Dog Days Murderous Nights: Winnona Peaks Mysteries Book 1
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Authors: Emily Page
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Dog Days Murderous Nights
Winnona Peaks Mysteries Series
Book 1
Emily Page
Copyright © 2015 Emily Page
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher
Table of Contents
One Cup Flour Two Cups Murder:
Chapter 1
J.W. Augustine smiled at the photo of his daughter. All these years it was a shock he didn’t have more children and grandchildren. No matter how much money you have in life you can’t have everything. Closing his wallet, he tucked it neatly into his coat jacket and chose a new shirt to wear for dinner. He knew it was old-fashioned to dress for dinner but old habits die hard. Fresh out of the shower, he tugged at his robe and looked for some suitable trousers for the evening.
With all of the travel, one of the last things he had to hold onto was her photo in his room at night. He liked Winnona Peaks. Sure the National Dog Show aired every year at Thanksgiving after the Macy’s parade, but not everyone knew where it even took place. The narrator’s baritone voice was soothing on the station but you had to be a dog lover to even care to turn it on. If you weren’t then you missed the beauty of the show. Winnona Peaks was like that. You had to have a reason to be there. That’s what J.W. loved about the place. All the mansions and trust funds in the world couldn’t buy the care that went into the smell of the towels or the robe folded on the bed. He was positive. He’d been to the best. Penthouses in New York. Prince Albert Hall in London. Escargot in Paris. That special place in Singapore sailors talk about. For all the culture in the world he could buy, his heart ached for the care that went into Alfie’s Bed and Breakfast. A simple place filled with generations of love. Life was simple. Love the dog. Love the towels. Love the ribbon around the folded robe on the bed.
He found this little gem of a bed and breakfast when he embarked on his career as a pet photographer. He was wiser and older now. At an even six feet tall, he’d always taken care of himself, and the square jaw and dimple had provided him with constant double takes from the ladies at the club. Even though the twinkle in his crystal blue eyes hadn’t changed, his life was decidedly different. His raven mane of hair was now a silver mane of sexiness but he was less interested in his trust fund or chasing women. He wanted simple things. To love his dogs. To love his career.
He felt strange calling what he did a career since his great-grandfather was the country’s first billionaire supplying munitions to governments around the world. J.W. smiled and rubbed his grey hair with the towel. He still had a weakness for fine brandy and cigars after dinner. He couldn’t smoke them in the house here and he loved the charm of the little rules that guests had to live by to get along for a weekend. He’d had to be satisfied with some brandy from his personal stock after dinner. Before dinner he sipped a whisky neat to improve digestion. Even his rituals for getting dressed were getting longer with age. He couldn’t wait to taste the next entrée on Ms. Roberts’ list.
The veranda of this master suite on the top floor was the pièce de résistance. Opening to a view of the provincial valley, the smell of lilacs filled the warm spring air when J.W. pushed the rustic French doors. He paused with his whiskey tumbler and took a deep breath. Life was good. He turned from the twilight view of the valley to the noise of his closet door swinging open.
“How did you get in here?”
Stepping across the room to face him she sneered, “You don’t even know what you did to me, do you?” She looked into the hallway and quietly closed and locked the door.
J.W. frowned and pulled the strings of his robe tighter again. “What are you doing here?” he demanded.
Smiling and pulling a bag of trail mix out of her bag, her eye twitched a bit. “Have you been drinking?” J.W. asked. She smiled again and the light glinted off her eyes. She nervously pulled a lock of hair behind her ear and her brow darkened into a glare. J.W. took a step back. She hummed a little tune and giggled behind the shadow of a curtain, pouring some of the trail mix into her hand. “Where did you get that?” J.W. ordered. She giggled again.
“You really don’t know what you did, do you?” She was humming a lullaby tune and slowly poured the trail mix into the 19th century porcelain bowl accented with country roses. “Such a beautiful bowl, don’t you think? My grandmother had a bowl like this. We could never touch it. We visited once a year and couldn’t touch it. You know why?”
“You’re nuts and drunk. Get out of here and go sleep it off.”
“Calling me nuts. That’s a good one. You’re not interested in why we couldn’t touch her precious bowl?” She kept humming her lullaby with her darkened brow and faraway look. Every time J.W. caught her gaze her eyes blazed with rage. She blinked to contain it and stiffened up with some internal resolve. J.W. had no idea what was happening.
“I didn’t mean to break Grandmother’s bowl. You wouldn’t even care. It’s funny how such a small thing can do so much damage.” She slowly sifted her fingers through the raisins, peanuts and chocolate. “So much damage—” her voice echoed into a whisper as she glanced around the room at all the homey touches Alfie’s Bed and Breakfast had in place. She kept sifting her fingers through the trail mix and slowly came around the table so that they were both facing the door. J.W. wondered if she was going to ease off the ledge of whatever this psychotic break was and let down his guard down a bit. They did have a bit of history together but he’d never seen her like this. It was just a fling and he used to tell the women that up front, to make sure he could let them down easy. He’d had his share of angry women in his room. It just had never been that bad. Well, at least this bad.
“All this is so lovely.” She echoed in a faraway voice, sifting her fingers through the trail mix like a priest does when they baptize a baby. She kept bringing her hands up and waving them at the room each time she came up from the bowl. The trail mix clattered like a small chime back into the bowl with each pass of her hand. “So lovely.” J.W. just stood there, waiting for the right time to shuffle her out the door, like he did anytime a woman got her feelings hurt over something he did or didn’t do. “So lovely.” In the waving and sifting, she brought three peanuts to her mouth in a fluid motion, chuckling to herself as she looked around, slowly chewing up the peanuts and sorting through the trail mix. Without warning she spun around and pushed J.W. up against the wall, kissing him like her first lover on a hot summer day.
