Purrfect Alibi: A Hazel Hart Cozy Mystery Three Read online

  Purrfect Alibi

  A Hazel Hart Cozy Mystery Book Three

  Louise Lynn

  Contents

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  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

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  Coming May 9, 2018

  Read the rest of the Hazel Hart Cozy Mystery Series!

  Meowsical Death: A Hazel Hart Cozy Mystery Two

  Read the Maritime Teashop Series:

  Maritime Teashop Book 2

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  Chapter 1

  Hazel Hart did not want to be at the Rockwell Manor at that particular moment.

  A hokey banner was draped over the roaring fireplace. Groups of people milled around, quickly preparing for the main event. If the event in question were a wedding, or even, a high-profile funeral, she’d have been in a better mood.

  It was neither.

  She lugged a heavy equipment bag over her shoulder, filled with her tripod and expensive Nikon for the shoot that night—the Spring Fling Dance for the Cedar Valley High School.

  That was one reason she didn’t want to be here.

  She’d already done the class pictures for the high school the week before, and Michael had just finished finalizing them. And now, she needed to shoot another bunch of photos at the dance.

  With teenagers.

  What could be worse?

  Michael, her assistant, hobbled in caring another bag, this one with the background drop screen, and a few of the lights. “I’m already sweating,” he said and wiped his pudgy hand over his forehead. A flop of brown hair hung over it, and Hazel gave him a sympathetic smile.

  They kept the fires roaring in the grand manor’s fireplace because even though spring had finally arrived in Cedar Valley, California, it didn’t feel like it at night. And calling it spring during the day was even a bit of a misnomer.

  While parts of California that weren’t in the high Sierra Nevada were enjoying springtime weather in the seventies, Cedar Valley was lucky if it got up to the sixties during the day.

  But at least that meant the snow had mostly melted, and the tulips, daffodils and hyacinth were in full bloom. After the winter they’d had, a break in the weather lifted everyone’s spirits.

  Hazel knew the grounds around the Rockwell Manor, an historic site that sat about three miles down the shore of Lake Celeste from Cedar Valley proper, were beautiful in the daytime. However, she’d arrived just as the sun was going down and didn’t get a good look.

  Plus, Hazel had other things on her mind. Like the idea of photographing an endless stream of giggling teenagers while hoping her dress stayed put the entire night. Why had she let Celia talk her into wearing the number with those spaghetti straps and the endless layers of tulle?

  She didn’t know. At the time, it felt doable. Now, actually setting up her equipment like that, it felt silly, verging on stupid.

  She remembered Celia, her best friend’s words as she rushed to get Hazel ready to go. “Think of it like prom. You want to look your best, right?” Celia had asked, and her full lips pulled into a smile. She’d been wearing her pajamas with her hair in a messy bun, yet she’d still looked more put together than Hazel assumed she herself usually did.

  Hazel had scowled. “I didn’t go to prom. And this is why.” She didn’t mention that she hadn’t bothered finding a date because as a teen she was too concerned about getting out of Cedar Valley and going to college. And yet, here she was, back in her hometown and running her own photography studio while being forced to go to this Spring Fling dance. “And it’s not prom. It’s the Spring Fling. They’re different,” Hazel had reminded Celia.

  Celia had shrugged. “Then you get to look forward to prom next month,” she said with a laugh.

  Hazel had only groaned.

  And now, she didn’t even have her best friend to complain to or to lean on for support, because the thing that was really on her mind wasn’t the prospect of a night spent with teens. It was something the town sheriff had asked her that morning.

  More like told her.

  They happened to eat at Celia’s café, CATfeinated, every day, and ran into each other more often than not.

  Over the last month, Hazel admitted that maybe she looked forward to seeing the handsome Sheriff Cross in the morning, with his black hair and bright blue eyes, especially the way they twinkled when he actually lightened up enough to make a joke. Or laugh at one of hers.

  But that morning he’d been more serious than usual, and he hadn’t stayed long to talk over coffee. Instead, he let out a beleaguered sigh, swiped the cream cheese from his lips, and looked Hazel dead in the eye. “You’re going to be at that dance tonight, right?”

  Hazel nodded. “Unfortunately. I’m not looking forward to an evening surrounded by hormonal nightmares.”

  Sheriff Cross didn’t so much as smile at her joke. “Good. We need to talk when you have time.”

  Her gut clenched. It was something her ex-husband had told her right before she found out he’d been cheating on her. So those four little words left a bad taste in the back of her mouth.

  She would’ve said, ‘I can talk now,’ but Sheriff Cross left before she got a chance.

  And now, here she was, setting up her equipment for the dance and scanning the other early arrivals to see if he had shown up. It wasn’t even a mystery why the town sheriff would be at this dance. The place was overflowing with adults from the town, and she already spotted a few deputies. Since the Rockwell Manor was of great historical interest, it tended to hire a lot of local law enforcement for security purposes when they had gatherings there.

  Now wasn’t any different.

