Sample Sunday: Excerpt from One Of You: A Tower District Mystery by Lorie Lewis Ham

Please welcome author Lorie Lewis Ham to the blog today as she shares an excerpt from her new novel, One Of You: A Tower District Mystery. This is the second book of the series that began with One of Us: A Tower District Mystery.

 

Prologue

 

I’m back! Did you miss me? Boy, do I have some juicy gossip! Spotted: A whole lot of trouble coming your way! Murder, did you say? Why, of course, there will be murder!

 

When I typed “The End” I knew it was just the beginning. They would never expect the trouble I have in store for them! Some surprises are worth waiting for, and some are deadly.

 

Chapter 1

My alarm clock went off at eight a.m. and I groaned. It was way too early for this night owl. I rolled over and looked at my Buffy calendar. October 21. I couldn’t believe I’d been in Fresno for three months. The worst thing so far had been the weather. I survived the brutal heat of the summer, and now I was getting to experience the wonderful Tule fog—so thick I could almost pretend I was in London instead of the San Joaquin Valley of California.

Thankfully, the temps were now in the 60s to low 80s, which made me feel like I was back in Ayr, the California coastal town I’d been forced to leave when my publisher dropped my children’s book series featuring a pet rat—still a very sore subject for me.

At thirty-five, I packed up my life and moved in with my P.I. cousin, Stephen Carlucci. I arrived with everything I owned—being sure to bring in the car with us the things I valued the most—my Sherlock Holmes collection, a replica of Excalibur, and my pet rat, Merlin.

The only bright spot had been that he lived in the cultural oasis of Fresno, the Tower District. It was the hub of all things artsy, and I loved it! He also had a great house. It was a cocoa-colored, early Mediterranean-style place that instantly felt like home. Since my only transportation was my trusty red bike, I seldom ventured beyond the Tower, despite Stephen’s best efforts, which was fine with me.

I’d rented out my house in Ayr for extra income and now worked for Stephen as a part-time P.I.

“Hey there sleepyhead, want coffee?” yelled Stephen from the kitchen, which was close to my bedroom.

“Yes, please! I’ll be out as soon as I feed my bedmates.” 

Reluctantly, I extracted myself from the furry heating pads wrapped around my body under the covers and sat up. Watson, the Pit Bull, and Dan, the black cat, had been left homeless after a murder that had taken place soon after I arrived and were now a part of our family. There was a wonderful rescue in the area for bully-breed dogs and great cat rescues, but I couldn’t bear to let them go to rescue after already losing one owner. It wasn’t a surprise that I’d collected two more animals since moving here; it was something I’d done my whole life.

After feeding them, I went to the large cage on the floor by my desk to feed Merlin, a dumbo rat with big round ears set more to the side like an elephant. He’d been the star of my books. Thankfully, Dan ignored Merlin, and they managed to coexist without any problems. Of course, Merlin never seemed to be scared of anything. Maybe it was because he was a wizard.

When living in Ayr, I’d run a hamster and pet rat rescue. Domestic rats are wonderful pets. They bear little resemblance to their wild counterparts—they’re much smaller, come in many different colors, and are very affectionate.

After the furries were fed, I pulled on jeans and a Supernatural t-shirt, ran a brush through my long black hair, and stumbled into the kitchen.

Stephen was already dressed for the day in perfectly pressed jeans and a t-shirt—his normal non-working garb. When he worked, he wore expensive Italian suits. My handsome cousin with his blond hair and gray eyes was more of a clotheshorse than I would ever be.

“Good morning, Roxi.” He handed me coffee, then shooed me from the kitchen into the living room. I plopped down on the brown faux leather couch, and he sat in one of the comfy brown and red chairs on the other side of an oak coffee table. The house was decorated in earthy tones, except for my bedroom. He had decorated that in purple and black just for me.

The coffee table had a couple of big books on it; one was on Sinatra—a love he and I shared—come on, we're Italian. The other book was about opera. I was grateful Stephen didn't blast his opera music loudly—that was a love we did not share.

I looked at the fireplace. “Can you please light a fire? It’s cold.”

Stephen laughed. “Soon, I promise. The afghan Aunt Carol made is on the back of the couch, grab that.”

I glared at him as I grabbed the brown and tan afghan and wrapped it around me. I had to admit I loved this place. The living room was perfectly cozy, like the rest of the house. It wasn’t big, but it was big enough. The walls were decorated with beautiful paintings of horses. Stephen used to own several, which he bred and raced, but the corruption in the industry led him to get out of the business. He kept his two favorites so we could go riding. At his mother Maria’s urging, he had reluctantly stabled them at his parent’s ranch just outside of Donlyn.

Stephen’s father, Antonio, was again involved with the local Mafia, after having supposedly retired, so Stephen’s relationship with him had gotten even worse than it already was. Originally, becoming a P.I. had been as much to piss off his father as it had been an outlet for his sense of justice. He ended up being very good at it.

Not only did Stephen hate what his father did, but he blamed him for his brother’s death. Stephen had been at Julliard studying piano when his brother was killed by the Mafia. He left school and became a police officer and later a P.I. He still played the piano, but it had taken him a long time to return to it.

Though we were both raised in a Mafia family, mine hadn’t been involved in the illegal side of the family business. They ran the family winery in Paso Robles on the coast until their deaths.

“What are you up to today?” he asked.

I took a sip of the heavenly coffee—Stephen only bought the best—and sighed. “I need to meet with Clark around ten to finish everything for Mysteryfest.”

