A Sip of Murder (Japanese Tea Garden Mysteries Book 1)

by Blythe Baker

  Then, I grabbed my purse and my keys. The door stood before me like a saving grace. I slipped into the morning air and left behind the smell of burnt food and motor oil coffee. Birds twittered sleepily on the branches of nearby trees. Dew shimmered on the grass and rubbed along the edge of my sneakers. For the first time, I decided not to drive to the garden entrance down the street but to walk there. It was a short, pleasant exercise on such a beautiful morning. Maybe I would walk to work more often. Maybe I would even clear out the overgrowth in the backyard behind my grandmother’s house and start taking the shorter back path to the garden.

  My thoughts were so busy I didn’t even realize I had arrived at my destination, until I felt the gravel of the parking lot crunch under my feet. I looked up to see Kelly standing by the gate.

  “Hey, so what’s going on?” I marched over to her.

  Kelly’s arms were crossed over her chest. She pointed to a sign staked into the ground. “Looks like Daniel Walker is getting a little cocky.”

  The sign stated that the grounds would soon be part of an expansion of his rock quarry.

  “Over my dead body.” I wrenched the sign out of the ground and snapped it in two over my knee.

  I tossed the broken sign into a nearby garbage can and refused to let it sour my mood. Daniel Walker was a problem to be dealt with on another day. I followed the garden path uphill, past the pagoda and toward the giftshop. I looked at the building in front of me.

  Blackened boards held up the back of the giftshop where the office was located. I opened the door and peeked inside. Most of the merchandise was fine. It still smelled like smoke, but the flames had been mostly contained in the back room. My feet carried me further in to survey the damage. Charred bits of desk and paperwork glared up at me darkly. It could all be rebuilt. Nothing was lost forever. If there was one thing I had learned from my time at the garden, it was that I was much more resilient than I had ever known, and so was the tea garden.

  This place had stood its ground since the twenties. A little bit of fire damage was nothing that couldn’t be overcome. Besides, the fire hadn’t had time to reach anything outside of the giftshop. It was a bit of a monetary set back, but I was more determined than ever to see this business decision through. I was glad that I had decided to come take over for my grandmother. So far, the road had been anything but easy. Each new curve ball that was thrown at me only made me a stronger person. Anyway, after a murder and attempts on my life, everything else should be a breeze.

  My only remaining concern was over Daniel Walker. If he thought that I was just going to roll over after everything I had gone through to keep the garden open and in business, he had another think coming. Mr. Walker may not have turned out to be a murderer, but he was still a villain that I had no intention of underestimating. His threat of pouncing on me at the first sign of a code violation echoed in my mind. It was going to take a lot of work to see that the garden remained fully up to code, but I was never one to back down from a challenge.

  The first few visitors trickled into the garden. I took pride at the looks of wonder on their faces. My hand gently touched the bandage on my neck. I had poured my blood and sweat into the garden, and in return they had given me something precious. The pride I took in my work and myself was not something that could easily be destroyed. The sun shone down cheerfully on the garden. Each leaf glinted with the promise of life and freshness. Laughter echoed along the walkways. Happiness settled into the flowers and the waterfall.

  I straightened up the giftshop and wiped a layer of soot off of the picture of my grandmother standing in front of the garden all those years ago. The smile on her face felt like it was meant just for me. The almond shape of her eyes was echoed in my own. I couldn’t help but feel a strong kinship with her. Though we may not have had many memories together, we were now bound together across time by the tea garden. It was a hauntingly beautiful sentiment that settled into my bones and my soul.

  The day stretched out before me. I kept so busy scrubbing the little giftshop down that I hardly noticed when closing time approached. There was a light knock on the door. I turned to see Detective Michael Sullivan framed in the doorway. His silhouette cut a dashing shape in the light from the sunset.

  “Detective,” I said, startled at his arrival. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

  “I thought you might want this back.” In his hand was the blown-up picture on canvas that I had purchased.

  “You brought it back?” I was surprised and happy to see it in his hands. I moved forward to take it from him.

  “They took pictures of it for evidence, but I convinced them that it had sentimental value for you. The case is pretty much a done deal now. Agatha confessed to everything when they got her to the station. There was no need to keep the original canvas in the evidence locker. Besides, I thought you might like to hang it back up.” He gestured to the empty space beside my grandmother’s picture.

  “Thank you. This really means a lot to me. I would have been sad to never see it again.” My fingers lined it up on the wall and drug it down until the frame caught on the nails sticking out of the wall.

  “It’s a beautiful picture.”

  “Thank you.”

  He ruffled his hair and gave me a charming smile. “I don’t suppose I could drive you home? I mean, if you’re about to close up for the day?”

  “Better than that,” I said, making up my mind quickly. “You can walk me back to the house. Might as well, since you’re already here.” I rolled my eyes playfully and hooked my hand through his arm.

  “Miss Maddie Morgan, you certainly know how to make a man feel special.” His joking tone made me laugh.

  “I try.” It felt good to be laughing again.

  I reached into my pocket to make sure I had my keys and my phone. Something brushed against my hand. I pulled it out to look at it.

  “What’s that?” Michael peered over to see what was in my hand.

  “Oh, it’s nothing. Just an old fortune cookie saying.”

  “Adventure lies ahead.” He read the words with a smile on his lips.

