A Wonder Springs Cozy Mystery Omnibus: Books 1, 2 & 3

by B. T. Alive

  “You tell me,” I said, and I set the earring on the table’s old wood.

  A faint flush crept up her delicate features, but her expression was neutral. “Where did you find this?”

  Slowly I sat across from the woman and steepled my fingers. This was going to be good. “The dump truck,” I said. “Right in the driver’s seat.”

  Now she pinned me with a fierce glare. Her dark eyes burned like coals, but her voice was cold. “You’re lying,” she said. “I told you myself I was looking for an earring like that. It’s common enough; you could have gone and bought a match.”

  “Fine,” I said. “If that’s how you want to play it. I’ll take this over to the sheriff, and we’ll see what they say in forensics.”

  At the word forensics, Adora stiffened.

  “That’s right,” I said. “They’ll know in five seconds whether this is a match. You may not know this, but every pair of earrings has a distinct set of scratches. Like a fingerprint.”

  Adora’s mouth tightened.

  “Hmm, are you sure?” said Tina. She was still standing there like a waitress.

  “Absolutely,” I said, trying to feel as hard as I could that she needed to shut the heck up.

  “No…” Tina frowned. “I’m pretty sure the scratches thing is with bullets in a gun.”

  “Bullets, earrings, buttons, everything,” I said, trying to maintain my gravitas. “They can tell if a coin has been in your purse.”

  But Adora burst out laughing. “I think you’re faking,” she said.

  Faking.

  Faking.

  Holy crud.

  “You’ve been faking your migraines,” I said.

  Adora choked on her laugh.

  “Whenever you want Kelvin to get lost,” I said. “A little moan, a whimper, and you lock yourself away… in your ground floor room. You weren’t laid up with a headache the night they cut those vines. You had snuck out the window to cut those vines yourself.”

  “How dare you,” Adora rasped. She was seething with indignation, but I noticed she still kept her voice low and flicked a nervous glance around the wide dining room. “How can you say such a thing?”

  Shoot, that part was going to be tricky. I caught Tina’s eye, but she still hadn’t gotten it, and she looked confused.

  “If you were really writhing in agony with a genuine migraine,” I said, “we’d be able to… tell. Trust me.”

  “Oh,” Tina said. There we go.

  She had to be remembering that first time the two of us had met Adora, in the room there with Kelvin. Adora had begged off, excusing herself with her trademark migraine… but Tina hadn’t felt a thing.

  “What are you, some kind of headache specialist?” Adora hissed. “For your information, I’ve been suffering for years. In fact… aaah… unbelievable…” She squeezed her eyes shut, clutched her forehead, and moaned. “You’ve triggered one right now.”

  I arched an eyebrow at Tina. She shook her head and smirked.

  We both waited patiently while Adora did her little moaning act, but when she cracked open her eyes to take a peek, she lost all her steam. Maybe it was Tina’s smirk, I don’t know. If even Tina doesn’t buy it, you really are toast.

  “All right, fine,” she growled. “I’ll tell you whatever you want to know, but don’t you dare say a word to Kelvin. If you had to deal with him, you too would have perfected the art of the headache. He is insatiable.”

  I squirmed. “Don’t want to know,” I said quickly.

  “I meant how much he talks,” she said. “Oh my Lord—”

  “Can we just stay focused on your crimes?” I said.

  “What is there to say?” she demanded, still talking low but lilting a bit into her accent. “You said it yourself. I helped cut those vines. I was enraged. I had thought I had put him behind me, that his wedding would bring closure. But when I saw him again… his look, his voice… the passion he aroused—”

  “Right, got it,” I said. “I’m not talking about stealing the grapes. I’m talking about dumping them.”

  “I never went near that truck!” she panted. “Not the cab! She made us climb up and dump every bucket straight into the back!”

  “And yet I found your earring,” I said.

