A novel way to die, p.1
A Novel Way to Die, page 1
A NOVEL WAY TO DIE
A Bookish Cafe Mystery Book 6
HARPER LIN
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
A Novel Way to Die
Copyright © 2024 by Harper Lin.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the author.
www.harperlin.com
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
About the Author
A Note From Harper
Excerpt from “Inn for Murder”
Chapter 1
It was the sound of champagne bottles popping, or maybe it was the small band playing bossa nova, or maybe it was all the talking and laughing that was the problem. All Maggie Bell knew was that her landlady, Mrs. Peacock, had parties that were talked about for weeks after the fact and this one was going to be no exception. Not that Maggie would know why they were so fabulous, since she wasn’t invited.
“You have to understand, dear, this is for a rather boring group of people,” Mrs. Peacock said to Maggie three days before the event. “Why, I don’t think any of them crack a smile all year until they come to my house.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Maggie nodded as she stood on the front stoop of the quaint cottage she rented on Mrs. Peacock’s property.
“I’ve had to tighten my belt and limit my guest list already. Normally, I have eight crates of champagne, and this year there will only be five. I just can’t afford any more than that. I’m on a fixed income. Money doesn’t grow on trees,” she huffed as she folded her bejeweled fingers in front of her. Everyone in town knew Mrs. Peacock was a wealthy widow. But to hear her talk, she was just days away from standing in line for government cheese.
“No, ma’am,” Maggie replied.
“So, you’ll understand when I tell you that it wouldn’t be proper to have my tenant roaming the grounds and through my home as the party is going on. Perhaps you’ve got a friend you can stay with, or maybe you’d like to check into a hotel for the night. I just wouldn’t want the noise to keep you up when I know you have to work.” Mrs. Peacock smiled as if there was nothing wrong at all with her request.
“Um, well, I don’t have to do that,” Maggie muttered. “I’ll just stay in the house. I’m really not all that interested in parties, and I—”
“Oh, dear. Stay in your house? Oh, that just won’t do. I want people to be able to roam the grounds. You have seen how beautifully the garden has come along this year. I must admit it might be the most beautiful in all of Fair Haven. Mrs. Donovan is going to have to pose naked in her yard if she’ll want to beat me in the garden walk this year.” She rocked on her toes and looked at Maggie for a moment, waiting for her to concur.
“Yes, ma’am” was all Maggie could think to say. She was too busy trying to figure out why she had to leave her home for Mrs. Peacock to have a party. It wasn’t like the cottage was even that close to the main house. At least half an acre of blooming lavender, tiger lilies, rose bushes, and a dozen other colorful flowers separated the two domiciles. It wasn’t like Maggie made a habit out of visiting Mrs. Peacock in her home. For the past several years that she had been Mrs. Peacock’s tenant she’d only been in the house a total of four times.
“So, you’ll make other arrangements for Friday night. Wonderful.” Mrs. Peacock smiled broadly and blinked pleasantly. “That will be for the best.”
Maggie wrinkled her nose, swiveled around, and looked behind her in case there was someone there who’d agreed to this request on her behalf. But there wasn’t. She was all alone and hadn’t flinched. But somehow Mrs. Peacock took that as an affirmative to her request.
“I don’t think I can…” Maggie started, but Mrs. Peacock was already walking back to the house, mumbling to herself. She stopped to pick at a stalk of lavender, then, deciding it wasn’t worth any more attention, hurried back to the main house. Over the next three days, Maggie watched Mrs. Peacock order around a party planner who had lighting strung, speakers placed, and a temporary lounge set up in her yard. It looked beautiful.
As the sun started to set on Friday night, the guests started to arrive. It was as if nature itself wanted to make Mrs. Peacock’s party a smashing success. The sky was mostly clear as it turned orange, pink, and purple with a few stratus clouds that were a rich periwinkle just above the horizon.
The white lights strung from the trees and through the pathway in the garden popped on. The band started to play inside as the speakers brought the jazzy sound outdoors. It didn’t take long for handsome couples to start roaming the grounds carrying glasses of champagne.
Little did Mrs. Peacock know that her tenant, Maggie Bell, had planned a little party of her own. An exclusive guest list that consisted of herself and no one else. Chinese takeout that she’d picked up especially for this occasion was waiting in the fridge. Four strategically placed candles that would provide her with just enough light to get her from the front room to the kitchen, the bathroom, and her bedroom without having to feel her way along the walls.
The cottage looked like no one was home. But Maggie was there watching from her front room window, in the dark.
“This is the best party I’ve ever been to,” she muttered to herself after getting her Chinese food on a plate and taking a seat in her comfy high-backed chair that she’d picked up at a thrift store a while back. She sat directly in front of her window, but no one could see her through the Irish lace curtains. The breeze that blew was soft and cool. Everything was rather wonderful, Maggie thought, as she munched an eggroll before digging into her pepper steak and rice. But just as she took a sip of her iced tea, she froze.