  Too bad Hazel didn’t have time to take in the glorious interior of the Manor itself. She remembered going on the tour with her father when she was a girl. They came at least once a year, and he told her stories about how the wallpaper was original, and how the banister of the grand staircase was carved out of one piece of wood.

  Those little details were probably lost on most everyone else, but they stuck in her mind, and she stopped for a moment to glance at the wallpaper and the brass tacks holding it in place. It wasn’t paper, but cloth, in an ornate floral design full of pinks and oranges and deep pine-needle green.

  She let out a sigh, swept a renegade copper curl behind her ear, and finished setting up the tripod and camera.

  Like her, Michael had dressed up for the evening, though his suit was a bit ill fitting. It hung too baggy in the shoulders and too tight in the middle, but she didn’t tell him that. At least he’d tried.

  Instead, she gave him a wide smile and glanced around the room. It wasn’t as large as the ballroom up at Cedar Valley Lodge that overlooked the lake and the small mountain town below, but it was
large enough for a Cedar Valley High School dance.

  Especially since the high school itself only had about a hundred students total.

  Across the room, Hazel spotted her younger sister, Esther, at the catering table and waved. “Watch the equipment. I’m going to say hi to Esther, and I’ll bring back a cupcake.”

  Michael nodded, and Hazel walked across the hall, glad she decided on a pair of sensible flats and not heels. Esther had done the same, though she hadn’t bothered to wear a dress. She’d opted for a white blouse and a pair of black slacks. Her catering outfit, as she called it. She’d even braided her long auburn hair into a single plait that fell down her back to her waist.

  On Hazel’s way to her sister, an older man nearly bumped into her.

  “Oh, excuse me,” she said and stopped.

  The man gave her a withering smile. His hair was a dark gray and neatly cut, as were his goatee and mustache. He wore a sleek black tux with a white dress-shirt. The buttons were shiny and black too, and they seemed like they were made of obsidian instead of plastic. He looked the part of a Bond villain, minus a sinister eyepatch. He was familiar, but it took a moment for her to place him. “Ms. Hazel Hart. You’re the photographer, are you not?”

  “I am,” Hazel said, and he held out his hand. His shake was firm, and she noticed the strength in his wrist. “You’re the curator of the Manor?”

  “Owner, actually. Tyson Bridger. Yes. I don’t think we’ve had the pleasure to meet. Please let me know if you see any of the children being unruly. While the Rockwell Manor happily hosts many different functions, I can’t let anything under my care be destroyed. And you know how young people are these days. Jumping on antique furniture. Smoking in the bathroom. It’s a travesty.”

  Hazel nodded along. “I’ll be sure to let you know.”

  “Thank you. Please, excuse me. And enjoy your evening.”

  “Of course,” she said and watched him stalk over to a group of teachers at the refreshment table, presumably to give them the same speech.

  Esther gave Hazel a harassed looking smile as she lifted a plastic bin filled with cupcakes to the table and started unloading it onto tiered plates. “You’re lucky to have an assistant,” she said.

  Hazel glanced at Michael and shrugged. “You can always ask mom. Or hire someone.”

  Esther huffed. “Mom would get bored too easily. Especially this time of the year. But come summer, I am going to hire someone.” Then a smile that Hazel didn’t like slid over her younger sister’s lips. “I see you got all dressed up. Trying to make up for prom?”

  Hazel rolled her eyes. “No. It was Celia’s idea, and I really didn’t have time to run home and put on something more appropriate. I didn’t think jeans would do.” She ran her hands over the skirt of the emerald green dress Celia had loaned her. She said it matched Hazel’s eyes, which varied between blue and green depending on what she wore.

  The design reminded Hazel of something from the 1950s. It came in at the waist, and the full skirt fell to her mid-calf. It was lined with tulle and sparkly crystals. Celia claimed they were Swarovski, and Hazel had no reason to doubt her.

  The only reason Celia had a closet full of ridiculously gorgeous clothes was because her mother was a dressmaker and enjoyed making them for her only daughter. And Hazel, in turn, enjoyed borrowing them from her best friend.

  Esther kept grinning. “Really? That’s your only excuse? Or is a certain someone coming tonight?”

  Hazel glowered, and felt her lips pushing into a pout. “I don’t know. What certain someone could that be?” she said and glanced around the hall. Not looking for Sheriff Cross.

  She spotted a few of his deputies, and someone she didn’t expect to see there. One of the local ski instructors from the Lodge, and just the person from Esther’s past to tease her about.

  “What I do see is someone you’ve been dying to reconnect with. Talking about prom, there’s your date,” Hazel said and pointed.

  Robbie Smith stood in a fitted suit and talked to one of the deputies. For someone who spent so much time outdoors, he’d aged well, though his blond hair had turned a sandy brown, and the slight frame he’d sported in high school had expanded into one of a man that went to the gym on a regular basis.

  Esther’s cheeks turned dark red and she went back to pulling the cupcakes free of the plastic tubs. “Not funny. When I tease you about the sheriff, it’s in good-natured fun. When you tease me about Robbie Smith—” She didn’t finish that sentence and just shook her head.

  “Don’t try to guilt trip me.” Hazel snatched a pink-frosted cupcake from the top of the tier. “You shouldn’t even feel embarrassed. You went with Robbie to prom, so what?”

  Esther stopped what she was doing and looked Hazel in the eyes.

  Okay. Maybe the guilt trip was working.

  A little.

  “It wasn’t that I went with him to prom that’s embarrassing. I—It’s the night I told him I loved him, and then… you know.”

  Hazel licked frosting from the top of the cupcake and nodded. To have her first boyfriend admit to not loving her had to hurt. Hazel could imagine that pain now. And seeing her sister’s mortification brought it crashing back home.

  Hazel patted her sister’s arm and let out a long sigh. “Okay. Sorry. I won’t tease you about Robbie Smith anymore. But, it’s not like he hurt you on purpose. At least he told you the truth. It was the nineties. He was scared.”

  Esther’s lips thinned into a line, and she nodded. “I don’t hold it against him. It just brings back bad memories,” she said and put a cupcake in the place where Hazel had taken one.

  Still, Hazel promised Michael a cupcake, so she took the one that Esther placed there and smiled. “It’s for Michael,” she said when Esther glared at her.

  “Oh, just go give it to your assistant.”

  Hazel did just that, and after she and Michael finished off their cupcakes, they got back to work.

  If she could say anything positive about the Spring Fling dance, it was that at least it didn’t drag. The students arrived right when they should, and immediately started lining up for photos.

  Of course, they also had their cell phones out snapping a thousand selfies as well. It made her wonder why they even needed a professional there.

  Still, Hazel spent the next two hours taking turns with Michael, snapping them, and writing down the payment information for each student. It wasn’t hard work. She’d had much worse jobs as a photographer, but the lights were hot and heavy, and her feet were aching by the time the line finally petered out.

  Michael let out an exhausted sigh and slumped into a chair. “It’s worse than a wedding.”

  Hazel silently agreed. At least at a wedding she could move around amongst the people and snap photos as she pleased during the reception, after the official wedding shoot, obviously. But this was as bad as school pictures.

  Though, it had been her idea to open a photo studio in Cedar Valley, so she wasn’t about to complain. It wasn’t even that Hazel hated portraiture—not at all. But photographing elementary school students was preferable to high schoolers. Mostly because teenagers were usually all kinds of awful. Self-involved. Convinced their problems were the biggest in the world. And they made undoubtedly terrible decisions. Like Celia dating Jay Turner for so many years, just because he was dangerous and made her mother furious.

  She wondered if she was as terrible at that age, and silently hoped not.

  At least she hadn’t dated any Jay Turner types.

  With a sigh, Hazel made her way to the refreshment table to grab a drink and was nearly bowled over by a group of three of the aforementioned teenagers. Two boys and one girl. The girl’s slinky silver gown left little to the imagination, and she gripped her cell phone like a weapon. The tall, broad-shouldered boy next to her did the same thing. Laughing as he snapped a few photos of the boy that nearly ran Hazel over.

  “Oh, sorry, ma’am,” the boy without a cell phone said and gave
her a wide grin.

  Hazel tried not to grit her teeth at the ma’am bit. He was young. He couldn’t help it. “You guys probably shouldn’t run inside,” she said and sidestepped them.

  At least they hadn’t run into the dress and ripped the tulle. She would not want to hear Celia complain about that.

  The punch was too sweet, and she hoped it hadn’t been spiked, but she was too thirsty to care. She poured herself two glasses and drank them both in turn then poured one for Michael. However, heading back to finally get off her feet, the same boy that nearly ran into her before tapped her on the arm.

  Hazel blinked at him. He was her height, a decent five feet nine, and reminded her of the boys she’d gone to high school with. The kind that knew they were cute and fawned over by all the girls.

  She wondered if Sheriff Cross had been that way as a teenager. It was hard to tell with grown men. Sometimes, they could’ve been completely gawky when they were younger and only gotten handsome as they aged. For some reason, she hoped the sheriff had been that type.

  “You’re the photographer lady, right?” he said in a voice that sounded like he was used to people liking him.

  Hazel nodded slowly. “Yes. Hazel Hart. The photographer lady,” she said the second part dryly, but it was lost on him.

  “Cool. I like taking photos too. I’m in photography at school, but the class is only kind of okay. We don’t really do a lot and the same teacher runs the whole art department, so it’s not that in-depth. But I was thinking that maybe after I graduate I could get an apprenticeship with you. You know, learn the ropes and everything,” he said with another wide grin.

  Hazel looked at the kid, whose name she didn’t even know, and back at Michael. “I actually have an assistant right now. And he’s already been to school. He has a degree in photography. You could just go to college, can’t you?” She phrased the second half as a question in case he couldn’t afford it. It was always possible, and she didn’t want to make the kid feel bad.