Last Pen Standing

by Vivian Conroy

  Herb stood and stared into emptiness, his face suddenly devoid of emotion, as if he had become a shell of a man now that the anger had rushed out of him in that stream of words. He stood and breathed the forest air while the red of the setting sun increased, painting the sky in blood.

  Then his eyes came back to life. He stared at them a moment, a trapped animal staring at his hunter. He turned and ran, fast for an elderly man, who carried, by his own admittance, too many pounds. He was gone in a flash, around a corner of the path.

  Jonas let Spud go. “Take him down,” he ordered.

  Delta raised a hand to her mouth. “Is he going to bite him? Hurt him?”

  Jonas shook his head. “No. But he does know what to do when someone wants to get away.”

  They heard the dog barking and followed him quickly.

  Delta bit her lip as she ran beside Jonas through the bend in the path.

  Herb White lay facedown in the dirt, his legs kicking, but without conviction. Spud stood over him, his front paws on his shoulders. He barked triumphantly.

  Jonas came up quickly and took the dog’s collar, pulled him back, then extracted a rope from his pocket and tied Herb’s wrists together.

  “You have no right to do this,” the man hissed. “You are no cop.”

  “Ever heard of a citizen’s arrest?” Delta asked, even though she had no idea if it was applicable to this situation.

  Herb groaned. “You should have arrested that bitch and put her behind bars for what she did.”

  “She was a blackmailer,” Jonas said. “If you had managed to prove that, by having some victims cooperate, she might indeed have gone behind bars. Or, to avoid that, she might have agreed to leave you, without taking half of your money with her. You could have negotiated to get her out of your life. You need not have killed her.” He dragged Herb to his feet.

  Herb stared at him. His clothes were dirty, his hair stood up. His eyes searched Jonas’s expression. “You’re not serious,” he croaked.

  “Yes, I am. You could have solved it without violence.”

  Herb hung his head, working his jaw as though barely keeping himself from bursting into tears.

  Jonas gave his arm a little tug. “Come along now. It’s all over.”

  Spud rubbed his head against Delta’s leg and looked into her eyes. His warm brown gaze seemed to say, “Yes, it’s over. Are you happy now?”

  Delta squatted and gave the dog a hug. “You did great.” She hid her face in his warm fur. “Thanks, buddy.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Is there room for one more in here?”

  Jonas’s voice made Delta turn away from the noisy crowd in Wanted.

  He stood at the door with Spud by his side, giving her a lopsided grin. To be honest, Delta hadn’t expected him at their official “joined owners” party. Jonas just wasn’t the sort of guy who enjoyed social gatherings.

  But there he was, looking around uncomfortably and waving off an eager member of the Paper Posse who tried to offer him pink lemonade.

  Delta said, “Sorry about the shop being so crowded.”

  A loud cheer went up from the back where kids could put their hand in a barrel full of newspaper shreds and pick out a small, wrapped gift. A young girl was grinning from ear to ear as she held up a zebra eraser. Hazel and Delta had decided not to go for the cheaper gifts, like a balloon or marbles, but put in items they were actually selling and would have appeal to kids, like the animal-shaped erasers and washi tape with bears or cars on it.

  Admittedly, it was more expensive to do it that way, but they had agreed it was also better advertising for the shop, and they needed as much town support as they could possibly get after being involved in the murder case.

  The Tundish Trader had featured Herb White’s arrest in his wife’s murder on the front page for days, quoting “sources who had direct access to the investigation” describing Herb’s motive (he had seen his wife kissing the tennis instructor at the hotel), the murder method (he had lured her into the bar where he had been waiting with the ice pick to stab her in the back), and the arrest (the sheriff had pursued him in a police car, eventually forcing him off the road).

  None of it had been accurate, but nobody had cared, as the mere fact that the husband was the killer was shocking enough in itself. It had been the talk of the town for days, with people being angry at Sheriff West for first accusing locals when it turned out an outsider had done it.

  Ralph White and his wife had taken a hurried leave, and Jonas had told Delta that Amanda’s dress had turned up nothing but the traces of wine stains after all. Fred Halliday didn’t seem dejected that his former high school friend had left again but was his charming self to the ladies at the hotel, taking them boating or for a spin in his car, no matter how much their husbands objected.

  Most locals seemed happy to get back to normal and to act like they had never suspected Finn, Isabel, or Hazel, even if they had been spreading incriminating rumors just days before.

  And because they didn’t want to make matters worse, the formerly accused parties pretended they had no idea who had said anything negative about them and embraced their reacceptance into the town fold without question.

  The Paper Posse had met at Mine Forever for a celebratory meal of all-you-can-eat pancakes, and Hazel had insisted on buying Spud a present as a reward for capturing the killer. After consulting Jonas, they had agreed on a decoy that Spud could fetch from the water, since he loved to swim.

  Jonas said to Delta, “I won’t stay long, but I just wanted to look in.” He rolled back his shoulders as if they were stiff.

  “Late night?” Delta asked. “I thought you were going out with some die-hard bird watchers?”

  Jonas winced. “Don’t get me started about that.” He nodded across the crowd. “Glad to see Finn is here.”

  Delta nodded. After the killer had been arrested, Finn had confided that he wasn’t sure if he would stay in Tundish.

  Delta had known Hazel would hate for her brother to leave town but had also secretly figured it might be better, as Finn would never get a chance to grow up if Hazel kept mothering him.

  However, Isabel had insisted on Finn staying. Her love for him seemed to have deepened now that he had lied to the police to protect her, and they were together more often than before. Delta feared that the dreaded Christmas engagement Hazel was none too fond of would follow anyway.

