Crime and Nourishment_A Cozy Mystery Novel

by Miranda Sweet

  Crime and Nourishment

  Book 1: Angie Prouty Nantucket Cozy Mystery Series

  Miranda Sweet

  Hidden Key Publishing

  Copyright © 2017 by Hidden Key Publishing, Inc

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  CRIME & NOURISHMENT is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the creator’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  “It is a good phrase that," said Poirot. "The impossible cannot have happened, therefore the impossible must be possible in spite of appearances."

  —Murder on the Orient Express

  Contents

  1. Pastries & Page-Turners

  2. Special Delivery

  3. Foot-in-Mouth Disease

  4. A Festive Occasion

  5. Cui bono? Who benefits?

  6. Playing Twenty Questions

  7. Yo Ho Ho and a Bottle of Rum

  8. Off the Books

  9. The Pirate

  10. Imagination, Supposition, and Memory

  11. The Little Grey Lady of the Sea

  12. Lies and Misdirection

  13. Mistakes, Excuses, & Vicious Circles

  14. Questions & Answers

  15. Forgiveness

  Thank You!

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Pastries & Page-Turners

  Angie leaned her ancient gray bicycle against the side of the bookstore. On the one side was a flower box full of pink geraniums; on the other, the freshly painted teal front door, standing out against the gray shingles of the rest of the building. A bronze ship’s bell hung on the doorframe and a blue whale-shaped sign announced the name of the store: Pastries & Page-Turners. All that was missing was the smell of roasting coffee, which she would rectify in a few minutes.

  Inside the front window, underneath a display of pirate-themed books, scowled Captain Parfait, a tortoiseshell cat with a scar over one eye, a ragged ear, and a limp. He was impatient for breakfast after a hard night guarding the bookshop from thieves, mice, and late-night tourists.

  She unlocked the door. On the front mat was a pair of bookmarks with their fuzzy gray bobbles gnawed off. If Captain Parfait couldn’t find a mouse, he’d make one. Or two. Sometimes she swore he was the reincarnation of her obstinate great-grandfather, Captain John F. Prouty. Fortunately, she could stand the loss of a couple of bookmarks now and then, in order to satisfy her hunter-kitty’s mighty pride.

  She picked up the disemboweled bookmarks, gave Captain Parfait a scratch behind the ear, and took a quick whiff: nothing but good, rich bookstore smell.

  Which made leaving her old investment firm in Manhattan and returning home to Nantucket more than worth it.

  It was going to be a good day.

  Angie fed Captain Parfait, started the coffee, checked the refrigerators, and started unpacking the big boxes of books she’d received in the mail yesterday. Most of these were special orders that would have to be delivered later, after her great-aunt Margery came in for the day. Aunt Margery (she claimed to be too humble and too not-Russian to answer to the title “great”) would watch the store while Angie delivered books around the island.

  About elbow-deep in the second box, the back door opened with a “Hey, twinkle toes!” as the pastries—the other half of the Pastries & Page-Turner’s business model—arrived, along with Angie’s best friend, Josephine.

  Jo was the shorter, green-haired half of the Jerritt twins—the other one being her brother, Mickey. The two of them ran The Nantucket Bakery on Main Street, and every morning Jo bicycled around town with a cart full of croissants, cheesecake, cookies and more; delicacies that filled up Angie’s refrigerator case and lured tourists in off the street.

  “Hello!” Angie shouted. “I’m back in the stock room.”

  Jo leaned around the doorframe. Her pale eyebrows were pinched together in the center so hard that it left a red spot. “You hear?”

  “Hear what?”

  “It ain’t good. Come help me unload. You’re not gonna believe it.”

  Angie followed her outside and picked up three flat plastic boxes marked with P&P in permanent marker on top. “Don’t keep me in suspense.”

  “It’s Snuock. He’s raising the rent, starting August first. By a lot. I mean, a lot.”

  Angie blinked. “What?”

  Alexander Snuock was the infamous miser who owned half the island; not only had his family lived here for generations, but he rarely emerged from the mansion on top of the hill where he’d hidden for the last twenty years. He wasn’t broke and didn’t need the money—and for several of the small businesses in the area, a rent increase could mean going out of business.

  “Snuock stopped by this morning to give us the news…I think he just wanted to see us squirm in person. He could have sent an email or something. My guess is that he’s on his way here soon…I’d get ready, if I were you.”

  Angie’s gut clenched. “How…much?”

  “He says he’s calculating it by square foot. Ours just went up seven hundred bucks per month.”

  Angie did a quick mental guesstimate. “So mine should be about five hundred dollars. Per month. That’s crazy.”

  “You’re telling me,” Jo said.

  Angie felt stunned. The plans she’d made to take a week off in January to go to Greece were rapidly melting away.

  “Who else?”

  “Oh, a lot of people. Ruth next door to you, for one.”

  “That’s terrible,” Angie said.

