Grand Prize: Murder!

by Vivian Conroy

  When death comes to town

  Inviting the bestselling cozy crime author Bella Brookes to town is going to be the best business move Vicky Simmons has made yet. Not only is Bella going to sign her books to kick off Glen Cove’s annual One-Mile Book Market, but she’s also running her famous scavenger hunt right in town. That’s sure to win over the townsfolk!

  All is going to plan until a dead body is discovered, drawing Vicky straight to the scene of the crime. After the last murder Vicky had vowed to stay out of Sheriff Cash’s way, but when death comes to town she finds herself embroiled in the investigation. She’s racing against time to uncover the murderer…but can there really be a second devious killer in Glen Cove? Vicky will stop at nothing to get to the truth.

  Praise for VIVIAN CONROY

  ‘This book is a cross between Downton Abbey and Miss Marple. … Perfect for the long winter nights ahead where comfort becomes a key word in everyone's vocabulary.’ – Katherine (Goodreads), A Proposal to Die For

  ‘A Proposal to Die For is wonderfully smooth and glamorous, in the style of Agatha Christie combined with the beauty of Gatsby.’ - The Storycollector Blog

  ‘When it’s as charming as A Proposal to Die For mystery and history make the most wonderful combination.’ - Little Bookness Lane

  ‘Dead to Begin With is a charming, entertaining and absorbing cozy mystery and a great start to a new series.’ – Mystereity Reviews

  ‘Dead to Begin With by Vivian Conroy is a wonderful story, perfect for fans of Murder She Wrote, and I cannot wait for the next in the series!!’ – Books of All Kinds

  ‘What a cosy story featuring a cozy murder, and some cute dogs!’ – Rachel’s Random Reads, Dead to Begin With

  Available from Vivian Conroy

  A Country Gift Shop Mystery series

  Dead to Begin with

  Grand Prize: Murder!

  Coming soon:

  Written into the Grave

  A Lady Alkmene Callender Mystery series

  Grand Prize Murder

  Diamonds of Death

  Deadly Treasures

  Grand Prize: Murder!

  Vivian Conroy

  VIVIAN CONROY

  discovered Agatha Christie at thirteen and quickly devoured all the Poirot and Miss Marple stories. Over time Lord Peter Wimsey and Brother Cadfael joined her favorite sleuths. Even more fun than reading was thinking up her own missing heirs and priceless artifacts. Discover the glamour and secrets of the roaring twenties in Vivian’s Lady Alkmene Callender Mysteries and open up shop, with murder in the mix, in the contemporary Country Gift Shop Mysteries. For news on the latest releases, with a dash of dogs and chocolate, follow Vivian on Twitter via @VivWrites

  Contents

  Cover

  Blurb

  Praise

  Book List

  Title Page

  Author Bio

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Excerpt

  Endpages

  Copyright

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to all editors, agents and authors who share insights into the writing and publishing process.

  A special thanks to my editor Victoria Oundjian for her continued enthusiasm for all my cozy mystery endeavors and to the design team for placing Mr. Pug and Coco at the heart of the atmospheric cover.

  Chapter One

  “Dear citizens, visitors, special guests, friends of Glen Cove…”

  The mayor’s voice boomed through Main Street over the heads of the gathered crowd. His tie clip sparked in the sunshine.

  After a rainy spell overnight the skies had cleared completely, and Vicky Simmons had no need for the plastic poncho she had brought from her cottage, not so much to protect her own person but rather the wrapped object placed before the door of her Country Gift Shop.

  A plain white sheet covered the object that looked much like a square with a triangle on top. The appearance was misleading as the object that the whole gathering was about stood on an easel, giving it a height it didn’t have. Vicky had seen the easel being put into place by the mayor’s secretary, but that same secretary had asked Vicky to stay in the back room of the shop as the object was placed on it so she wouldn’t catch even the smallest glimpse of it.

  Now Vicky stared at the sheet, hard, as if her eyes could bore right through it, and her heart was full of the same giddy expectation as when she had been a kid on Christmas morning scanning the presents under the tree and hoping they held the exact things she had written to Santa about.

  But for present-day Vicky, regardless of what was under the sheet, the thing she had wished for was already in front of her eyes. The community of Glen Cove, having left shop, bakery, garage, community center or library desk, to celebrate her moment of glory. To support her Country Gift Shop, which was a recent addition to the town.

  Even the Joneses of the long-established Jones General Store, who considered every initiative as competition to their business, were in the front row. Mr. Jones still had his pencil for telephoned orders stuck behind his ear.

  “We are gathered here today,” the town father continued in his warm baritone, “on a very special occasion. As you all know, the town of Glen Cove has for many years been the site of an unsolved mystery.”

  He took a deep breath, looking around past the expectant faces. There was a momentary tightness, a drawn brow here and there, a pinch around the lips as they thought back upon what could best be called the black page in Glen Cove’s history. As a friendly little town it didn’t have much in its past that made people uncomfortable or embarrassed. But this one thing had weighed on the inhabitants for many years.

