Cat Killed A Rat (Ponderosa Pines Cozy Mystery Series Book 1) Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Cat Killed A Rat

  Ponderosa Pines Cozy Mystery Series

  Book 1

  Erin Lynn

  ReGina Welling

  COPYRIGHT NOTICE

  © 2015 Erin Lynn, ReGina Welling.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Erin Lynn

  From the author:

  First and foremost, I want to thank my amazing co-author and mother for bearing with me through this process. It's been an incredible experience, and I absolutely could not have done it without you!

  To my precious boys, Kash & Wyatt: this is, as are all the things I do, for you.

  Thank you Alexander, for also bearing with me, and being there for me always.

  To all my family and friends, who provide me with unending inspiration (though I fully maintain that any similarities are purely coincidental), I love all of you with all my heart.

  Finally, thank you to everyone who read this book, especially those of you who don't know me at all, but are still taking the time to read this paragraph! |

  ReGina Welling

  From the author:

  Thank you to my daughter, my heart, my co-author. This was fun, let’s do it again! A bunch.

  Thank you to Alan for putting up with my weird schedule and inattention when the muse is on me.

  Thank you to my family and my hometown for providing a certain amount of fodder for this story.

  Thank you to Peggy for making our words more sensible.

  Hugs to you all! |

  Chapter 1

  Douchebag.

  The word scrawled across Chloe’s notebook made Emmalina Valentina Torrence—EV to her friends snort out loud. Mostly because, while inelegant and downright crass, it perfectly described the annoying man currently speaking to the sizable group of citizens attending the Ponderosa Pines quarterly town meeting.

  A typical New England town meeting takes place once a year but in Ponderosa Pines, anything worth doing once, was worth doing four times. Hence, the quarterly town meeting. Once a year, the town voted in a new set of officials: three Selectmen to oversee the group and handle day to day tasks, a new treasurer to handle financial issues, a secretary to keep everyone organized and record the goings on for posterity, a sexton, a dog catcher, and committee members and leaders for various undertakings were all either appointed or elected in the spring. The other three meetings were less well-attended and most often no more than a formality.

  Tonight, however, the mere formality had already ended and a three ring circus was about to begin. EV could tell because they’d already brought in the clown.

  After fifteen minutes of fidgeting in his seat and clearing his throat repeatedly before the First Selectman opened the floor for new business, local handyman, Luther Plunkett now held court at the front of the room. Still in his work clothes with an attempt at an earnest expression pasted on his round, freckled face and a liberal sprinkling of sawdust in his curly, mouse-brown hair he stalked back and forth while he made his plea.

  “You got my hands tied with all these regulations: recycled materials, energy efficient building. That’s not the way they do things in Warren or in Gilmore. I’m a business man; I gotta be able to make a profit. You all know me. I been good to my customers: always going above and beyond, but I’m losing money on every job,” his voice rose to a whining pitch that grated EV’s nerves and clenched her teeth.

  What a phony; and worse, he was a phony with aspirations. More than anything Luther wanted to elevate himself from a lowly handyman to a high-end contractor. Never mind that Ponderosa Pines had neither the population nor the commercial base to support such a desire.

  “Bull puckey!” someone called out from the back of the room. “Why don’t you shut up and sit down, Luther?” EV craned her head around to search unsuccessfully through the crowd for the heckler.

  Luther’s reputation for bragging about his abilities then providing shoddy construction had not stopped people hiring him. Better the devil you know and all that. His worst critics said he wouldn’t know the truth if it walked up and bit his face off. Without scrupulous supervision Luther rushed around doing things to make himself look busy , but supplying homeowners with hurried, slapdash workmanship—for which he charged premium prices.

  Customers grumbled about how he never finished a job on schedule or on budget and spent more time talking about what else he could do for them—at an additional cost, of course—than listening to them explain what they actually wanted or needed. Bottom line, Luther had a reputation as a greedy shyster with minimal skills and a big mouth.

  Who else moaned and complained about losing money but still bought a new truck every year?

  Rising to her feet, EV moved toward the front of the hall, controlled fury giving her the grace of a panther stalking its prey. Tension announced itself in the clench of her fists, the way her eyes narrowed and cooled, the angle of her chin. Long legs carried her forward until she stood toe to toe with Luther. She had six inches of height on him and the authority of age combined with conviction sat well on her strong shoulders.

  “Reducing our carbon footprint is part of the town charter, and that means building and maintaining energy efficient homes; but it also means using a percentage of recycled materials. You’re asking us to set aside our goals and regulations, not for the sake of the community, but so you can increase your profit margin?” EV’s voice fell like a rain of dry desert sand. She turned direct, brown eyes toward the crowd and brushed an errant strand of hair behind her ear.

