Hang Ten Australian Cozy Mystery Boxed Set

by Stacey Alabaster

But that was not what Maria had told me. “One of the members of the book club thinks that Nicole Marie had a publishing deal. That she was just a hop, ski,p and a jump away from having the next literary bestseller.”

  He mused on this for a moment. “Maybe that is what Nicole Marie led them to believe.” He raised an eyebrow. “Maybe it is what she wanted to believe herself.”

  True. So it could still very well be a good motive for murder then. If Nicole Marie had lied about getting a book deal and someone had found out, that could also be a motive. “Maybe all I have to do is figure out which members of the book club are writing a novel,” I said a little wryly, glancing at Simon over the top of my cup of tea. “And then I will have my killer.”

  He laughed a little. “Should be easy enough to do.”

  “You would think. Except that I am apparently the town pariah at the moment. Or at least the book club pariah. None of them will come near me.”

  But it turned out that Simon could actually be a little help with that. “I could always put in a good word with them,” he said with a laugh as he finished his cup of tea and set the empty mug down on the coffee table between us.

  “You know them? The other members of the book club?” I asked, surprised. I had to wonder why he’d never turned up to a meeting himself if he was so tight with them all.

  “Oh yeah, they all come to me with their book ideas. Telling me how they’re sitting on the next bestseller. Some of them even show me the writing they have done.” He seemed weary over it all and yet amused at the same time. Gulp. Maybe I wouldn’t tell him the idea I had for a murder mystery novel after all then. But I had been considering it. He must get it all the time.

  “And you tell them…” I asked, curious.

  “Well, I try to be polite, of course.” He grinned at me. “Let them down gently. Tell them the idea sounds brilliant and to send me the completed manuscript. Of course, Nicole Marie is the only one who actually had a completed one. So I hated to have to disappoint her.”

  Hmm. I wasn’t sure it was a good word I needed so much as some actual help with sussing them out. The members of the book club were all avoiding me, but Simon had a way in. I asked if he wouldn’t mind meeting me at Captain Eightball’s the next day to discuss a few things. He apologized and said he had to head back to Newcastle, but that he could meet me later in the week if I was still interested. “Well,” he said. “It’s a date then.”

  I blushed. Wasn’t quite sure about that. “So you’re from Newcastle then?” I asked.

  He told me that he was originally from Sydney, actually, and that he had a cottage down in Eden Bay that he used for weekends, and which he hired out as a writing retreat for writers who wanted to take some time to get away from it all. “And I also run several writing residencies during the year, so that writers who don’t have much money can use the cottage for free, kind of like a scholarship.” He was only going to Newcastle for a few days to present an award, apparently.

  I wondered if he could tell me which of the local writers had used the cabin, but he seemed a little funny when I asked him the question. “I’m not sure if I should give that sort of thing away. You know, for privacy reasons.”

  “Sure. Sure.” I understood. I was a little disappointed, though. But if I could just get the location of the cottage then maybe I could find a log of the visitors myself. But just as I was about to subtly ask Simon for a little more information, there was a knock on the front door and a male voice—a little high pitched, but definitely male—called out, demanding to know who was inside.

  Simon looked at me, a little bit of mischief in his eyes. “Uh-oh, we’ve been sprung.”

  And for the second time that night.

  Whoever it was, they were still knocking.

  “Who is that?” I asked as we crouched down. The light was still on, though. We weren’t exactly being inconspicuous. He was probably wondering why the lights were on when the owner was dead.

  Simon stood up a little and looked over the sofa. “It looks like Nicole Marie’s neighbor, Zed.” He laughed a little. “He’s completely harmless. Just terribly nosy.”

  There was another glimmer of mischief in Simon’s eye. “So do we come clean or make a run for it?” he whispered right into my ear, making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

  “Making a run for it sounds like more fun,” I said. And so we did.

