Table Of Contents

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  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

  Berry Trifle

  About the Author

  Dead-End Detective

  Copyright @ 2020 Amanda Flower

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereinafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

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

  Print: 978-1-947892-79-8

  eBook: 978-1-947892-80-4

  www.hallmarkpublishing.com

  Dedication

  for Nicole Resciniti

  superagent, rock star, dear friend

  Acknowledgements

  Special thanks to everyone at Hallmark Publishing for supporting this book. I am so very excited to be working with all of you, and looking forward to seeing where this new adventure will lead.

  Very special thanks to superagent Nicole Resciniti, who fought for this title, and to editor Stacey Donovan, who helped me make the story so much better and who was so kind during the process.

  I also would like to thank David Seymour, Mariellyn Grace, and Delia Haidautu for their support while writing this mystery, with special thanks to David, who helped with some key twists in the plot.

  Love and thanks to my family: Andy, Nicole, Isabella, Andrew, and two sweet boys.

  Finally, thanks to God in heaven for every amazing opportunity. My expectations were passed years ago.

  “There is nothing more stimulating than a case where everything goes against you.”

  —Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,

  The Hound of the Baskervilles

  Chapter One

  How did this become my life?

  That was the question I asked myself when I was halfway up Mrs. Berger’s oak tree and staring into the angry green eyes of her orange Maine Coon cat, Romy.

  Romy didn’t like being in the tree any more than I did, but he was the one who’d gotten us into this mess.

  “Hi Romy,” I said in my sweetest, I-love-animals voice.

  Romy bared his teeth.

  “Be careful, Darby!” Mrs. Berger called from below. “I don’t want Romy getting hurt.”

  I tried not to dwell on the fact that she had no concern over whether or not I got hurt.

  I’d been drafted to save the cat on my daily lakeside run this morning when Mrs. Berger had flagged me down on the sidewalk in front of her home.

  The gray waters of Seneca Lake were in view directly behind Romy. It was early morning, and a handful of small fishing boats rocked on the thirty-five-mile-long lake’s gentle waves. Now on the cusp of autumn, it was a postcard scene with the red and ocher leaves reflecting off its blue-gray waters. Ducks and geese bobbed on the water’s surface as they made their way from Canada to points farther south.

  “Is Romy all right?” Mrs. Berger’s voice wavered.

  I looked to the ground, and for a moment, the world spun. I was only twenty feet high, but on my precarious perch—literally out on a limb—it felt like a hundred feet up. I gripped the tree’s trunk for support. “Romy’s fine. A little grumpy, but otherwise completely fine.” I brushed a lock of my shoulder-length brown hair that had escaped from my ponytail out of my face.

  “Oh, poor thing. Tell him if he comes down, I’ll give him a whole can of tuna instead of his typical half. I know he must be peckish from his wild adventure.”

  I was peckish, too. I should’ve grabbed a snack before I went out the door. There was always a twenty percent chance of cat rescue on my run.

  I glanced at the cat. “You get that?”

  He narrowed his green eyes. I narrowed my brown ones back. I found it was best with Romy to present myself as an equal, even if Mrs. Berger might not think that was true.

  She stood below the tree in a mint-green pantsuit with matching bowler hat and perfectly set hair. She propped herself up on a mahogany cane—which could be used as a poker or pointer, depending on what the situation required. She wore her hair in pin curls and got it set every Tuesday morning at Mary Bee’s Beehives in downtown Herrington, and she loved her cat. Ornery Romy, the disgruntled Maine Coon, was showered with love and affection that he both relished and detested.

  At ninety, Mrs. Berger was the oldest resident of Herrington, and she’d lived in her home on the shores of Seneca Lake for the last sixty years. She owned forty acres of prime lakefront property, and she let all of it remain wild except for the land immediately around her little ranch house. To the south was the imposing Lake Waters Retreat, a luxury resort where the rich and richer went “to get some work done,” as my father said. They came from all over the country for special skin treatments, face-lifts, and other services. To protect the well-to-do clientele’s privacy, the retreat was locked up like Fort Knox.

  Lake Waters Retreat and builders throughout the Finger Lakes would’ve loved to buy Mrs. Berger’s little house, flatten it to the ground and turn it into something profitable, but Mrs. Berger wasn’t selling. Mr. Berger had been gone for over a decade now, and developers had given up trying to convince her.

  She would tell people, eyes sparkling, “They’re waiting for me to die, but what they don’t know is I might outlive them all. Won’t they be surprised when that happens?”

  It was very possible. Mrs. Berger wasn’t showing any signs of slowing down. The only thing she couldn’t do was climb a tree to save her cat. Then again, she had me for that.

