Spyglass Lane Mysteries presents:.

The Mayhem in Maryland Series.

Murder in the Milk Case.

By Candice Speare Prentice.

Chapter One.

Death wasn't normally on my mind in the grocery store parking lot. Today, however, my thoughts lingered on the untimely demise of our pet hamster. Not due to excessive amounts of grief but because I didn't have to remember to buy hamster food. Now I could concentrate on more important thingsa"like milk.

After parking in front of the Shopper's Super Saver, I climbed from my SUV. A strong spring breeze whipped through my hair as I searched in vain for my grocery list. As usual, I had misplaced it. I tried to assemble another one in my head, but the sound of loud male voices distracted me.

I squinted in their direction. Next to a side entrance to the store, I saw Daryl Boyd, the assistant manager and an old high school acquaintance, in an intense conversation with a balding man in a blue sports jacket. Well, perhaps intense conversation wasn't an apt description. Both men's fists were balled at their sides. Daryl took a swipe at the other man, who ducked, just missing what would have been a whopping black eye. The last time I'd witnessed so much machismo had been between two fathers on the sidelines during a high school football game.

I shifted, trying to see more clearly. The men noticed me and stopped yelling. My own temper flared when I realized the identity of the man in the sports coat: Jim Bob Jenkins, the pharmacist. Today was supposed to be his day off, which was one reason I'd picked this morning to shop. He stared at me, hands on hips, then marched back inside, followed closely by Daryl, who had started yelling again.

I leaned against the SUV, asking God to help me fight my warring emotions. The good Trish against the bad Trish. Truthfully, there's nothing I like better than a fighta"something I'd been known to participate in myself when I was young, much to my parents' chagrin. I was a true rough-and-ready redneck tomboy. Underneath, I guess I still am. And I especially like fights when the bad guy gets what's coming to him. That's what made my conflict of conscience so hard today. And why I needed to pray. As far as I was concerned, Jim Bob deserved to be decked. I wanted to do it myself when, during a quarrel over a prescription, he'd hissed a threat in my ear about something from the past. I didn't believe he meant ita"until he'd come by the office the next Friday and reminded me. I got mad and yelled at him. I told him he was wrong. He smirked and said he'd be back after I had time to reconsider what he'd said.

Right now, I wanted to go home, but I needed to shop because today was my day off. With one more glance at the door where the men had disappeared, I headed for the store. At least customers were sparse on a Monday morning, which made shopping easier. I grabbed my cart, passing through the Easter displays, trying to ignore the dread in my stomach that I might see Jim Bob. After putting a couple of impulsive candy purchases in my cart, I headed for the deli to get some coffee, one of my favorite parts of shopping.

Unfortunately, when I got there, the self-serve pump thermoses that normally held my favorite beverage were nowhere in sight. And no one was in the deli. I tapped my fingers on the glass counter, wondering why they didn't have a little bell I could bang in frustration. Meats, cheeses, and salads were still covered. Opaque plastic covered the huge slicing machines, and several knives lay next to the sink.

"Hello?" I yelled.

"Trish?"

I turned around and saw Daryl in his red jacket, holding a hammer. His brown hair was slightly askew, probably from his run-in with Jim Bob.

"Hi, Daryl. I need coffee, bad."

"We had two deli employees call in sick. Stomach bug. They're working on getting someone else in here." He sighed. "This hasn't been a good morning."

"No, I guess not," I said. "I saw you in the parking lot."

His face darkened. "No one has had any peace since that mana""

"Daryl?" a female voice said. "Oh, hey, Trish."

We both turned. Lee Ann Snyder stood in the doorway between the back room and the deli, her black hair pulled into a ponytail. She was younger than me by two years. Back when we'd both been in 4-H, I'd taken her under my wing. "We gonna get some work done today?" she asked. "Frank is hyperventilating."

"Isn't that normal for Frank?" I'd known the store manager for years.

Daryl smirked and glanced at me. "Well, I can't disagree, but anyway, I'm sorry about the deli. We'll have somebody here as soon as possible to get things up and running."

He said good-bye and went toward the back of the store, followed by Lee Ann, who gave me a backward wave.

