Just Killing Time

Book 1: A Clock Shop Mystery

by Julianne Holmes

Genres: Mystery; Cozy Mystery; Female Sleuths

Synopsis

First in a new cozy series that ticks with excitement and mystery!

Ruth Clagan may be an expert clockmaker, but she’s always had a tendency to lose track of time. And when trying to solve a murder, every minute counts…

Ruth’s beloved grandfather instilled in her a love of timepieces. Unfortunately after her grandmother died and he remarried, Ruth and Grandpa Thom became estranged. She’s wanted to reconnect after her recent divorce, but sadly they’ve run out of time. Her grandfather has been found dead after a break-in at his shop—and the police believe he was murdered.

Now Ruth has been named the heir to Grandpa Thom’s clock shop, the Cog & Sprocket, in the small Berkshire town of Orchard, Massachusetts. As soon as she moves into the small apartment above the shop and begins tackling the heaps of unfinished work, Ruth finds herself trying to stay on the good side of Grandpa’s bossy gray cat, Bezel, while avoiding the step-grandmother she never wanted. But as old secrets and grudges start to surface, Ruth will have to kick into high gear to solve the killer case before someone else winds up dead…

Release date: October 6, 2015

Publisher: Berkley

Print pages: 304

Sample

acknowledgments

contents

chapter 1

The brochure lied. A week in the mountains of Vermont had not, in fact, helped me achieve a peaceful Zen that would pervade my life for the coming weeks, helping me approach old challenges with fresh energy. Instead it had made me aware of two things. First, much as I hated to admit it, I was addicted to technology. Not being allowed to have my cell phone for seven days was an interesting experiment at first, but an exercise in frustration toward the end. Never mind that the battery was completely drained of power by the time I got it back.

The second realization? Coffee and I couldn’t break up. I did wonder, briefly, if a week of no coffee had crushed the addiction. The green tea I’d drunk by the bucketful had enough caffeine to keep the headaches mostly at bay. And I knew that any addiction was a vice. But honestly, aside from the occasional glass of wine or beer, coffee was it. Coffee and baked goods. I walked into the first coffee shop I found on my way back to civilization. I ordered the French roast but hesitated before I ordered the scone. It looked dry and a little anemic. Not worth it, I decided. Maybe that was progress? I did grab a protein bar and filled up my water bottle at the water station in the store.

I took the coffee back out to the car and sat inside with the key turned and the windows cracked. I plugged in my phone, but it didn’t come back to life right away. I took a deep breath and looked out the window at the view. October was a stunning time to live in New England. The leaves were turning and the mountains were smeared with splashes of orange, red, yellow, and brown in between the deep green of the pines. The air was crisp, but not cold. Layers were necessary. The sky was a stunning crystal clear blue with white puffy clouds. Even I had to admit the scenery was beautiful. Especially with a cup of coffee. I closed my eyes and took a sip. Heaven.

I unwrapped the protein bar and grabbed my black bound notebook from my bag. I’d taken to carrying one notebook and using it as a combination journal, to-do list, sketchbook, and message pad. I took a bite of the protein bar, which tasted like chemicals. I should have tried the scone. I’d inherited the notebook habit from my grandfather, and he’d inherited it from his father. There were boxes of notebooks from all the Clagan clockmakers in my grandfather’s attic. Or at least the past four generations, since the first generation had emigrated from Europe.

I wondered if the notebooks were still there, or if G.T.’s wife had tossed them. What was her name, anyway? I honestly couldn’t remember. I’d nicknamed my grandfather G.T., Grandpa Thom, when I was a little girl, during one of my summer-long visits to my grandparents’ house in Orchard, Massachusetts. It wasn’t that he was ashamed of being my grandfather, my grandmother had explained. It was that Grandpa wasn’t professional in the shop. So G.T. it was. If that was the rule for working in the shop, I was more than happy to comply. Because my summer visits hadn’t just been a welcome reprieve from my parents’ benign neglect, they had been my introduction to clocks and time and how humans could work with both. G.T. was a master clockmaker, and he had passed on his passion, and some of his skill, to me.

