by Morgana Best
A Cereal Killer.
(A Sibyl Potts Cozy Mystery, Book 1)
Copyright 2015 by Morgana Best.
All rights reserved.
License Notes.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to your place of purchase and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.
* * *
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The personal names have been invented by the author, and any likeness to the name of any person, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
This book may contain references to specific commercial products, process or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, specific brand-name products and/or trade names of products, which are trademarks or registered trademarks and/or trade names, and these are property of their respective owners. Morgana Best or her associates, have no association with any specific commercial products, process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, specific brand-name products and / or trade names of products.
"Dogs are not our whole life, but they make our lives whole."
(Roger Caras)
Chapter One.
The woman stopped running to thrust a large, alligator skin handbag at me. “Take this; there's been a murder."
For a normal person, this would have been unusual, but I was used to strange things happening to me. After all, I grew up in a haunted house.
When I was about the age of three, I started seeing entities. One was particularly scary. I called it "The Fat;" it was round and pale, with little black legs and arms, tiny little black eyes, and a strange mouth that looked like two overlapping mouths at once. The apparition appeared in my bedroom most nights and struck me with fear.
I often saw two female figures outside the house, but my mother didn't see them. The very way they moved was terrifying. They didn’t walk, but glided over the ground.
One night I saw an evil clown bending over me. It was the very embodiment of malevolence. I pulled the sheet over my head but could still see the clown. My parents, of course, thought it was a dream when I told them the next morning, but I hadn't been asleep.
Another time I was chatting to a tall man who sat on the end of my bed late at night. He was a friendly, nice man. My mother came into my bedroom to ask me who I was talking to. I told her I was speaking to the giant on the end of my bed. My mother told me that there are no such things as giants. Of course, I had just meant a tall man. The man sat there the whole time that my mother was telling me he didn't exist. I wasn't quite three years old at the time.
While my mother could not see these ghosts, she did have visions. Every first born daughter in her family for hundreds of years was said to have had visions. That is why all first born daughters were given the first name, “Sibyl,” after the legendary prophetess from ancient Greek mythology.
I eventually lost my ability to see ghosts, but I did not lose my ability to see the future, at least in a limited way. I had been able to predict things from childhood. Once in class at school when the teacher was out of the room, I told my friends that I had a vision of three men falling off a Melbourne bridge which was being built, and the bridge collapsed. That happened one hour later. Another time I repeatedly told my mother that someone would be murdered, and then one morning I had vision of a woman being pushed in front of a train, and told my mother it would happen that day. It happened that night. We knew her sons.
My sister and I used to see dead people. Our grandfather was living with us at that time, and we would sometimes "see" a person we knew lying on his bed. That person would die within a week. We were never wrong. We thought this was perfectly normal.
However, I could not call up these visions at will. Had I been able to do so, I would not now be at the end of a rather nasty divorce.
The divorce was still fresh, and painful, yet every day I got just a little bit happier. I wasn’t sure why I was so upset about dumping a man who had cheated on me, but I figured it had something to do with the fact that we had been married five years. Old habits die hard. At least the ache was now a dull thud and not a searing pain.
I was also on a tight budget as the property settlement had not yet come through. My husband’s family was extremely wealthy, and my ex was doing everything he could to stop me getting as much as a cent. That is, with one exception. He had offered to pay for six months’ rent and had even suggested the cottage in Little Tatterford to me. Apparently one of his colleagues had recommended it to him. I knew this would have been on the advice of his expensive lawyers, not out of any sense of kindness on his part.
I had rented a small trailer and filled it with my belongings, such as they were, and I had driven to the Australian country town of Little Tatterford.
I had smiled as I stood in front of my new home. It was quite a deal smaller than my previous home, and it didn’t have my ex-husband in it, but that was a plus.
My home was to be a one bedroom cozy cottage made of wood and brick. It had a fireplace in the living room, and was situated on the corner of a large tract of land owned by an eccentric woman named Cressida Upthorpe. One other building sat on the land, only a stone's throw from my new cottage, a large, two storey residence that Cressida Upthorpe operated as a boarding house.
It was afternoon, the sun hanging in the sky just past overhead, throwing thin shadows across the ground. I turned to my new truck, and smiled as I ran a hand over the words I had airbrushed onto it, Sibyl’s Mobile Pet Grooming. I knew the name wasn't at all clever or original in the least, but at least customers could be left in no doubt as to the nature of my business. The truck was purple, the writing in white, and it had a cartoon cat and a cartoon puppy in a basin full of suds near the door.
I made my way to the truck, throwing the door open, and taking a look inside at everything in life that I owned. I sighed, trying to forget the fact that I was divorced at twenty seven, and had moved to another state just to get away from my ex-husband. I was further from my mother, and didn’t even know how far away my sister, Phyto, was, as she was teaching in the city of Al Ain in the United Arab Emirates.
