The Dana Potter Cozy Mystery Collection

by Liz Turner

  “That’s perfect,” Susan said, smiling. Her eyes began to water, and she pumped her hands in front of her face. “I can’t cry! I’m going to look all puffy for the photos!”

  “Don’t worry about it, honey.” Dana handed her a soft tissue. “You’re going to cry, but you’re going to be beautiful, anyway.”

  ***

  An hour later, Dana, the happy couple, and Maura were walking to the courthouse. The air had finally gotten a crisp edge to it—the deep South’s version of winter. Just cold enough to wear a light jacket.

  When they arrived, the sun was beginning to set, casting the whitewashed courthouse with its pretty fuchsia tint. Susan glowed in the warm light, and Pete looked dashing in his black suit. Maura had put on a dark royal blue sundress. Even Punchy wore a little bowtie pinned to his harness.

  The empty courthouse smelled like wood. Susan and Pete were the last appointment of the day. As they walked into the courtroom and stood before the judge, Dana had to admit, this was far more romantic than she had imagined. The amber-colored light filtered in through the courtroom’s tall windows, and the judge’s low voice filled the small room.

  Dana stood beside the couple, and Maura on the other side.

  “We are here today to celebrate the love between Susan and Peter, and to witness them joined in marriage,” the judge said. “Marriage is a beautiful thing. And when done right, you two will be lifelong partners. You will support each other when things get hard and will champion each other’s successes. Your bond will deepen with each passing year, and your love will be what holds you together. I wish you both well on your journey together from here on out.”

  Dana blinked back a tear and swallowed.

  “Susan Mendel, do you take Peter Talbot to be your husband, your partner in life?”

  Susan smiled brightly. “I do.”

  “And Peter Talbot, do you take Susan Mendel to be your wife, your partner in life?”

  “I do.”

  “Then take these rings and put them on each other’s fingers. May they seal your promises.”

  The judge nodded at Maura, and she pulled two gold wedding bands from her dress pocket and gave them to him. He, in turn, gave one to Susan and one to Pete.

  Susan slipped the ring on Pete’s finger, first, and then helped him to find her ring finger.

  “I now pronounce you,” the judge said, smiling boldly himself, “husband and wife!”

  Susan and Pete kissed passionately.

  Dana flicked a tear out of the corner of her eye and laughed joyfully.

  *** The End ***

  the doppelgÄnger

  a dana potter cozy mystery

  LIZ TURNER

  Chapter 1

  Who is Laney Winston?

  Dana Potter thumbed through her checkbook, mentally ticking off the charities she’d donated to already for the holiday season—The Salvation Army, The American Cancer Society, the local humane society, and the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation. She bit her lip for a moment, trying to recall where else she had donated last year. She thought she’d donated one thousand dollars—two hundred to five different charities. Yet, she could only remember four.

  What am I missing? Sighing, she wondered if she ought to finally admit to herself that at 74, she was indeed old.

  Maybe I should hire a—what do people call them these days? A personal assistant? Yes, that’s it. Sounds better than a secretary, housemaid, or nurse, at least.

  Dana ticked off her pet causes in her mind again. The poor, the sick, the animals, beautiful landmarks people keep trying to bulldoze in favor of parking spaces…What’s missing?

  Suddenly, her thoughts were interrupted when she was shoved. Falling forward, her hands broke her fall on the paved sidewalk. “Oh!” she cried, her wrists taking the brunt of the fall and aching fiercely.

  “Oh no,” a young woman said, a large bubble of pink gum popping over her mouth. She stared for a brief moment and then leapt into action, putting her hands under Dana’s arms and lifting her until she stood upright once again.

  “Thank you,” Dana said, unable to help her voice from being short. She hated falling, especially in public. She supposed everyone hated falling, but not everyone had to deal with the stereotype of being too old do things for themselves.

  She smiled through her pain and faced the young woman who’d knocked her over. It was Taylor Reinhart, a girl she’d known for some time through church. In fact, she’d seen her and her family just a few weeks ago at the church’s holiday barbeque.

