A Spoonful of Murder

by Connie Archer

  Marjorie and Cecily had come and gone, Hank and Barry hadn’t arrived as yet and still there were no customers. Jack had learned that Sage was being moved to the facility in Bournmouth today. His arraignment would take place on Monday. Lucky stared at the neon sign in the window, vivid against a darkening sky. Another snowstorm coming in.

  The bell above the door jingled. Lucky looked up hopefully as she felt the blast of cold air. Sophie stood in the doorway. She stared at Lucky, glanced at Jack and her gaze swept the restaurant. “You weren’t kidding about business being down, huh?”

  “Nope. Want some coffee? It’s on the house.”

  “Love some.” Sophie marched across to the counter and heaved herself onto a stool with a sigh. “Have you heard?”

  “About Sage?”

  “They moved him this morning.”

  Lucky placed a hot cup of coffee in front of Sophie and poured one for herself. “I’m so sorry, Sophie.”

  Sophie nodded. Her face twisted and then the tears started. Her breath came in ragged gasps. Lucky moved around the counter and sat next to her, putting an arm around her shoulders while she cried.

  “It just all seems so hopeless,” she mumbled, angrily swiping at her nose. Lucky passed her a napkin.

  “It’s never hopeless. Don’t give up on Sage.”

  “I’m not giving up on Sage. That isn’t what I meant. I just meant…this whole mess.” She blew her nose noisily. “Have you found anything out?”

  Lucky glanced over at Jack, seated with his newspaper by the front window. He caught her eye and returned discreetly to his reading. “Yes and no. But Chance told me something interesting. I think she was seeing somebody who…” Lucky hesitated, unwilling to betray Elias’s confidence that Honeywell had been pregnant. And unwilling to share her suspicions about Jon Starkfield.

  “Who what?” Sophie demanded.

  “My suspicion is that she was seeing someone who wasn’t free—someone most likely married and possibly she was threatening him.”

  “Well, duh…do you know who?”

  Lucky shook her head. “I’ve talked to everyone I can think of. I keep running into dead ends. But I’m not giving up. Look around you. We’re going to be in bankruptcy if this isn’t cleared up. What’s Jack going to do? What am I going to do? Here I’ve inherited a successful business and before I can turn around, it’s ruined. I’m just as desperate as you.”

  Sophie nodded. “I’m sorry. None of this is your fault. I don’t mean to sound like I’m attacking you.”

  “Did he tell you they’ve taken a swab from him—for DNA?”

  “No.” Sophie had a frightened look in her eye. “What good would that do, if he hadn’t been with her?”

  Lucky thought carefully how to frame her words. “The girls—Janie and Meg—the night of the storm. The night Honeywell was killed…”

  “Spit it out, Lucky.” The color had drained from Sophie’s face.

  “They saw Honeywell in her car. She pulled over and jumped out and accosted Sage on the street. He was just walking home. According to the girls, he didn’t touch her; he held up his hands as if to say, Leave me alone. But it looked to them as if she took a swipe at him. I asked him about it and he confirmed it. There’s a scratch on his neck. He jumped back and walked away very fast. I don’t mean to upset you anymore, but what if…”

  “You’re saying what if some of his skin was under her fingernails and they can prove it,” Sophie finished. “Damn,” she muttered. “If only he had been at my place that night. He’d have a perfect alibi.”

  Lucky had heard the explanation from Sage but was curious to have Sophie confirm it. “Why weren’t you together?”

  Sophie looked at her quickly. “The storm. I was stuck at work late and then I had an early morning bunny class—indoors at the Resort. You know, for people who are just learning techniques before they go out on the slopes. I was afraid if I went home, I might not be able to get back the next morning, so I just stayed there.”

  Lucky kept her expression neutral. She had told Sage she pulled a muscle and wanted to fall into bed. Why had Sophie just given her a long-winded explanation of her appointments? It was possible that both explanations were true and maybe Sophie didn’t want Sage knowing she was spending the night at the Lodge. One of them wasn’t telling the whole truth, and that just might be Sophie.