Soon after arriving in Fresno, I was persuaded to volunteer for a community theatre production and was shocked when a crew member was murdered. It led to all sorts of adventures, and I’d gotten to know some wonderful people. One of them, playwright Clark Halliwell, had become a dear friend. Clark recently purchased the local bookstore Walt’s Book Nook and renamed it Halliwell’s Book Haven.

About a month ago, Clark decided Halloween would be a perfect time for a mystery event. The Tower Halloween Mysteryfest was this weekend. With my and Stephen’s help, along with several volunteers, he’d managed to pull it all together. He’d even done an adaptation of Edgar Allen Poe’s Murders in the Rue Morgue to be performed as part of the event. His connections as a BookTuber, and now a bookstore owner, made getting local authors for the event easy. He even managed to get the reigning Queen of Cozy Mysteries, Marilyn Bradford.

When I first met Clark, I knew he looked familiar, but it took me forever to figure out why. I later realized he was a BookTuber, and an extremely successful one. His YouTube channel was called Halliwell Reads—which always made me think of the show Charmed. Clark was amazing. If I were to decide I was ready for a relationship, maybe…but not now. He was also attractive. At six feet, he was a little taller than me, slender, and had shoulder-length dark brown hair and expressive brown eyes.

Stephen flicked a lock of hair from his eyes—something he’d done since we were teenagers. “Mysteryfest opens on Friday evening, doesn’t it? How’s it going?”

I took another sip of my coffee before answering. “Good. I never dreamed it would be so much work. If it wasn’t for the volunteers, it would never happen.”

“You have a heavy contingent of volunteers from the theatre community, don’t you?”

“Well, they do make up a good percentage of the population around here.”

Most of the friends I’d made over the past three months came from volunteering with that theatre production when I first arrived—so they were mostly theatre people. I still didn’t know much about Clark, but I knew he loved books, Sherlock Holmes, old movies, and animals, so that was a great start. Oh, and most importantly, Star Trek and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. After my parents were killed in a car accident when I was thirteen, TV had been a faithful companion, providing hope and inspiration in an often dark world.

“I imagine Tabitha has been a big help,” said Stephen. “There’s nothing that woman can’t do.”

Tabitha O’Reilly was another person I’d gotten to know. Not only was she the owner of a local tea shop, she ran her own theatre company, and helped run Happy Paws. Happy Paws rescued dogs and trained them to be emotional support animals.

Dan jumped in Stephen’s lap and he nearly spilled his coffee. That cat wasn’t shy. “How’s the podcast going?” Stephen asked after he averted disaster.

Three months ago I started a podcast called Tower Talk. I covered local arts and entertainment and interviewed pillars of the community like Marcel Nunes, who created the Rogue Festival—a local Fringe festival that happened in the Tower every spring.

“Great! The coverage the podcast got in the local media after the murder was a huge boost. It didn’t hurt that it took up the slack left behind by Tower Gossip either.” Tower Gossip had been a local gossip website like the one on the TV show Gossip Girl. It revealed secrets everyone would have preferred to leave hidden. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief when solving the murder led to the end of Tower Gossip.

“I need to edit the Zoom interview I did yesterday with Marilyn Bradford and get that up. I can’t believe how nervous I was. I hope I did okay.”

“Considering you’ve been a fan of her mystery novels since you were a teenager, I’m not surprised. I’m sure you were fine,” reassured Stephen.

Marilyn was the biggest name coming to Mysteryfest. The authors were all published by Bradford Publishing, owned by Marilyn’s husband Edward, who was also a local actor.

“I heard Nathan is doing a one-man show of Edgar Allan Poe for Mysteryfest. Have you seen much of him lately?” asked Stephen, a mischievous twinkle in his gray eyes.

I wadded up a napkin and threw it at him, but he ducked. If I were looking for a relationship, the dreamy Nathan Gilmore would be another option. Not only was he a talented local actor, but he worked in the library at Fresno State University, was an environmentalist, Master Gardener, vegan, and just too good to be real. I had failed to find a fault in him, yet. The only thing I could say, was that he was too busy to be human. Perhaps he was from another planet, or maybe an android, though his heart was way too big for that. But Data from Next Generation had a big heart, so I couldn’t rule that out.

My phone dinged. It was a text from Clark. “When can you get here? I really need your help!!!” The exclamation marks were a concern. He never used exclamation marks.

I jumped up. “Duty calls. Sounds like Clark may have an emergency, and since he never freaks out, I’m guessing it’s bad. You off today, or do you have a case?”

“I have a client meeting in about an hour, guess I’d better change and get going. Good luck. If it has to do with Alec again and you need help, let me know.”

Alec Dunne and his husband Matt Freeman were two more theatre people I’d gotten to know. Alec had been the director of that first show and could be a bit difficult in that role. As a friend, he was a delight and a great source of gossip. Matt was a successful realtor and the total opposite of Alec in personality, a great big teddy bear. Alec was directing Murders in the Rue Morgue.

He and Clark had butted heads before, so it was definitely a possibility that he was the urgent problem. “Will do.” 

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/3xWJxqy 

 

Lorie Lewis Ham ©2024

 

Lorie Lewis Ham lives in Reedley, California and has been writing most of her life. She has published numerous articles, short stories, and poems, has written for a local newspaper, and published 7 mystery novels. For the past 14 years, Lorie has been editor-in-chief and publisher of Kings River Life Magazine, and she produces Mysteryrat’s Maze Podcast, where you can hear an excerpt of her new book One of You, book 2 in The Tower District Mystery series. You can learn more about Lorie on her website mysteryrat.com and find her on Facebook, BookBub, Goodreads, and Instagram @krlmagazine & @lorielewishamauthor.