It's an exciting day for me! Framed for Murder, the first in the Anna Nolan mystery/romantic suspense series, is available now as a paperback on Amazon.
It takes a few more weeks before brick-and-mortar bookstores can order it, but it should be available by the week before Christmas. If you don't see it on your local bookstore's shelves by then, just ask them to order it for you (ISBN 978-0-9917259-6-0).
"Books We Love" has also published it as an e-book, and you can purchase it here.
Here's a preview:
Chapter 1
It was dark.
The road was slick from an earlier rain, and damp leaves squelched
underfoot. Wendy, my three-year-old,
shepherd/labrador cross, trotted ahead of me down Wistler Road. I would have worried about walking alone on a
dark country night almost anywhere else, but Crane was a small town and its
crime rate was practically non-existent, so I felt safe. Still, it wouldn’t do to take a tumble on
this moonless night, so I was being careful.
I heard Wendy snuffling and digging at
something up ahead in the bush. Removing
the slim flashlight that I always carried on our bedtime walks, I shone the
beam in her direction, afraid that she had found something disgusting to roll
in just before bed. Nothing like having
to deal with a stinking, soaking-wet pet when all you wanted to do was crawl
into bed.
“What did you find, girl?” I called. The noise stopped, and I waited for her to
pop out of the trees and trot back to me, but she didn’t appear.
“Come here, Wendy,” I called. All was still, and then I heard a piercing
howl that made my hair stand on end and my breath catch in my throat. It was a primitive, uncanny sound, and it
unnerved me on this lonely stretch of road.
“What’s gotten into you?” I muttered. Stepping up to the trees, I peered into the
dense shadows.
“Wendy?”
She whined softly, and I sidled between the trees, picking my way
through last year’s undergrowth. She was
up ahead in a small clearing.
“Come on, girl,” I commanded. Instead, Wendy lowered her head and nosed at
something on the ground. I trained my
beam downward, and jumped. It was a
man. He was lying face down, dressed in
jeans and a black leather jacket, his arms lying straight beside his body. He wasn’t moving.
“Hello?” I called, “are you alright,
Mister?” There was no response. I wanted to turn and run, but forced myself
to creep closer for a better look.
Taking a deep breath, I crouched down beside him. His hair was dark and wavy with silver flecks
in it, but I couldn’t see his face.
Wendy leaned against me and nudged my neck with her wet nose. All I could hear was my own pulse roaring in
my ears. I reached out to touch the
man’s hand, and snatched my own back again.
His skin was cold, too cold. I
knew that I should check to see if he was still breathing, but the thought of
turning him over repulsed me. Sick with
dread, I reached for his shoulder and rolled him over anyway.
I gasped and sprang back a few steps,
horrified when his eyes seemed to stare straight up into mine. Wendy barked and shot past me into the
trees. I took a few deep breaths and
shone the light full into his face.
“Holy shit,” I whispered. Sculpted cheek bones, blue eyes, generous
mouth. It was Jack.
I stared down at him. My ex-husband, whom I hadn’t seen for four
years, was lying dead beside this country road in the middle of the Alberta
Foothills, and I didn’t have a clue how he had got here.
Looking past his face, I spotted a hole in the
front of his jacket, right over the chest.
I pulled the jacket open with hands that wouldn’t stop trembling. The grey shirt beneath it had a big patch of
dried blood spread across the front. I
stumbled back a step, a wave of nausea overwhelming me.
Something crackled in the undergrowth behind
me, and I whirled around. A brilliant
light flashed in my face and blinded me.
I threw up an arm to shield my eyes, but the light dropped and inched
along the ground, coming to rest over Jack’s body. I pointed my own light at the black shape
advancing toward me. Wendy crept toward
him with a menacing growl, her jowls dragged back over her teeth, but the man
didn’t budge an inch.
“Anna Nolan, what the hell did you do?” he
asked.
Chapter 2
I sighed with relief as I recognized Steve
Walker, one of our local RCMP officers, until the impact of his words cut
through my mind like a slap in the face.
“What?
What are you talking about? I
didn’t have anything to do with this.”