  A needling fear arose in Lucky’s mind. What if Sophie weren’t as innocent as she appeared? What if…what if she knew a lot more than she was saying? What if she were somehow involved in Honeywell’s murder—even as an accessory after the fact—but never imagining that Sage would be a suspect? She wondered if Sophie was using her to reveal something she couldn’t herself reveal.

  “Sophie—are you sure you’ve told me everything you know about this?”

  Sophie’s eyes opened wide. At first she was silent, unable to respond. Lucky could see the wheels turning behind her eyes, then a flash of irritation. “What…?”

  “There’s something else. I don’t want to get into all the details, but I found out Honeywell had been getting some threatening phone calls—warning her to get out of town.”

  Sophie’s eyes widened and two red spots appeared on her cheeks. “How did you…”

  Lucky looked at her quizzically. “Sophie…”

  The bell over the door rang. Sophie turned quickly to see who had arrived. It was Rosemary from the Clinic. She shut the door behind her and held a hand up in greeting. Sophie turned back to the counter without a word, shooting an irritated look at Lucky. Quickly, she wiped her eyes. Lucky waved at Rosemary, indicating she should join them at the counter.

  Rosemary pulled off her cap and unwound her scarf, glancing at Sophie. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything?”

  Sophie waved her hand. “Not at all. Join us, please. We’re just commiserating together.”

  “Where is everyone?” Rosemary looked around the restaurant.

  “Staying far away, obviously. Are you here for lunch? If so, you’re very welcome—we have two choices of soup and three choices of sandwich today,” Lucky replied.

  “I’m on my lunch break. I don’t have long, but soup and half a sandwich sounds great.”

  “How about our chicken artichoke soup with tarragon and white wine and an avocado, tomato and sprout sandwich?”

  Rosemary smiled and nodded.

  “Okay,” Lucky said. “Just take a minute.” She retreated to the kitchen and dished out a generous bowl of soup and quickly prepared the half sandwich, returning to the counter and placing the dishes in front of Rosemary. “Hope you like this. We don’t have a lot ready these days.”

  “This’ll be wonderful. Thanks.” Rosemary pulled off her gloves and stirred the hot soup. “I really came over for a chance to talk to you away from the Clinic.”

  Lucky’s ears went up, and Sophie swiveled on her stool to stare curiously at Rosemary.

  Rosemary took a large bite of her sandwich. Still chewing, she said, “You remember you told me you thought you lost an earring? And I said I hadn’t seen one?”

  Lucky nodded in response.

  “Well, I asked Melissa, the other receptionist. She said a patient had gone out to the parking lot and then came back. The woman had found an earring by the steps to our back door.”

  “What did it look like?”

  “Don’t you know?” Rosemary looked at her in confusion.

  Lucky was stumped for words for a moment. “Oh yes, I remember now. It was dangly with rhinestones.”

  Rosemary wrinkled her brow. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Well, Melissa said this earring looked very expensive, like diamonds. That’s why she remembered. She put it in the box we leave in the drawer for lost items, and she asked everyone else—our nurse, the lab woman who comes in sometimes and the records clerk—and they all said it didn’t belong to them.”

  “Is it there now?” Lucky asked, excitement rising in her chest.r />
  Rosemary took a last bite of her sandwich and wiped her mouth delicately with a napkin. She dipped her spoon into the soup and sipped the hot liquid carefully. “This is delicious. Thanks, Lucky. Did you make this?”

  “No. It’s one of Sage’s he had prepared ahead of time.” Impatient, Lucky asked again, “Is the earring still there, at the Clinic?”

  “Well, that’s the strange thing. Melissa said she put it in the drawer, but now it’s gone, so somebody took it. Now why would somebody steal one earring, even if it is valuable?”

  Lucky felt her hopes dashed. She was willing to bet that earring matched the one found on Patricia Honeywell’s body. It could prove she wasn’t killed behind the Spoonful. It would go a long way toward clearing the restaurant and hopefully Sage. It might also point in the right direction to her killer. The more she thought about it, the more it seemed likely that Honeywell could have been killed at the Clinic.

