Close Encounters of the Curd Kind: A Doyle Cozy Mystery

Book 3: A Wits' End Cozy Mystery

by Kirsten Weiss

Genres: Cozy Mystery; Culinary Cozy Mysteries; UFO; humor; Cozy Mystery; B B

Synopsis

The truth is out there...

Way out there.

Susan Witsend, owner of the best little UFO-themed B&B in the Sierras, is absolutely, positively, not going to get involved in another murder case. Not with her small-town sheriff threatening jail time if she interferes in one more investigation.

So when her neighbor is murdered, Susan exerts all her willpower to stay out of the sheriff's business. But her neighbor's daughter, Clare, needs Susan's help. Clare's been experiencing lost time, a sure sign of alien abduction. Helping Clare is only neighborly... and totally not interfering.

Right?

Worse, Clare's not the only one with UFO issues. Weird lights in the sky, vanishing cows, and little green men are bringing the mountain town of Doyle to the edge of a panic. Can Susan unearth the truth before her town spirals into chaos?

If you like laugh-out-loud mysteries with complicated heroines (and breakfast recipes), you'll love Close Encounters of the Curd Kind, book 3 in the Wits' End series of cozy mystery novels. Read this twisty cozy caper today!

Release date: September 5, 2019

Publisher: misterio press

Print pages: 196

Sample

CHAPTER ONE

 

Most days, it’s easy being an optimist. The sun shines. I have people who love me.

Life is good.

But other days, something else is waiting, a shadow just behind my left shoulder. If I let it, it grabs, bites, digs in.

Not even Arsen knew about the shadow. I haven’t let it catch me for a long time – not since my grandmother died. But I felt its presence as I stared from the porch steps, my muscles tensed.

“Something crashed.” My cousin Dixie craned her neck. Her gaze traveled past the turrets and gables of my B&B, Wits’ End, past the decorative UFO in the tile roof, past mountain peaks, blackberry in the twilight.

A streak of cloud like an airplane contrail bulleted toward the earth. A poof of white, an explosion of some sort, lingered at the base of the contrail. The exclamation point glowed bright and faraway against the darkening western sky.

And it made my heart race and skin itch.

I glanced at Dixie, in her camo shorts and black tank top, the tips of her dark hair tinted green. Helpless love and worry for my reckless young cousin swelled in my chest and throat. When it came to Dixie, to Arsen, to the strange glowing light in the sky, I was not in control. But I was damn well going to control the pieces of my life I could.

I jammed my hands into the pockets of my capris and clenched my fists. It had to be something natural.

I hoped.

Beside my sneakers, Bailey gently whoofed.

I bent to scratch the beagle.

“Something came down,” Dixie said, “and it exploded.”

Bailey’s whoof turned to a growl.

Two male guests in shorts and baseball caps with the TRUE MEDIUM logo staggered onto the porch. The crewmen, Bob and Mahir, carried a long, black case.

“Shush, Bailey,” I scolded. “You know they’re guests.” He never growled at guests. What was wrong with him? He knew who paid for his dog biscuits.

The beagle’s growl turned menacing.

“I believe your dog is growling at me,” said a masculine voice from somewhere near my left hip.

I jumped, startled.

A tiny stranger grinned up at me. He swept off his top hat in a low bow and handed Dixie a flyer. A t-shirt reading CIRCUS OF IMPOSS— peeked beneath the v of his blue-satin blouse. Beneath his top hat, his black hair was slicked-back like a cartoon villain’s.

Bailey’s lips peeled back.

“Sorry.” Scanning the driveway for more surprises, I knelt and grasped Bailey’s collar. “I don’t know what’s gotten into him.”

Dixie examined the flyer and wrinkled her pert nose. “The Circus of Impossible Things?”

“We thought of calling it Improbable Things.” He eyed my dog. “But by definition, a circus is over the top.” He replaced his hat and winked. “Or under it, the big top, you see?”

I forced a smile.

“Locals’ discount,” the little man continued. “Ten percent off on opening night.”

“Thanks,” I said.

He handed one of the cameramen, Mahir, a flyer and strode from the yard. His top hat bobbed behind the roses, headed toward my neighbor, the colonel’s house.

When he was out of earshot, Dixie snorted. “A circus? How lame.” She eyed me. “So, I guess you’ll be going?”

I snatched the flyer from her hand. “I’ll post this in case any of our guests are interested.” And yes, I’d probably be going. Doyle was a small town. You had to grab what entertainment came your way.