Steve bent to examine the body. I tried to slip past him, wanting to escape
this horrible sight and let Steve deal with it, but he grabbed my arm and spun
me around.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he
demanded. Steve was younger than me, in
his late twenties, tall and good-looking with a slow grin and a low boiling
point, but he was all cop as his eyes delved into mine.
“Go to hell,” I said as I tried to jerk my arm
out of his grip, but he held me fast. We
glared at each other as Wendy slunk up to my side, still growling.
“Control your dog, Anna.”
“Wendy, sit,” I said, looking down at
her. She hesitated and sat. “Good girl,” I said, patting her head
automatically with my free hand before turning back to Steve. “Now what?”
“Now, you tell me what’s going on here.” He let me go, and I rubbed my sore arm. Steve and I sometimes ate together at The
Diner with some of the other locals, and I was inclined to like him. Now, I calculated how best to handle him.
“There’s not much to say. I was taking Wendy for a walk and she found
him. He was dead when I got here.”
Steve shone his flashlight back over the
body. “I don’t recognize him,” he
said. “Do you?”
I hesitated, wondering how much to give away,
and Steve shot me a suspicious look.
“Yeah, I know him,” I said, letting out a deep
breath. “It’s my ex-husband, Jack
Nolan.”
Steve inhaled sharply through his teeth. “What’s he doing here, Anna?”
“Steve, I have absolutely no idea.”
“What do you mean? What’s he doing here in Crane?”
“I mean that I haven’t seen or heard from Jack
in years. I have no idea why he’s here.”
Steve’s face was grim as he thought for a
moment. “Let’s go back to my cruiser,” he said.
“I’ve got to call for back-up.”
He indicated that I should precede him, so Wendy and I marched ahead
through the trees while he trailed behind us.
The brilliant red and blue lights from his cruiser
sliced through the darkness at the side of the road. Steve unlocked the back door, and I waited
for Wendy to hop inside before climbing in behind her. Steve shut us in and crawled into the front
seat to call for back-up. When he had
finished, he turned around to stare at me through the metal grill that
separates the officers from their “guests.”
“What are you doing here anyway?” I asked.
“We got an anonymous tip that something
suspicious was happening out on Wistler Road.
I drove by and heard a dog howling in the bush. When I pulled over, your dog burst out of the
trees, barking like crazy. By the time I
recognized her, she had turned tail and run back in. I followed her, and there you were with the
body.” He paused, glancing out the
window at the enveloping trees before turning back to me. “Look, Anna, this is going to take a
while. The forensics squad will be along
in a few minutes, and I’ll have to take them back to the crime scene. You’re going to have to sit tight until I’m
done, and then I’ll take you into the station to make a statement.”
I stared at him, my jaw aching from the effort
of trying to stop my teeth from chattering.
The impact of Jack’s death, plus my horror at being implicated in it,
were hitting me hard.
He studied me.
“Are you okay, Anna? You look
pretty shaky.”
“I guess it’s colder tonight than I thought.”
“Or maybe you’re going into shock. Wait a minute.” Popping open the trunk, he got out of the car
and fetched a blanket. “Here, wrap yourself
in this,” he said, opening the back door and handing it to me.
“Th-thanks,” I said, not trusting myself to
look at him. I didn’t want to admit how
much finding Jack’s body upset me, to him or to me. Jack and I were old history.
Steve nodded and leaned against the side of
the car until another cruiser sped up, lights flashing, and pulled in behind
us. Steve walked back to confer with his
colleagues. A few minutes later, three
officers climbed out of the vehicle and began unpacking equipment. A female officer erected orange cones and
flashing lights in the middle of the road and glanced at me on her way back to
the car. I stared straight ahead,
refusing to make eye contact with her.
Another vehicle pulled in behind them, and a man got out carrying an
official-looking black bag. He joined
the others, and together they donned white forensic suits. Then Steve led them back into the bush, their
powerful flashlight beams bouncing off the tree trunks until they
disappeared.
I collapsed against the seat, shaking all
over, the memory of my ex-husband’s dead face haunting me. Wendy leaned against me, and I hugged her
tight for comfort. What was Jack doing in
Crane, anyway? Did he have an acting job
nearby?
It was his acting career that had brought us
to the Alberta Foothills in the first place.
