Ruffed Up Murder (Pet Shop Cozy Mysteries Book 10) Read online

  “Killer cat?” I frown. “I think that’s a bit of a stretch. Where’s Sarah?”

  “Oh, she had an emergency meeting with Mayor What’s-his-Face,” he tells me.

  “An emergency? Did she say what it was?”

  “Nope, just that she had to run and she’d be back soon. Never a dull moment, right?”

  “You should be writing a comic about her. It would probably be more interesting.”

  Dennis holds up both hands like an imaginary marquee. “The Adventures of Councilwoman Cummings.” He grimaces. “Nah, doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.”

  The door to the pet shop swings open and Spark notifies us with a couple of warning woofs. He’s new around here; he still barks at strangers coming and going, though we’re working on that.

  “Hi, Patty.” I smile as Seaview Rock’s chief enters in her police uniform and flat-brimmed hat. It occurs to me that I can’t recall the last time I saw Patty Mayhew not in her uniform; I wonder if she actually owns other clothes.

  “Hiya, Will,” she says back, but it’s not casual or warm; something’s up. “Can we talk for a moment?” She glances pointedly at Dennis. “Alone?”

  “Sure, yeah. Let’s step outside.”

  I follow her out to the curb where her cruiser is parked. It’s a very pleasant day, promising lots of sunshine and a nice breeze. Unfortunately, I have the feeling that whatever Patty has to tell me is going to put a damper on that.

  Don’t get me wrong; Patty’s a great person. We don’t always see eye-to-eye—usually a product of me being in the wrong place at the wrong time or otherwise sticking my nose in places it doesn’t belong—but I’d call us friends. Of course, Patty is always a cop first, and a friend second.

  “What’s up?” I ask her.

  Patty takes off her hat and turns it over in her hands. “Will, there’s no easy way to say this. What I’m about to tell you, I want to keep between us, okay?”

  “Okay,” I reply slowly.

  “Do you remember those cupcakes you had me test last month?”

  “Yeah…” I’d nearly forgotten about them. Almost a month ago now a man named Ben Simms was poisoned and died at a party (more specifically, in the bathroom of the house that Sarah and I are purchasing). At the time, I thought that the poison was intended for Sarah, so when someone anonymously sent her cupcakes, I asked Patty to have them tested for anything unusual. “That feels like forever ago.”

  “Well, toxicology work-ups usually take about four weeks,” she tells me. “And they became a low priority since we discovered that the murderer wasn’t gunning for Sarah.”

  “But…” I goad her as a heavy pit forms in my stomach.

  “The report came back.” She clears her throat. “Will, those cupcakes show traces of cyanide.”

  “What?” My heart stops beating for a few moments. “That… can’t be. She ate one, and she was fine. Nothing happened.”

  “I know. Our guys at the lab explained it to me. Whoever sent them obviously didn’t know that glucose counteracts the effects of cyanide poisoning.”

  “Glucose…? Sugar?” There was a thick layer of pink frosting on the cupcakes. “So… you’re saying that if they’d sent it in something else, she’d be… gone?”

  “I can’t say that for sure. The amount they found in a single cupcake wasn’t enough to kill her, but if she’d eaten two or more in a sitting… it’s possible. Yes.”

  I run my fingers through my hair and sigh the heaviest sigh I’ve ever sighed. At the time that Ben was poisoned, I had been so certain that someone was out for Sarah… and then when that turned out not to be true, I chided myself for even thinking it.

  “Patty, what do we do?”

  “I’m going to investigate. I’ll start with the courier that delivered them.”

  “Do you think we can get prints off the box they came in?”

  “We tried that already. Too many people handled it; all we have is smudged partials.”

  “I can’t believe this is happening. I…”

  Patty arches an eyebrow. “What is it?”

  “Nothing. I was just thinking about something that Mrs. Blumberg said earlier. I helped her find her cat, and she mentioned Sarah. She said that she should ‘be very careful.’ That people are resistant to new ideas.”

  Patty puts her hand on my shoulder. “Will, I’m going to look into this, okay?”

