Notoriously Neat Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  SKΥ TAΥLOR’S GRIME SOLVERS BLOG

  SKΥ TAΥLOR’S GRIME SOLVERS BLOG

  About the Author

  Praise for the Grime Solver’s Mystery Series

  Dirty Deeds

  “[A] charming, lighthearted cozy . . . [an] intense whodunit that subgenre fans will appreciate.”

  —The Mystery Gazette

  Scene of the Grime

  “[A] delightful, sassy tale filled with eccentric, interesting characters that add to the whodunit.”

  —The Best Reviews

  “The first Grime Solvers Mystery, introducing cleaning expert Sky Taylor, has lots of promise—an interesting main character, a charming Massachusetts town with plenty of secrets, and several possible love interests for Sky. Readers will enjoy getting to know Sky and the people of Pigeon Cove. Several great cleaning tips are also included.”—Romantic Times

  “Scene of the Grime is a well-written, fun, delightful novel. The characters are vividly drawn and the dialogue sparkles. . . . I very much enjoyed reading this book and look forward to the next Grime Solvers Mystery.”—MyShelf.com

  “[A] light, enjoyable read—and the cleaning tips [are] spot on.”—Gumshoe

  Also by Suzanne Price

  Dirty Deeds

  Scene of the Grime

  OBSIDIAN

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  First published by Obsidian, an imprint of New American Library,

  a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  First Printing, April 2009

  Copyright © Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2009

  All rights reserved

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  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE

  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.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  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.

  eISBN: 9781101336632

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  In loving memory of Noni Kosinski.

  An angel while here, now on the other side.

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to our good friend Will Weiss for his indispensable proofreading of the Spanish dialogue in this book. We’d hate to think what Sky and Orlando would have done—or said to each other—without him.

  Helping Hands: Monkey Helpers for the Disabled is an actual nonprofit organization serving quadriplegics and other people with severe spinal cord injuries or mobility impairments. Based in Boston, it provides highly trained capuchin monkeys to assist with daily activities. Those who wish to learn more about this fantastic program may do so at its official Web site, www.monkeyhelpers.org.

  A tip of the broom goes to our agent, John Talbot , for his professional guidance and advice, and most of all for his friendship.

  Our editor, Kristen Weber, has definitely earned the Golden Spray Bottle Award—or some kind of award, anyway—for patience above and beyond the call of duty. Her enthusiasm and gentle hand in shepherding this series along is deeply appreciated.

  Finally, the Grime Solvers novels owe a great deal to the humor, wisdom, and kindness of Suzanne’s late mother, Noni Kosinski, who was endlessly providing us with new cleaning tips for these books, and loved them more than any we’ve written. Noni was reading an advance copy of the previous entry in the series, Dirty Deeds, when she unexpectedly left us. Of the loss of a mother, a good friend said, “There’s before and there’s after, and every day for the rest of your life is after.” Nothing could be truer.

  We honor her as best we can by moving forward with optimism and determination.

  Chapter 1

  Spring had arrived in the town of Pigeon Cove. Well, spring with an asterisk. The snow was gone, the grass was green, and tulips lined our garden paths like cups of brightly colored paint.

  It was cold, though. Not just sort of. It was c-c-cold . The coldest spring Covers could remember.

  That’s why the shivery asterisk, if you’re wondering. Since moving to New England, I’d found out that overcoat weather could stick around until the Fourth of July or so.

  Still, I was primed for the new season despite a lingering case of the sniffles. This was partly because I was also good to go for my first official romantic date with dashing police chief Alejandro Vega—or Alex, as he kept asking me to call him—with not a thought in my mind about Mike Ennis.

  Okay. Let’s add another of those pesky, clingy little asterisks to the word “not.”

  But I’ll get to Mike in a while.

  Mike wasn’t now.

  Now, with hesitant spring and tentative romance in the wishfully seasonable air, I, Sky Taylor, was pretty darned ready for dinner and whatever might happen afterward with Chief—um, Alex.

  And if it sounds like I was indecisive . . . I can tell you I was very open to persuasion about the afterward part. I know how quickly things can be taken away from us, and that’s taught me to live life to its fullest.

  More on that later too.

  Happily, I’d found my sexy but too-light-fo
r-the-weather clothes the slightest bit loose as I’d put together my outfit for the evening. Thanks to hours of self-inflicted torture at the Get Thinner gym, I was at my all-time slimmest despite a winter of noshing on hearty stews, creamy chowders, and sugary cakes and muffins—making me feel downright glamorous in a pair of skinny black pants, high-heeled chocolate ankle boots, and my mother’s latest fashion concept, the so-called kite tunic.

