Murder Wears a Mask Read online

  Murder Wears A Mask

  A Kelly Armello Cozy Mystery Book 1

  Donna Doyle

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  © 2020 PureRead Ltd

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  Contents

  1. Different Rules

  2. The Body in the Alley

  3. Help from Miss Armello

  4. Officer Kennedy Arrives

  5. The End of a Long Day

  6. Meeting on the Trail

  7. A Private Investigation

  8. Library Sleuthing

  9. Trying to Solve the Perfect Crime

  10. Meeting the Dead Girl’s Parents

  11. Not A Chapter in a Book

  12. The Snowy Stakeout

  13. The Red Car

  14. The Case is Solved

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  1

  Different Rules

  “Hold on there, Troy!”

  Officer Troy Kennedy, his ticket pad and pen in hand, looked up from the parking meter which indicated that the time had run out. Officer Kyle Moore approached on his motorized scooter. Kyle’s physical handicap prevented him from following the usual routine of his fellow officers, but no one was more zealous in issuing parking tickets to the cars who had overstayed the meter. Why Kyle would suddenly prove reluctant to see one issued this time was a puzzle, and Troy’s expression showed this.

  “You can’t ticket that car,” Kyle told him when he came closer.

  “Who says I can’t?” Troy pointed to the lapsed time on the meter. “It’s out of minutes.”

  “But that’s Scotty Stark’s car,” Kyle said as if this were sufficient reason.

  “Who’s Scotty Stark?”

  “He’s Chief Stark’s son, that’s who. And the mayor’s nephew. The chief is married to the mayor’s sister, Lois.”

  “Okay,” Troy said, dismissive of the Settler Springs family genealogy. “But the car is out of time.”

  “He probably stopped to visit his dad before heading back to college,” Kyle said. “The meter probably just ran out.”

  “No, it didn’t just run out. The car was here an hour ago when I passed, and it was already out of time. I figured I’d give the guy a break then and check again when I came back through. I didn’t know who owns the car. Nice car. How’s a college kid get a car like this?”

  “Now you know who owns the car,” Kyle said, ignoring the question.

  “If I’d known it was the chief’s son,” Troy went on, “I’d have gone into the station to let him know he needed to move his car.”

  Kyle shook his head. “That’s not how it goes, Troy,” he said, sounding as if he were instructing a novice. “Scotty Stark’s car doesn’t get a ticket. You know the mayor’s family’s cars don’t get ticketed. You let me handle this.”

  “I’ve already written the ticket,” Troy said, irritated at Kyle’s tone. He wasn’t a novice. He’d served two deployments in Afghanistan and was still a member of the National Guard. He didn’t need to be told how to do his job.

  “Take my advice, son,” Kyle said. “Tear it up.” He leaned over from his perch on the motorized scooter and pulled the ticket free from the red car’s windshield. He handed it to Troy. “Tear it up.”

  The two men locked gazes; Troy’s eyes were blue and defiant; Kyle’s were brown, patient and resigned. “Tear it up, son,” Kyle said again. “Trust me.”

  “Kyle—”

  “It’s the way things are in Settler Springs,” Kyle said. “You’ll learn that if you haven’t already. You’re new in town. But the Starks and the Truverts run the town.” His weathered face broke into a grin. “And the Krymanskis break the laws. You keep those two facts straight and you’ll come out okay.”

  Troy didn’t bother to protest. He put the crumpled ticket into his pocket and, with a curt nod of farewell to Kyle, walked to the squad car and got in. His shift was over, and he was ready for it to end. After a night that had included a domestic abuse arrest and a drug overdose, Kyle’s concern for a parking ticket was more than he was able to tolerate. It was time to go home and try to do some studying before he went back on duty. He was working tonight, filling in for Officer Leo Page, who needed the evening off because he was taking his grandchildren trick-or-treating for Halloween. Leo was a good guy; he and his wife were raising their grandchildren because their daughter was in rehab again and their son-in-law was in prison. It was guys like Leo who deserved breaks, not the police chief’s son.

  It was Halloween. Troy knew to expect some rowdiness tonight. A warm autumn had gotten the pranksters off to an early start. The kids, one of them a Krymanski, had been engaging in the usual Halloween vandalism since the month began. Some of it wasn’t so bad; handfuls of Indian corn thrown on porches, pumpkins smashed, trees wrapped in toilet paper. But when a group of kids threw eggs at the mayor’s house, that was different. Troy had found out that when there was trouble of that nature, it was usually quicker to find out what the Krymanskis had been doing that night.

  There were different branches of the black sheep Krymanskis in Settlers Springs. It turned out that fourteen-year old Lucas Krymanski had been the culprit behind the egging of the mayor’s house. Tia Krymanski, a single mother with five children, tried to keep a tight leash on her brood which was why their run-ins with the law didn’t extend to the more serious violations of other branches of the Krymanski family. Lucas had paid for his sins; in addition to having to do community service hours at the public library, his mother had grounded him, and for two weeks, he went to school, then to the library, and then home. When Tia Krymanski was riled up, her children knew better than to cross her, and Lucas had borne his punishment meekly.