“What’s that place?” A quartet of partygoers had found their way along the path to Maggie’s cottage. Two men and two women.
This is not good, Maggie thought.
“It’s a little house. Isn’t that adorable. It’s like a maid’s quarters or something like in Downton Abbey,” one of the women said.
Maggie wrinkled her nose and pinched her eyebrows. Maid’s quarters? Downton Abbey?
“Let’s go look inside,” the other man said.
What was wrong with these people? This was private property. They were at a party. Why don’t you go snoop in Mrs. Peacock’s place? She’s got much nicer things, Maggie thought as she set her jaw and slipped off her chair and away from the window.
“No. If Vivian allowed us to go in there, she’d have told us. There would be lights on, that’s for sure. I’ll break my neck in these heels if I try and walk on that soggy ground,” the other woman said.
Finally, a grown-up. Of course she’s the voice of reason. She’s the only one in modest dress, Maggie thought. Wait. Soggy ground? What soggy ground?
“I’m going to see if it’s unlocked,” the first man said.
Maggie hoped the ground was soggy and that he sunk his fancy shoes deep in it up to the cuffs of his pants.
“Matt, stop. This isn’t your property,” the classy woman in the simple black dress said, trying to pull her date’s hand. He pulled away and came up my walk. I couldn’t believe the nerve as he peeked around the front door, took hold of the knob, and tried to jiggle it open.
“It’s locked. I wonder if I could break a window without anyone noticing,” Matt said as he looked over his shoulder.
“Matthew Spencersmith, you better not do anything of the sort,” the only classy woman in this quartet said.
“Come on, Mona. Don’t be such a dud,” Matt replied.
“Yeah, Mona. I thought you liked to be adventurous,” the other woman, who thought she was a font of knowledge regarding maid’s quarters, piped up. Her dress was short, and her heels were high, but that didn’t stop her from sidling up to Matt at the front door. It seemed her own date had no opinion on the matter at all and said nothing.
“Trespassing isn’t adventurous, Colleen,” Mona snapped back. They didn’t exactly sound like friends.
Matthew Spencersmith? Where have I heard that name? Maggie mused. But the sound of her jiggling doorknob and the threat of a rock coming through her window made her push that out of her mind, and she did something she’d never done before. She braced herself for a confrontation. On tiptoes, she stepped to her door and was just about to yank it open to scold them outright when they were saved by someone at the house calling Matthew.
“Come on. They’re looking for you. And we’re missing the party,” Mona said.
“All right. We’ll go back,” Matthew said and stepped up to his date to give her what Maggie thought was a patronizing kiss on the cheek.
“Aww. Party pooper,” Colleen huffed and finally wen
That was enough to make Maggie decide right then and there that she was getting motion lights put on her cottage. The receipt would be going to Mrs. Peacock. What kind of people was she inviting to her house? Now, instead of sitting back and listening to the music and chatter as a voyeur, Maggie felt she was sitting up to guard her residence from the drunk and disorderly.
The party went on for a couple of hours. Just when Maggie thought things were winding down and the sound of good-byes and car doors slamming shut could be heard, she saw someone making their way to her cottage down the path from the main house. She squinted and pouted her lips as she watched him through the curtains. It was Matthew Spencersmith. He walked up to the cottage and looked over his shoulder, and that was when Maggie heard the most alarming sound and could remain hidden no more. It was the sound of a zipper.
“Hey! There are bathrooms in the main house!” she shouted.
“What? Who?” Matthew Spencersmith quickly zipped up and staggered back a couple of steps before leaning on his knees to peer at the house.
“I’m going to tell Mrs. Peacock what you were about to do if you don’t get away from my house.” Maggie was surprised at how brave she was in the dark house with a stranger outside.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” he slurred. “Hey. Who’s in there?”
“Mrs. Peacock’s tenant. She’s going to hear about you and your friends thinking of breaking into the guest house and you using her yard as a public toilet.”
“No. No. You don’t have to tell her anything. I’m so sorry. I’ve had a little too much to drink. You know how it is,” the man continued to ramble.
Maggie wrinkled her nose with disgust. “Fine. If you just go away and—”
“You’ve got a pretty voice. Why don’t you come out here and talk to me? Face-to-face,” he said. Maggie’s stomach flipped as she imagined the sour smell of alcohol and sweat on him, and his suit wrinkled and stained.
“No thanks,” she replied.
“I won’t bite. I promise,” he replied with a chuckle.
Maggie heard more car doors slamming shut and engines starting. “Your date is going to leave without you. You better get going.”
“She’s not going anywhere without me. Do you know who I am? I’m Matthew Spencersmith. The youngest and most eligible city councilman Fair Haven has ever elected, with a very bright political future,” he boasted. Maggie thought he sounded like he’d said that to his reflection in the mirror a thousand times before tonight.
