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Death by Baking: A Nosy Neighbor Mystery (Volume 4)

By Cynthia Hickey

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1
I, Stormi Nelson, NYT best-selling author, stared at my blank computer screen. Eight p.m. and I had yet to write a single word. I’d sent my assistant, Mary Ann Steele, home hours ago. Since she’d given up teaching in order to follow her dream of a job in the literary world, I needed to figure out the plot of my next romantic mystery, and fast.
Three months had passed since my venture into the world of gangsters and prostitutes. Before that, I’d battled a psycho fan who couldn’t wait for me to write the next book. The first crime, the one that started me on the roller-coaster ride of solving a mystery, and then writing about it, had come strictly by accident. No one walked their dog with the intent of stumbling across a dead body, did they? None of these were my fault. I strictly chose to accept the opportunity to write the stories that fall into my lap.
Now, ordinary living seemed boring by comparison. I might as well take a stroll around the block on the pretense of watching the neighborhood. Since I’d started the neighborhood watch program over a year ago, I was still the prime member, along with my “little” neighbors next door, the Salazars.
“Come, Sadie.” I clipped the leash to the collar of my Irish Wolfhound, the most chicken of any dog I’d ever met, and shuffled down the stairs and out into a mild spring evening.
My boyfriend, Matthew Steele, was out on another undercover assignment, leaving me to fill the long nights alone. Now that the basement apartment was converted into living space for my mother, the attic for my sister, and my teenage niece and nephew, Cherokee and Dakota out only God knew where, I found myself lonely again for the first time in a long time.
Once, I’d cherished my solitude. Now, that my family had moved in and I had a handsome man in my life, that very solitude wasn’t so precious anymore.
I raised a hand to wave at the Olsons. Bill grinned and waved back—Mrs. Olson, I couldn’t bring myself to call her Norma—simply glared. Someday, she might actually get it in her head that her roly-poly husband wasn’t my type.
“Good evening, Rusty.” My simple minded, but sweet-natured gardener glanced up from trimming the rose bushes. “It’s kind of late to be pruning, isn’t it?”
He nodded like one of those bobble heads people stick in their car windows. “Yep, but Rusty sees—”
“I know. Rusty sees things.” He always said that, and sometimes the things he saw were things he shouldn’t. “No peeking in people’s windows, okay?”
“What about store windows?”
“That should be all right.” I grinned and led Sadie across the street.
Hickory Street had a couple of vacancies after the last three bouts of murders. Some of my neighbors actually blamed the downward turn on me. Said it had been a peaceful community until I moved in. I shrugged. First, they’d complained about me being a romance novelist, now they complained because I stuck my nose into whatever the current mystery, which always involved me somehow, and wrote another bestseller about it. I was careful to change people’s names. Why should they be so concerned?
The thump thump of skateboard wheels over cracks in the sidewalk came up behind me. I glanced over my shoulder. “Hey, Dakota.”
“Hey, Aunt Stormi.” He hopped off his board and tucked it under his arm. “Where you going?”
“Neighborhood Watch work.”
He laughed. “No one cares but you.”
I shrugged. “They should. It also gives me exercise.” The neighbors should care, especially with the happenings over the last year. Evil exists everywhere, even in a nice neighborhood like Oak Meadows Estates, and most especially on Hickory Street where I lived. I seemed to bring trouble with me like a barge towing the iceberg that sunk the Titanic.
“A new old lady moved into the house on the corner,” Dakota said, grinning. “She asked if I lived in the house where the red-haired woman fornicated on the front porch. I told her yes.”
I whirled. “What?!”
Matt and I did not fornicate on the porch or anywhere else. We did indulge in some heavy make-out sessions occasionally, but I’d made a vow in high school to save myself until marriage. I still wore a purity ring on my pinky finger. Not that having a drop-dead gorgeous boyfriend helped the vow any, but still … I was a strong-willed woman. “She doesn’t even know me.”
“There she is.” Dakota pointed.
I slapped his hand down. “Don’t let on that we’re talking about her.” Too late. The short, round woman bustled toward us, her silver curls bouncing with each step.
“Are you that romance writer?” She planted pudgy fists on plump hips. “I was told by the realtor that this was a respectable neighborhood. Now, I find out we have a smut writer living here.”
“Uh, that would be the other author in the community.” I didn’t write smut, but Sarah Thompson could make a porn star blush. “I write clean romantic mysteries with just enough sexual tension to keep you turning the page.” I grinned and tugged Sadie past her.
She “hummphed” and marched away, her fuzzy house slippers slapping the pavement with each step. I probably shouldn’t have provoked her, but I can’t help myself when people confront me without cause.
Dakota tossed his skateboard onto the sidewalk, jumped on, and skated off with a wave. Sadie barked once and tugged against her leash as we passed Matt’s and Mary Ann’s house.
