Grounds For Remorse
A Tallie Graver Mystery #2
by Misty Simon
Genre: Cozy Mystery
No more cheating . . .
Best friends Tallie Graver and Gina Laudermilch both seem to spend a lot of time around urns. For Tallie, they're part and parcel of the family business, Graver's Funeral Home. Even though she's traded ashes for dusting with her own cleaning business, she still works part-time for her folks and lives above the funeral parlor. For Gina, they're the vessels that con-tain her heavenly brew at her coffee shop, Bean There, Done That. And both women are learning that owning a business can make finding time for romance challenging.
But when Gina's new beau turns out to have a wife, who barges into the coffee shop to take him home, she can't contain her bitterness and loudly threatens to poison his cup or boil him in a vat of coffee. So when Mr. Wrong turns up dead at the bottom of a staircase inside Gina's locked home, she finds herself at the top of the police's suspect list. Tallie needs to sweep in to save her friend. But she'll need to watch her step, or she may go from being a funeral home employee to becoming their next client . . .
I jolted awake and nearly knocked Max off the bed when the siren at the firehouse next door blared in the middle of the night. I had trained myself to sleep through it when I’d first moved over the funeral home my parents and brother owned. It also helped that my father had installed soundproofing up here at my request. Tonight, though, I’d had a hard time falling asleep and had wandered to the window a few times to soak up the moonlight and watch the few cars driving on Main Street. I had been restless even with Max’s arms wrapped around me in the Murphy bed that I’d lowered from the wall.
So, it was no surprise that I heard it and shot straight up in bed. As softly as possible I removed myself from under Max’s arm and went to the front windows of my apartment, where I’d be able to see the direction the fire truck headed. The lights could be mesmerizing as they strobed across the brick buildings of Main Street in our small town. Pennsylvania liked its sirens and its volunteer firemen. But though the siren blared and the lights flashed, they didn’t get far. In fact, they pulled across the street and stopped outside Gina’s. What on earth?
“Max. Max!” I shook him, then ran to my closet for a hoodie to throw over my pajamas. No time to waste on a bra, and the hoodie would cover up any sagging. Plus, the dead of summer could still get a little chilly outside in the middle of the night.
He sat up, his hair going in all directions. “What’s going on?”
“The fire truck is in front of Gina’s house. I have to go over there.”
Points for him that he was out of bed and stepping into his jeans before I’d finished my second sentence.
“See if you can get a hold of her. She might not be able to answer, but maybe she can. Just check.” He went to the window as he pulled a shirt on over his head. “I don’t see flames. But an ambulance just pulled up.”
“Oh no. That could mean anything.” They came out for all reasons, generally anything that involved a call to the emergency line at the police station. What had happened? Was Gina hurt? Had I left her alone and Craig had come for her? My stomach tried to claw its way up my throat.
Stepping into shoes, I hit my Gina speed dial as I flew down the two sets of stairs to the main floor.
Max was right on my heels. By the fourth ring, Gina still hadn’t answered, but then it didn’t matter because I saw her standing on the sidewalk with her arms wrapped around herself and a blanket over her shoulders.
At least she was alive. While I’d booked it down the stairs, horrible visions had flashed through my head of Craig getting in her house and killing her in her sleep. Seeing her standing there alleviated that fear at least, but it didn’t indicate what had happened. I didn’t even look for traffic as I ran across the street and jerked to a halt in front of her. I opened my arms and she stepped forward. But Chief Burton put an arm out between us, keeping her from hugging me. The man was the bane of my existence. He still held a grudge over the stuck-up, snobby bitch I had been for the past five years. I’d thought helping him with a double murder a few months ago might have softened him up, but that didn’t seem to be happening with the way his eyes were flinty and his stance forbidding.
“What are you doing?” I demanded.
“This is a crime scene, Tallie.”
“A what? What happened?” Quickly taking in the scene, I saw no blood and no broken windows. Nothing out of the ordinary, except my friend standing on the street with a blanket around her shoulders.
“Go home. We’re taking care of it. I need you to step back. We don’t want to contaminate anything until we have all the evidence we need.”
“Gina?” I met her eyes. Max stepped up next to me and put a hand on my outstretched arm.
“Don’t leave me, Tallie. Please.” Her voice quavered with distress and I wanted to punch Burton in his shiny badge.
Instead, I glared at him and almost said the scathing words that were positively boiling on my tongue. But I did not want to make anyone even madder. I settled for taking a step back. “I’m not leaving. I won’t touch anything, but I’m not leaving.”
Burton sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. Not my problem.
“Do you want me to call your mom, Gina?” I asked. “God, no, please.”
“Can you tell me what happened? Why are the police and the fire department and the ambulance here?”
Burton stepped between us again. “You can stay, but I’ll be asking the questions. Right now, this is a need-to-know basis and you are not someone who needs to know anything.” Burton stood with his back to Gina, fully blocking her from my sight. Kicking him would be a very bad idea, I told myself several times, while I fought down the urge to do just that. I tried a different tactic with the silvered-haired man who was the strong arm of the law around these parts.
“Can you tell me what happened then? I live in the neighborhood and would like to know what has happened to bring everyone out before dawn.”
He frowned at me, his bushy gray eyebrows pulling down to form a V. “There’s been a death and that’s all you need to know.”
A death? I reeled back into Max’s arms, my brain now going to the threats Gina had made earlier toward Craig. No way would she have done that. I knew it in my heart. Plus, I didn’t even know who was dead. I wouldn’t jump to any conclusions until I had more facts. And then the gurney rolled past me and Max. A hand flopped out from under the sheet, the manicured fingernails masculine and way too clean. It was Craig. To say this was not good was a gross understatement.
