Tea Shop Cozy Mysteries - Books 1-6 Read online

  “I still don’t understand how you saw it,” Sheriff Wender grumbled.

  Willow sighed and only just stopped herself from rolling her eyes. She didn’t want to be disrespectful, but the man really hadn’t changed much since high school. From the moment she called him, Jacob had been treating her like a suspect instead of someone doing their public service.

  “I caught a flash of metal,” Willow repeated for the third—or was it the fourth?—time. “I don’t know why. The sun hit it at the right angle, I suppose.”

  “Hm.”

  Sheriff Wender gave her the side-eye and Mavis bared her teeth at him. Good girl.

  “I didn’t put the hammer there, Sheriff, if that’s what you’re implying.”

  “I’m not implying anything. I find it strange that you ‘happened’ to find the body, and now you’ve just ‘happened’ to find the murder weapon.” The sheriff performed air quotes around the words, adding a gentle whirl of insult to his implication.

  “Believe me,” Willow answered him with a stern look, “I regret both of those discoveries more than you know. If I could go back in time and not find a dead body or a hammer covered in someone’s blood, don’t you think I’d do that?”

  “Sheriff?” One of the deputies hailed him with a hand and Jacob wandered over. He peered at the new discovery for a few seconds, then shook his head.

  Willow hoped the sheriff would move over to another of his men, keeping a check on their progress, but no such luck. He angled straight back to her, as though she were a magnet.

  “There’s really nothing more I can tell you.” Willow patted Mavis, hoping her irritation wouldn’t transfer to the kitten. “I saw the hammer, I saw the blood, I called you, I’m sorry.”

  “What are you sorry about?”

  “That I’ve been stuck here for the last hour explaining myself to you when you obviously don’t want to listen.”

  Willow’s glare turned to an expression of horror as she realized the words had escaped from her mouth. For a moment, she thought Sheriff Wender was about to unleash the full weight of his authority, but then his body relaxed, and he laughed.

  “It’s always a pleasure, Miss Foxglove.” He banged his palm twice on the roof of her car. “Why don’t you move along, and if I need anything further, I’ll give you a call.”

  “That was a close one,” Willow muttered to Mavis as she started up the car and made good her escape. The deputies were now embarking on a fingertip search of the area around the pier. Given the length of the wild grass and the increasing muddiness down by the water, Willow pitied them.

  “I should make them all a nice pot of tea and bring it down here in thermoses,” she told Mavis, who gave her a look of utter disgust.

  Willow nodded. “Good point, kitten. Perhaps it would be better if I returned home and stayed well clear of this mess.”

  A new plan in place, she proceeded to do just that.

  * * *

  It didn’t take long after they’d found the weapon—with Willow’s help—for the sheriff’s office to make an arrest. A few minutes later, the news spread around the town of Aniseed Valley, passing from one person to another like a virulent cold.

  After the third phone call to pass on the latest gossip, Willow considered unplugging her phone to get some peace. It was great news that Reg was in the clear—even though the sheriff hadn’t brought him in again, she’d continued to worry. It was less great news about the man Sheriff Wender had arrested for the crime.

  Charley Lacy.

  When Harmony knocked on the door, Reg in tow, Willow plastered a smile on her face that both friends immediately saw through.

  “What on Earth is the matter?” Harmony asked, leading her through to the lounge while Reg busied himself in the kitchen.

  “I’m just an idiot.” Willow sank into the cushions with relief, her legs had been shaking since she’d first heard the news. “I really thought Charley was one of the good ones. Even after I overheard the bank officer saying he’d stolen money from his boss, I thought there’d be a reasonable explanation.”

  “Oh, honey.” Harmony stroked Willow’s back while it shook from the force of her tears. “I didn’t even realize you two were close.”

  “We’re not.” Willow shook her head. “That’s why my current performance is ridiculous. I barely know the man. I just—”

  She broke off as a new wave of tears caught her. Since her friends had probably come over to celebrate Reg’s freedom from suspicion, she was dampening their parade.

