The Smoking Bun (Apple Orchard Cozy Mystery Book 10)

by Chelsea Thomas

  Teeny crossed her arms “I am not a walking panic attack.”

  “Yes you are. And you were more concerned about your Mr. Flowers box set than you were about your dearly departed sister. Don’t bother to apologize. Just tell me what you need. Do I have another cold-blooded murderer staying at my fine establishment? At this point, I should start offering discounts for killers. One night free for every person you kill. How does that sound?”

  “Sounds depressing and grim,” said Miss May. “And like it encourages the wrong kind of behavior.”

  Peach snorted. “Take a joke, Mabel.”

  “We’re not here looking for a murderer,” I said. “We were actually wondering… Was that chef, Buck, staying here?”

  Peach slapped her palm to her forehead. “Of course. That makes more sense. I forgot that guy had even stayed here. I would offer a discount to murder victims too, but there’s little chance they’re going to be repeat customers. Get it, Mabel? Because they’re dead.”

  Miss May gave Peach a tight smile. “I get it, Peach. Good one. Ha. Ha.”

  Peach gathered a few keys off the pegboard behind her and came around to our side of the counter. “You’re going to have to be patient because I forget which room he was in.”

  “The police haven’t been here to check it out?” asked Miss May, casting a sidelong glance in my direction.

  “You know the cops in this town,” said Peach. “Chelsea knows them better than any of us.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked.

  “Nothing, sweetheart. I’m just saying. These cops talk a lot of talk but they don’t do much of anything. Follow me.”

  Peach groaned as she walked up the steps, one foot at a time. “This Buck guy has been staying here for a couple months now. He was one of my long term crashers. I guess he and his lady were splitting up.”

  “Everyone had that information but us,” said Miss May. “I’m beginning to worry we’re becoming less connected to the rumor mill.”

  “If Chelsea would start online dating she would know about every single man in town,” said Teeny. “But she just has to have a boyfriend. And a handsome detective on deck.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “I’ll try to be less romantically successful.”

  “Don’t apologize to these two for anything,” said Peach as she reached the second floor. “They can online date if they want. You don’t have to do anything they say. You do you.”

  Peach paused to catch her breath when we reached the second floor. Then she started opening random doors to try to find Buck’s accommodations. The first door she opened introduced us to an old man who was using the toilet. The second room led us to a maid who was napping in an unmade guest bed. The third room was empty.

  Finally, we came to the last room at the end of the hall. Peach popped open the door and nodded. “Yup. This is the one. Have fun.”

  Peach stepped aside and we entered. And I was immediately shocked by what I saw inside.

  19

  Clean Your Room!

  Buck’s room was so messy it was hard to believe only one man had been staying there.

  Piles of clothes obscured every inch of the floor. Fast food wrappers were scattered on every surface, which surprised me considering Buck’s reputation as a gastronomical wunderkind. And the bathroom sink was caked in dried toothpaste and beard trimmings.

  The room looked as though someone had locked a trio of teenage boys inside and said, “Figure it out.”

  Miss May kicked at a pile of dirty clothes with her loafer. “I can’t believe this place. Buck had a tidy appearance. He seemed so concerned with how he looked, what with the tattoos and his carefully groomed little beard. But this place is horrifying.”

  Teeny turned to Peach. “Are you sure this is the right room?”

  I pointed at the floor where a few chefs whites were crumpled up and stained. “Those are his clothes. You can see the Peter’s Land and Sea logo on that shirt.”

  “How are we going to find a clue in this mess?” asked Teeny.

  “Maybe this mess is a clue,” I said. “Maybe Buck was mentally unstable or perhaps he had a secret teenage son… Or three.”

  “I suppose,” Miss May said. “But I don’t understand. Peach, doesn’t the maid service at the Dragonfly clean every day?”

  “When they’re not napping, they’re supposed to be cleaning,” said Peach. “But Buck requested no maid service for his stay. Negotiated a lower room rate for it. Said he didn’t want anybody prying around. Maybe he was embarrassed by his insane sloppiness.”

