Mushing is Murder Read online

  Mushing is Murder

  Cozy Mystery Tails of Alaska, Book 1

  Patti Benning

  Summer Prescott Books Publishing

  Copyright 2019 Summer Prescott Books

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication nor any of the information herein may be quoted from, nor reproduced, in any form, including but not limited to: printing, scanning, photocopying, or any other printed, digital, or audio formats, without prior express written consent of the copyright holder.

  **This book is a work of fiction. Any similarities to persons, living or dead, places of business, or situations past or present, is completely unintentional.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Epilogue

  Also by Patti Benning

  Author’s Note

  Contact Summer Prescott Books Publishing

  1

  The small airport was almost empty by the time people began disembarking the plane. Angie Seaver was used to the bustling hubbub of major international airports, and the difference was disconcerting.

  The second disconcerting thing was how much older her father looked. She spotted him before he saw her, and stumbled to a halt so suddenly that her overly large suitcase almost knocked her over. The video chats hadn’t shown just how tired he looked, or how the grey in his hair was almost white, or the deep lines around his eyes and mouth. It had been nearly ten years since she had seen him in person, and in those ten years, he had aged twenty.

  A sudden feeling of guilt overwhelmed her, followed quickly by resolve. She had made the right decision by coming here. She knew that now, more certainly than ever.

  “Dad?”

  Her father jerked as if he had fallen asleep leaning against the wall. He rubbed his eyes, then turned to look her up and down. The smile that grew on his face made her feel even worse for the rift of time that had come between them.

  “Angie.” He reached out and pulled her into a hug, heedless of her suitcase and bulky bags. “How was your flight?”

  “Bumpy. And cramped. I’m glad it’s over. How far is home from here?”

  “About an hour,” he said. He stepped back and looked at her again, as if he couldn’t believe she was actually there. He shook his head, then reached out to grab her suitcase. “Come on, let’s head out to the car. I’ve got an early day tomorrow.”

  Lost Bay, Alaska. Angie stared out of her window at the little town, simultaneously surprised at how it had changed and at how it hadn’t. She had grown up here, and the layout of the streets was as familiar to her as her own apartment had been, but there were enough differences to throw her off occasionally. Mr. Bean’s, the coffee shop, bore a permanent Closed sign in the window. On the corner, she spotted its replacement; Snow Grounds, which bore a logo of a stylized mug and a snow-covered mountain. Her family’s diner, Lost Bay Burgers, was still there, as unchanged as the coast they had just driven along for the better part of an hour.

  It was well past midnight by now, and the town was quiet. It could have been a ghost town. The fresh snowfall on the roads was unmarked by tire tracks, and she hadn’t seen another living person since they had left the airport.

  “Home sweet home,” she murmured.

  “What was that, Ange?” her father asked, glancing over at her.

  “I was just thinking about how familiar this all looks.”

  He nodded. “It’ll always be your home. You never really leave a place like this.”

  Angie remained silent at that. She wasn’t sure her father was right. She had left, for ten years. Her brother had left, and showed no sign of ever returning. And her sister… well, Angie didn’t like to think about her sister.

  “How are the dogs?” she asked instead, changing the subject to something she knew her dad was sure to latch on to. Sure enough, a broad smile lit up his face.

  “The team’s great this year. They’re really promising. We sold some dogs to Bill Grand a few years back — do you remember him? — to bring in some new blood. We still have Petunia, though. Remember her? You used to love that dog. She’s getting up there now, but she still helps teach the new pups the rules every year.”

  Angie smiled. She’d always loved her father’s sled dogs growing up. She had helped take care of them when she was a child, and even when she got older and got her first apartment in town, she had often stopped by to feed and exercise the dogs.

  “I wonder if she’ll remember me,” she mused. Petunia was a red and white Alaskan husky, a mix of a wide variety of breeds bred for the sole purpose of endurance racing. Her dad owned both mixed breed Alaskan huskies, and purebred Siberian huskies. “What about Boots? He was in the same litter as her, wasn’t he?”

  Her father shook his head. “He was her half-brother, and he was a few years older than her. He lived to be sixteen. Not a bad age for a dog, if you think about it.”

  “Oh.”

  They fell silent after that. Angie knew her father’s thoughts were on his old dogs. Hers were on the past. It was hard not to think of all of the happy years she’d had here when she was younger. There was a time when she swore she’d never leave this place. When she wanted to follow in her father’s footsteps and raise sled dogs, giving rides to tourists in the summer and racing in the winter.

  But all of that changed after her sister died. It broke their family as a whole, just as it broke each of their hearts. Her brother, who had already been drifting away, cut ties completely, not even coming to her funeral. Angie had stayed half a year longer, but eventually she just couldn’t take it anymore and left, fleeing to the south where she could build new memories for herself in southern California. New memories and a new family, that had been the plan.

