Murder at St. Georges Church
Murder Aboard the Flying Scotsman
Murder at the Boat Club
Murder on Eaton Square
LADY GOLD INVESTIGATES (Ginger Gold companion short stories)
Volume 1
Volume 2
Volume 3
HIGGINS & HAWKE MYSTERY SERIES (cozy 1930s historical)
The 1930s meets Rizzoli & Isles in this friendship depression era cozy mystery series.
Death at the Tavern
Death on the Tower
Death on Hanover
A NURSERY RHYME MYSTERY SERIES(mystery/sci fi)
Marlow finds himself teamed up with intelligent and savvy Sage Farrell, a girl so far out of his league he feels blinded in her presence - literally - damned glasses! Together they work to find the identity of @gingerbreadman. Can they stop the killer before he strikes again?
Gingerbread Man
Life Is but a Dream
Hickory Dickory Dock
Twinkle Little Star
THE PERCEPTION TRILOGY (YA dystopian mystery)
Zoe Vanderveen is a GAP—a genetically altered person. She lives in the security of a walled city on prime water-front property along side other equally beautiful people with extended life spans. Her brother Liam is missing. Noah Brody, a boy on the outside, is the only one who can help ~ but can she trust him?
Perception
Volition
Contrition
LIGHT & LOVE (sweet romance)
Set in the dazzling charm of Europe, follow Katja, Gabriella, Eva, Anna and Belle as they find strength, hope and love.
Sing me a Love Song
Your Love is Sweet
In Light of Us
Lying in Starlight
PLAYING WITH MATCHES (WW2 history/romance)
A sobering but hopeful journey about how one young Germany boy copes with the war and propaganda. Based on true events.
As Elle Lee Strauss
THE CLOCKWISE COLLECTION (YA time travel romance)
Casey Donovan has issues: hair, height and uncontrollable trips to the 19th century! And now this ~ she's accidentally taken Nate Mackenzie, the cutest boy in the school, back in time. Awkward.
Clockwise
Clockwiser
Like Clockwork
Counter Clockwise
Clockwork Crazy
Standalones
Seaweed
Love, Tink
About Lee Strauss
Lee Strauss is a USA TODAY bestselling author of the Ginger Gold Mysteries series and the Higgins & Hawke Mystery series (cozy historical mysteries), a Nursery Rhyme Mystery series (mystery, sci-fi, young adult), the Perception Trilogy (YA dystopian mystery), the Light & Love series (sweet romance) and young adult historical fiction. When she’s not writing or reading, she likes to cycle, hike, and kayak. She loves to drink caffè lattes and red wines in exotic places, and eat dark chocolate anywhere.
Lee also writes younger YA fantasy as Elle Lee Strauss.
For more info on books by Lee Strauss and her social media links, visit leestraussbooks.com. To make sure you don’t miss the next new release, be sure to sign up for her readers’ list!
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Slay Bells Ring
A Dewberry Farm Christmas Story by Karen MacInerney
About this Book
It's Christmastime on Dewberry Farm, and homesteader Lucy Resnick is busy bundling mistletoe bunches and cedar swags for the Buttercup Christmas Market when a neighbor's houseguest keels over right next to her peach orchard. Was it a stray bullet from a hunter that took him out? Or did a guest at the fancy ranch next door decide to scratch somebody off his or her Christmas list? It's up to Lucy to unwrap the mystery… before the holiday killer strikes again.
Copyright © 2019 by Karen MacInerney
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Books in the Dewberry Farm Mystery Series
Killer Jam
Fatal Frost
Deadly Brew
Mistletoe Murder
Dyeing Season
Wicked Harvest
Created with Vellum
1
Nothing says Christmas in Central Texas like cedar fever.
And deer season.
"Oh, man," my friend Quinn said as she blew her nose for the tenth time that morning. She'd sneezed so many times, her red, curly hair was coming loose from the bandanna she'd tied around her head to keep it out of her eyes, and her eyes were watering. We were on the back porch of my farmhouse, getting ready for the Christmas Market. She'd come to help me make mistletoe bundles, which were a top seller, while I put together cedar swags. "I'm going to have to start allergy shots or something," she said after another round of sneezes.
"Need an antihistamine?"
"I've taken three already," she complained. "I hate being involved in the reproductive lives of trees."
"It's ragweed for me. And oak trees. But so far I'm immune to cedar," I told her. As I spoke, Chuck, my apricot rescue poodle, came loping around the side of the house, followed by Pip, Quinn's gangly rescue puppy, who had morphed into a large, extremely friendly black lab mix.
"Lucky dogs. It should be too cold for pollen!" she complained, and I couldn't disagree with her. There was a decided nip in the air as I gathered a bunch of cedar boughs on a wood table and tied them together with wire, then added a bow of red ribbon. My evening plans involved lighting a fire in my fireplace and then settling down with mulled cider and popcorn, possibly with Christmas carols playing. It was a delightful change from the warm weather that had lingered well into December this year.
