Trick or Deceit Read online

  Praise for the Celebration Bay Mysteries

  Independence Slay

  “With one occurrence rolling into another, and all connecting together somehow, this is a really fun and quick read.”

  —Open Book Society (5 star review)

  “Independence Slay . . . makes a great summer read to take to the beach, and not just for a holiday weekend. Freydont has humor mixed in with a full story line that will have you guessing with each page.”

  —Fresh Fiction

  “Liv and her delightful Westie companion, Whiskey . . . prove to be intelligent, witty, and genuinely likable enough to persevere through the eccentricities of this delightful holiday-themed town.”

  —Kings River Life Magazine

  “Shelley Freydont skillfully manipulates the story and the characters for a perfect example of a small-town traditional mystery with an amateur sleuth.”

  —Lesa’s Book Critiques

  Silent Knife

  “A wonderful winter cozy that you can curl up with any time of the year.”

  —Escape with Dollycas into a Good Book

  “Freydont is a skilled writer . . . The dialogue is funny and fast, and the plot carries the reader along swiftly . . . [A] very enjoyable series.”

  —Kings River Life Magazine

  “Shelley Freydont’s holiday mysteries are perfect for seasonal reading . . . You’ll want to include it in a Christmas mystery collection. After all, you do want to know what happens to Santa Claus, don’t you?”

  —Lesa’s Book Critiques

  Foul Play at the Fair

  “Event coordinator Liv Montgomery is doing her best to squash any obstacles to a successful Celebration Bay Harvest Festival, and when a body crops up, she’s not going to let her plans be plowed under.”

  —Sheila Connolly, New York Times bestselling author of the Orchard Mysteries

  “All the charm of a Norman Rockwell painting, but with a much more colorful cast of characters!”

  —Cynthia Baxter, author of the Reigning Cats & Dogs Mysteries

  “Celebrate Shelley Freydont’s new mystery series in Celebration Bay, a city of festivals where the event coordinator plans everything. Except solving murders.”

  —Janet Bolin, author of the Threadville Mysteries

  “Foul Play at the Fair is a fun romp of a story about Liv Montgomery, who gives up her irritating life of handling bridezillas and finds the perfect job in Celebration Bay, New York, with her Westie, Whiskey. A delicious read filled with interesting characters and good times.”

  —Joyce Lavene, coauthor of the Missing Pieces Mysteries

  “I fell in love with Liv Montgomery and the citizens of Celebration Bay from the very first page.”

  —Mary Kennedy, author of the Dream Club Mysteries

  “The fun first Celebration Bay Mystery is an engaging whodunit starring a burned-out protagonist who, though she fled the city, remains in a constant state of stress.”

  —Genre Go Round Reviews

  “Liv Montgomery is a terrific new amateur sleuth, competent, intelligent, with a few surprising skills. Freydont introduces an interesting cast of characters as residents of Celebration Bay, people who will be fun to see again in future stories.”

  —Lesa’s Book Critiques

  “If you like small-town gossip, long-buried secrets, and festivals galore, you’ll love this new series. The mystery is well developed and proceeds nicely. This is a promising new series with colorful characters and seasonal festivals that create endless possibilities for future story lines.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  “I recommend Foul Play at the Fair for anyone who enjoys an amusing book with a rural setting.”

  —The Season

  Berkley Prime Crime titles by Shelley Freydont

  Celebration Bay Mysteries

  FOUL PLAY AT THE FAIR

  SILENT KNIFE

  INDEPENDENCE SLAY

  TRICK OR DECEIT

  Newport Gilded Age Mysteries

  A GILDED GRAVE

  Specials

  COLD TURKEY

  TRAWLING FOR TROUBLE

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

  TRICK OR DECEIT

  A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author

  Copyright © 2015 by Shelley Freydont.

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  BERKLEY® PRIME CRIME and the PRIME CRIME design are trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  For more information, visit penguin.com.

  eBook ISBN: 978-0-698-19670-4

  PUBLISHING HISTORY

  Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / September 2015

  Cover illustration by Robert Crawford.

  Cover design by Lesley Worrell.

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

  Version_1

  Contents

  Praise for the Celebration Bay Mysteries

  Berkley Prime Crime titles by Shelley Freydont

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter One

  Liv Montgomery stopped at the bottom of the town hall steps to button her jacket. A year before, she’d moved to Celebration Bay, New York, from Manhattan, complete with a totally new “country” wardrobe of corduroy, plaids, comfortable shoes, even a hat with earflaps. Now she only brought out the earflaps when it was below ten degrees, which, being early October, it wasn’t, and her jacket had finally lost its shiny, right-off-the-racks-at-L.L.Bean look.

