“How long until it’s done?” Alice’s stomach rumbled as she asked the question and both she and Donnie laughed.
“Forty minutes to bake, then another fifteen before it’ll be cool enough to frost.”
“In that case, do you want to have a look at the display cabinet and pick out something for your lunch?”
“Yes,” he said as his stomach joined hers in a chorus. “I really think I do.”
Once Donnie’s cake was ready, Alice told him to sit at the table while she frosted it with the cream and yoghurt mixture. She pulled a few sugared violets out of the fridge to top it off with, then sliced it and brought it through. “Ta-da!”
“Anyone would think you made it,” he grumbled good-naturedly, accepting a large slice. “What happens to the rest of it?”
“It goes into the cabinet and gets sold off to the customers,” Harriet said, stopping by the table for a quick nosy into what Donnie and Alice were chatting about. “And, if there’s any left at the end of the day, it goes to a needy recipient.”
“The city mission?” Donnie asked.
“If there’s enough. Otherwise, I just meant me and the kids.” Harriet had just tipped Donnie a wink when she caught sight of someone approaching the café. “Sally!”
Alice turned, then clapped her hands as her friend walked into the shop, looking tired and bedraggled, but otherwise unharmed. “They released you! Thank goodness.”
Sally stared at Donnie, bewildered for a second, then turned to Alice. “I heard you might’ve had something to do with that. The sergeant went on and on about a strange woman who couldn’t keep her nose out of other people’s business, so I assumed it must be you.”
She smiled, looking so much like the normal Sally that Alice forgot the changes she’d been so worried about just a day or two ago. “We were just helping them along, in case they weren’t in the mood to hurry.”
“All I can say is thank you, and you too,” Sally nodded at Donnie, “if you had a hand in this as well. Now, how are things going around here?”
She took a seat while Alice filled her in with everything that had happened since the arrest.
Chapter Fourteen
Midway through their catch-up, Alice felt a pang of longing for Chester, who’d be sitting at home, probably still feeling a bit sore. He’d need her attention a lot more than Sally would, so she excused herself abruptly. “Donnie can fill you in on everything,” she said. “He was with me all the way.”
Sally cast another glance full of curiosity Alice’s way, but she didn’t have time to stop and worry about it. Her friend could hear all about what a tolerable man Donnie was when he wasn’t being a jerk, another day.
Chester was sitting on his comfy dog bed, with food and water within easy reach, just where she’d left him. Doug walked over for a check-in, saying that he’d been a good patient all day. Alice gave her dog a pat, careful of his wound, and was pleased to see he had enough energy to give her a lick.
The vet hadn’t left a message, but Alice took the brave step of phoning the surgery to see what Josh had discovered during surgery the previous day. It took a few minutes of waiting, then he came on the line.
“Sorry, I should’ve talked about this with you yesterday, but with the new developments I clean forgot.”
“Was it very bad?” Alice closed her eyes and steeled herself for terrible news.
“I found a tumor,” Josh Freeman said. “It was a small one and appears to be benign, but it managed to grow in the wrong place. We removed it successfully, so you should see a great improvement in Chester’s energy levels over the coming days.”
Alice opened one eye cautiously and stared down at her dog. “You removed a tumor?”
“Yes. We’ve sent a small sample off to the lab, just in case there’s something we missed, but on first inspection, there’s absolutely no cause for worry. Now, did Jeffrey give you the antibiotic cream for Chester’s wound?”
“He gave me a tube of something to rub on him and stuck a cone around Chester’s neck, so he doesn’t worry at the stitches.” Alice paused, tilting her head to one side and screwing her eyes up tightly again. “So, it was cancer?”
“No! If it helps you picture it better, the lump was just a bunch of extra cells growing in the wrong place. As I said, it was benign.”
“But it might still be cancerous? That’s what you’re waiting to find out from the lab?”
Josh laughed and at the sound, Alice’s muscles began to relax. No matter what else was going on, there was no way the vet would laugh at her dog being seriously ill. A corner of her mind began to believe everything might be okay.
“Look, if it hadn’t been for the scare that Chester gave us coming out from the anesthesia, then I’d have told you yesterday, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with your dog. He’s getting older, and sometimes these things happen as a pet ages, but for the time being, he’s perfectly fine.”
“No cancer?”
“No cancer. No liver disease. Nothing to worry about except keeping his wound clean and making sure he doesn’t pull at the stitches before they have a chance to heal. Do you think you can look after that?”
Alice smiled down at Chester and pulled a face. He stared back at her with liquid eyes and a wide grin, his tongue lolling over his front teeth. “I think I can handle that just fine.”
In the newspaper the following day, Alice read an article noting a person had been arrested for the murder of Alex Dunbar. Although it didn’t give a name, reading between the lines she thought that a member of the school staff must surely be Trish Clarkson.
She thought back to meeting the woman at Tashmore Primary School, both on the day Alice had given her talk, and on the morning she’d come down to find out what trouble Sally had gotten herself into. Trish had been the one to point out the other teachers were teasing her. She’d taken the time to talk with Alice and tell her what she knew about what was happening.
