Saint Patrick's Day - The Gordonston Ladies Dog Walking Club Part III: A Dark Comedy Cozy Mystery With A Twist Read Online Free Page A

businessmen. The falling crime rate had led to more investment, which had subsequently led to more visitors to the city. This, in turn, had eventually led to more profits for the city as a whole. Savannah was now considered one of the safest places in the whole country to visit. Where once the city had been blighted with a high crime rate, unsolved murders, and a reputation as a dangerous place to visit, it had now become the poster-child of American crime prevention for other cities.
    Of course, this was not all due to Morgan, who was quite popular with many of his officers for his hands-off approach. He allowed his precinct captains, hand-picked by Miller, to make decisions and influence his policy own decisions. He still had a body odor problem, though, and still drove around on his Vespa scooter when not on duty.
    The background checks Sam had conducted, during his own private investigation, had revealed nothing about Elliott Miller that could describe him as bad. There was nothing suspicious, nothing out of the ordinary. Obviously, he had no criminal record, not even a parking ticket. He was, by all intents and purposes, a man of high moral turpitude and good character. There was one thing, though, one thing that had surprised the former policeman. Elliott Miller had once been an author, quite a successful children’s writer at that. His three books, The Bavarian Forest of Magic , The Wizards and The Boy, and Fairies in the Forest and Other Tales , had sold thousands of copies in the late seventies. Sam’s research had uncovered that Elliott had once been tipped to become one of the most successful children’s book authors of his generation, but then, as quickly as he had written his books and been catapulted onto the best seller list, he had stopped writing. No more books. Not one. It seemed as if he had just given up. This puzzled Taylor greatly, and he had one question--why? Why had Elliott suddenly abandoned a lucrative career, and his fame and recognition as a fantastic storyteller? According to the reviews he had found online after hours of research, the books, while not that well-written, were praised for their magnificent stories and plots.
    He had managed to track down copies of all three books, via the Internet, bidding an outrageously high amount of money on eBay for the now, extremely-rare books. According to the seller, there were probably only a handful of copies left, and to have all three for sale at the same time had been fortuitous for Sam Taylor. Not as fortuitous for his bank account though, after Sam had paid over $900 for the trio of books.
    The three books had been delivered by special courier (Sam had insisted on this) earlier that morning, and they now sat on the desk in his study. His urge to read them was great, and he only needed a few quiet and undisturbed hours to browse through them, and maybe find the skeleton in Elliott Miler’s otherwise empty closet.
    Sam Taylor’s hopes of a quiet afternoon reading Elliott Miller’s books were short-lived as he heard his wife enter the house. He had hoped she would be out for the day. She usually was, either shopping or with friends, generally at the same time. Unluckily for Sam, she was home earlier than he had expected.
    “Sam, Sam…he left another note on my car this morning.”
    “Who did?” he replied, as he leaned his head back so he could see his wife as she entered his study from the living room, a bag of groceries in each hand.
    “The neighbor. You know, the one with the silly looking beard. The one who lives with his ‘friend’ next door. The ones we hate.”
    “The ones you hate.”
    “Well, what are you going to do about it?” demanded Sabrina Taylor. “Don’t they know that you were the chief of police? How dare they? They don’t own the road or the grass outside their house. I can park anywhere I want to. It is becoming very annoying Sam. Very annoying indeed.”
    “Well, technically, if you parked on the grass outside