by Fran Stewart
Praise for
A Wee Murder in My Shop
“Peggy Winn brings a bit of Scotland home to her Scottish-themed shop in Vermont, but this time it’s more than she bargained for in this enjoyable debut. A great start to a new series!”
—Sheila Connolly, New York Times bestselling author of the County Cork Mysteries
“The very first paragraph of A Wee Murder in My Shop hooked me. . . . It is the town of Hamelin, Vermont, however, that charms its way into the readers’ hearts. . . . A fun start to the ScotShop Mystery series.”
—Fresh Fiction
“Fran Stewart has done something so incredibly right with this new series. She whisked me away to the land of Scotland right from the beginning, and the magic of Scotland carried through, even when Peggy returned . . . to Hamelin. . . . A strong start to what is going to be a fabulous series. She’s created very memorable characters, full of charm and mischief, and readers will be fondly recalling this adventure long after they turn the last page. If you haven’t picked up this first book in the ScotShop Mysteries yet, go grab a copy today, because it is going to be one series you don’t want to miss!”
—Cozy Mystery Book Reviews
“Scotland, a seven-hundred-year-old ghost, a hunky police officer, and [the] murder of a cheating boyfriend. What’s not to like in the new ScotShop Mystery series?”
—Lesa’s Book Critiques
“An interesting concept that you might expect in a time-travel romance, only it is a cozy mystery—which provides a completely different flair.”
—Mysteries and My Musings
Berkley Prime Crime titles by Fran Stewart
A WEE MURDER IN MY SHOP
A WEE DOSE OF DEATH
An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014
A WEE DOSE OF DEATH
A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author
Copyright © 2016 by Fran Stewart.
Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices,
promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.
BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME and the PRIME CRIME design are trademarks
of Penguin Random House LLC.
For more information, visit penguin.com.
eBook ISBN: 978-1-101-63956-6
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / January 2016
Cover art by Jesse Reisch.
Cover design by Diana Kolsky.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Version_1
This book is lovingly dedicated to my sister Diana,
who believes in me and my ghosts.
Acknowledgments
I owe a huge debt of gratitude to the group of artists who invited me to go along with them to Folly Beach, SC, for an entire week of painting—or, in my case, of writing. They went off to paint each day, leaving me alone, in a windswept house overlooking the ocean. The shape of Wee Dose formed itself to the backdrop of seabirds calling and waves rolling in.
Then my friend Peggy Dixon offered me the use of her mountain cabin. That was where I wrapped up the story amid towering North Georgia pines. Having a mama bear and two cubs living in the area helped with inspiration. So did the ride on the mule.
Sharron Grovner, a woman who works at the Reynolds Mansion on Sapelo Island, suggested the Univex and invented a story line unique to her, in which she had Karaline give a ride to a stranger (NOT recommended) who just happened to be an out-of-work pastry chef. I told her that with such a vivid imagination, she should be writing books herself.
Erica Jensen, my Middle English researcher, finds lovely words for Dirk.
Someone at Kittredge Foodservice Equipment & Supplies in Williston, Vermont (I’m sorry I didn’t get his name), confirmed that it would take an SUV to haul an SRM-20. Then he passed me on to Bob Beattie, who assured me that Chester could get away with wearing red suspenders. I relocated Kittredge’s warehouse/showroom from Williston to Winooski for the purposes of the plotline. When I lived in Vermont years ago, I learned that the Abenaki word Ouinousqui (as spelled by early French explorers) meant wild onions, which grew plentifully along the “Onion River.”
Michele McMahon, a nurse who works with the Emergency Preparedness departments of three Georgia counties, said a ten-hour operation was more believable than the four-hour one I’d originally written, considering the extent of gunshot damage. She also admitted that cold ghostly healing hands would be a big help, and we grossed out everybody else at the table as we talked about perforated intestines and nicked diaphragms.
David Funderburk, biology teacher extraordinaire, shared stories of his years teaching biology to students of all ages and grades and gave me the silver nitrate story.
Jesse Reisch illustrated the cover of A Wee Murder in My Shop, the first ScotShop Mystery, and put a Scottie dog on the cover—something I hadn’t even considered—so, of course, I had to go back and write in a dog for the Sinclairs—and, in this book, Scamp for the ScotShop.
Scamp evolved from only a vague idea to a real pooch after I contacted Rhea Spence, president of the Scottish Terrier Club of Greater Atlanta, who invited me to a dog show. There I met Judi Helton. Both these women added greatly to my knowledge of Scotties and educated me on the value of maintaining distinct breeds.
Kari Hill of Charthill Scottish Terriers was showing several of her dogs that day, and spent a great deal of time explaining, sharing, bragging about, and just generally loving her dogs with me. She showed me their teeth, let me pat their waterproof coats, explained their history, let me feel their heart-shaped rib cages, and showed me how stable their broad rear ends are when they “play patty-cake.” She’s the one who suggested that Scamp might like to sit in the display window. “Give him an ottoman, would you? He’d like something soft to sit on.”
