Pawsitively Deadly (Silver Springs Cozy Mystery Series Book 1)

by Ginny Gold

“So you still think it’ll take the whole two weeks?” Garth asks and Maggie can hear disappointment in his voice.

  She nods even though he can’t see her. “Yeah. Weird things have been happening.” She knows she’ll tell him about her mom’s phone calls. There’s nothing she keeps from him, especially when it comes to working a case.

  “Oh? Things are that backwards?”

  Maggie laughs. “Not weird like that. Weird like . . . paranormal.” Garth doesn’t say anything so Maggie continues cautiously. “You know the antique shop my parents owned?” Garth make a small affirmative sound. “Clem took it over. So I’ve stopped in a couple times. I hope you’re sitting down before I tell you what happened.”

  “You’ve got my attention.”

  “My mom has called. Twice.” Maggie hears a chair tip over before she Garth’s choked response.

  “So she’s not dead?” Garth asks. Maggie has to give him credit for choosing the more likely option.

  “No, she’s dead alright. The phone she calls on isn’t connected to anything.”

  Garth’s silence is unnerving and Maggie wonders if he thinks she’s gone crazy. She wonders that about herself a little bit too.

  “Have you been able to look at the police files?” Garth asks, bringing the conversation back to more normal areas.

  “Not yet. I just talked to Trista. She’s working on it.”

  “Well hopefully Silver Springs has everything digitized. If they’re as behind as you make it sound, everything will still be on paper and you’ll need someone on the inside.”

  Maggie’s hope deflates. “I hadn’t even thought of that. I’m so used to working in Denver that I hadn’t considered being in the 1990s up here.”

  “Do you have any good leads?” Garth asks.

  “Good? I’m not sure. I have one person I want to talk to today. I spent all day yesterday talking to two possible suspects, but then I found out a man was responsible for their murder. And I only spoke with women.”

  “Their murder, huh? I thought it was suicide.”

  Maggie smiles to herself. “If Clem and I had been so sure of that I wouldn’t have come in the first place.” She can imagine him nodding on the other end of the line. “But yes, murder. That was the first thing my mom told me when she called.”

  Garth hesitates. “You sure you don’t need to see a shrink or anything?” Maggie hears the disbelief in his voice, which she expected.

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence. But no. At least not today. I knew you wouldn’t believe me. I can hardly believe it myself.”

  Garth pauses again. He seems at a loss for words. “Well, if I can do anything to help, let me know.”

  “Yeah, there is something. Come visit.”

  Garth laughs. “It’s only two weeks. The skiing isn’t any good now. I’ll see you when you get back.”

  They both hang up and Maggie hangs her head in her hands. She knows she can’t give up on the two new leads yet; she hasn’t even spoken to them. And she might get lucky and have Trista get her the files she wants to look at.

  But talking to Garth had the opposite effect than what she’d been hoping for. He’s always helped her see new angles—which he did now—but it seemed like these new angles could very easily work against her.

  Before Maggie heads back out to talk to Drew she decides to do some of her own old fashioned research. She doesn’t know anything about Drew other than he works at the brewery in town. Maggie opens up a new browser and finds High Mountain Brewery’s website.

  The website makes Maggie hungry. Their pub food looks better than average and she decides to eat lunch there. That will give her a good excuse to be at the brewery and might make finding something out about Drew a little easier.

  She checks the employee page after drooling for a few minutes over the menu options. There’s Drew, front and center. Maggie has to admit he’s good looking with his salt and pepper hair, blue eyes that would catch her attention anywhere, and a smile that would make all the girls turn their heads. She guesses his age is somewhere in his mid forties, a little young to be chasing her mom, but not too young for Maggie. She thinks maybe she could get close enough to him to learn something about his relationship with her mother.

  Next, Maggie opens up Facebook. She only has an account so she can look up possible suspects. She doesn’t even have a profile picture and her name on the account is a fake.

