My phone buzzed, and I lifted it from the bedside table. A text message had come through.
Thinking of you. It was from Jamie.
I smiled. A text from him was just what I needed.
It’s nice to hear from you. Hope everything is going OK? I sent it back. If I was honest with myself, I’d expected to Jamie to forget about me the minute we’d left Muffin, but he hadn’t. It was a nice surprise.
Everything is great. Just miss your company as usual. What about there?
I hesitated, on the brink of typing out a message about how crazy it was here, how lost we were with our investigation. But that would only harsh his vibe, and I didn’t want to be too needy or weak or… let my guard down too much.
All good. I typed back. I’ve been missing you too.
I put away my phone and set about packing my things.
16
Later that evening…
The Starshiners Motel was worse than I’d expected. In fact, Jules’ scathing description of the place now seemed kind.
There were only three rooms in the place that were serviceable, and two of them had toilets that were out of order. The paint peeled off the walls, and the bedspreads had once been white… a long time ago.
I sat on the edge of a plastic chair next to the TV stand—empty expect for a remote control without any batteries—and tried not to gross myself out about sleeping in the bed that night. Bee and I had opted to share the only room with a working toilet.
How was this place even in business?
Didn’t matter. We had bigger problems to deal with.
“That’s the story you’re going with?” Detective Snodgrass asked, standing in front of us with her arms folded across her neatly pressed shirt. “That you went to offer your condolences?”
“We had a cake and everything,” I squeaked.
“We did.” Bee nodded. “But he wasn’t home. Ask Sara Robertson. She saw us there.”
“I’ve spoken to Councilwoman Robertson already, and she has no recollection of you having been at the house this morning.” Snodgrass’s lips twisted into a sneer. “Sounds to me like you ladies are lying. Wanna know what I think?”
“Not really,” Bee growled.
“I think that you two came to town looking for an easy mark. You found Gillian and you decided to rob her restaurant but when things went wrong, you killed her. Got rid of the body. Went back to the restaurant to try again now that it’s closed, and when the mayor caught you, you decided it was time to get rid of him too. Any of this ringing a bell?”
“Not in the slightest,” Bee said.
“That’s just not true!” It burst out of me. “Look, we haven’t done anything wrong, and your questions are … they’re—”
“What my friend is trying to say,” Bee cut in, “is that unless you have some real evidence and a warrant for our arrests, you can take your accusations and questions, elsewhere.”
“So, you won’t cooperate with this investigation?” It was as if Bee had given the detective exactly what she wanted.
“We have cooperated fully,” Bee said. “We’ve kept cool during all of this and answered your questions, but we’re not going to sit here and be accused by you when we’ve done nothing wrong. Come back when you have a reason to.”
Snodgrass licked her front teeth. “Don’t leave town.” She huffed her way out of the motel room and slapped the door shut. The tiny square mirror hanging on the wall slid from its peg and flumped onto the carpet.
“Wretched woman.” Bee slammed a fist into her palm. “She has no idea what she’s doing.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose.
“But she did let something interesting slip,” my friend continued.
“The theft at the restaurant,” I said. “She immediately jumped to the conclusion we did. That the murder was motivated by money.”
“Exactly. That has to mean that she’s got some evidence pointing toward it having taken place at the restaurant. And now that poor Arthur is missing, well, I can see why she’d think it was us, even if she did go about questioning us incorrectly. That detective won’t be winning any interrogation awards any time soon.”
“Then it’s Tank?” I asked. “Or Sara?”
“Sara,” Bee said. “Got to be. Why would she lie to the detective and tell her that we didn’t run into her this morning unless she was covering her hide? We’re the easy scapegoats. Blame it on the people who are already suspects.”
“What do we do?” I got off the plastic lawn chair and brushed off the seat of my jeans, grimacing.
“We case out Sara’s house and find out what she’s up to. I don’t know about you, Ruby, but I’m not particularly keen on sleeping in this place tonight. I’d rather sleep in the truck.”
“Definitely.”
We took the truck out to Roe Street, where the mayor and Sara’s houses were situated, and parked around the corner. It was just past 8 pm, and night had settled around the houses. Many of them were lit up with spooky decorations in their front yards.
Bee and I set out at a casual stroll but slowed once we reached the house to the right of Sara’s. We hung back from the lampposts, and my pulse raced. Anyone could look out of a window and spot us lurking beneath the trees that dotted the sidewalk. And if they did, Detective Snodgrass would pull us into the interrogation room so fast our heads would spin.
“Here,” Bee said, gesturing to the bushes that flanked Sara’s fence. We leaped over into her yard and crouched down in them, peeking between the leaves. The lights were on in the front of the house.
I held still, even when a leaf tickled my nose and brought me to the brink of sneezing.
Half an hour passed, then an hour, and I shifted, impatiently.
“Easy,” Bee whispered. “This might take a—”
The front door opened, and Sara came out, carrying a covered tray, complete with a silver lid. She walked around the side of the house and stopped next to a pair of bulkhead basement doors. She bent, set down the tray, and drew something out of her pocket. Sara fiddled for a moment, then opened the doors.
