Murder at Beulah Crest (eBook)

Russ Smith (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2020 | 1. Auflage
330 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
978-1-0983-2909-9 (ISBN)

Infos

Welcome to Beulah Crest, a small community overlooking beautiful Crystal Lake. Nobody locks their doors here because they feel safe. Neighbors meet at the old Mouse House in the center of the park for coffee and potluck dinners. The residents of Beulah Crest enjoy the natural beauty of Benzie County and feel lucky to have neighbors who are trusted friends. Trust soon turns to fear and suspicion when one of the residents of Beulah Crest is found brutally murdered on the deck of a neighbor's home. Anger and speculation spread quickly after another resident is poisoned. The whole county gets involved in trying to solve the crimes when people begin posting a mix of fact, fiction, and gossip related to the murders on the Internet. Meanwhile, the sheriff hinders the investigation by his own officers when he tries to pin the murder on migrant farm workers in an effort to guarantee his re-election. Meet some of the interesting residents of Beulah Crest. Any one of them could be the murderer. They include Elsie, the retired librarian, known for her love of gossip and bridge. Elsie's neighbor, Max, is a retired history teacher from nearby Interlochen Arts Academy. Xander, a physics professor from Chicago comes 'Up North' on weekends and for the summer. Then there is the social activist, Reverend Hortense Parker and her husband, Derek, who has a small dental practice in Frankfort. Another couple, Herb and Dorothy Cooper, are retired veterinary surgeons from Ohio who are financially embarrassed because of bad investments. Finally, there is the park manager, Ian, who lives in a studio apartment in the Mouse House, Albert the volunteer manager of the Beulah Crest coffee shop, and Ben, the groundskeeper and handyman. Why would one of these people start killing their neighbors?

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Welcome to Beulah Crest, a small community overlooking beautiful Crystal Lake. Nobody locks their doors here because they feel safe. Neighbors meet at the old Mouse House in the center of the park for coffee and potluck dinners. The residents of Beulah Crest enjoy the natural beauty of Benzie County and feel lucky to have neighbors who are trusted friends. Trust soon turns to fear and suspicion when one of the residents of Beulah Crest is found brutally murdered on the deck of a neighbor's home. Anger and speculation spread quickly after another resident is poisoned. The whole county gets involved in trying to solve the crimes when people begin posting a mix of fact, fiction, and gossip related to the murders on the Internet. Meanwhile, the sheriff hinders the investigation by his own officers when he tries to pin the murder on migrant farm workers in an effort to guarantee his re-election. Meet some of the interesting residents of Beulah Crest. Any one of them could be the murderer. They include Elsie, the retired librarian, known for her love of gossip and bridge. Elsie's neighbor, Max, is a retired history teacher from nearby Interlochen Arts Academy. Xander, a physics professor from Chicago comes "e;Up North"e; on weekends and for the summer. Then there is the social activist, Reverend Hortense Parker and her husband, Derek, who has a small dental practice in Frankfort. Another couple, Herb and Dorothy Cooper, are retired veterinary surgeons from Ohio who are financially embarrassed because of bad investments. Finally, there is the park manager, Ian, who lives in a studio apartment in the Mouse House, Albert the volunteer manager of the Beulah Crest coffee shop, and Ben, the groundskeeper and handyman. Why would one of these people start killing their neighbors?

Textauszug

CHAPTER 1
The First Murder

Elsie Taylor woke early Tuesday morning, as is her habit. She’s the first person awake at Beulah Crest and often the last to call it a day. Nothing happens or is rumored to have happened at Beulah Crest Cottage Park that Elsie doesn’t know about.

The park sits on land above Crystal Lake in the Village of Beulah, in Northwest Lower Michigan. There are 20 modular homes in the park that the residents call “cottages”.

The sun was bright as Elsie emerged from her cottage to take her morning walk by the lake. As she started down the stairway through the forest from the crest to the lakeside trail, she found herself thinking, I won’t let anything cast a shadow on this beautiful spring morning. While deciding whether to walk into the village to get a bagel at the local deli or in the other direction toward the boat ramp, she had thoughts about the park and her friends and neighbors who lived there.

The park changed as it grew over the years. Nigel Piddlemarsh and Spencer Butcher, the park owners, added a pool a few years ago. Last year they opened a coffee shop in the small house that was on the property when Spencer inherited the otherwise vacant land. The little house, usually referred to as the Mouse House, also contained the park office and a small studio apartment for the resident park manager.

The resident red fox, that some residents called Arthur, watched as Elsie approached. Wild foxes are usually skittish around people, but Arthur had learned over the years that some people were a threat and others were a source of food. Arthur’s ears perked up as Elsie began talking. Elsie often talked to Arthur when she had something on her mind, even though the fox never responded. He sat patiently while Elsie talked, waiting for her to give him a treat.

“Arthur, today’s the anniversary of my move here from Ann Arbor. Life “Up-North” has been good. This view can’t be matched anywhere in the state, don’t you think?”

Elsie paused to take a leftover sandwich from her pocket and tossed it to the fox. “Don’t get me wrong, Arthur. It isn’t the park itself or the lake, but the people and sense of community we have here that makes this place special. I’ve greeted and welcomed each new resident as they moved into their cottage. The last cottage went up only a few months ago and now, with only a few homes exchanging owners each year, the park is complete.”

Arthur appeared to listen intently to Elsie, when in fact he was wondering if she had anything else in her pocket. She often had more than one treat.

“I don’t have any children, Arthur, and Daniel died the year before I moved here, so the residents of Beulah Crest are my family.”

