A Founders' Day Death: A Mt. Abrams Mystery (The Mt. Abrams Mysteries Book 2)

  A Founders’ Day Death

  A Mt. Abrams Mystery

  Dee Ernst

  Contents

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Also by Dee Ernst

  Copyright © 2016 by Dee Ernst

  All rights reserved.

  All the characters in this book are the product of an overactive imagination. Any resemblance to a real person, living or dead, is a tremendous coincidence.

  If you’d like to learn more about Mt. Abrams, including other books in the series, please visit

  https://mtabrams.com

  To find more of other Dee’s books, go to

  www.deeernst.com

  Comments? Questions? An uncontrollable desire to just chat? You can reach me at

  Dee@deeernst.com

  ISBN: 978-0-9970514-1-4

  Created with Vellum

  Chapter 1

  Summer in Mt. Abrams was heaven for kids. The beach up at the lake wasn’t terribly big, so most kids spent the day jumping off the dock and swimming out to the large wooden floats off shore. What beach there was had happy toddlers running all over it, with a corner carved out for the sun-worshipping teen girls. There was sailing on the other side by the boathouse and fishing every morning in canoes and rowboats. Lake Abrams wasn’t big—barely one hundred and seventy acres—but it was large enough that the swimmers and the sailors and the fishermen never seemed to crowd each other too much.

  Of course, adults liked the lake too. In the summer, the clubhouse was open until eleven, and on its wide screened-in porches, mahjong and martinis reigned. Behind the clubhouse, on a slight rise, ancient maples provided shade that kept picnic tables and wooden chairs cool and comfortable, even in the humid New Jersey summers. Yes, it was practically perfect.

  But that was Mt. Abrams for you. Practically perfect.

  Small communities were like that, or at least that’s what the residents all said. Mt. Abrams had all sorts of things going on behind closed doors, the same sort of things that happened in the big cities, but it wasn’t talked about. And since no one was staggering down the street drunk or openly beating their kids, we could all pretend bad things didn’t happen here.

  But sometimes bad things had a way of raising their ugly heads and waving their broken arms, and no amount of looking away could make it stop. Like what happened in Emma McLaren’s garden.

  No matter how hard everyone tried to say otherwise, something bad had happened there. And it wasn’t going away.

  I’m Ellie Rocca. I didn’t live directly on the lake, but I did have a lovely view of it from the front porch of the house I kept after my divorce. I sat there every morning with my coffee and watched my ten-year-old daughter Tessa walk to swim practice. The summer had been a cool one, and I knew that the early morning lake water was brisk, but she loved it. She was like a little guppy, swimming like a mad thing, jumping and diving and coming out of the water only for food and bathroom breaks. All summer she was brown from the sun and wrinkled from being in the water, her fingertips looking more like raisins than anything else.

  I usually walked my spaniel, Boot, around the lake while she was at practice. Carol Anderson joined me most mornings before she headed off to open the library, and my best friend Shelly walked on the mornings she could slip away from her kids.

  I heard Carol coming up the hill before I saw her, because of the very lively discussion she was having with Mary Rose Reed, President of the Garden Club, and Emma McLaren.

  Every community had one. You know—the crazy cat lady. Mt. Abrams had more than one, because Mt. Abrams had a lot more crazy people in general than most small towns. Emma McLaren, however, was more than just a crazy cat lady. She was also a self-proclaimed witch. She lived in a tiny Victorian, built in 1901, with a side yard barely big enough for her Prius. But years before, the house next door to her had burned to the ground. She bought the double lot (most lots in that section of Mt. Abrams were barely thirty feet wide, just enough for a small cottage and a tiny side yard) put an eight-foot–tall stockade fence around it, and a little bit at a time, turned it into a large and quite fabulous garden. We could only speculate what was going on behind the tall battered fence, especially after she installed a lock on the gate after being vandalized a few years ago. But she opened it to the public during Founders’ Day weekend, and I never missed going in. It was a wonderful mix of practicality and whimsy, with beds of herbs and medicinal plants and berries of every kind, as well as zinnias, roses, and exotic vines growing up arches and over benches that were tucked in every nook and corner. There was still a rather wild-looking side to the garden, where the previous owners put in row of lilacs and nothing else, and Emma was content to let a few wild flowers and weeds grow there. It was an enchanted place, and if you were lucky, after your walk through she would read your palm and give you fresh-brewed mint tea.

  Every one loved Emma. She was always bringing tonics to sick children and bouquets of dried herbs to neighbors and friends. Even her cats were loved. Biscuit was the only outside cat, and she would often walk along with you if you happened to be going in a suitable direction. Rasputin, Frito, and Delphine stayed indoors, gazing out Emma’s front window as the world went by. She had lived in the same house for thirty-some years, long enough for her home to be called the McLaren house. She was one of the Mt. Abrams elite.

  She also had a long-standing argument with Mary Rose.