Light spilled from within.
Bee and I watched as the councilwoman collected the tray from next to the doors and proceeded into the basement.
“What on earth?” I barely got it past my teeth. “Do you think that she’s—”
“Keeping the mayor down there,” Bee said. “I’m certain of it. The woman is holding him captive. She’s the murderer.”
“What are we going to do?” I asked. “Call the cops?”
“Not yet. We need to find out if we’re right first. The last thing we want to do is bring Snodgrass out here for nothing and wind up looking like… well, like we just trespassed again and hid outside someone’s house for an hour for no reason.”
The doors opened and Sara came out without the tray. She closed after herself and traipsed back to the porch, whistling under her breath.
Once she was back in the house, I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. “Why is she feeding him like this? Why not just go through the interior door to the basement.”
“No idea. Might be broken or jammed or something? Might have lost the key. Either way, we now know that Robertson has something to hide.”
I licked my lips, anticipation crawling over my skin and sending shivers down my spine. “Let’s find out what it is,” I said.
“You read my mind.”
Bee and I rose from the bushes and made for the doors to the basement.
17
I’d never been this nervous in my life.
We were either about to discover a body or the mayor tied up in Sara’s basement. The former would be a disaster—how would we convince Detective Snodgrass that we weren’t involved? And the latter… well, it would send me into a blind panic knowing that Sara was in the house at the same time as we were. And that we’d have limited time to get Arthur out of there.
“Ready?” Bee stretched her arms in our secret
bush hiding spot.
“Yeah,” I squeaked.
I took deep breaths, in through my nose and out through my mouth. Heavens, I had training in martial arts. I’d helped solve quite a few murder mysteries. I shouldn’t have been this afraid to go in there.
“We’ve got to do this quickly,” Bee said. “Understand? We get in there and get the mayor out.”
“What if the mayor is… you know?”
“Doubt it,” Bee replied. “Sara was taking food down there, and unless she’s crazy, well—maybe you’re right. OK, if there’s a dead body, we retreat to our hiding spot and call the police.”
“Snodgrass will kill us.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Bee said. “The evidence will be there. The body is in Sara’s house, and our fingerprints and DNA will be nowhere near it. Shoot, we can even make it an anonymous call if we have to.”
“All right,” I nodded. “And if it’s not a body?”
“We get in there fast and get Arthur out. As quietly as possible. I’ll untie him, you keep a lookout for psycho Sara.”
“Got it.”
“Let’s go.” Bee was off before I could get cold feet. I followed her, rustling out of the bush, and wincing at the noise it made. But Sara didn’t materialize on the porch, and the house remained silent, as did the others on the street.
We reached the basement doors, and Bee opened them. “Unlocked,” she hissed. “He must be tied up.”
My skin prickled.
The lights were on in the basement, and we descended a set of creaking wooden stairs. The space underneath the house was neatly arranged, a dresser placed to one side, nearest the other set of steps that connected directly to the first floor. A desk and computer were off to our left, and a bed had been pushed into one corner. There were tattered posters on the walls of bands I didn’t recognize.
Where was the mayor?
The blankets on the bed stirred, and I nearly jumped clean out of my skin.
A man sat upright on the bed. A man, who was definitely not the mayor.
Tan with brown hair that hung in front of his eyes, he wore a set of striped PJs. The tray we’d seen Sara carrying down into the basement sat on a bedside table next to him. He blinked, bleary-eyed, then yawned so wide we could see all his teeth.
“Who are you?” he croaked.
Bee blinked.
I shook my head.
This was unexpected.
“Where’s Arthur?” Bee asked.
“Who?”
“Arthur McKene,” Bee replied.
“No idea. Probably at his house or something?” The guy yawned a second time. “Seriously, who are you? What are you doing in my house?”
“Your house?” Bee folded her arms. “This is Sara’s house.”
“Yeah, and Sara’s my mom so…”
Once again, Bee and I fell silent, trying to piece this together. This was Sara’s son? She’d mentioned him in passing before. The guy who’d run into trouble with the law, supposedly, and then left for college.
“I’m Ruby,” I managed, after a second. “What’s your name?”
“Junior,” he said. “Why are you in my house?”
“It’s a long story.” I tried for a smile. “But, basically, we were concerned for, uh, for your mother’s safety because of what’s been going on around town.”
“What’s been going on?” Junior yawned a third time.
“The murder of the mayor’s wife. And now, Arthur’s missing too,” Bee said. “We were worried that Sara might be next.”
“Look, that’s cool and everything, but I don’t even know you, and now you’re in my room talking about murder and stuff…”
“We’re friends of your mother’s,” I said.
Bee frowned and walked over to the dresser. She pointed to a picture frame on top of it. “Is that… uh, what’s her name? The one who talks a lot?”
“That’s my girlfriend,” Junior said. “And she doesn’t talk a lot.”
It was a picture of Francescan and Junior together, smiling at the camera, their arms around each other’s waists. “That’s nice,” I replied. “She must be happy you’re home.” At this point, I’d say anything to shift the focus off the fact that we’d trespassed in his room. “Your mother didn’t mention you were here, though.”
