Cremas, Christmas Cookies, and Crooks

by Harper Lin

  “Veronica’s tires were slashed. All four of them. The police said they thought the murderer did it to give themselves an opportunity. Stall her by her car long enough to attack her. Or ‘talk’ to her, if they couldn’t manage that any other way.” He made air quotes around the word “talk.”

  My stomach flip-flopped. It was so cold-blooded to set her up like that. Knowing that detail made me even more skeptical that Ann Crowsdale had done it. It was one thing for a normally kind-hearted woman to snap and kill her nasty coworker; it was entirely another for her to plot and carry out a murder. That would have taken an amount of ice in her veins that I found it difficult to imagine she’d managed to hide from everyone in town.

  “So you think this Kristin Mansmith could have slashed Veronica’s tires to keep her in the parking lot so she could kill her?”

  “I imagine she may not have meant to kill her. Maybe she really wanted to just talk. But something went wrong, and she lost her temper and killed her.”

  “Did you tell the police this theory?”

  “I did. But apparently they found poor Ann to be a more convincing suspect.”

  I remembered the issue of the video evidence Mike had mentioned. I hadn’t had a chance to talk to Sammy yet that morning to see what, if anything, she’d found out from Ryan about the video, but sitting there with Varros—who seemed to have some inside information—was a good opportunity to fish for more information. “You don’t have any video cameras on the parking lot?” I asked.

  “We do,” Varros said. “But one of them has been broken for a few weeks now, and unfortunately, it’s the one that covered the area where Veronica parked.”

  “So it didn’t get the murder or whoever slashed her tires,” I said. “That’s a shame.”

  “It is, it is.”

  I thought of something. “Who knew that the camera was broken?”

  “Everyone who worked in the school,” he said, dashing my hopes of that being a piece of information only Varros and the secretaries had. “We discussed it at the last staff meeting.”

  “What about the students?” I asked.

  “Some of them would have known. We have several of them who help out in the office during the day. It’s likely they could have overheard us discussing it.” His eyebrows knit together. “Why do you ask about students?”

  I shrugged nonchalantly. “Just curious.”

  “Are you suggesting a student could have been involved in Veronica’s murder?” I didn’t know whether he sounded more incredulous or indignant, but it was one of those I words.

  “I heard she might have had conflicts with some of the students. Like Brett Wallace.”

  “You think Brett was involved?”

  “I’m just saying I heard they got in a screaming match the day she died. He’s a… troubled boy, isn’t he?”

  “Whatever Brett’s problems are, he’s not a murderer. Now, is there anything else? I have another meeting in a few minutes.”

  “My tax papers,” I said, feeling like I’d hit a nerve mentioning Brett.

  He glanced at the papers. From where I was sitting, I could tell he’d only gotten partway through the first one, and there were three. Varros finishing the paperwork would give me some more time to fish for information.

  But I had no such luck.

  “I’ll finish these and give them back to you when you bring the food to the play.” He stood up and extended his hand. “It was nice to meet you, Fran.”

  I stood too and shook his hand, knowing when I was being dismissed. “You too, Marcus.” I knew when to cut my losses, but I also knew when I had to take advantage of diminishing opportunities. As I reached the door, I turned back around. Varros was walking around his desk, presumably to make sure I went ahead and got out. “What about Gwen Blarney?” I asked. “Do you think she could have killed Veronica to get the play back?”

  He looked at me coolly. I had clearly worn out my welcome. “She could have. Gwen is a very ambitious woman, and she was not pleased when I moved her to the English department. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have other things to attend to.”

  I opened the door and saw Brett Wallace sitting in the chairs outside Varros’s office.

  “Hey, Fran!” he said, cracking a smile when he saw me.

  “Hi, Brett.”

  “I didn’t know nosy baristas could get sent to the principal’s office.”

  I bit my tongue to keep from making a snarky comment in return that would have been inappropriate for an adult to make to a boy who was little more than a child.

