Authors: Elizabeth Lynn Casey
Pinned for Murder
Table of Contents
Polarfleece Hat and Boa-Style Scarf Set
Undone
“Everyone has a temper sometimes. And Kenny Murdock is no exception.” Exhaling an errant strand of light brown hair from her forehead, Tori continued, her voice still quiet yet firm. “Branding him a killer because of it is simply ludicrous.”
Problem was, she wasn’t buying what she was selling. She’d seen Kenny’s face the previous afternoon. She’d heard the blatant threat he’d hurled in Martha Jane’s direction. She’d felt the rage simmering inside him.
And now the woman was dead. Strangled by a piece of rope that sounded a lot like the kind he’d been using that very day to bundle sticks in Rose’s backyard.
“Victoria is right,” Beatrice said, her accent and her innate shyness making them all lean closer to hear. “What’s that expression? Just because it looks like a duck and acts like a duck, it doesn’t mean it’s a duck.”
Margaret Louise laughed, her hand slipping around the nanny’s shoulders in a conspiratorial fashion. “They may say it like that across the pond . . . but here, in the States, if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it
is
, in fact, a duck.”
“Oh.” Beatrice flashed a look of apology in Victoria’s direction. “I’m sorry. I was only trying to help.”
Tori reached out, patted the girl’s hand. “I know. But don’t worry. It will be okay. Martha Jane’s killer will be found.”
What that would do to Rose when it happened, though, was anyone’s guess . . .
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PINNED FOR MURDER
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
PINNED FOR MURDER
A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author
PRINTING HISTORY
Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / October 2010
Copyright © 2010 by Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
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eISBN : 978-1-101-44389-7
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In memory of Paula Stech,
a woman who taught me the true meaning
of strength and courage in the face of adversity.
Chapter 1
As all reading enthusiasts know, books improve your life in unimaginable ways. They provide a momentary escape from the mundane, serve as food for the mind, and at times when humming isn’t a socially acceptable way of passing time with a less than interesting companion, books offer much-needed conversation starters.
That these bound feats of literature also make excellent stand-ins for doorstops, posture correctors, and hand weights is simply icing on the cake. But, like nearly everything else in life, books, when put to the test, have an area where they fail to achieve.
The ability to repel water
is that area.
A test they failed in red-inked spades if the bottom row of shelves in Sweet Briar Public Library was any indication. Hard covers, paperbacks . . . it mattered naught. If they were less than a foot off the ground, they fell prey to the effects of the season’s most impressive weather event to date, ushering in yet another undeniable fact. . . .
Roger—of the tropical storm variety—was obviously
not
a reading enthusiast.
Groaning, Tori Sinclair hoisted yet another saturated book onto the wheeled cart in the center of the narrow aisle and shook her head, the repetitive motion dislodging the last few strands of light brown hair from a ponytail that had seen better days.
“Has this ever happened before?” she asked as she peered through the nearly empty shelf at the plump woman on the other side.
“Sure as shootin’. Amelia paid us a visit ’bout three years ago but she was pretty easygoing as far as leavin’ a mess behind. Before that there was Tom an’ Richard an’ ”—Margaret Louise Davis wiped her hands down the sides of her black polyester pants and gestured to the dark-skinned girl two shelves to her left—“Gus. At least I reckon it was Gus. Though now that I say it out loud it doesn’t sound right. Nina, do you remember the one I’m talkin’ ’bout? The one that knocked the gazebo in the town square to kingdom come?”
“How could I forget?” Tori’s assistant replied with a sigh, her petite frame slumping against the shelf of paperback mysteries that played host to authors with
H
names. “Gus was the worst . . . until this one blew into town, anyway.”
“Land sakes these storm names are hard to remember. If I was naming ’em I’d give ’em good southern names that folks can recollect.”
Tori smiled in spite of the destruction around them, her friend’s words a bright spot in an otherwise miserable morning. “You mean like
yours
, Margaret Louise? Because you’re right, it flows off the tongue like a champ. Much,
much
more easily than Tom or Gus.”
Oblivious to the teasing tone in Tori’s voice, the woman nodded. “It does, doesn’t it? And that’s just the kind of name folks need to remember one storm from another.” With a huff and a puff, Margaret Louise rose to her feet, her assigned shelf now clear of all water-damaged books. “Though I’m bettin’ everyone on Rose’s street will remember Roger with not a dab of trouble. He left them the kind of mementos that make forgettin’ hard—name or not.”
“Rose?” Tori grabbed the last three books on her shelf and stood, her feet guiding her around the local history section and into the fiction aisle Margaret Louise and Nina had been culling through all morning. “Is she okay?”