“Yeah, well, she wouldn’t.” His expression soured, his eyebrows drawing in over expressive blue eyes.
“Why not?” I asked, backing toward the steps. If we could get out of here without him calling the cops on us, that would be first prize. Actually, first prize would’ve been finding the mayor. We’d only would up with more questions than answers thanks to this.
“Because she’s embarrassed of me,” he said. “And she doesn’t want anyone in this town to know that I flunked out of college. If they found out, it would upset her chances of becoming mayor or whatever.”
“She wants to be the mayor?” Bee asked.
“Yeah, well, of course. She’s been a councilwoman forever, and it’s not like Mayor McKene really liked doing the job.” Junior shrugged. “My mother pretends to be proud of me, when she just wants me to do exactly as she says. The one time, I tried to visit her at her office, back before I left for college, and she had reception ask me to leave because she didn’t want to be seen with me.”
“Sorry,” I said.
Bee joined me at the door. “Well, sorry for interrupting you.” She flashed her gap-toothed smile. “We just wanted to make sure everything was fine here, what with all the craziness going on.”
“Yeah, yeah, that’s fine. Whatever.” He settled back in his bed and closed his eyes, completely unconcerned by our presence.
You would swear there wasn’t a murderer on the loose.
Bee and I retreated up the stairs, and I was hardly able to believe our luck. How on earth had we gotten out of that situation without landing in deep, deep trouble.
We walked down the street in silence and, finally, got back into the food truck. I didn’t start the engine.
“That was… odd,” I said, scratching my head. “He was so relaxed.”
“He’s being a college kid.”
“No, I think it’s more than that.” I couldn’t quite place my finger on it, but there was something strange going on. “Why hasn’t he shown his face in public? Why did he flunk out of college?”
“Does it matter? He wasn’t the mayor.”
“Think about it, Bee. He’s returned home and his girlfriend, Francescan, doesn’t know he’s here. She made that very clear. And she said that she’d heard bad rumors about him from Gillian or something?”
“What are you suggesting?”
“I don’t know, but I do think we should speak to Francescan.”
“Ugh.” Bee palmed her forehead.
18
A restless night’s sleep had given me plenty of time to mull over the case and the fact that the mayor was missing. We had, much to our chagrin, decided to stay in the horrible hotel room. We’d covered the pillows with a towel a piece, but I’d still spent fifteen minutes in a steaming hot shower this morning.
Bee and I rocketed down the road in the food truck, faster than we should have, and made for the town square. Bee had it on good authority—she’d simply asked around at the restaurant we’d eaten this morning—that Francescan liked to hang out at the local hair salon, A Crimp in Time.
I parked the truck in the square, not even worrying that customers might mistake us for being open, and we headed across the street to the salon.
A Crimp in Time was all glass windows, sunlight, and white tiles. The chairs were puffy and occupied by women getting their hair cut, curled, or dyed. Francescan stood in the center of the room, teetering on black heels today, and regaling the women with a story about another of her popularity conquests.
“—thought that I played those games. Like, honey, please. As if you’ll ever be as popular as me,” Francescan said.
“She’s delusional,” a woman spoke from th
e sink where her hair was being conditioned. “If she thinks she can really compete with you, she’s got to be mad.”
“Right? That’s what I said.” Francescan rolled her eyes. “People these days just don’t know where there, like, what’s the saying?”
“Where their loyalties lie?” Another woman suggested, admiring herself in the mirror while a stylist straightened her bottle blonde hair.
“No. Not that. Uh, what’s the word for when you have more control than them and you can do more for them than they can do for you?”
“Where their bread is buttered!” Sink lady exclaimed.
“That’s it! She totally doesn’t know where her bread is buttered.”
Bee had practically cringed into a ball next to me, so I stepped forward and tapped Francescan on her shoulder. “Hi,” I said, brightly. “How are you?”
“Oh, hey! The no-carb baking ladies! What are you doing here? Never mind, stupid question. Both of you look like you were dragged backward through a bush.”
Bee let out a hiss that would’ve suited a viper.
“Actually, we wanted to talk to you,” I said. “Do you have a minute?”
“Sure.” Francescan gestured for us to follow her to the empty seating area. She perched on one of the faux white leather chairs.
I sat down next to her. Bee hovered nearby.
“We wanted to talk to you about, well, there’s no easy way to say this, but about your ex, Junior.”
“Junior’s not my ex,” Francescan said. “We’re still dating. It’s just, like, long distance or whatever because he’s at college.”
“Oh. Why did I think he was your ex?”
“Probably because I’m in such demand,” Francescan said, flipping her hair back. “But that’s whatever. What do you want to talk about?”
“You mentioned that he had gone to college and that Gillian had spread rumors about him?”
“She didn’t spread rumors. She talked a load of smack about him to me. She was a dry, old prune. Totally wanted to break us up because she wasn’t happy, and she was jealous of me.”
Murder With Sprinkles: A Bite-sized Bakery Cozy Mystery Book 11 Page 7
