Ma’May wrapped her arm around Ellie as the coroner made his way through the shop. The ladies from their book club had left not long after Ellie had gotten Ma’May to call 911. Some wanted to stay, even if they hadn’t said so with words. The curiosity in their eyes was enough to confirm to Ellie that they wanted to see what she’d seen.
But Ellie wouldn’t wish that on anyone.
At first, Ellie had merely assumed that Abbie had passed out in the staff bathroom of May’s Books. Then she’d realized that her chest wasn’t moving and that her skin had taken on a grey pallor that sent shivers right down to Ellie’s bones. Beau rested his chin on the floor and let out another low whine as Ellie had put the back of her hand under Abbie’s nose in a vain attempt to feel her breath, but there had been nothing.
Abbie was dead.
The first to arrive had been the paramedics. A woman in her forties confirmed that Abbie was indeed dead, and that meant two things. The first was that they needed to call the coroner. The second was that they would need to call the police.
“The police?” Ma’May asked. “Are you sure?”
“It’s procedure,” the paramedic assured her. “Just covering all our bases. I’m sure they’ll write a report and that will be the end of it, depending on what the coroner says.”
The coroner had arrived first, and Ellie and her grandmother allowed the other paramedic, a young man who barely appeared to be old enough to drive, let alone drive an ambulance, lead him back to the bathroom. They’d barely been gone thirty seconds when a hard knock came at the door.
Ellie jumped out of Ma’May’s arms at the shock of the sound. She’d never been jumpy, but after what she’d just seen, she didn’t know how long it would take her to calm down. Even Beau, a usually goofy and happy-go-lucky dog, barked wildly, something he’d never done before.
“Police,” a voice said. “Open up. Please.”
“One second,” Ma’May said before she stepped around Ellie and Beau and moved for the door.
“Sorry,” Ellie said as she fought to get her dog under control while Ma’May opened the door. “He’s not usually like this.”
“It’s okay,” a familiar voice assured her.
It was when Ellie lifted her gaze from Beau that she realized the reason that the voice was familiar. The officer who entered their shop was none other than the man she’d sold Marko’s Fire to earlier that day.
He was still wearing the same light jacket and jeans from earlier, and if he hadn’t announced himself as a cop, Ellie never would have guessed. She’d had no inclination of his profession during their brief meeting only a couple hours earlier, but she had no time to be shocked by this new revelation now.
“Oh, um, hi!” Ellie said, her tone a little too enthusiastic for the situation. Beau was finally settling down some and Ellie commanded him to sit, which thankfully he obeyed without much difficulty. “I mean, hello,” she corrected herself.
“Hello again,” the officer said. His tone was polite, but his face was grim. “My name is Detective William Murphy. Is there somewhere we can talk?”
Ellie’s blood instantly ran cold. A million thoughts ran through her head. Did he think she had something to do with this? Was she a suspect? Was she in trouble?
The detective must have noticed her instant rise in anxiety, because his face relaxed and he said, “Just to find out what happened here, don’t worry.”
Ma’May piped up before Ellie had a chance to reply to Detective Murphy. “Is that really necessary?” she asked. “The poor girl wasn’t feeling well and... Oh the poor thing.”
“I’m afraid it is,” the detective confirmed. “Until we have a conclusive cause of death, we have to cover all our angles.”
Ellie didn’t like to think that there could be another option beyond that Abbie had been struck by a sudden, fatal illness, but she knew her own desire for that answer wasn’t enough to make it the truth. The detective had to do his job and she wanted to help. At the very least for Abbie’s sake.
“We can talk over here, Detective,” Ellie said as she led him, and Beau, to the counter.
“First,” Detective Murphy began. “Please call me Will.”
“Okay,” Ellie said with a quick nod. Her heart rate was slowing some and her mind was becoming more focused. Despite living in Chicago from the time she was eighteen until only a few months ago, the only dealings she’d ever had with cops were the one speeding ticket she’d received, and the time her purse had been stolen. Both were stressful, but neither compared to this. She licked her dry lips and steadied herself in preparation for any and all question that Detective Murphy – Will – had for her.
