Dying Trade (A Deadline Cozy Mystery Book 9)

by Sonia Parin

  “Mom. Those building codes you mentioned… Well, you can’t be in here. You saw for yourself, it’s not safe. There are… vermin. That’s right. Big rats. Huge.”

  Jack chose that moment to stride past them, his cell phone pressed to his ear.

  “And who is that?” her mom asked.

  “No one.”

  Her dad looked at her. “So, no one just called for a squad car and the ME.” Her dad brushed his hand across his chin. “I like puzzles. Let’s see if I can put this one together.” He stretched one finger out and then the other. He shook his head and started again. “Oh, by Jove, I think I’ve got it. He’s a police officer.”

  Eve frowned. She’d had no idea her dad had a sense of humor.

  Her mom took a step.

  “Careful, Sarah,” her dad said. “I’m guessing we’re standing in the middle of a crime scene.”

  Chapter Four

  Eve pulled herself together and returned to the kitchen where she found Jill standing with her mouth gaping open. “You looked.”

  Jill nodded. “I had a peek. Barely a glance.”

  “I would have advised against it,” Eve said. “I’m sorry, I lost my voice. I don’t know what came over me. You’d think I’d be used to it all by now.”

  A body.

  In the room she wanted to turn into a kitchen.

  The flashlight had been potent enough to illuminate every detail of the contorted face.

  “How does this happen to you, Eve?” Jill asked.

  Eve rolled her eyes. “Is this going to affect my probation in the phone tree? How could I have known?” She huffed out a breath. “Out of all the stores I could have picked for my business, why did it have to be this one?”

  “Because whatever you found in there needed to be found?” Jill guessed.

  “You know it’s a body.”

  Jill cringed. “Why did you have to do that? I’ve been trying to convince myself someone had left behind a pile of rags on top of sandbags or something.”

  Jack strode back in saying, “Eve. You’ll have to postpone your cleaning. Walk me through the areas you worked on.”

  “Anything that is sparkling clean.” Eve pointed upstairs. “We spent the morning upstairs. Apart from the bookshelf, we haven’t touched anything else here. As you can see, the kitchen still has layers of dust on the floor. See for yourself.” She pointed at the doorway. “Mischief and Mr. Magoo obviously sat there and wiped the floor clean with their tails but the rest is covered with a thick layer of dust.”

  “Did you touch anything without gloves?”

  Jill thrust her hands behind her back while Eve grinned. “Does it really matter? You already have my fingerprints on file. In any case, if the state of that body is anything to go by, this death predates my arrival on the island.” She turned to Jill. “Take note of that.”

  “I don’t mean to split hairs,” Jill said. “Before you settled here, you used to visit the island on a fairly regular basis.”

  Hearing the sound of footsteps approaching, they all turned toward the doorway.

  Eve smiled and said, “This is Lauren, she’s the realtor. Lauren, your timing could not have been better.”

  “What’s going on? What happened?” Lauren asked, her attention going straight to the space where the bookcase should have been.

  Eve explained about wanting to move the bookcase and finding the extra space.

  “I hadn’t noticed.” Lauren took a step forward but both Eve and Jack moved to block her view.

  “What can you tell us about the previous tenant?” Eve asked.

  “Phillip Manningham. He operated an accounting agency.”

  “You said the store had been vacant for a while. Exactly how long?”

  “Eve,” Jack said. “Would you mind if I do my job?”

  “What’s going on?” Lauren asked again.

  “We found a dead body behind the bookcase,” Jill said.

  Lauren paled. Putting her hand to her chest, she stepped back. To Eve’s surprise, she then stepped forward as if she intended having a look.

  “I would strongly advice against that,” Eve said. “Especially if you’ve never seen a dead body before.”

  “I told you.”

  They all turned.

  Her parents. Here. Again.

  “Mom, dad. You can’t be here. I thought you’d gone back to William Hunter’s place.”

