The Coloring Crook Read online

  Praise for the First Pen & Ink Mystery

  Color Me Murder

  “The mystery is pleasantly twisty . . . [an] appealing cast of characters—whose backstories lend themselves nicely to future plots for this carefully crafted cozy series.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  Praise for Krista Davis’s New York Times

  Bestselling Domestic Diva Series

  “Reader alert: Tasty descriptions may spark intense cupcake cravings.”

  —The Washington Post

  “Davis . . . again combines food and felonies in this tasty whodunit.”

  —Richmond Times-Dispatch

  “Loaded with atmosphere and charm.”

  —Library Journal

  “A mouthwatering mix of murder, mirth, and mayhem.”

  —Mary Jane Maffini, author of

  The Busy Woman’s Guide to Murder

  “Raucous humor, affectionate characters, and delectable recipes highlight this unpredictable mystery that entertains during any season.”

  —Kings River Life Magazine

  Turn the page for more praise for Krista Davis.

  Praise for Krista Davis’s New York Times

  Bestselling Paws & Claws Mysteries

  “Wagtail Mountain will appeal to animal lovers and mystery lovers, alike.”

  —Kate Carlisle, New York Times bestselling author of the Bibliophile Mysteries

  “Davis has created another charming series.”

  —Sofie Kelly, New York Times bestselling author of the Magical Cats Mysteries

  “Davis has created a town that any pet would love—as much as their owners do. And they won’t let a little thing like murder spoil their enjoyment.”

  —Sheila Connolly, New York Times bestselling author of the County Cork, Museum, and Orchard Mysteries

  “Murder, mystery, a bit of romance and seriously

  PETS!! Who could ask for anything more?”

  —Open Book Society

  “Touches all the bases of the cozy mystery—including a bit of romance—and does so with style.”

  —Richmond Times-Dispatch

  “A beautifully written, cleverly crafted mystery sure to please pet-lovers and fair-play-mystery fans, alike.”

  —Smitten By Books

  Krista Davis is the author of

  The Pen & Ink Mysteries

  Color Me Murder

  The Coloring Crook

  The Domestic Diva Mysteries

  The Diva Cooks Up a Storm

  The Diva Sweetens the Pie

  The Coloring Crook

  KRISTA DAVIS

  KENSINGTON BOOKS

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Praise

  Also by

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Epigraph

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  RECIPES

  Teaser chapter

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by

  Kensington Publishing Corp.

  119 West 40th Street

  New York, NY 10018

  Copyright © 2018 by Krista Davis

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.

  Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.

  ISBN: 978-1-4967-1642-2

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4967-1642-2

  ISBN-10: 1-4967-1642-6

  Dedicated to

  Susan Smith Erba

  with love

  Click on the link below to download the color-it-yourself cover art!

  http://www.kensingtonbooks.com/book.aspx/37049

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  The coloring book called The Florist actually exists. In the 1700s, fashionable ladies and gentlemen passed the time coloring botanical pictures. The drawings were remarkably accurate, and it appears the intent was to color them according to the real colors of the plants in nature. As a writer, I enjoyed reading the introduction to the book as well as the charming quote at the beginning of this book. I think English is far easier today! There are a few copies of The Florist still in existence, mostly in the hands of museums. If you would like to see what it looks like, you can find copies of the pages online at Peter H. Raven Library/Missouri Botanical Garden: http://botanicus.org/title/b11968564.

  The tiny van Gogh sunflower is, to the best of my knowledge, fictitious. Although van Gogh did paint a series of sunflowers, this tiny one is a figment of my imagination, as is the rest of the story and the characters.

  As always, there are many people to thank. My lovely editor, Wendy McCurdy, is always a pleasure to work with. I owe her thanks for allowing me to write this fun series. I’m so grateful that my agent, Jessica Faust, is always only a phone call away. She keeps me targeted and is an endless source of encouragement.

  I would be remiss if I didn’t thank TiJuana Odum. Without her, this book would never have been written.

  Special thanks to Amanda Leonardi, who helped me come up with the name of the coloring club, Hues, Brews, and Clues!

  And I am always grateful for the friendship of Susan Smith, Amy Wheeler, Betsy Strickland, Daryl Wood Gerber, and Janet Bolin. There’s nothing quite like friends to get you through the tough times.

  I could wish you now and then, to exercise

  your Pensill in washing and colouring,

  which at your leasure you may in one

  fortnight easily learne to doe: for the prac-

  tise of the hand, doth speedily instruct the

  mind, and strongly confirme the memorie

  beyond any thing else.

