Confectionately Dead

by Kathleen Suzette

  “Josh told me that she followed him all over town, trying to get him to go out with her. But he refused. He laughed about it and said one day he embarrassed her in front of a bunch of people. After she slipped up behind him at the grocery store and put her arms around his waist, he turned around and said that she was too old for him and he didn’t want anything to do with her. He laughed at her. He said the store was busy and everyone turned around and looked at her and Laura slunk off.”

  “She put her arms around his waist?” I had a hard time believing it. Laura didn’t seem to be the sort of person that would be bold enough to try something like that.

  He nodded. “I told you she’s relentless when she wants something.”

  “And he laughed about it?” I asked. It really didn’t surprise me that Josh had had a mean streak. There was just something about him.

  He nodded. “He laughed about it. I mean, I can’t stand Laura, but I could never be so cruel as to do that to her in public. It was just easier for me to move out of the house and get away from her.”

  “Couldn’t you convince Ellie to ask Laura to leave? Or why didn’t you and Ellie move out together, into another house?” I couldn’t understand him giving up his marriage because of his sister-in-law. How weak was his marriage that that was even an option? And what about Ellie? According to Jeff Jenkins, she was ready to tell Laura to move out so she could move him in. Why hadn’t she valued her marriage enough to do the same for Chris? It made me wonder if there were more serious issues with their marriage than Chris was letting on.

  “I tried. I begged and begged her to tell Laura to move out. I even offered to put a deposit down on an apartment for Laura. I didn’t even want her to pay the money back, I just wanted her out of my house. But Ellie refused.” He shook his head and sighed. “It was our marriage. Our marriage didn’t mean enough to Ellie for her to stand up to her own sister.”

  That was sad. Who would give up their marriage because a relative didn’t want them to be happy? Especially if that relative had a thing for their spouse? None of it made any sense to me. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “You don’t know how sorry I was to hear it, too,” he said, nodding. “But like I said, maybe you should tell Ethan to take a real good look at Laura. She may pretend to be frail, but that’s an act. She wants people to feel sorry for her. She’s only sixty-two! She isn’t nearly as helpless as she tries to make herself out to be.”

  “I’ll definitely have Ethan have a talk with her,” I said. I wasn’t sure Ethan would agree to it. There had to be more to the story between Chris and Laura. “Ethan will probably want something more solid. Is there anything else you can think of?”

  He gave me a sly smile. “There is, actually,” he said and glanced over his shoulder at Christy who was now unpacking a box of red, white, and green jellybeans and pouring them into the bulk bin. He turned back to me. “She told me herself that she intended to make Josh suffer for what he did. And she did. She told Josh’s wife that he was seeing someone on the side.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “Who did you hear that from?”

  “Josh told me. He said he was going to get back at her, but I guess he never did.”

  “When did he tell you that?” I asked, leaning on the front counter. I was beginning to feel like Chris was trying a little too hard to get me to look in Laura’s direction and it made me wonder if that was because he didn’t want me to see the truth. Maybe he had killed Ellie and Josh.

  “I don’t remember exactly. Maybe a few weeks ago,” he said. “Makes me wonder though, maybe he threatened Laura because she told his wife he was with someone else. Laura might have thought he was going to hurt her, and she killed him before he could do anything to her.”

  “I guess that could be,” I said, thinking about this. “But how would Laura have killed him? Josh wasn’t a lightweight.”

  “Laura was keen on helping with the Christmas decorating down at the party house. She showed up a couple of times while I was there, and Josh complained about her being there. She wasn’t doing any actual decorating, you understand,” he said. “But she kept going up and down those stairs, and she was up there fiddling around with the boxes in the storage room. Ellie came around sometimes, too. I complained to Phil Peterson, but he just waved away my concerns.”

  “Really?” I said thoughtfully and remembered the clear view of the business district from the windows in the attic at the party house. “So both she and Ellie were coming around under the guise of decorating? Did Ellie go up those stairs?”

