For a couple of years, the Cozy Critters (my critique group) and I have talked about a cozy mystery where they are the principal players. So, I’ve finally gotten around to starting one. It’s just for fun; I don’t intend to send it to a publisher. And, I’ve narrowed the group of friends in this story to only three. I truly have not patterned them after any of the Critters, but they are the impetus for it. I posted chapter one a month or so ago; today is chapter two of An Altared Murder Case. (The spelling of ‘altared’ is intentional.)
Chapter 2
I suppose I was numb for a few minutes. Rubbing my eyes, I blinked, looked again and knew I wasn’t having a nightmare. Newell Abernathy, late fiancé and dearly beloved of my friend Della, was no longer among the living. It wasn’t a natural death, proof being the knife in his back. But, who had done this and why? And, when? Evidently, it was after the florist had come and gone. When did he make his delivery? Last night? I’d find out, but right now, I needed to get back to Della. She had to be kept out of the sanctuary, at all costs.
But, I was too late. An ear-splitting shriek raised the hairs on my arms and I whirled to see Della standing in the sanctuary, her male protectors a few steps behind. And then, Della collapsed. Again.
If it was an awful shock for those of us involved in the wedding, it must have been doubly so for Della. The rest of the day passed in a blur as we revived her and Dixie Ann and I took her home. We stayed with her that night, sitting up and talking to each other long after a sleeping pill had put Della to sleep.
I was fumbling in Della’s cabinet for some coffee cups when Dixie Ann, who was sitting at the kitchen table, said, “We don’t really know that much about Newell, do we?”
Setting the cups on the counter, I poured coffee for both of us. “No, we don’t. He just showed up in town one day. I think their courtship was sort of whirlwind. He swept Della off her feet. She didn’t have a lick of sense when it came to a suave, smooth-talking man.”
Dixie Ann took the cup I handed her. “She thought with her heart, not her brain. A dangerous thing to do.”
I swallowed a sip of the aromatic brew and felt the heat go all the way down to my stomach. “Whew,” I said, fanning my mouth, “careful with that coffee. There’ll be the funeral to plan. Now, who will do that? Della? Will she be in any shape to make decisions? Maybe he has family somewhere, children or grandchildren or…somebody.”
“I, for one, would like to forget the whole thing. I’d like to just go on up to Della’s cabin in the mountains, like we were going to do before Newell blew into town. But, since it’s Della’s cabin, guess that’s out.”
Dixie Ann, usually the practical one, sometimes surprised me. “Maybe we should suggest that after the funeral. Maybe it’d be good for Della to get away. We go to that cabin every year. Sometimes doing familiar things helps. We’ll try to convince her to go.”
Surprisingly, Della didn’t need to be convinced. A couple of days after the funeral, she came to see me. She had stopped for Dixie Ann on the way to my house; now, we three sat on my porch, enjoying the unseasonably warm fall day.
“I don’t think I can stay in this town any longer,” Della said, breaking the silence. “What do you two say to going to my cabin for a while? Maybe a change of scenery would help me put my life into perspective again.”
Dixie Ann winked at me. “What a good idea!” she said. “I don’t see any reason why not. I’d love to get out among the trees and the um, the squirrels and…”
“And the bears?” I couldn’t keep from saying, since the last time we were there, we had glimpsed either a black bear or Bigfoot dodging through the trees.
Della sighed. “That’s one of the perks about being retired. We can pick up and go when we want and stay as long as we want.”
So, that’s the reason why, one chilly morning in late November, three ladies of a certain vintage drove to a lovely log cabin hidden among the trees high on a mountain in Arkansas and unloaded enough supplies for a small army.
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