Josephine West & the Christmas Corpse: A 1920s Carmel-By-the-Sea Cozy Mystery by Beth Byers & Ann Warren

Author:Beth Byers & Ann Warren [Byers, Beth & Warren, Ann]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-12-17T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

Josephine waited until the morning after she volunteered for Chessie. Two of the other girls were there, but they spoke mostly to each other before they slipped away just at the end of things, leaving Josephine to clean up.

She didn’t mind. She’d wanted to see how they interacted with each other. She wanted to see if they spoke of Eleanor at all, but the other women didn’t. Their names, Brianne and Cassandra had been there. Supposedly there was a third one, a Sarah that Josephine couldn’t quite remember.

Their gazes roamed over Josephine as though they found her wanting, but she didn’t care. She didn’t need or want to be another of the girls where they were catty and whispered behind each other’s backs, and seemed to be anticipating every passing mistake so they could glory over it when she wasn’t around.

Instead, she paid attention and helped out and made sure that Catherine Fredericks-Abrams had no reason to be further upset. The rest of the evening, she helped finish things and wasn’t surprised when Edward was there to walk her to her car.

“Want me to follow you home?” he asked.

She did. She so did. But she shook her head. “I’ll be all right.”

“Will I see you at church tomorrow?”

She nodded, grateful she grabbed extra pastries that day. Now she’d be using them for a reason to pry the door open and get herself through the next day to bother Brianne, Cassandra, and Sarah.

Preferably, however, Josephine would be able to get the goods on Eleanor without the pretense of not speaking ill of the dead.

“What are you going to do next in your investigation?” Edward asked as he held the door open for her, still holding the cider he’d gotten for her.

Rather then getting into her new auto, she turned and faced him, leaning against her car seat and looking up at him. “What are you going to do in your investigation?”

He sniffed. But his lips twitched a little. “Turns out this Louie character is more elusive than I thought. I’ve been tracking down his movements and trying to figure out where he goes and what he does. He doesn’t seem to have regular employment, and he definitely doesn’t come home at any regular time.”

Edward put a little of his secret syrup in her cup and then handed it to her. She sipped, laughing up at him as she asked, “Is he making you work a little harder?”

“The last person I had to work this hard to find had stolen money from the bank.” A moment later, he lifted a brow. She hadn’t answered his question, and he’d noticed.

“I’m going to visit some of the other volunteers. It seems that there was a few who were good friends with Eleanor at one time.”

“Did you get that from Chessie?”

Josephine nodded.

“What else did she tell you?”

“Just about her life back east. Nothing about Eleanor.”

“Josephine—”

She cleared her throat. “Yes?”

“I know when you’re avoiding answering my questions.”

She took a deep breath in, let it out slowly, and admitted, “She told me a lot of personal information.

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