Something Old, Something Dead Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Praise for Misty Simon and…

  Something Old, Something Dead

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  A word about the author...

  Thank you for purchasing this publication of The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  “I wonder what’s up with Shelley.” Bella freshened her lipstick, which looked like it had been chewed off. Had she done that herself, or had her new squeeze, Officer Jared, done it for her? I really envied her freedom to do whatever she wanted whenever the mood struck her.

  “It’s like an epidemic today,” I said. “Some woman at the dress shop sewed up most of my dress wrong and I could barely fit into it. When Sarah, the owner, finally got hold of me, she gave it a couple of tugs and, voila, it fit like a dream. I don’t get it.”

  “I wouldn’t worry. Let’s get you taken care of as best we can and get back out there. I left Jared with a very strained expression on his face, and I don’t want it to go away before I’m good and ready.”

  Bella, the eternal sexpot. I wished I could call myself the kettle.

  Instead, we went back out to the table with my hair pulled into a messy but chic ponytail. Thank goodness Bella had a pair of earrings in her purse that hung almost to my shoulder. They made the stubby ponytail look a little less fourth grade and more fancy college co-ed. I hadn’t done anything with the degree I had received other than be an admin assistant, but I could look the part, I guessed.

  When we arrived back at the table, Ben rose from his chair and helped me into mine. He could be a gentleman when he wanted to be. Not that he was a complete jerk at other times, but he did have his moments of over-the-top arrogance.

  Praise for Misty Simon and…

  THE WRONG DRAWERS:

  “...a sass filled, one-two punch of delightfully quirky humor and intriguing mystery.”

  ~Jacki King, bestselling author

  ~*~

  POISON IVY:

  “This is a fun romp, and the mystery isn’t really difficult to solve. The characters are fun and Ivy’s perspective on them let’s the reader learn more about Ivy as well as the other characters.”

  ~Cyclamen, Long and Short Reviews (3 Stars)

  “I loved this book. I was laughing during most of it. I enjoyed the characters and I like how they seem like people you would want to be friends with.”

  ~Rae, My Book Addiction and More (4.5 rating)

  ~*~

  WHAT’S LIFE WITHOUT THE SPRINKLES?:

  “Ms Simon’s writing has warmth, her characters seem like real people, and her plotting drew me in…. Misty Simon approaches the emotional element so well…. Put this one on your TO READ list because you won’t be disappointed.”

  ~Angie Just Read, The Romance Reviews

  ~*~

  Other Books by Misty Simon

  at The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  What’s Life Without the Sprinkles?

  Making Room at the Inn

  A Mother’s Heart

  Poison Ivy (Ivy Morris Mysteries, Book One)

  The Wrong Drawers (Ivy Morris Mysteries, Book Two)

  Something Old, Something Dead

  by

  Misty Simon

  Ivy Morris Mysteries, Book Three

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Something Old, Something Dead

  COPYRIGHT © 2015 by Misty Simon

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Contact Information: [email protected]

  Cover Art by Debbie Taylor

  The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  PO Box 708

  Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708

  Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com

  Publishing History

  First Mainstream Mystery Edition, 2015

  Print ISBN 978-1-62830-762-7

  Digital ISBN 978-1-62830-763-4

  Ivy Morris Mysteries, Book Three

  Published in the United States of America

  Dedication

  To Nan, who has taken a chance on me every time!

  And to all the Ivy readers, thanks for loving my girl!

  Chapter One

  Laughter burst from the living room, a swell of noise that nearly drowned out the doorbell’s ring. I hustled to put the last of the cookies on a tray and get to the front door before whoever was leaning on my bell got really persistent. Yeesh!

  “Hang on!” I yelled, then immediately cringed. Please don’t let it be one of the local women arriving late. Hollering certainly wouldn’t win me any points as the newbie to town. I’d been in Martha’s Point, Virginia, for over six months now, but apparently I’d be a newbie, an interloper, if you will, (and wasn’t that a great word?) until I reached the ripe old age of eighty-four, which was approximately fifty-nine years down the road. Argh. It used to be sixty years, but yesterday was my twenty-fifth birthday.

  Thank you for singing, but you can stop now.

  I took a second to straighten myself out before opening the door with some semblance of normalcy. My first inclination was to yank the thing off its fricking hinges just to get the ringing to stop, but that would be another no-no. Plus, it was freezing outside, and snow blowing in through a wide open door was not my idea of a good time.

  So I gently pulled the door toward my body. And thank God I did. Framed by the doorway, a big blue beehive stood proud and tall eight inches above the little lady on the stoop. The top of her hair was right at my eye level. I briefly thought about talking to the hair instead of looking into the eyes of Ms. Thelma Boden from the post office. She and I had a love/hate relationship. She loved to go through my mail to see what kind of new catalog I received to stock the back room of my costume shop. I hated her for making me feel like a cheap floozy for giving the locals what they demanded in the form of lacy lingerie and the occasional set of handcuffs.

