A Glimmer of a Clue Read online

  Praise for Daryl Wood Gerber’s first

  Fairy Garden mystery

  A Sprinkling of Murder

  “Enchanting series launch from Agatha Award winner

  Gerber. . . . Cozy fans will wish upon a star for more.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Likable characters . . . and an entertaining but not-too-intrusive

  fairy connection make this a winner.... Fans of

  Laura Childs’ work will enjoy Gerber’s new series.”

  —Booklist

  “Full of fun, whimsy, and a baffling whodunit. . . . After

  finishing the book fans might want to try their hand at

  making their own fairy garden, or test the delectable recipes in the back of the book.”

  —Mystery Scene

  “A charming murder mystery. . . . The addition of real fairies

  adds a delightful twist.... Courtney is an engaging heroine

  backed by a fun, diverse cast.”

  —Criminal Element

  “A Sprinkling of Murder is an enchanting mystery that asks you

  to believe. Believe, not only in fairies, but in yourself and the

  intrinsic goodness of people.”

  —Cozy Up with Kathy

  Kensington books by Daryl Wood Gerber

  The Fairy Garden Mystery series

  A Sprinkling of Murder

  A Glimmer of a Clue

  A Glimmer of a Clue

  Daryl Wood Gerber

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Praise

  Also by

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Acknowledgments

  CAST OF CHARACTERS - (listed alphabetically by first name)

  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

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  RECIPES

  Teaser chapter

  KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2021 by Daryl Wood Gerber

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.

  The K logo is a trademark of Kensington Publishing Corp.

  ISBN: 978-1-4967-2636-0

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4967-2636-0

  ISBN-10: 1-4967-2636-7

  Thank you, Sparky, my darling dog. You make life joyous.

  Acknowledgments

  Creativity is a habit, and the best creativity is the result of

  good work habits.

  —Twyla Tharp

  Creativity is not easy, no matter what anyone tells you. I don’t sit down and write beautiful prose every time I’m at my computer. Sometimes writing is like pulling teeth. Painful. But I do it because I’m a glutton for punishment and because I want to write the best stories I can. For you.

  I have been truly blessed to have the support and input of so many friends, family, and associates as I pursue this wild, chaotic, creative journey.

  So let me start by saying thank you to my family and friends for all your encouragement. Thank you to my talented author pals, Krista Davis and Hannah Dennison, for your words of wisdom. Thank you to my Plothatcher pals: Janet (Ginger Bolton), Kaye George, Marilyn Levinson (Allison Brook), Peg Cochran, Janet Koch (Laura Alden), and Krista Davis. It’s hard to keep all your aliases straight, but you are a wonderful pool of talent and a terrific wealth of ideas, jokes, stories, and fun! I adore you. Thanks to my Delicious Mystery author pals, Roberta Isleib, Krista Davis, and Amanda Flower. I treasure your creative enthusiasm via social media.Thank you to my Facebook fan-based group, Delicious Mysteries, as well as my review crew. I love how willing you are to read advance copies, post reviews, and help me as well as numerous other authors promote whenever possible. We need fans like you.

  Thanks to those who have helped make the Fairy Garden Mystery series come to life: my publisher at Kensington, Steve Zacharius; my editor, Wendy McCurdy; my publicist, Larissa Ackerman; my production editor, Carly Sommerstein; and the rest of the Kensington team; my agent, John Talbot; and my cover artist, Elsa Kerls. Thank you to my biggest supporter, Kimberley Greene. Thank you to Madeira James at Xuni for maintaining constant quality on my website. Thank you to my virtual assistants, Marie McNary and Christina Higgins, for your novel ideas. Honestly, without all of you, I don’t know what I would do.

  Thank you to Chief Paul Tomasi of the Carmel Police Department for answering all my questions. Any mistakes as to police department procedure are my own.

  Last but not least, thank you, librarians, teachers, and readers, for sharing the delicious world of a fairy garden designer in Carmel-by-the-Sea with your friends. Dream big, my friends, and savor the mystery.

