Memoirs of a Garroter (Nevermore Bookshop Mysteries Book 4)

by Steffanie Holmes

  Morrie stood up. “Less grumpy now?”

  “Much.” I held out my hand and Morrie helped me to my feet. His ice eyes raked down my body as I pulled on my knickers and Jo’s trousers and slumped behind Heathcliff’s desk. I knew what he wanted – to slam me up against the bookshelf and bury himself inside me. But Morrie liked his games, and he was playing one now. He wanted me to beg him for it. I wanted to, oh how I wanted to, but I had so much work to do before tonight’s event. “Where’s Heathcliff? I want to run over the details for the week with him.”

  Morrie made a face. “His Lord Tetchiness is still in bed. He said that he’s not going downstairs while the shop is filled with writers. According to him, they’re worse than customers.”

  I groaned. Heathcliff was the only shopkeeper I’d ever met who got grumpy when his shop was popular. And thanks to me, Nevermore Bookshop was doing better than ever.

  A month ago I’d wrested free rein from Heathcliff to run the shop however I wanted. I wasted no time in remaking Nevermore Bookshop as a must-visit bibliophile destination. I took new photographs for our website, started an Instagram account, and organized my first ever bookshop event. Famous local crime author Danny Sledge was going to be giving a reading this evening about his latest novel, The Somerset Strangler. And tomorrow he’d be running a full-day workshop for crime writers. We had attendees coming from all over the country to learn from this master storyteller.

  My stomach fluttered with nervous excitement as I thought about the workshop. Even though I’d never written a book, I would be sitting in on it with the real writers. For some reason that excited me more than anything else about the event. I’d filled my whole life with books, and it would be interesting to peer behind the curtain and see how plots and characters really came together.

  Or it might be the fact that I’d seen far too many murders in the last few months, giving me enough plots for a whole series of crime novels. Danny Sledge better watch out, or I could boot him off the bestseller list!

  But the event wasn’t going to happen if I didn’t get the shop ready. I pulled out the list I’d printed in huge letters and inspected everything I had to do. We needed to tidy up the Events room. Danny’s publisher, Brian Letterman, would be arriving with a box of books for Danny to sign, and I’d need to enter them into the new digital inventory system Morrie and I set up (against Heathcliff’s protests) so we could offer them for sale.

  My hand flew to my purse. I kept my father’s letter inside my wallet, and I found myself fingering it every time I felt stressed or upset. Right now, I was stressed as fuck about the event tonight. I still didn’t have any answers about who my father was or why he’d left me and Mum, but just knowing that somewhere in time he still existed, and he still thought about me, calmed me.

  “Right, then.” I pointed at Quoth. “You, put on your human suit. I need you to move furniture, set up chairs, and hang your artwork on every spare wall in the Events room.”

  Quoth fluttered over to perch on the edge of the desk. A moment later, a very naked and harried-looking man leaned over the desk, wiping a strand of shampoo-commercial perfect black hair from his eyes. “You want my artwork—”

  “On the walls, yes. This is going to be the most people we’ve had in the store ever. I want your pieces front and center.” Quoth’s terrified expression made me pause. I leaned in and brushed my lips against his, trying to assure him that it would be okay. I pointed to Morrie. “You – you’re on customer duty. I don’t have time to field a single query about how to find the History section or get into an argument about whether J. K. Rowling’s best book was Lord of the Rings. I’ve got too much to do—”

  “Speaking of time-wasters,” Morrie smiled, his eyes on the window. “I see one arriving now, wearing a look of determination that suggests our ‘CLOSED’ sign will be thoroughly ignored.”

  Quoth’s hot and naked human body disappeared in a cloud of feathers just as the bell tinkled. A moment later, my old high school English teacher Mrs. Ellis appeared in front of the desk. Without a word of greeting, she upturned her purse onto the desk, spilling a stack of brightly-colored travel pamphlets on top of my ledger.

  “Mina, help me!” she wailed. “I can’t decide what to do!”

  Chapter Three

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Ellis. You know I’m always happy to help with your craft projects, but I just don’t have time today. I’ve got so much to do before tonight’s event.” Guilt flared in my heart, but I pushed it down as I leaned over to jab Morrie in the arm. “Mr. Moriarty will help you with whatever you need.”

