Deceased and Desist

Book 3: Tallie Graver Mystery

by Misty Simon

Genres: Amateur Sleuth; Cozy Mystery; Female Sleuths

Synopsis

Window of opportunity . . . Most housecleaners don’t do windows, but Tallie Graver loves leaving a pane of glass streak-free and sparkling. After a dirty divorce from a filthy-rich jerk, she's started her own cleaning business to make ends meet. On her latest job, prepping a renovated bed and breakfast for a grand re-opening, she's standing outside on a ladder, wiping off a grimy pane, when she spies a man on a bed through the glass. But the B&B isn't open for business yet—and the man's not sleeping. Her family owns the Graver Funeral Home, so Tallie knows a corpse when she sees one. The victim is a shady building inspector with a reputation for handing out passing grades for a greased palm. With the local police resistant, Tallie launches her own investigation, before she gets a rep as a town crank. But it's going to take more than a squirt bottle and a squeegee to clean up this mess. With the help of her gal pal Gina, Tallie searches for a killer's motive. But she'd better be careful, or it'll be curtains for this window cleaner . . . “An amusing new series with an engaging, spirited sleuth.”— Library Journal

Release date: November 27, 2018

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 205

Sample

If I were being honest, and I usually was, at least with myself, I would say cleaning windows had always been one of my favorite things to do. Even when I was Mrs. Walden Phillips III and had someone come in to clean my big house, I would do the windows myself. There was something about using a squeegee to cut away the grime, the way you could see the difference between clean and dirty, and the sheer joy of a window that the sun bounced off of, that just made me happy.

During my marriage, there was little else that fell in that category, so sometimes I just had to take my happiness where I could find it.

Now that I was divorced and cleaning houses, cleaning windows still hadn’t gotten old. I could do without vacuuming sometimes, or finding hidden socks in couches, cleaning up after people who couldn’t even seem to get their glass three more inches into the actual sink, but window cleaning? I was your girl. Maybe I should have set myself up as Tallie Graver, Professional Window Cleaner, instead of Tallie Graver, Cleaning Woman. That decision was long gone now, though, and cleaning houses kept me in food and away from having to work full-time at my father’s funeral parlor.

I was thankful that he let me come back to the family business after my fall from the upper class of our small town. Still, I had no desire to devote my life to dead people, as my father and my brother had done. And so I cleaned and found my pockets of happiness where I could.

It was especially hard to find those pockets of happiness when my boyfriend was not in the area, like this week, when he’d taken a flight to Hawaii for work without me. He’d asked me to come with him, but I didn’t have the time. Being your own boss did come with some drawbacks, like having to work to make any money at all.

And so I was here, at the Crossing Bridge Inn, a beautiful, old stone inn on the outskirts of town, cleaning windows and smiling to myself.

The Central Pennsylvania day was gorgeous. A cool breeze came in from the north. November around these parts was never predictable, but this year was even weirder than normal. Last week there had been snow, yet this week it was seventy in the shade. Go figure. I’d take it, though. If it meant I could clean the windows outside the inn without a jacket and with the sun on my face, I was happy.

I did all the downstairs windows, and then went inside and up the sweeping staircase to the second story to do the back windows. A stained wood balcony ran the full length of the back and wrapped around the sides, making it very convenient to do the exteriors of the windows. Within an hour the old wavy glass was positively gleaming. Now on to the windows in the front. For those, I had to get a ladder.

Lugging my gear downstairs, I arrived in the kitchen to find Rhoda Monroe, the owner, cooking up a storm for the grand reopening this weekend. Pots bubbled on the old white stove, mixing bowls stood sentry on the tile counters, and pan after pan of baked goods took up the remaining countertops.

“Oh, Tallie! How are things? How’s life? How are my windows?”

I laughed because every sentence could have been punctuated with an exclamation point instead of a question mark. Rhoda had a lot going for her, and the biggest plus was her enthusiasm for all things. She and her husband, Arthur, had gone through a rough time recently when the inn suffered water damage and had to be shut down to fix and renovate. They’d closed for six months while people stepped up to help with new floors and refurbishing the basement. Wallpaper was replaced, and Rhoda had taken the opportunity to put in a new kitchen. This was their first weekend open in half a year and the place looked fabulous. I loved that they were getting back into the swing of things.

“Everything is good, and the windows are gleaming. Not a speck of grime.”

“Good, good! Can I mail you a check? My hands are covered with dough.” She held them up so I could see she wasn’t lying.

“Of course.” Unlike some of my customers, I trusted that when Rhoda said the check was in the mail, it actually was. She’d been friends with my family for a number of years. When we had family events that required people to fly in from out of town, we always set them up at this inn. We’d used the one in town, too. Believe me, I had so many relatives they could fill the inn, the local hotel, and a chain hotel or two.

“Oh, thanks! I sure do appreciate that. Arthur is taking a nap before things start hopping, so I thought I’d get a jump on the baking for this weekend.”

“It smells delicious.” Almost better than my best friend Gina Laudermilch’s baking, not that I would ever tell her that. And once Rhoda got into wedding season in a few months she often ordered from Gina to round out what she might not be able to produce herself. Gina had also catered functions here before the shutdown and had been contacted to start again. The sweeping lawn and old trees made the perfect backdrop for a wedding or really any special occasion.

This was my first time doing the windows here. I hoped I’d be here more often soon. For one, I now helped Gina as needed with her catering. For two, I really wanted the contract to clean the inn on a weekly basis. Until about two years ago catering was not something I did, neither was cleaning. I hired people for both. Now I was the hired help, and, surprisingly, I didn’t mind one bit.

“Do you have a full house coming for your first weekend?” I asked, just to take a few more minutes to enjoy the smell of baking breads and muffins. With my small studio apartment above the funeral home my father owned, I didn’t bake much, but I sure did love the smell of fresh-baked everything. I opened my windows whenever I could to get the scent from across the street at Gina’s.

“Oh, I sure do. This weekend is a big one. Every room is full. They’re all due to arrive Friday afternoon, so I’m trying to get my baking out of the way.”

“Of course.”

“And then there’ll be many other things to do. Just have to get all those cute ducks in a row.”

“You’ll do it. You’ve always been amazing at keeping things in order.”

She smiled and kneaded whatever was in the bowl on the butcher block. “You’re right there. Always was good at organizing and keeping things in line.”

I’d wasted enough time and still had things to finish up. I waved to her and headed out the back door. As I passed my car, I put my jacket into the backseat, since I wasn’t using it for the next part. I would be high up, which would make me sweat anyway, on a ladder and using a squeegee to clean grime off the front windows. A jacket would only make things worse. As a bonus, once I was done, I could head right back to the car and go without having to go back into the house.

Trekking to the huge garage, I waved to Paul, the gardener, and Annie, who led tours of the area for the inn. They were married and had lived in the carriage house on the back of the property for years. For as sleepy of a little town as we were, we were also pretty popular, especially because we were one of the major points where the Confederate troops had been turned around. Even our library was housed in a building that had been a hospital for the battles raging through the area over one hundred fifty years ago.

Using every muscle I had at my disposal, I pulled the big barn door toward me. The sucker was heavy. I had talked with Arthur about getting sliding doors, but he was all about authenticity. He even had times of the year that only candles burned in the rooms, no electricity. Not in November, of course, or people would have to wear heavy coats indoors instead of enjoying modern gas heat. But in the summer, when the sun didn’t set until almost nine, he burned candles and had people here dressed in period costume who led ghost tours. I’d done one with Max several months ago, before the water damage, and it had been a blast.

I missed that man of mine and hoped I’d see him again soon. I didn’t understand all the particulars of his business trip, and apparently he couldn’t tell me all the juicy details. So, I talked with him on the phone as often as possible and we video chatted when he was able and I was free. For right now it was enough.

I had told him he should think about moving up my way from DC without actually inviting him to live with me. After that, the conversation had been tabled. I was feeling the loss, though, with this separation of well over a month. It was taking more of a toll on me than I had realized. We could function without being in each other’s pockets every moment of the day, I knew that. But I missed him when he was so far away.

