Stormy Day Mysteries 5-Book Cozy Murder Mystery Series Bundle

by Angela Pepper

  “I haven’t seen you since your grand re-opening of Glorious Gifts,” she said. “I popped in and out before we could speak. I hope you slowed down and ate some of those mini cupcakes I brought. You’re too thin, honey.”

  “I ate a few,” I said.

  “There’s that lovely smile of yours. You were always such a sweet little girl. I remember when your father used to bring you into the shop every year on your birthday to pick out something special.”

  “I still have all those gifts,” I said. “Every single one.”

  “Your father always felt so bad he couldn’t pick what you’d like all by himself, but I dare say you enjoyed the shopping trip even more than the trinket, didn’t you?”

  I smiled fondly at the memories. “You sure are good at figuring out everyone in this town, Ruby.”

  She patted her huge, purple-red curls with a ring-covered hand. “I keep an eye on things.”

  The young woman behind the counter knocked over a bottle of cleaning spray with a clatter. “Sorry! Sorry! Sorry, Miss Ruby!” She righted the bottle, knocked it over again, and let out another torrent of apologies.

  Ruby said, gently but firmly, “Hayley, less talking about cleaning and more actual cleaning.”

  The girl, who looked young enough to belong in high school on a weekday, jumped into action, polishing the glass display counters. She paused only to push a strand of honey-colored hair from her sweaty brow.

  “Don’t mind the new girl,” Ruby said to me. “She’s as skittish as a baby colt born on a frosty day, but she’ll train up fine.” In a conspiratorial tone, she added, “If I don’t break her first.”

  Having Ruby speak to me as a peer was new, but I rolled with the change, joking right back, “Don’t break her. Christmas is coming. You’ll need all hands on deck.”

  “Let’s hope it’s a busy one,” she said. “What can I do for you today? Picking out something for your equally lovely sister? Will she be home for the holidays?” Without waiting for answers, she led me to a display of earrings. “These delicate ones are perfect for small ears.” She pointed to one pair in particular, which were miniature roses.

  As usual, Ruby knew exactly what suited someone’s taste. The earrings were perfect for my sister, but I needed more time for my secret mission, so I pretended to be unsure. We spent twenty minutes looking over the displays and chatting about business in general before I got my opportunity to inquire about Creepy Jeepers.

  Ruby was talking about town spending on Broad Avenue, saying, “And of course, Leo Jenkins didn’t see the point of putting up banners on the lantern poles because he didn’t want to see the lights changed in the first place.”

  “How is he doing?” I asked. “I bumped into him on my way here, and he didn’t look well. Is there trouble with his wife, that you know of?”

  Ruby answered with a brusque, “He’s a bit old for you, honey.”

  I felt my cheeks flush. Asking about someone’s marriage didn’t come naturally to me, and I’d oversold my concern for the man.

  “I’m not asking for myself,” I said. “Just worried about the guy, and you always know what everyone’s up to. You’re so connected, and people open up to you. I bet you could name off which couples are getting engaged next month.”

  “I do know things,” she said cryptically.

  “About Creepy Jeepers?” I asked. “I mean, Leo Jenkins.”

  “Something’s up with Jenkins,” Ruby said, nodding as her expression grew serious. She glanced over at her employee, who was leaning against the back wall with her eyes closed and her mouth slack, dozing off with a cleaning cloth still in one hand.

  I could have made a joke about the employee being broken already, but Ruby seemed to be on the verge of sharing something, and I didn’t want to break the spell of whatever magic was happening between us.

  She patted her purple-red curls and pursed her lips thoughtfully.

  “What is it?” I prompted.

  She held up one finger and pulled out a phone, which she consulted with a troubled expression. The phone was small and blue, whereas the one she’d checked three times while showing me earrings had been larger and in a black case.

  She glanced up. “You can keep a secret,” she said.

  It sounded more like a statement than a question, but I answered anyway. “Yes.”

  “May I show you something that must stay between us?”

  “Yes,” I answered, perhaps a little too quickly.

  A slow smile spread across her face, as though she was about to share some forbidden pleasure with me.

