The Lost Mansion Cozy Mysteries Book 3

Available on Amazon.com

Yes, that is a bloody knife on the cover. The third book of the Lost Mansion Mysteries finds Alex Temple about to be conferred her four year college degree.

Life is good. She has a hot boyfriend. To use her friend Jenny’s term, their relationship feels sustainable. She has a great job lined up in New York at the hot boyfriend’s architecture firm. She is planning on living in his Manhattan condo where she will be able to keep her cane corso, Bucko.

Even better, Jim Tallon — the boyfriend and now a junior partner at the firm — thinks he’ll be able to get permission for Alex to work from the Lost Mansion within a few months.

Then Alex’s ex-boyfriend, Bradley, shows up in her life again. She thought — in fact, she had hoped — that he was gone for good. No such luck. Bradley is back with drug cartel thugs hot on his trail. Now, Alex has to save his sorry a**.

The Graduation Conundrum — Chapter 8

Elizabeth Dole, now in her mid-eighties, gave the commencement address. Mrs. Dole has had a fascinating career. She’s been the president of the Red Cross, a state senator for North Carolina, and the Secretary of Labor under George Bush. She also became the first serious female contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2000. That’s only a small part of her lifelong accomplishments. She was born in Salisbury, North Carolina. Growing up in a relatively wealthy family, she received an excellent education. She had married an ambitious young man named Bob Dole. Mr. Dole’s political career took him as far as being the Republican presidential nominee in 1996. While I have no doubt that his successes contributed to his wife’s, I sincerely believe the woman is both capable and brilliant. I admire her.

My first clue that maybe I should have had more of a discussion with Bradley the previous afternoon arrived when Crystal came up to me following the ceremony. That half hour or so is frequently one of those bittersweet times when graduates are busy running down classmates for a comradely handshake or a heartfelt hug. We all knew it might be a long time before we see most of our fellow graduates again. Sure, we all planned to keep in touch over social media and we probably would. It’s not the same thing.

Then, of course, we had to find our families in the milling throng of people who, by that point, probably wanted shade and a cold drink more than they actually wanted to see us. There were at least a dozen food trucks parked around the commons area. The college had set up folding chairs and tables on the quad for those people who stayed for lunch.

Crystal looked like she had been crying. The first words out of her mouth were, “Alex, I think Bradley is dead.”

We had managed to get through the graduation ceremony that morning with no problems worse that the sweltering ninety-six-degree heat accompanied by uncomfortably high humidity. Frankly, it felt more like early July than early May. I knew for a fact that none of the graduates had dropped dead waiting to ascend to the stage. Believe me, someone would have noticed and raised a stir.

Bradley wasn’t even the only student who hadn’t walked onto the stage to shake hands with Doctor Phenicie, the dean of his department. I had assumed that he had decided, whether or not his parents had made a long trip to be there when he his degree was conferred, to stay under the radar. It would have been fairly typical Bradley-behavior. In this case, I’m not even sure I could fault him for it. On second thought, yes, I could. He owed it to his family and to Crystal — all three of whom were sitting in the stifling heat on folding plastic chairs — to have formally accepted his diploma.

I took Crystal away from my family — we had already claimed a table. Holding my curiosity — or maybe my detective-mode as Jim had once called it — in check, I gently moved her away from my friends and bought her a root beer. It wasn’t that I had a problem with any of my friends hearing us — Jim, especially, has a knack for picking up on things I miss. I did, however, myself with an upset woman on my hands. I saw no reason not to be considerate of her feelings by doing what I could in order to not make her a spectacle.

As we took seats at one of the smaller tables, I said, “Why do you think Bradley’s dead, Crystal? He isn’t the only one who failed to walk up on stage to be handed his diploma.”

She had stopped sobbing by then. “I sat with his parents, Alex. Before even half the students had been awarded their degrees, Howard answered his phone. I guess he had it on vibrate because I didn’t hear it ring. He leaned over to his wife and said, ‘We have to go.’ Then he looked at me and said that I better come too. I don’t think Bradley has told them he might not be my boyfriend.” She paused. “Do you know Harold and Miriam?”

