“Just a minute,” she warned. “Then we’ll need to get her to NICU right away.”
Kate smiled down at her tiny daughter as Scott leaned over them, smiling as well.
Maxwell was right, she thought, remembering the silly betting pool he almost started. She had given birth to a girl and her baby had come far too soon.
As the nurse stepped out of the room, swinging the door wide open, Kate caught sight of Maxwell standing in the hallway.
He was alive.
And all would be right in the world.
BODY ON THE BALCONY
Chapter One
Kate Flaherty stilled from walking down Main Street to adjust the shoulder straps of her baby carrier as her daughter, Josephine, giggled. Kate and her husband, Scott, had sprung for a heavy-duty carrier, but it had its drawbacks. Namely, the thick, nylon straps that dug into her shoulders and the fact that the carrier felt like it weighed at least ten times as much as her baby.
All of Rock Ridge was in bloom, though it seemed the snow was refusing to melt. Tulips were springing up through snow in the planters that lined the sidewalk. And the air smelled warm and fragrant.
After tightening the straps to minimize chaffing through her gray t-shirt, Kate picked up her tool kit and continued down the block toward Bean There, her favorite coffee shop.
It had been three months since Clara—the barista and owner of Bean There—was arrested in connection with the murder of Mrs. Briar, one of the Rock Ridge librarians. Clara had also been charged with the attempted murder of Kate’s assistant, Maxwell Stone. But the coffee shop owner hadn’t been the primary assailant. Her boyfriend, Harold Fink, had been the one to commit the crimes in a convoluted attempt to illegally garner firearms. What he’d been planning on using the weapons for was still murky in Kate’s mind, though she told herself that by stopping Harold and Clara, she had prevented even worse crimes from unfolding.
To Kate, it felt like only yesterday and whenever she headed along Main Street for her morning walk with Josephine, she partially expected to see Clara behind the coffee shop counter.
As Kate approached the glass door, she noted Molly Parker placing a muffin into a pastry bag for her customer. Though they had drifted apart over the years, Molly and Clara had been friends since childhood. To pay her defense attorney’s fees, Clara had sold Bean There to the plump, blonde woman.
Juggling her toolkit, Kate pulled the entrance door open and made her way to the back of the line, which didn’t at all go unnoticed.
She had always been one to keep to herself beyond the necessary, brief greetings, but now that she had an adorable baby girl, it seemed everyone wanted to stop her to tickle her daughter’s feet, make funny faces, or just plain marvel that her once-preemie baby was looking healthier and happier than ever.
“How many months now?” asked one of the customers, a middle-aged woman whom Kate had seen around town more and more now that the weather had finally turned warmer.
For possibly the millionth time, Kate said, “Three.”
“You should dress her in pink,” said another customer, who looked like a disgruntled mailman in plain clothes. “She doesn’t have enough hair for anyone to tell she’s a girl.”
Kate glared at him.
Josephine was an alert and precocious baby, and for the last three weeks she’d been very vocal about her clothes. Though pre-lingual, whenever Kate held her on her hip and rifled through her dresser, Josephine would reach for the yellow garments, cooing and gurgling loudly. And Kate hadn’t seen the point in denying her daughter’s preference.
The nosy man inched up in the line, which afforded Kate the opportunity to ignore his old-fashioned suggestion.
Angling to see over the man’s shoulder, she scanned the pastries on display. She had been fighting a sweet tooth ever since she was a few months pregnant, but once Josephine had arrived and she’d felt well enough, Kate had been working a number of walks into her day to burn off the pregnancy weight she’d gained. Thanks to her efforts, she was able to fit into her old overalls.
Behind the counter, Molly asked, “How’s the little one this morning?”
“Josie is doing just great,” she said. “She can cry her head off all night and have plenty of energy the next day. I, on the other hand...” Kate rubbed her eyes and contemplated ordering a coffee. “I’ll have a yogurt muffin,” she said, figuring she could get away with a healthier version. In fact, she had just breast-fed Josephine so technically she could drink coffee and then pump and dump, but she was skeptical about how long the caffeine really would stay in her system. According to her doctor, she really shouldn’t have any caffeine until her daughter reached six months. “And a decaf,” she added. “Small please.”
