The Antique Store Detective: A completely unputdownable cozy murder mystery by Clare Chase

Author:Clare Chase [Chase, Clare]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bookouture
Published: 2024-08-07T00:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-FIVE

A JOB FOR BARRY DIXON

After they’d called the police, Bella took the flyers and walked to the end of the road nearest to Frank Fellows’s house. She had a terrible sinking sensation in her chest: an aching pity. Shock made her feel as though she’d been slapped, and underlying that was a gnawing sense of guilt.

John followed her, dashing to keep up. ‘What are you doing?’

She swallowed down her feelings. ‘If the police go door-to-door they’ll think we weren’t really here to leaflet – unless we cover our tracks.’

‘Isn’t it a bit unfeeling to be doing this when we know what’s happened?’

‘It’s not that I don’t care. I’m processing my emotions while I work. Dad taught me to be clear-sighted when disaster strikes. If you’d rather explain the truth to Barry Dixon, then I’ll stop.’

John sighed. ‘You win.’

‘I think Dixon’s more likely to take us seriously if he thinks we’ve stumbled across this, than if he imagines we came looking for clues.’ She glanced at him. ‘Frank Fellows is more likely to get justice this way.’

John rubbed his chin. ‘You have a point. So you reckon the death is suspicious?’

Thinking time not required. ‘Don’t you? Frank Fellows has popped up everywhere we look. He’s got a secret connection with Oliver’s niece. She visited him with luggage after midnight. He was in the Blue Boar, desperate to find members of the local history society. And pummelling Harvey Howard for information at the recital. The more Harvey couldn’t answer, the more anxious he got. Now there’s a new crack in his window and he’s dead.’

John frowned. ‘I see all that, but his rug was rucked up under his feet. He could have tripped and knocked his head.’ He must have read her expression. ‘But if we take a leap, and assume he didn’t, then what’s our theory? That Nan Gifford sold him some of the treasure? Then someone came and stole it from him and killed him in the process?’

‘Possibly. And if so, it means I’ve messed up, big time.’

John frowned.

‘I decided not to make a big deal about the missing treasure and Nan dumping the notebooks because I felt for her. But if she was selling some of the hoard to Frank Fellows then this whole thing is much bigger than I’d realised. I could have made the police question Nan. She might never have taken the treasure to Frank if I’d done that.’

‘We don’t know that she did.’

‘Don’t try to make me feel better.’ She marched on.

‘No. Right.’

Bella pushed another leaflet through a letter box.

‘What will you do?’ John’s tone was nervous.

‘I’m going to have to tell Dixon what I saw and live with it.’ The sinking feeling intensified. She hated guilt. It was unproductive and offered no escape. She kept replaying her reasons for not speaking up, an endless stream of self-justification. And after all that it would be the worst of both worlds: telling on Nan and failing to protect the killer’s next victim. She thought of her dad and hoped she could turn things around.

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