The Nightingale
Detective Agency
A Charlotte Van Elsberg Mystery, #1
by Denise Devine
Genre: 1920’s Historical Cozy Mystery
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“Last night went well,” Will
said, commenting on my new bodyguards the next morning as we lingered over
strong black coffee in the breakfast room. Golden sunlight filtered through the
tall windows from the sun streaming between the mature oaks on the edge of our
property. “Sean and Alice seemed to get along fine. What do you think?”
Sean’s manners had come across as
overly polite compared to his outburst in the den and I suspected that he was
playing to an audience of one. The real test would come when Alice was alone
with him. Would he be respectful or try to boss her around? I had my doubts
about the former.
“I think I need to let them two
sort it out and get going on my investigation,” I replied staring into my glass
of fresh-squeezed orange juice. “The truth is, I don’t know where to start.”
“Get to know your victim,” Will
offered. “Learn everything you can about her—where she lived, her friends and
relatives, the places she liked to frequent. The information will provide
valuable clues about her life and possibly reveal why she was killed.”
Will set down his cup and leaned
back as Gerard approached the table and placed a plate of scrambled eggs, bacon
and toast in front of him. Will looked at me curiously. “You said she was
engaged?” He paused to grab a bottle of Heinz Tomato Ketchup.
From the corner of my eye, I
caught Gerard wincing at the idea of smothering one’s eggs with that vile
concoction. I agreed but kept my opinion to myself. Will loved ketchup,
especially this brand, and poured it on his breakfast nearly every morning.
“Take a good look at her fiancé,”
Will said seriously. He shook the bottle, poring ketchup all over his eggs and
filling the air with a pungent tomato aroma. “In my experience, when you’re
investigating the murder of a woman, the guilty party is quite often someone
close to the victim. That doesn’t make the fiancé automatically guilty, but it
does make him a primary suspect until your investigation proves otherwise.”
“Okay,” I said, jotting down his
instructions in my journal as Gerard set a plate of poached eggs and toast in
front of me. Interviewing everyone who knew the deceased would be a huge
undertaking. Was I up to the task? More importantly, would I gain anything
useful from it? The thought exhausted me, and I hadn’t started yet.
“Go back to the scene of the
crime,” Will continued and scooped up a forkful of eggs. “Study it, leaving no
stone unturned. No detail is too small. Sometimes I find evidence that the
police missed.”
I picked up a slice of toast and
concentrated on smothering it with Welch’s Grape Jelly to avoid watching Will
eat his red eggs. “Is there anything else I should know?”
“Read the autopsy report,” he
added as he picked up a crisp piece of bacon with his fingers. “The family
might have requested their private physician to look it over and interpret it
for them but unless they knew medical terms they wouldn’t have a copy of it
themselves. You need to grease a palm or two at the coroner’s office to obtain
a look at it.”
Oh sure, I’ll just drive to
downtown Minneapolis and find someone in the coroner’s office to give me a
look-see at that report.
I let out a sigh and took a bite
of my toast, pondering how I would actually go about getting someone in the
coroner’s office to give me access to the report, much less interpret it for
me. I had no idea. “Do I need to read the autopsy report? Is it imperative to
my case?”
“It’s another piece of the
puzzle, darling,” Will said, his voice softening at my frustration. “If the
police ruled her death an accident, the family would want to know if she’d
suffered a medical issue at the time, causing her to lose control of the car.
If there is a report, you should find out what’s in it.”
Folding my arms, I sat back and stared at him as discouragement began to seep into my mood. Had I made a mistake wanting to become an investigator? The job was clearly more than I’d bargained for.
Denise Devine is a USA Today bestselling author
who has had a passion for books since the second grade when she discovered
Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder. She wrote her first book,
a mystery, at age thirteen and has been writing ever since. She loves all
animals, especially dogs, cats, and horses, and they often find their way into
her books.
She has written twenty-two books, including books in the Beach Brides series, Moonshine Madness series, and West Loon Bay series. Her books have hit the Top 100 Bestseller list on Amazon and she has been listed on Amazon’s Top 100 Authors.
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