Merry Christmas Cozy Mystery Gift Set

by Meredith Potts

  Trevor tensed up.

  Detective Stone continued. “You’re awfully quiet all of a sudden.”

  “What’s the point of answering your questions if you don’t believe a word I say?” Trevor replied.

  “Your word is only as strong as your ability to back it up, which you haven’t been able to do.”

  “You haven’t been able to prove that I’m guilty, either. You have no evidence of anything, just theories. That’s why I’m done answering your questions,” Trevor said.

  That might have been the most truthful thing Trevor had said all day. As much as we wished that we could refute that, neither the detective nor I had any incriminating evidence…yet. With Trevor going tight lipped on us, we elected to move on to the next suspect on our list.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Unfortunately, Kristen Cramer was not at home when we stopped by her place. On a positive note, unlike with Jake’s ex-girlfriend, there was no need to put out an all-points bulletin to find Kristen. A simple call to her workplace gave us the information we needed. Kristen was at Ainsley’s Bakery, finishing up her shift. If we sped over there, we could just catch her before she headed elsewhere.

  Detective Stone put the pedal to the metal and burned rubber over to the bakery as I readied my questions for her. At the back of my mind, I couldn’t help but hope that she’d still be inside when we got there. Interrogating a suspect was bad enough. Having to do it out in the cold was excruciating.

  My prayer was not answered. I’d been to Ainsley’s Bakery many times in the past. My waistline might argue a little too often. Typically, the moment I spotted the store’s pink sign, my mind drifted to thoughts of delicious pastries. In fact, if it wasn’t for this murder investigation, no doubt I would have put my diet to shame by stuffing my face with a few chocolate croissants.

  Perhaps, after I’d solved the case, I’d do just that. In the meantime, my taste buds had to take a backseat when I saw Kristen emerge from behind the building, headed for her car in the parking lot.

  “There she is,” I pointed out. “You can’t let her get to her car.”

  “Don’t worry. She won’t,” Detective Stone replied.

  I tried to look on the bright side. While we’d have to brave the cold for this questioning, at least Kristen hadn’t already left the parking lot, headed to parts unknown. Still, we had precious little time to work with and needed to get straight to the heart of the matter.

  The detective cut through the parking lot until his car was halfway between Kristen and her parked car. If Kristen wanted to get to her sedan, she’d have to go through us. The detective quickly turned off the car and got out. I joined him with a steely resolve on my face.

  Kristen had a completely different expression. Her face was frozen in a state of shock like she’d realized she’d been pranked on a hidden-camera reality show.

  “Ms. Cramer, we have to talk to you,” Detective Stone said.

  The shock wore off on Kristen’s face, replaced by confusion. She had only half-zipped her parka revealing the 1950s-style pink work uniform she was wearing underneath. Her long red hair was pulled back in a ponytail, which only made the freckles on her oval face stand out even more.

  Sensing she wouldn’t be getting to her car as quickly as she’d hoped, the curvy fifty-four-year-old flipped the hood up on her parka and zipped the jacket all the way to the top to shield herself from the cold. For added warmth, she folded her arms.

  Puffy parka aside, Kristen was carrying a few extra pounds than when I’d last seen her. It could have been from all the stress eating after her divorce. Then again, spending her entire day working around delicious pastries made it awfully difficult to keep the pounds off.

  I knew that if I were in her line of work, the chances of me ballooning up in weight would be dangerously high. I could admit my faults, and my willpower around tasty treats was sorely lacking. Kristen knew a thing or two about having a shortage of willpower.

  Her inability to keep her adulterous desires at bay led her to have an affair that tore apart her marriage. That lack of willpower ended up having dire financial consequences in divorce court. Kristen’s Pie Palace, the dessert emporium she’d spent over fifteen years building up, was the biggest casualty. The judge forced her to sell her business and give her husband half of the profits.

