Deadly Sweet Tooth

by Kaye George

  “She really hated Fran after she was fired and told never to come back. Shiny loves the stage. I’ve even heard her say she wished Fran were dead.”

  “And you told all of that to the detective?”

  “He wrote it down while I was telling him. Maybe he’ll quit bothering your parents once he gets all his interviews done.”

  Tally thought he had done a lot of interviews already. But her parents were still on the hook.

  Chapter 10

  Nigel snuggled in Tally’s lap, his purr a noisy rumble.

  “Life is simple for you, isn’t, it?” she crooned, stroking his silky fur, which turned his volume up even higher. He gave her a skeptical look. Maybe, from his standpoint, his life wasn’t any easier than hers. When she’d gotten home just now, after dropping the checks in the mail, she found that he had put all his toys under the couch and was stretching a paw, futilely, trying to retrieve them. He was dependent on her for food, a clean litter box, toy retrieval, and…well, everything.

  “Okay, maybe not simple. But you don’t have to deal with a tunnel-visioned homicide detective and worrisome employees and the headaches of running a business.”

  He must have agreed, because he rested his chin on his huge paws and closed his eyes, bringing the purr volume down to a dull roar.

  Second thoughts plagued her. Should she have fired Greer? Could she have tried harder to educate her? Could she continue to employ Molly? She had to teach her how to deal with customers and not betray her employer. Also, was she extra-touchy today because she was so worried about her parents?

  Thoughts of her parents drove her up from the couch to try to find out how they were doing. She hadn’t heard from them all day. Nigel protested when she dumped him onto the floor, but she refreshed his kibble and he forgave her. Or so she imagined as she drove to the hotel.

  She listened for a moment when she got there before she rapped on their door. She didn’t hear raised voices today. Or her mother crying. That was a good sign.

  When her father opened the door, though, he didn’t look good. His face was pale, stunned.

  “What’s happening, Dad? Are you all right?”

  “No, he’s not all right,” her mother piped up from the reading chair. “The detective had him in again this afternoon.”

  “Again?”

  “He said there are three sets of fingerprints on the platter that held the poisoned food.”

  “Mine and Greer’s. Who else’s?” Tally said.

  “Mine,” her father said.

  Tally took his hand and guided him to the bed. He seemed dazed, like he might fall over any moment.

  “He told you that?” Tally asked, wondering why the detective would do that. To make her father confess, because then he would “know” that the police were onto him? One of those ploys, those police tricks to get people to talk?

  Her father stared at the floor, his face slack and his eyes dull and hopeless. “He changed the way he was speaking. He sounded very tough, I thought. He said, and this is a quote: ‘We know you handled that platter. We know your fingerprints are all over it.’ Then he stared at me so hard I thought he was going to drill through my eyeballs to the back of my head.”

  “What did you do, Dad?” It did sound like Jackson wanted her father to confess, right there.

  “I sat there like a mounted butterfly with a pin through my middle.”

  “Then what?” Indignation was swelling inside Tally. How dare he browbeat her father that way?

  “Nothing. I couldn’t think of anything to say for a couple of minutes. Then I said I may have touched it, but I don’t remember.”

  “Bob,” Tally’s mother said. “I think I saw that young woman ask you to hold it.”

  Bob Holt’s eyes widened as he spun toward his wife. “That’s right, she did. I’d forgotten. She said to hold it while she did something. Retied her apron or something.”

  “Oh dear,” Tally said. Another thought came to her. Not a good one. “Does the detective also know how much you like cooking, baking things, working in the kitchen?”

  He shook his head. “But I wasn’t in your kitchen that day.”

  “Dad, you were there the night before,” Tally said.

  He nodded. “Yes, we did see the kitchen when we came in.”

  She knew his fingerprints were in the room. She pictured him leaning against her counter, his hand resting on the surface. Had his prints been wiped off? Thoroughly wiped off?

  “Mom,” she said. “Who was it that asked him to hold the platter?”

  “One of your workers.” Nancy Holt waved a graceful hand through the air. “I don’t really remember which one.”

  Her father didn’t, either. It was one of the three, that’s all Tally knew.

  She turned to her mother. “What happened this morning, Mom? How did your interview go?”

  Her mother looked at the wall. “It was okay. I don’t want to talk about it.”

  After she left her parents, she called Yolanda from her car before she started for home. She had to talk to someone.

  * * * *

  Yolanda was so worried about how Tally sounded on the phone, she told her to come over right away. When she opened her door to her, Tally looked even worse than she had sounded—frantic, panicked.

  “Tally, what’s the matter?”

  Yolanda led her to the brocade couch that took up a large part of her small living room.

  “Do y’all need something to drink? I have a bottle of wine Kevin gave me the other day.”

  Tally’s shoulders fell. “I’d better not start drinking anything alcoholic, the way I feel right now. I might not stop.”

  “I’ll just get some iced tea.”

  Yolanda was back in a minute and handed Tally a cold glass. Tally gulped half of it.

  “I guess I’m thirsty.” She looked up at Yolanda. “There’s a good case against my dad.”

  “Case? What case?”

  “For killing Fran.”