With time marching on, I decided not to wait. Problem was, I had no grocery list. And without caffeine, I had no brain with which to think. That meant I'd have to guess what I needed. I mulled over the produce, finally settling on bananas, apples, potatoes, and a selection of salad fixings. Then I wheeled up and down the aisles, tossing in boxes and cans of stuff. Distracted by the books and magazines, I selected several. I love magazines with recipes in them.

At that point, I had to use the ladies' room. I didn't want to. Unlike some stores that have official customer restrooms, these are in the bowels of the building, reached only by going through two thick, swinging doors next to the meat case, then into a back room. I parked my cart and proceeded to the back, following a winding path between towering piles of cartons and cases. I didn't like being in the warehouse-like space even when it was well lit, but today the lights were dim.

As I hurried along, clicks from my shoe heels echoed in the cavernous space, and I had visions of scary monsters from B-movies slipping out from behind boxes and stealthily dogging my steps. Monsters are the only things that frighten me, and that was my fault. When I was a teenager, I'd watched every horror flick known to mana"unbeknownst to my poor parents, who struggled to keep me in line. Every frame of those films was etched in my memory, ready to leap to the forefront at the slightest opportunity. Like right now. Only the distant sound of human voices kept my palms from sweating.

The beige-, brown-, and white-tiled bathroom was too warm and smelled of bleach and heavy-duty floral room deodorizer. While I was in the stall, the bathroom door opened, but no one came in. When I was done, I quickly washed my hands and rushed out the door, into the storeroom. I heard a bang behind me, jumped, and turned, half expecting to see a slavering beast straight from my movie-fed imagination, but all I saw was a glimpse of red, then nothing. I whirled around and hurried on, ignoring the bristling of hair on my neck and the feeling I was being watched.

When I reached the double doors, they were moving on their hinges as if someone else had just passed through them. With relief, I pushed them open and saw a red-jacketed man hurrying up a store aisle. I'd recognize that Jack Sprat body anywhere. Frank Gaines, the store manager, otherwise known as "Dudley Do-It-All-Right," so named in grade school after the Canadian Mounties cartoon character Dudley Do-Right. Seeing him made everything feel okay again. Frank was annoying and obnoxious, but he wasn't a monster.

I grabbed my cart and hurried to finish shopping, hoping I wouldn't run into Jim Bob. Meat was next. As I stood pondering hamburger, I glanced through the glass windows into the meat-cutting room. A door to the room opened, and Lee Ann walked in. She looked up, saw me, and gave me a tepid wave. This year, we'd seen a lot of each other. Her daughter, Julie, was my stepdaughter's best friend. I smiled and chose meat that I hoped I didn't have at home in the freezer. Then I hurried on to the milk case. I opened the glass door, grabbed three gallons, and turned to leave, but the hand behind the milk had already caught my eye. It just took a minute to move along my optic nerves to my brain.

No way, I told myself as I peered back into the dairy case. There couldn't possibly be a hand behind the 2 percent milk. Surely this was a hallucination. I blinked. Twice.

Nope. Not a hallucination. A hand lay in the back of the same slot from which I'd pulled the milk. It had to be a joke. Maybe some kids had put it there.

I felt the hand and knew right away it wasn't rubber. I don't know how I knew. Reaching out and touching someone would always have a whole new meaning for me now. The closest I'd come to dead people is reading mystery books and viewing a weekly forensic show while I folded laundry.

I felt nauseated but pulled out a few gallons of regular milk that obscured my view. I stuck my head in the dairy case for a closer look, and the cold metal racks bit into my chest. Chilly air assailed my face, temporarily removing the nausea. A little voice in the recesses of my mind screamed that a normal woman would immediately call for help. Not me. I had to investigate.

Sure enough. The hand was attached to an arm.

It made sense in a macabre way. There was no blood on the hand, which there would have been had it been separated from its arm. At least if it were fresh. I guess.

I squinted to see into the cold room behind the dairy case. In my peripheral vision, I thought I saw a flash of red, but the realization that the arm was attached to a man's body distracted me. He was sprawled over a six-wheeled cart, positioned in a way that would be terribly uncomfortable for someone alive. A familiar bald head dangled, facing away from me, and a large knife protruded from his white-shirt-clad stomach. I had run into Jim Bob, all right. But I doubted I'd ever run into him again.

I averted my eyes, feeling a sense of unreality. The nausea returned with a vengeance. About that time, I sensed a presence behind mea"mostly from all the noise he made clearing his throat. I guess I did look pretty strange with my upper body stuffed in the dairy case and my derriere sticking out in the aisle.

