by Jessa Archer
I was tempted to reach down and inspect them, but I resisted. I knew that Logan would need me to keep these pristine, so that I could testify that I hadn’t touched them and so that any fingerprints the culprits had left wouldn’t be marred.
Beside them on the ground, useless, were the ropes and the weight that would have pulled the dumbwaiter up to the top floor. I could see a frayed end that looked like it had been sawed through by a knife.
Since I didn’t want to touch anything, I figured I would at least make a record of my discovery. I turned the flash on for my phone camera and took the best photos I could of the spindles and ropes while they lay at the bottom of the dark shaft.
I figured Logan must be sound asleep by this point, but I couldn’t wait to share my find. I texted him the photos of the spindles, both original and fake, even though it was the middle of the night.
Logan, guess what I found! I know you’re in bed now, but I wanted to let you know that I think I’ve located what we were looking for. You can come pick up the evidence in the morning. I haven’t touched it.
I was stunned to see Logan text me back immediately.
Where r u?
What was he doing up at this hour?
Hey, you’re awake! I’m in Angelo’s house. Found the spindles hidden at the bottom of the old dumbwaiter in the basement!
Just as I hit send, I heard something that sounded like a door opening, and then a slam. There were heavy footsteps above my head. It sounded like somebody—or two somebodies—were on the main floor.
“We have to get those wooden things out of here. That lady came snooping after me at the restaurant.”
It was Scarlett’s voice. I stood still, feeling as though I had just had an electric shock. My nerves were tingling up and down my body, and I couldn’t move.
“She’s dating the sheriff,” Scarlett said. “And she’s got to know I’m involved. I’m going back to New York to collect my money. I’m not going to jail for this.”
“What money? We killed the wrong guy!”
This was another voice. A man’s voice. Who was that? My bet was on Shrimpy, but I’d never heard him speak. It wasn’t Jared, I was sure. It wasn’t Big Daddy Johnson, either.
Whoever it was, he was probably not going to throw me a welcome party for standing in the basement in front of the incriminating evidence they’d come to grab. The shock of hearing the man’s voice finally stirred me to action.
I closed the door to the dumbwaiter as silently and quickly as I could. I wasn’t going to take the time to put the bulletin board back up.
I looked around in a panic for something to hide behind. There was a lot of junk but nothing big enough to shelter a person. Then I saw the oil tank in the corner. I shuddered to think what might be behind it, but I liked my chances with spiders and mice better than I did with two murder suspects.
I heard the door at the top of the stairs squeak open as I hustled to the other side of the basement and slid in behind the oil tank. Something tickled my nose, and I squeezed it to keep from sneezing.
“Who’s ‘we’? I didn’t kill anyone, Shrimpy.” It was Scarlett’s voice again. “You asked me to paint some wooden dowels to look like metal bars. I didn’t know what you were going to do with them!”
And then I saw the bulk of a wide but short man silhouetted in the moonlight, coming down the steps. Right toward me.
A faint light glowed from my hands, and I looked down. To my horror, I realized that my phone was still on. Thank heavens I had put it on silent. I could see now that Logan had texted me six times since my last message, with increasingly frantic questions, but I didn’t dare answer now. I turned the phone off completely so an errant beep or chime couldn’t give me away.
Shrimpy and Scarlett had made it to the bottom of the stairs. I was barely breathing now. They walked over to the same wall I had just explored and saw that the bulletin board was on the floor.
“Somebody’s been down here,” Shrimpy said. He poked his head inside the dumbwaiter door and bent over to reach deep for the spindles at the bottom of the shaft.
A ferocious barking came suddenly from outside the ground-level basement window. I looked out to find Woogie staring straight at me and scratching crazily at the glass. He started to howl.
“What the—!” There was a loud thump as Shrimpy reared up in surprise and hit his head, hard, on the edge of the shaft. It would have been funny if I hadn’t been worried about dying.
Now the howls were joined by a siren approaching, and fast. I had never been so glad to hear that blaring sound disturb a peaceful night.
“I’m getting out of here!” Scarlett shouted and then raced up the stairs. Shrimpy, rubbing his head, apparently decided to give up on retrieving the spindles. He hustled up the stairs behind her, groaning as he went.
I was terrified that they would go outside and find Mr. Woogles, but I could feel my heart starting to calm down a little bit now that I knew there was help on the way. I had to get up there and protect my doggy. I squeezed back out of my hiding place, shuddering a bit at the sticky sensation of spiderwebs grabbing my arm.
The sirens were getting closer and closer, two of them now, rising and falling in a jarring harmony. I heard the squeal of brakes as a vehicle skidded to a stop. There was a loud whoop whoop sound, and then someone on a megaphone shouting, “Police. Freeze!”
Suddenly there was a bright light shining through the window, and Woogie stopped howling.
“Pepper! Pepper, are you down there? It’s me... it’s your mother! I’m coming, darling... I’m coming to save you!”
Chapter Thirty
I dropped onto the sofa, home and safe at last. I was exhausted.
“So tell me what happened,” I said to the friends who had assembled in my living room. “How did you all get here in the middle of the night?”
