

  But he just looked up at me with big wide eyes as if to say, don't ask me. "Thanks, you're a big help," I said, my heart pounding a little faster as I did a survey of the yard. I could tell Jasper was getting worried as well; his tail dipped as he followed me around and he'd lost his trademark bounciness.

  I held my breath a little as I approached the gate, fearing that I was going to find it swinging in the wind.

  I never left the gate open. But it only takes one time, doesn't it? I almost didn't want to look. What if Casper had escaped, and I was responsible?

  "Come on, Jasper, let's go check," I said, calling my trusty companion back from the other end of the yard where he was sniffing at something. I needed moral support.

  I started to breathe again when I saw that the gate was still fastened tight. Thank goodness.

  But if Casper hadn't escaped out the gate, where was she?

  Jasper took off again and ran back to the other side of the yard, sniffing in the same spot again near the fence.

  "What is it, Jasper?"

  As I grew closer, I spotted I something right underneath the fence. "What are you sniffing at?"

  Perhaps it was stupid of me, but I’d never checked the fence before. I'd bought the house 'as is' for a bargain (might have had something to do with the murder that had taken place there a year before I moved in) and hadn't yet bothered with any changes or renovations. On one side of the yard there was a forest, and a lake, and on the other two sides of the fence, grassland. The next closest neighbor was a hundred feet away. I'd thought the yard was secure enough to leave dogs in. Had I made a terrible, tragic mistake?

  Underneath the fence was a small hole. It wasn’t big enough for a big dog like Jasper to get through, but was enough for a tiny dog like Casper.

  Oh no.

  "Come on, Jasper, she couldn’t have gone too far!" I said, grabbing his leash and my hat as we raced out the door. I wasn't entirely confident on that point, though. Casper might have had small legs but she was capable of trotting along at a great speed. And we were rapidly losing sunlight.

  "Casper! Casper!" I called her name as loudly as I could, getting the occasional stare from passersby and even some people cooking dinner in their homes as we raced down the winding roads of Pottsville.

  Jasper was full of energy the whole time and kept stopping, pulling on his leash, to sniff at the ground. Every time he did, I thought he must have gotten the scent of Casper. But every time I was bitterly disappointed.

  And so was Jasper.

  "I'm sorry, Jasper, you must think I am the most irresponsible pet owner of all time." I couldn't believe I had been so careless. I'd never considered that meek and mild, little, well-behaved Casper would even be capable of digging a hole and plotting her escape. Jasper? Yes. I could believe him doing it. That was one of the reasons I never let him out of my sight.

  We'd just about lost all the daylight when we came upon a small clearing right near the woods. I let Jasper off his leash so that he could have a run and do his business, knowing with a heavy heart that we would have to turn back soon.

  "Come on, Jasper, time to go," I said, calling him back. He had found something though, and was in no hurry to listen to me.

  "What is it, Jasper? Have you found her?"

  My heart actually stopped beating as I realized that Jasper was standing over something lying very still and limp. He let out a loud bark and then a howl that made me jump, but at least brought my heart back to life.

  Oh, please don't be Casper, I begged, running over to see what he was barking and howling at.

  "Jasper, is it..." I stopped and gasped.

  But the thing he was standing in front of was long—over five feet long. Casper was less than a foot in length.

  It wasn't a dog at all. It was a human being.

  A dead human being.

  Chapter 2

  "Looks like we're going through a bit of a heat wave," Ryan Mathews said as he put on his sunglasses and grinned at me. "It's about time it warms
up. It always brings the tourists down to the lake."

  I wondered why Ryan cared about tourists, given his line of work as a police officer. It wasn't like he was in retail, or any industry that benefited from an increased population. Quite the opposite, actually. More people meant more trouble, didn't it?

  "I hate to tell you this," Ryan said, surveying the fence and the hole where Casper had made her escape. "But you really should have walked around your fence to see if your dogs could escape."

  "You don't hate having to tell me this," I said to him with my eyebrow raised. "Something tells me you like showing off when you’re right." I looked at the fence and sighed. Jasper sat down by my feet and pouted. He had been all out of sorts ever since Casper had disappeared. So had I. But I was trying to keep it together on the outside and I was better at hiding my feelings than a border collie was.

