A Midwinter's Tail: Magical Cats Mystery - Softcover

Kelly, Sofie

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0451414713 ISBN 13: 9780451414717

Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group, 2014

Inhaltsangabe

Kathleen Paulson is snowed under running her library and caring for her extraordinary felines, Owen and Hercules. But when a holiday fund-raiser turns deadly, she’ll have to add sleuthing to her already full schedule...

Winter in Mayville Heights is busy and not just because of the holidays. Kathleen is hard at work organizing a benefit to raise money for the library’s popular Reading Buddies program. She has her hands full hosting the event. And when a guest at the gala drops dead, her magical cats, Owen and Hercules, will have their paws full helping her solve a murder.

The victim is the ex of town rascal Burtis Chapman, but she hasn’t lived in the area in years. And though everybody is denying knowledge of why she was back in town, as Kathleen and her detective boyfriend, Marcus, begin nosing around, they discover more people are connected to the deceased than claimed to be. Now Marcus, Kathleen, and her uncanny cats have to unravel this midwinter tale before the case gets cold.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Sofie Kelly is a New York Times bestselling author and mixed-media artist who lives on the East Coast with her husband and daughter. She writes the New York Times bestselling Magical Cats mysteries and, as Sofie Ryan, writes the New York Times bestselling Second Chance Cat mysteries.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

1

“I look like Fred the Funky Chicken’s mother,” Rebecca said. And because she was so kind, she immediately added, “And it’s not that I don’t like bright yellow chickens . . .” Her voice trailed off.

“You just don’t want to look like a giant version of Owen’s favorite catnip treat on your wedding day,” I finished. Owen was one of my two cats. Rebecca, whose house backed on mine, kept him supplied with catnip chickens, which he loved, much to the annoyance of his brother, Hercules, who didn’t get the attraction of catnip or neon yellow chickens.

I held the phone out to Roma so she could see the photo of Rebecca in the potential wedding dress, a buttercup yellow ball gown with a huge skirt of chiffon feathers. Rebecca was dwarfed by the dress. I was several inches taller, and I could see that it would have engulfed me, too.

“It’s not you,” Roma agreed. “But don’t worry. We’ll find you something.” Roma was one of my closest friends in Mayville Heights and a very positive person.

“This wedding is turning into shredded wheat,” Rebecca said, fingering the soft blue scarf around her neck.

I smiled in sympathy across the small table at Eric’s Place, our favorite restaurant. I knew Rebecca would have been happy to elope.

Roma frowned and looked from Rebecca to me. “Excuse me?”

“Shredded wheat,” I repeated. “The more you chew on it, the bigger it seems to get.”

Roma laughed and reached for her coffee. “Rebecca, I promise we’ll find you a dress that has nothing to do with breakfast cereal or giant yellow birds.”

Rebecca smiled across the table at us. “I don’t know what I’d do without the two of you.” She smoothed a hand over her silver-gray hair. She’d cut it herself—Rebecca had been a hairdresser for more than forty years—into a little gamin pixie that showed off her beautiful cheekbones and her blue eyes.

Rebecca Nixon wasn’t just my backyard neighbor, she was also the first friend I’d made when I’d come to Mayville Heights to supervise the renovation of the town’s library. In a couple of weeks she was going to marry her childhood sweetheart, Everett Henderson. And she still didn’t have a wedding dress.

I handed the phone back across the table to her. She looked at the photo again and gave a soft sigh. “Ami means well,” she said. “It’s just that she seems to have caught wedding fever from Everett.”

Ami was Everett Henderson’s only grandchild. She’d been close to Rebecca, whom she lovingly called Rebbie, for most of her life and she was overjoyed about the wedding. Rebecca and Everett had waited close to fifty years to be married, and Everett was determined to give her an elaborate celebration—whether or not she wanted it. And she didn’t.

