Dropping Like Pies (Apple Orchard Cozy Mystery Book 11)

by Chelsea Thomas

  Teeny ran over and hugged me with a squeal. “You two are the best friends in the world. I don’t deserve a surprise. Well, I suppose I do. I’m a good friend, too. But thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

  Teeny hurried away from me and wrapped Miss May up in a big hug. Miss May looked over at me as Teeny hugged her. The look in Miss May’s eyes said something like, “Great job, Chelsea. Now we need to plan a surprise.”

  I shrugged. “The surprise may not be here for a while so don’t get too excited.”

  “Too late. I’m as excited as I could possibly be.”

  Miss May laughed. “What are you doing up here, anyway?”

  “I was looking for Big Dan. I thought he was using the second-floor bathroom, but he’s not up here.”

  “He’s not downstairs?” asked Miss May.

  Teeny shook her head. “Nope. He totally disappeared. Maybe he finally got sick of me and boarded a flight to Africa.”

  “Hey. That hits a little too close to home,” I said.

  “Sorry, Chelsea,” said Teeny. “I forgot your boyfriend literally boarded a flight to Africa. I’m sure that was for the best. And I’m sure we’ll find Big Dan downstairs somewhere.”

  I gulped. “Yeah, me too,” I said. Unless he really did make a run for it.

  29

  Racing Around

  Miss May hurried into the den with me and Teeny close behind her. We found Wayne and KP asleep near the fire. They each had their feet stretched out toward the flames, and they shared a near identical cute little snore. Like the world’s tiniest beavers chewing through a piece of wood.

  Miss May clapped once to wake them up. Wayne rubbed his eyes. “Is it morning?”

  “It’s barely been half an hour,” said KP, sitting up in his chair. “What’s with the rude awakening?”

  “Have either of you seen Big Dan?” said Miss May. “We can’t find him.”

  “We were both asleep,” said KP. “You think I was dreaming of my mechanic? Now that’s weird, May. Even for you.”

  “I’m serious,” said Miss May.

  I stepped forward. “Did he wander off anywhere before you fell asleep? Wayne, did you see him go anywhere?”

  “The policeman has been sleeping longer than I have. I could barely relax with the sound of him snoring. I’ll tell you that.”

  “I don’t snore,” said Wayne.

  “Oh you sure do, buddy,” said KP. “When you sleep it sounds like the Daytona 500 and a monster truck rally combined.”

  “I sound like a racehorse when I sleep?” Wayne asked with a sardonic bite in his voice.

  “Oh, quit arguing about snoring.” Teeny cupped her hands around her mouth and called out. “Daniel. Big Dan. Stop playing around. Where are you?”

  We all waited in silence for a few seconds. There was no reply. Teeny crossed her arms. “This is so annoying. All I wanted to do was have a nice night by the fire and Big Dan had to go and disappear.”

  “He’s probably in the bathroom or something,” said KP. “It’s not like the guy had any reason to disappear into thin air.”

  Miss May and I exchanged a concerned look. Only we knew about Big Dan’s mysterious phone call. Only we carried the burden of that knowledge with us.

  “This is a big farmhouse,” said Wayne. “Big Dan seems like a curious guy. I’m sure he’s exploring an old attic or cellar or something.”

  “That’s dangerous,” said Teeny. “I’m going to go find him. Now is not the time to explore anything. Now is the time to cuddle up by the fire and tell me that blizzards are nothing to be afraid of and you love me.”

  “Have you two said that yet?” Miss May asked in a hushed tone. “Love?”

  “No,” said Teeny. “I didn’t mean it like that. I mean, of course he loves me. Everyone loves me. Unless they hate me. Point is, I don’t want Big Dan to get hurt. This old farmhouse is falling apart. What if he fell through the floor and broke both his legs or something? That could happen. Are you people going to help me find him or what?”

  KP groaned as he climbed to his feet. Wayne did the same.

  “OK,” said Miss May. “Let’s begin the search. Wayne and KP, you two take the back of the house and the basement. Teeny, go check upstairs again. He may have wandered into a bedroom and fallen asleep. We didn’t check any of the rooms up there. Chelsea, you and I should patrol the grounds. Maybe he went for a walk out in the snow.”

  Wayne nodded. “That sounds like a plan to me. Anybody finds him just give a shout so the rest of us know to stop looking.”

  “This guy doesn’t want to do a second more work than he has to,” said KP. “Typical Pine Grove cop.”

  “Hey. Watch what you’re saying,” said Wayne. “We work hard to protect this town.”

  “Miss May works hard to protect this town. You spend taxpayer dollars on cars and donuts and cotton candy.”

  “That’s ridiculous. Cotton candy disgusts me. I would never spend a single taxpayer penny on that stuff. It’s not healthy and it makes your teeth hurt.”

  KP narrowed his eyes and crossed his arms. “I think it’s delicious.”

  Miss May stepped between the two guys and separated them with her arms. “Enough quibbling, boys. You’re both being ridiculous. Now, does everyone remember their assignments?”

  Everyone murmured in agreement. Miss May nodded. “OK. Good. First person to find Big Dan gets free apple pie for life.”

  I pulled on my snow boots and heavy jacket then headed out onto the front porch. Strong gusts of wind blew enormous snowflakes sideways. I tugged my jacket tighter around my body and turned my shoulder to the cold. Miss May joined me a few seconds later wearing a bright red snowsuit, a red hat, and red mittens. I laughed. It had been a while since I had seen Miss May in her snow gear and the sight tickled me, despite the circumstances.

  “This is not good,” said Miss May.

  “You think Big Dan made a run for it?”

  Miss May shrugged. “I hope not. But I don’t think he’s inside the house, that’s for sure.”

  “That’s why you give us outside duty? You think we’re the most likely to find him?”

  Miss May pulled the hood of her coat over her head. “If he was inside he would’ve heard us calling for him. I suppose it’s possible he heard us and decided not to respond. But that house is so big and drafty. You know how sound travels. Even if he was dead asleep—”

  “Teeny’s yells would have woken him,” I said. “I agree.”

  Miss May looked out over the Siberian tundra of our orchard. “This early freeze isn’t going to be great for our crops. And it’s not too convenient right now, either. How do you want to do this?”

  I shrugged. “Just start walking?”

  We only made it a few steps when I saw something out in the snow. I pointed. “Look. I think there are other footsteps. He went that way.”

  I hurried over toward what I had suspected was a trail of footsteps. Turned out I was right. I called back to Miss May. “Come on. Let’s follow the trail.”

  Miss May trudged toward me. Together we set off, following in Big Dan’s footsteps.

  “Looks like he might have gone down toward the barn,” said Miss May.

  I nodded and kept walking, too cold to respond. Thousands of particles of ice and snow pelted my face as I trudged along.

  Miss May grabbed my hand to steady herself as we approached the barn. We walked the last thirty seconds hand-in-hand, faces turned away from the snow. Finally, we reached the entrance.

  Miss May whispered. “I don’t hear anything.”

  I pointed down to the trail of footsteps that had led us to the barn. “He’s definitely in there.”

  Miss May nudged the barn door open a centimeter with her elbow. Then she cupped her hands around her eyes, pressed her face up to the crack in the door, and looked inside the barn. She gasped and turned back to me. “He’s in there.”

  My heart rate sped up like a Kentucky Derby racehorse.
r />   What are we going to do now?

  30

  Barnstorming

  “He’s just sitting there. He looks like a crazy person.”

  Miss May looked back at me with wide eyes. I nudged her aside and looked through the crack in the door. Big Dan was just sitting in the middle of the barn with his eyes closed, just as Miss May had described.

  “I think he might be meditating,” I said. “Or something like that?”

  “Who trudges out in a blizzard after sun down to meditate?” Miss May said. “The house is quiet and warm.”

  “Big Dan is unique.” I took another look through the crack and watched Big Dan for another moment. See-Saw stood in the stable beside him. She was wearing a big, winter blanket and didn’t move an inch. But I couldn’t decide between the two of them who looked more subdued.

