Publishable By Death - Andi Cumbo-Floyd (ebook reader wifi .txt) 📗
- Author: Andi Cumbo-Floyd
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“Weird.” He looked up, too. “Yeah, I don’t see any sign of water up there.”
“Maybe from someone’s shoes or something?”
“Could be. But it’s not raining, so I don’t know.”
He gave me a sideways grin. “Maybe it’s like that old riddle, and it was an icicle and now the murder weapon has melted.”
He chuckled. “If Stevensmith had been stabbed, I might think you were onto something.” He winked. “That combined with the fact that it’s far too warm for icicles makes me question your theory.”
I smiled. “Way to crush a girl’s dreams.”
“Sometimes the truth hurts.” He bent down and put a finger in the water and then touched the tip of his finger to his tongue. I would have been grossed out if I hadn’t thought about doing the same thing. “Just water,” he said.
“So odd.”
He nodded, and we headed out of the storeroom, turning off the light and closing the door behind us. We made our way to the front of the store, where the sheriff and our friends waited. “Alright, so we’ll patrol through overnight and come take a closer look at things in the morning.” Until then, we’ve put a big old padlock on the back door – your insurance should cover the repairs for that, too, Harvey – to keep it secure. Just be sure to call your alarm company first thing since you won’t have a second egress if there’s a fire.”
“Oh Lord, please, let’s hope we don’t also add a fire to a murder and a break-in,” Mart said. “I’ll come in tomorrow and handle that stuff.” She pulled me close in a side-armed hug.
“And we’re here, too, so we’ll help in the shop and keep an eye out for suspicious folks, too.” Stephen winked at the sheriff.
“You have good friends, Harvey.”
“I do. Thanks, Sheriff.”
“Ready to lock up?” Mason held the door open for everyone but Mart and me. I wanted to do a last pass through the store, be sure everything was closed up tight The two of us went to the back door and doublechecked the lock. Then, I made sure some lights were on in both the shop and the café. As we headed toward the front door, Mart stopped me with a hand on my arm. “We did find that,” she pointed to the right, “but I don’t know if it’s anything. So I wanted you to see it just in case it’s nothing.”
Behind the free-standing shelf that held biographies and memoirs, she had propped up a thin umbrella with a long, black handle. “Mart, we need to tell the sheriff—“
“We will, tomorrow.”
I could see Daniel’s face under the street lamp outside, and he seemed a little nervous. “Tonight, we’ve had enough.” She gave me a little shove toward the door. “Let’s go.”
I started to hesitate, but the store was locked up tight, and I knew Williams would be stopping by on patrol. I decided I could call the sheriff first thing, even before the alarm company.
We scooted out, and the little bell above the door was still ringing as I locked it.
The next morning, I had this awful feeling that the umbrella was going to be gone and I had lost valuable evidence for the investigation, so I gobbled down a bowl of cereal and sprinted with Mayhem to the shop before the sun was even up all the way.
When I spun around the corner of the biography shelf, I was relieved to see the umbrella still there, just as it had been. I led Mayhem around the store just to be sure we were all clear and checked the lock at the back. Everything was as it should be, well, except for the fact that someone had been murdered in my shop and there’d been a break-in. Otherwise, everything was fine.
I grabbed a plastic bag from under the counter and went to scoop up the umbrella. I didn’t know that there was any value in not leaving my fingerprints – after all, Mart had been carrying the thing in her bare hands – but figured better safe than sorry. As I picked it up, I noticed a small puddle on the wooden floor beneath where it had stood. I glanced at the umbrella and back at the puddle. For the most part, the umbrella itself was dry, but down in the tip, I could see little glistens of water droplets. This was the source of the puddle in the storeroom, I was sure of it.
The sheriff needed to know, and I had delayed long enough. I gave the sheriff’s office a ring, and the person on duty said he’d be over shortly. In the meantime, I had some puzzling to do. The umbrella was what the person had broken in to get, clearly, but then why had they dropped it out back? And why was it wet?
I had an inkling of the first answer – from the description it seemed likely this was the murder weapon. The thin, cylindrical handle was made of some sort of metal coated in a thin cover of what felt like black rubber that reminded me of the spray stuff a lot of the folks with pick-up trucks used to protect their beds from scratches. Maybe the sheriff had found traces of that rubber in Stevensmith’s wound or maybe they had done a mold of the injury . . . I stopped myself before I let my fascination with TV dramas lead me too far into things I didn’t really want to think about.
I had just finished making a pot of coffee in the café when I heard a knock at the door and saw the sheriff waving a small, white bag in front of his face. I smiled – next to Rocky’s Mom’s cinnamon rolls, the sausage-egg-and-cheese biscuits from the gas station up the road were the best breakfast in town. I felt my stomach rumble – cereal was just a teaser of a breakfast.
“Thought you might need fortification,” the sheriff said as I unlocked the door. “Now, where’s this mysterious item you found in your snooping?”
I blushed. “We were just curious,” I said as I led us to the table at the front of the café.
“You know what happened to the cat?”
I shivered. I did know. “It’s right here,” I said and gestured to the umbrella I’d propped against the table. “I think it’s what left a puddle in the storeroom. It left another where Mart set it last night.”
The sheriff picked up the umbrella in his gloveless hands, confirming my guess that fingerprints were a moot point, and looked up at me. “Smart move not to call me back last night. I imagine whoever cared enough to break in accidentally dropped this when you and your friends showed up. It’s best they not know we recovered it.”
“A bit of luck, that. I was just sleepy and figured you were, too. “
“Courtesy and good rest will carry you a long way in this world,” the sheriff said through a mouthful of biscuit. “What puzzles me is the water. You’re sure this wasn’t here before?”
I took a minute to think about the storeroom over the last few days. “I don’t think so, but I can’t be totally sure. I’ve been in and out of there several times, of course, but always in a hurry or with my arms full. Not sure I would have noticed it behind the boxes where it seems like it was. We should ask Rocky. Her café supplies are in there, too.”
“I will ask Rocky, Ms. Super Sleuth. Leave the police work to me, okay?”
I tilted my head and said, “Sure,” with a wide grin.
“It’s like talking to a brick wall,” the sheriff muttered with a small smile. “I expect you know this is probably the murder weapon, right?”
“I wondered. Right shape?”
“Looks like it. Heavy enough, too,” he said as he dropped the handle into his hand a couple of times. “And it’s long, so someone smaller could get a lot of leverage if they swung it like a bat.”
I cringed. The image of that happening in my storeroom made me a little queasy. “So a woman isn’t out of the question.”
“Nope. Not at all.”
I sighed. I didn’t like the idea of anyone murdering anyone, but a woman committing murder felt a little worse to me than if a man had done it, like a strike against the sisterhood or something.
“Any news on that orange paper?” I asked with what I felt like was a casual air.
The sheriff was on to me, though. “You mean besides the flowers at Heron’s Farm Stand, the art in Divina’s studio, and the old menus from Chez Cuisine.”
I laughed. “Right. Besides that?”
“Nope, Ms. Super Sleuth, I believe you have found our best leads there, but nothing has turned up yet.”
I nodded as he stood and took the umbrella. “Mind if I duck out the back? I’d rather not have all of town see me carrying an umbrella on a perfectly sunny day.”
I looked out the window and realized the sun was up, and it was gorgeous, the kind of spring morning that made me want to plant a million flowers. “Sure thing. Need me to unlock it.”
“Nope, got my key right here.” I’d been grateful when he’d told me he kept a spare key to the padlock, just in case. It felt like I had back-up.
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