  Her parents stepped forward with her dad taking the lead and stretching his hand out to Jack. “I’m Steve Lloyd and this is my wife, Sarah Lloyd. We’re Eve’s parents.”

  “Good to meet you,” Jack shook his hand. “I’m Detective Jack Bradford.”

  “And how exactly do you know my daughter?” her mom asked.

  “Mom!”

  “They’re dating.”

  “Jill!” Eve felt as if she’d used up all her exclamations.

  “Eve?” Her mom’s eyebrows rose slightly.

  Hearing more footsteps approaching, Eve grabbed Jill and once again herded her parents out of the kitchen. “Okay. We all need to leave now and let the police to do their job.”

  As they strode out, several police officers strode through the store and greeted Eve.

  “They seem to know you,” her mom said, a hint of surprise in her voice.

  Once outside, Eve introduced Jill to her parents. Luckily, Jill overcame her spontaneous foot in mouth reaction and merely smiled.

  “Would you mind filling us in now?” her mom asked.

  “I’d love to but as you can see, Jill and I are rather dusty. Can we do this some other time? We want to go home and change into clean clothes.” Eve didn’t give her parents the chance to object.

  Running away seemed to be the only solution.

  Calling out to Mischief and Mr. Magoo, Eve grabbed Jill by the arm and guided them across the street to her car.

  “If you want to keep secrets, you’ll have to give me specific instructions,” Jill said. “Why didn’t you tell me your parents had come to visit?”

  “Because they caught me by surprise.” Snatching the baseball cap off her head, she looked at it and groaned. Had they noticed it? Eve started the car and focused on getting them both back to the inn. Half way there, she pushed out a breath. “They don’t know anything.”

  “They do now,” Jill said under her breath and added, “please explain.”

  “My folks live and work in Europe. We… We have scheduled contact and I haven’t seen them since my divorce.”

  “They look younger than I imagined,” Jill said.

  Yes, she’d definitely been a mistake. “My mom was twenty-one, in college and headed toward a brilliant career when I came along. Their folks… my grandparents, were well off so my folks had the financial support to stay on track.” Eve’s fingers tightened around the steering wheel. “That’s all I want to say about them.”

  “Okay.”

  “Hang on, there’s something else. They don’t know about the inn and they definitely don’t know about the store.”

  “And you want to keep it that way?” Jill asked, her voice heavy with caution. “But they already saw you at the store.”

  Eve glanced at her. “I guess you think I’m being silly and unrealistic.” She had to agree.

  Jill smiled. “You suddenly look about ten years old.”

  “They have that effect on me. Anyway, they’re staying with Willie on the island.”

  “William Hunter?” Jill tried to stifle her laughter but failed miserably. “I can just imagine their dinner table conversation.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure. My folks play golf and I know William plays golf.” Fingers crossed they didn’t stray off the subject, Eve thought. “I’d really like to talk about something else, please.”

  “Okay.”

  “They’re only here for a short while.” Eve tilted her head. “I can’t help feeling they’re harboring an ulterior motive. Mira and I were afraid they might have been on the verge of announcing their early
retirement, but that’s really too unlikely. They love their careers and their lives overseas. And… even when they do retire, it certainly won’t be to the boonies. They’ll most likely find somewhere in Manhattan. They love the theater and the opera… and the museums.” She shook her head again. “That’s it, no more talk of my parents.”

  “Okay.”

  “You probably think I’m overreacting.” When Jill didn’t reply, Eve asked, “What about the body we found? Who do you think it might be?”

  “I didn’t get a good look at the body. Was it a man or a woman?” Jill asked.

  “I think it might have been a man.” She raked her fingers through her hair. “I have no idea what could have possessed my parents to come into town. They’re not the type to poke around quaint little towns.” Eve handed Jill her cell phone. “Give Lauren a call. Jack might have finished talking with her. I’m sure she’ll be only too happy to share some information.”

  “She’s not picking up,” Jill said and then proceeded to call the realtor’s office. “Nope, she’s not back at the office.” Jill laughed.

