Free Novella, Chapters 7 and 8

Hello, fellow cozy lovers! Here is the next installment of my free Halloween cozy novella. This one is a two-chapter chunk since the chapters are short, and we’re nearing the end! I hope you’re enjoying this slice of life from Superior Bay!

Chapter 7

Crosby rubbed the spots above his eyebrows viciously, as though they’d personally offended him. “Exercise nut with crazy hair. It has to be Jeremy Miller who Darwin saw Thorne talking to. That was around the time the murder would have happened.”

“Jeremy didn’t kill Dr. Thorne.” I said it with conviction because there was no way my associate vet—who I’d actually dated a time or two before realizing we weren’t meant to be together—could have done something so vicious.

But in the back of my mind, something stirred. Jeremy hadn’t acted all that upset or surprised about seeing Thorne dead. And he’d said that pretty rude thing about Red River’s prices after he learned of the death. That comment had even made sweet Alyson raise her eyebrows. Yeah, Jeremy hadn’t been upset about Thorne’s death at all, that was for sure.

No. Nope. Uh-uh. I wasn’t letting my mind go down that road any farther than it already had. Jeremy was a kind man. He wasn’t a murderer.

Even though he’d been wearing a sparkly black halter top. Did it match the bit of cloth in Thorne’s hand, I wondered?

I shoved away that thought too.

Crosby sighed. “I don’t think he did it, either, but this presents a problem. I’m going to interview Darwin, like I said, and he’ll probably tell me the same thing he told you about the exercise nut sighting. Then I’ll have to haul Miller in for questioning. It’s my job.”

“I get that. Can you hold off, though? Just give me some time to find out more about Darwin first. That building he went into—it had the same symbol on it as the coin by Thorne’s body. The two of them were in the same weird club. How about if you interview the other vampires from the party first?”

Crosby sighed and got to his feet. “There weren’t any other vampires at the party.”

“What?” Shock rocked me back in the seat.

“Yep. Only Darwin was dressed as a vampire. I checked the list of guests twice.”

“So, he must be the one who almost ran us over running away from the tent after all. And then he left, which is suspicious behavior. He wasn’t getting a present for my aunt like he said—he never gave her one, so that was a lie. And he lied about what happened after he talked to Dr. Thorne. He told me he went to the car immediately but told Aunt Dru he stood around looking for her and noticed Thorne talking to Jeremy. Plus, Darwin’s costume was black, so that’s probably what was in Dr. Thorne’s hand. Crosby!” I bounced up. “You have to arrest him.”

He chuckled. “I have to question him first. I should have gone along when you talked to him. I can’t believe I let the word vampire throw me off my game so much.” He grabbed his belt off a hook and settled it around his hips.

I was momentarily distracted by said hips, which looked even better with the utility belt slung around them. Blinking myself out of distraction, I groaned. “I should go with you.”

He shook his head. “Not this time. You’ve already done enough when it comes to Darwin. Let me do my job now. But let’s take this conversation up where we left off later, okay?”

“Okay.” I watched him leave the office, feeling frustrated but enjoying his rear view for a minute before I followed him.

Outside, I trudged to my clinic, brightening when I got there. I greeted my receptionist, Catherine, at the front desk on my way through and then said hello to my vet techs, Korbin and Theresa, in the treatment area.

“Hey, boss,” Jeremy said, glancing over his shoulder at me from where he sat on a stool in front of a microscope. “You’re not scheduled to see patients this afternoon.”

“No, I know. I have some admin work to do. But I can help with clients if you’re getting backed up.”

He snickered. “You just don’t want to look at spreadsheets.”

I drooped. “Never.”

“Dr. Morgan?” Catherine appeared in the doorway. “There’s someone here to see you. It’s Dr. Sanderson from Red River Veterinary. I told him you’re not scheduled today, and I’d have to see if you’re available.”

I didn’t miss the way Jeremy’s spine stiffened. He spun the stool around. “What’s that guy want?”

“Guess I’ll find out.”

Hurrying to my office, I dragged on a white jacket and swung a stethoscope around my neck. I wanted to look doctorly for the meeting with Sanderson. I’d only had maybe two conversations with him over the years. Why was he here?

When Catherine dropped Sanderson in my office, he didn’t waste more than two sentences on pleasantries after dropping into the chair across from me. Then he said, “I have a business deal for you to consider. The Red River clinic will be mine when the lawyers are done with the paperwork. I want to buy your clinic too.” He raised a hand, palm out, to hold off my answer. “You can keep your job. Your associate can too. You’ll be the medical director here, and everything will work the same way it does now. You’ll make all the calls when it comes to medicine, medications…all of it. I’ll be a silent investor only.” He leaned forward. “Think of all the ways you probably want to update the place.” He looked around, nose twitching like there was a bad smell, at my outdated office décor. “The building, the equipment. Whatever you want. No one even has to know I own it. Nothing will change.”

“Except you’ll take most of the profit and reduce me to salary,” I said, keeping to myself the obvious question about where Sanderson planned to get all that money. “Why are you coming to me with this now?”

“Because Thorne didn’t want to do it. Said you should be left alone and allowed to have your little baby.” He gestured at the building around us. “He was short-sighted. We could have owned all the clinics within a two-hundred-mile radius. He was happy with one clinic. I’m not.”

“I see. Well, I’m sorry you wasted a trip to Superior Bay…Tucker, right?”

His lips thinned at my use of his first name, but he nodded tightly.

“Yeah, Tucker. Well, you wasted a trip. I’m not selling.”