A Blue Norther had swept through Buttercup the day before, bringing enough cold air that I was able to light the first fire of the season and make a pot of hot cocoa. My boyfriend, Tobias Brandt, the local vet, had come by after a long day doing rounds, and as Christmas music played, together we had decorated the little cedar tree I'd cut down—female, so thankfully pollen-free—the week before.
It was my favorite time of year, and I was looking forward to some downtime with my friends, my family, and, of course, my loyal companion, Chuck. My dear friend Molly had stopped off earlier with a basket of goodies, including a pair of felt antlers she'd made for my chunky poodle. He was still trying to figure out how to get them off; cute as he was, I didn't want him to suffer, so I put them on my own head instead.
"Did you hear there's a new buried treasure story going around town?" Quinn asked.
"Another one?" Resuscitating buried treasure legends was a popular pastime in Buttercup. It probably didn't help that, once in a while, someone actually found something. "What's this one?"
"Oh, a bank heist that occurred in Houston about a hundred years ago. Word is they were 'beset by Indians' down on Dewberry Creek and had to bury the loot in a hurry."
"Then what happened?"
"Two out of three of them got away, of course. But when they came back a year later..."
"They couldn't find the loot," I posited.
Quinn blinked in mock surprise. "What, are you psychic?"
I grinned. "There seems to be a common theme in these stories."
; "Well, whether it's a story or not, there have been three charges of trespassing along the creek already this week. And Ed Zapp accidentally blew up Bubba Novak's metal detector with a shotgun because he thought he was an alien."
I almost dropped the cedar bough I was working with. "What?"
"It was dark. The metal detector was beeping. And Ed had just finished a Men in Black marathon, so he thought it was an alien."
"Bubba is lucky Ed didn't blow his head off," I said.
"He ended up with a bit of buckshot in his left buttock, apparently, so he didn't escape completely unscathed. Says he plans to sue."
"If he was on Ed's property, I don't see that going anywhere," I said. Texans took trespassing seriously. Unfortunately, "home defense" was considered a perfectly reasonable rationale for taking aim at people on your property.
"I think he's just hoping Ed will pay his medical bills."
"Never a dull moment in Buttercup, is there?" I asked, looking down at the creek. "Maybe we should go down there with a metal detector ourselves. Although with my luck, all I'd find would be an old hoe, or maybe a piece of rebar."
She laughed as she tied another bundle of mistletoe. "You'll be able to buy one in town soon if you're serious. Edna at the Red and White got a special order of metal detectors in. She's already sold out and has another one on the way."
"People really are taking this seriously, aren't they?"
She nodded. "Not much to do in a small town, I guess. Anyway, if you hear beeping down by the creek in the next week or two, it's not aliens and you probably shouldn't shoot."
"I don't own a gun, so the risk of that is pretty low.”
She grinned. "You city folks..."
I looked down at my dirt-stained fingernails and rolled my eyes. I'd spent half the morning cleaning out the chicken coop and the other half on my hands and knees weeding the veggies. "That's us. Always afraid to get our hands dirty."
Quinn laughed. "As always, my friend, you are an exception to the rule."
2
Quinn had given up on the mistletoe and I was just about finished with the cedar swags I was taking to the Christmas Market on the Town Square the next morning when there was a loud popping sound at the corner of the pasture.
"I thought you posted 'No Hunting' signs," she said.
"I did, and so did Dottie," I told her. Dottie Kreische was my next-door neighbor, and she shared my thoughts on untrained people with longnecks in one hand and guns in the other traipsing through the countryside shooting at anything that moved. And a few things that didn't. "Unfortunately, Cyrus Lemmon has hunting parties at his place all the time, and there's really nothing we can do about it.” Lemmon, a wealthy Houston oil exec, had bought the hundred acres across the creek and liked to bring out his business contacts for weekend hunting extravaganzas. Despite the signs we'd posted, there was nothing keeping people from shooting on the other side of the water, so stray bullets were a hazard, particularly at this time of year. It made me nervous; packs of armed, Lone-Star-beer–fueled city folks weren't necessarily the most responsible when it came to firearms. An unknown someone had accidentally shot two of the Fischers' dairy cows the week before. The property abutted the Lemmons' land, so it was pretty clear what had probably happened, but Cyrus had denied having anything to do with it.
Chuck growled, obviously uneasy. Pip stood next to him, ears perked up, in pointing position.
"Maybe it's another trespasser being shot at," Quinn speculated.
"Either way, I think we might need to go inside."
"Like a bullet can't make it through the house," she said with a snort.
"At least it will slow it down," I suggested as we hurried into the house, Chuck and Pip barreling through the door behind us. I'd barely closed the back door when another volley started.