  If you haven’t caught on to Betty’s new chicychic , retro, hippie-dippie designer-clothes Web site, I should explain that her tunic—item number five on her e-catalog’s “Asian Vibrations” page—was actually a tapered tuxedo shirt dyed pink and then hand painted with dozens of pastel origami-type cranes flying through the air. And while I’m explaining things, I might as well mention that there was a special reason for my Japanese-inspired style that evening. This being that Chief Al and I were having dinner at a Japanese restaurant.

  It wasn’t just your average old sushi bar.

  An old waterfront manor renovated in the style of a traditional Japanese home—known as a minka—Shoko’s Minka was the most popular new eatery on the North Shore. Though the food was scrumptious, its atmosphere was responsible for a lot of the hoo-ha about it, and made up a big reason there were no open reservations till Saint Swithin’s Day . . . unless you happened to be the police chief or some other local VIP.

  Of course, going out for Japanese is never just about the meal. Or shouldn’t be. It’s about an aesthetic too—doing more with less to maintain the balance of nature’s beauty. At Shoko’s, with its spacious interior and mix of low traditional tables and American-style teakwood table and chair sets, diffuse lighting through rice paper shoji doors blurred the lines between the dining room and the landscaped garden outside.

  The chief—that’s to say, Alex—had arranged to have one of the traditional tables set aside for us, thinking we should have the total experience. But when our lavish, delicacy-filled bento boxes arrived, he seemed mildly worried about his choice.

  “You’re sure you think it’s comfortable on this mat?” he said, patting the tatami underneath him. “If you’d rather have a chair, I’ll ask for a regular table.”

  “This is wonderful. I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else,” I said, which was absolutely true. In fact, I’d never known there’d be a hibachi built right into the table to keep us toasty warm even with the patio door open.

  I dabbed a seaweed-wrapped rice ball with some wasabi, popped it into my mouth, and devoured it. Chief Alex, meanwhile, looked as if I’d only partially eased his concern.

  “How about your leg?” he said. “It’s okay now? I mean, okay enough for us to sit on the floor like this?”

  “The leg’s been fine for ages.” I resisted the urge to do a demonstrative knee flex and show I was fully rehabbed after the Christmas whacking I’d gotten from a drunken fisherman. “Bry deserves serious credit.”

  “The kid who came to the rescue when you were attacked?”

  “Bryan Dermond, right.”

  “Doesn’t he handle the Internet stuff for the newspaper?”

  “Used to,” I said. “He went full-time as my assistant two, three weeks ago.”

  “Ah-hah.” Vega nodded. “That explains why he’s been answering the phone at your new office . . .”

  “Answers the phone, manages my Web site, and handles some of my more physical cleaning jobs. You name it. Thanks to Bry, I can take things a little easier these days.”

  That was also the unadulterated truth. My sweet but frightfully pierced and studded side-kick had turned out to be a huge help, proving to be as creative as he was reliable, especially when it came to using fewer chemical cleaning products in his effort to go green, something he’d likewise convinced me to do.

  Chief Alex picked up a shrimp with his chopsticks. My own chopsticks swooped at the negimaki , a grilled beef-and-scallion roll I’d been eyeing since the waitress brought our meal. I’d wanted to hold off on it till the red-hot wasabi cleared my stuffy nose—and restored my sense of taste so I could appreciate the morsel’s delicate flavors.

  It was well on its way into my mouth when I heard a loud commotion from over by the patio across the dining floor to my right and—

  Wait. Whoa. Strike that.

  To call what happened a “commotion” is an understatement verging on the ridiculous.

  The word doesn’t come close to describing the shrill screams of confused, horrified diners and servers, the loud crash of chairs and dinnerware, or the simultaneous and totally freak-out-worthy chorus of barks, grunts, neighs, and squawks that accompanied the rest of that bestial cacophony.

  I’ll mention the hoofbeats later. This is mainly because my brain was on a ten-second time delay as far as realizing what they were. But it’s also because I should probably talk about the monkey first.

  The monkey was what jolted me out of my utter shock and disbelief as it plucked the negimaki from my chopsticks, bit off half of it with a smack of its rubbery lips, and then generously held the rest out to me in a furry, almost human paw.

