Entitled To Kill

Book 2: St. Marin's Cozy Mystery Series

by ACF Bookens

Genres: Amateur Sleuth; Animal Cozy Mysteries

Synopsis

Mother-daughter bonding time shouldn't involve running from a big tractor.

When Harvey Beckett stumbles upon the body of the community's most reviled dairy farmer, she, her friends, and her parents are launched into an investigation that reveals a family secret that wasn't really that secret after all. Soon, Harvey's curiosity lands her and her mother in a heap of danger that may mark the end of her sleuthing

Can Harvey help find the murderer and protect the victim's family before the murderer finds her?

Release date: January 21, 2020

Publisher: Andilit

Print pages: 234

Sample

Chapter 1

If asked to name my favorite season, I’d immediately say fall. But I also have a deep affection for the first really warm days of spring, the ones when all the flowers are bursting forth, when tulips bejewel front yards and the cherry trees begin to flower the air with their petals. 

It was late April in St. Marin’s, and spring was fully here. My bookstore had been open an entire month, and it was actually turning a profit. A small profit, but a profit nonetheless. I’d even begun paying part of the mortgage on our house. Mart, my best friend and roommate, had tried to convince me to wait until at least July before I began to contribute, but I had insisted. I wasn’t paying anywhere near half, but writing that first check had felt gratifying, like I’d begun to make it as a business owner. 

My bookstore, All Booked Up, had been my dream for as long as I could remember. Even as a child, I’d imagined myself surrounded by books, a dog at my feet, reading all day. The business end of things came later, but mostly, I was living the dream, as they say. Okay, I didn’t do as much reading as I might like, but I did have the “dog at my feet and surrounded by books” part down. 

Mayhem, my trusty Black Mouth Cur sidekick, had settled right in as the shop pup, and she enjoyed welcoming the neighborhood canines – and brave felines – over for a visit, too. I had almost as many dog beds as I did armchairs in the shop, and some days, every comfy seat – both elevated and floor-level – was occupied with someone enjoying a read or a nap. And it wasn’t always the dogs that were napping. 

I loved that people had already begun to feel comfortable enough in the store to just come, pick up a book, and read an hour away. I didn’t want to own the kind of store where people felt like they had to come in, get their books, and leave. When someone returned time and again to read the same book, I found that endearing. Not all of us have the funds to buy books, and while I was a huge patron of the local library, I fully appreciated that sometimes the best place to read was where noise was allowed and the air smelled like coffee. 

Our bookstore’s little café filled up what had once been the garage bay when this was a gas station. It was small and quaint, and it served the best latte this side of Annapolis. Rocky was the manager of that part of the store, and her share of the profits was helping fund her BA down at Salisbury University. Sometimes her mom, Phoebe, came in and helped out for big events, and that woman made cinnamon rolls so good they felt like a Hallmark movie Christmas morning. 

I was counting on the draw of her rolls on this Saturday morning because we were having our first author event that night, and I needed to get a buzz going in town. I’d done all the usual marketing – on- and off-line – but my guest author was local, and I knew we needed the small-town crowd to make this event successful. 

David Healey wrote military thrillers and mysteries set here on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, and he had a loyal readership. I just didn’t know how many of those readers lived close enough by to come to the shop for his evening reading, but I was hoping that the fact that he was from Chesapeake City might bring out a banner crowd. 

We’d marketed David’s reading as part of a “Welcome to Spring” weekend with the hopes that people would spend at least the day, maybe even Saturday and Sunday, in St. Marin’s. The hardware store had gotten in a new supply of kitschy, crab-themed T-shirts, and the art co-op had arranged a special exhibition of local artists. I had coordinated the event with the maritime museum’s annual boat-skills exhibition, and Elle Heron had created a special – “Get Your Garden In Right” workshop for the afternoon. We even had a special “Eastern Shore Prix Fixe” menu set up at Chez Cuisine, a few doors down. People could come and enjoy the events of the day. The cinnamon rolls would just get the day started right. 

Even if the guests didn’t flock to our doors in droves, I knew I really needed a big warm concoction of flour, yeast, cinnamon, and cream cheese icing. That and Rocky’s biggest latte should get me past my nerves. A lot of people were counting on this day to bolster their sales until the full-on tourist season of summer began in our waterside town, and I could feel the weight of their expectations as I unlocked the front door. 

The bell that had hung over the front door of the shop since it was a gas station tinkled as I opened it, and I smiled. I would never tire of that sound. 

I was swinging the door shut behind me when I felt it thud against something. I turned back to see a Basset Hound head wedged between the door and the frame. “Oh, Taco. I’m so sorry.” I swung the door open. “I didn’t see you there.” 