  “Yeah, I can help.” Morrie picked up one of the brochures, admiring an image of a tanned Mediterranean man wearing a toothy grin, white Speedos, and about ten gallons of baby oil. “Are you making your own swimsuit calendar again? I’ve got this computer program that can do photo manipulations. We could scan these and remove the swimming trunks, no problem—”

  “Don’t tempt me, young man.” Mrs. Ellis snatched the brochure from his fingers. “I can’t be distracted by the thought of what’s under his trunks. I have a time-sensitive issue and it requires a woman’s input. Mina, you must help me! There’s no one in my life with your level of discerning taste.”

  I sighed. It was clear that I wasn’t going to get rid of Mrs. Ellis until I’d helped her with her problem. I picked up a brochure, admiring yet another picture of a buff Greek man in a Speedo standing on the deck of an enormous cruise ship. The brochure was advertising holidays in the Greek islands.

  “Are you going on holiday, Mrs. Ellis?”

  “I certainly am! I’ve always wanted to take a cruise, and there’s no time like the present, while England is still all cold and miserable. The only thing is, I need to place a deposit at the travel agent today, and I can’t decide where to go!”

  “Where do you get the money for a cruise like this?” Morrie asked. “Are you running an underground gambling ring or international Ponzi scheme we don’t know about?”

  “Not everyone is a criminal mastermind,” I shot back. “Mrs. Ellis probably saved her money like a normal person—”

  “Heavens, no,” Mrs. Ellis clucked, as she opened out a full-page poster of a cruise liner sailing across a superimposed image of a shirtless man. “I’ve never saved a pound in my life. I spent every last shilling on wine and shoes and gifts for accommodating young men. But just this week I’ve had a lovely windfall! That nice Mr. Lachlan came to me last week and offered me a vast sum for my tiny flat. I’ve decided to take him up on it. I’ll be able to take my cruise, with enough money left over to buy a smaller house across the village, and some left over after that to stuff into a lucky young gentleman’s g-string.”

  Morrie and I exchanged a glance. Six weeks ago, the developer Grey Lachlan had visited the shop. He made Heathcliff an offer on Nevermore – at least four times what the bookshop was actually worth. Of course, there was no way Heathcliff could sell the shop with a time-traveling room on the third floor and a bunch of unsolved mysteries and the possibility of random fictional characters popping in at any moment, so he’d said no. The whole conversation had been a little weird, actually. Grey didn’t like being told no. He kept offering more money and saying the weirdest things – it almost sounded as though he was threatening us.

  Grey hadn’t returned to the shop since, but it worried me that he purchased Mrs. Ellis’ flat across the road. What really was his plan for Argleton, and how did Nevermore fit in?

  “Since when is Mr. Lachlan a ‘nice young man’?” I asked. “According to you and Mrs. Scarlett, he was ruining this village with his King’s Cross development.”

  “Oh, Mina,” Mrs. Ellis waved her hand. “Such an old-fashioned attitude. We can’t stand in the way of progress, can we?”

  Of course we can’t, not when we can all get a nice fat cheque and a holiday to Greece out of the deal, I thought but didn’t say.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to think about this? You’ve lived in that flat for
a long time. What would your late husband think if you sold it—”

  “Of course I don’t want to think about it,” Mrs. Ellis scoffed. “And I don’t care for Ronald’s opinion, not after he upped and died on me, leaving me without a man to remove spiders from the shower or keep me warm at night. The only thing I want to think about is whether I should be cruising around Australia with strapping Crocodile Dundee blokes, or swanning about the Amalfi coast with oiled Greek gods?”

  “Okay… well…” I shuffled around the brochures until I came across a particular handsome Greek. I held it under the desk lamp and squinted until I could make out the small print underneath the heading, which specifically stated the cruise was ideal for seniors. I held it up for her. “This looks like the man for you.”

  “Oooh, hello, gorgeous.” Mrs. Ellis kissed the brochure, leaving a smudge of bright blue lipstick across the Greek god’s face. “Yes, I think you’ve cracked it. I knew I could count on you.”