I glanced from the sky to the purple flyer. When was the last time a circus had come to Doyle? “This is turning into a very weird day.”

“This is Doyle.” Dixie folded her arms over her black tank top. “Every day’s a weird day.”

“Susan, this place is marvelous!” A slim, middle-aged woman in jeans and a TRUE MEDIUM t-shirt emerged from the B&B and waved at me. She joined us on the lawn. “I can feel your grandmother everywhere.”

I felt my grandmother around the B&B she’d left to me too. She was in every rose bush. Every grainy UFO photo.

Danella Jones, the true medium of the eponymous TV show, continued. “Is it okay for our van to be here for loading? We won’t be much longer.” Lines fanned outward from her lips, marking a lifetime of cigarettes. Their odor hung in her thick, gray-streaked brown hair.

Dying to ask her more about my Gran and determined not to, I swallowed and rolled the flyer into a tube. “It’s fine.”

A van door slammed.

The medium turned and stared upward, tracking Dixie’s gaze. “Oh.” Her hands clenched and unclenched. “That is strange. And disturbing. Are clouds like that… normal for the mountains?”

The men strode past us and into the B&B.

“No.” I tried to inject some optimism into my voice. “We get a lot of lenticular, UFO-shaped clouds, but I have no idea what that is.”

Dixie snapped a picture with her phone.

The medium shivered and rubbed her lips. “A bad omen. But since the whole town can see it, it’s probably not a bad omen for you, specifically.” She smiled brightly.

“So… good news?” I said.

Her brows puckered. “I just hope…”

We stared at the cloud. The wind had blown the top of the contrail into an elongated question mark.

“I need to check my cards.” Danella hurried into the B&B. The twin screen doors slammed behind her.

“Check her cards?” Dixie asked.

“Maybe Tarot?”

“So much for the Age of Enlightenment.” She rolled her eyes. “Why did that medium have to come here? We’re a UFO B&B. We’re about science. Not the supernatural.”

That was debatable, but I’d learned long ago not to tussle with Dixie on UFO-related matters. She was a true believer, her trailer fitted with radio equipment to catch alien communications. I was an agnostic on the UFO front, which probably wasn’t the best position for the owner of a UFO-themed B&B.

It was complicated.

Small-town Doyle was complicated.

The last glimmer of sunlight flared across the Sierras, glimmered off the UFO in the mansard roof.

“Space junk, falling to earth?” Yeah, that made sense.

“Space junk’s one way to describe it.” Dixie lowered her head. “The other way is an acronym that starts with U and ends with O. The middle letter is F in case you don’t—”

“I get it, I get it.”

A shiver of alpine air rustled the pine boughs. The trees swayed and soughed, and a flutter of fallen rose petals drifted past my feet on the lawn.

Bailey whined. His tail wagged once, tentative.

I bent and picked up a soft petal, rubbing it between my fingers to release the rose’s odor. Its sweet scent bloomed in the air.

Gran had always been able to chase my odd anxiety away. Now me and my self-help books were on our own. My happy-go-lucky best friend, Arsen, had recently become my boyfriend. I wanted to meet him halfway and loosen up. But only halfway. I still had a business to manage.

So did Arsen. But Arsen’s idea of managing was to float through life and let things come crashing down where they may.

Like whatever had caused that weird cloud.

The B&B’s front door slammed. Danella trotted down the porch steps behind the two men. Her smile was uneven. “Are you sure you don’t want to watch the taping? The camera would love you. Good figure. Blond hair. All-American good looks.”

My face warmed. “Thanks, but no.”

“Your loss.” She shrugged and sauntered to the van.

The three got inside. Buckled up. Backed out.

And drove into the driveway of the A-frame cabin next door.

My brows lifted in surprise. The colonel’s house? I couldn’t imagine Colonel Fitzgerald and his gossipy wife, Marion, having anything to do with an online psychic. The colonel was a hard-edged man, rigid and controlling, and kept to himself.

His wife had even petitioned the town to make me remove the UFO from the Wits’ End roof. But Gran had parked that UFO in the Wits’ End roof since before the Fitzgeralds had moved in next door. It had squatter’s rights.

And Marion had failed in her quest. Doyle was experiencing a UFO-related tourism boom.

“Clare,” Dixie said, her voice thick with disdain.

I shot her a startled look. “What?”

“She’s moved back into her father’s house.” Dixie nodded toward the colonel’s shingled A-frame. “Didn’t you know?”

