Free A Zen For Murder (Mooseamuck Island Cozy Mystery Series Book 1) by Leighann Dobbs

sure if you would fall down the hillside or not.
    Claire laughed. “Well, I have to say I was glad Daddy spent the extra money to have those railings cemented in.”
    “So, what were they fighting about?”
    Claire’s face darkened. “That’s the thing. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, just that they were yelling. Zoila had a paper in her hands and she was waving it in front of Norma.”
    Dom’s eyebrows tingled. “A paper? What kind of paper?”
    Claire scrunched up her face. “I’m not sure. I mean, they were pretty far away.”
    “Was it writing paper? Or newspaper? How many pieces?”
    Claire closed her eyes and tried to remember. For once, she wished she had Dom’s eye for detail. “I think it was one piece. It looked old.”
    “Hmmm. She didn’t have any piece of paper when she was killed. At least, I didn’t see one at the scene.” Dom leaned back in the chair and looked out at the cove. From where he sat, he could see the row of shops to the left. Mae Biddeford was walking down the sidewalk purposefully. He watched her go into the seafood store with three jars of purple jam clutched in her hand—grape, Dom assumed. He popped two more pistachios into his mouth. “Any idea what was on it?”
    Claire shook her head.
    Dom stared out at the cove. He was beginning to regret his decision to team up with Claire—so far, she hadn’t produced much valuable information. But there was still time. “Did you ask Norma about it?”
    “Yes. She practically threw me out of her studio. Didn’t want to talk about it.”
    Dom munched his pistachio thoughtfully. “So, after the fight, Norma went right to her studio? Did anyone see her?”
    “Well, she didn’t actually go right to her studio …”
    Dom turned sharply to Claire. “Where did she go?”
    Claire sighed and looked out over the cove. “She took one of the boats.”
    Dom’s brows shot up. Now they were getting somewhere. “She left the island?”
    “Yep.”
    “Where did she go in the boat?”
    “She wouldn’t tell me.”  
    Dom picked another pistachio out of the thin, pink and white striped bag as he thought about the murder weapon. Could Norma have taken it out to sea to dispose of it? If she had, someone would have seen her with it. “Did anyone see her leave the island?”
    “Yes, she borrowed Bryan’s boat and Jeremiah Woodward saw her.”
    “Did they see if she had the zen garden rake with her?”
    “The rake? Why would she have that?”
    “We think it was the murder weapon.”
    Claire’s back stiffened. “Oh, so you think she was disposing of it. Well, I can assure you she wasn’t doing that, because she isn’t the killer.”
    Dom settled back on the bench. He remembered that in the cases they’d worked together in the past, he could always count on Claire’s assessment of the suspects as being spot on. He respected her opinion in that area, but he wondered if her judgment was clouded by her friendship with Norma.  
    “How can you be so sure that Norma didn’t kill Zoila?” Dom asked.
    “I know her. She’s not the type. Plus, she seemed shocked when I told her how I’d seen them fighting and that Zoila had been murdered hours later.”
    Shocked about the murder, or shocked Claire had witnessed the fight ? Dom wondered.
    “We can’t go on emotion. We must go with the facts and solid clues. Of which we have very few,” Dom said. “We need to find out what the police know about this footprint.”
    Claire chewed her bottom lip. “Maybe I could get my nephew to tell us. He owes me for all the cases I’ve helped him with.”
    “And we should try to reconstruct Zoila’s morning, and probably the prior day.”
    Claire smiled. “Just like old times.”
    “Exactly. Except we don’t have the benefit of the police badge and associated clout.”
    “That makes it more challenging. But we have an advantage in that we know the people involved. We might be able to get more information than the police because they