It wasn’t until after the service that Mr. Butterball came up to me and discreetly handed me an official-looking envelope. I didn’t open it until I’d returned to my one room apartment that was overtop an all-night diner. I’d been surprised when the contents of the envelope contained information regarding a reading of my grandmother’s will. It had taken place the following day, but my attendance had been the only one required.
I knew then that my mother had been cut out of the will. It seemed my Nan had gotten in one last jab from the grave. Hence, why I haven’t told my mom that I was coming to Paramour Bay. She would have been hurt, rightfully so, and she would have absolutely had me try and sell the place so that I didn’t have to set foot in the town in which she’d been born.
Only problem?
My grandmother had made a stipulation in her will that was ironclad—under no circumstances could I sell the tea shop until at least twelve months had passed from the date of her death.
Another itsy-bitsy clause stated yet one more thing that I haven’t mentioned. I would have to reside in Paramour Bay for those twelve months or else the proceeds of the sale would go to…get this…a super strange wax museum on the edge of town.
“What the heck is that?”
The horror that laced Heidi’s tone had me spinning around to look at the back of the store. I saw nothing that could have garnered that type of response.
“What?”
I darted my eyes over to the small counter in the back corner, where Heidi’s attention had been drawn. There was nothing there but a cash register and a feathered pen sticking out of its holder. Was that what Heidi was pointing out? The feathered pen in place of the usual black credit card machine?
“Um, nothing.” Heidi was frowning, which was never a good thing. She tilted her head to the side, studying the feathered pen. “I could have sworn…”
Heidi’s voice trailed off as she started to weave through the various high-top tables that were positioned for guests to sample specific teas. You realize that this means I have to use my evenings from now until the end of time to research tea leaves, their different flavors, the numerous ways to properly make the so-called civilized beverage, and how to actually make it taste good, right?
I suspect several cubes of sugar would have a great deal to do with that.
I tried to quell my panic, because it wouldn’t do me any good. I was stuck here for twelve months, whether I liked it or not. But that didn’t mean I had to be here all alone.
“Are you sure you can’t get a few more days off? After all, there was a funeral.”
I wasn’t happy that Heidi had to return to New York City in the morning, but at least she’d been able to accompany me on the long drive here. She worked in accounting at the place where I used to answer phones, but she’d been smart and gotten her degree at night school.
Fortunately for me, she’d been able to take a long weekend to escort me here to this tiny speck on the map. She had stood watch and made sure my mother didn’t accidentally see me packing all of my belongings into the back of my beat-up Corolla. She was everything a friend should be, but she would be over a hundred miles away should something go horribly wrong.
I briefly wondered if there was a way to avoid the train Heidi would be catching at some ungodly hour before the sun rose, but I did need her to be back in the city before I called my mother to break the news of my recent relocation to the northern coastline.
“I used up all my vacation time when I went to Maui with Patrick.” Heidi fanned herself as she forgot all about whatever bothered her a few moments ago. She’d been head over heels with Patrick ever since he’d removed his shirt to fix a pipe underneath her sink. “And it was totally worth it. Besides, you’ll be fine here. It’s only for twelve months, right? Then you can come back to the city, where we’ll return to our wicked little ways.”
I had to laugh at Heidi’s description of our personal lives. Wicked was on the totally opposite end of the spectrum from which we existed. We were both closing in on our thirties, and our ever-changing views of the dating world, the work force, and basically our future had snuck up on us when we weren’t even looking.
I wasn’t sure I was ready for my thirties, but I certainly couldn’t stop time from marching on.
“Heidi, you’re right.” I held up my hand so that she didn’t get the wrong idea. It was time for me to stand on my own two feet. “I’m talking about me taking the bull by the horns here. It’s only a measly twelve months. I’ll do what I can to see that Nan’s shop supports me for at least that long, and then I can sell it for enough of a profit that will help me finally take those college courses without having to work two jobs to afford the tuition.”
“That’s the spirit!” Heidi looked at her watch before tucking her blonde strands of hair behind her ear. “You said we’re meeting Butterbaum for lunch at Trixie’s Diner, right? We have another thirty minutes before we need to be there. Let’s take a look in the back of the shop and see if we can’t find out why your grandmother named the shop Tea, Leaves, and Eves. You’ve got to admit, it’s kinda cute sounding.”
That’s the thing.
My Nan hadn’t been cute.
She had been a force to be reckoned with, which was why I found it so hard to believe that she loved tea over the rich, inviting taste of coffee.
Rosemary Marigold had long black hair, of course, but even longer nails that had always been polished a dark red. She’d also worn matching lipstick. She’d been beautiful in her own way, always wearing whimsical clothing with sleeves that went past her wrists and skirts that were more colorful than a peacock’s feathers on display. But there had always been something peculiar in the way she observed people when she’d walk around the city. It was as if she knew something they didn’t.
I still didn’t understand fully what caused Nan to never come back to New York. Had the strife between mother and daughter finally been too much to bear?
How could a mother cut off a daughter as if she never existed?