"That sounded awfully close," Quinn said, peering out the window.
"That's because it is close," I said, grabbing the binoculars I kept for bird-watching and training them on the line of trees down by the creek. What looked like a man in camo was aiming a rifle in the direction of my peach orchard. "Somebody's shooting at something on my land," I said.
"What? Take a picture so you can show the police," she said. "That's not okay."
"My phone's in the bedroom," I said. "Do you have yours handy?"
"Right here," she said. She held it up, zooming in on the camo-clad shooter. As she took the photo, we heard another volley of shots.
"Someone else is shooting," she said. "That wasn't him."
"Where?" I asked. As I spoke, the man in camo crumpled to the ground.
"Oh, man," I breathed.
"Is he dead?"
"I don't know."
Quinn and I looked at each other.
"What do we do?" she asked.
"Call 911," I said.
"But we have to go out there and help him," she said as she punched the numbers on her phone.
I shook my head. "The shooter is probably still out there. I don't even know if he realizes he hit someone. There's no way you're going outside right now; we don't need two casualties today." As I finished my sentence, the dispatcher picked up, and Quinn relayed the details.
"They're on their way," she told me when she finished the call. I still had the binoculars trained on the man who had fallen. "Is he moving?"
"No," I said. As I spoke, the bushes behind him twitched. "Wait; there's something there." I watched as a person emerged from the bushes and hurried up to the crumpled hunter. The second person crouched by the fallen man's head for a moment and then turned back the way he—or she—had come.
"Did you see who it was?"
"No," I said, shaking my head. Whoever it was had been in a baggy green jumpsuit, wraparound sunglasses, and a camouflage hat that was pulled down low. "I'd say whoever it was wasn't supertall, though."
"Man?"
"Hard to tell. Whoever it was had on a baggy jumpsuit."
Quinn looked at me. "They didn't stop to render aid, did they?"
"No."
She grimaced. "Maybe it wasn't an accident."
The thought made me shiver, but she had a point.
3
By the time the police came, the second shooter was long gone... and so, unfortunately, was the man who'd been shot.
"I'm afraid he didn't make it," Deputy Shames said when she trudged up to the house a half hour after she and the ambulance had arrived. Her hair was pulled back in a low ponytail, and her face was grim. Then, with a slight twitch of her mouth, she added, "Nice rack."
"What?"
She pointed to my head, and I realized I was still wearing Chuck's felt antlers. I pulled them off, feeling my cheeks heat up. "Oops. Forgot about those."
"You should leave them on," the deputy said. "They're a festive touch."
"I think they look better on Chuck, honestly," I told her, my face still warm. "At any rate, do you know who the victim was?"
"We have to notify his family before we give out a name—he had a license on him—but he appeared to be from Houston. It's no one I know."
"Probably a guest of Cyrus Lemmon," I suggested.
"Whoever it was was shooting toward Lucy's land," Quinn said. "He was aiming at the peach orchard when he was shot."
The deputy pulled out a small notebook and jotted down some words.
"We took a picture on Quinn's phone," I said.
She lowered the notebook. "You have a photo?"
"Here," Quinn said, pulling out her phone. "I took it just before someone shot him." As she showed her the blurry picture of the camo-clad hunter crouching under a tree, I said, "I think I saw the shooter."
Deputy Shames's head swiveled to me. "When?"
"When Quinn was on the phone with 911," I said. "A person in a baggy green jumpsuit, sunglasses, and a hat came down and crouched next to the body, then went back up the bank."
She made a few more notes, then asked, "Could you tell if it was a man or a woman? Hair color?"
&n
bsp; I shook my head. "Whoever it was didn't look particularly tall," I said, "but that's all I could tell."
"We'll take a closer look for footprints," she said. "In which direction did the shooter go?"
"Back up into the brush, away from the creek. On the Lemmons' land, on the other side."
"Maybe this will turn out to be a Houston thing," the deputy said.
"I hope so," Quinn said. None of us liked the idea of one of our neighbors being a murderer.
"If you could send me a copy of that photo, that would be great. What time did this happen, again?"
Quinn checked the time stamp on the photo. "The shooting happened just after I took this photo."
"Were those the first shots you heard?"
"No," I said. "We heard some a few minutes earlier, and we decided to go inside to be on the safe side."
"After what happened to those cows on the Fischers' ranch, we figured we'd rather be safe than sorry."
"That's smart," the deputy said, her eyes drifting toward the scene down by the creek. "Accidental deaths happen too often during hunting season."
"Do you think that's what happened?" I asked.
"Too soon to tell," she said. "But if what you say is true, it makes me wonder."
"Maybe the shooter panicked," I said.
"Maybe," she said. "Did you see what he was shooting at?"
"No," I said. "But we've had a good number of deer and some feral hogs down by the creek lately."
Six Merry Little Murders Page 9