I turned on my phone, which finally booted up. I checked the time and smiled. There was great accuracy to the clock on my cell phone, but little art. Time could be so much more. I flexed my shoulders back and mentally prepared myself to check my voice mail. I had been in a vulnerable place during a “Healing” workshop at my yoga retreat last week, and I’d sent G.T. a postcard asking him if I could stop by on my way back to Boston. My grandmother’s death six years ago had broken both of our hearts. G.T. and I had a falling-out when I brought my then husband (now ex) to meet him and they didn’t hit it off. The falling-out became a full-out rift when he called me a couple of months later to tell me he had gotten remarried. I’d sent him Christmas and birthday cards, and he’d sent them to me, but we hadn’t seen each other in five years. It was time to change that.

When the phone rang, I almost spilled my coffee. I didn’t recognize the number, but the 413 area code identified it as western Massachusetts. Maybe G.T. had a cell phone?

“Ruth Clagan here.” I sounded so officious, even to myself.

“Miss Clagan, this is Kristen Gauger. I’m a lawyer here in Marytown. And a friend of your grandfather’s. I’m afraid I have some very bad news.”

chapter 2

G.T. was dead. Kristen Gauger was not only G.T.’s friend and a lawyer, she was his lawyer. They’d found the postcard I sent him at his shop, the Cog & Sprocket, and had been trying to reach me all week. The reading of the will was today. Would I possibly be able to make it?

“Reading of the will?”

“There are some issues that need to be addressed in the next few days. We decided to do the reading this afternoon so we could start getting the will processed through probate. At one o’clock. Might you possibly make it?”

“What time is it now?” I looked down at my watch. “Eleven o’clock. I can try, but it will be tough. I’m up in Vermont.”

“We could reschedule, but there’s a preliminary meeting with the Board of Selectmen at three, and the contents of the will may have some impact on the meeting.”

“Really?” My grandfather had always been a concerned citizen. The Clagans were one of the oldest families in Orchard. But still, impacting a town meeting?

“Ruth, I’ll tell you what. Write down this address and come to my office when you get to town. We’ll delay as long as we can.” She gave me her address in Marytown, which I wrote down in a shaky scrawl and then programmed into my GPS.

“I’ve got it,” I said. “I’ll be there as soon as possible. I don’t even, I mean, wow, this is starting to sink in. What happened? Had G.T. been sick? We’ve been out of touch. I’d hate to think I wasn’t there to say good-bye.” There was a long pause on the phone. For a second, I thought we’d been disconnected.

“Oh, Ruth, there’s no easy way to say this. I’d rather tell you in person, but you should hear it from me. They think that Thom died of a heart attack. But he was being robbed at the time. The police are treating it as a murder.”

•   •   •

I was riding an emotional roller coaster as I drove toward Orchard. Sadness and grief overwhelmed me. The ride down took almost five hours. Tears caused some of the delays. And there were a couple of times when I just needed to pull over and scream, trying to get rid of some of the emotions. Anger that I’d been robbed of the chance to see G.T. once more. Guilt that we’d been estranged. Overwhelming sadness. And a slow burn building up inside me. Screaming in the car had been very cathartic for me over the past year as I tried to move past my divorce, and it helped this time as well. A little. Not enough. But some.

Even under the best of circumstances, chances were good I would have been late. I could build timepieces, but I couldn’t keep time. An irony in my life—one of many.

But seeing the Berkshires again brought forth a flood of happy memories as I recognized old stomping grounds. I felt some pride in seeing how spruced up Main Street was. Of course, Main Street was always the center of attention, since it was in Marytown, the closest thing to a city in these parts. Six years ago I’d driven away from a region full of hardworking people trying to figure it all out. Some new businesses had brought economic vibrancy back, but the town was still a pale imitation of what it had once been, at least according to my grandparents. But now? Storefronts were open. The street itself was newly paved, with freshly painted lines. Streetlights had been replaced by gas lanterns. Marytown looked good. I wondered if Orchard had fared as well.

