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CHAPTER 1
It all started innocently enough. Life is like that, at least mine is. I was rearranging boxes of merchandise in my storeroom to make space for an expected shipment later in the day, when I saw it.
There was a dead body in the middle of the floor.
A rat.
I yelped and dropped a case of squirrel-proof birdhouses on my feet — squirrel-proof because the clever feeders contained a mechanism that effectively shut the seed ports. That didn't stop the hungry squirrels from scooping up every morsel the birds dropped. And the birds seemed to drop as many seeds as they consumed.
My yelp turned to a curse that would have caused my mother to blush had she been present. Fortunately, she wasn't. Because she probably would have laughed, too.
I repeat: A RAT.
No, not an old boyfriend, ex-lover, or cheating husband. A real rat. Cash Calderon, he's my contractor, had warned me that once he starting ripping open walls — we were in the middle of some extensive renovations — we could expect to see some critters who were being driven from their residences deep within the nooks and crannies of my three-story Queen Anne Victorian–era house.
Those critters had, thus far, included rats, gray squirrels, a raccoon and two snakes.
Plus, the brown rats. I had a feeling some of those rats were direct descendants of the house's Founding Rat Fathers.
And I was alone in the store with the beastie.
Not a pleasant thing, alive or dead.
With the number of creatures popping out of the woodwork, I could have opened a pet shop rather than a store selling bird food, birdhouses, birding gear — everything for the bird lover.
In addition, a small section of the store was devoted to beekeeping. Depending on the season, we also carried a selection of plants specific to supporting local bird and bee populations.
I moved the fallen box out of my way and limped toward the ripe rodent remains.
This rat didn't look homeless. And it didn't look like it had succumbed to old age. This rat looked like it had been — I wrinkled my nose and bent down for a closer look — gnawed on.
"Esther," I muttered.
Esther Pilaster — or Esther the Pester, as I sometimes called her when she was out of sight but still in the forefront of my mind whenever she did something particularly irksome — had a cat.
She denied it, but I was sure of it. Each time I broached the subject of her hiding a cat, she stalwartly repudiated my claim. That did nothing to lessen my conviction that she did.
Now the evidence was right here in front of my eyes.
Maybe it was circumstantial, but under the circumstances, that was good enough for me.
"Let me see you get out of this, Pester," I grumbled to no one but the walls, and the walls had long ago stopped listening to me. If they had been listening, they would have done a better job of keeping out the rats.
And the cold.
Esther lived on the second floor. When I'd bought the building that would become my own home and the home to my planned business, Esther had been a tenant. One of the owner's conditions of the sale to me was that Esther's lease would be honored. I now had a second renter, Paul Anderson, also on the second floor. Mom and I lived on the third.
The rats had no floor preference. They apparently lived everywhere.
I retreated to the hall closet for the broom and dustpan. I'd scoop up the dead critter and give it the best burial I could, considering how frozen the ground was outside. I snatched my charcoal down jacket off the nail by the rear door and bundled up, popping a knit cap over my head and pulling gloves onto my hands.
It was winter. In western North Carolina, that meant temperatures dipped and we got our share of snow and ice. Nothing like the Northerners got, sure, but that was their fault for choosing to live in such climes.
I set the little dead guy down outside and went to the toolshed against the back of the building. I pulled out a garden shovel that probably hadn't been expecting to see duty again until nearer to spring.
I spied around for a nice spot to bury the rat and settled on a space near the holly bushes along the back fence that separated the shops on Lakeshore Drive from the single-family homes behind us.
The hard ground gave way slowly. Fortunately, rats don't take up much space. I laid the little guy inside a shallow hole and covered him up.
I returned the shovel to the shed and hurried back to the relatively warm interior of Birds & Bees. I removed my outerwear and walked to the front of the empty store. The original fireplace in what had been the house's living room had long ago given up the ghost. The chimney stack had been sealed shut with cement.
The simple stone fireplace had a narrow wood mantel and slate hearth. We now used the fireplace as a display space. Currently, that display was winter-themed and featured roost boxes, suet, and a couple of heated birdbaths.
Happily, somebody along the way had added a woodstove at the rear of the first floor, in the space that now held a small kitchenette and seating for customers to relax, enjoy a drink and a snack, and read from our small library of birding books and magazines.
As I approached the sales counter, Mrs. Gruber came in waving a photo of an owl. Her nose glowed red from the cold. As gelid as the tip of mine felt, it was probably glowing, too.
"Look!" Mrs. Gruber flapped the letter-sized paper in front of my face. "I shot a photograph of a barn owl in my backyard."
She set the picture on the counter and turned it around to face me. Mrs. Gruber was a mature woman and an enthusiastic backyard bird-watcher. She wore a knee-length, multicolored houndstooth wool coat, red gloves, and a red hat that covered the tops of her ears.