  Taylor smiled back. “I am so sorry, ma’am. I guess I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going.” She gestured to the black headphones around her neck. “Are you all right?”

  Dana suppressed a sigh. Young people were never able to just walk or just talk or do any one thing at a time anymore. Everything had to be multi-tasked. Nevertheless, she shrugged good-naturedly at Taylor. “I’m perfect. Not a scratch.”

  Taylor’s face froze for an instant. Then she smacked her hand abruptly onto her cheek. “You must think I have terrible manners!”

  “Well—” Dana hesitated, not wanting to agree out loud.

  “I never introduced myself! I’m Laney Winston.” Taylor stuck out her hand for Dana to shake. Her short, bitten nails were painted a bright blue.

  Dana stood, speechless. She stared at Taylor—or at least someone who looked exactly like her. The girl seemed genuine, not wavering in her stance and only putting her hand down once when she realized Dana wouldn’t shake it.

  “Well, if there’s anything I can do for you….” Taylor, or Laney, rather, said.

  As Dana looked more closely, she began suspecting it actually was a different girl despite the overwhelming resemblance to Taylor Reinhart. This girl—her stance was different. She stood with a foot propped up on the inside the opposite shin, her leg jutted out and bent at an acute angle as she loudly popped her gum. Furthermore, her clothing was different. Trendier, perhaps. Taylor usually was far more reserved—her shoulders back and straight and her smile demure and polite.

  While Dana continued to study her, Laney bid her goodbye and sauntered off in a hurry. “I’ve never experienced anything like that before,” Dana muttered, still stunned.

  If that was Taylor, why would she introduce herself to Dana, a woman she’d met time and again, and use a different name? But if it wasn’t Taylor—what were the odds that in a town as small as Pippin, there were two young women around the same age who looked that uncannily alike?

  Perhaps a sister, or a cousin of some kind? she mused.

  She made a mental note to phone Mrs. Reinhart the next day to inquire. Currently, however, she was late. So she shook off the strange incident and carried on. Bending gingerly, she picked up her checkbook from where it laid strewn on the sidewalk.

  It was just past seven p.m, but the sun was already setting—a sign of the season. Still, Pippin was far south enough that it hardly ever got cool enough for jackets. Dana simply wore a thick knit sweater over her blouse and dark trousers and wrapped a bright orange silk scarf around her neck for good measure.

  As she trotted past the row of businesses down Main Street, many of which were just starting to close for the evening, certain shop owners ducked out to share a few words with her or to wave.

  She’d been back in her childhood hometown for six years now, having moved post-retirement, and it already felt like she had never left. Her thirty years or so navigating the ruthless real estate market in Atlanta seemed to her like a more distant past than her adolescence in Pippin. Perhaps it was just that the streets, the building fronts, many of the houses, and a few of the local businesses were all still the same. Pippin had changed, certainly, but the changes tended to be relegated to new growth on the eastern side of the town. By contrast, the center of the town had remained unmarred by the years, save for the inhabitants adopting the ways of modern life.

  Where there once was a charming travel agency run by her best friend’s m
other back in the day, now stood a Starbucks always full of young people hammering away on laptops and tablets. And the little boutiques now carried denim, cropped t-shirts, and tiny two-piece swimsuits instead of the lovely pastel suits and flowery dresses Dana used to wear as a teenager.

  Still, some things never changed—like the church, the oldest and only in Pippin. Dana nodded at the old brick building as she passed it with a smile on her face. Most families in town still went dutifully every Sunday, sitting in the old wooden pews and politely listening to the sermon. Afterwards, they’d all gather on the lawn and drink the sweet tea and cookies one of the ladies would have brought, chattering about what was going on in Pippin that week and watching their children roughhouse on the grass.