  “You just what?”

  Willow sniffed, aware she was being foolish but unable to help herself. “I liked his British accent. It made me feel safe.”

  Reg, who’d entered the room with a tray of tea things, opened his eyes wide but kept his mouth buttoned.

  Harmony just shrugged. “Who knows why we like the people we like. It’s no more ridiculous to enjoy someone for their accent than it is to admire the color of someone’s eyes or hair.”

  Willow wiped her eyes. As always, when her friends were near she felt understood. A hard task considering that half the time, she didn’t understand herself.

  “Still,” Willow said, “it’s great news that the sheriff won’t be bothering you any longer, Reg. I remember when he had the claws out for me over Roger’s death—even though it came to nothing it was distinctly unpleasant.”

  “It has been that,” Reg agreed. “I haven’t been able to go out on a spotting mission since it happened. I’ve been lying in bed, unable to sleep, letting all the alien craft pass by unseen.”

  “Well, I hope you’re planning for a big session tonight.” Willow nodded her head firmly. “The best thing is to get back on track straight away.”

  “You can count on it.” Reg smiled as he took a sip of tea. “There’s a clear forecast, so I’m going up to Wallace Hill and try to take in everything.”

  Wallace Hill sat behind the town of Aniseed Valley, offering visitors a complete overview of the area if they were game enough to climb it. No roads traveled up its steep face—instead you were left to mount it by foot, following in the footsteps of the nimble sheep and goats who populated the sides.

  “That sounds like a fitting adventure to end off this tale.” Harmony patted Reg on the shoulder. “I hope you get something exciting.”

  “Even if I don’t, it’ll be nice to sit out underneath the stars again for a while.”

  Willow shivered, then burst out laughing. “You’re making me feel cold just thinking about it.”

  “I won’t be cold,” Reg said. “I’ve got my thermal underwear, my wool shirt, my sweater, then my waterproof coat. More likely, by the time I get up high enough to get a good view, I’ll be boiling!”

  “I talked to Shelby today,” Willow said. “She’s going to help me out with a plan for staffing and things for when the builders get around to finishing off everything here.”

  “You didn’t tell—”

  Willow cut Reg off with a raised hand. “No, I didn’t. But I think you should go around and give her the low down on what you’re planning soon.” She sighed. “That’s a woman who needs a burst of good news.”

  As Reg opened his mouth to answer, a knock came on the door.

  When Willow answered, she was surprised to see Lee standing on the other side, looking utterly distraught.

  “I didn’t know where else to go to,” Lee exclaimed, wringing his hands together. “I can’t believe Charley would ever do anything like what the sheriff said. It’s just not in his nature.”

  The color in Lee’s cheeks was a furious red, and he looked about to explode in tears or fury. Willow ushered him inside, settling him down on the sofa where she’d been sitting while she went to fetch a cup of calming tea.

  “I couldn’t believe it when I heard the news, either,” Willow admitted, returning to the room with a piping hot beverage. She pulled a chair close and patted Lee on his knee. “Charley always appeared to be mild-mannered. It’s hard to imagine him
getting worked up to the point of yelling at someone, let alone killing them.”

  “I knew you’d understand.” Lee wiped his nose with the back of his hand. Harmony wrinkled her nose and fetched him a box of tissues.

  “What do you think happened?” Reg looked with keen eyes at the young man. “It’s not enough to feel things when the sheriff is involved. We need some kind of evidence if we’re going to get your man out of that cell.”

  Lee nodded, straightening his back and lifting his head high. “I don’t know what evidence Sheriff Wender compiled to press charges, but it can’t be right. I’m sure we can come up with something to prove he didn’t do it.”

  Reg nodded, his expression stern. “The police have a hammer with Charley’s name engraved on the handle, covered in the victim’s blood.”

  Willow gasped, holding a hand up to her mouth. “I didn’t realize. I found that hammer down by the pier earlier today!”