  —Henry Peacham, The Compleat

  Gentleman, 1622

  CAST OF CHARACTERS

  Florrie Fox

  Veronica Fox—Florrie’s sister

  Professor John Maxwell—Florrie’s boss

  Mr. DuBois—Professor Maxwell’s butler

  Bob Turpin—employee of Color Me Read

  Norman Spratt—crazy about Florrie

  Regular patrons of Color Me Read

  Zsazsa Rosca—retired professor

  Professor Goldblum—retired professor

  Percy McAllister—estate sale manager

  Lucianne Dumont—Director, Dumont Foundation for the Arts

  Jack Miller

 
Mike—man in the park

  Members of Hues, Brews, and Clues coloring club

  Dolly Cavanaugh

  Olivia and Priss Beauton—sisters

  Nolan Hackett—real estate agent

  Edgar Delaney—grad student

  Maisie Cavanaugh—Dolly's daughter

  Frederic van den Teuvel—antiques dealer

  Sergeant Eric Jonquille

  Chapter 1

  “No one wants paper books anymore.”

  I bristled at the thought. I looked across the tables of yard sale items to see the nitwit who had said that. As the manager of a bookstore, I was horrified. I wished I were the kind of person who could give a stranger a piece of my mind. I’d love to tell him what I thought.

  He was slender and medium height. Not particularly athletic. He wore his hair short in tight mocha curls. And every garment he wore was emblazoned with a designer label. He looked like a walking billboard.

  He’d said it to a woman in a chic suit. Her hair was the color of peanuts, styled in short waves that were intentionally messy. She wasn’t wearing much makeup. It was eight thirty in the morning, and her weary eyes suggested she hadn’t been sleeping well. She wore a Bluetooth earpieces in her ear and said angrily, “How is it possible to lose a shipment that’s only going from Washington, DC, to New York City? I could have driven it there myself in four hours.”

  Even though I knew she was talking to someone on her phone, she looked like she was speaking to invisible people.

  She turned her attention to the man in front of her. “Okay, go.”

  He fingered his sparse mustache for a silent moment. “Oh! You’re talking to me now. Ms. Dumont, all children think their parents have a treasure that will fetch millions at auction. They never do. I have handled a lot of these estate sales and I promise you, everyone has the same worthless junk. No one wants old furniture, china, crystal, silver, or tchotchkes, and they especially don’t want ancient books. They’re impossible to move. Tastes have changed.”

  The woman to whom he spoke appeared as horrified as I felt. The name Dumont rang a bell with me. Color Me Read, the bookstore I managed, was hosting a reading by the author of From Fame to Infamy: The Dumont Family Curse.

  “Some of these books are probably out of print,” she said. “There may even be first editions.”

  “If they’re out of print it’s for a reason—no one wants them. Besides, everything is on the Internet these days. If it’s worth reading, you can find it there, usually for free.”

  He was really annoying me. I shuddered as I imagined how cold his apartment must look devoid of books.

  “Mr. McAllister, I hired you to take care of this so I would not have to. The last thing I need from you is lectures. The books are for sale. And for your information, this is my grandparents’ estate, not my parents’.”

  McAllister snickered. “I hope you have a van to remove the books after the sale is over. I don’t deliver. What’s left will go into the trash.” He strode away.

  Ms. Dumont squinted at his back as though she were sending evil thoughts in his direction. I got the feeling she wasn’t used to being spoken to in that manner. Looking straight at me, she demanded, “Who recommended McAllister? He’s a complete jerk.”

  I hoped she was speaking into her phone again.

  I looked around for McAllister. Oh no! He had zeroed in on my sister, Veronica, a long-legged blonde who attracted the wrong men.

  Veronica and I were opposites. She was gregarious, blond, and athletic. I barely hit five feet, two inches, had long chestnut hair, and preferred reading and drawing to bars and nightlife.

  No, no, no. Veronica could not get involved with a man who thought books were trash. I hurried over to her. Too late. He was introducing himself.

  “Percy McAllister.”

  My sister tilted her head coyly. “Veronica Fox.”

  He grinned. “I didn’t expect to have a fox shopping here today.”

  Ugh. I cringed. There wasn’t a thing I liked about him. Just then, I heard a woman call my name. “Florrie! Over here, darling.”

  I turned. Not too far away in the alley, Dolly Cavanaugh and Zsazsa Rosca waved at me and beckoned me over.