  Dana frowned. The thought of the church made her think about the Reinharts again. They were a family that, while Dana didn’t remember from growing up, she had known since moving back. Mr. Reinhart was a tall, large man—an engineer of some sort, Dana believed. He commuted to the nearby city of Savannah every day for work. Meanwhile, Mrs. Reinhart was a quiet woman who worked as a teller in the bank. Then there was Taylor, a soft-spoken and reserved young woman with her mother’s demeanor. She was a pretty girl of approximately seventeen. She had a younger middle-school aged brother that Dana didn’t know much about; after church, he usually bolted out the door with his friends rather than staying to chit-chat with his family.

  Dana just couldn’t get over the fact that the girl who’d bumped her today hadn’t been Taylor; she’d been so certain it was her, with those deep-set hazel eyes!

  Could Taylor have been so embarrassed about knocking her over that she pretended to not recognize her?

  Dana dismissed the idea. The girl had been forthright and polite as long as she’d known her. Hence, she just couldn’t imagine her pulling a ruse like that.

  But something was definitely strange about the whole encounter. The more Dana thought about it, the more she began to talk herself into remembering things that she wasn’t altogether certain she really remembered.

  There was a menacing glimmer in the girl’s eyes, wasn’t there? She had nearly winked at me! She must be mocking me right now to her friends, saying what a gullible old lady I am for falling for her tricks…

  But Dana shook her head, knowing deep down, it was just her insecurities flaring up.

  She set her mouth into a thin line. Checking her wristwatch, she saw that she was already fourteen minutes late for her rendezvous with her friends, but she couldn’t show up with her mind so preoccupied. She would never be able to hide it, and then her friends would end up asking her all kinds of questions she wouldn’t know how to answer.

  She pulled out her cellphone and scrolled through her email until she found the message she was looking for, which read: CHURCH DIRECTORY.

  Chapter 2

  A Strange Question

  “Hello?” came the soft voice of Mrs. Reinhart.

  Dana swallowed, feeling silly about what she was going to ask. “Hello, Mrs. Reinhart. This is Dana Potter from church,” she said, her voice sounding loud and boisterous compared to Mrs. Reinhart’s.

  “Oh, of course! Mrs. Potter, how are you?”

  “Please, call me Dana. I’m doing well. How are you and the family?” Dana closed her eyes. The longer she carried on with the small talk, the stranger her question was going to sound.

  “Well then,” Mrs. Reinhart let out a little tinkle of a laugh, “call me Sara Beth. And we are all doing well. Lovely weather in December, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, it is. Sara Beth, do you mind if I ask you something that may sound a little strange?”

  There was a pause. “Sure. Though I can’t imagine it’s as strange as you think.”

  “Does Taylor have a cousin in town that looks a lot like her?”

  “Why, no. She’s got cousins, but they’re quite a bit older and live in Florida. Garth’s siblings’ children. His siblings were a good ten years older than him, so…” Sara Beth laughed again. “Besides, I wouldn’t say any of them look particularly like Taylor.” Her voice lowered. “I’d say Taylor is much prettier than those girls. Takes after my side if you know what I mean. Oh, I’m just kidding. I’m being awful.” She gave a self-deprecating chuckle.

  “I see,” Dana said, disappointed that the only explanation she could think of had been shattered. “What about a twin? Perhaps a child that had been away for some time at a boarding school?”

  The silence told her that Sara Beth was no longer amused. Back in Dana’s day, it wasn’t uncommon for parents to send an incorrigible child off to boarding school, especially if there were other impressionable children in the house who might pick up their bad habits. But Dana understood full well that an action like that would never occur today.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Potter. I’m just a little confused by what you’re asking here. Has Taylor said…? I just, I’m just confused…”

  “Oh, goodness. This probably sounds just crazy to you, doesn’t it? You must think I’m losing my mind.” Dana laughed, trying to make light of the situation although she had a feeling Sara Beth Reinhart wasn’t laughing along. Suddenly, she wished she’d just waited until she saw the Reinharts at church again to bring up the subject; it was too hard to convey her levity over the phone.

