Elementary, She Read: A Sherlock Holmes Bookshop Mystery by Vicki Delany

Author:Vicki Delany [Delany, Vicki]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
Tags: FIC022070 Fiction / Mystery & Detective / Cozy
Publisher: Crooked Lane Books
Published: 2017-03-14T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

It took all of my considerable powers of persuasion to convince Jayne to return to the Miata and get the heck out of town.

“Don’t touch anything,” I yelled, as she ran toward the woman and stretched out her hand as though to remove the knife.

“We have to help her.”

“We’re too late.” Drops of blood had fallen down the woman’s chest and splashed onto the patio stones, where they’d dried in the sun. There wasn’t a lot of blood on her clothes, and what little there was had also dried. I knelt beside her and, taking great care as to where I put my hands, leaned over her and lightly touched the side of her neck with the back of my hand. Cold and still. The blade had pierced her heart, and she’d died instantly.

I studied her face. Her eyes were open in shock, but I knew without a shadow of a doubt she’d been in the Emporium on Tuesday, purchasing a copy of How to Think like Sherlock and pretending to be part of a bridge group holiday.

I got to my feet. I held my hand over the coffee mug on the small side table but felt no warmth. The cup was about half full, and cream had formed into a skin on the top.

“Let’s go.” I grabbed Jayne’s arm, and she turned a pale, shocked face toward me. I gave her a tug, and she stumbled after me. We ran across the veranda, skirting the table and chairs, past the empty windows, around the unseeing stone woman and her empty vase, across the remains of a once-lush lawn, through the tatters of the fence and then the hedge. We stepped out onto the street, and I kept us to a brisk, but not too fast, pace. Unfortunately, it was not the middle of winter, and we weren’t wrapped in heavy coats, scarves, and hats. I could only hope security cameras were focused on the entrance to properties, not the middle of the street.

The children’s party was still in full swing, and the Miata was just one high-end car among others. We hopped in, and I drove sedately away.

Jayne fumbled in her bag for her phone.

“Put that away,” I said.

“We have to call the police.”

“We will. In due course. We couldn’t help her, Jayne. It was too late for that, probably by several hours.” The mug on the table had contained coffee gone stone cold. Coffee, more likely to be a breakfast drink than something consumed midafternoon around the pool.

“Did you recognize her?”

“It was Elaine Kent.”

“The woman who’d been part of the bridge tour?”

“The same.”

“The guard’ll tell the police we were there.”

“He will also tell them we drove away when refused admittance. One hopes he was enough on the ball to have marked down the time of our visit. Good thing we were earlier stopped on the highway in Cape Cod, heading toward Boston, by none other than the investigating detectives.”

“If we have alibis, then why are we running away?”

“We’re not running away.

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