Wreath of Deception Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Make Jo’s Woodland Wreath Yourself—It’s Easy!

  Carrie’s Chili

  About the Author

  “A warm and clever heroine . . . Filled with unexpected

  twists, peopled with entertaining characters,

  and sprinkled with touches of humor.”

  —Maddy Hunter, author of Hula Done It?

  Clown Tricks

  “You never noticed if a man in white face paint and with fuzzy red hair walked out your front door?”

  “No, I didn’t.” Jo’s discomfort flared into anger. What was he implying? “He told me he wanted to change in the back. If he had, he would have walked out of the shop looking like anyone else. I never noticed that he hadn’t left.”

  “And when was the last time you went into your storeroom?”

  “Besides when I found him dead?”

  “Yes.” Lieutenant Morgan stared hard at her. Jo glared back just as hard, ready to spit out her answer, then realized she didn’t have one.

  “I don’t know,” she admitted. “I went in this morning, before we opened up. I’m sure I ran in a few times yesterday during the day, but I can’t remember just now when the last time was.”

  “You closed up when?”

  “At six.”

  “You didn’t go into the back room when you closed up?”

  “No. Carrie—my coworker, Carrie Brenner—and her husband, Dan, whisked me away for dinner. It was an exhausting day. Lieutenant, tell me, please. What happened to Cudd—I mean—to Kyle? What killed him?”

  The lieutenant’s eyes bored into her once more, but Jo stood her ground, waiting. It was a reasonable question, she felt. She had every right to know before someone—Kyle Sandborn’s mother? wife?—slapped her with a million-dollar wrongful-death lawsuit . . .

  Praise for the novels of Mary Ellen Hughes

  “Delightfully zany characters . . . a pleasurable read.”

  —Mystery Scene

  “The characters are engaging, the plot has more twists than a tough ski slope, and there is plenty of cozy ambience . . . Fans of Diane Mott Davidson’s Goldy Bear series or Leslie Meier’s Lucy Stone novels should add this series to their lists.”

  —Booklist

  THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

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  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

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  South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE: The recipes contained in this book are to be followed exactly as written. The publisher is not responsible for your specific health or allergy needs that may require medical supervision. The publisher is not responsible for any adverse reactions to the recipes contained in this book.

  WREATH OF DECEPTION

  A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / September 2006

  Copyright © 2006 by Mary Ellen Hughes.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without

  permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of

  the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  eISBN : 978-1-440-60312-9

  BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME

  Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

  The name BERKLEY PRIME CRIME and the BERKLEY PRIME CRIME design are trademarks belonging

  to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  For Dad, Edmond V. Lemanski,

  who fixed all those sore throats, stomachaches,

  and amazing hot fudge sundaes.

  Acknowledgments

  Many thanks to the talented crafting people who generously shared their time and expertise: Julie Black, of Black-eyed Susan Florist; Rebecca Myers, of Rebecca Myers Jewelry Design; Heidi Hess and her lively group of stampers; scrapbooker Angie Palmer; knowledgeable knit-ter Kay Wisniewski; theatrical advisor Jim Hughes; awe-some website designer John Baker; and ever-patient pharmacist (and sister) Barbara Gawronski.

  I am specially grateful to my agent, Jacky Sach, for generously pointing me in the right direction; my editor, Sandy Harding, for her terrific manuscript polishing skills (and who is a joy to work with); and the many other hard-working people at Berkley who helped turn my loose pages into a book.

  Many thanks to fellow writers and critiquers: Janet Benrey, Ray Flynt, Sherriel Mattingly, Trish Marshall, Marcia Talley, and Lyn Taylor, for always catching what I didn’t see, and who served the greatest cakes.

  Last and best, to Terry: my support in so many ways, who always encouraged me, kept me on track, and never minded fixing his own breakfast.

  Chapter 1

  The first shaft of sunlight pierced through the hole in her bedroom shade, and Jo, who had been awake and watching for it, jumped out of bed. Wrapping herself against the mid-September chill in her raggedy but cozy terry robe, she padded into her small kitchen, wondering if she’d actually slept at all. She had memories of a jumble of thoughts as she tossed during
the night, but couldn’t clearly separate persistent worries from those same fears morphed into dreams. What she was sure of, sleep or not, was that she didn’t truly need the coffee that she automatically began to fix. Adrenaline pumped through her veins, and she was already running, internally, on all cylinders.