I waded through stacks of tables and chairs, bins stuffed with linens, and three mowers to get the ladder. The garage was actually a barn and stuffed to the rafters with all the things it took to run a successful inn. Rhoda and Arthur must have been extremely pleased to be able to put everything back to its proper use.

Hauling the ladder around the front of the house, I set it up at the first window. The ladder was metal and had a shelf three-quarters of the way up where I could rest my bucket. I scaled the rungs with the bucket in hand, hoping fervently that I wouldn’t fall. To be fair, I probably wouldn’t, but there could be a first time for everything. I just didn’t want it to be today, or any day really, but certainly not today.

My best friend Gina and I had plans to stuff our faces with pizza and watch awesomely romantic movies. First up: The Princess Bride.

But not until I was done with these windows.

I arrived at the first of the fourteen windows on this level, gripped the edge of the top step and the squeegee tight and went to work removing the grime that had accumulated over the last several months. I spritzed and squeegeed, then spritzed and squeegeed again. The way the grime came off, leaving half the window clean and the other half hazy, was satisfying to say the least.

Slowly but surely I was able to see the room itself. Rhoda had made other upgrades during the renovation, putting new quilts on the beds and placing a bench at the footboard. The quilts were handmade from Amish country, per my mother, and the furnishings bought from an estate sale up the road.

No matter where Rhoda had gotten what, she’d made each space so individual it would be like sleeping in your own bedroom but with someone to clean up after you and make your breakfast. Not a bad deal, plus Rhoda’s cooking was worth every penny.

I heard a car pull into the lot, followed by another. Probably the last of the repair people to make sure the inn was ready to go in four days. It would be so nice to have the old girl up and running.

Hopefully Rhoda was done kneading whatever had been in that bowl so she could greet them. If not, I was sure Annie would be right in.

This cleaning, and jobs like this, were gravy on my plate of delicious french fries. Not too much work, mainly general areas with dusting and vacuuming and then the bedrooms. The personal quarters Rhoda and Arthur had set up she cleaned on her own. I called a win-win when she’d decided to give me a shot at the contract when they reopened.

Sparkly windows always put major points in my favor, if I could just get them all done.

After I finished with the first window I moved to the next and the next, humming to myself and smiling. I probably looked ridiculous fifteen feet up, swiping and smiling. But who cared? Not me. Life was good and was only getting better.

On the fourteenth window, I placed the ladder right under it, but the thing rocked. No way was I going to go up fifteen feet on a rocky ladder. Crap.

Inspecting the ground, I found a few soft spots with the toe of my sneaker and worked the ladder around until I found a more solid place. Now that I’d finally found a spot where I didn’t think I was going to fall on my face when I climbed the thing, I inched it around a few times until it stopped teetering. It would do. Once I had it firmly in place, I scaled that bad boy, knowing it was only about thirty minutes until I could call it a day and order my enormous pizza.

This window got the brunt of the grime from the road. The stone inn was turned at a forty-degree angle to the road, which gave it ambience and a clear path to the small bridge made from stone that had crossed the creek for centuries. The bridge was original, built in the time of the first colonists, and, except for the covered bridge a mile away, it was one of the things locals often saw and didn’t notice but tourists loved.

The creek it spanned gurgled along swiftly for this time of year, no more than a foot deep in most places, but when the rains came it rose two to three times that depth. People gleefully kayaked on it in the summer.

I thought about trying that out every year but ended up never wanting to get into the water. Max kept talking about kayaking because it was something he loved to do. I kept putting him off without an explanation. That might not last forever. At some point I was either going to have to own up to not wanting to go because I was scared of the water, or just give in and at least try it. Knowing me it would be the latter. But there was nothing wrong with some new experiences.

Being in love, truly in love, was a first for me this time around, and I hadn’t died from the experience yet.

I glanced down into the water, watched a cluster of leaves float by and heard some kind of animal scurry through the undergrowth on the banks, then got to work. It might be pleasant weather now, but that could change in a flash. It was still November, even if I was out here in a shirt with no jacket.

