Drop Dead Cold

  Contents

  Title

  Copyright

  Mailing List Signup

  Smithwell Fairies Cozy Mystey Series

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  From the Author

  More Books

  DROP DEAD COLD

  A SMITHWELL FAIRIES COZY MYSTERY

  KARIN KAUFMAN

  Copyright © 2019 Karin Kaufman

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission of the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.

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  SMITHWELL FAIRIES COZY MYSTERY SERIES

  Dying to Remember (Book 1) — Out Now

  Dead and Buried (Book 2) — Out Now

  Secret Santa Murder (Book 3) — Out Now

  Drop Dead Cold (Book 4) — Out Now

  CHAPTER 1

  “Here we are, the hardy few. Up bright and early on a Saturday.” The bus driver rubbed his gloved hands together and gazed appreciatively at his small tour group. There were six of us braving the cold and the dark. I twisted the top off my Thermos and inhaled the steam from my almond oolong.

  “My name is Joel Perry, and I’ll be your guide,” he went on. “You won’t be surprised to learn that more than half the tour canceled because of the weather, but that’s more birds for us, isn’t it? Fewer of us means we can be more cunning as we sneak up on them.”

  He was trying to put a good twist on the meager turnout, which was admirable, and his enthusiasm at just past six o’clock in the morning was commendable. But as I took a sip of tea, I began to question my sanity. I should be in bed. With the covers over my head and my feet on a hot-water bottle.

  “In less than five minutes the bus will be toasty warm, so let’s get started. Since we’re going to spend the day together, why don’t we introduce ourselves?”

  The woman in the seat in front of mine mumbled something and tugged at both sides of her purple knit cap, pulling it down almost to her shoulders. Her raspberry-colored nails, long and triangular-shaped, looked like miniature guitar picks.

  “As I said, I’m Joel Perry. I’ve been birdwatching for twelve years and running birding tours for Wildland Birds for three. In all seasons, I’ll add, because there’s always something to see in Maine—spring, summer, fall, and even winter. I enjoy the seabirds—the Atlantic puffins, the terns—but my favorites are the inland forest birds, the ones we hope to see today. And you, sir.” He gestured at the man sitting directly behind the driver’s seat. “How about you start?”

  “Um . . .” The man shifted in his seat to face the rest of us. He was twenty-five or so, and he looked uncomfortable, like the new kid in school called to the front of the class so he could tell everyone where he was from and why he’d moved. “I’m Tom Roche, and I’ve never been on a birdwatching tour, though I’ve birdwatched before. My wife encouraged me to give a tour a try so I could spot new birds.” A man of few words, he faced front again.

  Directly across the aisle from Tom, a couple turned in unison to face the rest of us. “And we’re Gavin and Sierra Dearborn,” the man said. “We just moved to Smithwell from Dover-Foxcroft.”

  “Just moved,” Sierra emphasized. “We bought a house ten days ago—on Birch Street.”

  I perked up. That was my street. “The Landry house?” I asked.

  Sierra grinned. “Yes, that’s right. Do you know it?”

  “I knew the owner,” I replied. “Ray Landry.”

  The driver skipped over the woman in the seat in front of mine and aimed his attention at me. “And you are?”

  “Kate Brewer,” I said, “and I’ve never birdwatched before. I thought I’d try something new.”

  Gavin Dearborn opened his mouth to speak but was interrupted by the woman with raspberry nails. “And I’m Nadine Sullivan. I’ve been birding before, but never in weather this cold. I’m not sure this was a great idea. If the birds are smart, they won’t show.”

  “Birds are tougher than you think,” the driver said. “They survive in weather colder than this. They’ll be up and out, searching for food. And you, sir?” he said, motioning at the remaining birdwatcher, a man across the bus aisle from Nadine.

  The man cleared his throat. “I’m Richard Comeau, and I’m interested in birds. Naturally. I go by the name Comeau. No Richard, no mister.” He shrugged his narrow shoulders. “Other than that, there’s not much to say.” He pivoted in his seat, looked my way, and gave me a close-mouthed smile, his thin lips cutting a line across his long, rectangular face. “You like birds, too?” he asked.

  “I imagine we all do,” I answered.

  Tom Roche laughed. “That’s a safe bet. Otherwise, we’d be out of our gourds to be here.”

  “Well alrighty, ladies and gents,” the driver said. “Cameras and binoculars ready? The sun will be up by the time we reach the Millford Preserve, so let’s get out of this parking lot and find us some birds.” He dropped with a thump to the driver’s seat, put the bus in gear, and headed out for Route 7 and our first birding stop.

  Still questioning my sanity in joining the tour, I took another few sips of tea, all the while feeling Richard Comeau’s beady brown eyes on me. Turn around, I thought. I wasn’t about to take the bait—whatever he was selling—and meet his eyes, but the man was beyond rude.

  I closed my Thermos, thought about the lovely nature preserve we were heading to, and pushed Comeau from my mine. And I resolved not to complain, even silently, about the bitterly cold weather. Today I would dive into all things winter, including snow and winter birds. I’d enjoy the season before it melted into the glorious month of April.