  She turned to the sleeping girl and barked, “Hayley, look lively!”

  Hayley startled and nearly fell over but recovered and got back to cleaning.

  Ruby gave me a knowing look and nodded for me to follow her, behind the jewelry counter and through a door. We were in the stock room, but before I could get my bearings, suddenly I was in her arms again, being crushed against her fragrant and ample bosom. This time she patted my back, as though I was a baby in need of burping.

  “You poor dear,” she said as she continued whacking my back in a manner that was surprisingly soothing.

  “Poor me?”

  “That must have been such a ghastly surprise,” she said. “Finding that sad man’s frozen body.”

  My voice muffled against the ruffles of her leopard print blouse, I said, “You heard the news, then.”

  “Poor, poor thing, and you’re putting up such a brave front. Don’t worry, honey. I have more of those mini cupcakes. They’re so small; you can’t say no.” She pulled away and looked into my eyes. “Ready for the secret?”

  I swung my arm in a chipper gesture of readiness. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

  “This way, all the way to the back,” she said, leading me past stock room shelves stacked with cardboard boxes. We reached another door, where she gave me the eager look again, before opening it and ushering me through.

  I found myself smack in the middle of a brightly-lit fancy tea room, with striped yellow wallpaper, prints of flowers in gilded frames on the walls, a lush tapestry carpet on the floor, and sparkling crystal chandeliers overhead.

  Most people wouldn’t be shocked to find themselves inside a tea room, but I was speechless because I knew Misty Falls didn’t have a tea room.

  Chapter 11

  Standing inside the impossible room, I understood how Alice must have felt when she jumped down the rabbit hole and floated her way into Wonderland. The window looked out onto the sidewalk of Broad Avenue. I must have walked by it a thousand times. How had I never noticed the adorable little tea room in the back of Ruby’s Treasure Trove?

  “Sit!” Ruby Sparkes commanded as she plopped me into a chair next to a round bistro table. “I’ll be back with your hot tea in two shakes of a lamb’s tail.”

  The nook was big enough for three small tables and comfortable seating for nine people, or a dozen if they were good friends. The window was framed by puffy floral curtains, and the wall before me was richly decorated with silver platters, watercolors of dogs wearing ribbons, antique bundt pans, souvenir baby spoons from around the world, and ceramic busts of cats dressed as people, including a grey feline who resembled Jeffrey, if Jeffrey wore a fisherman’s hat.

  I turned to the window and watched as Leo Jenkins emerged from his costume store across the street. He appeared to be closing for a late lunch, or closing early for the day, locking the door. He walked to the corner, where a dark-haired lady on a mobility scooter, my employee’s grandmother, was talking to a fair-haired young woman who held her hand to her mouth. Jenkins joined in the conversation, and they remained there while the intersection’s traffic lights changed and then changed again. I had no way of knowing what they were talking about, but it wasn’t difficult to imagine word of the death of Murray Michaels had spread.

  The traffic lights changed again, and on the third walk signal, the woman on the scooter rode away. The blonde swayed in place, looking
stunned. Jenkins offered his arm and gestured across the street. She hesitated and then timidly took it, and the two of them crossed the street together. Both of them walked directly toward me.

  I raised my hand and gave a friendly wave through the window. He looked right at me but didn’t return the gesture. He continued, his thin frame, clad in black, cutting a dark line against the view, like the streak of dark ink that sometimes mars a postcard once it’s come through the mail.

  The girl he’d crossed the street with, a blonde in her early twenties, looked right through me, as though I was a ghost. She let go of his arm and dug around in her purse. She leaned in toward me and applied a coat of too-dark lipstick to her full lips.

  I let out a giddy laugh, embarrassed on her behalf because she didn’t know I was there but more embarrassed for myself because it had taken me so long to figure out the secret of the window. I flicked the puffy floral curtains to the side to be sure, finding round edges instead of square.