Clare’s arrival had been hard to miss. She’d been there six weeks. “All right. I’ll bite. Has it got something to do with True Medium?”

“Duh. You don’t think the colonel called them in? Clare thinks she’s being haunted or something, because – get this – she’s been waking up in strange places.”

“Weird.”

“You’re telling me.”

“You’d think these shows would need more than six weeks to set up a visit,” I said.

She tossed her emerald-streaked hair. “That’s what you think is weird? We live in the UFO abduction capital of the world, and Clare thinks she’s being kidnapped by ghosts. Ghosts!”

I shrugged. “UFOs aren’t the only explanation for disappearances. Some people think it’s fairies doing the kidnapping.” Some people will believe anything.

Dixie threw her hands in the air. “I need to check my radios.” She swiveled on her hiking boots and strode through the white-painted front gate.

Dixie and her radios. Some things, at least, would never change. Grinning, I watched her vanish down the street. But there were odd similarities between the old stories of fairy encounters and today’s UFO abductions. Bright lights. Lost time.

Probing.

Yech.

“I won’t have it!” Colonel Fitzgerald, a tall, straight-backed man with cropped gray hair, stormed from the house.

“Dad! Wait!” His daughter streaked through the door after him and onto the porch. She touched his arm. Although Clare was pushing forty, she still had a gamine, fey vibe. “Please.”

Jaw tight, he turned to her with military precision. His nostrils flared. The colonel was a “my house, my rules,” sort of guy. I didn’t think she had a chance.

Clare stepped smartly backward and straightened. She’d moved to Doyle years after the colonel and his wife, and I didn’t know her well. If she’d sprung True Medium on him as a surprise, I couldn’t blame him for being annoyed. She said something in a voice too low for me to eavesdrop on.

Colonel Fitzgerald’s posture softened.

She hugged him, and the two returned inside the cabin.

I blew out my breath. So, Clare had won this round. Maybe the grumpy colonel was mellowing? He’d actually smiled at me last week.

Venus emerged, glittering low above the mountains. The contrail was dissipating, widening, but still it glowed, baleful.

I shivered in spite of the summer warmth.

Bad omen, indeed.

 

 

CHAPTER TWO

 

The next morning, I bustled about the octagonal breakfast room and stacked dishes in my arms. The blue-flowered curtains breathed at the open windows.

Arsen stuffed the last bites of cinnamon roll casserole into his mouth. He kept his head low over the plate as if I might snatch it away before he’d finished. His golf shirt showed off the sinewy muscles in his arms. A breeze through the window rustled his whiskey-colored hair.

I was noticing those details more frequently, and not just because Arsen was good looking. I was also trying to pay more attention to the present moment instead of thinking about the future or the past. It was an anti-anxiety technique, and it worked.

His foot thunked against something, and he bent, picked up a plastic bottle of window cleaner. “Uh, is this supposed to be here?”

Heat flushed my face. “No.” Dixie! Leaving a cleaning bottle under the table was unprofessional. But in fairness, neither my cousin nor I were cleaning professionals.

Hazel eyes twinkling, he shoved his chair away from the oval table. “Getting more relaxed with the cleaning?”

“Definitely not.” I grabbed the bottle from his hand and glanced into the foyer for my wayward cousin. But the high-ceilinged room was empty. Morning sunlight cascaded through the stained-glass window above the transom. It tinted the wooden reception desk in faded reds and blues.

Arsen stretched, his shirt pulling against his washboard abs. He rubbed his hand across the logo for his security company, embroidered in one corner of the blue fabric. He grinned. “Sterling breakfast, as usual, Susan.”

I smiled at the compliment. He said the same thing every morning, but I loved it that he did. “Thank you.”

“So… Are your parents coming up anytime?”

My stomach tightened. “Um, no.” Had I told him they might come? It didn’t seem possible. My parents and I hadn’t talked in… a long time.

I hurried from the room and through the swinging door into the kitchen. The white subway tiles above the sink gleamed.  

Bailey looked up from his dog bed and eyed the plates for possible scraps.

“Dog food only.” I set the plates on the butcher block counter. “You’re on a diet, remember?”

The beagle laid his head on his paws and shot me a sulky look.

I turned to study the pot of lemon curd on the modern stove. You’d think something called lemon curd would involve curdling. But it’s supposed to be smooth. Big gloppy lumps marred the surface of my pot.

The kitchen door swung open behind me. “What’s wrong?” Arsen strode inside.

“I can’t get this lemon curd not to curdle.” I moved the pot to the counter. “My scones bake up fine, in spite of the altitude. What do lemons have against me?”

“I meant your parents.”

“Oh.” I scrutinized the lumpy yellow mess. “They’re busy.”

He lightly batted at a wayward spider plant dangling from a wooden shelf. “They seem to always be busy.”

“Yep. Busy, busy, busy.” I stared hard at the lemon curd. My gran had never had to strain curds, and this was her recipe.

He slipped an arm around my waist. “They brought you here every summer to stay with your grandmother. I don’t remember them ever hanging around.”

He smelled clean, like soap. But I was not going to get distracted. This was important, and I loved him, and he needed to drop the subject.

“They never really liked it up here.” I motioned toward the curtained window over the sink, and the mountain beyond. “Too much nature,” I lied.

“Maybe we should go see them,” he said. “San Francisco isn’t that far away.”

I turned and stared up at him in horror. He looked like Arsen Holiday. High cheekbones. Muscular arms. Tanned skin. So why the devil had he suggested something so… monstrous?

“They must miss you,” he continued blithely.

“No,” I said. “No, they don’t.” A chill touched my upper back, as if a shadow had fallen across it, and my stomach tightened.

“That can’t be true.” His handsome brow furrowed. “They’re your parents. They love you.”

“Yes, of course, but–”

“It’s starting to get weird,” he said. “We’ve been seeing each other for months—”

There was a shout from next door.

“What was that?” Eager for the interruption – any interruption – I walked to the kitchen sink and peered through the window.

Arsen came to stand beside me. “Trouble?”

Colonel Fitzgerald glowered from the top of his porch steps. Two steps beneath him stood a round, ruddy-faced man. It was my neighbor on the other side of the colonel’s house, Rufus Berghoff. The lawyer’s neck muscles strained against the collar of his button-up shirt. The men shouted, their words impossible to decipher from my spot at the window.

“Not again,” Arsen said. “I had to separate them outside Ground the other day.”

“They were fighting?” I asked, startled. “Fist fighting?” The colonel always seemed so controlled and correct. I knew the two neighbors didn’t like each other, though the why’s and wherefores were unclear. But actual fighting?

“Only yelling. I thought one of them was going to have a heart attack.”

I frowned, worried. They both did look pretty red in the face.

Arsen made a move toward the kitchen door. “I’d better–”

The A-frame’s front door swung open. A man in his late thirties and wearing a sheriff deputy’s uniform strode onto the porch – Rufus’s son, Emmery.

Emmery walked down the front steps. He stopped between the two men, his hands outstretched, pacifying.

The colonel shook his head and stormed into the cabin, slamming the door behind him.

“It looks like I won’t have to,” Arsen said, easing backward.

Emmery said something to his father.

Rufus made a rude gesture toward the A-frame. He stormed down the driveway and into the court.

“I guess that’s that then.” I turned from the window and leaned against the counter.

“Yup. All’s well that ends well,” Arsen said. “And it’s time I meet your parents.”

I sputtered. “That’s not–”

My cell phone rang on the butcher block counter. I lunged, answering without checking to see if it was a telemarketer. I was that rattled. “Wits’ End, this is Susan Witsend speaking.”

“Hi, this is Cameraman Bob.”

My shoulders relaxed. Not a telemarketer. “Hi, Bob. What can I do for you?” Please let there be something I can do.

“Hey, I left a lens in my room that I need, and I’ve got my hands full here. Is there any chance you can bring it next door?”

“We are a full-service B&B, so I’d be happy to. What’s it look like?”

“It’s in a black case about the size of a lunch box. I think I put it on the floor by the bed, beside the window. It’s sort of hidden. That’s probably why I forgot it.”

“No problem. I’ll grab it and be right over.”

We said our goodbyes and hung up.

“Duty calls,” I said to Arsen.

His eyes narrowed. “Gee, Susan. It’s almost like you’re avoiding this conversation.”

“What conversation? Hey, you wouldn’t mind cleaning up in here while I–”

“Whoops.” He checked his dive watch. “Client meeting. Gotta go.” He strode manfully from the kitchen.

“I didn’t think so,” I muttered, but I smiled.

I hurried into the reception area. Kicking flat the edge of the faux-Persian rug, I grabbed my master key from inside the battered reception desk. I jogged up the stairs and down the green-carpeted hallway lined with UFO photos to room number five.