  “I assume you’re here to see me, Mr. Wallace?” Varros asked from behind me. I glanced back over my shoulder and noticed that he was, in fact, normal height and not some giant like the chairs in his office made him seem.

  Brett got up and shoved his hands deep in the pockets of his low-slung pants. “Yeah, teachers are touchy about getting flipped off.”

  I heard Varros sigh. “Come on in.”

  Brett winked as he walked past me. I ignored him.

  I said my goodbyes to Mrs. Bayless and Mrs. Crawford, promising them we’d have coffee again soon. It took a good fifteen minutes to extract myself, but I was finally out in the hallway, heading out to my car. I didn’t usually drive much of anywhere in Cape Bay because it was so small, but the school was on the edge of town, and I’d been running late after taking a few extra minutes to play with Latte that morning.

  A teacher came through a door and started walking down the hall toward me. I had that same surge of nervousness and, for just a second, looked for a door I could jump into to avoid getting caught in the hall. But then I remembered that I was an adult and tried to relax a little.

  As the teacher and I moved past each other, I thought she might have been Gwen Blarney, from the way the secretaries had described her to me.

  “I was sorry to hear about Veronica,” I blurted even though she was behind me.

  Her footsteps stopped, and she turned around, her eyebrows raised. “Veronica was not a very nice woman,” she said. “But thank you for your condolences.” She turned back around and continued on her way.

  Apparently Gwen Blarney had no qualms about speaking ill of the dead. And if she was that comfortable being critical of Veronica while she was dead, how much must she have hated her in life? As I walked out of the school, I was pretty sure Gwen had moved ahead of Brett on my suspect list. Now I just had to track down Kristin Mansmith to see where she fit into it all.

  Chapter 18

  IN ADDITION to the photocopy of Kristin Mansmith’s driver’s license—a part of the school’s security protocol—the paper Mrs. Bayless gave me had a phone number scribbled on it and a note: “Staying at the Surfside.”

  The Surfside Inn was Cape Bay’s biggest and best hotel, which was to say that it was Cape Bay’s only real hotel. Or motel, as the case may be. It wasn’t the only place people could stay in our little beach town, of course, but all the rest were either bed-and-breakfasts or rental houses. The houses were where families tended to stay, the bed-and-breakfasts where couples stayed, and the Surfside was where, well, everyone else stayed.

  I got in my car and drove over, still feeling weird about driving around Cape Bay but not wanting to divert all the way back to my house to drop the car off and then walk back across town to the Surfside. Besides, it was cold outside, and my car was warm.

  The Surfside Inn wasn’t a bad little place, but it had seen better days. The exterior that I remembered having been blue and white in my childhood was now bluish gray and gray. I’d seen the inside of one of the rooms fairly recently, and while it wasn’t the newest, it seemed to be kept fairly clean. The pool, drained for the winter, looked sad with its cracked tiles and puddle of murky green rainwater in the deep end. It was only the beginning of the season, though, and with our brutal winters, people tended to save their repairs up until the weather calmed down in the spring. I hoped that was what the owners of the Surfside were doing and not just letting the place fall apar
t.

  I went into the motel’s office. I noted with pleasure that the teenager who had been supposedly working the reception desk—but was actually completely absorbed in his phone—the last time I’d been in was missing. I knew the little twerp was probably a seasonal employee and, even if he wasn’t, was probably in school, but I preferred to think that his ineptitude and gross lack of customer service skills were the reason he wasn’t there. No one else was at the desk either, but the door to the owner’s office was open.

  “Ed?” I called.

  “C’mon in!” a voice called back.

  I went back into the office and found Ed Martin sitting at his desk, peering at his computer. His wire-framed glasses were perched at the tip of his nose.

  “Fran! Hi! How are ya?” he asked. “Have a seat. What can I do for you?”

  “I’m looking for someone I think may be a guest here.” I sat down in the chair across from him and noticed immediately that Ed seemed to be at a normal, appropriate height compared to me.

  “This one’s not dead, is he?” Ed asked.

