CLOUDS IN MY COFFEE
Praise for The Country Club Murders
GUARANTEED TO BLEED (#2)
“Set in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1974, this cozy mystery effectively recreates the era through the details of down-to-earth Ellison’s everyday life.”
– Booklist
“Mulhern’s lively, witty sequel to The Deep End finds Kansas City, Mo., socialite Ellison Russell reluctantly attending a high school football game…Cozy fans will eagerly await Ellison’s further adventures.”
– Publishers Weekly
“There’s no way a lover of suspense could turn this book down because it’s that much fun.”
– Suspense Magazine
“Cleverly written with sharp wit and all the twists and turns of the best ’70s primetime drama, Mulhern nails the fierce fraught mother-daughter relationship, fearlessly tackles what hides behind the Country Club façade, and serves up justice in bombshell fashion. A truly satisfying slightly twisted cozy.”
– Gretchen Archer,
USA Today Bestselling Author of Double Knot
“In this excellent follow-up to her debut The Deep End, author Mulhern continues to depict the trappings of a privileged community…that blends a strong mystery with the demands of living in an exclusive society. Watching Ellison develop the strength of character to break through both her own and her society’s expectations is a sheer delight.”
– Kings River Life Magazine
THE DEEP END (#1)
“Part mystery, part women’s fiction, part poetry, Mulhern’s debut, The Deep End, will draw you in with the first sentence and entrance you until the last. An engaging whodunit that kept me guessing until the end!”
– Tracy Weber,
Author of the Downward Dog Mysteries
“An enjoyable, frequently amusing mystery with a mixture of off-beat characters that create twists and turns to keep Ellison—and the reader—off-guard while trying to solve the murder and keep herself out of jail. The plot is well-structured and the characters drawn with a deft hand. Setting the story in the mid-1970s is an inspired touch…A fine start to this mystery series, one that is highly recommended.”
– Mysterious Reviews
“What a fun read! Murder in the days before cell phones, the internet, DNA and AFIS.”
– Books for Avid Readers
“Intriguing plots, fascinating characters. From the first page to the last, Julie’s mysteries grab the reader and don’t let up. When all is resolved and I read the last page, I wanted to read more.”
– Sally Berneathy,
USA Today Bestselling Author
“Ms. Mulhern weaves a tidy tale of murder, blackmail, and life behind the scenes in the Country Club set of the 70s…an excellent mystery, highly recommended, and I eagerly await the next in the series.”
– Any Good Book
Books in The Country Club Murders
by Julie Mulhern
THE DEEP END (#1)
GUARANTEED TO BLEED (#2)
CLOUDS IN MY COFFEE (#3)
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Copyright
CLOUDS IN MY COFFEE
The Country Club Murders
Part of the Henery Press Mystery Collection
First Edition | May 2016
Henery Press
www.henerypress.com
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Henery Press, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Copyright © 2016 by Julie Mulhern
Cover art by Stephanie Chontos
This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Trade Paperback ISBN-13: 978-1-63511-021-0
Digital epub ISBN-13: 978-1-63511-022-7
Kindle ISBN-13: 978-1-63511-023-4
Hardcover ISBN-13: 978-1-63511-024-1
Printed in the United States of America
Dedication
To Katie Mulhern, with endless love
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My everlasting gratitude to Madonna and Sally who held my hand, to Dash, Gersh, and Sunshine who kept me sane, and to my editors Rachel, Kendel, and Erin who made this a better book.
One
October, 1974
Kansas City, Missouri
Max, his short grey tail wagging impossibly fast, met me at the door with a did-you-ask-the-butcher-for-a-bone expression on his expressive doggy face. Of course, I had.
“Let me put the groceries away first.”
He sighed as if I had my priorities backward.
I unpacked the bags, putting the cucumber in the sink to be rinsed, the potatoes in a basket on the counter, and the Tab in the fridge. Max whined softly, reminding me that he was waiting.
I scratched behind his silken gray ears and gave him his bone.
Brrnng, brrnng.
I answered the phone, stretching the cord toward the sink and the waiting cucumber. “Hello.”
“Ellie. We have a problem.” No greeting, no endearment, no inquiry as to my day. Daddy’s words chilled me.
Horrible possibilities scrolled through my brain. “Is Mother all right?” Had the stress of planning a major event finally gotten to her? Had she suffered a stroke or a nervous breakdown? Unlikely. Mother ran her events with military precision. She ate stress for breakfast.
General Westmoreland could have learned a thing or two about organizing an army from Mother. Probably he could have learned about guerilla warfare as well.
I wish I had learned those things. Mother was all too willing to instruct me, but I had no desire to learn.
