Candy Slain Murder Read online

  ’TIS THE SEASON FOR MURDER

  It was bedtime for this business owner. I swung my feet onto the floor when my phone rang again, but this time it was Abe.

  “Hey, handsome,” I said, smiling. “Are you working on those lines that caused the fire across town?”

  “Am I ever. We finished restoring power only a little while ago to the four square blocks that lost it.”

  “I saw the house on the news at about seven-thirty. Adele called me. At least nobody was home.”

  “Right. Nobody living, anyway.”

  What? “What do you mean?”

  “They had to cut through the roof of the part that wasn’t burning to get to the fire.”

  “I saw that on TV.”

  “I have to get back to work, but I wanted to tell you what I saw. I was up in the bucket looking down into the attic. Several guys inside were staring at something on the floor. When they moved apart, you wouldn’t believe what I saw. I don’t know how it got there, but I saw a skeleton. A human skeleton . . .”

  Books by Maddie Day

  Country Store Mysteries

  FLIPPED FOR MURDER

  GRILLED FOR MURDER

  WHEN THE GRITS HIT THE FAN

  BISCUITS AND SLASHED BROWNS

  DEATH OVER EASY

  STRANGLED EGGS AND HAM

  NACHO AVERAGE MURDER

  CANDY SLAIN MURDER

  Cozy Capers Book Group Mysteries

  MURDER ON CAPE COD

  MURDER AT THE TAFFY SHOP

  And writing as Edith Maxwell

  A TINE TO LIVE, A TINE TO DIE

  ’TIL DIRT DO US PART

  FARMED AND DANGEROUS

  MURDER MOST FOWL

  MULCH ADO ABOUT MURDER

  Published by Kensington Publishing Corp.

  A Country Store Mystery

  Candy Slain Murder

  MADDIE DAY

  KENSINGTON BOOKS

  KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP.

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  ’TIS THE SEASON FOR MURDER

  Also by

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Recipes

  KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2020 by Edith Maxwell

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales, or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.

  If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the Publisher and neither the Author nor the Publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  ISBN: 978-1-4967-2317-8

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4967-2318-5 (eBook)

  ISBN-10: 1-4967-2318-X (eBook)

  For my brilliant, talented, quirky, and generous

  New England friend Sheila Connolly, who was always

  my role model in writing multiple cozy mystery series.

  May your spirit rest easy, dear Sheila.

  We all miss you.

  Acknowledgments

  Many thanks to Christopher Huff and Pamela Vandewalle Huff for inspiring me to write about birth children (and parents), reunions, and adoption. Expanded families rock. We love you and your brood!

  Thank you again to Terri Bischoff, independent editor extraordinaire, for helping me fix and enrich this story in all kinds of ways. Gratitude to D. P. Lyle, MD, for help with facts about body decomposition in an attic. I also consulted the Book of Poisons by Serita Stevens and Anne Bannon. Brown County Sheriff Scott Sunderland once again provided me with an important detail about Hoosier County police procedure—thank you, sir.

  Kelly Braun chipped in one of Buck’s more colorful phrases—thanks, Kelly! Jan Grape first mentioned “Oh, my stars and nightgown”—I had to include that, as well as the Dan Rather quote about the too-small bathing suit, which I heard on the Wait Wait . . . Don’t Tell Me! radio show.

  Author Julia Spencer-Fleming kindly put me in touch with her daughter, Virginia Hugo-Vidal, who converted to Islam as a teenager. Virginia was generous enough to share her experience of the faith with me. She explained what it’s like for her to live as a convert, so I could portray my character Marcus Vandemere in more depth. Any misrepresentations are of my own doing. Also, thanks to Julia for teaching me the word “eldritch.”

  Longtime friend Tim Mundorff turned me on to the Columbus—his hometown—architecture as well as the Gom sandwich.

  My young friend James Tanona is now age eleven—with a fourteen-year-old sister—and is a voracious reader who loves this series. He reviewed all the scenes that include teen Sean and gave me a few pointers on how teenage boys behave.

  Gratitude, always, to my agent, John Talbot, to my editor, John Scognamiglio, and the rest of the talented crew at Kensington, including publicist Larissa Ackerman and talented cover artist Ben Perini. To my Wicked Authors blogmates—seven years and going strong—I couldn’t do this without you. Readers, please find us at the blog and on Facebook. Finally, love always to my family, my Hugh, my Sisters (and Brothers) in Crime, and my family of Friends.


  Chapter One

  I frowned as I stood at the hot grill in my country store restaurant. I was beset by a vague sense of foreboding, a gray film creeping over the light in my psyche.

  Everything in my life was rosy. Pans ’N Pancakes, my business, was thriving and in the black, and right now it smelled like meat grilling and contentment. My employees, Danna Beedle and Turner Rao, seemed happy with their jobs. I was solid with Abe, my electrical lineman honey. Aunt Adele was healthy. It was December first, with white lights twinkling and the aroma of fresh evergreen wafting from the tree Abe and I had cut and set up in the corner yesterday. Most important? Our small town of South Lick, Indiana, hadn’t seen a murder in a year. So whence this sense of looming doom?

  Danna carried over a load of dirty dishes from our biggest table. We still had a few diners finishing their meals, several waiting for their food, and one couple intent on their chess match at the game table. But at one-forty-five, the lunch rush was over. My right-hand woman took a second look at me after she deposited the dishes in the wide sink. “What’s the matter, Robbie? Did you hear bad news? Did a ghost walk over your grandma’s grave?”

  “No.” I mustered a smile. “Everything’s fine. I got a funny feeling something might happen. A not-good something.”

  “You?” she scoffed. “I thought you didn’t believe in woo-woo stuff like that. Me, on the other hand, I listen hard when I sense something bad’s up.”

  “I don’t really believe in woo-woo.” Although that palm reader out in Santa Barbara last February had been onto something when she’d warned me of danger. Danger I should have paid more attention to. “Anyway, all’s good here, right?” I waved my arm around at the country store where I’d made my dream come true. Tables of different sizes filled the restaurant area. Shelves filled with antique and vintage cookware lined the store section, almost all of it for sale. I also offered skeins of Adele’s wool and her knitted hats, a local Amish farmer’s honey, and other homey products. I even had a pickle barrel. A big menorah sat ready on a windowsill for when Hanukkah came around next week, and tomorrow Abe was going to bring Sean, his teenage son, to help decorate the tree.

  “Yes, it’s all good.” She pointed at the grill. “Except you just burned that turkey patty.”

  “Shoot!” I flipped the patty. “It’s not too bad. I’ll eat it when I get a chance. And there’s only one more order waiting, right?” Our order carousel had a single slip hanging from it. I grabbed another disk of ground turkey and laid it on the grill.

  “Yep, for that two-top. I’m going to take a quick break, okay?” Danna asked.

  “Go ahead.”

  She slid out of her blue store apron and tossed it in the dirty laundry box, then headed for the ladies’ room. I examined the slip. We’d run out of our lunch special, and this was a straightforward order of two hamburgers—one medium rare with the works and one well done with nothing—a coleslaw, a fruit salad, and two brownies, with a milk and a ginger ale to wash down the meals.

  I also offered one kind of soup every day, plus turkey and veggie burgers, a couple of wraps and sandwiches, and a Caesar salad on the regular menu. Customers could also order breakfast all day long until we closed at two-thirty. With such a small crew and kitchen, I stuck to the first two meals of the day. And today Turner was off. Tuesday tended to be our slowest, customerwise. Turner was taking one class per semester at a new culinary institute in Bloomington, the university town in the next county. The class was held on Tuesdays, and I’d told him Danna and I could manage without him for a day.

  After I finished the turkey burger order and delivered it, I filled the hamburger plates and carried them over to Tanesha and Bashir, a couple holding hands at their table. They were staying in one of my B&B rooms upstairs and had said they were on their honeymoon.

  “Enjoy your meal.” I smiled at them. They looked more or less my age of twenty-nine. Geez, that meant I’d be thirty next May, which was kind of hard to believe.

  “Thanks, Robbie. We love it here,” Tanesha said in a clipped accent that pegged her as being from Minnesota or maybe North Dakota.

  “I’m glad. I do, too.” Despite being a native mid-coast Californian, I did love the distinct seasons and the relaxed pace of life in southern Indiana. South Lick was nestled in the hills of scenic Brown County, so I could get a strenuous workout when I took my bicycle on the roads to work off the stresses of being a solo entrepreneur.

  I turned back to the grill. The cowbell hanging from the heavy old front door jangled as a tall man younger than me walked in with light brown skin flushed from the cold. He closed the door but stood with a tentative air, gazing around as if searching for something or someone. I’d never seen him before.

  “Welcome,” I called. “Are you here to eat? You can sit anywhere, and we’ll be right with you.” I walked toward him, rubbing my hands on my apron. “I’m Robbie Jordan. This is my store and restaurant.”

  “Thanks.” He didn’t smile and a tic beat at the corner of a brown eye. He was slender, over six feet tall, and his short-cropped dark golden hair was as curly as his dark lashes, almost kinky, in fact. A chinstrap beard lined his jaw, and he looked to be in his mid-twenties. “Um. Does somebody named Danna work here?” When his voice shook, he cleared his throat. “Danna Beedle.”

  At that moment, Danna emerged from the restroom. I glanced her way.

  Was this guy on the up-and-up? He looked innocent enough, and was clearly nervous. But strangers coming in and asking for Danna, who had only last month turned twenty-one, made me nervous, too. “And who might you be?” I found something a little familiar-looking about him but I couldn’t figure out what it was. Or maybe he was the cause of my uneasy woo-woo feeling a little earlier.

  “My name is Marcus Vandemere. Can I please talk to her?” His gaze followed Danna to the kitchen area where she donned a clean apron. “That’s Danna, isn’t it? I would have known her anywhere.”

  What? Well, what could go wrong in a public place like this in broad daylight? “Yes, it is. Danna?” I waved her over. When she drew close, I said, “This gentleman would like to speak with you.”

  She cocked her head, her reddish-blond dreadlocks covered today in a red-and-green scarf in honor of the Christmas season. “Hi. I’m Danna.” My assistant, almost as tall as Marcus, held out her hand to him.

  He took a deep breath and blew it out, then took her hand in both of his. “I’m Marcus, and I’m so glad to meet you. I’ve been looking for you.”

  “You have?” She scrunched up her nose. “Why?”

  “I’m your half brother.”

  Chapter Two

  Danna gaped at Marcus. “You, you’re . . . what? I don’t have a brother.” She slid her hand out of his, frowning. “I’m an only child. Always have been.”

  I stared at him. Had Danna’s late father, whom she’d never known, had a child with another woman?

  “I know this is a big shock.” His voice was stronger now, and his tone gentle. “Our mom gave me up for adoption.”

  Whoa. Corrine Beedle, Mayor of South Lick, had a past I hadn’t had a clue about. And neither did Danna, judging from her reaction.

  “She did?” Danna’s voice rose. “She never told me. How old are you?”

  “I’m twenty-six.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “I’m twenty-one, barely. So Mom . . .” She shook her head. “I’m sorry, it’s super hard to get my head around this.”

  “I understand,” he said.

  “Where do you live, Marcus?” I asked.

  “In Bloomington. I’m in grad school at IU, but I grew up in Indianapolis.”

  A customer raised her hand across the room. I gestured that I would be right there.

  “Why don’t you two sit down over by the desk?” I pointed to the small sitting area in my office corner where they could talk without diners hearing. “I can handle things, Danna.” As long as a tour bus didn’t show up.

  She looked wary but finally nodded. “Come o
n.” She slowly added, “Marcus,” as if trying on the word for size.

  I busied myself with delivering the ticket to a four-top. The total was under thirty-five dollars, and they’d ordered—and consumed—a lot of food.

  “We sure love your prices, hon,” one of the women said.

  “Thanks. I need to meet my expenses, but I’d hate to have them so high folks felt they couldn’t afford to eat here.” In fact, what I charged for meals was under the going rate in Nashville, but I sure made up in quantity what I might have earned with a pricier menu.

  I refilled the drinks of the honeymooners and checked with the chess players to see if they needed anything. I shot a glance at Danna and her brother on my way back to the sink. They sat at right angles, neither of them smiling or looking relaxed, but talking. What an astounding piece of news for her to get out of the blue. He probably wanted to meet his birth mother, too. What would Corrine do with that? Meeting a birth family had to be a minefield to navigate on either end. Marcus could be welcomed with open arms—or treated coldly. Had Corrine ever looked for him and not found him? A lot of people used Ancestry or other DNA services these days to connect with birth families. Marcus’s sibling relationship to Danna must have been what I’d thought looked familiar.

  All the customers had paid and left, with the newlyweds also buying a vintage muffin tin before heading out for the afternoon. I was loading the dishwasher when Danna and Marcus approached.

  “Get this, Robbie. Marcus loves to cook, too.” Now Danna was smiling, and her eyes sparkled, too.

  When a wide smile split Marcus’s face, I definitely saw the resemblance between the two.

  “I sure do, especially international foods,” he said. “My parents always took us to weird restaurants—at least they seemed weird to a kid—and we traveled a lot, too, when I was growing up.”