  Maggie types in ‘Drew Kent’ and gets far too many hits to know where to start. Since she doesn’t have any friends on Facebook, she doesn’t find a Drew with mutual friends. Maggie quickly scans the thumbnail photos of the dozens of Drew Kents but can’t find a likely match. She gives up and packs her tablet into her handbag. She pokes her head into her bedroom and sees Opal stretched out on the bed and is momentarily jealous. If Maggie could lie around all day she might like Silver Springs a little bit more.

  Maggie backs out of the driveway and goes back to Main Street. The lunch crowd has arrived and parking is tight but she finds a spot in the parking garage. She crosses the street and passes Silver Taxidermy and File and Style before getting to the brewery. Maggie unconsciously runs her fingers through her short hair and wonders if she’ll have to make an appointment at File and Style before she figures out what happened to her parents.

  The brewery is nearly empty. Noon on a Tuesday at the tail end of ski season and before summer activities have started doesn’t seem to be the most popular time to get a beer or pub food. Maggie asks to be seated at the bar so she has a clear view of the whole pub and orders a beer. There are only two other people at the bar, both men, and she has no interest in talking to them. Her sole purpose for being here is to talk to Drew. Getting some lunch is an added bonus.

  “Are you ready to order?” the chirpy bartender asks Maggie once she has her beer. She knew what she wanted as soon as she walked in but she hasn’t even opened her menu.

  “I’ll have the High Peak burger,” she orders. It comes loaded with cheese, jalapeños and onion rings with a side of fries. Her mouth is already watering with anticipation. “And is Drew in?” she adds before the bartender turns away.

  “Sure. I’ll let him know you want to talk to him.”

  Maggie hadn’t expected it to be that easy. Maybe it isn’t unusual for him to get a request from a customer. His title on the website was brew master.

  While Maggie waits, she takes out her smart phone and checks her emails. It’s only been an hour since she talked to Trista about getting access to the police files on her parents’ case, but she already has a new message from her. She opens it, expecting the worst.

  Hey M. No files. Everything must be hard copies. Sorry. –T.

  Maggie had already expected to read something along those lines but she’s still disappointed. The only option she sees now to gain access to the file is to talk to Detective Daniel Stevens. And that will open up a whole can of worms from her past that she’d rather keep hidden.

  CHAPTER 13

  “Drew Kent,” a stunningly handsome man says, his hand outstretched in Maggie’s direction, bringing her back to her surroundings. His photo online didn’t nearly do him justice and she’s momentarily at a loss for words, something she hasn’t found herself fighting for since her early 20s.

  “Maggie Boothe,” she says when she finds her voice again. She stands and shakes his hand.

  “I thought you looked familiar. Just like your mother. I’m so sorry to hear about her passing.”

  Maggie sits back down and Drew takes the seat next to her.

  “What can I do for you?” he asks, just as Maggie’s lunch arrives.

  She turns the plate so the fries are nearest Drew and she offers him some.

  “No, thanks. I eat plenty of them every day.” His smile unnerves her. It nearly makes his face glow. “You got the High Peak burger, I see. That’s a favorite of out of towners. The onion rings on the burger isn’t something you find at every pub.”

  Maggie smiles and pours ketchup o
ver her fries.

  “So you knew my parents,” Maggie says instead of asks.

  “Yes. Quite well. Your dad came here almost every day for lunch.” He chuckles. “His favorite was the High Peak burger.”

  Maggie smiles. “Do you think their death was suicide? Like the police reported?”

  Maggie doesn’t take her eyes off Drew. His hands fall to the bar and he twists his fingers together. She can tell he’s nervous about her direct line of questioning. “I don’t know. I want to believe the report. But I don’t know what they would have wanted to kill themselves over.”

  Maggie’s thoughts from the beginning—why would they have committed suicide? They had everything; a job they loved in a town they would never leave, two daughters who both loved their parents but maybe not each other.

  “You were closer to my mom than my dad?” Maggie asks, backing off a little so Drew doesn’t feel so threatened.

  His hands continue to twist and he drops them to his lap. He’s unable to hold Maggie’s gaze and looks down at the bar. “I guess you could say that.”

  “I was told you might have made her uncomfortable on a couple occasions.” Maggie doesn’t want to accuse him of stalking and totally push him away. She takes a bite of her burger and knows why it was her dad’s favorite. The crunch of the onion rings complements the burger’s juiciness and a little bit of grease drips down her chin. She catches it with her napkin, embarrassed. It’s one of the best lunches she’s ever had.

  Drew looks up and there’s fire in his eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I think we’re done here. Enjoy your lunch.”

  Maggie watches him retreat back to the area where they make their own beer and she takes another bite. That didn’t go exactly how she’d hoped and she knows it was her fault. She pushed too hard too soon. She’ll have to try again another time because she knows he’s turned off by her right now.

  He didn’t outright deny that he had made her mother uncomfortable, but he certainly avoided the topic. Could it have been enough to provoke him to murder her parents?

  ***

  Maggie finishes her burger and her beer and decides not to order a second drink. She has the whole afternoon stretching in front of her and plenty of questions she’d like answers to. Since she’s on Main Street, she decides to visit Clem at work and tell her about Drew. Maybe she’ll have a different perspective on her mom’s relationship with Drew than Ginger Rae presented. And maybe she knows about the potential stalking.

  Outside, Maggie crosses 1st Street, walks past The Kitchen Sink that nearly entices her inside with its pots and pans on display in the window and enters Two Sisters. To her surprise, there are six customers browsing different areas of the shop. Four of them are women and two are men, likely the patient husbands of two of the other shoppers.

  Maggie finds Clem behind the register and smiles at her sister. She doesn’t want to take Clem’s attention away from any of her customers so she lets herself into the back office and takes out her tablet. She adds everything she learned about Drew to her notes and responds to Trista. She keeps it short and without any details so no one would know what they’re talking about.

  Then she shoots off a quick email to Garth letting him know he was right about Silver Springs not having electronic records.

  His response is almost immediate and Maggie wonders what he’s doing on his computer in the middle of the day. He usually spends most of the day out of the office following leads and has refused to get a smart phone or tablet so he’s usually disconnected. She hopes he’s not swamped with extra work in her absence.

  Maggie hears the front door open and close several times and the low hum of voices quiets. She leaves the office and finds Clem fiddling with some of the pieces that have been moved out of place. Maggie smiles to herself. Clem’s compulsive need to have everything in its right place hasn’t changed a bit.

  “Putting everything back?” Maggie asks.

  Clem turns around quickly and a flash of annoyance crosses her face, the same expression Maggie has seen on each of her visits in the last thirty four years. She thought they were disappearing after their heart to heart Sunday night.

  The look disappears and Clem smiles. “Always. Mom made fun of me for it. But it kept everything where we could find each item. I don’t know how they would have kept track of inventory if I wasn’t here.”

  “I’m sure they would have figured it out,” Maggie says without thinking and regrets it.

  Clem turns her back and finishes moving everything around so they’re all in some order that only she understands.

  “What do you know about Drew Kent?” Maggie asks when Clem finishes. Maggie follows her back to the register and they stand on opposite sides of the counter as if Maggie is a customer wanting to buy something.

  “Drew Kent. The hunk at the brewery?”

  “Yeah.” Maggie nods, warmth crawling up her cheeks. Clem looks down and doesn’t comment on Maggie’s blush.

  Clem shrugs. “Nothing really. Why? You have your eye on him?”

  Maggie laughs and looks at the floor. If he was ten years older she might have a chance with him. “No. Ginger Rae said he was stalking Mom.”

  Clem waves her hand through the air. “I don’t know anything about it.”

  They’re interrupted by the bell on the front door alerting them to company. Maggie turns and Clem looks up, her face breaking into a smile. “Josh. I told you I’d call you if I came across a Queen Mary. You’re not really giving me much time.”

