The Chocolate Moose Motive: A Chocoholic Mystery by JoAnna Carl Read Free Book Online Page B

that I had an irrational feeling she might carry off one of us.
    I don’t claim to be a major nature lover, but that owl was awesome.
    Having a quiet talk about the day’s happenings with your husband can be awesome, too. And that night, as we waited for the owl, I reported to Joe on Sissy’s first day on the job.
    “Sissy seems like a good worker, and she’s eager to get into the swing of things. I just hope all this interest in her dies down. It may increase business, but the gawkers and gossips are a pain in the neck.”
    “Of course, you were a bit curious about Sissy yourself.”
    “True. I admit I gawked at her that first day I met her in the supermarket. But now I’m curious about someone else—Wildflower.”
    “Sissy’s grandmother? I haven’t seen her around town that I know of. I hear she’s almost a recluse.”
    “I’d love to meet her.”
    “Why?”
    “Because everybody says she’s a hippie. I thought all the hippies became regular citizens twenty years before I was born. I read about them, and I guess I always had a sneaking wish that I’d been around to be one.”
    “A hippie? But, Lee, you’re an accountant.”
    “Even accountants might like to kick over the traces a little. The idea of having long flowing hair, of sitting around while singing folk songs, of living in a commune, of demonstrating for justice—it has a romantic feel.”
    “Well, you have long hair and you can sing folk songs, and I think you’re in favor of justice, but I definitely don’t see you in a commune. You like your privacy.”
    “True. Still, I’d like to meet Wildflower.”
    Joe looked serious. “I guess you could just go out to Moose Lodge and introduce yourself.”
    “Oh yeah. ‘Hi there, hippie. I’d like to stare at you.’ I don’t think so.”
    “You could ask Sissy to introduce you.”
    “She said she would sometime, but I’ll have to wait until it’s convenient, and you said yourself that Wildflower doesn’t come to town often. I can’t think of any excuse to just go out there and introduce myself.”
    “Excuse?” Joe thought a moment. “Well, you could join a church and say you were recruiting new members.”
    I rolled my eyes.
    “You could support a political campaign and canvass for votes. Or ask Wildflower to join the Warner Pier Chamber of Commerce. Or to contribute to the Red Cross.”
    “Or I could forget the whole thing, and sometime Wildflower will come by to have lunch with Sissy, and I’ll meet her.”
    Joe punched the air with his fist. “Be proactive, Lee. Wildflower is a taxidermist. You could take a dead animal out there to be stuffed.”
    “Sure. Next time I see a roadkill raccoon, I’ll shovel it into the back of the van. I’m sure Wildflower would love that.”
    I’m sorry to report that was almost what happened.

Chapter 6

    That evening was the final time we saw our beautiful great horned owl. The next morning Joe saw an odd lump of fluffy brown out under a tree, the one where she often roosted during the day. When he investigated, he found her lying in the bushes, dead.
    He called me, and the two of us stood over her.
    “Oh, gee,” I said. “I wonder what happened to her.”
    “I don’t see any signs of injury,” Joe said. “I guess birds die just the way other creatures do.”
    She looked much smaller, lying in the bushes where she had fallen. With her broad wings furled, she was no longer a giant. As the bird book said, she was only twenty-two inches or so long from the tips of her tail feathers to the tops of her feathery horns. It had been her huge wingspread that made her seem so large.
    Joe pushed back the sleeve of his lawyer suit and checked the time. “I have to leave. We can put her in a garbage bag, and I’ll bury her this evening.”
    I smiled, but it wasn’t a happy smile. “The last time I held a funeral for a dead bird it was a sparrow, and I was six years old.”
    “I was seven, I think. But I don’t want to just toss her away.