  “Good night, Claire,” Simon said once we were safely out the back of the house and on the street. He asked if I wanted a lift home, but Nicole Marie’s house was only a few blocks away from my apartment complex.

  “Good night, Simon,” I said, trying not to smile too much as I walked away into the night.

  Oh, darn it. After all that, I had left the manuscript inside.

  7

  Alyson

  So much for peace.

  So much for sleep.

  It looked like I couldn’t get a break no matter what time of day, or what day of the week, it was.

  “Argh!” I screamed and threw the pillow off my head and onto the floor. It’s not that there was always total silence on a typical Eden Bay morning. Seagulls? That was one thing. Actually, I missed their ear-piercing squarks now that they were being drowned out now by heavy machinery. Jasmine, my niece, or J as we called her, was always telling me that I should wear ear plugs to bed, but every time I tried to put them in my ears, I felt like my ear drums were going to explode. How did anyone deal with those things? Besides, J only ever pretended to have hers in. That was how she eavesdropped on adult conversations—pretended she couldn’t hear anything while we spilled everything.

  I glanced at the time. What sort of monster started construction at five in the morning? I knew what sort. I even knew the name of the monster. I had almost kissed him once. Troy Emerald. Close call. Dodged a massive bullet there.

  I got out of bed and pulled on a t-shirt and shorts, wondering if I should go for an early morning surf right as the sun rose. Might be relaxing. I say might. I didn’t know much about council bylaws, but I was pretty sure that there were rules against making that much noise this early in the morning. I stomped my foot and had to stop myself from having a full-blown tantrum right then as I stared out the window at the crane that was obscuring the view of the beach. I had no idea how to stop them. I wasn’t smart enough to know how to beat them.

  Claire was smart, though. Well, she always claimed she was anyway. She was the one with the big uni degree and the fancy job as a movie producer in the city. So she might be able to figure a way to stop this from happening. She was my best shot. If Troy was breaking any laws or cutting any corners, she would be the one to know.

  But it might involve a bit of tit for tat.

  I arrived at her apartment all smiles and sunshine, just after breakfast. We were opposites in a lot of ways, but one thing we did have in common was the fact that we were both early risers. I got up early to surf, while she got up early to jog and listen to podcasts.

  Princess had, apparently, been told that she was not allowed anywhere near her bookshop for the time being and she was at a bit of a loose end with what to do with herself. Still, killing time in a luxury apartment wasn’t too bad. I mean, I would have gone out of my mind with boredom after a few hours, but Claire liked to put her feet up and relax while other people did the work.

  I grinned as I got my surprise out of my bag and placed it down next to the new espresso machine she had for some reason. Bit strange, considering that she didn’t even own a fridge yet. No place to store milk and vegetables, but she had a two-thousand-dollar coffee machine?

  Claire just glanced down at the magnifying glass as though I had placed a bug down on her countertop. “What is that?”

  “It’s me. Ready to play detective,” I said with a grin. I’d gotten the magnifying glass from the local toy store. The one that was about to be put out of business by the Evil Mall. But I digress.

  She rolled her eyes, turned her back, and started to grind the cof
fee beans loudly. I wasn’t sure why she had set it to the finest grind, but quite possibly so it would make the most noise. Classic Claire. She left the grinder to run for just a little bit longer than it needed to before she flipped the switch off as hard as possible, then started stacking the ground beans into the machine and set it to ‘short black’. I suppose espresso was just going to have to be okay with me then. Thanks very much for asking. I would have much preferred a latte.

  “It’s not play,” she said, glaring at the magnifying glass out of the corner of her eye. “It is something quite serious. But of course, I don’t except you to understand that.” Her accent had shifted again during the week. Since she’d been back in Eden Bay, she’d gradually lost her posh city accent and regained her broad country one. But now she was speaking like she was queen of the manor again.

  “Well, actually, people die in the surf all the time,” I said, sipping on the espresso and trying not to make a face so it looked like I was enjoying it. “So I do understand.” If she was going to play that game, then I was going to win. There had been far more deaths on the sand than in bookshops. Checkmate.