  And she was getting a lot fewer digs about being a city girl. Actually, since she’d taken over the duties of town event planner, attendance at activities had tripled, and she was becoming an accepted member of the community, most of the time.

  Her assistant, Ted Driscoll, a tall, lean man of a certain age and an untalked-about past, tucked up his collar, then took her elbow. Beneath the jacket he was wearing a black pullover with a bat knitted onto the front.

  Ted loved his holidays, and the women at the Yarn Barn kept him in festive sweaters, scarves, vests, and hats. He had a good singing voice, adored Liv’s white Westie, Whiskey, knew his way around a computer, and had nerves of steel.

  In a word, he was the best assistant Liv had ever had.

  It
was late afternoon and already dark, except for the lights from restaurants and shops and the wrought iron lamps that lit the paths through the park.

  Being a family-friendly destination town, the inhabitants of Celebration Bay had the changeover from one holiday to the next down to a science. On September thirtieth, the Harvest on the Bay Festival transformed into Halloween, literally overnight. Town-wide decorations of colorful leaves and fall vegetables turned into broomsticks and bats. Gourds and pumpkins were carved into grimacing jack-o’-lanterns. Bales of hay that had offered respite to weary tourists were now the property of skeletons and witches.

  They crossed the street and joined the scores of people headed toward the band shell at the far side of the village square, where the mayor would shortly announce the winner of Celebration Bay’s first ever haunted house contest.

  “So who do you think will win Best Haunted House tonight?” Liv asked.

  “I think Barry Lindquist’s Museum of Yankee Horrors takes the cake. My unofficial opinion, of course.”

  “It is pretty impressive,” Liv said. “I knew about Hester Prynne, Lizzie Borden, and the Headless Horseman, but there were a bunch of crimes I never realized took place in New England.”

  Ted coughed out a laugh, sending a cloud into the air. “In true Celebration Bay style, Barry played loose with some of the more sordid efforts. Al Capone? I mean, since when did Chicago belong to the northeast?”

  “I did wonder about that,” Liv said. “Anyway I think it’s a toss-up between his museum and Ernie Bolton’s Monster Mansion.”

  “You screamed loud enough when that skeleton popped out of the coffin.”

  Liv grimaced. “I wasn’t expecting it.”

  “That’s the whole point. Now, do you want to find a seat or do you want to stand in the back surveying the assembly and looking for potential screw-ups, unexpected snafus, and sloppy crowd control?”

  “Let’s stand in the back, but only because I’ve been sitting all day.”

  “Uh-huh.” Ted maneuvered them to a place right behind the last row of folding chairs.

  “No really. I’m going to delegate a lot more this year. And exercise more.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Liv pointed to the band shell, where five chairs and a lectern had been set up and where a row of jack-o’-lanterns lined the front of the stage. “Are those electric or candlelit?”

  Ted shook his head. “Not to worry, they’re battery powered. The pumpkins are ceramic and were donated by the Garden Club last year.”

  “Oh.”

  “And the folding chairs passed state folding chair inspection just last week.”

  “Very funny.”

  “Relax.”

  “I am relaxed. Just vigilant.” It was her job. Event planners not only planned but were responsible for making sure that everything ran smoothly.

  Ted chuckled. “Here we go.”

  Five people came onto the stage and sat in the chairs without mishap.

  “See?” Ted said. “Safe and sound.”

  Liv rolled her eyes at him.

  As soon as they were seated, Mayor Worley joined them and stood behind the lectern. He held up his hands to quiet the audience, which didn’t have the slightest effect. It never did. He tapped on the microphone. A mechanical screech broadcast through the audience. They became quiet.

  Gilbert Worley had been mayor for at least ten years, mainly, Liv guessed, because no one else wanted the job. He was short, portly, with black hair gelled back from his forehead and showing gray at the temples when he was behind on his Grecian Formula touch-ups.

  He held up his hands again. “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and ghouls . . .”

  The crowd groaned.

  “Isn’t that how he started last year’s speech?” Liv asked.

  “The last ten, at least.”

  The microphone squealed and the mayor stepped back. “Welcome to this year’s Halloween kickoff. Tonight we have a special honor to award and a surprise to announce.

  “As you know, the community center is in search of a new building, and the best way to insure success is by a fund-raising campaign—”

  More groans from a few in the audience.

  “It’s for a good cause,” someone yelled.

  Most of the crowd agreed, loudly.

  The mayor looked at the lectern as if he might find his gavel there, but this wasn’t a town meeting; it just sounded like one.

  “As you know, our community center has lost its lease. The center provides an important service to our young people, families, and seniors. In order to keep the center functioning, the board has taken a three-pronged approach that will hopefully enable us to find a permanent building and organizational operating expenses that will include . . .”

