Meredith Potts Fourteen Book Cozy Mystery Set Read online

  Meredith Potts Fourteen Book Cozy Mystery Set

  Meredith Potts

  Table of Contents

  College Can Be Murder

  The Last Frontier Of Murder

  Deadpan Murder

  Killer Amnesia

  Fishing For Murder

  Drowning In Deceit

  Murder Of A Yoga Instructor

  A Not So Merry Christmas Murder

  Killer Injustice

  Murder Of A Restaurant Critic

  Murder Of A Movie Producer

  The Killer Holiday Office Party

  Murder In Happy Creek

  Chocolate With A Side Of Murder

  College Can Be Murder

  Chapter One

  “I need you to find out what really happened to my daughter,” Mark Richardson said.

  As a private eye, all kinds of different cases had landed on my desk over the last six years. The deeper I got into my career, the more I had realized that unusual circumstances were just a common part of my line of work. That being said, during my time as a professional investigator, rarely had I ever come across a case like this.

  The bulk of my clients fell into one of two categories—suspected infidelity or possible insurance fraud. I would usually do some research on the Internet before tailing the individual in question for anywhere between a few hours to a few days before I was able to get the photographic proof that my client was looking for.

  This case was completely different. Not just because of the circumstances surrounding it but also because of the identity of the client. Mark was a pastor at a church in Maple Grove, a town about twenty minutes away. I could count on one finger the number of times that a man of the cloth had set foot in my office. What a time to be breaking new ground.

  In my experience, pastors were usually comforting people with welcoming smiles. That was what made talking to Mark that morning so unsettling. Not only did he look like the one who needed comforting, but a smile was nowhere to be found on his face.

  He was a tall, lean man in his early fifties with short black hair and a clean-shaven, oval face. Although, what stood out to me the most about him that morning was the distressed look in his hazel eyes. He had the expression of a man whose beliefs had been pushed to the limit.

  Yet as distraught as he was, he admirably had not lost his faith. That was truly remarkable to me, mostly because if I were in his position, I could not honestly tell you I would be so strong. Part of that was because I had seen some bleak things during my time as an investigator. Those past experiences only cemented my belief that this case had the makings of ending in a heartbreaking fashion. Of course, this would be one of the rare times when I wouldn’t mind being completely wrong.

  Before I could get a better read on the situation, I needed some clarification from Mark. “When you say you want me to find out what really happened to your daughter, that implies that there are some differing opinions.”

  Mark sighed. “Yes. There has been a fair amount of disagreement about that.”

  I was confused. “Between who?”

  “Myself and the police detective who investigated her case.”

  Unfortunately, things seemed to be getting more confusing rather than less. I attributed that to the fact that while Mark’s mind was busy racing, he had forgotten that I was still back at the starting line. It was time for him to bring me up to speed.

  “Wait a minute. Why were the police investigating your daughter?” I asked.

  “Because she disappeared.”

  “And let me guess, the police weren’t able to find her?”

  He shook his head. “No. But that’s because they didn’t really spend much time looking for her.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because they think she killed herself,” Mark said.

  It was a strange position to be in, to keep being given answers that only led to more questions. I kept waiting for the moment when this all clicked in my head, but it had not come yet.

  “They must have a good reason to think that. What findings did the police make when they examined the body?” I asked.

  “They never found her body,” Mark replied.

  I scrunched my nose. “Then how could they know that your daughter was dead, no less have made the determination that she had committed suicide?”

  Mark’s eyes widened. “That’s my point exactly.”

  “What’s their theory?” I asked.

  “That she jumped into the gorge.”

  The town of Oak Gorge, where Mark’s daughter went to school, was known for two things—a small liberal arts college and a hundred-and-ten-foot-deep gorge that was located on the outskirts of the school’s campus.

  The idea that Mark’s daughter might have thrown herself into the gorge was a horrifying thought, one that rang completely false to him.

  I stared deep into his eyes. “You don’t believe that, though?”

  There was no wavering in Mark’s voice as he replied. “I know she would never do anything like that.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I know my daughter.”

  It was a touchy topic to address, especially with a grieving parent, but as an investigator, exploring every angle of a situation was my job.

  “I don’t doubt that, but sometimes suicidal people don’t show signs—”

  Mark didn’t let me finish.

  “Jennifer didn’t kill herself,” he snipped.

  I backed off. “Okay.”

  A look of remorse came to his face as he became embarrassed about losing his temper with me. His emotions were all over the place, but I did get a sense that the apology that followed was genuine.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap at you. It has just been a very difficult time for me.”

  I couldn’t help but feel sympathy for him. “I imagine.”

  “It has actually been a difficult last few years,” he said.

  Mark had more to share with me, but he had trouble getting the words out. Finally, he slowly worked his way up to telling me what else was ailing him.