  This was it—the day she had been planning and working toward for weeks. The make-or-break day. If it went well, Jo would be able to stay on in Abbotsville, Maryland, pay her rent, eat. If it didn’t, well, she might be losing those last five pounds quicker than she’d expected.

  She watched the coffee drip into the carafe, breathing in its fragrance. When the machine finished its routine of gasps and sputters, she slipped out the carafe and poured herself a mugful. Wrapping her hands around the mug for warmth, Jo carried it to her back door and gazed through the glass at the tiny yard. The scrubby grass sparkled with dew, and the leaves of the spindly dogwood already showed tinges of red. The sun, higher now, filtered through her neighbors’ towering trees and made the scene nearly pretty. It was far different, though, from the steel and brick view through the loft’s windows in New York.

  Jo winced at the thought. In some ways, it seemed a lifetime ago, although it was only months. She crafting her jewelry, and Mike making his wonderful metal sculptures from pieces he molded and shaped with his acetylene torch until one day that very torch malfunctioned and exploded, annihilating the loft, Mike, and her entire life as she knew it.

  Mike was her life, her love, and losing him, as well as all they had built together, was devastating. But she had somehow managed to pull herself together—the need to survive truly works wonders—gather Mike’s small life insurance money and invest in a shaky future for herself. Every penny she had, along with loans that would likely keep her in servitude to the First Maryland Bank until dementia set in, had been sunk into Jo’s Craft Corner, whose grand opening was less than three hours away.

  Jo shivered at the thought—from excitement or fear? she wondered. Likely both. The countless steps leading to this day ran through her mind: first and foremost, tracking down the store in an affordable district of Abbotsville, with the help of her amazing friend, Carrie. Then the necessary wares, including boxes and boxes of supplies for every craft imaginable. There were beads, flowers, yarn, paper, stamps, paint—all painstakingly arranged in what she hoped was a customer-friendly manner. Plans for workshops she and Carrie would conduct, ads taken out for the grand opening, the clown hired to pass out freebies and balloons and hopefully attract families with craft-loving moms and dads, refreshments, music. Had she thought of everything? If not, it was too late now. Another shiver-producing thought, but she banished it.

  At least the weather, the one thing over which she had no control, was promising. A cloudless sky would let the sun shine brightly, and the temperature, if the last couple days were a predictor, should warm up nicely, bringing people out of their homes. It might even be hot by afternoon, which would be just fine with Jo, because it would draw more thirsty people to her free punch and cookies, which were situated deep inside the store and required customers to stroll past her beautiful, extremely purchasable wares.

  Her wares. Jo suddenly pictured the store as she had last seen it at eleven o’clock the previous night, before stumbling home for a couple bites of cold pizza and collapsing into bed. Should she have put more Halloween items near the front? Yesterday she’d worried over making Jo’s Craft Corner look too much like a Halloween-only store. But that holiday, she began to think, was a big seller. She should probably capitalize on it while she had the crowd there, and move the pumpkins and ghosts to the front. Quickly.

  Jo plopped her coffee mug in the sink and whisked off her sleep shirt on her way to the shower. She still had to pick up ice and set up the huge punch bowl she’d rented. She should double-check the stamping section—had Carrie unpacked the box that arrived late yesterday afternoon? How about the racks of scrapbooking papers? Had they been filled enough? How, where, what . . . ?

  Jo’s mind ran as fast as her legs, which propelled her from shower, to closet, and out to the car in double time. Out on the road she had to brake suddenly to keep from running a red light, and she glanced around with relief noticing that traffic was light this early on a Saturday morning—not that it was ever truly heavy in Abbotsville.

  Once inside the store, she took a few deep, calming breaths. “Don’t let yourself turn into a crazy,” she commanded, smoothing down her short dark hair, and carefully realigning the fringed paisley scarf she had added to brighten her white silky blouse and black slacks. Then she promptly turned into a crazy, zigzagging up and down the aisles, filling her arms with pumpkins and branches of autumn leaves and ghouls. Only the rattle of keys in the door brought her to a stop.

  “My gosh, have you been here all night?” A plump woman in a navy jumper, holding several white paper bakery bags, stood in the doorway, backlit by the morning sun.

  “Carrie!” Jo hurried over with her load, shedding leaves as she did. “We have to move the Halloween things before anyone comes!”

