Keepsake Crimes

Table of Contents

 

 

Praise for the Tea Shop Mystery series by Laura Childs

 

“This mystery series could single-handedly propel the tea shop business in this country to the status of wine bars and bustling coffeehouses.”
—Buon Gusto,
Minneapolis, MN

 

“Engages the audience from the start . . . Laura Childs provides the right combination of tidbits on tea and an amateur sleuth cozy that will send readers seeking a cup of
Death By Darjeeling,
the series’ previous novel.”

 

 

 

 

“Highly recommended” by the Ladies Tea Guild

 

“Book of Choice” by the Red Hat Society

 

“Tea lovers, mystery lovers, [this] is for you. Just the right blend of cozy fun and clever plotting.”

—
Susan Wittig Albert, bestselling author of
Bloodroot

 

“It’s a delightful book!”
—Tea: a magazine

 

“Murder suits [Laura Childs] to a Tea.”

 

“If you devoured Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden, this new series is right up your alley.”

 

“
Death By Darjeeling
is a good beginning to a new culinary series that will quickly become a favorite of readers who favor this genre. The cozy and inviting setting will quickly draw readers in and a likable cast of characters will have them eager to return.”
—The Mystery Reader

 

“Gives the reader a sense of traveling through the streets and environs of the beautiful, historic city of Charleston.”

 

 

 

 

Chosen as a Monthly Alternate by the Literary Guild’s Mystery Book Club
^®

 

“A heart-stopping opening scene.”
—St. Paul Pioneer Press

 

“Delicious cozy.”—BooksnBites.com

 

“Once again, the reader experiences the scents, atmosphere, and elegance of Charleston.”

 

 

 

 

 

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.

 

KEEPSAKE CRIMES

 

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

PRINTING HISTORY
Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / May 2003

Copyright © 2003 by Gerry Schmitt.

 

All rights reserved.
This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced
in any form without permission.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or
via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal
and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic
editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of
copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
For information address: The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

eISBN : 978-1-101-16152-4

 

Berkley Prime Crime Books are published
by The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
The name BERKLEY PRIME CRIME and the BERKLEY PRIME
CRIME design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

 

 

This book is dedicated to my dad,
who died a few short months before I became
a published author.

Acknowledgments

A million thanks to my husband, Bob, who urged me to pursue this scrapbooking theme; to mystery great Mary Higgins Clark who has been so encouraging with every book I write; to my agent, Sam Pinkus; to Henri Schindler, Mardi Gras float designer, historian, and author, and Stone and Joan in New Orleans who revealed the fascinating world of Mardi Gras parades, float dens, and balls; to my sister, Jennie, who was this book’s first reader and critic; to my mother who always believes in me, no matter what; to Jim Smith, dear friend and tireless cheerleader; to my Chinese shar-pei dogs, Madison and Maximillian, who were the inspiration for little Boo; to everyone at Berkley who was so enthusiastic about a scrapbooking series; to all the thousands of scrapbookers out there who are so marvelously creative; and to readers of my Tea Shop Mystery series who expressed genuine excitement over my new series.

C
ARMELA Bertrand spun out a good fifteen inches of gold ribbon and snipped it off tidily. “This,” she told the little group of scrapbookers clustered around her table, “gets added to the center panel.” Heads bobbed, and eager eyes followed Carmela’s hands as she punched two quick holes in the scrapbook page, then deftly threaded the ribbon through.

The ladies had been asking about wedding scrapbooks, and Carmela had come up with a layout that was easy for beginners yet elegant in appearance. Color photos of a bride and bridesmaids were alternated with squares of embossed floral paper, three down and three across, like a giant tic-tac-toe board. A diamond-shaped card, perfect for personal jottings, was positioned in the center.

As Carmela’s hands worked to fashion a bow, her mind was working overtime. She had about a gazillion things to do on this late February afternoon. Call her momma, pick up batteries for her camera, check with her friend, Ava, about the Mardi Gras parade tonight, figure out just what the heck she was going to wear.

But there was time, right? Sure there was, there
had
to be time.

Willing herself to calm down, Carmela pushed an errant strand of hair from her face and took a deep breath.