  Dolly had been the first person to sign up for the Hues, Brews, and Clues coloring club at Color Me Read. In her early sixties, she was on the chubby side, but looked great. Not a single gray hair dared to invade her golden-brown tresses. Like a lot of Southern women, she wore a good bit of foundation that covered any blemishes. Her plumpness filled out wrinkles that might have lined her round face. She had taken great care with her eye makeup and wore a thick streak of perfectly applied liquid eyeliner on her upper eyelids in the latest fashion. Azalea-pink lipstick brightened her face. Dolly had told Veronica and me about the yard sale not far from the bookstore in the Georgetown section of Washington, DC. She had cautioned us to be there early on Saturday morning because all the best items would be gone by noon.

  Zsazsa Rosca and Dolly had met at the coloring club and quickly become fast friends. One of my favorite regulars at the store, Zsazsa was a retired professor of art history. Named after the famous Hungarian actress, Zsazsa was as round as Dolly, but had confessed to me that to avoid jiggles she wore Spanx so tight she had to lie on her bed to pull them on. She wore dramatic eye makeup with black liner swooping at the outer edges of her eyes much like Dolly. I could pick Zsazsa out in a crowd in a second, thanks to her blazing tangerine hair.

  They stood at a table laden with tchotchkes. The assortment of objects accumulated during someone’s life was now being offered up in a yard sale for next to nothing. Zsazsa whispered, “Did you see the old Pyrex bowls at the next table over? They’re highly collectible!”

  Dolly added, “Look for the ones in the best condition and snap them up before someone else realizes what they’re worth. You can sell them online for a nice little profit.”

  “Thanks for the tip. First I need to get rid of that guy who has latched on to Veronica.”

  Dolly gazed around. “Percy McAllister? The bane of my existence and yet a gift of good fortune. Don’t antagonize him.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “He’s a dolt who wouldn’t know a valuable collectible if it fell on his head. He runs the best sales because he has no clue as to the real value of anything. Nevertheless we should rescue Veronica. Take it from me. I had four lousy husbands. Now that I’m older and wiser, I know trouble when I see it.”

  Without another word, Dolly hustled over to Veronica. “Sweetheart! I’ve found something you simply must buy. Excuse us, Percy.” Dolly looped her arm through Veronica’s and practically pulled her away from Percy. I couldn’t help smirking. She was doing what I would have liked to do. But I wouldn’t have been successful at it. Somehow, it was difficult to say no to Dolly.

  Dolly steered Veronica toward a table of figurines. I wound my way through the tables to join them.

  “Can you pick out the most valuable item on this table?” asked Dolly.

  Veronica and I stared at a collection of Hummel figurines, Staffordshire jugs, and assorted bric-a-brac.

  “This one,” said Veronica with confidence, pointing to a Staffordshire jug.

  “Very nice. A good pick, Veronica. Highly collectible. You could sell it for at least forty dollars more than Percy is asking.”

  Veronica beamed. “I like this! Shopping that will earn money. Two of my favorite things.”

  “Unfortunately, dear, it is the incorrect answer. Stick with me, darlings, and you will learn.” Dolly picked up an eight-inch-tall statuette. It was coral-colored and had an Asian look to it. Dolly shook her head and tsked. “Two dollars. You would think Percy would know better. This is carved coral. Five scholars are playing with a dragon. It’s worth at least a thousand, maybe more.”

  Veronica’s wide eyes met mine. “Are you going to buy it?”

  Dolly smiled and held it out to Veronica. “A gift to you. You buy it. Keep it on a shelf or sell it on eBay and treat yourself to somet
hing special.”

  “Dolly, we can’t take that,” I said. “You should buy it.”

  “You girls enjoy it. Didn’t I tell you this would be fun?” Dolly winked at me. “I’m off to peruse the books. Maury Dumont was an ambassador who traveled the world. You never know what you might find. You girls should take a look at the furniture, too. Maury’s wife had an eye for good pieces. I know they’re not trendy, but those pieces are solid wood that will last your lifetimes and beyond, not sawdust pressed with adhesive that will fall apart. If you don’t like the dark color, you can paint it.”

  She bustled off. I watched as she pawed through the boxes of books. It was sad to see Mr. Dumont’s possessions strewn on tables outside of his house. They represented his life and now all those little pieces were being discarded like last week’s leftovers. I felt like a vulture.

  I gazed up at his home, shocked to see someone, probably Ms. Dumont, peering down at us from the semicircular window at the top of the house. There was no reason to imagine anything sinister, but the brownstone with the eyebrow window that extended beyond the roof was an ominous presence on the street of elegant historical homes.