Dr. Hallie Malone Cozy Mystery (4 Book Box Set)

by Liz Turner

  “Well, I say, let’s do it, then!” Hallie agreed. “Although next week, I’m afraid Dr. Livingstone and I will be in absentia.” Sharing a look with James, she continued, “We’re long due to have that romantic night out. We’re going to go see the new Hitchcock film next Sunday, and this time, I’d like it if we didn’t have to postpone because somebody got the wise idea to blackmail me,” she laughed.

  “I’ll second that!” Jones said. And the rest agreed.

  Just then, a yap was heard from underneath the table. “Poppy!” Gladys exclaimed. “Now, I was just wondering where you’d run off to.” The small dog had been in Gladys’ charge since the arrest. Gladys claimed he was her favorite boarder, even though he occasionally tracked paint picked up on his paws through the house.

  Cooing, Dolores picked him up to nuzzle her face, “You are a sweet little boy, aren’t you?” Everyone around the table was grinning at his antics, even Jackson. Conversation ensued and the lively dinner continued late into the night.

  ***

  A few hours later, the party had ended. James kissed Hallie goodbye and headed back into town. Hallie stayed behind to help Gladys with the dishes. “This was an absolutely wonderful night. I’m proud to say that Warrenton feels exactly like home to me, now, and it’s a big thanks to you.”

  “Well, we’re all certainly glad you’re here, dear,” Gladys replied as she dried a plate. “Before you get too comfortable though, I heard that Alan Smith’s son is moving back here in a few months. He’s trouble, that one. He’s always got some scheme or another up his sleeve. We may just need another Dr. Malone miracle this year!”

  Hallie laughed softly, but she knew Gladys wasn’t entirely joking. Sinclair Smith may not have had anything to do with this most recent case, but she still remembered the way he had seemed. Off-balance, as though he might explode. She knew as well as anyone that an injustice like what had happened to his father could leave someone feeling awfully rattled, and vengeful. Sinclair had said it himself, he had never liked living in Warrenton. So why was he coming back now? Hallie couldn’t help but wonder. But all she said was, “Well, I hope he finds the town as charming and welcoming as I have.” Changing the subject, the two women finished the cleaning and settled into armchairs for a long night of catching up.

  *** The End ***

  THE SANDWICH MURDER

  A Dr. Hallie Malone Cozy Mystery

  LIZ TURNER

  Prologue

  The Tourist

  1951

  S hirley Miller hurries along the sidewalk in Sandwich, Massachusetts. It’s early, but she’s already running late to her job as a secretary for a real estate agent for the whole story The firm has been busy since the summer season began, flooded with tourists from all over New England looking to explore the beaches and cool off in the sea breeze. Growing up, Shirley remembered her town as quiet, isolated. These days, ever since the war had ended almost six years ago, Sandwich and the surrounding coastal towns have experienced tremendous growth. Shirley can’t complain. She knows the tourism boost is responsible for her current job, and she enjoys seeing new faces from all over every day, even if it means an end to some of her favorite solitary corners of the peninsula.

  The sun is bright, directing its warm arms of light horizontally across the landscape. Shirley turns her face up toward its warmth and pulls her sweater a bit tighter across her shoulders. The early morning is chilly, and a playful wind blows the smell of saltwater in Shirley’s face. Checking her watch, she makes an abrupt turn the left to cut through the small-town park. She’s late, and she knows she can avoid the bustle of town if she takes this shortcut. Plus, she always enjoys the quiet, meandering walk through the pine trees, the sandy floor beneath her feet. When she’s about halfway through, in the thickest part of the foliage, she notices a man asleep, leaning against one of the sturdy pine trees, his fedora tilted over his face to shield his eyes from the rising sun. Shirley rolls her eyes. Typical tourist, spending all night out on the beach or in one of the hotel’s bars, then passing out in the park. Right here along the path where anyone could see him—or steal something from him, she thinks, taking in his expensive clothing and prominent watch. Luckily for him, he’ll probably be awake hours before the park opens to the public. She walks briskly past him, half-hoping he would wake up so she could lecture him. She makes it to work with a few minutes to spare.

  Later that day, at lunch, Shirley is eating with some of the other secretaries in the open area outside behind her office building. Sitting on her knees in the grass, Linda bites into her sandwich. “So, you know who really bugs me lately?” she asks Shirley, a smirk dancing around her lips.