Bryce sat on one side of me as Woogie lay at my feet. My pup hadn’t let me out of his sight since I had emerged from the house next door while Logan was arresting Shrimpy and Scarlett.
Sergio poured a glass of wine and passed it to me.
“Drink up, darling,” Bryce said. “After what you’ve been through, you need it.” He turned to Sergio, who sat down on the other side of the sofa. “Thank goodness you had a good bottle of wine in the car, Sergio. We have to teach this girl to keep the important things in stock at all times.”
Bryce raised his glass to me. “After all, one never knows when one will be in a tight spot with a deranged killer and need to be rescued by a handsome man.”
Everyone drank to that, even Logan, who was drinking only soda. He seemed both flattered and confused by Bryce’s reference to him as handsome.
“I was just doing my job,” Logan said from his seat across the room. He wasn’t in uniform, but he had his gun, and seeing that on his hip was a stark reminder of just how fortunate I was with the way this whole night had turned out.
“What about me?” my mother said. “If it hadn’t been for me and the Misty Meddlers—”
“The what?” several of us asked at the same time.
“The Misty Meddlers!” My mother looked supremely pleased at the attentive faces around the room. “Me and my girlfriends. We have a group on the Facebook. It started several years ago. We actually used to do it all by telephone, but you know what? The Facebook turns out to be a very efficient way to communicate.” She widened her eyes in surprise.
“And so the Misty Meddlers, well, we keep everybody up to date with what’s going on around the neighborhood. In fact, a lot of us are older, you know, far older than I am. It’s harder to sleep when you’re old. And so when people can’t sleep, they get on the computer. Then we sort of chat, you know, we gossip about the people in Misty. I learn all kinds of interesting things.”
I took a sip of my wine. The idea of my mom talking with her elderly chums on Facebook in the middle of the night was both hilarious and terrifying.
“Some of the MMs—that’s our nickname—list
en to the police radio. And what happened was that I heard about some fancy car that went off the road into the marsh. And then I heard that it was actually my daughter’s doctor boyfriend.”
“Mom!” I shouted in panic. “He is not my boyfriend.” I tried not to look at Logan.
Bryce was beaming. My mother just kept talking.
“All right. Not officially your boyfriend.” She turned back to her rapt audience. “Anyway, so of course I was very worried about Pepper. I called her house—you know, the house phone, which I insisted she get, naturally, for just such an emergency. But I didn’t get any answer. And I was awake, so I simply decided to take the initiative and drive over here. Pepper didn’t answer the door, which was very unlike her. Then I let myself in with my own key, and there was nobody at home except Mr. Woogles.”
She then pointed at my pup as though he were an audiovisual aid.
“I knew Pepper would never leave her doggy unattended overnight on purpose. So naturally, I called the sheriff’s office. And when I just got the answering service, which, by the way, was no help at all...”
Here she turned to Logan. “You really should instruct them to be more responsive. When a mother finds her daughter out at night, she has every right to be worried!”
Logan looked somewhat baffled at this statement, but he said nothing.
“Then I decided to call Logan directly. Fortunately, one of my friends in the Misty Meddlers went to school with his great-aunt Jennifer. So I texted her—”
“You text, Mom?”
“Of course I text! How old you think I am?”
I took another sip of wine.
“So I got Logan’s phone number, and I guess I woke him up. You young people. You’re so lucky that you can sleep like that. And when I told him that Pepper wasn’t at home and I was worried about her, he told me he’d come out to the house—”
Now it was my turn to look at Logan. “Logan, I really appreciate your coming to rescue me, but if my mother ever calls you again in the middle of the night because I’m not at home... please do not come trying to find me.”
Logan actually blushed. “Of course. I would never have investigated if you hadn’t told me about Johnson’s threats—”
My mother wasn’t finished. “And so I was the one to get the cavalry to come!” She announced this triumphantly, gazing happily at the assortment of handsome men in my living room.
“Oh, and I keep forgetting to tell you, Pepper. I wanted to solve your other mystery... about the porta-potty? Lucinda Dexter told me she saw a man—a very ugly, short, and wide man—go into the fancy woman’s toilet trailer just as the guests were getting seated for the Johnson-Dingle wedding. She couldn’t believe he was doing that! That was for the ladies. So she banged on the door as hard as she could, and he ran out all in a hurry.”
I started laughing. “Shrimpy! Shrimpy was the culprit in the case of the soiled porta-potty. Trixie would be mortified.”
“See?” My mother was gloating now. “The Misty Meddlers are full of useful information. And one more thing! Logan isn’t back with his wife. She just filed for divorce.”
Logan was lucky he wasn’t sipping soda at that moment, or it would have been all over him. He seemed to want to say something but then thought better of it.
In an effort to make sure that this was the end of my mother’s revelations, I raised my glass of wine in a toast. “And so I thank you all for the parts you played in rescuing me from the clutches of Shrimpy.” I leaned down to pet my pup, who was still lying at my feet. “And especially my darling Mr. Woogles. You were a hero!”
Mr. W stood up, his tail going wild, and gave me a big old doggy kiss. “But tell me what happened, Logan. I saw Shrimpy and Scarlett in handcuffs?”
