“Not teenagers? Then who could it have been?”
He sighed, letting his shoulders slump. “Somehow, I feel like I already know the answer to that question.”
“Me?” Sonja gasped. “How could you think that?”
Frank rolled his eyes and let the subject go. Both of them knew the truth, but both figured it wasn’t pursuing at that moment.
“It looks like someone used an explosive to get this open,” he noted, turning his attention back to the safe. “There are scorch marks all along the door.”
“So, do you think it’s the same safe?” Sonja asked again, eager for an answer.
“I’d bet on it,” he nodded.
“But who took it?” Sonja pressed. “Who blew open the lock and then dumped it in the lake?”
Frank stood up, brushing the dirt and sand off his slacks. “Someone who thought the safe would stay at the bottom of the lake.”
“But it didn’t,” Sonja noted, still wondering what supernatural force caused it to surface.
“Well, whoever it was, they gambled and they lost.”
Sonja suddenly felt a light go on in her mind. “What did you say?”
“Someone put the safe in the water betting it would stay down. They gambled and they lost.”
CHAPTER 20
* * *
Sonja felt idiotic for not asking Charles earlier. It seemed like an obvious fact worth knowing. She had been so focused on figuring out Patricia’s involvement in the whole situation that she hadn’t thought to consider other options.
Stepping away from the side of the water and behind the van, she pulled out her cell phone and dialed the pool hall.
The phone rang twice before Charles answered. “Hello?”
“Charles, it’s Sonja again.”
“Oh, hi. Did you think of another question you forgot to ask?”
“As a matter of fact, yes. You mentioned that Tylor won some money the other night, that it seemed he had his spark back.”
“That’s right.”
“Who did he win the money from?”
“Well, he won against a few different fellas. Most of them out-of-towners.”
“Anyone in particular? Anyone you recognized?”
“Actually, yes,” Charles replied, “he played a few games against a gentleman in a wheelchair. I think Stravinsky was his name.”
* * *
Sonja rode in the passenger seat of Frank’s police cruiser, leaving her van safely parked on the side of the road. Heading up Riverside, they drove back into town and pulled up in front of the Beanery Café.
Without saying another word to each other, they stepped inside.
“Sonja,” Laurie exclaimed. “You’re back. And Sheriff Thompson, too.”
“Yes, we’re back,” she acknowledged.
“Decided to have coffee with your boyfriend?” Laurie wiggled her eyebrows.
“Laurie, does your dad ever go out?” Sonja asked straight out.
“Excuse me?” she asked, surprised by the sudden question.
“We just wanted to know if your dad goes out at all,” Frank reiterated.
“Why is that important?”
“It may help us in figuring out who killed Tylor Mason,” Sonja pressed. “Please.”
Laurie hesitated, but then shrugged. “Well,” she admitted, “he doesn’t usually go out. He’s confined to a wheelchair, you know.”
Sonja nodded. “Yes, I know.”
“So, if you think he had something to do with the murder, left the house without me knowing, you’d be wrong.”
“We don’t suspect your father of anything,” Frank comforted her. “We just need a bigger picture.”
“Did you ever take him someplace just to get out of the house?” Sonja continued her questions. “Or did he have friends who picked him up?”
Laurie raised a suspicious eyebrow. “I’m not sure what you’re getting at with all of this.”
“Please, Laurie,” Frank said again, more firmly this time but calm and cool as ever. “It may be helpful.”
She bit her bottom lip, clearly growing nervous by the sheriff’s serious tone. “Well, sometimes I would drive him places, just to get him out of the house.”
“Did you ever take him to the pool hall?” Sonja asked.
She nodded. “Sure, a few times. He loved playing pool.” She shrugged. “He wasn’t half bad.”
Sonja sighed, not wanting to ask the next question. “Did he play against Tylor the other night?”
There was a definite pause, and Laurie was visibly beginning to sweat, her lip quivering nervously. “Yes. What of it?”
Frank sighed, leaning in on the counter. “Laurie, tell me honestly. Did your father lose some money that night?”
“Maybe a little,” she admitted.
“How much?” Frank asked quietly.
A tear dropped down Laurie’s cheek, creating a wet, red line on her skin. “I’m not sure.”
“Make a guess,” he encouraged.
“I don’t know.” She struggled to hold back the tears. “He just lost some money, okay?”
“How much,” Frank reiterated, his face grim and his jaw set.
Looking from Sonja to Frank, her lip quivering more violently, she completely broke down. “His entire savings,” she moaned, the tears running freely now. “Everything he had. He is so foolishly competitive.”
“His entire savings?” Frank asked for confirmation.
“He couldn’t stand losing to Tylor, so he kept going to the ATM and again and again, pulling out more and more money. But Tylor didn’t stop, he just kept taking advantage, taking more money each round.” Her tear streaked face turned from sadness to an angry grimace. “That jerk. He didn’t care how much my father was losing, as long as he got more.”
“What did you do when you found out?”
“I knew he’d be at the community center yesterday, so I confronted him in the hall. He acted so smug, like depriving a man of his life’s savings was something to be proud of.”
“You talked to him?” Frank pressed.
“He didn’t care. He told me it was his money. That I had no right to it.” She shook her head wildly as she remembered.
“Did you hit him?” the sheriff asked quietly, trying to keep the distraught woman calm.