  “No, who?” Shirley unwraps her sandwich carefully, but she doesn’t exactly feel like eating. She places it on her lap and shoos a fly away.

  “That fella Timothy. He must’a flipped his lid thinking he could—” Linda stops talking as she notices Shirley’s thoughtful gaze at nothing in particular. Straightening her headband, Linda asks, “Now, what’s the matter with you today, Ms. Shirley?”

  Shirley giggles at Linda’s formality. “Nothing, I’m alright. I was just thinkin’ ‘bout a fella I saw today, asleep this morning in the middle of the park—right there along the path. I passed ‘im taking a shortcut to avoid town. And he was real hip, too. Dressed to the nines. Got me wondering about what a man like that is doin’ passed out in all his…finery, right there in broad daylight, on the ground in the woods of all places!” Shirley tries to play it off like an amusing anecdote, but she feels odd about the whole thing, nonetheless.

  Linda just shrugs, though, apparently not picking up on Shirley’s apprehension. “No doubt he was out all night. Alone, right? Rich man comes to idyllic seaside town looking to blow off some steam? That’s a tourist, alright.” She says the last few sentences as though she was reading a headline in the paper. She tucks a blonde hair behind her ear, and shovels another large bite of her sandwich in her mouth.

  “You’re probably right,” Shirley agrees. The two resume chatting about the townsfolk, the strange things they’d seen tourists do so far this summer, and the other usual subjects. Shirley eventually manages to eat half her lunch.

  ***

  After a full day of work, Shirley leaves the office. It’s dusk, but it’s clear outside, and balmy. The street is full of men and women milling about, wearing light-colored clothing and sandals.

  “You have a nice night, Mr. Christopher,” she says cheerfully to her boss as she begins the walk back to her home.

  “Of course, thank you, Shirley,” her boss replies. They walk together until the end of the street where they part ways. Shirley is in no hurry to get home. The weather outside is gorgeous, she notes, lifting her chin to feel the light breeze. No wonder some many people want to spend their summer here. Glancing up at the stately, whitewashed homes that line the streets, she breathes contently. She can’t wait to go home and change into a pair of shorts and head down to the beach to meet her friends. She’s practically dancing a jig down the sidewalk, nodding unabashedly at the passerby who look at her curiously, when she remembers the man by the tree. Something compels her to trek back through the park again where she saw him last. Perhaps, she thinks irrationally, he’ll still be in the park somewhere and I can ask him just what it was he was doing asleep under that pine. She’s walking along the sandy path, when she stops in her tracks and nearly drops her pocketbook. At the foot of the same sturdy pine tree is the sleeping man from before. He’s is the same position, face covered by his hat, arms slumped by his sides. Shirley swallows hard. Is it possible that this man has merely been sleeping all day? Or perhaps he got up and has just returned to sleep here under the pine tree? But Shirley doesn’t really believe that. A fear settles in her stomach. Biting her fingernail, she spots a woman a few hundred feet away, walking with a small dog.

  Jogging up to her, Shirley asks, “Pardon me, ma’am. But have you seen that gentleman here before?” She points at the man under t
he tree.

  The woman holds a gloved hand over her eyes to look in the direction that Shirley is pointing. She frowns. “Oh, that gentleman. Yes, I saw him there about an hour ago. Poor dear. A traveler, most certainly. Can be exhausting—and such nice weather out here under the shade of these pines that I dare say I might decide to take a nap under a tree myself!” The woman laughs, her red lipstick glinting in the soft sunlight. A man calls from somewhere ahead in the woods for her, and she says a polite goodbye to Shirley and leaves, her small dog waddling beside her.

  Frowning, Shirley looks back at the man and reluctantly walks toward him. “Hello, er, sir?” she asks tentatively, keeping her voice low. She clasps her hands behind her back and regards him apprehensively, half-waiting for him to jolt upright in anger. “Sir?” She asks again, louder. She hears nothing but a rustle of birds in the branches overhead. Chewing her lip, she bends down to lift his hat off his face. The man’s eyes are closed, and his face is deadly still; his complexion, although tanned considerably, is somehow off-color. He’s handsome, with a thick shock of blond hair curling around his forehead and a strong nose. Shirley waves her hand vigorously in front of his face. “Mister? Are you alright?”