  Before Luther could answer, John Peterson spoke up, “Maybe you could explain why using reclaimed materials is so much harder on your bottom line. I know my cousin in Warren paid you enough to cover your crew plus exorbitant dump fees for tearing down that old barn of his. You ended up with a load of perfectly good lumber, enough usable steel roofing to do a house, and made a little profit on the job. You got a lot of nerve standing here complaining.”

  “I had to pay to haul the materials back here, didn’t I? Then I had to sort everything and store it.”

  From the back of the hall, someone’s cough sounded suspiciously like the word jackass.

  Looking around the room, EV spotted many annoyed expressions; yet there were still those who listened with interest to his spiel. Their rapt attentio
n chafed her past the point of patience. So what if Luther occasionally did a few repairs for the church on the cheap. Did that mean he should get a pass on upholding the basic tenets of their town?

  “Give the man a break.” Evan Plunkett spoke up. No surprise there, the Plunkett brothers were cut from the same cloth. “All this green living stuff is a pipe dream. It’s time to wake up and smell the coffee or,” he sneered, “would that be the Chai tea?”

  Where Luther was ineptly incompetent, his younger brother Evan intentionally caused chaos. Driven by greed and a need for validation, he spent an inordinate amount of time scheming to gain a measure of control in town affairs.

  His most recent shenanigan involved a parcel of land that was currently enrolled in a tree-growth program. Ignoring the fact that the land was protected by the tax-reduced program, he wheeled a deal for the brutal, clear-cut harvest of the mature trees. As the cherry on the sundae, he then offered the land, for pennies on the dollar, to a big city developer with visions of a strip mall or some such monstrosity.

  To retain his brother’s support, Evan convinced poor, dumb Luther that he, backed by his motley crew of underpaid workers, would be the general contractor for whatever the developer decided to build. Anyone with half a brain would have seen this for the pipe dream it was but, Luther, blinded by dollar signs, accepted this hogwash as gospel truth.

  The plan had hinged on schmoozing the board of selectmen and keeping EV, their most vocal opponent, in the dark.They thought they managed to do it, too—until the erstwhile lumber baron strutted into the last town meeting with a series of ridiculous demands that fell to the floor like little chunks of detonated mortar when he blew Evan’s deal to bits.

  No one bothered asking the man who had made the call inviting him to the meeting.

  EV smiled and watched the scene play out.

  As careful as he thought he had been, every detail of Evan’s plan was fodder for the town gossip mongers, who could disseminate information faster than the speed of light.

  Such were the workings of the Ponderosa Pines grapevine. With roots running deep and true, its leafy goodness snaked through nearly every household in town before returning to the spot where its seed had long ago been planted.

  Smack dab in the middle of EV’s front yard.

  If a gnat sneezed in the woods, EV knew about it. Anyone with a lick of sense would have picked another chicken to pluck, another fish to try and fry. It was a lesson both Evan and Luther seemed unable to learn.

  When Luther offered the first selectman a cheap bathroom remodel if he voted in Evan’s favor—EV knew.

  When Evan got one of the survey companies he worked with in Gilmore to lay to rest a property dispute between the third selectman and her neighbor—and for once and all prove who was responsible for the dead tree neither wanted to pay to cut down—EV knew.

  In the end, it had been Evan who left the meeting with his tail tucked between his legs. Thinking he had two of the town’s three selectmen tucked tightly in his pocket, it was with shock and awe that he watched as the man who was supposed to slash and burn the forest, slashed and burned any chance for a vote in his favor.

  Ever since then, EV had been waiting and watching for the pair of them to make their next move. Tonight, there was little doubt Luther’s seemingly benign plea was the opening salvo to a new scheme.

  Whether she wanted to admit it or not, at the tender age of thirty-three, EV had become the town matriarch and now, twenty years later, she was more firmly cast in the role than ever. Ponderosa Pines, a once thriving commune, had become next best thing to a ghost town after its founders and primary owners, EV’s parents, returned to their mainstream life.

  Determined to save her beloved home, EV rallied the remaining residents into expanding into a planned community with the goal of becoming an eco-friendly town.

  Bit by bit, year by year, with the help of those remaining members, now known as the town elders, EV brought the spirit of her parent’s vision into the new age. In addition to their normal town duties, the board of Selectmen also vetted applications for residency.

  New residents wishing to live in Ponderosa Pines must be committed to green living. Home building codes required the use of low energy windows and doors, a higher-than-average R-value insulation for exterior walls and some form of alternative energy generation. A percentage of the materials used to to build or renovate any structure must also come from recycled or renewable sources.