  “No. Well, I hope not.” A murderer, maybe, but not a victim. The last time I’d been to the Surfside to ask Ed about one of his guests, the man had been a murder victim. Of course, if Kristin Mansmith was dead too, that would probably throw a wrench into the police’s case against Ann Crowsdale. Unless she somehow managed to have a secret grudge against a woman from out of state too. “Her name’s Kristin Mansmith.” I realized it was probably a long shot that Kristin would still be there. It had been nearly a week since she’d gone into the school, looking for Veronica. Still, maybe I’d get lucky and she’d be in town for an extended visit.

  “You’re in luck!” Ed said. “Unless she died in the past hour or so, this one’s still alive. I spoke to her just a little while ago when she called in to request a late checkout.”

  “She’s still here? In Cape Bay?”

  “For another hour or two.”

  “Which room?”

  “Room 205.”

  “Thanks, Ed,” I said, standing up from my normal-height chair. “Next time you come into Antonia’s, your coffee’s on me.”

  “Well then, I’ll see you this afternoon!”

  I laughed. “Sounds good. And thanks again!”

  I left his office and climbed the outdoor stairs up to the second floor. I found room 205 but paused before raising my hand to knock. Varros thought this woman might have murdered Veronica Underwood, and here I was, about to knock on her motel room door and try to talk to her about it. It was stupid. The smart thing to do would be to walk away and forget that I ever thought about getting involved. Before common sense could prevail and put me off the investigation, I knocked. As soon as I did, there was a thud inside the room, followed by some enthusiastic swearing.

  I froze, not sure what the noise had been and not sure if I should knock again or call through the door to see if the woman I’d heard creatively cursing was okay or just slink away and find another way to run into her, maybe in the motel office when she came to check out.

  Before I could make up my mind, the door jerked open. The woman standing there was hunched over at the waist, holding her right foot in her left hand. “What do you want? I told the man I was checking out late.” The woman practically spat the words at me. In fact, it was all I could do to keep from wiping my face. I also noticed that she said she told Ed she was checking out late, whereas Ed had said that she requested a late checkout. Granted, I’d only known this woman for about five seconds, but I had a feeling her account of the conversation was the more accurate one.

  “Well?” she asked, apparently finding my split-second hesitation too long. She looked every bit as annoyed and disgusted with me as she sounded.

  “Kristin? Kristin Mansmith?”

  Her expression instantly darkened, and I felt a pang of fear. She dropped her foot and stood up mostly straight. “Who’s asking?” Her hand gripped the motel room door, and I expected her to slam it in my face at any second.

  Against my better judgment, I didn’t turn and run. “I’m Fran. Fran Amaro.”

  “Do I know you, Fran Amaro?”

  I briefly considered making up some kind of lie to tell her, but I got the feeling she was experienced in that department and nothing I could come up with while standing there would convince her. I found myself wishing I had a few good lies pre-prepared, but I didn’t, so I told the truth. “Nope.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  Now I really wished I had a good lie in my back pocket. But none had materialized, so I went with the truth again. “Because I heard you were at the high school, looking for Veronica Underwood, the day before she died.”

  “Are you with the cops? I already talked to the cops.” She started to close the door. I put my hand out to stop it.

  “I’m not a cop.”

  “A reporter then. I don’t talk to reporters.” She tried to close the door again.

  “I’m not a reporter.”

  “Then why do you care if I was looking for Ronnie?”

  I took a deep breath. As much as I didn’t like it, I was committed to the truth, no matter how scary it was. “I think the police may have arrested the wrong person for her murder, and I’m trying to figure out who else might have done it.”

  She stared at me for a long, uncomfortable moment during which I completely expected her to slam the door in my face or maybe pull out a gun and shoot me dead right there. But instead, she laughed. “Seriously?”

  “Yes, seriously.”

  She laughed again then, to my surprise, pushed the door further open. “Come on in then. I only have a few minutes, but you can talk to me while I pack.”

