A Killer Deal (A Seagrove Cozy Mystery Book 1) Read Online Free Page B

quite angry.
     
    “Someone broke into my shop and stole that from me. What are you going to do about it Chief?”
     
    “Zack, Sadie. My name is Zack,” the chief said with a long-suffering sigh. “And yes I do believe it was stolen from you but at the moment the murder is my primary focus, because if we find the murderer we find the thief.”
     
    “True,” she said. “Find the murderer, find the thief. Punish the murderer and the thief is also punished. I can live with that.”
     
    “Good. Now I want you to think. Who did you show this to when you got back from Montana?” He asked leaning back in his chair and looking at her under lowered brows.
     
    “Oh Lord,” she said. “I don’t know. There was a whole crowd of people here when I came back from Montana.”
     
    “Think hard and make me a list,” he said. “I don’t tolerate murder in my town.”
     
    “Is there a police chief somewhere who does?” She asked.
     
    “You’d be surprised what people will do for money,” he said. “Make that list, Sadie, I’m going to need it.”  He pushed back his chair and stood up.
     
    “Sure thing chief,” she said. “But tell me. Did the burns from that thing kill him?” She nodded at the branding iron he’d picked up off the table.
     
    “Not directly,” he said. “The coroner thinks the pain caused a heart attack. The heart attack killed him. It would take a bloody long time to kill someone with this thing. It would be quicker to strangle someone with the cord than to burn them to death with it. I’m afraid it will be a long time before you get it back again.”
     
    “I don’t want it back,” she said. “I hope to never see that accursed object again.”
     
    He left then and Sadie found a pad of paper and a pen and thought hard about the welcome home party and who exactly had been there. Lucy, of course, and Mr. Bradshaw. Good lord, half the town had been there. She started scribbling names.
     
    It took her most of the day. She’d been considering her next treasure hunting trip, or walking Mr. Bradshaw, or contemplating buying a coffee maker as a replacement for the coffee shop next door, when a name would pop into her head and she’d head back over to the table and write it down. She thought she had them all down when she closed the shop and went upstairs for the evening, but she woke in the night with another name. She padded downstairs in her slippers and added the name to the list.

Chapter Three
     
    The next day Sadie taped a note on the door saying she would be closed for the morning and she and Mr. Bradshaw drove to the community college. She leashed Mr. B in deference to college rules and wandered across the quad and through the halls in the Political Science building until she found the door marked Assistant Professor Justin Ives. She knocked, he called out, she and Mr. B went in.
     
    Professor Ives was an untidy, pleasant looking man in his early thirties. Every surface in his office was covered. Books teetered on chairs and tables and there were papers everywhere. A coffee cup was making rings on a stack on the edge of his desk. There was only a tiny clear spot for his computer keyboard. Sadie wondered how he could find anything in the chaos.
     
    He stood up and offered her his hand. He had a round smiling face and a warm handshake, he did, however, look confused to see Mr. Bradshaw in his office.
     
    “I am Sadie Barnett,” Sadie said, “and this is Mr. Bradshaw. He is quite well behaved so I think you should have no worries, unless, of course, you are allergic. Are you allergic to dogs Professor?” She looked around for a place to sit that wasn’t covered in stuff.
     
    “Call me Justin, Ms. Barnett. Not even the students call me professor. And, no, I am not allergic to dogs, just a little surprised to find one in my office. I am not often visited by dogs.”
     
    “Mr. Bradshaw goes nearly everywhere with me, prof-, I mean Mr. Ives. He’s invaluable to me as a