He did make time to come to my house afterward for a late dinner and an overnight stay. I appreciated the effort. Kit lived thirty minutes away—a much longer commute in bad weather. And this new case demanded he be on duty by seven the next morning. However, both of us needed an evening together. With the Hollyberry Festival kicking off tomorrow, followed by the play, then the holidays, I doubted we’d see each other again until Christmas Eve.
“We’ve eaten half the loaf.” Kit buttered another slice. “Did Natasha bake this, too?”
I swallowed a spoonful of soup before replying, “She did. I had no idea she could cook. I mean, the soup is impressive enough. But to actually bake Russian black bread from scratch! She deserved to be crowned Miss Russia for that alone.”
The yapping of Dasha alerted us to her entrance into the kitchen, followed by her mistress. Natasha wore a fox-fur coat, one she rarely took out unless she was on her way to somewhere fancy.
“Where are you off to?” I asked.
“I have date.” She placed a matching fur Cossack hat over her long wavy hair.
“It’s after ten o’clock. Isn’t this a little late?”
“Is Friday night. In Russia, we do not think about going out on date until much later.”
“Who’s your date?” I asked.
“Do we know him? What’s his name?” Kit sounded like a cross between a concerned parent and a police detective.
I felt concerned, too. This was the first I’d heard of Natasha dating since she moved in.
“Alexei Fermonov. Is Russian, like me.” She adjusted a dangly gold earring. “I meet him last month. He is architect who builds my condo. Alexei ask me out many times, but I pretend I am not interested. Woman should be hard to get. Like good apartment in Moscow.”
I didn’t remind her that she had married Cole Bowman six weeks after they met. I hoped we wouldn’t have a repeat of that marital fiasco. Or the murder that followed.
“How are things going with Katrina?” I asked. “Are you satisfied with her suggestions?”
“Da. The feng shui will bring much good energy to my spa.”
“And what about her spirit guides? Does she have messages from them? Messages for you?” If a single one of those messages sounded dicey, I’d pay a visit to Ms. May.
“I do not like the spirits of Katrina.” Natasha scrunched up her nose, which made her look even prettier. Don’t ask me how. “They bring messages from dead cousin Tatiana. I hate Tatiana! I tell Katrina her spirits must keep quiet. And that Tatiana is not to open mouth again or I will tell Russian witch to put curse on her.”
“Natasha knows a Russian witch?” Kit asked in a whisper.
“I’m sure she does,” I whispered back.
The doorbell rang. Dasha raced for the front door.
“Is Alexei,” Natasha said. “He take me to dinner.”
“Where?” Few places were open in Oriole Point past ten, even on Friday night.
“Alexei has chef come to new lake house he build in Saugatuck.” She smiled as the doorbell rang again. “He cannot wait to see me.”
When I got to my feet, she motioned me to sit down. “Nyet. You are not my mamochka. Stay. Enjoy dinner I make for you and Kit.”
“Thank you again.” He ladled another bowl of soup. “It tastes wonderful.”
She pointed at the refrigerator. “I also bake va-trushka pie. Is greatest pie in world.”
As Dasha’s barks grew in intensity, Natasha swept out of the kitchen. I followed close behind and peeked around the corner. After she left, Dasha yapped a few more times, then chased Panther up the stairs. I was grateful Minnie was asleep in her covered cage.
When I returned to the kitchen, Kit looked up from his soup. “What’s the verdict?”
“He looks like Daniel Craig. Very James Bond, but with Slavic eyebrows.”
Kit laughed. “I have no idea what that means. I’m just happy to spend some alone time with you.”
“Me too. The next week will be crazy busy.” Although the bread and butter still called my name, I had consumed enough carbs and fat for one night. I cleared off my place at the kitchen island where Kit and I sat.
“You’re leaving me to finish off the loaf and the soup?” He took a big bite of bread.
I kissed him on the forehead. “Natasha mentioned a Russian pie I need to leave room for.”