  A wave of guilt crashed down over her. She should have left it alone. Why did she have to go out there in the first place?

  “It’s not your fault,” Harmony said, apparently knowing the signs well enough to head off Willow’s anxiety. “If it’s Charley’s hammer, then the fact you found it isn’t the problem. It’s him using it, that is.”

  “But he didn’t,” Lee insisted. “I told you it went missing, didn’t I?”

  He raised his eyebrows at Willow, who remembered part of their earlier conversation with relief. “You said some of Charley’s tools were stolen off a building site.”

  “That’s right. The hammer would’ve been among them.”

  “When was this?” Harmony leaned forward, frowning.

  “On the same night,” Lee said slowly, his brow furrowed as he thought back. “We went down to the pub for a quick pint—”

  Willow shot him an indignant look. “You told me you were inside, having a coffee.”

  To his credit, Lee’s expression turned sheepish. “Yeah, well. If the job were during the day, we would’ve been doing that. At night, it’s a different story.”

  “So, you were both at The Old Chestnut when Jeff was killed?” Willow nodded. “You need to tell the sheriff that. He’ll be able to confirm it with the bartender.”

  But Lee shook his head. “Not at the time the pathologist said the boss was hit. You see, Jeff was at the bar, too, while we were in there.”

  “You were having a drink together?”

  Lee’s expression transformed into one of horror. “No. Goodness, no. I wouldn’t have a drink with that lousy piece of filth if you paid me!”

  After a second, Lee seemed to remember that the ‘piece of filth’ was now a murder victim and he grew even more upset. “He came over to us and told Charley he was going to fit him up for the check.”

  “What’s that?” Reg looked confused at the conversation.

  Willow knew enough about that part to offer an explanation. “I overheard that Charley wrote a check out from the company account—”

  “No, he didn’t.” Lee stood up and began to pace back and forth, smacking one hand into the other. “It was all Jeff’s idea. He was sick of getting all the letters from Shelby. He’d told us at the start it wasn’t his fault, the wood was misrepresented when it was sold to him, and if anyone got stuck with the bill for repairs, it should be the supplier.”

  “Was that true?” Willow asked.

  Lee shook his head. “No. None of it. Not according to the other builders who were involved, at any rate. When Jeff realized Shelby wasn’t going to go away, he wrote out a check for Charley to deposit into his account. The plan was for him to approach Shelby with a settlement offer.”

  Willow felt the threads of the conversation getting away from her. “Why didn’t he just deal with her directly?”

  “Jeff said that if he made the offer straight to her, it could be seen as an admission of liability. By doing it through Charley, he distanced himself from the whole thing.”

  “But she turned Charley down,” Willow guessed.

  Again, Lee shook his head. “He never even got that far. Jeff only gave the check to Charley to deposit on the Friday, so the soonest it could clear for him to make the offer was this week.”

  Harmony sat back, looking shocked. “And then Jeff said he’d frame Charley for stealing the money?”

  Lee nodded. “Exactly. He said no one would believe his silly story, and he’d end up in prison. Even if he didn’t go to jail, nobody in town would hire him to do a building job ever again.”

  The small group looked at each other, aghast, while Lee continued to pace the length of the room.

  Reg was the one who ventured the thought they were all thinking. “So, Charley did have a very pressing reason to kill his boss, then?”

  Chapter Twelve

  Soon after Reg said the words they were all dreading, he followed up, saying, “Hang on a second. It couldn’t have been Charley.”

  Willow looked at him, hope dueling with despair. “Why do you say that?”

  “I was sitting on the pier, remember?”

  She nodded. “Yeah. You lying about that’s the reason the sheriff thought you were a big target in the first place.”

  Reg flapped his hand at her. “I don’t like everybody knowing my business, and I knew I hadn’t killed Mr. Waterman. Sheriff Wender should’ve just taken my word for it. We’d have arrived at an answer a lot sooner.”

  “None of which tells us why you think Charley couldn’t have committed the murder,” Harmony said, getting the conversation back on track.

