Orange as Marmalade Read online

  Orange as Marmalade

  Biscuit McKee Mysteries, Volume 1

  Fran Stewart

  Published by My Own Ship Press, 2022.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  ORANGE AS MARMALADE

  First edition. June 19, 2022.

  Copyright © 2022 Fran Stewart.

  ISBN: 978-1951368319

  Written by Fran Stewart.

  Also by Fran Stewart

  BeesKnees Memoirs

  BeesKnees #1: A Beekeeping Memoir

  BeesKnees #2: A Beekeeping Memoir

  BeesKnees #3: A Beekeeping Memoir

  BeesKnees #4: A Beekeeping Memoir

  BeesKnees #5: A Beekeeping Memoir

  BeesKnees #6: A Beekeeping Memoir

  Biscuit McKee Mysteries

  Orange as Marmalade

  Yellow as Legal Pads

  Green as a Garden Hose

  Blue as Blue Jeans

  Indigo as an Iris

  Violet as an Amethyst

  Gray as Ashes

  Red as a Rooster

  Black as Soot

  Pink as a Peony

  White as Ice

  Standalone

  A Slaying Song Tonight

  From the Tip of My Pen: a Workbook for Writers

  Watch for more at Fran Stewart’s site.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Also By Fran Stewart

  Dedication

  List of Plant Names

  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

  Acknowledgments

  Topics for Your Book Club’s Discussion of Orange as Marmalade

  About the Author (By the Author)

  Resource List for the Biscuit McKee Mysteries

  Sign up for Fran Stewart's Mailing List

  Also By Fran Stewart

  To Harriett Austin,

  who lit the fire

  List of Plant Names

  Acer palmatum dissectum

  Japanese Laceleaf Maple

  Caulophyllum thalictroides

  Blue Cohosh

  Cimicifuga racemosa

  Black Cohosh / Bugbane

  Cortaderia selloana

  Pampas grass

  Daphne odora

  Winter Daphne

  Hemerocallis

  Daylilies

  Herbs

  Parsley, fennel, dill, oatstraw, chamonile

  Ligustrum lucidum

  Glossy Privet Bush

  Osmanthus fragrans

  Sweet Olive

  Passiflora incarnate

  Maypop / Wild Passionflower

  Petunias

  Sadie, Rebecca Jo, Esther

  Pieris floribunda

  Fetterbush / Mountain

  Pieris Pieris japonica

  Japanese Pieris

  Stachys byzantine

  Lamb’s Ears

  Toxicodendron radicans

  Poison Ivy

  Viburnum carlesii

  Korean Spicebush

  Vinca Minor

  Periwinkle

  Chapter 1

  There had definitely not been a body on the second-floor landing when I had run upstairs to the attic earlier in the evening. But there definitely was a body, and a rather messy one at that, as I sauntered downstairs after a leisurely snack. I have never been very squeamish, but I do admit to pausing a moment before I stepped gingerly over the leg that jutted out on the hardwood floor where the stairway turned down to the left.

  The blood was just beginning to congeal. Now, did that mean he had been dead only a moment or two? An hour, maybe? How long had I been upstairs? Most of my experience with blood involved rather fresh stuff, and I had always cleaned it up right away. I am meticulous about such things.

  You may not think of blondes as being able to deal with blood, but actually I am not really a blonde. I tend more toward the brassy tones. And I do admit to having patches of white here and there. While we are on the subject I might as well tell you, I am on the tall side. My hair is short. My nails are long. My voice is perfectly silky. I love my job. And my name suits me well.

  Where was I? Oh yes, the body. Youngish adult. Male. Human. Sandy blond hair, parted on the left. He looked like a man who over-exercised a lot. You know the type. Proud of his biceps. Flexes them every time he sees himself in a mirror. Yecch! Already I did not like him. But, since he was dead, it hardly mattered what I thought.

