Tea Shop Cozy Mysteries - Books 1-6

by Katherine Hayton

  Hilary cocked one eye at her in query. “It’s only just gone six o’clock. Are you used to the early bird specials?”

  Willow blushed as she realized that was precisely what she was used to. Being married to a penny-pincher, who liked to eat at half price when he could, had made her old before her time. Even now that Molly had been dead and gone for years, she couldn’t shake the habit.

  “Where have you been hiding?” Hilary asked Gary. “I didn’t see you at the hotel today at all.”

  Hiding was such an apt description that Gary looked very nervous. “I just took the day off,” he said with his shoulders hunched over in a defensive posture. “I wasn’t wanting any hassle talking with the sheriff.”

  “Looks like you only managed to postpone the inevitable,” Hilary said, following her statement up with another yawn. Just looking at her made Willow mimic gesture, which then passed to Harmony, who spread the yawn onto Gary.

  “Oh, stop,” Mary-Jo complained from the desk as she too joined in the contagion. “If I begin yawning now, I’ll be sound asleep when the boss finally lets me get out of here.”

  Willow laughed, and the next minute, Sheriff Wender walked into the room. “Gary Riley? Would you come through?”

  Willow and Harmony stood up as well, and the sheriff frowned at the two of them. “Just Gary.”

  “No,” Willow said, planting her feet. “We’re coming through too. We can corroborate his story.”

  “I’d prefer if you sat down. I’d like to talk to Gary in private.” Sheriff Wender straightened his shoulders and drew himself up to his full height.

  “No, I really must insist.” Willow mimicked the sheriff’s stance and thanks to her low heels, ended up an inch taller.

  “In that case,” the sheriff gave a smile, “Gary Riley. You’re under arrest for the murder of Aaron Meiser. You don’t need to say anything, but anything you do say can be used against you in a court of law.”

  Willow gasped and turned to Harmony with a shocked look on her face. She saw the same expression reflected on her friend.

  “You can’t do that,” Willow insisted. “Gary only came down here because we convinced him to. He saw the true culprits behind the accident this morning. They’re the same two boys who threw stuff down on passers-by last night.”

  “Who’s that?” Hilary asked in a wary voice while the sheriff ignored everybody except Gary, keeping him close by with a firm hand on his shoulder.

  Willow turned to the woman. “It’s Barrett Glasner and his friend. They were at the hotel yesterday evening and threw things down on Harmony and me. Then, this morning, Gary saw them at it again.”

  “Mr. Meiser fell out a window,” Hilary said. “He wasn’t hit by something dropping on him from above.”

  “You don’t know that,” Willow argued. “You heard the pathologist earlier today. That whole death scene seemed to be staged.”

  “Wait a moment,” the sheriff turned to Willow with a look of fury drawing his eyebrows together. “How do you know what the doctor said?”

  Willow felt a flutter of fear and put her hand up to her throat where her pulse was beating vigorously. “That hardly matters now.”

  “It wasn’t Barrett Glasner,” Hilary insisted. “That boy was nowhere near the hotel this morning.”

  “He was,” Gary shouted. “I saw him going into the same room upstairs.”

  “He’d need a passkey to do that,” Hilary countered, “and nobody would give that to him without a good excuse. His mother certainly doesn’t have access to those things. Besides,” Hilary colored and looked over her shoulder as though she wanted to be far away, “I witnessed Barrett drive up with Rachel, in the laundry van. He stayed in the vehicle the whole time and was still in it when they drove away.”

  Her voice wobbled, and Willow reached out a hand to lay on Hilary’s arm in a gesture of comfort. The woman threw it off and turned back—apparently, the crack in her throat was due to anger rather than worry.

  “He’s lying,” Hilary insisted to the sheriff. “I don’t know why, but since he’s been missing all day, I think you’re spot on to arrest him.” She fixed her eyes on Gary’s. “You should be ashamed of yourself, trying to pin this terrible thing on such a sweet, young boy.”

  Chapter Nine

  By the time Willow got back home, she was exhausted. On top of being on her feet for most of the day, the emotion of the visit to the sheriff’s office had wrung her out. Gary didn’t have a comeback against Hilary’s assertions, and his behavior was indeed suspicious enough to call for a second look. Willow hoped that they would still find the man innocent. If he wasn’t, then she might be in trouble for harboring a fugitive!

  Harmony had excused herself to head home, citing as a reason that she was starving. Willow would also usually have eaten well before now, but instead of fixing herself supper, she sank down onto the sofa instead.

  “Come here, Mavis,” she said as the kitten poked her head into the room. “Come and keep me company and I’ll tell you all about my day.”

  In perfect compliance, Mavis sprang up on the seat next to Willow and curled her warm body in against hers.

  “I hope the man out in the shed didn’t cause you any trouble,” Willow whispered to the kitten as she stroked one finger along Mavis’s warm back. “It turns out I’m not such a good judge of character as I thought.”

  It wasn’t just Gary that caused her to think that. Willow had also realized it was late evening on her opening day, yet her new friend Charley hadn’t stopped by to wish her well. Not even a phone call!

  Well, on second thoughts, that was probably a blessing. Willow disliked talking on the phone, vastly preferring a face-to-face conversation instead. Either one was better than texting, a thing she abhorred above all other methods of communication. Willow didn’t know if it was her age showing or what, but if somebody sent her a text, it felt like a way of saying they couldn’t be bothered.

  Her favorite show Miss Walsham Investigates would be on the TV shortly. Willow settled back against the couch cushions, thinking she should really fetch herself a cup of tea and something to eat before the show came on. Otherwise, her stomach might rumble, and she could miss an important clue. It was hard enough for Willow to beat the TV detective at solving the murder mystery, without gifting her an unfair advantage.

  Instead of turning on the television, Willow must have fallen asleep. It only seemed a moment after she closed her eyes that she awoke to a strange noise outside her lounge room window. She struggled to gather her thoughts. According to the clock, she’d been asleep for a good four hours. So much for watching her show!

  Another noise came from outside—the wet slosh of something liquid being carried. A second later a whisper followed, then the sound of shushing. A shiver of fear spiked straight up Willow’s backbone, far worse than when Gary had startled her in the shed.

  “Who’s out there?” she called out, distraught to hear the waver in her voice. Mavis meowed beside her in protest as Willow got to her feet and moved over to the window.

  The light from inside the house made the outside too dark to see. By the time Willow walked over to turn the main lights off, she heard the noises move outside her window.

  For a split second, Willow missed her deceased husband, Molly, with a passion. This would be his job if he’d still been around—going outside to confront potential burglars. Now, she could either call the sheriff’s office and wait alone in the darkened house for a murderer to strike, or she could grab a weapon and head outdoors to confront the intruders herself.

  Willow picked up a poker from the old fireplace. Although they’d converted it to a heater a long time ago, she and Molly had kept the brush and poker that had always sat by the fireside.

  It had a good heft in her hand, and best of all, she wasn’t likely to discharge it by accident or end up cutting herself. As the noises outside moved around the rear of the property, to her new tea room, Willow held up a finger to her lips to warn Mavis t
o be silent as she headed for the back door.

  As she twisted the doorknob, Willow heard whispers again, this time followed by a high-pitched giggle. She hesitated for a second, then shoved the door open wide and charged through, raising her voice into a roar.

  There was the flash of two startled faces—both teenage boys—then Willow felt a cold, sticky substance hit her, instantly drenching the front of her clothes. She closed her eyes in instinct against the projectile so could only listen as the boys laughed and ran away.

  When Willow was sure that she was on her own, she reached indoors to fumble for the light switch. It flashed on, and Willow gasped as she saw that she was covered in dark crimson blood.

  She only had time to issue one piercing scream before Willow slumped to the ground in a dead faint.

  * * *

  Willow’s neighbor Phillip roused her. The first to the scene, he’d calmed her down by explaining that a thick layer of fence paint coated her rather than blood, as she’d first believed. He waited with her until the sheriff’s office responded to their frantic call, then ducked inside to pick up a change of clothing so that they could bundle up her dripping clothes as evidence.

  Reg arrived along a few minutes after the sheriff came, panting after the run he’d had from the other side of town. “I saw your lights were on,” he explained when Willow embraced him, crying, “and thought that was strange.”

  When she had showered off the few smudges of paint that made it to her skin and changed into sweats that felt comforting after her shock, Willow sat down and took the sheriff through the incident.

  “You should have called us,” Sheriff Wender grumbled. “Confronting boys out to cause trouble is part of my job description, you know.”

  “I thought I’d just be able to chase them off,” Willow said. She’d gotten her fits of crying under control during the long, hot shower but her eyes still felt puffy. The slight reprimand from the sheriff drew her to the brink of collapsing into tears again. “From the sound of it, they weren’t dangerous, just into mischief.”

  She remembered the high-pitched giggle just before a can full of paint hit her full-length and shuddered. Mischief, indeed.

  “They could have been burglars, armed and dangerous for all you knew,” the sheriff scolded her, then seemed to give up the fight as Reg put a comforting arm around her shoulder. “Never mind. Just think of us first next time, okay? We don’t need citizens taking unnecessary risks when the training is part of our job.”

  “Okay,” Willow agreed with a sniff. She turned to Reg and Phillip. “I don’t suppose either of you caught sight of anybody running away from the house?”

  They shook their heads. “I was staring at the sky,” Reg explained. “So I didn’t see anybody out and about.”

  “I was fast asleep until I heard you screaming,” Phillip said. He pressed a hand flat against his chest. “I thought for a minute I was in the middle of a horror movie until I recognized your voice and realized it was coming from your house.”

  Willow picked up the man’s other hand and gave it a grateful squeeze. It was only because of his steadfast presence that she’d managed to calm down at all.

  “Have you done anything recently that might have made you a target?”

  Willow shot a frown at the sheriff. “I don’t know what they were doing out there, so how am I meant to know what they’re responding to? We don’t even know who the boys were.”

  “I’ve got a good idea,” Sheriff Wender mumbled under his breath. “I guess your opening day turned out to be a bit of a nightmare, all around.”

  For some reason, the morose tone of the sheriff’s voice hit Willow’s funny bone, and she chuckled. “Yeah. I’m glad I only have to go through one of those. Between the road being closed, the intruder in my shed, then being doused with paint, I think I could go a long time before I needed another opening celebration.”

  “Do you think there’s a connection?” Reg asked the sheriff. “Have other businesses been targeted in the same fashion?”

  “Not that I’ve heard about,” Sheriff Wender said, closing his notebook with a snap. “But if everyone else has tried to deal with problems themselves, then I wouldn’t have.” He gave Willow one last scolding look, then stood up.

  “I promise,” she said, holding two fingers up to the side of her forehead. “Scout’s honor, I’ll call you before heading outside the next time.”

  “Or, we can just hope there isn’t a next time,” Phillip said. “I think that would be better.” He also got to his feet. “If you don’t need me for anything further, I’ll head home and get back to bed.”

  “Thanks,” Willow said, escorting him to the front door. “I really appreciate what you did for me tonight.”

  Phillip blushed bright crimson, the same shade as the paint that had covered Willow from head to toe. “That’s not a problem,” he muttered. “Just what neighbors are for.”

  Reg insisted on staying on Willow’s couch for the rest of the night, something she protested but was also profoundly grateful for. As she lay awake, watching the change from dark to light on the ceiling, Willow thought that after her fright she’d never feel like sleeping again.

  * * *

  “I can’t believe we didn’t see this last night,” Willow said in a mournful voice as she saw the crimson down the side of her house. The letters SNI were spelled out in dark red paint, each two feet high, and she stared at them in dismay.

  The beautiful art that she’d commissioned from the local painter now lay behind the amateur vandalism. Even if she could cover it over with cream to match the original house paint, the pictures were destroyed.

