Murder in the Park (Fran Finch Cozy Mystery Book 1)

by Ivy McAllister

  “Aaaaahhh!” A woman’s high pitched shrieking scream tore through Fran’s joy. It didn’t sound like a play scream, she knew that instantly. Could Anna have been right after all? Maybe someone got confused and screamed when they were murdered. But that didn’t make sense. Fran herself was the murderer. And that scream had been eerie, spreading all through her. Then it came again, ever more bloodcurdling. “Aaaaahhh!”

  Chapter 7

  Fran, her brow creased with worry, began to make her way to the source of the screaming. It kept on and on, piercing through her body, and soon she broke out into a run. The bloodcurdling sound seemed to be coming from where they’d all gathered before the game had started, just inside the gate of the Rainbow Grove.

  A crowd was rapidly gathering as guests hurried down the maze paths to find out what was going on. As Fran came out of the final maze alley and into the open, she came to a stop, her heart hammering. Her eyes were glued on the scene in front of her, as Sandrine lay crouched over Byron’s body. A pool of blood was seeping, eerily slowly, away from where he lay, dead.

  Anna had rushed to Waverly’s aid, calming the little girl down as she asked a million panicked questions. “Is Daddy all right? Why did he fall down like that? What’s going on? What’s happened to Daddy? Why is Mommy screaming?”

  Emily hurried in through the outside gate, panting. “I just went up to the house,” she said through gasped breaths, coming up beside Fran. “What’s going…” She cut herself off as her eyes landed upon Mr. Stratford’s body and gasped. “Oh my… Is he…”

  Fran winced. “I think so.”

  “I think you should be taken off the case,” Matt said firmly, all his easy charm gone as his gray eyes turned into raging storm clouds and his body tensed up with his emotion.

  Fran had been sitting on a bench just inside the Rainbow Grove, being questioned by one of the police officers who had turned up since the party had become a bloodbath. Emily had been instructed to put a movie on for the kids in the basement cinema, while all the adults were questioned, one by one. No one had been allowed to leave.

  The officer got to his feet. “I don’t see what this has to do with you, Matthew,” he spat. “Unless you’re worried I’ll expose your wrongdoings?”

  “What on earth are you insinuating?”

  “Nothing at all,” the officer said, his face spreading into a nasty grin.

  “You’re sick, you know that?” Matt said. “Really, really sick.”

  “What was that?” The officer put his hand to his ear. “I couldn’t hear you, what with that silver spoon stuck in your mouth.”

  Matt looked like he was going to explode. Then his eyes flickered over to Fran, who was studiously looking at her fingernails, only taking the occasional glance up. He took a deep breath in, then blew out through his mouth. “Look, Pascal, I don’t want to get into all of that. Now is not the time. I don’t know if there ever will be a time. Because none of it’s my fault.”

  “You benefit, though,” Officer Pascal said with venom. “You can’t deny that, no matter how hard you try to cover it up. In fact, you’ll benefit handsomely from this as well, come to think. Isn’t that right?”

  Matt froze, stunned as if he’d just been slapped hard across the face. “You,” he said eventually, pure hatred in his voice. “You are…a disease, Pascal.”

  “No,” Pascal said, squaring up to him. “I’m a police officer. And you are a civilian. So I suggest you keep your tongue in check.”

  “This is the kind of abuse of the badge I’d expect from you,” Matt said, holding his head high. “You can’t be trusted to be impartial. Not with such close ties.”

  “Well, thankfully, it’s not your job to decide whether I can be trusted or not. And since we’re giving opinions, I’ll let it be known that you can’t be trusted either. You’re an eel, Matthew. A slippery, dark eel, slithering out of blame and always looking like the innocent one. But I see through you. Just know that.” Then Pascal sat back down on the bench and turned to a rather stunned Fran. “So, tell me where you were at the time of the murder.”

  “You don’t know me,” Matthew said, his voice thick with emotion. “Blood means nothing.”

  “Leave, Mr. Stratford,” Officer Pascal said. “Or I’ll be forced to arrest you.”

  Mr. Stratford? So Matt was one of Byron’s relations? And from what he’d said about blood, it seemed Pascal was, too.