Edwin Lowe gave me the term “GBBD.”
Finally, I must thank my agent, John Talbot, who found me and coached me through the process of being traditionally published; Michelle Vega, my editor at Berkley Prime Crime, who recognizes deadwood, sees what needs to be expanded, and still manages to treat me with utmost gentleness; and all the fantastic professionals at Berkley Prime Crime, who turn my manuscripts into works of art.
From my house beside a creek
on the other side of Hog Mountain, GA,
Fran Stewart
April 2015
Contents
Praise for A Wee Murder in My Shop
Berkley Prime Crime titles by Fran Stewart
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
1: The Joy of a Wee Cabin
2: The Joy of a Cozy Fire
3: Settling In
4: Pop Goes the Weasel
5: When the Store Is Closed
6: A Bone to Pick
7: Cutting Up Kindling
8: The Joy of a Wee Run
9: Crisp Enough to Freeze
10: Whoops!
11: SRM2
0
12: The Joy of a Scenic Drive
13: Endurance Test
14: Second Time Around
15: The Joy of a Little Scottie
16: Dog on a Throne
17: Blue Enameled Box
18: Mark My Words
19: Squirreling
20: Better Than a Bear
21: There’s No Place Like Home
22: Birthday Party #1
23: Wooden Box
24: Puzzles
25: Catch a Thief
26: Birthday Party #2
27: The Joy of a Simple Song
28: Another Wee Tiff
29: A Wee Ski in the Woods
30: Search Party
31: Encounter in the Woods
32: Crapola on Toast
33: His Peigi’s Shawl
34: Off the Mountain
35: Ten Hours in Limbo
36: Monday Blues
37: Hearts Carved on a Tree
38: Password Protected
39: Anyone for Martial Arts?
40: Time to Tell
About the Author
1
The Joy of a Wee Cabin
Marcus Wantstring wasn’t looking for a place to die. He was looking for a quiet place in the snow-covered mountains of Vermont to get his thoughts together so he and Denby wouldn’t look like deadbeats. He didn’t want anyone to think less of Denby, now that Denby couldn’t defend himself.
He propped his cross-country skis outside next to the overly tall door and looked around the small cabin. The perfect place for his purposes. He was glad an early blizzard was on the way. There usually wasn’t this much snow in October. Snow would keep other people away. He had a deadline. Deadline, he thought, and the emphasis was on “dead.” He shook his head—too much drama.
He had another problem, too. It niggled at the back of his consciousness. One of Denby’s most promising graduate students—John Nhat Copley. Denby had found a printout of a sparse e-mail balled up in the trash. Something about identity theft. It sounded like a big plan, but surely nothing could come of it. Copley may have been brilliant, but he was stupid as a paramecium to leave the printout behind. Denby, of course, had brought the e-mail to Marcus for a brainstorming session. Marcus hadn’t questioned why Denby was going through the trash. Denby had always seemed to have his own way of doing things.
They’d had no way of knowing whether Copley had infected any of the other students with his stupidity, but nobody else seemed to be acting any differently. Denby tried to track down the e-mail’s sender, but the account had been closed down. Still, just in case, the two professors had collaborated, then e-mailed Copley, asking him to explain himself. They drafted another letter, an official one, banning Copley from the department, but decided not to send that one. Innocent until proven guilty. But Copley never replied to the e-mail. He disappeared, seemingly overnight.
Marcus chuckled to himself. Maybe Copley had been writing an espionage thriller, and the supposed e-mail was part of the manuscript. This wasn’t the time to worry about it. He had his own priorities. But why had the boy taken off?
He slung his backpack onto the sturdy central table and pulled a thick green binder from it, along with a water-purification kit, an aluminum pot stuffed with numerous packets of food, and a box of utility-grade candles. He moved the binder to one of the two chairs and removed the food packages from the cooking pot. He unhooked his hiking boots and pulled out an extra pair of socks. He ran his finger across the wildly improbable pattern of brilliant variegated yarn. His wife had knitted them for him as a Halloween joke years ago—before . . . before everything happened—and they’d turned out to be his favorites, maybe not for wearing to work, although he’d done so on occasion when the weather was cold enough. And, of course, every October thirty-first for sure. He loved the things she knit for him. Sweaters, socks, scarves. He always felt like he was wrapping her love around him when he wore them.
She’d started calling him Mark soon after her surgery. Although he was Marcus to everyone else, Mark was a special connection between himself and the woman he loved with all his heart, even after all these years together. He paused, thinking fondly of how she’d slept through his gentle good-bye kiss that morning well before dawn. He was a lucky man. His lips drew up in a smile, one that was surprisingly soft on so angular a face.
He didn’t know his luck was about to run out.
