Strawberry Shortcake to Die For (A Liana Campbell Cozy Mystery Book 2) Page 2

  “Okay,” Anne sighed, clearly disappointed.

  “Are we heading home?” Rusty asked, stifling a yawn. “I miss sleeping in my own bed.”

  “Yeah, my car is out front,” Liana told him, leading the way out of the airport.

  “Thank you again for checking the house while we were gone,” Anne said gratefully. “Oh, I just remembered! Dad and I brought you back some tea. It’s fancy stuff they sold in a little shop on our cruise ship.”

  “Neat, thanks.”

  “Now where did I put it?” Anne wondered aloud. She stopped right there in the middle of the parking lot, opened up her suitcase and began to rummage through it.

  “It’s fine, Mom. You don’t have to get it out right now,” Liana said as a car had to maneuver around them. “Let’s go. We’re interfering with traffic!”

  “They can go around us,” Anne assured her, still digging through her stuff. “Well, I swear I put the tea in here. Where is it? Rusty, did I pack it in your suitcase?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well open it up and check, would you?”

  “Please don’t!” Liana begged as a second car had to drive around them.

  “Let’s look for the tea when we get home,” Rusty suggested, trying to get Anne to move along.

  “But where is it?” she asked, still oblivious to the fact that she was acting as a roadblock.

  It was bound to happen. Pretty soon, an impatient driver came along.

  Rather than go around, the driver honked his horn.

  Without looking up from her open suitcase, Anne motioned for him to go around.

  He honked louder to signal his frustration.

  When Anne finally looked up, the irritated driver glared at her. Then he made a rude gesture. After that he honked once more, as if he was simply trying to make sure he had gotten his point across. Then he angrily drove around and sped off.

  “Well I never!” Anne huffed. “Some people are so rude!”

  “Mom, I think it’s time we pack up your suitcase and move along,” Liana suggested gently.

  Anne was too busy being insulted to respond.

  Rusty dutifully knelt down and re-packed his wife’s overflowing suitcase. How she had managed to zip it to begin with was a mystery. Somehow, she had stuffed more clothes, shoes and souvenirs into the suitcase than ought to have been physically possible.

  “Liana,” Rusty grunted as he struggled to close the suitcase. “Help me out, would you?”

  With a sigh, Liana obligingly sat on the suitcase. As cars drove by and people gawked at her, she could only shake her head. That was her parents, always making a public scene about something or other.

  As a teenager, it had been mortifying.

  Now...well, now it was still mortifying.

  “Oh, here it is!” Anne exclaimed brightly. She waved a cellophane wrapped wicker basket around triumphantly. “The tea was in my carry-on bag the whole time!” she announced.

  Liana and Rusty exchanged a less-than-impressed look, but said nothing. They had been dealing with Anne’s obliviousness for long enough to know that speaking up was futile. It was best to simply humor her.

  Tea in hand, Liana led the way to her car.

  “It feels like so long since we’ve been home! You’ll have to fill us in on what we’ve missed. What’s new in Sugarcomb Lake?” Anne asked once everything had been loaded into the trunk and everyone was buckled up.

  “Knowing that town, not a thing!” Rusty quipped.

  “Actually,” Liana said, “I do have news. A body was found by the lake a couple days ago.”

  That got her parents’ attention.

  In fact, it was all they talked about the entire drive back to town.

  Chapter 03

  “I can’t believe Chester Atkins is dead,” Rusty said for the third time.

  “I’m really sorry,” Liana said, feeling guilty. “I didn’t mean to shock you. Chester’s name wasn’t familiar to me...I didn’t know you knew him, Dad. Had I known, I wouldn’t have just sprung his death on you like that.”

  “It’s okay,” Rusty assured her. “I hadn’t seen him in years. We played on the same football team back when we were kids. Then his family moved to Green City and we lost touch. Oh, but I did see him once, years later. Anne, remember that restaurant in Green City?”

  “Uh, you’ll have to be more specific than that, dear. There are a lot of restaurants in Green City.”