  Miss May scooted me away from the crack in the door so she could take another look herself. After a few seconds she turned back to me, shoving her hands so deep in her pockets it seemed as if she were trying to dig a hole to China. “This looks bad. Maybe Big Dan is trying to meditate away his guilty conscience. Or maybe he’s contemplating all the evil he’s perpetrated and seeking atonement.”

  “Or maybe he’s just a weird guy and this is totally innocent,” I said.

  “I know. But we need to be on high alert here. There’s no definitive proof that Big Dan killed anyone. But he made a suspicious phone call. And now he’s sitting in a freezing cold barn by himself, which is honestly more disconcerting than the phone call. Does that seem sane to you?”

  I bit my lower lip. If Big Dan had gone bonkers, it wouldn’t be the first time that a potential suspect in one of our investigations had experienced psychological dissociation. Those circumstances were tricky. And Miss May was right, that moment needed to be treated with extreme care and caution.

  “What do you suggest we do?” I asked Miss May.

  Miss May exhaled. “We need to talk to him. But act normal. Follow my lead.”

  “I’m ready. I can’t guarantee that I’ll act normal, but that’s normal for me,” I said.

  Miss May stood tall and took a moment to gather herself. Then she entered the barn with a big, loud flourish. She flung her arms out wide and smiled at Big Dan. “Big Dan. What are you doing here?”

  Dan blinked a few times as he stirred from his meditation. He spoke in a tone that was gentle and calm, even for him. “Miss May. Chelsea. Hi. I hope it’s OK that I came down here.”

  “Of course. A little weird though. Blizzard underway out there. Pretty chilly in this big old barn. We just came by to give See Saw a little snack to get her through the cold.”

  Miss May tossed a big pile of hay down in front of See Saw and she immediately started chomping. Then she took a step closer to Dan. “You must be freezing out here, Big Dan. Are you a fan of the cold or something?”

  Big Dan climbed to his feet and brushed his hands on his pants. “No way. I hate cold weather. I hate inclement weather in general. As far as I’m concerned, an overall lack of weather is preferable. Seventy-five to seventy-eight degrees, perfectly still, no humidity. That’s my happy place.”

  “That’s interesting,” I said. “I would’ve assumed that you were looking forward to the blizzard. Teeny told us you’re kind of a weather expert.”

  “Everything we’ve ever wanted lies on the other side of fear,” said Big Dan. “That’s one of my quotes I keep stored up in my brain.”

  “That’s an interesting one,” I said. Also kind of creepy though, I thought.

  “There is a certain energy to blizzards,” said Big Dan. “I’ll give you that. And I can appreciate a good storm. But I hate snow. I hate it and I’m afraid to drive in it.”

  Miss May’s gaze was focused on Big Dan, almost unblinking. “So you study the weather because it scares you.”

  “You could say that.” Big Dan shrugged.

  “But bad weather must be great for your business,” I said. “Don’t you do well when the roads are in poor condition?”

  “Sure. My shop does great business during bad weather. But that’s why I hate it. Whenever the roads are bad people get in accidents. Then their cars show up at my shop and I hear all these horrifying stories. Black ice, slippery streets, downed wires. I became a mechanic to help people stay safe on the roads. I tell all my customers not to drive in any sort of weather, but people never think it’s gonna be dangerous until it is. Nobody ever listens to Big Dan about the roads.”

  “That’s deep, Big Dan,” I said, uttering the sentence I never thought would fall from my lips. “Is that what you were thinking about when we came in here? Were you, like, meditating or something?”

  Big Dan nodded. “I was trying to meditate but I kept thinking about red pepper hummus. It’s hard to stay focused when you’re hungry.”

  I tried to think of another question to ask Big Dan. My goal was to disarm him so I could work my way around to a discussion of the investigation. I wanted to be gentle and deliberate. But it seemed Miss May had in mind a different tactic.

  She adopted a brusque tone and charged forward with her nostrils flared, like a bull in a parade of ballerinas.

  “So that’s your story. You trudged all the way down to the barn to sit next to our tiny horse because you’re stressed out about car accidents in bad weather and needed to meditate.”

  “It’s not a story. It’s the truth.”