“Second,” he told her, and his deep voice was calm and soothing. “Just tell me what happened tonight. No detail is too small, okay?”
“All right,” Ellie told him, but she didn’t think he knew what he was in for. Ellie possessed a pretty sharp memory and if he wanted all the small details, then she was going to give them to him.
It took her a good twenty minutes, but Ellie relayed the entire course of events through the book club and left no detail out. She told him the order the ladies arrived, the books they talked about, how Abbie was acting before and during the meeting, and...
Ellie shuddered. Describing how she found Abbie made her heart hurt and her skin crawl. Her mother had warned her when she went off to the University of Chicago that she was going to get killed or find the bodies of junkies or worse scattered all over her neighborhood, but Ellie had seen none of those things. Her mother had panicked over her constantly. Of course, that was until she’d met Javier on a girls’ trip to the Caribbean, left Ellie’s father, and began travelling the world with her new boyfriend. Her panic had subsided after that.
No, Ellie had thankfully never seen the carnage her formally anxious mother had warned her of. Not in the big city, but she’d only been home a few months and it was right in her own bookstore. Though Abbie’s death was not what Ellie would consider particularly gruesome. Sad and unexpected, yes, but right now Ellie was chalking it up to an undiagnosed medical issue, not that she was an expert on the subject.
“Anything else?” Will asked her as he finished jotting down the last of what she’d said in his notepad.
“No,” Ellie told him. “Though can I ask you something?”
“Have at it,” he told her, his composure relaxed for someone who was taking what was essentially her statement on a death in her store.
“Since when does Dundurn have the money for a detective?” she asked him point blank. “We always barely had any more than a couple deputies.”
Will chuckled at that. “You don’t mince words,” he told her.
She was about to correct him and blame it on the shock, but he chuckled some more and she decided to let it be. His charming and relaxed demeanor was just what she needed to keep her mind off whatever the coroner was doing in the back storage room.
“Not when I don’t have to,” she confirmed.
Ellie shot a glance at her grandmother and held back a groan when she saw Ma’May watching her intently. She knew what she was doing could be construed as flirting and that was the last thing she wanted right then. If Ma’May even got a hint that she had some interest in Will, or he in her, Ma’May would never let her hear the end of it.
“Well, to be honest they don’t,” Will told her as he put his notepad away. “The township came together on this one. A little over six months ago there was an opening for a detective in the tri-county area. I was looking to get out of Milwaukee, not that it’s that big of a city, but when I heard about the chance for a transfer, I jumped at it.”
“I see,” Ellie said with a nod. “But don’t detectives normally have partners?”
“That they do,” Will informed her. “My partner, Connor, lives in Lansdale. It’s a forty-five minute drive for him and there was no need for him to come out to a routine call like this. I have a feeling me being here is just procedure as is.”
“That’s a relief,” Ellie sighed, but before she could say any more, the coroner reappeared from the back room, the paramedics following close behind with an ominous black bag on a stretcher.
Will turned to the coroner and asked, “What are you thinking?”
“Looks routine,” the coroner, who appeared to be in his mid-fifties, told him. He acted like Ellie wasn’t even there, which probably worked to Ellie’s advantage. Despite her shock and sadness over Abbie’s untimely end, she couldn’t deny she was curious as to what had really happened.
“But I’ll need to run some toxicology scans,” he added.
“Do we need to stay closed?” Ellie asked Will once the coroner led the paramedics from the shop. October was around the corner and that meant Christmas shopping season wasn’t far off. Being closed even a few days could be bad for their revenue. Knowing someone had died at all in the shop was bound to hurt sales even more, as selfish a thought as Ellie knew that was.
“I’m hoping you can open tomorrow afternoon,” Will told her. “Though we may need to do a follow up depending on what Rebecca finds.”