  “Please share. Unless, of course, you’re laughing at my expense.”

  “You won’t find it amusing. I just caught you checking the mirrors. Are you afraid your parents will follow you to the inn?”

  “I didn’t like their deadpan enthusiasm.”

  “Is that what it was?”

  Eve nodded. “It doesn’t make sense. They’ve never taken an interest in me and I’m too old for them to start now. Also, I’m simply too old to be worrying about it.”

  “Maybe they’re trying to make it all up to you.”

  Eve gave her a wide-eyed look. “Why change the status quo now? Mira would agree with me.” She pulled into the driveway and slumped back in her seat. “I need to soak in a bubble bath.” Eve suggested going in the back door because they had guests and she didn’t want to startle them. “I’m sure I look like a mad innkeeper and I’d rather not add to my fast-growing reputation.”

  Striding into the kitchen, they found Eve’s new chef hard at work. “Hello, Gerard.”

  The twenty-five-year-old chef nodded without breaking the rhythm of his chopping.

  Eve considered spending a few minutes going over the menu for the week but she really needed to get cleaned up. Half an hour later, Eve strode down the stairs feeling refreshed. She headed toward the kitchen when she heard voices coming from the living room. Edging toward the door, she pressed her hand against her heart.

  Jill found her standing there. “What is it?” Jill whispered.

  Snapping out of her stupor, she peered around the corner and sighed with relief. “Honestly, I’m imagining things now. It’s Mira, but I swear she sounded like my mom.” What had come over her? Yes, she had a lot to hide from her parents. In her opinion, the less they knew about her life on the island, the less explaining she’d have to do. But that didn’t mean she should go around seeing shadows everywhere she went. “I can’t believe it and I never noticed how much Mira sounds like mom.”

  “Well, they are sisters,” Jill reasoned.

  Eve strode into the living room. “Mira. What are you doing here?”

  “Oh, hello. I… I just took myself for a walk and I lost track of time and… here I am. Samantha’s been keeping me company.”

  “You’ll never guess what happened,” Jill said. “And I know Eve won’t want to tell you, so I will. She found a dead body at the store.”

  Mira’s lips parted but she didn’t have time to react.

  The sound of tires crunching in the driveway had both Mira and Eve straightening, their eyes wide and unblinking.

  “Relax,” Jill said craning her neck to look out the window. “It’s Lauren. I guess she must have seen her missed call.” Jill rushed to the door and opened it before Lauren Wright could knock. Moments later, they both appeared in the sitting room.

  “I thought that detective of yours wouldn’t stop asking questions.” Lauren tugged her hair behind her ear. “I almost wanted to confess to the crime.”

  “What did you tell Jack?” Jill asked.

  “Everything I know, which isn’t much. He wanted to know about previous tenants, but I could only tell him about the last one.”

  Frowning, Jill asked, “Don’t you have records? I always assumed you were required by law to keep them for a certain number of years.”

  Lauren nodded. “We had records. Our office went digital a few months ago but then our computers crashed and we lost most of the records.”

  “I assume you kept the hard copies.”

  Lauren pressed her hands against her lap and sighed. “No. We destroyed the original paperwork. I couldn’t justify keeping duplicates, especially not after all the trouble we went to have them scanned into the system.”

  “What about backups?”

  Lauren slumped back on the couch and stared up at the ceiling. “Honestly, you sound like that detective. No, we didn’t back anything up. We thought we had backed it all up to that thing called the cloud, but apparently it doesn’t happen automatically and our system wasn’t set up for it. Long story short, I could only tell him about Phillip Manningham.”

  “And where is he now?”

  “I have no idea.”

  Eve offered to make everyone some coffee. In the kitchen, she washed her hands and asked Gerard to prepared a plate of cookies.

  Jill strode into the kitchen saying, “I’ve been thinking about the previous tenant. I couldn’t describe Phillip Manningham if my life depended on it. I’m sure I must have seen him around town but he had the sort of nonentity features that made him difficult to remember. Also, when he had his business in town, I was a couple of years younger, I would have had other things on my mind. I’m only now realizing young people tend to have selective sight. They only really see what’s important to them. Where you ever like that?” she asked Eve.