Pushing her off, he shoved her away. She giggled and stumbled backwards, wobbling into an upright position as any good drunk does in public. “Are you crazy?” J.W. shouted, wiping his mouth.
Another giggle. “You don’t even know, do you?” She smiled. Starting to choke, J.W. grabbed his throat and looked up in terror at her. Stumbling backward into the bedroom, he gasped for air and rushed for the closet. He desperately clutched for something in his suit pocket. Falling to his knees he searched the floor. She walked up behind him. Giggle. “Looking for these?” The same humming lullaby and wobbling. J.W. was petrified in suffocation, begging for breath that wasn’t going to come. Weakly, he got up and lunged after her. She simply stepped to the left, dodging his feeble attempt. The swelling started to get worse.
“Oh, dear. It seems like someone might be allergic to peanuts. Isn’t that just a tragedy.” She broke into a wide grin and went back to the bowl, going through the trail mix with her fingers. J.W. was on all fours at this point begging her with his eyes. Scooping up a handful of peanuts, she gently bent down on her haunches and whispered in his ear. “You really shouldn’t move through life never thinking about who you might hurt.” Prostrate and rolled onto his back in pain at that point, J.W. didn’t move, his eyes drifting shut. She put a handful of trail mix in his hand and closed his knuckles, counting on the rigor to hold them tight. Straightening up, she shook her head and said, “Not when you’re so easily taken down.” Pulling out her shirt tail she wiped down the outside of the bowl, table and any of the handles she touched. She closed the French doors after glancing outside, briefly. “Sorry about the bowl, Grandmother. Now we’re even.” Opening the door to the room she slipped into the darkness, wiping down the knob one last time for good measure. A window in the room was open. A small white curtain waved a gentle goodbye to J.W. Augustine.
Chapter 2
Watching the ambulance driver zip up the body bag and wheel J.W. out of the room, she felt the room spin. The events of the entire day flooded back and she had to excuse herself to her own room to sit down. She needed time to think; she thought that remembering everything step by step might calm her nerves. She closed her eyes and thought of the first things that came to mind from the start of the day.
Christy Roberts loved the sunrise no matter what time of year the sun poked his head above the horizon. Every couple of months she had an older woman bustle up to her at Alfie’s Bed and Breakfast, and ask her how she kept up with everything on their own. She saw the weary look in their eyes and understood that a weekend at her little establishment meant it was one of the few reprieves they had from a lifetime chained to dishes and laundry.
She really was glad that she was 45 with large greenish blue eyes and wispy auburn hair. The freckles sprinkled across her button nose always tricked her older patrons into thinking she was simply one of the younger hired help when they checked in. It helped that she inherited Grandma Roberts’ thin build instead of the Chavez chunky monkey bodies. Soon enough they discovered she was running the show and were pleasantly amazed at the charm, food and comfort they experienced every day at Alfie’s Bed and Breakfast. After she was pelted with questions about her secret eggs benedict recipe, the women would finally burst and say, “I can’t imagine how you do this all by yourself. It’s so much work!”
“Oh, running this place comes as naturally to me as breathing.” She would smile and continue to dry the dishes or tidy the front room. The older women would then pat her on the arm like they were both suffering in a secret sisterhood of chores. Christy would shrug. She couldn’t put into words for the older women that Alfie’s Bed and Breakfast was never a burden. Her grandmother raised her here after her parents were killed and there wasn’t a day without muffins for breakfast or warm towels for a bath. The older women that gave her weary-eyed looks could never understand that she was helping Grandmother Roberts here all her life. Alfie’s was named after Grandfather Alfonso and represented the crown jewel of their lives. Christy named her first Pomeranian Alfie in honor of her Grandfather and thought of him often when the little dog wagged his tail. They were finally business owners after all those years of sacrifice to make a better life here in Winnona Peaks. Grandmother bought it off of Old Man Gilmore when he was dying and she was working as his maid.
Alfie’s was always an act of love and Christy really didn’t know what else she would do without baking her famous flan or shopping at the local antique shop for just the right addition to her period chic bathrooms. So part of the daily routine was to write a couple lines on her novel at dawn and get all the guests their second round of fresh coffee and muffins. Along with that she did what Grandma Roberts always did. She took a country afternoon break to visit with her guests. They came here for the pace as much as the touches of home. This weekend was kind of slow. There weren’t any honeymooners or wine tasting aficionados filling up her rooms. The walls were thin and those weekends always made for interesting breakfast conversation among the guests. She didn’t know much about J.W. Augustine and his personal assistant Hailey, but J.W. adored both of her Pomeranians, Alfie and Snowy.
“You have a truly beautiful place here, Christy.” J.W. mused as they sat on the frayed loveseat weathered by the elements. It was a bit after lunch and everyone was lazing about on the enclosed porch of the hundred year old farmhouse. The screen door squeaked a bit as the old frame wrestled to free itself in the breeze, allowing the country air to flow through the open front door. Even the house felt like it was breathing in the lilac-scented air of spring. Christy smiled. Hailey, his assistant, was biting her lower lip, with one leg tucked under another concentrating on a laptop. She gently rocked in the rocking chair.