  "Well, maybe," Ryan had to concede. "But I am truly sorry that your dog is missing."

  There was still a pit in my stomach from when I had found the body two days earlier. "So am I."

  "Let's take another walk around the neighborhood," Ryan said, sounding hopeful. "I'll help you look for her." I wasn't about to turn down that offer, and not just because I needed help trying to find Casper. Ryan might be a bit younger than me—twelve years, give or take—but we were on a similar wavelength, and I had more in common with him than I did with the people my own age in Pottsville.

  "So have you always lived in this town?" I asked as we took off across the neighborhood. The area of Pottsville I live in is out of the way of the main drag, surrounded by the lake and the forest, and the roads are long and windy and stretched out. I still hadn't gotten around to getting a car, so I went everywhere on foot. I have a tall, slim figure naturally—I was a dancer, once upon a time—and all this walking was doing my figure a lot of good.

  Ryan shrugged noncommittally. "Kind of a long story," he said. "But long story short, yes, for most of my life, I have lived here." Huh. Sounded like an interesting story for another time. He let out a long sigh and a light laugh. "I suppose Pottsville feels like home to me. What about you, George? Does it feel like home to you yet?"

  I frowned as I thought about the answer to his question while Jasper tugged at his leash. We weren't going fast enough for his liking. "Hmm, does this town feel like home?" I mused, looking at the lake on our right. If I could block out everything else and just concentrate on the idyllic scenes and fresh air of Pottsville, then yeah, it could feel like home to me.

  But there were a few other issues stopping me from feeling warm and cozy toward the town just then. There was the small matter of my being on the outs of my own craft circle.

  And the big issue of the dead body near the forest.

  "Not fitting in?" Ryan asked sympathetically.

  "I suppose it's just going to take a little bit of time."

  I reached up and wiped a line of sweat from my forehead. Ryan was right; Pottsville was going through a sudden heat wave. Good news for the upcoming festival, I supposed, as we took a lazy walk around the block. But the Pottsville Arts and Crafts festival was something I was trying to put to the back of my mind. That was next week's problem. I still had this week's problem to deal with. Well, make that multiple problems.

  "Casper!" I called, but I felt as though I was just going through the motions at that point. Two days had passed and there hadn't been any word or sightings. There had been nothing.

  Ryan was trying his best to be cheerful and positive, though. That was one of the things I liked about him. That and the fact that he was really cute. I also liked that he was a member of the local police force. I'd had an ulterior motive for asking him to come and look at my fence that morning. I was just choosing the right moment to broach a very delicate subject. "I'm sure she couldn’t have gotten far. Someone probably spotted her and took her home," Ryan said, trying to reassure me.

  "Yes. They probably want her for themselves, she is a very cute little dog," I said. I supposed that was the best eventuality, actually, given the other things that could have happened to her after her escape. "There aren't any coyotes around here, are there?" I asked, glancing toward the forest.

  Ryan shot me a look of slight horror, like he couldn't figure out whether I was genuinely worried or just making a sick joke. It was the former, for the record. Sometimes I have a habit of jumping to the worst-case scenario, as a sort of defense mechanism. "George, don't go thinking like that," he scolded me, before adding, "And no, there aren't."

  I let out a deep breath and kept walking, trying to make some casual conversation to lighten the mood.

  A half-hour or so had passed. We weren't having much luck finding Casper, but it did give me the opportunity to try and build up the courage to ask my questions and to think of a way to make them sound as casual and off-the-cuff as possible. When we passed the forest, and that familiar clearing, the opportunity finally presented itself.

  "It's shocking what happened here the other evening, isn't it?" I asked Ryan, acting like it was the first time I'd even thought about the dead body that I'd found there two nights earlier. I let out a strong shiver as if to emphasize my point.

  Ryan stopped and glanced over at the clearing. "I'm surprised you're not more shaken up by that," Ryan commented. He frowned. "And I'm surprised this is the first time you are bringing this up."

