Mums and Mayhem Read online

  An old phrase came to mind. The hardest part of being at the top wasn’t getting there; it was staying there. It had been so true in the case of Barley McFee. He’d been so worried about what would happen if he lost his stranglehold on his band, so he’d held on even more tightly, which had ultimately caused discord and his own death. Perhaps he’d made that choice because of losing his band with Uncle Ian and my father all those many years ago. Even so, Barley might be to blame for many things. Selfishness and ruining musical careers would be at the top of that list. But he hadn’t been responsible for his death. That was the choice of the MacNish brothers, one they’d made and carried out.

  I saw a small movement, like Lester was lowering his gun. I held my breath. Maybe Ferris’s appeal to logic would work. I didn’t believe for a second that he would turn the manor over to the brothers, but as long as they believed it, that’s all that mattered.

  The two brothers whispered to each other, and in the silence there was a sneeze.

  “What was that?” Lester asked.

  “My allergies,” Ferris said. “There is a lot of dust in this house.”

  There was another sneeze, and it clearly didn’t come from Ferris. He gave a half smile. “A ghost with allergies?”

  Jamie walked over to a piece of furniture covered with a dirty sheet. He pulled the sheet off and revealed a grand piano in disrepair underneath it. Both Isla and Seth were under the piano, holding on to each other like their lives depended on it. Maybe they did.

  “Who the hell are you?” Jamie wanted to know.

  Seth and Isla scrambled out from under the piano, and Seth hit his head in the process.

  He rubbed the top of his head. “I—I work construction for Mr. Brown and was just doing a walk around.”

  “Under a piano?” Jamie scoffed. He turned to my sister. “And who are you?”

  “I’m Isla Knox, and Seth is my almost-fiancé. We will be leaving now.” She grabbed Seth’s hand and marched in my direction toward the cracked door. I stepped back.

  Jamie grabbed Isla by the hand and pressed her against his body, causing her to drop Seth’s hand in the process. “Did you plan this, Brown? Are they here to rescue you?”

  “God, no! No one in his right mind would have Seth MacGregor as a rescuer,” Ferris said.

  Isla kicked at Jamie and glared at Ferris. “Take that back. Seth is very brave!”

  “Let her go,” Seth shouted.

  “We aren’t letting any of you go now,” Lester said.

  “Les,” Jamie said. “We can’t kill all of them.”

  “Why not? If you kill one person, what’s a few more?”

  I had to do something. I looked frantically up and down the moldy hallway for some sort of weapon. The only thing was a weathered piece of beam that had fallen from the ceiling. It was about the length of a baseball bat and twice as thick. I picked it up. I had to carry it with both hands, it was so heavy.

  “Please,” Ferris said, trying again. “I’m sorry Barley treated you so poorly, but there is no reason to kill us. I have already told you, the manor is yours.”

  “It’s too late,” Lester said, and leveled the gun at Ferris once more.

  I took a breath and ran into the room with my wooden beam out in front of me like a saber. “Freeze! Police!”

  Lester dropped his gun and held up his hands.

  I scanned the room, and Isla wrenched her body away from Jamie. She grabbed Seth’s hand and pulled him behind me.

  “Let me see your hands,” I said in my best cop voice.

  The brothers held up their hands.

  “Wait, stop! She’s not the police!” Jamie cried. “She’s that food delivery girl.”

  “I’m a florist,” I snapped. “I was just delivering the food as a favor to my friend. How many times do I have to tell you that?”

  “Everyone has a side hustle,” Jamie said.

  Lester scooped up the gun, and my heart sank.

  “Get out, Isla!” I shouted.

  “But …”

  “Now,” I said, in my fiercest big-sister voice.

  My sister took Seth by the hand and ran with him out of the room. I heard their steps pound down the stairs. “You guys need to give up. Chief Inspector Craig and his constables are on their way here. They know you set fire to the Mourning Star, and they will know you killed Barley just as soon as my sister tells them.”

  “I don’t think so,” Lester said. He turned around and shot Ferris in the shoulder. The man fell.

  I screamed and threw my piece of wood at him, but the brothers were standing so close together, I hit Jamie instead. He fell to the ground, holding his leg. I ran around them to Ferris. He moaned and rolled onto his side.

  Lester didn’t even look at his brother. “Get up!”

  I didn’t move.

  “I said get up.” Lester’s voice was cold.

  I stood slowly. Ferris’s blood was on my hands. I felt like Lady Macbeth and remembered how Kenda had compared the brothers to Macbeth. They certainly were the stars of this tragedy playing out around me.

  “Ferris needs help or he will bleed out and die,” I said.

  “That’s what we want to happen,” Lester said.

  “Maybe you. Not me.”

  “Les.” Jamie struggled to his feet. “Everything is screwed up. Let’s go. Let’s leave.”

  “Leave the manor?” Lester asked. “Are you insane?”