The air was cool and crisp, a large difference from the humid, coastal air I was used to, where jackets were more for looks than they were for function. The few leaves left on the trees were red and orange and yellow, and I found myself somehow looking forward carrying my meager belongings into the small cottage. This was a start, I reminded myself. A life of peace and quiet.
I was looking forward to moving everything in, despite the fact I knew it would be countless hours getting it unpacked and putting it where I wanted. I had thought my belongings were few, but moving house always revealed just how many possessions one actually had.
I needed groceries too, but there was no time for that now. After the weekend I planned to drive my truck downtown and park on the main street that ran through the center of Little Tatterford, so I could start building a customer base. I had been encouraged when I had driven through the main street earlier, as I counted no less than twelve people out and about, walking their dogs.
But first I wanted to walk down the gravel path toward the residence, and say hello to Cressida Upthorpe, since I hadn’t even met the woman yet. The cottage was locked, and I needed to get my keys. I'd had a number of
lively discussions with Cressida through email, and had even spoken to the woman on the phone, and I wanted to know if my mental idea of what Cressida looked like would match up with what she looked like in reality. I pictured her as short and plump, with white hair pulled back severely, kindly but quite eccentric.
The sun was starting to fall further in the sky and the cold wind had picked up, and halfway to the residence I found myself wishing I had thought to bring a far thicker coat. I'd been warned about the weather up here in the mountains, but I wasn't prepared for the bite in the air. I picked up the pace, walking with my hands in my pockets, and my eyes on the trees above. Here and there a leaf detached from a brown stem, and fluttered slowly to the ground. It was the end of autumn, which we Australians called fall, and fast heading into winter.
I did not have to walk far and there was the residence, sitting in the fields like something out of an old movie. I shuddered and pulled a face. "It's more like the scary house, Manderley, from the old gothic film Rebecca, rather than one of the lovely mansions from Price and Prejudice," I muttered aloud to myself.
The house was imposing and made of wood, with delicate white iron lattice work on all the balconies. That was where the good ended. It also looked gloomy, and had an uncared for air about it. I would not have been the least bit surprised if it was haunted.
There was a small gravel drive coming from a larger road that ran perpendicular to the one I walked on, and there were a few cars parked along it.
I climbed the creaky, wooden steps to the front porch. I was about to knock on the front door when it was pulled open with some speed from the other side. I found myself staring at a woman; this had to be the boarding house’s owner, Cressida Upthorpe. She was short, for I had gotten that much right, but she was stick thin and had bright red hair cut in a short bob that had probably been stylish in the sixties. She wore huge red glasses and had makeup caked impressively onto her face, impressive in this case meaning it was impressive that the weight of all the makeup didn’t force her head to fall off her shoulders.
And that was when she thrust the alligator skin handbag at me and said, “Take this; there's been a murder."
“The world would be a nicer place if everyone had the ability to love as unconditionally as a dog.”
(M.K. Clinton)
Chapter Two.
The woman then ran down the pathway to a car. The engine roared to life and I watched her speeding from the drive. Her tires spun, throwing up a plume of smoke.
For a moment I stood there, dumbstruck, not knowing what to do. To my relief, a tall, portly man appeared in the foyer beyond the front door.
“Hi, I'm Sybil Potts," I said. "Was that Cressida Upthorpe who just ran past me?"
The man nodded solemnly. "Hello, Ms. Potts, or may I call you Sibyl?"
I nodded. "Sure."
"Welcome to the town. I'm Mr. Buttons, one of the permanent residents here." His accent was clipped and of a posh Oxbridge English. He was in his fifties or sixties, his hair pitch black except for the gray at the temples. His nose was long and curved, and his shoulders sharp and sloping. He wore a dress shirt and black dress pants, and his shoes were so shiny that I could almost see my reflection in them.
I was more than a little confused. "Excuse me, but Cressida Upthorpe just said there was a murder?"
Mr. Buttons adjusted his glasses. “Yesterday, I drew The Tower, Judgment, and the Ten of Swords. I suspected something like this would happen. Whether it is murder or not, I cannot say, but there is indeed a body in the storage room.”
My jaw fell open and wondered why the man would mention tarot cards at such a time as this. “A dead body? Here? But why did Ms. Upthorpe run away?”
“The police. A local police officer lives three minutes from here." Mr. Buttons went back inside the house, and I followed him.
I kept pace with him as he walked across the foyer, heading for a door off to the side marked, "No Entry," in writing which was scrawled on an angle.
Mr. Buttons flung the door open and I walked inside. At the end of the room, near another door, was a pair of legs, bare and hairy, laying on the ground. I couldn’t see to whom they belonged, but I was reasonably sure it was the dead man.
As I walked past a large table, I set down Cressida’s large handbag, and prepared myself. I had never seen a dead body before, and I didn’t know what to expect. I took a deep breath just before clearing the table and stepping around. Here was the body, although it looked as if the man could be sleeping. His eyes were closed, and he was dressed in blue boxer shorts and a white undershirt with no arms. He had no socks, and I could see that both the nails on his toes and his hands were yellowing and brittle.