  “The guy was disgusting,” said Teeny. Then she clapped a hand over her mouth. “Whoops. I forgot my new rules. Let’s see… Buck was so clean. And he wasn’t a sicko at all. He seems like he was a great guy and I don’t understand why Hannah didn’t want to be with him anymore.”

  “We don’t know that Hannah left him,” I said. “It’s possible Buck left her. Although this room does seem like it was home to someone who lost the will to clean from heartbreak and depression.”

  “Did Buck do anything suspicious while he was here, Peach?” Miss May asked.

  “Pretty suspicious to request no maid. Beyond that… He drank a lot of coffee every morning. He had a couple of angry phone calls in the lobby. I assumed those conversations were between the exiled slob and his wife. I don’t know. I’m suspicious of anyone with more than one tattoo. He had an entire arm covered so I looked at him funny everywhere he went.”

  “You’re such a good host,” said Miss May.

  “Buzz off. The guy was clearly a demented sicko. I was right to make him feel like one.”

  I crossed over to the TV stand. Several bottles of water were clustered around the TV, alongside a few empty cans and an extra large energy drink. The energy drink stuck to the wood when I tried to pull it up and left a large ring on the wooden surface.

  Peach shook her head. “See? Who does that? Demented.”

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

  Miss May looked around with her hands on her hips. “I guess we need to go through this stuff.”

  I looked at the mess and squinted like I was peering directly into the sun. “OK then. Let’s get started.”

  For the next couple hours, the three of us sorted through Buck’s collection of filth with great care. Miss May checked the pockets of every article of clothing on the floor and found nothing more than empty gum wrappers, bottle caps, and rubber bands.

  Teeny handled the clothes that remained in the closet. She found a grocery list that consisted only of gourmet items, truffles chief among them. But she didn’t find anything else of note.

  I handled the surfaces, including the coffee table, the TV stand, the dresser, and, ew, the bathroom.

  Most of the surfaces were cluttered with sticky bottles like the one I’d pried off the TV stand. I also had the unfortunate luck to find a pile of stinky socks on one of the nightstands alongside a deposit of crusty old tissues. But I had a breakthrough just a few minutes after I began investigating the bathroom. There, resting on the back of the toilet, was a hairbrush matted with tangled, long, brown hair.

  I grabbed the hairbrush and rushed into the bedroom. “Look. I found something.”

  Teeny shrugged. “It’s a hairbrush. So what?”

  “Oh my goodness!” Miss May stepped forward and took the hairbrush from me like she was handling live dynamite.

  “What is it, May?” Teeny squealed.

  Miss May swallowed hard. “Buck was bald. And his wife… is a blonde.”

  20

  I Scream, You Scream, Extra Sprinkles Please

  Miss May, Teeny and I went straight from the Dragonfly to Pine Grove’s newest ice cream shop to discuss our recent discovery. The place was called Cherry on Top. It was housed in a cute white building. And the owner, Emily, was just as cute.

  Emily greeted us with a big smile. “Hey! How are you three doing? Stressed from the recent investigation and looking for
a creamy pick-me-up?”

  “You know me too well, Emily,” said Teeny. “You’re like my bartender and my therapist and my priest all rolled up into one.”

  “One scoop vanilla, one scoop chocolate, rainbow sprinkles, chocolate sprinkles, sprinkles on the side?”

  Teeny smiled wide. “Make it a double.”

  Miss May and I followed Teeny and placed our orders with enthusiasm. I got a kid’s cone of Moose Tracks and Miss May got an ice cream sundae with graham crackers and honey.

  Emily chatted with us as she prepared our treats. “Any big breakthroughs in the case? I’m here to help if you need me. I always keep one ear to the ground. Hurts my neck sometimes, but I like to be informed.”

  Miss May shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “We have a couple of decent ideas but nothing concrete. Keep your eyes peeled for us.”

  “Like I said, my ear is always to the ground.” Emily pointed to a trio of security cameras posted near the entrance. “And my cameras are always on.”

