St. Marin's Cozy Mystery Series Box Set - Volume 2: Books 4-6

Chapter 4-1

4

On Tuesday morning when I got to the store to open, a huge, wooden, flat trailer was parked in the alley behind the shop. The float had arrived.

Daniel nearly scared me out of my skin when he dropped an arm around my shoulder as I stood by the trailer, a bit flabbergasted.

“Sorry,” Daniel said as he bent to kiss my cheek after I had jumped nearly high enough to clear the trailer. “Didn’t mean to startle you. You were really concentrating there. Brainstorming how to decorate?”

I looked from him to the trailer and back again. It was so big, and I didn’t know if our doghouse, the shrubs that the garden center next door were loaning us, and our scant cast were going to fill it enough. We might look far more like Charlie Brown’s Christmas Tree than I wanted. I mean, I appreciated the symbolic nature of the cartoon, but on a float – we might just look cheap or even worse – uncreative. “More like trying to decide how many pumpkins I can buy to fill her up. Does that stand out by the highway still have a lot of them? Maybe I can buy their old ones, the ones that are starting to go? I don’t think I can afford to buy dozens of fresh pumpkins, but the slightly rotted ones will look okay if we pile them up, right? Or maybe I can make a whole bunch from papier-mâché? I can go a couple nights without sleep—”

“Whoa, Harvey. Take a breath. We’re okay. The float will look great. You and Mart have done a great job designing it. And look,” he pulled a bright yellow T-shirt out from behind his back, “I have my costume well in hand.”

I stared at the shirt and said, “It’s not striped.” I felt my panic starting to rise again.

“That’s what this is for.” He held up a fat, black marker.

“You’re going to draw the stripes? What if you—”

“And this,” he said as he drew a ruler out of his back pocket. “It’ll be perfect, Harvey. Besides, it’s the local parade. We’re not passing in front of Macy’s or anything . . . unless of course there’s something you haven’t told me yet.” He feigned a look of panic by making his eyes wide and dropping his jaw. “We aren’t going to New York are we?”

I punched him lightly in the stomach. “No. I just,” I sighed, “I just want it to look good. It’s advertising, but more, I don’t want to let the town down.”

Daniel snorted with laughter. “Harvey, the last thing you could do is let this town down. Your events bring new people all the time, and the number of fundraisers you’ve done for folks hasn’t gone unnoticed.” He drew me against his chest. “Honestly, I think you could probably walk down the street reading Harry Potter and people would still cheer.”

I squeezed him and then took a step back to look into his face. “Okay, I’ll stop fretting. Thanks. But maybe I should get a few pumpkins?”

“Fret not. Let me take care of any pumpkin-related needs, okay?” He pointed to the doghouse. “For now, let’s work on getting this up there.”

We spent the next few minutes hefting the doghouse – okay, Daniel did the hefting, and I supervised –and putting it into position. It took up a good quarter of the flatbed, and I could see we would be fine. I did jot down “yellow and orange streamers” on the palm of my hand, though. The sides needed something.

“I don’t know if you’ve heard, but there’s this invention called paper.” Cate’s voice echoed off the back of the store as she walked up the alley. I could see her car down a ways, behind the art coop she ran.

I looked at my hand and then at my dear friend. “I’ve heard of that material. Flat. Often white. Porous.”

“That’s the one.” She gave me a hug. “Seriously, Harvey, just put a notebook in your pocket.”

“Why didn’t I think of that?” I rolled my eyes. “You know, I’ve tried over and over again to carry a notepad with me, but I always end up setting it down somewhere. But my skin, it’s always here.”

Now Cate rolled her eyes and turned to look at the float. “That doghouse looks great. How does Mayhem like it?”

My pup lifted her head from the patch of grass she’d claimed when we’d arrived and looked less than stoked by the idea of a doghouse. Beside her, Taco snored from his completely prone position with his butt against her back.

“You actually think she’s going to sleep in a doghouse?” Daniel said. “Only if Harvey puts it on her own bed inside the house.”

Cate laughed. “You’re one to talk, Mr. Bassett-Hound Sofa Man.”

Daniel puffed out his chest. “Taco is a fragile flower.” He laughed. “Mind if he spends the day, Harvey?”

I looked over at the two dogs who were now making a perfect T in the grass with their bodies, smiled and said, “I don’t know. He might be a handful.”

“Only if you try to pick him up,” Daniel said over his shoulder as he headed down the alley. “Lunch?”

“Perfect. Lu’s got a new mole sauce I want to try.” Ever since we’d been dating, Daniel and I had been meeting for lunch at Lu’s lunch truck. He’d introduced me to her tacos on one of our first dates, and I wasn’t willing to swear that his taste in food wasn’t what had made me fall in love with him.

Cate helped me coax the two hounds into the back door of the shop, and once in, they headed right to the front window, where their matching dog beds were waiting. I didn’t complain. We’d had more than one new customer come in because of the cute puppies in the window.

“What brings you by on this fine morning, my friend?” I asked as I logged into the register and then moved to the back of the store where Rocky was already brewing coffee in the café.

“I saw the trailer and wanted to get a sense of scale for the pumpkin. I’m going to start it tonight.” She tucked her small frame into a chair by the window and flipped her sleek black hair behind her ears.

I took a deep breath, but I still heard the squeak in my voice as I sat down across from her and said, “You haven’t started yet?”

Cate laid her hand over mine. “Don’t worry. Lucas built the frame over the weekend. I’ll do a few layers each night and paint it on Friday. We’ll be ready in plenty of time for Saturday. papier-mâché is really easy.”

I shivered as I remembered my attempt to make a piñata for my own thirteenth birthday. All that had resulted was a big pile of rock-hard newspaper that my mom had needed to help me pry off our dining room table. “Easy for you, maybe?” I said.

“I am an artiste,” Cate said with a laugh. My friend was a very talented photographer, but she had none of the pretention that so many people think artists carry. If anything, she was one of the most down-to-earth people I knew. She squeezed my hand. “I also wanted to see if you’re still game to try the new hair salon in town. I’m going this afternoon, and I booked you an appointment, too, just in case you could get off.”

I laughed. “You’re very optimistic.” I frowned. “Or you really think I need a haircut.” I had a thick mop of hair that required a drastic amount of pomade, a kerchief, or a baseball cap to tame.

“You know I love your curl.” Cate reached up and tugged on a lock that was dangling over my left eye. “My parents gave me many things, but fun hair is not one of them.”

I laughed. “I would love to have your hair. It’s so—”

“Straight. Boring. There are many great things about my Korean heritage, but I wouldn’t rank my hair as one of them.” Cate flipped her hair back, and it fell into the exact position it had been in before.

If I did that, I’d have some rogue curl flinging wildly in the air. On rare days, I loved my hair, but today was not one of those days. And I definitely needed a haircut. Right now, the sides were puffing out and making my hair look a third bigger than it was. “I’m in. What time?”

We made plans for our haircuts at three p.m., and Rocky sent Cate out with a big mug of coffee and a cinnamon scone. I followed her to the door to turn on the neon open sign and to greet Galen and Mack on their weekly visit to the bookstore.

Mack took a hard left as soon as he was in and nestled himself – with a bit of brute force – between Mayhem and Taco in the window as Galen headed back to the mystery section with a big wave. Not many men read cozy mysteries, but Galen did – voraciously. That man could finish a novel a day most weeks, and he was, hands-down, my best customer, even without his continual promotion of the shop on his i********: feed.

I waved back and then headed to the front of the store to snap a picture of the dogs for our own i********: page. Our likes always climbed when I tagged Mack. Someday, we might have as many followers as the Bulldog, but not any day soon.

A few minutes later, Galen came to the counter with his usual stack of titles. “This one is for you.” He handed me a small paperback book with brightly colored yarn on the cover. “I mean for you to read. Obviously, it’s yours since you own it.” The wrinkles at the corners of Galen’s gray eyes got deeper in his white skin. The man is probably close to seventy-five, but he hasn’t lost any of the spring in his step. “The sleuth reminds me of you.”

A groan sounded somewhere over my shoulder, and I looked back to see Marcus standing behind me. “Harvey does not need any encouragement in the sleuthing department. I thought you knew that, Galen.” Marcus was smiling, but there was a serious undertone to his words.

“Oh, it’s not the sleuthing I’m thinking of – although now that you mention it.” He winked at me. “No, she’s a business owner in a small town, or at least she becomes one.” Galen winced. “Sorry. That’s a small spoiler, but the book is still good.”

“Yarned and Dangerous. Sounds fun. Thanks, Galen. I’ll give it a read.”

“Good. And then write the author and tell her we need more books in this series. There are only two, and I’m aching for more.”

I laughed. “Ah, so you’re just using me for your own bookish ends.”

“You bet I am, Ms. Beckett. I have to get my book fix whatever way I can.” He slid the rest of the stack – maybe ten books – toward me. “These, however, are for me to take home.”

I glanced at his titles. Mostly mysteries but a couple YA fantasy titles, too. “I didn’t take you for a Ghost Academy reader, Galen.” I’d read the books a couple of weeks earlier and reviewed them on my Goodreads feed, but they weren’t to everyone’s taste.

“Believe it or not, I read most of the things you recommend, Harvey, even books about ghosts who have to go to school.”

I cackled. “I’ll take that as a high compliment.” I bagged his purchases and then handed him a dog treat. “Rocky has started offering doggy goodies in the café. She wanted Mack to be the first to sample her latest – pumpkin cookies.”

Galen waved the cookie in the air, and as if by some sort of psychic sense, Mack lifted his head and then lumbered over. Without hesitation, he ate the whole thing in one bite. “Mack approves,” Galen said to Rocky as he headed her way. “Let’s do a photo of those, shall we?”

Rocky laughed. “I’d be honored.”

By some great gift of fortune or friendship, Lu parked her truck right in front of the shop for the lunch rush, and Marcus and I had our hands full for the late morning and early afternoon as customers decided to browse our shelves before or, it appeared from the greasy fingerprints on the front door, after they sampled Lu’s delicious offerings.

Fortunately, though, the crowd thinned by the time Daniel arrived, and the warm sun made it possible for us to eat our tacos on a bench just up the street. It was one of those autumn days where everything felt perfect. The sunlight was that particular shade of gold that only comes in the autumn, but the breeze carries with it the scent of leaves and last night’s wood fires. “This day is perfect,” I said as I leaned back and rubbed my stomach, now full of Lu’s new chicken with mole tacos. “I could live a year of days like this.”