Paper, Scissors, Death Read online

  Praise for Paper, Scissors, Death

  “Paper, Scissors, Death is not only an engaging mystery—it also gave this die-hard non-scrapbooker some idea why scrapbooking fans find their hobby so addictive.”

  —Donna Andrews, Agatha and Anthony award-winning author of the Meg Langslow and Turing Hopper series

  “Charming, funny and very enjoyable! Slan combines mystery, romance, suspense, and humor in this wonderful debut, and her scrapbooking heroine Kiki Lowenstein is a real cut-up.”

  —J. A. Konrath, author of Whiskey Sour

  “Paper, Scissors, Death is charming, clever, witty, and exciting—with a cliff hanger at the end!”

  —Monica Ferris, author of Knitting Bones

  “You’ll love Kiki Lowenstein! A spunky, down-on-her luck widow with a young daughter to raise, she’s not going to let a murderer get away with, well … murder!”

  —Shirley Damsgaard, author of Witch Way to Murder

  “Paper, Scissors, Death is a page turner, who-done-it, filled with colorful characters and scrapbooking tips. The plot line races along as Kiki, a personable if unlikely heroine, struggles to take care of both herself and her daughter while dealing with death, betrayal, and injustices. Along the way the story is filled with insightful glimpses into the heart of a true scrapbooker and a touch of romance.”

  —Rebecca Ludens, Scrapbooking Guide for About.com

  “Joanna Slan’s Paper, Scissors, Death should be required reading for any scrapbooker who loves to dive into a good mystery. Liberally spiced with plenty of local St. Louis flavor, and generously sprinkled with insider’s insights into the world of scrapbooking, Paper, Scissors, Death is rich with details … If you like mysteries, quirky characters, and scrapbooking, you will love this book.”

  —Angie Pedersen, The Scrappy Marketer,

  ScrapbookMarketing.com

  “What a treat to find a plucky new heroine in Kiki Lowenstein, who dispenses advice on scrapbooking along with solving her faithless husband’s death in Joanna Slan’s debut novel, Paper, Scissors, Death? This is an author to watch!”

  —Eleanor Sullivan, author of Twice Dead

  “Joanna Campbell Slan’s debut novel is a rare gem …[and] creative scrapbooking tips are woven expertly throughout!”

  —Jess Lourey, author of June Bug

  “Sign me up for Tough Tamales U. Paper, Scissors, Death is a fun and charming read with a scrappy heroine.”

  —Terri Thayer, author of Wild Goose Chase

  Paper, Scissors, Death: A Kiki Lowenstein Scrap-N-Craft Mystery © 2008 by Joanna Campbell Slan.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any matter whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Midnight Ink, except in the form of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  As the purchaser of this ebook, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. The text may not be otherwise reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, or recorded on any other storage device in any form or by any means.

  Any unauthorized usage of the text without express written permission of the publisher is a violation of the author’s copyright and is illegal and punishable by law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either 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.

  First e-book edition © E-book pub date

  E-book ISBN:

  Book design by

  Cover design by

  Editing by

  Midnight Ink is an imprint of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

  Midnight Ink does not participate in, endorse, or have any authority or responsibility concerning private business arrangements between our authors and the public.

  Any Internet references contained in this work are current at publication time, but the publisher cannot guarantee that a specific reference will continue or be maintained. Please refer to the publisher’s website for links to current author websites.

  Midnight Ink

  Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

  2143 Wooddale Drive

  Woodbury, MN 55125

  www.midnightink.com

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  Mom, I told you on the way to chemo and radiation that this book was for you. You hung in there and survived. Now I’m proud to put it in your hands. I hope you like it.

  Love, Jonie

  Two days before Thanksgiving, a man doesn’t think about dying. And if he did, he certainly wouldn’t pick the Ritz-Carlton in downtown Clayton, an exclusive suburb of St. Louis, as a venue. The shimmering fountain out front, an elegant cigar room, and two four-diamond restaurants all reminded guests that life was very much worth living.

