Ravenwood Cove Cozy Mysteries Books 1-3

by Carolyn L. Dean

  “And then what happened?”

  Mrs. Mason leaned closer, her voice low even though there was no one else in the bakery. “Truman really lost his temper, and I mean really lost it. He told that man-“Mrs. Mason pointed a finger for emphasis – “that Anderson may have thought he finished Truman’s life, but that he hadn’t.” Mrs. Mason’s eyes had a flicker of fear in them. “Truman told Anderson Bowles that he was going to end his life.”

  A chill ran down Amanda’s spine. Her mouth felt dry when she asked, “Mrs. Mason, are you sure about all this?”

  Mrs. Mason seemed almost offended by Amanda’s question. “Sure as I’m sitting here. If you ask me, Truman meant every word he said.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “If you ask me, I think Anderson Bowles did something terrible to him, too, and Truman was completely serious when he threatened to kill him.”

  Chapter 10

  It took three more days before James sent Amanda a text saying that the preliminary autopsy and lab results were back, and asking if he could swing by to talk with her. With seven new guests at the Inn; one elderly couple and a young family with three children; it was difficult to find time to herself to meet with James but she really wanted to know what the medical examiner had found. By the time she’d done her morning chores, given her guests information about the best things to see in town, and made sure all the animals were fed and watered she knew she’d have enough time to meet with James. A quick text, and when he responded she was on her way down to Cuppa. Driving her new car through the swirling red and gold leaves that were blowing down the street in the autumn wind made her happy, and she hummed a little as she thought about the good coffee and warm cinnamon rolls waiting for her.

  The front windows of her favorite coffeeshop were already decorated for the season, with ropes of small yellow and orange lights surrounding each pane and a garland of colorful leaves and fake red berries looped across the top. When Amanda walked in she could see Tory pulling a batch of pastries out of the oven in the back room. She waved in greeting and walked over to the counter, where Meg was actually bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet, waiting to take her order.

  “Too much caffeine this morning?” she asked as she laughed, watching her friend’s blonde curls dance a bit as she grinned at her.

  “Just in a good mood I guess,” Meg said. “I already know what you’re going to order. Hang on a second and I’ll make it for you.” Meg hummed happily as she pulled out the chocolate powder for Amanda’s morning mocha. “How can I not be happy when I don’t have to worry about Anderson stalking me anymore?”

  Meg was right of course, but just hearing her say those words made Amanda’s upbeat mood vanish. She couldn’t even picture her sweet bubbly friend as a murderer, but somebody definitely had killed him and the more she thought about it the more she could see how Meg would have a motive. Even though she doubted Meg was capable of killing another human being, she wasn’t so sure that the police would agree with her.

  The tinkling bell over the door announced James’ arrival, metal travel mug in hand. Meg pointed at him accusingly just as he was taking off his coat.

  “Don’t you be bringing in somebody else’s coffee in this place, you,” she teased. “You’re supposed to be supporting your favorite locally-owned shop.” James set his mug down and put up both of hands in self-defense. “Hey, I just made this at home this morning and I promise to buy a half dozen cinnamon rolls for the crew at the Sheriff’s office. Will that keep you from smacking me?”

  Meg winked at him as she poured coffee into a large cup. “Well, okay then. If you’re going to be a customer that’s different. I guess I’ll let you stay.” A buzzer sounded from the back room, and Meg swiveled her head toward the kitchen. “I’ll be back in a few. Gotta take the scones out of the oven and put the next batch in.”

  Coffee safely procured, Amanda headed over to one of the upholstered chairs and James followed her, file in hand. A sip of good fresh coffee, a welcoming smile from James, and she was ready to hear whatever the folder included.

  “So, what did the medical examiner say?”

  He flipped open the file. “Well, you have to understand that the final results won’t be in for quite some time. A full toxicology and DNA report can take weeks, but since it is a murder investigation they’ll put a rush on it. The surprising thing about this report-“ he held up a sheet of paper, then continued, “- is that the medical examiner’s original theory was spot on. It was a heart attack.”

