“How can you know that for sure?” she shot back.
“Listen to me,” he urged her, being more patient than usual. “The briefcase has his initials on it, his fingerprints on it, too. Not to mention, he openly verifies it as his. To top it all off, he has a half-empty box of acupuncture needles inside of it, leading me to believe the other half was in the victim’s body.”
Bert’s jaw dropped open. “You can’t be serious.”
“I’m dead serious. I wouldn’t be telling you unless I was certain we already have our man. The use of acupuncture needles points to Sean’s motive, as well. Sean was angry about Travis Shatner getting rid of acupuncture as a practice among chiropractors. Meaning, your best friend’s brother, who was about to open a new business here in Culver’s Hood, would have to pick either acupuncture or chiropractic for his new practice, but not both. It threw a real wrench into his business plans.”
Slouching down and letting out a long and weary breath, Bert realized just how bad this all looked for Sean. For all she knew, he really had committed the murder and she was just going off on a wild goose chase to support her best friend.
She realized she’d been foolish. She’d honestly convinced herself that Harry had a bias against Sean on the grounds of romantic jealousy.
Harry was just doing his job as a homicide detective. She felt like she owed him an apology but couldn’t bring herself to say it.
Seeing the pain on her face, he put on a sympathetic smile. “The point is, this scrap of paper doesn’t prove anything. For all we know, it has no connection to the murder whatsoever.” Standing up, he took the bag in one hand. “However, because you’re a friend and a trustworthy citizen, I’ll add it to the evidence file for the case.”
Bert tried to smile back but knew it looked weak. “Thank you,” she whispered.
CHAPTER 11
* * *
Bert had gone back to the shop disappointed and empty-handed. Upon hearing the facts and evidence, Carla had slumped down into a silent depression, spending the evening on the couch in the upstairs apartment watching old reruns of sitcoms on the Goldie Oldies channel. Switching into mother hen mode, Bert made sure that her best friend was kept hydrated and fed.
That was one thing about Carla. While other people stopped eating when they got depressed, Carla became a bottomless pit. An array of pretzels, popcorn, chips, and even a few sandwiches were all set out on the coffee table for her to consume while she rode out the initial wave of upset. (Bert could never understand how the woman could eat so much but never seem to gain a single pound.)
By ten P.M. Carla was out cold on the couch. Bert draped a blanket over her and went to bed.
It wasn’t until the next morning, waking up at five A.M., that Bert got a second wind of vigor back. While she’d given up the case after her conversation with Harry, the fresh morning sun compelled her to keep on going—and she knew just where she wanted to start.
Making sure not to wake Carla, Bert tiptoed down to the pie shop’s kitchen to get to work. Sometimes, all you needed to get a little information was a touch of sugar, and Bert wasn’t afraid to use it.
In fact, it was her greatest weapon.
Preparing a traditional graham cracker crust, with an extra sprinkling of brown sugar for color, she got to work preparing a new recipe—one she hadn’t sold in the shop yet. Setting a pot of milk on the stove, she turned it on medium heat to bring it to a simmer. While she waited on that, she hand whipped a whole bowl of cream, eggs, and sugar together, adding in a few drops of mint extract and green food coloring.
Once the milk had begun to simmer, she added in a pinch of mint leaves and some gelatin and stirred. Once it was all well combined, she poured the mixture into a bowl and carefully submerged the bottom of the bowl in an ice bath and put it in the fridge.
It was a quick and efficient way to speed up the thickening process.
She worked on the other preliminary morning duties for the shop while things settled. When it was cool enough, but not quite solidified, the gelatin and milk were combined with the whipped mixture until it formed a thick, green pie filling.
Pulling out her crust from earlier, she added in the main ingredient. Crushed up mint cookies she’d bought from some girls outside the grocery store made a bottom layer in the crust. The minty green filling was added on top.
The final touch was an array of chocolate cutouts in the shape of four-leaf-clovers all along the top.
Putting it in the fridge again, she waited for it to fully solidify while she worked on opening the store.
Around ten, just as she was unlocking the front door, Carla came walking down the steps. She wore some of Bert’s clothes and looked rosy-cheeked and awake.
“Morning,” she said, putting on an award-winning smile that would convince anyone she was A-Okay.
“Morning,” Shiv echoed, arriving at the door.
“Good morning to both of you,” Bert replied. “How are you feeling?” Bert asked, looking at her friend.
“I’m okay.”
“Don’t you need to get over and open your store?”
She shook her head. “I’d prefer not to today. Customer traffic this time of year is really slow, anyway. It won’t pick up again until June.”
“Makes sense.”
Walking down the stairs, she leaned on the counter. “If you don’t mind, I’d love to help out here today.”
“You want to help?” Shiv asked with a delighted smile.
“It’ll help keep my mind off things, and I’ll be around friends.”
Bert put a hand on her friend’s arm. “We’d love to have you. I’ve got a few errands to run myself outside of the shop, so do you think you ladies can hold down the fort without me for a while?”
“You bet we can,” Shiv agreed.