“Who’s Rebecca?” Ellie asked.
Will nodded. “Rebecca is the medical examiner over in Lansdale. She’ll be doing the autopsy. Don’t worry, she’ll be quick. Not like this town sees all that many questionable deaths. She won’t leave you anxious for too long.”
“That’s a relief,” Ellie said with a sigh. “What do we do now?”
“Honestly?” Will asked as he began to walk toward the front door. “Turn off the lights. Lock the door. Go home and do something to keep your mind off all this. Read your favorite book, do something that makes you relax, and if you feel emotional, don’t try to suppress it.”
“I feel okay,” Ellie told him, and she was surprised to find that was the truth. She was sad for Abbie of course, but there was no grand catharsis waiting within her, ready to explode.
“And you might stay feeling okay,” Will told her. “But if that changes, don’t try to fight it. You’ll feel a lot better if you let it out.”
“All right,” Ellie agreed as Will opened the door to let himself out.
“And get a good night’s rest,” Will told her before he left. “We probably won’t have the go ahead for you to open until the afternoon, so sleep in. A good sleep can fix a lot of things.”
“Thanks,” Ellie said, though she wasn’t sure how much sleeping she’d be able to do after everything that had happened. She wasn’t even sure if she could open the shop tomorrow, but deep down she knew she would. Ellie was the type to need to keep busy, and sitting around all day moping or dwelling on things wasn’t going to help one bit.
“Let’s head upstairs,” Ma’May said in a voice that was smaller than she usually used. “I don’t know about you, but I could use something a little stronger than my usual chamomile.”
“Agreed,” Ellie told her as they left the shop through the front door. Neither of them said it, but they both knew perfectly well that there was a staircase right up to their shared apartment that didn’t require them to go outside, but that staircase was in the backroom. Ellie wasn’t sure how long it would take to be comfortable with going back there again, but she knew tonight wasn’t the night to try.
“Are you okay?” Ma’May asked Ellie when they got upstairs to their shared apartment. Ellie’s grandmother had always had a keen eye for when she wasn’t feeling her best, and she kept a close eye on her as Ellie moved to the kitchen to pour herself a cup of tea.
“Yeah,” Ellie said. “A little shaken, but I think I’ll be okay. I think what I need right now,” Ellie told Ma’May as she dunked a teabag into her mug of nearly boiling water, “is to curl up with a good book and cuddle with my number one boy.”
“Okay dear,” Ma’May told her as she gave Ellie a tight squeeze. “You call me if you need anything.”
Ellie might have been nearing thirty years old, but she never got sick of her grandmother’s hugs. Despite the forty year age gap, the two had always been close. Much closer than Ellie ever had been to her own mother. They only got closer after Ellie’s mother had skipped town, and closer yet after her father had passed away last year.
“Come on, Beau,” Ellie said as she led her favorite pooch to the couch in the living room. Beau wasted no time in climbing up on the couch with her as Ellie grabbed a book off her to read stack that was ever present on the end table. She never had less than five books in her pile, and tonight she picked one that looked guaranteed to be light, fluffy, and a little romantic.
Her book of choice was a quick cozy mystery novel called The Purr-fect Crime by Samantha Silver. She’d enjoyed the last cozy mystery she’d read so much that she knew another would be just as enjoyable. That, and the cover was completely adorable. She’d never admit it to her customers, but she sometimes did judge a book by its cover and this was one of those books.
With Beau’s head and one paw comfortably resting on her lap, Ellie dug into the book. It was exactly what she needed. Light and upbeat with a healthy dose of magic and mystery that kept her turning the pages, even long after she should have gone to bed. Angela made for a feisty heroine and the talking cat kept a smile on her face through every page.
The book was helpful, but what really comforted her was her best buddy Beau. It took her some time, but she realized the feeling in her heart wasn’t shock or horror, but a touch of sadness. Abbie was only five years older than Ellie herself, and was married as well. The woman’s husband would be heartbroken and Ellie wanted to help, but she didn’t know how.