  Sophie turned a questioning look on Lucky. Lucky shot her a quick glance to be silent. “Well, that couldn’t be mine. Believe me, I don’t own any diamonds. I’m sure whoever it belongs to got it back.”

  Rosemary quickly finished her soup. “I hope so. I just wanted to tell you myself, and not say anything around the Clinic. Tell you the truth, I was just afraid somebody might have stolen it. And I didn’t want to get blamed for it.”

  “I won’t breathe a word, believe me.”

  “Thanks, Lucky. This was a treat. What do I owe you?”

  “It’s on the house.” Lucky smiled.

  “Are you kidding?”

  “Nope. But you have to come back again and bring some more customers with you, okay?”

  Rosemary laughed. “I’ll do my best. People are being so silly about this whole thing.”

  Lucky thought “silly” was hardly an adjective to describe the terror a murder conjured up, but she was glad Rosemary at least had that attitude. Lucky wondered if the information Elias had given her was accurate—that Honeywell wasn’t a patient at the Clinic. As far as the computer records went, it was true, but what if she had been a patient and her name had slipped between the cracks. Perhaps work had piled up and the records clerk hadn’t gotten around to entering the information. Or perhaps someone at the Clinic had deleted her name from the database.

  “You’ve never seen this Honeywell woman at the Clinic, have you?”

  Rosemary was winding her scarf around her neck. She hesitated. “I’ve never seen her there. Why do you ask?”

  “No special reason. Just curious. If she was staying in the town, she might have needed to see a doctor for some reason.”

  “Anything’s possible, but I’m sure I’ve never seen her there. I think I’d remember someone who wasn’t local.” Rosemary headed for the front door. Lucky moved quickly around the counter and followed her. She opened the door for Rosemary and then stepped outside with her, holding the door closed with her hand.

  “Rosemary—one other thing.” Rosemary raised her eyebrows. “What kind of a car does Jon Starkfield drive?”

  “You’re full of questions today, aren’t you?” When Lucky didn’t respond, she continued, “A black Volvo—he and Abigail have identical cars.” Rosemary waited to see if Lucky would explain her curiosity. “What’s going on, Lucky? Why are you asking about Dr. Starkfield’s car? Is there something you know that you’re not saying?”

  “It’s nothing, really. I saw a car for sale up in Lexington Heights, and I thought it might be his, but the car wasn’t black. I must have mixed things up.”

  Rosemary’s curiosity seemed to be satisfied by Lucky’s answer. It was a weak answer, but better that excuse than have Rosemary picking away at her for asking questions, or even worse, spreading gossip at the Clinic. Rosemary headed down the street and Lucky returned to the counter.

  “Okay.” Sophie grabbed her arm as she tried to pick up a dish from the counter. “What was all that about an earring?”

  Lucky was hesitant to confide in Sophie. Other than wanting to clear Sage’s name, she wasn’t totally sure Sophie didn’t have another layer to her agenda. She hesitated but finally decided she couldn’t see what harm it could do—as long as Sophie kept her mouth shut. She leaned over the counter and spoke quietly. “Don’t you dare breathe a word of anything I tell you. It’s really all speculation anyway, and I don’t want Nate or anybody else coming down on me.”

  Sophie shook her head negatively. “I won’t. Just tell me.”

  “I don’t think Honeywell was killed here. She could have been attacked in the lot behind the Clinic.”

  “Where did you get that?”

  Lucky glanced over at Jack. Jack was the person she trusted most in the world, but she wasn’t ready to tell him her suspicions until she had something concrete. “I ran into Chance the other day. He remembered something—something he didn’t think anything of the first time I talked to him.”

  “Yes?” Sophie asked expectantly.

  “He said Honeywell hurt her leg skiing one day, and he offered to check if one of the doctors at the Resort could see her. She said not to bother, she’d be fine. Then she said she got all her medical treatment for free anyway.”

  “And you’re thinking she was seeing one of the doctors at the Clinic.”