  “My wife died in a car accident a few years ago,” Mark revealed.

  “I’m very sorry,” I replied.

  “Her death was very hard on both my daughter and me. Jennifer was especially troubled by how sudden and senselessly her mother was taken from her. She just couldn’t make sense of why God had taken her mom away so early in her life.”

  “That’s terrible.”

  Mark nodded. “Losing her mother like that made Jennifer realize how precious life truly was. She developed a greater understanding of how important it is to value the time we have on earth since tomorrow isn’t promised to anyone. That’s why the idea that my daughter could have taken her life is inconceivable to me.”

  I followed his reasoning. “Okay. What do you think happened to your daughter, then?”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know. That’s why I’m hiring you.”

  I could tell that he was holding back on me. If I was going to take this case, I needed to get all of the information that I could.

  “Do you have a theory?” I asked.

  Mark’s face tightened. “I wouldn’t rule out foul play.”

  “Are you saying—?”

  He finished my sentence. “That maybe she was pushed? In my mind, that’s a distinct possibility.”

  “You think this was murder, then?”

  He nodded.

  “Do you have any evidence of that?”

  Mark shook his head. “No.”

  “Did you bring this theory up to the detective?”

  He nodded. “Yes, but he dis
missed it outright.”

  I bit the corner of my lip, trying to make sense of the detective’s rationale. “So the detective was convinced that she killed herself, but no body was recovered?”

  “Exactly.”

  That left a strange taste in my mouth. I couldn’t help but be baffled.

  “Then how could the detective be so convinced that Jennifer committed suicide?” I asked.

  “The detective told me that a couple of students jump into the gorge every year. It turns out that suicide isn’t all that uncommon at the university.”

  My heart sank. “That’s awful.”

  Mark lowered his head. “It is, especially in this case.”

  “It always is when it’s someone you know,” I said.

  He clarified his statement. “I meant that it’s awful because there’s no way this was a suicide. First, you have the fact that no body was ever found. But that’s not all. The detective didn’t find a suicide note, either.”

  I scrunched my nose. “That’s curious.”

  “Exactly. Something else happened, and I want you to find what it was,” Mark said.

  The pastor had something that he wanted from me, but there was something I wanted from him as well.

  I leaned forward in my chair and stared deep into his eyes. “I understand that, but I have a question for you first.”

  Mark stopped fidgeting and gave me his full attention. “What is it?”

  “Why did you come to me?” I asked.

  He looked confused about why I had asked that question. “That’s easy. You’re a private eye. You investigate things like this for a living.”

  His answer made me realize that he didn’t understand what I was getting at. It was clear that I needed to be more specific with my next question.

  “I know that. What I meant was that Oak Gorge is half an hour away from here. Surely there are some private eyes in town. So why did you drive out here to Cedar Falls to hire me?”

  Mark had a surprising answer. “I wanted someone with fresh eyes to look at the case. The private investigators in Oak Gorge all have close ties with the detective who didn’t want to listen to me. If I’m going to get the answers I’m looking for, you’re my best shot.”

  “Fair enough,” I said.

  “So you’ll take the case?” he asked.

  Mark thought that me saying “yes” was a foregone conclusion. That simply wasn’t true. A case as unique as this posed some difficult challenges. I wasn’t sure that I could overcome them all. Knowing that gave me some serious pause. He didn’t understand why I was so hesitant to answer him, but he was determined to convince me.

  “Please. It’s bad enough that I lost my daughter. I just want to know the truth about what really happened to her,” he pleaded.

  Before I agreed to anything, I had to make a point to warn him that this was a low-probability case. With infidelity and fraud cases, most of the time it just required staking out and waiting around. Given enough time with close observation, nine times out of ten the suspect would eventually slip up.

  In this case, the crucial factor was not time but luck. It was a terrible position to be in, having to rely on luck, especially since it was the least reliable thing in the world. The needle could be hiding deep in the haystack with this one. Mark had to know that.

  “There’s something I need to tell you if I’m going to take this case,” I said.

  He was confused, but he heard me out. “What is it?”

  “There is a really big chance that this will end in bad news.”

  Mark was unfazed by my warning. “My daughter is gone. I can’t imagine the news getting much worse.”

  “I meant if I were to investigate your daughter’s disappearance, the chance of me returning to you empty-handed is high. I may end up doing a lot of digging around with nothing to show for it,” I said.

  He was discouraged, but not enough to walk away. “That’s a chance I’m willing to take.”

  That was how desperate he was. To him, terrible odds were still better than none at all. At least now, no matter what the end results turned out to be, he couldn’t say that I hadn’t warned him.

  “All right,” I said.

  A sense of relief washed over his face. “Thank you.”

  I stopped him before he got too excited. “Don’t thank me. I haven’t done anything yet.”