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  (listed alphabetically by first name)

  Humans

  Brady Cash, owner of Hideaway Café

  Courtney Kelly, owner of Open Your Imagination

  Didi Dubois, owner of Sport Zone

  Dylan Summers, detective, Carmel Police Department

  Elton Lamar, car dealership owner

  Eudora Cash, romance author and Brady’s mother

  Glinda Gill, owner of Glitz Jewelers

  Hattie Hopewell, Happy Diggers garden club chair

  Hedda Hopewell, loan officer

  Holly Hopewell, cottage landlord and neighbor

  Jeremy Batcheller, owner of Batcheller Galleries

  Joss Timberlake, assistant at Open Your Imagination

  Kenny Chu, trainer at Sport Zone

  Kipling “Kip” Kelly, Courtney’s father, landscaper

  Lana Lamar, art critic

  Meaghan Brownie, half owner of Flair Gallery

  Lissa Reade, aka Miss Reade, librarian

  Pauline, perky front desk attendant and assistant manager at Sport Zone

  Redcliff Reddick, police officer

  Renee Rodriguez, owner of Seize the Clay

  Tish Waterman, owner of A Peaceful Solution Spa

  Ulani Kamaka, reporter for The Carmel Pine Cone

  Victoria Judge, defense attorney

  Wanda Brownie, art representative, Meaghan’s mother

  Yvanna Acebo, employee at Sweet Treats, weekend baker at Open Your Imagination

  Ziggy Foxx, half owner of Flair Gallery

  Fairies and Pets
br />   Fiona, a righteous fairy

  Merryweather Rose of Song, a guardian fairy

  Zephyr, a nurturer fairy

  Pixie, Courtney’s Ragdoll cat

  Chapter 1

  Come, fairies, take me out of this dull world, for I would ride with you upon the wind and dance upon the mountains like a flame!

  —William Butler Yeats

  “That woman is going to be the death of me, Courtney.” Didi Dubois bustled from Open Your Imagination’s main showroom onto the slate patio.

  I was standing at the far end, beside the rectangular table in the learning-the-craft corner, creating a fairy garden using a three-foot tall, wide-mouthed blue glazed pot. I loved spending time on the patio, an outdoor garden space with a skylight in its pyramid-shaped roof. Good vibes radiated everywhere.

  “I swear her tongue is a dagger and her fingernails are talons,” Didi carried on.

  With long strides, she made a beeline past the wrought-iron tables and ornate fountain carved with fairies and gnomes to the verdigris bakers’ racks. Recently, I’d doubled the stock of fairy figurines and fairy equipment and accessories we carried at Open Your Imagination. Customers had been thrilled.

  “If she morphed into the tigress that she is,” Didi said, “she would eat me for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.” Didi could be quite dramatic. When not working out or playing pickleball, like she obviously had today, judging by her outfit of spandex shorts and tank top, she dressed as dramatically as she came across, in colorful dresses and lacy shawls. “I need to make something that will calm my nerves,” she said loudly.

  A few of the customers who were communing near the vines and ficus trees that adorned the patio were glancing in Didi’s direction. She was oblivious.

  “Any fairies about?” she asked.

  The scuttlebutt in Carmel-by-the-Sea was that a number of fairies resided at my fairy garden and tea shop. In fact, there was only one—Fiona, a fairy-in-training. I’d come to meet her a little over a year ago when I’d quit my job as a landscaper for my father’s company and dared to open my own business. I’d lost my ability to see fairies after my mother died twenty years ago. Fiona said it was the leap of faith to start something new that had opened my heart to the unimaginable again.

  Fiona should have been a full-fledged fairy by now, with three full sets of adult wings, but she’d messed up in fairy school, so the queen fairy had subjected her to probation. Fiona was working her way to earning her wings. As part of the probation, Fiona was not allowed to socialize with other fairies, although she could attend one-on-one classes with a mentor the queen fairy had assigned to her. Because Fiona was classified as a righteous fairy, which meant she needed to bring resolution to embattled souls, she could earn her way back into the queen fairy’s good graces by helping a human. Only last year did I learn that there were classifications of fairies in addition to varieties of fairy types. Classifications included intuitive, guardian, nurturer, and righteous. Types were what most people understood about fairies; there were air fairies, water fairies, and woodland fairies.

  “Help, Courtney,” Didi wailed. “I need to rid my mind of these negative thoughts.”

  “Sure thing. Pick a pot first,” I suggested.

  The size of the planter determined the number of plants and figurines a fairy garden maker would need.

  Didi wandered among the many selections the shop offered and stopped beside a hanging pot dressed with moss. “I like this one.”

  “Terrific. That’s one of my favorites,” I said. “Next, pick some plants. I like the Pink Splash hypoestes and baby tears, but if you’re going to hang that in hot sun, you might want to consider succulents.”

  “What’s that you’re planting?” she asked, circling my work in progress.

  “This is a bonsai. To be specific, a dwarf jade.” It was one of the easiest to grow and recommended for beginners.

  “I heard you’re making a pot for the Beauty of Art Spectacular,” Didi said.

  “Yep. This is it.”

  The Spectacular, an annual fundraiser to raise money for community outreach programs in the arts, took place the first Saturday in September—two days from now. Wanda Brownie, the event chairwoman and mother of my best friend, had commissioned the garden that I was making. Because she desperately wanted to meet a fairy, I’d encouraged her to help me. I’d reminded her that working on a garden might open her spiritual portals, but she’d pooh-poohed me. Her loss.