  “Are you kidding? With him stripped naked like that?” Amanda was dumbfounded. She pictured the little pipe-smoking examiner pronouncing his opinion of the cause of death without having really checked over the body, and she remembered the scoffing response he’d gotten from the law enforcement officers on site.

  “Yes and no. He died from something like a heart attack but that wasn’t all. The coroner found a type of heart medicine in his body, but the heart muscle looks completely healthy. There are no records of Anderson Bowles having any sort of current heart issue on any of his known medical files, and no record of him being prescribed anything that would be for his heart.”

  Amanda thought over James’ words. “You think somebody killed him by giving him heart medicine?” She thought over the various townspeople she knew, especially the ones that she knew had medical problems. There are a lot of ways to get heart medicine, including being somebody who had access to medicine even if it wasn’t their own.

  “What else did he find?” She tried not to shudder, remembering. “He had a lot of purple marks on him, near the bottom of the boat.”

  “Actually, it was at the bottom of his body, when he was lying in that position. You see, when a dead body lies a certain way gravity takes the blood to the lowest point and it pools there. It almost looks like bruising.” Amanda grimaced, and James reached over and patted her hand. “Sorry, I know it’s gruesome. And that’s all the details that were in the report, with one exception.”

  Amanda leaned forward, expectant. “What exception?”

  James closed the folder and set it on the nearby table. “Anderson Bowles was absolutely, positively, not shot. There was no bullet wound on the body.”

  “And that’s it?”

  James shook his head, his face serious. “No. All fingerprints except for Anderson’s were so smeared that they couldn’t be identified. Also, the crime scene guys confirmed what we’d thought from our investigation the day the body was found. They said that the trajectory of the bullet is from about two feet center of the bottom of the boat.”

  “The boat Anderson was in?”

  “Yep.”

  Taking a sip of her mocha, Amanda knit her eyebrows together in thought. “So if Anderson wasn’t shot and we know the trajectory of the bullet found in the motor came from two feet up in the bottom of the boat, does that mean someone else was fighting with him in the boat?”

  “Good question. Whoever fired that gun into the engine would’ve had to be in the boat with the victim or be Anderson Bowles himself.”

  “Be Bowles himself? Why would he shoot the motor? He’d need that to get him back to shore safely.”

  “If someone was after him he’d try to defend himself. He might’ve had his own gun or he might’ve grabbed someone else’s. The examiner found traces of gunpowder on his hands, so he definitely fired a weapon not long before he died.”

  “He had a gun?”

  “He may not have had one of his own, but he definitely fired one. Also, the M.E. says there are no signs of a struggle, like bruising or marks on the body, and no obvious indicators that anyone else was in the boat.”

  “Did you find out anything else about the bullets?”

  James looked at Amanda’s eager face and cracked a grin. “I think you’re enjoying this as much as a new detective. When did you become an amateur sleuth?”

  She scoffed. “The first time I bumped into a dead guy in this town, that’s when.” She fiddled with her coffee cup, a bit emba
rrassed that he’d seen how much she was enjoying knowing the details of the investigation. “Maybe I just like a good puzzle, that’s all.”

  “Well, we can always use all the help we can get.” James shook his head. “To answer your question, we didn’t discover anything else about the bullet. Nothing. The striations on it don’t match any guns listed in the national database so we don’t know who owned it or where it came from. That caliber of ammo is very common.”

  Amanda turned over James’ words in her mind, considering all the options. “Ian said when he rented the boat to Anderson he had a cooler and a life vest with him. He also said he was acting kind of weird.” James looked interested and Amanda continued. “Well, Anderson may have been a psycho creep, but he’d never acted weird before, at least not to another guy. What if he was on drugs?”

  From the look on the detective’s face she could tell he was mulling over her question.

  “It’s possible, but nothing came up on the preliminary screening. We may find more when the full toxicology report comes back.” He was silent for a moment, obviously considering the possibilities. “If he was on drugs and hallucinating it would explain some of the behavior. The blurry vision, the confusion when he tried to pay with the wrong type of credit card, that sort of thing.”

