Memoirs of a Garroter (Nevermore Bookshop Mysteries Book 4)

by Steffanie Holmes

  “Oh, yes. Sure. Of course, I understand,” I said with false brightness, even though I wanted to crawl inside Heathcliff’s enormous coat and cry.

  The ladies entertained us with more gossip from the village while we ate lunch. I barely touched my roast beef. How could I enjoy a Yorkshire pudding after someone had been killed in the shop?

  On our way back to Nevermore, we passed Mike Whitaker, who owned a local distillery and was going to lead a whisky and book club week after next. He strolled across the green in the opposite direction, flicking through today’s Argleton Gazette.

  “Hi, Mike!” I waved. He glanced up and quickened his pace. Did he not see me? Maybe he’s going blind, too… “Mike!”

  He turned around, his eyes wide. “Mina, er… it’s nice to see you.”

  “And you. I’m glad I caught you. I wanted to talk to you about some of the details of your event. I’ve got the perfect book for us to discuss – it’s a history of whisky brewing in England with all these old pictures—”

  Mike shifted uncomfortably. “Actually, I’m going to have to pull out. I’m sorry, love. My wife’s got a quilting exhibition over in Barchester that night, and I can’t upset the missus.”

  What? Why are you just telling me this now? “No problem,” I forced a smile. “I’ll ask Richard to fill in. He was such a hit with the cider last night, I’m sure he’d love the opportunity.”

  “Yes, yes.” Mike was already jogging toward the pub. “I’m sure he would. Well, see you.”

  “Yeah,” I watched him scurry away. Your wife doesn’t have a quilting meet. You just don’t want to come to Nevermore Bookshop.

  Heathcliff squeezed my hand. I stared across the green at our chimneys jutting above the bakery on the corner, and the little swinging sign that read NEVERMORE BOOKSHOP sticking out beyond the buildings on Butcher Street. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying not to imagine that sign gone, the beautiful old building bordered up… or worse, bulldozed by Grey Lachlan.

  “Let’s hope the police solve this murder soon,” I murmured, fingering my father’s note. “Or Nevermore Bookshop is going to be out of business.”

  Chapter Ten

  Back at my now locust-less flat, I tossed and turned all night. Danny’s bloated, stricken face danced behind my eyelids. He was alive just yesterday, talking about writing his next book. And now, thanks to me, he’s dead.

  I took stock of all the upcoming events I’d booked. Florence and Mike canceled and another author – an amazing romance writer named Bethany Jadin – had called in the afternoon to cancel as well. Unlike Ashley’s murder, where villagers crowded into the shop to snoop around the crime scene, Nevermore had remained deserted for the rest of the day. I guess there is such a thing as too much murder in a small English village.

  Morrie pouted when I left the shop – he was heading to London the next day on business and wanted to spend some time alone before he left. But I really needed to be on my own to think. Above my bed, I’d pinned a picture of some guide dog puppies. Their dark eyes peered down at me, begging me to take them in and give them snuggles and let them help me.

  Nevermore really will be a menagerie when we add a puppy to the mix… but will it even happen now?

  All my plans and ideas for the shop seemed further away than ever.

  That night, I slept fitfully, haunted by dreams of living in a cardboard box on the town green while Grey Lachlan turned the bookshop into a casino. “Good!” cried Mrs. Ellis, waving handfuls of money at him. “I like gambling much more than I care for dusty old books!”

  In the morning, I hit snooze three times before dragging myself out of bed. It definitely wasn’t as much fun waking up without one – or all – of the guys beside me. I pulled on my fluffy dressing gown and headed to the kitchen.

  “Coffee,” I muttered to myself as I flicked on the lights. I staggered back in terror as my eyes beheld a wretched scene.

  No.

  An arc of blood splatter started at the coffee machine and curved across the ceiling before dripping down the cabinets to pool on the floor. Something lumpy stuck out of the top of the grinder. It looked like a piece of meat, complete with a knob of bloody bone.

  Someone had been dismembered in my kitchen.

  Chapter Eleven

  No. No no no no no.

  “Jo!” I yelled, my heart in my throat. “JO!”