  Every year, the second weekend in August was set aside for the Mt. Abrams Founders’ Day Celebration. In the 1870s when Mt. Abrams was a small summer community owned and populated by Josiah Abrams and his family, the weekend was the unofficial end of the summer, and an excuse for the Victorian ladies to get all dressed up. Over the years, as the community grew from a tiny summer enclave to almost a full-grown town, Founders’ Day grew as well. Now, it lasted all weekend. There was a dance and carnival at the clubhouse for the kids and teens Friday night. Saturday morning started with a parade, and the rest of the day included a boat race, a fishing contest, and a sandcastle-building contest. Saturday night was a huge potluck on the lake, with fireworks and dancing for the old folks.

  Sunday was Open House Day; that wass what the argument was about. Mary Rose had, for years, been trying to corner Emma McLaren’s secret garden as part of the Garden Club’s paid tour. It was a major fundraiser for the Garden Club, and every year, hundreds of outsiders streamed into Mt. Abrams to tour the old homes and the tended gardens of the residents.

  Just as a point of information, my house was not on the tour. Neither was my yard. If you could see either of them, you would understand.

  Emma refused to be part of the tour, allowing anyone and everyone to view her garden. She was a hard nut to crack, but that didn’t mean Mary Rose didn’t try every year.

  Carol rolled her eyes at me as the trio climbed my porch. She was older than I by at least ten years, tall and lean, with a shock of silver hair cut short and four or five earrings in each ear. She was a lovely woman. Most of the time.

  Her mouth was in a thin line. “Ready?”

  I nodded, then smiled at Emma and Mary Rose. “Are you ladies walking with us this morning?”

  Mary Rose tightened her jaw and shook her head. “No. What would be the point? Emma once again refuses to participate in a very important community fu
nction, putting the Garden Club, as well as the entire Founders’ Day fund raising effort at risk for possible dissolution.”

  Emma was short, barely five feet tall, round everywhere, with white hair streaming almost down to her waist and washed-out blue eyes. Today she wore her hair was in a single braid down her back, and she sported a bright orange T-shirt over her jeans.

  “Good Lord, Mary Rose,” she said. “Your Garden Club has managed without me on the tour for as long as there’s been a tour. Don’t try to guilt me, young lady. Go away before I curse your rose bushes.”

  Mary Rose turned and stormed off. I looked at Emma and raised my eyebrows. “Can you do that? Curse her roses, I mean?”

  Emma smiled. “No, but I can sneak in there at night and pour vinegar at the roots; the acid’ll kill them in no time.”

  Carol finally relaxed and laughed. “She followed us all the way up the hill and never stopped talking. That woman is a royal pain.”

  “Yes,” I said. “But she’s our royal pain. Let me get some bags.”

  Boot tended to stop every five feet to pee. It was amazing how much her tiny bladder could hold. She also liked to spread her poop all around the lake. She was at least a three-bagger, and my pockets bulged with recycled shopping bags.

  “How are you, Emma?” I asked as we set out. I knew her, of course, but not well. She was more Carol’s friend. But she was always delightful company.

  She smiled. She was one of those people in a perpetual good mood. “Good. Thanks to the cool weather, my arthritis had practically vanished, which is why I can join you ladies this delightful morning. The berries are doing well, and I have enough blueberries for quarts and quarts of jam. Would you like a jar?”

  “Of course,” Carol and I said together. Emma’s homemade things were legendary.

  We rounded the clubhouse, and I could hear the kids laughing as the coach coaxed them into their drills.

  “So,” I asked Emma, “are you ready for Founders’ Day?”

  She made a face. “Well, I’ve been trying to put in a koi pond. It’s a lot of digging, of course, and some days I just can’t do it. I was hoping to have it done by this weekend, but now I’m not sure. And then, well, you know.” She dropped her voice. “The Canadians.”

  She didn’t have problem with any real Canadians. Her issue was with the lesbian couple that lived on the other side of her garden and had, for years, been trying to claim part of the property as theirs. Aggie Martin and Rita Ferris lived in another Victorian, slightly bigger than Emma’s. They also had parking for one car next to their house. What they wanted was a driveway on the other side, so they could park the second car there, rather than down by Rt. 51 in a large parking lot, owned by the Mt. Abrams Homeowners Association, where residents could park for a yearly fee. They floated the idea that a section of the original lot had been theirs, and that section of Emma’s garden was actually on their land, and had been nudging her for years to agree. But like I said, Emma was a hard nut to crack.

  Why did she call them Canadians? No one knew. No one dared ask. I knew Aggie and Rita well enough to talk to, and after living in Mt. Abrams for almost fifteen years, they were just another couple who walked their dog and sailed their boat and pretty much minded their own business. Being gay was no big deal, and I had never heard Emma refer to any of the other gay residents, male or female, as Canadian.

  “What’s going on?” Carol asked.

  Emma sighed. “They want me to pay for a new survey of the garden. And I won’t. I had a survey taken when I bought it, and if they don’t think the lines are in the right place, well, they can pay for a second opinion.” Her legs seemed to be going twice as fast as Carol’s, who had legs up to her neck. “I think they’re getting into the garden at night.”

  Carol made a noise. “Don’t be silly, Emma. You’ve got that place locked up tighter than Fort Knox.”