  Yolanda, stunned, slowly wilted onto the couch next to Tally. “Killing Fran? Who says?”

  “No one said it, but I can tell by what Dad has told me. He’s been questioned more than once and today Jackson told him his prints are on the platter where the poisoned Whoopie Pies were.”

  “So what? Lots of people touched all the platters. We were eating, for gosh sakes. Tell your dad that. Or tell Jackson. Why is that a big deal?”

  “It’s the way Jackson was saying it. That’s what Dad said. Like accusing him.”

  “There’s no way your dad killed anyone. Even Fran Abraham.” Yolanda was glad to see that her last remark brought a slight grin to Tally’s sad face. “He doesn’t have to worry if that’s all the evidence there is.”

  Tally sat silent another moment, took two sips, then seemed to fold her shoulders in even more, to shrink up small. “I know something that the police don’t know. That they probably should know. I’m afraid to ask my dad about it.”

  It was Yolanda’s turn for stunned silence. Tally had evidence against her own father? Was it possible, remotely possible, that Bob Holt had poisoned Fran Abraham? Yolanda took Tally’s almost-empty glass. Tally looked ready to drop it.

  “I was digging in my dad’s bag for some pain pills for Mom and found a piece of paper with a threat written on it. It looked like a blackmail note.”

  “Your dad hasn’t done anything a person could blackmail him for.” Yolanda was certain of that. “What did it say? Do you remember?”

  “I can’t forget it. I keep picturing it over and over in my head.” Tally drummed her fingers on the arm of the couch. “It says, ‘Bob H. Pay up or the cops will know you’re guilty in the murder.’ Except that the word you’re was misspelled.”

  “When did you find that?”

  “Right after Mom got out of the hospita
l.”

  “What did your dad say about it?”

  Tears tumbled from Tally’s eyes. “That’s just it. He hasn’t said a thing. Wouldn’t he say something? Wouldn’t he be surprised? I mean, if he didn’t know what it meant?”

  “I don’t follow,” Yolanda said. “How would he know what that meant?”

  “If he were actually guilty in the murder, like it said. Then he’d know what it meant.”

  “I…guess you’re right. But… But how? Tally, that can’t be.”

  “I know,” Tally wailed and started sobbing. “It can’t be.”

  After her friend was cried out and finally became calm enough to drive home, Yolanda walked her to her little blue Chevy and watched her drive away, her taillights slowly receding, until they turned into her own driveway, three blocks down. Yolanda returned to her own front door, her head down, pondering the woes of the world. And specifically, those of her and Tally.

  The worst of her own problems right now was the family tension due to her sister coming out to their parents. Maybe it hadn’t been a good idea to do it in public, at the reception, after all. When Papa had met Violetta’s friend, Eden, he had stormed out, their mother trailing along in his wake and left the two stunned women staring after them in disbelief.

  Yolanda and Violetta had discussed options after that and finally decided that they should all show up to dinner that evening, as planned.

  “What’s the worst thing that can happen?” Violetta had said. “It couldn’t be worse than the public snubbing they gave us already today.”

  So all three young women had gone to dinner. Yolanda knew her mama had worked for hours preparing Vi’s favorite foods. She knew her mother. The woman wouldn’t want all that food to go to waste. Yolanda even thought she would have been welcoming to her daughter’s friend if it weren’t for her husband’s attitude.

  Mrs. Bella showed them in and they went right to the table instead of the usual predinner relaxation ritual, which was having drinks and maybe some cheese and crackers, and casual chat. At the table, it was right to the business of eating. The meal was tense, Mrs. Bella making conversation with the young women and—her mistake—trying to draw her husband into their discussions. His answers were either silence or grunts, never raising his head or ceasing from shoveling the food into his mouth as fast as possible, so he could leave the table when everyone else was half through eating.

  Luckily, none of them had planned on staying overnight that night. They hurried through dessert without the man of the house. Then, after an interval barely long enough to be polite, they departed, Yolanda to her own tiny Sunday House, and Vi and Eden to a rented room at a B and B. Vi told her sister they would drive back to Dallas that night. They had planned on staying through Sunday, but what was the point? The meeting of the parents had gone so badly, none of them wanted to prolong it.

  Since then, Yolanda had phoned her sister a couple of times. Neither had spoken to their parents.

  “Are y’all planning on meeting Eden’s parents, Vi?” Yolanda had asked her during one of the calls.

  “We have to sooner or later.”

  “Does she know what their reaction will be?”

  “Not really. They already know she’s not straight. She had a girlfriend two years ago for a short time and they were okay with that.”

  “Oh, good. So it won’t be a problem that you’re together. Do you know how they’ll feel about you?”

  “It might be a problem. If they find out our mother is Hispanic, they won’t like that.”

  Yolanda had let out a discouraged breath. Another problem parent. Just what they didn’t need. “I’m sorry you two are having such problems. We’re both fairly light-skinned. Maybe you shouldn’t tell them.”

  “Then what would happen when the two sets of parents meet someday?”

  “If they meet,” Yolanda had said. But she knew her sister was right. They had to tell them sooner, not later.