  “We went there for our anniversary one year, just you and me. It was probably a good ten years ago. The restaurant had a big aquarium in the entryway that was full of exotic fish. You were quite taken with it.”

  “Oh, the fish! That rings a bell. I do remember that restaurant!” Anne exclaimed from where she sat in the backseat of the car. She leaned forward and enthusiastically declared, “The food there was great!”

  “It was,” Rusty agreed.

  Anne’s eyes narrowed. “Why haven’t we gone back there, Rusty? What did we even do for our last anniversary? Don’t think that just because we’ve been married thirty-some years, you don’t have to try anymore.”

  “How many years?” Rusty asked.

  Anne was silent.

  “You don’t know how long we’ve been married, do you?” Rusty demanded.

  “Neither do you!” Anne shot back. “Besides, I can figure it out if I think about it.” She started counting on her fingers and whispering to herself under her breath. Then she suddenly declared, “Rusty, that isn’t the point! The point is that you need to take me out more!”

  “I just took you on a cruise,” Rusty reminded her. “I can’t win, can I?”

  “Don’t change the subject!” Anne retorted, folding her arms.

  “You’re the one who changed the subject,” Rusty pointed out. “As I was saying, I recognized Rusty the moment I saw him. It had probably been forty-five years since I’d last seen him, but he still had the same stocky build and outgoing personality.”

  “Oh!” Anne piped up. “I remember now! He was that very large man we visited with for a while. He was one of the restaurant owners, wasn’t he?”

  “He was,” Rusty nodded. “He joked that since he’d always been passionate about food, he figured he may as well make a living from it. Man, that guy could eat. I remember when we were kids, he enrolled in a pie eating contest. He destroyed those other kids - and the pies!”

  “We met his wife that night too, didn’t we?” Anne recalled. “And their little boy.”

  “That’s right,” Rusty remembered, staring out the window as Liana drove. “I had forgotten about that, but yes. Chester had a wife and son. And now he’s gone. What a shame. You said it was a heart attack, Liana?”

  “That’s what people are saying,” she replied, her eyes focused on the road as she drove. “The theory going around town is that he probably collapsed while he was out for a run. I don’t really know anything more than that.”

  “Out for a run?” Rusty repeated incredulously. “That’s surprising. Chester wasn’t even very athletic back when we played football together! He was mostly interested in the after-game pizzas, if you get my drift. And when I ran into him years later, he had gained a lot of weight.”

  “He must have weighed at least four hundred pounds,” Anne added. “That night we visited with him at his restaurant, I noticed he got winded very easily. I remember thinking that he couldn’t have been in good health. Poor fellow.”

  “I guess it’s not surprising that a heart attack is what took him,” Rusty sighed. “I suppose Chester was a ticking time bomb, considering the way he lived his life.” He got quiet then, and went back to staring wistfully out the window.

  Liana snuck a peek in his direction. “You okay, Dad?”

  “Yes honey, I’m fine.” Rusty shook his head in disbelief. “Anne, I really did eat four desserts that one night on the cruise, didn’t I? And I’ve lost track of how many martinis I drank over the past few weeks.”

  “Me too,” Anne rep
lied sheepishly. “Unfortunately, my waistline remembers.”

  Rusty sat up straighter in his seat. “I think I had better start walking again, now that we’re back from the cruise. Chester’s death has hit me hard, and I’m not even sure why. It’s not like I kept in touch with the guy over the years.”

  “But you two grew up together,” Anne pointed out.

  “Yeah,” Rusty nodded. “And Chester was around my age. That’s scary. A tragedy like this really makes you aware of your own mortality, you know?”

  “Should we send a sympathy card to Chester’s wife and son?” Anne suggested.

  “That would be nice.” Rusty cleared his throat then and turned on the radio.

  “So what’s new with you, Liana?” Anne asked, changing the subject as music began to play.

  “Oh, not much. I’ve been keeping busy with work, as usual.”

  “It’s going well?”

  “It’s going great,” Liana replied, feeling a twinge of pride.

  “Dad and I are so happy for you, honey. Aren’t we, Rusty?”

  “Yep.”

  “Now all you need is to find a nice man,” Anne said matter-of-factly.