  Emily served us our ice cream with a big grin. “These are on the house, ladies. You three do a great service for this town. You deserve a free treat once in a while.”

  Miss May demurred. “Please let us pay.”

  She held out some cash but Emily pushed her hand away. “I said it’s on the house! Don’t insult me.”

  “Fine,” said Miss May. “But you can’t reject this tip.” With lightning speed, Miss May jammed a $10 bill into the tip jar. Emily laughed and crossed her arms.

  Miss May returned the laugh with a shrug. “I’ve been doing this for a long time, sweetheart. You’ve got to be faster than that.”

  We chose a table off to the side of the ice cream shop where no one on Main Street could hear us talk, then we dug into our treats and our conversation with equal ferocity.

  “So what are we thinking about this suspicious hairbrush?” Miss May asked.

  Teeny wiggled in her seat. “Oh. OK. I have a theory.”

  “Your theory won’t count if it’s from Jenna and Mr. Flowers,” said Miss May.

  “But it’s pertinent,” said Teeny. “Is that the right word? Pertinent?”

  “We won’t know until you share your theory,” I said.

  “OK. So in a recent episode of Jenna and Mr. Flowers—”

  “Knew it,” said Miss May.

  “Can I talk?” asked Teeny.

  “Sorry.”

  “OK. So. I think it was season seven, episode thirty-eight… Mr. Flowers started wearing a wig all over town so nobody would know who he was. And the whole mystery was tied up in his ‘secret identity.’”

  “So you think Buck had been wearing a wig around Pine Grove?” I asked.

  “That’s right,” said Teeny. “I think Buck had been wearing a brown wig around town for months, sneaking through the shadows like a totally different person. And he was using that hairbrush on the wig. If that were true, Buck may have been in all sorts of places we haven’t been looking for him. ‘Cuz he was in disguise!”

  “I think it would be hard for someone with those kind of tattoos to hide in plain sight,” said Miss May. “But I suppose it could have been strands of Buck’s wig in the hairbrush.”

  “People don’t brush wigs, I don’t think,” I said. “Besides, I didn’t see a wig in that pig sty of a room. Did either of you see one?”

  Miss May and Teeny shook their heads. No wig had been discovered, brown, purple, blue, or otherwise.

  “If the long, brown hair didn’t come from a wig,” said Miss May, “I think it came from the head of a woman.”

  Teeny widened her eyes. “The head of a dead woman? So you think Buck was a killer too. That sneaky, conniving, ugly—”

  “I don’t think Buck was a killer,” said Miss May. “I think the hair in the brush belonged to a living woman. Like maybe someone with whom Buck was having an affair?”

  Teeny gasped. “That’s a good theory!”

  “But you think this relationship with the brown-haired woman caused the separation from Hannah?” I asked. “Or do you think Buck’s relationship with the brown-haired woman came after he moved out on his own?”

  “I think they separated because Hannah found out about the cheating,” said Teeny. “Infidelity causes marital problems all the time. It’s probably the number one cause of divorce. Either that or arguing about what shows to watch.”

  “True,” I said. “Plus it’s hard for me to imagine that Buck found a new partner while he was living out of a filthy hotel room. No man could get a woman with such a dirty abode. So I think Buck and this mystery woman were involved before the separation, and I think they had been together since Buck was living with Hannah in a nice house. The brown-haired woman probably had no idea what a slob Buck was until he moved out of the house he shared with Hannah.”

  “Maybe the brown-haired woman killed him once she realized how gross he was,” said Teeny. “Like, she was so disgusted that she’d had an affair with such a slovenly creature that she had to murder him. That wouldn’t shock me.”

  “That’s not a strong motive for murder,” Miss May said.

  Teeny pouted. “Then what do you think is up with the brown-haired woman? How do you think she’s connected to this case?”

  Miss May shrugged. “I don’t know. But this feels important.”

  “Do either of you have any ideas about who the woman might be?” I asked.

