Hit and Run: A Cozy Mystery Set in the Mountains of North Carolina (Main Street Mystery, 3, Band 3) - Hardcover

Balzo, Sandra

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0727883941 ISBN 13: 9780727883940

Verlag: Severn House Publishers Ltd, 2014

Inhaltsangabe

AnnaLise’s philandering father’s attempt to ‘do right’ by his many heirs goes deadly wrong
Journalist AnnaLise Griggs' return to her hometown in North Carolina's western mountains has led to some unexpected surprises – most notably the discovery that legendary womanizer Dickens Hart is her birth father, and she an heir to Hart's huge fortune.

Founder of the White Tail Lodge – a High Country knock-off of the Playboy concept – Hart now claims he wants to ‘do right’ by any other children he may have fathered. To that end, he's invited all his former lovers and potential heirs, including AnnaLise and her own mother, Daisy, to what Hart envisions as a festive Thanksgiving weekend at the sprawling lakeside mansion.

But not everybody is in a celebratory mood, and when a body is discovered dead in the bed, AnnaLise isleft with the impossible task of identifying the killer.

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Sandra Balzo built an impressive career as a public relations consultant before authoring the successful Maggy Thorsen coffeehouse mysteries, the first of which, Uncommon Grounds, was published to stellar reviews and nominated for an Anthony and Macavity Award. She is also the author of the Main Street Murders mystery series published by Severn House.

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Hit And Run

A Main Street Murder Mystery

By Sandra Balzo

Severn House Publishers Limited

Copyright © 2014 Sandra Balzo
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-7278-8394-0

CHAPTER 1

AnnaLise Griggs couldn't believe her ears. 'Who did you say you intend to invite?'

Seated on the opposite side of his massive antique desk, Dickens Hart grinned. 'You're the wordsmith, my dear, but I do believe the proper pronoun in that question would be "whom."'

AnnaLise clenched her teeth. 'OK, whom did—'

Hart nodded toward a stack of papers between them. 'By now, you've probably already made a functional guest list yourself.'

Of course, AnnaLise thought, a mite dazed. After all, didn't every bastard child keep track of her philandering father's conquests? Notwithstanding, of course, her own mother, Lorraine 'Daisy' Kuchenbacher Griggs, who had raised AnnaLise with absolutely no help from the indisputable bastard across the desk.

AnnaLise raised an eyebrow. 'I'm sorry, Dickens. Did you say ... "guest list"?'

'Yes.' Hart raked a hand through his wavy white hair, a perfected gesture combining impatience, arrogance and – mainly – vanity.

Dickens Hart had regularly penned 'Dear Diary' journals for his private amusement. And AnnaLise, under contract to compile them into a publishable memoir, had begun slogging, then just skimming, her way volume-by-volume. According to her birth father's many enthusiastic entries, he'd been quite the happening guy back in the seventies, especially after he'd opened White Tail Lodge, a North Carolina High Country rip-off of the Playboy Club concept.

Situated on Sutherton Lake like the current palatial mansion where they sat, the lodge had been a 'gentlemen's club,' featuring 'fawns' – essentially scantily-clad pseudo-Bunnies – supposedly to serve and entertain the clientele. Clipping after curled-corner clipping from local newspapers and glossy regional magazines showed Hart smiling down the lens as some young female's manicured fingers toyed with his shaggy and darker hair.

'You went through my journals,' Hart was now saying. 'You must have found my big black book.'

'You've given me at least a dozen boxes of journals, diaries and memorabilia,' AnnaLise protested. 'Not to mention digital files on computer disks from back when they still were floppy. How could I possibly—' She interrupted herself. 'Your big black book? Don't you mean little black book?'

Hart shook his head and held his palms about six inches apart. 'Big' – sliding his hands out another six inches – 'as in bigger, and even ... biggest.'

What a pig, thought AnnaLise.

But said 'pig' had hired her for his memoir project, though admittedly before she knew he was her biological father. On an indefinite leave of absence from a reporter's job in Wisconsin while she tried to sort out her Sutherton mother's ongoing memory problems, AnnaLise was in no position to turn down a paying job.