  He shook his head. “She never went up the stairs. Ellie told me she didn’t want to help decorate. She said she was too tired to decorate, but that Laura kept hounding her to go down there and help.”

  “And yet none of the decorating was done until last Saturday.”

  He nodded. “That’s exactly right. Laura kept going down there, but she never actually did any decorating.”

  When we had showed up to the party house on Saturday it seemed like some of the boxes were missing from upstairs. I wondered if Laura had something to do with that. If Laura had been up and down those stairs like Chris was saying, then she knew exactly how steep the stairs were. She would also be familiar with navigating them, and she had a good view of whoever was coming or going from the upstairs windows.

  “Chris, I heard a funny thing the other day. I heard you and Josh were in business together, but you never mentioned that.” I waited to see what he would say.

  He hesitated. “We were. It was short lived, only lasting a few months. But we had materials and equipment stolen and that ended the partnership.”

  “Why did that end the partnership?”

  A muscle in his jaw twitched. “Because I’m reasonably sure Josh broke in and stole everything. I didn’t have any proof, but I didn’t trust him anymore.”

  “That must have been hard,” I said. It also gave Chris a good reason to kill Josh.

  He nodded hesitantly and looked around the shop again. He suddenly looked uncomfortable. “It was. Well, I had better get going. I just thought I’d stop in for a minute.” He looked around the store again and then left without buying anything.

  I watched him go, feeling like he really wanted me to focus on Laura. What he’d said did make me wonder about her, but I was also more suspicious of Chris than I had ever been.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Everything Chris had said played on my mind. Was Laura really capable of murder—not once, but twice? It deeply bothered me that she might be capable of killing her own twin. If she really had tried to steal her twin’s husband, then that was terrible enough. But murdering her sister? I think that was what bothered me the most. There was a real possibility she had done these things.

  I got off work early, and on the short drive home, I turned down the street where Laura lived. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, but as I slowed down, I saw Laura out on her front porch arranging a wreath on her front door. I stopped my car in the middle of the street and watched. She must have heard my car’s engine because she looked over her shoulder and when she realized it was me, she smiled and waved.

  Against my better judgment, I pulled into her driveway and got out. “Hi Laura.”

  “Well, hello there Mia,” she said, turning and walking to the edge of her porch. She wore a red checked house dress with a white apron over it. “Fancy seeing you here.”

  I looked at her with her silver hair in a bun on top of her head and glasses slipping down to the tip of her nose. Her cane was nowhere in sight. As I gazed at her, I wondered if she really could have done it. “I was just on my way home, and when I saw you putting up your wreath, I thought I’d stop by. How are you doing these days, Laura? I’ve intended to stop in and check up on you, but I guess I’ve been a little busy with the Christmas season. I’m sorry.”

  She waved my apology away. “No need to apologize. There’s so much to do at Christmas time, isn’t there?” She chuckled. “Ellie used to get
in the Christmas spirit more than I do. She loved the holidays, and she never missed a thing that was holiday related. Why, she kept dragging me down to the ballroom to get me to help her decorate. I didn’t want to go, but she insisted.”

  “She did?” I asked, trying to keep the surprise out of my voice. I smiled, but happy wasn’t the word for what I felt, contemplating whether one sister could kill another. Chris had said Ellie didn’t want to decorate, and that it was all Laura’s doing. “Ethan and I enjoyed decorating the ballroom last Saturday. We finally got that Christmas tree up. We also helped hang some lights.”

  She chuckled. “You should have seen Ellie down there. We went up in that storage room, and she was like a kid on Christmas morning, looking through each of those boxes of decorations.” She laughed again. “Poor thing. I hate that she’s missing Christmas.”

  I narrowed my eyes at her. She was lying. “Really? Ellie went up into the storage room? Even with her severe vertigo?”