  Carrie smiled, letting the door swing closed behind her. “Jo, take it easy. It’s at least an hour before we open for business. Plus no one in their right mind’s going to show up until an hour after that. Trust me, Abbotsvillians are not early risers on weekends. Sit down and have a bagel. I bet you haven’t had a bit of solid food.”

  “You mean today, or this week?”

  Carrie tsked disapprovingly, then moved behind the checkout counter and began spreading out the goodies she’d brought. “You won’t impress customers, you know, if you pass out face-first into the punch. Take a breather. Everything’s going to be fine.”

  Jo set down the autumn leaves and pumpkins and sank onto a tall stool beside the cash register.

  “Guaranteed?”

  “There’s no guarantees in life, sweetie. You should know that by now.”

  Jo sighed. “Yes, I do.” She grabbed one of Carrie’s breakfast treats and breathed in its delicious freshness. “But at least there’s blueberry bagels. Thanks, Carrie.”

  Carrie shrugged, her way of accepting gratitude for as long as Jo had known her, which was years—since her first day at Thomas Jefferson High, to be exact, when they encountered each other in the girls’ bathroom. The meeting was not one she would have expected to produce a lasting friendship—Carrie had walked in to the sound of Jo retching prodigiously in one of the stalls. But instead of a hasty retreat, Carrie had called over the door, “Scared out of your gourd, huh?”

  Jo, startled enough to pause in mid-heave, had managed a shaky, “Uh-huh.”

  What followed, once she splashed enough cold water on her face to risk frostbite, was Jo spilling out her fears to a sympathetic Carrie about not knowing a soul in this terrifyingly huge school, which Jo’s parents had enrolled her in after transplanting them all to Maryland not one week before. Carrie had proceeded to take her in hand, earning Jo’s undying gratitude and friendship.

  Interestingly, in the years following, it was Jo who was the more adventurous one, going out for cheerleading and drama, activities largely dominated by “cool” cliques to which she never belonged, then signing up for challenging art courses, followed by art school, and eventually heading off to New York to begin life as a starving artist.

  Carrie made quieter choices, playing second piccolo in the band, signing up for Home Ec courses, and later marrying her high school sweetheart and moving with him to Abbotsville, not far from, nor much different from the town they grew up in, to begin her chosen career as wife and mother.

  But, whereas Jo’s life was full of drama, spiked with highs and lows, Carrie’s seemed a calm sea of contentment, managed with a quiet strength that showed itself only when needed. It was never needed more by Jo than after Mike’s horrible accident. When Jo, dragging herself out of the ashes of her life, had searched for a way to go on, knowing she couldn’t manage on what her jewelry making alone had been bringing in, Carrie suggested a craft s
tore in Abbotsville.

  The idea slowly took root, its attractiveness, Jo realized, owing much to the distance it would put between her and the painful memories of her loss. Jo’s mom, now living out her widowhood in a retirement community in Florida, had urged her to come there. But setting up anew near her old friend, who also volunteered to give up time from her comfortable life and add her considerable skills at needlework to the store’s offerings, carried the most weight.

  “Eat!” Carrie ordered, breaking into Jo’s reverie, and Jo realized she had been staring into space.

  She hastily bit into the chewy treat. When she could again speak, she asked, “Why did you come in so early? I thought we agreed you’d get here at ten.

  “Carrie grinned and fiddled with the end of her long blond braid. “I woke up early and started thinking you should have a bigger Halloween display near the door.”

  Jo grinned back. “Great minds, huh?”

  “For sure.”

  Carrie got to work setting up a rack for the display, and Jo, nibbling at her bagel, joined in, bringing straw to nestle around the plastic pumpkins and gourds, and draping orange and black material behind a grinning scarecrow. As Carrie sprayed canned cobwebs around the edges, Jo went back to the storeroom to look for more acrylic paints that could be used for decorating costumes and masks.

  The storeroom was jammed with boxes, some stacked on shelves six feet high. All this stock, she thought, gazing at it with amazement. Would she ever sell it? Who would have guessed that she would ever be running a business? She, who had always scorned the more practical things in life to flourish in what she did best—art. Now she would be keeping books on inventory and toting up sales, and grateful to have sales to tote up. She ran her finger down the rows of boxes, checking labels for acrylic paint, and worried: would this town have enough interest in arts and crafts to keep her in business? Carrie seemed convinced of it, and Carrie certainly knew the local market better than she did.