“You got it,” said Molly, tossing her wavy blond hair over her shoulder.
Kate swayed ever so slightly as she waited for Molly to grab her muffin and pour the decaf. Josephine had quite the personality, and it hadn’t taken long for Kate to understand what her daughter liked and what would make her fussy. For some reason, Josie liked being on the move and whenever Kate held still for too long, she began whining.
“Here you are,” said Molly, and Kate handed her cash.
After the barista made change, Kate dropped the coins in the tip jar and stepped aside for the next customer as she shoved the bills into her pocket.
Decaf didn’t even remotely have as much flavor as fully-caffeinated coffee so when Kate reached the condiment station, she set down her tool kit and splashed a generous amount of half and half into the to-go cup.
Josephine cooed loudly on her back, prompting Kate to bounce a little before taking a sip of her coffee. Just as she was reaching for her tool kit, her cell began vibrating in the front pocket of her overalls.
She took a quick glance at the screen and saw Amelia Langley’s name and number flashing. She swiped the LCD and said, “Good morning.”
“Kate? It’s Amelia.”
“I know. You’re number has been in my cell for years, Amelia. What’s up?”
The woman let out a breathy laugh. “I have a project for you.”
Kate sank into her hip, clamping her cell between her ear and shoulder, and guzzled down her coffee, as she listened.
“Things have been going great at the inn, and I was thinking that since the landscape behind Over the Moon is so beautiful, it might be nice to have a balcony on the second floor.”
Nearly choking on her coffee, Kate said, “You want to build a balcony?”
“No, I want you to build a balcony,” she corrected.
Kate widened her eyes and frowned. “Amelia, I’m barely working. I have a three-month-old daughter.”
“So hire a sitter.”
As the old expression goes, parents usually loosened their parenting grip after their first child, but with Kate the opposite was true. She had no interest in handing her child off to a babysitter, much less spending hours apart, which was why Kate had only taken on short and simple fix-it jobs in the past few months: a drawer here, a doorknob there, the occasional leaky faucet. Building an entire balcony would be a major undertaking, one she had no interest in diving into unless she could work with her daughter strapped to her back.
“I don’t know,” she said, debating. “I’m trying to take it easy and only work a few hours a day. A balcony would be at least a month of ten-hour days.”
“Don’t you have an assistant? What’s his name?”
“Maxwell?” she supplied. “I do, but I’m afraid you’re going to have to hire a team of contractors.”
“Why don’t you hire a team of contractors?” she suggested. “You can oversee the project and wouldn’t have to do the actual manual labor.”
Another customer needed to use the condiment station, so Kate grabbed her coffee from the counter, clamped her cell between her ear and shoulder again, and grabbed her tool kit.
The innkeeper's suggestion wasn’t a bad one, she thought as she made her way outside. The warm sun felt good on her fac
e and arms.
“Tell you what,” said Kate. “Let me swing by and take a look at the second floor. I’ll look it over and give you my opinion on whether knocking out a wall to build a balcony would even be structurally sound.”
“Wonderful!” she exclaimed. “And will you bring the little darling?”
“Always,” said Kate, after which she thought to herself, that’s the problem, it won’t be easy wielding a hammer with an infant on my back. “See you soon.”
She had intentionally parked six blocks away, which was her strategy in terms of peppering light exercise into her day. Generally, she made between one and three house calls a day, fixing minor issues at her customers’ homes or businesses, which meant that in her estimation, she walked a full hour each day. Once a week, while Josephine napped, she popped in a yoga DVD and stretched in the living room. And each weekend Scott and she went for a jog down their rural street, pushing Josephine in a stroller all the while. If she kept this up, not only would she lose all of the pregnancy weight she had gained, she was certain she’d get down to her college size. And Scott wasn’t looking half bad either.
