Phones Bones and Danger: A Button Up Detective Agency Cozy Mystery #6

By Lizzie Lewis

When Daisy Evans, a.k.a. Amabelia (Bella) Flores gets the result of a DNA test she has taken in an attempt to discover her unknown father, things don’t work out well, and she risks losing her new florist business. Bella asks Janika Jones to investigate, and the result is something neither of them expected.
Janika is also investigating aliens who are apparently landing at night in the field behind Nigel Frampton’s house. Unsurprisingly, the police show no interest at all, so Nigel hires Janika to set up a surveillance camera. Janika has to hope no one finds out what she’s doing, or she will become a laughing stock. However, it turns out that the job is far from laughable, and there’s serious danger involved.
Piers Pillinger wants to make use of Janika’s photographic skills again, and assures her this is a perfectly straightforward job at his own home. Nothing can possibly go wrong ‒ and Janika believes him!
Toby Walton? Well....

• Language: English
• Publisher: White Tree Publishing
• Release date: May 18, 2022
• ISBN: 9781913950774

Book preview

About the Book

When Daisy Evans, a.k.a. Amabelia (Bella) Flores gets the result of a DNA test she has taken in an attempt to discover her unknown father, things don’t work out well, and she risks losing her new florist business. Bella asks Janika Jones to investigate, and the result is something neither of them expected.

Janika is also investigating aliens who are apparently landing at night in the field behind Nigel Frampton’s house. Unsurprisingly, the police show no interest at all, so Nigel hires Janika to set up a surveillance camera. Janika has to hope no one finds out what she’s doing, or she will become a laughing stock. However, it turns out that the job is far from laughable, and there’s serious danger involved.

Piers Pillinger wants to make use of Janika’s photographic skills again, and assures her this is a perfectly straightforward job at his own home. Nothing can possibly go wrong ‒ and Janika believes him!

Toby Walton? Well....

Phones Bones and Danger

A Button Up Detective Agency Cozy Mystery #6

by

Lizzie Lewis ©2022

This eBook ISBN: 978-1-913950-77-4

Also available as a paperback

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-913950-78-1

Published by

White Tree Publishing

Bristol

UNITED KINGDOM

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Phones Bones and Danger is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

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

Table of Contents

Cover

About the Book

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

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Epilogue

The Cozy Mystery Series of books

About White Tree Publishing

Chapter 1

This morning, before taking my shower, I removed my wedding ring for what could be the last time. Toby Walton hasn’t asked me to marry him ... yet ... but last night I realised it’s not fair for him to be seen in public with someone who appears to be a married woman. Yes, things are really progressing well between me and Toby.

I first wore the ring when I married Sam Jones. I’ve continued to wear it every day since his murder after only two years of marriage. I’m looking at the deep impression it’s left all the way round my finger. I must have been a lot slimmer when I got married.

Of course I was. I wasn’t living here above the Button Up coffee shop back then, with all its tempting pastries and amazing coffee. I don’t think the coffee is responsible, but the wonderful aroma of coffee seeps into my apartment, a combined office and living area, and tempts me downwards. If I could stop at the coffee, this ring would still have been an easy fit, and not a struggle to remove.

I’m not going to put the ring away. I’m going to hang it on the gold chain with Sam’s own wedding ring which I wear round my neck ‒ close to my heart, which is where the memories of my lovely Sam are kept.

I wonder if Toby will notice the absence of the ring this evening. Even if he does, he’ll be too polite to mention it. And I’m certainly not going to tell him what I’ve done. It would be as good as proposing. Look, Toby. See my ring finger? It’s empty. Would you like to fill it?

But that’s for later. This morning I’m off to see Nigel Frampton to remove the security camera I set up a couple of months ago up at his house to photograph aliens. Space aliens, that is. He was really worried when he first contacted me. He’d seen aliens landing in the field behind his house. No doubt about it. The police weren’t interested, which is why he called me in as a private detective.

Nigel is a strange man, in his fifties I guess. Perhaps a little odd. No, definitely a little odd, but pleasant enough. I was surprised to hear his story, but to reinforce what he alleged he’d seen he showed me some slates with various symbols scratched on them. He wondered if I could decipher them.

Since I don’t read or speak alien, all I could do was tell him that I would fix up an infrared security camera activated by movement, with a SIM card connected to my phone, so I could monitor any unusual night-time high jinks in the field.

By monitor, I meant running through the recording every morning, not staying up all night on the off chance that little green men were choosing his field as their playground. Just like the police reaction when he told them, I’m cynical about the whole thing. But Nigel Frampton has accepted my standard fees, and I do need work.