"It's a great shot," I replied. "But I'm afraid it's not a barn owl." I handed her back the photo of the mottled brown and white bird.
"It's not?" Mrs. Gruber's face fell.
"No. This is a barred owl." The medium-sized owl was perched on a branch up against the trunk of an oak. Its eyes were closed. "The barn owl is much more ghostly in appearance and has a heart- shaped face. Your owl has a rounded head. Did you hear it speak?"
Mrs. Gruber shook her head. "I believe it was sleeping. It never moved the whole time I watched." She studied the picture more closely. "Is it a male or a female?"
"I can't be sure. There isn't much difference in plumage or coloration between males and females of the species. If you see two of them together and one appears larger than the other, it's likely that the larger bird is the female."
"I'll keep that in mind. We get a lot of birds in our yard. We back up to a nature preserve."
"Lucky you." I lived in the middle of town. With my business also being my home, and that business relying on the presence of people, I needed to be someplace that the people frequented, not necessarily the birds. But if it hadn't been for the need to be where the action was, albeit small-town action in a place the size of Ruby Lake, North Carolina, I'd have chosen something more rural for myself, as well.
"If you see the bird again, they have a distinctive call. People say it sounds like 'Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you?'"
Mrs. Gruber laughed. "I do all the cooking in my house. The mister can barely toast bread."
I grinned. "I'm single, and nobody cooks for me, either." That wasn't strictly true. Mom lived with me and spoiled me with her home cooking.
Mrs. Gruber held the photograph up in front of her nose. "Now that you mention it, Amy, on occasion I've heard a sound like 'Who cooks for you' coming from the woods." She matched her eyes with mine. "During the daytime, however."
"That's not unheard of," I said. "Put the picture up on the bird board. The others will love to see it."
Mrs. Gruber's bird photo wasn't exactly headline material, but that particular bulletin board was for posting bird photos. I should know — I'd hung it there myself on the thick support beam in the center of the store. The board was an excellent way for myself, my staff, and our customers to let others know what birds they were seeing and when.
"I will."
"Good." I handed her a felt-tipped pen. "Don't forget to write down the location, date, and time of day of the sighting."
Mrs. Gruber filled in the data and tacked her photo proudly to the bulletin board.
"If I had a trained barn owl like that one in the store at night, I wouldn't have to worry about the rats," I quipped.
Mrs. Gruber pulled her purse closer to her chest as her eyes darted anxiously across the floor. "You have rats?"
"Huh? No, I was only joking," I assured her.
I wasn't sure Mrs. Gruber quite believed me, because she did the remainder of her shopping very quickly and beat a hasty retreat.
Esther came down to work at noon and would be staying until closing. She's a small, narrow-shouldered woman, with long, uneven teeth, a hawkish nose, sagging eyelids, and silver hair habitually worn in a sharp four-inch-long ponytail. Wispy white eyebrows sit atop her gray-blue eyes.
Esther had never married, at least so I thought. For a woman who didn't like to keep her opinions to herself, the septuagenarian was the keeper of a lot of secrets, including the cat.
Esther not only worked for me and rented from me, she was also now a partner in Birds & Bees. Truth be told, it was her recent investment in the business that was allowing us to move forward with the long-needed and heretofore unaffordable repairs to the property.
Esther once thought I was a killer. I once thought she was a pain in the patooty. In the months we had gotten to know one another, though, we had gotten past those initial first impressions.
Well, mostly.
Mom was out and I didn't feel like eating alone upstairs. It would only mean peanut butter and jelly or baloney sandwiches with a side of baby carrots and cheese puffs anyway. I'd been there, done that, a hundred times or more already since returning home to Ruby Lake.
"I'll be back in an hour or so, Esther." I was running next door for lunch at Brewer's Biergarten. "Can I bring you back anything?"
"No, thanks. I'll take my lunch upstairs when Kim gets here."
"Okay, see you soon." I grabbed my wool coat from the coatrack by the front door and wrapped a cashmere scarf around my neck.
This time of year, I kept a coat at both the front and the rear of the store. Not only did it facilitate going in and out more quickly, but I often helped customers to their vehicles with some of the heavier items, like bulk birdseed. "Please let Kim know I'll be back in an hour or so."
"You got it." Esther popped open the register and began counting the cash in the till. She was a stickler for knowing how much was in the register when she started each day.
The "Kim" in question was Kimberly Christy. Kim's a long-legged, blue-eyed blonde. My shoulder-length hair was the color of chestnuts roasting. My eyes were blue, but not as blue as Kim's. I had all the same parts that she had, but somehow those parts just seemed to look better on her.
While we rarely shared our wardrobes, we shared the same age: thirty- four.
Kim and I had grown up together. She was my best friend and proverbial partner in crime. She was a literal partner in Birds & Bees, too. She had started out as a small investor, helping me out when the store was nothing but a crazy idea in my head. Recently, she had quit her real estate gig and asked to work full-time with me at the store.