  She waved the questions away. “Sure, like I told you before. Ellie was stubborn. I told her she wasn’t supposed to do that, but she paid me no mind. I went up the stairs behind her in case she fell. I thought I could try to keep her from tumbling all the way down.” She sighed. “I guess I missed her the day she did tumble down those stairs. Those are wicked stairs, I tell you.”

  Chris said Ellie hadn’t gone up the stairs. I gritted my teeth against the words that threatened to spill out. After a moment, I breathed out hard. “If it were my sister, and she had a terrible case of vertigo, I would insist that she stay off those stairs. It would have been terrifying to see her go up those stairs when I knew it was so dangerous for her.”

  “Oh, you have no idea! I warned her and warned her, but she ignored me. I even told her I was going to call her doctor and tell on her, but she didn’t pay me any mind,” she said and chuckled again. “That was Ellie for you. She never listened to anything I said.”

  “I guess she must have been really stubborn, then,” I said. Things were beginning to fall into place for me. Laura was using Ellie’s stubbornness as an excuse for her being up in that room, but with the way she was behaving, it made me think it was Laura that led her up there. How easy would it have been to give her a little shove there at the top of the stairs? How would Ellie have stopped her fall once it began? She couldn’t.

  “She was stubborn all right,” she said, nodding. “Tell me Mia, is Ethan any closer to finding Ellie’s killer? Oh, and that Josh Tate person? Has he found his killer?”

  “He’s on the verge of making an arrest any day now. I’d sure hate to be the person that killed either of them,” I said pointedly. “In fact, I can’t imagine why anyone would kill another person, but now that they’ve done the crimes, they’ll have to do the time, as they say.”

  She nodded “Spending the rest of one’s life in prison would be awful,” she agreed. “I’d hate to be that person.”

  “What about you, Laura? Do you have any idea who might have killed either Ellie or Josh?”

  “Well there can only be one person that could be the killer,” she said pointedly.

  I stared at her. Was she about to make a confession?

  “Laura, did you kill your sister?” It was out of my mouth before I realized what I was saying.

  Laura’s eyes went wide, and her mouth dropped open as she stared at me, speechless for a few moments. “What? What did you just ask me?”

  I shook my head uncertainly, knowing Ethan wouldn’t like that I had asked her the question. “Did you kill Ellie?” It was already out there, so I may as well go all the way.

  She narrowed her eyes and put her hands on her hips. “Mia Jordan, how can you ask me such a thing? She was my sister! My identical twin sister! I could no more hurt her than I could a defenseless kitten. Why would you ask me something like that?”

  The look on her face said she was genuinely shocked at the question. Now I felt out of sorts. Had I really just asked her if she killed her sister? “Just answer the question, Laura.” I needed an answer. I needed to hear it from her own lips.

  “I did answer the question,” she said and huffed air out of her mouth. “Why, I’m shocked that you could even ask me something like that. No, I did not kill my sister. If you want to know who did, then why don’t you ask her ex-husband?”

  I sighed. Here we go again. “Why do you think Chris killed Ellie?” I asked her. A cold breeze blew across my body and I shivered. I was making a mess of things.

  “Isn’t it obvious? He hated Ellie and couldn’t wait to be rid of her. She had begged and begged him to stay with her, but he said she was holding him back. Their daughter was grown, and he said there was no reason for them to stay together.”

  “Ellie and Chris were divorced, so why would he need to murder her? He was already rid of her,” I pointed out. I was confused now. Why would Laura say Ellie begged Chris to stay if Chris had never wanted the divorce?

  “Yes, but she had a life insurance policy that had his name on it. She had never gotten it changed over to her daughter being the beneficiary. He stood to gain half a million dollars. He could start that business he’d always wanted.”

  My stomach dropped. I had never thought to ask anyone if Ellie had a life insurance policy.

  “Tell me, Laura, did you have a thing for Chris? Is that why he left Ellie?”