  “Be careful getting him down. He’s very upset. He might hurt himself,” Mrs. Berger warned.

  If I reached out and tried to grab Romy, I’d surely be scratched within an inch of my life—which was why I had a bath towel slung over my shoulder. It was a new strategy I wanted to try. I’d asked Mrs. Berger to lend me one, and she’d gone straight to her linen closet and pulled one out, no questions asked. I appreciated the vote of confidence and hoped it wasn’t premature.

  “Romy,” I cooed. “Don’t you want to come down from that tree? It can’t be any fun being up there all day, can it?”

  I took a breath and looped the towel over Romy’s back. Before he could figure out what was happening, I climbed up to the next branch and grabbed him around the middle with the towel between us. I wrapped him up burrito-style, making sure his head was free and I was out of the way of his biting teeth. It worked! I couldn’t believe it.

  The climb down was much more cumbersome because I was going backward and one-handed, my left arm wrapped around the very upset Romy. I was six feet from the ground when my foot missed a branch.

  I fell and landed flat on my back, hard. Air whooshed out of me and onto Romy, who was still in his towel. He lay on my chest and stared me in the face. I pushed him off before he could bite my nose. He hissed and flopped to the side, still trapped in the towel cocoon.

  Mrs. Berger poked me with the end of her cane. “You all right, Darby?”

  That was a more difficult question for me to answer than she could possibly know.

  She leaned a little farther over me and met my gaze. “Your eyes look normal, so I don’t think you have a concussion.” She waved her hand. “How many of me do you see?”

  “One.”

  “Good. You’re fine. Mr. Berger was a neuroscientist and always told me how to look for signs of head trauma, but I can call the EMTs if you want to be sure.”

  “No!”

  I struggled to my feet. If she called the ambulance, the police would most likely come, because there wasn’t much other policing to do in Herrington. If the police came, there was a high chance my ex-boyfriend would be the one they’d send out, and this was the last way I wanted him to see me: flat on my back i
n running clothes covered in orange cat hair with a ninety-year-old woman poking me in the ribs with her antique cane.

  That didn’t really say, “Hey, I got my life together without you.”

  Even so, I was pretty sure Police Officer Austin Caster knew I didn’t have my life together—even without the visual evidence.

  Romy struggled, his body writhing under the terry cloth fabric. I quickly unwrapped him and jumped back with the same trepidation park rangers use when releasing a bobcat in the wild. Mrs. Berger scooped up the cat and held him to her chest.

  “You’re the best detective I know. You always seem to know where to find Romy when he wanders off.”

  I wished I could say she was right, that I was the best detective, but I was certain I wasn’t. Had I been better, I wouldn’t be about to lose the business I’d spent the last decade of my life building.

  Chapter Two

  Mrs. Berger and Romy were safely back in their ranch house when the soles of my running shoes hit the pavement of Lakeshore Avenue. I was certain Romy was being told what a brave cat he was for surviving his self-inflicted ordeal and lapping up that can of tuna. To have the life of a cat—wouldn’t that be great?

  My pace was slower now and my rhythm was off because of my fall from the tree, but I kept running because I was stubborn that way. I didn’t think I’d ever be one of those natural athletes who loved to exercise, but I did so out of pure will and necessity—I never met a cookie I didn’t like.

  My turnaround was the highest point of Lakeshore Avenue.

  The curve at the top of the hill held a beautiful view of the lake below and two other lakes in the distance, nestled in the foothills. On a crisp September day like today, the leaves were beginning to change colors. The cool breeze off the lake chilled my sweaty body, but after a hard run it was welcome relief.

  Even so, it was stupid to run there. Cars and vans, driven by distracted leaf-peeping tourists, careened around the corner as the driver and passengers focused on the vista instead of what might be right in front of them—like me. A five-foot-one runner decked out in bright yellow-and-black spandex.

  The village reminded me of tiers of a cake. The first tier was at street level, where most of the businesses and offices were. All of them—including Two Girls Detective Agency, our private investigation firm—were in old converted houses. The second and third tiers gave glimpses of private homes and trees.

  Two Girls was on Lakeshore Avenue to my left. I sprinted the last blocks and doubled over, catching my breath in the small front yard.

  I hit my stopwatch to check my time. It wasn’t bad, considering my episode in the tree with Romy. I braced my hands on my upper thighs, gulping air.

  There was a black, expensive-looking car in the driveway. It certainly hadn’t been there when I’d left. This could be good news or very bad news. I’d put my money on the latter.

