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A St. Ives Book Club Mystery

Nadine Doolittle

Copyright 2019 Nadine Doolittle

Electronic Edition 2019

261 Lac Bernard Road

Alcove, Quebec

Canada J0X 1A0

http://www.nadinedoolittle.blogspot.com

ISBN 978-1-988003-63-4

All rights reserved.

This publication remains the copyrighted property

of the author and may not be redistributed for commercial

or non-commercial purposes.

Cover design by Canva/Nadine Doolittle

Cover photograph donwhite84/pixabay

Who killed Jenny Blake?

I n the gentle hamlet of St. Ives, a killer roams free.

In 1975, seventeen-year-old Jenny Blake was found strangled in the ruins behind the abandoned St. Ives Abbey. Her murderer was never caught. Forty-four years later, an advertisement in the local newspaper draws seven people, including Avery Holmes, to the home of Elliot Marks with the purpose of forming a murder mystery book club.

Within minutes of the first meeting, Marks puts forward an intriguing proposal: Instead of reading about murder, why not try solving one? Beginning with who killed Jenny Blake?

Was it her ex-boyfriend, the brilliant but withdrawn Jesse Sutcliffe, who was now a homeless alcoholic? Or Duncan Carmichael, the attractive local politician who was dating Jenny at the time of the murder? What about Karen Haggerty, the bubbly school secretary, who Duncan dumped for Jenny in the summer of 75? Or was it Ida Greb, the town librarian who was privately glad that Jenny was dead. And then there was the eccentric Elliot Marks, the club founder, who had a connection to the dead girl that no one knew about.

For Avery Holmes who moved to St. Ives to write novels, keep a garden and live comfortably, poking into an old murder case is a risky proposition.

After all, waking a killer who thought he or she had gotten away with murder could lead to ... well ... murder.

Contents

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A St. Ives Book Club Mystery

Chapter One

A VERY HOLMES settled in the window seat of her new home, balancing a cup of tea in one hand and the local paper in the other. Clear September sunshine warmed her face, though the weather had turned at last and autumn was beginning to show itself. St. Ives Public School started back last week; boisterous students streamed past every morning. She didnt mind the racket they made. It reminded her of the animals she used to care foronly these students werent goats, chickens and pigs. She didnt have to rouse herself to feed and water them. For the first time in thirty years, Avery could take the morning to simply relax.

Its not that she didnt miss her husband, Thomas, or the hobby farm they had in Quebec, but it was definitely a novelty having nothing to do in the morning but sip a cup of tea, read the paper and muse over what should be done about the garden. Instead of pulling goats out of her flower bed, she would actually be planting flowers in the spring. Instead of wrangling with chickens for eggs, she would simply boil an egg. Instead of

Avery sighed. It was no use. She missed Thomas horribly. She missed the menagerie of their farmthe goat, the pig, the flock of chickens. Even the cat had stayed behind. The new owners were happy to keep him. They were a young couple with three small children, eager to start an organic farm. Theyd paid her asking price for the twenty-two acre farm with pond and lake access. The house wasnt quite finished, even after thirty years, but Avery had come away with enough money to buy a small hundred-year-old house in St. Ives with a little left over to sustain her until one of her books sold.

That was one thing that hadnt changed in thirty years. She was still a failed novelist.

She snapped open the paper. The Haldimand Herald covered the entire Northumberland County. The best way, she decided, to get to know a community was to read its paper.

It was filled with the usual municipal business, coming events, petty crime reports and local issues. The centre pages were consumed by an upcoming Fall Fair and Back to School coverage.

Overall, the content was mildly interesting. It was reassuring to see that she had landed in a peaceful place. Her friends had been horrified by her decision to leave rustic French Quebec to bury herself in an Anglo-Saxon hamlet on the shores of Lake Ontario. Her reasoning was simple. She wanted a quiet life but she didnt want to spend her senior years beating back the wilderness to have it. She wanted to devote her energies to writing, not animal husbandry.

St. Ives was obviously a nice town. She turned the pages, suppressing a trifle note of boredom. Nothing much happened here. A very nice town.

Reaching the classified ads section, Avery took a moment to read each ad carefully. You could learn a lot about the economy of a place from reading the classifieds. The luxury day spa that was the pride of St. Ives was looking for housekeeping staff. That was interesting and also something to keep in mind if she ran out of money. The Haldimand Herald was advertising for an intern journalist. Thatll be hard to fill, she thought. Graduates wont be interested in working for a small town paper. The grocery store (where Avery bought her eggs now instead of wading out in rubber boots to collect them from the coop) was looking for a cashier. One of the octogenarians on staff mustve retiredor died. At the bottom of the Wanted column, an ad caught her eye.

St. Ives Murder Club

Murder Mystery Book Club seeks new members

First meeting: Thursday, 8 pm.

112 Kings Road, St. Ives.

Only serious readers need apply.

Avery sat up. That was definitely not boring. She circled the ad and noted the date on the calendar she had hanging on her fridge. A book club had possibilities.

As much as she enjoyed her new-found peace and quiet, too much of a good thing wasnt a good thing. She should make some friends, or at the very least, acquaintances. She was only fifty-two and in good health, but she ought to have someone she could call in an emergency. Her friends were in Quebec and her nephew was attending Queens University in Kingston. Her older sister had always been undependable and was, at this very moment, travelling the country in an RV with a millionaire drop-out from the tech world. Addison had always managed to attract such men.

Avery made her mind up she would go. She would join this murder club. What a strange way to describe a book club, she thought, reading the ad again. She hoped they wouldnt be expected to murder anyone.

DENNIS AND Helen Potter sat in silence over a plate of eggs, bacon, tomatoes and toast, and it wasnt even Sunday. The breakfast was Helens attempt to inject a sense of celebration into their lives. With the last of their four children moved out of the house, they had every reason to celebrate. For the first time in thirty-five years, they were alone. And it wasnt going well.

What are you plans for the day, dear? She avoided looking directly at him as he rarely looked at her and it got tiresome trying to catch his eye.

Dennis was pawing through the paper with his usual zeal to find trouble in St. Ives or in the neighbouring town of Casterbridge, where there were plenty of bureaucratic misdeeds to complain about.

Hmm? I dont know.

What sixty-five-year-old retiree knows what hes going to do? The whole point of retirement Helen reminded herself, was the freedom to have no plans. She had read up on the subject in anticipation of Denniss retirement from Via Rail. All the magazines advised against expecting much from a newly retired spouse. Helen had worked outside of the home for such a brief period before their children came along that retirement wasnt an issue for her. Her retirement began the day they put their youngest on the train to Toronto where he would live and work, and only come home for statutory holidays. The other three had left the nest after graduating from university but Nelson, the baby, had taken the longest to launch.