Prize and Prejudice_A Cozy Mystery Novel Read online

  Prize and Prejudice

  Book 2: Angie Prouty Nantucket Cozy Mystery Series

  Miranda Sweet

  Hidden Key Publishing

  Copyright © 2017 by Hidden Key Publishing, Inc

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  PRIZE AND PREJUDICE is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the creator’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  “For thirty years," he said, "I've sailed the seas and seen good and bad, better and worse, fair weather and foul, provisions running out, knives going, and what not. Well, now I tell you, I never seen good come o' goodness yet. Him as strikes first is my fancy; dead men don't bite; them's my views—amen, so be it.”

  ― Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island

  Contents

  1. The Treasure Hunt

  2. Where Beauty Lies

  3. Time Enough at Last

  4. At Wit’s End

  5. The End of an Era

  6. Past Wit’s End

  7. On the Hunt

  8. Exiles & Discoveries

  9. The Documents in the Case

  10. Who You Know

  11. Turn Down the Volume

  12. The Gala

  13. The Other Luggage

  14. The Purloined Letter

  15. Unwelcome

  16. One Last Piece of Evidence

  17. The Lost Monet

  Thank You!

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  The Treasure Hunt

  Weekends after Thanksgiving on Nantucket had always been a little nuts, honestly. Not as busy as they were on the mainland, perhaps, but not without their share of eager crowds and overwhelmed shopkeepers, either. Shoppers came over on the ferries and wandered the well-decorated island in a holiday mood. Light poles were wrapped with tinsel. Parking meters received big red bows. Lit Christmas trees floated in rowboats in the water. A giant wreath was attached to the Brant Point Lighthouse. Carols echoed from every shop as the tourists flowed through the town, buying caramels and ornaments and antiques, waking up to the smell of maple syrup and pomegranate waffles at the B&Bs, and listening to Santa’s belly-laugh as he and Mrs. Claus took an honorary stroll at the Nantucket Hotel.

  But weekdays?

  Weekdays were supposed to be dead so that Angie would have time to deal with all the book orders that she needed to have shipped ASAP from her bookstore, Pastries & Page-Turners, in time for Christmas.

  Instead, on a Tuesday, the bookstore was positively packed with shoppers.

  “Oh, Aunt Margery,” she said. “I almost resent the fact that Walter came up with such a brilliant idea for whipping up business on the island during the holiday season. Couldn’t he have waited until after Christmas?”

  “You don’t mean that,” Aunt Margery said.

  Angie sighed. She didn’t, really she didn’t. She was so far into the black at this point that there was no question that she and Aunt Margery would be able to afford a vacation to the Mediterranean in January.

  “You’re right.” She would suck it up and, in fact, feel grateful for the business. It wasn’t just Pastries & Page-Turners that Walter’s treasure hunt idea was benefitting, but the whole island.

  Angie had moved the register off the tall side counter and onto an antique desk so that Aunt Margery, who was really her great-aunt, could check out customers without having to stand on her feet all day long. Angie was handling customer requests and other emergency issues. The café counter was being managed by Angie’s first non-relative employee, a young woman named Janet Hennery who made decent espresso drinks without getting flustered, even if the line almost stretched out the door.

  The front door jingled, and Angie crossed her fingers that it was from a customer leaving—not a new one coming in.

  “Hello?”

  But the voice was coming from the back of the shop, not the front. Angie sidled through the customers, excusing herself as she went, and came face to face with Mickey Jerritt, who was holding a large flat white paperboard box.

  “Hello!” He exclaimed when he saw her. “Backup pastry delivery, courtesy of my sister, who sends her regrets as she cannot get away from the shop at the moment.”

  “You still have extra pastries?” Angie asked incredulously. Mikey and his twin sister, Josephine, were the owners of the nearby Nantucket Bakery, a popular local destination.

  “I think the general idea was that after I delivered a bunch of them to you, we wouldn’t,” Mickey said. “And then we could close up.”

  “I’ll take ’em,” Angie announced without hesitation.

  “Nothing fancy, just cupcakes with frosting and sprinkles.”

  “I could sell sugar cookies dusted with green sugar at this point. Everyone seems to be starving tonight!”

  She looked for a path through the crowd toward the café counter that would be wide enough to accommodate the enormous box, but there wasn’t one. Mickey grasped the situation and hoisted the box overhead, then said loudly, “Excuse me! Sweets coming through!”

  People laughed, but they scooted out of his way. Angie followed in his wake and held the box while he unloaded the cupcakes into the display case.

  “White with red jimmies is for red velvet. Red with white jimmies is for white peppermint with pomegranate jam. Green with black jimmies is for chocolate peppermint with mint crème. White with green jimmies is for rosemary mint.”

  “Rosemary mint?”