Had the town finally come into its own? After the last great flood wiped the town out in the 1920s, the townspeople of Orchard worked hard to bring the apple orchards back and to embrace the possibilities of the future, but true prosperity always passed the small town by. I used to refer to Orchard as the town that almost was. Almost was the site of a railroad station, until another community won the bid. Almost saw a new mill built after the flood, but the aforementioned railroad station took that off the table. Almost was the site of a huge private college in the early 1900s, but that honor also went to another town, five miles south.

Maybe Orchard’s luck had changed, even if G.T.’s hadn’t.

•   •   •

Kristen Gauger had directed me to the offices of Gauger, Spence, Colfer, and Lentz in Marytown. A lot of names for a tiny office that consisted of two desks, three chairs, and a couch.

“Ruth? I’m Kristen Gauger.” She walked around her desk and held out her hand. I shook it and walked toward the desk. Kristen Gauger was shorter than I was, but the high heels she’d kicked off would have made us eye to eye. She had brown hair streaked with gray and pulled back into a ponytail. Her makeup was a little smudged and there were dark circles under her brown eyes. Her shirt was untucked from her suit skirt.

“Let’s sit over here.” She motioned me toward the couch. “Can I get you anything? You sure? Well, sit down while I pull the file. Forgive the office clutter. A bunch of us share the space. We have ‘offices’ all over the Berkshires, but most of them involve our dining room tables and home visits with clients. You made decent time getting here.”

“Not good enough. I missed the reading. And I must have missed the funeral,” I said. I sounded pitiful, but she didn’t seem to notice.

“There hasn’t been a funeral. Thom didn’t want one, according to his will. Caroline would still like to have a service, but wanted to talk to you.”

That was her name, Caroline. G.T’s wife.

“Your folks already told Caroline they aren’t planning on coming back,” she continued.

I’d long ago given up making excuses for my world-traveling parents, and so I didn’t respond. We e-mailed and talked on occasion, but I hadn’t seen them in a couple of years. Again, Kristen didn’t respond to my silence, but instead moved on.

“I’m sorry you had to hear the news from me that way. But I know you have a few voice mails and I thought you should hear it from a human being.”

“Thank you, I barely listened to my messages. I just wanted to get here.”

“Well, you should know, he didn’t suffer. He got hit in the head and then he had a heart attack. It was pretty quick.”

“Where was he?”

“Out in back of the shop, getting into his car. There had been a robbery a couple of weeks before, and the police are assuming that the robbers came back for a second round and ran into Thom.”

“A robbery? What did they steal?”

“The first time? Five clocks. I don’t have the descriptions handy, but Caroline says they were worth about a thousand dollars each.”

“Wow. What was he doing with that kind of inventory?”

“He had bought out a couple of estate sales recently. Including the Winters’ house. Do you remember Grover Winter? He passed three months ago, and his son, Jonah, has been selling off the estate. Apparently he and his late wife were clock fanatics.”

“I remember him. Wasn’t his nickname the Chairman?”

Kristen nodded.

“I don’t remember her that well.”

“Harriet,” Kristen supplied. “She passed last fall. She’d been sick for a long while. But the Chairman, his death took everyone by surprise. Anyway, Thom has a full shop.”

“He always did,” I said, sadness overwhelming me.

My life with my grandparents had been filled with clocks. Both real and imagined. We used to spend hours designing clocks that would do all sorts of things. And dream of building them together once I finished my education. I thought about the drawings I’d made while I was on retreat and realized I’d give anything to show them to my grandfather and talk to him about what I’d been working on lately. But that was never going to happen.

Kristen handed me a box of tissues, and I wiped my eyes.

“He’d actually cut back on the inventory last winter, but then he bought a couple of estates of collectors lately. He called them his swan song before retirement. Not sure if it helps or not, but he was making noise about offering to let you buy him out. I offered to help him find you, but he wanted to get things cleaned up first. His words, not mine.”

“I’m not sure if that helps or not either. Makes me sadder.”

“Well, then, this isn’t going to help at all.” She handed me a thick envelope. “His will was pretty straightforward. Caroline gets the house and everything in it. You get the Cog & Sprocket and everything in it. According to the will, you need to come to terms regarding the contents of the workshop at the house. There are some other bequests, but they can be taken care of easily. Right now his estate is tied up in inventory, so there isn’t any cash to speak of. But he owned the shop; taxes are paid. If you want to sell, it should get a fair amount.”