  Where’s Jo? Please let her be okay…

  My head spun. I whirled around and emptied my stomach across the floor. As I knelt in the filth, my chest heaving, I noticed a large note pinned to the fridge with a skull magnet. It was in Jo’s handwriting.

  I grabbed the note and held it close to my face to read her scraggly words.

  Mina. You weren’t awake and I needed to get to the office. I’m sorry to leave the kitchen a mess and the coffee machine out of order. I’m conducting an experiment for one of my other cases about how you might dispose of body parts in the grinder. Don’t worry – it’s not human blood. It’s a pig leg. I won’t bore you with the details, but I promise I’ll clean everything up and get the machine fixed asap! There’s a fiver on the fridge door to cover your morning coffee. XX. Jo.

  I lifted another skull magnet on the fridge door and grabbed the money. Bloody hell, Jo. For the heart attack you just gave me, you should at least leave enough that I can afford a croissant. And about ten years of therapy sessions to get the image of violent death by coffee grinder out of my head.

  My day didn’t improve. Not a single soul passed through the doors of Nevermore Bookshop, and another author – the fantastic Marie Robinson – called to cancel her appearance. “I just don’t think I’ll feel safe at your shop,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

  Sorry, my arse. Not even the guys could take the edge off that sting. Although they tried. Quoth brought me a berry cake from the bakery next door that would have been delicious if food had any taste to me right now. Heathcliff added ‘Don’t murder the authors’ to his growing list of shop rules. Before he left for London, Morrie found a company online that printed photographs onto household objects. He ordered me a lamp emblazoned with Heathcliff’s scowling face. “You can put it on his desk,” he grinned.

  No matter how hard they tried to cheer me up, my mind kept returning to those adorable puppies, and to the electronic book tagging system I desperately needed. Every time I had to hold a book up to the light in order to squint at the title or ask for Morrie’s help because I couldn’t see into a dark corner, my stomach tightened.

  “I bet you’re loving this,” I glowered at Heathcliff, who sat in the window, the picture of gentility with a book open in his lap and a cup of tea on the table beside him. His usual stormy expression had been replaced by something that almost resembled calm and tranquility.

  Heathcliff turned the page in his book. Without looking up, he said. “You’ve got to admit, it’s peaceful.”

  “It’s not peaceful, it’s boring. Not to mention it’s not helping us pay the mortgage.” I tapped the ledger I’d been poring over for the last hour. “The accounts are in worse shape than I thought. We’re behind on all the bills and barely breaking even as it is. If we don’t make some sales soon, things are going to be desperate. Forget about ordering that electronic tagging system, we might have to call Grey Lachlan about his offer—”

  “Never,” Heathcliff growled, throwing his book down. His dark eyes bore into mine with that intensity that made my spine tingle. “Lachlan’s not getting his hands on this shop, and you’re getting that tagging wossit.”

  “How? You got some grand plan to instantly make the village not terrified of this bookshop?”

  “I do. We’re going to solve this murder.”

  “Wait a second. What happened to Mr. Let-The-Police-Do-Their-Jobs-Heathcliff who was dead against Morrie and I meddling in Professor Hathaway’s death?”

  “What happened is that his girl’s upset, and he wants to make it better.” Heathcliff stood up and stalked across the room. He leaned over
my chair, a taut, muscled arm on either side of me. Danger flashed in his eyes. “Admit it, you get a kick out of figuring out a murder. You and Morrie are exactly alike, god help us all. And I have no faith in our local constabulary to get this one solved before the bank forecloses. Besides, last time we had a murder in here, this place was gossip central and we had our best month ever. A little bit of murder is good for business, as long as people don’t feel as though they’re personally in danger. If you solve this murder, you’ll be in good with the village again.”

  “I guess…” I threw up my hands. “But Morrie left for London. He’s not back until tomorrow.”

  “I can help. I know stuff,” Heathcliff growled. “What do we do first?”

  “Meeorw.” Grimalkin leapt onto the desk and tapped my arm with her paw.