  I have a keen sense of smell. Usually that is a good thing, but in this case, I did not want to stick around smelling the faintest whiff of motor oil that I picked up. Most people would not have smelled it at all. Of course, most people are not like me. I took one more sniff as I walked over him, though, and noticed a woodsy earthy foresty smell. How did that go with motor oil? Ahhh, the oil was in the background, but this man had been in the woods recently. I am not opposed to changing my mind about someone. I was liking him more. Too bad he was very, very dead.

  Good clothes. Probably did all his shopping in the city. Deerskin vest, but this man was not a hunter. He had an interesting medicine pouch around his neck. I could tell it held a little piece of antler that he must have found in the woods. I told you I have a very keen sense of smell. Well, his luck had certainly run out. There was a big knife handle sticking out of his middle.

  I could not figure out how he had gotten inside. He could not have been in the building when the doors were locked, because I had made my usual rounds right after closing. Did I tell you I am the night watcher here? Very important position because of the damage that could be done by intruders. I have been on the job for a year now, and we have not lost a single asset in the last ten months. It took me a while to get rid of all the bad ones right at first. I have probably killed two hundred of them all told, most of them in the first month or two. I did not eat all of them, of course. Only thirty-seven.

  But, a year ago, at the time of that dead body I had been there a month and a half. I was just getting used to the new staff person. Not that I didn’t like her from the start. No, we have been good friends all along. But she did not have my – well – routines down. Sometimes she used to check the same places I had already looked, in case there were lost kids. Or sleepers. Or hiders.

  At that time there were still a lot of the intruders that I had to take care of. I started bringing them to her as I killed them and leaving them beside her desk. But this one was just too big a body for me to handle, so I left it lying there. Anyway, I had not killed this one. I never take credit for work I have not done myself. It is a matter of pride.

  Saturday, April 20, 1996 - Martinsville, Georgia

  There had definitely not been a body on the second floor landing when I’d closed up the library that Friday night last year. April 28, 1995, to be exact. I always locked the doors and then took a final look around the rooms so I wouldn’t miss a kid who was hiding out or someone who’d fallen asleep in the comfy old armchairs.

  Being librarian in a small town was never my major goal in life. I have to admit, though, that I love the job, although finding that body last year wasn’t fun at all.

  Actually, I suppose Marmalade found it. Nowadays I leave the final check-up to her because she’s so good at it. She found the little Armitage girl once when th
e child hid under a desk in the research area. Led her down to my desk as if to say, “Look what we have here, and what are you going to do about it?”

  Marmalade is the rather tubby library cat.

  Tubby??? You think I am tubby???

  She’s something of a legend around here. When Miss Millicent died in late 1994 and left all her books and her old Victorian mansion, with its crannies and gingerbread and turrets and gables, to the town council with the stipulation that it be used as a fine town library, they took her at her word. They sold most of the excess furniture at an estate auction, and tried to set up the library themselves. But they had no clue how to do it, so they hired me in April of 1995 to repair their mistakes. I wasn’t even really a librarian then, although I’d taken a few courses, but I was the only applicant.

  The house, one of the oldest in Martinsville, Georgia, had been overrun with mice for a long time, and the little critters had chewed up a number of fine old volumes. Maybe they liked the bookbinding glue ...

  Yes, and they use the paper to line their nests.

  ...Come to think of it, maybe they tore the paper up for their nests. Anyway, one day about three weeks before I was hired, Marmalade came strolling in off the street through the open front door and started killing mice as if she’d been hired to do it. The town council decided they’d just saved the price of an exterminator. Poor Marmalade had to catch her own dinners.

  Mice all taste alike. It gets boring after a while.

  The first day I walked into the place, a year ago this month, I saw her at work. I’d hate to be one of those mice. After a day or two, she started bringing dead mice almost like offerings of peace and leaving them in little piles beside my desk. What a sweetheart. She’s a gorgeous yellow-orange, with white tummy and feet and chin. She’s always been perfectly polite to me, never showing her claws, but I know they’re very long and very sharp.