Who knew that long tall vases topped by balls made of pink carnations could look so phallic? The thought never occurred to me. It probably occurred to lots of the women who helped with the luncheon. No one said a thing.
They let me venture into battle with my flak suit around my knees.
That luncheon, remembered forever as Ellison’s penis party, would never have happened to Mother.
“What’s happened?” My voice sounded breathless. “Is Mother all right?”
“Your mother’s fine.”
Relief flooded my veins.
“But we need your help.”
Dread replaced relief in my blood stream.
Help could mean folding six hundred napkins into swans. I proceeded with caution. “What is it?”
Daddy cleared his throat. “Your Aunt Sis has arrived.”
As far as I knew, Aunt Sis came to Kansas City for weddings and funerals. We’d had neither in years. Well, not if you didn’t count Henry’s funeral in June. I didn’t. “I thought she was in Majorca.”
“So did your mother.” Daddy used his driest tone—the one he saved for occurrences that interrupted his golf game or cocktail hour.
“But she’s here? Now?”
“In the kitchen as we speak.”
I pictured him in his study, surrounded by pecan paneling and pictures of his family. We smi
led in those pictures, hid the problems, filled in the cracks and slapped on a coat of new paint. Aunt Sis was a crack that couldn’t be filled. Why had she come to Kansas City now?
“How’s Mother?”
“Stressed.”
“You want me to take Aunt Sis?” It wasn’t really a question.
“Please.” Daddy didn’t beg. At least not usually.
“Mother has Aggie.” Taking on a houseguest without a housekeeper sounded like a recipe for disaster.
“You can have Aggie back. I’ll hire your mother a temporary assistant—a Kelly Girl. Will you take Sis? Please?”
Daddy was brilliant. A Kelly Girl! We should have hired Mother a team of Kelly Girls weeks ago.
“Also, Sis has it in her head that she wants to go to a dinner theatre. If I buy the tickets, will you go with her?”
I swallowed a sigh. “Of course. What are you going to say about moving her to my house?” Foisting off a houseguest wasn’t exactly polite.
“I’ll tell her your Mother is terribly busy and you’d like to spend some time with her.”
I hadn’t seen Aunt Sis since my wedding. She’d jetted in from someplace exotic—Majorca or Cyprus—pulled me aside thirty minutes before the ceremony and told me not to marry Henry. She had no way of knowing what he’d become—a barnacle on the ass of humanity—she just thought he was boring. Her exact words were “dull as a lengthy sermon.” Unfortunately, Mother overheard. The ensuing discussion was lengthy but not dull. The two dredged up four decades’ worth of slights and hurt feelings and resentment at full decibel.
Daddy ended their fight by comparing them to fish wives.
Since then their only communication has been birthday and Christmas cards.
Until now.
“How long is she staying?”
Daddy grunted. Did that mean a night? A week? A month?
“How long?” I insisted.
“She hasn’t said.”
Peachy.
“I’ll put her in the blue room for now.”
“Thank you, Ellie. I owe you one.”
Playing host to Aunt Sis couldn’t come close to paying the debt I owed him. My throat tightened. “It’s not a problem.”
He chuckled. “You know how your aunt reinvents herself every so often?”
I made a noncommittal noise. My memories of Aunt Sis consisted of birthday gifts sent from afar and seemingly selected to annoy Mother—makeup when I was five, a lace (and completely unnecessary) brassiere when I was ten, and a Cab Calloway record when I was fifteen (Mother thought scat was something wild animals left in the woods). Then there was the year of the hookah—I still remember Mother’s appalled expression (unmatched until she learned that I ran over my husband).
“How much trouble can she be?”
“You’ll have to tell me what you think of the fish and the bicycle. Love you.” With that, he hung up. I stared at the receiver in my hand. The fish and the bicycle? What had I gotten myself into?
I hung up the phone, climbed the back stairs with Max at my heels, and opened the door to the blue room. The room needed airing, the bed needed sheets and the dresser needed a bouquet of fresh flowers. I cracked the windows and grabbed neatly folded sheets from the linen closet. The flowers I’d collect from the garden later.
I’d just replaced the bedspread when the doorbell rang.
Max took off at a run. I followed more slowly. Aunt Sis must truly be driving Mother nuts if Daddy had bundled her out of the house and delivered her to me in less than fifteen minutes.
I donned a welcoming expression and opened the door.
Marjorie stood on the other side.
My smile morphed into slack-jawed shock.
Max whined softly.
“What are you doing here?”
“Is that any way to greet your sister?” She bent, picked up a Gucci suitcase, and brushed past me, stopping in the front hall to assess my house. “Did you paint? Is this the same color as the last time I was here?”
