50% off Murder

by Josie Belle

  “Whoa, the way she’s going on, you’d think Templeton was her husband,” Joanne whispered to Maggie.

  Maggie studied Eva for a moment and had to concur that, yes, she looked like a jealous lover in the throes of a passionate tantrum.

  “Eva, was there something going on between you and John Templeton?”

  Chapter 27

  “What do you call this?” Eva asked, and held out a hand that had a diamond as big as a Fourth of July sparkler on it. “He gave that to me for our one-month anniversary.”

  “Wow,” Joanne said. “I could get pregnant with triplets, and I don’t think I’d get a ring that big.”

  “So, you two are…were a couple?” Maggie asked. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”

  Eva raised her hands in the air. “We broke up. That man, he broke my heart for her, the bookish one.”

  “Claire?” Joanne and Maggie said together.

  Eva turned and gazed into the mirror. “Look, my beauty is fading. I don’t have ‘it’ anymore.”

  Maggie looked at the gorgeous woman before her. How could she possibly think that?

  “Eva, you’re stunning,” she said. “You’ll always be stunning. You’re the kind of woman who stops traffic, literally.”

  “Oh, Maggie, you’re very kind,” Eva said. “But the mirror doesn’t lie.”

  “I think she’s having some confidence issues,” Joanne whispered, as if Eva couldn’t hear her.

  Maggie glanced at her watch. Max had called her ten minutes ago. She really didn’t have time for this. Tough love was in order.

  “You’re right, the mirror doesn’t lie,” Maggie said. She put on her no-nonsense voice, which she had used on Laura during the ugly adolescent years. “You are beautiful, and everyone knows it. Now, from all that I have heard, I can tell that John Templeton was a big, stupid jerk. If he dumped you, well, how can I put this?”

  Maggie paused, and Eva stared at her with her eyes wide, willing her to continue. There was just no way to candy coat it.

  “Did you ever stop to consider the fact that you were more woman than John Templeton could handle?”

  Maggie knew she had played right into Eva’s vanity, and it was working. The other woman looked back at the mirror and preened.

  “He was older,” she said. “He got tired very easily.”

  Joanne and Maggie nodded at her in silent agreement with what she was saying.

  Eva tossed her hair and beamed at her reflection. “You are right. He could not handle a woman like me.”

  Maggie silently thought that there weren’t many who could, but she was glad to see Eva looking confident again.

  “How long ago did you two break up?” she asked.

  “Oh, it was spring,” she said. “I remember because he brought me tulips, and then he dumped me. And after I had agreed to his crazy investment scheme, too.”

  “Investment scheme?” Maggie asked. She and Joanne didn’t look at each other in an unspoken effort to appear nonchalant.

  “As if I want to expand this place,” she said. “I agreed because he talked such a good game, but I didn’t spend the money, and then, when he dumped me, I paid it all back. I wanted nothing to do with him.”

  “Then what happened?” Joanne asked as she handed over her coupon.

  Eva rang up the sale, and Joanne paid in cash, giving Eva a nice tip. Maggie figured she was giving her more for the wealth of information they were getting, and she had to agree it was a good move.

  “He was so angry with me,” Eva said. “It was a little exciting, you know?”

  Maggie thought about Claire’s story about John Templeton carrying a body and shivered. Exciting wasn’t the word, and she wondered if Eva would ever know how lucky she had been to get away from him.

  “What makes you think he had a thing with Claire?” she asked.

  “Well, because she killed him,” she said with a shrug. “He must have met her on one of his trips here, and I’m sure he used the same charm on her that he used on me. He was a dog, that man. I knew that, but for certain compensation, I was willing to look the other way.”

  Eva admired her ring as it sparkled from the glow of the overhead fluorescent lights.

  “Boys will be pigs, you know,” she said.

  “I thought he was a dog. I’m getting confused,” Joanne said. Maggie hushed her.

  “So, you knew he was seeing Claire?” Maggie asked. Her heart was pounding in her chest. Claire hadn’t told them that she had seen Templeton other than the day before his murder. Had she been seeing him again for weeks beforehand, even after she’d fled her old job and home to get away from him? If so, why hadn’t she told them? What had he wanted from her? This could not be good.

