Girl in the Shadows (Cozy Mystery) (Diamond Files Mysteries Book 1)

by Angela Pepper

  Chapter 3

  There’s no place like home, and there’s no street quite like the one you grew up on. For me, it was Warbler Street, named after the small, vocal birds. One Christmas, my sister and I were given a beautifully illustrated encyclopedia of local birds. I loved looking at all the warblers and picking which one I felt the street was named for. My favorite was Dendroica petechia, the Yellow Warbler, a bright harbinger of spring.

  Spring and summer could never come fast enough when I was a kid. I steered the car past the corner where my sister and I had once sold lemonade by the glass on hot, sultry, endless days. Warbler Street was our jungle gym. We’d play until dusk, hiding and seeking, marking the sidewalks with chalk, refusing to come inside until my father threatened to put out an APB and have us arrested.

  Now, the trees and houses seemed to have shrunk. With a blanket of snow over everything, my sunny memories seemed even more precious.

  I parked in front of my father’s house. The interior lights were off. Knowing he wasn’t there, inside the home, gave me an uneasy feeling, like a preview of some future I didn’t want to consider.

  I pulled my phone from my purse and called him. We’d spoken before my meeting with the real estate agent, so while the phone rang and rang, I worried he’d turned off his phone in preparation for surgery.

  He finally answered with a cheerful greeting, his voice colored by his mild Irish brogue. “Talk fast. They’re coming to wheel me away.”

  A lump in my throat road-blocked my words. Hospital noises echoed in the background. Someone asked if he was warm enough or needed a blanket. The mental image of my brave, strong father in a blue-green smock, being wheeled into an operating room, took me by surprise. Painful emotions surged through my chest.

  “You still there?” he asked. “Stormy, you should have seen the look on the old doc’s face when I gave him his gift, a brand new measuring tape. I told him I wanted both legs the same length, or else every anniversary of the surgery, I’ll come to his house and kick him with whichever leg’s longest.”

  “Oh, Dad.” I shook my head and let a laugh ease my pain.

  “Don’t you worry about a thing. This doc has a good sense of humor, and he’s got an excellent success rate. I’ll be fine. What’s going on with you?”

  “I’m parked in front of your place.”

  “The house is still there? Pam hasn’t burned it down?”

  I quickly told him about that morning’s visit and my current mission. “Remind me, Dad, what’s the cat’s name?”

  He chuckled. “There’s no point in naming something that doesn’t come when you call it.” He told me to hang on while he spoke to someone there with him. “Showtime,” he said when he returned to the line. “Thanks for taking care of Pam for me. I owe you one.”

  “Good luck.” I would have told him I loved him, but he was already gone.

  I put the phone in my purse. My chest ached if I held still, so I seamlessly moved on to my next task, grabbing the pet carrier and supplies. Everything would go well, I told myself. He was strong and healthy, plus the orthopedic surgeon had a brand-new measuring tape.

  The cat was sitting on my father’s porch, looking pretty, all long legs, sleek gray fur, and elegant jade eyes.

  I opened the pouch of cat treats as I approached. The goodies had a strong salmon aroma. I blew over the pouch as I shook it, sending the smell to the cat’s sensitive nose. The gray tail swished, but the cat stayed in place.

  “What’s the matter? Cold feet? The snow must be cold on your little toes.”

  The cat yawned, bored with my simplistic patter.

  “Cut me some slack,” I said. “At least I’m not yelling at you, like Pam would.”

  The cat’s eyes narrowed at the mention of Pam.

  “Not a fan? You and me both,” I said under my breath.

  I glanced around, feeling embarrassed about talking to a cat. I saw nobody, but the back of my neck tickled as if I was being watched. I opened the door of the pet carrier, sprinkled a few snacks inside, and got closer to the porch.

  The cat’s dark gray ears twitched. It ignored me and looked off at something else.

  I followed the cat’s gaze over to the neighbor’s yard. A creepy face, pale and round, stared back at me. Startled, I dropped the pet carrier with a clatter. But there was no pale-faced person watching me. Just a snowman. He wore a formal top hat and a jaunty red scarf, like the classic snowman you’d see on a greeting card.

  While I was distracted, the cat whipped past me in a streak of gray, darkly visible against the bright snow.

  I grabbed the carrier and gave chase, stumbling through the overgrown hedge between my father’s yard and the neighbor’s. The cat led me straight to the dapper snowman, scaling its body in bounding leaps. The cat scrambled up, toppling the snowman’s black hat and then taking the hat’s place, right on top of the head. From its new vantage point, about six feet above the ground, the cat surveyed the neighborhood and began licking one elegant front paw.

  Undaunted, I put the pet carrier on top of my head and proceeded calmly. Sniffing the salmon-flavored treats, the cat strolled right into my trap. I closed the cage door and pumped my free hand in a fist.

  I set down the carrier and picked up the top hat. Feeling whimsical, I plopped the hat on my own head and pulled out my phone for a snazzy self-portrait. This would be the perfect image to show my ex I was having a great time and had made the right decision in walking away from everything we’d built. In the photo, I looked rosy-cheeked and happy. The snowman, however, had a crooked grin that made him seem creepy.

  I decided to take a better picture once I’d fixed his crooked grin. I rearranged a few of the pebbles that formed his smile, but that wasn’t enough. It wasn’t his grin that was off-kilter but his whole head.

  Meanwhile, the cat had finished the snacks and meowed impatiently inside the carrier.

  “Just a sec,” I said. “I’m giving this snowman a face-lift, so to speak.”

  I grasped the base of the perfectly round ball forming the snowman’s head and pushed up. The head didn’t budge. The cat meowed again, sounding irritated.

  “I know we don’t have time,” I muttered to the cat. “But I want my old friends to see that my life is perfect, and a crooked snowman face doesn’t cut it.”

  I gave the snowman three firm karate chops to the neck, through the red scarf. The ball jiggled as it came loose. I grabbed hold and gave it a solid tug up. The snowy ball split in my hands, revealing a core that was definitely not snow. Stunned, I dropped the two hollowed-out halves.

  Sticking up from the upper body was another head, a human head. I blinked in astonishment. This had to be a prank by neighborhood kids. Some clever brat had re-purposed a Halloween costume to give someone a scare.

  But rubber masks usually resemble famous people, not my father’s cranky neighbor, Mr. Murray Michaels. This face was highly detailed. It even had eyelashes. The chill in my hands spread through my entire body. This wasn’t a Halloween mask that looked like Mr. Michaels.

  Frozen inside the snowman was the actual Mr. Michaels.

  I stumbled backward, sucking in air, preparing to run or scream or both. But I didn’t scream, and I didn’t run. Something propelled me forward, slowly. I reached out and gently touched the man’s cheek. The flesh was cold, frozen solid, and he was not just dead but very dead. If there were such a classification as very dead, Murray Michaels would be in that group, along with mummies from Egypt and those cadavers that are plasticized for scientific display.

  His face showed no bruising or marks, and no blood was visible on the surrounding snow. I carefully brushed away some of the snow around his neck, jerking my hand back when I touched something unexpected. It was just the collar of his shirt. I shook my head at myself for being jumpy before leaning in to examine some dark purple lines on his neck.

  Behind me, a man yelled, “Hey, lady! Get away from there!”

  *END of SAMPLE* -- continue
reading in Stormy Day Mystery #1, Death of a Dapper Snowman, available now, along with 3 other books in the series!

  Stormy Day Mystery Books

  A traditional-style contemporary cozy by Angela Pepper. This is a classic small-town cozy with a terrific cast of quirky characters and all kinds of investigation-related shenanigans.

  Click here for all the Stormy Day books on Amazon.