Mayhem at Magnolia Manor E-Book

Holly Moulder

• Herausgeber: Dove Christian Publishers
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

Marjorie Sims is a ready-to-retire accountant who dreams of sunny days spent on warm tropical beaches. But on her way home one night, her dreams go up in smoke when she witnesses the kidnapping of a Philadelphia detective. The culprit? The infamous Pennsylvania drug lord known as Kingpin.

With Kingpin and his dangerous minions on the hunt for Marjorie — the only witness to their heinous crime — the US Marshal Service steps in to help. And in the blink of an eye, Marjorie is whisked off to a quiet retirement community far away in rural Georgia called Magnolia Manor.

Tucked away in her new home, Marjorie becomes friends with two feisty residents, Beanie and Edna, who quickly figure out Marjorie’s secret. And when Kingpin’s men come sneaking around the Manor, Beanie and Edna vow to keep her safe — come hell, high water, or butter pecan ice cream.

Leseprobe

Published by Inscript Books

a division of Dove Christian Publishers

P.O. Box 611

Bladensburg, MD 20710-0611

www.inscriptpublishing.com

Book Design by Mark Yearnings

ISBN: 978-1-7375177-4-0

Library of Congress Control No. 2021950697 Copyright © 2021 by Holly Moulder

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

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be used or reproduced without permission of the publisher, except for brief quotes for scholarly use, reviews or articles.

Lyrics adapted from Ragtime Cowboy Joe, written by Grant Clark, copyright 1912 by F.A. Mills Publishing.

Inscript and the portrayal of a pen with script are trademarks of Dove Christian Publishers.

Printed in the United States of America

In loving memory of my mom, Anne B. Fisher

The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore. Psalm 121: 8

Cast of Characters

Marjorie Sims: Also known as Marjorie Riley, she is a 62-year-old accountant from Philadelphia. Late one night, Marjorie witnesses the kidnapping of a Philadelphia police detective who is later found murdered. Marjorie is quickly placed in protective custody by the U.S. Marshals who want her to testify against Kingpin, the boss of an organized crime syndicate.

Stephen Breckinridge: A U.S. Marshal with training in physical therapy, Stephen accompanies Marjorie to her new home where he serves as her bodyguard against Kingpin’s men.

Edna Duncan: The elderly widow of James, a Baptist minister. Edna works with Stephen to help protect Marjorie.

Beanie Buffala: Elderly widow of trucker Stan, and mother of five adult children. Beanie passes her days at the Magnolia Manor by solving mysteries with Edna.

Director William Peabody-Jones: Also known as PBJ. The director is a retired FBI agent who has been friends with Stephen for years. Although he always appears frumpy and unkempt, there’s more to William than meets the eye.

Brett Hopewell: The new chaplain at Magnolia Manor, Pastor Hopewell claims to be born and bred in the Atlanta area. His handsome face and whiskey-smooth voice make the ladies of the Manor blush.

Pearl Porter: Pearl is the Manor’s much-loved chef. Her salmon patties are literally to die for. After work hours, Pearl is responsible for taking care of her aging mother, Velma. But Pearl has a terrible secret that she can’t share with anyone.

Irene Spencer: An elderly resident at the Manor, Irene is the proud owner of a miscreant cat, Mr. Whiskers. Irene complains constantly to anyone who will listen, especially PBJ. Irene’s mission is to get Edna and Beanie kicked out of the Manor — for good.

Charlie Richardson: Edna’s high school sweetheart, rumor has it Charlie once worked at NASA. Or did he? But now he’s living at the Manor, receiving care for Alzheimer’s disease.

One

A Terrifying Elevator Ride

Marjorie Sims despised the elevator in the Broad Street parking garage. With its stained walls, cracked linoleum floor, and 70s-era Muzak tunes playing nonstop, it was the perfect setting for a murder. The dim overhead lights blinked on and off in a scary serial-killer kind of way. The air smelled like Old Spice and old sweat, an odor that made Marjorie gag every time she stepped through the doors. To make matters even worse, the ancient machinery that hoisted this death box between floors creaked louder than an old man’s knees.

It felt like a scene straight from a Stephen King novel. All that it needed was a bloody knife stuck in the wall and a dead body splayed across the floor.

Didn’t help that Marjorie had a touch of claustrophobia, a fear of closed-in places she could trace back to when Mikey Mahoney, her childhood bully, locked her in the tiny storage shed behind her Pennsylvania home. The shed was full of spider webs and dead bugs and was so small she couldn’t stand up. She beat and beat on the door. With tears streaming down her face, she screamed to be let out.

But all she heard was Mikey’s cruel laughter.

After what seemed like hours to an eight-year-old, Mikey’s sister Kimberly finally let her out.

But Marjorie never forgot the feeling of being trapped in that box. The panic. The terror. And now, closed-in places like this elevator sent her stress levels into the stratosphere.

And unless she arrived at work at the crack of dawn, she really had no choice but to ride it twice a day. The accounting firm she worked for, one of the most prestigious in Philadelphia, rented the entire deck for its employees to use. Parking in Philly was notoriously hard to find, so a private parking deck was a coveted perk. And when Marjorie could get there early, like before seven in the morning, she landed a spot on the first floor. No elevator needed.

