Death by Rocky Road: Frostfall Island #2 by London Lovett

Author:London Lovett [Lovett, London]
Language: eng
Format: epub

Eighteen

I'd finished cleaning up Saturday morning's pancake breakfast when my friend Olive texted that Johnny, her parrot, wasn't feeling well because he ate too many peanuts. Olive Everhart was an artist who, aside from her thousands of followers on Instagram and her talkative and musically talented parrot, lived a fairly solitary existence in a cottage overlooking the island's Thousand Step Beach. She suffered from bouts of anxiety and rarely left the house. I'd been neglecting my friend, and her worried text reminded me a visit was long overdue. Since Olive rarely ventured out, I always made a point of fixing up a basket for her. This morning, I carried two of the yeast buns I'd baked for lunch along with a chunk of Swiss cheese, two rosy red apples, a box of raisins and some strawberries. Unfortunately, I didn't have anything for a parrot with indigestion, but it wouldn't be the first time Johnny overindulged on peanuts.

It was the perfect morning for a walk to Olive's, and the exercise would help me put my thoughts about the murder in order. The first notion I had to line up was that it was absolutely a murder and not an accident. Even an accidental murder was murder. My chat with Nathaniel on the front steps had helped me solidify that idea for good. Norwich was wrong but then it would have been much more surprising to say he was right. He was never right.

Huck knew that when I carried the wicker basket it meant we were heading to Olive's and that meant a treat. Olive always kept dog treats in a jar for Huck's visits. His big paws kicked up dust as he raced along Chicory Trail hoping to get to Olive's door and to the treats long before I could get there and tell her 'only one please'.

I stopped to pluck a few blackberries off one of the wild shrubs growing along the trail. The first ones were plump and soft and ready for a nibble. Soon, squirrels, mice and birds would pick the plants clean. I decided to enjoy them while I could. A bark in the distance let me know that Huck had already arrived at Olive's door. I pushed the last berry between my lips and hurried my pace.

In the distance, a layer of clouds hovered on the horizon signaling that sunshine would be in limited supply this afternoon. I wondered how the readers' event was going without the star author and with the terrible news of her death. Opal had decided to skip day two, and Seraphina had called Cora into work. There were too many customers this weekend for her to run the tea counter alone. Cora was just as glad to go to work. She'd left me her ticket knowing I would probably need to head back there for the investigation.

Olive was waiting for me out on her front stoop with Huck sitting at her feet.

"I brought some of those yeast buns you like so much.

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