  But on this clear November day, with small puffs of clouds like fuzzy cotton balls on a cerulean sky, George Lowenstein’s life was ending. The agony that gripped him wasn’t indigestion from his meal at Antonio’s. It wasn’t a sore muscle from his most recent round of golf at the St. Louis Country Club.

  His vision blurred, his hands shook, and his gut twisted in pain.

  Leaning back on a Frette pillow case, George moaned, “I don’t feel so good. I feel dizzy. Sick to my stomach. Call 911.”

  His companion only smiled at him. But it was a grin tinged with malice, and it hurt George more than the spasm in his chest.

  That’s when George Lowenstein knew he was dying.

  A wave of fury accompanied the next twisting grip of pain. In response, George clawed at the expensive Egyptian cotton sheets. He tried to lift his arm, to move to the phone, but a pressing wall of agony kept him pinned against the headboard. A rage swept through him. Why hadn’t he seen this coming? He thought of all the people who counted on him—and hated himself for not being more prepared.

  From outside the room came the lonely rattle of a maid’s cart. For one shining second, George thought help was on the way. He opened his mouth to scream, to yell for help. A piece of silken fabric was stuffed down his throat, smothering his cry.

  In the hallway, a Hispanic woman wearing a black dress with a white collar and white apron checked a clipboard. The small laminated sign with its perky “Do Not Disturb” message on George’s door encouraged her to move along. The last thing she wanted was for a guest to complain. Not when she was so close to having enough money to go back to Toluca. Her pen hesitated before touching sheets of paper covered in scribbles. She tucked a stray lock of hair into the bun resting on her neck. She’d have to come back later. The maid leaned on her cart to rub her ankle and then straightened.

  She pushed her supply cart down the hall corridor, its wonky wheel squeaking all the way.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Lowenstein!” seven pre-adolescent girl voices piped in unison. “Thanks, Mom,” added my eleven-year-old daughter, Anya. The girls were delighted with the pages they’d created with my help.

  “You are welcome,” I said. All in all, it had been a pretty terrific play date at Time in a Bottle, my favorite scrapbook store.

  I felt positively glowy. Approval was a scarce commodity in my life, and the fact that I was getting my strokes from children didn’t diminish my joy one bit. I was sharing the second great love of my life, scrapbooking, with the first love of my life, Anya.

  Jennifer Moore, mother of Nicci, echoed the girls’ praise. “That’s right. Mrs. Lowenstein deserves a super-big thanks. She put together this whole project.” Turning to me, she added, “Really, Kiki, you outdid yourself. Boy, are you creative. Their pages look really cool. No wonder people call you
the Scrapbook Queen of St. Louis.”

  Wow. This was a nice turn of events.

  Jennifer had never paid one bit of attention to me, no matter how hard I’d tried to strike up a friendship with her. From the tips of her French-manicured nails to the zebra-striped flats on her toes, Jennifer exemplified what I think of as essence of Ladue lady of leisure. The mothers in this tony suburb are tres chic and tres sleek. Try as I might, I don’t quite measure up. Oh, I try to make up for my shortcomings by being a willing volunteer and going out of my way to be nice, but not everyone is interested in what I have to offer. Jennifer sure wasn’t. But the day she heard another mom asking me questions about scrapbooking, her ears perked up. She was looking for a pre-Thanksgiving activity for her daughter, Nicci, and did I think I could help?

  In a flash—photo flash, that is—I said, “Sure!” Now my daughter was spending time with the coolest girls from her class at the Charles and Anne Lindbergh Academy, locally known as CALA, our city’s most exclusive private school. This was definitely a day to remember. And I had lots of practice saving memories.

  “Girls, would you please stand over by the wall? I want to take your picture.”

  “For your own scrapbook?” asked Nicci.