  When he doesn’t move, she looks around and then quickly touches him on the shoulder with one finger. He’s stiff. Shirley stifles a scream. She scrambles up and nervously plops his hat back over his face. Her heart pounding, she urges her legs to move and begins to run back toward the town square, toward where the new doctor lives.

  Chapter 1

  A Perfect

  Summer Day

  D octor Hallie Malone stood on the back porch of her home for the summer: a beautiful clapboard house, painted light green, with a strong wooden porch on the back side facing the bay. There was a little canoe bobbing in the water where it was tethered to a small dock right behind the house. Hallie was glad she had taken the offer to work for a few months at Cape Cod Hospital—a few weeks ago, the hospital director had come to her usual workplace, Warrenton Hospital, and inquired about any doctors willing to relocate for the summer. Apparently, Cape Cod had been inundated with visitors the past summer, and the county expected just as many this year. Because the population was half the size the other three seasons, the hospital never had enough regular doctors to accommodate the summer influx. After agreeing to a trial period, she had made the two-hour ride the coast of Massachusetts. Hallie had taken one step off the train in Sandwich, breathed in the fresh air, and agreed to stay for a few months, even though it meant leaving her friends in Warrenton hours away. Just as restless as ever, she never seemed to be able to stay in one place for long. And she could do for a summer by the beach!

  Hallie had been in Sandwich for two weeks now. She spent many of her off days trekking along the hilly coastline or strolling through the quaint town, most of the buildings built during the three-hundred-year-old original settlement. This evening, she was learning to fish. Having never lived near the coast before, she had jumped at her neighbors’ offer to teach her. Isobel and Teddy Langley were a couple in their mid-fifties, like Hallie. They lived a few homes down, also along the bay. Like Hallie, they were only here for the summer, but they owned their home and returned to it every warm season. The rest of the year, they lived in New York City.

  At first, Hallie had been skeptical at the prospect of throwing the fishing line off her very porch—surely there couldn’t be fish swimming all that close to all the homes, could there? But she had been proven wrong quite quickly. The Langley’s had an impressive array of Black Sea Bass, Bluefish, Mackerel, and more.

  “How’s it coming with your line?” Isobel asked, as she wrangled a small bass off her hook. The woman was impossibly tan, with jet black hair somehow knotted around itself to stay piled up on her head without a sign of a hairpin. She was a schoolteacher back in New York. Hallie watched as Isobel eyed the size of the fish, then tossed it back into the bay. “Too small, not worth it,” she said when she saw Hallie watching.

  Hallie laughed. She gripped the wooden fishing pole they had loaned her and peered into the water for any signs of fish. The sea was clear, except for some patches of spinning sand and the needles of the pine trees above floating in the gentle waves. “The line’s not coming along at all, in fact!” she joked in response to the earlier question. “Say, how come you both have five good size fish apiece, I’ve only caught one small little fellow?”

  Teddy let out his howl of a laugh. “Now, we’ve taught you all we know about fishing, Doctor Malone. Everything except the most important lesson.” He smirked in his wife’s direction. Teddy Langley was never without a friendly jab, and his deep-set green eyes never without a glimmer of teasing.

  Hallie enjoyed the back-and-forth. “And what’s that? C’mon now, I think I’ve earned the right to hear it!” She joked back, putting her hands on her hips as though she were lecturing him.

  Sharing a glance, the couple burst out laughing. “It all comes down to….” Isobel said, drumming her hands on the porch rail loudly.

  “…. Luck,” Teddy finished with a waggle of his eyebrows. The two did a couple of exaggerated bows.

  Hallie groaned and rolled her eyes. “So, you’re saying I just have bad luck?”

  “That—or the fish just don’t like you!” Teddy said. “Don’t worry, Doctor Malone, we’ll share our bounty with you tonight. Won’t let a newcomer go hungry.” He winked at Isobel.

  ***

  Later, Teddy gutted and pan-seared some of the bass they had caught, and Hallie and Isobel got to work preparing a salad and prepping Hallie’s dining table. Hallie was glad to have found a friend in Sandwich; Isobel had shown Hallie around the town when she first arrived.

