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    Picked to Death: Antique Pickers in Paradise Cozy Mystery Series, #1
    Picked to Death: Antique Pickers in Paradise Cozy Mystery Series, #1
    Picked to Death: Antique Pickers in Paradise Cozy Mystery Series, #1
    Ebook71 pages1 hour

    Picked to Death: Antique Pickers in Paradise Cozy Mystery Series, #1

    By Maggie West

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    About this ebook

    Antique pickers Sherri Green and her bff, lovable town gossip Carol O’Brien, search for treasure amid the trash in their small midwestern town of Paradise. 

    What they find is more than they bargained for. 

    When they score a box of antique vases at a local auction in nearby Round Bottom, it sets off a chain of events that makes a competing picker see red. But that’s not the worst of it. Someone in the tight-knit picking community ends up dead. 

    Can Sherri and Carol discover the murderer from a treasure trove of suspects before the crime gets buried along with the the town's most hated victim?

    Picked to Death is a clean and wholesome short read. It’s perfect for lovers of cozy mysteries that feature an amateur sleuth.

    Be sure to check out the rest of the books in the Antique Pickers in Paradise cozy mystery series:  book 2, Cotton Picking Murder; book 3, Picked On; and book 4, Pick a Letter. You're in for more small town fun and crime solving in the close-knit community of Paradise.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMaggie West
    Release dateAug 19, 2016
    ISBN9781536516609
    Picked to Death: Antique Pickers in Paradise Cozy Mystery Series, #1

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      Book preview

      Picked to Death - Maggie West

      Picker:  One who searches for and acquires goods of value for the purpose of reselling them for a profit through various channels.

      ~ Antique Week

      Chapter 1

      Sold! Boyd Bridgewater slammed his gavel on the podium so hard he made himself wince.

      Sherri Green shook her head as she absentmindedly ran her fingers through her shoulder-length red hair. She and her picking partner, Carol O’Brien, had considered buying the lot of garden tools that a young couple had just snatched up, but that was before they’d dug deeper and realized that almost all of them were on their last legs. Split handles. Handles about to plum fall off the tool. She rubbed a finger where she thought she might have picked up a splinter from a small spade.

      Can you believe that box of crap sold for forty dollars? Sherri asked.

      Carol smiled at Sherri, her brown eyes sparkling as she spoke. Yes I can. Remember, there’s a sucker born every minute. And we’re always looking for the next one ourselves. By the way, we’re bidding on this lot.

      Sherri nodded as Carol held up an Art Deco style vase and ran a finger along the clean lines and smooth glaze. The muted colors, browns and greens, showed no sign of chips or cracks. No crazing. No manufacturing flaws in the glaze from when it was made.

      She turned to Carol and grinned, I mean, look at these. If we can get this box cheap enough, reselling just one or two will earn us our money back.

      Carol looked skeptical. Well, yeah, the biggie here is if we can get it cheap enough. She grabbed a striking yellow Art Deco wall pocket from the box. The wall pocket, a vase that sat flush against a wall, had three cattails on the front, the classic geometric design. It was in pristine condition. How high should we bid?

      From the corner of her eye, Sherri watched Kathy Vaughn talking to Al Blandon, both fellow pickers. The sixty-something year old woman was gesturing in their direction, maybe even at the box Carol was rummaging through. Then Kathy began inching forward till her face was inches from Al’s. Sherri shivered at the exchange, glad Al was the one on the receiving end of Kathy’s scheme this time.

      Sherri nudged Carol. Look. I wonder what Crabby Kathy’s up to.

      Kathy Vaughn was a fellow picker, a member of the Pope County Pickers Club, and a pain in the rear end. She was rude, greedy, and most of all unethical. Once at a flea market where the pickers from the club had rented a large space to try to unload some rejects, Crabby Kathy had shown up early. She backed her car in at an angle taking up the entire space behind the booth. Normally three cars or a couple of trucks could have squeezed in to make unloading their wares easier. And since no one ever carpooled with Kathy, seeing that she was downright horrible, she had done as she pleased. As usual. When the other two truckloads of pickers had arrived, they had to park in the lot a good quarter mile away and haul their stuff to the space on foot. All because Crabby Kathy had refused to move her car.  

      When Crabby Kathy was around, Sherri and Carol never called Kathy Vaughn by her name for fear of calling her Crabby Kathy to her face. The other pickers in the club didn’t either. It was an unspoken rule and worked well to keep the insulting nicknames safe and Crabby Kathy none the wiser. No one wanted to give her any ammunition.

      Carol had squatted down to pilfer through the box. She slowly righted herself into a standing position, holding her aching back. Dang, it sucks getting old. At fifty-two, Carol was a year younger than Sherri but had let her hair go gray and looked about ten years older than her age. When she had finally hauled herself into an upright position, she stood next to Sherri and smirked. Oh, you know what it looks like to me? I bet Kathy’s going to ask Al to bid on this box for her.

      You think? Sherri busied herself just for something to do and picked up the yellow wall pocket again. I mean, look, she’s here. Why would she ask Al to bid for her?

      Carol ran a hand through her short gray hair that was feathered around her face. "Don’t you remember? She said her

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