“Yes, Bradley’s parents. I’ve been to their house. What was the phone call about?”

“It was the police. Two detectives met us in the parking lot. They wanted to know if we knew where Bradley was. They have Bradley’s car, Alex. It was abandoned along some river.” She paused, crying softly.

“Crystal, honey, that doesn’t mean he’s dead. What else did they say?”

“That there was blood in the back seat. Neither he, nor his roommate, Roger Woods, are answering their cell phones. I don’t know if Roger was at the ceremony either.”

I couldn’t remember whether Roger had walked up when his name had been called or not. OK. That wasn’t good news but it still didn’t mean Bradley was dead. “I don’t imagine they said how much blood they found?”

“No, they didn’t. The only good news, I guess, is that no one was in the car when they got there.”

“OK, let’s go find Harold and Miriam. I’m going to give Ramsey a call.” Crystal had met Ramsey at dinner last night. He was up getting food for Emily and himself when I took Crystal for root beer. [PROBLEM — HAVE THEY GONE TO THE TABLE OR NOT….]Plus, I know that she has read the first Lost Mansion cozy so she should know who he is. If she didn’t, she could ask. While we walked back to where Crystal had left Bradley’s parents, I dialed his personal number. “Ramsey, I need a favor.”

“Sure, Alex. We’re all still at the pavilion waiting for you to join us. What do you need?”

He already knew why I had asked him to carry his service weapon to the ceremony this morning. Thankfully, we hadn’t needed our guns. “The police found Bradley’s car abandoned by the river this morning. The information I have is that there was enough blood in the backseat that they’re concerned. Can you see what you can find out? I’ll come back to our table after I’ve spoken with Bradley’s parents.” I knew Crystal hadn’t said — and probably didn’t know — how much blood there had been, but if the police were looking for him, then there was enough blood for them to be concerned.

I know both of Bradley’s parents. We had spent Thanksgiving with them a year and a half ago — the fall when we were still a couple. Miriam rushed forward to hug me. She was clearly upset but, unlike Crystal, not to the crying stage — at least not yet.

I asked, “How are you holding up, Miriam?”

She stood back and shook her head. “I don’t know, Alex. Not that I’m not glad to see you, but what are you doing here? I thought you broke it off with my son.”

I sighed. “We did. This was Crystal’s idea.”

Crystal nodded. “I told you I was going to get some advice. Alex is brilliant at solving mysteries. I thought she might be able to help us find Bradley.”

I didn’t want to get into that. I didn’t want to get any hopes up, either, when I thought there was a good chance there wasn’t anything to be hopeful about here. I said, “Bradley found me yesterday. We were going to talk after the ceremony today. I’ll be frank — he told me that he thought someone was trying to kill him. I advised him to go to the police. I don’t know what happened after he left. I don’t know whether he took my advice or not.”

Harold said, “But why? Why would anyone want to kill my son? Did he say?”

I shook my head. “I’m sorry. No, he didn’t. He said he didn’t want to talk about it.”

I learned that they had been told that Bradley’s car had been found a little after dawn on the riverbank by a pair of early morning joggers. No, it wasn’t by Jim and me. Yes, sometimes, I take Bucko for a run on the trail along the river. More often than not, however, we stick to the trails around my campus, as we had this morning.

Bucko is a large, muscular dog. Today’s cane corsos are descended from a breed that fought beside Roman Legionnaires back when the world still had Roman Legionnaires. He has a fierce appearance but the sweetest personality you can imagine.

My apartment isn’t in the best section of town. I originally bought him for protection. I lived alone until I invited Bradley to move in with me some months later. Bucko is capable of ripping anyone threatening me apart. I think he might actually do it, too, unless I call him off. I don’t honestly think I need that kind of protection. It is, however, nice to have someone guarding the place when I’m not home.

The Graduation Conundrum is available on Amazon.com