I reached over and laid my hand on Rebecca’s arm. “My offer still stands,” I said, raising one eyebrow at her. Several months ago when Everett had been talking about having the wedding in The Basilica of St. Mary in downtown Minneapolis—which technically wasn’t possible since neither he nor Rebecca was Catholic—I’d jokingly told Rebecca I’d be happy to help her “kidnap” Everett and elope. “I have a full tank of gas in the truck and I’m betting Roma has a roll of duct tape in her bag.”

“I do,” Roma said. “But if you’re planning on making a wedding dress, you should know there’s only about half the roll left.”

“You know, I bet Maggie could make you a wedding dress out of duct tape,” I said, reaching for my coffee.

Maggie Adams was my closest friend in Mayville Heights, along with Roma. She was a mixed-media collage artist and potter; plus she taught tai chi. Mayville Heights had a thriving artists’ community. Maggie was the current president of the artists’ co-op and the most creative person I’d ever met. She’d made an incredibly realistic, life-size replica of Minnesota Wild hockey player Eddie Sweeney as part of a display for last year’s Winterfest celebration, and it had indirectly led to Roma’s current relationship with the real Eddie Sweeney. I had no doubt that Maggie could make Rebecca a wedding dress out of duct tape, or recycled newspaper, for that matter.

“If I don’t find a dress soon, I may have to get her to do that,” Rebecca said. She glanced down at the image of the funky chicken ball gown one more time and then tucked her phone in her purse. “Although I don’t think it would go with Everett’s plans.”

“If the wedding is still too elaborate, tell him,” I said.

Roma nodded in agreement. “Everett would marry you on an iceberg in the middle of the Bering Sea. He loves you. He just wants you to be happy.”

Rebecca had told me once that while she’d dreamed of being married to Everett, she’d never thought about the actual wedding. She didn’t care about flowers or food. Everett, on the other hand, wanted a celebration. He wanted the whole world to know how he felt about his bride, although you only had to spend a minute or two with both of them to see it. They made me believe in happily ever after.

“I know he would,” Rebecca said, tracing the rim of her coffee cup with one finger. “But all this . . . hoopla is important to him. He already agreed to scale his original plans back for me. I know he wants me to be happy, but I want him to be happy, too.”

“I know what you mean,” Roma said softly. She got the starry-eyed, slightly goofy look on her face that told me she was thinking about Eddie.

Over at the counter, waiter Nic Sutton looked our way and gestured at the coffeepot. I nodded. He reached for the glass carafe and headed in our direction.

“Thanks, Nic,” I said after he’d refilled our mugs.

“Could I get you anything else?” he asked. We’d made short work of three of Eric’s pecan sticky buns. I was tempted to have another, but in a couple of hours I was going to have to squeeze into a very formfitting dress, so I shook my head.

The library was hosting an evening fundraiser at the Stratton Theatre for our Reading Buddies program, which paired kindergartners with fourth and fifth graders to help foster a love of reading and improve their actual reading skills. The stage had been dressed to resemble a French bistro, with several local businesses providing elegant desserts. In a wonderful twist of coincidence, Eddie Sweeney’s college roommate was the leader and saxophone player in a jazz quartet, Jazzology. They were providing the “atmosphere.” Eddie was very generously—and quietly—covering their expenses.

“Roma, do you have plans for tomorrow night?” I asked as I added cream and sugar to my cup. I’d taken Friday night off to relax after the fundraising gala, but I was happy to give that up to help Rebecca find a dress.

“Paperwork and pizza,” she said, tucking her sleek dark brown hair behind one ear. “But I’m open to a better idea. Or any other idea.”

I smiled at Rebecca. “Let Roma and me take you shopping tomorrow night. Here in town or maybe over in Red Wing.”

“Please,” Roma added. “I don’t want to do...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Penguin Publishing Group
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2014
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0451414713
• ISBN 13: 9780451414717
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 336
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: gpsr@libri.de; gpsr@libri.de; ; Europaallee 1; Bad Hersfeld; 36244; Deutschland