Especially a well-paying job. One hundred thousand dollars as an advance, with a fifty/fifty split of royalties, should there be any. As the saying goes, money can't buy love. Or even respect. But, in this case, it could rent days – nay, weeks, if not months – of AnnaLise's professional time.

'I'm afraid I haven't come across this book yet,' she said, making a note. 'You say it's black?'

'I was using a half-truth to make a joke. And probably a bad one at that.' Hart shifted in his chair, at least having the decency to look uncomfortable, as though actually recognizing that he'd stepped over the line in conversation with a blood-child. 'It has a black-and-white speckled cover with my name on the front in a juvenile's handwriting.'

Wait a minute. 'You're talking about a student's composition book? Geez, Dickens, at what age did you start tallying—' AnnaLise waved away her own question. 'Sorry, none of my business.'

'Oh, but it is exactly that. You're writing my memoir, and even those early ...' Hart put out his hands again, this time fingers splayed, '... "peccadillos" are a large part of the story. One might even view me as a bit of a hound.'

That struck AnnaLise as beneath the dignity of understatement. Even though she'd only skimmed through most of the handwritten journals so far, it was clear that the man had seen more tail than the proverbial last dog in a sled-team harness.

She said, 'As one progeny of your "hounding," I'm curious about something.' A pause. 'Do I have any litter-mates?'

Hart shifted again, his uncomfortable expression now approaching pained. 'Honest answer? None with your mother, Lorraine – or "Daisy," as I know you call her. But, otherwise, I'm not entirely sure. I was hoping you'd find any, if they exist.'

'And, as I started to ask you, invite them to dinner here in your rustic, waterfront cabin?' Horror at the idea made AnnaLise's tone rise half an octave.

'Actually, I thought a long weekend might be better, even optimum. With, of course, their respective mothers attending as well.'

'You do understand that you're out of your mind?'

'I do. Or at least that my invitation could be seen as evidence of my being such.' Dickens Hart suddenly appeared old. And very serious. 'Listen, my dear. As disingenuous as it might sound, I truly want to do right by any children I may have fathered, even if they are unbeknownst to me.'

'Unbeknownst?' AnnaLise echoed incredulously, not managing to hurdle the what to get to the equally curious question of why – or, more particularly – why now? 'Weren't you there?' Did the guy really think he was God, right down to the miracle of Immaculate Conception?

A frown. 'I'm just telling you that not one of the women I've been with ever told me about a pregnancy. Except, of course, for Ema Bradenham.'

Ema Bradenham, mother of one of AnnaLise's oldest friends, Sutherton mayor Bobby Bradenham. Ema was pregnant and needed money, making the rich "hound" an awfully tempting target. 'But wouldn't the other women, who actually became pregnant by you, have come—'

Now an awkward, if theatrical shrug. 'Your mother didn't.'

AnnaLise clenched her teeth again. Lorraine Kuchenbacher Griggs had made that 'one mistake' with her boss at the time, Dickens Hart, but never revealed her condition to him. Instead, she'd married Timothy Griggs, a good man who'd loved her. And loved Daisy's child, as well, despite the fact he knew AnnaLise couldn't have been his own.

Decision time. 'OK, I'll dig out this "black book" of whatever size, but I'll be damned if I track down your ... girlfriends.'

'That's fine,' Hart said hastily. 'I'll have Patrick Hoag draft the letter of invitation.'

Patrick Hoag, Esquire, represented Dickens Hart and not three weeks earlier AnnaLise had accompanied her birth father to the law firm of Hoag, Christiaansen and Weir. There, Hart had insisted on legally acknowledging AnnaLise as his daughter, though not before a DNA test – at AnnaLise's insistence – which had come back as conclusive.

'So, I drop the notebook off with Patrick?'

'Ah, no. Given his law firm's gleeful fee increases every time it sends me an invoice, I see my money better spent by having Boozer track down the leads first. He can then provide Patrick with names and current mailing addresses for the actual letters themselves.'

Boozer Bacchus III was a broad-shouldered man of about sixty-five. AnnaLise had been told that he'd served Dickens Hart in one capacity...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Severn House Publishers Ltd
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2014
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0727883941
• ISBN 13: 9780727883940
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Auflage: 1
• Anzahl der Seiten: 224
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar