Ravenwood Cove Cozy Mysteries Books 1-3

by Carolyn L. Dean

  Jennifer Peetman was both her employee and her friend, and Amanda still blessed the day she’d hired the quiet girl. Always an early bird, she’d already done so much work at the Inn that morning that Amanda was happy to give her some time off. Jennifer was a wonder; always seeming to find something to do to make the guests more comfortable or the Inn run better. It didn’t hurt that she just lived next door, and that she was able to whip up a tasty breakfast while keeping a lively conversation going.

  There was a knock, the front door opened, and Lisa popped her head around the doorframe.

  “Anyone home?” she asked with a grin. “I brought you a visitor.” As soon as she came in the room, it was immediately apparent who her guest was. Cupped in her gloved hands was a small gray-striped kitten, looking around curiously.

  “Meet Finn,” Lisa said happily, setting him down on the patterned carpet. “I left Moski and Jasmine at home.” Seeing Amanda’s concerned face, she hastily added, “Don’t worry, I’ll keep an eye on him so he doesn’t do something terrible.”

  “I didn’t know the kittens were big enough to be out and about.” The last time Amanda had seen them they were still tiny, recently orphaned and curled in a basket under Lisa’s newsroom desk. “You’ll have to watch for Oscar,” she said as she eyeballed the small bundle of fur. “I’m not sure how he’s going to take another kitty in his domain. He kind of rules the roost around here.”

  Meg was already crouched down and cooing over Finn, who closed his eyes in bliss the moment he was scratched under the chin.

  “Where did you get the name Moski?”

  “It means ‘never mind’ in the trade language that’s used in Papua New Guinea. Since that little guy never minds me when I tell him to stop doing something, it seems only appropriate.”

  Amanda knew her friend had done quite a bit of exotic travel, but this was new. “You were in Papua New Guinea? How much of the language can you speak?”

  “Just enough to tick off anyone who speaks it well,” Lisa said with a grin. “I can basically ask how much something costs and then swear at them when they try to overcharge me.”

  “Ten to one Finn tries to eat the tinsel,” Amanda said as she moved the small stepladder out of the way. “Lisa, I thought you were going over to Ethan’s place to check on him.”

  “Already did. I stopped by first thing this morning. He seems to be doing fine. He didn’t want to talk about how the doctor said he should be taking it easy, and when I teased him about the hospital food he didn’t even rise to the bait. I was kind of disappointed.” Amanda knew Lisa and Ethan had been friends for a long time, and was kind of disappointed that the flirting she’d seen between the two of them recently hadn’t gone any further than it had.

  “So, his concussion’s better? That’s good news. He was pretty loopy when I saw him at the hospital.”

  Lisa grabbed Finn before he could make a mad dash up the main stairway. “Seems good as new. He’s actually kind of proud of the stitches he got. Says it’s gonna make him look tough.”

  Meg scoffed. “What is it about guys and scars? Women hate scars and guys brag about them. I think men are weird.”

  Lisa pulled the little cat into her lap. “If you think men are so weird, then why even bother? Speaking of that, how’s the internet dating going these days, Meg?”

  “Oh, you know me,” Meg said with a little laugh, her eyes carefully on the ornaments in her hands. “I’m always on the search for my next soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend.” Amanda and Lisa exchanged a quick glance. They both knew that behind her happy exterior, Meg really wanted to be in a relationship. A couple of weeks before, Lisa and Amanda had made a quiet agreement to keep their eyes open for a nice guy for Meg.

  “Have you heard anything else about the body you found? Last I heard they hadn’t released a name or said anything about him being dug out. Are there any missing persons in this area?”

  Amanda shook her head. “James couldn’t tell me much, except that they finally got the body out from under the landslide and took it to the medical examiner. He said that nobody was listed as missing in Ravenwood Cove, and they checked around the area, in Likely and Morganville.” She pulled out the individual blown glass ornaments, checking them for breakage, but her mind was obviously on what had happened earlier at the mudslide. “He said this guy may have been dead a couple of months.”

  Lisa looked surprised. “A couple of months and he wasn’t reported missing? Kinda weird.”