  “Everyone went nuts for them at the bakery this morning, so I thought I’d try them out on you. White with the little blue snowflakes is blueberry crunch. The ones with the tan frosting with tiny marshmallows are burnt marshmallow and bourbon. Chocolate frosting with tiny marshmallows is hot chocolate, and the ones with the red and green candied fruit on the gold-dusted frosting is fruitcake.”

  Angie laughed. “Fruitcake! I don’t think anyone will buy those.”

  “They’re not real fruitcake. Just the best rum-soaked cupcakes with candied fruit that you’ll ever eat. Just because you can use some fruitcakes to beat up burglars doesn’t mean that they’re all bad. Mine are great.”

  “I’m sure. I’ll save one to split with Aunt Margery and let you know how it tastes.”

  He grinned at her, then hefted the empty box back overhead.

  “Thanks, Mickey,” she said. “Janet? Did you catch all that?”

  The espresso machine screeched as Janet pulled a double shot. “I think so!” she shouted over the noise.

  Angie sighed in relief, then worked her way through the crowd toward a waving customer who wanted to know if she had any books on the lost Monet of Nantucket. About a dozen other customers hushed as they heard the question.

  If she’d had such a book, then there would have been a stampede for it.

  She said, “I’m sorry, nobody has written one. Maybe after the painting is found!”

  Several people laughed.

  “And I’m afraid we’re completely out of books on Monet at the moment, although we have an entire section on the history of the island…”

  She led them toward the correct shelves, which were already surrounded by treasure hunters.

  Walter Snuock had inherited half the island of Nantucket after his father’s death in July. His father had been about to raise the rents on all his properties in order to bring the
m in line with market value. Walter was trying a different method of achieving prosperity by hosting a treasure hunt to find a lost painting, a genuine Monet, that had disappeared almost a hundred years ago.

  There was a hundred-thousand-dollar reward for the painting, which was estimated to be worth over one and a half million dollars. None of the residents of Nantucket or their families or employees could win the reward—it had to be a tourist. If the painting was found, it would be put on public display at the Chamber of Commerce.

  The result was that the whole island had gone completely mad every day of the week so far.

  She simultaneously wanted to hug Walter and shake him.

  But he had been making himself scarce on the mainland lately. He had stirred the pot, then left everyone else behind to deal with the rolling boil. He was a lawyer in Manhattan, and he had several cases to wrap up before he could spend more time on the island.

  And with her.

  At eleven o’clock, Angie closed the doors and locked up. Her eyes were burning and her legs ached. She should have gone straight to the boxes she was packing and worked on them, but instead she found a comfortable overstuffed chair in the café area and sat down.

  A cappuccino appeared in front of her. Or at least, something resembling a cappuccino. She could tell just by looking at it that there wasn’t enough foam mixed in with the milk and espresso, but it was an improvement over Janet’s early attempts.

  Angie smiled up at Janet. “Thank you. Why don’t you finish closing the coffee bar and take off for home?”

  “I think I will. What a day. I hope they find that picture soon, don’t you? Or at least that people get bored with coming over here to hunt for it. If it were something you could find in a single afternoon, someone would have found it already. I actually had someone ask me if he could start pulling up floorboards to look!”

  Aunt Margery claimed the chair next to Angie’s. “I had someone try to pull the drawers out of the desk…while I was sitting at it!”

  The three of them shook their heads. The treasure hunt seemed to be giving the normally-polite tourists justification for acting like children.

  A soft “meow?” echoed from the back of the shop. Angie turned around and spotted Captain Parfait, the store kitty. He was a large tortoiseshell cat with a scar over one eye, a ragged ear, and a limp. Angie had adopted him within a week of opening the bookstore, and fortunately, he seemed content with his limited territory. Although he did have a tendency to shred anything that looked even vaguely mouselike that he could get his paws on.

  Angie clucked her tongue and scratched her knee, which was her way of inviting Captain Parfait to climb up on her lap. He did so, headbutting her chin before settling down to be petted.

  Janet reached over, gave Captain Parfait a scratch behind the ears, then headed back to the café area.

  “What do you have left to do?” Aunt Margery asked.

  “Everything. I wasn’t able to get to a single thing.”

  “Why don’t you go home and get some sleep, then come in early?”

  Aunt Margery was infamous for staying up late and sleeping in. Some days, she wouldn’t appear until after noon. Not that Angie could complain. She was lucky to have Aunt Margery’s cool head as well as her expertise at reading people. And, after the events of last July, she was lucky to have Aunt Margery’s affection and friendship.

  Angie’s first murder case had nearly caused a family tragedy, as Aunt Margery and Angie found themselves embroiled in the mystery.

  But that was over now.

  No more murders. She just didn’t have time for them.

  “I can’t,” she told her great-aunt. “I have too much to do, and I don’t want you carrying all those heavy boxes of books around.”

  “I can carry ’em,” Janet announced.

  “You’re going home,” Angie said. “Remember?”

  Janet laughed. “Actually, I’m going out with some friends.”