The Basset charged right ahead, my insulting behavior forgotten, as he saw Mayhem just ahead of me on her leash. I did my best jump rope maneuvers over the quickly tangling leashes and looked up to see Taco’s owner, Daniel, smiling at me. 

I felt a warm flush go up my neck and wondered if I’d ever see this man I’d been dating and not have my face turn red. We’d been a couple – that’s what Mart said people in town were calling us – ever since the shop opened, but I still got all nervous when I first saw his dark hair, fair skin, and brown eyes. I found him so handsome, and he was everything my ex-husband hadn’t been – reliable, attentive, and willing to take care of me even though he knew I didn’t need him to do that. 

Still, I was forty-four years old and totally unclear on what to call him. Was he my boyfriend? Did middle-aged women have boyfriends? Lover just sounded way too racy for our perfectly slow relationship, and partner was far too much. Friend didn’t work either because that sounded like what my grandmother would have said, “Daniel is Harvey’s ‘special friend.’” I defaulted to “Daniel” instead. That worked most of the time, although a couple of times I had slipped and said, “My Daniel” as if he was a stuffed animal or I was differentiating him from another Daniel, like that guy in the lion’s den I’d learned about in childhood Sunday School classes. 

I liked the guy, though. A lot, even if I didn’t know what to call him. And Mayhem felt much the same about his pup, Taco. I didn’t really buy into the whole dog love affairs craze myself, but these two were at the least best pals. 

Already, they’d sniffed out the best bed for the day – the one in the front window’s sunbeam beside the display of books on shipwrecks – and were lying butt to butt and snoring. The dog’s life was something.

As Daniel and I made our way to the front counter, he gave me a quick kiss on the cheek. “So aside from trying to decapitate my dog, how has your day been so far?”

“Well, I have to say it just got a whole lot better.” I had never been a flirtatious person before, but this man, for some reason he brought it out in me. 

A blush flew into his cheeks, too, and we stood grinning at one another until the sound of a throat clearing broke our gaze. Rocky was standing in front of the counter across from us with a grin a mile wide on her face. “Sorry. I thought you’d heard me come in.” 

I looked toward the front door. I hadn’t heard the bell ring. “No, I’m sorry. How are you? How’s studying for finals going?” 

She let out a long, slow sigh. “It’s going.” She pulled her thick handful of tiny braids into a hair tie and then dropped a heavy tote bag onto the counter. “I mean, I love my classes, but I had a very high opinion of my reading speed and retention ability when I signed up for three English and two history classes. Finals are in two weeks, and I have five books to read and three papers to write to even get to the finals.” 

“Whew, that’s a lot. What are your professors thinking?” I remembered my college days when I was an English and History double major just like Rocky. One semester, I’d had to buy sixty-seven books. Sixty-seven. I loved books, but that was ridiculous.

“They’re thinking that their class is the most important one. They’ve all forgotten what it’s like to have five classes and a job.”

Daniel laughed. “That, right there, ladies, is why I didn’t finish college. Too much reading.” 

I never in my life thought I’d date a man who didn’t read, but here I was, full on in the throes of like – I wasn’t ready for the other L word yet – with a man who took it as a point of pride that the last full book he read was the copy of Tom and Jerry Meet Little Quack that his mom found in a box of his first-grade mementos. 

It wasn’t that Daniel didn’t appreciate knowledge or books, and it certainly wasn’t that he wasn’t smart – the man could disassemble and then reassemble a car engine in less than two hours, a feat I understood to be impressive, even though my knowledge of cars stopped at the fact that Brits called the trunk of the car the “boot.” No, Daniel was plenty smart. He just couldn’t sit still long enough to read. His body needed to be moving. Even when we watched TV – lately, we’d been binge-watching a show I’d loved a few years back, The 4400 – he put together model cars. He just couldn’t be completely still, and school required a lot of stillness.

I didn’t mind the car-building stuff, though, because he’d inspired me to make use of my downtime, too. I’d picked back up my cross-stitch hobby after years of neglect. And like most things in my life, I didn’t start slow. I bought a kit of a cat in a bookshop. It was beautiful – all bright colors and a black and white cat with a few extra pounds that reminded me of my own girl, Aslan. But it was also immense – maybe 18 x 24 on small-count fabric – and every square called for a stitch. At this rate, I’d finish it in when I was seventy. Still, it was relaxing because it required my attention and let my mind slow down. It was the only way I’d found, so far, to stop thinking about the shop. Well, cross-stitch and kissing Daniel. 