How could I say no?
How the store was going to manage the additional payroll, I, as yet, had no clear idea.
I opened the door and closed it quickly behind me. The air was cold and the wind was hard. My house is on Lake Shore Drive, one of Ruby Lake's main thoroughfares. Many of the town's businesses, like mine, occupied the road, especially those catering to tourists, because Lake Shore Drive was the road on which most of those tourists drove in and out of town.
Across the street to my left was our namesake, Ruby Lake, with a lovely park and marina. Directly across the street was the quaint Ruby's Diner.
I slogged my way down the brick path to the sidewalk, avoiding the icy patches that refused to disappear. I'd asked Cousin Riley over and over again to do something about them, but he hadn't gotten around to the job yet.
From Birds & Bees, it was only a matter of steps to the entrance of Brewer's. Brewer's used to be a garden supply store. Now it was a brewpub, and a thriving one at that. The space between Birds & Bees and the main portion of Brewer's Biergarten had been transformed from an outdoor plant sales area to an outdoor dining room.
I couldn't help but be a little jealous. I had opened Birds & Bees long before construction of Brewer's Biergarten had begun, but judging by the often-filled-to-capacity seating and the lines out the door most Friday and Saturday nights, their business was booming.
It seemed there was more money in beer than in birds. No matter. I loved my birds, and if I wanted a beer, I could buy one.
I approached the front door of the brewpub. A waiter at the door pushed it open and welcomed me. "Hi, Amy. Table for one?"
The cozy outdoor seating area was open except during the worst weather. In the winter, like now, large propane heaters generated plenty of warmth. Nonetheless, I opted to sit indoors. "Hello, Mitchell. Inside, please."
Mitchell took a quick look and escorted me to a small two-top in the middle of the dining room. There were plenty of seats at the bar, but I usually avoided sitting there alone. I had learned that being a woman alone at a bar was a man magnet.
I wasn't looking to attract any.
I had one. His name was Derek Harlan. My mother liked to tease me that I had come home to Ruby Lake and I found my own jewel.
She wasn't wrong.
We'd had a slight hiccup in our relationship before the holidays. I thought he had been keeping things from me. The truth was, he had only been doing his job. He'd had a client whom I'd thought might be involved in a murder. When I found out later that this person had been Derek's client and was innocent of any crime, I felt Derek should have told me so up front.
Of course, I was wrong.
And I might have gotten mad. And I might have stormed off. But I prefer to rewrite history and remember it as nothing more than a bump in the road, the growing pains of any relationship.
I had to get used to the fact that Derek, as an attorney, was sometimes privy to information that wasn't available for public consumption — even if that public was me and even if I really, really wanted the dirt.
I took a look at the lunch menu and ordered the Portobello melt and a diet lime soda. Behind me, a couple of men were throwing darts.
Halfway through my melt, a manicured hand gripped my shoulder from behind and squeezed. "Hey, hey, hey. Look who's here!"
I turned and spat out a mouthful of mushroom, lettuce, and brioche bun. "Craig?"
"Hi, Amy."
I jumped to my feet and took a step back to be sure I wasn't hallucinating. "Craig, what are you doing here?"
In front of me stood Public Enemy Number One. Well, Amy Simms's Enemy Number One — with a bullet.
Craig Bigelow was my ex-boyfriend. He and his cheating ways had played a big part in my decision to return to Ruby Lake.
It was bad enough that he and his partner, Paul Anderson, had opened Brewer's Biergarten in my hometown, but they did it right next door to me. And now Craig was standing right in front of me.
As was his custom, he was wearing black designer jeans and a black T- shirt, neatly tucked of course, and a black leather belt with a silver buckle. Up close, I caught a whiff of his cologne: Eau de Lying Scum.
A member of the biergarten's cleanup crew scooted between the two of us with a dustpan and a broom and swept up my mess.
"Sorry," I muttered to the industrious young man.
"Paul's on vacation. Didn't he tell you?" Craig was smirking in a major way. He took a step in my direction as if threatening me with a one- armed hug. His right hand held a foaming beer mug.
I pulled back further, almost getting clipped in the cheek by a passing dart that flew by like a missile or some exotic insect far from its Amazon rainforest home.
"Sorry, lady!" its thrower called.
"Yes, he told me." I planted my hands on my hips. I was even watching his black and tan hound dog, Princess, for him while he was away. "He also told me that he had somebody coming in to manage the business while he was gone."
"Gone" being a three-week trip to the Bahamas. And no, I wasn't jealous, I merely hated him for his good fortune.
"That's me." Craig thumped his chest with his thumb.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Fowl of the House of Usher"
by .
Copyright © 2018 J.R. Ripley.
Excerpted by permission of KENSINGTON PUBLISHING CORP..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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