But today, she was late. An overnight ice storm had left traffic on the Schuylkill Expressway backed up for miles. So, the search for a spot led her to the eighth floor.

Then, to make up for that late start that morning, Marjorie had worked well past her usual six o’clock quitting time. Tax season was just starting, but her bosses were already in a frenzy. She figured a few extra hours would help her get a handle on the chaos.

Now, alone on the first floor of the parking deck, she tapped her foot impatiently as she waited for the death box to lumber its way down. She checked her watch. Midnight, on the dot. The classic time for murder and mayhem. Great, just great.

She’d celebrate birthday number sixty-two in just two weeks. Maybe it was time to think about retirement. Snag that social security check and crack open that pension nest egg. After all, forty years of dedicated service to Bradley and Bradley Accounting seemed like more than enough. With no family to speak of, she could travel the world. Settle on whatever beach grabbed her fancy.

And then there’d be no more elevators, no more traffic. Ah, paradise.

Standing in the elevator, Marjorie took a deep breath of sort-of-fresh parking garage air as she pushed the button for the eighth floor. But just before the doors thudded shut, a man rushed on.

From the corner of her eye, Marjorie gave him the once over, trying to decide if he was dangerous. Tall, late forties. Brown raincoat, and a battered black fedora pulled down over his face.

Who wears fedoras anymore? she wondered. Certainly not accountants. Old police detectives, maybe?

Fedora-man pushed the button for the seventh floor and then took a step back from the elevator doors. His raincoat shifted. Was that a revolver-shaped lump in his coat, or is my imagination running off the rails again?

She shook her head and sighed. I’ve got to stop bingeing on those HallmarkChannel mysteries.

Still, there was just something strange about this guy. To fend off her rising panic, Marjorie ran through all the steps she’d learned at her Safety for Seniors class last month. Look confident and stand up straight. Don’t slouch like a victim. She lifted her chin, threw back her shoulders. Stretched out her five-foot-six-inch frame.

Darn. Should have worn high heels today. Could have added a couple inches.

Marjorie pulled the belt of her black leather coat tighter around her waist. She fingered the car keys already in her pocket. She grabbed the pink plastic case of the MaceFace pepper spray attached to her keychain, her finger ready to hit the magic button. Richie, the self-defense guru who’d taught the class at the senior center, had warned against carrying the small canister, explaining that the stuff could end up being used against them. Or, it could blow back in their faces, get on their clothes, put them at risk. He favored stabbing assailants in the eye with car keys instead.

Marjorie shuddered. She didn’t think she could ever stab someone in the eye. But who knows? In a pinch, maybe she could. And maybe this was just that kind of pinch.

So, she’d bought the pepper spray anyway, against Richie’s advice. And now it was tucked in her pocket, ready for action. Marjorie’s cellphone was in the other pocket, ready to dial 911. Her purse strap was wrapped securely around her body.

An assailant would have to cut it off her cold, dead body. Happy thought.

She felt prepared. Sort of.

The man jiggled the coins in his pants pocket and rocked back and forth on his well-worn heels. The floor numbers slowly climbed. 2. 3. 4. He studied the panel and let out an impatient sigh as the rickety box shimmied and shook its way from floor to floor.

The stranger glanced at Marjorie and smiled. Seemed like a kind smile, and Marjorie let down her guard just a little. Maybe he wasn’t a threat after all. And he had nice eyes. Be a shame to stick a car key in them.

A sudden burst of brilliance overhead, a loud POP from the ceiling, and the lights went out. And to Marjorie’s dismay, nothing’s quite as terrifyingly pitch black as a parking garage elevator at midnight.

The stranger came to the rescue. He pulled out his cellphone and turned on the flashlight app. “How did we ever manage without these things?” he asked.

Marjorie smiled, grateful for the light.

She breathed a sigh of relief when the elevator shuddered to a stop on the seventh floor. She’d ride up one more floor, by herself this time, hurry to her trusty Camry, and drive away into the night. Pour herself a nice glass of Merlot when she got home. A bubble bath. Safe and sound.

At least, that was her plan until the doors slowly opened on the seventh floor. When the stranger stepped out, two thugs dressed in hooded sweatshirts and fancy tennis shoes appeared out of the shadows. They grabbed fedora-man and dragged him toward a waiting sedan. As Marjorie watched in terror, the man’s raincoat opened wide, revealing a gun — and a badge. He was a cop!

The fedora-man yelled one word at Marjorie.

“Kingpin!”

The two men tried to jam the policeman into the back of the car, but he wasn’t going down easy. He slugged one of the men in the jaw, sending him sprawling to the solid concrete deck. But the other man shoved a gun in the cop’s back and pushed him into the car’s rear seat.

The driver’s side door opened, and a man got out. He was at least six feet tall, 300 pounds. Terrifyingly big. A defensive end for the Philadelphia Eagles would have been intimidated by this guy.