Elsie threw Arthur the other half of the sandwich and continued with her walk. As Elsie approached the lakefront and noticed the first lilacs of the season starting to bloom, she thought again about her neighbors. One of the newer residents is that peculiar physicist, Xander Wolfe, a professor at Northwestern University in Chicago. He only comes up on occasional weekends, so she didn’t expect to see Xander today. Then she remembered that Katie, his sister, was visiting, so he’d be up all week.

Arthur didn’t usually follow Elsie down the stairs to the lake. So, as Elsie picked some lilacs, she asked, “What do you want, Arthur? I’m out of food and I have too much going on to talk more. There’s Max’s lunch and then I want to go to Frankfort. The Bookstore owner, Barb, called to tell me the book I ordered, ‘Table 29’, is in. It’s about the murders on the ship Katie and Xander took to England a few years ago.”

After Arthur finally ran off, Elsie started to think about the other people who lived at Beulah Crest. She knew every resident by name and could tell you about their families and interests. She worked as a librarian at the University of Michigan for thirty years before retiring and she knew that her mind acted like an old card catalog system. In her mind, each resident of the park had imaginary cards containing information collected over the years. Once she placed it on a card, the information would not be forgotten, and she could easily retrieve it at any time.

Everyone in the park would say they knew Elsie, and a few would even consider her to be a close friend. Most would describe her as looking like a middle-aged clerk or bank teller who always dressed in gray as she walked around the park wearing flat shoes. She wore very little makeup and the only jewelry she wore was her wedding ring and a small broach fashioned out of local Petoskey stone. Her appearance and personality were somehow disarming and encouraged people to talk and share things they wouldn’t share with anyone else. Most people in the park understood Elsie’s love of gossip, but they assumed she would never tell anyone what they had told her, “in confidence”.

Elsie’s cottage, one of the nicest in the park, sits on a large corner lot where Hummingbird Lane turns to the right to become Ridge Drive. There is a large deck overlooking Crystal Lake along the side and back of her cottage. From the corner of her deck she can see the Village of Beulah in the distance on the eastern shore of the lake.

She volunteered one morning a week at a hospice near Manistee and another morning at the Maples nursing home in Frankfort. On summer afternoons and evenings, when not otherwise occupied, she tended her garden or walked around the park and talked with her friends.

On her walks through the park, Elsie picked up tidbits of information from and about her neighbors. Her training and experience as a librarian told her that accuracy was an integral part of any cataloging system, so initially she found it difficult to filter out things she couldn’t be sure were true. After her first year in the park and after six families had moved in, Elsie decided she needed to change how she kept track of her neighbors and started to keep two imaginary cards in her mind for each resident.

The first card only included facts. This included things she had observed or verified. For example, she frequently saw Albert Pankhurst leave his dog, Greta, outside all night. While having tea with Xander Wolfe she learned that he was a vegetarian who liked to cook in his spare time.

The other imaginary card contained the things heard over the years that had not yet been verified. For example, Bonnie Campbell’s 2nd card included the gossip that she was having it on with the mailman and the recent comment from someone that the mailman rumor wasn’t true because Bonnie was sleeping with Gus, the man who sold fresh duck eggs from a stand in front of his house on Lake Street.

Elsie kept track of all such stories and would occasionally share them with others in the park. Before sharing, she would usually say, “I’m not one to gossip, but did you hear…?”

Elsie loved the park and enjoyed collecting information about her neighbors, but she had another passion - the game of bridge. She learned to play while she was a student and began competing in duplicate bridge tournaments with Daniel before they were married.

A year after moving into her cottage, Elsie found a new bridge partner, Babs Tucker, who bought a cottage a few doors down on Ridge Drive. Babs and Elsie played several times a week and frequently entered regional and national tournaments. Elsie’s encyclopedic memory served her well in the world of bridge. She’s one of the highest-ranked duplicate bridge players in the state.

Elsie thought about Babs and how she bid an interesting bridge hand on Monday as she picked the white lilacs. After picking the flowers, she remembered that Babs always warned her not to bring them in the house because it was unlucky to do so. Elsie wasn’t superstitious, so she collected a large bunch to put in a vase on her kitchen table.

Superstitions and all, Babs was Elsie’s best friend. When Elsie had stopped by Babs’ cottage to welcome her to the park over eight years ago, with a plate of brownies, they instantly became friends. They had similar interests, were both recently widowed, and they looked surprisingly alike. At bridge tournaments, most people thought they were sisters.

When Elsie finally got home with the flowers, she noticed that the door was open. She hadn’t locked the door. People in the park rarely did. One of the neighbors must have stopped by to return something they had borrowed.

She entered her cottage and called out. “Say Babs, is that you? I’ve got lilacs for the table. I don’t want any of your nonsense about them being unlucky. We better get moving if we’re going to make it to Max’s birthday lunch on time.”

After seeing the mixer Babs had borrowed sitting on the counter, Elsie thought to herself, That’s strange. Babs usually locks the door if she’s been here when I’m not home. I’ll give her a call after I put these flowers in a vase.

While arranging the lilacs, Elsie heard Albert’s dog, Greta, barking outside her kitchen door. “What are you all excited about, Greta? Did Albert forget to feed you? You never bark, so something must be going on?”

As soon as Greta realized she had Elsie’s attention, she quickly padded along the side of the cottage and around the corner. When Elsie came around the corner, she could see Babs on the deck and a chair knocked over next to her. As she approached Babs, Elsie was horrified to find Greta licking blood off of Babs’ forehead. Elsie shouted. “Stop that, Greta! Now sit, over there while I help Babs get up.” Shocked by...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 30.9.2020
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Krimi / Thriller / Horror
• ISBN-10: 1-0983-2909-0 / 1098329090
• ISBN-13: 978-1-0983-2909-9 / 9781098329099