Peppermint Breath & an Untimely Death

by Willow Monroe

  “No, thank you,” I said, suddenly wondering how I was even going to start this conversation. “But, please go ahead.”

  That kitchen was gorgeous, with stainless steel appliances, granite countertops and the most unique backsplash I’d ever seen. It glittered like sea glass in the afternoon sun pouring in through the windows.

  “What a beautiful kitchen,” I said, unable to hide my awe.

  “It is, isn’t it?” she said with a smile. “A little big and a little too modern for me, but it was what Robert wanted.” Then she pointed toward the massive island in the center of the room. “Have a seat.”

  I found a stool and sat, resting my elbows on the slab of granite that must have costed more than my car.

  “So, what did you want to talk to me about?” she asked, pouring hot water into a mug and dunking her tea bag up and down a few times.

  “Mr. Nettle,” I began, still not quite sure where I was going with this.

  She shook her head, added honey to the steaming mug and stirred it. Her spoon clinked on the sides of the cup. “Such a shame. And they never figured out what happened, did they?”

  “No, ma’am,” I said. “I know they questioned Adam.”

  “And Robert as well. Looked into our financials, that sort of thing. He didn’t tell me much about it, but I know it made him angry,” she said, turning to face me, leaning back against the counter.

  “I’m sure they just had to make sure and leave nothing to chance,” I said.

  “And there was a great deal of money involved, which all went to Adam, of course,” she sipped her tea.

  I took a deep breath. “You had a meeting with the mayor that morning.”

  “Mayor Gillespie and I are good friends. We meet on a regular basis,” she said.

  Did I see her hand tremble?

  She looked at me. “What does that have to do with Mr. Nettle?”

  I shrugged. “Not sure. They found a note in his pocket that had your name on it, the time and the location in the park where he was killed.”

  Her chin shot up a notch. Yeah, I’d hit some kind of nerve. Very carefully, she placed her cup on the island.

  “Are you accusing me of something, young lady?”

  “No, ma’am. I just think it’s odd that Mr. Nettle would be out in the middle of the park in a snow storm with a note with your name on it. And you did have a meeting with the mayor that day. It was on his calendar with a note underneath it. ‘I have to know’ is what it said.”

  “That is none of your business.”

  “In fact, he cancelled a meeting with Joe that morning to meet with you,” I said, afraid to push her much further, afraid to back down.

  “How does that have anything to do with Mr. Nettle?” she asked, her eyes flashing fire, like green diamonds.

  I shrugged. “I don’t know, but somehow I think it does.”

  Just then, the front door opened and closed.

  “Helen,” Robert called out.

  “In the kitchen,” she answered not taking her eyes off of me.

  Robert strode into the kitchen, his long, gray coat swirling around his legs. “Starla? What are you doing here?”

  “She was just setting up an appointment for us to study her family tree,” Helen lied without batting an eye.

  Now, it was my turn to look surprised. “Actually, I was here trying to figure out why your wife’s name was written on a piece of paper found in a dead man’s pocket.”

  “What?” Robert looked from Helen to me and back again.

  I stood and faced him. It was obvious he hadn’t heard that bit of information either.

  “We found a note in Mr. Nettle’s pocket. It had Helen’s name written on it with the location and time,” I explained. “I was trying to figure out why.”

  “Robert, I can explain...” Helen said.

  “You don’t have to explain,” he said in a voice as dead and cold as the wind whistling around the house. Slowly, he began unbuttoning his coat. “I took care of that one. It was quite a surprise finding out you were having a tryst with that old geezer.”

  I held my breath.

  “I think Mr. Nettle had a crush on me. He was always showing up, trying to help me with groceries or stopping by the historical society office and asking me to lunch. But I never, ever...”

  “I found a note in the mailbox,” he sneered. “Since I couldn’t be sure who it was from, all I could do was be there at the same time and put a stop to it that way. Mr. Nettle showed up and...”

  “Evidently, Mr. Nettle found that note as well,” I reasoned.

  “He left it there for my wife to find. A sure fire way to get her attention without leaving any sort of trail like a cell phone call or text.”

  “Robert,” Helen gasped. “You killed that poor old man!”

  “You were the one we saw walking out of the park that morning,” I guessed. “I recognize the coat now.”

  “Yeah, I was afraid you would recognize me, but evidently you didn’t,” he said. “Actually, I was kind of glad to see you and Poppy. I knew you’d find Mr. Nettle pretty quickly and you covered my tracks very well.”

  I was still trying to put all the information together in my head. As I’d followed Helen through the house earlier, I hadn’t seen any rifles of any kind but maybe they were locked up somewhere. Frantically, I tried to remember if he’d been carrying a gun when we saw him.

  “You thought Mr. Nettle and I were...?” Helen moved toward her husband, lifted a hand to touch him but let it drop.

  “Helen, I know you’ve been having affairs for years,” Robert said. “Maybe Nettle was a mistake.”

  Helen shook her head slowly. “No, Robert, I swear, there’s never been anyone but you.”

  “But you weren’t carrying a rifle and Tucker said...”

  Robert laughed harshly. “What a couple of jokers.” Then he turned his angry gaze on his wife. “While those two were sniffing around in mine and Adam’s finances following the money trail, I’ve already figured out who your real boyfriend is.”

  “I don’t have any boyfriends,” Helen said, her eyes pleading for him to believe her.

  “Yeah and it was right under my nose. I saw the two of you driving around in your new car the other day. You know...the one I bought you?”

  “Mayor Gillespie.” I said. Something was still wrong about this whole scenario but I couldn’t figure out what.

  Robert nodded, still looking at Helen. “He’s next. After I take care of Miss Nosy here.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  That’s when I saw the gun in his hand. It was big and looked like an old fashioned dueling pistol, but it had a scope mounted on top like a rifle. The barrel was thick and about as long as my forearm, but the hole in the end seemed small in comparison to the rest of it. Until he raised it up and pointed at me. Then it looked big enough to swallow me whole. I instinctively knew I was looking at the murder weapon. It fit neatly in the holster under his coat.

  “Robert,” Helen said softly. “No.”

  “Yeah, I wasn’t planning on this and I really hate doing it here in the kitchen,” he said.

  I barely heard him. All I could think of was that no one knew I was here and if he’d gotten away with Mr. Nettle’s murder, he could easily cover up mine.

  “She was trying to come in through the back door there,” he said, already concocting his story.

  The sound of the gun deafened me but I didn’t dare make a sound. I expected to see the door disintegrate like they do in the movies but instead it just got a neat little hole as though someone had drilled it there. One hand disappeared into his pocket. Then tipped the barrel down and back as he changed out the spent shell for a new one. The fact that it was a single shot pistol would have been good information to have two seconds earlier. Now that gun was trained on me again.

  Helen was beside me screaming his name.

  “I thought it was an intruder, what with Mr. Nettle’s murderer still being on the loose and
all. Sugar Hill isn’t as safe as it used to be. A man has to protect his home,” he was yelling as well, obviously aware that my ears were still ringing and I could barely hear him.

  The yelling didn’t scare me as badly as the way he was waving that gun around. Pointing it first at Helen and then at me and then at the ceiling. And I was too terrified to move or take my eyes off of him.

  “That note was from Mayor Gillespie,” Helen finally confessed. “But we’re not lovers.”

  My ears were still ringing but I could hear Helen struggling to make her husband understand.

  “Please put the gun down and listen to me,” she begged.

  “Too late,” Robert snapped and aimed the gun at me again. “This is all your fault, Helen. I killed Mr. Nettle by mistake in the park. Now I have to kill stupid Starla and then I’ve got to somehow get to the mayor. I tried to take care of it today when the snowmen exploded but someone got in the way and I missed.”

  “You tried today?” I asked.

  “Yeah, that’s why they all detonated at the same time.”

  “I’m helping Mayor Gillespie look for his biological mother,” Helen said suddenly.

  I managed to glance at her and knew, without a doubt, she was telling the truth.

  “Sure you are,” Robert snapped.

  “No, really. He was adopted when he was just a baby and he asked me to help him figure it out.”

  “This is the first I’ve heard of this.”

  “He just found out, sort of by accident while going through some of his dad’s old papers and he didn’t want anyone in town to know,” she explained. “That’s why we were meeting at the park that morning. I wanted to share the information with him about his birth mother. It was the only place we could meet without drawing attention to it.”

  “But then the storm hit,” I put in.

  “Yes, the storm. We spoke briefly at the diner and I convinced him to let me come to his office so I could show him everything I’d found.”

  “So you weren’t meeting an old friend?” I asked.

  She simply shook her head.

  “Shut up,” Robert growled, leveled the gun at my head. He was sweating and shaking and I prayed that he would have a heart attack before he pulled the trigger. “I don’t believe a word you just said.”

  “I can prove it,” she said quickly and began backing away from her husband. “I have the paperwork in the drawer right here.”

  He shot her a suspicious look. “Either way, this one has to go. She knows too much. I know how to keep your mouth shut.”

  The next gunshot wasn’t nearly as loud, more of a pop than anything else. But a small, neat hole appeared in Robert’s chest. He looked surprised, blinked at Helen and then looked at me. There was another pop and another hole appeared. I dived to the other side of the island where Helen stood, holding a small pistol in both hands.

  “Call 911,” she said, handing me her cell phone. Her voice was as calm as if she was telling me to order pizza.

  “Are you okay?” I asked as keyed in the number.

  “Yes. I’m okay,” she said quietly and placed the gun carefully on the granite and approached her husband lying on the floor. “I’m okay.”

  I was happy that my call had been routed through the state police and I didn’t have to scream to make Thelma understand what I needed. I explained as calmly as I could, my ears still ringing that I needed an ambulance and the police. I carefully told them who I was and where I was.

  Robert groaned. Helen knelt on the floor beside him and brushed his thinning hair back off of his forehead. “I’m so sorry,” I heard her whisper. “I am so, so sorry.”

  I wasn’t sure if she was talking about the fact that she had just shot him or something else, but I could already hear sirens and I raced for the front door.

  Tucker was already out of his SUV, running toward the house. The rescue squad right behind him.

  “What happened?” he demanded to know.

  “Robert’s been shot,” I explained, moving aside to allow the paramedics to get to him. I pointed. “In the kitchen.”

  “Are you okay?” Tucker was running hands up my arms, across my head as if searching for bullet holes.

  “I’m okay,” I said, allowing him to pull me close. God, it felt good to be held in those big strong arms, hearing his heart beating steadily. “Helen is okay, too. She saved me.”

  “What?” He held me at arm’s length.

  “He shot Mr. Nettle. He tried to shoot the mayor this morning at the festival and missed. And he was going to kill me to shut me up,” I explained.

  “Excuse me,” a timid voice beside us.

  “Mrs. Taylor. How can I ever thank you?” I gasped, tears forming in my eyes when I realized that she was crying. Black streaks of mascara decorated her cheeks and her lipstick was smeared.

  “I had to stop him,” she explained, trembling as I hugged her. “Can I go to the hospital?” she asked Tucker.

  “Yes, ma’am. We’ll get a statement from you later,” Tucker told her.

  “She’s not in trouble is she?” I asked as she followed the stretcher carrying her husband out the door.

  Tucker shook his head and pulled me close again. “We’ll figure it out. My question is, what are you doing here and how did you get him to confess?”

  “It just occurred to me that no one had asked Helen Taylor the same thing they’d asked the others. I came here, hoping to find out something. Robert came in and confessed that he’d killed Mr. Nettle. He’d seen the note in the mailbox, too, and...”

  “What note?”

  “It’s a long story. Can I go back to the diner?”

  Tucker chuckled, kissed my forehead and, finally, let me go. “You head home. I’ll wrap this up and come by to see you later.”

