- Read an excerpt
- Buy One Horse Too Many on Amazon
Stolen Drugs. Ransacked Newspaper. Missing Cash. What’s going on in Wanee?
November 1876. Cora Countryman envisions dancing the Viennese Waltz in Vienna, not her hometown. But Wanee may be as close as she gets if only she can steer the Winter Dance committee and find a band.
Sales are up at her store, and she is making headway on her debt. Her new cook scares everyone and her domestic is a mess, even before new boarders arrive from the Deep South and shake everyone up. Things have just settled when much-needed drugs are stolen from the hospital, and the newspaper office is tossed.
Angered, Cora, Sebastian Kanady at her side, pieces together a theory based on an influx of new people and a flurry of nearby train robberies. She scrambles to convince her neighbors she’s right before someone dies. When death comes, she gathers the town and constructs a plan to stop the bandits in their tracks.
Will Cora’s plan work in time to save the Winter Dance?
One Horse Too Many is the delightful third book in the historical Wanee Mystery series. If you like a rip-snorting yarn and appealing, strong-willed characters, you’ll get a kick out of D. Z. Church’s old-fashioned mystery. Buy One Horse Too Many before the train pulls out of town!
An excerpt from One Horse Too Many:
“I’ve come to walk you ladies home. I seem to have won a hat in the process.” He set Cora’s hat on her head, tilted his head to the right, then repositioned the hat. He motioned for Ellie to join them. Cora on his right arm, Ellie just ahead carrying her new clothing, they readied to cross Main Street at Library Hall.
Doc flung out an arm, stopping them as a wagon full of miners, lanterns swinging from the four corners of the wagon bed, neared on Main. The men in the wagon were rowdy, tipping their hats at the ladies. Ellie waved until Cora caught her hand and lowered it.
The moment the wagon rumbled past, the threesome stepped into the street. Directly opposite, Kanady loped down the wide granite staircase of Library Hall, greeting them as they approached. “Miss Countryman, Miss Park, Doc. I’ve spoken to Mr. Layman. As it happens, he was in his office at Library Hall taking care of village business. It appears Patrick Sullivan is not a fan of Wisconsin and has asked Layman if he may stay in the attic room of the dry goods store through the season. Layman has given Patrick a key to the alley door so that he may come and go as he wishes.”
“That is a relief,” Cora said.
“Because?” Doc asked.
Realizing that she had revealed too much, Cora responded, “On his way to see Mr. Layman about lights seen in Layman’s Dry Goods after closing, Mr. Kanady noticed Ellie and I in M&C and dropped in to tell us to take care because of the lateness of the hour.”
Doc checked Kanady’s eyes, then Cora’s. “I will accept that, or I might ask Ellie the truth of it.”
Ellie spun back to the group, blushing from head to toe. “Oh, it is the truth. Mr. Kanady even commented on my style.”
“That is a new dress, is it not?” Doc asked, taking Ellie’s hint.
Ellie blushed at yet another compliment. “Miss McIntyre picked it out special for me; she said it enhanced my color.”
“She did not lie. You are a vision.” Doc tilted his head as though unsure what next was expected, his natural awkwardness with any woman on full display.
Ellie bobbed her head and, smiling into his quiet, myopic brown eyes, added, “Mr. Kanady says boys tease girls they like.”
Doc’s eyes lit. “I suspect that is the truth, as I have seen Mr. Kanady tease a girl and often.”
Cora tightened her grip on Doc’s arm. When he looked down at her, she shook her head. Ellie giggled and ran across the street, gaining the path through the park, the lights on the porch of Countryman House blazing a quarter mile ahead.
“There are rocks on the path,” Cora called. “Watch your step!”
“One thing, Kanady,” Doc said, “Do you feel as I do that it is odd Patrick Sullivan would come back to Wanee? His family has left, and few think well of him after his part in the last affair, especially the tearing down of campsites occupied by only women and children. He cannot feel welcomed.”
“He grew up in this town. That is a big draw, and it is known to him and comfortable, not unlike Memphis to me, though my past, like his, is well known there. I can see a boy wishing to be in such a place, and if there is a girl involved, that would be a double draw.”
“And if not? I am from Philadelphia and have no desire to return to such a big city. Though, on occasion, I miss my family.”
“Cora, your opinion?” Kanady asked, his keen eyes on Ellie as she disappeared down the dark pathway along the city pond.
“If I were Patrick Sullivan, I would not return to the scene of his and his father’s crime but strive to make a new life in a new town. Why borrow trouble?”
“Why indeed? Patrick being back makes me wonder if anyone has seen his accomplice Paul Canton as of late?”
“More like the ringleader, don’t you mean? Patrick has been in Paul Canton’s thrall since their senseless raid on the squatters in the park in August. I hear Canton has returned to Rockford, which does emphasize your point, Mr. Kanady, as Paul is from there originally and might be more comfortable among his friends in that town, given the mischief he has done and trouble he has caused,” Cora said.
“Paul Canton is in jail, not in Rockford but in Cambridge, for stealing from his stepfather, Mr. Gibson’s safe,” Doc corrected. “Gibson would not have known of it but for his payroll clerk. According to the clerk, Canton made an excuse that the money he took was his since he was Gibson’s stepson, and it was profit from Gibson’s business. Mr. Gibson did not see it that way and, given Paul’s past wrongdoings, worried that it foretold worse to come. Mr. Gibson and Mrs. Gibson agreed thirty days in custody might help Paul understand what is and is not his. I heard Canton is to be released in the next few days. Mrs. Gibson spread the Rockford story to cover her embarrassment and in the hope that her son will have learned a lesson upon his return.”
“As we all have witnessed by her own behavior, Mrs. Gibson does love to embellish then spread a good fable,” Cora said.
“When Mrs. Gibson has been so kind to you regarding your store?” Kanady teased.
“I do not like nor trust that woman. I do not.”
At a slight huff of wind, of voice, who was to know, Kanady took off at a run across Division Street and up the park path. Cora and Doc hurried after him. Three shadowy figures stood in the path: the tall one, Kanady; the short one, Ellie; and the third figure, Kanady held up by his jacket’s collar. Cora and Doc rushed to join them.
“Cora, gather Ellie’s purchases from the bush and take her home,” Kanady ordered. “Doc, we need to have a talk with this boy. He claims to be Hank Sundberg.”
“He is, as you well know. And I concur that we need to talk with him about the appropriate treatment of young ladies. Come,” Doc curled his index finger at the boy, still dangling by his collar from Kanady’s left hand. “Let’s sit on this bench until the ladies reach Countryman House and discuss etiquette.”
“Eddy who?” the boy wailed. Kanady plunked the boy’s bottom on the bench, letting go of Hank Sundberg’s coat collar, then yanked the coat down and smoothed it across the boy’s shoulders.
Cora was still smiling when she and Ellie reached the white sign with black letters on the corner of Main and Park Street that announced Countryman House. She checked the time on her bodice watch in the light from the porch lantern. It was late. Too late for a beggar to be out on such a frosty night, yet one was perched on a bench by the pond in the park opposite.