  Matt grunted in annoyance as he took off along the gravel path, and Fran saw a flicker of pleasure in Pascal’s eyes. He was glad he rattled Matt, Fran could tell that much.

  “So,” Pascal said. “Francesca Finch. Give me an accurate account of exactly what you were doing during the time of the murder.”

  “I was the murderer,” Fran said, “and I had to go and look for someone to…”

  It was only when Pascal looked up at her, his eyes wide as saucers, that she realized what she’d said.

  “Oh!” Fran said, her hands beginning to sweat and her heart running like a freight train. “Oh, I mean, in the game.” Her thoughts all tied themselves up in knots as she panicked. “We were playing Murder in the Park, usually it’s in the dark, but Wave… Oh, well, I mean, I was picked to be the murderer. In the game.”

  Pascal watched her with a suspicion that terrified her.

  “In the game,” she kept saying. “Not in real life.”

  “Mm,” he said, like he didn’t believe a word. “Go on.”

  Fran stuttered and stumbled through the best explanation she could muster, though everything seemed overpowered by the moment she caught sight of Byron Stratford’s body lying on the ground, his life force oozing away in trickles of red.

  It felt like an uncomfortable eternity as Pascal frowned, scribbling down the notes. He had a vibe about him that made Fran feel uneasy. She had to stop herself from bolting off the bench and running back into the house to find Emily when Pascal finally said, “You can go now.”

  Fran passed through the crowd, feeling every look, hearing every spoken word amplified. The sunlight was oppressive, the crunching gravel sound under everyone’s party shoes unbearable. She felt like life had become a razor’s edge, sharp and deadly. The blissful bubble of the princess party had been burst, popped open. All of it seemed frivolous now. Silly, even.

  A huge knot tied in her stomach. With waves of nausea washing through her, Fran hurried up the stairs onto the veranda. She stole through the kitchen as quickly as she could. Someone had brought the sweet pecan caramel pie out and placed it on the counter. Fran wondered why it had all felt so important that the topping was exactly level, and that the pecan decorations had been totally symmetrical, and averted her gaze. Nothing felt real anymore. All she wanted to do was find Emily, a familiar face.

  When she’d first arrived at the mansion on that first day, she remembered Emily talking about the home cinema and rolling her eyes, nodding in its direction. Fran turned in the hallway, this way and that, trying to remember where it was. Eventually she located the door, cracking it open to hear the booming voices of cartoon characters. She hurried down the darkened stairway in her ballet style slippers. At the bottom of the stairs, the enormous screen came into view, and the rows and rows of children, their eager eyes and faces thrown into color-morphing light casts as the movie played on screen. But even a cursory glance showed her there was no Emily. Only a typical Little Hampton power couple, both tapping away at their smartphones.

  Fran’s heart sank. It felt like a huge unmanned fist was squeezing at her neck. Why was it so hard to breathe? It seemed like the whole world depended on her getting to see Emily.

  So when she came back up into the palatial marble hallway, she almost burst into tears of relief to see Emily walking across toward the grand staircase, a plate raised up to her mouth with one hand as she took a huge bite of one of the peanut butter and chocolate cupcakes.

  “Emily!” Fran said, hurrying over. She launched herself at Emily in a hug.

  “Woah, gir
l, you’re going to knock me over,” Emily said, but her voice was softer than usual. “Did the questioning go okay?”

  “Uh, yeah, I guess,” Fran said. Her mind felt like one giant fuzz-ball. She wished Percy were there nuzzling into her ankles. She imagined him waiting for her on the porch of Mrs. McCabe’s farmhouse and the image tugged on all her heartstrings. She couldn’t wait to scoop him up in her arms—that was, if he let her, seeing as he only sometimes obliged—and bury her cheek in his soft gray fur. She guessed it still wouldn’t feel like the world made sense, even then, but at least she’d have the company of her adorably grumpy old companion.

  “They said they’re coming for me last.” Emily shook her head. “This is like…a movie or something. It doesn’t feel real.”

  “I know,” Fran said.

  Emily had another mouthful of cupcake, while Fran stood, drifting away into thoughts of Byron’s body that she couldn’t shake from her head. “I can’t stop eating,” Emily said. “I feel like I have to eat everything in the house. I don’t know why.”