While my carb and fat quota may have been met, I had few restrictions when it came to sugar. In that respect, I was as bad as Everett Hostetter with his crullers and gingerbread cookies.
“Today at the theater I had a conversation with Christine Madison, my old high school biology teacher.” I rinsed off my bowl at the sink. “We were talking about Everett Hostetter and his nephew. She passed on something disturbing about Anthony.”
“Disturbing how?”
“Her daughter is a TV reporter in LA. And she told Christine that Everett’s nephew killed a man. But it turns out he was responsible for a man’s death. He didn’t actually kill him.”
This took Kit’s attention from the soup and bread. “What exactly did he do?”
I sat back down on the stool beside Kit. “After his trust fund ran out, Anthony formed a company called Hosborn with Justin Bornwick, an old college friend. They produced gaming consoles and devices. It became quite successful, attracting enough investors to allow them to expand from their hub in LA to Seattle and Portland. Then it fell apart.”
“Why?”
“Investors suspected someone was cooking the books and brought suit against Anthony and Justin. Both men denied any wrongdoing, but investigators found a trail of financial malfeasance that led straight to Justin Bornwick.”
“Where does the death come in?”
“Justin went to trial, where he accused Anthony of the crimes leveled against him: embezzlement, hiding assets, illegal tax shelters. He swore Anthony planted false evidence to make him look guilty. The jury didn’t buy it and sentenced Bornwick to twenty years. The public humiliation and loss of freedom must have been too much for him. Justin committed suicide in his jail cell.”
Both of us were quiet for a moment. “What a needless tragedy,” Kit said finally. “If you don’t want to be sent to prison, don’t commit fraud.”
“True. But Christine’s daughter claims a number of business insiders at the time thought Anthony had been the real criminal. Clever enough to not only get away with the crime, but successfully put the blame on his business partner.” I frowned. “A man he’d known since he was eighteen. His friend.”
“Most criminals don’t have friends,” Kit said. “They have associates. If one of them decides to cheat or even kill the other, they look on it as a business transaction. Not a moral one. Also, if the jury found Justin Bornwick guilty, he very well might have been.”
“Maybe. But what if Anthony framed his friend?”
“Then he got away with it. Nothing we can do about it now.” Kit reached over and caressed my shoulder. “He’s not the first greedy SOB to ruin lives over money. And he won’t be the last.”
Two copper pots that hung above us on the pot rack clanged together. We looked up as they continued to sway.
Kit’s jaw dropped. “Is Mary doing that?” he asked in a stage whisper. I had told him about my resident kitchen ghost.
“Looks like she wants to remind us she’s here.” I reached up to stop the pots from swinging. “She might want to be part of the conversation, too.”
“I confess I had a hard time believing you had a ghost that banged pots together. But now . . .” Kit regarded the pots above us with a mixture of amusement and astonishment.
“ ‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’ ”
Kit laughed. “Here I thought you’d only memorized A Christmas Carol.”
“Mom’s an English lit professor. I better know my Shakespeare.”
Kit grew serious. “Getting back to this Anthony Thorne, it’s possible he is guilty of t
he crimes his friend paid for. However, it has nothing to do with us. Or Oriole Point.”
True. Yet something nagged at me. First, Piper had passed on rumors of unethical conduct concerning Katrina May. Now I learn Everett’s nephew might have been involved with fraud. Was everyone associated with Everett Hostetter dishonest? And did that include his daughter, Janelle Davenport? What about the old man himself? Had he been a criminal, too?
If Everett Hostetter did harbor dark secrets, this could explain why neither Anthony nor Janelle wanted a funeral or memorial service. Despite his seemingly natural death, I couldn’t help but wonder if a secret had gotten him killed.
Chapter Eleven
I didn’t understand why a woman who owned ten fur coats chose to wear my winter parka from Kohl’s. Yet Natasha decided to don my only parka to clean off her car this morning. Since buying the black Audi last month, Natasha had treated it with as much loving care as she did Dasha.
“I have to brush the snow off my own car and leave for work!” I yelled from the porch.