He tossed a manila folder at me. “Look this over. It includes salary and perks. I’m sure you’ll change your mind and call me before the week’s out.”

He stood abruptly and strode for the door.

“Hey, Tucker!”

He turned, a glower on his face.

“I’m sorry I didn’t see you at the party. I love Halloween, don’t you? What did you dress up as? I’m always looking for new costume inspiration.”

“Elvis. The king. Costume’s at the dry cleaner, but you’ll have a second chance to see it at your town’s party on Halloween night.” He pointed to the file. “Look it over.”

Then he was gone, and I sat staring at the space where he’d been.

Chapter 8

After that conversation, I couldn’t focus on spreadsheets and wandered out of my office.

The treatment room was deserted, and I found Jeremy in the surgery suite, working on a patient.

“What ya got there?” I threw on a surgical mask and leaned on the door frame.

“Laparoscopy,” he answered, pulling a pointy-ended awl from a canula and setting it on the surgical tray. He took up a tube with a tiny camera on the end, fed it through the canula, then watched a screen in front of him as the picture came to life. “I’m getting some biopsy samples of the liver because this poor guy’s been vomiting and has had high liver values on his blood work for a while. Ah. Look at that. See that mass? That’s the culprit. Poor guy. I’ll get some samples.”

But I wasn’t looking at the mass on the screen. I was staring at the awl on the tray, my mind exploding with connections.

The diamond-shaped hole in Dr. Thorne’s neck, at least on top where the tissue wasn’t shredded—that’s why the wound had been familiar. “It was a trocar,” I mumbled, my eyes snapping up to Jeremy’s face.

“Hmm?” His attention didn’t waiver from the screen.

Dr. Thorne was killed by a bigger version of the trocar Jeremy had used in the laparoscopy. I tried to swallow, but my mouth and throat had decided to impersonate the Sahara. “Do…do we have bigger trocars than that?”

Theresa turned to regard me from her spot at the dog’s head, where she monitored the dog’s anesthesia. “No, this is the biggest one. The only bigger ones available are for large animals—cows and horses, so we don’t keep them around.”

“Right.” I whirled and headed across the treatment area, ignoring Jeremy calling my name behind me.

***

“So, you think a veterinary surgical instrument killed Dr. Thorne.” Crosby sat forward, elbows on his desk and fingers steepled.

“Yes. Someone stabbed him in the jugular with a trocar. A big one, like you’d use on a cow’s abdomen.” I felt bile rise at that, stinging its way up my chest and into the back of my throat. I swallowed hard and took another sip of water from the bottle I’d grabbed at the clinic before rushing to the police department. Crosby hadn’t been thrilled when I’d called him to meet me back there so soon after he’d left in the first place, but he’d done it. “I knew the pattern of the wound was familiar, but we don’t use trocars too often, so it didn’t come to me until I saw Jeremy using one.”

Crosby’s eyes narrowed. “You think Miller killed Thorne?”

“What? No!” I plunked the bottle on the desk. “That’s not what I think at all.”

“Well, he said that thing about Red River Veterinary undercutting your clinic. And he was wearing a glossy black shirt.”

I shook my head. “I know, but…”

“And Darwin told me the same thing he told Dru. That, after he talked to Thorne at the party, the doctor talked to a guy dressed like Richard Simmons, and that was Jeremy. Before you ask, yes, I checked the records and there wasn’t another one of those at the party either.”

“OK, great. But…”

“I know you don’t want to believe Miller is capable of this, but I think we have to keep an open mind.” Crosby dropped his hands to the desktop. “He had motive and means.”

“Actually, we don’t have a trocar big enough to make the wound on Thorne’s neck at my clinic, so he didn’t have means.” Ha! So, there.

Crosby rolled his eyes. “I don’t think it would be hard for Miller to acquire a big trocar without your knowledge. He may even own one from vet school or something.”

Dangit.

We sat in silence for a moment before I thought of something else and brightened. “The piece of cloth in Dr. Thorne’s hand wasn’t actually like Jeremy’s shirt. Jeremy’s had rhinestones. The one Dr. Thorne was holding was just shimmery, blue-black.”

Crosby was thoughtful, then said, “You’re right. But we don’t know for sure the cloth is from the killer’s outfit.”

I surged to my feet. “The coin! I saw the same logo on the door of that building Darwin went into. It has to do with their club, right?” I waved my hands, suddenly too excited to be still. “And the other side of the coin had a stylized S on it. That could be for Swanson! Crosby, Darwin Swanson is hiding something.”

“I know. He’s hiding the fact that he’s been swindling the other members of his weird club.”

I blinked a few times. “What?”

“I researched the club—the Court Jesters.” He waved off my snort. “I know it’s a stupid name. They pool their money to make investments in developments and the stock market. I think Darwin was skimming money off the profits. I can’t prove it yet, but I have a team working on breaking that down. Thorne and his wife were in the Jesters too. I guess Mrs. Thorne didn’t really have much to do with it.”

“Okay, so maybe Dr. Thorne was on to the fact that Darwin was doing something shady, so Darwin killed him.” My brain stuttered when another thought hit me. “Or the S is for Sadie. You thought she wasn’t sad enough about losing her husband. Maybe she’s the one who did it. She could have gotten a trocar from her husband’s clinic.”

Silence fell, and my brain kicked back into gear, cruising along at breakneck speed until it delivered another idea. I headed for the door.

“Where are you going?”

“The dry cleaner. Wanna come with me?”

Confusion flitted over his face, but then he stood up. “Since you don’t ever buy anything that needs dry cleaning, I assume I’m going to want to be there for this.”

***
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