  “Right. Of course.”

  “Now, let’s see if I can find out what happened to your daughter,” I said.

  Chapter Two

  Mark told me what he knew about his daughter’s death, which was surprisingly little. Talk about an uninspiring way to start a case. I hated being armed with such a lack of information. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t completely flying blind, but I would definitely need to catch some breaks to crack this case.

  Despite my complaints, this wasn’t the first time I had operated from a disadvantage. It didn’t take me long to think of a number of other cases that had begun on far bleaker notes that I had found a way to eventually solve. I said a quick prayer in hopes that the solution to this mystery would become apparent to me sooner rather than later.

  Shortly after that, I left the comfort of Cedar Falls and drove half an hour away through the heart of dairy country. When the rolling hills and barns were finally in my rearview mirror, I arrived in the picturesque college town of Oak Gorge. There was no denying that the change in scenery was striking.

  From the bucolic beauty of dairy country emerged a brick town with a population of ten thousand residents. As I drove into town, some students were chatting with each other about not-so-philosophical matters like where they were going to party this weekend, while other students were staring so deeply at their phones that they lost complete track of their surroundings. It was only a matter of time before one of them walked into a light pole or a tree while they were busy texting.

  The curious habits of the student body population aside, the campus of Oak Gorge University was gorgeous, consisting of nearly two dozen brick buildings. If the Georgian-style architecture wasn’t pretty enough to look at, the maple and oak trees that dotted the streets made for a scenic treat.

  Driving down the streets of the campus, something very interesting happened. I felt like I was in a completely different world. As if the moment I passed the sign welcoming me to Oak Gorge University, I had crossed over an imaginary line where the real world ended and the bubble of idealism of academia began.

  ***

  My first stop of the day was at the Oak Gorge Police Department. In contrast to the rest of campus, the station was a gray cement building with a few panes of glass thrown in to keep the place from looking too depressing.

  Then again, police departments weren’t known for their aesthetically pleasing architectural styles. They were utilitarian, as they should be. Clearly, I had spent a little too much time pondering this topic. Granted, as I was dating a police detective back home in Cedar Falls, I had spent a large amount of time in police stations over the last year visiting my beau.

  The interior of the Oak Gorge Police Department was just as spare as I expected it to be. I stared at the place, trying to distract myself from the fact that the detective who had handled Jennifer’s death had decided to make me wait.

  Things were a little different for me with this case. I was so used to talking with my boyfriend, Detective Steven Griffin of the Cedar Falls Police Department. The boys in blue in Oak Gorge had given me a less friendly reception than I was accustomed to. It was safe to say that there was a distinct chill in the air, and it wasn’t just the autumn weather.

  I knew just as well as anyone how busy detectives were. Even so, this Oak Gorge detective seemed to be keeping me in the lobby a purposefully long time. I knew the tactics. He probably assumed that if he kept me waiting long enough, I would get fed up and just leave.

  I had been on stakeouts that had lasted hours. There was no amount of time in that lobby that would turn me away. Besides, I was getting paid by
the hour.

  Part of the problem was that I was a private investigator. There was always a certain amount of friction between private eyes and the cops. The boys in blue sometimes became territorial and acted like I was intruding on their turf.

  Never mind the fact that I had helped my boyfriend solve a number of cases back home. The employees of the Oak Gorge Police Department didn’t know that, nor did they care. They just wanted me to go away. No way was that going to happen. I wasn’t moving until I got some answers.

  Finally, a half hour later, Detective Chuck Willett emerged in the lobby and brought me over to his desk to talk to me privately. Willett was a portly, balding man in his fifties with wrinkles on his face.

  Sitting with Chuck was like staring down a burned-out man who had seen too many awful things in his lifetime and had started counting down how many days were left until he retired, even if that moment was still a number of years away. His jaded tone, when combined with his raspy voice, managed to make him come across as even more unfriendly.

  “What’s a private investigator from Cedar Falls doing over here in Oak Gorge?” Detective Willett asked.

  There was no easy way to express what was on my mind. If Willett was already uncomfortable with my presence in town, the reason I was here could really make him blow his top. That was why I tried to tread as lightly as I could while still saying my piece.

  “Is there any chance that Jennifer Richardson didn’t kill herself?” I asked.

  The detective provided as succinct of an answer as he could. “No.”

  “But—”

  Before I had the chance to even get my sentence out, Willett cut me off. “Stop right there. You’re wasting your time.”

  I pursed my lips. It was difficult to overstate how frustrating it was to be shut down so quickly. Was it really that hard for him to let me say what was on my mind?

  “Will you just hear me out?” I asked.

  Apparently, the answer was no. The detective shook his head vehemently. “Don’t get me wrong. It’s very sad what happened to Ms. Richardson, but there is no doubt in my mind that she killed herself.”