  “Not now, kitty.” I grabbed her around the waist and dropped her on the floor. Heathcliff handed me one of the blank floral notebooks we had on display on the counter. I cracked the spine and wrote ‘Danny Sledge Murder’ at the top of the page.

  “Um… well, usually Morrie and I start by going over everything we know about the crime and the victim. We know Danny was garroted, which is a pretty brutal way to kill someone. It’s also the main mode of death for the serial killer in his latest book, and the way an ex-girlfriend of his was killed fifteen years ago. So we can assume the murderer chose garroting to make a point. The first thing we need to do is make a list of his enemies and what we know about them, whether they had motive, opportunity, alibis, that kind of thing.”

  “Start with that old bint, Beverly,” Heathcliff said.

  I added her name. “She’s the most obvious suspect, which is why I don’t think she did it. Danny was a young, fit bloke. I can’t see how she’d have had the strength to garrote him, even if she was fueled by adrenaline.”

  “She’s still worth considering.” Heathcliff jabbed me. “Who else?”

  “His wife, Penny. From what she said to me at the reading, she knew Danny was fooling around on her. Plus, she was obsessed with money and status. Maybe she decided Danny would be worth more to her dead than alive. I’m guessing she is the main beneficiary of his will. But again, did she have the strength or viciousness to garrote him?”

  “Add the mistress, too,” Heathcliff said. “Maybe she begged Danny to leave his wife for her. He refused. She killed him out of spite.”

  “Ooh, now you’re talking.” I jotted down Amanda’s name. “And her husband, Brian Letterman. He can’t have been happy if he found out his wife was in bed with his top author, especially not when Danny’s self-publishing his memoir. And Brian has some decent upper-body strength. So would Angus, the ex-cop. And he’s connected to Danny’s past. Maybe he found out Danny really did kill Abigail—”

  “Meorrw!” Grimalkin leapt up on the desk again, plonking her arse down on the notebook and curling her tail across my suspect list. Heathcliff grumbled and wrapped his arms around her, pulling her against his shoulder. Usually, she nestled into his hair and perched there happily for hours. But today she jumped down immediately to stalk across the desk, howling at the top of her lungs.

  Heathcliff plonked her on the floor again. “Anyone else?”

  “Those are the ones we know about. I guess we need to figure out if he has any grudges with other authors, or if he’s pissed off any stalker fans lately.” I eyed Heathcliff’s desk warily. “But for that, I’m going to need to use the computer—”

  “Forget it.” Heathcliff threw up his hands. “I’m not spending a moment of free time on that blasted device—”

  “MEEEEOOOORRRWW!”

  Grimalkin’s shrill cry pierced my ears. She stood in the center of the rug, her back arched, her fur poofed up to twice her size. She shot us both an evil glare, then turned on her heel and trotted toward the hallway.

  “I think she wants us to follow her.” I stood up.

  “So we can admire an eviscerated rodent? Pass.” Heathcliff picked up his book.

  Grimalkin waited in the doorway, her gaze accusing. As soon as she saw me heading toward her, she trotted away, heading down the entrance hallway to a stack of books by the door. She pawed at something sticking out of the corner of the shelf, sandwiched between two volumes of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

  “What have you got there, Grimalkin?” I bent down and pulled out the piece of fabric, holding it up to the light streaming through the stained glass panels either side of the front door. It was a silk scarf, decorated with a pattern of bright leopard spots. Something about it looked familiar.

  The scarf had been wound tight around itself. It unfurled as I shook it out. I turned it over in my hands and gasped.

  Several small, round stains were dotted across the hem of the scarf.

  Drops of blood.

  My heart pounded in my chest. I knew where I’d seen it before. It was the night of Danny’s book reading, and the scarf had been around Beverly Ingram’s neck.

  Chapter Twelve

  Only minutes after I spoke to her on the phone, Jo arrived at Nevermore, her clothes soaked in sweat and her breath coming out in sharp gasps.

  “I left the autopsy in-progress, but I wasn’t about to trust such an important piece of evidence to one of the guys,” she huffed as she pulled on her gloves. “Not when they missed it the last time they searched the shop. Let me see it.”