  The driver slowed as he turned onto Route 7, the bus’s tires crunching as they passed over ice-crusted snow that had survived weeks of central Maine’s endless thaw-freeze cycle.

  In mid-January, an ice storm had hit Smithwell and the surrounding towns. It hadn’t been a huge storm by Maine standards, but five weeks later, the ice was still there, at street curbs, in low spots in the lawn by my front door, and all around the flagstone path leading to my next-door neighbor’s house. The ice patches at my house looked like small skating rinks, and nothing I’d tried had melted them. I’d dumped salt over them—not good for the lawn—and I’d thrown dirt on them for traction. In sheer frustration, I’d even whacked at the ice with a shovel.

  And I wasn’t the only Smithwell resident who had been driven to the edge of reason by the weather. Two weeks earlier an elderly man had been arrested for blasting an ice dam on his roof with a shotgun. I couldn’t say I blamed him.

  Every day it was the same. A high of twenty-five degrees and a low of five. Day after da
y after day. Naturally, by the third week in February, I’d entered into a winter funk. Not so naturally, I’d decided to fight that funk by signing up for a birdwatching bus tour. Winter had its beauty, and I was going to revel in it. No more grumbling.

  I stared out my window, watching the sky lighten on the horizon and feeling warmer than I had since leaving my Jeep in the Smithwell Community Center parking lot. Minette had wanted to go with me. She knew the Millford Preserve, and she’d told me about an especially tasty moss that grew there in bogs—surely frozen bogs this time of year. She’d also hinted that there were fairies within the preserve, but I was traveling with six other people, all of them armed with cameras and binoculars. Tucking a tiny fairy in my coat pocket was asking for trouble, especially since Minette had a habit of poking her head out at inopportune moments.

  “Miss Brewer?”

  I looked up. Gavin Dearborn was gesturing at me. “You live at 2000 Birch, right?”

  “That’s right.” I scooted to the aisle seat in my row for a better look at him. In his early forties, he was plump about the face, with a thick head of light brown hair and bright blue eyes. “I noticed the For Sale sign was down on your house. I meant to introduce myself. How did you know I live at 2000?”

  “Ray Landry told me.” Knowing his answer would intrigue me—or perhaps creep me out—he grinned and waited for me to respond.

  “Ray died last October,” I stated flatly. Because he was murdered, I wanted to add. But then Gavin probably knew that. Either his next-door neighbors or his real estate agent would have told him, because Ray was murdered in his kitchen and that’s the sort of thing people remembered and talked about.

  “But Mr. Landry’s writings live on,” Gavin said. No longer grinning, he added, “We should, um, talk later.” He turned back, leaving me hanging.

  What writings? Ray had given me a copy of his memoirs last October, but the only other copy was the one he’d left in his house, and I’d taken that with me after his body was found. His son would have scooped up anything personal like a diary, so what had Gavin found?

  Comeau, still staring at me—I was just about ready to tell him off in unkind terms—softly said, “A new house reveals secrets, does it not?”

  Sierra Dearborn shot him a look over her shoulder. Even from my angle I could tell she found Comeau’s remark unsettling.

  “Here we are,” the driver called loudly. He pulled off the narrow road and maneuvered the bus along a snow-coated path, coming to a stop where the path became a small parking area. I hooked my binoculars around my neck and slung my camera strap over my shoulder.

  “Are we allowed to park here?” Nadine asked. “I don’t want to come back and find our bus gone.” She was in her mid-forties, I thought, but she spoke in a childlike tone, high-pitched and tentative.

  The driver shut off the engine. “Absa-tively, ma’am. Wildland Birds has permission at all our sites.”

  “If you’re sure. I mean . . .” Nadine dug her gloves from her backpack and slipped them on. “Imagine being towed in this weather.”

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” the driver said. When all eyes had turned to him, he went on. “If you have backpacks with travel mugs, your lunch, and all that inside, I suggest leaving them here. We’re hiking half a mile back, so take only your cameras and binoculars.” He punched the switch that opened the bus door, and cold air flooded in.

  Hit first by the blast, Tom Roche groaned. “What’s the temperature now?”

  “Best not to think about that, Tom,” the driver answered. “Just forge ahead.” Extending a hand toward the door, he added, “All right, folks, the birds are up and looking for breakfast.”

  “Hang on.” Sierra moved her backpack from the bus floor to an empty spot on the rack above Nadine’s seat and then rejoined her husband. The Dearborns exited first, followed by Nadine and Tom. I hung back, expecting Comeau to go next, but he lingered by his seat, awaiting my move. I went ahead, and I considered throwing him my best don’t-play-with-me expression before leaving the bus, but Comeau struck me as the kind of man who liked to baffle people with his inscrutable gaze. If I ignored him, he’d give up whatever game he was playing.

  Hemmed in on our right and left by bare trees, we followed Joel down a man-made trail into the preserve. Five minutes into our walk, the trail widened, and a minute later, a vista opened before us: a partially frozen, crystal blue lake that fed into a larger lake beyond it, snow-dusted rocks and promontories, and, in the distance, pine-covered hills. It took my breath away. I no longer cared about the frigid temperature.