  Jo walked back outside and Angie followed her. Getting back on her bike, Jo said, “Sorry I can’t stay to chat, but I gotta get a move on before Snuock gets here. Ma offered to help us with the extra cash, but Mickey and I agreed that we weren’t gonna lean on her for help. We’re just gonna have to make up with extra sales over the Fourth.”

  It was Thursday, the third of July, and tomorrow Angie would set up a bookstore tent at the festival on Main Street—the entire street would be closed off downtown for pedestrians, food and sales tents, and a huge water fight in the evening—with clam bakes, sailing tours, and fair rides elsewhere near the beach.

  Making an extra buck always seemed easy in the summer, when the island was covered in tourists, but the winter months would drain the bakery, and they both knew it.

  “I’ll keep an ear out for anyone else interested in selling pastries. Or who needs catering.”

  “I know you already do, babe,” Jo said. “Hugs and kisses for Aunt Margery and the captain. Mickey says if he gets a minute, he’ll stop in later. Ta.”

  Almost immediately after Jo left, Alexander Snuock showed up at the back door with a sharp rap of the knuckles and a genial call of, “So how’s my favorite bookseller this morning?”

  Angie wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d waited along a side street for Jo to hop back on her bicycle and pedal away.

  “I’m your only bookseller,” she said. Normally she was able to say the words with some lightness to her voice. This morning she seemed to taste ashes in her mouth.

  “Oh,” Snuock said, coming through the door, voice oozing with fake sympathy. “You just heard the news. Your rent’s going up.”

  Snuock wore an expensive, tailored suit, pale gray with a blue-and-yellow striped tie, and a matching blue pocket squire. He wore burgundy wing-tip oxfords and
a silver Rolex watch.

  Angie took a deep breath. “How much?”

  “You’ll get the paperwork after the holiday, but, as I recall, it’s approximately five hundred dollars. Less than five-ten.” He frowned at her, a face full of concern that was just as insincere as his smile. “Come on, Angie. You know you can afford it. You know that you were getting a far, far better deal on the property than any other owner on the island would have given you. Costs rise. You’ve had your window of grace to get your business started. Don’t tell me that you don’t have the money to cover what is a completely fair increase.

  She swallowed. Even though she had the impulse to argue with Snuock and set him straight about his distorted definition of fair, she wasn’t going to; he’d likely just raise the rents even higher. She did have some money tucked away—a slight comfort. But it still bit, and bit hard.

  Snuock walked over to the coffee pots and poured himself a cup of coffee, adding cream and grabbing a pastry from Jo’s tray. He took a sip, then a bite of the pastry.

  “Excellent,” he said. Then closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “You know how much I love coming into used bookstores and taking a whiff of the pages. It’s a particular pleasure of mine. I should stop by here more often.” If he did, he’d do nothing but chase the locals away.

  He took another bite of pastry, the crumbs stuck to the ends of his mouth.

  Then Angie, in her most friendly, customer-service voice, said: “Mr. Snuock, that coffee and pastry will be six twenty-five.” She couldn’t help herself; she wouldn’t argue or yell, but she could make a point. “I’m sure you understand, with the rents going up and all.”

  His eyes popped opened and he practically choked; he was used to everyone kowtowing to him.

  A thin, stiff smile spread across his face as he dug in his back pocket for his wallet and handed over the cash.

  He cleared his throat. “Have my books arrived yet?”

  “Not yet,” Angie said, placing the money in the till. “And I haven’t had a chance to open the packages that came in earlier.”

  “If they have, bring them up to me right away,” Snuock said, regaining his composure. “Ah! Well, I have to keep moving.” He raised his coffee cup toward her and headed toward the back door.

  Angie was relieved that he was leaving; it was all she had been able to do to keep from shouting at him. Then she heard someone else approaching the back door of the bookstore, angry footsteps that scattered pebbles through the parking lot.

  Oh no. There were probably at least a dozen angry business owners in the area looking to vent their troubles and drink coffee this morning…it really was inevitable that one of them would show up sooner or later.

  Why, oh why, did it have to be now?

  “I’m going to give that man a piece of my mind,” a voice echoed through the door.

  “Which man is that?” Snuock asked in a bland, almost incurious voice.

  The footsteps stopped abruptly, then a silhouette filled the doorway.

  It was Dory Jerritt, Jo and Mickey’s mother. She was short and stocky with steel-gray hair in a practical, short cut. She looked like she could beat up a sailor with his own belaying pin, and would, too, if he gave her any attitude. As she stepped into the back room, her eyes picked up on the fluorescent lights overhead and seemed to glow with an eerie light.

  “Alexander,” she said.

  “Why, as I live and breathe, if it isn’t Dory Jerritt,” Snuock said. “I should have expected that the locals would start arriving early this morning for gossip and gooseberry jam.”

  He looked like the cat that had got the cream. If he hadn’t started out with the intent to damage the Jerritts with his raise in rent, it was definitely a side bonus.

  “What have you done?” Dory asked.

  “Nothing unreasonable,” Snuock answered.

  “You’re going to drive my children out of business.”