  Chapter 11

  Tally sat petting the rumbling Nigel in her dark living room. She was feeling nearly overwhelmed by her worries tonight. There was also a nagging regret on her mind for not having asked Yolanda how her sister was. Tally knew, from the confrontation at the reception, of course, that the elder Bellas were not happy about their daughter’s new romance. She didn’t even know if they had spoken since then, or if things had smoothed over at all. Next time she saw Yolanda she would definitely bring up the subject.

  Her biggest worry eclipsed that regret, though. That was the blackmail note. She had to admit that’s what it obviously was. And it was addressed to her father. She had tried to think her way out of the obvious, but she couldn’t. How would a missive addressed to another Bob H. end up in her father’s satchel? It wouldn’t. It was meant for him. She pictured her accidental find again. The paper was well-creased and didn’t look new, though. Wouldn’t something mentioning the very recent murder look newer?

  Should she ask her dad about it? That wasn’t something she wanted to do. Not at all. Maybe she could ask her mother? If it was a secret, though, would her mother know what it was about? Blackmail notes, notes asking people to pay up, were always about secrets, weren’t they? Otherwise, the threat to expose whatever it was wouldn’t be a threat.

  “I’m so confused,” she said to Nigel.

  He blinked wisely, but had no solutions.

  “About what?”

  Her brother’s voice startled her. She hadn’t heard him come in. It was well after eleven o’clock and she’d assumed he wasn’t staying at her place that night. She would tell Cole. He should know and he might have an idea of what to do.

  “Sis, are you okay? You’re sitting in the dark again.”

  Her brother knew that when she did that, she wasn’t in the best of moods.

  “Sit down,” she said. “I have a couple of things to ask you.”

  Cole snatched a beer from the kitchen and returned to the living room, switching on a table lamp as he sat on the couch. When she told Cole where she’d found the note and quoted it to him, he fell silent.

  At last he spoke. “You and I know Dad didn’t kill that woman.”

  “The paper looked a little yellow and it had been folded many, many times.”

  “You’re thinking there was a murder before this and he was involved in that?”

  They stared into each other’s eyes, fright zinging between them.

  “I don’t want to ask Dad about this,” Tally said.

  “No, no, you shouldn’t. Not right now, when there’s this other thing hanging over his head. It’s something from long ago. Leave it there for him.” Cole took a swig from the beer can. “How about asking Mom about it?”

  “Could she handle it better? She’s still sick with that dengue fever.”

  “Mom usually handles a crisis better than Dad, don’t you think?” Cole asked.

  Tally had to admit that their mother had come through, calmly and competently, when they’d had booking problems on the road. Even now, for instance, she didn’t seem to be as worried about her illness as their father was. Even though she was getting the proper treatment and everyone had been assured she would recover, their dad hovered and fussed no end.

  “If I talk to her, it’ll be in the morning,” Tally decided.

  “Are you going to do that?”

  They reached no conclusion, but Tally remembered something else she wanted to talk to Cole about.

  “I have something at the office I’d like you to look at tomorrow. I wish I’d brought them home so you could see them now.”

  “See what?” He finished off the beer and crushed the can with a crinkling sound.

  “I think one of my hires gave me a fake driver’s license.”

  Cole raised his eyebrows and gave her a wary look. “And you think I know what fake driver’s licenses look like?”

&nbs
p; “Oh, come on. I know you had one in high school.”

  “Well, yeah, I did, but they probably make them differently now. They didn’t have those fancy hidden things on them then. Holograms, or whatever they are. They were easier to fake.”

  When she glared at him, he smiled, his deep dimples emerging on his handsome face. “Okay, big sister, I’ll look at them. I can come by tomorrow.”

  “Call first to see if I’m slammed at the store.”

  Tally got up to sleep in her bed so Cole could have the couch. The cat wanted to sleep with Cole that night. Her brother was, after all, Nigel’s former owner.

  Tally hadn’t settled any of her dilemmas. She wondered if she ever could. She tossed for over an hour before sleep came.

  * * * *

  Tally’s sleep was brief, as her night was shortened on both ends. After she went to bed past midnight, well after her usual time, she was awakened early by a phone call.

  “Uh, yes?” she mumbled through her sleep. The number was from the police station, she was pretty sure. “Who is this?”

  “Tally, this is Jackson.”

  Now she was wide awake. She squinted at her alarm clock. 3:30. “Jackson? What—what is it? What’s wrong?”

  “I wanted to be the one to tell you. Your father has been arrested.”

  “Arrested? For what?” She was yelling, she knew. “You can’t arrest him.”

  Cole was already at her bedroom door, his face puckered with worry. Dad? he mouthed. Tally nodded and Cole dropped beside her onto the bed.

  “You arrested him in the middle of the night?” she said, her voice turned down a notch in volume.

  Nigel padded into the bedroom and joined them on the bed. He looked worried, too.

  “I know,” Jackson said. “But I didn’t want you to hear it from someone else.”

  “Can I talk to him?” she asked.

  When he said she could not, she asked where her mother was. She pictured her poor mom, dizzy and sick, sitting at the police station in her bathrobe.