I found the lens case right where Cameraman Bob had said it would be and walked next door to the Colonel’s house.

My footsteps sounded hollowly on the wooden steps. I knocked on the front door.

It sprang open beneath my fist. The other crew member, Mahir, peered out and pressed a finger to his lips. He grasped my elbow and tugged me inside the cabin before I could react.

Bob aimed a camera at Danella and Clare, seated on the couch. The taping had already started.

I pointed at the case, but Mahir had already abandoned me for his camera, mounted on a tripod. He peered through the viewfinder at the two women.

The medium’s eyes were closed, a serene look on her face. One graying braid dangled over her shoulder and down the front of her red peasant top, tangling in her beads.

The medium grasped Clare’s hand. “There are energies around you.”

“A presence?” Clare rubbed one palm on the thigh of her jeans. “Then I was right? I knew I really felt something.” Her reddish hair was tied in a loose bun, coppery wisps coiling around her slender neck.

Emmery, the top button of his sheriff’s uniform undone, raked a hand through his curling, brown hair. His eyes were a startling blue against his olive skin.

Feeling out of place, I hugged the wall and tiptoed to stand beside the colonel.

He stood out of the camera’s line of sight, against a wall. Knuckles white on his silvery travel mug, he nodded to me, his expression grim.

Danella shook her head. “No, these energies are the remnants of something else, a portal.”

Frowning, the colonel sipped something green from the tumbler. It smelled faintly of mint.

“A portal?” Clare squeaked.

Danella opened her eyes and frowned. “Oh. This is complicated.”

“Complicated?” Clare laughed shakily. “That doesn’t sound good.”

“I believe what we’re dealing with are interdimensionals.”

There was a soft snort to my left. Marion, Clare’s stepmother, stood in the kitchen doorway. Her green eyes blazed against her tanned skin. Or maybe she was just spitting mad.

“Interdimensionals?” Clare parroted.

“Interdimensional aliens,” Danella said.

My brows shot skyward. I hadn’t expected that twist, and I’m considered something of a local alien expert.

Marion tossed her short, frosted hair.

“For God’s sake,” the old colonel burst out. “I’ve had enough of this nonsense. I told you this would come back to aliens.”

One of the cameras swiveled toward him.

Danella smiled serenely. “Interdimensional aliens.”

“It’s garbage,” he said. “I won’t have it in this house.”

“I’m afraid what you will or won’t have has no effect on the aliens,” Danella said. “They come and go as they please.”

“Get out,” the colonel said. “All of you. This is still my house, and I won’t have this insanity.”

His wife straightened off the doorway.

Emmery cleared his throat. “I think those papers you signed means they get to finish, sir.”

The colonel’s face reddened. “There was nothing in those papers about this having to take place inside my home. I’m done. I’m–” He made an odd, strangled sound and clutched his chest. His face contorted.

“Colonel?” I grasped his arm, my heart in my throat. “Are you all right?”

His eyes rolled up in his head. The colonel collapsed to the wood floor.

 

 

 

CHAPTER THREE

 

Emmery brushed past me. The sheriff’s deputy dropped to his knees and performed CPR on the colonel. “Clare,” he said, “call an ambulance.”

“Daddy?” Clare reached out a trembling hand to her father.

The medium sat pale and frozen beside her. The two crewmen lowered their cameras and looked worriedly at each other.

“Ted?” Marion pushed past the cameramen. One hand on the wood-plank wall, she slid to her knees and grasped his hand. “Ted?”

“Clare,” the deputy snapped. “Call an ambulance.”

She shook herself and fumbled in her purse.

“I’ve got it.” Silently cursing my own stunned inaction, I pulled my phone from the pocket of my capris. I called nine-one-one.

The dispatcher promised help would be there in ten minutes.

“Ten minutes,” I told the room, my voice a quaver.

Clare fell to her knees beside Emmery and took her father’s hand. “It’s okay,” she whispered. “It’s going to be okay.”

Emmery’s mouth flattened, but he said nothing.

Horrified, I edged backward, out of the way. The colonel didn’t look like he was going to be okay. His face was slack and gray.

My heart gripped. My Gran had died from a heart attack. “I’ll wait on the street for the ambulance.”

No one responded.

I jogged out the front door, down the steps, and to the court. Had it been a heart attack brought on by stress? I glanced at the mid-century modern home on the other side of the colonel’s, where Rufus Berghoff lived.

