Bed and Breakfast and Murder Read online

  Bed and Breakfast and Murder

  Fiona Fleming Cozy Mysteries #1

  Patti Larsen

  Kindle Edition

  Copyright 2016 by Patti Larsen

  Find out more about me at

  http://www.pattilarsen.com/

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  Kindle Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Amazon.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

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  Cover art (copyright) by Christina G. Gaudet. All rights reserved.

  http://castlekeepcreations.com/

  Edited by Jessica Bufkin

  With my deepest thanks to:

  Christina G. Gaudet

  Elisabeth Kaufman

  Scott Larsen

  Kirstin Lund

  Lisa Gilson Noe

  Caron Prins

  From the bottom of my heart, for saying yes.

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  Chapter One

  Doing battle with a clogged toilet was not how I expected my Thursday morning to start. In fact, I had a whole lot of not much in my sights, a veritable plethora of nada, zippo, blessed and delicious time to myself. Hot coffee fresh from the pot, the latest edition of the Reading Reader Gazette spread out on my kitchen island, pajamas still gracing my weary self as I slowly and with great relish devoured a mushroom omelette without a hint of interruption.

  I really, really should have known better. It had only been two weeks, but honestly. Owning a B&B was like wrangling a house full of two-year-olds who alternated between cranky demands and petulant whining topped with the biggest messes I’d ever seen in my entire life.

  Case in freaking point. I tried not to look down the mouth of hell staring back at me from inside the glaringly pristine outer ceramic shell of the white throne, my throat catching, stomach doing half flips and a rather impressive rollover routine that would have gotten at least a 9.5 even from the Russian judges. Instead, I forced myself to smile and swallow and remind myself the elbow length yellow rubber gloves grasping the handle of the standard issue plunger were all that stood between me and Pooageddon.

  A few jabs and weak efforted prods did little to clear the clog. Time to get a bit more vigorous, put my back into it. The soft groaning yawn behind me made me spin with a scowl on my audience of one.

  “Do you mind?” I flipped back my auburn bangs, blowing at them to keep them out of my eyes while the portly fawn and black creature staring up at me with bulging eyes huffed in response. “I’m working here.”

  Petunia snorted violently, spraying little flecks of moisture on the white tile floor before perking her black ears at me, her squish pug face an equal mix of utter innocence and complete disdain for my present predicament. It wasn’t that it was her fault by any stretch, but she was here and enough of a reminder I’d said yes to this place on purpose I almost tossed the plunger at her.

  Suck it up, Fee. Big girl panties and adulting and all that. I glared at the pug and then myself in the mirror as I turned back, catching the wrinkles forming between my eyes despite my twenty-eight (okay, soon to be twenty-nine, but who’s keeping score) years, the tightness of the skin around my bright green gaze. At least I’d had the foresight to put my heavy hair in a pony. The very thought even a scrap of myself could touch that mess unprotected made me want to shave my head.

  “At what point,” I waved the dripping plunger at myself, wincing as droplets of yuck flew, “did I think owning a bed and breakfast was going to be glamorous and romantic?”

  Petunia yawned, whining in her pug way for me to get on with it then. Jaw clenched and determination in my heart, I went to war.

  I found a rhythmic rocking motion seemed to gain me ground, grunting added for good measure. And swearing, lots of swearing. Blaming, too. The damned tourist who decided to use half a roll of toilet paper to clean his precious butt. Mary Jones, my always glass so empty she was dehydrated elderly cleaning lady for telling me in no uncertain terms this was my job. To quote: “I don’t plunge toilets.” And my Grandmother Iris for having the temerity to think that I, Fiona Fleming, city girl who hired a cleaner twice a month so she wouldn’t have to touch dirt would be good at the domestic disgustingness of taking over her prized B&B after she died.

  Yes, swearing helped a lot. And actually created energy, oddly enough, as did the horribly phallic feeling action of my labors. As long as no one was videotaping this, I’d pretend it never happened.