“I went insane,” she blurted, “Just for a second. It was like I couldn’t stop myself. My anger took complete control and I hit him over and over and over again.” Laurie let out a wail as she slipped to the floor in tears. “I killed him. I didn’t mean to, but I killed him.” She put her face in her hands. “I knew I couldn’t keep it a secret, the guilt was eating me from the inside.”
“Come along,” Frank nodded, motioning for her to stand up. “Let’s get you down to the station.”
CHAPTER 21
* * *
“So why weren’t her fingerprints on the statue?” Sonja asked Frank as they stood in her parent’s kitchen. He stood nearby mixing the waffle batter for Sonja while she ground the coffee beans.
“Fingerprints aren’t a definite form of evidence,” he informed her. “A lot of the time, someone can pick something up and never leave a single fingerprint. Either they get smeared or there isn’t enough grease to even leave a print.”
“Interesting,” Sonja nodded.
“Maybe if we had a more advanced forensics system here, we could find more. But to get results like that, we usually have to send the evidence out to a different lab to get tests—which we’ve done in other cases.”
“On Sunday when she was bad mouthing everyone and acting like she didn’t care,” Sonja noted, changing the subject slightly, “she was just trying to put on a face to hide her guilt.”
“The way she broke down and told us, I figure she would have come forward eventually,” Frank admitted. “People like her just aren’t purely evil. She has a conscience and a desire for good, just like the rest of us. Unfortunately, she got caught up in one bad moment and lost control.”
; “Well, I’m glad Laurie confessed to the murder.”
“It was a crime of passion,” Frank added. “The stress of her life maybe caused her to finally snap.”
“It’s so sad,” Sonja agreed. “At first I thought it couldn’t be her because she was leading the girls’ choir. I would have never suspected her.”
“Well, it was all very fast. Laurie saw Tylor come backstage and she followed him, determined to get the money. The conversation was probably only a few seconds, and then she bashed him in the head, and then ran back to the room where the choir was waiting.”
“So, when Patricia came in, it looked like she’d been there the whole time.”
He nodded. “Right. She probably confronted him once or twice already that day with little results for getting the money back.”
“I can’t help but feel like that could have been any of us if we were in the same situation.”
“Perhaps,” Frank replied. “But we can hope we had more control over ourselves.”
They stood there quietly working for a few moments, while Sonja thought over everything that had happened. “I’m also sad my Mom got kicked out of the Knitting Society because of me.” Sonja shrugged. “I really rubbed Patricia the wrong way during this investigation.”
“She didn’t seem too broken up about it,” Frank admitted.
“And you’d be right,” came Diane’s voice from the doorway. “Ever since that woman took over as president, the society meetings have been nothing but misery.”
“Mom,” Sonja exclaimed. “You’re not supposed to be home yet. Dad was supposed to be a lookout.”
The door opened again and Sam stepped in. “Sorry, I got engrossed in one of your mother’s books and forgot to keep checking outside.”
Sonja rolled her eyes. “You were reading one of Mom’s romances?”
“Don’t knock it until you try it,” he pointed out.
“What are you two doing in here anyway?” Diane asked, looking at the arrangement of food and ingredients everywhere.
Sonja sighed, realizing she’d been caught. “I was making you a yummy waffle to eat,” she admitted. “A special Mother’s Day waffle.”
Diane’s face brightened with a wide smile. “You mean the one I didn’t get to try on Sunday.”
“That’s the one,” Frank announced.
“Oh, I’m sure it will be delicious.”
“It combines two of your favorite things,” she informed her. “Chocolate and coffee.”
Diane walked over and embraced her daughter in a tight hug. “You do love me.”
“I got you out of jail, didn’t I?” Sonja teased.
“I know, dear,” she admitted, “but nothing quite says I love you like good food.”
* * *
While they were all sitting at the dining room table enjoying waffles, Sonja’s cell phone rang. It was Belinda.
“Excuse me,” Sonja said, standing up. “I should take this.”
Stepping into the privacy of her father’s study, she answered. “Belinda?”
“Sonja, I’ve been doing some research and I think I’ve figured it out.”
“You know who the witch is?” Sonja gasped.
“Uh, no not quite,” Belinda admitted, a little embarrassed.
“Oh, okay. What is it?”
“You know all those weird things that have been happening? The doors just unlocking by themselves, the clock missing the security guard?”
Sonja instantly thought of the impossible floating safe as well. “Yeah? What about them? Was it Tylor’s ghost trying to help out.”
“No,” Belinda replied. “When you put on the mask, you not only saw the memory, but you also absorbed some of the dark energy from the crime as well.”
Sonja swallowed nervously. “Yeah? I’d forgotten that was part of the whole deal.”
“Well, get this. That little bit of energy has granted you power.”
“Power?” Sonja gasped. “Like what?”
“That dark energy gave you limited telekinetic abilities.”
Sonja’s jaw dropped wide open.
“Sonja,” Belinda squeaked excitedly. “You have the power to move things with your mind, now.”
Sonja wished she could share in her friend’s excitement, but she was too concerned worrying about the fact that she had dark magic inside of her. She could only hope there were no negative side effects.
“I’ll talk to you later,” she whispered, and hung up the phone.
Copyright 2017 Summer Prescott Books, all rights reserved.
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Murderous Mocha Waffle (The Diner of the Dead Series Book 14) Page 8