  “I want to help.”

  “I don’t think you should. No offense; I just think that maybe you should let us handle this one.” I know what she’s trying to say. Despite my being a licensed private investigator in the state of Maine, and even though I’ve worked alongside the police before, Patty’s trying to tell me that it’s a conflict of interest.

  “You said you wanted to keep this between us.” I ask her, “Are you suggesting that we shouldn’t tell Sarah?”

  “No, I’m saying that I don’t want this to get out to the general public. We don’t need another scandal around here. As for telling her… I’m going to leave that up to you,” she says. “Personally, I think you should. But if you don’t, at least for now, make sure you keep her safe.”

  “Yeah. Thanks, Patty. Please, keep me in the loop on what you find.”

  “I will. I promise. Take care, Will.” She puts her hat back on and gets in her cruiser.

  I just stand there for a while, feeling kind of dizzy and trying to make sense of it.

  “Hey.” I don’t even realize Dennis is standing beside me until he says something. “You okay?”

  “Yeah,” I lie. “Everything’s fine.” I force a smile. “For now.”

  CHAPTER 4

  * * *

  As the day gives way to the afternoon, I let Dennis handle customers while I set about doing mechanical pet shop tasks, like cleaning cages and stocking shelves. It’s second nature to me by now, and I find that doing something with my hands helps me think better.

  Whoever sent those cupcakes wasn’t necessarily out to kill Sarah; if so, they’d have made sure that one cupcake was enough to do it. A logical person wouldn’t assume that anyone would eat more than one in a sitting. (Though it’s not lost on me that the culprit might not be a logical person at all.)

  Even so, if I operate under that assumption, it means that someone was definitely trying to hurt her. But if that was the case, then why send her six? Did they want to hurt her six times? You’d think after the first one, she’d, you know, stop eating the cupcakes.

  “Come on, brain, think,” I scold myself as I change the newspaper in the birdcage. The parakeets cock their tiny colorful heads at me. Why send her six?

  “Of course.” I almost slap myself in the forehead. “Because they wanted her to share them.” If they knew what kind of person Sarah is, they’d know that she was likely to offer cupcakes to others.

  “Did you say something, Will?” Dennis asks.

  “No, just thinking out loud.” Were they also trying to hurt me? Or Dennis? What if it wasn’t Sarah at all, but someone who wanted to get to me for some reason, and sent the cupcakes to Sarah as a way to throw off suspicion?

  There are just too many variables. The best I can hope for is that Patty finds a lead through the courier that delivered them.

  “Hey, Will, you mind if I grab some lunch?” Dennis calls to me.

  “Lunch? What time is it?”

  “It’s almost one thirty.”

  I hadn’t realized that much time had gone by. “So Sarah’s been gone, what, almost two hours?”

  “About that, yeah.”

  I pull out my cell phone and dial her number. “Go ahead, Dennis. Thanks.” Sarah’s phone rings five times and goes to voicemail. Ordinarily I would assume she’s just busy, but with my new knowledge, of course my mind goes to dark places.

  I try to call her again, and then on the third time I leave her a voicemail. “Sarah, it’s Will. I really need you to call me back. It’s important—”

/>   The door to the pet shop swings open hard and Sarah bursts in.

  “Hey, there you are! I’ve been trying to call you…”

  “I know, I’m sorry.” Her cheeks are red and she looks like she might burst into tears at any moment.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Oh, Will. It’s terrible. And it’s all my fault.” She hugs me tightly while the dogs clamor for her attention.

  “Down, boys. What is it? Are you okay?”

  “No, I’m not. I really messed up big.”

  “Come here. Sit.” I direct her to the stool behind the counter, and then I flip our “open” sign to “closed” and throw the lock on the door. “Tell me what’s going on.”

  She takes a deep breath to calm herself before she starts. “You know Logan Morse?”

  “Logan… yeah. He owns the tree farm on the south edge of town, right? I’ve been getting my Christmas trees from him since I was a kid.”

  “That’s the one,” she shakes her head. “He found a loophole in my proposal and he’s going to exploit it.”