  “That’s right.” I moved the girls into a formation that allowed each child to display her prized piece of artwork. As I looked over the variety of results, it was a real struggle to contain the grin that threatened to stretch my face to unladylike proportions. No matter how extensively I plan a session like this, the individual vagaries of each participant’s taste and skill level determine the outcome. And what a wide-ranging outcome it was.

  Kaitlyn Godfrey chose to make her turkey a vivid lavender and added a hot-pink wattle and orange-striped tail feathers. Ashlee Hueka spelled the upcoming holiday “Tanksgiving” and steadfastly rejected any attempts to bring her English in line with more conventional standards. Claire Kovaleski couldn’t make up her mind about placement and moved each piece until nubs of torn paper dotted the whole layout. Linsey Murphy pouted until I replaced her turkey die- cut with a panda bear. Minnie Danvers confused the journaling paper (ivory, so handwriting would show up) with the photo matte paper (deep green). Nicci Moore decided to decorate her turkey with sparkly ballpoint pens she carried in her purse. Britney Ballard explained she hated Thanksgiving because her father, Bill (my husband’s business partner), always made her eat dark meat, and she used lettering stickers to give her turkey a protest sign, “Eat more BEEF!!!”

  All in all, the special outing for the group of pre-teens had turned out well, even though it had been a lot of work.

  “Don’t you ever get bored with this?” Jennifer asked.

  “Nope.” I clicked the shutter on my digital camera. “Wait, girls. I want to take another. One of you closed your eyes. It’s always a good idea to take extra pictures.”

  Nicci left her pals to give her mother a hug. “Mom, this was awesome. Everybody had a great time. Can you and I scrapbook when we get home? We’ve got all those photos in the basement.”

  Jennifer smiled down at her daughter. Nicci seemed like a sweet kid. I hoped this might foster a friendship between her and Anya.

  “I guess we could, honey, but I don’t know where to start.” Jennifer turned to me. “You’ve really gotten these girls excited.”

  I smiled. I had no illusions that my young friends were going to run right out and fill albums with photos and their written reflections on life, but I did hope that one or two might be tempted to try scrapbooking. We all have lives of value, no matter how different our journeys. From the variation in their pages, each of the girls seemed well on her way to a highly individualistic and exciting life. Every girl, that is, except my Anya.

  Only Anya constructed her “make and take” page in an exact replica of my design. That worried me. Other mothers complained about sassy mouths and rebellious behaviors—witness Ashlee Hueka’s disastrous haircut, an experiment gone wrong at a recent sleepover. And Linsey Murphy’s two detentions for skipping classes to watch boys play hacky sack.

  But dear, dear Anya exhibited only the most biddable behavior.

  I worried about her. Was this a prelude to becoming a woman? Were her hormones starting to rear their ugly heads? Or was it a reaction to her father’s recent moodiness? My husband George had seemed distant and preoccupied lately, although a good round of golf the other day had perked him up considerably.

  Watching my lovely daughter push a strand of platinum-blonde hair away from her face, I felt a surge of protective love. What happened to that little rabble-rouser who organized a strike in kindergarten to get chocolate milk? Who melted all her crayons into one big lump in first grade by using the microwave in the teachers’ lounge? Who let the crawdads out of the aquarium in fourth grade because “all God’s creatures want to be free”? What happened to my rowdy, playful Anya? What was wrong? Why didn’t she jabber and horse around like the other girls?

  Maybe over the Thanksgiving holiday we’d have a chance to talk. Without the dodge of “loads of homework,” or the evasion of “my favorite TV show is on,” maybe Anya could be coaxed into sharing what bothered her, what had made her so quiet lately.

  “Can I get a copy of that photo? Where are you taking it to be developed?” Jennifer asked. The whole time the girls had been working on their projects, Jennifer had been on her cell phone. Jennifer was one of those mothers who was part fashion stylist, part career counselor, and part social director in her daughter’s life. She seemed very organized.

  “Of course you can have copies. I’ll get them to you.”

  “Kiki, you sure are an expert scrapbooker.”

  “I’m pretty crazy about it.”