  Carefully setting the ornaments back in the egg-crate box, Amanda shrugged. “I haven’t had a chance to talk to James much in the last couple of days but I’m supposed to meet him at Heinrich’s for pizza at six. Maybe he’ll have some more news for us.”

  Apparently hearing the commotion, Oscar finally roused himself enough to stalk silently out of the kitchen and investigate what was happening in the parlor. A huge orange cat Amanda had saved from starvation, he definitely considered himself the official greeter of everyone who came in the front door of the Ravenwood Inn. Lisa tried to hold tightly onto her wriggling kitten, but as soon as Finn saw Oscar he was struggling to go meet him. The older cat, confident in his role as ruler of the entire building, gently touched noses with the tiny kitten and then flopped down at Lisa’s feet, seemingly satisfied. Lisa glanced at Amanda and finally let Finn go. He headed straight for Oscar, touched noses with him again, and then crawled across his back to flop down in happy comfort. Lisa petted Oscar’s head and he started to purr loudly, just the tip of his tail twitching as the gray kitten snuggled into his fur.

  “Well, I guess he’s not going to shred him, so that’s a good thing,” she sighed in relief. “Good boy, Oscar.”

  “Well, ladies, I’ve got to run.” Meg pulled her coat off the brass rack by the door. “Gram should be done down at Petrie’s and I’ve got to pick her up. Did I tell you Brian ran out of pickles and just gave her a bologna sandwich for lunch yesterday? I heard about it all the way home, and she insisted that we had to go buy more pickles so she could give them to him when she got there this morning.”

  Amanda smiled. No matter how much Meg might gripe about her opinionated grandmother, she knew that her friend loved her deeply. She had the difficult job of being both granddaughter and helper, whenever her grandmother needed assistance.

  “Give her my love.”

  Meg shot Amanda a quick grin. “Will do.”

  Chapter 5

  As usual, stepping into Heinrich’s Pizzeria was like walking into a basil- and cheese-scented heaven. The buttery fragrance of freshly-baked dough and caramelized garlic lured in passersby, even if they didn’t think they wanted pizza. For once, James was in the restaurant before Amanda walked in the door. She smiled, appreciating his punctuality. It seemed like he almost always showed up late due to something happening with his job as a detective, and this was a nice change.

  “I already ordered a Breathbuster pizza,” he said, grinning at her. “I figured you’d be hungry and I know what you like.” He stood up and gave her a quick peck on the cheek and a squeeze of her hand before she slid into the padded booth.

  “Extra cheese?”

  “Of course. Before you say another word—“ he said, his eyes sparkling with humor, “—I’ll bet you a dollar I know what you’re going to say. Or rather, what you’re going to ask.”

  She suppressed a smile. “I have no idea what you mean,” she lied. She knew darn well that he was aware she was meeting him so she could ask him questions about the body from the mudslide.

  Amanda scanned the room quickly, noting that James had chosen a corner booth tucked away from the other patrons. There were only a few, since it was winter on the Oregon coast and the flow of tourists had turned into a trickle. A young mother corralled two boisterous boys on the other side of the room, and a middle-aged couple dressed in matching rain jackets were quietly arguing with each other as they were dishing up the gooey pizza in front of them. Apparently Ian Victor, the owner of the local boat rental business,
had given up on Ivy’s Cafe, because he was sitting in the pizza parlor, reading his paper and drinking a huge mug of coffee. From the crumpled napkins around him, it looked like he’d been there for quite some time.

  Sitting at the back was the tall tourist with the metal detector that Amanda had seen before at Cuppa. He was picking at a small salad and avoiding anyone’s gaze. Must be staying with family, she thought, since he’s not staying at the Inn.

  James pulled out a small notebook and a steel pen, waiting. “You know the drill, lady. Most of this info is going to be in the papers anyway but I want to make sure that nobody, especially Lisa, hears about how he died or what we discovered in the autopsy. Deal?”