As she made her way down block after block, she looked up at the blue sky, the white popcorn clouds overhead, and the green grass that was pushing up through the snow in the planters. In a matter of weeks it would be quite warm, and then the long summer would be bearing down on her. So she relished the mild temperature and hoped the spring wouldn’t fly by too fast.
When she reached her truck, she unlocked the passenger-side door. There wasn’t much space behind the seat, but Scott had managed to fit a baby car seat inside. She wriggled the carrier down her shoulders, which Josephine seemed to like. Her daughter giggled and trilled noisily as Kate lifted her from the carrier and set her into the car seat.
Kate wasn’t a fan of baby talk so she spoke in an adult tone as she strapped Josie in. “We’re going to take a little ride across town. Let me know if it gets too windy back here.”
After kissing her daughter’s forehead and gazing down at her big brown eyes, the wispy tuft of strawberry-blonde hair on the crown of her head, and expressive mouth, which was puckered into the shape of a heart, Kate carefully shut the door, rounded the hood of her truck, and slid in behind the wheel.
She rolled the windows down as soon as her truck was idling and threw it into gear, easing cautiously into traffic that was flowing down Main Street at a steady pace.
As she drove through town toward Over the Moon, Kate wondered how Scott was doing.
Almost three weeks ago, Bobbie Hamden—a brassy woman who worked at the Permits Department with whom Kate had worked several times when she’d needed to build an addition on a customer’s house—had been found murdered in her own home. Though Detective Kilroy was the lead investigator, Scott had been overseeing the case because all of Rock Ridge had grown concerned. The police department had a decent track record of bringing charges against guilty persons in a timely manner. But whoever had killed Bobbie had covered their tracks and covered them well. As far as Kate could tell, this might be one case that would go unsolved.
It didn’t bode well, not for Scott, not for the residents, and certainly not for Kate, who would prefer to see her husband more and the Tribune reporters less. Rock Ridge had become a virtual hotbed of national news, each murder upping the town’s footprint in the public eye. Sooner or later, Kate’s beloved town would be considered the murder capital of the country, and the stigma wouldn’t be the worst of it. Property values had been dropping. Businesses had suffered. And tourists no longer wanted to venture to Rock Ridge for long weekends at the amusement park, because they were too afraid they’d wind up dead and a national headline.
Despite this, Amelia Langley’s inn hadn’t suffered in the least; quite the opposite, in fact, since the clever innkeeper had initiated her “murder tour” much to the town’s horror. Amelia had bought a tour bus, one where customers could sit on its open top and take pictures of all the locations around town where someone had been brutally murdered.
It made Kate’s stomach churn just thinking about it, but she had to hand it to the woman. Amelia knew how to profit from just about any tragedy.
Josephine laughed uproariously from the backseat, clapping her hands to catch the wind.
“Not too windy?” Kate asked over her shoulder, not that she could see her daughter. Josie’s car seat faced the back of the vehicle in order to best protect her in case of an accident.
It was almost too windy for Kate. She had let her red hair grow out over the months, figuring her hard-earned money would be better spent on diapers than a fancy trim. Her hair was just past her shoulders, but she wouldn’t get away with it for much longer. Not only was it starting to look straggly, but also Josephine often clamped her little fists around it and a tug-of-war was required to free the locks.
Kate drove her truck to a stop near the inn’s entrance and killed the engine. She groaned at the thought of pulling the baby carrier over her shoulders again. Grabbing a tube of lotion from the glove compartment, she reminded herself it would only be a matter of time before she’d broken the nylon in.
After rubbing lotion on her shoulders, Kate climbed out of her truck, grasped the carrier from where it had been resting in the passenger’s seat, and began the slow and tedious task of wrangling her daughter’s pudgy legs through the holes before strapping it on her back.
Josie had been born eight weeks early. Though the labor didn’t last long—it had been induced when Harold Fink had attacked her in the snowy woods last winter—Josie’s recovery had.