  Ten minutes later, panting and sweating and, I’m sure, wearing some of the contents of the toilet and unwilling to admit it, I stood triumphant over the offensive wasteland and saluted the empty bowl with my weapon of choice. The satisfying gurgling sound of sludge disappearing down the pipes made my heart sing. Sad, really, that such a horrible affair could bring me so much satisfaction.

  But when I spun to receive congratulations from my watcher, the adulation of my biggest fan, I found Petunia had rolled over on her side and went to sleep, her snoring lost until now in the slosh-slosh-slorp of my plunger.

  “Typical.” The orange top of my now beloved weapon settled into the white cup at the base of the toilet, squidging as it went. I’d have to make sure Mary cleaned it, at least. As for the throne itself, I sighed at the stench and the excess drips over the edge of the bowl and rather than fight with a seventy-year-old woman about boundaries, dug under the sink for cleaning supplies.

  I knew which battles to pick. Fourteen long and educational days in and I’d learned more than I’d ever wanted to about the ins and outs of this new life of mine. Including just how very little the old lady was willing to do to make my life easier.

  The bright yellow sponge didn’t stay that color for long while I slopped cleaner into the now working throne and gave it a swipe with about as much enthusiasm as I’d approached this job from the beginning. If anyone had told me six months ago I’d be leaving New York City and my boyfriend of five years to come home to Reading, Vermont of all places, I’d have snorted my half-fat, 1/3 espresso, 2/3 regular, two pumps vanilla, one pump caramel whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles at them. Me and Curtis County at the foothills of the Green Mountains had said sayonara a decade ago as I scrambled my way out of small town blah and into the bright and shiny life of college and real life.

  “And exactly how well did that work out for you, Fee Fleming?” I really needed my bangs cut, blowing them out of my way again with an impatient puff out of the corner of my mouth. But I’d paid two hundred bucks for my last trim and I doubted anyone in Reading could deliver.

  Come to think of it, maybe there were perks.

  Toilet bowl successfully cleaned, I leaned back on my haunches, sneakers squeaking on the tile, rubbing at my forehead with one arm and doing my best not to touch myself with unspeakable grossness. And found, to my surprise as I often did the last two weeks, despite the horrendousness of my existence at times, I actually felt good about being home. Happy, despite my cranky, melancholy staff, my fat pug adoptee, dirty toilets and fussy guests. Home had felt like the last place on Earth I’d ever find myself again and yet home was the best thing that had happened to me in a while.

  “Just don’t tell anyone I said so,” I told Petunia who grunted and twitched in her sleep before starting to snore again.

  A sniff of the air told me the cleaner had erased most of the stink of the regretful incident. A quick wipe with a towel and I was all set. Unsanitary? Yes, of co
urse and I’d be sure to bleach the crap out of that same towel when I washed it. But I’d had enough of this entire mess and was ready to reemerge the victorious heroine of my own little story.

  At least the guests would be happy.

  Petunia farted so loudly she woke herself, sitting abruptly upright while the stench of her pug bowels surpassed anything I’d just managed to banish. And that moment that should have been mine, glory gained and earned, turned into a sorry state of affairs when Mary—bless her heart—poked her gray and judging head into the room, nose wrinkled as she took a sniff.

  “You’re wanted at the front desk,” she said in her five packs a day though she didn’t smoke voice before disappearing again.

  I looked down at my brown bespeckled self and sighed. Of course I was.

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  Chapter Two

  I left the bathroom window wide open to the warmth of the July morning, already heating up despite the earliness of the hour. Air conditioning or not, the place needed some fresh breezes and a good smudging. I attempted a brave smile at the embarrassed older gentleman and his irritated wife, the current residents of the Carriage House’s Blue Suite. Mr. and Mrs. Sprindle didn’t comment much, though Mrs. Sprindle did take a minute to huff her robust self in half so she could pat Petunia on the head.

  “Adorable,” she said, pink in the cheeks with one hand clutching the front of her matching colored robe shut, rollers protruding from under her kerchief. Who wore rollers anymore? “I love pugs.”

