Madame Pompette Sets Up Shop: A Cozy Mystery (Madame Pompette's Tea Shop Book 1) by Libby Castle

Author:Libby Castle [Castle, Libby]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Libby Castle
Published: 2025-03-07T00:00:00+00:00

IT WAS TRUE THAT THE case was preying on my mind. By the time I woke up the next morning, however, I’d most definitely not changed my mind. I had no place investigating murder. Not even if, as Rosie suggested, I could turn my true talents to it.

Yet there were still things that I couldn’t quite forget. The bodies of Ryland and Maria, obviously. But there was something else, something that was dancing just out of reach, like a word you know that you know but just can’t quite bring to mind.

Something told me that I had noticed things, whatever Rosie might think, that there were things that I’d seen that I just hadn’t computed properly. What I couldn’t do was bring those things to mind.

And they were none of my business, I reminded myself as I locked my back door carefully behind me and breathed in the cold morning air. I needed fresh milk, fresh bread, and, thanks to Rosie’s Japanese omelette experiment, fresh eggs.

It was a chilly morning and everything sparkled in the frost. The dead flower beds on the village green looked almost snow-covered as I walked my way around to Moira’s shop.

“Morning,” called the vicar as he unlocked the big church door. “Any chance of a cup of tea?”

“Not open yet,” I called back.

“I hope it’ll be soon,” he said quite cheerfully.

Not as much as I hoped it would be. The financial side of things was starting to look quite precarious, and I hadn’t quite thought out what I was going to do if Owen didn’t let me open the shop soon. I walked past the roof fund thermometer by the church gate, pleased if slightly surprised to see that it had risen another red inch or two since the last time I’d seen it.

Good people lived here, I thought. Good, decent people who donated to the church roof fund and who cared about each other. It wasn’t all murders and blackmail.

It irked me that I’d been so wrong, I’ll admit it. I don’t like being wrong at the best of times, who does, but this... I had been so sure that I’d worked things out. So sure that I had the answer that everyone else had missed.

Which was what I got for being cocky, I suppose.

Still, it did all sort of feel like a prize fighter retiring after losing his last match. I had wanted to go out on a high note.

“Morning,” Moira said as I walked into the shop. Her eyes were all agleam with the latest news. “I heard you were up at the house when they found her.”

“Not something I really want to talk about,” I said as politely as I could.

“Of course, of course,” said Moira. “It must have been quite traumatic.” She gave a titter of a laugh. “Honestly, though, what are the chances of you being around two dead bodies? Really, dear, you’ve only been in town for a few weeks. Should we be expecting a Halloween parade of corpses in the coming months?”

“No,” I said as calmly as I could.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.