  He tilted his head. “That’s a shame…but if your children can’t manage a business well enough to deal with fair market rental rates, then maybe they shouldn’t be in the business. Of course, I’m always willing to discuss a loan…or a change of ownership. I could keep them hired on, doing what they love,” he waved the pastry in his hand, then took another bite of it and swallowed it down with some coffee, “without having to worry their pretty little heads about all the paperwork. Tell them to think about it.”

  For a moment, Dory Jerritt was too flabbergasted for words. Her face turned such a bright, burning red that Angie began to worry that she would have a heart attack.

  “You!”

  “I’ll leave the two of you alone to discuss matters,” Snuock said. “Ms. Prouty? I trust that you’ll provide Ms. Jerritt with your usual level-headed advice, and that you’ll deliver my books as soon as possible, hmmm?”

  He walked straight toward Dory, waited one long, tense moment while she stood in place, her fists clenched, then stepped out of his way. A second later he was gone.

  Dory turned around and watched him. A car door slammed, an engine started, and car tires rolled over the gravel and out of the parking lot.

  Angie brought Dory a cup of coffee, black—the way Dory liked it. She sipped at it slowly; it was too hot to gulp.

  When about half the coffee had disappeared, Angie had gone through the mail and was starting to work on opening the boxes.

  “It’s not my children he’s after,” Dory said.

  “Oh?” Angie hadn’t realized that Snuock was after anyone—she’d only thought he was being his usual greedy self.

  “It’s Raymond Quinn.”

  Angie let out a breath. Alexander Snuock had bought the docks the previous year. He and Raymond Quinn had grown up on the island together—gone to school together. Both of them were sixty-five years old, and time hadn’t softened their attitude toward each other. Quinn resented Snuock for his money; Snuock hated Quinn for his disrespect.

  Quinn was a fisherman who rented one of Snuock’s new docks. And his dock fees would be going up, too…a lot, probably.

  “You’re right,” Angie said. “It makes perfect sense. That’s what this is about. Mr. Snuock is trying to get rid of Raymond Quinn once and for all. As soon as he does, the rents will go back down.”

  Then she shook her head at the same time Dory did. Both of them knew that Snuock wasn’t the type to let a trimmed dime go, let alone what had to be at least tens of thousands of dollars in extra rent every month—a drop in the bucket for Snuock, but one that he was too much of a miser not to try to sop up like a sponge.

  “What am I saying?” Angie said. “This is permanent.”

  “At least we have until the end of the month to do something about this,” Dory said.

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. Something.”

  The rest of the morning, ironically, rambled along as normal. Angie drank her first cup of coffee and flipped through the mail again, almost out of habit. It wasn’t like she hadn’t planned for the slings and arrows of misfortune, but she hadn’t budgeted for them to be quite so permanent. Her mind tumbled over itself, looking for a loophole, but couldn’t find one: most of her profits were going to be wiped out for a while. She was going to have to raise her prices—never mind that she already struggled to deliver a service good enough for her customers to resist online book retailers—or else she was just going to have to find some other way to drive business. She was selling a few books online here and there, mostly from local authors. Should she host more book signings? Start her own small press, printing up more books on local history?

  Pastries & Page-Turners had been open for three years now, and it was turning a profit, which was no mean achievement in this day and age of Internet sales. But what if that changed? What if she started losing money, what if…?

  As customers wandered in and out of the store, they received her politest attention, although perhaps not her fullest. Distracted. That was the word for it.

  One of them want
ed a copy of a famous fiction book about submarines for her husband—but it couldn’t possibly be The Hunt for Red October or anything by Clive Cussler, no; another one wanted a book, surely Angie knew which one, whose cover was in blue? A third wanted a book on local history; Angie steered him toward a small display where Nantucket history proudly faced the world, relieved that she could finally identify the right book. The submarine customer proudly brought The Hunt for Red October to the counter for Angie to ring up, saying that she had found it, even though Angie couldn’t. The one who had wanted the book with the blue cover left with the first three books in the Anne of Green Gables series—none of which were especially blue.

  Then, at ten a.m., Aunt Margery came in.

  She was sixty-five years old, a white-haired beauty with black eyebrows and a perpetually catty, mischievous expression. The breeze had picked up, and was tugging the scarf she had tied around her head. Despite the blue sky, she wore a rain jacket. She leaned her bicycle up against the opposite side of the front door. When she came in the door, she made kissing noises and scratched Captain Parfait thoroughly, making him stand up, arch his back, and purr loudly. There was no question as to whom Captain Parfait really belonged. He butted her hand for more petting and gave an annoyed yowl when Aunt Margery clucked her tongue and walked through the store to the counter.

  Angie got up and stretched.

  “Hello, Aunt Margery.”

  “My dear.” Aunt Margery, smelling strongly of face powder, gave Angie a hug and a kiss on each cheek. “I’m so glad to see you, even on such a terrible day as this. Have you heard the news?”

  “About the raise in rent? Jo told me when she delivered the pastries.”