Rocky hefted her heavy bag onto her shoulder and headed to the café while Daniel carried the platter of her mom’s cinnamon rolls behind her. I’d slipped one out from under the plastic and sat savoring the doughy goodness while I checked emails. 

Everything seemed to be in order for the day. David Healey had written to say he’d be in town by noon and wondered if I could grab lunch to talk about the night’s event. I shot back a quick response with my cell number and told him to text me when he arrived. Then, I answered enough queries about parking and general activities in town that by the time we opened at ten, I felt confident we were going to have a great day. 

 

About ten thirty, Mart arrived with Cate, our friend who ran the art coop. They’d been out on the bay kayaking, trying to capture photos of some watermen at work for Cate’s new portrait series. Mart was on hand to run the register in case things got busy, and Cate was going to lead a plein air painting group that was meeting here at eleven. Both of them were rosy cheeked and equally pleasant tempered. Part of me wished I’d been able to go, but most of me was quite content to have spent the morning answering questions about books, making notes about titles we needed to order back in, and enjoying Phoebe’s cinnamon roll. Sure, I missed out on some things by running the shop, but what I got to do, well, it more than made up for it. 

“Looks like you’ve got things well in hand,” Mart said.

“Now, let’s not be too hasty, Martha.” Cate put on a serious face as she brushed her short black hair out of her eyes. “The true test is whether she—“

I reached below the counter and pulled out two saucers, each adorned with a cinnamon roll.

Cate laughed. “Yep, all in hand here.” 

When I’d met Cate a few weeks ago, I hadn’t realized that Mart and I really needed a third to make our friendship even more amazing, but it turns out that the third we were missing was a short, Korean-American photographer whose husband cooked really, really well. 

Mart and I had been friends for years back in San Francisco, and when I’d decided to return home to Maryland last fall, she’d decided to come along. She, by far, looked the youngest of all of us with her fair skin that showed nary a wrinkle and her thick, brown hair that she wore in soft waves or in a ponytail that, somehow, managed to look amazing. My curly, quickly-graying short hair did not always fare so well in the wind and moisture of a waterside town, and I took to rolled bandanas on days when I didn’t want to look like Lyle Lovett or to spend an hour with a flat iron. (I never wanted to spend an hour with a flat-iron.) Also, I had wrinkles in my pale, pinkish skin, including a furrow between my eyes that would never smooth out again.

Many women never get to have one good friend in the world, and I was lucky enough to have two. In both literal and figurative ways, they had each saved my life, and I was so glad we got to see each other every day, even if they teased me no end about having a boyfriend. They always insisted on saying it boooyyyfriend, like we were eleven. Still, I adored them. 

My friends tucked into their cinnamon rolls with all the genteelness of vultures on roadkill, and I couldn’t help but smile. No pinkies in the air here. I’m pretty sure I even caught Mart licking the plate when I turned around to get more bags to put under the counter. 

Snacks done and coffee procured from Rocky, they got to work, and I began my usual circuit around the store, just to be sure things were tidy, but not pristine. Something about a little bit of disheveled order felt home-like, comfortable. 

I was just rounding the corner of the religion section when I spied a familiar pair of Jordans propped on a shelf next to a wing-back chair. I slipped behind the seat and peeked over the top to get a look at the title of the book the person was reading. “The Water Dancer. I hear that’s really good.” 

Marcus Dawson slowly lowered his book, pulled his brown legs down as I stepped around in front of him, and smiled up at me. “It’s amazing,” he said, “but no spoilers. You have to read it yourself.” 

“Will do.” I kicked his shin playfully. “You know, you don’t have to be here when you’re not working.” 

He shrugs. “What can I say? When you find a good thing . . .”

Marcus had started working here almost a month ago, and he was amazing at his job – thoughtful with his recommendations and voracious in his reading. At first, I’d hired him to help him out, but it turned out that he was a major draw for returning customers who found his book suggestions to be so fitting for them that they came in just to talk to him about the previous recommendation and pick up a new one. 

Now, he had a regular column in our weekly newsletter, where he did book matchmaking with customers who filled out a short survey as they stopped by. I’d gotten the idea from one of my favorite podcasts, What Should I Read Next?, and people were loving it. Our box of completed surveys was so full that we were talking about doing Instagram videos to accommodate more customer requests. I had definitely gotten the better end of the deal when I’d hired Marcus. 

On Monday, he would begin his first shift as assistant manager. I noticed he’d had his hair cut into a shorter version of his typical box fade and wondered again if all the things from my teenage years were coming back: high-waisted jeans, fanny packs, and shoulder pads. It made me shiver. Marcus’s hair though, I loved. I couldn’t help but think of Kid ’n Play when I saw him, but I wouldn’t make the mistake of mentioning them again since Marcus had looked at me like I was approximately eight hundred years old the one time I’d brought them up. 