“Yes. Sergio and I missed all this,” Bryce said. “We arrived just as they were taking the criminals away. Our only contribution to the evening was wine. What’s the end of the story?”
“And Bryce! What brought you out to visit me at 2:30 in the morning? Don’t tell me you’re part of the Misty Meddlers?” I asked. Bryce gave me a gentle swat on the arm.
“I would be honored to be a member. However, what happened was that your mother called us.” He looked across the room at my mother. “Twice, in fact. And after that, we couldn’t sleep.”
Sergio nodded. “Yes. We were in sleep. But she called the second time, and we woke up.” Sergio turned to me. “Your mother loves you very much. You are a lucky daughter.”
I smiled at my mother. “I know.” Before I started to sniffle, I turned back to Logan. “Did Shrimpy and Scarlett give you any hints as to who set this whole scheme up?”
“Shrimpy kept his mouth shut,” Logan said, apparently recovered from my mother’s announcement. “I suspect he’s more familiar with the life of crime than Scarlett is. She volunteered the whole story while we were booking them. No doubt she figured that being a witness against Shrimpy would make things easier for her.”
He leaned back in the chair and crossed his legs. “Scarlett said she got her marching orders from Shrimpy, but she told us that the big boss was some guy in New York who was connected to those Oceanside Bliss spas.”
“So it wasn’t Big Daddy,” I said. “I’m actually relieved to hear that. He likes to throw his weight around, but I’d hate to think that he was the mastermind behind the plot to murder Winthrop—or actually, Angelo.”
“Right,” Logan said. “It looks like Winthrop falling to his death was simply a case of the wrong guy stepping out onto the balcony, which had been rigged to collapse. The target was Dr. D’Amore all along.”
Bryce raised an eyebrow. “Well, it is fair to say that no one in this town liked Roger Winthrop.”
There was a sober moment of silence as we all took in the finality of that statement. I drank the last sip of my wine and set it down on the table.
“I’m amazed and grateful to have such wonderful friends. Thank you all. But as much fun as this is, I think it’s time to go to bed.”
I stood up as everyone said good night, giving hugs all around. Waving goodbye from the doorway, with Mr. Woogles beside me, an immense tiredness fell over me.
“Let’s go to sleep, Woogie. I trust there won’t be another murder in Misty for a long time to come.”
He barked and followed me up the stairs, wagging his tail.
Next up: TREBLE WITH THE LAW (Legal Beagle Cozy Mystery #2). Turn the page to read the first chapter for free!
Pepper Sullivan just solved the first murder that quiet Misty-on-the-Sound has seen in decades with the help of her trusty canine companion, Mr. Woogles. Everything should calm down now, so she can get back to building her law practice and spending her free time belting out Broadway songs.
But when the town’s richest and most famous son, Everett Pursley the Third, comes back to lead the “Lights on the Sound” parade of boats on Labor Day weekend, tragedy strikes again. The millionaire’s wife is found drowned. Was it an accident?
As usual, Pepper’s one-time boyfriend Sheriff Logan Bateman needs her help to figure out what happened--but he doesn’t want it. When her gorgeous next-door neighbor, Dr. Angelo D’Amore, provides an unexpected clue, Logan seems a mite jealous. And Pepper can’t get far enough away from the pesky new guy in town, Josh Devlin. Nevertheless, the attributes of all three potential “suitors” are gleefully dissected by Pepper’s nosy mom.
In the end, Pepper must harness all her skills as a sleuth to uncover the culprit and unravel the mystery of the lady who was launched.
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Excerpt: Treble with the Law (Legal Beagle Cozy Mystery #2)
Chapter One
“Here comes the parade!”
I hopped up from my beach chair to get a better view of the flotilla of lit-up boats gliding past us on Long Island Sound. “Wow. Is that huge thing Everett Pursley’s boat?”
Mr. Woogles, my beagle buddy, jumped up when I did and started barking. He was on a leash—there was too much commotion to let him run free today—and it was safely fastened to a handle of the heavy cooler. I laid my hand on his silky head to calm him down. “It’s okay, Woogie. This is the big event. Everybody came here to watch the boats go by.”
“Pepper,” my mother said, “I worry when I hear you talking to that dog. You know he can’t understand you, right?”
I crouched down and snuggled up to my pup. Leaning over and whispering into his ear, I said, “Don’t listen to her, Woogs.”
Turning to my mother, I smiled. “I know Mr. Woogles is a dog, Mom. But he’s a highly intelligent dog.”
He barked in agreement and I turned back to look at the boats. “I heard Pursley—they call him Purse, isn’t that funny?—came all the way from California to Connecticut to be part of this. That boat is amazing. How much money does that man have?”
“He was born with it, honey,” my friend Bryce said. “The rest of us will never catch up. Never mind, though… we can still enjoy looking.”
I was sitting beside Angelo, my next-door neighbor. He had a dermatology practice in Manhattan and was about to open a beauty spa in the mansion beside me. It occurred to me that he might have something to say about catching up in the wealth department… but I really had no idea how much money he had, and it was certainly none of my business. The fact that he was gorgeous and charming was distracting enough.