  Oh gosh, this coffee was an attack on my taste buds. At least I could down it in a few sips so that the torture wasn’t prolonged. “Mmm, delicious,” I said with an exaggerated sigh of contentment when I was done.

  She reached over towards the empty glass and grabbed it from me, then opened up her fancy ‘smart’ dishwasher and put it in there before giving it a voice command to scrub harshly. She turned back to me. “What do you really want, Alyson?”

  Right. It was showtime.

  I cocked my head to the side, just a little bit, and put on my most sorry and sympathetic face. The one that showed I was really, really genuine. “I’m feeling terrible about what happened, okay? You were right. I should have been more careful and responsible. I should have locked up. Double checked. Triple checked. How is your tooth, by the way?”

  She grimaced for a moment and made a face as I watched her run her tongue over her teeth. She hated to admit that she even needed the filling. But she’d been eating too much sugar recently and now she had paid the price.

  I knew the drill—so to speak—only too well. My dentist had told me I was going to have to cut back on the sweet things or I was going to have another four cavities by the end of the year. But that was going to mean less milkshakes at Captain Eightball’s, and I wasn’t sure I could do it.

  And I knew Claire couldn’t do it either. But she hadn’t been into Captain Eightball’s at all recently and I knew that was the reason why. She just wouldn’t admit it.

  “It’s fine,” she said simply. “Aside from that one little teeny tiny hole, my mouth is perfectly wonderful.”

  Of course she would say that. Everything always had to be perfectly wonderful in the world of Claire Elizabeth Richardson. At least on the surface. She would not admit that she had been eating far too much sugar recently and was getting herself in trouble, but what she didn’t know was that we shared the same dentist and she had very loose lips. I knew that just like me, Claire had been warned to cut back on the sweet stuff.

  “Great to hear,” I said with a wide smile. “You do have the most beautiful smile.”

  She just gave me a weary stare. I may have been laying it on a touch thick. Luckily, she lived for compliments.

  I still didn’t think, in my heart of hearts, that I was in any way responsible for what had happened in the bookshop. Sure. I’d forgotten to lock the door. Maybe—MAYBE—I could be liable if say, a book got stolen. Which none had, by the way. Who wants to steal a book? That would be crazy. I wouldn’t even take one if it was handed to me for free. If you were paying me to take it.

  But I could not be responsible for a murder. No way. That was not on me.

  Also, I still didn’t think there was anything wrong with leaving your door unlocked. What was Eden Bay coming to if we couldn’t even trust each other?

  But I was willing to pretend that I was in the wrong if that would make Claire happy. That was one of the things with our friendship, the constant pull-push. Both of us always wanted to be right and couldn’t stand being wrong. And because we so often had completely opposite opinions of things, we ran into trouble. Butted heads. Constantly.

  So sometimes you just had to pretend. To keep the peace.

  “I should never have left the door unlocked. It was grossly irresponsible of me. I want to help now, Claire. I want to set things right.”

  She peered down at me like she was trying to figure out whether to believe me or not. “Well, a magnifying glass is not going to do much good, is it?”

  I shrugged. It might not be completely useless. “Well, maybe I could look for fingerprints in the shop,” I suggested.

  “The police have already done that. There were none.”

  None? That was a little strange. “And do you actually trust Sergeant Wells?” I asked her. I mean, I know, what was our town coming to if we couldn’t trust each other? But the police were a different matter.

  “No,” she had to admit.

  She leaned forward and picked up the object, studying it with a newfound curiosity. “Actually, Alyson, that magnifying glass might not be such a bad idea. If you are willing to actually make yourself useful for a change, I have an idea.”

  8

  Claire

  Maybe it was a dumb idea. I shook my head. Somehow, being around Alyson always clouded my judgement. But, hey, we had nothing to lose by trying to find some more evidence.