  “Oh look, we’re at your house!” Liana exclaimed in an attempt to change the subject. The last thing she wanted to do was discuss her love life - or lack thereof - with her mother. She parked the car in the driveway, jumped out and made a beeline for the trunk.

  “Have you met any nice young men lately?” Anne asked, climbing out of the backseat.

  “Let’s get your bags into the house!” Liana chirped, ignoring the question. She grabbed the nearest suitcase, tried to hoist it out of the trunk and immediately dropped it again. “Oof!” she grunted in surprise.

  “Let me get that,” Rusty said, coming to her aid.

  “What did you pack in there, rocks?” Liana joked, impressed by her dad’s strength.

  “Your mother had a lot of fun shopping,” Rusty informed her with a defeated sigh.

  Anne didn’t hear her husband’s remark. She had already made her way up the driveway and unlocked the front door of the house. She disappeared inside, leaving Liana and Rusty to struggle with the luggage.

  “Thanks for your help, Anne!” Rusty shouted as he and Liana dragged the bags inside.

  “Dad!” Liana giggled. “Be nice!”

  “Why don’t you ever tell your mother that when she’s getting after me?” Rusty pouted.

  “Because you usually deserve it,” Liana snickered.

  “Touche!” he huffed, pretending to be offended.

  “Where did Mom disappear to?” Liana asked, looking around.

  “Beats me,” Rusty shrugged. “Maybe she went to search through her inventory of sympathy cards. Do you know your mother has a giant stockpile of sympathy cards stashed away? How morbid is that? It’s like she’s just waiting for people to die!”

  “Oh it is not. You know how Mom is. She likes to be well-prepared.”

  “That’s true.” Rusty pulled his reading glasses out of his shirt pocket and put them on. Then he retrieved the phone book from its home on top of the fridge. “I’d better look up Chester’s wife’s address before I forget.”

  “Okay.”

  “Let’s see. Green City...Green City...here we go.” Rusty flipped through the pages. Then he glanced up at Liana, his glasses sliding down his nose. “Do you know why there are so many Smiths in the phone book?” he asked.

  “Um...are you serious?” Liana asked, wondering if her dad was losing it.

  “It’s because they all have phones!” Rusty crowed in delight.

  He slapped his thigh and guffawed at his own awful joke. When he saw Liana roll her eyes, it only spurred him on more. Telling terrible jokes and making horrible puns were two of his favorite hobbies, after all.

  Suddenly there was a bloodcurdling scream from the basement.

  Rusty stopped laughing immediately. “Anne?” he hollered as he raced for the stairs.

  “Mom?” Liana called, her heart in her throat. “Are you okay?”

  There was no answer.

  Chapter 04

  “Liana! Phone call for you!”

  The insistent knocking on Liana’s bedroom door jarred her awake. Her eyes flew open and she sat up with a jolt. She looked around for Fluffy, but there was no sign of him. Confused, she climbed out of bed and threw on her robe.

  “Liana!” her mother called, knocking even more insistently. “You have a phone call!”

  Still half-asleep, Liana opened the door.

  She gasped at what she saw.

  Her mother stood there all decked out in winter workout gear. She wore a faux fur lined white ski suit, puffy white earmuffs and a gigantic white knit hat with a pompom on the top. On her feet were black boots - and snowshoes.

  “Your phone was ringing so I answered it. It’s for you!” Anne announced, handing Liana’s cell phone over. “Oh, and by the way, your cat is acting very strangely.”

  “What’s he doing?”

  “He’s been following me around for the past fifteen minutes. His back is arched and his tail is four times its usual size. Anytime I try to talk to him or get too close, he hisses at me. It’s the weirdest thing,” Anne said, clearly insulted.

  “Mom, you’re dressed like the abominable snowman.”

  “I am not!”

  “Okay, but still...it’s no wonder the cat is freaked out. Try not to terrorize him too much, okay?”

  “Your father and I are going out for a walk in the woods,” Anne informed her.

  “Is there even enough snow on the ground to warrant snowshoes? Oh, never mind. Have fun.” Sometimes trying to make her mother think logically wasn’t worth the effort. Liana decided to keep her mouth shut.