  Miss May shook her head with a chuckle. “Come on, Big Dan. That doesn’t make any sense.”

  Big Dan held up his hands. “I often do nonsensical things. Once I drove all the way to New Jersey to buy a new steering wheel for a customer instead of waiting for it to get delivered the next day. Got a flat tire on my way to New Jersey. Changed it myself, of course. By the time I got there, the place where I wanted to buy the steering wheel was closed. So I stayed the night at a hotel, grabbed the steering wheel in the morning and then drove back to Pine Grove. Ended up losing five hundred bucks when it was all said and done.”

  “That is…inefficient. But your story about meditating in the barn during a blizzard makes even less sense than that,” said Miss May.

  Big Dan took a step back from Miss May and furrowed his brow. “I’m not sure what you mean.”

  I spoke in a slow, soothing voice to calm Big Dan. “I think what my aunt is saying is that if you’re upset about something you can tell us. Obviously the car accidents cause you mental anguish. I understand that. Car accidents are terrible, and it must be difficult having a job where you’re always hearing those sad stories. But if there’s something else that’s upsetting you… We’re good listeners. It’s what we do.”

  Big Dan crossed over to the barn door and looked outside. “The snow is really falling fast now. I think I’m going to head back up to the farmhouse. You two enjoy feeding See-Saw. She seems like a great horse.”

  “Wait ten seconds,” said Miss May. “It doesn’t take long to feed her and I’d love to chat more.”

  “I think I’d rather head up now.”

  Miss May gave Big Dan a tight smile. “Just one second and we’ll come with you. Better not to be alone out there in this kind of tumult.”

  “I don’t want to talk to you for one more second,” said Big Dan, suddenly adopting an anxious tone. “You’re assaulting me with questions and you’re treating me like a suspect in this murder. Like I came down here to bury more body parts or something!”

  “We’re not—” I started, but Miss May cut me off.

  “We’re treating you like a suspect because you’re acting like a suspect. Tell us the truth and everything will be fine.”

  “I told you the truth. I’m sad about the car accidents. That doesn’t satisfy you?”

  “Come on, Big Dan,” said Miss May. “Quit lying to us. Look, whatever you did, I’m sure it was for a good reason. But we can’t help you until you tell us the truth.”

  Big Dan’s face reddened. “I didn’t kill anyone!”

  A small v
oice rang out from the door on the other side of the barn. “Does someone want to tell me what’s going on here?”

  I spun back toward the voice. It belonged to Teeny. And she did not look happy.

  31

  Teeny Tiny Problem

  Miss May stammered. So did I.

  “Someone answer the question.” Teeny’s voice was tense.

  Big Dan stammered and gave Teeny an unnatural smile. “I just came down to the barn to meditate. The girls came down to see the little horse. Now we’re all heading back to the party at the farmhouse.”

  “Don’t try that with me, Daniel,” said Teeny. “I was hiding outside listening to you all talk for at least a whole minute. These two are treating you like a suspect.”

  Big Dan hung his head.

  Teeny turned to Miss May. “I’m insulted for two reasons, May. First, you suspect my boyfriend of murder. Second, the two of you continued this investigation without me.”

  “You’re right, Teeny” said Miss May. “I’m sorry. But I guess neither Chelsea nor I thought that you would want to be part of this particular chapter of the investigation. It’s never fun when you suspect a loved one of murder.”

  “Of course I wouldn’t have wanted to be a part of this,” said Teeny. “That’s the point. I would have talked you out of accosting Big Dan in the first place. He’s a gentle soul. And unless a little sarcasm can be lethal, there’s no way he’s capable of murdering anyone.”

  “Thanks,” said Big Dan. “I think.”

  “I know you must be right,” said Miss May. “But—”

  “But what?” Teeny glared at Miss May. “Go ahead. Just come out with it. We all know Big Dan doesn’t like Thornton. But half of the town hated that guy. So that’s not enough of a reason for you to investigate! You must have some other bogus clue that led you here, now, to this moment. So what is it?”

  I squeezed my eyes shut. “We heard Big Dan make a suspicious phone call.”