  When I stepped outside, the ambulance was pulling away from the curb, siren already warbling. Poppy ran toward me, screaming my name.

  “Are you okay?” she gasped, looking me up and down, turning me around as if I was hiding something from her.

  “I’m fine, Poppy. I just want to go home,” I said, feeling suddenly so exhausted I didn’t think I could put one foot in front of the other.

  “You have no business driving.”

  “But my car...”

  Come with me. Tom will drive your car,” Poppy said, taking charge.

  For once, I was happy to let someone else run the show.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The diner was hopping as usual. Mrs. Blake sat in a sunny window, nibbling her bran muffin. Eva and Anna Lord and Tiffany were at their usual table with their heads together. At least it wasn’t me they were plotting revenge against this time. In fact, they practically ignored me altogether. Gladys was busy in the kitchen, turning out breakfast as fast as she could. Tom Brown had already come and gone and Poppy was ringing up customers.

  Mayor Gillespie was seated at the end of the counter, finishing the last of his eggs and bacon. He was dressed casually even though it was a Wednesday.

  “Going to visit your mom today?” I asked as I topped off his cup.

  “Yeah, the nurses tell me she’s really perky when she knows I’m coming to visit,” he said with grin.

  As it turned out, Mayor Gillespie’s biological mother was in a nursing home less than a hundred miles away and he’d been going to see her on a regular basis every Wednesday and on the weekend for the past few weeks. She had given birth to him when she was very young and had been forced to give him up for adoption. It was a miracle Helen found her and helped them reunite.

  “Good for you,” I said. “And taking some time off is good for you as well.”

  “Well, Sugar Hill is in pretty good hands,” he added.

  As if on cue, Tucker Ashe sauntered into the diner. He’d traded his gray state police uniform for the dark blue one of the city. In spite of myself, my stomach did a little flip at the sight of the big, handsome man and not just because of the uniform.

  “Going to see y
our mom?” Tucker asked, taking a seat beside the mayor. If he was aware of the effect he had on me, he ignored it.

  “Yep,” Mayor Gillespie said, his grin growing even wider.

  “We’ll try to hold down the fort while you’re gone,” Tucker assured him.

  Yeah, that big decision that Tucker had to make, the one his officers said he should discuss with me. He never did. He decided he could be our brand new police chief without any coaxing from me at all.

  “Hey, Mama is moving to Florida with Romeo,” Tucker announced after the mayor left.

  “Oh, yeah?” I said.

  “Yeah, she signed the house over to me. I’ll be staying there while Tom helps me with the remodel,” he said.

  “I was wondering if you were just going to have a permanent room at Rebel’s Roost,” I teased, placing a cup in front of him and filling it with black coffee.

  Tucker laughed.

  “It’s hard to picture you settling down back here in Sugar Hill,” I said. “I mean you’ve been all over the world.”

  “Sometimes when I think about it, it surprises me, too,” he said. “But this feels right, like it was time to come back home.” With a wink he added, “If nothing else, to keep you out of trouble.”

  Me being in trouble reminded me of Robert Taylor. “How is Robert, by the way?” I asked.

  “He’s gonna pull through,” Tucker said. “He confessed to the shooting but is trying to make it sound like it was in the heat of passion. His lawyer is trying to get the murder charge reduced to manslaughter.”

  “What about attempted murder? He tried to kill the mayor and he was going to kill me, too.” I asked.

  “One thing at a time, Doll-face,” he said.

  And that reminded me of Joe Wheeler. I’d gotten an email from him just the night before. He was doing great and, believe it or not, missed tiny Sugar Hill just a little bit. He still hadn’t found someone to run the paper down here so he was doing it remotely and that seemed to be working just fine. He hadn’t missed an issue yet and there was plenty of news since Robert’s confession and arrest.

  “So, let me get this straight,” Tucker said, after I’d put in his breakfast order, filled everyone’s cups and then returned to the counter. “Mayor Gillespie didn’t want anyone to know that Helen was helping him track down his biological mother. He set up secret meetings with Helen either at her home or other places via notes.”