  “Oh yes,” Eva said. “I found the evidence after one of their trysts in his car. He denied it, but I knew there was another woman, and when she stabbed him, I knew who it was.”

  “Evidence?” Maggie asked.

  “A bra,” Eva said. “Not in my size. I have to order custom-made support.”

  Okay, Maggie had to look. She knew Eva was built, but she had never really checked her out before.

  She glanced at Eva’s figure. Yep, there was no question. Eva and Claire were not in the same league; in fact, they weren’t even in the same sport.

  “You have a lovely figure,” Maggie said. “So, did you confront him about it, the bra?”

  Eva tossed her head. “No. After all, I have my admirers, too.”

  Maggie wasn’t sure what she meant but didn’t want to seem like a complete dunce, so she just nodded.

  “So, what do you think happened to Templeton?”

  “Maybe she found out he was a dog, or maybe he changed his mind and didn’t want to be with her anymore. Either way, she was angry enough to stab him through his cheating heart.”

  Maggie did not point out that this gave Eva an excellent reason to have committed the murder herself. She tried to picture Eva sneaking into the library, luring Templeton down to the basement and stabbing him. Nah, it didn’t work.

  She supposed it was possible—anything was possible, after all—but Eva really struck her as the sort of flamboyant woman who would drive over a man if she was that angry at him. In fact, she’d probably run him down and then back up over him a few times to make sure she’d gotten the job done and, most likely, she’d do it with his own car.

  “Next time you come in, Maggie, I will fix your hair,” Eva said. “And I’ll give you a discount.”

  “Can’t argue with that,” Joanne said.

  Maggie forced a smile. For a discount, she might have to reassess her fear of Eva. The woman certainly knew her way around a pair of shears. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.

  Her cell phone sounded, and she fished it out of her bag.

  “Where are you?” Max asked as soon as she opened it.

  “I stopped to get Joanne,” she said. “We’re on our way.”

  “Well, get here already,” he said. Click.

  Huh! Maggie was not sure she was as fond of the uptight lawyerly attorney Max as she was ice cream cone Max.

  “What’s up?” Joanne asked.

  “Max is having some sort of drama,” she said. “We’d better hurry.”

  Maggie dialed Ginger’s number as they hustled out of the Clip and Snip with a wave at Eva. The dark beauty watched them leave, and Maggie had a moment of doubt. Was Eva capable of murder? As if reading her mind, the hairdresser gave her a small smile and turned away.

  “Hello? Maggie?” Ginger’s voice came out of her phone, and Maggie was forced to bring her attention back to the situation at hand.

  “Ginger, what’s the good word?” she asked.

  “Don’t have one. My Sister’s Closet is a dead end,” Ginger said. “They already sold out to Templeton. The deal was that they’d stay operational until the end of the summer, but now, with Templeton dead, I don’t know if they’ll stay open or have to close or what. I’ll tell you more about it when we meet up, but I’
d say they’re in the clear, since their deal with him was hammered out months ago. Where are you?”

  “Joanne and I just left the Clip and Snip—very interesting—and I had an enlightening chat with Jay at the Perk Up. We’re walking to the Frosty Freeze to see Max. He keeps calling, and it sounds urgent.”

  “I’ll meet you there,” she said.

  Maggie ended the call, and she and Joanne quickened their pace. The Frosty Freeze actually had a line outside the little window. About five people stood looking at the posted menu. A woman stood at the front with two children, a boy and a girl, looking irritated as the boy and girl took turns shoving each other and running away.

  Maggie peeked in the little window and saw that no one was there.

  The woman rapped on the window with her knuckles and hollered, “Hello?”

  Maggie and Joanne exchanged a glance and hurried around the side of the building to the back entrance.

  Maggie tried the doorknob. It was unlocked. She opened it and walked in.

  “Max?” she called as she pulled the hat off of her head. “Max, are you here?”

  There was a mumbled response.

  The back of the Frosty Freeze was not nearly as appetizing as the glossy photos that decorated the front of the building.

  Maggie and Joanne passed a small closet that was full of cleaning supplies and smelled faintly of ammonia. Next came the pantry, which was full of industrial-size boxes of napkins and sprinkles and all of the other yummies that go on top of ice cream. After that was the vintage walk-in freezer that kept the ice cream cold.

  Finally they came to the closet that had been converted into an office. Max was sitting there, staring at the monitor of an ancient computer.