  The detective agency was inside a large brick colonial with a wide front porch and swing. There were brightly potted mums on the porch. That was our office manager’s handiwork, not mine. I stretched my sore muscles outside, then walked into the building, knowing that both Nat and Samantha would already be in the office.

  It worked out well that I lived above the agency, because we had a surprising number of clients who came to the office after hours. It wasn’t a bad thing to have someone here twenty-four seven. Samantha, on the other hand, lived in a large Victorian home not far from Mrs. Berger, in a gorgeous spot with its own boat dock. The house had been in her family for over five generations. The Porters were one of the oldest families in the village.

  The front door of the agency opened into what used to be the dining room of the house, but was now the waiting room and Nat’s workspace.

  Nat was in her early fifties, with silver-streaked blond hair and blue eyes. She scrutinized me over her tortoiseshell eyeglasses. On her desk, there were three jars of pennies. Two were full, and one was a third of the way there. Nat collected pennies like other people collected postcards. She was always on the lookout for the rarest and most valuable penny. But even if a penny didn’t have value, she kept it and put in a jar. I could only guess how many jars were at her house.

  “Darby Piper, don’t you even think of dripping sweat on my office floor.”

  I put my hands on my hips. “I’m not dripping sweat. Goodness sakes, Nat. I don’t sweat, I glow. That’s what Grammy always said. Ladies glow; men sweat.” It was an old argument. We both knew the script by heart.

  She snorted. “You look like you went through a carwash strapped to the roof of the car.” Before I could think of a smart retort, she continued. “I filled your water bottle. It’s in the fridge, and I put a bottle of chocolate milk in there for you too.” She pointed at the small, glass-doored fridge we stocked with water for clients and other guests.

  I crossed to the fridge and scooped out the water bottle and the chocolate milk. “See, Nat, that’s how I know you love me. You always anticipate my needs.” I took a slug of the water and then set the bottle on top of the fridge before cracking open the chocolate milk. “I don’t know how we’d get along without you.” I took a smaller, more ladylike sip from the milk bottle.

  She shook her head before she turned back to her laptop. “I don’t know how the two of you would get along without me, either. That’s for sure and certain. I couldn’t leave the care of the two of you to Gumshoe.”

  I laughed and glanced at the ten-foot-long couch that ran the length of the room in front of the window, where my Ragdoll cat, Gumshoe, was stretched out like a fur rug. Like most Ragdolls, Gumshoe was docile and languid and always appeared to be on the verge of falling asleep, unless he was hungry. Samantha had bought the couch to give waiting clients somewhere to sit. I’d had no idea she’d bought something so huge. It had taken three delivery people to move it into the house, and to my dismay, they’d removed the doorframe to fit it inside. But Samantha had been determined. Nine times out of ten, she got her way.

  Why she’d wanted such a long couch was a mystery. She’d severely overestimated how many clients we’d have sitting in the waiting room at any one time.

  To date, the couch had never been filled, and it was the favorite spot for Gumshoe. At the moment, he lay in his sphinx pose. He narrowed his eyes at me as if he knew I was thinking about him. I wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised if he did. He seemed to know all and turn up in the oddest places in the agency. He also sensed when clients were allergic to cats, and chose those moments to rub his lithe body around their legs, so that they could have a sniffle to remember him by.

  Still drinking my milk, I walked over to Gumshoe. He lifted his head, granting permission for a chin scratch. He allowed this for two point two seconds, and then lowered his head, my signal to stop. He was a very particular feline in every respect.

  “I see the prince has decided to let you pet him. He never lets me do that,” Nat groused.

  “I think it’s only because I live here. I’m the one who feeds him, aren’t I? This is his thanks for the food, and even that is tempered.” I smiled at him. Being a bit of an introvert myself, I could understand his singular ways.

  Nat snorted.

  “Where’s Samantha?” I asked, looking around. “That was quite a car in the driveway. Maybe she’ll get a big new case and stay.”

  Nat shook her head. “Matt Billows’s offer is hard to pass up.” The local resort owner wanted Samantha to come on as the head of security at Lake Waters Retreat.

  I frowned. “What about what we’ve built? How can she walk away from a decade of work? How can she put both of us out of a job?”

  Nat shrugged. “I don’t think there’s anything we can do now.”

  I bit my lip, knowing she was right. Samantha owned sixty percent of the agency. I only owned forty percent. When we started the business, she was older and had more money. It made sense for her to own more, but now I was sorry I’d agreed to that. Holding most of the company, she could cash in the entire place. When she did, I’d lose the office, my home, and maybe a good portion of my reputation, because people would wonder why Samantha Porter had left.