  “Maybe she found it. Picked it up,” Adora said. “Yes! I remember! She was cutting beside me… vicious strokes… she never spoke one word. And then… I felt my ears begin to itch. Just the lobes. It was so strange. I tried to ignore it, but it got worse, burning, driving me mad. At last I took them out and put them in my pocket… she could have seen me. She could have plucked one from my pocket.”

  “So you’re asking me to believe that the evidence I found that you were driving the murder weapon last night was, what, planted by your accomplice? Who mysteriously made your ears itch?”

  “I didn’t say that!” she snapped. “That part could be an accident!”

  But of course, I realized, with a sinking heart, it could also have been very much on purpose. If the killer was a telempath.

  Except, wait. Fiona had already admitted to being that accomplice. Which could only mean…

  “Okay. Let’s get this straight,” I said. “You said ‘she’. Who was it?”

  At this, Adora withdrew. Her face closed down, and her whole personal fire seemed to draw within, to safety, like a mother calling her kids in to the hearth and then bolting the door shut.

  “I don’t know it was a woman,” she said, low and flat. “The note was typed. The person never spoke… gloves, mask, everything covered, all in black… I say she from how she moved. And other things.”

  “But you must have seen her overall figure,” I pressed. “Was she… tall? Curvy?”

  “No, no,” Adora said, frowning. “Average height, shorter than me. Flat.” Then her face cleared. “Oh. You mean Fiona.”

  “I knew it!” Tina said, and she actually clapped. “Fiona wasn’t the leader either!”

  “Hold up,” I said. “There were three of you? Fiona didn’t say anything about three.”

  But then, I reflected, Fiona hadn’t been super eager to talk about it at all, had she?

  “Three,” Adora said, firmly. “Me, Fiona, and… her. Fiona had a little play mask, like a Halloween costume, and she stuffed her hair into a winter hat, most of it, but…” She broke a tiny smile. “She is not quite a master of disguise.”

  “Why three?” I said. “Why would this woman risk having both of you in on it?”

  “Did you see that pile?” Adora demanded. “We did that all in one night! Less than one night! She was in a frenzy, she slashed more than both of us together, until every vine was bare. And I woke up so sore—”

  “Okay, okay! Fine,” I snapped. I could feel Tina’s exultant glee and relief, but I’d believe Fiona was innocent when we finally caught the actual freaking killer. “So you do understand what’s at stake here, right?” I said.

  Adora looked away.

  I pressed on. “You thought this Masked Cutter lady was just inviting you in on a prank to trash his wedding, but her long game was murder. With you to take the fall.”

  “‘Take the fall’,” Tina repeated, approving. “Nice. You’re really getting this lingo down.”

  “I do not know who it was,” Adora repeated, her voice dull and cold.

  “You sure?” I said. “Because I’ve still got to take this earring to the sheriff. He may not find any magical scratches, but you’re still going to be first in line.”

  Adora faltered.

  “Actually…” Tina said.

  “Seriously?” I snapped. “Whose team are you on?”

  “Sorry! I just remembered,” Tina said. “She was drinking at the pub last night! With all those witnesses! It can’t be her.”

  I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose. Crud.

  “Even so,” Tina went on, “you still ought to help us catch her, Adora. She’s a killer.”

  “You weren’t there,” Adora said quietly.
“I could feel it, radiating off her like the heat of a burning city. Pure, sheer, rage. That is not a woman I would cross.”

  “So you want to let her roam free?” I said. “That makes you feel more safe?”

  Adora did not reply. She stared out the window for so long that I thought she might not have heard me. Then, with sudden violence, she pushed away from the table and stood, with a screech of her chair that made me jump.

  “Please don’t talk to me again,” she said, looking down from her towering height. “I just want to leave all this in peace. Alive.” She turned on her heels and strode away, clacking across the floor.

  I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when I found her dead.

  Chapter 34

  I really don’t want to say much about finding Adora. Sheriff Jake made me tell it all so many times. (Plus everything else I’d found out over the last few days… so much for not needing my help.)

  Here’s the short version. For the rest of the day, I kept on mulling over everything she’d said. The more I thought about it, the more convinced I was that she did know the killer. I mean, come on, right?