  “Bye!” Anne trilled before noisily shuffling away. Who else but her wore snowshoes indoors?

  All of a sudden, Liana remembered she was holding her phone - and someone was on the other end. She quickly put it to her ear as she climbed back into bed. “Hello?”

  “Hey,” her best friend Clarissa replied. “Uh, was that your mom?”

  “Yes,” Liana groaned. “Sorry about that.”

  “So your parents are back from their cruise?”

  “Yes. But when they got home, Mom discovered a mouse in the basement. She screamed bloody murder. In fact, she screamed so loudly that the mouse got spooked, ran up the stairs and darted out the front door.”

  “That’s convenient! Problem solved, huh?”

  “Not exactly,” Liana sighed. “Mom was too distraught to stay in the house, even after she saw the mouse run outside with her own two eyes. She’s terrified of mice, you know. So my parents are staying with me now.”

  “For how long?”

  “For however long it takes Dad to convince Mom that there are no more mice in the house.”

  “Oh, I see. Listen, I have news,” Clarissa said, clearly eager to spill the beans.

  “What?”

  “You know that guy who was found dead down by the lake? Chester something-or-other? Well apparently it wasn’t a heart attack that killed him. The coroner noticed something strange and, long story short, an autopsy revealed that he was poisoned!”

  “Poisoned?” Liana gasped, eyes wide. “Are you sure?”

  “I heard it from none other than Officer Sam Swanson himself,” Clarissa replied.

  “Wow, that’s crazy! So...Chester Atkins was murdered?” Liana asked in disbelief. That sort of thing didn’t happen in Sugarcomb Lake. At least she liked to think it didn’t. But logically, Liana knew homicides could take place anywhere - even her sleepy little hometown.

  “It sure looks like Chester was murdered. I’d love to launch a full investigation into it, but I can’t. I’m going out of town this week with my aunt. It’s a trip we’ve been planning for ages and she’s really looking forward to it, so I can’t cancel.”

  There was a pregnant pause.

  “Spit it out,” Liana ordered. She could tell her best
friend wanted something. And she had a sneaking suspicion it had to do with the local newspaper Clarissa operated. Any time something newsworthy happened in town, Liana’s best friend was all over it.

  “Do you think you could help me out?” Clarissa asked hopefully. “I’m planning to write an article about the suspicious death when I get home. Could you maybe do a little snooping for me, just to see what you can find out?”

  “What do you need to know?” Liana asked.

  “If you can get me some more information about the man who died, that would be great. And, as always, keep your ears open at the coffee shop. I want to know what people around town are saying!” Clarissa instructed.

  “Alright, will do.”

  “Thanks, you’re the best!”

  As Liana set her phone down, her mostly-shut bedroom door swung open. In walked Fluffy, looking agitated. His eyes were darting around and he seemed to be on high alert. It was no wonder. Taking pity on the little furball, Liana scooped him up and held him close.

  “It’s okay. I think Mom and Dad are strange too,” she whispered as she stroked Fluffy’s head. “Don’t worry. They will be going back to their own house in a few days. At least I hope it will only be a few more days.”

  As she walked into the kitchen and got Fluffy some breakfast, Liana’s thoughts turned back to Chester. He had been poisoned! She cringed at the thought of having to tell her dad that. Even though the two men hadn’t kept in touch over the years, they had nonetheless been teammates at one point in time. Liana hoped Rusty wouldn’t be too upset.

  Suddenly the front door opened and Liana’s parents tumbled inside.

  Well, her dad did. He literally tumbled, tripping over his snowshoes and falling right over.

  “Dad! Are you okay?!” Liana demanded, rushing to his aid.

  “I’m fine,” he assured her, picking himself back up. “My snowsuit broke my fall.”

  “It turns out your father isn’t very good at using snowshoes,” Anne said as she walked in. “We had to turn around and come straight back. I think we’ll stick to walking from now on. Or maybe we’ll get a gym membership!”

  “What’s that?” Liana asked, noticing something in her mother’s hand.