  “Yes. Well, that’s what I thought, too. But things have been happening. You know I’m trying to put in a koi pond. By the lilacs. My wheelbarrow and shovel were stolen. The form I had bought for my pond was damaged. Yesterday, I went in and all the sunflowers were gone. Cut off at ground level and lying there, dying.”

  “Groundhog?” I suggested.

  “No. Biscuit sleeps in there at night. She keeps the critters away. Besides, I don’t think a groundhog would be interested in my wheelbarrow.”

  “Well,” Carol said, “unless they both grew wings, I don’t know how Aggie and Rita are getting in. Sorry about those sunflowers. I liked getting a handful of them every once and a while.”

  After that, the conversation wandered. It usually took me about thirty to forty minutes to walk around the lake, depending on Boot, the condition of the path, and general laziness of the day. With Emma on board, it was almost an hour. Not because she was a slow walker, but it seemed like every five feet, there was an interesting flower or plant she wanted to look at. She even found a fabulous spider web. I’m not a fan of spiders, generally. I’m on a definite live-and-let-live basis with them, but this web was spread between several fallen branches and had just enough of the morning moisture still clinging to it to look like a diamond necklace thrown casually upon the ground.

  Emma was a wonder at finding stuff like that.

  I invited them in for coffee, but both Emma and Carol declined. I checked for texts, made another cup of coffee, and then went to work.

  Work was upstairs in a tiny sunroom over the porch. I was a freelance editor, working on my laptop, sometimes in my pajamas, sometimes in the middle of the night. There were lots of upsides to working for yourself, and just as many downsides, like having to pay for your own health insurance and never getting invited to the office Christmas party. But I was doing okay.

  I had a cozy mystery to edit. A sixty-year-old quilter with a nose for murder. I just loved those kinds of books.

  Carol texted me Friday morning saying she couldn’t walk with me, but could I come down to her? I grabbed Boot and her bags and headed out.

  Mt. Abrams was built on the side of a fairly large hill. The lake is at the top, and behind it is the small mountain for which the community is named. Right around the lake are the oldest homes, the original Victorians built by Josiah Abrams for his family in the late 1800s. As you move slowly down, the houses get smaller and smaller, until you get to Sommerfield, which divides old Mt. Abrams from new. South of Sommerfield are large craftsman style homes, and Dutch colonials built during the twenties, then the Cape Cod houses from the fifties, and then, along Rt. 51, the bi-levels and ranches of the sixties and seventies.

  Carol lived on the new side of Sommerfield in a fabulous Craftsman with a yard large enough for lots of trees and a spacious back yard. But before I made it down to her house, I got sidetracked—along with everyone else who happened to be out that morning.

  There were two—yes, two—police cars on Davis Road, which is a long and narrow road, lined with the original tiny summer Victorian cottages. It was where Emma lived, and the police cars were directly in front of her house, lights flashing. That was where Carol was, standing opposite Emma’s porch, looking worried. She saw me and flagged me over. I had to walk through about a dozen people, which for Mt. Abrams, was the equivalent of a horde.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  Carol’s mouth was in a thin line. “I was coming up this way to see if Emma wanted to walk with us again and saw this. I hope she’s okay.”

  Emma was just fine. She appeared then on her porch, followed by three officers, and she led them directly into her garden. She left the gate open, so Carol immediately moved forward to take a look, and you’d better believe I was right behind her.

  Her garden was a mess. Blueberry bushes were pulled up by their roots, as were her roses. One arbor was on the ground, smashed, and another was leaning crazily against the fence.

  “Oh, no,” Carol breathed. “How awful.”

  Emma was obviously upset, but keeping it together. She was nodding, listening
to whatever the policeman was saying, and I thought about how calm and cool she was.

  Then, she wasn’t. “They did it. The Canadians,” she screamed. “They finally went too far!”

  Carol sighed and hurried forward. “Emma, honey, I don’t think you should be making those kinds of accusations,” she said.

  Emma turned to her, face red. “You know they’ve been after me for years! Well, if they think they can get me to sell after this, they are very mistaken.”

  One of the officers, a young Denzel Washington look-alike, looked at me and asked quietly, “Do you know about these Canadians? Are they here illegally?”

  “Ah…” Boot suddenly caught the scent of something interesting and pulled me forward. “They aren’t really Canadians. She’s talking about the couple next door.” I nodded at Aggie and Rita’s pale-blue house peeking up over the side of the fence, mostly hidden by the lilacs.

  He pulled out his pad. “They aren’t from Canada?” he asked, scribbling.

  I shook my head. “No. They’ve lived there about twelve years now.” Boot was straining at the leash. I let her go. In the fenced-in garden, she couldn’t get out to the street without going past me. Besides, she seemed intent on the mounds of soft dirt under the lilac bushes.

  Emma had her hands on her hips. “It was them. Who else? Everyone loves my garden.”

  “Well ma’am,” one of the other policemen was saying, “we’ll go over and talk to them. You say the garden is locked at night?” He had lots of curly dark hair and looked a little like Paul Michael Glaser, so he became Starsky, of the old television series Starsky and Hutch.

  Emma nodded. “Yes. Six years ago, kids kept getting in. They’d planted marijuana plants next to my basil, and they made a mess whenever they, well, harvested. So I put the lock on.”