  “Well, if it isn’t Ivy Morris,” she drawled in her smoker’s rasp.

  Who the hell else did she expect when she showed up at my house? But I kept my cool. I was still trying to fit in around here. If that meant getting the shit end of every stick when it came to conversation, then so be it.

  My dad was marrying one of the town’s dearest residents. I’d have to have an in at that point. Then I’d open the can of whoop-ass I so dearly wanted to let loose on an almost daily basis.

  “Ms. Boden, thanks so much for coming.” I had plastered this smile on my face nearly thirty minutes ago when my dad’s fiancée’s brida
l shower had started, and I was not letting it go. If I could have used Mega Hold Aqua Net to keep it there, I would have.

  “The party has started,” I said, stepping out of the way.

  “I know that,” she snapped, like I’d insulted her. “Why you had to have it on a Wednesday afternoon is beyond me. A body can’t get out of work and come straight over here. I had to go home and redo my hair.”

  I almost said what fine hair it was, but held back. She wouldn’t take it as a compliment, and I wouldn’t mean it as one, either. Instead, I said, “Would you like to go in? I can take your coat if you’d like. Or I can show you where the coats go and give you a tour of the house.” I cringed at that last part. Please, don’t ask for the tour, I thought. I’d offered it to nearly everyone, but only one person had taken me up on my offer. And all she wanted to know was if Ben Fallon, my boyfriend of about four months (squee!) and I committed our sins of iniquity in my big mahogany bed. She’d even tried to pry open one of my nightstand tables to see if I kept any toys, or “potions” as she called them, to keep Ben coming around. Jeez.

  Thelma brought me back with her crackling voice. “I have no need to see the house, since I can’t believe you would have been able to improve upon it after Gertie’s passing.” She sniffed and turned her back on me, beelining for the living room. Obviously, she already knew the way, no help needed from me.

  It was a test of my fortitude that I barely restrained myself from pulling her back by the big hair. Fortitude and worry that I wouldn’t be able to extract my fingers from the over-shellacked ’do when I had her on the floor under my foot. Whether I liked her or not, she was a friend of Martha’s. And Martha, the blushing bride, was Queen for the Day. Even if I did have to play the overworked and under-appreciated Cinderella.

  I took extra special care to throw Thelma’s coat on top of a leather jacket and watched with appreciation as it slid onto the floor. Ha! Of course, I ran right over and picked it up, placing it on top of the pile gracing the guest bedroom couch. I did not want to start missing checks in the mail because I chose to be petty.

  I made my way back to the kitchen and grabbed my tray of cookies. Thank God they weren’t penis-shaped this time, as they had been the last time I made cookies. Funny now, but not when I had to ice them at a disastrous panty party in November. Better not to think about it.

  I bumped into my best friend, Bella, on the way back to the living room. She nearly dragged me to the floor with her manicured nails.

  “Do I have to be here? How long is this thing going to take? Why don’t you have any Tastykakes?” Her normally flawless hair—comes from running a beauty salon, I think—was a little mussed, but for Bella that was like a hurricane coming through and ripping up her house.

  “I’m hoping it will be over in an hour,” I said, straightening my shirt. “I didn’t plan any games or anything because I want to move all these women out of the house ASAP. I could happily live the rest of my life without seeing all those old derrieres in the air while they try to scoop cotton balls from a tray to see how many kids Martha and my dad will have.” Ew! The answer was none, since my dad was in his sixties and so was Martha. It was completely not permitted in my world. But I wouldn’t say that out loud. Every time I do something like that, it always ends up coming true. Fate likes to spite me, so I’ve been careful lately.

  “Can I do anything to help you, hon?” Bella said. “Anything to keep me out of the living room?” She clasped her hands in front of her chest. “Please!”

  Her normally sparkling amber eyes had little light in them, and I understood. “Sure, do you mind getting the cake out of the fridge and making sure it’s okay? Then I need plates and forks and napkins set out. You’ll find it all on the counters.”

  “I owe you big.”

  “Damn right you do.”

  She laughed for the first time today, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I had the theory Bella was psychic, and I was so afraid she was going to spout off something about my house burning down, or the roof shooting off from all the hot air building in the living room.

  Don’t get me wrong, I love Martha and would do just about anything for her, but the other biddies...well, I was completely torn between wanting them to embrace me like I’d always lived here, and wanting them to stay as far away as possible from me. But wanting their approval, to be a part of the town, won out every time.

  So I made my way into the living room, cookies proudly displayed, and watched Martha open presents that made even me blush. I would not think about her using the feather boa with my dad. I wouldn’t.

  There had been some talk about having strippers at the party, but I’d vetoed the idea. I knew I wouldn’t have been able to bear that. If I couldn’t even think about Martha having sex, I certainly wouldn’t have been able to see it simulated by some G-stringed guy with a fireman’s hose over his shoulder.