  So you’ll leave an autopsy to come to collect a scarf, but not to clean up the murder scene in our kitchen? I thought but didn’t say. I showed Jo where I’d laid out the scarf on the table. Grimalkin scratched at the Events room door, howling about the injustice of being locked away while I claimed her moment of glory for myself. “Sorry, kitty,” I called out. “You’ll contaminate the evidence.”

  “Meeeerrrww!” Grimalkin wailed.

  Jo smiled. “I hope you gave her a saucer of cream for her troubles. She was the one who found it.”

  “Meeeerrrww!” Grimalkin concurred, throwing herself at the door.

  “I think we can agree that we don’t need to encourage any more amateur sleuths about the place. Besides, cats aren’t supposed to have cream. She did get lots of ear scratches, though. Grimalkin was tugging at this corner,” I showed Jo where there were a few small teeth marks in the fabric. “I touched the scarf in these top corners when I picked it up. The rest of it, where the blood is, shouldn’t have our fingerprints on it.”

  “Thanks.” Jo placed the scarf into a paper bag. (As I’d learned, plastic Ziploc bags looked good on TV, but they were only used for dry items. Anything that contained blood stains, semen, or potential DNA evidence went into paper bags or cardboard containers, as sealing in plastic could degrade the evidence. And yes, I did spend far too much time grilling Jo for crime scene info over wine.) “Now, show me where you found it.”

  I showed Jo the space on the shelf by the door, between the two books. She photographed the area, then used a magnifying glass and swabs to search for further trace evidence. “This makes sense. We found a couple of blood stains on the carpet here.” Jo pointed to a spot on the wooden floor in front of the shelf. “It looks like our killer garroted Danny, then shoved the scarf in here. You said it was Beverly Ingram’s scarf?”

  “She was wearing it at the reading. If you ask others, they might remember it as well. It’s quite distinctive, especially since it clashed with her gingham coat.”

  “If by ‘distinctive,’ you mean ‘garish beyond belief’.” Jo smiled as she dropped the bag into her crime scene kit. “Did Beverly touch anything in the shop that you remember? I’d like to be able to get some samples to compare DNA.”

  “I don’t think so… wait, yes.” I beckoned Jo to follow me into the Events room. Although we'd cleaned the space and arranged the chairs in a circle for the writing workshop that would never be, some of the displays from the reading were still up. I pointed to Quoth's picture on the wall beside the window. "She was leaning against this when she screamed. I think her hair got caught aroun
d the corner of the frame.”

  "That’s one of Allan's, isn't it?" Jo peered at the painting. "I recognize his work anywhere. I hope he won't mind if we take this as evidence. I'll make sure we don’t damage the image."

  I glanced up at the rafters. Only the faintest glint of light revealed Quoth’s presence in the gloom. “Croak,” he agreed.

  I smiled. "He’s not here right now, but if it helps catch a killer, I’m sure he'd be happy to help."

  "Thanks." Carefully, Jo removed a couple of hair with tweezers, then took down the painting and slipped it into another, larger paper bag.

  “Anytime. Listen, Jo, about the kitchen—”

  “Yes. Sorry, sorry.” Jo picked up her crime scene kit. “I promise I’ll clean it all up just as soon as I get home. I’ll probably be late tonight, what with all the evidence to process.”

  “But—”

  Jo hurried out the door. “I really am sorry, Mina, but I’ve got to dash. I have a garroting victim with my name on it!”

  I let Grimalkin out of the room. She shot me a filthy look before shooting upstairs, no doubt to eviscerate a mouse in revenge. Heathcliff went back to his book while I read biographies of Danny Sledge online. There were lots of wild stories about his gang days. He’d started writing his first novel in jail, after reading some crime fiction in the prison library and realizing how inaccurate it was. His first book went on to become a New York Times bestseller. Danny negotiated a reduced prison sentence for ratting out his partner in a drug ring, and as soon as he was out, he left crime behind him for good. It looked like he’d been living the high life ever since – Penny’s Instagram account was filled with images of the pair of them wearing designer clothes and jetting off to exotic locations. His life had certainly been interesting, but I couldn’t see any evidence of crazed stalker fans or criminals returning from his past for revenge—