“Here he is,” Mr. Buttons said needlessly, using a hand to indicate the general space of the body.
“Yes,” I said, feeling the need to respond to Mr. Buttons' remark. I moved around the body, careful not to disturb anything, but when I looked up, I saw that Mr. Buttons was adjusting some silverware on the table.
“Should you be touching that?” I asked, and the British man looked at me and lifted a thin black brow.
“It’s such a mess in here.”
I narrowed my eyes. “It might be a crime scene. On CSI, you know, the TV show, they say people mustn't touch crime scenes.”
Mr. Buttons appeared puzzled. "A crime scene; are you certain? There's no knife jutting from his back, and no sign of a struggle." He scratched his chin. "I know Cressida told you there was a murder, but she has an undeniable flair for the dramatic. I'm sure it's simply a natural death. Mr. Higgins was only around fifty years of age, but he'd been quite unwell for some time."
I shook my head. "Really, that's up to the police to decide."
“Well, I won’t tidy up the body then, I suppose,” Mr. Buttons said with disappointment in his voice and a shrug of his sloping shoulders, but then he lifted up a silver candle holder which had fallen and placed it right way up.
“Why didn’t Ms. Upthorpe just call the police?” I asked.
“Blake Wessley, who lives just around the corner, is the police here,” the man said. “There’s just him and two constables.”
“Really?” I asked, surprised. Little Tatterford was a small town, but surely not small enough that it should only have three cops.
As I watched, a fat, tabby and white cat came slinking out of the shadowy corner to me and meowed. I bent and let the cat sniff my hand before sliding my finger up to his head, where I scratched him softly.
“Lord Farringdon,” Mr. Buttons said with fondness. “I do love that cat.”
“He seems nice,” I said, and Mr. Buttons didn’t reply. “Who was the man?” I pointed at the corpse.
“Tim Higgins, a fellow boarder,” the Englishman said. “He was a pleasant gentleman, and he kept to himself, but I think he had a little too much admiration for Cressida. Every time I drew a card about him, it was usually The Lovers, although sometimes it was the The Moon.”
I raised my brows. “Cressida, I mean, Ms. Upthorpe?” I wasn’t sure how I should be referring to her. I glanced quickly at the body again. The man was not fat, but he was not fit, as he had a belly, a line of which peeked out from under the bottom of his undershirt. He was completely bald, although he had a mustache, all white and bushy above his lips.
I frowned. “There’s no blood or anything,” I said. “Like you said, no sign of struggle, but the silverware was knocked over.”
“He may have put his hand there as he fell, perhaps from a heart attack,” Mr. Buttons said. "He hadn’t been well lately. He’d been acting erratically too, dizzy and confused. Maybe early onset dementia? A lot of walking around like this, in his underwear, even though it was well past morning. He often didn’t show up for meal time.”
I frowned. "Dizzy and confused, you say?" I took another look at the dead man. His face was indeed beet red. It all added up.
I kneeled down and bent over the man, smelling his breath. It smelled of bitter almonds.<
br />
"Cyanide," I pronounced.
“The only creatures that are evolved enough to convey pure love are dogs and infants.”
(Johnny Depp)
Chapter Three.
"Cyanide?" a man's voice repeated.
I looked up as Cressida Upthorpe swept into the dining room, followed by a man who could not have been older than thirty, and was as good looking as men came. His hair was brown and kept short, his eyes a piercing blue. He had a dimple in his right cheek that was present even with his serious, police officer face. He wore a tee shirt and jeans, and he clearly hadn’t been on duty. I couldn't help but notice that he didn't appear to have a gun. If I had seen him anywhere else, I never would have guessed he was a cop.
I had no time to study the man further, as he addressed us sharply. "Away from the body, you two."
Mr. Buttons took my arm, and the two of us moved against the wall to stand in front of a huge, gilt framed painting.
The cop crouched down and looked at the body. “What can you tell me about him, Mr. Buttons?”
I noticed he hadn’t asked Ms. Upthorpe, and I was sure that had been intentional.
"He's been unwell lately, dizzy, confused, that kind of thing."
The cop nodded. "I'll call for a doctor."
"A doctor? But he's dead!" I was unable to help my outburst.
The man turned to me. "A doctor will examine the body and decide if he died of natural causes."
I shook my head and took a step forward. "But I smelled cyanide on his breath."
The cop narrowed his eyes at me. "So you said." He bent down and inhaled. "I can’t smell a thing."
I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. "It's a genetic thing; only a small percentage of people have the ability to smell the bitter almond scent of cyanide."
The cop looked me up and down as if he were examining a particularly strange sort of insect. "And you know this because? Cyanide is hardly freely available; you can’t just walk into a store and buy it." His tone was full of disbelief, and bordering on the derogatory.