  With nowhere near enough money to open a new dessert place of her own, she found herself having to take a job working for Ainsley’s Bakery instead. That was a lot of crow for her to eat, which was especially difficult for her to choke down seeing as how discerning of a culinary palette she had.

  The news of her affair with Trevor Skelton had broken due to Jake’s private-eye work. In her mind, the root of all her problems stemmed from Jake’s investigative work. Had she sought revenge by taking Jake’s life?

  Unlike Trevor Skelton, Kristen replied to Detective Stone with befuddlement rather than belligerence.

  “Detective, I didn’t expect to be seeing you again,” Kristen said.

  “I have a few more questions for you,” the detective replied.

  She groaned. “It’s one of those days, isn’t it?”

  “What do you mean?” Detective Stone asked.

  “I just had a hectic day at work and want to go home.”

  “What made it so hectic?”

  “It was just really busy. Now, can I go? I’m exhausted.”

  He stopped her. “Not so fast. The quicker you answer the questions, the quicker this will be over.”

  Kristen turned a suspicious eye to me. “Who is this?”

  “We’re the ones asking the questions here,” I replied.

  She glared at me and then turned back to the detective. “I think you’re wasting your time. I don’t have anything new to say.”

  I wasn’t about to let her be that dismissive with me. “We’ll see about that.”

  Kristen patronized me. “You’re a feisty one, aren’t you? Well, calm down. I already told the detective everything I know, which isn’t much.”

  She was really starting to get under my skin.

  I gave her the business. “A man has been murdered. The killer is still on the loose. The last thing I’m going to be is calm. Now, let’s get down to business.”

  Kristen huffed. “Fine. What do you want to know?”

  “Tell me where you were between seven and seven fifteen on Tuesday.”

  “Like I told the detective before, I was at home, making dinner,” Kristen replied.

  Detective Stone stepped in. “Since your story hasn’t changed, it means you still don’t have anyone to verify your alibi.”

  The nonchalance disappeared from Kristen’s voice. She went on the defensive. “Just because I don’t have anyone to verify it doesn’t mean it isn’t true.”

  “By the same token, you don’t have any way to prove the allegation is false,” Detective Stone said.

  Her exasperation ramped up from zero to sixty in a hurry. “I don’t know why you’re wasting your time. You’re focused on whether someone was with me, but you keep missing out on the bigger point.”

  “Are you still pretending that you don’t have a motive?” Detective Stone asked.

  Kristen held firm on her opinion. “I’m not pretending.”

  She kept acting like it was all some big mistake that her name was on the suspect list, but both the detective and I had ample reason to suspect her of the crime. Just as I was about to bring those details to light, the detective beat me to it.

  “Do you want me to have headquarters pull out the police report from last March?” Stone said.

  Kristen was dismissive with her reply. “The key phrase there being ‘last March.’”

  The detective disagreed. “No. The key phrase there was ‘police report.’ You caused such a scene at the restaurant he was eating at that the manager called the police to have you removed from the premises.”

  Kristen was lucky I wasn’t at the restaurant that night. I had no tolerance for
people mistreating those closest to me. The particular evening in question, Jake was having dinner with his parents when Kristen stumbled into the place all liquored up. Initially, she went over to the cashier to order food for carry out. When she spotted Jake, her plans changed.

  She rushed over to his table and started telling him off. It soon erupted into a huge scene that disrupted everyone in the restaurant. As management tried to stop her, she began flailing her arms around and yelled even louder about how Jake and his investigating had ruined her life. The police were called, and she was eventually dragged away to the station. A judge sentenced her to community service and substance-abuse counseling.

  As for the incident itself, I’d never forget a few details that Jake told me while relaying the story. He described her as a wild animal that had been let out of a cage and that the rage in her eyes was unforgettable.

  Yet, now, ten months later, Kristen seemed all too happy to sweep it under the rug like it had never happened.