A siren wailed in the distance.

One of the stoners who lived in the house across the street ambled from their driveway. He saluted, shirtless.

I waved back half-heartedly.

Poor Clare. But what my dark, selfish heart really felt was poor me. My throat closed. If the colonel died, it would be the end of an era.

The colonel and Gran had been friends. I remembered the summer I’d come to Doyle after he’d first moved in. I remembered the shock of seeing his cabin on the lot where Arsen and I had once built a tree house. I remembered him shouting at Arsen and me to get off my Gran’s roof. I remembered he and Gran arguing good naturedly about aliens over the fence separating their properties. They’d always gotten along. Grumpy or not, he’d been a good neighbor.

A few minutes later, an ambulance followed a sheriff’s SUV into the colonel’s drive.

Sheriff McCourt stepped from the car, and I blinked. She was our small town’s big cheese. What was she doing at the scene of a heart attack?

She jammed her wide-brimmed hat over her spill of blond curls and scowled. “Witsend.”

Two EMTs bustled past. “Where is he?” one asked me.

“Inside. Front room.” I nodded at the porch steps.

They climbed the steps and jogged through the open front door.

“What happened?” Sheriff McCourt asked me.

“It looked like a heart attack. He was upset–”

Her cornflower blue eyes narrowed. “You upset him?”

“No,” I said calmly. The sheriff knew me. We were friends. Compadres. I was practically her secret weapon in crime solving. “Why would I upset him?”

She gave me a look.

“We had very good… pretty good relations. It was the internet show.” I motioned to the True Medium van in the driveway. “They’re filming Clare. The colonel was uncomfortable with it.”

“You said upset.”

“I don’t know. Exasperated. Well, kind of angry.” Should I mention the argument with Rufus?

No, it couldn’t matter.

“And what’s your role in this lunacy?”

I rolled my eyes. Her overwrought suspicion was only a little game she played. She pretended we were adversaries, but I knew the truth. Some people just had a hard time getting close.

“Nothing,” I said. “I mean, the medium and crew are staying at my B&B.”

She groaned.

“They needed a lens they’d left behind.” My voice rose slightly, and I cleared my throat. I glanced toward the cabin. They couldn’t have restarted filming in there, could they? “So, they called me, and I brought it over.”

“How helpful of you.”

“I try to accommodate our guests whenever—”

“Go back to your B&B. We won’t talk later.” She strode inside the A-frame.

Huh. Sometimes it seemed like the sheriff really didn’t like me.

I made a face. But in this instance, she was right about me being in the way. There was nothing I could do here to help.

I returned to Wits’ End and checked my planner. I had absolutely nothing to do that would take me from the kitchen. So, I finished my cleaning there, glancing out the side window at the colonel’s house. No one emerged from his shingled cabin.

Sitting at the kitchen table, I opened my planner and made notes on what I’d witnessed. This probably wasn’t a murder investigation.

But you never could tell.

The bell on the front desk dinged.

Hurrying into the reception area, I helped a middle-aged couple check out. We plotted their road trip to Vegas, and the couple, loaded down with suitcases, bumped out the door.

I followed them onto the screened front porch.

Outside the colonel’s house, the EMTs wheeled a sadly lumpy body bag to their ambulance.

My chest squeezed. Dammit. No. The colonel hadn’t made it.

Dixie walked up the steps, her gaze following mine. “Who died?”

“The colonel.”

“What?” Dixie paled and took a step backward, her head bumping a hanging fern. She ducked and glowered at the plant. “How?”

“I think he had a heart attack.”

“You think?”

“He was shouting at the medium, then he grabbed his chest and keeled over.” I swallowed. Could I have done more? But Emmery was a cop and knew CPR, and I’d called for help. It just hadn’t been enough.

At my feet, Bailey swiveled his head between us.

“So it looked like a heart attack,” Dixie said.

Exasperated, I folded my arms. “Yes, that’s what I said.”

“They would want it to look that way,” she said in a low voice.

My eyes narrowed. “They?” Alien conspiracy theories were good for business, and Dixie was chock full of them. But this wasn’t the time.

“The colonel worked at Area 51.”

Oh boy. I’d heard that rumor, too, but had never had the nerve to ask him if it was true.

Also, not the time! “And speaking of work, the guests in room two just checked out. Why don’t you start cleaning there? I’ve got to do some shopping for tomorrow’s breakfast.”