  “You’re welcome. Will you be coming to the reading tonight?”

  “I’ll drop by with the ladies from my knitting club.” Mrs. Ellis skipped toward the door. “I might leave early, though. I’ve got to pack my bags. I’m leaving in a few days. Oh, and shop for a swimsuit. And learn the Greek for, ‘buy me a drink, handsome’.”

  As the front door slammed shut, Heathcliff’s brooding face appeared on the staircase. “I know you think you run this shop now, but that doesn’t mean you can open early.”

  “We aren’t open yet. That was Mrs. Ellis. You know how much attention she pays to signage.”

  Heathcliff grunted, then turned to Morrie, who was sprawled on the leather chair with Quoth perched on the armrest, diligently trying to tear into a packet of dried cranberries with his beak. “Can I talk to Mina alone?”

  Morrie stood up. “Fine. I’m going to the shops, because we have nothing except bird food. Anyone need anything?”

  “Croak!” Quoth shook his cranberry packet at Morrie.

  “Just coffee. Lots and lots of coffee.” I held out my empty reusable cup. Morrie slotted it into his expensive leather satchel and headed for the door.

  “I want my peaceful shop back,” Heathcliff growled. “Failing that, a cheese scone.”

  “One cheese scone, coming up. You want in, birdie?” Morrie used to use that nickname to belittle Quoth, but now he said it with such tenderness and affection that I no longer told him to stop.

  “Croak!” Quoth fluttered after Morrie, still clutching his bag of cranberries in his talons.

  Curious, I watched Heathcliff as he stepped into the room, a wave of his achingly beautiful spice-and-moss scent following after him. My pulse raced as his black eyes burned into mine. He must’ve just come from the shower, because his hair was damp across his head and his clothes were only artfully rumpled as opposed to their usual state resembling the surface of the moon. He carried a heavy leather book, which he set on the velvet chair as he walked past. He placed his hands on the desk and loomed over me, one messy dark curl falling over his intense eyes. I knew Heathcliff was waiting for me to get out of his chair. Well, he may have run things back at Wuthering Heights, but he wasn’t the one with a million things to do today. I remained where I was and tapped my to-do list with the end of the pen.

  Heathcliff spun the pad around to face him, his frown deepening as he read the items. “You haven’t changed your mind about this poxy event, then?”

  “Nope. It’s happening.” I tried to grab my pad back, but Heathcliff slid it out of reach. He jabbed a finger at one of the lines.

  “You’re not doing a Q&A.”

  “Of course we are. People will want to ask the writer questions.”

  “You don’t want them to do that.”

  “Why?”

  “Not even the sting of Hindley’s whip is more painful than a Q&A at a writer’s event,” Heathcliff declared, waving the pad around. “There are no actual questions – most are thinly veiled excuses to wax lyrical about their own work, moronic accusations requiring the author to defend their work to insufferable plebs, gushing praise that no one gives a fuck about, or something so utterly unoriginal like ‘where do you get your ideas?’ that it’s a wonder that writers don’t expire from boredom on the spot.”

  I managed to whip my list out of his hands. “Well, you’re not helping, so I don’t see why you get an opinion.”

  “Maybe not.” Heathcliff picked up the book and slammed it down on the desk between us. “But I have found something about Mr. Simson.”

  “Oh?” My hand flew to my purse again, fingering the edge of the letter from my father. We’d figured out it was likely my father and Mr. Simson – the shop’s proprietor before Heathcliff – knew each other. My father appeared to be hiding somewhere in time, but if we could locate Mr. Simson, then we might be able to get him to tell us who my father was and where we could find him.

  I knew it was a long shot. Mr. Simson was an old man who was nearly completely blind when I knew him as a child. He could be dead or degrading in a wrinkly village somewhere. But as soon as Heathcliff said his name, my heart raced faster. I have to hope.

  A cloud of dust rose up as Heathcliff cracked open the book and flipped through the pages. “I’ve been hunting through Simson’s old ledgers, invoices, bills, and other documents, hoping to find some information about where he might have gone. I didn’t get that lucky, but I did find this.”