  Just as we arrived back at Nicole Marie’s house, I received a text that seemed a little serendipitous. It was Simon, telling me that his awards ceremony was finishing up and that he was thinking about heading back to Eden Bay that evening if I wanted to catch up.

  I smiled to myself but quickly put the phone back into my pocket without replying. It was flattering. Nice, for sure. But I would have to leave him on the hook for a little while before I replied.

  Back to reality. I could hear Alyson beside me, grunting a little as she pulled an item from a plastic bag and I groaned inwardly, remembering what we had just bought. Maybe this really, really was a totally dumb idea.

  “I feel like we are just playing at this,” I said, shaking my head in frustration while Alyson struggled with the packaging beside me. I didn’t normally play with kid’s toys. I resented the fact that I had even been dragged down to the toy store to find the thing. Meanwhile, Alyson had had the time of her life frolicking around in there.

  “Isn’t that what we have always been doing?” Alyson asked. She shot me an amused look.

  Well, we’d never been given the official titles of detective, but that seemed a little harsh.

  “I mean, this is literally a kid’s detective kit,” I said, turning the box over when I took it from her. The age was for six to ten. That was the age of Alyson’s niece. I handed it back. On her head be it.

  I was sure the police had already been to the house, just as they had already been to the bookshop. But there had been no prints at the shop. So we needed to check the house. And I didn’t know how to get my hands on any of the ‘real’ equipment. So this kid’s box set was just going to have to do.

  When my phone buzzed again, I thought it might be Simon, and so I pulled the phone out of my pocket, thinking, well, if he’s this persistent than maybe I should give him a break and say yes. But it wasn’t Simon. It was a call coming from a number that I didn’t recognize.

  “Hello?”

  “What are we supposed to do with all this stuff?” a gruff voice on the other end of the line asked me.

  “Huh?”

  It was the delivery driver in charge of dropping of that week’s order of new books, and there was no one at the shop to even open the door, let alone sign for it. I hit my forehead with the palm of my hand and groaned. He was threatening to just leave the books in front of the shop—“This ain’t my problem. lady”—but that was not going to work. They were brand new hardbacks from the top
ten bestsellers list. People would steal them. I know Alyson thinks that no one would ever steal a book, but that’s just because she doesn’t read.

  Also it was starting to mist again, and the forecast said that heavy rain was expected any time in the next hour. There was minimal coverage in front of the shop.

  And now he was yelling at me demanding payment as well. I had to go.

  “There’s a book emergency I need to take care of,” I said to Alyson, who shot me a look like she couldn’t believe there could be any such thing. “Sorry, we’ll have to come back and do this some other time.”

  I’d assumed that would be the end of it. Time to put the kit back in the shopping bag and rethink the whole scheme. But Alyson just ripped the plastic wrapping off the detective kit and shook her head as she trained her eyes firmly on the house. “Trust me,” she said. “I’ve got this under control. You’re not even needed here, Princess.”

  Well, she had admitted she was wrong about leaving my door unlocked, so maybe she was finally willing to grow up and admit to her mistakes. And she wasn’t going to do the same wrong thing twice. “Okay then,” I said, and left out the back door, hurrying down the driveway before anyone could see me.

  “The shop isn’t open,” I explained, hoping that we could come to some sort of agreement. Like, maybe he could take the books back to the warehouse for a few days until I was open again. “I’m not even allowed to open up the door. Trust me, I am not happy about this situation either. It’s the cops, not me.”

  The driver was a large—very large, like 6’6”—man who was not having a bar of what I was saying. He had his clipboard, his pen, and his machine to accept payment on delivery and those were the only things he cared about.

  “Well, where are we supposed to put all these then? They ain’t going back in the truck,” he said with zero sympathy. He was more than happy to just dump all the books on the street. Once I’d paid of course. If I didn’t pay, I was going to be fined interest. “Should have told us earlier.”