  “No, brother,” Jamie said quietly. “You are. You’re the one who picked up that fiddle string and killed Barley. If you hadn’t done that, we would have found another way to get the manor back. We have no hope of that now. That’s your fault, brother. All we can do now is run away.”

  “How can you say that? I’m the one that really cared about our promise to Mom. I was the one who was willing to go as far as it took to get the manor back. Not you. Me.”

  “Mom wouldn’t have wanted this,” Jamie said. “She wouldn’t want you to kill anyone.”

  “I did what had to be done. He had to pay for what he did.”

  “But you cost us everything,” Jamie said.

  Lester held his gun up and pointed it at his own brother. “You would turn on me too?”

  Jamie picked up the piece of wood I’d had and knocked the gun out of his brother’s hand. “Don’t make me have to stop you, brother.”

  “You can’t stop me,” Lester said. “No one can.” He then screamed in rage, turned toward me, and ran. Instinct made me jump out of the way, opening a path through the open French doors and out onto the widow’s walk. Lester flew past me out the door. He tried to stop, but it was too late. I watched in horror as his legs pedaled in the air, touching nothing as he plummeted to the ground.

  I stared three stories down. Chief Inspector Craig stood next to Lester MacNish’s broken body below.

  Epilogue

  A week later, I hosted a garden party at Duncreigan. The garden was back in its full glory. After the rose took hold of the stone again, it had taken a few days, but the garden had come back little by little. What I had learned from my experience with Carver Finley was that hiding the garden from others put it at more harm. If I let others see it, they would not fear it.

  I had invited everyone I could think of from the village. My friends Presha, Raj, and Cally were there, as were the old men from the oil barrels and even Popeye and his cronies from the pub and Maggie and her friends from the tea shop.

  My sister and Seth stood with my parents, and the four of them laughed and talked together like they were all old friends. Just as Isla and I had come to terms with our parents’ choices when they were young, they had to respect our choices as adults too. I hoped that would remain true when I introduced Chief Inspector Neil Craig to them later, not as a police officer but as my boyfriend.

  I strolled through the garden, bending down every few steps to inhale the sweet fragrance of the flowers and touch the waxy leaves and soft petals of the plants. The garden was back, truly back. I’d
saved it, but by saving it I had made it different, more open. No longer would it be under lock and key. I had even invited Carver to the party, and he stood on crutches speaking with Raj as the pair of them studied the menhir. I couldn’t say I completely trusted the historian, but he was right, the stone deserved to be studied. What it held should not be secret.

  Hamish stood a few feet away, watching them carefully and with suspicion. Duncan perched on his shoulder and was on high alert because Ivanhoe was prancing around the garden enjoying having all the people there. He, of course, thought the villagers had come to Duncreigan to admire him, not the garden, and was currently allowing Maggie to scratch his belly while he rolled in the grass.

  Hamish was the only one who wasn’t thrilled with the idea of making the garden open to the public, but as I’d told him, in the list of rules Uncle Ian had left me, he’d never said the garden should be kept secret. I believed that meant it was the decision of the Keeper—me—whether to share the garden or not, and I wanted to share it.

  A large figure came through the garden door and pushed his way through the ivy. It was Chief Inspector Craig, holding a full plate.

  I walked over to him. “You brought cookies.” I grinned.

  “My mother raised me well and told me to never go to a garden party without a tray of sweets. It’s simply not done.” His straight white teeth flashed behind his dark beard. “They are chocolate chip, by the way. I thought I would pay homage to my American hostess.”

  “That was very thoughtful of you. I love chocolate chip. Have you been to a lot of garden parties in your day, Chief Inspector?” I asked.

  “A few. I’m Scottish, you know.”

  “I do know very well.”

  He glanced around the garden. “You have a nice turnout. Is there anyone from the village that you didn’t invite?”

  I pretended I had to think about this for a minute. “Not that I know of.”

  “And you are okay with all these people being in your garden?” He studied my face.

  I nodded. “I think it’s the right thing to do. It feels right, in any case, and when dealing with the garden, I have learned that going with my gut has always been the best choice.”

  He nodded. “I see Carver Finley is here.” He frowned. Craig wasn’t a fan of Carver’s after learning what Carver had done to my garden and all the turmoil it had caused me.

  “I’ve chosen to forgive but not forget,” I said, and took the cookies from his hands. They smelled just like home, and for the briefest moment I had a pang of homesickness for Tennessee. I glanced around, and the homesickness subsided. This was my home now.

  I walked the plate over to the dessert table and set the cookies next to a tray of American brownies Isla had made. Craig followed me.

  “You’re a wise woman,” he said. He was so close to me that I felt his breath on my neck.

  “Speaking of forgiving, how is Jamie MacNish?” I asked. After Lester fell to his death from the widow’s walk at Winthrope Manor, Jamie had crumbled to the ground in tears. It had been painful to watch. “He has been so heartbroken over Lester’s death.”