Cremains of the Day
A Tallie Graver Mystery #1
There's no reverse on the hearse . . .
For Tallulah Graver, marrying wealthy Waldo Phillips seemed like the best way out of the family business, the Graver Funeral Home. But when her marriage falls apart and Tallie is left with next to nothing, she turns to cleaning houses to make ends meet. As humbling as it is to tidy the mansions of the snobby socialites she used to call friends, at least she doesn't have to be around dead bodies.
Until . . .
She discovers one of her employers lying in a closet with a knife sticking out of her chest. This unpleasant shock seems to be part of a web of weird experiences: Tallie's friend Gina's shop is broken into, her ex is stun-gunned where it hurts the most, and now she's receiving flowers from the dead woman. Granted the deliveryman is handsome, but seriously, that's enough to cast a pall over anyone’s day. Now Tallie needs to dig deep to clean up this mess—before she finds herself in a grave situation.
“You’ll be cheering as the clues pileup in this creative cozy mystery.” —New York Times bestselling author Lynn Cahoon
Catering after the funeral was not really my forte, either, but at least during this job I got to hang with Gina.
And here, in the fire station next to Graver’s, we were having a grand old time. The stories were fairly flying around the big hall in front of the garage where they kept the engines. Gina had gone for simple and very Pennsylvanian for the former fire chief and all-around good guy. We had pork and sauerkraut, pigs in a blanket, chicken with gravy on waffles, chicken corn soup, and lots and lots of bread. Dessert was Mr. Fletcher’s favorite thing in the world, whoopie pies.
Mr. Fletcher had retired over twenty years ago as fire chief, but the old guys sitting in the back corner with their chairs in a circle and their canes resting on the backs, talked as if it were just yesterday the man had run into a burning building to save someone. That someone had turned out to be a former girlfriend, who promptly kissed him. They fell back in love that day and were married for fifty-six years. And she had told him up until the last fire he’d run that he best not save any of his other former girlfriends, because she was not going to be left for some fire tramp.
Mrs. Fletcher heard the story being told and joined them to put her own embellishments on the tale. One man with a walker, but looking spry enough to be sixty, rose from his chair and held it for her to sit down.
At that moment, Gina waved for me to come over to the kitchen on the left-hand side of the hall. She wasn’t subtle about it, either, and if I didn’t hustle, she would start yelling at any moment. I hustled to her side because several police officers had just walked in to say good-bye to the deceased.
Since they traveled in packs, I was pretty sure my least favorite person, Chief of Police Burton, couldn’t be far behind, and I wanted to avoid him at all costs if possible.
“We need more sauerkraut. Can you hold down the fort, keep the sausages going until I get back? I have another tub back at the shop, but I don’t have anyone I can send to go get it.”
She was already untying her apron when I said, “I can go get it. There’s no need for you to leave when you’re the one with the cooking smarts. Just give me the keys and I’ll be right back.”
I was so thankful she didn’t hesitate to dip her hand into her pocket for the keys. As kids, we’d been inseparable. Once Waldo came along, I’d been stupid enough to drop all my friends who didn’t fit in with my new status. Waldo, whose real name was Walden Phillips III, absolutely hated that I called him Waldo. It made my day every time. Anyway, once I’d moved out of Waldo’s house, I’d started working on reestablishing those relationships.
I had let slip when I was Mrs. Phillips III. There was no denying I had been a stuck-up bitch during those years. Gina hadn’t been in the mood to deal with me at first. Yet, when I had called and eaten crow for the second time, it had been as if no time had passed, leaving me extremely thankful Gina hadn’t made me eat crow a third time. I didn’t blame her for giving me a hard time at first, because I had a lot of mistakes to make up for.
I put my hand out and Gina held the keys for just a second longer than she had to. The moment was here and gone within the space of two heartbeats. I counted them as I held my breath. Gina handed over the keys with a smile and a nod. “It’s in the refrigerator in the back next to the walk-in freezer. You shouldn’t have any trouble finding it; follow your nose.”
“Be right back, then.” Now I was the one who removed my apron, grabbed my coat from its hanger, and strode out into the chilly night. The temperature had dropped since the gravesite part of the ceremony, while the wind had picked up. It was almost cold for a September night.
Dipping my face into the collar of my jacket, I picked up the pace to trot along the sidewalk. Fortunately, Bean There, Done That was not far away, only catty-corner across Main Street. I jaywalked, I admitted it, but nearly anyone who would have thought to arrest me for breaking the law was back at the fire hall, so I wasn’t too worried.
Shoving my hands deeper into my pockets, I took the final few steps to the front door. Something did not feel right about the place, but I shook it off as residual funeral pall. I made a mental plan for which light switch I would reach for and how I’d get back to the refrigerator. Although I knew the layout pretty well from the many times I had helped Gina close down for the night, I didn’t want to wander around in the dark.
Unlocking the front door with fumbling hands, I pushed through with my shoulder. Blessed warmth enveloped me. Standing in the darkened doorway for a couple of seconds, I let the warmth infiltrate my every pore, or at least the ones it could reach with my jacket on. I reached to the right and flipped the switch to turn on the overhead lights.
And screamed.
Misty Simon is the author of Cremains of the Day and Grounds for Remorse in the Tallie Graver Mystery series. She loves a good story and decided one day that she would try her hand at it. Eventually she got it right. There’s nothing better in the world than making someone laugh, and she hopes everyone at least snickers in the right places when reading her books. She lives with her husband, daughter and three insane dogs in Central Pennsylvania where she is hard at work on her next novel or three.
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