Surprise, surprise, nothing has shown up, apart from the occasional fox and badger. So Nigel has now agreed that I should collect my equipment and send him my bill. I can’t work out if he’s wealthy or not.

The house is obviously, or potentially, valuable. It was built in the early 1900s as a large family home. Nigel, as the sole occupant, is not only untidy, but he has bodged up various pipes and cables around the place, making it a plumber’s and electrician’s nightmare.

Anyone buying the house would need to carry out major work, including updating the rusty metal kitchen units, and the original Edwardian downstairs bathroom. Or maybe not. These things are now rather trendy ‒ but in good condition, not these worn and battered units. Even shabby chic doesn’t describe them correctly. I’ve not seen the upstairs bathroom. Nor do I intend to.

Nigel Frampton’s house is on the Brevelstone road, about five miles out from here in Craidlea. It’s completely isolated, and I certainly wouldn’t want to live there.

A sloping field behind his house leads up to a small area of beech trees. I imagine that most of the land up there belongs to a farm, as probably do the fields each side of the property.

Nigel keeps three goats in his field. There are four beef cows in the field on the left, and a horse on the right. I can tell a fox from a badger on my video, so I’d definitely recognise a cow or a horse if one of them somehow managed to get onto Nigel’s land.

Anyway, there’s no possible way a cow or a horse could look like visitors from Mars. Maybe alien visitors from some distant planet do look like farm animals with hooves. Probably not, if they can build flying saucers!

Nigel’s goats couldn’t have been the aliens he claims he saw at night, either, because they’re always locked away in a large wooden house. I don’t think it’s called a stable. That’s for horses. Anyway, even if they got out one night, they wouldn’t have been able to scratch strange symbols on stones. Unless Nigel is completely loopy, something has definitely been going on.

When I set up the camera, I told Nigel he had to keep the investigation a secret. And of course he promised me he would. I wasn’t bothered so much about his reputation as I was about mine. A private investigator isn’t meant to be searching for aliens jumping around in fields at midnight.

As I see it, I’m a private investigator who is meant to be investigating crime, or stopping crime. I’ve no idea if there’s a particular law concerning the arrest of aliens from other planets. Somehow I doubt it.

Before going to see Nigel Frampton I need to go down below to the coffee shop for a large cappuccino ‒ and an apple Danish. I’ve already had my obligatory muesli, but I do need setting up for the day.

I glance at my ring finger again. It seems strange to see it empty, where the only evidence of the ring’s previous existence is the groove. Although it’s the Button Up apple Danish or similar pastries that made the ring a rather snug fit, surely it’s healthy to start a busy day with a good breakfast.

The Button Up coffee shop existed long before I moved here. A girl I knew at school as Abi Button had set up the business with a friend, Melanie Upton – hence the name of the coffee shop.

Abi Button, now Abi Wells, made me very welcome when I came to investigate the office and living space above the café, with a view to setting up my detective agency.

The office is large, at the front of the building. The living accommodation at the back is rather small, but comfortable enough for one. I’m not sure it’s suitable for two people, so if I marry Toby – or anyone – I wouldn’t want to be living here with them permanently. But it would make a cosy love nest.

I’m not sure why I keep thinking about marrying Toby. He’s a lot more than just a good friend, but when Sam was murdered I never saw myself getting married again. Surely no marriage could be as good as the two years I had with Sam. Do I want to take the risk? That’s what’s bugging me, as my relationship with Toby gets more intimate. Not intimate in that way. And that’s a joint decision!

I grew up here in Craidlea, where I lived with my English mother and Polish father until I was fifteen. That’s when I was Janika Bartol. I don’t have great memories of school here. I’m not sure if it was because of my Polish ancestry, or because of the crazy little Citroen 2CV that my mother started taking me to school in. When I realised I was a bit of a laughingstock, I made her drop me off well away from the school!

I’ve become a lot more self-confident since I went on a full-time private investigator course, qualified, and set up my own business. A successfully qualified private investigator can’t be a mouse. I hurry down the stairs and unlock the two security locks on the outside door.

The coffee shop is already busy with coffee to go customers who work in the nearby offices. According to the large clock above the service counter, I’m running late. I need to get a move on. I’m seeing Nigel Frampton at ten.

Abi is already here, which means I’m definitely running late. Pete Wilders, the student doing an evening course, is busy helping the customers. I always think the staff look smart in their black and cream striped Button Up jackets with the BU coffee shop logo on the pocket.