“The shop? I don’t know what to say.”

“Well, I have a couple of things to say. First, you should know that Jeff Paisley—he’s the chief of police in Orchard—he’s working on this case morning, noon, and night. Second, Caroline Adler has an alibi, just in case you were wondering. She was also in Vermont, visiting her son.”

Again, I didn’t respond directly. “Anything else?”

Kristen shook her head slightly and smiled. “You remind me of your grandfather. There are a couple of codicils to the will. Not binding, but Thom’s wishes. He made Caroline promise to give you first dibs if and when she sells the house. And he asked that you consider keeping Caroline and Pat Reed on in the shop, if you chose to run it. She’s been helping Thom run it for the past few years, keeping the books. And Pat has been working there part-time for a while.”

“Forever. When I was young I never understood what Pat did. G.T. called him a handyman and the most important part of the operation.”

“Pat and Nancy Reed are part of the backbone of Orchard. They helped see the town through some hard times. Now that things are turning around, I hope they benefit. But times are still tough for a lot of folks. Your grandfather kept Pat on the payroll even when he was slowing down. Pat’s taking his death very hard.”

“I haven’t seen Pat in a while, since my grandmother’s funeral.”

“Well, he’s looking forward to seeing you. Ruth, I know you are processing a lot right now, and I don’t want to overwhelm you. But there’s a lot going on in Orchard, mostly having to do with rezoning the historic district.”

“Historic district?” I couldn’t help but smile. “Since when does Orchard have a historic district?”

“Since the new town administrator decided to make Orchard a Berkshires destination town. The Cog & Sprocket is central to the district in more ways than one. Anyway, I know you’re going to have questions, so take this packet with you and go through it when you have a moment. I put all my contact information on the envelope. Call me day or night with any questions or concerns. Anything.

“The key to the shop is in the envelope. Pat Reed has the other one. There are new locks on the doors, and a security system is being installed. Despite everything, being there is perfectly safe, so don’t worry about that. Let me know when you are going there, and I’ll let Pat and Caroline know. I don’t know when the last time you visited was, but there’s still a place to stay upstairs.”

“I remember. My grandparents lived up in that apartment before they bought the cottage, and I spent a lot of time there in the summers as a child.”

“Sounds perfect then. Though I have to warn you: there are a lot of clocks. A lot of clocks.”

“There can never be too many clocks as far as I’m concerned. Don’t worry about calling Pat or Caroline. I’ll touch base with them tomorrow. I’ll head over now. The Cog & Sprocket was my favorite place in the world. I can’t imagine that will have changed. But I don’t want to get there in the dark. It’s closer than Boston, and I’m done in.”

And so I made two brief calls, one to leave a voice mail for my boss at the museum, who I had been waiting to hear from about funding for my position, and the second to my friends Steve and Rick to let them know what was going on so they didn’t call the police and start trawling the Charles River for my body. Then I got back in the car for the very short trip to the Cog & Sprocket. My shop.

chapter 3

I backtracked to Washington Street, deciding to go to the shop down the main thoroughfare of Orchard. I slowed down when I approached the official town line, where Main Street in Marytown became Washington Street in Orchard. We didn’t make things easy for the tourists in the Berkshires. The faded old wooden sign from my childhood had been replaced, but the new, fancy, hand-painted sign still had the same image of the apple tree bearing fruit. I rolled my shoulders and let go of the steering wheel as I crossed into Orchard. I had a couple of miles to go before I hit the town center.

The fading October sunlight allowed me a full view of what I considered my hometown as I drove on. My happiest memories of my childhood were from Orchard. The library looming on my left marked the unofficial beginning of downtown, which I guess was the new historic district. I loved that library and had spent hours discovering new worlds while hiding in its stacks.

The Corner Market nestled next to the library, set back a bit from the street, with the coveted half-dozen parking spots in the front of the store. I noticed signs that said ORGANIC and LOCALLY GROWN in the windows. That couldn’t be old Mr. Clark’s doing, since he hadn’t ever spent money on things like signage, shoveling in the winter, or sprucing up the outside in the spring. G.T. had always said Matthew Clark could squeeze blood from a stone, and I’d believed him. There must be new owners.