  “He’s not as heartbroken as he was right after. Now he’s blaming his dead brother for everything he can think of, including the murder and the idea to kidnap Ferris Brown. I have no doubt he would also blame Lester for stealing his lunch money when they were lads in school if we would give him the opportunity. Since Lester is gone, he can’t refute the murder or anything else his brother says.”

  “Jamie said Lester killed Barley. Lester never refuted that,” I said. “Not did Lester for a moment put that blame on Jamie. I tend to believe Jamie on that point.”

  Craig nodded. “Even so, Jamie will still be in prison for a long while. He’s charged with being an accomplice to murder, kidnapping, threatening bodily harm, and whatever else the prosecutor can think of adding to his docket.”

  I shivered. “What they did was horrible, but I can sort of understand why they went mad.”

  “What do you mean?” He cocked his head, reminding me of Duncan the squirrel when he did that, which reminded me to look for the squirrel to make sure Ivanhoe wasn’t tormenting him during the party.

  “Barley stole their dream. There are too many people in this world without a driving dream. And the brothers wanted that manor house so badly. It was their mother’s dying wish that they have it, restore it, and bring her family name back to its former glory. How could they not try to get it back? They were so close to having it, too, before Barley made their record company wait and Ferris bought the manor out from under them.”

  “They took it too far,” Craig said in a low voice.

  I nodded. “I know, and I’m not excusing them for what they did. There had to have been a better way to get what they wanted. I’m only saying I can understand it a little. At least I can understand how they must have felt. It doesn’t mean what they did was right or should have ever even been on the table as an option.”

  “There is always another option over murder,” Craig said.

  I nodded. “And Kenda? What will happen to her? I know she ran from the village as soon as you released her.”

  He nodded. “I think she will land on her feet. I tried to call her a couple days ago to follow up on what she knew about the MacNish brothers. I got her new agent instead. It took some time for the agent to finally agree to let me speak to her.”

  “She’s going to be a big star,” I said.

  “Let’s hope a different kind of star than Barley.”

  “Let’s hope,” I agreed. “What will happen to Winthrope Manor now? A rumor going around the village is that Ferris no longer wants it.”

  Craig frowned. “From what I hear, Ferris has lost his taste for restoring it. He’s considering donating it to the National Trust. It remains to be seen if he will actually go through with that.”

  “Fiona! Fiona!” My mother called from across the garden. “Come over here. Your father and I want a family picture with our girls.”

  I smiled. “Can you take the photo?” I asked Craig.

  He waved his mobile phone at me. “I’m armed and ready.”

  My parents and sister stood in front of a bed of colorful mums in front of the willow tree.

  “Squeeze together,” Craig said as he was about to take the shot. “Say Duncreigan!”

  We laughed, said Duncreigan in unison, and just as Craig took the picture, the fox stepped into the frame.

  Also available by Amanda Flower

  Magic Garden Mysteries

  Death and Daisies

  Flowers and Foul Play

  Magical Bookshop Mysteries

  Verse and Vengeance

  Murders and Metaphors

  Prose and Cons

  Crime and Poetry

  India Hayes Mysteries

  Murder in a Basket

  Maid of Murder

  Appleseed Creek Mysteries

  A Plain Malice

  A Plain Disappearance

  A Plain Scandal

  A Plain Death

  Andi Boggs Mysteries

  Andi Unexpected

  Andi Under Pressure

  Andi Unstoppable

  Living History Museum Mysteries

  The Final Vow

  The Final Tap

  The Final Reveille

  Amish Candy Shop Mysteries

  Marshmallow Malice

  Botched Butterscotch

  Toxic Toffee

  Premeditated Peppermint

  Criminally Cocoa

  Lethal Licorice

  Assaulted Caramel

  Amish Matchmaker Mysteries

  Matchmaking Can Be Murder

  Piper and Porter Mysteries

  Dead End Detective

  Author Biography

  Amanda Flower, a USA Today bestselling and Agatha Award-winning mystery author, started her writing career in elementary school when she read a story she wrote to her sixth grade class and had the class in stitches with her descr
iption of being stuck on the top of a Ferris wheel. She knew at that moment she’d found her calling of making people laugh with her words. She also writes mysteries as USA Today bestselling author Isabella Alan. In addition to being an author, Amanda is a librarian in Northeast Ohio.

  This is a work of fiction. All of the names, characters, organizations, places and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to real or actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2020 by Amanda Flower

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Crooked Lane Books, an imprint of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.

  Crooked Lane Books and its logo are trademarks of The Quick Brown Fox & Company LLC.

  Library of Congress Catalog-in-Publication data available upon request.

  ISBN (hardcover): 978-1-64385-298-0

  ISBN (ebook): 978-1-64385-319-2

  Cover illustration by Ken Joudrey

  Printed in the United States.

  www.crookedlanebooks.com

  Crooked Lane Books

  34 West 27th St., 10th Floor

  New York, NY 10001

  First Edition: July 2020

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