  He turned the book toward me and jabbed a finger at the page. I bent down to inspect it. It was an invoice from another book collector for a small set of occult volumes, made out to Mr. Simson. This time, his first name was printed in full:

  Homer.

  “His name is Homer. So?” I frowned at Heathcliff. “How is this going to help us?”

  “You remember the book that appeared on the floor after we found the Terror of Argleton?”

  I smiled at the name the Argleton papers had given to a tiny mouse that had caused havoc in local shops until his untimely death gave us the essential clue we needed to solve a murder. “Yeah, the one with the unpronounceable title about the frogs and mice having a war.”

  “Right. Simson’s first name is the same name as the author of that text, and it’s also the same initials as Herman Strepel, who we’re pretty sure is your father.” Heathcliff jabbed his finger into the ledger. “We’ve been thinking that Strepel was using the bookshop to give us a message about Mrs. Scarlett’s killer with that book, but maybe the book itself was the clue.”

  “What are you saying?” I asked slowly, not following where his thoughts led.

  Heathcliff’s lips turned up into a rare smile. “I’m saying that I think our bookshop proprietor and Mr. Strepel the medieval bookbinder are the same person, and that person is your father. ”

  My mind reeled. I leaned back in the chair, my eyes leaping from the ledger to Heathcliff’s face, registering the significance of what he was saying. Grimalkin leaped up on the desk and plonked down on the book. She stared down Heathcliff with a defiant, “meorrw,” before lifting her leg in the air and delicately washing her derriere.

  “Good. Because I thought for a second there you were going to tell me my dad was a dead epic poet, and then we’d have to get your head examined.” I rubbed my temple, reaching out to pat Grimalkin with the other hand. “You’re right. It makes perfect sense. Mr. Simson was blind. I inherited my retinitis pigmentosa from my father. Mr. Simson told you that you had to protect me, which also seems to be my father’s jam, according to his letter. I mean, I find it hard to believe my mum fell into bed with a doddering old bookstore owner, but…”

  “… the time-travel room would mean that the man who impregnated your mother could have come from any point in his own timeline,” Heathcliff finished my sentence for me. He’d been doing that a lot recently, as if his thoughts matched mine at every moment. It was a little freaky, but also wonderful.

  “Meorw,” Grimalkin added, batting my nose.

  “Exactly.” My mind raced a
s all the pieces slotted into place. “Perhaps my father came to this time as a younger man, and that’s how he seduced my mother. It would also explain why she never told me he was blind – if he had retinitis pigmentosa, then it might not have set in for him yet – and also why she didn’t recognize him when she’d come into the shop to collect me. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it sooner, to be honest.”

  “At least we figured it out before Morrie,” Heathcliff’s eyes sparkled with joy. “He’s going to be pissed.”

  “Try not to look quite so gleeful when you tell him,” I teased. “While this is awesome, it doesn’t get us any closer to finding my father. Knowing what we now know, it more than likely he left the bookshop through the room upstairs, making it even less likely we’ll find him.”

  My mind flashed to the note warning of danger, and to the words Victoria Bainbridge spoke to me last time I’d set foot inside the time-travel room. “The next time I see you, you’ll be covered in blood.”

  But whose blood? Whose? My father’s? My own? One of the guys… please don’t let it be one of the guys.

  “You’re thinking about the note again,” Heathcliff growled.

  I nodded.

  “And the blood.”

  “Especially the blood.”

  “Obviously, she meant the blood of your enemies.”

  I snorted, mostly because Heathcliff had this fierce look on his face, like he really did believe I’d be walking around wearing my enemies blood. “I don’t think so, but that’s the problem. I don’t know, and it’s driving me crazy. What if it’s your blood? What if it’s Morrie’s or Quoth’s or Mum’s or Jo’s or—”

  “Allow me to relieve your mind of the burden.” With one shove of his thick hand, Heathcliff pushed the ledger off the desk, along with my list and all our mail and pens and stamps. Grimalkin howled and leapt out of the way as the book clattered to the floor. She gave Heathcliff a filthy look, turned on her elegant legs, and slunk away.