  “Max, you have customers,” Maggie said. She tossed her hat onto a nearby shelf and raked her hair with her fingers. “Get out there before Hugh finds out you’re shirking.”

  Max turned a concerned gaze toward her. “That’s going to be the least of his worries.”

  “What did you find?” Joanne asked.

  “Check this out,” Max said.

  They crowded closer to his chair, and Max scooted out of his seat to let them have a better view.

  “Hello?” an irate voice, the mother, called from the front.

  “Go! We’ll read while you help the customers,” Maggie said.

  Joanne sat in the seat. It was an e-mail correspondence between Hugh Simpson and John Templeton. She scrolled down to the bottom of it to start at the beginning.

  What started as a business proposition and then turned into a business transaction, with Hugh borrowing a large sum of money from Templeton, rapidly deteriorated into demands for payment from Templeton, which, judging by the responses from Hugh, were met with several profanity-laced threats. The last e-mail from Hugh, dated before Templeton was killed, gave a vivid although misspelled description of how exactly Hugh was going to eviscerate Templeton with an ice cream scoop.

  Chapter 28

  “Oh my,” Joanne said.

  “Oh my what?” Ginger appeared in the doorway, making both of them jump.

  Maggie put her hand over her chest.

  “What did I miss? You both look completely freaked out,” Ginger said.

  “Read this,” Maggie said. She pointed to the computer, and Joanne rose so that Ginger could have her seat.

  They stood silently as Ginger read. Max popped into the doorway just as Ginger turned away from the computer.

  “Does the man really not have the brains to have deleted these messages?” Ginger asked. “I mean, if I threatened to do what he said he would do with an ice cream scoop and the guy turned up dead, well, I’d delete the message.”

  “He did,” Max said.

  “Then how did you find it?” Maggie asked.

  “He uses a work station, client-based e-mail program, so even though he deleted it, it’s retrievable from his hard disk.”

  “Oh,” Maggie said. She had no idea what he was talking about, but the point was that he’d gotten the e-mail.

  “So, do you think Hugh killed Templeton?” she asked.

  “It sure sounds like it,” Joanne said.

  “I have to agree,” Ginger said. “Can we print this?”

  “I already did, but I feel terrible about it,” Max said. “I mean, he’s my boss. This is a total violation of his trust.”

  “But if he killed someone, then you have to do what’s right, which means you have to turn that e-mail over to the police,” Maggie said.

  “Max!” a voice bellowed form outside. “Max!”

  Max’s eyes went round. “That’s him!”

  He frantically started punching keys on the computer, trying to erase the evidence.

  “Why aren’t you out front, Max?”

  “I have to use the bathroom,” Max yelled back. “He’s going to come in. He can’t find you three here. Hide.”

  Maggie looked around the tiny office.

  “Where?” Ginger asked.

  Max yanked the computer’s plug out of the wall, shoved the sheaf of printed e-mails into Maggie’s hands and started pushing them toward the door.

  “The storeroom,” he said.

  Joanne hurried across the hall with Ginger and Maggie right behind her. The storeroom was barely big enough for one person to turn around in, so the three of them had to mash up against the wall while Max pushed the door shut.

  As soon as he closed the door, they heard the back door open, and Hugh Simpson lumbered in.

  “I don’t pay you to go to the bathroom,” he barked at Max. “And you’d better have washed your hands.”

  “Yes, sir,” Max said.

  Maggie held her breath as she heard one set of feet head to the front of the ice cream shop and another go into the office across the hall. When the door to the office shut, she slowly let out her breath.

  She was wedged between Ginger and the door, and she didn’t think she could move without tipping an entire stack of waffle cones.

  “Now what do we do?” Joanne asked. Her voice was muffled, so Maggie assumed Joanne was as cramped as she was.

  “I don’t know, but I have to piddle,” Ginger said. Then she giggled.

  “Oh no, don’t you start,” Maggie hissed. Ginger had been like this since they were kids. She could never play hide-and-seek because she always had to go tinkle and she got the giggles.

  It was the silent laughter that did it.

  Ginger was trying to cork her giggle fit, but her shoulders were shaking, bumping against Joanne and Maggie and causing the Tupperware tubs of sprinkles to shake on their steel shelf.

  “Stop it, