Bite-Sized Bakery Cozy Mysteries Box Set 2

by Rosie A. Point

  “I can’t work out his motive,” I said, as we loitered outside, standing in the bushes. We’d arrived over an hour ago and nothing had happened since. I was on the brink of suggesting we leave and try again another time. The sun had dipped toward the horizon and an evening chill had come with it. I rubbed my arms. “I mean, I could see why he would want to get rid of Drake if there was a negative relationship between them, but why Mrs. Rickleston?”

  “Shush, someone’s coming.” Bee grabbed my arm—not my nose—and we ducked down, the leaves of our bush rustling.

  My skin had already started tickling and itching, and I hoped I wasn’t having an allergic reaction to whatever plant we’d chosen as a hiding spot.

  Nathan exited the Sleepy Easy carrying a bouquet of flowers and wearing a tatty suit, complete with patches on the elbows. He hummed under his breath and set off down the road at a brisk pace.

  “Now’s our chance,” Bee whispered. “After him.”

  We exited our hiding spot and settled into a leisurely stroll, pretending to have a conversation while keeping eyes on the target. This was the most focused I’d been on a case. For once, it felt like we were meant to get involved, and that doing nothing would lead to worse trouble than the alternative.

  If that meant following a balding man to a date and spying on him all night, then so be it.

  But Nathan didn’t head into the center of Muffin where the best restaurants were. He continued down the long street that led toward the Runaway Inn. And then he arrived at the Runaway Inn and walked up the front steps.

  “What on earth?” Bee scratched her temple. “He’s having a date at the inn?”

  “Only one way to find out.”

  Inside, we found Nathan standing in front of Mrs. Rickleston’s reception desk, the flowers at his side now. “What do you mean?” he demanded of the woman who was standing in for Mrs. Rickleston.

  “I-I’m sorry but—”

  “She’s not here,” Bee said.

  Nathan spun on the spot and a few petals fell free of the bouquet. “You! What are you two doing here?”

  “We stay at the inn.”

  “No, no, no,” he growled, pointing the flowers at us. “I knew there was something weird going on when I saw you two behind me.”

  “Huh?” Bee shrugged, but I couldn’t keep my face still.

  “You were following me! I should report you to the police.”

  “It’s not what you think,” I said.

  “Shush.” Bee pointed first at me then at him. “You don’t get to accuse us of anything. You were there on the night Drake was murdered with a gun in your hand.”

  “What?! I did not have a gun in my hand. I’m anti-gun!” Nathan dropped the flowers then bent and scooped them up. “And I wouldn’t have hurt Drake. I didn’t like the man, for heaven’s sake, but he paid the bills.”

  “I don’t buy it,” Bee said. “You just happened to be on stage the night of his murder and now you’re here delivering flowers at the inn on the night Mrs. Rickleston was shot?”

  Nathan dropped the flowers a second time. He’d gone pale as spilled milk. “She was… she was…”

  “Shot,” I finished for him.

  He spluttered wordlessly for a few minutes then hurried from the inn, pulling his phone out of his pocket.

  And that left us with nothing except a bouquet of rapidly wilting flowers. What now?

  16

  “I don’t want to be negative,” I said, as we sat at our table in the Runaway Inn, “but I’m not sure where we go from here. It seems to me like Nathan was friends with Mrs. Rickleston.”

  “Friends? He brought her flowers and got all… sweaty at the mention of her name,” Bee replied. “I think it’s fair to say they were more than friends.”

  “Poor Mrs. Rickleston,” I started.

  Bee shook her head, raising a palm. “I don’t mean to be negative or overly critical of the woman, but she’s behaved abhorrently over the past few weeks. While I would never wish ill on anyone, I can’t say that I’ll be visiting her in hospital.”

  “Fair enough.” I wasn’t about to twist Bee’s arm to get her to do that either. We had bigger problems—like Lucy behind bars and the fact that we’d officially run out of suspects.

  If only we had any idea as to what the motivation might’ve been, we’d have a lead to follow.