2
The Joy of a Cozy Fire
People who don’t like winter simply should not move to Vermont, as far as I’m concerned. Visit in the summer or fall, by all means, and buy lots of souvenirs here in Hamelin. Buy an extra number of them in my store, the ScotShop—preferably expensive items like full dress kilts, or even lots of little items, like tartan ties or reproductions of the Loch Ness Monster. Buy one for every single relative back home. But either live somewhere else, or quit your infernal bellyaching. Ten degrees Fahrenheit is the way winter works in the Green Mountains. Get over it. Or get yourself a good wood-burning stove and four or five sets of thermal underwear. Silk long johns and sock liners. Good woolen hats and gloves. Or GORE-TEX if you want to be fancy.
Of course, I didn’t say any of this to Emily. Thank goodness this was a phone call. I couldn’t have hidden my irritation face-to-face.
“Mark left me all alone again, Peggy,” she whined, her voice almost echoing, as if she were in a barrel. “It’s bad enough that he works in Burlington all the time and we only come here on weekends, but now he gets a week off, and does he stay here? No. He took off before dawn on his skis and didn’t even say good-bye. Here I am freezing cold in this godforsaken house.”
She even sounded cold, and I could swear I heard her teeth chatter; but I wasn’t going to feel sorry for her. Their house was one of those new energy-efficient ones outside of town. Probably had R-150 insulation all around—or whatever number meant a lot of warmth. I moved a little closer to my woodstove. “Just make yourself some hot chocolate,” I advised. “That’ll warm anybody up.”
“But he left me alone, Peggy. Why does he do that?”
I’d seen Emily’s husband only once. Tall and lanky beside his short, pudgy wife, the two of them like the ancient cartoon characters Mutt and Jeff, walking up Hickory Lane, past my house. As far as I could see, he hadn’t said a word the entire time I watched them. She’d talked nonstop, of course. I heard some time ago that the loneliest people were the ones who were unsuitably married. Not that I had any way of knowing from personal experience.
“Emily!” I interrupted her flow. “You might enjoy cross-country skiing if you’d give it a try.” Not that I believed for a moment she ever would. “With the Appalachian Trail not half a mile from your house, think of the gorgeous scenery. But you have to go outside if you want to enjoy it.”
“You sound just like Mark. He taught me to ski when we were first married, but I didn’t like it. I never could get the hang of it, and he just wouldn’t understand.”
I rolled my eyes at Dirk Farquharson, the fourteenth-century ghost I’d acquired on a trip to Scotland this past summer, who stood looking out my living room bay window.
I pointed to his left. “Whoops,” I said into the phone. “Have to run, Emily. There’s the door.”
“You go answer it, Peg,” she told me. “I’ll wait.”
“No. I’ll probably be a while. I’ll catch up with you later.” I disconnected and heaved a sigh.
“Ye were nae quite honest with Mistress Emily. There is naebody come a-calling at the door.”
My fourteenth-century Scottish conscience. Even though I could almost see through him, even though he’d been dead 653 years, he still had opinions that were hard to shake. “I didn’t say there was anybody standing outside. All I said was, There’s the door. And”—I pointed again—“there it is.”
It seemed perfectly logical to me. “If she wanted to think someone was knocking on it, that’s her problem.”
He made that low-pitched, grumbly Scottish sound of disapproval.
“Don’t growl at me,” I said, even though I rather liked hearing it. It emanated from his massive chest. I tried to keep my eyes from scanning the length of him, but lost the battle. He was so tall, so black-haired, so gentle, so fierce, so . . . Scottish.
“Ye should nae tell untruths.”
So stubborn, too. “This is the way things are in the twenty-first century, as I’ve told you numerous times. I don’t like getting trapped on the phone. Anyway, what’s it to you?”
He gave me a long, level look from under those thick straight brows of his. “I didna ask to come here,” he said. “I didna desire to leave my home.”
“Yeah, well—”
“I dinna like some of what I see here. Now.”
“I may not like it, either, but there’s nothing I can do about it.”
“Nay. Ye are nae right about that. Ye could do something. Ye could stop telling untruths.”
“Would you rather have me tell her she’s boring me out of my gourd?”
“What would be a gord?”
“Never mind that. You just need to loosen up a little and accept things the way they are.” I tried not to sound supercilious, but from the look on Dirk’s face, I didn’t seem to have accomplished it. Poor Dirk. I was grumpy about Emily and I was taking it out on my ghost.
“Mistress Emily seems lonely to me.”
He was probably right. She’d walked into the ScotShop about four months ago and spent an hour complaining. It was a slow day, so I couldn’t begrudge her the time, but it struck me as a little bit weird that she found so much fault with everything. Wasn’t there any joy anywhere in her life? Dirk had, of course, felt free to eavesdrop with impunity, since he was invisible to her. Naturally I hadn’t been able to reply to any of his comments while she was within earshot.