Four years ago, Jack had been filming a movie in the nearby village of
Longview. Longview was small and housing
had been pretty limited in those days, so we had rented a neat little cottage
here in Crane. I had loved the cottage
from the minute I had seen it, a one-storey bungalow with ivy clinging to
weathered wood siding and a pretty rose garden out front. The location had seemed ideal on the
outskirts of town with lots of privacy and access to long walks in the
countryside. The shoot was meant to last
for a few months, so we had enrolled our son, Ben, in the local high school
just as he was ready to start grade ten.
Then my Aunt Sharon died and left me the queenly inheritance of $93,000. We had been getting by on Jack’s acting jobs
up until then, with me picking up whatever temporary secretarial work I could
find, so I was thrilled to have some financial security at last.
When the inheritance cheque arrived, Jack, Ben
and I had gone out to an expensive steak house to celebrate – just the three of
us, with none of the usual movie crowd around.
That meal was my last happy memory of Jack. We had laughed a lot, and Jack and I got
pretty friendly later that night after Ben had gone to bed. When I woke up the next morning, I was
feeling more optimistic about our marriage.
Maybe having the money would take some of the pressure off our
relationship. I made pancakes for my two
men and kissed them both goodbye before walking into town to do some
shopping.
But while standing in line at the bank later
that morning, I overheard a movie extra telling her friend about an affair Jack
was having with one of the film’s stuntwomen.
I shouldn’t have been surprised; Jack had cheated on me religiously over
the span of our seventeen-year marriage.
This time had been different, though.
I had a nest egg, thanks to my wonderful aunt, and it would tide Ben and
me over until I could find a decent job.
Crane had been as good a place as any to put down roots, so I made a
beeline into the loan manager’s office to talk about mortgages right then and
there. Later, when I got home, I called
the owner of our house to see if she was interested in selling. She was.
A chunk of my inheritance money went into a down payment, and when Jack
left town at the end of the shoot, Ben and I stayed on.
I
looked up to see Steve returning through the trees. I pushed Wendy away and sat up as he climbed
into the front seat and turned to face me.
“I’m going to have to take you to the station
now, Anna.”
“What about a lawyer?” I asked, my stomach
clenched with tension.
His face hardened as he looked at me. “You have the right to have a lawyer present,
Anna. Do you want one?”
I looked down at my hands. “I’m not being charged with anything, am I?”
“No, but you do have to make an official
statement about how you found your ex-husband’s body.”
“Fine,
I guess I don’t need a lawyer for that.
There’s not much to say, since I’m not guilty of anything.” He nodded and started up the cruiser. “Steve, it looked like Jack had been shot,” I
blurted.
“The
coroner is with him right now, Anna.
We’ll have to wait for the report.” His eyes caught mine in the
rear-view mirror. Usually, Steve’s eyes
had a twinkle in them, but they looked plenty worried as we pulled away.
We drove to the RCMP station on the other side
of Crane. Steve couldn’t leave Wendy
alone in the cruiser, so he led us both through the station’s back door and
down a concrete hallway to a small interview room. It was furnished with a scarred wooden table,
a tissue box, and three plastic chairs.
The overhead fluorescent lights made the room look flat and dreary. I glanced around, trying not to cringe, and
chose the chair facing the door.
“I’ll be back in a few minutes, Anna,” Steve
said, shutting me in with Wendy. I
stared at the back of the door, feeling like I was wrapped in some kind of fog
that prevented me from feeling or thinking straight.
“Jack is dead.
Jack is dead. Somebody shot
him. Jack is dead,” my mind chanted over
and over while Wendy sniffed around the room and finally settled at my
feet. The door opened a few minutes
later, and Steve re-entered carrying a glass of water and a plastic bowl. He set the glass down on the table in front
of me, and the bowl on the floor for Wendy.
“Here you are, girl,” he said. As Wendy rose and began lapping up the water,
my eyes began to tear. I was just about
to thank Steve for his unexpected kindness when the door opened and Staff
Sergeant Eddy Mason strolled into the room.
He hesitated, his eyebrows rising when he saw Wendy drinking from the
bowl.
“You providing room service, Walker?” he
asked. Steve looked coolly back at him
without saying a word. “Evening, Ms.