  “Well, honestly, Ms.—Dana, I can’t answer that. I don’t think you’re at all, well, you know…However, if I’m to be frank, you are sounding a little…confused, maybe?”

  “I am confused, but not in the way you think,” Dana said, deciding to tell the truth. “I ran into, literally ran into, Taylor today on the street. She was walking at rocket speed down the sidewalk and when I stopped to go through my checkbook, she ran into me from behind—”

  “Was she on her phone? I keep begging her to take her eyes off screens for at least some part of the day, but you know how teenagers are.” Sara Beth sighed. “I hope she apologized to you.”

  “She did. But the strange thing was what she did right afterward.”

  “Oh? What do you mean?”

  “Well, she introduced herself to me.”

  “You mean she didn’t recognize you?” Sara Beth huffed. “I’m sorry. That must have been…She was probably just distracted and in a hurry…”

  “She introduced herself to me as Laney Winston.”

  “What?”

  “She stuck out her hand and said, ‘I’m Laney Winston.’”

  Sara Beth paused and then cleared her throat. “Dana, are you sure? Could it be that it was another girl about her age? These kids all dress the same these days…”

  Dana could tell by the tone of Sara Beth’s voice that she didn’t believe her but was trying hard not to offend her.

  “I’m absolutely positive the girl was Taylor, or someone who looked an awfully lot like her. Uncannily like her. There was one thing though…”

  “What’s that?”

  “She seemed to act differently than Taylor…”

  “So the girl wasn’t Taylor after all?” Sara Beth’s voice was soft and gentle, the way people talked to confused children.

  “I’m almost certain it was. She looked exactly like her, except she called herself by a different name and had adopted, well—different mannerisms.”

  “I see. So, what is it you called to ask me?”

  “I suppose I just thought you would have an explanation for either Taylor’s behavior, or explain that a relative who looked just like her was in town.”

  “Dana,” Sara Beth began slowly, “I really don’t have an explanation. I’m sorry. I don’t know what to tell you.”

  Dana set her jaw. She couldn’t really blame Sara Beth for not taking her word for it. She personally wasn’t sure she would even believe someone with such a story. She was beginning to feel more and more foolish for calling in the first place.

  She began wondering whether it was possible that she had been so distracted and flustered that she didn’t get a clear look at the girl.

  Shaking he
r head, she thanked Sara Beth for her time and said goodbye. She then picked up her things and continued on her way to the Blue Swallow, her favorite café in town where she was to meet a few friends. She arrived just after eight p.m., a good twenty-five minutes late, to find her regular group of friends engaged in loud laughter. Lydia, the daughter of one of her childhood friends, owned the tasteful café and was leaning over one of the tables, a pot of coffee in her hand while she laughed at a photograph being shown around.

  “Hello, ladies,” Dana said upon entering. Her voice, which had always been low and somewhat gravelly, was even more so now in her advanced age. Hence, she never had trouble commanding a room’s attention.

  The four women whipped their heads around and exclaimed hellos.

  Izzy Mack made a show of looking at her watch. “Well, well, well. If Dana Potter didn’t finally decide to show! We all thought you’d left us in the lurch tonight.” Her twinkling eyes belied her good-natured intentions.

  Dana dragged a chair from another table and plopped herself into it, peeling off her sweater. “Well, now the party can finally get started then!” She winked, her mouth turned up in a smirk.

  “What’ll you have?” Lydia asked, placing a hand on her shoulder affectionately. The two had become close after Dana moved back to town. The younger woman reminded Dana of herself in her late thirties—no-nonsense attitude with a big personality.

  “What’s on the menu tonight?”

  “Oh, shush up, Ms. Potter. You know I’m just kidding! I’ve got your Caesar salad and white wine already prepared in the fridge waiting for you.” Lydia batted her lightly before going to fetch her dinner.

  Dana smiled. That was her regular dinner order, and Lydia always remembered it perfectly. In fact, she always remembered her breakfast, lunch, afternoon coffee, and Saturday brunch orders too.