"Ma'am, may I help you?"

I jerked my head out so quickly I hit it on the rack. When I turned, Frank Gaines was staring at me with a puzzled look on his face.

"Trish. I didn't recognize you. What in the world are you doing?"

"Hi, Duda"Frank." I swallowed hard, grateful that I hadn't had coffee at the deli. "Did you know Jim Bob Jenkins is in the milk case?" I glanced back where I'd seen the pharmacist, and then once again faced Frank.

"Excuse me?" Frank managed to look gallant and disbelieving at the same time.

"Jim Bob is in the milk case," I repeated.

"I'm sorry," he said in the same calm tone that annoyed me when we were in school together. "I must have misunderstood you." He smiled and nodded, as though we shared a joke. "I thought you said that Jim Bob Jenkins is in the milk case."

"I did."

"You did?"

"I did." I turned to peer into the case one more time on the off chance that I was delirious. I wasn't.

"That's really not funny, Trish. You shouldn't joke about things like that." He shook his head as if I were a wayward child.

I turned back to him, wanting to shake him. "I am not joking. Jim Bob is in the milk case. With a knife in his stomach." I said the words very slowly, as I do with my younger stepson, Charlie.

It was as if someone pushed a button and turned Frank on. His perfect, plastic manager look disappeared, and a series of expressions crossed his face, the likes of which I'd never seen there before. Every muscle in his face twitched. He pushed me out of the way to look and stuck his head in the racks, messing up his perfect hair. Then he promptly fell to the floor in a dead faint.

An hour later, I sat on an orange plastic chair in the employee lunchroom, twisting my hands in my lap. The police left me alone for a moment, no doubt to gear up for more questions. I'd called Max, my husband, who was in the midst of a meeting two hours away. He said he would leave as soon as possible. He reminded me that he played baseball with the detective who was questioning me and expected I'd be treated well. I'd seen the detective around myself, but never in a situation like this. Max sounded slightly annoyed with me. At least I wasn't calling from the emergency rooma" a place I end up more times than I like to admit, after doing things that a woman my age probably shouldn't.

The pungent odor of old coffee baking in a carafe in the little kitchen-like corner of the room mixed with the more pleasant smell of popcorn. I glanced around the blue-walled room for what seemed like the millionth time. A pile of certificate frames lay stacked on the gray counter, along with an open toolbox, one with molded indentations for each tool. I love tools and wanted to see exactly what was there, but several deputies in uniforms, plus the detective, whose last name was Scott, had ordered me to sit and stay. They had isolated a number of people in different locations, and I was sure they meant every word they said.

I crossed my legs and wondered how long it would take for word to get out to the general population of Four Oaks that Trish Cunningham, a.k.a. the woman who is always in trouble, had found a body. And not just any body. Jim Bob Jenkins, the pharmacist. Murdered. With a knife in his gut.

My stomach turned over. In an effort to forget the dead man, I turned my attention again to the tools. The hammer was missing. I wondered if that was the one that Daryl had been carrying. I paused midthought and planted both feet on the floor. Had I told the detective about Daryl having a hammer? I wasn't sure. Did it matter? And then there were the knives I'd seen next to the sink in the deli. Had I mentioned those? The events of the morning had taken on a dreamlike quality, melting together in a collage of scenes that had no particular order. Was there anything else I hadn't told him?

I heard footsteps outside the door. A deputy stepped into the room. He resembled Santa Claus, minus the beard, but I knew from speaking with him earlier that he was a hostile alien impersonating the merry Christmas elf.

"Mrs. Cunningham, Detective Scott wants to talk to you again. He'll be here in a moment."

"Okay." I bit my lip. I wasn't feeling well. I was tired. I just wanted to go home.

The deputy stood by the door, arms clasped in front of him, studying me as if I were a splotch of something unpleasant on a microscope slide.

After several minutes, the silence was unbearable. I met his gaze head-on. "So, are you guys done yet?"

He averted his eyes. "No ma'am."

I frowned at him. "Well, what all do you have to do? I mean, how long does this take, anyway? Is it like hours or all day or what? I want to go home. My daughter is in kindergarten. She'll be home at lunchtime."