What a pity such a nice woman had taken such a wrong turn on her life’s path. If Alice hadn’t seen the evidence with her own eyes, she would have had a hard time believing it. Even now, she shook her head and wondered if there’d been another mistake.
Still, so long as Sally was out of jail for the crime, Alice had done the best she could to help. Sergeant Hogarth had been quite emphatic any further interference wouldn’t be tolerated nearly so well.
Her phone beeped in her pocket and Alice pulled it out, her concern evaporating when she saw it was from Donnie rather than a message from the vet.
“Tashmore is having a memorial service for Alex. Did you want to come by and pay your respects? It’s at midday.”
For a second, Alice hesitated. She really hadn’t known the man very well and it might be an imposition to turn up when everybody else had known him so much better. Then she thought of Mr. Dunbar’s nice smile and the kind way he spoke to her. She remembered his interest when she came to the school on the weekend to coax away a small swarm of bees.
“I’ll be there,” she texted back, then went to find a packet of tissues to take along, just in case.
“Goodness,” Alice said as she turned into the playground. “The school looks a lot bigger when everyone is standing in the same place.”
Donnie shook his head and chuckled. “There’s a lot of extras have come along today, as well. We don’t usually have all these adults wandering around. A lot of parents are here. Even if they didn’t know Alex very well, they all want to support their kids.”
“I can’t remember the first time someone I knew died,” Alice said in a thoughtful voice. “There would be a few elderly relatives before my parents passed but for the life of me, I can’t recall which one went first, or their names.”
“Is that an autistic thing?”
“Either that, or just your standard anti-social tendencies,” Alice said with a laugh. “I never paid all that much attention when my parents took me visiting people. All I’d do is wait until I could leave the table or the
lounge and go outside to play with any pets.”
“I just wanted to climb their trees.”
Alice smiled up at Donnie, thinking the man had turned out quite different to what she’d first encountered. Considering how often she’d been dismissed due to woeful first impressions, she should start giving others more benefit of the doubt.
“Oh, no.” Donnie gave an exaggerated groan and cracked his knuckles as Alex Dunbar’s estranged wife walked to the front of the group. “Given how often those two were at each other’s throats two months ago, I’m surprised she’d dare to speak here.”
“How long were they married?”
“Only three years.” Donnie wrinkled his nose. “He should have saved himself the trouble and just brought some woman he hated half a house.”
Alice gave a small chuckle then bit off the sound when another mourner turned her way and glared. “That’s a good three years longer than any relationship I ever managed, so she probably still holds a good deal of love for him.”
“You’re so reasonable,” Donnie said with a grin. “And so bad at reading people.”
Justine Dunbar wiped away a tear with her forefinger and glanced around the gathered crowd. After a few seconds of her speaking. Alice conceded Donnie might be right. Again. Every gesture the woman made appeared to be staged.
People react to grief in different ways, Doug spoke up in her head. You can’t judge another person on how they appear. Not unless you’ve walked a mile in their shoes.
Although Alice sighed and tried to listen, even the echo of Doug’s words of wisdom failed to sway her mind. When Justine wiped another tear away with a dainty dab of an embroidered tissue, she looked away, ashamed she was judging someone so harshly at such an emotional time.
Detective Sergeant Hogarth stood at the back of the gathering, in plainclothes with his hands loosely cupped together in front. One she spotted him, Alice searched through the assembly with keener eyes and spotted another few officers. Even if there weren’t others there she didn’t recognize, that still meant four in attendance. Rather a lot to be paying their respects for a man they barely knew.
“Ow,” a woman’s voice called out nearer Alice and she jerked around to look the other way. It was Michael, the boy who’d gone missing for a short time, and his mother. The woman stared down at her son with a faint frown, rubbing her fingers.
Alice stared more openly, curious about the strange dynamic. The boy’s face was pale and slack, but his hands were clenched hard into fists. She guessed from the positioning he’d been holding onto his mother’s hand and squeezed it tightly enough to hurt her.
As Alice continued to watch, the boy shifted and moved behind his mother, staring out from her skirts as though he was a much younger boy. His gaze was locked fast to Justine’s face, watching her every move like a hawk.
He looked terrified.
Alice turned back to the woman still speaking. Her mask of grief slipped for a second as she stared straight at the boy and gave a twist of her lips instead. Then, she turned back to the gathered mourners and continued to recount her sweet memories of the deceased.
The connection grew in Alice’s mind until she couldn’t hold it back any longer. The accusation rose in her throat and burst out of her mouth like a living thing with a mind of its own. “You’re the killer!”
Justine’s gaze turned to Alice, a polite raise of her eyebrows followed by a small shake of her head. She barely paused in her speech, continuing on as though the words were on a teleprompter and if she lost her place, she’d never catch up.
Michael’s eyes widened, and he grabbed a fistful of his mother’s skirt in his hand, squeezing so tightly his knuckles turned bright white. Alice took one step closer, hearing the shuffle of footsteps in behind her but not turning to see what they heralded.
