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    A Fatal Honeymoon: Ella Shane Mysteries
    A Fatal Honeymoon: Ella Shane Mysteries
    A Fatal Honeymoon: Ella Shane Mysteries
    Ebook86 pages1 hour

    A Fatal Honeymoon: Ella Shane Mysteries

    By Kathleen Marple Kalb

    ()

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    About this ebook

    A blissful Niagara Falls honeymoon for Gilded Age trouser diva Ella Shane and her new husband the Duke turns deadly with a murder during a theatre outing -- with a dear friend's beloved the prime suspect. Now, the couple will have to clear his name, unravel a nefarious plot dating back to the Civil War, and protect an ingenue in desperate straits...all while staying incognito. With the surprisingly diverse and open-minded (but period-appropriate) cast this acclaimed series is known for, it's a delicious adventure...and if Ella doesn't win a duel on the Maid of the Mist -- it may be her last!

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNikki Knight
    Release dateSep 24, 2024
    ISBN9798227898241
    A Fatal Honeymoon: Ella Shane Mysteries
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    Author

    Kathleen Marple Kalb

    Kathleen Marple Kalb describes herself as an Author/Anchor/Mom…not in that order. An award-winning weekend anchor at New York's 1010 WINS Radio, she writes short stories and novels including the Ella Shane, Old Stuff, and (as Nikki Knight) Grace the Hit Mom and Vermont Radio Mysteries. Her stories have been in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, other major publications, and anthologies including DEVIL'S SNARE: Best New England Crime Stories 2024 and short-listed for Derringer and Black Orchid Novella Awards. She, her husband, and son live in a Connecticut house owned by their cat.

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      Book preview

      A Fatal Honeymoon - Kathleen Marple Kalb

      PART ONE

      A Most Melodramatic Death

      ––––––––

      When the gun went off, the honeymoon was over.

      Not my honeymoon, thankfully. My beloved and I were still as happy as the proverbial clams on that warm June night in 1900.

      The same could not be said for the grizzled rail magnate and his ingenue bride at the other end of the dress circle at the Niagara Falls Summer Stock Company. Barring a miracle, it was fair to say the whole May-December union was over.

      And the trouble had begun.

      The evening had started with promise, an outing organized by our hotel to break up the routine of dull dinners and duller conversation on the porch. Yes, there was a view of the Falls, but no, there was not much to do at the Grand Niagara Resort.

      If my spouse and I had not been good at finding ways to amuse ourselves, we would have died from sheer boredom on the second day.

      Kindly remove your mind from the gutter.

      We had brought a supply of books we had not had time to read and discuss, a wedding-gift chess set, and good walking shoes for long treks by the water, the better to work up an appetite for the really quite tasty meals.

      Yes, and other things. Hiking does get the blood going after all.

      In any case, after three days of this alleged relaxation, we were ready to seize any opportunity to get off the property and see people who were not our fellow guests, a truly remarkable collection of unpleasant and uninteresting individuals. It was possible some of them had spared a kind thought for their fellow humans on occasion. It was highly unlikely they’d had an original one.

      So, we were nearly giddy with glee at the idea of dressing up and going out.

      Dressing up, I in lavender satin and tulle, my husband in black tie, and riding in the line of resort carriages to the theatre, was fun. So too was sitting in the dress circle.

      A delightfully unusual experience for me, in fact. When I’m in a theatre, I’m generally on stage. I was not expecting the summer stock melodrama to be at the same level as the Ella Shane Opera Company – but I wasn’t holding it against them, either.

      Entirely beside the point.

      The show was actually quite enjoyable, in the delicious guilty-pleasure way a good melodrama can be. We were having a delightful time, as were our fellow guests, even though they had apparently seen the same play a week before, the theatre night a fixture in the hotel calendar. In any case, all was pleasant entertainment, right up until the leading man came to the rescue of the poor beleaguered heroine.

      The villain had her cornered and was looming evilly over her, clearly planning an outrage of the worst kind, when our strapping blond hero appeared, gun in hand.

      You wouldn’t need that puppy to save you, my love, whispered my husband. You’d just kick the bounder in the-

      Ssh.

      He laughed lightly, close enough that his breath warmed my neck. Yes, Mrs. Stewart.

      "Merci, mes epinardes," I whispered.

      My spouse stifled another laugh at the endearment, literally, my spinach. It was a joke between us: the usual French endearment is mon chou, my cabbage, but my tall, dark, and handsome husband was too elegant to be cabbage. So, spinach he was.

      I gave him a triumphant little grin, and nodded to the stage, where the young hero was holding his revolver on the villain. The villain twirled his mustache and advanced on him, and the hero moved his arm slightly, and fired.

      At the sound, my husband and I turned to each other.

      We were probably the only people in the theatre who were not surprised by the scream from the floor.

      He’s been shot!

      The audience stood, then, with considerable upset disarray in the dress circle.

      We, though, were calm as we walked toward the distraught young wife of rail magnate Horace Maitland.

      Her portly groom lay limp, his immaculate white shirtfront blooming forth in red, like some obscene flower. No prop gun does that.

      Is there a doctor in the house? yelled a female voice.

      Call the police! shouted a man.

      Murder! yelled another male voice.

      That seemed a bit excessive at this point.

      From the wings, a voice I recognized snapped: Bring up the lights!

      The show, the honeymoon, and the fun were most definitely done.

      PART TWO

      When the Smoke Cleared

      ––––––––

      For a few measures (as a singer, I tend to measure time in musical intervals) the hero, now apparently a villain in truth, stood frozen, his hands hanging limply at his side, the gun dangling from his fingers.

      Look to the ladies, my husband whispered, walking toward the stage. I’ll do what I can up there.

      Fair enough.

      The comment wasn’t an insult; he was well aware I was at least as able a protector as he. I held his gaze for a moment. This was not the sort of excitement we’d had in mind.

      Say, now, gentlemen, my husband began, as

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