One Hot Murder
Page 1
PRAISE FOR
A Crafty Killing
(Best of 2011 by Suspense Magazine)
“Fun plot, fanciful characters, really fabulous crafts…Bartlett put her art and soul into this mystery!”
—Laura Childs, New York Times bestselling author of Stake & Eggs
“Bartlett combines murder, a touch of romance, and a lot of intrigue in this charming story. With a cast of personable characters and a lively, fast-paced story line, readers will be enthralled and delighted with this fresh new series.”
—Fresh Fiction
“A fun new mystery with a cast of charming characters…Readers will look forward to more with Katie and the artisans from Artisans Alley.”
—The Mystery Reader
“A sweet new mystery series by a top-notch author who writes under a few pen names. Katie is a likable heroine, fallible yet strong, tough but tender. A great book for readers looking for something light—and who also look for happy endings. I expect this series to go on for a long time.”
—Cozy Library
“[A] fantastic start to a new cozy series…A Crafty Killing kept my attention from the very first word until I turned the last page. The red herrings were aplenty, and the killer a complete surprise. Ms. Bartlett has created a crafty tale that must be read.”
—The Best Reviews
“This opening tale in a small-town amateur-sleuth series is a terrific first act.”
—Genre Go Round Reviews
Berkley Prime Crime titles by Lorraine Bartlett
A CRAFTY KILLING
THE WALLED FLOWER
ONE HOT MURDER
One Hot Murder
LORRAINE BARTLETT
BERKLEY PRIME CRIME, NEW YORK
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.) • Penguin Group (Australia), 707 Collins Street, Melbourne, Victoria 3008, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.) • Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India * Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) • Penguin Books (South Africa), Rosebank Office Park, 181 Jan Smuts Avenue, Parktown North 2193, South Africa • Penguin China, B7 Jiaming Center, 27 East Third Ring Road North, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100020, China
Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE: The recipes contained in this book are to be followed exactly as written. The publisher is not responsible for your specific health or allergy needs that may require medical supervision. The publisher is not responsible for any adverse reactions to the recipes contained in this book.
ONE HOT MURDER
A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / February 2013
Copyright © 2013 by Lorraine Bartlett.
Cover illustration by Chris Beatrice.
Interior text design by Laura K. Corless.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
ISBN: 978-1-101-61909-4
BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME
Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME and the PRIME CRIME logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
ALWAYS LEARNING PEARSON
For my “niece” Sophie Stanley
Acknowledgments
Whenever I come to a snag in my writing, I always seem to know someone with the appropriate expertise. My thanks go to my favorite landlady, Liz Eng, for sharing her knowledge of rental properties. I consulted author Kathryn Shay for information on firefighters. Krista Davis and Wendy Lyn Watson gave me legal advice, and Pamela James came up with the title. Steve Betlem of John Betlem Heating and Cooling shared his knowledge of HVAC systems and let me know what I could and could not do with them.
Thanks also go to my wonderful editor, Tom Colgan, and the world’s best agent, Jessica Faust.
Most of all, I’d like to thank my husband, Frank, who supports me in everything I do.
To learn more about the Victoria Square Mysteries, and find more of Katie’s recipes, I hope you’ll visit my website, www.LorraineBartlett.com, and consider signing up for my periodically e-mailed newsletter.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-one
Twenty-two
Twenty-three
Twenty-four
Twenty-five
Twenty-six
Twenty-seven
Katie’s No-Bake Recipes
One
When the idea came to Katie Bonner to live over her boyfriend’s pizza parlor, it seemed like a great one. And it was. In April and May—and even early June. The heat radiating from the pizza ovens kept her tiny apartment warm and cozy.
And then came July and things got sticky. Literally.
I’ll get a window air conditioner, Katie thought to herself, and then discovered that while the pizzeria could handle the electrical load from a large AC unit out back, the circuit panel in her apartment could not.
Did her landlord/boyfriend, Andy Rust, want to upgrade it?
Um…no.
Had that caused friction between them?
Definitely.
It was a sultry Saturday evening and twilight was about to fall as Katie gazed out the apartment’s front window overlooking Victoria Square. The air was stifling in her tiny apartment. So much so that she’d only picked at the cold salad she’d bought at the local grocery store, since she hadn’t felt like cooking. The oscillating fan on a stand circulated the air around her, but did nothing to actually lower the room’s oppressive temperature. Her two cats, Della and Mason, didn’t seem to mind the heat at all, or at least they didn’t show it—except for the inordinate amount of hair they seemed to shed on the rugs and every piece of upholstered furniture. Katie was glad she had a vacuum cleaner with a hose atta
chment. The cats would sack out on the cool ceramic tile in the bathroom and purr contentedly when she went in to check on them.
She sighed as she stared at the old Webster mansion on the opposite end of Victoria Square, the quaint shopping district within the village of McKinlay Mill, New York. For years she’d had her eye on buying the old house in hopes of turning it into The English Ivy Inn. Instead, her late husband had taken everything they had saved to buy the building and invested it in Artisans Alley, a going concern that was quickly going downhill. Chad had died in a car accident less than a year later. Ezra Hilton, the Alley’s manager, had followed him in death some seven months after that. Katie had inherited a majority interest in the artisans arcade and became its rather reluctant manager.
She sighed once more as she studied the old Victorian home. For years she’d pictured it restored to its former glory, from the outside color scheme to the redecoration of every room within. Years ago the house had been split into apartments, so it had six bathrooms that would make perfect on-suites. She even hung on to a storage unit filled with antique furniture and collectibles meant to fill each room, despite the pain of writing a check every month to pay for it.
Katie had had big plans for The English Ivy Inn. Not only would she host sumptuous breakfasts for her guests, but also put on teas in the afternoon—for wedding and baby showers, as well as birthday and anniversary teas. And she wouldn’t have been in competition with the Square’s tea shop, as she intended them to be for special groups or her guests, and not open to the public at large.
At least, that had been her intent—something she hadn’t been able to give up on. After all, what was life worth without hopes and dreams?
For now, she’d just have to be content hosting Artisans Alley’s Christmas in July potluck dinner. During the holiday season, everyone was too busy working or celebrating with their own families, so it was decided that the Alley’s vendors would party after the Fourth of July holiday. It was to be an after-hours cookout in the Square’s parking lot. A record heat wave had hit the area and didn’t want to dissipate. She could pray for a little of the snow western New York is so famous for, but she didn’t think it would happen.
Her gaze traveled back to the old Webster mansion. You’re a fool, my girl. You’ll never get the inn, even if it is up for sale once again. Yet no one seemed in a hurry to buy the old place, and that suited Katie just fine.
She pulled at the sweaty collar of her yellow Artisans Alley T-shirt, wondering if she should take a walk to the strip mall and the seasonal ice cream stand there. Hot as it was, it had to be cooler outside than in. And one triple vanilla cone rolled in slivered almonds would make her feel a lot cooler—at least for the five or so minutes it would take to eat it.
She glanced out the window one last time. Though it needed so much work before it could become habitable once again, gazing at the old Webster mansion never bored her. But this time it wasn’t the mansion that caught her attention. The south side of Victoria Square seemed to glow in the gathering twilight, and it wasn’t from the warm feelings she felt for the lovely shopping district.
“Good Lord!” Katie cried and jumped to her feet. “The Square’s on fire!”
Grabbing her cell phone, she ran for the stairs, flew down them, but paused at the front of the pizzeria and yanked open the door. Andy stood in front of one of the ovens with a long-handled wooden paddle in hand loaded with a large pizza.
“Andy—the Square’s on fire—the Square’s on fire!” she hollered and turned, letting go of the door. She punched in 911 and started running east toward the end of the Square, where a trail of smoke rose from the back of one of the shops—Wood U.
The dispatcher came on the line.
“There’s a fire on Victoria Square—send the fire department fast!”
“Address, please?”
Katie’s mind whirled. “I don’t know. Number five—or six—or maybe seven Victoria Square in McKinlay Mill. Please, send someone fast!”
She halted in front of Wood U—a shop specializing in wooden gifts and small furniture—and took in the sight. From this vantage point, there seemed to be more smoke than actual fire. Maybe the fire department could save it, or at least contain the blaze before it spread to the other shops—or worse, to the old, tinder-dry Webster mansion, which was its closest neighbor.
Luckily the fire department wasn’t more than a couple of blocks from Victoria Square, and soon Katie heard the piercing wail of sirens as two fire trucks and a rescue squad pulled into Victoria Square. With all the shops closed for the day, there was plenty of room for them to spread out. Eight firefighters spilled from the trucks, grabbed hoses, and hooked them to two of the hydrants in the Square, while their chief and another firefighter ascertained where best to approach the blaze.
“Can you save it? Can you save it?” Katie called, but the men were too intent on their work to answer her.
A Sheriff’s Office cruiser pulled up about the same time as the first of the rubberneckers arrived to watch the show. One of them called and waved a hand to capture Katie’s attention.