  “I couldn’t eat a thing,” Fran replied. In fact, even the smell of the peanut butter was turning her stomach.

  “I left some Reese’s peanut butter cups in my room. They would go perfect with this,” Emily said, her eyes lighting up as if she hadn’t heard Fran at all. “Let’s go get them. There’s someone watching the kids already.”

  “All right.” Fran was in a daze, but followed Emily up the grand staircase. It felt strange to walk up the polished stairway, knowing that the man it belonged to was no longer alive. The whole mansion became a bit eerie as she had that thought. Who does it belong to now? Fran wondered.

  The top of the stairway led onto a corridor, and as they turned into it, Emily bumped right into Anna.

  “Oh!” Anna called out, spooked.

  Emily nearly dropped her cupcake, and had to do all sorts of gymnastics to rescue it from its descent onto the cream carpeted hallway.

  Fran felt her heart pound, but she soon calmed down. It was only natural to be jumpy in the situation, she thought, and she even laughed a little with relief.

  There was a split-second in which Fran thought Emily and Anna were going to laugh along, but then Anna burst into tears. “This is just horrible!” she cried out. “Just horrible!”

  “Oh honey, come on,” Emily said gently, then popped the last piece of cupcake into her mouth and put her arm around Anna. “Let’s go to my room.”

  Fran hurried up on the other side of Anna.

  “I just want to go home and be with my dogs,” Anna cried, some of her words sticking. She wiped her eyes, her mouth turning down in such a sad way Fran felt a lump rise in her own throat. “But the police say everyone has to stay.”

  “Don’t you worry about it,” Emily said strongly. “They’ll let you all go soon.” They’d been walking down the hallway, and Emily pushed open one of the heavy white doors, ornate with beveling and beautifully intricate raised patterns. Then Emily gave Anna a teasing smile. “What about poor me, huh? I never get to leave.”

  “You could…” Anna began as she flopped down on Emily’s bed. Her voice broke and dipped as she tried to get some control over it. “You could come stay with me in the Charltons’ annex. I’m sure they wouldn’t mind.”

  Emily laughed as she rummaged in a drawer. “I think they would, Anna. I still don’t get how you managed to convince them to let you live there.”

  “Well, no one else wanted to take on training their two bullmastiffs,” Anna said, pleasantly distracted from her grief. She wiped her eyes. “They’d let them do whatever they wanted. They didn’t know if they were coming or going, poor things. I wish people knew more about training dogs properly. They’re a real commitment, but people just go, ooh, I want a dog, I’ll go rush out and get one.”

  Fran nodded. “My neighbor had one of those huge black dogs that looks like a bear, I forget the name.”

  “A Newfoundland,” Anna said instantly.

  “He looked after it really well,” Fran said. “But he was always saying how much hard work it was and when my brother Harry was bugging my mom for a puppy, our neighbor advised against it. You have to be dedicated, don’t you?”

  Anna gave her a lovely smile. “Exactly. If only more dog owners knew that.” Her eyes were still red, but she looked much more cheerful.

  By then, Emily had found her pack of Reese’s peanut butter cups and had sat down next to them on the bed. “Oh man,” she said. “I forgot to save some of the cupcake.” After a couple of seconds looking down at the peanut butter cups, she shrugged. “Oh well.” Then she broke open the packet and started devouring them.

  Fran looked around the room. It was well decorated, looking like an upscale hotel, but Emily’s clothes were strewn everywhere—she’d obviously had a job deciding what to wear to the party. There was a set of double glass doors leading onto a balcony. From where she sat on the floral bedspread, Fran could see far over the lawn, all the way to the entrance of the Rainbow Grove. She shuddered involuntarily as she saw policemen milling through the guests. “Seriously, if you want out for the night, Emily, why don’t you stay at Mrs. McCabe’s B and B?”

  Emily shook her head. “Nah,” she said. “I need to be here for Waverly. Her mom’s a crazy woman. Vanessa’s so clueless she’d probably feed her a book and make her read a box of cereal. Either that or she’d live on nothing but white toast.” She puffed out a long, frustrated breath. “Oh man. Poor Waverly. Her dad… He loved her.” Her voice wavered and she pushed herself off the bed with fierce determination, going over to the window. “Life, huh?”