The old diner was across the street from the Corner Market, as out of place as always. I’d never understood how the Board of Selectmen talked the town into letting a ’50s diner get approved, especially downtown. Chrome and polished steel had its charms, but here it just stood out like a sore thumb, especially since the chrome was only a façade, pasted onto a boring angular building to make it look more hip. The wooden building had a single story in the front, but rose to a second story in the back. The vaulted ceilings always made the insides look like a ’50s diner and a hunting lodge had an illicit love child. My grandfather had tried to explain the backroom politics behind the approval of the building, but I couldn’t remember the details. Just that it was meant as a slight to the chairman of the Board of Selectmen that term, one of the most ineffective selectmen in town history. I sighed. Orchard politics at its best: a permanent eyesore to upset a temporary politician. Or, on the other side of the coin, where dreams were thwarted when the dreamers got on the wrong side of the board.

The diner looked better though, its back half painted blue-gray and its trim painted black and white. Last time I’d been in town it was teal with bright pink trim. The red window boxes also softened it. But the neon teal, gray, and pink coffee cup still lit up the outside, with the new name in red cursive. The Sleeping Latte? Lattes? In Orchard? I could only imagine what my grandfather thought of that name. But if it meant coffee, that worked for me.

I saw the white siding of Parker’s Emporium peeking over the top of the diner. I always loved that name—it elicited a much grander establishment than the assemblage of family businesses that all existed under one ad hoc roof. A drugstore took up the right half of the building. On the left side, the beauty parlor that sat at the front of the building was always a town center, where people went as much for gossip as for haircuts or blowouts. As an afterthought, there was a barbershop tacked on the back of the building. Flo Parker and her family had lived upstairs for as long as I remembered. I slowed down a bit. The drugstore still sat on the right-hand side, also with a face-lift, but the left-hand side had a large plate glass window replacing the paned bowfront window of the past. I saw a barber pole outside the shop. Was the beauty parlor gone? I slowed down to a crawl and peered to my right, looking for a name.

A bang on my hood jolted me. I’d been creeping so slowly the car barely registered stopping. I looked around and saw a tall, scruffy blond man on my left come into view just as I tapped the brakes. Worn jeans, old-school Levi’s. A hoodie worn under a brown leather bomber jacket. Reddish blond hair worn a little long. A couple of days’ growth of beard. Aviator sunglasses hid the eyes, but I’d bet they were blue. Blue eyes would fit with the rest of the look. I rolled down my window to hear what he was yelling.

“Don’t you have crosswalks back where you come from? Pay attention, lady. You almost hit my dog.”

“Wow. Sorry, I didn’t see the crosswalk. Is it new?” It may or may not have been new. I never used crosswalks in Orchard.

“New? What are you talking about?”

“Never mind. Sorry.” I rolled the window back up, and the scruffy man just stood in front of my car, staring at me. I stared back, which wasn’t hard. Sure, he needed a shave and a haircut. But the jeans fit well. Really well, from what I could see over the hood of my car. I stopped staring and looked back at his eyes. I smiled as sweetly as I could and waved him on.

I watched as he crossed the street, meeting the large Australian shepherd who sat on the corner, tail thumping behind him. The dog seemed none the worse for the near-death experience, and his owner went into Ben’s Barbershop. That’s what it was called, according to the paper taped to the front door. Ben’s Barbershop. I wondered if Mr. Scruffy was the owner or, more likely, a client in need of services.

The street curved a bit and then there it was, a half block away on my right. The Cog & Sprocket. My love. Now, the Cog & Sprocket wasn’t the biggest building on Washington Street. That honor belonged to the bank across the street. But it did anchor the end of Washington Street before it forked out into two separate smaller roads, one of which led over a small bridge. There was a small service road right before the bridge that ran along the back of the shops, along the river. When I was a little girl visiting my grandparents in the summer, I’d spend time down at the river, poking at rocks and throwing stones. But most of the time I’d stay inside the shop, falling more and more in love with clocks. My destiny had been preordained when I was born a Clagan.

