Nobody Can Say It’s You: A Hadley Pell Cozy Mystery Read Free Page A

I’m talkin’ to you,” said Maury.
    “Well, neither have I,” said Hadley. “Rocket Randy threw my copy into the bird bath. I had to resort to looking up what happened yesterday on the Internet. There wasn’t a lot of information, just a few lines with the barest details. Has Bill said anything to you about it?”
    Maury’s husband was Bill Whittaker, the sheriff of Hope Rock County.
    “I haven’t seen him,” Maury said. “He got in sometime in the middle of the night and crawled into bed. I think I remember rousing enough to kiss him before nodding off, but maybe I dreamed that part. He was up and showering and gone again at the crack of dawn. That’s why I was sleeping in. I waited up for him last night until I was cross-eyed. Really didn’t sleep worth a diddle-bean hoot.”
    “You will not believe who was under that mask!” Hadley said.
    “Who?” said Maury. “I had to come home and slug down a glass of Ivy Benedict’s homemade huckleberry wine to relax. My nerves were tore up! Shot to pieces! Seeing Bill chasing that hooded hooligan down Main Street like that, with Elwin and Wayman following him in hot pursuit and their guns drawn like some Hollywood thriller movie, was horrible! It was like living one of my worst nightmares. And to have that thing drop dead right at our feet! I swear, I still can’t believe it. I hope I never see anything like that again for as long as I live! Cold chills and heebie-jeebies, Hadley!”
    “Take a breath, Maury,” Hadley said. “Take a breath. I’m busting a gut here trying to get a word in edgewise. Do you know who it was?”
    “No, I told you,” Maury said, “Bill and I haven’t talked since he left for work yesterday morning.”
    “It was Button Dudley!” said Hadley.
    “Button Dudley!” said Maury. “What in the world! And I was sure it was a demon from the fiery pits! Or maybe some kid strung out on something. You never know what kids will try these days, and nobody knows what it will do to them! But Button Dudley’s old as dirt, Hadley. He was running down the street like somebody had rubbed red peppers on his piles. What’s going on? Was he possessed?”
    “I dunno?” Hadley said. “I know Button was always lean and fit. He’s never been anything but spry.”
    “But that old goat has got to be pushin’ a hundred,” Maury said. “He’s been old for as long as I can remember.”
    “Maybe he’d found the Fountain of Youth. The way he was running,” Hadley said, “you could have mistaken him for an Olympic athlete.”
    “Did his heart give out?” Maury asked.
    “I don’t know. I wouldn’t be surprised if it just didn’t burst in his chest,” said Hadley. “Something had to be really wrong. It’s not every day a man goes screaming and running down the streets like fiends are on his heels. And then to drop like a rock. Just like that. And dressed in that crazy costume! Button Dudley! Who would have ever thought it?”
    “Oh, Sis,” Maury said, “hearing this has got me really spooked. I mean it. I feel just like souse meat melting over a hot fire. I ain’t nothin’ but chilblains and chitter-jitters! For sure.”
    “You’ve just got goose bumps because it’s almost Halloween,” said Hadley.
    “No,” said Maury, iit’s not that. It’s something more. I don’t know. I can’t explain it. Just a feelin’, you know. Nothing I can really put my finger on.
    “Button comes from the back country. And not just the fringes, but way back in them hollers. He’s as old as the hills and about as steeped in the old ways as they come.”
    “Yeah,” Hadley said. “In Button’s case, the mystery is how did he get to the festival, and why would such an old man be dressed up like Death?”
    “Where was he running to?” Maury asked.
    “Maybe we should be asking ourselves who or what was he running from?” Hadley said.

Chapter Five
    A t the stroke of midnight on All Hallow’s Eve, the time has come. It is the bewitching hour,