  The waiter arrived with our dinners. Bee had chosen a hearty beef lasagna, and I’d gone for a chicken wrap. I struggled to eat when tensions were high, where Bee could shove her face full of food happily.

  “The flowers mean nothing,” Bee said, after a few bites. “It could all be a ruse to cover his tracks. What better way to throw people off the scent than to come to the inn and pretend to look for her? Or date her.”

  “But what’s the motive?”

  Bee opened her mouth then shut it again. She returned to her lasagna rather than answering.

  We had nothing.

  Lucy was the most likely suspect, but she hadn’t been out to harm Mrs. Rickleston.

  Mrs. Rickleston… well, she certainly hadn’t shot herself. Did that mean she wasn’t the one who’d shot Drake?

  The manager, Nathan, knew both parties and seemed the most likely suspect, but there was no evidence pointing to him other than what I’d seen on the stage.

  “Who else?” I murmured.

  “What about that crying pregnant woman you were talking to today?”

  “Becca?” I asked. “Yeah, she might be in on it, but she’s pregnant and she’s already gotten everything she needed out of Drake, it seems. He was paying for her baby before he died, and she wanted him to be involved in the baby’s life as well. With him dead, she stands to lose all that support.”

  “So, no real motivation to do it.”

  “We’re missing something,” I said. “I just can’t put my finger on what it is.”

  Bee set down her knife and fork. “Then there’s only one thing left for us to do.” She gave a pause, gravid with tension. “Return to the scene of the crime.”

  * * *

  The community center’s doors were unlocked, and a sign outside the front doors indicated that Senior’s Yoga Classes had been scheduled to start at 7 pm sharp. The grand red carpet was gone, and the pictures of Drake were conspicuous in their absence. All the fanfare of that fateful night had been removed, and it made my skin itch and crawl.

  It was as if Muffin had already forgotten about it.

  The police had cleared the building for use if the yoga class was anything to go by. The gentle tinkle of music from a side room down the long passage to our right told us where that class was taking place. Thankfully, that left the main hall with the stage open for our investigation.

  “Let’s see what we can find.” Bee pushed the double doors open. Inside, chairs had been shoved to the sides and stacked neatly. The boards creaked underfoot as we headed up to the stage where Drake had been shot.

  I positioned myself in front of the velvety curtains, on the spot where Drake had been that night, and shivered. “Creepy.”

  “Stay right there,” Bee said. “I’m going to try to figure out where he was shot from.”

  “How?”

  “There’s got to be a bullet hole somewhere around here.”

  “But what if the bullet, you know, didn’t go all the way through?” I pulled a face. “What if they shot him and that’s it.”

  “Then I won’t find a bullet hole,” Bee said. “But I still have to look.”

  I fisted my hips and searched the room while Bee got busy. It struck me just how intimidating it was to be on the stage, even without people staring up expectantly. Drake had been brave.

  My gaze wandered from the stacked chairs to the back of the hall with its double doors on the left and right, and then to the balcony.

  If I was a shooter, that’s where I’d fire from.

  “Nothing,” Bee sighed, returning to my side. “I guess you were right. The bullet got lodged in his�
��”

  “Yuck.”

  “Not what I was going to say, but basically. Yes, it got lodged in his—”

  “Bee.” I hugged myself. “Can we not talk about where things got stuck or… you know. Just gives me the creeps, especially since I’m standing on the exact spot where it happened.”

  Bee nodded absently. “But see, now here’s the problem. We don’t know where he was shot from. It could’ve been from the stage, from behind, and that would help us out because it would make Nathan a suspect.”

  “But we don’t know that.”

  “No, we don’t.”

  “And we also don’t know where Lucy was during the shooting,” I continued. “She said she was in the bathroom, but we have no evidence of that either.”

  Bee didn’t reply, but paced around the stage, occasionally bending to examine the floorboards or poke them with one of her long fingers.

  “What about up there?” I pointed to the balcony. “If I was going to shoot someone, I’d do it from up there. There’s an easy escape route.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, you saw the stairs outside the hall. They lead up to the balcony from the lobby. It would be easy to shoot and run for it out into the street. The killer could’ve gotten out before anyone knew what was going on.”

