Roast Turkey and a Murder

by Kathleen Suzette

  “There’s nothing wrong with saving money,” she said and reached for the sugar and creamer to put into her coffee.

  “No, but I’d rather save it when the weather is a little better,” I said. The diner was nearly empty with only two other customers at a corner booth. They were in Luanne’s section, so I didn’t have much to do at that moment. I walked around the diner counter and went to the front window and peered out. It was early in the year to get this much snow. It was coming down at a moderate pace and had been for more than an hour. The snowplows would need to be brought out early this year.

  “Well hello there, Mrs. Daye,” Sam said, coming out from the kitchen. “How are you this lovely afternoon?”

  “Are you making fun of me Sam?” Mom asked. “It’s freezing out there.”

  “I noticed that,” he said with a chuckle. “As you can see, everyone else is either out shopping or staying home in front of a nice warm fire. Something I wish I was able to do today.”

  “Maybe we’ll have to close early?” I asked hopefully. I could use a nice nap beneath my electric blanket.

  “Probably so,” Sam said. “So Rainey, I meant to ask you. What does Cade say about Tori Well’s death?”

  “I guess it’s kind of early for him to know much,” I said, coming back over to the diner counter. “He doesn’t know if it was an accidental hit-and-run, or somebody did it on purpose.”

  “Wouldn’t surprise me one bit if someone hit her on purpose. I have to say, if I had ever caught her in my sights while driving, I’d be sorely tempted to do it myself,” Mom said, taking another sip of her coffee.

  “Mom!” I gasped. “Don’t say things like that. Do you want Cade sniffing around your door?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t mind. Cade likes me. He’ll make a good son-in-law.”

  I rolled my eyes and ignored the son-in-law comment. “Just don’t say things like that, will you? You know you could never run over someone on purpose.”

  “I kind of have to agree with Mary Ann,” Sam said, leaning on the front counter. “That Tori was something else, wasn’t she? When she was running for president of the business owners association, she kept coming around here hinting that she wanted my vote.”

  “Hinting?” Mom said. “She didn’t do any hinting with me. She told me that I had to vote for her.”

  “Vote for her or else?” I asked.

  “Well, she didn’t quite say ‘or else’, but it sure sounded like that’s what she meant. She was saying such awful things about Kayla Wright, but you already know that.”

  “I don’t like to gossip,” Sam said glancing over at the customers in the corner. “But last year I was at Kohl’s in Boise and she was with one of her daughters. I walked up on a discussion. The daughter wanted something, but Tori didn’t want her to have it. The daughter asked again, and Tori turned on her and was really hateful about it.”

  “Hateful how?” I asked.

  “She told her she was a spoiled brat and didn’t deserve anything and if she didn’t shut her mouth, she was going to make her wish she had. The girl cowered away from her,” Sam said soberly.

  I looked at him. “Really? She said it just like that?”

  He nodded. “Ever since then, I’ve had a bad taste in my mouth where Tori is concerned. I didn’t vote for her for president. I don’t know how she beat out Kayla if you want to know the truth.”

  “I thought the same thing,” Mom said, nodding. “I thought most people liked Kayla, and I was really surprised when she lost the election. If you want to know the truth, I have my suspicions that Tori may have rigged it somehow.”

  “How would she do that?” I asked. I guess I hadn’t paid a lot of attention to the politics of the business owners association membership because I didn’t know any of these things they were telling me.

  Mom shrugged. “I don’t know. I tried to figure that out, and I really couldn’t come up with anything. But if I had, I would have said something about it. And what Sam just said about overhearing her being hateful to her daughter doesn’t surprise me, either. If you didn’t agree with her, she could turn on you pretty fast.”

  Sam crossed his arms across his chest. “I was surprised about the election, too. But, Tori was the kind of person that people either really liked or couldn’t stand. Not many people were neutral where she was concerned. People like Christie Severe and Janna Lyons for instance; it was like they were in her fan club. Every time we had a meeting, they’d gush over everything Tori said. It was weird and it kind of gave me the creeps, so I didn’t attend the last three monthly meetings.”

  Mom sat up on her stool and pointed at Sam excitedly. “Exactly! It was like they were in some kind of weird fan club and Tori was the star. I never could quite put my finger on things, but Sam you just said it all. They were so weird, huddled together and whispering and giggling throughout the meeting. It was like being in high school all over again, only worse. When you’re in your forties, you should have grown out of that kind of behavior.”

  I took all of this in. There seemed to be more to Tori than I had ever imagined. I needed to see if I could find out all I could about her life before she died.

  “I hope Cade got everything he needed from the alley before this snow got really heavy,” I said glancing toward the front window again. The snow had suddenly gotten heavier. “Of course, by the time we got to the community center yesterday morning there was already some snow on the ground.”

  “Wait, did you see tire tracks in the alley?” Mom asked me.