  And now she was back, and it was almost like she hadn’t left at all. She was older, but she didn’t really feel any different. Nothing had changed here, or so it seemed. Not really.

  Still, she remembered her father’s tired face as he had stood waiting for her at the airport and knew that she had made the right decision. It was time to start making amends, before it was too late.

  “We’re almost there,” her father said. Angie jolted. She had been so lost in her thoughts that she hadn’t even noticed that they had left town and were now driving through the wilds of coastal Alaska. Occasional spots of light showed where someone’s house was, but they were few and far between.

  “Okay,” she replied, gripping her purse more tightly on her lap at the swirl of nerves that made her stomach clench.

  “Be quiet when we go in. Your mother’s going to be asleep, and I don’t want to wake her. Today was a bad day.”

  “Okay.”

  So she wouldn’t see her mother tonight. Her stomach twisted again, but this time with worry, not with nerves. Just how bad were things?

  The car turned onto the familiar driveway. The trees were a little bigger and — by the feel of it — the ruts a little deeper, but other than that it could have been just yesterday that she had left. She sat forward in her seat, hungrily taking in the view of her childhood home.

  It was two stories tall, and had been made at a time when faux-log cabin homes were stylish. The house had a couple of sprawling additions, the guest bedroom and an extra bathroom, where she would be staying, and a workshop where her father crafted everything from sleds to wooden figurines.

  The kennel was behind the house. She could see the chain link fencing that surrounded the dog yard from the
car. That was a relatively new addition, one her father had been forced to add after someone had stolen three of his dogs and had unleashed a few others. She could hear the dogs barking, awakened by the sound of the truck coming up the drive.

  It was home.

  Her father parked in front of the house and grabbed her suitcase from the back before heading up to the front door. She followed behind him, gathering her other bags into her arms and trying not to slip on the packed-down snow. It was cold. She had forgotten just how cold Alaska could get. It was the sort of cold that bit at her skin as if it had teeth and made her eyes water.

  “There we go,” her father said quietly, pushing open the front door. “The lock sticks sometimes, so you’ve got to wiggle it. Before I forget, here are the keys. I made a new set for you. I didn’t know if you still had your own.”

  “Thanks, Dad.” She managed to take the keys without dropping anything. Her father stood aside to let her into the house, shutting the door behind her. She breathed out a sigh of relief. It was nice and warm inside, and smelled just how she remembered it.

  “Let’s get your stuff in your room,” he said.

  She took a step forward, only to almost trip over a cat. It wound around her legs, purring. She spotted another feline face peering at her from the back of the couch. Both of them were black and white, almost identical from what she could see.

  “Dad?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I thought you hated cats.”

  He glanced back at her, noting the cat on the floor and the one on the couch. His gruff gaze softened.

  “The one by your feet is Checkers and the one on the couch is Chess. They’re your mother’s.”

  “I thought Mom hated cats. We never had any growing up.”

  “I guess things changed after you two left.” He shrugged, looking fondly at the cat by her feet. “The house was quiet. Someone dumped these two off in the dumpster behind the old coffee shop. Bill’s wife brought them in to the diner, only two weeks old and almost frozen to death. Your mom nursed them back to health, and they never left.”

  Angie smiled at the cats. Her hands were too full to pet them, and she was about to put down her stuff when her father started moving again, heading toward the guest room.

  She followed him, one of the cats trailing along behind them. Her father stopped at the end of the hallway and opened a door, stepping back. A white and red bundle of fur came running out, skidding to a stop inches from Angie’s legs.

  “Petunia,” she breathed, unable to help the smile that spread across her face.

  The dog sniffed at her legs for a long moment. She could see the exact instant Petunia realized who she was. The dog’s whole body seemed to wag as she spun around, an excited whine filling the hallway. Angie let her bags fall and crouched down to greet the dog.

  “Hey, girl,” she said, scratching the husky behind her ears. The dog was still wriggling, her tongue darting out in an effort to lick Angie’s face. She felt another, sharper, sting of guilt. “I’ve been gone too long, I know. I’m sorry. I’m back now.”

  The dog broke loose of her grip and tackled her, joyfully snuffling Angie’s clothing as the woman laughed. She looked up to see her father smiling at them.

  “Thought you might want to see her. I know how you always used to like having the dogs sleep inside when you were little. She spends the cold nights in here anyway, now. There’s a dog bed in your room if you want her to keep you company.”

  “Thank you, Dad,” she said, meeting his eyes, trying to communicate everything that she couldn’t say into her gaze. That she was sorry, that she had missed him and the dogs and her mother, that she was ready to fix all of the broken things that had torn their family apart.

  He just nodded. “I’ll leave you here, then. I’m taking the dogs out for an early run in the morning. I’ll put the coffee pot on before I go out. Everything’s the same in the kitchen. You’ll be able to find stuff for breakfast?”