  Amanda bristled a bit. Her friend, Lisa Wilkins, was editor of the local paper but that didn’t mean Amanda went and blabbed everything that she’d heard to her. Sometimes it was a balancing act, dating a detective and having a friend who wanted to know about the hottest news stories, but Amanda was careful to keep her mouth shut. Maybe that was one of the reasons James trusted her so much.

  “You know I can keep things confidential. I just feel like since I was the one who found the body, I should get to know who he was.” She leaned forward. “I did touch his gross sock, after all.”

  “I know, but I still have to say it.” James flipped the small notebook open. “First things first. The man’s name was Desmond Martin. We were able to ID him from his dental records and confirmation from the new tattoo on his calf.”

  James continued, checking over his notes. “He used to work at the car wash over in Morganville and his coworkers say they haven’t seen him in several months. He was twenty-six, lived alone, and had several things on his police record, but nothing recent.”

  Amanda’s mind was whirling, thinking of what James had said. Knowing the dead man’s name and a bit of his history made everything so much more real. She’d never even seen the man’s face, just his two feet, but now that she knew where he’d lived and worked she could almost picture him in her mind’s eye.

  “What sort of things did he have on his record?”

  “Petty theft, mostly. One bust for possession, one for arson.”

  “Does anyone know how he got on the hillside?”

  James sighed. “He didn’t get on that hillside. He got put in that hillside. Preliminary evidence shows that he was actually buried somewhere on that hill. Maybe at the top.”

  Amanda’s mouth dropped open. “You mean he– “

  James’ eyes met hers. “He was murdered, Amanda. No doubt about it.”

  They sat in silence, digesting the news. James sighed. “We won’t have all the results back for quite some time but he was shot in the head. Twice, at close range.”

  Suddenly, Amanda didn’t feel so hungry anymore. Whatever Desmond Martin’s past was, she couldn’t help but feel sorry for a man who was murdered in such a terrible way. Being dumped in a makeshift grave and then having a mudslide spill his corpse across the rutted road was a horrible ending to a very young life.

  “How awful.” She suppressed a shudder. “So, that means someone in this area, probably, right? It had to be somebody close by who killed him.”

  James nodded. “It could’ve been somebody just moving through, a tourist or a drifter, but it could be somebody still close by.” He took a quick sip of his coffee. “There’s another thing. Martin had his pockets turned out. Someone was obviously looking for something. We have no way to know what it is was or whether the killer found it. The lab’s trying to get an identification from the bullets that were recovered, but the last I heard they hadn’t found anything in the databases. Right now, we don’t know anything about the gun that killed him.”

  “But you know what caliber the bullet was, right?” Amanda had a sinking sense of déjà vu as she asked that question, remembering back to another conversation with James. The last time she’d asked that question, no one had actually been shot. They were just investigating bullet holes found in a boat that held a dead man.

  This case was something entirely new. She didn’t want to think about how they retrieved the bullets.

  Just as James opened his mouth to answer her question, his cell phone buzzed. Picking it up, he checked the incoming text and his eyebrows raised. “I hate to do this,” he said, “but I’ve got to go. Looks like you’ll have to eat that pizza by yourself. I’ll call you later.”

  Amanda felt a stab of disappointment as he kissed her on the cheek and squeezed her hand, before striding briskly out the door. Sometimes it seemed like his job came first, and she wished she was able to see more of him. She truly appreciated how hard he worked and how he protected the people in the little beach town that she loved, but she still would’ve liked to just have a simple conversation over a warm pizza.

  Sighing, Amanda flagged down the waitress and asked if she could wrap up the food to take home with her. Maybe Oscar liked pepperoni.

  Chapter 6

  It wasn’t normal to see a crowd of people in front of any of the display windows on Main Street, so Amanda was surprised at the group of people, seemingly transfixed, in front of the Bake Me Happy bakery. Standing under the pink- and white- striped awning, nearly a dozen townspeople were so absorbed in looking at the front window that nobody even noticed when Amanda walked up. Mrs. Mason, the owner, was standing outside with a huge grin on her face, answering questions from the crowd. Amanda craned her head to try to see around the people in front of her, and finally realized what everyone was gawking at. Bake Me Happy had just recently put in a new candy counter, complete with huge glass jars filled with different types of sweet treats, and apparently they decided to add saltwater taffy to their selection. There were several large, strange-looking machines in the window, all apparently for making salt water taffy. The one closest to the window was nearly mesmerizing to watch. It had two metal sets of arms that faced each other, and when Celia, Mrs. Mason’s assistant, slid a fat loop of warm taffy over one set of the arms and switched the machine on, it began to rhythmically stretch and fold the gooey treat.

