Read Chapter 1 of CRAFTING A COLD CASE

 

CHAPTER ONE

I picked up the brand-new ball of sock wool. I settled into my chair. I’d walked the dog, talked to my store, texted the family, done the breakfast dishes, and put in a wash. I had saved this yarn, bright pink and turquoise, for a gray day.

It was February. Christmas was over. The spring birthdays were months away.

This pair was for me.

I picked up my needles to cast on.

Next to my cup of tea on the side table, my phone beeped. I put down my needles and looked at the screen.

Emergency. Get here ASAP before I kill somebody.

What?

I tapped back.

Catherine Walker, ex-librarian and bed-and-breakfast commander-in-chief, never lost her cool. She was as good at that as I wasn’t. I knew in my heart that if terrorists ever kidnapped me and locked me up in outer Siberia, it would be Catherine who would find me and set me free. Of course, that would come with a talking-to about my reckless behavior, but I knew she wouldn’t leave me unsaved.

That something had rattled her scared me.

What’s going on?

I tried again.

Tell me.

I added.

No response. ASAP. That meant now.

On my way.

I pressed end and jumped out of my chair. I threw my wool and needles into my knitting basket, ran over to the hall closet, and pulled out my insulated winter coat, fair isle tuque, and thrummed wool mittens. Toby, my golden retriever, watched me dress. I didn’t usually move this fast.

“Don’t worry,” I reassured him. “I’ll be back soon. Everything is fine.”

Toby sighed and lay down. He didn’t believe me. I didn’t blame him.

I closed the front door behind me. Behind it, I heard Toby run over to the couch to watch me leave from the bungalow’s picture window. I grabbed the railing and stepped down. I’d put salt on the steps, and I was glad of it now. They were ice-free, unlike the path to the driveway, or what I could see of the street. There had been some melting during the day, but at 4:30 in the afternoon, the sun was beginning its slow exit.

Not long until it would freeze and be slippery again. I’d be careful driving on the Shore Road.

I sat in the driveway before I left, running the car to let the engine warm up. There was still no message back from Catherine. I turned up the heater and tuned in to the local
station, CKGC.

... and now for the weather. The current wave of arctic air is lifting folks, with temperatures to climb near to above freezing over the next few days, starting in the morning. Until then, don’t forget to dress up and make sure those pets are not left outside too long. As always, frostbite and hypothermia can happen this time of year. But that’s February in Nova Scotia, and we’re used to it.

This was not news. I turned the radio off and backed out of my driveway. What was Catherine’s emergency?

When I arrived at the Inn Catherine co-owned with my cousin Rollie, everything looked normal from the outside. The old sea captain’s homestead, a massive dark-red Victorian three-story structure, windows and doors defined by elaborate woodwork skillfully carved by the same craftsmen who had built schooners, stood on three acres above the North Atlantic. The take-your-breath-away view was beautiful in the summer, but now the winter sea under the cliffs at the end of the property was wild and gray. The fair-weather months, May to late October, were when the bed-and-breakfast did most of its business. Guests this time of year were infrequent. As far as I knew, the only occupants of the Inn this month were Rollie, Catherine, and the Inn’s overweight, much-indulged, gray cat, Dusty. Catherine had no problem keeping Rollie and Dusty in line, so if she was on the verge of murder, someone else was involved. I wondered who they were.

I pushed the Inn’s heavy oak door open and stepped into the entry to find out. I took off my coat, pushed my mitts and hat down into a sleeve, and hung it up on one of the
hooks on the faded, cabbage-rose wallpaper to the right of the door. The reception desk was empty.

“Catherine?” I walked down the long, high-ceilinged hall to find her, past the pictures of the stern, mono-tinted faces of the community’s past schooner captains, successful boat builders, pirates, rumrunners and a few politicians. That last group was out of place, memorable as they were, for ambition, not skill or nerve.

“It’s me, Valerie,” I called again. “I got here as fast as I could.”

No answer.

This didn’t feel right, not right at all.

I heard a noise. Banging at the end of the hall. Metal on metal. Angry sounds from behind a closed door. I ran down and opened the door to the kitchen.

Inside, the Bluenose Inn’s front-desk manager was on the floor, surrounded by cookware.

“Catherine? What’s going on? What’s the emergency? Why the pots?” I noticed the reference-desk librarian turned innkeeper had a measuring tape in one of her hands, a pencil behind her ear, and what looked like a detailed map, or battlefield diagram, in her lap.

My friend and my cousin’s love interest glanced up at me. She looked like she wanted to cry. This horrified me. I had never seen tears in Catherine’s eyes before. She wasn’t the type. Losing composure was my job, not hers.

Catherine didn’t answer. Instead, she pulled a twisted tissue from the sleeve of the cotton turtleneck she wore under her quilted vest and blew her nose loudly, like an old
man. The noise startled me. Catherine was an accomplished quilter, the kind who felt the more pieces the better, with a competitive twelve hand stitches per inch. Self-control was her middle name, but now she was too upset to speak. Instead, she held up a paper for me to read. I took it from her damp hand and sat down on a kitchen chair. There were no words, only a diagram of shelves, the dimensions carefully marked with double-headed arrows. I stared at Catherine. It looked to me as though the crumpled woman on the floor was measuring her cookware and plotting its placement on the shelves. I was shocked. If locked in a kitchen with a tape measure for a hundred million years, I’d never think to do this.

“Is this your crisis?” It was my turn to be at a loss for
words. “The pots?”

Catherine grabbed the edge of a counter and pulled herself to her feet. “No. I just find organizing is the only thing that calms me down when I’m losing it. Like when
I have trouble sleeping, I lie in bed at night and arrange things in my mind. Do you ever do that?”

“Never,” I answered truthfully. I tried again. “What’s got you so upset?”

“The prepper,” she said. “He’s down in the basement with Rollie right now, in the dark, with the pipes. Every time we turn around, he is watching us. He says he’s preparing for the end of time. Here. In my bed-and-breakfast.” She pressed her forehead against a kitchen cupboard and sniffed. I’d never seen Catherine this distressed. Not even the time she arrived at a quilting get-together without her quarter-inch foot.

“You have to tell me more,” I said. “Who are you talking about?”

“Someone I brought here. It’s all my fault. He’ll never leave, I can feel it.” Catherine dragged herself over to a chair and collapsed. ”He’ll be here forever, waiting for disaster,” she said. “Unless I can find a way to make him disappear.”

I knew what to do.

...

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Excerpted from Crafting a Cold Case:  Gasper's Cove Mysteries Book 6 by Barbara Emodi. Copyright © 2025 by C&T Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.