False Impressions

Table of Contents

 

 

“Hard to put down . . . keep[s] you guessing as to who the murderer is (and mystery fans should like the fact that there is a second murder as well).”

—Associated Content

“This cozy mystery contains romance along with ever-present situations many Americans are now dealing with. A delightful story . . . [includes] instructions for a charming stamping pattern.”

—
Reader to Reader Reviews

 

“Packed full of family drama and small-town charm, Thayer’s enjoyable mystery series debut outshines most other crafting cozies . . . Twists and turns keep the story fresh and compulsively readable, and the characters feel like family by the time the last page is turned. Thayer and the Stamping Sisters are worth keeping an eye on.”

—
Publishers Weekly
(starred review)

“Great . . . a fresh tale . . . The protagonist is a likable, loyal yet flawed person.”

—
Midwest Book Review

“Well written . . . I’m hoping this series goes on for a very long time.”

—
BestsellersWorld.com

 

“This is a great book. Well-written, fast-paced, descriptive, and well-developed . . . Enjoy, as I did!”

—
MyShelf.com

“A fast-paced read that will keep you guessing until the very last page . . . An author to watch.”

—Deb Baker, author of
Ding Dong Dead

“A quite pleasant read.”

—
Critical Mass

STAMPED OUT
INKED UP
FALSE IMPRESSIONS

THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
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(a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)
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South Africa

 

Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

 

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. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

 

FALSE IMPRESSIONS

 

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

 

PRINTING HISTORY

Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / August 2010

Copyright © 2010 by Terri Micene.

 

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

 

eISBN : 978-1-101-18860-6

 

BERKLEY
^®
PRIME CRIME

Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

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

 

 

 

As always, thanks to my fabulous critique group, Beth Proudfoot and Becky Levine, and Jana Mcburney-Lin. I learn to write with your help.

Thanks to Holly Mabutas of Eat Cake Graphics for her wonderful stamps. You can’t help but smile at her designs.

Thanks to Andrea Chebeleu of A Work of Heart studio for providing a space for messy creativity, the best kind.

And thanks to Michael Glass, for his fabulous titles.

April spotted the box as soon as she opened the cupboard door.
A beam of light caught on the red lacquer and bounced off the crystals that dotted the surface. The box was pretty, a jewel in the midst of the other plain brown shoe-box-size cardboard containers.

She looked for Deana, but she was not in the laundry room anymore. April was working in the newly repurposed room in the basement of the Hudock Family Funeral Home. Deana and Mark, her good friends who ran the business together, had moved their washer and dryer up a level next to their main bath and turned this room into storage space for their business. April had been hired to sort files and move them into their new home.

She probably shouldn’t have opened this particular cupboard. In her defense, it didn’t have a lock on it or anything like that. It was just that the rest of the room was covered in open shelving and curiosity had gotten the best of her. She’d wanted to see what was behind the closed doors.

Besides, she might need the space for last year’s accounting records.

The box glowed. She knew it wasn’t really glowing, but the paints and designs that covered the surface made it look as if it were. She had to see more than just the part that was visible. April gave it a shove with her pinky, moving it slightly. Dust rose up like fog. She coughed.

The box surface was slightly sticky from the finish used. When she got closer, she saw the lid had been collaged with faded pictures and a high school graduation program. In one of the pictures, she could see a young man holding up a trophy. Her gaze didn’t rest there long but rather flicked from one image to the next. There was so much to see.

The base continued the theme. A motorcycle key graced the side. Stamped images of abstract shapes formed a border. The top and bottom of the box were tied together with a twisted braid of leather. Her fingers itched to untangle the cord.

She could make out a date on the side of the box: 2/22/09. And the initials JBH.

“Deana?” she called. No answer. This box was out of place, looking like a jeweled cup next to the plain household plates in an Egyptian tomb. It was art, with a capital A. Art among ordinary file boxes. Art in a funeral home.

Deana must have gone upstairs to refill their coffee.

The room was warm and dry, a huge old furnace keeping the place toasty despite near-zero temperatures and howling winds outside. She was happy to be inside, happy to be doing paid work. The restoration work she’d been doing had slowed and then ground to a halt as the snow and ice piled up. Aldenville was having its worst winter in years. Of course it was. This was her first January in fifteen years not spent in California.

Deana returned with two cups and two pieces of banana bread on a tray. She set it on top of an empty shelf.

“Mark told me to tell you the temperature has gone down another three degrees. It’s eight now.”

“He’s too funny.” Ever since Mark had come across a picture of Deana and April with Tom Clark, a local TV meteorologist who had come to their sixth-grade class, he’d teased her about the weather. April had had a major crush on the lanky weatherman.

The indoor-outdoor temperature gauge with digital barometer she’d given Mark for Christmas had seemed like the perfect gift, but now he was subjecting her to weather reports every chance he got.

Deana closed the cupboard door. “Oh, you needn’t bother. I’ll take care of those.”

Curious. Nothing so far had been off-limits, although April had stayed away from the embalming room on her own. “Why? What are all those boxes? And that red box? It’s gorgeous. It looks like something one of us would make.”

By “us,” April meant their weekly stamping group: Rocky Winchester, Suzi Dowling, Mary Lou Rosen and sometimes her daughter, Kit. And April and Deana.

Deana handed her a mug and stood in front of the door she’d just closed. She tried to make it look like a casual decision to block access, but April knew better. Deana didn’t want her in there. Which, of course, drove April nuts. Deana could be so proper at times.

“Did Rocky go into the box-making business?” April asked.

She better not have, April thought as she sipped her coffee and broke off a piece of banana bread. Rocky had her hands full as the new owner of Stamping Sisters. April wanted her to concentrate on selling her line of California Dreamin’ stamps so that they could move on to the home décor line April had been dreaming about.

Deana just shook her head.

“Seriously, you’ve got to see this thing,” she said. April reached to open the cupboard again. Deana put down her coffee and put her hand onto her friend’s arm. She lowered her voice and spoke firmly. April recognized it as her business voice. Deana was quite adept at the let-me-tell-you-how-to-behave tone.

“Those are cremains, April.”

April’s hand drew back quickly. Cremains? April knew her best friend, the funeral home owner and part-time deputy coroner, dealt with a lot of things she did not, but cremains? What were they doing here? Didn’t they have their own special room?

“Why do you have ashes of dead people stored here? Don’t you give them to their . . .” She searched for the word. “Owners?”