Murder Without A Duck, Claudia H. Long, Excerpt

Sal, a recently divorced and temporarily suspended lawyer relocates to the small town of Simpato in Northern California to her parents’ old home, vacant since their deaths. Looking for privacy, a reprieve from her life, and a fresh start, instead she’s quickly immersed into the small-town gossip mill of characters who all know more about her than she does of them. When a murder happens minutes from the spot where she is hiking, Sal finds herself dangerously plunged into the epicenter of the town’s long-held hometown secrets.

Wine, gossip, intrigue, and cannabis-cookie-selling-nuns thrive in abundance in Simpato, California, along with plenty of awful duck puns! All Sal has to do is survive.

A restless night gave way to a beautifully clear April morning. As I was pulling on my jeans after a shower, I heard a soft knock on the door. I looked through the eyehole I had installed for my parents nearly twenty years earlier, to their hilarity.

“Nothing ever happens in Sin-Pato,” my dad had laughed. “That’s why my law practice is so moribund.”

Like me, my dad had been a lawyer and, thanks to his fore- sight, the house had been in their names and mine, just as their bank account had been in their names and my sister’s. They must have figured my sister would need the money more than I did. Dahlia had taken after our mother and become a tarot reader on Maui. Not that Mom was a tarot reader, but she tended in that direction.

Since my parents’ bodies were never found, in order to take ownership of the house under other circumstances I would have to have them declared legally dead. This way I had the house, my sister had the money, and they were, legally, alive. Just not, you know, actually. I couldn’t see anyone on the doorstep, so either it was a delivery and there would be an Amazon box somewhere on the step, or it was a ding-and-ditch. I’d get the delivery after I dried
my hair.

Another knock, this time harder. I still couldn’t see anyone through the peephole, but once I stood on my tiptoes and looked down, I caught sight of a green-covered head. Someone was out there, someone smaller even than I was. I cracked the door open. Standing on the step was what looked like a green tent.
A smallish one, narrow, about as high as my chin. “Miss Grossman?” came a voice from under the tent.

I stepped back.

“Hello?” I said, trying to peer below the surface a bit. The tent tipped back, and a face appeared beneath a nun’s
wimple. Round and very white, with big, googly blue eyes shielded by thick glasses, the face broke into a smile.

“Welcome back!”

“Um . . .”

“I’m Sister Sorghum, your almost-neighbor. You’re Alta Grossman’s daughter, aren’t you?” Her voice was low and gravelly, and I bent my head to hear her.

“Sister Sorghum?” Was that real?

“Yes, dear. Of the Holy Order of the Little Sisters of the Earth. We were very fond of your mother. May I come in?”
What do you say to a nun who wants to come in? I stepped back, wet hair and all, and she trundled in. I could now see that it wasn’t a walking tent, but a nun’s habit of the old-fashioned kind, but in eco-green. From the folds she drew out a smallish cardboard box.

“Cookies,” she said, thrusting it at me. “A sort of housewarming present. We sell them; that’s how we maintain
ourselves.”
With cookies? They must have a heck of an endowment. I thanked her and put the box on the little table. “Um, would you like some coffee?” I asked.

“Oh, you just go dry your hair, dear. I’ll make myself some tea and get comfortable.”

“Um . . .”

“It’s quite all right. I know where everything is.”

“But even I don’t know where I’ve put everything!” I said. I’d only put things away yesterday; how could she know where things were?

Sister Sorghum raised what she had of eyebrows. “But there are only a few places anyone would put tea. Think about it, dear. No matter whose house you walk into, there are no more than two, maybe three, places in a kitchen where someone would put tea.”

I yielded the point, quickly vanishing into the bathroom to brush out my hair and put it into a ponytail.

“Little Sisters of the Earth?” I asked, as I reentered the kitchen.

Sure enough, Sorghum here had found the mugs, the teabags I bought yesterday, and some of Saul’s sweetener that had somehow hitched a ride to my house in the move. She had two cups heating in the microwave.
“Yes. We are devoted to the task of slowing climate change. Do you really use this terrible stuff?” she held up the little packet of chemicals.

I just shook my head. I couldn’t go into the whole Saul business.

“So what can I do for you, Sister?” I asked, as she settled her- self into the one cushioned chair in the living room. I perched on the other seat, a folding chair that was far more accommodating
than it looked.

“What’s your first name, dear? I can’t go calling you Miss Grossman, now can I? I dearly loved Alta, you know. She was such a good Keeper. Your father was a fine gentleman, too. Especially for a lawyer. No offense meant.”

“None taken,” I said automatically, taking offense.

“Your name, dear?”

“Sal.”

“Sal? Short for what?”

I hated this part. “Salvia.”

Sister Sorghum grinned. “Ah. I should have guessed. Alta was a true friend of the earth. And do you use Grossman, or do you have a married name?” She suddenly looked around nervously. “Is there a man here?”

“None that I know of. I left him in my old place in San Francisco.”

“Ah. So I thought. But did you take his name with you, along with the sweetener?” So the nun had a sense of humor.

“DeVine.”

“Oh, I couldn’t possibly guess. Names are not like keeping tea in the kitchen.”

“Salvia DeVine.”

She spilled her tea. I jumped up to get a little square of the mopping cloths I used instead of paper towels. She was laughing, nearly rolling around in the chair. I took her tea mug, placing it carefully on the floor away from her. Side tables or a coffee table were the next order of business.

“Salvia Divinorum! Perfect! That’s just like Alta, you know. Though she couldn’t have guessed your married future name when you were born, could she? Unless—was it an arranged marriage, dear?” I shook my head, a little dazed. “Well, no, it wouldn’t be, nowadays, young people . . . You will have to come to visit us at the monastery. You will absolutely love our mission!”

Mission? Monastery? Wasn’t that for monks? Before I could frame the question politely, she had composed herself and stood.

“Well, dear, Sal, I must be going. You must visit. Please do. Come tomorrow at noon. And we shall discuss your role as Keeper.”

“Wait.” I saw my chance. “What is this Keeper business, anyway? That’s all I’ve heard since I arrived.”
“Come tomorrow. We’ll talk. Oh,” she added as she walked out the door onto the step, “start slowly, give it at least an hourbefore you take a second bite.”

“Bite?” I said as she made her way down the long walk. “The cookie,” she said over her shoulder. “See you
tomorrow.”
***

BUY HEE

—

Claudia H. Long is the author of seven novels, including the deeply emotional mystery series featuring Zara and Lilly: Nine Tenths of the Law and Our Lying Kin. Her books span centuries and topics, including the poetry of Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz (Josefina’s Sin), the Hidden Jews of Mexico during the Inquisition (The Duel for Consuelo), women in the mining industry in 1753 (Chains of Silver), women in the labor movement in 1920s San Francisco (The Harlot’s Pen), and the legacy of inherited trauma as a daughter of a Holocaust survivor. Her humorous mysteries are “sisters-books, family scandals with a mystery flowing through them.”

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Category: On Writing