People always asked Carmela if she’d gotten her name because of her hair. Dark blond, shot through with strands of taffy and caramel, it offered a startling contrast to the clear, pale skin of her oval face and blue gray eyes that mirrored the flat glint of the Gulf of Mexico.

Of course, Carmela didn’t have the heart to tell folks she’d been born hairless, just like a baby opossum.

Over the years Carmela had chunked and skunked her hair, as Ava laughingly called it, in an effort to shed her cloak of conservatism and adopt an image that was a trifle more outgoing and a little more . . . well, hip.

Too often, people thought her reserved. Not so, she told herself. She only
looked
reserved. Inside was a zydeco lovin’, foot-stompin’ Cajun. Well,
half
Cajun anyway. On her mother’s side. Her father had been Norwegian, which, when she thought about it, probably
had
given her a slight genetic tendency toward wearing beige and voting Republican.

When she was little, before her dad died in a barge accident on the Mississippi, he’d jokingly told her she was Cawegian. Half Cajun, half Norwegian.

Carmela had been enchanted by that. And as she got older, chalked up her orderly sense of design to her Norwegian side, her passion for life to her Cajun side. It made her uniquely suited for New Orleans, a city that was eccentric, fanciful, and profoundly religious, yet casually tossed ladies’ panties from Mardi Gras floats.

Carmela had taken to New Orleans like a duck to water. The Crescent City, the City That Care Forgot, the Big Easy. Only lately, things hadn’t been so easy.

Carmela finished with a flourish, “There,” she told her group. “The amazing Technicolor wedding layout.”

“How very elegant,” marveled Tandy Bliss. She slid a pair of bright red cheaters halfway down her bony nose and studied Carmela’s handiwork. Tandy was a scrapbook fanatic of the first magnitude and one of Carmela’s regulars at Memory Mine, the little scrapbooking store she owned on the fringe of the French Quarter in New Orleans. “But didn’t you mention something about using vellum?”

Carmela dug into her pile of paper scraps and came up with a quick solution. “Three-inch squares of vellum go here and here,” she said as she slid the thin, transparent paper atop the floral paper. “Gabby, you want to hand me those stickers?”

Gabby Mercer-Morris, Carmela’s young assistant, passed over a sheet of embossed gold foil stickers. Carmela peeled one off gingerly and pressed it at the top of the velum to anchor it.

“What a lovely, soft look,” marveled Byrle Coopersmith. This was her first scrapbooking class, and she was wide-eyed with excitement. “I had no idea scrapbooks could be so elegant.”

“People are always amazed at the sophisticated looks you can achieve,” explained Carmela. She picked up a sample vacation scrapbook she’d created and flipped through the pages for all to see. “See . . . you can highlight a single photo by creating a gangbuster layout around it, use several photos for a fun montage effect, or turn your page into a kind of travel journal by incorporating your own personal notes and clippings. No matter what you do, scrapbooking is all about preserving memory in a very personal way.” She passed the album to Byrle, who accepted it eagerly. “Think about it,” continued Carmela. “Most people have snapshot collections that document all sorts of precious events: new babies, weddings, graduations, vacations. But what do they do with them?”

“Stick ’em in little plastic albums,” said Tandy in her soft drawl. “Which is so
borrring.”

“You got that right,” said Carmela.

“Or toss ’em in shoe boxes like I used to,” piped up a fifty-something woman with the incongruous name of Baby. Baby Fontaine was on the far side of fifty, but her tiny figure, pixie blond hair, peaches and cream complexion, and genteel accent lent a youthful aura. And Baby’s friends, in no hurry to abandon the familiar, endearing moniker that had been bestowed on her back during her sorority days, continued to call her Baby.

There were five of them seated around the table. Carmela and her assistant, Gabby. And Tandy, Byrle, and Baby.

Tandy had found her way to Carmela’s shop when it first opened, almost a year ago, and she was practically a fixture now. Tandy had completed elaborate scrapbooks that celebrated her wedding anniversary, vacations in Maui, and all of her children’s varied and sundry accomplishments. Now she was working on a combination journal /scrapbook that documented her family heritage. Blessed with six grandchildren, Tandy had also done scrapbooks on each of the little darlings. And with two more grandchildren on the way, Tandy was now mulling over creative ways to showcase sonograms.