“Great. That helps me out a whole lot,” Bert noted, hoping she wouldn’t have to tell them what she was really up to. She didn’t want Carla tagging along and didn’t want it somehow making its way back to Harry that she was doing some vigilante investigating again.
“Oh, by the way,” Shiv jumped in, hanging her jacket and purse behind the counter, “I forgot to tell you. The management at the Green Room called late yesterday. They said they still have your serving trays and that you can pick them up when you are able.”
“Thanks. I’ll have to squeeze that into my errands.”
* * *
Parking on the street near the Forsythe Historic Hotel, Bert gingerly grabbed the white pastry box off the passenger seat and carried it into the lobby. She didn’t stop to talk to anyone at the desk and instead headed directly for the elevators.
It hadn’t been difficult for Bert to find out which room Sharon Shatner was staying in. The complete listing of all attendees and room numbers had been part of the packet that was not only sent out to the guests, but also to her as the caterer.
Heading up to the fifth floor, where the suites were, Bert scanned the doorways of the halls until she found the one she was looking for.
Knocking on the door, she waited for an answer. She only hoped that Sharon was up and about and that she was still checked in. Despite the police departments request for all witnesses to stick around, she was sure many of the doctors had taken off already.
The click of the lock being undone echoed from inside, and the door swung open.
Despite what Bert expected, Sharon looked as awake and content as ever. She didn’t have the air of a woman in mourning at all.
“Oh, Mrs. Hannah. This is a pleasant surprise.”
“Please. Call me Bert.”
“What can I do for you, Bert?”
She lifted the white pastry box. “I came by to offer my condolences for your loss and to give you this pie.” She pulled the lid open partway to reveal the green minty delight inside.
“Oh, Bert. It looks lovely. Thank you.” Stepping back from the entryway, she held the door open farther. “Would you like to come inside?”
“Jus
t for a minute,” she said, secretly thrilled that her plan was working out. Stepping into the extravagant suite, she found a living room area with a long couch and a television. There was also a kitchenette and a table off to one side. “Where is the bed?” Bert joked.
“Oh, it’s just up those stairs,” she motioned to a short staircase to a separate area.
“You never know with the hotels in these areas. Most of these used to be warehouses and factories until they were converted over.”
“I thought that might be the case,” Sharon admitted, taking a seat on the couch near the coffee table.
Setting the pie down on the table, Bert retrieved two small plates, two forks, and a silver serving spatula from her large purse. “I came prepared.”
“I’m starved. I haven’t had any breakfast yet.”
“Well, I can’t guarantee this will be well rounded, but it will be tasty.”
“I don’t doubt it. Let me make a batch of coffee. It just wouldn’t be breakfast without it.”
Bert wasn’t going to argue with that.
As Sharon stood up and walked into the kitchenette to prepare the mini prepackaged coffee that room service provided, Bert watched the woman walk with a sway. She hardly seemed like someone who’d just lost a loved one, let alone a spouse.
“You seem to be doing well after everything that happened yesterday.”
“Oh, yes. It was all quite a shock, wasn’t it?” she said without turning around. “I mean, murder is one thing, but the way the body was put on display was something else.”
“I’m sure this is a very difficult time for you.”
Dumping the packet into the coffee maker, she turned on the switch and turned around, leaning back on the counter. “Do you want to know the truth, Bert?”
“Sure. Hit me.”
“As you can probably tell, I’m not too broken up about Travis. I know I should be, but I never was much of an actress, despite what my late husband may have thought.”
“You two weren’t close?” Bert gently pressed.
“Not anymore. I’m not sure if we were ever close, in fact. To be honest, I’m relieved he is gone. He was a mean and verbally abusive man.”
“Yes, I gathered as much. According to the few people I’ve talked to who knew him, he was a pretty good sweet talker.”
“He could talk his way out of anything, convince others to do whatever he said.” She let her shoulders droop. “I fell for his games time and time again. I have many regrets thanks to being married to that man.”
“I don’t doubt it, but surely you had loved him at some point.”
“I suppose I thought I did. At least, he convinced me that I did.” She sauntered over and took a seat on the couch. “If you want to know a secret, I was filing for divorce.”
“You were?” Bert exclaimed, honestly surprised by this news.
“This whole trip has been tense thanks to that. I tried to put on a good show, just for the luncheon, but after the argument with Sean, I didn’t care to hang around.”
Now they were getting somewhere. “You weren’t in the building during the luncheon?” she asked, despite already knowing the answer. She wanted to hear it from Sharon’s lips.
“No. I wasn’t. I went out walking along the river to clear my head and to convince myself that divorce was the right choice.”
“And was it?”
Sharon smiled with one side of her mouth. “Luckily, I don’t have to worry about that anymore.”
The coffee pot dinged, indicating it was done. Sharon got up from the couch to fill two Styrofoam cups.
Bert felt like she was making good progress and decided to ask the most burning question on her mind. “Did you ever know a man with the last name Handy?”
Turning with the two coffees in her hands, she squeezed her eyebrows together. “Handy? Where did you hear that name?”
“From Sean,” she answered truthfully.
“Sean? Why would he say anything about that?”
“Oh, he mentioned in passing how your husband had done a number on him,” Bert said, trying to act laid back about the topic.