  “I was looking out the kitchen window from my apartment and realized that, other than the alleyway behind here, the only thing that separates the parking lot behind the Clinic from the alleyway is the Victory Garden, and there are gates on each side of the fence around the Garden.”

  “And the murderer could have dragged her body from the Clinic to the alleyway and dumped her here.”

  Lucky nodded.

  “Assuming you’re right, that her body was dumped here to draw attention from the real murder scene, it’s just as possible she was killed in her car and someone drove it here and dumped the body. Or her body was loaded into somebody’s car and the alleyway was as good a place as any to leave her. It doesn’t prove she was killed at the Clinic.”

  “When they found her…” Lucky took a deep breath. “I saw the body, Sophie. And there was an earring dangling from her ear—only one earring. Nate and his technician have gone over that area with a fine-tooth comb and it hasn’t turned up.”

  “So Rosemary’s just confirmed that an earring was found. But you have no way of knowing if it matches the one you saw on Honeywell’s ear.”

  “In a nutshell, yes. That’s why I was hoping it was still in the lost-and-found box at the Clinic.”

  “I see.”

  “The other night—I dug around in the snow and the frozen ice to see what I could find.”

  “Anything?”

  “No. But if the earring found at the Clinic was Honeywell’s and it’s gone missing, then somebody stole it, and that somebody must work at the Clinic.”

  Sophie gasped. “You could be right. Maybe she had something going with that older doctor. And what about that cute younger one—what’s his name?”

  “You mean Elias Scott,” Lucky answered, watching Sophie carefully, wondering if she was aware of any gossip that they were seeing each other, but Sophie’s face betrayed no sign of it. “Still doesn’t prove anything. She could have been a patient at the Clinic. Could have met someone else there at night—I don’t know. But please, Sophie, don’t repeat this. Keep it under your hat. It’s just a wild guess and I can’t prove it and I don’t want to ruin anybody’s reputation with gossip. Please.”

  “Damn. I wish we could have gotten our hands on that earring.” Sophie stood, slipping on her jacket. “I better get going. I’ve got to get up to the Resort. I’ll call you soon. You call me if you hear anything else, okay?”

  “Wait a minute. Not so fast.”

  Sophie halted in her tracks and turned slowly back to Lucky, a guilty grin on her face. She didn’t say a word.

  “What did you do?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You know very well what I’m talking about. I saw your face whe
n I told you Honeywell was getting threatening calls.”

  “So? She deserved it.” Sophie shrugged a shoulder. “I got one of the guys in the office to call a few times.”

  “Sophie!”

  “Teach her to mess with my head.” Sophie smiled, turned on her heel and waved good-bye over her shoulder.

  Lucky watched Sophie’s retreating back. One mystery solved, at any rate. And hopefully she hadn’t just committed a big mistake in telling Sophie about the earring and her suspicions about the Clinic. Sage may not have an alibi for the night of the murder, but it really hadn’t occurred to her that Sophie might not have one either. If no one could confirm that she stayed at the Resort all night because of the storm, Sophie could be under suspicion as well.

  Chapter 33

  JUST BEFORE NOON, two customers came in—a middle-aged couple. Lucky was sure they were winter tourists and also sure they must have just arrived in town and hadn’t heard the local gossip. They looked around questioningly. “Are you open?” the man asked.

  “Yes, we are. Please have a seat.” Lucky led them to a table near the window where passersby could see new customers. Every little bit helped, she thought. “Our menu’s a little limited today.” Our chef’s in jail. “But we have a very nice chicken and artichoke soup and a potato leek. For sandwiches, we have turkey with dried cranberries, grilled cheese with bacon and an avocado, tomato and sprout sandwich.”

  The new customers ordered two bowls of the potato leek with halves of turkey and cranberry sandwiches. Lucky returned to the kitchen and quickly made up their order. She glanced out through the hatch, where Jack sat at a table reading the newspaper, and caught his wink.

  Lucky wondered if it was worth attempting to talk to Nate about the earring that had been found at the Clinic. She doubted it, but she felt it was something she had to do, even if Nate became angry. That is, if he wasn’t annoyed with her enough as it was.