In her mind, Ellie was already preparing a gift basket of some baked treats along with a book or two on grief and losing a loved one. It might not be perfect, but she and Ma’May could work out the details in the morning. Together they could decide when an appropriate time to bring it to Abbie’s husband would be.
Ellie had made it ten chapters into her book before she was too tired and too distracted by thoughts of gift baskets to keep going. With her paw print bookmark in place, she put the book on top of the stack and led Beau toward her bedroom for a well deserved rest.
***
Despite Detective Murphy’s warning that Ellie and her grandmother would have to open the shop a little late, neither woman was the type to sit around doing nothing. They both thrived when they had a million things to do at once, and both were ready and willing to open the shop the moment they got the okay on Thursday morning. Thankfully, that call came only an hour after their usual opening time, and both women were ready to go.
“We don’t have the results yet,” Captain Skinner, the head of the tri-county area’s police force, had told her on the phone, “but I’ve gone over Detective Murphy’s report. I’m making an executive call to let you open up now. I’m sure Will agrees.”
Word travels fast in a small town like Dundurn and despite of, or perhaps because of, what had happened the night before, the store was busier than usual for a Thursday morning. Pairs and small groups mulled around and whispered to each other as they only half-browsed the bookshelves while Ellie and Ma’May looked on.
“Let’s hope even half of them buy something,” Ma’May grumbled. “Too many lookiloos. It’s disrespectful.”
Ellie had to agree with her grandmother. Even Beau, who was resting in his bed behind the counter, appeared ill at ease. She was about to go ask her customers if they needed a little help browsing to break up some of the gossiping, but a few words stopped her dead in her tracks.
“Did you hear what happened?” one woman, Tonya Sands if Ellie recognized her correctly, whispered to whom Ellie was pretty sure was Melissa Dratch, as they pretended to look at the fantasy novels.
“I heard she keeled over right in the middle of the store,” Melissa whispered back. “Can you believe it?”
“Not that!” Tonya hissed. “Did you hear why it happened?”
Melissa shook her head and then Tonya’s voice got so low that Ellie had to strain her ears to hear her. She hated eavesdropping, and she hated gossip more, but she had a feeling the information about to be shared directly pertained to her shop.
“Poison,” Tonya whispered. “Someone poisoned her.”
Ellie’s blood ran cold. It couldn’t be possible. And even if it was, how would this woman know?
“Oh come on,” Melissa sighed. “You don’t know that. Don’t try to spread rumors like that.”
Ellie wanted to go up to the woman and hug her tightly. At least someone was being rational. Gossip was only going to hurt Abbie’s memory, not help it.
“It’s true,” Tonya told her. “I heard it from Lana who heard it from Gary when she was running some errands in Lansdale.”
“So?” Melissa asked while Ellie pretended to straighten some books on the shelves a row over from where the ladies were gossiping.
“So Gary is Rebecca’s husband,” Tonya said, this time her voice much louder than before. “Rebecca Thyne the medical examiner? Remember?”
“Oh no,” Ellie gasped and then ducked down behind the shelf when she’d realized she’d said that out loud. If there was even a chance that Abbie had been poisoned, she herself would be on the list of suspects. It was her cookies and her punch that Abbie had eaten just before she’d died. The last thing Ellie needed was to be a suspect in this whole mess.
She moved to slink her way back to the counter to avoid being caught eavesdropping, and her heart was beating so fast that she could barely hear anything over the sound of it thumping in her ears. She had to tell Ma’May what she’d heard, but she didn’t get the chance.
The front door to May’s Books opened and two men stepped inside, one of who Ellie recognized instantly. For a second, she was excited to see him, but the grim look on his face squashed that excitement before it even had a chance to create some butterflies in her belly.
“Ladies,” Will Murphy said to them. “This is my partner, Detective Connor Guest. We need to talk to both of you. Alone.”