  After a split second’s hesitation—I did think this woman might be a murderer, after all—I followed her as she limped back into the motel room, favoring the right foot she’d been holding when she opened the door.

  The room was much like the other one I’d been in—definitely not the newest or fanciest but fairly clean and well maintained. Except, of course, for the mountain of pizza boxes and fast food wrappers and bags on the dresser, but I assumed that hadn’t been there before she checked in.

  “Is your foot okay?” I asked, glancing around the room for anything that looked like a deadly weapon. There was nothing obvious, unless she was going to bash my head in with a lamp.

  “Yeah, it’s fine,” she muttered. “Just dropped my laptop on it.”

  I winced in sympathy. That must have been the thud I’d heard when I knocked. “Is your laptop okay?”

  “Yeah,” she said and slung what I assumed was the offending device into the suitcase that lay open on the bed. I was close enough to see the Cape Bay High School sticker on it that I assumed meant it was not actually Kristin’s laptop, but I kept my mouth shut. “So why do you care who killed Ronnie? You weren’t a friend of hers.”

  I saw an opportunity for a stretching of the truth. If Kristin lived in Providence, there was no way she knew everyone “Ronnie” hung out with in Cape Bay. “How do you know? You don’t live here,” I replied, evoking my best tough girl, as I had with Brett.

  Kristin just laughed. “Because you’re too straightlaced. Ronnie would never hang out with someone like you.”

  “What? What do you mean?” I asked. I mean, I couldn’t really argue with the fact that I had a tendency to be pretty straightlaced, but I didn’t think there was any way for her to know that, especially not three minutes after meeting me.

  “Are you kidding? Look at you!”

  I glanced down at my black pea coat, blue sweater, and jeans. There was nothing I could see that was remarkable about them. I looked back at her blankly.

  “You’re just so”—she made some vague gesture at me with both hands—“so neat. So put together. And let me guess—you have a nice job, something cute and small town that gives you lots of time to wander around town, doing whatever you want. A bakery maybe?”

  Apparently I was right in my initial as
sessment that no quickly assembled lie would trick her. I resigned myself to the truth. “A coffee shop.”

  She laughed. “Even better! And you probably have a great relationship with your parents, who have been married for forty years, and a nice boyfriend who supports you.”

  “My mother is dead, and my father skipped out on us when I was little,” I said coldly.

  She shrugged. “But I’m right about the boyfriend, aren’t I?”

  “Yeah.” It was the first and only time I’d ever wished Matt weren’t the really great boyfriend that he was.

  “Yeah, see, Ronnie would never hang out with you.”

  “Because I have a boyfriend?”

  “No, because at night you go home and cuddle on the couch with your boyfriend and crochet or something instead of going out and partying.”

  She had me there. “You’re right. We weren’t friends. I only met her once, and it was when I went to talk to her about a bake sale during the school play.”

  Kristin laughed again and clapped her hands. “It’s even better than I thought.”

  I sighed. “But just because I wasn’t her friend doesn’t mean I want to see her killer go free.”

  “You don’t trust the police? I figured a Goody Two-Shoes like you couldn’t possibly imagine the police getting anything wrong.”

  “The woman they arrested is even more of a Goody Two-Shoes than I am. I don’t think she killed Veronica, and neither does anyone else in town. Except the police, of course.”

  Kristin looked me up and down. “So you’re going to solve it on your own?”

  I shrugged. “I’m going to try.”

  She turned back to her suitcase and started throwing things in on top of the computer that wasn’t hers. “So what do you want from me?”

  “First of all, I want to know why you were looking for Veronica.”

  “We were roommates back in Providence. She left me on the hook for the whole lease when she moved here and skipped out on the last month’s rent, so I came to get my money from her.”

  “And did you?”

  “Indirectly.”

  I took a deep breath and glanced behind me. The door was still open. If Kristin made a move to come after me, I could run. I wasn’t sure if I could get away, but I could run. Ignoring the little voice in my head telling me to shut up, I asked the question I knew I had to. “By killing her?”