  So, that’s what they mean by a taffy pull, Amanda mused as she watched Celia dump the syrupy contents from a warm copper kettle onto a cornstarch-dusted marble slab. Mrs. Mason was outside, passing out samples of peppermint-striped taffy. She was happily telling anyone who would listen about how she’d made the bargain of the century when she’d bought the nearly-antique equipment from a retired candy maker in Grants Pass.

  “Sixty years old and it still works as good as the day it was made,” she crowed, making sure that the two children in the front of the crowd got their sample of candy. “You know, they used to make machinery to last.” She pushed the front door of the bakery open and followed Amanda inside. “I’ll bet those machines last another sixty years.” Humming happily, she stepped behind the counter and quickly tied a clean, pink apron around her waist. “Now, what can I do for you, Amanda?” she asked.

  Amanda scanned the glass jars and finally pointed at a canister of brightly-colored sweets. “Can I get a pound of this, please? I didn’t know anyone still made old-fashioned ribbon candy anymore.”

  Mrs. Mason chuckled as she expertly scooped up the hard candy, made to look like pleated silk ribbons, and filled a small bag. “You’d be amazed at how many of the old types of candy still exist. You ever had a Squirrel Nut Zipper?”

  “Um, isn’t that the name of a band? Does hot swing music?”

  Mrs. Mason folded over the top of the bag and tucked away the scoop. “Never heard of ‘em. Maybe it is, but where do you think they got their name?” She stepped over to the bins of salt water taffy, each sorted by flavor. “How about some taffy?”

  Amanda was still watching Celia. The younger woman’s eyebrows were knit together in absolute concentration as she used two broad spatulas to maneuver the cooling candy on the slab. Ignoring the crowd who was still watching through the window, she set down the spatulas and then put the empty copper kettle on a nearby stand, before starting to measure cup
after cup of sugar. Amanda had never seen anyone be so precise with their measuring or their cooking. Celia very slowly skimmed any extra grains of sugar off the top of the measuring cup with a broad frosting knife, then raised it up to her eye level to double check it again before dumping it into the copper pot.

  “That girl seems pretty serious about her job, Mrs. Mason. She always this intense?”

  Mrs. Mason peered over the top of her glasses, following Amanda’s gaze. “Now, don’t you go teasing about Celia. She had to figure out how to use the equipment from watching YouTube videos, and she’s one of the best employees I’ve got. It’s not like they had a lot of homemade taffy stores in Oklahoma. She’s only been in town six months and I already don’t know what I’d do without her. Between her and Dave, they practically run the store for me.”

  “I wasn’t teasing about Celia, I promise! Must be nice to have an employee who is able to take over something new like that.”

  Mrs. Mason smiled at her. “Wait ‘til you see the huge gingerbread house Dave’s making for the Hometown Holidays display! It’s amazing. Has windows made of melted candy and everything.” Amanda knew Dave Barton had been a logger for a large foresting company until he was laid off recently, and it had taken a while for him to realize that his ability to make mouth-watering scones and rolls could get him a job at Bake Me Happy. Word around town was that he was much happier rolling out dough and fussing over a hot oven than he had been chopping down trees.

  Amanda smiled at Mrs. Mason. “I’ll stop by and check it out.”

  The plump lady smiled. “Peppermints?” At Amanda’s answering nod, she scooped up some taffy into a bag, stopping when Amanda put up her hand.

  “That’s about a half a pound. By the way, heard anything about the mudslide guy?”

  For some reason, Mrs. Mason’s well-intended question rankled a bit. After hearing about how the man was a victim of a cold-blooded murder, it sounded almost disrespectful to have someone address him as ‘the mudslide guy’.