Well Read, Then Dead (Read Em and Eat Mystery) Read online

  PRAISE FOR

  WELL READ, THEN DEAD

  “A terrific new spin on the culinary cozy—with a great story, plenty of heart, and compelling characters. Sassy—who really is sassy—and her cheeky roster of friends sparkle as brightly as the sun on the Gulf of Mexico.”

  —Laura Childs, New York Times bestselling author of Steeped in Evil

  “BOOKLOVER ALERT: Well Read, Then Dead celebrates books, food, laughter, friendship, and, oh yes, dark dire doings. Clever, original, and sure to please.”

  —Carolyn Hart, national bestselling author of Death at the Door

  “Solving crime with Sassy and Bridgy is nothing short of delightful.”

  —Laura Bradford, national bestselling author of Shunned and Dangerous

  “I’ve long enjoyed the short fiction of Terrie Moran, and I’m thrilled to see her expand her talents to the novel with Well Read, Then Dead. Set in a paradise Florida island town, with lovable and quirky characters and a combination bookstore/café that I wish was in my own hometown, Terrie’s well-plotted novel tells a tale of murder, old secrets, and friends-for-life who will do what it takes to protect their loved ones and way of life. Very much recommended.”

  —Brendan DuBois, two-time Shamus Award–winning author of Fatal Harbor

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) LLC

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

  USA • Canada • UK • Ireland • Australia • New Zealand • India • South Africa • China

  penguin.com

  A Penguin Random House Company

  WELL READ, THEN DEAD

  A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author

  Copyright © 2014 by Terrie Moran.

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group.

  BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME and the PRIME CRIME logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) LLC.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) LLC,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-101-63949-8

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / August 2014

  Cover illustration by S. Miroque.

  Cover design by Rita Frangie.

  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.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE: The recipes contained in this book are to be followed exactly as written. The publisher is not responsible for your specific health or allergy needs that may require medical supervision. The publisher is not responsible for any adverse reactions to the recipes contained in this book.

  Version_1

  Emelia, Billy, Katie, Madeline, Abby, Shane and Juliet:

  best grandkids ever

  Contents

  Praise for Well Read, Then Dead

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Recipe

  Chapter One ||||||||||||||||||||

  “Oh, pu-leeze, Rowena, Anya Seton never measured up to Daphne du Maurier’s elegance. I’m shocked you would say such a thing.” Jocelyn Kendall, pastor’s wife and book club gadfly, crossed and recrossed her legs in perfect tempo with the ever-increasing meter of her rant. Our discussion of Green Darkness was deteriorating rapidly.

  “For example, in Rebecca . . .”

  Recalling last year’s “Battle of the Brontë Sisters” completely ruining one meeting of the Books Before Breakfast Club, followed by minor skirmishes flaring up during the next two or three, I interrupted with a feigned look at my watch and as much cheer as I could muster.

  “I’d no idea it was so late. We need to select this month’s book.” I tried for a smile bright enough to encourage participation. “Does anyone have a suggestion?”

  Jocelyn pushed a hank of hair, the color and texture of straw, off her forehead and glared at the other four women sitting in a semicircle, as if daring anyone to answer me. She certainly didn’t intimidate the oldest member of the book club, Miss Augusta Maddox, who glared back, shoved her own copy of Green Darkness into a faded denim tote and zipped it shut. Then, tilting to her left, Miss Augusta nudged my favorite club member, Miss Delia Batson, who leaned in and handed me a piece of paper, edged by two sharp creases where it had been doubled and doubled again. As always, Delia avoided eye contact, gazing instead at her veined and mottled hands, now primly resting in her generous lap, fingers tightly interlocked.

  “Well, thank you, Miss Delia”—I flipped opened her note and was relieved she was moving us in a completely different direction—“for suggesting the lighthearted Sheriff Dan Rhodes series by Bill Crider. Has anyone a particular favorite we might try?”

  From the far side of the café, my BFF and business partner, Bridgy Mayfield, shot me a wink and a thumbs-up.

  Irritated by our conversation, Judge Harcroft harrumphed and rattled his copy of our local broadsheet, the Fort Myers Beach News. He was sitting at the Dashiell Hammett table, right next to the café’s book nook, not exactly a haven of peace and quiet during book club meetings, but he refused to sit anywhere else. His erect posture, immaculate white collared shirt and impeccably groomed, albeit thinning, gray hair gave the impression that he was merely on a short break from presiding over a momentous, legally significant trial, instead of being retired from traffic court for less than a year. The judge’s ongoing routine drove everyone crazy. “I’ll have just a Dash of milk, thank you.” Or, when he finally folded up his newspaper, getting ready to leave, “Enjoy your day. I must Dash.” His strident chuckle left everyone in heari
ng distance gritting their teeth.