Unfortunately, Sharon looked anything but laid back. Her features had tightened considerably, her lips disappearing into a straight line and her jaw tensing until veins started to show.
“Carla and I just thought that it might be connected somehow to the murder, that’s all,” Bert added, hoping to force some sort of information out.
Setting the two cups down on the coffee table, Sharon glared at Bert. “I think you need to leave, Mrs. Hannah.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Did I say something wrong?” she asked innocently.
“Just get out. This conversation is over,” she hissed, her voice sounding part angry but sad at the same time.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” Bert apologized again, picking up her purse and laying it on her shoulder. “I’ll leave the pie and utensils for you to use.”
She rushed out the door to escape the woman’s frustrated stare.
CHAPTER 12
* * *
“What a waste of time,” Bert groaned quietly to herself as she stepped out of the elevator and into the lobby. While she’d gotten a few pieces of useful information, none of it was hard enough evidence to even prove that Sharon or anyone else was the murderer. All it showed was that Travis was a hated man and that his wife had some negative emotions around the incident with Dale Handy.
Did that prove that she had a hand in getting the poor man kicked out of the community?
Stepping out onto the street, she noticed someone in a hoodie walking along the sidewalk across from her. The disguise of a pulled-up hood didn’t do much to conceal her identity, and Bert instantly recognized the protest leader from the day before. If she remembered correctly, her name was Tera.
What was she up to?
She continually looked over her shoulder, as if checking to make sure no one was watching.
Bert decided to follow along and see where the woman was going and maybe even try to talk to her. While she was an unlikely suspect at this point, maybe she’d seen something at the Green Room the day of the murder.
Bert hunched down slightly as she walked so she wouldn’t be spotted.
Tera’s hands were deep in her pockets as if she were fiddling with something. A phone or wallet maybe?
Stopping just behind a parked black car, Tera made another sweep of the street, forcing Bert to duck behind an SUV so as not to be seen. The badly disguised woman squatted down near the tire and removed her hand from her pocket.
A glint of metal caught the daylight and Bert knew immediately what was going on. As if on impulse, Bert leaped to her feet and shouted out, “Hey, don’t do that!”
Letting out a tiny yelp of surprise, Tera stumbled back onto her butt, the pink-handled box cutter falling from her grasp and sliding beneath the car. “Shoot,” she spat out, pulling herself to her feet.
“Hey, stop. I want to talk to you,” Bert shouted, running across the street at the woman now that she knew for sure Tera no longer had possession of the weapon.
She didn’t wait and instead bolted off.
Bert reached out to grab her, snagging onto the hoodie and trying to hold on. “I said I want to talk to you.”
“Leave me alone, lady,” she barked, pulling away, but not before dropping something in the gutter. Bert glanced down to see that a few businesses cards had come out of Tera’s pocket. When she looked back up, the young woman was gone.
“Way to go, Bert. Scare off the witness.” While she knew that Tera was most likely going to commit a crime by slashing someone’s tires, she couldn’t help but feel she blew her chance to get some more information.
Now, Tera would avoid Bert like the plague.
Glancing at the car in question, she recognized it from the day before. It was the same dark vehicle that Travis and Sharon had pulled up in outside the Green Room. Bert supposed you’d have to be pretty angry at someone to continue vandalizing t
heir family car even after they were dead. If anything, it would have been a personal attack on the grieving widow who was relying on the car to get her back to her own home town in the next few days.
It was sort of one last insult to the Shatner family.
“Terrible,” Bert groaned, glancing in the window and seeing two copies of The Chiropractic Journal of Medicine on the backseat.
Sighing, she bent down to pick up the business cards and retrieve the pink box cutter. As she gathered the items up, she paused, reading the name on one of the cards.
The next moment she was on her feet with a gasp, reading and re-reading the name repeatedly.
It was printed in plain letters. Tera Handy-Rierson
* * *
“Don’t you see, Harry? She’s the murderer,” Bert exclaimed. Being downtown meant she was close to the police station as well. She hadn’t hesitated to dart over there to talk to Detective Mannor again.
This time, he hadn’t bothered taking her into the separate room, believing that whatever it was that could be said was unimportant. “A business card and a check fragment don’t make someone a murderer. In fact, there is still nothing to connect her to the murder itself.”
“You’ve got to believe me.”
“She was out front with a whole bunch of other protestors at the time of the murder,” he pointed out again. Standing at a filing cabinet, he was going over paperwork and only paying partial attention to her.
“Well, maybe she slipped away. I mean, it was a little chaotic, you know?”
“No, Bert. I’m sorry,” he declared, pulling out the file he needed and shutting the cabinet. He turned to face her and shrugged his shoulders. “What am I going to charge her with? Attempted vandalism?”
“But the card, Harry. The card. She has her maiden name on it, at least I think it’s her maiden name.” She shoved the cards into his free hand, so he could see them a second time.
“So, what? A lot of women will add their maiden name onto their business cards to try and keep some consistency between people they worked with before and after their marriage.” Pushing past her, he headed for his desk.
Shamrock Pie Murder Page 6