Nolan,” Eddie said, shifting his gaze to me.
He shut the door and took the seat opposite me. Steve pulled a notepad from his pocket and
slid into the chair at the end of the table.
I knew Eddy by sight. We bumped into each other from time to time
at the Post Office, where we chatted about the weather or complained about the
number of advertising flyers stuffed into our mail boxes. He was a short, rotund man with glasses
perched on the end of his nose who didn’t in the least resemble Santa Claus,
despite the similarity in their proportions.
Eddy didn’t waste any time with
pleasantries. He plunged right into
questions, asking me to describe the events leading up to the discovery of
Jack’s body. Steve took notes, keeping
his face buried in his pad.
“I got home from work tonight about 5:15. Traffic was bad – there was an accident
leaving the city.”
“Where is work, Ms. Nolan?”
“I work at Chinook University in Calgary. I’m the administrative assistant for the
Kinesiology Department.”
Eddy nodded.
“How long have you worked there?”
“And I had a book club meeting at the library
at 6 p.m., so I didn’t have a lot of time to get ready. I let Wendy out and fed her, changed my
clothes, and made a sandwich. I left the
house about 5:45 and walked to the library.”
“Who else was at the meeting, Ms. Nolan?”
“There were only three of us tonight,
Sergeant. May Weston, Erna Dombrosky,
and me. One of the other ladies was
sick, and Helen McDonald is away on vacation.”
“Were Erna and May already there when you
arrived?”
I thought for a moment. “Usually I’m last, since I’m the only one who
works outside of town, but Erna came in a couple of minutes after I did.”
“The meeting broke up early because there were
only the three of us. Around 7:30. I left the library and walked home.”
“Did the other two ladies leave with you, Ms.
Nolan?”
“No.
Erna said something about wanting to find a book, and May stayed to give
her a lift home. I left on my own.”
“And what happened next?”
“I walked home and read for a while.”
“Did you see anyone on the walk home, Ms.
Nolan?”
“I don’t remember seeing anyone,
Sergeant. It was raining and I was using
an umbrella. My head was down.”
Eddy nodded.
He seemed relaxed and in control of the situation, while my nerves were
frazzled. “So, you went home and read –
for how long?”
“Till 9:30.
Then it was time for Wendy’s walk.”
Wendy stirred at the mention of her name and started to get up. “Lie down, girl,” I murmured.
“It would have been dark by then, Ms.
Nolan. Do you always walk your dog at
night? You live right on the edge of
town, don’t you?”
“Yes, but the dark doesn’t bother me. I know the area really well and I feel safe.”
“Go on.
Was it still raining?”
“No, it stopped sometime after I got back from
the library.”
“Down Wistler Road headed out of town.”
“No, no one.”
I went on to explain how Wendy had found Jack’s body, finishing with an
abridged history of my marriage and divorce, including my lack of contact with
my ex-husband over the past few years.
“When was the last time you saw Jack Nolan?”
Eddy asked.
“About four years ago when we met at the
lawyer’s office to finalize the divorce details. Jack gave me full custody of Ben and was
supposed to contact me whenever he wanted to see him.”
“No.
Jack wasn’t around much when Ben was growing up. He’d be away for weeks at a time on a film
shoot. Other times he’d be at home, but with
theatre rehearsals and evening performances, he wasn’t home a lot. After we separated, he just didn’t bother to
see Ben.”
“Yeah?
Seems pretty odd, a father not bothering to see his son all those
years. Must have made you pretty mad,
cheating on you and being a lousy
father.”
I coloured.
“Who said anything about cheating?”
I glanced over at Steve, whose face was expressionless as he stared at
the table top.
Eddy balanced his chair on its back legs. “Pretty common knowledge in a town this size,
Anna. That why your marriage broke up?”
I met his eyes and looked away,
flustered. It was bad enough to find
Jack’s body; I didn’t bargain on having to explain my marriage to the police,
too. “It was more complicated than
that,” I muttered.
“You don’t say?” I didn’t elaborate. “Alright, so your husband didn’t visit you or
Ben after the divorce. What about
telephone calls or e-mails?”