  “That was a long time ago. A lot has happened between then and now. I’m two hundred and seventy-seven days sober since then,” Kristen explained.

  “Did time really heal all your wounds, though?” I asked.

  Kristen was becoming increasingly annoyed with me. I could see it in her eyes. She did her best to keep it from boiling over.

  “Yes,” she replied.

  Kristen said the words, but I didn’t believe them. They were completely hollow to me.

  I tried to draw her true feelings out of her. “You used to have a four-bedroom home on two acres. Now you’re living in a one-bedroom apartment. You used to run your own business. Now you’re working the dawn patrol shift at someone else’s bakery. You can say you got over your rage a long time ago, but you can’t deny that your life is fundamentally different.”

  That really set her off. Her eyes filled with rage. I was sure she was about to explode. If she did, maybe she’d let some incriminating detail slip out without realizing it.

  Unfortunately, she proved me completely wrong. Somehow she managed to keep a lid on her emotions.

  Kristen responded calmly. “I told you, that’s all in the past. These days, I have my eyes on nothing but the future.”

  I was getting nowhere with her.

  The detective turned to other means to try and make headway. “Regardless of whether you tell us that incident is in the past or not, in my mind, you still have a very strong motive, and there’s no way of refuting the fact that you have no verifiable alibi.”

  Kristen kept a cool head. “What you believe and what you can prove are two different things. Face it—you have nothing on me but speculation.”

  “You’re walking a fine line,” Detective Stone warned.

  “And I’m going to keep walking, because I didn’t do this,” Kristen replied.

  The detective stared her down.

  Kristen continued. “Anyway, it’s freezing out here. I want to get in my warm car.”

  “Heading home?” Detective Stone asked.

  Kristen was short with him. “Yeah. Why?”

  “Because we’ve got our eyes on you.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Just when I was starting to believe that I’d spent too much time complaining about the weather, Jack Frost nipped at me again. An unexpected stiff breeze swept through town, turning Main Street into a wind tunnel. For all the high-tech equipment that weather forecasters had at their disposal, afternoons like this made me realize they were just taking wild guesses at what the weather would truly be on any given day.

  Unfortunately, when meteorologists were incorrect with their forecasts, it always seemed to be because they underestimated how cold it was. When was the last time they predicted a dreadful day only for the sun to come out bringing delightfully warm weather with it?

  This new cold front reminded me how much I needed a hot beverage. Besides, with the way the questioning was going, I knew I couldn’t have too much caffeine in my system. And, if we were going to stop in to get a coffee, there was no reason to ignore my tummy. My poor stomach had been rumbling for over an hour, especially after our trip to the parking lot of Ainsley’s Bakery.

  I had pushed my hunger aside but knew now that my stomach wouldn’t let up until it had been fed. A pit stop for food suddenly rose to the top of the itinerary. It was never wise to ignore my stomach. Sometimes in a situation like that, food was more important than I realized. Sleuthing was as much of an intellectual exercise as it was a physical one. I had to keep my mind sharp. To do that, I had to keep my hunger pangs at bay.

  Luckily, I knew the perfect place in town to grab a quick and delicious meal. The Frozen Pine Diner beckoned. It was a place where comfort food was always on the menu, which was good, as I needed some comfort right about then.

  As Detective Stone and I walked into the diner, I saw one of my oldest friends waiting tables. Astrid Kelton was not a typical Alaskan frontierswoman. She was a tall, lean, thirty-five-year-old with dirty blond hair that went halfway down her back. Rugged was not a word in her vocabulary. She was definitely more of an ethereal woman. Some of the less tactful residents called her a space case. Sure, she was a little ditzy, but her heart was always in the right place, which, to me, was what mattered most.

  The fact that she didn’t quite fit in with the rest of the locals was one of the reasons we both got along so well. We were both a little out of the ordinary, but instead of feeling bad about it, we embraced it. Astrid approached life in a different way than I did, mostly by slathering a great number of her responses in sarcasm. That famous wry wit was on full display that afternoon.