I’d given him the weekend off so that he could relax, spend time with his mom, and maybe even do something fun in Annapolis or Baltimore, but I wasn’t all that surprised to see him in the store. He really did seem to love St. Marin’s and my bookshop, and I knew that living in his apartment above Daniel’s garage was probably kind of lonely, especially when Daniel wasn’t at work. Plus, I just liked him and liked having him around. 

“Well, happy reading. But no working today. Not even Insta photos. It’s your day off. I don’t want to pay you, but I’ll be forced to if you work, you hear me?” I gave his leg another nudge and headed off to help Daniel, who was bringing up two boxes of books for the new window display. 

Max Davies, the owner of Chez Cuisine, had taken a while to grow on me, but it turned out that he had great taste in cookbooks. I’d promised him we’d do a new display with some titles he’d recommended. It had taken a bit of coaxing for me to convince him that we needed not only true cookbooks but also some other titles – like Ruth Reichl’s Save Me The Plums – to round out the display. But his list of recommendations turned out to be stellar and diverse, and I was eager to get the books into the window for the afternoon. 

Daniel hefted the boxes onto the display platform and gave me a quick hug before heading over to his garage. For the past couple of weeks, he’d spent the first couple of hours of Saturday morning here at the shop helping me with displays and shelving. He wasn’t much of a reader, but he was all in for supporting the shop. Today, though, he had car repairs to manage, so I focused on my display and looked forward to seeing him later. 

I had just put the final book – Eat This Poem by Nicole Gulotta – into the display when David pulled up. Mart and I helped him unload his car, and then he and I headed out for lunch at the new BBQ place that had just opened up at the end of Main Street. I was a sucker for a place with a cute name, so Piggle and Shake had won me over as soon as the sign went up. 

The author and I had a lovely lunch, and I was thrilled to hear that he had more books coming in his renovation series. I knew his military thrillers were good, too, but I was much more a mystery girl myself. 

After our meal, I pointed him in the direction of the co-op and gave him the address for the maritime museum before heading back to the shop for the afternoon. St. Marin’s wasn’t San Francisco in terms of entertainment, but in some ways, it was even better. At least here, everything was within easy walking distance of everything else. Plus, since I knew Cate would take good care of David at the co-op and then Lucas would do the same at the museum, I didn’t worry that he might get bored or frustrated. They’d agreed to give him the behind-the-scenes tour and have him back to the shop by five so we could all get dinner before the reading. 

On my way back, I needed to stop by Elle Heron’s farm stand to pick up some fresh flowers for the café tables and a bouquet for the signing table, too. Elle, a white woman in her sixties with light-brown hair cut into a bob, had been supplying fresh flowers – all grown at her small farm outside of town – since we opened, and this time, she was giving us some of the most amazing tulips I’d ever seen. The bright reds and yellows and purples would add just the right color to the store, and I couldn’t wait to see what she’d put together for the main arrangement. 

I shed my sweater as I walked the two blocks up to her shop – No Label; Just Farm to Table – and took a swig from my water bottle before I walked in. The day had grown quite warm, and I had broken my first sweat of the year, which was cause for a small celebration that I’d begun a decade ago in my first “summer” on the west side of San Francisco. There, the warm days come in mid-fall, when the fog burns off completely and the temperature climbs into the high seventies, maybe even low eighties. On each of those days, I walked to the corner market and got an ice cream from the chest freezer by the front door. Always the same thing every day until the fog returned. Sadly, “summer” in San Francisco rarely lasted more than two weeks. 

Now, I was going to keep up that tradition with a slight modification. After all, I couldn’t each ice cream every day it got to eighty here. I wouldn’t have minded eating ice cream every day from April to September, but I figured my cholesterol might mind. So just the first day, I decided. A celebration of the warmth returning. 

“Hey Elle.” I shouted as I walked toward the cooler, hopeful that she was as down-to-earth in her ice cream selection as she was about everything else. I wanted my plain, classic ice cream sandwich something fierce, and I was not disappointed. 

I slid open the top of the freezer, and as I leaned down and grabbed my sandwich, something caught my eye. I stood up and took a step back. 

Then, I dropped my ice cream on the floor as I backed into a shelf of broccoli and cabbage seedlings and sent potting soil and tiny plants flying.

Beside the cooler lay the body of Huckabee Harris, his muck boots covered in mud and his face as white as the vanilla ice cream now leaking out of the wrapper at my feet.