  “Then that’s even more important.” Angie dug her fingers into Captain Parfait’s fur and gave him deep, massage-like scratches. He stretched out all four paws until his toes were splayed. He purred loudly.

  Then, after a few seconds, he hopped down and began to prowl around the shop. He could only take so much spoiling before he had to get away and pretend that he was the fierce and untamed hunter of his youth.

  Angie rose from her chair and tried to shake off the feeling that she was at least a hundred years old. Maybe the cappuccino would help. She took an experimental sip and gave Janet a thumbs-up. Not bad. Then she carried her cup into the back office, which also served as the stock room, and booted up the computer.

  The priority tonight, she decided, would be to get the boxes of books packed and ready for the delivery driver to pick them up in the morning. The rest of her tasks would just have to wait. She would keep her fingers crossed that someone would find the painting soon. Of course, right after the painting was found, the island would be even more crowded as people came to see it, but at least there would be an end in sight.

  She checked over her orders, printed out the receipts, and started pulling books out of boxes. She stacked some books on her order table and the rest on a sheet on the floor, placing receipts on top of the completed piles. She’d be surprised if she was out of the store before midnight.

  Putting it all in order was deeply satisfying, and she found herself whistling happily as she worked.

  Suddenly she came upon the slip for Reed Edgerton, who was ordering, not bestsellers or thrillers or cozy mysteries, but books on the subject of Nantucket. She chuckled. He was an art professor at Harvard who taught Eighteenth and Nineteenth century art history. His favorite painter was J.M.W. Turner, a unique Cockney artist who had worked in the Nineteenth century. Turner’s work wasn’t entirely to Angie’s tastes, but she couldn’t seem to stop staring at it, either. She had stopped to examine one of his paintings at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and found she couldn’t look away.

  From behind her, someone had said, “Eerie, isn’t it?”

  She had almost jumped a mile. “Yes, actually, although I’m not quite sure why.”

  She found herself facing a shorter man with broad shoulders, light-brown skin, and a beard speckled with white. His hair had receded like the tides and left a gray-pebbled bald spot behind. He smiled.

  “You haven’t read the title yet, have you?”

  She hadn’t. She leaned forward and read the brass plate at the bottom of the large oil painting. It read, Slave Ship (Slavers Throwing overboard the Dead and Dying—Typhoon coming on), 1840.

  She looked at the painting again and gasped. Amidst the beautiful colors and atmosphere of the painting were what she had assumed were fish or birds at first glance—hands reaching out of the water, and links from several enormous iron chains.

  “The painting has been carefully composed so that it strikes almost every viewer in the same manner,” the man said. “The sunlight in the middle of the frame draws the eye. Then, one might glance at what is in the foreground, but the mind processes it as merely fish or birds, and so one moves to the ship in the background. ‘Ah,’ one says to oneself, ‘a storm is coming.’ It is only upon further reflection—or upon seeing the title—that other details pop out, and the true meaning of the picture appears.”

  She shook her head. “It’s distressing. And moving.”

  He smiled. “I’m glad to hear it. Let me take you to the café for a cup of coffee or tea, and give you a moment to sit and recover.”

  “Thank you.”

  Only after she was comfortably seated and had a cup of coffee in front of her had he introduced himself as Professor Reed Edgerton of Harvard. They had enjoyed a pleasant chat and had exchanged emails.

  Angie wouldn’t have exactly called him a close friend, but she always looked forward to exchanging emails and messages with him over books and paintings. She usually stocked her art section based on his recommendations, and they had met at the museum for sev
eral art shows ranging from Matisse and Botticelli to photographs from the Lodz Ghetto by Henryk Ross. She always felt that talking to him improved her ability to see the world, in one way or another.

  She pulled the books he was looking for and sat down to write him an email.

  Reed, I saw your order on Nantucket books come in! Does this mean that you’re coming to the island to look for the lost Monet??? Please do! I’d love to see you. Should I hold the books here or send them to you in Boston?

  She stepped out of the stock room to find Aunt Margery squinting at the computer in front of her, reconciling the drawer and the receipts with what she’d rung up. Janet had left long ago. She’d probably said a cheerful “goodnight,” too which Angie had completely missed.

  “Aunt Margery?”

  “Yes?”

  “Thank you.”

  She smiled. “I wasn’t going to sleep anyway. Did you need something?”

  “It looks like Professor Edgerton, that art professor from Harvard, is coming out for the treasure hunt. And I want to know if you’re fine with putting him up in our guest room.”

  “Certainly,” her great-aunt said. “But remember, he’s a very private man. I suspect that he’s found another place to stay. Don’t be too disappointed if he says he’d rather not.”

  Angie laughed. “You make it sound like I’m eight years old and having my first sleepover with my friends.”

  “‘Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again,’” quoted Aunt Margery. “C.S. Lewis.”

  “I’ll ask, anyway.”

  She added the invitation as a P.S. to her email and hit send, then cheerfully worked on packing up the rest of the books.