  But the two weeks were up, and he wasn’t grounded anymore. In Lucas’s eyes, that meant that he was free to enjoy the pleasures of Halloween, even if his mother had told him that, at age fourteen, he was too old to go out trick-or-treating. Loathe to abstain from the prospect of free candy, Lucas had already made plans to meet his friends at 6:30, when trick-or-treating started. They would don masks and go from house to house for candy. Some townspeople, who were generous when petite Disney princesses and miniature Paw Patrol characters came to the door, would scowl at the oversize, overage youths, but others would smile good-naturedly and throw candy in the pillowcases that the boys used for trick-or-treat bags.

  Trick-or-treating ended at 8:30. Mom wouldn’t be off work until 9:30 after she finished at the restaurant. By that time, Lucas would be home, his pillowcase back on his bed, his candy safely hidden away, and the evidence of his transgression concealed from his mother’s vigilant eyes.

  His older sister Carrie met him on the stairs as he was on his way inside after finishing his community service hours at the library. “Mom left mac and cheese for you in the oven,” she said.

  “Uh-huh,” he answered.

  “Don’t go trick-or-treating,” she warned. At seventeen and the eldest of Tia Krymanski’s children, Carrie had what Lucas considered an annoying tendency to act like she was the boss of the family when Mom wasn’t around.

  “Where are you going?” Lucas countered.

  He knew he had her when she hesitated. She was probably going out to meet her boyfriend. Mom didn’t allow Carrie to go out on school nights, but Lucas guessed that his sister planned to capitalize on Mom being at work, just like he was.

  “I’m studying,” she said.

/>   “At the library?”

  “No, with friends,” she replied, knowing that his hours of community service meant that he could easily ask Miss Armello, the librarian, if his sister had been at the library after he left. “Don’t go trick-or-treating.”

  But there was no strength in her warning. The two of them were bonded together in a sibling code of silence. She wouldn’t tell if he wouldn’t.

  Lucas raced into the house. He headed first to the kitchen; if Mom came home and the macaroni and cheese wasn’t eaten, she’d know he hadn’t stayed home. He wolfed down the meal; it was homemade, not the box mix that was made with powdered cheese. Mom knew how to cook, which was why she worked so many hours at The Corner Café, whose menu boasted meals that were made the way Grandma used to make them.

  Lucas remembered to rinse out the casserole dish; Mom yelled when they just left the dirty dishes in the sink for her to wash. He didn’t want to give her any reason to be in a bad temper when she got home. He didn’t foresee any likelihood that she would discover that he had disobeyed her instructions not to go trick-or-treating, but it was best to be cautious. His Darth Vader mask would cover his face so that no one could tell who he was. He would be dressed in jeans and a tee shirt like most of the other kids his age who were also protesting the belief that Halloween was for little kids, making it unlikely that anyone would recognize him and tell his mother that he had been out. He was using the pillowcase that was on his bed, so there would be no missing linens from the bathroom cupboard.

  None of his siblings would see him leave. The eight-year-old twins, Alexa and Madison, had gone home on the bus with their friend Taylor; they would be trick-or-treating in her neighborhood that night. Twelve-year old Marissa, conscious of her status as a seventh-grader, would not have dreamed of going trick-or-treating like the little kids. She was helping out at the Café because, although she was too young to have working papers, the owner, Mr. Caputo, paid her under the table to wash dishes.

  Lucas left his bedroom light on, the kitchen light on, and the living room light on. If anyone drove by, they would see that someone must be home because the lights were on. His mom always yelled at the kids for leaving the lights on, but that was preferable to her suspecting that he wasn’t home. It was important to choose misdeeds according to rank. Lucas was wise to the ways of discipline. It was Halloween, and he had everything planned.

  2

  The Body in the Alley

  Lucas had lived in Settler Springs for all of his fourteen years and there was no alley, street, cul-de-sac, or corner that had not been explored by him, either on foot or while riding his bicycle. He knew that the alley behind Laurelei’s Designs, next to the parking lot of Sam Sloan’s Insurance Agency, was the best meeting place. It was dark there. The businesses were closed, and no one would be inside to work or coming outside for their cars. The alleys in Settler Springs lacked streetlights and would be camouflaged by the spread of darkness and the opaque buildings. With the noise of Halloween all around, there would be no indication that anyone was using the alley for a meeting place.

  Lucas wasn’t surprised that Chris and Tyler were late. Tyler was always late. Chris would have to finish his homework before he was allowed out. His parents weren’t strict like Mom was about trick-or-treating at age fourteen, but Chris had gotten a failing mark in English on his mid-quarter report card and his parents had warned him that he’d be grounded if he brought home a failing grade for the term.

  Lucas surreptitiously turned into the alley from Roosevelt Avenue. Crowds of children, accompanied by their parents, were traveling the street, making it difficult for him to get through. He was grateful for his Darth Vader mask when he spied his seven-year old cousin, Abby Krymanski, with her parents, but they paid no attention to him as he went by. There would be plenty of Darth Vaders out tonight, he was sure; too many for anyone to notice.