  I tried to go to bed, but I couldn’t shake it. She was just downstairs, probably not asleep yet either. I guess that’s an occupational hazard of living in an Inn… all those suspects under your same roof… how does Grandma ever get any sleep?

  Anyway, I went down and knocked. No answer, but the door was unlocked. Main room was empty, dear old Kelvin had to be out at his whist, but the door was closed to her little private migraine sanctuary. Maybe she hadn’t heard me? I called again, knocked on the door, cracked it open… it was dark, and at first I thought she really was asleep. Until I saw her eyes. And the angle of her neck.

  I found out later she’d been strangled.

  When the sheriff got through with me, he grilled everyone he could find, but no one had seen anything. There were signs of a struggle, and the ground window was open, but in the dark, the killer could have slipped off into those back woods. I think the sheriff defaulted to suspecting Kelvin, but the man had indeed been playing his ritual evening whist with the locals, including not only Grandma but also Frannie, who’d even managed to drag out Lee to give her some distraction. Probably this wasn’t what she’d had in mind.

  I made the mistake of walking with the sheriff up to the Hearth when he first was looking for Kelvin. I know you know what happened with Kelvin and me, but when the man got the news about his wife… well, now I had a second face for my nightmares.

  After that I went to bed. I slept past noon.

  When I finally woke up and saw the time on my antique (zap-proof) alarm clock, I freaked out about missing so much work. But slipped under the door was a note from Cade. He was expertly avoidant about our own personal incident, but he was super sweet about me taking (another) day off, practically begging me to just try to recuperate after everything that had happened. At this rate, I didn’t know how long he was going to last as an entrepreneur, but I was definitely grateful to stay away for now. For multiple reasons. Besides, he didn’t expect many customers anyway; it was finally raining in earnest, steady and dark and hard.

  I tried to find Tina and hang out, but unlike Cade, Grandma actually expected her employees to periodically show up. Plus, Tina had to get her hours in early; apparently, she’d been invited to some function that evening at Lee’s little island house, the Respite. Lee was calling it a “reconciliation tea”, and I hadn’t made the invite list. Which was totally fine. I had no desire to hang out with a grieving widow who was probably just making an excuse to have company in her empty old house in case the killer wanted her next. No thank you.

  Except that by evening, I was going stir crazy. I couldn’t just wander the halls of the old Inn like the Narnia kids, trying random doors. Actually, there were those weird doors up by the towers… but no, I did have a (marginally) better idea.

  I headed out into the rain to Cade’s apartment.

  Unfortunately, it was also Sheriff Jake’s apartment. And when I traipsed through the cold rain and climbed the creaky stairs to that upstairs room, it was Cade’s dad who answered the door.

  “Miss me?” I said, striving for a wry smile. The guy looked, if possible, even worse than I felt; his mustache was droopy, his crow’s feet were sagging, and he was lounging around with his sheriff shirt unbuttoned and flapping around his white undershirt, thus shrouding his impressive muscles but showcasing his gut. “I thought you might want to hear my statement again,” I said. “Fifteenth time’s the charm.”

  “Hmph,” he said. “Sorry. Haven’t seen Cade. Not sure he ever came back from work.”

  I frowned, surprised by a pang of panic. Cade never just went AWOL, not without texting me through Tina or writing one of his notes. Maybe we had broken up.

  Despite his overall droop, I realized the sheriff was studying me closely. His nostrils quietly flared… I didn’t even want to think about what he thought he was smelling…

  “Where’s Tina?” he said. “I hardly ever see just one of you.”

  “She’s at some ‘tea’ or whatever with Lee Lannon,” I said. “I’m kind of surprised that Lee would go back in that house so soon, honestly, but she might as well enjoy it while she can.”

  The sheriff frowned. “I don’t think she’ll lose the property. My understanding is that Frannie co-signed the mortgage.”

  “Really? Frugal Frannie?” I blurted.

  The sheriff’s eyes twinkled, but he tried to look stern. “Family is family,” he said.