She shrugged, the muscles on her bare arms and shoulders moving smoothly. “Whatever. Bury your head in the sand. It’s what this town does best.” She stomped up the carpeted stairs.

Bailey woofed and trotted after her.

Doyle’s “downtown” wasn’t far. But it didn’t exactly feel nearby when I had to lug groceries for twelve. So, I hopped into my blue Crosstrek and drove into the town center, parking in a lot behind the bookstore.

A piercing whistle sliced the air as I turned the corner onto Main Street. Three whirling acrobats, women in bold reds and blues tumbled down the middle of the road. Twirling ribbons on the ends of long sticks, they pretzeled into liquid patterns. One leapt weightlessly into the air.  

Tourists pointed and applauded, laughing from raised, wood sidewalks. The little man from yesterday handed out flyers.

But not all the watching faces looked delighted. The local’s smiles were less certain, absent of mirth.

I studied the acrobats and shivered. Maybe it was because I’d been touched by the colonel’s death, but there was something uncanny about the three women. The way they contorted their limbs seemed inhuman, unnatural, wrong.

The little man stopped before me and started to hand me a flyer.

Automatically, I reached to take it.

He waggled his finger at me. “You already have one. Waste not, want not!” He winked and strode away.

Nonplussed, I continued to the grocery store at the far end of Main Street and did my shopping. I returned to my car and loaded the bags. I straightened from the open door. A bird chirped in a nearby elm. Sunlight glinted off fenders. The lot was deserted.

I wanted company of the non-UFO-B&B variety. Pulling my planner from my bag, I nodded. There was time for a detour. I jammed the leather-bound binder into my bag. It had gotten thicker since I’d started assisting the sheriff with investigations. My throat tightened. I hoped the colonel’s death wouldn’t become another series of entries in my planner.

Rounding the corner to the bookstore, I strolled inside.

Its owner, Lenore, looked up from the counter. Tall, willowy, and blond, she looked like she’d stepped out of a Scandinavian fashion catalog. She smiled. “Hi, Susan. How are things at Wits’ End?”

I winced, my footsteps slowing, growing heavy. “Not good.” I wended my way through the aisles to the high counter. “Colonel Fitzgerald passed away today.”

Her blue-gray eyes widened. “What? But I only talked to him yesterday. What happened?”

“It looked like a heart attack, but I’m not sure.”

“Looked like?” she asked sharply, echoing my cousin. Her expression smoothed. “Of course you can’t be sure what it was. But you saw it? You were there?”

“They were filming that online show, True Medium, at his house. The crew is staying at Wits’ End.” Blinking away unexpected tears, I explained about the colonel’s collapse. The colonel and I hadn’t been close. Why was I so upset?

The bell over the front door jingled, and we turned.

Old Mrs. Steinberg strode into the bookstore, her cane thumping the thin, gray carpet. Her blue-tinted hair was swathed in a black scarf. “I heard Fitzgerald died and you were there, Susan. What happened?” She came to a stop beside me, her black dress swaying around the ankles of her heavy boots. She lowered her Jackie-Kennedy style glasses and glared.

I wasn’t super surprised Mrs. Steinberg knew I’d been there. The old lady, who worked in town records, was even more gossipy than Mrs. Fitzgerald. But Mrs. Steinberg’s talent lay in collecting, rather than spreading, gossip. It was the reason no one could force her to retire. She knew where the bodies were buried.

I explained for the third time what I’d seen. Lenore and Mrs. Steinberg exchanged enigmatic glances.

“Best you stay out of this, Susan,” the old lady said.

“Stay out of what?” I asked.

“Nothing,” Lenore said quickly. “Because Susan’s right. There’s nothing to stay out of.”

I bit my lip. “Well, I am worried about Clare. She’s been under a lot of strain. And now with her father’s death–”

“Clare can manage without you,” Mrs. Steinberg said. “She’s got that boyfriend of hers to take care of her.”

“I suppose,” I said doubtfully, “but–”

“There are dark forces at work here,” Mrs. Steinberg said. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll stay out of it.”

Dark forces? In spite of everything, I bit back a laugh. Dixie wasn’t the only one obsessed with alien conspiracies. In Doyle, it was part of the culture. “I’m pretty sure it was a heart attack.”

“I’m sure that’s all it was,” Lenore said.

“Why?” I asked Mrs. Steinberg. “Did you hear something different?”

“The colonel was a man of many parts.” She dug through her big black purse. “Stay out of it.”