  Now, I will admit it was a cute monkey. A very, very cute brown monkey. Not that I’ve ever been aware of uncute ones. This particular primate, however, was only a little over a foot tall, weighed five pounds tops, and had a wrinkled round face under a high tuft of fur that resembled a radical fifties pompadour and was several shades darker than the rest of its fur. Its twinkling almond eyes said it probably enjoyed a good laugh every so often—and I would find out later that it did. I’d also learn that it was a trained capuchin named Mickey who knew how to prepare microwavable popcorn, could operate a DVD player, and really would have preferred a peanut butter-cucumber sandwich, or maybe a handful of Tic Tacs, to a stolen rice ball.

  But later’s for later. Since I already have to explain all about Mike and me, we’ll just add Mickey to the list. Their names are alphabetically proximate anyway.

  There at Shoko’s Madhouse, I wanted only to pull myself together and figure out what in the world was going on as the creature—who’d seemingly taken my befuddled stare as a no-thanks to its offer to share the bento box delicacy I’d thought was mine—gulped down what was left of it, let out a contented grunt, and sprang from the table to my lap with a kind of soft, fur-butted thud. Before I could react, it had scrambled up my body and wrapped its scrawny monkey arms tightly around my neck.

  “Chief Vega!” I hollered, unable to even blame myself for reverting to the formalese under the circumstances. “It’s a monkey! We’ve got a monkey at our ta—”

  Then I cut myself off. Not because I was dumb enough to think the chief wouldn’t have noticed the fuzzy little thing giving me a hug. But because I’d suddenly realized Vega had leaped up to his feet from the tatami and was staring gape-eyed at the very large and diverse menagerie of critters charging in our direction—and every other direction besides, racing round and round the room in a chaotic frenzy.

  As I also got to my feet, my shrieking, grinning, food-grabbing simian pal still wrapped affectionately around me, a greyhound came springing through the patio door behind a pony or miniature horse—not being Jack Hanna or Dr. Dolittle, I didn’t know which it was. But its hooves were clopping and clomping pretty loudly as the dog ran into a tiny kimono-clad waitress, knocking her to the floor, saki glass-laden tray and all.

  Sprawled on her back among the spilled drinks, she shouted something that sounded like “Hidee-na!”

  I didn’t know what that meant. But it sounded panicked. Justifiably.

  This is what I remember of the next minute or two’s confusion:

  The horsey-pony thing galloping past the waitress and knocking over a cabinet full of china. An alpaca—that’s right, alpaca—spitting in the tea-cups of mortified customers I recognized as Rena and Ritchie Freund, the saltwater-taffy makers. Dishes crashing to the floor as maybe a dozen cats pounced and skidded across tabletops. Chairs toppling over as a honking white goose harassed Henry Stootz, the hairdresser. And then the veget
able man Gazi Del Turko’s little girls, Evie and Persha, squealing with sheer delight as a peacock strolled into the place behind the rest of the zoo crew, regally unfanning a large plume of iridescent blue tail feathers.

  When the police came dashing into the restaurant behind the stampede, it was oddly anticlimactic. Well, I shouldn’t speak for everybody. Although the waitress with the saki tray had collected herself, a cashier with a phone in her hand was still screaming her lungs out in Japanese.

  For the record, the word she was hollering was “Omawari!”

  Which I later learned, but will tell you right this instant, meant “Cops!” Not wanting to make you wait for everything.

  And then one of the officers—it was my old square-jawed friend Ronnie Connors—pulled to a halt in front of us.

  “Chief Vega,” he began breathlessly, pausing an incredulous beat to notice the huggy monkey in my arms. “Chief . . . it’s the veterinarian across the road. Someone’s murdered her.”

  I squeezed Mickey, who I did not yet know was named Mickey, as tightly as I could.

  “Dr. Pilsner?” I said with horror. “Gail Pilsner?”

  I felt my spine stiffen. Alex looked at me. I looked at him. And then we both stood there at a loss for words as something soft and downy quacked between my ankles.

  Gail Pilsner was my cat Skiball’s vet and every pet owner in town’s favorite animal doc. Besides being smart, experienced, and compassionate, she was the only one around to specialize in exotic creatures like monkeys and alpacas.

  She was also one of my cleaning accounts. Bry’s weekly cleanup of her offices and boarding kennels had inspired him to post some pet-cleaning hints on our Web site’s Grime Solvers blog.

  I obviously knew Gail’s office was across the road. I had also seen a pack of escaped animals invade the restaurant, and heard a very distressed uniformed officer say the word “murder” in connection to the reason for their escape. That made my question to him the very definition of rhetorical. Of course he’d meant Dr. Pilsner. Who else would it have been?