  “What do you think the letters stand for?” Reg asked, hands planted on his hips. He yawned and covered his mouth a second too late—Willow caught it and repeated the gesture until it felt like her jaw was close to dislocating. Although she’d dozed a little as the morning light crept into the room, all in all, she hadn’t gotten much sleep at all.

  “I have no idea,” Willow said when she recovered, although secretly believing that she’d interrupted the boys in the midst of spelling out the word ‘snitch.’ “All I wish is that they’d chosen somebody else to target. I’m not in the mood to deal with this at all.”

  “It’ll be ‘snitches,’” Harmony agreed after she arrived, beating the sheriff’s office by a good ten minutes. “I wonder if it’s because someone saw you talking to Sheriff Wender last night and drew a weird conclusion.”

  “Do you think it was Barrett?” Willow asked her. She hadn’t liked to say the name aloud until that point, but it was the only thing that fitted together logically in her head.

  “Could be,” Harmony said as she took a photograph. “Whoever did this, wasn’t as smart as they like to think.”

  “What do you mean?” Willow stopped as another huge yawn interrupted her train of thought. “Do you see something I’m missing?”

  “Fingerprints.” Harmony walked closer to the paint and pointed. “It looks like one of them rested his entire hand here.”

  “Good spotting,” Sheriff Wender said as he walked up behind them, startling Willow. “We should be able to gather up some nice prints off that.”

  “Can you do it quickly?” Willow asked. “I’d really like to get this covered over with a coat of cream paint before my first customers of the day arrive.”

  “Maybe you can let them through the house, just for today?” Harmony suggested. “I’m sure they won’t mind.”

  “My customers mightn’t, but I sure would,” Willow said. “I have a door to the tea rooms from the garden so I don’t have to keep the place spic and span. Or worry about tread marks if someone doesn’t wipe their shoes.”

  “We’ll only need half an hour,” the sheriff reassured Willow. “Once the forensic woman has lifted the prints and taken photos, then you’ll be free to paint it over to your heart’s content.”

  “Or we could hang something over top of it,” Harmony said. “Do you have some
netting we could feed out the window? Then your customers won’t get the whiff of fresh paint all day long.”

  That idea seemed the best one on offer, and Willow sourced a pile of old fabric from an upstairs cupboard. She’d stockpiled it to replace the curtains, years before, then decided to just buy ready-made when they were on special in the local store.

  “Does that look okay?” she asked when they were finished. Her mind was so fuzzy from lack of sleep that Willow’s judgment seemed to have jumped straight out the window.

  “That seems fine,” Harmony reassured her. “And just in time by the looks of it.”

  When Willow turned to the street, she saw Wendy and Tiffany turning up for their first full day of work.

  “Well, even if it appears dreadful, it’ll have to do for now,” Willow agreed, going to the door of the tea rooms to unlock it and let her staff inside.

  Chapter Ten

  Sheriff Wender called around to visit Willow just as her second day of trading came to an end. Although the start of the day had as much excitement as the previous one, the rest unfolded smoothly with no drama. Thank goodness, Willow thought as she ushered out the last of her customers to lock up.

  “Did you find the culprits already?” Willow asked as she sat the sheriff down to make him a free cup of tea. After a long day on her feet serving, she still hungered for a nice hot brew. Hopefully, that would always stay the same.

  “Well, I had a fair idea of whom to look for,” Sheriff Wender said. “And I caught two teenage boys literally red-handed.”

  When Willow looked at him, nonplussed, he held up his hands, wiggled his fingers, and whispered, “They were covered in paint.”

  At that, Willow laughed. Her mind was still dull from the lack of sleep, the world fuzzy around the edges. “Was it Barrett like we thought?”

  “Him and his mate, Justin. I’ve issued them both with a stern warning in front of their parents, and they’ll have to go before the juvenile judge when he’s making the rounds.”

  “Oh, goodness. Will they be locked up?” As much as Willow wanted the teens to pay for the fright they’d given her the night before, she wasn’t sure that sending them to prison would be something she could live with.