“Good heavens,” Gilda Ringwald-Stratton called, her face flushed from running from her store, Gilda’s Gourmet Baskets. Trust Gilda to still be working at this hour. “Is Dennis inside?” she asked, her eyes flashing with worry.
Dennis Wheeler owned Wood U. During the school year, his wife, Abby, took care of the store when he was at work as the industrial arts teacher at McKinlay Mill High School. He took care of it during the summers—or at least that had been their arrangement. Now that Dennis had retired from teaching, he wasn’t sure what they were doing. Like most of the businesses on Victoria Square, the store should have been closed at this time of the evening—with no one inside. At least, Katie hoped so.
“Maybe one of us should call their house to make sure,” Gilda suggested. “I’ve got the Merchants Association member list in my store.”
“You do that. I’m sure they’ll be heartsick to learn there’s been a fire. But at least if it’s one of the merchants who tells them, it might come as less of a shock.”
Gilda nodded. “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” she said, and scooted back toward her store, leaving Katie to worry alone.
The smoke billowed from the back of the shop as the firefighters manned their hoses, spraying it down. Another fire truck arrived from nearby Parma. These firefighters set up a pump beside McKinlay Creek, and soon they, too, were dousing the building. Within a minute or so, they shut down their hoses and began the work of investigating what had started the fire.
“That wasn’t too bad,” she heard the fire chief tell one of his men.
The Square’s gas lamps seemed to grow brighter as the sky darkened, and Katie moved back from the structure, hoping to get away from the stench of burned wood. Her mind was awhirl. How could this have happened? What would it mean for the Square? And what would Dennis say when he learned about the condition of his store?
Cell phone still in hand, Gilda hurried across the parking lot. She was nearly breathless when she reached Katie. “I called Abby. She’s on her way.”
“Was Dennis at home?”
Gilda shook her head. “She’s pretty frantic. She said Dennis was working late in the shop tonight. She hadn’t heard from him since he closed about six.”
A little more than three hours before.
Katie bit her lip, wishing the darkness had brought a cooling breeze with it.
Gilda craned her neck to try to see what the firefighters were doing out back. “Have they come up with a cause yet?”
Katie shook her head. “I’m going to take a walk around the Square’s back parking lot to see if Dennis’s car is back there.”
“Do you want me to come with you?” Gilda offered.
“You’d better wait here for Abby. She might need a familiar face—and maybe a shoulder to cry on.”
“Hurry back,” Gilda called.
The crowd of onlookers had grown considerably
, and Katie had to thread her way through them. She jogged around the side of The Perfect Grape, the Square’s wine shop, until she could see the back parking lot. Sure enough, Dennis Wheeler’s aging green minivan was parked not far from the back of his shop, which was still crawling with firefighters.
With a heavy heart, Katie headed back to the front lot.
She had almost made it back to Gilda when a familiar gray Sebring—its horn honking frantically—made its way through the throng of onlookers. Finally the driver shoved the gearshift into Park and pulled the keys from the ignition. She yanked open her door, jumped out, and started running toward Wood U.
Abby Wheeler’s face was already red and puffy from crying. Katie picked up speed to intercept her just as she joined Gilda.
“Was Dennis inside?” Abby called, her eyes wild.
“We don’t know,” Gilda said.
“I’m afraid his car is still parked out back,” Katie said, hating to be the bearer of bad news, but Abby would have learned the truth soon enough.
“I’m so sorry,” Gilda said, patting Abby’s arm.
“Just because the car is parked out back doesn’t have to mean Dennis was inside,” Katie said, trying to sound encouraging, although she felt anything but.
There didn’t seem to be much else to say. A trembling Abby stared at the scorched building as silent tears continued to cascade down her cheeks.
Eventually the sooty fire chief exited the building and removed his face mask. “Better send for the meat wagon,” he told the deputy. “We found a body inside.”
Abby closed her eyes and began to sob.
“Come on, Abby. Come and sit down over here,” Gilda said, and managed to turn Abby away from the building, leading her back to her car.
“Do you think it was smoke inhalation?” the deputy asked.
The chief shook his head. “Not unless he could breathe through a hole in the middle of his face.”
“Murder?” Katie whispered and was instantly sorry, hoping Abby was well out of earshot.
The deputy turned to face her, his expression grim and angry. “Don’t you say a word about this,” he commanded.
“It’ll be common knowledge by tomorrow,” she said.
“Yes, but let the Sheriff’s Office be the one to announce it to the world—not you.”