  In the tense silence the mayor gestured to a stylishly dressed woman by his side. Her soft blonde hair moved in the ocean breeze that breathed through the street and provided the salty tang on the air.

  The town father said, “Ms. Diane Dobbs here is the sister of a girl who went missing twenty-three years ago. Vanished from our streets, taken from our midst, never to be heard of again. The search for Celine touched us all back then and has occupied many of our thoughts in the years since. The mention of her name never failed to move us and to bring back the memories of those days when we all wanted to bring her back to us; but we failed to do so.”

  The ocean breeze caressing Vicky’s face suddenly felt cold, and she resisted the urge to wrap her arms around her shoulders and rub the gooseflesh away from her bare arms.

  She had been a college student at the time, intimately involved in the matter as she had known the Dobbs twins and had watched in horror as the whole disappearance case began to unfold.

  The uncertainty, the suspicions, the speculations in the media turning into outright accusations as time went by and frustration grew that no tangible progress was made.

  The mayor said solemnly, “We have been unable to find answers for the Dobbs family for too long a time.”

  In the front row a man wearing a straw hat moved uncomfortably—retired Sheriff Perkins, in charge of the disappearance case at the time, the man who had not been able to find the conclusive lead to crack the case.

  Nobody had really blamed him for it as the disappearance had been a far more gruesome crime tha
n a sheriff in a small town like Glen Cove ever had to handle. But for Perkins himself it had stayed a dark page, a stain on what was otherwise a perfect performance as head of local law enforcement.

  The mayor said, “When Celine’s disappearance couldn’t be solved, the Dobbs family left the area, and Diane even went far away to Europe, where she built a successful life for herself, graduating, finding a job and starting a family.”

  Diane glanced to the tall dark man by her side, her French husband Alain, who smiled back at her. The little wrinkles round his dark eyes only made his suntanned face more pronounced and handsome. Around town he was called ‘the French movie star’.

  Behind his back of course.

  The mayor said, “After so many years abroad, Diane felt it was time to return to Glen Cove and face the questions about her sister’s disappearance. Her arrival in early summer caused a stir here in town, as many memories were brought back and old sentiments, believed to be long buried, flared up again. People started to watch each other, with doubts in their minds. We were all reminded that an unsolved case is like an unhealed wound that will continue to ache.”

  The town father was known for his bombastic word choice whenever he got a chance to address a crowd, but Vicky felt like his words were apt here. At least what she herself had experienced had been an ache; if not in herself, then in the others she had met: Diane and the deputy sheriff who had even given up law enforcement because he couldn’t live with the sense of failure over this particular case.

  And Michael Danning, Celine’s boyfriend of old, a personal friend of Vicky’s, who had never been able to discover what had happened to the woman he had loved and intended to marry. For him the uncertainty had hung over his life like a constant shadow, following him around the world wherever he had traveled to write up award-winning undercover articles for major newspapers.

  Like Diane, Michael had felt the need to return to Glen Cove and face the past. But not everybody had been happy to see Michael back in town. As he had been Celine’s boyfriend at the time of her disappearance, he had also been a suspect. And to some he had always stayed a suspect, even a killer who had walked away because he could not be convicted without a body being found.

  The mayor said, “At first this reminder of old hurt was unpleasant to us, and many of us felt like the past might better be just that: past. Something we had dealt with already, even though we knew that many questions had remained unanswered. We were comfortable in the lives we had built after the tragedy and not immediately open to have another look at those painful events. That was wrong, shortsighted, and as your representative I’d like to take this special occasion to apologize for any feeling Diane might have had that she was not welcome here—that we resented her quest for answers.”

  The mayor gestured widely. “The truth is that we all needed those answers as much as she did. We are grateful for Diane’s courage to return here and for the courage of others who upon her arrival involved themselves actively in a search for the truth about Celine Dobbs’ fate.”

  The mayor looked around, nodding weightily, before he continued, “It is a pity that Michael Danning, the new—and may I say extremely successful—editor in chief of our Glen Cove Gazette, cannot be here with us today. We had hoped his assignment in Copenhagen would have ended just in time to find him among us so we could thank him in person for his resourceful use of the newspaper at his disposal. We can safely say that his interview with Diane, asking for a reopening of the old disappearance case was the first step toward the eventual resolution.

  “After Michael Danning’s revealing interview in the Gazette, several other citizens took an interest in the case and with joint efforts managed to bring it to a successful conclusion. Looking at the acts of violence they encountered on the way, in which personal property and even a life of one of our own was lost, we can only recommend them for their courage and their tenacity.”

  Vicky took a deep breath. If anybody had asked her in advance if she’d ever confront a killer, she would have thought she would not dare. But when it happened, you had to act and help others. That was not even courage. It was just what you had to do. You couldn’t turn a blind eye when somebody was in mortal danger.

  The mayor said, “We are here today to honor those courageous citizens in the presence of Diane Dobbs and her family.”

  Diane smiled uncomfortably, moving a little closer to her husband, who took her hand in his. Behind them were their three teen children, the boys forcing a cool appearance, the daughter looking so much like her mother: a little unsure at the attention on them, but sensitive to the importance of this moment, not just for them as a family of the murdered Celine, but also for the community in whose midst the murder had happened and the killer had lived, undetected, for over two decades.