I clasped my trembling hands together to
steady them, and leaned my elbows on the table.
“I’ll tell you something, Eddy. A
year ago, I wrote to Jack care of his agent to invite him to Ben’s high school
graduation. Jack didn’t bother to show
up. That was the extent of my
correspondence with my ex-husband.”
Eddy grunted.
“One last thing, Anna. When you
found the body, was it damp or dry?”
He glanced at Steve, and they both stood
up. “That’s good enough for now, Anna. Steve will get your statement typed up and be
back to have you sign it. You wait here
until it’s ready.”
They left, leaving Wendy and me shut up in the
interrogation room again. I stared at my
folded hands on top of the table and thought about Jack lying there all alone
on the cold ground. Soon the tears
started to come. Damn that man. He’d given me plenty of trouble during our
marriage, but now that he was possibly murdered, and probably deservedly so, I
grieved for him. I lay my head down on
top of my arms and sobbed. Wendy crept
over and nuzzled my leg before lying down at my feet.
After a while, the tears turned into sniffles
and I began to think. I loved mystery
novels and had read plenty of them, especially Agatha Christie’s. In all of the mysteries I’d ever read, the
police always suspected the person who found the body.
“Pull yourself together, Anna,” I urged
myself. “You’re in a bad situation and
you’ve got to start using your brain.” I
grabbed a few tissues from the box on the table and mopped my face. By the time Steve returned with the
paperwork, I was back in control. I
noticed that he left the door open this time.
“Okay, Anna, please read your statement and
sign it,” he said. I did as he asked and
handed it back to him.
“Okay – that’s it for tonight. I’m going to drive you home. Just make sure you stay in town for the next
few days so that you’re available for questioning in case we need you.” Steve’s bearing was stiff and he didn’t make
eye contact as he spoke. I wondered what
he had to feel uncomfortable about.
Maybe the other officers had come back from the crime scene with some
information that made him feel uncomfortable with me.
“Have
you found out anything yet, Steve?”
“Yeah – maybe – nothing good,” he replied,
squatting down to pat Wendy. She licked
his hand, now that the situation was non-threatening. He stood up as I got out of my chair and came
around the table to lean beside him.
“Look, Anna,” he said, glancing sideways,
“that stuff you said about Jack not talking to you all those years – are you
sure about that?”
“Positive.
Once our divorce was settled, Jack disappeared.”
He glared at me. “Come on, don’t lie to me. We know that Jack called you earlier
tonight.”
My stomach somersaulted and I grabbed the edge
of the table for support. “Wh-what are
you talking about? Jack didn’t call me,”
I said.
“No?” he replied, his eyes boring into
mine. “The call history on his cell
phone says otherwise. Did he call you at
other times, too?”
“No, he
didn’t. I swear he didn’t, Steve. What time was he supposed to have called me,
anyway?”
“At 7 p.m.
Was he waiting for you somewhere, Anna?
Did he call because you were late for a meeting with him?
“I don’t believe it. Why would he call me?”
“You tell me,” Steve said, his expression
stony.
“No, I’m telling you the truth. Is this some kind of trick?” I was starting to panic and my voice grew
louder. “I told you, I wasn’t even home
at 7:00. I was at the book club meeting
from 6:00 to 7:30. Talk to May and Erna. They’ll tell you that I was at the library
with them.”
I was fighting hard not to cry. Wendy began to whine, and I squatted down to
pat her while trying to control myself.
I glanced out the door and saw a woman officer peering down the hallway
at us. Steve nodded, and she
disappeared.
“You believe me, don’t you, Steve?” I asked,
looking up at him from the floor.
“Look, we’ll be checking with the other book
club members tomorrow. There’s no need
to hold you any longer tonight.” He took
my hand and hauled me to my feet. “Come
on, Anna, it’s late. Let’s get you and
your dog home.” The anger had faded from
his eyes.
I laid my hand on his arm. “Look, I’m sorry I shouted just now. I guess I’m pretty shook up. I just can’t believe that this is all really
happening.”
“So, sleep on it, and maybe you’ll remember
something useful in the morning.”
Steve drove us home and waited while I turned
the key in my front door before backing down the driveway and pulling
away. I went inside, dead tired and
numb.