  As a result, most of the houses in town were built from alternative materials such as: straw bales, recycled tires filled with rammed earth, or cordwood harvested as a result of clearing land for building, planting or creating needed pasture land. Town members were free to cull blown down trees from the surrounding forest.

  In order to remain forward thinking, the board also spent time researching technological advancements in green building which led to an increasing number of materials being approved every year. None of them the cheap variety Luther had in mind.

  The only thing EV and the elders hadn’t counted on was that some of the next generation might not look upon Ponderosa Pines as the paradise they all considered it to be. This was the case with Evan and Luther whose mother, herself an elder, had not passed on her love of green living and community spirit to her sons.

  Following the path from changing the town’s building codes to allow for the use of shoddier, mass produced materials to its end where the door would now open for Luther to build houses on spec—houses that Evan, in his capacity as a real estate broker, could sell—was one route that needed neither a map nor a flashlight.

  The whole setup was a smokescreen, EV thought as she watched the proposal get voted down. She would have bet her life on that fact. The only thing left to do was wait for the other shoe to drop.

  * * *

  Chloe LaRue maintained an appearance of casual interest while her keen eyes roamed around the room and observed various members of her small community voice their opinions on Luther’s proposal. Her job as gossip columnist for the Pine Cone, Ponderosa Pines’ weekly newsletter, demanded attention to detail. ‘Babble & Spin’ was by far the most popular regular article, and had been since the very first issue rolled off a second-hand printing press over thirty years ago.

  Too bad she couldn’t take any public credit for her work; Chloe was simply the latest in a series of anonymous authors. No past writer had ever been unmasked, and Chloe wasn’t about to be the first. Readers enjoyed speculating on the identity of the mystery author almost as much as they enjoyed learning scandalous information about their neighbors. Ponderosa Pines was, like most small towns, full of busybodies.

  Living in a small town is a lot like being from a large family. Closeness breeds familiarity no matter whether that closeness comes from being related by blood or just by proximity. In cities, living close promotes distance. It’s possible to go about your daily life and never know the names of your neighbors. There’s anonymity in numbers.

  Small town living is intimate—invasive, even. Within a week of moving to a small town, your neighbors will know your name—first, last, and middle—along with the names of your extended family. They will know your age, birthday, weight, and bra size. Your neighbors will share your breakups, makeups, triumphs, and failures and there’s nothing you can do about it because the more you try to hide, the more determined people become to figure you out. Small towns thrive on gossip.

  The problem was, very little gossip was new gossip. Pine Cone readers were encouraged to utilize an automated telephone tip line if they had any dirt of the juicy variety. Though the tips occasionally netted a viable lead, more often than not they merely sent Chloe searching for geese that had already flown south for the winter. In truth, the line provided more entertainment than anything else.

  So, in order to keep her column relevant and authoritative, Chloe relied heavily on social media and direct observation using her highly-honed investigative reporting skills. Community gatherings were a
lways entertaining and informative, allowing her the opportunity to watch from afar without looking suspicious. In fact, she managed to blend so effectively that people often didn’t realize she was around, even though she had attended nearly every social function that had taken place in the last three years.

  Chloe’s roots in Ponderosa Pines ran almost as deep as EV’s. Her grandparents were among the founding members of the community. Chloe’s mother and EV, born within days of each other, had grown up practically as sisters. However, the two could not have differed more in their opinion of their childhood home. EV had no desire to leave while Lila’s wanderlust, combined with a heavy helping of ambition, drove her to the ends of the earth dragging Chloe along for the ride.

  Lila, upon learning of Chloe’s decision to return to the Pines, applied every tool in her arsenal with the intention of changing her daughter’s mind. When those efforts met with no success, she fired a final, parting shot by letting Chloe know, in no uncertain terms, that Lila herself would not be returning. Ever.

  With the implied ultimatum hanging over her head and resolve stiffening her spine, Chloe had loaded up the meager possessions accumulated after years of moving from one place to the next and driven away. The tears that ran down her face spoke of both sadness and joy as she began the journey toward the one place she remembered being completely happy, Ponderosa Pines.

  Arriving in the middle of the night, Chloe felt the rightness of her decision the minute the key slid home in the lock. She twisted the key, then the knob. When the door swung open, her feet carried her without hesitation to switch on what she remembered as the ugliest lamp in existence. She felt the contentment of being home slide over her like a soft blanket.

  If that minute hadn’t been enough to convince her she had made the right decision, forming a firm bond with her next door neighbor and her mother’s oldest friend, EV, cemented the deal.