  Ignoring me, Jocelyn hammered her point. “You can hear the lyricism in Rebecca’s opening line.” She rolled her hand in figure eights while reciting, “‘Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.’ How does that compare to”—she opened her copy of Green Darkness—“‘Celia Marsdon, young, rich and unhappy, sat huddled in a lounge chair . . .’?” Jocelyn slammed the book shut. “Not even a hint of cadence.”

  Rowena Gustavsen’s head snapped high. Shoulders ramrod straight, she jutted her chin directly at Jocelyn. Before she could toss a rejoinder that would no doubt launch a full-fledged melee, Miss Augusta Maddox boomed, “Delia’s got a fine idea. I like Sheriff Dan. He had me chuckling all through The Wild Hog Murders. Sassy, can you find out if there’s a new book and get us copies right quick?”

  At my swift nod, Miss Augusta stood. “Thank you kindly. Delia and I are going to have our breakfast.” And she walked to the Emily Dickinson table, with Miss Delia at her heels.

  I jumped up and so did our newest member, Lisette Ortiz, who waved a halfhearted “so long” and practically ran for the door. I wondered if we’d ever see her again. Jocelyn stayed in her seat, determined to continue the argument, but Rowena gathered her things, ignored Jocelyn and looked directly at me.

  “I have a new client from San Carlos Island coming to the Emporium in a few minutes. Got to run. Money to be made.” And she hustled away with an evil backward glance clearly meant to tell Jocelyn the dispute would be settled another day.

  Relieved as I was that the meeting ended without fisticuffs, I took pity on Jocelyn, whose frustration was evident in her grim expression, so I offered her a cup of tea.

  She accepted with a stiff nod. “Make it green, decaffeinated.”

  A tinny thump followed by the jangle of metal on metal signaled that we had customers hitching up to one of the bicycle racks on either side of the double doors. Bridgy tucked a golden tendril behind her ear and, menus in hand, walked to the front of the café to greet the two helmeted, backpack-toting cyclists tugging the screen door handle. An energizing morning breeze was drifting in from the Gulf of Mexico. Still, it was barely the beginning of November, so we’d probably need to turn on the AC before noon.

  Bridgy seated the cyclists at Agatha Christie. They looked at the tabletop with the Christie quotes, stories and photos protected by layers of heavy-duty lamination. The bearded cyclist, wearing a shirt in the red and blue stripes of the Barcelona soccer team, with Lionel Messi’s name in shiny gold letters across the back, asked, “Who else you got?” They picked up their gear and moved to Robert Frost. Bridgy pointed out the specials board and left them with their menus. The chubby blond wearing a faded black tee shirt said, “Hey, look at all the bookshelves. Like a bookstore.”

  Exactly. The Read ’Em and Eat Café and Book Corner. Breakfast. Lunch. And all you can read. Anything from Wuthering Heights to the newest graphic novel by Alan Moore or Neil Gaiman was readily available on natural rattan shelves lining two walls. The subdued color of the bookcases complemented the glossy white and yellow café décor. All of our gleaming white tables were decorated with pictures of famous writers along with snippets of their work, melding the café and the book corner perfectly.

  Three years ago Bridgy caught her ex-husband—the Bonehead—fulfilling his Mrs. Robinson fantasy with a Botox babe from his mother’s mahjong group, and the very next day my bosses Gordon and Nina Howard announced that they were moving Howard Accounting from Manhattan to Connecticut. We were barely twenty-five and life had dealt us death blows. Ever since ninth grade, whenever the sky fell in on one of us, we had a sleepover, cried it out, talked it out and put it behind us. “It” being anything from Bridgy’s squad losing the soccer championship to a team from Staten Island to that creep Marjory Haskins stealing my worthless boyfriend in tenth grade. Over the years we’d graduated from cola and chips to mojitos and whole grain crackers, likely served with gorgonzola cheese or hummus. It may have been mojito courage, but during the Bonehead sleepover we made a pact to head south and follow our dreams. It turned out that Bridgy’s dream was to own a breakfast/lunch café while my dream was to own a bookstore. Can you say fusion?

  We loved putting together book-related events, such as the Potluck Book Club, which focused on cookbooks and foodie novels like Julie and Julia. The tea and mystery afternoons featuring novels by twentieth-century greats like Josephine Tey and Dorothy L. Sayers were a major hit. We were constantly experimenting with various combinations of food and books. Our clientele, comprised of both year-round residents and returning snowbirds who came south every autumn, increased month by month.

  As I served Jocelyn’s tea, she barely grunted her thanks, so I was grateful Lionel Messi waved me over and ordered Miss Marple Scones with strawberry jam and two Robert Frost Apple and Blueberry Tartlets. I finger-tapped the table beside the copies of Frost’s fruit poems and went to get their food. I was behind the counter, putting jam in a dark green leaf-shaped bowl, when their conversation got animated.

