St. Marin's Cozy Mystery Series Box Set - Volume 1 : Books 1-3

Chapter 3-2

The sheriff had come by late in the day to say the coroner had ruled the cause of death to be a blow to the head by something cylindrical.

“The reporter in the storeroom with a candlestick,” Sheriff Mason had said with a terrible English accent, and I hadn’t been able to keep from laughing. I sounded a little hysterical to myself. The fatigue and double-adrenaline shot of the grand opening and the murder had started to fray my nerves.

“I don’t think there’s anything shaped like that in my store,” I said, looking around and finding myself grateful that the sheriff had come by in jeans and a “Meyerhoff’s Grocery” T-shirt instead of his uniform.

“Doesn’t look like she was hit here.”

“Oh, thank God,” I said a little too loudly as several shoppers turned to look. “I mean, the woman is still dead, and that’s still horrible. But I didn’t like thinking she’d died here.”

“Well, I didn’t say that.” The sheriff looked a little sheepish as I gave him a squinty look. “I said she wasn’t hit here. But it does look like she stumbled in here, maybe to hide.”

I puffed up my cheeks. “Would she have been able to credit card my door with a head injury like that?”

“Human beings are capable of a great many things when driven by necessity. I’m not sure that’s what happened, but it seems likely. We found Stevensmith’s fingerprints on the outside of the door.”

I nodded and lowered my voice. “Okay, so she did die here. I suppose in a few years we might be able to trot out her ghost for a spooky book night.” I immediately winced as the words left my mouth. “Too soon?”

“Nope. You’re thinking like a business woman, and I like it. Plus, the ghost tours around here are pretty epic.”

I laughed. I loved when older people like me used slang, especially when it was a little behind the times. “I’ll make a note.”