  “They’d have had to be a crack shot,” Bee said, squinting up at the balcony. She shrugged. “It’s worth a shot. Excuse the pun.”

  We took the walk up to the balcony in silence. It was similarly outfitted, except it had a carpeted floor, and the chairs weren’t stacked neatly up here. There was an alcove either side, containing a window a piece that looked out on the street on one side, and a grassy patch on the other.

  “So where from?” I paced to the front of the balcony then turned around to face Bee. “Certainly not the front, right? They would’ve been seen.”

  “My guess would be the back row, probably closest to the—oh!”

  “What?”

  Bee bent and picked up something. “A ring,” she said. “Someone must have dropped it.”

  “A ring. A ring. A ring.”

  “Are you going to break into song?” Bee asked. “Because I’m not onboard with that.”

  “I’m thinking.” I pressed my fingers to either of my temples.

  Lucy had been given a ring by Drake. And hadn’t Becca mentioned that the crooner had wanted to give her a ring, as well? An engagement ring?

  “Let me see that for a second,” I said, walking over. Bee dropped the ring into my palm, and I turned it over.

  It was yellow gold, like Lucy’s, and the diamond was big and sparkly. Not the type of ring someone would drop and forget about. The owner of this glamorous item should’ve come back looking for it. Could it be that the killer had left this behind?

  “Drake gave Lucy a ring,” I said.

  “But Lucy still had hers. She said they took it off her in jail, and that it was gold with a massive diamond.”

  “What if Drake gave out more than one?” I asked. “What if… what if the person who did this dropped this ring?”

  “It seems a little far-fetched.”

  “It does,” I agreed. “But I have a feeling about this. We need to talk to Nathan again. This time without the accusations.”

  “What are you thinking?” Bee asked.

  “That he might know who Drake gave this ring to, and if he does we have our next suspect.”

  17

  “You have some nerve coming here,” Nathan said, as he flitted from his closet to his open bag on the bed. “After what you did.”

  “We didn’t do anything.” Bee folded her arms, hovering near the open door of Nathan’s motel room.

  “You followed me!”

  “We were just curious,” I said. “Look, Mr. Bratte, we want to find out what happened to Drake, and what happened to Mrs. Rickleston. That’s why we followed you.”

  He paused, holding an armful of folded shirts, and gave me a onceover. “You think you can work out who attacked her?”

  Apparently, he wasn’t factoring in Drake’s death to the equation. What did that mean? That he didn’t care the man had died? Or something even more sinister…

  I tried shaking the thoughts free and focused on the here and now. “Well, we’ve helped other people in the past with this sort of issue.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “We’ve solved murders in this town,” Bee snapped. “And we’re going to solve this one too. But we need help.”

  “I don’t have time to help.” Nathan checked his watch. “I have to pack. There’s the memorial service for Drake tomorrow that I have to attend, and then I’ve got to swing by the hospital and check on my dearest.”

  “Your dearest?” I managed not to gag. “Mrs. Rickleston?”

  “Yes. Why is that so surprising?”

  “Because she’s so much older than you,” I said. “You must be in your early fifties. Mrs. Rickleston is seventy.”

  “Age is just a number.”

  “And murder is just a vacation to heaven.”

  Nathan dropped his clothing into his suitcase and put his hands on his hips. Today, he wore a pair of stretchy spandex running shorts and a loose t-shirt. The wisps of hair on his pate stood on end, as if the mere suggestion that he and Mrs. Rickleston weren’t meant to be had sent them into shock.

  “We need your help and it won’t take much of your time,” Bee said.

  “Come to the memorial service tomorrow and ask me there.” he checked his watch again. “I need to get to the hospital.”

  Why? What if he’s going to hurt her rather than visit her?

  “Oh, trust me, we’ll be at that service,” Bee said, somberly. “We’ve got a lot of clues to follow and questions to ask.”