“She really is,” she said, this time in a softer voice more to herself. Michael turned his gaze to Alice and she saw the fear etched in every line of his face.
“You murdered your husband!” Alice turned back, raising her voice this time as she made the accusation. The crowd around her fell silent and Justine Dunbar stuttered to a stop, looking around her for support.
“What did you tell this boy when he caught you? Did you threaten him? Did you try to hurt him too? What sort of monster would terrify a small boy into silence and let another person pay for their crime?”
Justine stepped back from the podium, giving a brief laugh. “I’m sure grief comes in many forms, but I can assure you—”
“She did it.” Michael’s eyes stayed locked on Alice’s face and seemed to draw courage from doing so. “I saw her standing over Mr. Dunbar’s body with something in her hand. She told me if I said a word, she’d kill me, too!”
“You little—”
“Is that true?” Detective Sergeant Hogarth crouched beside the boy until his eyes were on the same level. “Did you see this woman doing something bad?”
“She killed Mr. Dunbar. I turned up early because I was so excited about selling a dozen raffle tickets at bible study.” Michael sobbed, his words trailing away, then rising again as though caught in the ebb and flow of a sea. “I went to tell him and saw her there, covered in his blood.”
“No,” Justine Dunbar said, backing away and glancing in all directions. “That’s not true. I found him there, that’s all. It was Trish all along. That’s why the police arrested her. I never had anything to do with the crime.”
“She told me she’d kill me and hurt my mother.” Michael’s voice dissolved into another sob and he pressed his face into his mom’s skirt.
“I promise you, this woman will never have the opportunity to hurt you, or your mom.” Sergeant Hogarth stood up next to the boy, placing a reassuring hand on his small shoulder.
“DC Blythe, would you do the honors?”
A suited detective stepped forward, snapping out a pair of handcuffs from the belt around his waist. Justine Dunbar shook her head in horror, eyes wide and still searching restlessly through the assembled crowd for someone to believe her. Just before the policeman could grab her wrist, she took off, running in her high heels across the playground, while three officers gave chase.
“Didn’t I tell you to keep your nose out of things?” the sergeant asked, turning to Alice.
A pile of defensive words rose in Alice’s mouth before she realized his smile probably meant the man was joking. “I don’t mean to keep doing your job,” she said back, keeping her face stern. “But someone has to.”
For a second, Alice thought her joke had missed the mark. Horror rose in her mind as she considered what a policeman could do to make her life miserable until she rested in her grave. Then the sergeant threw back his head and laughed.
“Have some respect,” Donnie said, sidling up to the two of them. “This is meant to be a memorial service for a well-loved principal. I don’t know there should be quite so much laughter.”
When Alice looked around the group of distressed children and adults, she felt a pang of guilt run through her. Perhaps she should have left the matter alone until after the ceremony was complete.
Then Michael’s pudgy hand slipped into hers. Although the sensation of touch was as disturbing to her as it always was, Alice managed a smile and squeezed the boy’s fingers before untangling them to let him clutch hold of his mother once again.
“Who’s speaking next, then?” she asked, staring at Donnie. “How about you? You always seem to have a lot to say.”
Donnie moved to the front of the group to begin reminiscing. When the officers walked past manhandling a struggling Mrs. Dunbar to their waiting vehicle, he just talked louder to be heard over their noise.
Chapter Fifteen
From what Donnie relayed to her later, police had eventually coaxed Michael into revealing everything he’d witnessed at the school. Alice felt an overwhelming sadness such a young boy had seen the bad side of human nature so early.
She could only imagine how terrified he’d been a
s he saw Justine Dunbar strike the blow that ended her husband’s life. As she’d scurried away to safety, he’d frozen in place, only roused when he heard the front door opening. No doubt Trish or Sally arriving on the disturbing scene.
What must have gone through his head as he sat, cowering in the bushes and hoping to stay out of sight? Alice briefly thought of taking him something nice as a gesture of goodwill, then put it out of her mind.
She could hardly take him a jar of honey—not after he’d seen it being used in such a terrible act—and Alice suspected that her visit might turn into a session where she grilled him for information. Better she stay well away and let the boy heal.
Trish was not only out of the frame for murder now, but also for cooking the books. When the forensic accountant took a second spin through the ledgers, he pinpointed the bank account some of the funds had ended up in.
Although Alex had never shared his suspicions, it seemed his wife was the one embezzling from the school accounts. Although happy Trish was in the clear—thus proving her instincts about the woman had been right—Alice felt the weight of misery that poor man must have been laboring under.
His first appointment as principal, and not only did it nearly end in the school going bankrupt, but it tore apart his marriage as well. No wonder the couple had split up a few months earlier. Whatever tipped Justine off about Alex’s further investigation, it led directly to his death. There would be no recouping the lost money and the charges for fraud would be lost under the sentence she’d face for murder.
Still, all of that was no longer occupying the bulk of Alice’s attention. Although she’d liked Alex Dunbar, they’d known each other such a short time, other things now took priority. Or rather, other people took priority. Namely, Sally, who still wasn’t acting right.
Honeybee Cozy Mysteries Box Set Page 17
