Fame and Fortune and Murder

  Fame and Fortune and Murder

  Fiona Fleming Cozy Mysteries #3

  Patti Larsen

  Kindle Edition

  Copyright 2017 by Patti Larsen

  Find out more about me at

  http://www.pattilarsen.com/

  and my newsletter

  http://smarturl.it/PattiLarsenEmail

  ***

  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 the vendor and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  ***

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

  http://castlekeepcreations.com/

  Edited by Jessica Bufkin

  ***

  Chapter One

  There was just something spectacular about a hot latte and a deliciously sunny April morning that stirred my optimism. Not that I had anything to complain about, really, but the beaming sunshine and perfectly roasted and sugared aroma of fresh coffee mixed with the smiling relief of small town residents recently released from the depressing gray of winter put an extra bounce in my step.

  Not just mine, either. As I passed through the glass doors of the most yummy smelling place in all of Reading, Vermont—who didn’t adore the scent of well-brewed Colombian?—and into the warm and welcoming arms of spring, I nodded with excellent humor to everyone who returned the grin I shared like we had some secret we’d long been keeping to ourselves and were only now beginning to pass around.

  Even the air smelled of new beginnings, that particularly heavenly mix of freshness and damp earth mingling with the scent of crushed pine needles washing down from the mountains seemed to melt away the misery of the last three weeks. Now, allow me to be clear. We hadn’t just come through Armageddon or six snowstorms in a row or even a hurricane. Instead, the twenty-one days of pretty much incessant rainfall had turned our entire quaint town into a damp and mildewing mud ball. I’d given up on any chance of getting into the garden at Petunia’s, my bed and breakfast, before summer at that rate, each and every morning dragging me deeper into the gloom of misty patheticness fed by temperatures far too mild to even make snow.

  And thanks to the loss of cold weather, tourism dried up to the point I only had one set of guests in my normally packed house, a pair of patiently kind grandparents who’d come from Florida to enjoy spring in Vermont. At least now they’d be able to emerge from their hideout in the carriage house Blue Suite and explore town instead of spending endless hours playing our worn down Monopoly that I was positive was missing Boardwalk.

  I passed the new statue that had been erected just a week ago, the rain keeping most residents away from the ceremony, though the bronze gleamed nicely in the sunny day that was today. I still wondered why Olivia Walker, our illustrious and driven mayor, worked so hard to push through the design that now towered over the center of Main Street like some kind of out-of-place colossus. It wasn’t like our town needed the twelve-foot tall swashbuckling monstrosity that was her rendering of Captain William Reading, the legendary privateer who founded our town on his own last name with help from his cabin boy, Joseph Patterson.

  There weren’t any Readings left, though the Patterson family was still around and kicking and making lives miserable from time to time. In fact, one of their disowned daughters, Aundrea, was a friend of mine and a deceased grandson the victim of a murder just two months ago at the White Valley Ski Lodge.

  I had heard the Pattersons fought Olivia over the statue and that she’d only won because she had the clout of the full town council behind her thanks to her successful track record. I guess I could see why that old family might want to forget they came from common stock, their famous ancestor barely more than a scruffy kid, some almost but not quite pirate’s sidekick.

  Petunia grunted next to me as she trotted along, doing her best to keep up and distracting me from Olivia’s new twist on town tourism. The legend of Captain Reading never really made sense to me. From what I understood, despite semantics, Reading was little more than a hoarder at the end, gathering his treasure and carting it inland to some hidden location no one ever uncovered. Whispers of that lost hoard and even his brigantine ship, the Darkling Dragon, hiding somewhere in the surrounds of Reading were about as common as the idiots who wasted their time looking for it. And found bupkis.

  Maybe Olivia was trying to tap into the treasure hunter set? Or, more likely, I smelled a shot at a reality show. She had her head up Hollywood’s butt enough tapping into some of Reading’s more famous residents that a project like a show based on nothing might just be on her radar.

  As long as my rooms stayed full and I wasn’t sucked into the drama, I was happy to let her do her thing.

  Petunia groaned while we continued on, pausing to scratch one ear with an awkward hind leg before huffing forward. I’d spent the winter trying to regulate her diet and get her off the treats and sugar my best friend, Daisy, and own traitor mother had been sneaking her. But it was apparent either the pug named after my inherited business was finding ways to steal extra food or the two older ladies who worked for me were ignoring my orders not to give the dog anything not on her approved list. The post-it note stuck to the big stainless steel fridge had gone missing lately, I noticed, so I had a feeling it was the latter rather than the former.

  “Don’t think that donut hole you just ate is going to be a regular occurrence,” I said, unable to resist the offer when the perky young woman handed over the sugary confection. Petunia’s pathetic expression and bulging eyes showing the whites tweaked my heart strings and, I guess, the lovely day made me generous.

  Petunia didn’t even look up at me, likely plotting her next opportunity to bully someone into giving her food that made her flatulent. It wasn’t so much her round belly that concerned me as it was her unfortunate habit of farting on me in her sleep. My attempt to kick her off the bed had failed completely and she’d been curled up next to me every night since I gave in. But if she was going to keep expelling that level of gas it was quite possible I’d go to bed one night and just never wake up.

