TREASURE AT BLUE HERON LAKE
by
Susan Page Davis
Megan Elaine Davis
Jeff Lewis’s hunting lodge is plagued by an intruder who thumps around in the night. Emily Gray and Nate Holman try to help their friend discover who is invading the resort. Things turn more sinister when one of Jeff’s employees is murdered, with Jeff as a suspect. Is the legend of an old lumber baron’s lost treasure behind the crimes? In the midst of the turmoil, Nate proposes to Emily. Their life together begins with unmasking the murderer at Lakeview Lodge.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Susan Page Davis is a native of Maine and author of romantic suspense, historical romance, and children's novels. She's a mother of six, all home schooled until college, and grandmother of five. Most recently she has been writing romantic suspense for Harvest House and Love Inspired Suspense. With her daughter, Megan Elaine Davis, she writes the Blue Heron Lake cozy mystery series for Heartsong Presents: Mysteries. Read more about Susan
Megan Elaine Davis grew up in rural Maine where she was home-schooled with her five siblings. She holds a bachelor of arts degree in Creative Writing from Bob Jones University, and has published poetry, articles, and humorous anecdotes in various publications. Besides writing, she enjoys reading, travel, theater, cooking, and chatting with friends. Her favorite authors are Agatha Christie, Jane Austen, and C. S. Lewis. Homicide at Blue Heron Lake is her first novel. She lives in Maine and will soon become Mrs. John-Mark Cullen, then make her home in England.
AND NOW AN EXCERPT FROM . . .
TREASURE AT BLUE HERON LAKE
Jeff guided the deputy toward the library, and Nate hesitated.
"Oh, come on," Emily whispered. "I want to hear what they say, too."
Nate grinned and tiptoed after the men. He and Emily stopped in the doorway just in time to see Young pick up the pocket knife and put it in an evidence bag.
"Will you check it for fingerprints?" Jeff asked.
"Well, I tell you," Young said, "it's pretty small, and you don't think anything was stolen. Truth is, we probably won't bother."
Emily's lips skewed in a scowl, and Nate slipped his arm around her.
Young smiled at Jeff. "Now, if you had a dead body lying here, that would be different, right Nate?"
"Oh, yeah," Nate said. "We'd send that knife for prints and we might even give the State Police a call."
Young barked a laugh, and even Emily cracked a smile. They all knew that the sheriff's department was not allowed to handle homicides. The Maine State Police took those over except in the state's two largest cities, Portland and Bangor. Baxter, Maine was far too small to have its own police department, let alone a homicide squad.
"I will ask around," Young said. "We have a few known thieves in the area. I'll see if all of them have alibis for tonight, though it's usually pretty hard to prove a guy wasn't in his own bed at 2 a.m."
Jeff's disappointment showed in his hangdog expression. He offered the deputy coffee, but Young turned it down and wished them all a good night as he headed for the door.
"Sorry I couldn't do more, folks, but you scared him off. At least no one was hurt. That's what's important."
"Thanks, Russ," Nate called after him. He turned to face Jeff. "He's right, you know. That burglar will probably never come back."
******
"Ready to go back to sleep?" Nate asked. They stood at the front window of the comfortable lobby at Lakeview Lodge, watching the police car's taillights disappear down the long driveway.
"I'm so wound up now, I doubt I'll get back to sleep." Emily turned to look at their host. "Why don't you tell us the rest of the story about Alexander Eberhardt, Jeff?"
"All right, but let me get a refill on my coffee. You want more?"
"Not me," said Emily. "But if you have any hot chocolate mix . . ."
"Come on. I'm sure we do."
They fixed their hot drinks in the kitchen and then moved into the snug library, where the burglar had made his getaway. Jeff raked up the embers of last evening's fire and added several sticks of wood. When the fire blazed, he dropped into an overstuffed armchair.
"Well, like I told you, Mr. Eberhardt built this lodge as the barracks for his lumbering crew. I think he had other lumber camps, too, and he made a huge success of it. He was getting along in years, and in 1901, he sold his lumber company. It was in the middle of the logging season. He went from here to Bangor by sleigh in January to close the sale. Supposedly he picked up the payment for the business and the payroll for his last disbursement to his employees before handing the company over to the new owner. There were about forty lumberjacks staying here at the lodge then, working through the winter, and a clerk, several teamsters, and a cook."
"Quite an operation," Nate said.
"Yeah. The story goes that Mr. Eberhardt paid his crews once a month. In winter, the 'boys' would get one day off after payday. They could go into Baxter or Aswontee if they wanted and spend some of their pay. A few would have Mr. Eberhardt send the bulk of their wages home for them the next time he went to Bangor."
"That must have been a rough life." Emily sipped her cocoa and nestled closer to Nate.
"Yeah, they would stay in the lumber camps for six or eight months," Jeff agreed. "They say there was a big storm the day after Mr. Eberhardt left. He had a man with him to drive the sleigh. When the snow started, all the lumberjacks were disappointed, because they figured he would be delayed. If he stayed overnight in Bangor, they wouldn't get their pay on the usual day. But-"
Emily watched him, enthralled by the story. She could easily imagine the big men snowed in by the blizzard, fretting and pacing because the boss was late returning.
Jeff raised his eyebrows and leaned forward. "The next morning, Mr. Eberhardt was found in his bed in the lodge-in the room I sleep in now."
"So he made it through in the sleigh." Nate nodded in satisfaction, and Jeff sat back and let his shoulders droop.
"Well, yeah. Unfortunately, he was dead."
Emily let out a little gasp, trying to work out the puzzle of how the man had died and yet made it safely into his own bed.
"There was no doctor," Jeff said. "André, the man who drove him to Bangor and back, assured the other men that the boss was alive, though fatigued and chilled, when they got in late the previous night. André was as shocked as they were-or so he claimed-when he heard Mr. Eberhardt was dead. The crew didn't know what to think of it, but they probably surmised he had suffered a heart attack after his strenuous trek through the storm."
"It works for me," Nate said.
"Oh, come on." Emily swiveled her head to look at him in disbelief. "That's too pat."
Jeff grinned. "There's more."
"I knew it." Emily settled back to listen.
"The clerk wasn't sure what to do, but he decided to go ahead and pay the men. But when he opened the safe-"
"The money was gone!" Emily laughed, but sobered quickly as Jeff shook his head.
"The payroll was there, enough for each man's wages. But the payment for the business and all Mr. Eberhardt's timber acreage, amounting to about a hundred and forty thousand dollars in cash, was missing."
To read more of Treasure at Blue Heron Lake be sure to subscibe to:
Heartsong Presents: Mysteries!
Other Heartsong Presents Mysteries by Susan Page Davis and Megan Elaine Davis
Homicide at Blue Heron Lake: Emily Gray returns to the lakeside community of Baxter, Maine, expecting a peaceful week in her family's old island cottage. Instead, she and her high school crush, Nate Holman, discover the body of Henry Derbin, an elderly island resident. A few days later, Emily finds another body, buried more than a decade earlier, on Mr. Derbin's land. Can Emily and Nate overcome past hindrances to their romance while digging up clues that will help solve both murders?
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