My family was very strange, indeed.
Of course, I might find out the reason why they parted ways after my impending call with my mother. I couldn’t do it now, though. I would wait until Heidi was back in the city before delivering my news. That way, she could intervene on my behalf and supply some red wine to soften the blow that her only daughter was giving up twelve months of her life to live in a town she’d wanted nothing to do with for most of her adult life.
“If you ever met my Nan, you’d understand that cute wasn’t her kind of thing. And those hanging antique ivory-colored beads in place of a door that leads to the back room? Nan had her own rather unique style, and let me tell you that it was quite expensive. It was rare that she owned plastic anything, unless she’d resorted to plastic surgery in her old age.”
I carefully walked around one of the high-top tables that held two teacups that appeared to be real bone china, along with a matching teapot. The delicate pink roses on the tableware were stunningly beautiful, and honestly nothing even remotely similar to the taste of décor that my grandmother would have preferred.
Something was really off here, but I couldn’t put my finger on it just yet.
Maybe the Nan I remembered had changed and become one of the old biddies across the street with greying hair and matching sweaters. I should look for a recent picture among the piles of belongings. Didn’t everyone change a smidgen in their old age? Soften a bit? Maybe the regret of choosing to live all on her own had finally made her see that life hadn’t been meant to be so lonely.
The odd whitish cast of beads I was referring to earlier prevented customers from seeing into the storage room. One’s gaze automatically focused on the ivory shapes cut into…fairies. I mean, they were actually fairies stacked on top of one another. It was if they were dancing a spectral spiraling pirouette that one couldn’t look past. I assumed it was hiding a storage room for stock items. What else would be in the back of a tea shop?
&n
bsp; I needed to alter my way of thinking and try to picture the next twelve months as an adventure of sorts. This could benefit me in long run, because surely Nan kept some kind of written records regarding our family history. This could be like a treasure hunt, providing me with the answers my mother would never bother to divulge.
For the first time since leaving New York City, my heart fluttered with a flicker of excitement.
Heidi was the first to slip her fingers in between the magical beads, causing each single hand-carved shape to emanate a never-ending string of melodic clicks as they ricocheted off one another. The soft tactile click made me smile in anticipation of what we would find.
“Um, Raven?”
The thing about being best friends with someone was knowing when he or she was being overly dramatic and when things were really, really wrong.
In this case?
A lump of fear formed in my throat. I expected the worst. You know, an overly large rat with big yellow teeth or maybe a spider’s web that had been given a week to create the most horrifying trap that would enable him to cocoon an entire human body.
Did I mention that I have an overactive imagination?
“What’s wrong? And don’t tell me a wasp’s nest is back there, because I don’t have my EpiPen with me. It’s somewhere in my luggage in the back of the Corolla.”
“What about an inhaler?”
“I don’t have asthma.”
“You’re about to.”
Heidi stepped aside so that I could look through the strings of diverting fairies.
She was right. I was suddenly having a very hard time breathing.
“Is that…”
“Larry Butterbaum? Yes. Do you think the poor guy had a heart attack or something?”
“Butterball, Heidi. His name was Larry Butterball, like the turkey.”
One would think that at some point in my life that my luck would change for the better. I honestly thought it had, but the dead body in my newly acquired tea shop told me the tide hadn’t turned just yet.
“Well,” Heidi said in what I took as an attempt to make me feel better. Let me just forewarn you that she utterly failed. “Welcome to Paramour Bay.”
Chapter Two
Who would have thought such a small town had 911?
A sweet woman had answered, who assured me that she would immediately be sending over Sheriff Drake. She offered her own theory that I must be mistaken about Larry Butterball having a heart attack, because the man had been in excellent shape for someone his age. I tried to explain to her that we must be talking about two completely different people, because I couldn’t understand how anyone describing the man I knew as Larry Butterball as being healthy by any stretch of the imagination.
This Larry that was currently lying dead in the backroom of my newly acquired tea shop had been carrying quite a bit of extra weight around his waistline.
“I feel as if we should wipe our prints off those ivory-colored beads,” Heidi whispered, both of us huddled by the door about as far away from the storeroom as we could possibly get without leaving the shop.
The sun was still shining, no one stood on the other side of the street staring at the front of the shop any longer, and it appeared to be a beautiful day in the month of October. The air had contained a hint of fresh crisp wind early on when we’d driven into town, and I had to admit that not breathing in the everyday pollution of the city was rather refreshing.
It had actually been welcoming, almost as if something inside of me had longed for the peaceful qualities a place like this offered. I had understood that being in the countryside was vastly different, and that it would give the impression of being on vacation for the first week or two until realization set in.
So how had all that promise of a bright new future been blackened by the discovery of a dead body five minutes after arriving at my newly inherited business? Why me? Was this some form of bad karma unloading on me for planning to sell the tea shop in twelve months and running away with a tidy profit?
Heidi’s words about wiping our fingerprints off all the hard surfaces brought my attention back around to the issue at hand.
“I thought you said he had a heart attack.”