She waved a snow broom at me. “I leave, too. Katrina meet me at spa to talk to construction workers. I give obraztsy kraski to everyone.”
“Give them paint swatches while wearing one of your fur coats. I need my parka.”
“I give back when done! Parka is best for working in snow. Is what they wear in gulag.”
Stomping back into the house, I had a mind to reappear in her fox coat. But I had such an aversion to wearing animal fur, I couldn’t bring myself to touch it. I wish now I’d taken Kit up on his offer to clean off my Berry Basket SUV. Then again, snow had fallen steadily since he’d left at six.
As I closed the door, I saw Natasha take long, slow sweeps with the snow broom. At this rate, she wouldn’t be done for about an hour. And I needed my parka to wear at the Hollyberry Festival parade today.
I also had to meet Theo at the shop before we opened. In addition to his usual predawn baking, he and I had decided to whip up strawberry-peppermint donut holes as a special treat. After Gareth Holmes agreed to play Santa at The Berry Basket, I’d planned to give berry-flavored candy canes to the children. Then I ran across a delightful donut-hole recipe on Pinterest certain to delight the children even more. I couldn’t wait to taste them.
Panther knocked off a bell from the blue artificial tree in the foyer. My fault for tempting him with bell ornaments. Minnie cried, “Merry Christmas!,” in response, distracting Dasha from her kibble. Once the Yorkie launched into what promised to be a string of yaps, shivering in a thin jacket seemed a preferable activity. It was certain to be quieter.
I could feed the birds, too. The snow had sent even more flocks to my feeders. I’d been hard-pressed keeping them supplied with suet cakes, peanut hearts, cracked corn, and sunflower.
After I slipped on my winter boots, I put on my light quilted jacket. One that had been suitable earlier in the month before the lake-effect snow arrived. The last time I’d worn the jacket was the night I found Everett’s dead body. It seemed another season ago rather than mere days.
At least no winds blew off the lake this morning. With the addition of my scarf and gloves, I hoped to finish filling the feeders before my fingers grew numb.
Indeed, the activity warmed me up, particularly the effort it took to plow through sixteen inches of fresh snow. I brought along a snow shovel to clear out a space beneath the feeders. The chipmunks were in hibernation, but my neighborhood still saw plenty of squirrels. Not that I was a big fan of squirrels. Squirrels often found ways to get into my feeders, where they cleaned out the entire supply in short order. But I didn’t mind if they enjoyed the seeds that fell to the ground. After all, squirrels had to eat, too.
My arrival at the cluster of feeders on my front lawn startled sparrows, woodpeckers, and a flock of juncos. A large blue jay squawked at me from an adjacent fir.
“I’ll be out of your way soon,” I told the birds. A black squirrel chattered at me from beneath a holly bush. “You too.”
After clearing a space beneath the feeders, I rummaged in my jacket pocket for a tissue. When I was done blowing my nose, I put it back in my pocket. But I felt something in there.
I reached in and pulled out a piece of gingerbread cookie. For a moment, I wondered where it had come from. Then I remembered I had cleaned up cookie fragments beneath the bench Everett died on. Because the weather turned cold the next day, I hadn’t worn this jacket since that night.
The idea of carrying around a dead man’s cookies made me queasy.
The squirrel chittered beneath the holly bush. On impulse I threw the cookie fragment on the ground. “Here’s an appetizer until I get the feeders filled up.”
During my trips to and from the shed, I took a moment to enjoy the snow falling softly around me. The lake had not yet frozen over, and a gentle surf could be heard beneath the bluff in front of my house. A pity the snowy mist hid much of the lake from view.
With each trip to the feeders, the birds came closer, losing their fear of me in anticipation of the banquet I was putting out.
On my final trek, the blue jay disregarded my presence to rip off pieces of suet cake. A chickadee briefly landed on my shoulder as I poured out oilers. And beneath the feeders, I counted six cardinals, ten dark-eyed juncos, three cedar waxwings . . . and a dead black squirrel.