  Toxic pug gas slayed.

  I skipped around a small stack of pylons and a long, low barrier of white painted lumber while my deputy cousin unloaded more of the same from the back of the sheriff’s pickup. I beamed at Robert Carlisle, not because I adored him. Quite the opposite. I couldn’t stand the wretched little piece of loathing with his seventies-esque bush of a black mustache or his pompous superiority that he got to be a cop and I didn’t or his growing beer belly and hideous leer he liked to aim at any woman under the age of fifty. And the feeling was mutual, though none of the previous applied. I was sure Robert had his own list of things about me he despised, but I was positive his number one reason for hating my guts was the fact I was the daughter of former sheriff John Fleming and he would never, ever be.

  No, I grinned and waved out of sheer delight at his less than enthusiastic expression as he grunted his way through hefting a rather heavy looking barricade onto the sidewalk.

  “Exercise is good for you,” I said as I kept going without offering to help.

  “Your ass could use some lately, Fanny,” he shot after me.

  ***

  Chapter Two

  He did not just call me fat and Fanny in the same sentence. I spun back, good mood turned to snarling anger, and found Deputy Jillian Wagner smiling at me, shaking her head. Once
I discovered Jill couldn’t stand Robert either, I’d invited her over for coffee and her best advice hit me with that smile.

  Do not engage the troll.

  Instead, I paused next to her and completely ignored my cousin who glared at us. Jill took a break, her blonde ponytail tucked into the collar of her khaki uniform button up, white t-shirt showing at her collarbone. Nice to know another woman about my height, especially in Reading where everyone seemed to lean toward the petite side. While 5’7” wasn’t gigantic, I sometimes felt like I towered over other women, including my elderly employees, Mary and Betty Jones. Made me feel a bit awkward.

  “You staying around for the parade?” Jill’s voice always surprised me, sweet and light, and from what I heard she was a hell of a soprano.

  Oh, crap, right. I’d forgotten the parade. On purpose. “Ah,” I said, looking down at my latte.

  She laughed. “Gotcha. Gardening?” She sounded wistful.

  I beamed a smile. “Can’t wait to get into the beds now that the ground is drying out some. I might transfer some of the bushes but for now I’m going to clean up and prep for planting.” If any of my old friends from my five years living in New York City could have heard me they’d have fallen off their designer platforms and spilled their own expensive and impossible to order coffees. A lot had changed since my Grandmother Iris died and left me Petunia’s. Including two murders and a secret trail of clues that led me to a broken music box I was in the process of having restored.

  “I’ll pop over when I get the chance if that’s okay?” Jill lifted a pile of orange cones from the back of the truck. “I’d love to get slips of the two bushes near the front steps if that’s still all right?”

  I grinned, nodded. “I’ll be home all weekend,” I said. “Avoiding the fanfare.”

  She wrinkled her nose, freckles coming together under her blue-gray eyes. Not many people I knew looked that good without makeup, her naturally dark lashes so thick I felt envy every time I looked at her. “Wish I could join that club,” Jill said. “But it’s all hands on deck this weekend.”

  I wasn’t surprised. “Has Olivia been driving Crew nuts?” Ever since the weather turned and our tourist numbers with it our dear Mayor Walker had been slowly losing her mind. Her push to attract visitors had, so far, created a wave of new business for Reading and I was frankly impressed by her determination. While the whole grow or die mentality gave me the creeps, I couldn’t complain about the benefits to my bank account.

  But as I looked around the busy main street of the place she’d coined the “cutest town in America,” I wondered if these past few weeks of quiet weren’t a good thing. It had been nice to relax a little, put my feet up, get to some projects requiring my attention without feeling like I had to hurry or scurry or fudge the edges because I just didn’t have time.

  There was something to be said for a break in the crazy, especially with summer coming. And this weekend’s activities were bound to stir things up again.

  “Have Willow and Skip arrived yet?” The focal points of today’s parade, Reading’s most famous citizens lived in Hollywood full time. But that didn’t stop Olivia from shamelessly badgering the A-list star and her football hero husband to promote our town. Which, I thought, they’d done so far with grace and thoughtfulness, part of the reason Olivia’s campaign to increase tourism had worked out so well. But this weekend’s commercial filming following the pomp of a parade for the happy couple was just a bit much for my stomach.

  Thus hiding in the garden in the sunshine and letting the rest of Reading deal.

  “I think so,” Jill said. “The sheriff and the mayor were driving to the airport to meet them at 9AM, so I assume they’re back by now.” Likely staying at the White Valley Ski Lodge in the penthouse suite. I personally preferred to avoid the place since almost dying on Valentine’s Day and helping solve two murders. But it was a beautiful spot and the perfect refuge for the famous pair.

  “Have fun,” I said, waving to Jill and tossing my long, auburn hair at Robert who snarled back.

  Petunia grumbled about walking as she always did, pausing now and then the two and a half blocks to the B&B just to see if I’d stop and pick her up. Which I refused to do.