  I raise an eyebrow. “What sort of loophole?” When Sarah wrote up her thirty-two points to improve Seaview Rock, she asked me to look over it before she presented it to the other council members. And I did. Mostly. Okay, I skimmed. Those things are dense and have a lot of legal and technical jargon. It’s like reading a textbook.

  All of her ideas—the ones I remember, anyway—sounded really great to me. She proposed things that would promote tourism, encourage the use of public transportation around town, and increasing the cost of some inexpensive niches just a tad, like hunting and fishing licenses.

  “Do you remember my point about rezoning the use of commercial property?” she asks.

  “Of course I do.” I don’t. “But you should tell me about it again anyway.”

  She rolls her eyes a little. “Every area of town is zoned for specific uses—residential, commercial, industrial, or agriculture. Commercial zoning in Seaview Rock was pretty limited, so I proposed that any areas that weren’t exclusively zoned as residential fall under a new general-use category.

  “The intention,” she explains, “was to promote business growth. New businesses have more options of where to open; current businesses have somewhere to expand; and I figured we might even be able to attract some manufacturers that want to get out of the city.”

  “Okay, all that sounds good. Where does Logan Morse come into the picture?”

  “Morse has six acres of land sitting on the edge of town. Right now it’s covered in trees. By this time next week it might not be.” She sucks in a deep breath and holds it before she tells me, “He’s selling it to Sprawl-Mart.”

  “What?! He can’t do that!”

  “Yes, he can. His land was zoned as agricultural, but now it’s zoned appropriately and it’s private. He can sell to whoever he wants, and apparently they’ve made him a very lucrative offer.”

  Now I understand why she’s so upset. Seaview Rock has always managed to maintain its small-town charm, and part of that is by keeping out big-box corporations and chain stores. Sprawl-Mart pretty much represents everything we despise about faceless commerciality.

  “But just because they own the land doesn’t mean they can build,” I protest. “That would still need to be approved by the council, right?”

  “You’re right. But that’s not the point. Once they own the land, all they would have to do is tear down all the trees and stick a sign in the ground that says ‘future site of Sprawl-Mart.’ No one’s going to open a business here if they think they have to compete with them. Some existing businesses might even pack up at the thought of it.”

  “There has to be something we can do—”

  “Where do you think I’ve been the last two hours? I was at town hall, reading over the charter, every amendment and bylaw to try to find a solution. I’ve got nothing.” She shakes her head. “The council is going to have a meeting tonight at the Runside. I want you to come with me.”

  “Me? Why?”

  “Moral support.” She smiles sadly. “I’m going to need it. I’ve basically killed Seaview Rock, and everyone is going to know it’s my fault.”

  CHAPTER 5

  * * *

  It’s odd to see the Runside dark. Ordinarily it’s open seven days a week, rain or shine, even on holidays, but tonight as we pull into the parking lot shortly after closing the pet shop, the outdoor lights are off and there’s only a faint glow from inside.

  The Runside Bar & Grill is Seaview Rock’s oldest dining establishment, and arguably the best (at least in my opinion). The first version of it, more than a hundred and fifty years ago, was made from the gray planks of the original pier. It’s been completely rebuilt twice over the years, once after a particularly awful storm that almost literally blew the place down. These days, the owner Holly runs it with her eldest son Nick. They cook up fresh seafood daily that they pull themselves from the nearby ocean, and they brew a Whale of an Ale, my personal favorite beer of all time.

  Of course, none of that will matter if Sprawl-Mart is able to move into town.

  Holly unlocks the door and lets the four of us in—me, Sarah, Rowdy and Spark. Normally Holly is the pleasant, sable-haired woman sliding a pint glass my way across the bar, but tonight there’s nothing to be particularly pleased about. We enter wordlessly to find only a few lights on over the bar, and old Mr. Casey seated upon a stool.

  Together, the three of them—Sarah, Holly, and Mr. Casey, the owner of the auto body shop in town, Sockets & Sprockets—make up the Seaview Rock town council.