  “It’s an omen, bro.” The blond was rubbing his hands together, his voice tingling with anticipation. He bent over the tabletop, reading. “‘I took the one less traveled by, / And that has made all the difference.’ That’s us, dude. How many wreckers do you know? We’re gonna be the big dawgs, oh yeah.” He slammed his fist on the table.

  His buddy flapped both hands to quiet him, but it was far too late. Miss Augusta blasted across the room. “Wreckers! What do you know about wreckers?”

  Tiny as she was, with a face that was all sharp beak nose and skin shriveled from a lifetime in the Gulf Coast sun, you’d expect Augusta Maddox to chirp like a parakeet. But, no. Her thunderous baritone bounced off every surface in the room, shaking the tops of the sugar bowls. She was the direct opposite of her lumpy, cuddly cousin Delia Batson, who rarely spoke and never above a whisper.

  Lionel Messi glared at his pal as if to say, “Now look what you’ve done.” Then he turned to the Emily Dickinson table with an apologetic smile. “Sorry, ma’am. We’re on vacation. A friend is taking us out on the water. Said he’d show us some places where the Spanish galleons are rumored to have been sunk by hurricanes.”

  “Been sunk by pirates, more likely. We been here more’n a hundred years.” She pointed to Miss Delia and let her index finger snap back and forth between them. “Our families come when the Florida Everglades and Islands was the only frontier left in these United States. And we still own the family land. As to wreckers, we got salvage maps older than me. Didn’t need no wrecker permit to hunt treasure years ago. Grampas did what they did.” Now she waggled the finger in their direction. “You boys have a nice time on the water, but don’t go looking for treasure what don’t belong to you anyway.”

  Trying to avert calamity, I pulled the calendar off the wall and stood directly in the firing line between the two tables. “Miss Augusta, Miss Delia, the end of hurricane season is coming up fast. Could you help me pick a date? Plan the End of Hurricane Season party?”

  Miss Delia offered me an uncommonly direct look. I’d swear her rheumy gray eyes twinkled a bit. Then she lowered her eyes, folded her hands neatly and buried them in the fabric of her palm frond and bird of paradise muumuu. Clearly she was waiting for Augusta to answer.

  Miss Augusta looked thoughtful for a while. Absently, she twirled the fragment of rope tied at her waist to keep her sun-faded jeans from sliding off her frail hips when she stood. Then a near smile broke through her face, shifting her wrinkles from vertical to horizontal. “I suppose if you need the help, we’re obliged to help you. Give it here.” And she snatched the calendar out of my hands.

  I glanced at the Robert Frost table. The cyclists were long gone. My practiced eye spotted two ten-dollar bills crossed over each other, clamped down by the salt shaker. They hadn’t even waited for their food. Still, the money they left would more than cover what they’d ordered and a gener
ous tip besides.

  “Need to get past Thanksgiving. Give some of them snowbirds a chance to land.” Augusta’s skinny finger couldn’t quite cover the single digit of the date she chose. “First Saturday in December should do.”

  Of course we’d held our End of Hurricane Season party on the first Saturday of December each year since Bridgy and I opened the Read ’Em and Eat. Still, I beamed.

  “Perfect, absolutely perfect.” I slid the calendar from under her bony finger and made a huge production of writing in the date. Then I circled it for good measure.

  Miss Delia stretched out her hands on the table, a sure sign that she was working up the enthusiasm to speak. I waited, patiently counting, one Mississippi, two Mississippi, in my head. I was at twenty-nine (and halfway through Mississippi) when she opened her mouth. I leaned in to hear her whisper. “When do you want us to meet, dearie? You know, to plan?”

  Well, I’d set myself up for that one, hadn’t I? Before I could answer, an enormous crash echoed from the kitchen, along with a bloodcurdling scream. Then, dead silence.

  Bridgy and I both ran, bottlenecking at the kitchen door like a Saturday Night Live skit channeling Lucy and Ethel. With a little adjusting, we pushed through the doorway.

  Miguel, our chef, was lying on the white tile floor, with a large metal tray covering his stomach, broken crockery scattered everywhere.

  As always when excited, he spoke Spanish.

  “Chicas, me rompí la pierna.”

  Pierna—leg. My eyes darted south of the tray and sure enough, Miguel’s khakis couldn’t hide the fact that his left leg was bent at an odd angle. He had indeed broken his leg.

  Bridgy was hyperventilating into her cell phone, urging the 911 dispatcher to send help. I picked up the tray and was moving the broken dishes away from Miguel when I heard a strange voice from the counter behind us.

  “I’d like to pay for this.” A wiry man held the current issue of TIME magazine up in the air while he dug in one pocket of his fisherman’s vest for some cash. I rushed to give him change, anxious to get back to Miguel. As I turned away he spoke again.