  “If you’d grown up the way I did, you would have had eyes on the back of your head. Remember, I went to school with Charlotte. From one moment to the next, I never knew what to expect from her.”

  “Sometimes, I think you exaggerate,” Jill said. “She can’t have been that bad. After all, she helped you get your fancy stove and, let’s not forget, she saved your life with her Birkin bag.” Jill helped herself to a cookie and poured herself a coffee. “I suppose we’ll have to wait until Jack gets his forensic report to find out the identity of the victim. And, even then, we don’t know if he’ll share the information with us.”

  Organizing the mugs on a tray, Eve stopped and looked out the window. Someone in town must remember Phillip Manningham. It wouldn’t hurt to ask around. “After we’ve had a bite to eat, how about going back into town?” Eve suggested.

  “You want to snoop around?” Jill asked.

  Eve picked up the tray. “This is my town as much as anybody else’s. I believe I have earned the right to be concerned about our wellbeing. If someone died here under suspicious circumstances, then I want to know about it.”

  As she strode into the living room, she wondered if there were any other type of circumstances. It didn’t matter, not in this case. The victim had definitely died by someone else’s hands. Anyone could see that. Someone had tried to cover their tracks by entombing the corpse.

  What if that someone had actually been the previous tenant?

  He could have killed someone, blocked that part of the building and then, he could have made a run for it.

  As Eve handed the mugs around, Jill asked, “Lauren, you haven’t always worked on the island.”

  Lauren nibbled on her cookie. “I used to work in another branch on the mainland.”

  Jill clicked her fingers. “That’s right. You guys set up shop on the island just over a year ago.”

  Eve turned to Mira. “What about you? Did you ever have anything to do with Phillip Manningham?”

  Mira gave a pensive nod. “He borrowed some books from me once. He came across as an odd character, always keeping to hims
elf. But he wasn’t a complete introvert. One day, I was at the bookstore and he came in looking for a particular book. They didn’t have it, but I did.”

  “And?” Eve asked.

  “Oh, he came over, and collected the book. When he saw I had several titles by the same author, he asked if he could take them too. So, he did. He must have been a speed reader. I remember he returned the books within the month.” Mira tilted her head. “I’ve been trying to remember when he first set himself up on the island. I’m sure someone will remember.”

  Eve took a sip of her coffee and smiled. “Despite today’s unfortunate discovery, this actually calls for a celebration. This death precedes my arrival on the island so I have absolutely nothing to do with it.”

  They all looked at her.

  “Hey, I’m trying to look on the bright side. Please don’t judge me.”

  “We don’t have a problem with that,” Jill said. “You seem to forget you’re the one who discovered the body.”

  Oh… Right.

  “Have you ever wondered if there’s something otherworldly inside you?” Jill asked. “You know, like the gift of a sixth sense. I’m thinking you might have some sort of inner magnet and it attracts murder victims to you.”

  Eve looked at Mira but she didn’t comment. Neither did Lauren. In fact, they both averted their eyes.

  “Well, Jill. That’s an interesting theory. However, I’d rather not go around thinking I’m being hounded by victims. Who knows what that sort of thinking will do to my psyche or my confidence.”

  Jill grinned. “You’ve already been dubbed the mad innkeeper. I doubt anyone will be surprised if you go around the bend.”

  Eve could take some fun at her expense but only because she knew Jill didn’t have a malicious bone in her body. “By the way, Mira. Guess who came to the store unannounced and caught me by surprise.”

  Mira sat up straight. “They didn’t.”

  Eve nodded. “They did and they caught me red-handed. How curious do you think they’ll be now? They’ll have more reason to drop into town.” Or worse, Eve thought, they might bring it up in conversation during dinner. William Hunter would then regale them with a story about his lunch at the inn.