* * *
“Natasha!” I yelled so loudly I probably shook some snow off the surrounding trees.
Much quicker than I expected, Natasha plowed her way through the snowdrifts to where I stood among the feeders. She grabbed my arm. “Chto sluchilos? Vy udarilis? Marlee, tell me!”
Although most of what she said was in Russian, I understood. As I understood the implications of what had just happened.
“Look.” I pointed at the dead squirrel.
Natasha did as I asked. “What is problem?”
“The squirrel is dead.”
“Da. In Russia, I once see dead otter outside my apartment. And I do not live near water.”
“You don’t understand. I killed it.”
Her perfectly made-up eyes narrowed in my direction. “If you kill squirrel, you should not complain about beautiful fox coat. At least I do not kill fox.”
“It was an accident. I didn’t mean to kill him.”
She shrugged. “I do not care if you run squirrel down with car. Russians do not like burunduku. My brother calls them rat with fluffy tail.”
“Natasha, I gave him part of a cookie. One of the cookies Everett Hostetter ate the night he died.”
“The old man in train museum?”
“Yes. And I forgot I put some of the cookies in my pocket. When I found them a few minutes ago, I gave part of the cookie to the squirrel. Now he’s dead. You know what this means, don’t you?”
“Do not feed squirrels.”
“No! It means the cookies were poisoned. It means Everett Hostetter was murdered.”
“Is winter.” Natasha shot me a skeptical look. “I think burunduku die of cold.”
“You’re wrong. I have to go to the police station and give them the rest of the cookies in my pocket. The cookies should be tested.” I bit back a sob at the sight of the dead animal. “And I better bring the squirrel. They should run tests on it, too.”
She looked at me as if I were crazy. “How you bring dead squirrel to police station?”
“In a garbage bag. Or a shoe box. I could use this shovel to pick up his body while you hold open one of your shoe boxes—”
“Nyet! You will not touch boxes of my shoes.” I had rarely heard Natasha be so emphatic. “Let dead squirrel alone.”
“Maybe I should leave it here. His poor little body will freeze. That should preserve it for any tests. But let’s make sure there are no more poisoned crumbs on the ground.”
With an exaggerated sigh, Natasha helped pick up any remaining cookie fragments. Bad enough I had inadvertently killed the squirrel. I’d be inconsolable if one of the birds was poisoned.
&n
bsp; “I’ve never killed an animal in my life,” I wailed as Natasha and I headed back to the house. “I feel terrible.”
“Is not so bad to kill squirrel,” she said in a soothing voice. “My uncle Leonid once kill two men in alley for selling him bad vodka. This is after he break their arms with baseball bat.”
When she put it like that, the death of a squirrel didn’t sound so bad.
* * *
Chief Gene Hitchcock seemed even less impressed by my dead squirrel than Natasha. “Is this a joke?”
“Is no joke,” Natasha said. “Marlee is upset she kill squirrel. I think squirrel die of cold, but she does not listen. Tell Marlee no one care if squirrel is dead.”
“I care.” Although I felt touched that Natasha wanted to accompany me to the police station, I suspected she wasn’t going to make things better. “I fed the squirrel some of the cookies that Everett Hostetter ate the night he died. A few minutes later, the squirrel was dead.”
“And you suspect the cookies were poisoned?”
I was frustrated he didn’t seem more interested. “Of course. What other explanation could there be?”
Hitchcock looked over my shoulder as someone walked by his open office door. “Officer Davenport, will you come in here please?”
“I don’t think we need Janelle to be part of this conversation,” I muttered.
Too late. My least favorite law enforcement officer strolled in, her expression showing curiosity at the sight of Natasha and me seated before her boss.
“What do you need, Chief?” She took a position behind him, leaning against the wall.
“Marlee fed a cookie found in her jacket pocket to a squirrel. Now the squirrel is dead.”
“Came here to confess, did she?” Janelle grinned. “That might reduce the charges from homicide to manslaughter.”
“Very funny.” I glared at her.
Hollyberry Homicide Page 10