“Come sit for a spell,” Mary Ann called. Not only was she my literary assistant, but my best friend. Between her and Mom, I never had to dig into a mystery alone. “Out looking for your next story?”
I sat on the porch swing next to her, looping Sadie’s leash around my ankle. “No. But, I am at a loss as to what to write next.”
“Make something up. Isn’t that what fiction novelists do?” She set the swing into action with a nudge of her toe. “You’ve gotten spoiled.”
I laughed. “Yes, I have. Let’s brainstorm.” I drummed my fingers on the arm of the swing and breathed deep of a nearby blooming honeysuckle bush. “We need a victim.” The first one that came to mind was my new neighbor, and I didn’t know her name. “Who’s the new lady on the corner?”
“Betty Rogers. Watch out. She’s called the police three times, and she’s only been here a week.”
“What does she call for?”
“Noises, dog poop, dog barking, you name it.” Mary Ann shook her head. “She’s going to drive my brother nuts once he gets home. Are you thinking of killing her off in a book?”
“Thought about it.” I glanced toward her house. The curtains fell into place. “But there’s no motive, other than being crotchety.”
“She’s a Nosy Nellie who saw something she shouldn’t.” Mary Ann waved at the old woman’s house. “Who killed her?”
“Drug dealers?” No, that was done in my last book. “She witnessed a murder while out walking … does she have a dog?”
“Yes. Three yappy terriers.”
Brainstorming a book was more fun with two people, even if the plot idea was too silly to use. “She was walking her dogs and noticed open curtains in a dark house. A light flickers. She goes to peek in—” My cell phone rang, playing the tune to Elvis’s Love Me Tender.
I fished it from my pocket. “Matt!”
“Hey, beautiful. What are you doing?” His deep voice rumbled right into my heart.
“Plotting murder with your sister.”
“On paper, I hope, and here I was going to talk dirty to you.”
“Hush. She might hear.” I turned my back to Mary Ann.
She laughed. “I’ll fetch us some sodas while the two of you talk all lovey-dovey.”
“I miss you,” Matt and I said simultaneously.
“When are you coming home?” I slipped off my sandal and dangled Sadie’s leash from my toes, which I had painted a bright Fuschia pink that morning.
“I’m not sure. This case is more complicated than I thought.”
“I wish you would have stayed a small town detective. I worry about you.”
“I’m fine. This isn’t dangerous, but I do have to go. I love you.”
“I love you, too.” I sighed and hung up, working the leash back up to my ankle.
Mrs Rogers, clutching a leash that forked out to lead three small, wiry dogs marched past, her gaze straight ahead of her. Sadie yelped and tore off the porch, dragging me from the swing.
I shrieked and landed with a thump on my backside, knocking the breath from my lungs. Oh, that hurt.
Three dogs yipped, one giant wolfhound bounded in circles, and I lay on the floor of the porch like a beached fish. I tried to wheeze out Sadie’s name to call her back, but nothing escaped. My mouth opened and closed.
“Get this beast off my babies!” Mrs. Rogers danced around as her three dogs wrapped her in the leash.
I pushed to my knees, then wrapped my arms around the porch railing as Mary Ann exited the house. I motioned toward the fiasco on the sidewalk.
She set the drinks on a small wooden table and dashed down the steps. “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Rogers.”
“I’m calling the police to have that monster put down. It’s a menace.”
No. Not my big lovable baby. Still doubled over, I made my way down the stairs and to the sidewalk. “I’m so sorry. She only wants to play.”
Mrs. Rogers glared. “I should have known the dog was yours.”
I finally caught my breath enough to straighten. “She is very tame and sweet. She would not have hurt your dogs, except to maybe love them to death.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Now, you’re threatening my puppies with death?”
“No, I was only—”
“Let’s go, my darlings.” She tugged on the leash, rather roughly in my opinion, and dragged the little dogs across the street.
Mary Ann met my startled gaze. “She’ll have the cops here in ten minutes. Matt is going to kill both of us.”
I wrapped Sadie’s leash around my wrist. “Maybe she will be the next victim in my book.” Killing off people, on paper anyway, was a great stress reliever. “I’m going home. My backside hurts. When Officer Jones arrives, send him to my house. Angela will be thrilled.” It didn’t matter to my somewhat seductively dressed sister that the officer was dating the 9-1-1 operator. She still preened like a peacock whenever he came around.
“Okay. See you tomorrow.”
I made my way, limping, to the Victorian home that I’d purchased a year and a half ago, still getting pleasure from the sight of the turrets and wraparound porches. After sending Sadie inside, I sat in a padded rocking chair and waited for the police. While I waited, I plotted further in getting revenge on one nasty old lady, on paper, of course.
Fifteen minutes later, Wayne Jones, the second best looking officer on the small police force of Oak Meadows, stopped in front of the house. Before he could get out of his car, Mom roared into the driveway, flinging gravel from the tires of her beat up minivan.
She thrust open her door and sprinted for the house, her hired help, Greta, at her heels. “Get rid of him,” Mom hissed, motioning toward Officer Jones. “We’ve another murder to solve.”

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