The parking garage light helped Marjorie get a pretty good look at the driver’s face. His eyes were steely blue. A jagged scar ran along his cheek. His salt and pepper hair was pulled back in a shoulder-length ponytail, and he wore a beat-up Phillies cap on his head. Fury radiated from every pore on his acne-scarred face, and he was coming straight at Marjorie with his gun drawn.

He shot one time into the dark elevator. The bullet ricocheted off the dull gray wall before penetrating the metal inches above Marjorie’s head. Just like in the movies, she actually heard the bullet whizz by.

Panicked, Marjorie hit the floor. She pulled the pepper spray from her pocket, and without taking the time to aim, shot blindly at the open elevator door.

Bullseye.

Maybe there’s a God after all. Marjorie couldn’t believe it. The assailant yelped in pain, covered his face with his hands, and backed away from the door. One of the hooded thugs grabbed his arm and dragged him back to the sedan, put him in the back seat, and got in on the driver’s side.

Trembling, she reached up and pushed the button, closing the elevator doors.

She was thrown back into pitch-black darkness. Thank goodness.

She heard the sedan’s tires scream as it took off down the ramp and out of the garage.

She had the presence of mind to turn on her phone. The soft glow helped her locate number eight on the panel. When she got to her floor, Marjorie burst out of the elevator, hit unlock on her key fob, and ran as fast as her trembling legs would carry her toward the safety of that beep beep. She struggled to open the door but finally made it inside her car. She jammed the key in the ignition, started the engine, and careened down the ramp to the exit. Her tires shrieked as she dialed 911.

The exit gate lay in pieces on the asphalt, a souvenir left by the bad guys as they crashed through on their way out. She didn’t stop to look both ways like her mother had taught her. She just drove like a crazy woman into the middle of Broad Street, briefly sending up a prayer of thanks that no one else was on the road at this time of night. Well, except for kidnappers and murderers.

Marjorie arrived home at record speed. She watched in the rear-view mirror all the way, just waiting for the bad guys to come up behind her and run her off the road or shoot out her windows. This was no Hallmark movie. This was for real, and she was terrified.

The garage door took forever to go up, but at last, she was able to pull in, turn off her car, and race to the safety of her own home.

The two officers were hesitant to believe her story. An older woman, fending off an attack with a pink canister of MaceFace? And the bit about the police detective being kidnapped? It just didn’t make sense.

Marjorie poured herself another glass of wine, just to calm her nerves, and explained the evening’s events again to the unconvinced officers. How she’d worked late, ridden the elevator with the stranger — who was probably a police detective — and then avoided being shot by fighting back with the only weapon she had on hand — MaceFace.

When Marjorie had finished her tale the second time, the police officers shook their heads in disbelief. They decided to take her to police headquarters downtown and let her tell her story to the detectives. Maybe they could clear this all up.

One thing was for sure. This woman had been through a terrible ordeal. She couldn’t stop shaking. The officers took her arms and gently helped her into the police car.

A few minutes later, she was sitting at the police station, sipping hot tea and looking through mugshots. Until she found him. The man who shot at her in the parking deck. The startled detective looked at her, shock written on his face.

And maybe something akin to admiration?

“This is the man who tried to shoot you?” he asked. Hearing the excitement in his voice, a group of officers gathered around to see what was going on.

“Yes, that’s him. Who is he?” Marjorie asked.

“That’s Kingpin. He controls all the drug trafficking in south Philly. The detective you saw dragged into the car had been investigating him for months. Your testimony may be enough to put him away for good.” The officer shook his head. “You’re lucky to be alive, lady. Kingpin doesn’t usually miss his targets.”

And that’s how Marjorie’s years of elevator riding came to an end. But pretty soon, she’d recall that time as the days of wine and roses. There were no white sand beaches or exotic umbrella drinks in her future. In fact, compared to the nightmare she was about to face, a scary elevator ride was a walk in the park.

Two

A New Life

“It’s time to go, Marjorie.” U.S. Marshal Stephen Breckinridge slung a canvas bag over his shoulder and closed his bedroom door. Marjorie took a quick look around her room, checking for any items she might have missed. She zipped up her small suitcase and followed Stephen down the stairs.

Knock, knock. Pause. Knock, knock, knock.

Marjorie recognized the signal. The marshals used it to let each other know it was safe to open the door.

“Go straight to the van and get in,” he said. “One of the drivers will take your suitcase for you. Don’t look around. Don’t speak to anyone. Got it?”

Marjorie nodded grimly at the man, her nearly constant companion since the U.S. Marshals paid her that first visit. Right after Kingpin had nearly killed her.

Table of Contents

Cast of Characters

A Terrifying Elevator Ride

A New Life

Beanie and Edna, Crime Stoppers

Beanie’s Discovery

Pearl Porter

A Death at the Manor

The Flooding of the Chattahoochee

Edna Cracks the Code

Time to Fess Up, Marjorie

Ragtime Cowgirl Irene

Pearl’s Secret

Just-A-Swingin’

Taking a Mulligan

The Show Must Go On

What’s Up with PBJ?

The Power of Butter Pecan

Scattered, Smothered, and Covered

Edna’s Hallelujah Day

A New Mystery?