  I didn’t offer to send Petunia home with them. Barely. Instead, I left them to their morning, stepping out into the fresh air, exhaling in relief while I peeled away the stinky humidity of the yellow gloves. The sun rose over the mountains, beaming down on the extensive garden that separated the Carriage House (Blue Suite and Yellow Suite) from the main house (six more rooms of varying hues that were appropriately toned to match their names). The restored Colonial took up a double width lot compared to the rest of the street, camped on the end like a white-with-black-trim cap to the picturesque, tree lined small town residential neighborhood. Only a block from the boundaries deemed downtown and the quaint shops and tea rooms that popped up since local mayor, Olivia Walker, began her incessant drive to bring Reading into the present (using tourism to accomplish her implacable mission), Petunia’s Bed and Breakfast was perfectly placed for a quiet and relaxing getaway at the foot of the Green Mountains.

  Or had been. I paused in the early morning breeze, letting it blow the stink from my hair—yeah, I chose to believe it was working—and drew a breath while the three giant koi in the carefully manicured pond in the middle of the garden rose to the surface of the still water to take turns touching their large, gaping lips to the pug’s sniffing nose. Fat Benny, the biggest of the bunch, took the most time, but Pudgy Polly and Rotund Rudy had their turns, too.

  Not my names, inherited from the old lady with a sense of humor. The best part? Petunia’s. Yes, my grandmother, darling woman that she was, named her B&B after her dog. And not just this one. Oh, no. This particular incarnation of pugliness was the fourth.

  Just sit with that for a second. Petunia the Fourth.

  I shook my head and carried on, skirting the pond and the creepy orange fish Mary claimed my grandmother loved as much as her chubby canine. At least while the housekeeper and her sister, Betty, my cook, didn’t seem to trust me just yet, Petunia herself had welcomed me with a charming and disconcerting attention that meant she followed me incessantly. Everywhere. All the time. Never, ever leaving me alone at all.

  Teeth grind.

  If only my ex had been so attentive I’d still be in New York. Then again, would I? I looked up at the towering mountains that felt enough like distant skyscrapers I wasn’t uncomfortable, at the bright, blue sky and the trees with their spreading branches and mingling of oak and maple leaves and sighed. If I was going to be honest with myself, not something I’d been much in the past, I’d have to admit I hadn’t been happy for a long time.

  Petunia woofed softly, startling me, just as a piercing voice called my name. I knew before I even turned to look who stood at the fence between our properties, one skinny arm raised, hand flapping in greeting, beaming smile on her wrinkled face. Today, my neighbor Peggy Munroe wore a red bow in her hair, matching one holding the topknot of her creepily silent little dog in an upright flag of caramel fur that made her look like some kind of misshapen alien.

  “Good morning, Fiona!” No matter how many times I told her to call me Fee, Peggy insisted on my full name. Because my grandmother did. Sigh. “Trouble in paradise, dear?”

  I waved back, not in the mood to stop and chat endlessly with the nosy old woman. Who, I suspected, let her little dog skirt my fence and poop in my bushes. The soft piles of turds I’d uncovered were nowhere the size of Petunia’s big deposits, but I didn’t have proof so I left it alone. For now. “Busy busy as always, Peggy.”

  She shook her head, her bow bobbing as her little dog, Cookie, sneezed softly, delicately. “I have no idea what Olivia was thinking,” she said, the same old song and dance conversation starting and exactly what I hoped to avoid. “Luring those developers to our little town, building that big resort and all.” Yes, I’d heard this a million times before already, from her and from Mary and anyone else over the age of sixty-five who lived in Reading their whole lives. I could almost repeat what she was going to say next by rote, lips twitching in the need to mimic her as she went on. “Turned our dear little Reading into a cesspool of criminals and vagabonds.”

  “Tourists, you mean,” I said softly, smiling.