  Sarah and I sit on stools next to Mr. Casey while Holly takes up her place behind the bar, where she’s most comfortable. I let Rowdy off his leash but I keep Spark clipped; he’s not quite trained well enough yet to let him wander. Rowdy sets off around the empty restaurant, his sniffer going a mile a minute.

  “I have to admit,” I say to break the silence and, hopefully, the tension, “I feel like kind of the odd man out here.”

  Holly smiles and slides a glass over to me. “You’re always welcome here, Will, no matter what the circumstances.”

  “Thanks.”

  She turns to Sarah and asks, “What did you find out at town hall?”

  Sarah sighs. “Nothing useful. There doesn’t seem to be anything that can stop Morse from selling to Sprawl-Mart.”

  “Well,” Mr. Casey grunts, “it’ll be a cold day in you-know-where before we let them build here.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Sarah replies glumly. “Even the threat of them being here is a death stroke to everything Seaview Rock stands for. The only other businesses that’ll want to move here will be other chains and corporations. Then we’ll just be the next Bridgeton.”

  “I don’t suppose we can try to talk Morse out of it,” Holly suggests.

  “Not likely,” Mr. Casey says. “From what I hear, Morse could practically retire off this sale. Besides, I’ve been trying to reach him all day. He won’t take my calls.”

  “Wait,” I chime in. “Morse hasn’t actually sold yet?”

  “Not yet,” Sarah tells me. “He’s supposed to sign the paperwork tomorrow.”

  “Then how do you know about it?” I ask.

  Mr. Casey scoffs. “Morse told the mayor. Those two go way back, went to school together.”

  “Sorry, still confused,” I admit. “Why would he tell the mayor if he suspected that the mayor might tell you?”

  “If I had to guess,” Sarah offers, “it’s because the mayor has a veto power against the council. He can’t vote directly, but if he determines that a decision we make goes against the general consensus of the people, he can open it to a general vote.”

  “And Sprawl-Mart ain’t exactly known as saints,” Holly adds. “A big bribe to him is a drop in the bucket to them.”

  “But the residents here would never go for that,” I counter. “They would never vote to approve Sprawl-Mart… would they?”<
br />
  Mr. Casey shrugs. “Maybe not, but we can’t let it get that far if there’s something we can do to block it now.”

  Sarah holds her head in both hands. “By this time tomorrow the whole town is going to know, and they’re all going to blame me.”

  “Hey, it is not your fault,” Holly scolds her.

  “I wrote the proposal—”

  “And we all read and agreed to it,” Mr. Casey cuts her off. “This isn’t just on you.”

  She nods meekly, but I can tell they haven’t convinced her. I rub her shoulder reassuringly, while at the same time someone knocks on the door to the Runside. Spark starts barking immediately and tugging on his leash.

  “Who would that be?” Holly wonders aloud as she goes to answer it.

  “Hush, Spark.” I watch as Holly opens the door to Mayor Sturgess, a smarmy fifty-something that wears a well-tailored suit and a wide, unctuous smile.

  “I hope I’m not interrupting,” he says genially, stepping past Holly without waiting to be invited in. “I just thought I would come by and offer my two cents.”

  Mr. Casey eases off his stool with some difficulty. “Two cents, huh? I think you stand to gain a lot more, Sturgess.”

  The mayor spreads his hands in a peaceful gesture. “Mr. Casey, I assure you, I think this development is just as tragic as you do—”

  From somewhere in the Runside, I hear Rowdy bark. I look around for him, but he’s nowhere to be seen.

  “Sure, Mr. Mayor,” Mr. Casey scoffs. “The fact that you’re able to stand right now means that your pockets aren’t weighed down yet…”

  Spark, hearing Rowdy’s bark, tugs on his leash and lets out a yip.

  “Gentlemen,” Holly cuts in. “Let’s all stay civil here. The only way we’re going to figure this out is by keeping our wits and putting our heads together.”

  Rowdy barks again from somewhere, but I don’t know where. Sarah turns to me sharply and says, “Will, can you please quiet him down?”