DEAD
STORAGE
by
Mary Feliz
Genre: Cozy Mystery
Pub
Date: 7/18/2017
As
a professional organizer, Maggie McDonald brings order to messy
situations. But when a good friend becomes a murder suspect,
surviving the chaos is one tall task . . .
Despite a looming
deadline, Maggie thinks she has what it takes to help friends Jason
and Stephen unclutter their large Victorian in time for its scheduled
renovation. But before she can fill a single bin with unused junk,
Jason leaves for Texas on an emergency business trip, Stephen’s
injured mastiff limps home—and Stephen himself lands in jail for
murder. Someone killed the owner of a local Chinese restaurant and
stuffed him in the freezer. Stephen, caught at the crime scene
covered in blood, is the number one suspect. Now Maggie must devise a
strategy to sort through secrets and set him free—before she’s
tossed into permanent storage next . . .
Mary
Feliz has
lived in five states and two countries but calls Silicon Valley home.
Traveling to other areas of the United States, she’s frequently
reminded that what seems normal in the high-tech heartland can seem
decidedly odd to the rest of the country. A big fan of irony,
serendipity, diversity, and quirky intelligence tempered with gentle
humor, Mary strives to bring these elements into her writing,
although her characters tend to take these elements to a whole new
level. She’s a member of Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of
America, and National Association of Professional Organizers. Mary is
a Smith College graduate with a degree in Sociology. She lives in
Northern California with her husband, near the homes of their two
adult offspring.
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EXCERPT
My calendar says we’re meeting at 8:30 today. Do I have
that right?
Stephen was an early riser, so I’d agreed to meet him
as soon as I dropped my teen boys at
the middle school and high school. He’d promised me coffee and bagels. At the
thought of food, my stomach rumbled and my mouth filled
with saliva. I was starving
and caffeine deprived. My
golden retriever, Belle, thumped her tail, whined, and leaned into me, looking
up with yearning. Normally, I didn’t
bring Belle to work with me, but Stephen was a friend of mine, a dog per- son,
and Munchkin was Belle’s BFF.
“They’ll be back soon,” I told her, referring to both
Stephen and his seldom-absent canine partner. “I’m sure everything is fine. How
often are they ever late?”
Belle made a
polite sound in response. “Right,” I said. “Never . . . Well, nearly never.”
Extreme and unrelenting punctuality was a fault of
Stephen’s, an artifact of his time in the military. Some of his friends found
it an- noying, but I shared the trait and appreciated his timely arrival
when- ever we got together. I bit my lip, sighed,
and squinted into the sun to
scan the neighborhood. There was no car in the drive. He must have had a last-minute errand
that went longer
than he had planned. Unex- pected traffic tie-ups were a
recurring Silicon Valley problem. With the high-tech economy, growing
population, and high-density build- ing projects booming, the area was home to
a record number of peo- ple. More people meant more cars. A trip to the dentist
that took fifteen minutes a month or two earlier could easily take thirty min-
utes or longer today, even without
a rush-hour fender bender creating gridlock. The problem grew worse
daily and there was no easy solu- tion.
I looked at my watch. Any minute, I expected to see
Stephen and Munchkin loping up the street
from one direction or the other.
At six- foot-four inches,
accompanied by a dog that weighed almost
as much as he did, Stephen
was hard to miss.
I paced in front of the house. This situation
reminded me too much of a client session I’d begun four months earlier,
standing on a front porch a few blocks away when my client was late. That morn-
ing had culminated in the death of a dear friend. I shivered, drew my fleece
coat closer to me, peered at my phone, and dialed Stephen’s number.
The phone rang
before I could finish punching the buttons. “Hello?” I said. The phone
responded with crackles and pops. “. . . police station . . . jail . . .”
“Hello? Who is this? I’m not going to fall for that
trick. My kids are safe in school.” I disconnected the call. Our entire town had been plagued with phishing phone calls
from crooks pretending to be our children or grandchildren. The calls all
followed the same pattern: a distraught young voice claiming to be kin begged
for money to be wired immediately. Most people, like me, recognized it for what
it was and hung up the phone. But older people, those in the beginning stages
of dementia or vulnerable in other ways, grew distraught. A friend of my mom
called her daughter nearly every day to be reas- sured that the children and
grandchildren were safe. The scams were criminal, disruptive, and downright
cruel.
I shook off my righteous indignation and dialed
Stephen again. In the process,
I noted that the crooks, whoever they were, were getting crafty. My phone reported that the phishing
call originated from the police station in Mountain View, the town that abutted Orchard View’s southern
border. I made a mental
note to tell Jason about the
call the next time we spoke. When he wasn’t
helping flood-ravaged towns
in Texas, Jason was an
Orchard View detective. He’d know who
to no- tify about calls from people impersonating the police.
My call went to voice mail.
I enjoyed the excerpt and would like to read more. I love the cover. I can't resist a beautiful dog like that.
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