  I couldn’t help but smile back at him. Tucking the slip of paper back into my jeans, I thought about the mystery I had just solved and the most dangerous adventure of my life that had just come to an end. Somehow, I had a feeling that more exploits lay ahead of me. I took my next step deliberately, happily walking out to face my future adventures.

  Find out what mysteries lie ahead for Maddie in Book 2, A Drink of Death.

  Excerpt

  From

  A Drink of Death

  I was trying to run but it was so dark. My body was exhausted. I didn’t know what I’d been doing to get so tired. Hauling a refrigerator? Carrying a backpack of encyclopedias up ten flights of stairs? It was like someone had weighted my legs down. Each step pulled more and more energy out of my body. But my mind kept screaming RUN! RUN!

  The tea garden was no longer the tranquil, meditative environment it was supposed to be. In the daylight, it was usually lush and green with colorful sculptures and ceramic garden fairies. Butterflies and bumblebees flourished. People came to visit the tea garden because it was beautiful. But not now. In the darkness, it had morphed into some twisted, scary swamp out of a horror story. The trees drooped menacingly and the foliage reached up from the ground like greedy fingers. I couldn’t smell the lavender or the mint or the jasmine that thrived in pockets all over the grounds. Instead I smelled the moist, grassy scent of stagnant water.

  Don’t stop! My brain urged me to keep going. I felt like I was up to my knees in mud. Every step was excruciating. But I couldn’t stop. I didn’t dare stop. Not with who was coming up behind me.

  Who is it? Or what is it?

  I couldn’t be sure. The only thing I was certain of was that if I turned around the danger would be right there. Whatever it was would be staring at me, gaining, panting, glaring with black, lifeless eyes.

  Keep going! There had to be some
where to hide. If I didn’t rest soon I was going to stumble. Then the predator would pounce.

  Use the gun!

  What?

  Use the gun in your hand!

  What was I thinking? Of course! I had a gun. Where it came from I wasn’t sure but I had it. It was heavy, solid and real in my sweaty hands. Suddenly I was brave. I stopped and fell to my knees. Without hesitating I raised the gun in both hands and aimed into the darkness. With my arms straight in front of me, bracing myself, I squeezed the trigger.

  CLICK!

  I shook the weapon like that might rattle something back into place to make it work. Again I aimed at the black void in front of me and pulled the trigger.

  CLICK! CLICK!

  Nothing! I pushed myself to my feet with all my strength and started to run again. Every muscle in my body was crying for relief. I wanted nothing more than to just fall down in a dark corner, close my eyes, and hide. Couldn’t I curl up in a ball and let this terror, this stalker run past me? The glow of the moon said no. It was too bright for me to slip away now. Mother nature mercilessly shined her spotlight at me making sure I was exposed.

  “HELP!”

  I tried to scream. It came out as nothing louder than a croak. I felt the air filling my lungs. I opened my mouth. But when I strained my vocal chords nothing but a pitiful whisper came out. No one would hear me. Even if I had been alone in a church no one would have been able to hear me.

  The further into the tea garden I ran, the denser the foliage became. It was almost a jungle. Finally, I spotted a place to hide.

  I’d had no idea that my grandmother had installed such an elaborate waterfall pond in this area of the garden. After all the time I had spent in this place, I should have seen it before now. Yet here it was, the unfamiliar pond appearing suddenly before me. Smooth river stones and flagstones flanked either side of the pool of water. From five feet above, water rolled from one ledge to another and another until it reached the pool below. The moonlight was glinting off the water. The koi were circling around the large rock that was floating in the middle.

  That’s not a rock.

  “Of course it is,” I whispered. It was a dark black mass in the middle of the pool.

  Suddenly, the person or thing pursuing me was no longer my first priority. It was that rock in the middle of the koi pond. It wasn’t supposed to be there.

  Only minutes ago I had wanted my legs to keep running. But now, I wanted them to stop. They carried me toward the pond and that horrible rock in the center. Every tendon tensed as I tried to put on the brakes.

  You don’t want to see it.

  I had no choice. The pond seemed to advance toward me, whether I took a step or not. My heart was racing. The sound of steps behind me turned to nothing but crickets. The wind pulled through the leaves like hidden fingers. If only a patch of clouds would pass across the sky. Couldn’t the moon be blocked out for just a minute? Maybe there could be darkness for a couple of seconds? I only needed it to be long enough for me to believe that dark mass was a rock and not…

  Don’t say it!

  … Drake.

  But it was too late. I saw the body. It was Drake. There he was, like something out of a horror movie. He was bloated and his eyes were open. The moonlight made his complexion even more ghastly.

  It was then that whatever was behind me finally caught up and reached its claws or tentacles or hands out toward me. I screamed…

  End of Except

  To continue reading, look for A Drink of Death on Amazon

  About the Author

  Blythe Baker is a thirty-something bottle redhead from the South Central part of the country. When she’s not slinging words and creating new worlds and characters, she’s acting as chauffeur to her children and head groomer to her household of beloved pets.

  Blythe enjoys long walks with her dog on sweaty days, grubbing in her flower garden, cooking, and ruthlessly de-cluttering her overcrowded home. She also likes binge-watching mystery shows on TV and burying herself in books about murder.

  To learn more about Blythe, visit her website and sign up for her newsletter at www.blythebaker.com