SUMMER READING IS KILLING ME - CHAPTER 1 EXCERPT

“And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.”
― F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby

I love summer. I love how you could see the air ripple as waves of heat rose from the asphalt. I love how the warm summer breezes swayed the large trees surrounding the lake and how you could hear the bees buzzing and zipping from flower to flower. I even love riding down the road inside my 1968 VW bus with no air conditioner, Velma, with the windows down and the wind tangling my strawberry curls. What I didn't love is the dead body I just stumbled on in Longfellow Park. And here I am without my Super Librarian costume on to try to solve the crime.

It was just after dawn and I was unloading tables for the annual Miller's Cove Founder's Day celebration. The town library always held a small book sale during the celebration to help raise money for the end of summer reading party for the children. I was meeting Wade Woodfield, my part-time clerk and general library dogsbody, at seven a.m. to start unpacking the books and placing them on the tables. Unable to sleep, I had decided to go ahead and set up our tables and hang our banner before going back to the library to load up the boxes of books. Clint was at the state police headquarters in Burlington for the next few days for training and I was dogsitting his Jack Russell Terrier, Watson. Watson actually discovered the body. I was busy unloading tables when I heard a sharp bark. I looked around and spotted Watson barking and growling at what appeared to be a pair of jeans.

"Watson! Come here, boy!" I whistled for him. He glanced up at me but continued to bark and growl. Sighing, I strode over to him and when I saw what he was barking at, I drew up sharply. On the grass was a young woman in what appeared to be her mid-twenties with long, blonde hair and a paintbrush buried in her chest. Lying next to her on the ground was a half-painted canvas, an artist's easel and some tubes of paint with their bright colors oozing out of the opened ends to mix with her blood.

"Oh crud! Oh crud! Oh crud!" I said aloud. Watson lurched forward and grabbed the bottom of the woman's jeans in his teeth and started to tug them. "No, Watson! Come here!" I reached down and picked him up. I took him back up to Velma and shut him in the back of the van. Pulling my cell phone from my large messenger bag, I called the Miller's Cove Sheriff's Department.

"Miller's Cove Sheriff's Department. What's your emergency?" A nasally voice asked me. It was Tina, the gum-smacking, fingernail-polishing receptionist who had aspirations of being a cop one day as long as the uniform didn't make her thighs look fat.

"Tina. It's Ophelia Jefferson. I'm over at Longfellow Park setting up for Founder's Day. I just found a young woman dead and I'm pretty sure it was murder," I reported briskly.

"Really?" Tina sounded incredulous. "A dead body? Murdered? Are you sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure," I said sharply. "Can you send a deputy right away?" I shouldn't be surprised that Tina doubted the presence of a corpse. Until last year, Miller's Cove hadn't had a murder in over one hundred years. That all changed when my friend Grant's mom, Shari Davis, had lost her grip on reality and murdered three people. I would have been next if Clint hadn't charged in and rescued me. I even had a scar above my left eyebrow from where Shari hit me with a shovel. I thought it gave me a slightly impish look with a hint of danger.

"Matt's on duty this morning. I'm sure he's over at Nellie Jo's having a cup of coffee and a doughnut. I'll give him a call and send him right over," Tina said briskly.

"I'm not going anywhere," I said and disconnected the call. I heaved a sigh and began to load the tables back into Velma. I had a feeling that the Founder's Day Celebration might just be cancelled.