Bound To Die: A Cozy Mystery (Strawberry Shores Mystery Book 1) by Mak K. Han Read Free Book Online Page A

people my age were in downtown Strawberry Shores on a Saturday night, but here I was skulking around the library, trying to gain access to a crime scene.
    Alex's words had stuck with me all day. I'd worked from 9:00 AM to 2:30 PM—the library closed early on Saturdays—and I'd hoped to get Susan near a radio so I could talk to her about the case, but Susan hadn't worked today. Eager to get a jump on the case, I went with the next best option: explore the crime scene.
    I stood in front of the library. To the left was the wooded path, which had been cleared and illuminated with spotlights. I didn't want to loop around the library that way—suppose someone walked or drove past and saw me sneaking around? It probably wouldn't end well.
    So I went around the right-hand side, the side with the swamp and the embankment. I tucked my flashlight into my belt and stuck to the wall, keeping a close eye on my footing. Once I eased my way along the embankment, I took out a flashlight.
    The rear of the library was lit up with more spotlights, but the field was surrounded on all sides by trees, so I wasn't too worried about being spotted. I paused for a moment in the corner, listening intently in case someone like Sheriff Caldwell was inside the secret room.
    Silence.
    I crept around the corner of the library and turned the flashlight on, taking care to watch the beam so nobody would see it. Then I ducked under the crime scene tape and into the secret room.
    The secret room was deathly silent. There was a chalk outline on the floor where Mr. Brooks's body had been, and a little red flag identifying where the rat poison had been found. I shined the flashlight around the room. It looked like those were the only clues Sheriff Caldwell had found, as there were no other red flags.
    I started by examining the shelves nearby. The fact of the matter was, I didn't even have a working theory as to what exactly happened the night of the carnival. Why was Mr. Brooks in the secret room? Why was the rat poison right next to him? It made sense that the killer would have lured Mr. Brooks away from the crowd. That would give him time to escape after Mr. Brooks drank the rat poison. Choosing the carnival was smart because it made just about everyone in town a possible suspect.
    The light passed over a spot of shelf that didn't have a book on it and I paused. There had been something there. I backed up a little bit. The dust on the shelf was uneven here. There was a circle in the dust, as though a cup had been set there. The way the dust streaked made it look as though the cup had been sitting there and then dragged off the shelf.
    At first I thought it made sense. Mr. Brooks drank the punch, set the cup down, and then collapsed, taking the cup with him. That is, until I realized that the streak marks lead away from where Mr. Brooks had been found. That meant that either Mr. Brooks had been walking around, or that there had been someone else in there with him, also with a drink.
    I kept looking. Was there any significance to using the secret room? I suppose that it might make sense if Dennis Arbour used it as a sort of irony. Or possibly Susan. What if the rumors were true? What if Susan had been involved in an affair with Mr. Brooks? That worked well too. Susan lured Mr. Brooks away to the secret room for some alone time, offered him a drink to loosen up, only to lace the drink with poison. Or Chester had decided to ask Mr. Brooks for a talk in private that ended fatally.
    As I angled my flashlight downward, my eye caught the edge of a piece of fabric sticking out from under one of the shelves. Puzzled, I squatted and pulled it out from under the shelf.
    It was a glove, a gray glove with blue on the fingertips. It was dusty, but not dusty enough to have been there for any length of time. Sure, maybe Daniel had left it behind while he was blocking up the secret room, but I doubted it. I was sure this glove was involved in the case somehow. I was sure it had