  Another big burst of laughter sounded. I needed to get a new doorbell, because I almost didn’t hear it again. Who else was due? Nearly every female in town was in my house at this point. I was running out of places to seat the old birds.

  The ringing turned to banging on the wood door. “I’m coming! Hold on!” No, I hadn’t learned my lesson from the last time I answered the door. I even yanked the door open this time. I nearly got bowled over for my trouble.

  Luggage, adults, children, and a dog came barreling through the door, nearly knocking my big body down, and that was no easy feat.

  “Ivy!” one of my sisters cried. At this point I wasn’t even sure which body parts still belonged to me, so I just grabbed the person in front of me and held on.

  Turns out it was my oldest sister, Maggie, doing the yelling. Rose and Daisy weren’t far behind. I had a kid hanging off my leg and another trying to dislocate my shoulder, while a third firmly lodged its head into my crotch.

  Hello, family.

  Chapter Two

  After I threw—and I do mean threw—everyone’s stuff into my own bedroom, I ushered my brothers-in-law out the front door with directions to Martha’s diner. With them and the kids firmly on their way to Mad Martha’s Milk and Munchies (don’t you love alliteration?), I rejoined the party to find my sisters comfortably ensconced (love that word!—love all big words, in fact) on my couch, surrounded by all the local women.

  If it were me sitting there, I would have thought it was an interrogation, possibly a rival for the Spanish Inquisition. But with them it was all laughing and joking and cooing over what pretty daughters Martha was getting when she married our dad, Stan. I heard the name Ben whispered to my left, but when I looked to see who was talking and what was being said, everyone’s faces were angelic, their mouths shut.

  The Bouquet cooed back over Martha and the clothes, hairdos, and general appearance of these ladies who acted like I had the plague. I called my sisters the Bouquet because they all had flower names, and I was the resident vine. I was just glad my parents had stopped after naming the first three. Magnolia, Rose, and Daisy weren’t terrible names, but I would have ended up with something like Venus Fly Trap. Ivy was bad enough. And so was being born right after Christmas and not having a seasonal name.

  “Ivy, come on over here,” Maggie—or Magnolia if I was pissed at her—called from across the room.

  Everyone had moved to the cake and ice cream, so I carefully picked my way across the floor, sidestepping Ethel and Mary, who were sitting cross-legged on my rag rug. I had no idea how the two old women planned on getting up, but that could be tackled later. Right now I was being invited to what looked like the inner circle I wanted into so badly.

  I wish I could say I nestled right into the intimate group of women and was welcomed with open arms. That they scooped me up and made me feel at home in my own house.

  Of course, that was never how things worked for me. This is what really happened: I tripped over Ethel’s leg, went crashing into Maggie, bounced off her impressive chest, then landed on Martha’s lap, where a thong fell into my newly
highlighted brown hair and got hung up on one of my earrings.

  Yeah, not pretty. And very embarrassing when Martha had to help me get the underwear untangled from my head. Oy! I ducked into my private bathroom—the one I hadn’t had time to clean and therefore was not allowing people to use—and tried my hardest not to cry. Why did stuff like this always happen to me? All I ever wanted was to belong. I had thought for a brief moment last month that I did, that people wanted to say hi to me, but it turned out they were pointing and staring because I had come up with my own idea for getting rid of leaves on the front yard, an idea they were too chicken to use. I would defend using my Shop Vac as a leaf vacuum cleaner to the day I die. At least I didn’t have to be out in the yard chasing leaves all over the place with a rake.

  Anyway, I sat on the toilet in the cute outfit I had picked out—it covered my flabby underarms and fit nicely on my fleshy hips without cutting my rounded stomach in half (all very important things)—and tried very hard not to cry. I wouldn’t add tear streaks in my makeup to my humiliation.

  I wished Bella were here, but she’d left ten minutes ago. She was an outcast like me, even though she’d lived here her whole life. It had to do with her running the town’s local hero out into the big city when she divorced him, which was not my story at all. But it did leave us in the same boat figuratively speaking. She said she’d give Martha her present later when she didn’t have to be surrounded by biddies.

  Banging started again—on the bathroom door this time—and I was beyond tired of having to answer everyone’s summons. “Go away.”

  The banging didn’t stop.

  “Can’t you hear?” I yelled. “I’ll be out in a minute, but this bathroom is not for use. Go away.” Yes, I was fully aware that was rude, but I went to a lot of trouble to make this party a good one for Martha, and I wasn’t even getting to enjoy any of it. The only present I’d seen for her as of yet was that thong hanging off my ear and a feather boa I still refused to think about.

  “Ivy, please open up.” Martha’s soft voice made me feel even worse. It was her party, not mine, and here she was trying to comfort me.