  “Teddy, that looks marvelous!” Isobel exclaimed as he brought the steaming, seasoned fish to the table.

  “It really does look delicious,” Hallie said. “I have to say, I’ve never had a meal quite this fresh before!” Everyone laughed.

  “You’ve really never fished or hunted before today, Doctor Malone?” Isobel asked, sipping from her wine glass.

  Hallie shook her head. “I’m afraid not. I wasn’t ever taught as a child, and then I became so busy with college and medical school and then my career, that it never even occurred to me to learn. I suppose that’s the comfort of the modern age—being able to live to fifty-four and never once… procuring your own meat.” More laughter erupted between the two.

  “I taught my son how to shoot a gun, skin a deer, catch a fish, as soon as he was walking practically!” Teddy said with a chuckle. “Don’t let us being city folk fool you. I get away from the hustle as often as I can and retreat here, or to the thick woods in upstate New York.” Hallie knew the Langley’s son was currently attending Dartmouth, soon to be an attorney.

  “Oh yes, Doctor Malone, next holiday you ought to come out with us to my brother’s cabin up there. You’ll just die when you see how large the trees are up there!” Isobel said.

  Hallie agreed, feeling buoyed by the wine and the good cheer, and added, “But I don’t know…I think Sandwich might be my permanent vacation spot… and who knows, maybe just my permanent spot!”

  Shortly, Hallie bid goodbye to her new friends, still smiling contentedly. After tidying the kitchen, she moved back outside to admire the setting sun over the bay. How beautiful, she thought. A large fish suddenly flipped out of the water, making a squirming arc with its body before splashing back underneath the sea. She shook her head, amused.

  Chapter 2

  A Late

  Night Caller

  S ometime later, Hallie was lounging on the porch swing, deep into the novel she was reading, when she heard her doorbell ring. She was intrigued. Who would be calling this evening at this hour unannounced? Had Teddy and Isobel forgotten something?

  Opening the door, Hallie was surprised to find Shirley, a young woman—a secretary, if she remembered correctly—she had met when she first arrived. Hallie had found a place to rent for the summer through the r
eal estate office where Shirley worked. But now, Shirley was shimmering with sweat, despite the cool night, and had her heels in her hand. Her dark hair was frizzed.

  “Shirley?” Hallie exclaimed. “My, did you run here? Please, come in.” Hallie stepped sideways to make room for the girl to get past her through the door.

  But Shirley stood rooted in place, frantically trying to smooth her hair. The, abruptly, she blurted out, “The man by the tree—he isn’t asleep! He’s dead!” Her face crumpled into an expression of terror. She looked as though she was struggling to hold back tears.

  Alarmed, Hallie ushered her inside. “Sit down, sit down.” Hallie led the girl over to the dining room and fetched her a glass of water. Hallie took the seat next to her at the white dining table. “There now, it’s okay. Tell me what happened?” Concerned, Hallie looked Shirley up and down. Although she was clearly frightened by something, she didn’t appear to have any injuries or to have been in any altercation. Her dress, light pink, with a collar and cinched waist, was probably the dress she had worn to work.

  Shirley dropped her heels to the floor with a thunk and quickly drank the glass of water Hallie had put in front of her. At Hallie’s urging, she began to speak. “This mornin’ I was on my way to work and I was late so I took the shortcut I sometimes take because it avoids most of town—through the park. You know Dunshire Park? I was right in the middle of it when I noticed this tourist. He was peculiar because he wasn’t wearin’ normal summer clothes, you know? But he was dressed really nicely, very hip, a real fancy man. I thought he was just asleep. He was on the ground, leaning against one of the big pine trees, with his hat over his face. I thought for sure he was asleep, passed out from the night before—too much drink, you see.” Hallie had her hands clasped in front of her and was listening intently. At Shirley’s pause, she nodded her head for her to continue. “Well, that was that. I went to work…. but when I was on my way home just now, I spotted him again! In the same place as before. Same position and everything. I don’t know why I wanted to go back through the park, but I knew something was odd about the situation…. And then when I saw him again, I thought, who could sleep without moving for that long? And I went over to see if he was alright. Only, when I got there, he didn’t move, and I, I removed his hat and talked to him and—” Shirley’s voice caught. “—he was dead!”