  After turning into the alley, the lights of the street were gone, and he was in darkness. Autumn leaves, which had fallen from the trees and not been blown away by the storm the week before, crackled beneath his sneaker-shod feet. It was the only sound in the alley, and it was appropriately creepy for Halloween. Lucas considered the many horror movies that he had watched with his friends over the years. He couldn’t recall one where the sound of dry leaves crackling had been a particularly frightening setting, but still, there was something about the dark alley that made the noise seem ominous.

  When he heard a car at the other end of the alley, Lucas stepped back into the protection of the building where he couldn’t be seen. He heard a car door open, then a second door open. Lucas held his breath as if even that sound could put him in danger. It was just like a movie, even though he knew that the car was likely just someone coming home from work or going out to the store. Not everyone was involved in Halloween.

  Something that sounded like a package being dropped broke the stillness of the night. The wind was light, sending the leaves scuttling in circles upon the pavement. The night was overcast, the half-moon invisible behind a thick wall of clouds. It felt like it was going to rain. Lucas hoped it would hold off until he and his friends had had a chance to get their share of candy before the little kids took it all.

  He heard the car doors close quickly, first one, then the other. Then he saw the headlights heading his way. Lucas, safe in the calyx of darkness from the buildings, pressed himself against the wall of the insurance agency so that he couldn’t be seen. The car went by too fast for him to be seen or for him to see the driver.

  It didn’t matter, Lucas told himself. Lots of people cut through the alleys as shortcuts. With the streets so crowded because of the kids trick-or-treating, it wasn’t a surprise that someone would use the alley to avoid the traffic.

  Chris and Tyler still hadn’t arrived. Lucas adjusted his Darth Vader mask and zipped up his hoodie. The air was turning colder. He decided to see if they were coming from the other end of the alley and he walked in that direction. It was even darker on this end, farther from the streetlights on Roosevelt Avenue; there was only minimal illumination from a lighted pumpkin ornament hanging in the window of the tenant who lived above Olsen’s Jewelry. He couldn’t help but look over his shoulder as he walked, alert to any possible noise, even when it was merely the sound of the leaves dancing upon the pavement when the wind blew.

  It was a long alley and darker as he walked farther along it. There weren’t any people around, but that was why he and Chris and Tyler had chosen it as a meeting place. He had walked two-thirds of the way down the alley when he stumbled.

  There was something on the side of the alley where he was walking. He peered down, trying to distinguish what he had bumped into, but the alley was too dark for him to discern anything. He squatted down, reaching out with his hands to find out what was in front of him.

  It was something in a garbage bag. But it didn’t feel like garbage.

  He wished that Chris and Tyler were with him. He’d have felt better making a decision with input from his friends on what he should do next. He could just leave whatever it was right where it was, go back to the entrance to the alley and pretend that he’d never left, never heard the car stop, never heard it take off, never encountered whatever it was.

  But curiosity was stronger than caution. Lucas pulled open the drawstrings for the garbage bag. It was one of the larger bags, not the yard-size bags but the bigger ones that were used by construction companies. Lucas knew about that because he had an uncle who worked construction and brought bags home when he was doing a project around the house. Mom said that was stealing, but she tended to be critical of his Krymanski relatives.

  He took out his cell phone so that he could see what was in the bag after he had unknotted the drawstrings. When a Princess Leia mask stared back at him, glowing eerily against the dark garbage bag, Lucas was so startled that he almost dropped his phone. With trepidation, he reached into the garbage bag. His hand touched something soft, but warm. It couldn’t be—

&n
bsp; Steeling himself, Lucas pulled the garbage bag lower and pointed his phone at the contents. It was a body, dressed in a Princess Leia costume. He thought she must be dead, but what if she wasn’t? What if she needed help? Lucas lifted up the mask only enough to expose her neck so that he could feel for a pulse.

  There was nothing. He put the mask back in place and stood up. He couldn’t leave her like this, in the alley where a car could run over her. He put his phone back into his pocket and, pulling on the garbage bag, dragged it away from the road. This end of the alley wasn’t busy; the back doors of several businesses that were closed after five o’clock were all that was here, and no one was likely to be going in or out.

  He had to tell someone. Mom would kill him if she knew that he’d disobeyed her orders not to go trick-or-treating and ended up finding a dead body. But who could he go to? And where were Chris and Tyler?

  He texted them and waited for an answer. Tyler still had to do his chores before he was allowed out. That meant at least an hour, Lucas knew. Chris was still doing his homework. He debated whether to tell his friends what he’d found but decided not to say anything. They’d think he was pranking them, most likely, and by now, Lucas was not only in no mood to prank anybody, but he didn’t much feel like trick-or-treating either.

  Dispiritedly, Lucas rolled up the pillowcase and stuffed it inside his hoodie. He kept the Darth Vader mask on as he walked to the end of the alley and debated which way to go. If he went right, he could go to The Café where his mom would be working in the kitchen. If he went left, he could go to the library where Miss Armello, who was costumed as Professor McGonagall of Hogwarts, would be handing out candy and bookmarks to trick-or-treaters.