Mystery at the Downstairs Bookstore: A Kara Sawyer Mystery

By Sue Goodman Harris

As a child, Sue Goodman Harris avidly read mysteries, such as the Judy Bolton series. As an adult, she was a social worker who often worked with parents and their children. She now lives in Oregon, not far from Maple Grove.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 7, 2001
• ISBN: 9781462839629

Sue Goodman Harris

As a child, Sue Goodman Harris avidly read mysteries, such as the Judy Bolton series. As an adult, she was a social worker who often worked with parents and their children. She now lives in Oregon, not far from Maple Grove.

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Copyright © 2000 by Sue Goodman Harris.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any

form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording,

or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing

from the copyright owner.

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

any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

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Contents

CHAPTER 1

A NEW HOME

CHAPTER 2

WAS A BOOK STOLEN?

CHAPTER 3

FRIEND OR FOE?

CHAPTER 4

A SECRET MESSAGE?

CHAPTER 5

WHO TO TELL

CHAPTER 6

AN ODD DINNER

CHAPTER 7

VISITING THE POLICE

CHAPTER 8

A FRIGHTENING NIGHT

CHAPTER 9

THE MYSTERY IS SOLVED

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CHAPTER 1

A NEW HOME

Kara woke, on the morning before the book was stolen, with the window on the wrong side of her bed. She was snuggled down under her special multi-colored quilt, as she usually was, but the ceiling was too high and the walls were a different color.

Oh, she remembered, sitting up to look around her bedroom. I’m in Oregon now! The furniture was arranged properly, but unopened boxes were scattered around the floor. No curtains or pictures hung on the walls.

She could faintly hear her mother’s voice coming through the open door. She flung back the covers and followed the sound into the kitchen, where her mother sat at the built-in breakfast nook, talking on the phone.

Yes, mother, we are fine, Mrs. Sawyer said. The movers arranged our furniture, and I even had time to pick up some groceries for breakfast.

Just yesterday, Kara and her mother had been eating breakfast at her grandparent’s big house in California where they had lived since Kara was eight years old. That breakfast seemed a long time ago. Since then, they had taken a plane to Portland and met their friend, Mrs. Alvarez, at the airport. She had driven them to this apartment in Maple Grove.

Her mother said they were lucky to get this apartment right in the middle of town. They could even see Mrs. Alvarez’ house from the back windows. But last night, her mother had carefully locked the door and windows and left the lights on in the hall and living room. She said she didn’t want to bump into anything if she got up in the night, but Kara knew her mother was nervous about being on their own.

Kara wasn’t nervous, but she wished her best friend Jessica were here. Then she and Jess could explore the stores on Cedar Avenue together. She had already seen a junk shop and a cafe from the front window and a special place, a bookstore, was downstairs from their apartment.

OK, mother, I’ll call to tell you about my new job after my first day. Good-by for now. Mrs. Sawyer put down the phone and smiled at Kara.

She worries about us so, she said, but we are going to have fun fixing up our apartment, and getting to know new people. We can get started as soon as you eat a good breakfast. Just sit right here, senora, she patted the padded bench, and I will serve you your first meal in our new home. Her mother swept regally to the stove where she had pancake batter already mixed.

I’m a senorita, Kara giggled. Mrs. A says senoras are married.

You are absolutely right and I expect that you will not marry until we clean up this mess and the meals put themselves on the table.’ That’s what her grandmother would say when something wasn’t going to happen for a long, long time.

After Kara was full of pancakes, bacon, and orange juice, they unpacked boxes and put their clothes away. They had already washed the kitchen cabinets, so they could arrange the dishes on the shelves. When Kara noticed the sun glittering on the clean dishes, she opened a kitchen window and stuck her head outside to see what the day was like. The air was fragrant with new spring flowers, and she could hear birds chattering in the trees across the alley.

While they were working, Kara took a closer look at the rest of their new home. She liked the apartment with its high ceilings and tall windows. There was a fireplace on the side wall of their living room with low bookcases on both sides. The kitchen was bright on this sunny day, and there was room for their big new dining table in the dining room.

Mom, how come the kitchen wall doesn’t go back as far as the dining room wall? yelled Kara from the kitchen.

What do you mean? asked her mother, coming in from the living room through the dining room.

Look, the door between the kitchen and the dining room is in the middle of the dining room wall, but when I go into the kitchen and turn around, the door looks like it’s closer to the side wall.

I never noticed that before, said Mrs. Sawyer, and I was here to check out the apartment before I rented it. I don’t know, but there is a big skylight for the bookstore that goes right down the middle of the apartment. All we can see up here are the walls that surround it. Maybe there is another skylight behind this wall.

Kara tried to figure out where the big skylight was, while she put things away in the hall closet. She thought it must be between her bedroom and the dining room.

Why don’t you go and fix up your room, her mother suggested later, after they had grabbed a hamburger at the Burger Inn two blocks away. You’ll feel more at home when you have your things the way you want them.

Kara enjoyed hanging her pictures on the walls, laying out her green rug on the wood floor, and arranging her books in the bookcase she put by her desk. Her mother said she would help hang the curtains with little green and blue flowers later.

I’m exhausted, said Mrs. Sawyer, near the end of their full day. She had thrown herself down on the yellow couch in the living room. Let’s just get some deli meat at that little grocery store and make some sandwiches for dinner.

Can we have turkey?

Sure can. I’ll go when you come back, if you’ll take some of these flattened boxes down to the recycling bin in back of the bookstore.

Kara took the pile of the smallest boxes, but still had trouble holding on to them, as she wobbled down the stairs to the street. It was Sunday and the sun was slanting low along the street. She could see no people at all when she turned into the narrow passageway on the side of the bookstore. No sun reached here between the walls of two buildings. Just as she reached the end of the walkway, the boxes slithered away from her and scattered on the cold cement.

Darn, she thought irritably, it’s cold out here. These boxes act as if they want to stay in the warm apartment, just like I do. As she knelt down beside them, she heard a car pull up in the alley where the trash bins were kept.

Now keep quiet, She heard a man’s voice growl. The door should be open.

Kara peeked around the corner and saw a pickup truck near the rear of the bookstore. Two men were lifting a box from the rear of the pickup and carrying it to the building. There was a book on top of the box. Kara thought they must be making a book delivery.

The men were so close that she pulled back against the wall. She didn’t want to meet anyone now. She was tired and dirty and sometimes she didn’t know what to say to other people. Anyway, they didn’t look like people she wanted to meet in a darkening alley.

Where’s the other one, the shorter man asked.

This is the only one in the truck.

"I don’t have time to get