She had spent almost five weeks in an incubator in the neonatal intensive care unit. Kate hadn’t left the hospital, but held her daughter’s hand through a hole in the Plexiglas, reading children’s stories out loud and promising to never let her out of her sight so long as Josie made it out of the hospital.
She had. In the few months that Kate had nurtured her, she had gained four pounds and six inches, and because of it Kate had nicknamed her Fudgy-Pudgy, for both her cute, plump weight and the alarming rate at which she went through diapers, though that was an inside joke between Kate and her husband.
Deciding that she wouldn’t need her entire tool kit, she slipped a tape measure into her pocket and grabbed her estimate pad, and then she locked up her truck and started for the inn.
The lobby was cool thanks to the air-conditioning unit that was whirring in the window. Gillian O’Reilly was seated at the front desk, flipping pages in a magazine, but glanced up as Kate neared her.
“Is that little Josephine?” she asked in a high-pitched tone meant to entertain the infant.
“No, it’s another baby,” said Kate, dryly. “I found her on the side of the road and she looked hungry.”
“Can I hold her?”
Kate’s stomach clenched. She was an overprotective mother and saw nothing wrong with that. “Uh, she’s been fussy,” she lied. “Better not.”
Gillian frowned and lifted her desk phone to her ear, asking, “You’ll need Amelia, right? For the balcony?”
“That’s right,” said Kate easily.
The receptionist relayed the message, and as she set the phone in its cradle, she mentioned, “You can go on up to the second floor. Amelia’s at the end of the hallway.”
“Thanks,” said Kate, who didn’t get so far as two steps before Gillian stopped her.
“I can watch little Josephine while you meet with Amelia.”
“Thanks for the offer,” she said after turning on her heel. “But I’ll be fine.”
“Hey,” said Gillian, stopping her again before she reached the lounge. “Where exactly was Bobbie Hamden murdered?”
Kate resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “In her house.”
“I know, but where?” When Kate only stared at her, she clarified, “Amelia wants to know for the tour. Did Scott tell you?”
Sighing, Kate said, “In her living room.”
“She was hit in the back of the head
with a tire iron, but do you know if she was sitting on her couch or standing?”
It dawned on Kate that soon she wouldn’t be able to have these conversations. Once Josephine began picking up sentences and phrases, the last thing Kate would want to discuss is the particulars of how someone was brutally murdered.
“She was on the couch watching TV,” she said, and then she quickly scooted off before Gillian could ask for any more grim details.
The lounge was full of guests. Some were nursing brunch cocktails and others picked at elaborate breakfasts. It smelled like pancakes and maple syrup, but soon Kate had reached the stairs and climbed them quickly, putting a bit of extra bounce in her step for her daughter’s benefit.
When she reached the landing, slightly out of breath, Amelia waved at her from the end of the hallway where bright late-morning light shined through a row of windows. “Kate! So glad you could come!” As Kate neared her, the innkeeper asked, “Where’s your assistant?”
“I thought I’d check out the project before involving him,” she explained, sizing up the windows.
“Here’s what I’m thinking,” Amelia began, making large, sweeping gestures at the windows. “We knock these out and build a doorway entrance to the balcony, but preserve these two rooms.” She pointed to the two guest rooms flanking the hallway. “This way the balcony will be outside their rooms.”
“Okay,” said Kate, understanding her vision but not necessarily seeing its practicality.
“So the actual structure will be an outside build,” she clarified.
“It’ll be noisy.”
“But you can’t work long hours anyway, so the guests shouldn’t be bothered that much. They’ll probably be out and about in town if not on my new tour.”
“The murder tour,” she supplied, eyeing the excitable woman closely.
“Have you taken it? It’s quite accurate.”
“How nice for you.” Kate whipped her tape measure out of her pocket and began taking measurements around the windows.
“So you’ll do it?” she asked. “You’ll build my balcony?”
Mrs. Fix It Mysteries: The Complete 15-Books Cozy Mystery Series Page 113