Railroaded 4 Murder
Railroaded 4 Murder (Sophie Kimball Mystery)
by J.C. Eaton
About Railroaded 4 Murder
Railroaded 4 Murder (Sophie Kimball Mystery)
Cozy Mystery
8th in Series
Publisher : Kensington (August 24, 2021)
Mass Market Paperback : 336 pages
ISBN-10 : 1496724577
ISBN-13 : 978-1496724571
Digital ASIN : B08P7YRSTN
While planning her wedding, Sophie “Phee” Kimball gets sidetracked by the murder of a model train enthusiast . . .
Phee’s marriage to Marshall Gregory promises to be the wedding of the year in Arizona’s Sun City West—that is, if you ask her mother Harriet. But before she can walk down the aisle, it looks like she has to solve one more murder. At a model train exhibit, Phee, Harriet, and their beloved Chiweenie, Streetman, discover the body of Sun City West’s railroad club president, with an incriminating tap shoe near his lifeless corpse.
Wilbur Maines may have loved model trains but apparently he was not a model husband. There are rumors of affairs with hot-to-trot hobbyists the Choo-Choo Chicks. The police suspect his wife—and Harriet’s friend—Roxanne, who dances with the Rhythm Tappers, but Phee’s mom is convinced they’re on the wrong track. Before the poor woman is railroaded into spending the rest of her life behind bars, Phee, Harriet, and the book club ladies will need to do some fancy footwork, infiltrate the dance group, and find the real culprit before the killer leaves the station . . .
Excerpt
Ugh. Another phone call from my mother during my break time.
“Of course you can get him into the Glendale City Hall,” she said. “He’s a service dog.”
It was a good thing I swallowed my last bite of a donut before hearing my mother’s comment or I would have choked to death. “A service dog? Have you gone bonkers? Streetman is anything but!”
“Well, he’ll be performing a service, won’t he? He’ll be carrying your wedding rings in a pretty little gauze bag and bringing them down the aisle or whatever setup they have for a civil ceremony.”
Not if Marshall and I have anything to say about it.
“Look, Mom, I’ve got to get back to work. My break is almost over. And the wedding isn’t until June. The end of June, to be precise. That’s three months from now. We wanted to make sure Kalese will be done teaching so she can fly in from St. Cloud.”
“My granddaughter would want Streetman at the ceremony. She adores that dog.”
“Look, I know you have your heart set on having him take part in the wedding, but maybe we can bring him back a doggy bag or something from the reception. Besides, you know how that neurotic little Chiweenie gets around people. He’ll either duck under the seats, grab someone’s sweater and refuse to let go, or, worse yet, lift his leg on the podium.”
“He’s making progress, Phee. He now stands on his rear legs and does this adorable little doggy dance to get treats. Or when he hears music on the radio or TV. He’s improving every day. He just needs some time.”
And a refill of his doggy Xanax . . . “I’ll keep that in mind. Talk to you later.”
No sooner had I hung up the phone when Augusta, our secretary, leaned against the doorjamb to my office. “I wasn’t eavesdropping. Honest. But you did get a bit loud. Especially the bonkers part. Don’t tell me. Your mother wants the dog to be in the wedding party?”
I groaned. “It’s not a wedding party. It’s a simple civil ceremony for family and friends, followed by a nice luncheon at the Renaissance Hotel in Glendale. And yes. She does. She wants the dog to participate. And worse yet, if I relent and say yes, she’ll get her friend Shirley to design an outfit for him that would put Lady Gaga’s designers to shame.”
“Maybe you and Marshall could elope or something. Vegas is nice that time of year.”
“Trust me. We thought of that, but she’d only follow us, along with that book club of hers. Anyway, I need to get back to these spreadsheets. The accounts aren’t going to reconcile themselves.”
Augusta chuckled and walked back to the outer office. She and I comprised half of the four-person team at Williams Investigations, about twenty miles northwest of Phoenix and a stone’s throw from my mother’s community of Sun City West, Arizona. My boss, Nate Williams, was a retired detective from the Mankato, Minnesota, Police Department, where I had worked in accounts receivable.
A few years ago, I’d gotten a good taste of Sun City West when my mother and the book club ladies became convinced they were reading a cursed book responsible for a series of unexplained deaths. Tired of listening to her histrionics, I flew out west to see what was going on and, within minutes, found myself embroiled in murder and mayhem. Not to mention gossip, exaggeration, and downright wackiness. But that wasn’t the worst of it—Streetman, my mother’s dog, was.
When one of her friends went into assisted living, she rehomed the litter guttersnipe and proceeded to spoil him like nobody’s business. The dog came with a litany of behavioral issues, but none of that mattered to Harriet Plunkett. As far as she was concerned, Streetman was her little prince. Go figure.
About J.C. Eaton
J.C. Eaton is the wife and husband team of Ann I. Goldfarb and James E. Clapp. Ann spent most of her life in education, first as a classroom teacher and later as a middle school principal and professional staff developer. She has eight published YA time travel mysteries and over a decade of experience writing nonfiction for Jones Publishing and Madavor Media trade magazines. When James retired as the tasting room manager for a large upstate New York winery, he never imagined he’d be co-authoring cozy mysteries with his wife. Nonfiction in the form of informational brochures and workshop materials treating the winery industry were his forte, along with an extensive background and experience in construction that started with his service in the U.S. Navy.
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