Poisoned Pins

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Praise for Joan Hess and
her Claire Malloy Mysteries

 

“Refreshing . . . blends humor, eccentric characters, familiar emotions, and plot twists into an enjoyable lark.”

—
Nashville Banner
on
Poisoned Pins

“A colorful kaleidoscope of plotting and clues . . . undeniably funny.”

—Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
on
Poisoned Pins

“A winning blend of soft-core feminism, trendy subplots, and a completely irreverent style that characterizes both the series and the sleuth.”

—
Houston Chronicle

“With her wry asides, Claire makes a most engaging narrator. The author deftly juggles the various plot strands . . . the surprising denouement comes off with éclat.”

—Publishers Weekly
on
Out on a Limb

“If you've never spent time with Claire and her crew, I feel sorry for you. Stop reading this nonsense and hop to it. You'll see wit and humanity all wrapped up in a nifty murder mystery.”

—Harlan Coben, author of
Just One Look

“Joan Hess is one of the best mystery writers in the world. She makes it look so easy that few readers and fewer critics realize what a rare talent hers is.”

—Elizabeth Peters, author of
Guardian of the Horizon

“Joan Hess is seriously funny. Moreover, she is seriously kind as well as clever when depicting the follies, foibles, and fantasies of our lives. Viva Joan!”

—Carolyn Hart, author of
Death of the Party

“Breezy and delightful . . . Claire Malloy is one of the most engaging narrators in mystery.”

—
The Drood Review

 

 

The Claire Malloy Mysteries
by Joan Hess

 

Strangled Prose
The Murder at the Murder at the Mimosa Inn
Dear Miss Demeanor
Roll Over and Play Dead
A Diet to Die For
A Really Cute Corpse
Death by the Light of the Moon
Poisoned Pins
A Holly, Jolly Murder
A Conventional Corpse
Out on a Limb
The Goodbye Body

Available from St. Martin's Paperbacks

A Claire Malloy Mystery

JOAN HESS

St. Martin's Paperbacks

NOTE:
If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

 

 

To Dominick Abel

 

 

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

POISONED PINS

Copyright © 1993 by Joan Hess.

Excerpt from
Damsels in Distress
copyright © 2006 by Joan Hess.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

ISBN: 0-312-34917-3
EAN: 9780312-34917-2

Printed in the United States of America

Onyx edition/May 1994
St. Martin's Paperbacks edition/April 2007

St. Martin's Paperbacks are published by St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

I would like to thank Lieutenant Mike Terry of the University of Arkansas Police Department for sharing his time and expertise with me. I would also like to thank Barbara Rose for some of her amazing sorority stories, and several other sources who prefer to remain anonymous (for obvious reasons). Also, Sharyn McCrumb and Les Roberts were kind enough to offer specialized information and deserve my thanks.

Summer can be deadly. Oh, it's got some positive points, I suppose, such as not having to shovel ashes out of the fireplace or drape innocent conifers with tinsel. No sleet, no arctic breezes, no bouts of the flu. On the down side, however, there are virtually no customers in the Book Depot, which leads to no income for its proprietor, who is then obliged to stare gloomily at the pedestrianless sidewalk and think longingly of the other nine months of the year, when Farber College students are burdened with reading lists and a thirst for the sort of analytical insights available from slim yellow study guides.

I was doing just that, rather than battling the piles of paperwork that awaited me in the cramped office at the back of the renovated train station. I'd bought the bookstore more than a decade ago, only a few months after my husband of the moment had a most unfortunate encounter with a chicken truck. Business was never what I'd describe as brisk, but I knew with bleak certainty that the next three months would feel like an eternity as my bank balance dwindled, my spotty old accountant hissed about my delinquent quarterly tax payments, and my spirits inversely reflected the temperature.

The bell above the door tinkled, and I looked up with what optimism I could muster. After a brief struggle with the door, a girl with a towering armload of textbooks staggered across the floor and crashed into the counter with a muted gurgle.

“Let me help you,” I said as I came around the
counter and began to unload her. A face emerged, framed by wispy bangs and dull brown hair that needed to be washed. Her eyes were small and yellowish, her nose broad, her lips almost puffy. I continued taking books from her and piling them on the counter until we'd completed the task and the rest of her was visible. The rest of her turned out to be skinny to the point of angularity, with no discernible bust, waist, or hips. Beneath the hem of a wrinkled brown skirt, thick calves provided the only convexity.

She was watching me so nervously that I went back to my stool and sat. “What can I do for you?” I asked in the dulcet tones of a mild-mannered bookseller intent on a sale.

“Do you buy used textbooks?”

I inwardly winced at the nasality of her voice, but merely shook my head and said, “No, I don't, but Rock Bottom Books does. It's about four blocks past the tracks, on the opposite side of the street.”

“Four blocks? I barely made it this far. I was scared my arms were gonna fall off.” She tried to smile, but her enthusiasm must have fallen off along the way, too. “Are you sure you don't . . . ?”

“Very sure,” I told the witless wonder. “I do, however, sell books, and you're welcome to look around.”

“Thank you.” She drifted behind a rack of science fiction paperbacks. “You sure have a lot of books, ma'am.”

“Bookstores are like that,” I said as I glanced at the spines of the textbooks. Titles ran the gamut from computer technology to medieval poetry to botany, an impressively varied array for someone amazed by the presence of books in bookstores. “What's your major?” I asked the top of her head.

“Elementary ed. I'm going to be a teacher when I graduate. There's something really special about kids, isn't there? I mean, they're so young and everything, like little sponges ready to soak up everything they can.”

Was a sale so important? It was well past the middle
of the afternoon, and not a completely unreasonable hour to close the store, meet Luanne at the shady beer garden across the street, and drown my financial sorrows while gazing numbly at the desultory old hippies who came out only while the majority of Farber College students were gone for the summer. Pabst, pretzels, and piteous whining—not an unappealing combination for a summer's eve.

Or I could call Peter Rosen, a man of considerable charm with dark, curly hair, eyes as deceptively guileless as puddles of molasses, a hawkish nose, and an uncanny talent in matters of passion. In other matters he could be somewhat irritating, alas, along with tedious, humorless, dictatorial, and blunt. Cops can be like that. As can men in general, I amended.

“I guess I'd better try to find that other store,” the girl said as she reappeared. I helped her pile the books in her arms, escorted her out the front door, and watched her for a few minutes as she reeled up the sidewalk, oblivious to the potential peril of the uneven pavement. Entertainment's not easy to come by in Farberville, a mundane place made tolerable only by the slight infusion—or illusion—of culture from the college.

I was reduced to reading the local newspaper when the bell again jangled. This time the door banged open and the sunlight splashed on my face as my daughter Caron careened into the room with the finesse of a runaway locomotive.