  She swatted the air in front of her, aimed at me, thin lips a tight line, faded blue eyes a match for her faintly tinted gray hair. “We were doing just fine before all her newfangled ideas.” Did anyone actually talk like that anymore? Clearly Peggy Munroe did. And half the population of this town. Living in a valley surrounded by mountains had an effect on mental development, I guess. Amused, I let her go on, if only to grant me a bit of entertainment after the morning I’d had already and it wasn’t even 8:30. “If it weren’t for that Skip Anderson and the floozy he married…”

  “I’m sure Willow Pink would be delighted to be called a floozy.” Though Hollywood had called her worse. Still, she was an A-lister and her husband, said Skip, a famous football star. So I doubted they cared much through their veil of millions and hordes of fans what aging townsfolk naysayers—or the movie reviewers—thought of them.

  Peggy snorted, not at all ladylike and reminding me of Petunia. “Well, if those two had the sense to keep our town out of the news like good Reading kids, we wouldn’t be in this predicament.”

  True enough, at least. When Olivia asked Reading’s most famous natives to join the tourism promotion team, they stepped up. And had they. Thanks to the new White Valley Ski Resort and Golf Club, Reading was suddenly a hub for tourists flocking to see the homestead of their favorite stars.

  “Too late now.” I grimaced at my watch. “Sorry, Peggy. I have to run.”

  “Ta-ta then, dear,” she said, all cheerful again while Cookie watched me with what I always imagined to be a plea for mercy and rescue. “Come for tea soon, why don’t you?”

  I watched her blue-gray head of curls disappear behind the fence and not for the first time wondered what she found on her side to stand on so she could spy on my garden. Nosy neighbors. It took getting used to again.

  Betty made her slow motion way around the kitchen as I entered through the back employee’s door and crossed the tile floor. Head down, tight steely curls in a net that made her look like the crankiest cafeteria lady ever, the rounded bow to her wide back giving the Notre Dame lurker a run for his money, the other half of the Jones sisters ignored me as I intruded on her domain.

  “Hi, Betty.” I waved and smiled despite knowing she either didn’t hear me or didn’t care enough to acknowledge my presence. I’d never, in the fourteen days since arriving home and taking over Petunia’s, heard the woman utter a s
ingle word. But she had heavy sighing down pat.

  The portly pug at my side trotted over to her, abandoning me in favor of the bits of some kind of meat Betty was preparing, delivered from elevation into her gaping mouth. The whites of the pugs eyes showed as she scuttled her butt from side to side, barely able to contain herself.

  “Bye, Betty.” I left the faithless dog to her snack, knowing she’d likely get sick later from the excess and that I’d be the one forced to clean it up. But it freed me from her constant plodding attention for the time being.

  Kind of insulting, really, she chose food over me every single time.

  I really should have taken the effort to scoot downstairs to my apartment and clean up, but as I considered the prospect of meeting whoever waited for me without a skim of fecal matter between us I spotted trouble at the end of the hallway, right at the tall, bright front entry.

  Her chatter reached me first, though not the words themselves. It was the tone, the sparkling and overly cheerful, if genuine, rapid fire energy expelling itself from the flapping mouth of my old bestie that drove me down the hall at a clip, past Mary who muttered under her breath about the dirt on my sneakers. Well, she could just do her job and vacuum once in a while. Not my fault the B&B went from sedate one or two bookings a week to over packed and bursting at the seams since the shining lights of Reading sang their siren call to all the good people of the world to come visit now, you hear?

  Daisy Bruce, eternal teenage optimist despite our matching chronological ages, turned as I joined her, beaming at me so brightly I longed for a pair of sunglasses to cut the brilliance. Okay, so poor Day. I was, admittedly, a bit grumpy this morning, but could anyone blame me, really? And the towering, broad figure who loomed over my old friend’s slim blondeness wasn’t making me feel like my fortunes had turned.

  If anything, the red faced man who might have been a football linebacker in a former decade but had gone too far to beer and burgers for his own good had that kind of expression on his thick lipped face that made me want to back up a step and reassess the situation. His beady blue eyes, so pale they were almost transparent, squinted out of folds, his faintly reddish hair, what was left of it, combed over the shining top of his head. And he had that bully stance, the kind that big men with little care for women seemed to think would make me back down if they just waited long enough.