A Mystery In Seldovia

The freezer hummed along the back wall, packed with tubs of ice cream and enough waffle cones to satisfy a small parade. But the storeroom held the extra napkins, spoons, syrups, and clean towels. Without them, opening day would last until the first customer asked for chocolate sprinkles.

She grabbed the storeroom key from the hook.

A gust rattled the windows. Rain began ticking against the glass.

“Forty-three minutes,” June said. “Plenty of time.”

The storeroom door disagreed.

The key turned halfway, then stopped with a stubborn click. June tried again. Nothing. She leaned her shoulder into the door.

It refused to move.

“Fine,” she muttered. “We’ll negotiate.”

She backed up, planted both feet, and shoved. The door gave a tiny groan but no more. Somewhere inside, something scraped across the floor.

June froze.

The sound came again.

Scrape.

She stared at the brass knob. The storeroom had been empty when she locked it the night before. Empty except for boxes, a mop, and an old folding chair with one unreliable leg.

“Chair,” she told herself.

The chair scraped again.

June swallowed. “You’d better be a chair.”

A shadow passed across the front window. She spun around, but the boardwalk was crowded with raincoats and umbrellas. A tall man stood near the railing, one hand gripping a coil of rope while the other tried to rescue a paper bag from the wind.

He glanced toward the shop and caught her watching.

Even through the rain-streaked glass, June recognized him from the harbor. Eli Mercer, the harbor pilot. She had seen him earlier that week guiding a fishing boat between the pilings with the calm concentration of someone who expected the water to behave if he asked politely enough.

Now he lifted his eyebrows at her.

June pointed at the storeroom door.

Eli came in, bringing a gust of cold rain and the clean, sharp smell of wet cedar with him.

“Trouble?” he asked.

“Only a door with a personal grudge.”

“Those are common around here.” He set the rope beside the counter. His dark hair was damp at the edges, and a drop of rain slid from his temple to his jaw. June noticed it, then noticed herself noticing it.

Eli examined the lock. “Did you try lifting the handle?”

“I tried charm.”

“On the door?”

“It was not receptive.”

His mouth tilted. “Try the handle.”

June lifted it while Eli turned the key. The lock clicked. Together, they pushed.

The door opened two inches and stopped.

Something heavy had fallen against it.

Eli crouched and peered through the gap. “Looks like a crate.”

“Of course it does.”

“Want me to shoulder it?”

June looked at the narrow space, then at Eli’s broad shoulders. “I’m beginning to think I should have hired someone less useful.”

“That’s a dangerous thing to say before opening day.”

He leaned into the door. June braced herself beside him. The wood pressed against her shoulder, cold and rough. Eli smelled faintly of rain and coffee. On the count of three, they shoved.

The crate scraped away. The door flew inward, and June stumbled forward into a tower of paper goods.

Eli caught her by the elbow.

For one ridiculous second, she was pressed against him, one hand on his rain-dark jacket, while the storm drummed on the roof.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“Perfectly.” She stepped back too quickly and knocked over a box of plastic spoons. “Except for the spoons.”

“They’ll recover.”

The storeroom was barely large enough for one determined person, let alone two. Boxes crowded the shelves, and a mop bucket leaned against the wall. The fallen crate had been shoved directly in front of the door, though June was certain she had left it beside the back wall.

Eli looked at it, then at her. “You sure you put this there?”

“I’m sure I didn’t.”

The playful warmth left his face. He glanced toward the shop.

A burst of rain struck the windows so hard that conversation outside became a blur of umbrellas and running feet. The squall had arrived in earnest, sweeping across the harbor in a gray curtain. Boardwalk shoppers crowded beneath awnings. A vendor wrestled with a display of knitted caps. The whole waterfront seemed to tilt toward the wind.

June looked at the clock. Thirty-one minutes until opening.

“I need supplies,” she said. “And if this weather keeps up, everyone on the boardwalk is going to want ice cream and shelter.”

“An ambitious combination.”

“People in Seldovia are resilient.”

“People in Seldovia are cold.”

“That too.”

Eli moved the crate aside and reached for a stack of napkins. June squeezed past him to gather the spoons. Her hip bumped a low metal shelf.

Something thudded behind the freezer.

She crouched. “What was that?”

“Another chair?”

“Your confidence is inspiring.”

The freezer stood against the back wall, its white sides humming and trembling. June dragged a box of cones away from it. Behind the freezer, wedged between the wall and the compressor housing, lay a narrow wooden ledger.

Dust filmed its dark cover. A faded red ribbon hung from the spine.

June reached for it, but her fingers barely touched the edge.

Eli set down the napkins. “Let me.”

“No, I’ve got it.”

She flattened herself against the wall and stretched farther. The ledger slid an inch, then caught on something. June hooked two fingers around the ribbon and tugged.

The book came free with a shower of dust.

She sneezed so violently that Eli laughed.

“Very dignified,” he said.

“I’m opening an ice cream shop, not a duchy.”

The ledger was heavier than it looked. Its pages had swollen slightly from damp, and the cover bore a faded gold stamp: Daily Scoop, 1987.