  She gasped. “Why, I never!” she exclaimed. Then she got quiet and her cheeks went pink. “All right. I may have thought that since they were having marital problems that he might be lonely. My sister didn’t treat him right. But I was not the cause of their marriage dissolving. Ellie didn’t love him anymore. But he killed her. I know he did.”

  “What about Chris? Did you follow him around town? Did you make a pass at him?”

  She gritted her teeth together and red creeped up her neck. “You are a nosy one, aren’t you, Mia? It’s none of your business.” It was true then. It surprised me, but maybe I was just naïve. I couldn’t see Laura behaving that way.

  “So do you think Chris just shoved Ellie down the stairs?” I needed to know about the murders. What did she think Chris had done? And was there any way to prove it?

  She nodded firmly. “Of course he did. From the very start, I told Ellie he was no good. I told her he was out running around on her. I told her he wanted rid of her and to be careful, but she didn’t believe me. Finally, she decided she wanted to be free of him, but he still wasn’t satisfied. He wanted her dead, and he killed her for the insurance money.”

  I knew there was a lot of bad blood between Laura and Chris, and I suddenly wondered if maybe Chris was trying to throw me off his trail by accusing Laura of the murder. But no, I didn’t think it could be Chris. There was just something about the situation that said it wasn’t him.

  “What about Josh? Do you think he killed Josh, too?”

  She nodded again. “Of course he did. Chris was jealous of Josh. Josh was young and handsome, and he was just beginning his family. Chris felt old and used up, his life nearly over. He even told me that with his daughter grown and out of the house, he felt his life was pointless.”

  I wasn’t sure I could believe any of this. “But why Josh? Lots of people are jealous of other people, but that doesn’t make them go out and kill them.”

  “Because they used to be in business together and Josh cheated Chris out of money. They did a lot of construction work, adding on rooms to people’s houses, building outbuildings, and that sort of thing. Josh got Chris to invest most of the money in the business, buying supplies in bulk. And then they had a break-in where they stored their material, and everything that was valuable was stolen. Chris always knew it was Josh, but he couldn’t prove it.” She glared at me as she spoke, sticking her chin out.

  “Why would Chris think Josh broke in and stole the material?” I asked weakly. “I mean, why wouldn’t he just think someone else had broken into the building and stolen the material?” I was feeling sick to my stomach. Had Chris lied to me?

/>   She sighed as if I were stupid. “Mia, some things are just obvious. Chris insisted they get security cameras on that building, and Josh said he would take care of it. But he never did. It was convenient that when Chris said he was going to go buy the cameras himself, the building was broken into and robbed that night.”

  I felt the color drain from my face. “Did he file a police report?” She had to be lying about all of this, I thought. This couldn’t have happened, could it?

  There was a glint in her eye as she grinned at me. “Of course there’s a police report. There was thirty thousand dollars worth of material in that building. There was no way Chris wasn’t going to file a police report. But the police never could find the material.”

  My stomach churned. She knew Ethan would be able to look up that police report and that meant that I now looked like a fool. “When did this happen?”

  “Back in September. And so you see, Mia,” she said, nodding again. “With the insurance from Ellie’s murder and Josh killed off as payback for stealing the building materials, Chris is now free to go on and live his life. If you ask me, I think he has a thing for Josh’s wife, Emily. It wouldn’t surprise me a bit if in a few months you see Chris and Emily together, raising that new baby.”

  I felt my head begin to spin, and I took a deep breath to steady myself. I was an idiot. And I needed to find Ethan and have him look up that police report. If she was lying, there was only one reason for it, she was the killer. But if she was telling the truth, then Chris was the killer.

  “I need to go now,” I said. I went back to my car, and before getting inside, I turned back to Laura. “I apologize for asking you if you killed your sister.”

  She snorted and stomped back into the house.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  I went home after talking to Laura. If I said I didn’t mope around the rest of the day, I’d be a liar. At this point, I was completely confused about what had happened to Ellie and Josh. Was Laura capable of murder? Or was it Chris? I didn’t know.