  "Takes more than a dead body to unsettle me," I replied quickly. "Besides, I am getting used to them by now." I turned to walk away, pulling on Jasper's leash. He was happy to go back to the spot where he had made his gruesome discovery, but I was in no hurry to get up close again.

  "I suppose you are," Ryan commented. For once, it had not been Ryan who was the first on the scene of the crime. He hadn't even been at the scene at all, as far as I could tell. Still, he had to know something, didn't he? "We should keep walking," he said quickly, trying to change the subject. I'd been anticipating that. I needed to tread carefully if I wanted to get any details out of him.

  "I'm just wondering who the poor girl was," I said, my voice a careful mix of casualness and concern.

  "George," he cautioned me gently. "I'm really not supposed to talk about this. Not even with you," he said before glancing around covertly. "I do take my job seriously. I can't discuss it."

  "I know, I know," I replied. "But I was the one who found the body, wasn't I? Doesn't that earn me some kind of special privilege?"

  "Hmm, not sure about that." He laughed lightly. "I know you think it does, though."

  I let out a heavy sigh. "Come on, Ryan. I know I give off the image of a well adjusted, 'nothing fazes me' woman, but it has been keeping me up the last couple of nights." I stopped walking and looked into his eyes. A little difficult given the aviators he was wearing. All I could see was my reflection staring back at me. And I really did look worried. Boy, the town sure had done a number on the carefree, laissez faire George I had once been, hadn't it? I frowned and leaned in a little further, using the sunglasses as a mirror. Had I aged the last few weeks or what? Was that even possible? Was that a gray hair I could see looking back at me?

  Ryan finally decided to take pity on me by letting a little tidbit slip, but not before he checked around us first to make sure that no one was listening to our conversation. "Look, so far we don't have an I.D on her."

  Now that surprised me. I thought everyone in this town knew everyone else. I was surprised no one down at the station had recognized her. "So she had no identification on her? Nothing?"

  Ryan shook his head and took Jasper's leash from me. I hadn't even realized it was slipping from my hands. "How will you figure out who she is? Ryan, you can't just leave her a nameless, faceless woman." I was a little horrified to learn that no one knew who the poor girl was. I was shivering for real now, even though it was almost ninety degrees outside.

  "We're working on that," Ryan said as he tugged on Jasper's leash and kept walking, but he sounded a little uncomfortable as he said it. I wondered if that was because
it wasn't really him who was working on anything. He wasn't a detective, he was just a uniformed officer, and I sometimes got the feeling he was a little sensitive about the subject. I wondered if maybe he just couldn't tell me anything because he wasn't high enough up the rankings to know, and he was a little embarrassed to admit to it.

  We arrived back at my house without me even realizing it. Ryan passed me the leash and pet Jasper goodbye.

  The search for Casper had remained fruitless. "Can you call me when you know something?" I asked Ryan as he left.

  He sighed and opened his mouth, like he was about to say 'no,' but then closed it and nodded, waving goodbye.

  I piled Jasper's bowl high with dog food and placed it on the ground for him to gobble up. He'd been getting almost a double share since Casper had gone missing, but I knew I couldn't keep indulging him like that for more than a day or two. I'd have to give him some extra exercise to make up for it. Not that he hadn't been getting plenty of walks. We'd basically done nothing but walk the neighborhood for days, putting up signs and calling Casper's name.

  I jumped up on a stool at the kitchen counter while I watched Jasper engulf all his food in practically one mouthful. I wondered if he was missing having his little friend in the house. I'd gotten Casper only a few weeks after I'd rescued Jasper. Casper had originally belonged to a woman in Pottsville named Amanda, who had met a tragic end six weeks earlier, much like the poor woman near the woods. There had been no one else to take her dog in, and I hadn't minded adopting her. I'm a dog person, and I tend to like them more than I like humans. Well, that's not totally true. I just have an easier time bonding with them, I suppose. Especially in a new town.

  Meanwhile, I hadn't heard another peep out of Ryan, and I could have sworn he was avoiding me. I started to suspect that he knew more than he was letting on and just didn't want to have to tell me, hence his conspicuous absence from my life.