  Jenkins and the blonde weren’t looking through me; they were looking at themselves, in what they imagined was a regular mirror. I’d never noticed Ruby’s secret tea room because it was hidden in plain sight, behind what some people call one-way and others call two-way glass. In all my days enjoying the round reflection, I’d never thought to test it by putting my finger on the surface and measuring the gap in the reflection to see if it was non-existent, the way it was in the observational windows at the police station.

  Unaware they were being watched, Jenkins turned to the girl and said something. I couldn’t hear him through the glass. He didn’t look happy, or sad, or much of anything except hungry. The blonde, however, looked miserable, blinking back tears with red-rimmed eyes. After a stiff nod at him, she continued fixing her makeup, drawing brown eyeliner across the base of pale lashes.

  The girl was in her twenties, and other than her dark lipstick and a tiny loop of gold in her pierced nose, she was dressed conservatively, in dark green slacks, a cream blouse, and a brown leather jacket. The pants and blouse seemed familiar, like a uniform, though I couldn’t place from where. She was pretty enough to attract attention but not so pretty as to catch trouble. As she studied her face on the other side of the glass, I tried to look away, but the anguish in her eyes drew me in. She rubbed the eyeliner off with her finger and started over, moving slowly, her gaze flicking between her reflection and the spaces over her shoulders, behind her. She seemed to be watching for someone who might be coming after her.

  “I wonder what’s going on there,” said Ruby, startling me at her quiet arrival. She set a tray of tea and miniature cupcakes on the table.

  I whispered, “Can they hear us? Or see us?” Jenkins was still there, focused on what seemed to be a broken zipper on his dark jacket.

  “Triple-paned,” she said. “And nobody can see in during the day. You could sit here naked if you wanted, though I wouldn’t recommend it since the crumbs would fall into crevices unmentionable.” She picked up a mini cupcake and grinned. “There’s a dark shade under the valance, and I pull that down if I’m working back here with the lights on after sunset.”

  Meanwhile, Jenkins and the blonde were walking away, heading in separate directions.

  “Are those two an item?” I asked. “If I’m too young for him, that blonde is all kinds of too young.”

  Ruby stroked the diamond-encrusted gold chunk of jewelry hanging from her necklace. “Leo’s harmless. He’s like my old terrier who used to bark at everything but wouldn’t know what to do if he caught so much as a mouse.” She settled into the seat across the small table from me and poured us both tea. “Leo’s wife keeps him on a short leash, just like I did with my Peppy. As far as we know, they’re still quite happily in love. God bless ’em.”

  “He wasn’t wearing his wedding band today,” I said. “Things change.”

  Ruby nodded as she stirred the milk into her tea. “He might be getting the ring resized. If it’s important to you, we can ask around.”

  “We? Who do you mean by we?”

  “Isn’t the view marvelous?” Ruby gushed, ignoring my question. “I could watch all day. I love it when people come out of the bagel shop and stop right here, like clockwork, to check their teeth for poppy seeds.”

  “You love that?” I chuckled and sipped my tea politely.

  “It just makes me laugh how predictable people are. Watch.”

  She pointed to a dark-haired man exiting the bagel shop next door. Tony Milano, in uniform but still without his jacket, walked toward us. I smiled and waved back as a reflex, even though he couldn’t see me. He leaned in and bared his teeth, revealing three dark poppy seeds that he removed with his thumbnail.

  Ruby said, “See what I mean?”

  I laughed and covered my eyes with my hand. After all the shock and hassle of the morning, it felt good to find something amusing. When I removed my hand, Tony was gone.

  A bell rang somewhere nearby. We had a similar bell in the stock room at the gift shop, to let us know a customer had opened or closed the front door.

  Ruby pointed to the two-way glass again, at a group of women who were dressed for a yoga class. “What do you think of this trend? Not much left to the imagination.” She didn’t wait for my opinion before telling me what she thought of the younger generation’s fashions. I half-listened, distracted by the sounds from the front of the store, of a woman arguing with Ruby’s employee.

  I interrupted Ruby’s opinions about leggings to ask, “Do you need to check things at the front? For store security?”

  She waved one hand at the nearby door. “Not really. Everything of value is locked inside the cases, safe and sound.”

  “So, you never have any problems with shoplifting?”