  “Some weather we’re having, huh?” she joked.

  I couldn’t help but let out a belly laugh. “Some weather I’d like to get rid of, you mean?”

  “Yeah. I don’t know about you, but I’m ready for winter to be over.”

  “The problem is, winter isn’t nearly done with us.”

  “Tell me about it. I saw some deer huddling for warmth in my backyard this morning,” Astrid replied.

  “Very funny.”

  “Oh, you think I’m joking, huh? I wish.” Astrid took the kind of relaxing deep breath that they taught her in her guided meditation classes. “But, enough about the weather. You two look like you could use some mac and cheese—which just happens to be our special for the day.”

  I let my subconscious do the talking for me. “What I could really use is a drink.”

  Astrid played along. “Don’t tempt me, especially not while I’m still on the clock.”

  “At least you get to punch out. We don’t get any relief until we solve this case.”

  “How is that going?”

  Detective Stone stepped in. “Do you really think we’re going to discuss an ongoing police investigation with you?”

  I ignored the detective and did just that. “Actually, I was wondering if you’ve seen or heard anything interesting.”

  It wasn’t my standard protocol to ask all my friends what they thought about a case, but Astrid wasn’t just a friend. She happened to work at the epicenter of gossip in town. The rumor mill was alive and well at the diner. The question was, what kind of rumors were making the rounds at the moment?

  “This is Alaska. I’ve heard a number of crazy things.”

  “Any of them about this case?”

  Astrid nodded.

  That got the detective’s interest. “Really?”

  I stared Detective Stone down. “Oh, so now you’re interested in what she has to say?”

  Detective Stone avoided answering my question and turned to Astrid. “So, what have you heard?”

  “Don’t get too excited. It’s a small town in the dead of winter. Of course people have been talking about the murder. What they haven’t been saying is anything useful,” Astrid replied.

  I became deflated. So much for that idea. Well, it was worth a try.

  Then, in true ditzy fashion, Astrid remembered a useful detail. “Although, Billy Conk
lin was in here earlier.”

  I got excited again. “And?”

  “He was in rough shape.”

  “Well, he is in the midst of a divorce.”

  “Yeah, but he looked like he was at the end of his rope,” Astrid revealed.

  The detective and I turned to each other at the same time, both thinking the same thing.

  He vocalized his thought first. “Motive.”

  Astrid continued. “It looked like he’d been hitting the bottle hard.”

  “Did he say anything odd, or is that it?” I asked.

  “I wish I could give you more to work with,” Astrid said.

  “Well, if something does come up--”

  Astrid knew exactly where I was going with my thought. “Don’t worry. I’ll keep my ear to the ground.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  In the meantime, comfort food beckoned. I ordered the mac and cheese, while Detective Stone got a double bacon cheeseburger with fries. It was not exactly the stuff that diet dreams were made of, but if ever there was a time to take a cheat day, it was then.

  Chapter Fifteen

  With our stomachs full and our energy levels restored, the detective and I set out to question Billy Conklin. He was the most recent suspect to have his marriage implode due to the investigative findings of my boyfriend. Billy’s anger was still fresh, as were the wounds to both his relationship and his wallet. I wanted to be careful not to underestimate the volatility of a situation like his.

  Before the detective and I had a chance to reach Billy’s cabin, Stone got a call over his police radio. The all-points bulletin had been successful. Carole Dunning had been spotted at the general store halfway between Frozen Pine and the town of Goose Gulch. One of Stone’s deputies had driven out there and was currently detaining her for questioning.

  We temporarily shelved our plans to question Billy Conklin and headed towards the general store. When we arrived twenty minutes later, I knew it was going to be the most contentious interrogation that we’d had all day. Of course, it didn’t help that the deputy was holding Carole in the back of his squad car. While that kept Carole from having any violent outbursts, it put her in the foulest of moods.