His bushy eyebrows edged up his forehead as his glance swept over me. "Um, well, I understand, ma'am, but we have to investigate till we're satisfied. You can go home when Detective Scott says you can."

"Okay, but I should call my car pool partner. I don't want Sammie dropped off if I'm not there." I crossed my legs again. "Is this like one of those forensic shows where crime-scene cops crawl all over the place with chemicals and cameras and stuff? Using tweezers and tape? And what about Jim Bob, er, the body, uh, the corpse. Who takes care of him? Is there a morgue van that carries hima"the bodya"away?"

"Everything's under control, ma'am," the deputy mumbled.

"What does that mean?" I asked.

He shook his head. "Just what I said."

"Oh." I sighed. "I get it. You can't tell me anything. Like on television. Everyone's a suspect until proven innocent. I found the murdered man. I'm at the top of the list. Hey, I watch television. I know how it is."

His mouth opened and closed a few times, but he was spared answering by the entrance of Detective Eric Scott, who wore a suit. While he wasn't an alien, the detective had lost any sense of humor he ever had, and I had yet to see him smile.

After glancing at me, the detective turned to Santa Cop. "Fletcher? Everything okay here?"

Did he think I was going to threaten the deputy with bodily harm? All one hundred pounds of me? Or did he think I had suddenly confessed to murdering Jim Bob? I eyed Santa Cop, who eyed me.

"Things are fine, Sarge," he said.

"Good." Detective Scott turned his enigmatic gaze on me. "Mrs. Cunningham, I'd like to go over your statement again, if you don't mind."

And if I did mind, would I be hauled off to jail? Feeling irritable, I wondered if imprisonment would be a better alternative than answering a million questions. I decided No and nodded. "Fine. Go ahead."

"Please tell me again what you did from the time you arrived in the parking lot of the store."

I proceeded to do so. They were checking their notes. When I got to the part about having to use the bathroom, both men jerked their heads up and stared at me.

Detective Scott's lips narrowed. "Mrs. Cunningham, you said nothing about this earlier."

"I didn't?" I tried to remember. "Well, it's all very confusing. I mean, I had no list and I didn't have any coffee."

"What?" the detective asked.

I shook my head and stared at the ceiling, trying to think. "Well, I really don't know what to say. There were the knives in the deli. And Daryl's hammer." Was there anything else I'd forgotten? I met their gazes. "Did I tell you about those things?"

I had never experienced stares and vibes quite like those emanating from the two officers who stood across the room from me. I felt much worse than something icky on a microscope slidea"more like a butterfly pinned alive on a display board.

Detective Scott slapped his notebook shut. "Mrs. Cunningham, we need to continue this interview at the sheriff's office."

My mouth fell open. The sheriff's office? I shivered, feeling like I'd been dropped into a play where all the cast members knew their parts but me.

Detective Scott noticed. His expression softened a fraction. "This is just normal procedure, ma'am. We'll drive you. And while you're there, I'll see to it that you speak to a victim advocate."

Before I could ask who that was, he had turned to the deputy.

"Fletcher, get her ready to go downtown. You can take her. Get her whatever she needs."

"You got it, Sarge."

Detective Scott left the room. Fletcher and I exchanged glances. For just a second, I thought maybe I saw a glimpse of compassion in his eyes. Then he motioned to the table.

"Get your pocketbook, Mrs. Cunningham. I'll show you to my car."

I snatched up my purse and hung onto it like it was a life preserver.

Chapter Two.

At the sheriff's office, Fletcher escorted me into a room barren of anything but a table and chairs for my first-ever police interview. He seemed resigned to my chatter, which is always worse when I'm nervous. He got me a cold bottle of water, and while I yammered on, he kept eyeing me. That encouraged me to keep on talking, although after I called him Deputy Fletcher several times, he informed me that he was a corporal, not a deputy. When I asked his permission to make a phone call to arrange for Sammie to be taken care of, he agreed with alacrity, probably relieved that I'd be babbling at someone else.

That was the extent of our conversation because while I was on my cell phone, a well-dressed, proper young woman walked into the room. I hung up, and Corporal Fletcher introduced her as the victim advocate, then he left. For some reason, I found myself wanting the big man to stay. Maybe it was one of those captor/captive brainwashing things that happens to some kidnapping victims. He'd been nice to me, so I felt pathetically grateful.