  “And he was a young guy. Isn’t it kind of weird he’d have a heart attack at that age?”

  “It happens sometimes, but until we get a conclusive answer we don’t stop looking for clues. I’ll be following up with any other doctor records I can dig up and some other leads, and I’ll keep you posted about what I find.” He smiled. “Will that work for you, detective?”

  Amanda rolled her eyes. “Yes, that’s acceptable.”

  Chapter 11

  Amanda didn’t get much sleep that night. The thought of Anderson Bowles attacking her sweet friend kept rolling around in her mind, bringing up horrible images. She knew Meg had dated plenty of men before but there was a sort of innocence to her that made Amanda feel almost protective. She’d seen her friend lead with her heart many times, looking for love and always expecting the best, and Amanda hoped that she hadn’t been one of those women who had experienced the worst. Just before dawn, Amanda gave up on trying to sleep and checked her email for the upcoming reservations, arching her hands to type over the top of the fat orange cat that had pushed his way insistently onto her lap. Her website and the publicity about the sweet little Oregon beach town had been bringing her a consistent stream of guests every week, and she was actually able to set aside a bit of money for the ongoing renovation efforts. Now that she had the Inn clean and sound again, repainted with new windows and repaired trim, she was going to tackle some of the other projects, including updating the bathrooms and finishing some areas in the dank basement.

  Even as she was emailing confirmations to the potential guests and adding their information to her reservation calendar, her mind kept drifting back to Meg. If Meg had been one of Anderson Bowles’ victims, she wanted to be supportive of her and give whatever help she could give. Even if she wasn’t a victim maybe Meg could still help her get some information that would help solve the mystery of Bowles’ death. When she thought back on her own disastrous love life, she knew she wasn’t in any position to critique anyone else’s.

  She texted Meg, knowing that she’d already be up and baking the delectable fresh pastries that the early morning coffee crowd would want, and when Meg offered to meet her at Cuppa she asked if Meg could come to the Inn instead. This conversation was going to be private in case Meg needed confidentiality or just a shoulder to cry on.

  Amanda was upstairs, giving the final touches to decorating the main hall on the second floor, when Meg arrived. She heard a hesitant knock and when Meg poked her head in and hollered “Hello?” Amanda leaned over the stair railing. Meg’s blond hair seemed even curlier than normal, probably due to the damp air, and she’d tied a festive red ribbon through it to try to keep it under control.

  “Come on up! I’m almost finished.” Fresh cut flowers in hand, she headed back to filling the vases in main bathroom. She did her best to make sure that the fall colors were spread throughout the Inn, and today she was simply adding some fresh blooms to the little vases she kept in every bathroom. A couple of fat white candles tied with raffia and a stack of fluffy Turkish towels, and even the smallest room looked more inviting.

  Meg was smiling as she leaned in the doorframe of the bathroom. “Hey, I brought you some croissants. Where do you want them?”

  “I could smell them before you even got up the stairs! Thanks. Just set them there and I’ll take them back down to the kitchen later.”

  “Did you hear that James is organizing a painting party for Gramma’s house? You doing anything on Tuesday? Forecast looks like the weather should be pretty good, and we could use all the help we can get!” Meg’s pleading tone may have sounded a bit whiny but her grin was infectious.

  “I’ll do my best to be there, I promise.” Amanda gave the marble counter a last swipe with an old towel to make sure it was spotless and turned toward her friend. “Want to help me feed the chickens?”

  There was a thin blanket of morning fog still lingering on the bluff, with bits of sunshine trying to sneak through. As they walked out to the tidy coop, Amanda was still trying to think of how to ask her friend about her past with Anderson Bowles. Meg hadn’t gone into too much detail and if it was because she didn’t want to talk about a terrible experience, Amanda wanted to be respectful of that, but she had to know the truth. When she came back out of the henhouse, her basket nearly full with the day’s fresh eggs, Meg was happily clucking to the hens and throwing them feed corn while they milled around her, pecking at the rare treat.