  “Tell me about it,” Anna said.

  Fran stared out of the window, feeling numb.

  Chapter 8

  “I can’t just leave all this food sitting here,” Fran said firmly. The catering team had already been sent home, but the food was still there in the large third kitchen of the mansion. Fran buzzed around, cutting everything into small pieces so she could send guests home with something. The smell of the lemon meringue pie was making her feel nauseous, and the sensation of the knife squidging through the chocolate brownies made her feel weird, even though she usually loved it. Despite the way she felt about it, she figured it was the least she could do as the party planner. At least people wouldn’t go home hungry.

  The hot food—which she’d made in tiny ‘fairy-sized’ portions—was heating up in the oven. They included tiny little cheeseburgers, about the size of an Oreo each, plus fairy chicken pies, mini French fries as small as matchsticks, and all sorts of other fairy-sized dishes. Fran had spent so long creating the ideas and the tiny dishes, with tiny little plates, too. She had been going to serve them as a gourmet meal with seven different courses, one tiny fairy meal after another. She’d also created the sandwiches cut up into the teeniest triangles. As she leaned against the counter, waiting for the oven to ping, she didn’t know what to feel. She was inclined to feel embarrassed, the heat rising to her cheeks. She had been fussing around cutting bread into tiny pieces with ridiculous precision, while someone else had been preparing bullets to pump into Byron Stratford’s chest.

  She’d known instantly that it was a shot to the heart, by the red mark on his chest and the blood seeping away onto the ground that surrounded him. Still, at the time it had been easy to persuade herself that it hadn’t been anything of the sort. It was just a heart attack, she told herself over and over. There had been no gunshot, after all. But as she stood in the kitchen with nothing to focus on but her thoughts, she knew it had been a gunshot. And she’d watched enough crime shows on TV to know that it was possible for a gun to be as silent as the grave—all that was required was a silencer.

  Fran swallowed, picking up the lemon meringue pie and inspecting the once frothy peaks that stood encrusted in sugar. She didn’t even know why she did it. She just felt compelled to move, to look at something, to do something. To get out of her racing head for a moment and into her body.

  The door sw
ung open violently, making her jump. Her arm wavered and the pie tipped off balance, but she managed to rescue it. She looked up to see Officer Pascal stood in the doorway. “I was told you’d be here,” he said roughly.

  “M...me?” Fran said. “I’m just heating…”

  “You need to leave, Miss Finch. And you should have asked us before you even considered touching anything. This could be considered tampering with evidence.”

  Fran felt so bewildered she didn’t know what to say. A tight knot was tying itself in her stomach, knotting and tangling, knotting and tangling. How could food be evidence? Was she suspected? Surely not? A thousand thoughts tangled up in her stomach-knot and not one made its way through her mouth.

  “Leave, please,” Officer Pascal said.

  “I don’t want the food to go to waste,” Fran blurted out.

  “I am not going to say it again.”

  Fran breathed. “All right. Can I turn off the oven?”

  The officer paused, then nodded silently, like he was so disagreeable he couldn’t bear the word ‘yes’ to pass his lips. “Everyone is leaving now,” he said. “We are going to search the mansion. You are the caterer, is that correct?”

  “Well, yes, and the party planner.”

  “You can come back tomorrow to collect your things. And you may take that pie, since you’re already holding it.”

  Fran had been so caught up in their conversation she’d totally forgotten the lemon meringue pie was resting on her forearms. “Uh… all right.”

  He stared at her. “Good-bye, then, Miss Finch.”

  Fran was tongue-tied. “Bye,” she said, then hurried out of the kitchen. She felt so out of her depth. It had all been so unexpected that she still felt she was in a zone of shock, not able to get her thoughts together. She didn’t feel like her proactive, happy, idealistic self, full of dreams and plans and creative ideas. It was like the world was carrying on around her, but something inside her had stopped, and she couldn’t keep up. It felt strange when anyone spoke to her, as if it wasn’t quite real.