  Now, dead mice are not my favorite presents. I much prefer forsythia, daffodils and a branch of wild cherry blossoms in the spring. Goldenrod in the fall, mixed with some sweet autumn clematis. In the summer, bring me zinnias and marigolds, pungent and prickly-looking. Winter is the time for a bouquet of dried grasses, with a little frost still on them. My husband Sol used to bring me the loveliest little bouquets, just gatherings of roadside flowers, really, but he seemed to have put his heart into the gathering of them.

  He sounds nice. Did he like cats?

  Sorry, I just got sidetracked. We were talking about that body. Well, this little town was in a buzz, believe me. They don’t even have parking meters – and here was a murder. It was the first dead body I’d ever seen, except for funerals. The very first dead person I ever saw was Miss Harkness, who died when I was ten and Grandma Martelson dragged me to the funeral home where she kissed the body of that woman she hadn’t even liked in real life, which made the undertaker lady cringe. Even I could tell Grandma was messing up all the work it had taken to make that shriveled-up cranky woman look pudgy and peaceable.

  This body, however, which looked quite surprised, didn’t seem like it would cause any trouble for the undertaker. I remember it clearly. He was good-looking, even dead. He had a rather Roman nose. Actually, I thought he looked a bit like a handsome camel, with his prominent nose and longish face. But he was untidy-looking as a body. His left arm was pointing off toward Biographies, while his head was hanging sideways over the edge of the staircase and his right foot sprawled in the general direction of Histories. There was an amulet bag around his neck that must have gotten twisted around in back of him as he fell. I could see the edge of it poking out from under his very well-developed shoulder. The bag was a light grayish leather ...

  Mouse-skin, obviously.

  ...with some beadwork on it. The beads were as orange as ... as Marmalade here. We found out later it held some small stones and the tip of an antler.

  I knew that.

  The knife was easy to spot. The handle looked like a big hunting knife, and it was sticking up at an angle through a leather vest that probably cost an arm and a leg. I have a problem with deerskin vests. When Bambi first came out, I was very young and very impressionable. Then, when my son wanted to learn to hunt when he was still pretty young, I rented the video to show him what happens when you kill a mommy deer. Of course, I know full well that the whole movie was wildly imaginative; papa stag and young son would have fought it out instead of that Hollywood-ish magnificent abdication at the end. But I felt better not having a son running around the woods with a gun. We started him on rock-climbing lessons instead, and he practiced on the big cliffs near here.

  I have to admit I felt a little funny about having a body in my library. Actually, I suppose I’m sounding too calm about it. Keep in mind though, that it’s been a full year since the murder. Everybody in Keagan County was talking about it, and some people even started locking their doors at night. We discussed everything we knew and quite a bit that people made up or guessed at. Of course, since I was new to the town, some folks thought I might have done it, although Bob never thought so. The detectives who were called in questioned me (and everybody else) thoroughly. One of them sat asking questions, and the other one took notes. Even though I was innocent, I remember feeling like a deer caught in the headlights.

  Or a mouse in my sights.

  You see, I’m a reasonably flexible person, but murder wasn’t a part of my usual vocabulary at that time. I’ve led almost fifty years of a fairly quiet life, after all. My long ash-brown hair is liberally sprinkled with gray. I have a slightly rounded tummy, and a bustline that used to be a lot higher. I was widowed five years ago, after almost twenty years of reasonably happy marriage. Three kids, but they’re all grown up now. All of my kids were born in February, three years in a row. Karla Michaels, my best friend from grade school, who ended up living next door to Sol and me (until she got a divorce and moved to Phoenix), made a number of not-so-oblique references to “what went on around the Brandy house every May.” I figured it was just the result of all those springtime scents in the air. That and simply loving the man I’d married. And now I have two grandkids and one on the way. I don’t believe in hanging onto kids as they grow. Let them blossom their own way. Raise ’em right as you can, feed them enough, give them room, and see what they turn into. Like gardening, you can get a wonderful harvest that way.

  Speaking of gardening, I’m in pretty good shape because I do heavy gardening. I’m talking wheelbarrows and shredder and weeding by hand.