  “Michael Danning is with us in spirit,” the mayor said. “So next I call your attention to those who are here today. Well-known to all of you, a tireless volunteer and fundraiser, also involved with the lovely Country Gift Shop: Marge Fisher.”

  Marge, her voluminous red curls bouncing on her shoulders, made an apologetic gesture with her hands as if she disliked being the center of attention like this. Vicky bet she would rather have stayed at the library labeling new books. Marge got shy when thank-yous were handed out and always downplayed her own part in them, believing others had done much more.

  The mayor boomed, “One of our senior citizens, who volunteered her knowledge and contacts to help crack the case: Ms. Tennings.”

  The retired nanny who had spent thirty years with titled families in the UK before returning to settle on the coast of her beloved Maine stood among her closest friends and bridge partners, nodding in Vicky’s direction as if she wanted to say: you should be thanking her, not me.

  The mayor turned to Vicky with a flourish. “And last but not least, Vicky Simmons, born and raised here, who after many years abroad came back to our beautiful little town to open up her own store and bring us a new concept. No coastal theme, no seashells and gulls, nothing with boats or water, but rather British decoration, royalty memorabilia and books.”

  Vicky spotted a glimpse of irritation in Mrs. Jones’ features. She bet the woman was thinking that there was nothing wrong with a coastal theme, boats and gulls. And there wasn’t really. Tourists fully expected things like that in a seaside town and flocked in to buy those souvenirs and take those boat trips. But Vicky was an expert on all things British and believed it would be worthwhile to bring her own store concept along to her old hometown.

  The mayor said, “Vicky transformed the former beauty parlor, which was quite modern…”

  Marge mouthed, purple beams, and Vicky suppressed laughter.

  “…into a classic atmospheric store where fans of everything British can find whatever their heart desires. While doing renovations and organizing her grand opening, she also worked tirelessly, with the others just mentioned, to solve the old disappearance case. In the end, as she got close to the culprit, she even risked her life to save Diane and make sure the killer could not flee. Thanks to the timely arrival of our new sheriff, Cash Rowland…”

  Cash, who stood on the other side of the mayor, pulled his sheriff’s hat off his wild curls and bowed slightly.

  “…the situation could be resolved without further bloodshed. For that we also thank him.”

  Cash bowed again. The sun reflected off his badge, and Vicky smiled to herself that he had really earned it the day he had arrested Celine’s killer. Before that, people had been somewhat reluctant to trust a former town bad boy as their new head of local law enforcement. But now Cash had earned his position. It gave him a new élan as he patrolled the streets looking for wrongly parked vehicles and trash littered around instead of duly put in the bins.

  The mayor’s voice rose to a crescendo as he came to the highlight of the speech. “We are grateful to all involved and we honor all of them today. But as a community we feel we owe a special debt of gratitude to the woman who confront
ed the killer and prevented another murder. We want to show our appreciation for her courage with a special gift to her store. Handcrafted by the Dawson brothers from across the street…” the mayor gestured broadly at the hardware store opposite the Country Gift Shop “…this is a timeless gift that will keep reminding Vicky and us of her contribution to our community and the safety of our town.”

  He took a step toward the sheet-wrapped object. “I was supposed to reveal it, but Vicky’s mother Mrs. Claire Simmons, had a much better idea.”

  Vicky hitched a brow as her mother stepped forward with her beloved lapdogs, Mr. Pug and Coco, on the leash beside her. Mr. Pug was wearing a little black bow tie, and Coco had a pink lace bow attached to her collar. She twisted her fluffy white head around to see all the people and yapped.

  The mayor said, “Mrs. Simmons will assist Mr. Pug and Coco to reveal the community gift.”

  Claire led the dogs to the sheet-wrapped object and then bent down to gather them up in her arms. Vicky winced as she knew her mother had joint trouble and such antics hurt her back. But Claire was stubborn enough to demand to do everything by herself, and Vicky wasn’t about to disturb this grand moment for her.

  Claire straightened up with a dog tucked under each arm and positioned herself in front of the wrapped object. She leaned forward to grab the sheet with her hands—making it look as if the dogs were grabbing it—and slowly pulled it away.

  Coco barked triumphantly as the sheet fluttered to the pavement.

  There on the easel was a dark green sign with golden lettering reading COUNTRY GIFT SHOP. Two metal chains were attached so it could be hung in front of the store, suspended to swing freely in the breeze. People walking up and down the street could easily see it and come to her door.

  Vicky smiled in delight as the crowd applauded and cheered for her.

  One of the Dawson brothers came forward with a stepladder and put it in place so he could climb up and attach the sign’s metal chains to two hooks that were already on an old brass arm attached to the building’s front. Earlier there had been a sign there no doubt, but the beauty parlor owner had taken it down. Now there was this new community-gifted sign rocking on the ocean breeze, glittering in the sunlight, like a public seal of approval on Vicky’s enterprise.