The Case of the Missing Mascot (A Sherlock Shakespeare Mystery Book 1)

TITLE PAGE

ONE

TWO

THREE

FOUR

FIVE

SIX

SEVEN

EIGHT

NINE

TEN

ELEVEN

TWELVE

THIRTEEN

FOURTEEN

FIFTEEN

SIXTEEN

SEVENTEEN

EIGHTEEN

NINETEEN

TWENTY

TEASER

DEDICATION

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

ALSO BY SYDNEY KATT

COPYRIGHT

It's always strange to see someone chowing down on gourmet beef jerky at the same table as someone eating vegan cheesecake. But that was the norm for the Karmic Kafe since it opened at the beginning of the summer. Actually, that was about as much sense as anything made in Devils Reach, Texas.

Like the high school's insistence on having a live animal as its mascot, even if it meant changing everything after our llama died because a teacup pig was all they could get on short notice for the right price. I really thought it was a joke when I got the email in August. Considering the number of people wearing green and white Fighting Pigs shirts all during the first week of school, I was obviously wrong.

If they even painted that poor little pig green for the football games...

I caught sight of a long brown skirt in an unseasonably heavy fabric out of the corner of my eye and instinctively kicked my overnight bag farther under my chair. The last thing I needed was to draw attention to myself when someone tripped over my stuff and spilled their soy latte all over a cheerleader a few tables away just hours before the first home game of the season. I wasn't exactly the least popular girl at my high school, but now that my boyfriend was away at college instead of leading our football team to victory, I was basically as invisible as I'd been freshman year before I somehow caught his eye.

And I was okay with that. When your parents saddle you with a name like Sherlock Shakespeare to pay homage to some of their literary faves, fading into the background is a good thing. In fact, I was all about making my senior year as uneventful and boring as possible.

The woman in the long brown skirt was just hovering in my peripheral vision for some reason. I turned, ready to ask her if she needed something, but there was no one there. I pulled off my reading glasses and cleaned the already crystal clear lenses on the inside of my oversized green Devils Reach HS hoodie. Good thing I'd worn it despite the soaring temperatures outside. I was suddenly chilled to the bone.

Maybe my parents were right. Maybe wearing reading glasses even when I wasn't trying to read something really was messing with my eyes. Whatever.

I shoved them back on my face and glanced over at the counter. The massive line was finally down to just a few people, so it was time for me to get my fix. I'd never been a health nut by any means, but a glass of carrot orange juice was officially the best thing that could hit your lips. Basically, it was orange crack and my best friend's aunt was totally my dealer.

I was third in line when Tanya Hamil and one of her groupies shoved the freshman in front of me so hard that his butt hit the glossy crystalline floor.
 

"Ugh. Outta the way, freshman."

Wearing a cheerleading uniform apparently meant you didn't have to wait in line. It also meant you were allowed to be a total bitch.

"Yeah, I'm in line too," I muttered, extending a hand to help up the guy in front of me.

"Say something, Shakespeare? I know you don't mind. Give Tom a kiss for me when you see him this weekend." And with a flip of her shampoo commercial blonde hair, she turned back to her friend and continued pretending no one else existed.

The sad thing was that I really didn't mind all that much. Irene Holmes always gave me the family discount on my orders, on the days Drew didn't work and just supply my fix for free, and I didn't like to advertise the special treatment.
 

Another flash of brown out of the corner of my eye. Seriously, was this woman stalking me or something? No one there. I studied the entire cafe again and there wasn't a single person even wearing brown. The brownest thing in the place was probably my hair.

Someone grabbed a bright yellow chair from my table and loudly dragged it over to a table crowded with people I vaguely recognized from school, all reading the table instruction cards to each other. All the chairs were supposed to represent different chakras or something. The whole concept of gravitating toward the color chair of the chakra that needed the most work seemed crazy, even for Drew's eccentric aunt.

But damn that woman could make a mean glass of carrot orange juice. Without the discount, I could've spent every penny I made working that summer at my parents' bookstore on it.

Every. Penny.

Irene smiled warmly when it was finally my turn. "Are you going to surprise me today?"

"Nope."

"You sure? I've got fresh zucchini muffins about to come out of the oven. Carob scones. Cookies to heal your karma. You name it."

"Just the usual."

"I'll convert you one day, my dear. At least I see you're finally embracing the chair concept. The blue one is perfect for you."
 