  “Never,” she said emphatically. “Why do you ask?”

  “Honestly? I’m curious about Murray Michaels and why someone might put him inside a snowman.”

  She made a tsk-tsk sound and shook her head. “It’s very odd. That killer, whoever it was, is not the saltiest ham in the deli. If it had been me, I would have made it look like an accident or suicide. But nobody gets themselves inside a snowman by accident. What was the killer thinking?”

  “They might have been storing the body there, planning to move it before the spring melt.” As I spoke, Leo Jenkins’ comment about needing to do some spring cleaning echoed in my mind.

  “Cold storage,” Ruby murmured, shuddering. “Perish the thought. But why?”

  I leaned in, even though we were alone in the private tea room. “Rumor is, he was a bit of a kleptomaniac, going around town stealing things for kicks. Jenkins has his mugshot up on his bulletin board at Masquerade, and he also had some creative ideas about inflicting bodily harm. I wonder if Mr. Michaels wasn’t killed for taking something he shouldn’t have.”

  She sipped her tea delicately as she leveled her eyes at me. “We knew all about the man’s shoplifting. It was perfectly harmless, more of an irritation than a crime. If Jenkins got excited, it’s because the man’s excitable.”

  “So, Murray Michaels hadn’t gotten klepto with other people’s wives?”

  She continued sipping. “Honey, some people don’t like coffee, and some people don’t like tea. Murray Michaels was the kind of guy who didn’t like people, not even the softer, fairer sex.” She waved a bejeweled hand. “His loss.”

  “Was he ever married?” I asked. “I don’t remember anyone but him living in his house, but maybe he has family from before I was born?”

  “Never married,” she answered.

  I raised my eyebrows. “Confirmed bachelor?”

  “He did make one final push for a wife. Oh, it was ages ago, twenty-five years. He even asked me on a date, but I was in mourning at the time. I told him to try again in a year, but he never did, thank goodness because I do hate to lie.”

  I glanced down at my tea, sparing her my eye contact briefly. “You were in mourning? I’m sorry to hear that, Ruby. I didn’t know you were married.”


  “I wasn’t,” she said with a laugh. “But when my dear little terrier Peppy went to the other side, I spent a year in dark colors, in a dark mood. Then Peppy came to me in a dream and said he’d noticed I was sad. He wanted to cheer me up, but he had too much business going on up there in heaven, too many things to bark at, so he was sending one of his friends to look after me. A minute later, I woke up in my bed, with a leopard sitting on my chest.” She patted the top of her bosom. “I thought I was dead.”

  I sat up straight and met her eyes. “A leopard?”

  She nodded gravely. “Then I woke up again, for real, and it was gone. I didn’t think much of the dream again, until a week later, when I saw a beautiful leopard-print blouse on sale and had to buy it. Since that day I haven’t spent another moment in mourning, no matter what happens.”

  I sighed. “Because life’s too precious.”

  She smirked. “Because my heart can’t take another well-intentioned visit from one of Peppy’s friends.”

  A banging sound came from the front of the shop. The raised voices had stopped. The shy employee came into the nook and hovered near the door.

  “Are we closing early today?” the girl asked. “Out of respect for the, um, gentleman?”

  “He wasn’t exactly the mayor,” Ruby said. “We’re all shaken up, but closing early won’t help matters much.”

  The employee wrung her hands as her eyes darted between me and Ruby. “I guess I’ll clean the front windows again.”

  Ruby replied, “Speaking of cleaning, did you jiggle some of the security camera cables when you were dusting the ceiling? Something came unplugged, and we lost an entire day of footage.”

  “I must have done that,” the girl said. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t worry too much. It’s just one day of footage we’re missing.” Ruby turned to me, adding, “Not that a day’s worth of people leaning over display cases is anything to be missed, mind you.”

  “I’ll be more careful,” the girl answered softly.

  “You do that. And I want those front windows so clean they’re invisible.” Ruby shooed her away with one hand before turning to the window and absentmindedly stroking the wildcat-shaped necklace charm where it lay against her leopard-print blouse.