Mint Julep Murder

Mint Julep Murder Read Free

Book: Mint Julep Murder Read Free
Author: Carolyn G. Hart
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was blundering down the middle aisle, her hands held out in front on her. “Mother!” Her voice broke into a sob. “I can’t see. I can’t see! The box blew up.”
    White powder covered Ginny’s face, speckled her black hair.
    Blue reached her daughter. “This way. Into the John. Let’s wash it off.”
    “I can’t
see!”
Her daughter’s voice shook with fear.
    Blue didn’t hesitate. She grabbed an empty vase and filled it with warm water. “Hold your breath, Ginny.”
    Blue splashed the whole of it into her daughter’s face, then gently dabbed her eyes.
    Ginny blinked. “I—it’s smeary—but I can see. I can. I can.”
    Blue was trembling by the time she reached the front of the store and the pile of mail that Ginny had been opening. She looked grimly at the small ripped-open package. The still-hot flashcube inside it accounted for Ginny’s sudden blindness. It was clever enough: The flashcube exploding as the lid was lifted. And the now uncoiled spring had flung up whitish powder.
    Blue dampened a finger, touched it to the powder, gave a delicate lick.
    Flour.
    Flour pure and simple. A practical joke.
    But there was nothing funny about the message in all capital, cut-out letters:
    THIS COULD HAVE BEEN A LETTER BOMB.
TRASH JIMMY JAY CRABTREE NOW.
OR LOOK FOR A BIGGER BANG.

Chapter 5
    Annie nosed her Volvo behind the dumpmaster in the alley. She gazed at the back door to Death on Demand—the finest mystery bookstore this side of Atlanta—with wariness, trepidation, and deep yearning.
    If she could survive this weekend, her store would once again be her pride, her joy, her refuge, and her delight.
    But the Dixie Book Festival would have to be history before Annie’s life was once again predictable.
    As predictable as life could ever be….
    She glanced at an ornately decorated square of shiny cardboard lying in the passenger seat atop a haphazard stack of files, packets, and notes to herself
(Tomorrow pick up the hotel keys FIRST, Stop by liquor store, GAS, Cleaners, Sugar? MAX?)
, and sighed. In ornate script, the card held this legend:
    An Eagle Soars.
From
Simplicity
by Laurel Darling Roethke. Page 2.
    Despite Annie’s intense effort to discipline her mind, she immediately envisioned a majestic eagle, its imperious head held high, its magnificent wings spread wide.
    And, dammit, it gave her a surge of energy.
    Maybe her spacey mother-in-law was on to something.
    “Come on,” Annie muttered. “Don’t lose it now.” She absolutely was not going to get roped into the collective insanity on the part of Laurel and her fellow conspirators, Henny Brawley and Miss Dora Brevard. Just because Annie owned a bookstore and somehow had been persuaded to serve as an author liaison to this year’s Medallion honorees at the Dixie Book Festival on Hilton Head Island, that did not—emphatically did NOT—mean that Annie had entree to the world of publishing, as in the ability to find publishers for the proud authors of three distinctly varied manuscripts.
    Annie slid out of the car. “No,” she said aloud. “No, no, no.” She gave a hunted look over her shoulder. The three hopeful authors had bombarded her with ideas for finding publishers that ranged from the absurd (Miss Dora, imperiously:
Simply inform them our books
must
be published)
to the sensible (Henny, briskly:
I’ve surveyed the lists of publishers who are coming and Mint Julep Press is perfect. Extremely aggressive marketing.)
    Annie completed her survey of the alley. The coast was clear. Still, she ducked in the back door of Death on Demand like a fugitive. Jean Valjean had nothing on her.
    Annie had learned to her dismay that entrapment could come so unexpectedly. Miss Dora didn’t even live on Broward’s Rock, but she’d turned up on the ferry that morning, and Annie had been trapped for a twenty-minute discourse on the originality and superiority of Miss Dora’s cookbook.
    Annie stood tensely in the storeroom. But there was no sound

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