“Well, Mr. Spencersmith, I think you better find her and maybe a cup of black coffee,” Maggie chirped from the darkness of her home. She felt a little bit like Cyrano de Bergerac, who was able to be honest and brave with Roxanne while he was in the shadows. Had she been in front of Mr. Spencersmith, she would have probably stood there awkwardly, her face twisted in discomfort and not a single word to say popping into her head.
“Black coffee. That’s funny. Very funny. Hey, can I come in and use your bathroom?” he asked in all seriousness.
“No. Absolutely not,” Maggie replied.
“It’s kind of an emergency,” he continued.
“Then you better hurry back to the main house,” Maggie urged him.
Matthew Spencersmith turned and started to lurch his way back to the house. There were still some partygoers there. But the music had stopped, and from what Maggie could see in the soft patio lights, the cleaning crew had started to break things down and quietly put the yard back in order.
Finally, after none of the remaining guests seemed too interested in walking Mrs. Peacock’s grounds at such a late hour, Maggie decided it was safe to go to bed. When she woke up to her alarm, she felt tired and cranky. When she looked in the mirror before leaving her house for the bookstore, she was sure everyone was going to know she had a rough night and ask her a lot of questions. But Maggie never made it to work. As soon as she had stepped out her front door and taken three steps toward her car, she stopped.
There, lying on the ground with a severe blow to his head, was Matthew Spencersmith. He was dead.
Chapter 2
As if the crowd from the previous night and the lack of sleep wasn’t enough to set her on edge, Maggie felt her chest tighten as Officer Gary Brookes pulled up in his squad car along with an ambulance, the coroner, the crime scene photographer, and a couple of other officers there for crowd control and to tape off the perimeter of Maggie’s cottage.
“Maggie? Are you all right?” Gary asked softly as he approached. She was sitting on the stoop with her hands in her lap and her hair wild and kinked from the mist in the air.
He was a big guy with a barrel chest even without his bulletproof vest. She looked at the tattoos on his meaty arms as he approached but let out a breath of relief and shrugged when she saw his kind face. Gary had a way of making her feel a little more comfortable in her skin. Probably because they’d known each other through the most awkward period of a young person’s life: high school.
Without hesitating, he took a seat next to her, pulled out his pocket notebook and a pencil, and asked her to start at the beginning.
“I wasn’t supposed to be here,” she confided. “Mrs. Peacock didn’t want me anywhere near the party. She suggested I stay at a hotel. I don’t have the money to stay at a hotel at a moment’s notice. So I hid out in my own house.”
“Have you talked to Vivian yet?” he asked, knowing the answer before Maggie spat out the word no.
“I figured I’d wait until you could be here to throw yourself in front of her. You know. Just in case the claws come out,” Maggie huffed and wrinkled her nose as she made clawing gestures with her hands.
“How long have you lived here? You know Vivian Peacock is the world’s biggest softy on her fixed income.” Gary smirked. “She’s not going to be angry that you stayed in the house you are paying rent to live in.”
Maggie nodded.
“Hey. What have you got going on over there?” Gary asked, pointing to a freshly dug patch of earth and some lawn tools in a box propped up at the corner of the house.
Maggie took a deep breath. “I planted some sunflowers and some of those black-eyed Susans. I thought they’d look nice along the side of the house and maybe camouflage it a little. I don’t know if they’ll grow. I followed the instructions.”
“That’s great. I’m a bit of an amateur gardener myself. I find it relaxing,” Gary said as he stood up, letting out a slight grunt. Maggie smiled. He was such a tough-looking guy that the idea of him in Crocs talking to some tomato plants and urging them to grow went against the grain. But, like Vivian Peacock, he was also one of those big softies.
“What is going on here?” came the shrill screech of Mrs. Peacock. “What are the police doing on my property? Excuse me! Excuse me? Officer… oh, yes. Officer Brookes. What’s going on here? What has happened?”
Gary wasted no time and without a parting word to Maggie walked over to Mrs. Peacock to break the news that one of her partygoers was found dead on her property. Maggie watched as the eccentric old lady’s hand went to her lips and her eyes went wide. She looked up at Gary as he softly spoke and pointed to Maggie. All at once it was like someone had pulled the outer corners of Mrs. Peacock’s eyes down as she slowly approached Maggie.
“I thought you were staying at a hotel?” she asked.
“I really couldn’t afford it, Mrs. Peacock. I just hid out with the lights off and had a nice time until I was afraid Mr. Spencersmith was going to break in. I’m sorry,” Maggie replied.
Mrs. Peacock shook her head. She whispered something to Gary, but he only chuckled and shook his head. Maggie was sure it was something about her and probably negative. But still she kept quiet.