  “He couldn’t have done it because he never passed by me.” Reg folded his arms, looking very pleased with himself.

  Willow waited with bated breath, but there was nothing more. “Is that it?” The disappointment came clearly through her voice.

  “Jeff walked past me on this way home,” Reg explained further. “He can’t have gotten much farther, or his body would have had to float upstream to land where it did.”

  He looked at the group expectantly and when they offered blank stares in return, forged ahead. “That means the person who killed him, had to come past me if they were also in the pub.”

  “So, nobody came past after Jeff?” Willow still couldn’t quite understand Reg’s certainty but was happy to go along with it for the moment. She’d play along with anything, if it meant Charley might be innocent.

  “Well, somebody did, but it wasn’t a man.”

  “Who was it?”

  Reg shrugged. “I don’t know. I didn’t actually turn to see at that point. I’d only looked after Jeff because the man was muttering to himself.”

  “How do you know it was a lady if you didn’t turn around?” Willow leaned back on the sofa, her hope starting to drain away.

  “Because she was wearing high heels.” Reg looked at Lee with his eyebrow cocked. “Unless that’s something Charley’s into.” He held up his hands. “I’m not judging, just need to know.”

  Lee burst into laughter. “No. Even if he liked to cross-dress, I don’t think Charley would have the balance necessary for heels. Especially not after a few pints at The Old Chestnut. Besides, the sheriff mightn’t take my word for it, but Charley and I both stormed out of there after what Jeff said. He was headed home, the last I saw him. That’s in the opposite direction to where Jeff would’ve been headed.”

  “Do you think the woman who passed by afterward was the one who killed him?” Willow asked Reg, forming a suspicion for someone who she didn’t want in the frame any more than Charley.

  Again, Reg shrugged. “I don’t know. There could’ve been someone laying in wait farther up the road, for all we know. All I can swear to is Charley didn’t pass by me and he would’ve had to if he wanted to kill Jeff, given where his body ended up.”

  Willow looked from Harmony to Lee, then to Reg. “If you’re certain about this, we have to take it down to the sheriff’s office. You’ll need to put it into a sworn statement before it can be used to help free Charley.”


  At the suggestion, Reg’s face paled, and he gripped the edge of the sofa as though it was a bucking bronco. “I really don’t want to go in there again. The last time, I thought for sure the sheriff would never let me leave.”

  “It’s different this time around,” Willow said. “You’re the one bringing them information instead of hiding it. It’ll be a simple mission to get in there, go into an interview room and get it all on the record.”

  But Reg shook so violently at that suggestion Willow couldn’t bear to force him to go in alone.

  “How about you, me, Harmony, and Lee all go in together?” she suggested instead. “We can insist to the sheriff we’re all giving a statement, and he can either cram all four of us into that tiny interview room or sit us around his desk in the open office, like normal people.”

  Reg looked at her, searching her eyes for a reassurance that he must have found there. He gave a short nod. “That, I can do.”

  “Well, let’s get a move on,” Willow said, getting to her feet with a small grunt, much to Lee’s amusement. “We don’t want to leave it so long the sheriff has gone home for the night.”

  * * *

  The look of weariness on Sheriff Wender’s face almost made Willow feel sorry for him as they trooped into his office. Almost. She still hadn’t quite forgiven him for his earlier jibes.

  “We have a statement to make in the case of Jeff Waterman’s murder,” Willow said, mimicking an early episode of Miss Walsham Investigates. Although nobody else would care, she was delighted with hitting precisely the right tone. Officious but not too pushy.

  The sheriff looked bemused as the group explained they would be sticking together for the duration. For a minute, Willow thought the man was about to protest, then his shoulders slumped, and he waved a hand around his desk. “Grab a chair and get close in,” Sheriff Wender said. “I don’t want to have to shout.”

  All four of them dragged their chairs together, looking expectantly at Reg to start them off. When he shot a pleading look at Willow, she offered him a prompt.