  “You’re trying to be their best friend, aren’t you?”

  Meg chuckled. “Hey, you’re the one who steals their eggs. I want to be that nice lady who gives them goodies. It’s kinda like handing out candy to kids on Halloween. If you give ‘em the big candy bars you get instant popularity.”

  Amanda watched the chickens carefully. Even Dumb Cluck, the obnoxious rooster who loved to crow right before dawn and wake her up, seemed happy to stop protecting his hens long enough to let Meg stand just a few feet away and feed him.

  “Meg, I need to ask you a question, and I’m hoping you won’t be mad at me for asking.”

  That jerked her friend’s head up. “What question?” Her eyes were round with surprise. “I’d tell you anything, you know that.”

  Amanda sighed. “Meg, did Anderson Bowles ever attack you?”

  “Attack me?” Meg’s face flushed an uncomfortable red. “You mean, like…?”

  The unspoken end of her sentence hung in the air between them. “Yes, like that. I hate to even ask, but did he rape you?”

  Meg looked into Amanda’s eyes, the can of feed corn forgotten, and her face serious.

  “No, he didn’t. When I finally met him in person there was just something…off…about him. I didn’t know what it was but I knew it didn’t feel right. He’d said all sorts of amazing things when we were talking online and I fell for them all, hook, line, and sinker.” She upended the can, flicking the last bit of corn to the greedy chickens. “It turns out every word out of his mouth was a lie. Every single word.”

  The sense of relief washing over Amanda was nearly overwhelming. “Oh, sweetie-“ she reached over and hugged a surprised Meg, who was stiff in her sideways embrace. “I’m so glad! I was worried that you’d, that he’d…”

  “Gramma told me just a few days ago, about what kind of man he was.”

  Of course Mrs. Granger would tell her granddaughter. Amanda slipped her hand through the crook of Meg’s elbow and they started to walk back toward the Inn. She could tell her usually-cheerful friend was thinking quite a bit, and finally she let Amanda know what was on her mind.

  “I’m not saying that the fact that I wasn’t one of his victims makes me smarter than anyone else. It could’ve been me that he attacked
or drugged. I was just lucky.”

  “Thank God you were, and thank God you had good instincts.”

  “I actually have met some really great guys over the internet, and I don’t regret that. There are a lot of lonely people out there.” She gave a rueful smile. “Like me.”

  Amanda didn’t show her surprise. She hadn’t thought about her sweet friend being lonely.

  Meg paused, biting her lip in thought, then asked, “Do we have any idea how many women he…?”

  “No.” Amanda’s answer was nearly a whisper.

  “I can’t say that I’m sorry he’s dead.”

  “Me, neither.” Amanda had to ask the final question, just to be sure. “So you had nothing to do with his death?”

  Meg gave Amanda a playful wink. “If I’d known what sort of guy he was, or if he’d hurt someone I really loved, I might’ve capped him myself.” She shrugged. “You know what? I’ve decided I’m done with bad boys. Life’s just too short to put up with bad men.”

  “Absolutely,” Amanda agreed, and she clutched her friend’s arm a bit tighter as they walked toward the warmth and light of the Ravenwood Inn.

  Chapter 12

  A new day, and Amanda’s happy guests had finished their breakfast and headed off to explore Ravenwood Cove and the little beach towns around it, leaving her in the kitchen with only Oscar and a sink full of dirty dishes. Thank goodness she only supplied breakfast and evening snacks to her guests! Doing dishes was one of her least favorite things to do, but she gamely grabbed a scrubber and soap to make sure everything was spotless for when her guests returned. She also had to go upstairs and make sure that the new towels were set out and the beds were made, clean the bathrooms, and add her signature touch of leaving a Moonstruck chocolate on each person’s pillow. It was going to be a busy morning. With a resigned sigh, she started running the water in the big kitchen sink.