  Beside her, Ted stifled a yawn.

  “Donations have already been coming in, and we’ve applied for a community improvement grant from the VanderHauw Foundation.”

  Ted leaned toward Liv. “Never amazes me how Gilbert manages to take credit for everything, even though your contacts and grant application were what got us on VanderHauw’s radar.”

  Liv shrugged. “As long as it gets the community center up and running, I don’t care who takes credit for it.”

  Mayor Worley cleared his throat. “In addition, the board came up with the idea of holding a contest to decide what design would become the official Celebration Bay Haunted House, whose official opening will kick off this year’s Halloween festivities. We had a whopping one hundred entries, with all entry fees going to the donation fund. A panel of five judges adjudicated every entry, no matter how small.

  “I’d like the judges to stand.” The mayor gestured to where three of the four town trustees—Rufus Cobb, Roscoe Jackson, and Jeremiah Atkins—were sitting in a row. As usual, the fourth trustee was AWOL.

  “Chaz didn’t even manage to get here for the community center?” Liv asked, disgusted.

  Ted looked over the crowd. “I expect he’s here somewhere. See. Over there, standing in the back opposite us.”

  Liv looked to where Ted indicated and came eye to eye with Chaz Bristow, owner and editor of the Celebration Bay Clarion. Liv’s nemesis . . . and sometimes her reluctant partner in crime solving.

  He grinned at her and she looked away.

  “And two members of the business community.” The mayor gestured to two well-dressed women sitting side by side at the end of the row. “Janine Tudor and Lucille Foster . . . Ladies.” The two women waved.

  Chaz Bristow slipped up beside Liv.

  Liv felt the jolt of interest that she always tried to ignore when she was around him. He was too good-looking for his own good, at least according to Liv’s landladies, Ida and Edna Zimmerman.

  He was handsome, all right, with straight features, a firm if sometimes unshaven jaw, and blond hair that would be more appropriate on someone who lived outdoors in the sun instead of someone who preferred sleeping under a newspaper on the couch in his office.

  Tonight he was wearing a light hunting jacket, a plaid scarf, and no hat. His blond hair looked less groomed than usual in the uneven light. But there was definitely something charismatic about the man.

  He was infuriating; yo-yoed between out-and-out smarmy wastrel and intense, justice-seeking reporter, always with a serious surfer dude attitude. Infuriating, but appealing—

  Appealing? When she was out of her mind and hallucinating.

  Liv pulled herself together. “Why aren’t you up there with the other trustees?”

  “Three reasons.”

  “Really. What are they?”

  “Because I own and run the local paper. I can’t appear to take sides.”

  “Ha. You mean you just didn’t want to be bothered.”

  Chaz shrugged.

  “And the other two?”

/>   He nodded toward the stage. “You’re looking at them.”

  Liv frowned.

  Ted leaned over. “He’s talking about Lucille and Janine.”

  “Yep,” Chaz said. “Amazing that the two of them can sit side by side without tearing each other’s eyes out. The mayor must have a death wish. I sure don’t.”

  “I take it they don’t like each other.”

  Chaz gave her a deadpan look.

  She turned to Ted.

  He managed an even more deadpan expression.

  “And now I’d like to introduce Lucille Foster, chairwoman of the judging panel. Lucille?”

  Lucille stood gracefully; Janine remained seated with a tight smile on her face. Lucille was tall and elegantly dressed, in an off-white Burberry trench coat with a burnt orange paisley shawl looped over her shoulder. And the highest heels Liv had seen—or worn—since Manhattan. Hers were now residing in the deepest, darkest corner of her closet.

  The highest and the most expensive, Liv thought as Lucille’s red soles caught the light.

  The chairwoman edged the mayor over and spoke into the microphone. “Thank you, Mayor Worley. I am so honored to be a part of this great fund-raiser. We here in Celebration Bay care about our town and about each other. That feeling is what makes us so special, and you’ve shown your caring by your donations to this worthy cause—the Celebration Bay Community Center.”

  While Lucille began explaining the guidelines of the contest and how the entries were judged, Liv looked over the crowd. It was small in the scheme of things. Mostly local people who supported the need for a new community center.

  Liv had hoped that Jonathon Preston, director of development for the VanderHauw Foundation, would make it for the ceremony, but as it was he’d had to sandwich them in between a trip to a daycare center in Thailand and an afternoon music program in Detroit.

  Too bad. Jon would have gotten a kick out of the spectacle. And Liv would have gotten a kick out of his enjoyment. Jon was a former colleague of hers from her Manhattan days, and they’d briefly been something more than friends. He was great to work with, indefatigable and energetic. They’d had some fun times, and Liv was looking forward to seeing him again.