  “Maybe we both need more exercise,” I said. Refused, of course, to believe Robert’s cruel comment was anything but crap while a tiny part of me whispered I had been enjoying Betty’s cooking a lot lately, not to mention my mother’s amazing fare and hadn’t I spent the winter working but not working out…? “That’s it. We both need to shift our habits. What do you say?” Whether true or not—suck it, Robert—I missed my daily runs in the city. Time to take that up again.

  Petunia didn’t seem all that enthusiastic. I should have adopted a Labrador.

  I looked up as I rounded the corner of Booker Street, heart stuttering while my smile faded and my lovely day of nothing but puttering in the garden took a massive turn for the oh crap now what. My normally quiet street, the odd car lining the sidewalks even when we were fully booked, now looked like a war zone. By the time I forced my sneakered feet past the stretch limo and the giant white van with the camera equipment, cables and lights and other things I couldn’t comprehend snaking and looming their intrusion on my life and the three hulking men in dark suits and earbuds with plastic wires running into their collars, I had a horrible, horrible feeling I wasn’t in Kansas anymore.

  Nope, I was in Reading, Vermont. Cutest town in America.

  My desperate need to explain this mess away disappeared with the sudden appearance of Olivia bustling from my front door, hurrying down the steps and to my side where she stopped with a deep scowl and a determined look on her face. One hand lifted to grasp my elbow as she leaned in and hissed the following.

  “The lodge has a gas leak and you’re all I have. So live with it.” She beamed then, leaning away, voice rising to politician volume while I gaped at her. “Petunia’s is the perfect place to house our special guests and staging ground for our parade. Historic and distinctly Reading, it’s been a landmark in our sweet little town for decades, a favorite of both Willow and Skip since their childhoods.” Wait, what? “I just know our visitors will love their time staying here and the nostalgia it will resurrect for them.” She tucked one arm around my shoulders, her dark red suit making me think of blood while I tried desperately to come up with something to say to stop this train wreck from happening. “Thank you so much to Fiona Fleming for being our most gracious host.”

  Wait, that sounded like a speech, didn’t it? I looked away from her to find she’d been speaking to a camera. Of course she had and I stood there and stared at it like an idiot struck by lightning.

  I knew then, like it or not, I was now a part of whatever Olivia had planned.

  ***

  Chapter Three

  We stood there frozen for about five seconds, Olivia’s nails digging into my arm, until the young woman behind the lens looked away from the viewer with a thumbs up.

  “We’re out,” she said before ambling away, the complicated looking camera rig she wore over her jeans and t-shirt more from a science fiction novel than a film shoot.

  Olivia released me and spun to face me, hand now firmly grasping my wrist, those same oval nails painted matching red to her prim suit carving little crescents into my flesh, all pretense vanished as panic flashed on her face.

  “They’re stuff is already moved in,” she said. “But there’s a couple in the carriage house. You need to get them out now.” She almost panted with anxiety. “Thank god you’re empty already or this would have been a disaster bigger than it already is.”

  “Thanks a lot,” I said, jerking my arm out of her grasp. “And who gave you permission to just take over my B&B? Don’t tell me I owe you, Olivia.” My turn to be fierce, jaw jutting like I knew it did when my temper flared. More my burly ex-sheriff dad than my petite mom, but all redhead. My stomach knotted around aggression as I managed to speak again without choking the mayor. “My service
s in February have paid that debt in full and then some.”

  For once she didn’t argue, the very real fear in her eyes softening my anger somewhat, leaving irritated frustration behind. “Please, Fee,” she said. “I’m asking, okay?” A quick glance cast over her shoulder and a flash of a smile ended with her leaning even closer. “I’ll owe you one this time.”

  Well now. The idea of Olivia Walker being in my debt sounded good, actually. And I was empty. All but for the poor Johansens. “I can’t just kick out my paying guests.” I flinched. “Tell me I’m not volunteering my place for this?”

  Hey, no judging. Money talked in this town.

  “Of course not,” she huffed quickly, visibly offended and the last of my anger faded away. “You should know by now I’m a proponent of small business, Fiona Fleming. The town of Reading was going to pay the lodge for accommodations. Those funds will go to you.”

  I didn’t have any new guests for at least a week, so I was out of objections. “Fine,” I said. “But you’re explaining to the nice couple in the Blue Suite why they have to hit the pavement.” Olivia’s relief was a wash of pink across her olive skin. “But,” I said, “no divas, no drama and if anyone does any damage, you’re liable.” I really had to have lost my mind. Because with fame and fortune came media and fans and all kinds of other things I couldn’t anticipate at the moment. Things I knew would pop up to bite my accommodating self in the ass.

  “Done,” Olivia said, grabbing my hand this time and jerking me toward the white painted steps to Petunia’s. “Now get in here and take care of your guests.” Panic gone, she was powerhouse Walker all over again.

  My mind stumbled as I did, almost falling in through the front entry of my B&B, while my own anxiety appeared in a flash of what the hell did I just do? I was down a woman, my best friend, Daisy Bruce, good on her word, off trying new career choices. I had, as yet, to replace her because business had been slow. And frankly because I missed her and hoped she’d come back and tell me helping me at Petunia’s was her life’s purpose.