  Miss May and Teeny shrugged. Then I looked up and down Main Street for a clue. I saw several brown-haired women out and about in town. Pine Grove was having a great hair day. But one of those women might have been wrapped up in something very, very bad.

  21

  To Dye For

  Teeny needed to go back to her restaurant after ice cream so I dropped her off, and Miss May and I headed back to the farm. It was late afternoon and the sun was beginning to set across Pine Grove. The hills behind town jumped with vibrant reds, yellows and oranges. The whole scene was peaceful and serene.

  I was eager to discuss the possible identity of the brown haired woman. But Miss May spent the drive making phone calls to handle orchard business.

  First, my aunt called the facility that bottled and labeled our homemade apple cider. It was a family-run factory a couple of hours away in New Jersey. The old Italian man on the other end of the line sounded tough. But Miss May managed to reduce our cost per finished good by a few cents. That didn’t seem like a lot, but she later explained to me that those few cents applied across every bottle would earn the farm thousands of dollars a year.

  Miss May was still on the phone when we arrived home so I was left with a good deal of what I like to call, “Chelsea time.”

  I whistled for Steve the dog and he came running on his three good legs and one limpy leg out of the farmhouse to greet me. Then the two of us walked the grounds of the orchard. I took Steve along my favorite route, tracing the brook on the outer edge of the property. It had rained in the last week so the brook moved with extra energy. Steve splashed around like a little kid (or I guess, like a dog), and I snapped a few pictures of him on my phone. You can never have too many pictures of your fur babies, am I right?

  We ran into KP out among the apple trees. KP was Miss May’s right hand man on the farm, a jack-of-all-trades who helped with maintenance, finances, and sometimes even cooking. He had a gruff exterior but a soft heart, and he was surprisingly fond of Steve and the other animals on the farm.

  The moment we came across KP, he was wearing sweatpants and a sweatshirt with sweat bands over his wrists and forehead, pumping his legs and walking in place. I giggled. “KP. Hi. Are you out here getting ripped?”

  KP scoffed. “No way. I was in great shape for my whole 20’s. Overrated, if you ask me. If you’re too lean, you’ve got nowhere to rest the clicker while you’re watching TV. I’m just trying to get out here and get moving. I saw a segment on Good Morning America about the importance of moving your body. Keeps your mind sharp too. You know about all that, righ
t?”

  “Everybody’s exercising lately. Miss May walked all the way to Grandma’s from the farm.”

  KP widened his eyes. “Had no idea that old bird could still fly. Good for her. I bet you beat her there by a mile.”

  “I woke up late and drove.”

  KP chuckled. “Like I said. Bet you beat her there.”

  “Actually, no. She still got there before me,” I said. “I woke up very late.”

  KP and I laughed. He leaned over and gave Steve a pet. “This guy’s getting scruffy. He needs some TLC. Better call the groomer before people start thinking he’s a stray.”

  “I agree. Even the tramp from Lady and the Tramp had a better haircut than this. I’ll find a groomer to come up and take care of it.”

  KP resumed pumping his legs and added a strange little twist to his movements, which I suspected was for my amusement. “Have a nice walk.”

  I smiled. “Thanks. Have a nice… Whatever this is.”

  Steve and I strolled through the orchard for another hour or two. When we got home, Miss May was setting the table and there was a fresh, hot pizza on the counter.

  I thrust both my fists in the air. “Pizza party mystery detective time.”

  Miss May shook her head. “You are so much the same as when you were a kid. I knew pizza would make you happy. Grab a slice. I’ve been thinking.”

  I opened the box. Inside there was a square pizza with fresh slices of mozzarella and plenty of dark red sauce and fresh basil. In New York, we call this a “grandma pie.” It’s thin and crispy and so light and fresh even a grandma could finish the whole thing by herself. Not sure if that’s where the name comes from, but I like to think so.

  I slid a slice onto my plate and the cheese stretched and bubbled. When I took a bite, I let out a soft sigh and slumped down in my chair. “I had no idea I was even hungry, but now I realize I was starving.” I took another big bite. “So how are we going to figure out whose hair was on that brush?”