She went to get my order juicing and I went back to the table to grab the yearbook paperwork I'd been reading. I'd only joined the staff because I was supposed to be able to hide behind a computer all year working on the layout and filling in pictures and captions as we got them. The reality was getting a list of events that we had to cover over the next few months. I leaned back against the counter and sighed. If I were lucky, I'd only get sucked into doing half of them.

The sun glinted on the glass door when it opened, momentarily blinding me. Francois LePort, a man who was the very picture of the French chef who enjoyed
all
the food he made for his private clients, swaggered in. He surveyed the room with a look of contemptuous disinterest until he caught sight of Irene and her too-red-to-be-real hair behind the counter. The disinterest faded, but the contempt intensified.

"You!"

Everyone in the cafe glanced in the fat man's direction, but they quickly went back to their conversations or their phones, totally re-engrossed before he could make it to the counter. For my part, I slid off to the side and suddenly became fascinated by the icing and crumbs around a sliced cake in the case.

"Hello, Mr. LePort. Can I get you a gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free brownie today?"

"That you call anything you make here a brownie is an insult to food, Miss Holmes."

I always thought it was funny that he spoke in an exaggerated French accent. Seriously. It wasn't as if we didn't all know he was born and raised in Frisco, the closest Dallas suburb to our smallish town.

"I'd say you could stand to lay off the grains and dairy for a while." Never one to shy away from anything considered inappropriate, Irene poked a finger into his protruding gut. "You can't hear it under all this padding, but your heart is screaming for help in there."

He smacked her hand away. "I didn't object when you bought this bakery from one of the finest pastry chefs I've ever known. I didn't complain when you converted it to this celebration of New Age obscenity. I didn't even say a single word when you decided to cater to the lowest common denominator of foodie fads."

"Yet you're here using a whole lot of words to say basically nothing right now."

I knew their conversation was none of my business, but I couldn't stop myself from watching the chef's reflection in the glass case. When LePort spoke, his face jiggled and shook in a way that was strangely reminiscent of all the billowing smoke that came out of a space shuttle at launch. The angrier he got, the more he looked like a cartoon character on the verge of combustion.

"Look, fruit bat. I don't know what you did this time, but one of my premium suppliers won't come near me now."

I loved how his French accent somehow managed to take on the hint of his true Texas drawl when he was angry.

"Oh. Do you mean the barbarians who made their animals live in filth? Fruit bats know how to use phones these days. I reported the unsanitary and inhumane conditions."

"Do you have any idea what you've done? You're not from around here, so you don't realize that the governor comes back to his alma mater every year for Homecoming and then hosts a dinner for the important people in this town. But you wouldn't know that because no one of substance would come in
here
." He cast a withering glance in my direction when he realized I was looking at him and I went back to studying icing. "That dinner is in just over a week and none of the other meat suppliers are able to get me what I need in time. My menu is in tatters. All ruined because you want filthy animals to live like royalty before slaughter." He leaned in close and even I had to strain my ears to hear what he said next. "I will destroy you for this."

Irene smiled and reached under the counter, pulling out a small lit sage bundle. "Such negativity." She waved it under his face until he sputtered and coughed from the smoke, recoiling.

She'd done that to me once. It wasn't a pleasant experience when you didn't know it was coming. At least it covered the stench of alcohol coming off him.

"You're insane."

She shrugged. "I have pity for your next life. Such unpleasant karma."

He stormed out in a combustible jiggling huff. Irene watched him go before turning her attention back to me. "I believe your juice is ready." She took my money and handed me a giant cup of carrot orange, smiling as though the town blowhard hadn't just made a scene. "People really shouldn't treat animals as afterthoughts. Your school included."

Irene looked as though she had more to say on the subject of our shiny new mascot, but someone walked up behind me and stole her attention away.

Back at the table, I allowed myself to enjoy half of the orangey goodness before I glanced at my phone. Where was Jamie? If she really wanted to get all the way to Austin before we stopped for the night, we needed to leave soon. As it was, we were going to hit Friday rush hour traffic. It would probably take two hours to get south of Dallas.

I picked up my phone to text her, but lost focus when I heard someone loudly dragging a bright orange chair over to my table.

"What up, Willy Shakes!"

Great. This guy.

"That would be my little brother. I'm a girl."

"Naw, babe. I'd never mix you up with Wats. He's cool as shit."

Couldn't hear that enough. Especially from the class stoner.

"What do you want, Ricardo?"

"You looked lonely."

He leaned back in his chair and stretched his lanky legs out in front of him, suddenly invading every inch of legroom I had under the table. I folded my legs up into my chair to get away from him. "I'm really not."