  “It’s quite pretty,” Didi said.

  “Thank you.” For the theme, I’d decided to create an antique-style cityscape. As a focal point, I’d planted the twelve-inch bonsai at the rear of the pot and was currently creating a walkway to it using glass mirror chips. How they sparkled. “It’s taking a bit—”

  Didi was no longer listening. She had moved away and was swaying in a bell-like motion, her beaded salt-and-pepper cornrows swinging as she gathered items: a dancing fairy, a reading fairy, and a miniature pig in a pink tutu. She appeared to be humming. That pleased me. I wanted those who came into my shop to find a sense of peace and well-being. Making a fairy garden was an imaginative adventure.

  She returned to me. “Okay, now what?”

  “You’re not very focused,” I joked. To date, Didi had made four gardens. Not once had she needed me to hold her hand.

  “Tell me about it.”

  “So who has you wrapped around the axle?” Once a week, Didi and I played pickleball in a league. She was eons better than I was, but then she had been playing ten years longer than I had and worked out constantly at Sport Zone, the athletic club she’d inherited and managed since her husband passed away.

  “Who do you think?”

  “Lana Lamar.”

  “Bingo.” Didi rolled her eyes. “That woman thinks she is God’s gift to mankind. Honestly, she has no sense of anyone else. She’s a total narcissist. If only she were happily married like you, maybe she’d settle down.”

  “Actually, I’m not married.”

  “You’re not? Where did I get that notion?”

  “I almost was. Years ago.” The day after our co-ed bridal shower, my fiancé announced he never wanted to get married. Ever. And, yet, he did get married, just not to me. He and his wife had three kids, last I heard.

  “I’m sorry. My bad. I should have remembered that.”

  “No worries.”

  “Well, Lana is married, but not happily. She’ll mess it up like every other relationship she’s had.”

  Lana Lamar was a forty-something antique and art critic who wrote a column for a number of syndicated newspapers. She’d been married once before, prior to marrying Elton. Lana believed she was beautiful beyond words. She wasn’t. Nor was she objective and fair-minded, as she liked to claim. In truth, she was hypercritical of everything. Nothing cut the mustard. How did I know her so well? Whenever she wasn’t working, she was at the athletic club using the StairMaster, which happened to be my machine of choice. Side by side, we would step for an hour. Lana was more than happy to talk about herself. The last time I’d run into her, she’d recited her latest review to me: Without a doubt, Betsy Brahn’s work adds up to a big ego trip. The last time I saw a painting as deluded as Miss Brahn’s witless work, I was ten. Seriously, Miss Brahn, have you no one who will say this to you? Stop. Now. Quit painting. Spare us all. Find another career. The harshness of her words had nearly knocked me off my machine. True to form, Lana had found my stumble amusing.

  “What did Lana do this time?” I asked, offering a darling set of miniature fairy signs to Didi. One read: Fairies love to read.

  “Ooh, I adore this.” She set it in her basket.

  “Lana,” I pressed.

  “She bought a third home. In Lake Tahoe.”

  “Okay.” I wasn’t following why that upset Didi. The more Lana traveled to her other homes, the less we would all see of her. Good riddance.

  “Uh-uh, not okay. She thinks that because she won’t be here as often, she deserves
an exemption when it comes to the pickleball championship.”

  For fourteen years, Lana had been the reigning champion. Years ago, she’d trained for the Olympics as a long-distance runner, but a bout of mononucleosis had benched her. Ever since, she had striven harder. At tennis. At racquetball. At weight lifting.

  “What kind of exemption?” I asked.

  “Sport Zone has rules and regulations about how many rounds one has to play in order to compete in any competitive sport.”

  “Yes.” I might have been a newbie, but I understood the rules. Even though I never wanted to compete, if I were to do so, I would have to wait an entire year before I’d qualify, and in any given season I would need to compete a minimum of six times to maintain my competitive status.

  “Well, she doesn’t want to comply with the rules. She believes she should be able to compete no matter what. No minimums. No qualifications. End of story. ‘Once a champion, always a champion.’” Didi said, mimicking Lana’s strident voice. “No strings attached.”

  “Give me a break.”

  “I know, right? The name Lana means ‘child.’ That about sums it up.” Didi picked up a ten-inch-tall Schleich Griffin knight. He was clad in white-and-blue robes and holding an ice bolt and awesome spear. “I love this guy.”

  “He’s pretty incredible but too big in scale for what you’re planning.”

  “I could just buy him and put him on my bookshelf, couldn’t I? Next to my voodoo doll.”

  “Let me guess. The voodoo doll is for Lana?”