  Josh McMann smiles and walks toward the register. “I didn’t come for a clock.” He darts a glance in Maggie’s direction. “I don’t want to seem too forward, but I came to ask your sister out for a drink.”

  CHAPTER 14

  “How’s seven? At the brewery?” Josh asks, looking at Maggie instead of Clem.

  Maggie feels heat creep up her neck and into her cheeks a second time. She did not expect this invitation and it has completely blindsided her.

  “Um . . . I promised some friends I’d go to Bingo at seven,” she finally manages to say.

  “Great. I’ll join you.”

  Maggie is even more shocked. Who agrees to go to Bingo rather than to go out for drinks?

  “Um . . . okay. I’ll meet you there?”

  “Sure. And I’ll bring the drinks.” Josh winks and heads back to the front of the store. He gives a small wave just before he opens the door and walks out.

  Maggie turns back to Clem, her mouth hanging slightly open.

  “What just happened?” Maggie asks.

  Clem laughs. “Has it been that long since you were asked out that you can’t even see that this is a date?”

  Maggie needs to sit down but the chairs are too far away. She grabs the nearest table to steady herself. “A date? Really? I don’t even know him.”

  Clem laughs even louder. “Yeah, that’s how it starts. And were you really planning to go to Bingo? Because if you weren’t, you are now.”

  Maggie nods slowly. “I told The Three Blind Mice I’d go with them. They’ve been bugging me since yesterday. I guess it’s important to them.”

  “Yeah. It is. Mom used to go with them every week. I’ve gone once since they died but it’s not my thing. If you have plans tonight, I’m going to see if Denis is free. I might spend the night at his place. Can you make sure the dogs are in when you get home? And feed them? I’ll go to Denis’ right from work.”

  Maggie jerks her head back up and looks at Clem. There’s only softness in her eyes, pleading her to say yes. Maggie hadn’t realized she was spending time away from her boyfriend because of Maggie’s presence. She’s mildly annoyed that Clem would ask her to take care of the dogs when she knows Maggie doesn’t like them, but Clem has allowed Opal into her house.

  “Sure.”

  “Thanks.”

  Maggie picks up her handbag from the floor in front of her and waves as she leaves Two Sisters. With Clem’s mention of Denis, Maggie is thinking
about his brother, Detective Daniel Stevens, and she knows it’s only a matter of time before she has to face the music. She may as well go to the police station now and get it over with.

  ***

  Maggie sits in her car in the police station’s parking lot. She mentally prepares herself by pretending her high school years never existed. She’s made a point to never cross paths with Daniel Stevens since they graduated, but now she finds herself seeking him out. It feels like the universe is playing a cruel trick on her.

  Finally, Maggie gets out and slams her car door. She hopes that aggression will get out all of her frustration. She doesn’t want to ask for Daniel’s help but she doesn’t see another option.

  After slamming the door once, Maggie is still annoyed and slams it again. She doesn’t let herself do it a third time.

  She walks inside with confidence she doesn’t feel. In all her years as a private investigator, Maggie has never been so uncomfortable talking to a detective. Her success often depends on them, and she’s created great relationships with some in Denver.

  But Silver Springs is out of her league. Daniel is out of her league.

  Maggie walks to the front desk and waits patiently while the man and woman behind the desk finish whatever conversation they’re having. Then they both turn in her direction and Maggie is taken aback.

  Detective Daniel Stevens is right in front of her, much sooner than she expected, and she’s caught completely off guard. She’d recognize him anywhere, though. In the thirty four years since she’s seen him, he hasn’t changed a wink. He’s only aged.

  The same thick neck on top of the wide shoulders supports the same head with the same cocky grin. But Maggie is almost sure she reads something else in his smile. It might be compassion. An ex-football player turned detective with compassion. Maggie doesn’t want to kid herself.

  “Maggie?” he asks, his deep voice full of surprise.

  For the third time in as many hours, Maggie is rendered speechless.

  “Maggie Boothe?” he asks again and his grin widens. “I didn’t think I’d ever see the day.”