  Without a word of direction from Joel, we all stopped, stood still, and admired the scenery. Nadine started snapping photos—and bellyaching about the cold—but not wanting to ruin the moment by putting a lens between me and all that beauty, I left my camera hanging on my shoulder.

  “It’s magnificent, isn’t it?” Comeau asked, coming alongside me. “Manifique. A loveliness that’s almost—how do I put it?—supernatural. Surnaturelle.”

  Either he didn’t know how creepy he was or creepy was the very effect he was going for. I suspected the latter. “I guess.”

  “You don’t see it?”

  “I’m looking at it right now. Let me enjoy it.”

  Comeau snickered and I swung to face him.

  “Mrs. Brewer, I only want to appreciate the moment with you.” He smoothed his longish, graying hair back from his forehead. “It’s magical, mysterious, enchantant. You could almost say it’s otherworldly—d’un autre monde. Vous comprenez?”

  “Yes, I understand what you’re saying, but it’s not from another world. It’s the Millford Preserve and we got here by bus, not spaceship.”

  He sidled closer, his long, thin fingers playing at the dangling ends of his gray scarf. Where were the man’s gloves and hat? The rest of us were freezing. “But perhaps what plays within the preserve is magical, and that is hidden from our eyes because it’s secret. Small—no more than a few inches high—and secret from the human world. Secret because it must be, and must remain so until a creature violates that secrecy. Vous comprenez?”

  Fastening his eyes on me, Comeau smiled again. I repressed a flinch. “No, I don’t comprenez.” But in truth I was beginning to understand. Comeau wasn’t there for the birds, and he wasn’t there to get his kicks by spooking me. He was there for me. And possibly—the thought was terrifying—for Minette.

  CHAPTER 2

  Gavin Dearborn strode up to Comeau, giving him an amiable nudge with his elbow. “Listen, I know you want to talk, but, um, the thing is, we need to keep quiet or the birds won’t come out.”

  Comeau gave him a slit-eyed stare. “There are no birds here, and I was talking to Mrs. Brewer, not you.”

  “Yeah, I know. We all heard who you were talking to. That’s my point.”

  I’d been so mesmerized by Comeau that I hadn’t realized that everyone was now staring at us, including the bus driver.

  “See what I’m saying?” Gavin asked. His full, round cheeks were pink from the cold, and he sniffed after every few words to keep his nose from running. “So we can talk when we get back on the bus, right? It would be a shame to come all the way out here and miss the birds.”

  Comeau drew himself up, stepped closer to Gavin, and looked down his sharp nose at him, smirking and examining him as if he were a bug in need of squishing. “First, you’re talking as much as me, are you not? Second, who are you to instruct me?”

  Gavin took a step forward too, and though he was two or three inches shorter than Comeau, he outweighed him by forty pounds. “Look, I’m just asking for some consideration. For all of us.”

  Sierra came alongside her husband and laid a hand on his arm. “Gavin. Come on.”

  “Is there a problem I can help with, gentlemen?” Sensing a fight brewing, Joel Perry had cut between the two men. He was smaller than both of them, and at about sixty years old, certainly much weaker, but as the driver and tour guide, he carried a measure of authority tha
t even Comeau recognized. “Anything we need on the bus, gentlemen? Either of you want to go back and wait for the rest of us? I’ll unlock the bus for you.”

  Gavin stepped back from Comeau. “No, I’m game to continue.”

  “Good,” Joel said. “Mr. Comeau?”

  “I’ve come to see the birds, Mr. Perry.”

  “Let’s move on then. Follow me. We’re only three minutes from the spot.”

  At the head of the group once more, Joel continued up the trail. Soon the deciduous trees began to mix with pines, and both grew so thickly at points that the trail had to zigzag around their trunks. Where the trail widened again, Joel halted and turned back to us, his finger to his lips, motioning for us to gather in front of him. “To our left is a small field and pond,” he said quietly. “The other side of that field is prime for red-breasted nuthatches, gray jays, pileated woodpeckers, and, we hope, Bohemian waxwings. They like to gather around the pond, so we’ll set up here.”

  Without looking directly at Comeau, I paid attention to where he was and what he was doing with his bony hands. I settled against a tree trunk, took the cap off my new telephoto lens, and checked my camera’s settings. Comeau, I noticed, had brought only a cheap pair of binoculars with him, further proof he wasn’t that interested in the birds.

  As I peered through my own binoculars in search of birds, I reviewed the little tiff between Gavin and Comeau and decided something was fishy about it. Comeau hadn’t raised his voice when talking to me, and in fact, Nadine had talked just as loudly, going on and on about the cold and how the birds were nestled away and wouldn’t show themselves. But Gavin hadn’t warned her about scaring away the birds. Besides, we hadn’t yet reached our first birdwatching site. There had been no need to whisper.

  It was almost as though Gavin had wanted to protect me by telling Comeau to back off without explicitly saying so. Or was Gavin simply nosy? Maybe the others in the group had turned toward me and Comeau because they’d heard Gavin chastising Comeau. Come to think of it, Gavin had raised his voice a little. More than Comeau had, anyway.