  I’ve only been good at two things in my life: scrapbooking and getting pregnant. This was the one skill I could share without nasty social repercussions.

  “No kidding,” said Dodie Goldfader, Time in a Bottle’s owner. Dodie was a big woman with a voice rivaling a boom box. “Last year Kiki chased the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile down Highway 40 at seventy miles an hour because she wanted a photo. That speeding ticket made for an expensive page embellishment.”

  I said, “I’ve always wanted a weenie whistle.”

  Jennifer laughed. “I like photos and all, but gosh, it looks like you put a lot of time into this. Do you and Anya work on your scrapbooks together?”

  “Once in a while. Anya’s been scrapbooking for years. And she loves the scrapbooks I’ve made. Every kid likes to be the star of a scrapbook page.” As we talked, I picked up supplies and returned them to their original places.

  What surprised me was that Jennifer didn’t lift a finger to help. That was just one of the ways we were different. Another was how we talked about people. As the girls were being dropped off, I overheard Jennifer and a couple of the other mothers snicker about Dodie. One woman bet she was related to the Woolly Mammoth they unearthed at nearby Principia College. Okay, Dodie is large and unusually hairy for a woman. Even so, that was not a nice thing to say.

  And I’m a big believer in nice. That’s me, Kiki Lowenstein, the original Mrs. Nice Guy. Heck, I’ve apologized to empty carts I’ve bumped at the grocery store.

  Dodie passed out class calendars, discount coupons, and small goody bags to the girls. Competition for scrapbook dollars is keen. As the hobby grows, everyone wants to get in on the act. Keeping her clients happy with small freebies, great classes, and a never-ending flow of new products is the key to Dodie’s success. In every way but one, Time in a Bottle is the preeminent scrapbook store in the St. Louis area. All Dodie lacks is an in-house scrapbook celebrity and expert.

  Dodie offered Jennifer a goody bag. “Nobody knows more about scrapbooking than Kiki. I keep asking her to come work for me. I get all sorts of scrapbookers who want to teach in exchange for supplies, but no one is as talented as she is. Kiki’s work has been published in every major scrapbooking magazine. She’s famous.”

  I couldn’t help but blush. If
Dodie only knew how important scrapbooking was to me, she’d charge me by the hour for therapy instead of paper supplies. Time in a Bottle was my home away from home.

  “That so?” said Jennifer. “You are published?”

  “Darn tootin’,” said Dodie. “Look at this.” Dodie directed her attention to one of my albums. “Aren’t these pages adorable? See how each layout tells a story? That’s what makes her work special. Believe me, I could keep her busy twenty-four-seven making custom albums and teaching private lessons.”

  Jennifer slowly flipped through the pages. She was viewing my most recent and elaborate work. Her eyes took in the mix of patterned papers, the designs, and the embellishments. “Do you teach adult classes? I mean, I have supplies but I don’t know where to start. A lot of my pictures are in those magnetic albums.”

  “Oh, boy. You want to get those out right away.” I explained how the sticky background and plastic covering for magnetic pages is a deadly combination that can cause photos to fade.

  “Hmm. Could I pay someone to do that for me? To take the photos out?”

  “I can help you do that. It’s really easy.” I gave a surreptitious yank at my blouse because it was riding up. I’m self-conscious about my weight. George tells me I’m beautiful, and I’m fine the way I am, but all the other mothers at CALA are built like pencils. In their world, anything above a size zero is borderline obese.

  Through the front door came three more CALA moms, chattering like a flock of busy starlings. They were all beautifully dressed, well-groomed, and thinner than a single sheet of vellum. I gave another yank at my blouse. Seeing how thin they were made me feel awkward. The shame of being overweight made me hungry.

  Who am I kidding? Everything makes me hungry. There’s an emptiness in me I can’t seem to shake.

  The front door to Time in a Bottle opened yet again to admit Linda Kovaleski, Claire’s mother. Linda always seemed a bit confused. “Is this the party place?”