“Was there a particular book you were looking for?” Lenore asked me.

“What? Oh. Do you have anything by Danella Jones?”

“No, sorry,” she said quickly.

Wow. She knew her inventory by heart?

Lenore blushed. “It’s just that I know we don’t have her, because the colonel asked me about the book as well.”

“Thanks anyway.” I ambled from the bookstore. The door swung shut behind me, and I looked over my shoulder.

Lenore leaned over the counter toward Mrs. Steinberg. They spoke, their expressions intent. They both looked toward me, then quickly away.

My insides knotted. Ha. If I were a suspicious person, and I totally was, I’d think they’d been talking about me. But that was just my own paranoia. I mean, why talk about me? Mrs. Steinberg’s hints about the colonel were only more of her usual cryptic weirdness. She didn’t actually know anything.

Or did she?

I wandered into the coffeeshop, Ground. Hangings fluttered against its bare brick walls, the air stirred by overhead fans. The whir of the espresso machine made my shoulders loosen. The scent of coffee always made me want to sit and linger.

But since I was on a schedule, I ordered my double espresso to-go and went to stand at the pickup line.

In spite of the full tables, the café’s volume was low. But Ground being open on Saturdays was still a new thing for Doyle. Maybe this was a different and less boisterous crowd.

I surveyed the customers. Brows furrowed, people hunched over laptop computers. Clusters of locals leaned over square tables. People spoke in hushed tones. What was going on? Could they have possibly heard about the colonel’s death already?

“Here you go. A double espresso and my magic coffee scrub.” The owner, Jayce, handed me a paper cup and a glass jar filled with dark grounds. The scrub worked wonders on my hands after gardening, getting off all the grime. She wiped her hands on her green apron and looked past me. “It’s quiet today. I’d say too quiet, but not even I’m that cliché.” She laughed.

Customers turned to stare.

The café owner took a step backward, and her laughter subsided. “Seriously, is something up?”

“I don’t know,” I said slowly. “Though my neighbor, Colonel Fitzgerald, passed away today.” I crossed my arms and looked briefly away. “A heart attack.”

Her eyes, the color of fresh clover, blinked. “Oh, no. That’s terrible. How’s Clare?”

“I’m not sure. But she was there when it happened. I left her with Emmery.” Should I have stayed? I’d felt in the way, but maybe that had been my own, selfish discomfort.

“I’ll pay a condolence call later,” Jayce said. “Thanks for letting me know.”

“Hey, Susan,” Tom Tarrant called to me from a table. The reporter had the all-American good looks Danella had accused me of yesterday. Once, I’d fallen for his wholesome country boy shtick. Tom had taken full advantage.

Never again.

“You got any comments on One-armed Frank’s cows?” he continued.

My neck stiffened. “Excuse me?”

The coffeeshop fell silent. The kind of silence that has weight to it. Pregnant. Thick. And really, really uncomfortable.

My skin prickled. I looked around.

Yes, everyone really was staring at me.

“His cows have gone missing,” Tom said.

“Why would I know anything about missing cows?” I asked.

He grinned. “You know. Alien abductions?”

“Of cows?” Cattle mutilations were a part of UFO lore but not cattle rustling. As a Doyle reporter, he should know that by now. “I don’t think so.” I flounced from the café and strode down the shaded sidewalk. Baskets of ferns and impatiens hung from the eaves. Dog bowls filled with water sat outside the shops, and I smiled, thinking of Bailey. If I hadn’t been grocery shopping today, I would have brought the beagle.

The phone pinged in my capri’s pocket, and I dug it free. I had a new text from Dixie, with a link to what looked like an online video.

Dropping onto a wrought-iron bench, I clicked the link and angled my phone, widening the video screen. In the video, Danella sat on the bed in her room in my B&B.

The medium leaned toward the camera, one long braid swinging forward. “Today,” she said solemnly, “something terrible happened. While we were taping in a home where a woman was being haunted by interdimensional aliens, her father suddenly died.” She pressed a hand to her throat. “Of course, we had to stop filming. But questions remain. Is this town, Doyle, California, a death vortex? Is this the influence of interdimensional aliens? In any case, further investigation is warranted.”

I sucked in my breath. Is Doyle a death vortex? What the heck was a death vortex? I mentally paged through my encyclopedic (ha) knowledge of vortexes. Healing vortex. Sedona vortex. Vortex of eternal despair... Nope, no idea what a death vortex was.

But it sure didn’t sound good.