The Unkindness of Ravens M. Hilliard (popular novels txt) 📖

THE UNKINDNESS OF RAVENS

A Greer Hogan Mystery

M. E. HILLIARD

For Mark

 Acknowledgments

This book would not exist without the help and encouragement of many people. Special thanks to my husband, Mark, who encouraged me to attend my first writer’s workshop; my agent, Julie Gwinn of the Seymour Agency; agency intern and author assistant Lauren Ash; and beta readers Lisa Pellegrino and Connie Novak. Nothing is created in a vacuum—constructive criticism and suggestions on everything from plot to word choice are invaluable as a novel is being written. For this kind of help, I credit Lorin Oberweger and the staff and students at Free Expressions Breakout Novel Intensive Workshop Orlando; Jason Sitzes, Carol Dougherty, and the staff and students at the Writers Retreat Workshop San Antonio, and the staff and volunteers of Killer Nashville 2019. Many thanks to you all.

Chapter One

Growing up, I remember liking Trixie Belden better than Nancy Drew because she got into more trouble. Plus, Trixie had a better boyfriend than Nancy. Jim Frayne was much hotter than Ned Nickerson. I’m not convinced Ned Nickerson was anatomically correct—I always pictured him looking like a Ken doll. Jim Frayne had red hair and a working-class background, but turned out to be related to an eccentric millionaire, and came into a pile of money at an early age. He was a prototype Nora Roberts hero—well-mannered, financially secure, comfortable in a tux, but still able to fix things around the house and radiate alpha maleness at the drop of a hat. Jim was the beginning of a lifetime of crushes on blue-eyed redheads who looked great in Levis and opened doors for me. I might envy Nancy’s wardrobe allowance and covet her convertible, but I was a Trixie girl at heart.

Trixie and Nancy were part of the reason I ended up a librarian. It was my second career. Circumstances were such that at the age of thirty-seven I had needed a change. A big change. So, I went to the place where I always felt safe and happy—the library. More precisely, library school. Armed with a master’s degree, I could spend my days ferreting out information without actually having to deal with bad guys. I was a girl detective with a laptop instead of a roadster. I spent much of my time in charge of the reading room, sitting at the reference desk, answering questions and pimping books to readers eager for something novel. Even on those days when the computers and copier were at their most uncooperative, requiring knowledge that two years of graduate school had failed to impart, I was still queen of all I surveyed.

When I’d arrived for my job interview at the Raven Hill Public Library the previous October, I had spent a few minutes staring at the building in awe. It had such a Gothic, Jane Eyre feel that I expected to see the first Mrs. Rochester glaring at me from an upstairs window. I knew that Raven Hill Manor had been deeded to the village for use as a library decades before by the last of the Ravenscroft family. The result was a brooding exterior that greeted new arrivals with some suspicion. The resident ravens were icing on the cake. While I had yet to meet any of the Ravenscroft family ghosts, I remained hopeful. Now that I had six months of employment behind me, I thought of it as my home away from home.

The interior of the manor was like any old house, with inefficient heating and temperamental wiring, and inexplicable noises that echoed through its high-ceilinged rooms. Nonetheless, it retained an air of shabby gentility. Retrofitting the place as a library had resulted in odd nooks and crannies and strangely repurposed artifacts. Some village residents found this outdated and irritating, while others felt it had a quirky charm. I was in the latter camp. The place was full of small mysteries and historical oddities. Nothing was as it first seemed in Raven Hill Manor, and I loved that.

I planned to take advantage of the first sunny day in an exceptionally rainy spring by having lunch on the roof terrace. I used the old servants’ stairs, working my way up and away from the busy reading room into the areas used only by the staff. The worn wooden banisters always warmed and hummed beneath my hand, releasing the scent of lemon polish. Not today, though. Today the wood remained cool beneath my fingertips. I felt no happy hum. The place was unnaturally still. No dust motes danced in the watery sunlight. The expectant silence was broken only by the occasional protesting squeak from the wooden floor beneath my feet.

By the time I reached the small anteroom that led to the attic stairs, I heard nothing but my own labored breathing. Vowing to get more exercise now that spring had finally arrived, I stopped to catch my breath. I turned the knob of the final door. It stuck. Thinking the wood must have swollen from all the wet weather, I braced myself and pulled. It opened with a groan and an exhalation of cool, damp air.

A body landed at my feet.

The air compressed around me, sucking the breath from my lungs. A convulsive shudder rolled through me. I stared down at the broken thing in front of me. Twilight shades of gray and black drifted across the scene.

A man’s dark hair and pale skin, stars of broken glass across the midnight blue of his tie.

No.

I closed my eyes and forced myself to breathe. In, out, and again.

I looked down once more, and the room came back into focus. Not a man, a woman. A woman I knew. Joanna Goodhue, president of the Friends of the Library and the closest thing I had to a friend in Raven Hill. My mind raced, denying what I saw in front of me and searching for a rational explanation. CPR dummy? No, it’s Joanna. She’s slipped and fallen,