Camilla - Alibi in April

ALIBI IN APRIL

ACalendar Mystery

CAMILLACHAFER

Alibi in April

Copyright: CamillaChafer

Published: April 2018

ISBN:978-1-909577-19-0

The rightof Camilla Chafer to be identified as author of this Work has beenasserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of theCopyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Allrights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,stored in retrieval system, copied in any form or by any means,electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwisetransmitted without written permission from the publisher. You mustnot circulate this book in any format.

Visit the author online at www.camillachafer.com tosign up to her mailing list and for more information on othertitles.

Calendar Mysteries

Jeopardyin January

Fear inFebruary

Murder inMarch

Alibi inApril

Contents

Alibi inApril

VanessaWright never planned to return home to Calendar. But herrelationship ends, her job disappears, and she suddenly inherits aformer inn from her great aunt, so she concludes its finally timefor her to return to the sleepy mountain town. Although it waswhere she grew up, she has no plans to stay there for long. All shemust do to get her life back on track is fix up the inn and find abuyer.

TheBlackberry Inn has lost some of its charm and good looks over theyears, going from gorgeous, Victorian-era splendor to beingrelegated to a dilapidated fixer-upper. Its going to be onehelluva a job to restore it to its former glory. Fortunately,Vanessa isnt afraid of a little hard work. She boldly confrontsher first night alone in the big, old house with determination andcourage, until she finds a dead body on the veranda. Theindications are that a man might have broken in. Who could thefailed burglar be? What could he possibly want from the old inn?When successive attempts are made to scare Vanessa out of thehouse, she has to find out what the victims mystery accomplice isseeking and quickly, or she could become his nextvictim.

With thehelp of her contractor and old friend, Nate Minoso, Vanessa triesto solve the dead mans murder. She also has to find out what heintended to steal. More importantly, she must make a big decisionin her life: is it finally time to put down roots? Or should sheturn her back on her hometown, and Nate, forever?

ChapterOne

"C'mon,Vanessa. It might not be that bad." My best friend and upstairsneighbor, Mallory, popped the cork from the bottle of wine shearrived carrying thirty minutes ago. She passed the bottle to ourfriend, Jill, before she rummaged in the box on the kitchencounter. She was searching for the long-stemmed wine glasses Ipacked only an hour before. A moment later, she turned around andheld up the three glasses triumphantly.

"It isevery bit that bad," I protested. I looked at the boxes spreadacross the small kitchen and living room of my pretty apartment. Mysoon-to-be former apartment. Every box was filled with my clothes,books, housewares and appliances. All of my worldly possessions hadbeen reduced to a teetering stack of cardboard boxes and packingtape. Two weeks ago, everything was in its rightful place on myshelves or hanging in the closets and my life was perfect. It wasstartling how fast it managed to all change. "I don't have a job.My quasi boyfriend dumped me, and my landlord refused at the lastminute to renew my lease. I'm currently jobless, single, andhomeless," I whined.

"Remember when you called your job a soul-suckingnightmare?" asked Jill in her gentle Southern drawl. Next to her,Mallory nodded.

"Vaguely."

"Everyday for the past year!" Mallory reminded me with a toss of glossy,black hair that made Jill's pale blond hair look even icier. "I'venever said that about my job."

"Thatsbecause you guys love your jobs!"

"I do,"agreed Jill. She worked in a small but very chic art gallery indowntown Chicago and had curated several showings over the pastyear. "And Mallory loves being in fashion retail; but you do notfancy working at that graphic design agency. It's not worth thepaycheck. Plus, your boss was a total ass."

All ofthat was true but instead of arguing or agreeing, I simply noddedand swallowed another mouthful of wine.

"And Iseem to remember how you often said Barry was so boring, all hewanted to talk about was his tedious dentistry conferences and allthe new innovations in mouth retainers. As I recall now, weren'tyou telling us you werent sure you wanted to date himanymore?"

Iremembered that comment too. I said it on several occasions. Even Iwas stumped as to the reason why I'd gone on several dates withhim. "But I never expected him to dump me first! Or for him to hirea gorgeous receptionist whom he found more date-worthy." I held myhand out for the wine glass and Mallory gracefully slotted it inplace.

"OnlyBarry thinks she's gorgeous. The rest of us blame it on her blousesbeing opened two buttons more than necessary and giggling at all ofhis (yawn) boring jokes while telling him how wonderful he is. Ofcourse, he sucked that up."

"She's agold-digger and he's a soulless worm. They deserve each other,"added Jill. "It was only a matter of time before you realized hewasn't worth your time."

Ilaughed. "She did talk about his Porsche a lot. Almost as much asBarry did, actually."

"Exactly. Yawn. And need I remind you, you're not homelesseither? You just inherited that big, old house in that town withthe funny name," said Mallory.

"Calendar," I supplied. "It does have a funny name but that'salways been its source of charm." Having grown up in the prettymountain town of Calendar, my family still lived there, and theyfully enjoyed everything the quaint town had to offer. It wasseasonally popular with tourists who haunted the chain of antiqueshops and creative boutiques along with all the holiday events thetown hosted. The local residents figured with a town name likethat, they might as well play it up by holding a celebration forevery month. Even in August, when there were no holidays tocelebrate. The festive atmosphere further cemented the town'sunparalleled popularity with families and visitors who vacationedthere most of the year. Soaking up the town fun, or going for hikesand camping in the summer, as well as skiing in the winter, itattracted plenty of tourists. Another welcome bonus included in allthe activity and features was making it a fairly wealthy town andsome of the older Victorian-era houses were suddenly irresistiblydesirable. Now I unexpectedly was privileged to own one.

"That'sright." Mallory reached for the wine bottle on the coffee table andrefreshed our glasses. "You've been wondering what to do with thathouse since your Great Aunt Ethel..."

"Edie!"I corrected her. A mental image of my lovely, warm, and arty greataunt popped into my head, making me smile. For a while, she usedher old house as an inn for travelers, attracting all kinds ofpeople who admired her zest for life and unique art. She stoppedall of that a few years ago when her health went into substantialdecline, saying she intended to enjoy her last few years peacefullyalone.

"GreatAunt Edie," corrected Mallory. "Like I said, she surprised you byleaving it to you last month and now it could be the answer to allyour problems! You have a wonderful home that's entirely yours!You'll find a new job eventually and you don't even need anotherboyfriend. Boyfriends suck big time."

Jillarched her eyebrows at me before turning to our friend. "Is Halstill mad at you?" she asked.

"Onehundred percent irrationally mad."

"You dokeep calling him Hallory," I said.

"Catchy,isn't it? Anyway, enough about me. Tell me more about Calendar. Whydid you leave it if it's such a great place to live?" askedMallory.

"I toldyou. After college, I never went back. Not permanently anyway. Ivisit my family obviously and it's great for skiing vacations inthe winter, but there's nothing else there for me. It wasn'texactly the most exciting place to grow up. I swore I'd never goback." I recalled my final days there and the going away party Ihosted with my friends, Tia, Melissa and Danielle. Like always, Icouldn't help including Nate Minoso too and once again, I realizedhow much I missed him, but we both lost touch. He probably movedaway from Calendar anyway. Tia and Danielle did, although Melissacame back after college and recently married a localman.