I looked toward the middle of the fork, looking at the town cemetery with a pang. Not that I knew anyone in there, at least not well. My grandmother’s ashes had been buried out at the cottage, where a tree was planted in her memory. I’d always known we would do the same thing for my grandfather. I just hadn’t expected it to be so soon. Or under such awful circumstances.

I pulled up and parked in one of the four spaces outside the shop. I turned the car off and sat for a moment, soaking her in. The butter yellow paint looked fresh, and the white trim wasn’t only fresh, the trim itself looked new. I loved the symmetry of the wood-framed building. The twelve-pane front door sat in the center, framed with a wide doorframe and black lanterns on either side. There was a shade pulled down on the front door, and a CLOSED sign hanging in the middle. I looked at the two-story porch that ran along the front of the building, noting that the rocking chairs were still out on the first floor. I wondered if Caroline made G.T. go outside to smoke his pipe, like my grandmother had? Or did he still smoke his pipe?

On either side of the front door there was a large double-hung window. Honestly, they looked more like doors, since they ran almost floor to ceiling. They could also be completely removed, which helped when large pieces came in and out of the shop. These windows were closed off with a film that didn’t let in light. They also had shutters inside that were meant to be closed during storms. They looked like they were closed now. “No need to be in a fishbowl” was how G.T. explained his dislike of open windows. The sun’s rays weren’t much good for the clocks either.

I looked up at the second floor, noting that the shutters around the two windows had been painted black. There was a center door in between the upstairs windows and a small porch ran along the second story. I could never remember actually using that door to go out to the porch. Instead, we’d open it for a cross breeze in the summer.

There were flower boxes on the railings of both the upper and lower porches, with mums peeking over the top. My grandfather’s wife had kept the space up well; I had to give that to her. I knew it wasn’t my grandfather, unless he’d really changed since my grandmother died and developed a green thumb. But then again, I wouldn’t know, would I? What a stubborn fool I’d been.

I looked across the street to the old bank, the largest building by far on the street. Wait—what? The bank sign was gone. I noticed a number of shades of green painted on the siding, and the old porch had been ripped out. The big bowfront window was blacked out with a large BOOKSTORE COMING SOON: BEEN THERE, READ THAT sign in the window. A bookstore? Interesting.

The only building that didn’t look like it had been refreshed was the old Town Hall to the left of the bookstore. It was set back from the street, with a large front area that had been lovely gardens while I was growing up. Now I noticed a bike rack and some overgrown flower beds. I could see the peeling paint even from this distance, but I’d explore the changes in the Town Hall later. Right now, I needed to get reacquainted with the Cog & Sprocket.

chapter 4

I stretched as I got out of the car, moving my hips around to get them less stiff. I pulled my fleece back down and looked down at my yoga pants. Luckily I’d brought some wrap dresses and tunics with me, so I could dress it up a bit. The retreat was already becoming a distant memory. Now it was time to get back to life.

I walked around to grab my bag from the passenger seat. It was so heavy that it registered as a person, so I had taken to buckling it in so that the car would stop beeping. I hauled it up and was pulling the strap across me when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I screamed and turned to face the tapper.

He was about my height, bald, with black-framed glasses that looked old-fashioned five years ago, but were very hip these days. His soft corduroys were dark olive, and his zipper sweater was a shade lighter. I could swear his eyes were green too, but he jumped back so fast I couldn’t be sure.

“Oh my, you scared me,” he said.

“I scared you? Are you kidding me?” I asked.

“I saw you sitting in your car and wondered if you were lost. That’s all,” he said. “The Cog & Sprocket is closed. If you are picking up a clock, I can make sure the owners get the note.”

“I’m the owner,” I said. The words felt odd in my mouth, but they were true enough.

“You? You’re Ruth?”

“I am. And you are?”

“Sorry, sorry. Where are my manners? First I scare you, then I accuse you . . . Sorry. I’m Beckett Green. I own the store across the street. Caroline had let me know that you were taking over for Thom.”

“I’m not sure I’m taking over. I just found out abo