  “I’ll figure it out,” she said. “What time does Mom usually wake up?”

  “She could get up at four, or she could get up at ten. It varies. I let her sleep as long as possible when I can. I think she’ll be up early, though. She’s excited to see you, Ange.”

  “I know. I’m excited to see her too.”

  They said their goodnights and Angie dragged her bags the rest of the way into the room. Her room. It was decently sized, with a comfortable looking bed, a desk, and a small sitting area with a plush armchair in the corner by an old-fashioned wood burning fireplace. Still, it was smaller than her apartment had been, and she wasn’t sure how she would adjust to living with her parents again. This wasn’t exactly as she had envisioned her life going. Of course, she hadn’t ever thought that her sister would die, or her mom would get sick, either.

  We make do, she thought. That’s all we can do.

  She looked down at Petunia, who was busy sniffing her bags. The last time Angie had seen her, the husky had been only a couple of years old. Now, she was twelve — no, thirteen. Old, not ancient, but getting up there. She was greying, and Angie could see a certain stiffness in some of her movements.

  She had raised Petunia practically from birth. Her dam hadn’t produced enough milk for the litter, and Angie had volunteered to take a couple of pups to her apartment to bottle feed them, so her parents wouldn’t have to do it all. One little red and white puppy had wormed her way into Angie’s heart, and had ended up spending more time with her than back at her parents’ house with the rest of the dogs. It had been heartbreaking to leave Petunia behind when she moved to California, but the dog loved doing what she had been bred for, and there weren’t many dog sledding opportunities in the city.

  “I’m back, girl,” Angie said. “Not for good, but for a while. And I want to make the most of it.”

  2

  Angie woke up to sunlight streaming in through the south facing window, and a warm body curled up against her back. She reached over and felt soft fur. Petunia, it seemed, had given up on the dog bed partway through the night.

  She stretched and then reached for her cell phone, which was on the nightstand. It was just past eight. She still felt tired, thanks to the late night and hours spent traveling, but she knew there would be no getting back to sleep. Not with the tempting scent of a home-cooked breakfast wafting in from the hallway.

  Her parents’ house looked different in the light than it had in the dark. Now that it was daytime, she could see little changes here and there; a new set of china in the cabinet, a wall that had been stripped of wallpaper and painted a pale green, a stretch of new carpeting in the hallway, and a whole new set of furniture in the living room.

  The kitchen was mostly unchanged, other than one glaring difference. Her mother. When Angie had last seen her mother, the other woman had just begun to go grey, and had died her roots religiously as if she could stave off the aging process through the use of artificial color. Now, she had a head of grey hair with only a few hints of auburn throughout. She had lost weight, too, and seemed to have shrunken in on herself. She had a walker near to where she stood at the counter, and even from the doorway, Angie could see the way her hands shook.

  No one could have predicted that Angie’s mother would develop Parkinson’s disease, not at such a young age. It had progressed steadily over the years since it had been diagnosed, and Angie realized that her parents had hid the worst of it from her during their video calls. Seeing her mother like this was a shock. If Angie hadn’t already decided that coming back was the right choice, the image of her mother standing at the counter, trying to pour two glasses of orange juice with shaking hands would have solidified it for her.

  “Hey, Mom,” she said softly.

  Her mother looked up, and a warm smile spread across her face. Angie closed the distance between them, and the two women enveloped each other in a hug.

  “Angie. How did you sleep?” Her mother’s voice was quiet, softer than Angie remembered.

&nbs
p; “I slept well. How long have you been up? Is Dad still out with the dogs?”

  Her mother nodded. “He won’t be back in for another couple of hours. I’ve only been up since seven. I had a feeling you were going to get up soon. You’ve never been one to sleep in very late. I made breakfast for the two of us. The sausage is from the neighbors. Remember Cheryl and Dave? They’re looking forward to seeing you again.”

  “I’ll have to go over and say hi pretty soon. Breakfast smells great. Do you want me to set the table?”

  “Sure, if you don’t mind. You know where everything is. We haven’t moved anything around since you left.”

  Sure enough, Angie found everything where she had left it and got to work setting the kitchen table. She and her mother sat down together and ate slowly enough that they could converse between bites. They talked about their friends, work, movies they’d seen — everything but the tough topics like her sister’s death and her mother’s illness. Once Ange had finished with her plate, she got up and started doing the dishes while her mother fed the cats and Petunia.

  “Oh, I almost forgot,” her mother said as she came back into the kitchen. “Your father left this for you.”

  Angie took the folded piece of paper and opened it to find a handwritten note. Ange, I left the keys to the diner in the center console of the old van. You can use the van while you’re here if you want. If you can go open the diner by eight, that would be great. I’ll stop by this afternoon to check on things. Love, Dad.

  She blinked, then re-read the note. A glance at the clock showed her that it was after nine already. “Shoot,” she said. “I’m already late.”