  Which led to an uncomfortable silence. He stood in the doorway, and I stood on the stairway landing, the rain thudding against the overhang and spattering cold against my jacket.

  Finally, he said, “You look like you need coffee.”

  “At this hour?” I said.

  “Fine. I need coffee,” he said. “If I’m going to survive your barrage of questions.”

  I laughed, but I also scuttled in gratefully to the warm living room. The old apartment might be Feral Male, but at times like this, it had its own comfy charm. I ditched my soaked jacket and curled up on the old couch, on the nearest side to the rattling baseboard heater. It might not be a roaring hearth, but it was still radiant heat.

  The sheriff handed me a thick mug, deliciously hot to my cold hands, and steaming with coffee that smelled like another sideways alternate dimension that could escape time. This one was way better than “rainy afternoon cold”.

  “Let me guess,” I said. “None of his exes have alibis.”

  The sheriff, sitting at the little round kitchen table and bending over his own enormous mug, startled, and the coffee splashed dark on the light wood.

  “That was a guess?” he said.

  I shrugged. “It seemed fitting. They all had alibis for Dante. Well, except one.” The sheriff’s brow clouded, and I hurried on. “What about the dump truck?”

  “Good work on that, by the way,” he said. He’d already complimented me at least three times, but I was still getting a warm little buzz every time. “I went over the thing with a fine tooth comb, but we’re going to need a team from Northern Virginia to do forensics. It’ll be days.”

  “Ah,” I said, with a sage nod. “Forensics.”

  The sheriff sighed, bent to his coffee, and started lapping it up with his tongue.

  “Hey,” I said. “You’re doing it.”

  “Hmm?” he said, frowning. “Oh. Thanks.”

  With grave deliberation, he lifted the cup and sipped it like a normal human being. He jerked and grunted in pain. “Dang it. Burned my tongue.”

  “So now what?” I said. “How are you going to catch this monster?”

  He cleared his throat. “Summer, I can understand your interest—”

  “I found her!”

  “I know. But I don’t want to rush into anything premature.”

  “What’s premature?” I said. “Adora admitted to me and Tina that she and Fiona got put up to cutting those vines by this mystery w
oman, and Adora was terrified of her. As soon as she’d talked, she regretted it.”

  “But that doesn’t explain how this theoretical partner learned of her betrayal,” he said. “Did you say anything? Did Tina?”

  “Um, did we all get teleported somewhere normal, and I didn’t get the memo?” I said. “This is Psychic Superville! For all we know, the killer could use morphic fields to read traces of our conversation off her coffee cup!”

  The sheriff frowned. “I don’t claim to fully understand the science, but I don’t see how that would work. The closest would be your Aunt Trudy, but that would just be straight memories, not the actual cup—”

  “Whatever! You get the point. Adora probably never knew about psychic powers, but she signed her death warrant the minute she talked to us.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Why are you so hesitant?”

  “Because the crime just doesn’t fit any of these supposed suspects. Not so much the motive but the means. Compared to Dante’s other exes, with the exception of Tina, Adora was a young, strong woman.”

  “What do you mean?” I said.

  “Even assuming that Adora was asleep and caught by surprise from behind, her attacker still needed significant strength to complete the strangulation. There were clear signs of a struggle; Adora didn’t go easily. Now consider our suspects.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  The sheriff ticked off the names on his thick fingers. “One, Rhonda Cameron. She’s much older, and she’s clearly out of shape. Extremely unlikely.”

  “Fair enough,” I said.

  “Two, Glynis Beverley. Also older, but she appears to be in better shape.”

  “So, maybe her?” I said. “She’d wanted Dante the whole time, and she’s super organized. She totally might have sabotaged his wedding.”

  “She might,” he said. “Except. I happen to know for a fact that Glynis suffers from fairly severe premature arthritis.”

  “Really?” I said. “Where? She hides it well.”

  “She does,” he said. “Like everything else. If Glynis tried to strangle anyone, let alone a healthy young woman, the effort would be excruciating.”

  “Yikes,” I said.