  I brought the ring out of my pocket and gave it to Nathan.

  Mr. Bratte held the ring up between index and thumb finger and examined it. “I’m flattered,” he said. “But I’m taken.”

  “You should start a career in comedy.” Bee rolled her eyes.

  These two were incorrigible. Like mixing sand and… well, something else that was incredibly abrasive. Gravel? More sand? Shards of glass?

  “Mr. Bratte,” I said, “we found this ring at the crime scene, and we noticed that Lucy had been wearing one similar to it that Drake had given her. Could he possibly have given another one out?”

  “Another one?” Nathan laughed and handed the ring back. “Try fifty. Or a hundred. I lost count after we left Chicago. The man handed those rings out like candy. The diamonds are all fake—cubic zirconia, of course. Every new girlfriend gets a ring.”

  Well, that deepened our suspect pool significantly. “Do you know anyone who might’ve wanted to harm him because of that? Like a scorned ex-girlfriend, perhaps?”

  “Oh sure,” he said. “There are plenty of women who would’ve wanted him dead. He’d romanced and wined and dined his way into bedrooms and hearts across the country.”

  “What about Becca?” I asked. “Becca Sherer?”

  Nathan frowned and scratched his forehead. “Becca Sherer? Never heard of her.”

  “She’s pregnant with Drake’s baby.”

  “Pregnant? No way. No way. Unless… well, it’s possible that Drake kept that from me,” Nathan said. “He wasn’t exactly my best friend, and I wasn’t his.”

  “You hated each other,” Bee said.

  “Bluntly put.” Nathan shut his bag and zipped it up. The bed bounced, springs creaking, and I didn’t envy him having had to sleep on it. “He certainly didn’t tell me anything about his personal life, and I didn’t tell him anything about mine. We spoke cordially at the best of times, and he screamed at me at the worst. The man was a nightmare. All charm and schmooze until the spotlights were gone and then it was nothing but cruelty. He’s the reason I’m quitting this line of work. I’m going to be a marathon runner instead.”

  Was that a paying job?

  “Right,” I said. “And did y
ou inherit anything from Drake?”

  “Ha! As if he’d leave me anything.” Nathan cast one last glance at his chunky, plastic watch. “Look, I’ve got to go, but if you want the short answer, I have no idea who might’ve worn that ring. It was definitely one of Drake’s many girlfriends, but as for who… I stopped caring about what their names were after he dumped the first ten of them.”

  After that, he escorted us out.

  Once he’d left, heading off toward his car—an Oldsmobile parked on the verge that coughed and spluttered when it started up—Bee and I made for the food truck. Inside, Bee turned to me. “It’s got to be that Becca woman. The pregnant girl.”

  “But it can’t be,” I said. “She didn’t have the motivation, and the person who broke into Lucy’s house the other night wasn’t pregnant. They were slim.”

  Bee huffed out a breath. “This is so frustrating. None of it makes sense. Why would Lucy have murdered Drake?”

  “She wouldn’t.”

  “Then why would Nathan have shot Mrs. Rickleston?” Bee asked.

  “He wouldn’t.” I drummed my fingers on the steering wheel. The Sleepy Easy Motel sat quiet and almost mocking to my right. “He wouldn’t have tried to murder her, unless he’s lying about caring about her, but why would he do that? What would the point be? It’s not like they knew each other before he came to town. Unless he did and we just don’t know that.”

  “We need more evidence.”

  “You always say that.” I started the food truck’s engine.

  “And it’s always true,” Bee replied.

  “But how are we going to get more of it?”

  The answering silence told me Bee was just as frustrated by all of this as I was. But there had to be another logical step to solving this.

  “The police are assuming that the attack on Mrs. Rickleston is separate from what happened to Drake,” Bee said. “Otherwise, they would’ve started investigating again and would’ve had no choice but to release Lucy from prison.”

  “But we don’t think that. The ring has to tie into this somehow,” I said. “It can’t be Becca because she’s pregnant, has no motive, and was clearly on good terms with Drake. And it can’t be Lucy because—”