Taking my first swipe, I cleaned away the grime. To my frustration, it didn’t come all the way off. I went for it again, and made some headway, but it still wasn’t clean.

I did another swipe and then went over that again, and that small spot was finally clean. The act mimicked me shaving my legs after a long winter and made me giggle. I immediately silenced myself when I saw someone on the other side of the glass.

I thought there weren’t any guests at the inn. According to Rhoda, everyone was arriving later on Friday and it was only Monday. But there was a guy sound asleep on the bed, his head turned toward me.

I caught the tail end of the door closing out of the corner of my eye. Someone I couldn’t see left the room and left the guy to his nap. Maybe Rhoda, making sure her guest was comfortable. I knew it wasn’t Arthur on the bed since their rooms were downstairs behind the kitchen. Also, this man had dark hair while Arthur had a fabulous, brilliant-silver comb-over.

After my next swipe, I realized something looked wrong about this guy.

And then I looked harder and squeegeed some more, working furiously to get the grime to go away to get a clearer picture. The guy wasn’t sleeping. His eyes were wide open, and he hadn’t blinked the entire time I’d been working on the window. His head was at an impossible angle, turned so I could see his face and also his back. Totally unnatural. As if I needed more proof, his eyes were blank.

With this being my life, of course he wasn’t just taking an impromptu nap. He was dead. And whoever had just walked out had probably killed him.

I stifled a shriek, not wanting to rock the ladder. A dead body. Again. I should get down the ladder, snag Rhoda, or at least tell her what had happened if she didn’t want to see a dead body. Not that I wanted to see one either, but between the three murders that I’d solved over the last year, and the fact that I worked at a funeral home part-time, I kind of couldn’t avoid them.

I’d talk to Suzy at the police station while they came to get him and I wouldn’t touch a thing, I promised myself. After the last two times, I had learned my lesson.

But then I realized that doing it that way would take way too much time. Instead, I scrambled halfway down the ladder, then looped my arm through the rungs. Grabbing my phone out of my back pocket, I steadied myself. If I started the phone call now, I could back the rest of the way down while talking. I didn’t have much choice. Once I got on the ground I could talk better, but for right now I at least had to report this. Awkwardly hitting the speed dial with my pinkie, I then held the phone to my ear, standing on tiptoe to keep an eye on the dead guy in the Mummer Suite.

And so I wasn’t prepared, nor was I able to do anything about it, when the ladder teeter-tottered. It went to the right and I went to the left. To my horror, I flew through the air with nothing to save me. Almost like my swan dive from grace with the upper crust of this town. It was a split-second thought and one that winged out of my head as the ground came up way too fast to greet my face and anything else I might hit.

Hitting the grass with a yell, my first thought was what had I broken? Please let it be nothing. As I lay prone in the crunchy grass, I assessed the damage without moving too much. Thank heavens the ground was spongy from the snowmelt last week. I had landed on a soft spot.

I had survived, but the man upstairs hadn’t. I needed to call this in before any more time passed.

I’d get yelled at by Police Chief Burton, of course, but that was to be expected. First, I needed to catch my breath and take it slow.

My hip felt like it was on fire, though, and my shoulder and wrist hurt like someone had kicked me. I tried testing out all my working parts to see if they were still working and found that for the most part I was good to go. I stayed still for a moment, closing my eyes just to get my bearing.

Unfortunately, I must have passed out at some point because there was no slow coming around, no gradual awakening until I was ready to sit up. Someone splashed water in my face. My first foggy thought was that maybe it was raining. My second thought was that I hoped they hadn’t used the dirty water from my bucket.

I came up sputtering and spitting, just in case.

Rhoda stood over me with a frown marring her usually smiling face. I tried to frown, too, but it hurt too much so I stopped.

“You just lay still there, missy. I called the ambulance. We can’t have you traipsing around if you’re hurt. I’m so sorry for whatever happened. I heard a crash and I came to find you on the ground. Are you okay?”

Truthfully, I was nauseous and af. . .