  For herself, she wasn’t sure what she was thinking about Ray. Whether she wanted him to stay around or see him leave to do something other than annoy Rosalyn at the Lodge. A ship could not have two captains at the helm.

  Mrs. Cassidy appeared by her side. “Hello, Mr. Nord. Aren’t you trying our pink lemonade? It’s not as sweet as it looks.”

  She laughed at his grimace. “But you must try some of the snacks. Jane did her best to make them special. Notebook cookies, pencil bacon-and-cheese strips. Over there.”

  “That does sound rather tempting.” Jonas winked at Delta and made his way through the crowd to the snacks table.

  “I think we did a rather good job,” Mrs. Cassidy said to Delta. “I don’t mean the party, although it’s nice enough. I mean the murder case. It made me wonder. Maybe there isn’t an outlaw in my forebears after all, but a Pinkerton agent or a sheriff?”

  “Don’t let Sheriff West hear you say that. He’s still angry we got involved. And I vowed to myself I will never do it again.”

  “Not even if someone you care for got caught in the middle? Or if it involved the shop?”

  Delta made a gesture. “Don’t suggest that. I think one murder in my life has been quite enough. I’m glad the sheriff thinks he has the evidence he needs to get Herb White convicted. It was clever of him to wipe away his fingerprints. It makes me wonder if he was quite so upset during the murder as he claimed to us that he was.”

&nbs
p; “It’s odd,” Mrs. Cassidy mused, “how some people can be emotional on the one hand and cold and calculating on the other. Both things serve their purpose, I suppose. I never liked him from the moment he put his slogan on the church bulletin board. It was a rather bad slogan too.”

  Delta laughed. Hazel toasted her with a glass of pink lemonade from across the room. Delta raised her own glass and toasted her back. This was her shop, her things to sell, her workshop idea on the blackboard outside inviting people to come to the Lodge the next Friday. This was her new life, which Gran had made possible for her.

  She pulled her phone from her pocket and took a selfie, toasting Gran, with all the people milling about in the shop in the background. She sent it right away with a message reading, “Grand opening today, if you can call it an opening when a shop has been in business for a year already. But I’m here now, and today it really begins for me. I’m starting to feel my way into all aspects of it and can’t wait to see what’s up next. Thanks so much for making this possible for me. Wish you were here. Love, D.”

  More people tried to work their way in, a few errant dry leaves rustling in with them. The height of the leaf-peeping season would soon be over, and the town would gear up to offer other fall festivities, such as the Tundish Harvest Craft Fair, where Delta and Hazel would man their booth full of stationery stuff, offering people the chance to hand in a design for their own notebook. Delta couldn’t wait to see the winning design proudly presented as a limited edition in their shop and online.

  They had also put together new workshops that would be hosted at the Lodge. Now that Herb White was in prison and money from the Whites’ communal assets flowed away toward his defense, the takeover had fallen through, and the hotel would remain the exclusive property of the Taylors. Delta looked forward to seeing it gear up for Christmas, with trees appearing and fake snow and Rosalyn thinking up some kind of grand Christmas party for the guests.

  Now that she knew Ray had never tried to break up her engagement, but he had also been a victim of her fiancé’s conniving to lay a hand on part of the Taylor fortune, their relationship might improve, and there would be a moment where a photo could be taken of all of them together again. Wary at first perhaps, tentatively feeling out a way back to the feelings of old when they had stood together, supporting each other, no matter what.

  Delta thought of Zach and whether she might send him a Christmas card just to see how he responded.

  If he responded at all.

  Mrs. Cassidy breezed by to refill her glass. Delta toasted her and then the entire room. “To the future.”

  Which might hold more possibilities than she had ever imagined.

  Acknowledgments and Author’s Note

  I’m grateful to all agents, editors, and authors who share online about the writing and publishing process. A special thanks to my amazing agent, Jill Marsal; my wonderful editors, Anna Michels and MJ Johnston; Adrienne Krogh and Anne Wertheim for the great cover; and the entire dedicated Sourcebooks team, especially Ashlyn Keil for her hard work on the author newsletter.

  This series combines two of my loves: stationery and the great outdoors. I had a fabulous time building the fictional little town of Tundish, which was inspired by real-life towns in Montana’s Bitterroot Valley; developing the characters who make up the community; and introducing my first big lead dog in a cozy series: Spud. Usually writing smaller dogs, I felt like the setting—with the western elements, gold-mining history, and outdoor activities—needed a dog who could bring an active role to the investigation, and retired K9 officer Spud and his handler, Jonas Nord, were born. I still couldn’t resist putting in a small dog as well: Mrs. Cassidy’s diva, Nugget. Dogs just bring a book to life for me, and I love writing their very different personalities as much as I love writing my human characters.

  For those who are inspired by Mrs. Cassidy’s fascination with outlaws, have a look online for the intriguing histories of individual outlaws and gangs, especially the female gang members who were, as Mrs. Cassidy puts it, “seamstress by day, bank robber by night.” That they willingly posed for photos while they were wanted described their attitude to a tee. I’m delighted that the Paper Posse’s Wild West names can keep a little bit of their stories alive.

  And thank you, reader, for your visit to Tundish and to Wanted. I hope you will be back for Delta’s next adventure in her brand-new hometown, “the town with a heart of gold.”

  About the Author

  Always knee-deep in notebooks and pens, multi-published cozy mystery author Vivian Conroy decided to write about any paper crafter’s dream: a stationery shop called Wanted. Her other loves, such as sweet treats, history, and hiking, equipped the series’s world with a bakery, gold-mining museum, and outdoor activities. Never too far from a keyboard, Vivian loves to connect with readers via Twitter @VivWrites.

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