A Game of Cones (An Ice Cream Parlor Mystery, Band 2) - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Wall Street Journal bestselling author Abby Collette loves a good mystery. She was born and raised in Cleveland, and it's a mystery even to her why she hasn't yet moved to a warmer place. Along with the Ice Cream Parlor mysteries, she is the author of the Logan Dickerson Mysteries, the southern cozy mystery series featuring a second-generation archaeologist and a nonagenarian who is always digging up trouble. She is also the author of the Romaine Wilder Mysteries, set in East Texas, which pairs a medical examiner and her feisty auntie who owns a funeral home and is always ready to solve a whodunit. Abby spends her time writing, facilitating writing workshops at local libraries and spending time with her grandchildren, each of whom are her favorite.

Abby is a member of Crime Writers of Color, and the Sisters in Crime national, regional and guppy chapters.

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chapter

One

A wave of discontent settled over the dusty, low-lit room. The momentary stunned silence crumbled by a low growling hiss.

"Booo." The jeer lingered as all eyes fell on the speaker. Reverberating from a back corner of the room, the sneer seemed unanticipatedly appreciated.

It was obvious he'd felt the disaffection his words brought. He ran his fingers through his summer bleached blond hair, pushing the stray strands back in place. The cheeky smile that had curled at the end of the lips when he first began to speak was put on pause as his eyes drifted to the place the word of scorn had emanated from.

"We're going to, uhm . . . to erect a mall." He swallowed hard. "A mini mall." Sputtering, he couldn't seem to find the right words, obviously disturbed by the reaction in the room. "A vertical mall on the square." He stepped beside the tabletop lectern, his eyes returning to focus on his audience. His voice ragged, the last words he'd read from the notes he'd now abandoned had spilled from his lips, hesitant and broken. They were out of character with the earlier poised, melodic tone he'd used with his words of introduction.

The second attempt at making his intended remarks went off no better than the first. It birthed a rumble across the room, low at first, the voices incrementally escalating. A ruckus soon ensued.

"Boooo!" The second call of disdain came from a man standing next to a seamstress's manikin draped loosely with material. He cupped his hands around his mouth and drew the word out, elevating his voice above the rumble, initially the only decipherable words made in the room.

"We don't have a square," Mrs. Cro, the owner of the Flower Pot, our town's flower shop, said, her voice raised, making her declaration known.

"It's a triangle," another person corrected mockingly. I couldn't tell who'd said that.

It was true, and anyone who knew Chagrin Falls knew that where most small towns had their downtown built around a square, ours was built around a triangle.

He didn't seem to get it.

Or maybe he didn't care.

Zeke Reynolds had entered the back room of Debbie Devereaux's clothing boutique in his navy blue skinny three-

buttoned suit with the mien of a politician. He straightened his tie, tugged on his suit jacket and followed the mayor's lead as he gestured for him to take his place at the podium. An air of confidence and the woodsy sweet smell of musk followed him in, as did a woman.

The woman carried a large black vinyl artists' portfolio in one hand and an easel in the other. Once he stood in front of the lectern, he'd introduced her as Veronica Russell, a junior associate and his right hand. She bowed her head slightly at his acknowledgment, her bangs swaying with the tilt of her head, the rest of her hair pulled back into a tight chignon. She leaned the portfolio and tripod against the wall and stood there next to them at the back of the room, her hands at her sides, waiting, I guessed, for her cue.

Her hair color matched his. But her emerald-green eyes, bright even behind her black-rimmed rectangle glasses, gave off sparks of light and warmth, something he, at the moment, seemed void of.

"We're trying to help usher the Village of Chagrin Falls into the twenty-first century," he continued. He wiggled his fingers at Veronica and she jumped to action. She pushed her glasses up her nose with a flick of her finger then grabbed the handle of the portfolio with one hand, wrapped her other hand around the tripod and marched to the front, not wasting one moment in setting up.

The village business-district people were gathered for a meeting of the Shop Owners of Chagrin Falls Association. We called it SOOCFA for short. Well, it's what the members called it. I wasn't one. Yet. Although with my new food truck under construction and sliding off the assembly line soon, all shiny and spanking new, and the ice cream shop doing good business, I'd need to join. But today, I'd come to support Maisie, one of my best friends.

The room was sparsely filled. Old sewing machines, a long wooden table for cutting and a file cabinet-drawers hanging open, overstuffed with patterns and sewing materials scattered about. Ms. Devereaux had long abandoned the practice of dressmaking-designing and tailoring clothes. All the wares she sold in her boutique nowadays came ready-made.

There hadn't been an agenda circulated at the start of the shop owners' meeting, and after Maisie's plea for acceptance into the shop owners fraternity, everything had seemed to be winding down.

That was until Zeke Reynolds took the podium.

"Who is he, Win?" Maisie leaned in to me and pointed her finger.

I hunched my shoulders. "He said his name is-"

"I know what he said his name is," she said, not letting me finish. "But who is he?"

I shrugged. I was just as clueless as she was.

As clueless, it seemed, as everyone else.

I mean, I knew what he'd said-I'd heard what he'd read from his notecards, and so had Maisie. I think what everyone really wanted to know was why. Why was he here telling us what he was going to do to our little village? To us. How did he think he could?

I glanced back at the doorway where he'd entered twenty minutes earlier. Escorted by Kevin Greer, the mayor of our little village, and Amelia Hargrove, owner of the Around the Corner Bookshop.

Amelia had kept her eyes straight ahead, carried a small stack of colored papers. Expressionless, she sat at the front of the room. Hands in lap, she seemed placid and unperturbed by the speaker's words.

The mayor, however, seemed to have quietly slipped back out. He was nowhere to be seen.

Mayor Greer, whom I hadn't voted for in the last election because I was still in New York, was a good friend of my grandfather's. I'd have to be sure to ask PopPop what the mayor had been up to bringing in a man who would cause so much confusion at a SOOCFA meeting.

Had the two of them thought the crowd would be rowdy when they agreed to escort Zeke Reynolds in? I wouldn't want to be in their shoes when this was over.

I directed my attention to the others present and spied the reaction on their faces. Some of the faces I recognized, some I didn't know. All, though, except for Amelia, were upset.

"We've acquired all the necessary buildings but one, and there is still a plot or two of land we're working to gain ownership of." Zeke was back to talking. He'd built up a steady cadence, decidedly schlepping forward with his presentation. "It's amazing how they were sliced up into such small parcels." He drew in a breath and shook his head. "I'd hoped to come here tonight to get your support."

Veronica had pulled a poster board drawing out of her portfolio as he spoke, and placed it on the easel.

"Our support?" Maisie turned and looked at me, the red curls of her hair thrown to the side with the jerk of her head. "For which buildings?" She tightly clutched the back of the metal folding chair in front of her, the knuckles on her hand turning white. "Which of the buildings around Triangle Park? My building?"

I started to speak, but her curls, flipping the other way, gave notice she was no longer paying attention to me. She scooted forward in her chair, sitting on the edge of her seat, and eyed Zeke and his drawing board, intent on finding out what they meant.

"It's not really your building," Riya, sitting on Maisie's other side, leaned toward her and said matter-of-factly. "At least not yet." She gestured with a head nod toward the front of the room. "Or maybe ever." She raised...