  “Yes, some. The snow wasn’t very thick and had already begun to melt.”

  “And what time did you get there?” Mom asked.

  “4:00 a.m. Why?”

  “The two of us need to do some sleuthing. Why was Tori at the community center so early? What time did the snow begin? Because she had to have been killed prior to that and it doesn’t make any sense that she would be there at the community center earlier than 4:00 a.m.”

  I nodded. “I suppose the news station would know what time it began snowing.” I had also wondered why Tori was at the community center so early. Her car was parked out front and she could have gotten there early to turn on lights, except that the lights were off. And I still wanted to know why was she out in the alley to begin with. Things didn’t add up.

  “So? Partners?” she asked sticking her hand out for me to shake.

  I looked at her like she was crazy. “We are not partners, Mom. And this is not something for you to get involved in.”

  “Why not? You’re going to get involved. You’re going to wander all over town, asking people what they know. You may as well bring me along. I know a lot of people and people really like me. They’ll open up to me.”

  I rolled my eyes at her. “Mom, Cade would not appreciate that.”

  “You know what I think? Go ahead, ask me what I think.”

  I sighed loudly and looked at Sam, who was grinning, enjoying the show. “Mom, what do you think?”

  “I think Gina Richards killed Tori.”

  I groaned and rolled my eyes. Gina Richards had opened up a flower shop at the beginning of November and Mom was still bothered by it. Mom had owned the only flower shop in Sparrow for a number of months and had liked having all of Sparrow’s florist business.

  “Why would you think Gina Richards killed her?” I asked, humoring her.

  “She has beady eyes. And you know what they say about people with beady eyes. They tend to be the killer when there’s a murder.”

  “Speaking of Gina and Happy Petals flower shop,” I said, ignoring the beady eyes comment. “How has business been since she opened up?”

  She shrugged. “I guess things could be worse. But to be honest, business has been down a little bit.” She sighed.

  “I guess it’s to be expected. Sometimes people just want to try out a new business, but once they do, they go back to their old habits.”

  She nodded, but she looked glum. “Sure, sure.”

&
nbsp; I wasn’t going to worry about Mom and her florist business just yet. She had a lot of loyal customers and I was reasonably sure she would be okay.

  Chapter Nine

  As luck would have it, I ran into Kayla Wright at the grocery store. She was putting sweet potatoes into a plastic produce bag.

  “Well, fancy meeting you here Kayla,” I said sidling up to her and pulling my own plastic bag from the roll at the top of the produce display.

  She turned to look at me and smiled. “Hello Rainey,” she said. “You’d think after all the grocery shopping and cooking I did for Thanksgiving that I wouldn’t need to be here again so soon. But, the sweet potatoes were awesome and they’re a great price right now.”

  It was the Sunday after Thanksgiving Day, and I agreed with her on that point. I had bought enough to feed a small army but my small army had eaten nearly everything I had made for dinner. I was craving fresh fruit and vegetables after all the rich dishes I had served.

  “Me too!” I said with a chuckle. “How was your Thanksgiving?”

  “It was great, I had family in from out of state and everybody pitched in, so the meal was pretty easy. Unfortunately, I never did make it down to the community center to help out.” She looked at me, grinned and shrugged. “But what is Tori going to do about it now?”

  I was a little surprised by that. “Well, we sure could have used the help, it was a madhouse. Thankfully we did have a lot of help. Those high school kids really came through for us and kept the place clean and tidy for the people that came in later to eat.” I waited to see if she would say something else about Tori.

  “I’m so glad they helped out,” she said, putting another sweet potato into her plastic bag. “You know, I was the one who suggested to Tori that she round up some of those teenagers to help. They have so much more energy than most of us, don’t they?”

  I nodded. “You can say that again,” I said and reached for a sweet potato.

  “Don’t you just love sweet potatoes?”

  I nodded. “I sure do. It was a shame about what happened to Tori, wasn’t it?” I said, unable to wait for her to bring it up.

  She chuckled. “It’s not like anyone didn’t see it coming.”

  I looked at her. “What do you mean? It never crossed my mind that something like that would happen.”

  She shrugged and added another sweet potato to her bag. “I better quit putting sweet potatoes in here, this bag can only hold so many.” She tied the top of the bag closed and put it into her shopping cart. “Everybody hated Tori. A lot of people wanted her dead. Didn’t you know that? Didn’t your mother tell you about her?”

  I shook my head. “No, my Mom rarely mentions her. Why? What do you mean?”

  She sighed. “The only reason Tori got to be president of the business owners association is that she went around to all the business owners and badmouthed me. She was a liar and a scammer. Of course, it wasn’t until after she was elected that people caught on. I’m telling you, I’ve had more than one business owner come up to me and tell me that electing her to be president was the worst thing that could have happened to the business owners and to this town.”

  “Being sorry she was elected president is very different from saying that a lot of people wanted her dead,” I pointed out. Her attitude toward Tori made me suspicious. She sounded bitter.

  “Maybe I’m being a bit dramatic when I say that,” she said. “But I’m telling you, Rainey, she was not well-liked in this community. She was the kind of person that would get people off to the side and would whisper about other people. It’s not like she was telling the truth about them; she made things up all the time. I’ve heard so many rumors that began with her. I really think she made the wrong person mad.”

  “I suppose that’s possible,” I said. “Still, I think it’s a shame if she was murdered. It may have been that somebody accidentally hit her and then panicked and ran off.”

  “Oh, mark my words, Rainey, I’m sure the police are going to discover it was not an accident. Somebody wanted her dead, and that’s what they got.”

  I put another sweet potato into my plastic bag and laid it in my shopping cart. “In your opinion, who would be the most likely person to have done it?”

  She looked over her shoulder and then back at me. “Truthfully? I’d say John Greenlee. He owns the bakery over on Main Street. Do you know him?”

  “I’ve been in there and bought a donut or two,” I said. “I don’t know him well, but I guess I know him well enough. Why do you think it was him?”

  “Because when Tori went to him and asked him to vote for her, he told her he wasn’t going to do anything of the sort. He said he was happy with me being president and he saw no reason to make a change. As you can imagine, that made Tori angry. You know how Tori was, she was so full of herself. She couldn’t imagine anyone not wanting to vote for her.”

  “But that doesn’t really answer the question of why you think John would kill her. Just because he wouldn’t vote for her and she got angry?” I wasn’t convinced of anything Kayla was saying and if I was going to say something to Cade about this conversation, I needed something stronger to go on.

  “Here’s the truth about Tori. She was a narcissist. And I’m not just throwing that word around as an insult, I mean she was a genuine narcissist. If you didn’t do what she wanted, she’d make your life a living hell, and that’s exactly what she did to John Greenlee. She went around telling people that he had an infestation of roaches in his bakery. She even went so far as to tell people that she had bought donuts from him and found a dead roach in the box.”

  The thought of roaches and donuts made me sick. I had eaten tons of donuts from that bakery in my lifetime, and it had always been as clean as could be. “Who did she tell this to?”

  “Practically everyone,” she said. “As a matter of fact, my neighbor came over one day and told me all about it. She was so freaked out because she had bought cupcakes from there three days earlier and took them to her daughter’s class for her birthday. She just felt sick over it. I assured her that that was just Tori lying about John’s bakery.”

  I nodded. “I’ve been in there plenty times and I’ve never seen anything that would give me pause as far as cleanliness is concerned.”

  “That’s exactly right. John runs a clean bakery. He’s always getting the top grade when the health inspector comes around. But plenty of people came in and told him what Tori was saying about his bakery and he was absolutely livid about it. He came to me one day and was nearly in a rage over it.”

  “What did you say to him?”

  “I told him that he shouldn’t expect anything better out of Tori Wells. That was just the way she was. I assured him that people in the city of Sparrow know that he runs a clean bakery. Then he told me his sales had really suffered because of what she was saying and he said he would make her sorry for what she had done.”

  “Do you really think he might kill her for spreading rumors?” I asked her.

  She shrugged. “I guess only he knows for sure what he’s capable of. But the man does have a temper. Maybe I’m jumping to conclusions, but it’s a hunch I have.”

  I considered this. If John Greenlee had really lost business because of the rumors that Tori spread, I could see where he might want to get even with her. I decided I probably should stop in at the bakery and get some donuts and see how John was feeling about Tori’s death.

  Chapter Ten

  I was standing in the kitchen doorway watching Cade sand my hardwood floors and admiring his skill. He had a dust mask and goggles on and I wore a matching set. He looked over at me and I could tell by the way his eyes crinkled that he was grinning. I gave him a little wave and he shook his head and went back to work. I was thankful I had him to come over and do the really heavy lifting where renovations were concerned. Some of it would have to be hired out at some point, but for now, Cade’s skill with a floor sander was coming in handy.

  I heard the doorbell rin
g above the burr of the sander and I went to the front door. My new neighbor, Ida Snow, stood on my doorstep smiling and holding what looked like an apple pie. I remembered my goggles and dust mask and quickly flipped the goggles up over my head and pulled the dust mask down.

  “Good morning, Ida,” I said eyeing the pie in her hand.

  “Oh dear, have I come at a bad time? It looks like the two of you are working hard,” she said, peering in through the doorway at Cade. He realized I had opened the door, and he shut off the sander. He laid it down and came to join me, pushing his goggles up and his dust mask down as I had done.

  “Good morning, Ida,” he said and his eyes went to the pie in her hands. He smiled. “That sure looks good.”

  “Good morning, Detective,” she said. “I know you two are working hard, but I thought I’d stop by and bring you an apple pie. I had extra apples left over from the pies I made for Thanksgiving and I didn’t want them to go to waste.”