“No. I mean, yes. I mean, no, I didn’t paint. It’s the same color.” Surprise had rendered me witless. “Mother said you couldn’t come.” Yet Marjorie was here, flawlessly made up and dressed as if she’d stepped off the pages of Vogue in a pair of decadent wool slacks and a silk shirt far too fashionable (unbuttoned) for my foyer. I suppose when you’re married to the condom king of Cleveland, looking more chic than Halston’s muse is probably the strongest armor available. My armor is designed by Diane von Furstenberg.
My sister dropped her expensive suitcase but kept her Hermes handbag hooked in the crook of her elbow. “I changed my mind.”
“Does Mother know you’re coming?”
“I thought I’d surprise her.”
I gaped. Mother liked surprises the way Nixon liked Woodward and Bernstein.
Marjorie stepped forward and kissed the air next to my cheek. “It’s lovely to see you.”
“You too.” I returned her air kiss and upped the ante with a half-hug.
“I can’t wait to hear all the things you’ve been up to. Mother says you’re dating Hunter Tafft.”
Typical. Marjorie skipped right over multiple murders to ask about a man. “Not exactly.”
A slight furrow appeared between her brows. “But Mother said—”
“Mother is wrong.”
She tilted her head and smiled the superior smile of an older sister—one who was prettier, more experienced, more popular, and certainly better dressed. “Who’s taking you to Mother’s gala?”
My fingers smoothed the wales of my corduroys. “Hunter Tafft.” His name somehow slipped through the tightly barred gate of my teeth.
“There you have it! You are dating Hunter.”
“A date and dating are not the same thing.” Why did I sound like my teenage self?
She lifted her gaze to the ceiling and shook her head slightly. “When it’s a date to Mother’s gala, they are.”
I had a sneaking suspicion she might be right.
“Can your housekeeper take this upstairs for me?” She pointed to her suitcase.
“You’ll have to take it yourself. Aggie is on loan.” Then I remembered Aunt Sis. “I’ve already got someone in the blue room. I’ll put you in the rose room.”
“But the rose room has twin beds.”
This was not news to me.
“I hate twin beds.”
That wasn’t news either. “You can always stay with Mother and Daddy.”
Marjorie snorted.
“Where’s Greg? Is he coming?”
“He’s at home with the children.” Her voice sounded flat, emotionless. Prudence’s sly innuendos flashed through my memory. Uh-oh.
“Is he flying in for the gala? You’re welcome here, but there’s a new hotel on the Plaza—the Alameda. I don’t think you’ve been there yet. I could book you a room.”
“No.”
“No, you haven’t been there, or no, you don’t want a room?”
With a chic flip of her wrist she flicked a stray hair back into place. “No, Greg is not coming.”
“Why not?”
“I already told you, he’s at home with the children.”
“Did your au pair quit?”
“No.”
“What about your housekeeper? Did she quit?”
“No.”
“Then why isn’t he coming?”
“Just drop it, Ellison.”
There was trouble in Paradise. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Drop. It.”
We stared at each other. It would be a cold day in hell before Marjorie looked for succor or support from her younger sister. I got that. But her insistence on being superior meant we’d never be close. It also rendered her right (and maybe left) flank open to attack.
“You need a better answer.”
She curled the corner of her upper lip and glared at me as if I was the problem. It was the kind of look one can only give a sibling. No one else would forgive it. I might not forgive it.
Max growled softly.
The front bell rang and we stopped glowering at each other. I opened the door to Daddy and Aunt Sis.
My mother’s sister wore faded jeans, a loose white shirt that failed to hide her lack of brassiere, and flip-flops. Her grey-streaked hair was pulled back from her face in a ponytail.
I stared at Aunt Sis.
Daddy stared at Marjorie.
No one said a word.
Then Max shoved his nose into Sis’s crotch and we all laughed, a nervous sound that belonged to people who weren’t quite sure what to say.
Mother’s sister grinned at me—“Ellie”—then pulled me into a hug.
Over Sis’s shoulder, I saw Daddy positively gaping at Marjorie. She stepped forward and he hugged her.
“What are you doing here?” He put her through the same series of questions I had. And he got the same answers. “Is Greg at least flying in for the gala?”
“No. He’s staying home with the children.”
Daddy crossed his arms and scowled. “I realize Greg and your mother don’t much care for each other, but he’s willing to embarrass her by skipping her gala with such a weak excuse?”
“Greg didn’t stay home to embarrass Mother.”
“Then why?”
Marjorie’s gaze traveled from Daddy to me to Aunt Sis then back again. She adjusted the gold chains hanging around her neck. She patted her perfect hair. She chewed on the corner of her lip. “I left him.”