  Built my own three-bin compost pile. It’s not fancy woodworking, but I can sure wield a hammer. Anyway, when I took this job I had no real strings attached to me except the yard I loved at the old house in Braetonburg. My daughter’s taking good care of it though.

  Sol’s financial sense had left me with a modest income for life, and the Braetonburg Women’s Investment Club I helped start twenty-one years ago has really paid off. So my finances are secure, but I wanted more than just staying at home, more than just volunteering on various committees. The library job had sounded ideal. Why, you might ask, didn’t I just drive down the valley the five miles from home each day? Good question. I wanted a change. You see, the old house I had shared with Sol still felt lonely to me. I wanted new horizons.

  Working here in the Martinsville Library sure kept me busy at first. It took a lot of effort those first few months to set it up, but now it’s just Monday, Wednesday, Friday on the job, plus Saturday from ten till two. Tiny salary, but a new town to get to know. Stretch my wings. Wonderful.

  Running up and down those stairs in the library helps keep me active, too. Three floors and an attic, but only the bottom two floors are used for the public. Library records and office stuff take up part of the third floor. The rest is pretty much unused. The town council wanted to lock all the upper doors, but I reminded them that Marmalade needed to have access to the entire place to keep down the rodent population, so they just put up some Keep Out – Staff Only signs at the bottom of the stairs to the third
floor. Effective enough for a small town where nothing ever happened.

  I’d like to turn the place into a haunted house for Halloween some year, but the trustees who hired me aren’t ready for that yet. They’re a stodgy lot. Can you believe, they almost didn’t hire me because of my name? Too unusual, they said. Didn’t sound like a librarian. I was just a woman from the next town with too much time on my hands. Could I help it if my mother was a potter and named me Bisque after the unglazed ceramic ware that she loved?

  Of course, once I was in grade school I became Biscuit, and that’s what I’ve been called ever since, Biscuit McKee. My first husband’s last name was Brandy, and long before the wedding I told him I absolutely refused to change to Biscuit Brandy. It sounded like a snack and a shot, so I kept McKee at a time when women didn’t routinely do that. At least not women from around here. But Sol never minded, and it was just our business after all. The kids decided not to bother with hyphens and such, so they all three grew up as Brandies.

  Next week, I’ll still be Biscuit McKee, even though I’ll be marrying for the second time. Bob said he thought my name fitted me. Nice guy.

  Yes, he is.

  Marmalade seems to like him a lot, too. Anyway—I say ‘anyway’ a lot, don’t I? It’s a good word, though. As I was saying, the knife was obvious, but there was a lot less blood than I would have expected. Oh, there was blood all right, a few splashes and a small puddle on the hardwood floor. But most of it seemed to be confined to the front of his all cotton shirt. She, Marmalade that is, had met me at the front door that morning and marched me right up the stairs.

  There was no misunderstanding her instructions. She seemed to expect me to know what to do. After one quick look I hurried downstairs to my desk and dialed the number for the police station. I didn’t want to alert the volunteer fire fighters, so I didn’t call 911.

  Funny that a little town like Martinsville, Georgia, has access to that nine-one-one number for emergencies. It was only a couple of decades ago that all the towns along the Metoochie River, which is not much more than a large creek, were upgraded to individual phone lines. Before that, everyone was on party lines. Now, if you’ve never experienced a party line, you just haven’t lived. At home in Braetonburg when I was growing up, our phone line was shared by four other families whose rings we heard, and five families whose rings we didn’t hear. How did we know who the phone was ringing for? Simple. It was sort of like a Morse code, or like audible Braille. When the call was for us, we heard one long ring followed by two short rings. Karla, my best friend, had one long, one short. The grocery store was three short. Mr. Johnson was one long. Auntie Blue’s ring was two short. If you wanted to make a phone call, you had to listen first to see if anybody else was talking. Of course, some people just listened all the time regardless. It’s very hard to have a secret in a small town.