Melanie, no longer an Upton, recently married Steve Donovan and inherited a rather mischievous ginger haired boy called Liam. She’s not here yet.

I’m not going to mention Nigel Frampton’s job today. I got enough stick from Abi and Pete when I first told them. I wouldn’t put it past Pete and his girlfriend Hayley to have dressed up in some sort of shiny spacesuit and paraded around in the field. They seem to have resisted doing that. That, or the camera isn’t working properly. It must be working, or I wouldn’t see the occasional visiting local wildlife.

The usual? Abi asks, as I make my way to the permanently reserved table at the far end of the café. No matter how busy Button Up is, the table is permanently reserved for family and friends.

Pete rolls his eyes. The usual? There’s a surprise. If Janika asks for something different in the morning, it will be on the news.

Abi has left her newspaper on the table, folded back at the cryptic crossword page. Nothing has been filled in. It’s either exceptionally hard this morning, or Abi hasn’t had a chance to sit down. The place certainly does seem busy.

I know Abi doesn’t mind me working on it with her, and I glance at the first clue. Beware unorganised ale from space. 9-5. It’s almost certainly an anagram. Perhaps it’s because I’ve been fixated on aliens this morning that I get it straight away. Unorganized ale is Dangerous alien. Beware dangerous alien. I hope that’s not a sign!

But before going to see Nigel Frampton, I have to pop over and see Bella Flores, the owner of a new flower shop just up the road. She’s asked to see me.

Chapter 2

Bella Flores’ real name is Daisy Rhiannon Evans. She came here a couple of months ago from some remote village in mid Wales where she lived with her disabled mother. She already had some experience of the florist business by running a stall in some of the local markets.

Until twenty or thirty years ago this road had several small shops in it, but times change, and most of the shops have been converted into offices. Bella’s shop used to be a tobacconist. It had been closed for ages, although it still smells slightly of smoke and tobacco. Hopefully, the scent of flowers will soon fix that.

Opposite Button Up is an old-fashioned shoe shop run by Jasper Somebody. He often stands in the doorway and glares at me, as though he still holds me responsible for his broken shop window. Somehow, his angry look makes me feel guilty, which is ridiculous. A young man was recently arrested for the crime, although his case hasn’t yet come to court. Perhaps when he’s been found guilty, Jasper will give me the occasional nod and smile. Somehow, I don’t think that is ever going to happen.

Jasper seems to have made up his mind that he hates me. That’s unfortunate, but I can sort of see his point. The idea of the vandalism was to get me identified – wrongly identified – arrested and convicted, and no longer a threat to the young men running a protection racket.

I certainly lead an interesting life. Apart from being attacked by Bruno Kamiński here in my doorway one night, there have been two serious intrusions into my property by men intending to kill me. They were part of the drug dealers responsible for Sam’s death back in Brevelstone. The police are now convinced that the main gang members have been rounded up, so I don’t need to see them as a threat.

It’s easy to say that ‒ when you’re not the target. And that’s just one of the reasons I was glad when Bella decided to open up the old tobacconist shop as a florist. It’s good to have someone else living in the road. All the other apartments above the offices and occasional shop are used for workspace or storage.

Bella seems to have had a tough time caring for her disabled mother, and when she died she left Bella the old cottage at the foot of a mountain by one of the small Welsh lakes. It turned out to be incredibly desirable, and raised more than twice the high estimated valuation at auction.

The cottage didn’t hold great memories for Bella, and she decided to use the money to buy a property and take on her long-held ambition to be a florist. Quite why she chose Craidlea, I’m not sure, but I’m glad she did.

Bella told me that she was fortunate to be able to buy the shop. It was exactly what she wanted, and she wanted to make a fresh start in life. So she didn’t quibble, and offered the full price. The seller was the daughter of the man who kept the tobacconist shop, and had already received a lower offer which she’d been considering.

The prospective buyer had then offered more than the asking price, but the woman had really taken to Bella, and to the thought of a florist opening in the road. Mr Angry had reacted badly, but the deal went ahead with Bella, and the rest – hopefully – is history.

Like me, Bella is in her early-ish thirties. From the word go she asked us to call her Bella, and not Daisy. Her background is strange. According to Bella, her mother had a fling with an Italian called Giovanni Flores on a weekend in Blackpool. She never saw him again.

Giovanni Flores disappeared before he could discover he’d made Bella’s mother pregnant – or perhaps because he made the discovery. Bella’s birth was registered as Daisy Rhiannon Evans, but her mother, for some reason still having a liking