“How would I know? I’m not a medical examiner.”
“What if he was murdered?”
I don’t know why my mind always went straight to the morbid side of things, but then again, I did have a bad habit of reading those cozy mysteries where Aunt Agatha found Uncle Darcy dead in the library. The weapon was usually a candlestick or the rope.
But this wasn’t a novel or one of those mystery movies where the lovely misunderstood heroine solved the murder and then went on to live happily ever after.
I had bills to pay and a life to construct.
“At least we have each other as an alibi. That works, right?”
I couldn’t believe we were standing here talking about alibis when a man was dead in the other room.
Dead.
“Do you think he was married?” I asked, harboring some serious guilt at the moment, heavier than the suitcase in the trunk of my car. “I never even thought to ask.”
If Larry Butterball had a wife or children, they would be devastated. His wife would now be facing a life alone, and I for one understood that it wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
“I didn’t see a wedding ring.” Heidi eventually pointed through the glass pane of the front door and whistled in the way she did when someone attractive caught her attention. That kind of behavior certainly wasn’t acceptable in this situation, so I backhanded her softly across the arm. It didn’t help at all. “And I don’t see one on him, either.”
Him turned out to be the man they were waiting on—Sheriff Drake. At least, according to the badge and nametag pinned to his khaki uniform shirt, which seemed to go with the general theme set by his blue jeans and cowboy boots. There was no denying that he was attractive. Rugged good looks had been paired with a healthy amount of sun to accent his features. He was probably five or six years older than me, at least six feet tall with a natural wave in his brown hair, and matching eyes that looked anything but cheerful at the moment.
I couldn’t help but match his frown with my own.
No wonder he wasn’t married.
Heidi and I stepped back in unison, unable to keep our eyes off Sheriff Drake’s intimidating form as he crossed the street. His strides were even and determined as he pursued his duties. The gold little bell chimed overhead as he stepped inside, the atmosphere becoming rather ominous.
“Ms. Marigold?” His eyes immediately connected with mine, telling me that Nan hadn’t totally lost her appeal if she’d gone grey and given up her whimsical wardrobe. I told you we looked alike, and my flowing skirt only clinched his observation that I must have been the one who called the station. I liked the gypsy style of clothes as well, but my apparel usually came from lower end stores in the city than the trendy local shops that Nan must have frequented. “I’m Sheriff Liam Drake. What is this about Larry having a heart attack? An ambulance should be here shortly.”
“I think it’s a little late for that, Sheriff.”
“What Heidi is trying to say is that, well, we believe he’s dead.” I blinked furiously to erase the image of the man’s unfocused gaze staring up at the ceiling. I’ve watched my share of movies, and I have to say that dead bodies look nothing like they do in real life. “He’s, um, in the storage room.”
Sheriff Drake appeared to want to say something else, but he remained silent as he gracefully walked across the small store and through the fairy beads. Neither Heidi nor I spoke a word as we apprehensively waited for him to come back through the doorway.
We must have remained in place for at least thirty seconds before we allowed ourselves to take a breath.
Then another twenty.
Sheriff Drake still didn’t join us back in the main shop.
“The ambulance is here,” Heidi said, not needing to verbalize the ob
vious. The loud siren had caught the attention of several residents walking up and down the sidewalk. A crowd was beginning to form once again. This wasn’t how I’d pictured my first introduction to my neighbors of Paramour Bay. “And the purple-haired lady is back, too.”
Everyone’s attention was now on Tea, Leaves, and Eves, even the old biddie who’d watched us enter the shop. And she wasn’t alone.
It was something I didn’t want or need, so I took matters into my own hands.
“You go ahead and let the paramedics in, and I’ll go see what’s taking the sheriff so long.”
What was Sheriff Drake doing behind those shimmering beads? I mean, how long did it take to confirm that someone didn’t have a pulse?
Unless the death of Larry had been more of a personal issue.
Oh, my. Had they been related in some way?
I quickened my steps as I made my way to the back, connecting dots that might very well not even be there. Were they uncle and nephew? Were they cousins? They had different names, so one would assume they’d come from different sides of the families.
Before I could enter the back or come up with any other plausible relationship between the two men, Sheriff Drake’s large form materialized through the tiny ivory-colored carvings strung together on cords. I was forced to take a step back.
“I need you to stay out here, ma’am.”
Ma’am? I was twenty-nine years old. Ma’am was my mother, but I didn’t dare to correct him. He was only being courteous, and I didn’t want to cause him any more trouble than I already had with my call into 911.
“Is he…”
I don’t know why I worded that as a question, when I was positive that Larry Butterball was dead. It had something to do with the color of the man’s skin. Or maybe the sightless eyes.
“Yes, he’s dead.” Sheriff Drake rested a hand on my shoulder, as if he were bracing me for some horrible news. It was a comforting touch, but it nowhere near made up for his following statement. “But the man on the floor back there isn’t Larry Butterball.”
Magical Blend (A Paramour Bay Cozy Paranormal Mystery Book 1) Page 2