June brushed dust from the lettering. “This wasn’t in the inventory.”

“Maybe the shop has secrets.”

“Shops have receipts. Secrets are extra.”

She opened the ledger.

The first pages held neat columns of dates, deliveries, and payments. Cream, sugar, fruit, cones. Names appeared beside amounts, some familiar from the painted signs and shop windows along the boardwalk.

Then June turned a page and stopped.

The next sheet had been torn from the binding.

Not carefully. The ragged edge still clung to the stitching, and a small triangle of paper remained near the bottom corner. The page before it ended with a line written in dark blue ink:

Lease discussed again. N.P. says the waterfront terms were never - The sentence vanished into the torn edge.

June stared at it.

Eli leaned closer. “That looks recent.”

The ink was old, but the tear was clean and pale against the browned paper.

“Who’s N.P.?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

A gust slammed into the building. The lights flickered once.

June closed the ledger.

The front door banged open, and Mrs. Pruitt from the flower stall hurried inside carrying three dripping umbrellas and a box of peonies. “June, dear, do you have room for these? The wind has declared war on my buckets.”

“By the freezer,” June called.

Mrs. Pruitt spotted Eli. “Oh, good. A strong person.”

Eli sighed. “I’m beginning to regret being helpful.”

“You’ll regret it more if you let those flowers drown.” Mrs. Pruitt pushed the box toward him.

He took it with the resigned air of a man who had been recruited by Seldovia before breakfast.

June tucked the ledger beneath her apron.

The motion felt strangely secretive. She had no reason to hide it, yet the torn page seemed to tug at her attention like a loose thread.

“June?” Eli said.

She looked up.

“Your freezer’s making a funny sound.”

The hum had changed. It stuttered, dipped, and then stopped.

The lights went out.

For a moment, The Daily Scoop held only the patter of rain, the groan of the boardwalk, and Mrs. Pruitt’s startled gasp.

“Well,” June said into the dimness, “that’s not on the menu.”

Eli set down the flowers. “Storm knocked something out.”

“I have customers coming.”

“You have a storm.”

“I have ice cream.”

“Then you’re winning.”

A pale flash of lightning brightened the windows. Outside, the boardwalk had become a narrow, shining path between the dark harbor and the darkened shops. People crowded beneath the awnings, calling to one another. Somewhere nearby, a bell clanged wildly in the wind.

June reached beneath the counter and found the emergency lantern. Its switch clicked twice before the bulb glowed amber.

The light caught the ledger’s edge beneath her apron.

Eli noticed.

His gaze dropped to the book, then returned to her face. “What did you find?”

June considered pretending it was nothing. She had known him for less than a week. He was handsome, capable, and apparently incapable of passing a struggling shop without helping, but none of that made him a keeper of secrets.

Then the storeroom door creaked behind her.

June turned.

The door stood open. The crate sat several feet away from it, though neither she nor Eli had moved it there.

Rain hissed against the windows.

Eli’s expression sharpened. “You said you locked up last night.”

“I did.”

“Anyone else have a key?”

“The previous owner. Maybe the landlord.”

“Maybe?”

“Eli, I’ve been here twelve days. I’m still learning which key opens the bathroom.”

He looked toward the back room. “Don’t go in there alone again.”

The concern in his voice warmed her more than the lantern did. June hated that she noticed this too.

“I wasn’t alone,” she said.

“You were before I came in.”

“Then it’s fortunate you have such excellent timing.”

“Or terrible.”

The power remained out. The rain showed no sign of easing. The morning’s eager bustle had turned into a damp, crowded siege, with neighbors drifting into The Daily Scoop for shelter and offering unsolicited opinions about generators.

June slipped the ledger into the drawer beneath the register, then locked it.

She had wanted to get the shop ready. She had wanted the counters polished, the supplies stacked, and the first scoop served beneath the blue-and-white awning.

Instead, she had a jammed door, a dead freezer, a hidden ledger, and proof that someone had entered her shop.

Still, the supplies were secured. The flowers were safe. Mrs. Pruitt had stopped complaining about the rain and started complaining about the lack of coffee, which felt like progress.

Eli picked up the rope from beside the counter. “I should check the harbor.”

June nodded, though she did not want him to leave yet. “Of course.”

He paused at the door. “June.”

“Yes?”

“If you find anything else unusual, come get me.”

“Where?”

“Harbor office. Or follow the sound of someone arguing with a boat.”

“That narrows it down.”

His smile returned, brief but bright. Then he stepped into the rain.

June watched him cross the slick boardwalk until the squall swallowed him among the umbrellas.

Only then did she turn back to the register.

The ledger waited in the locked drawer.

She took it out and opened it beneath the lantern. The torn page had not been the only missing piece. A narrow strip of paper remained caught in the binding, and on it, in the same dark blue ink, were four words:

Ask Nola Pike.

June looked toward the rain-blurred boardwalk, where the fishmonger’s green awning snapped like a flag.

The Daily Scoop’s first busy day had not yet begun, and already someone had left her a question.

End of chapter one. 32 more chapters in the full book.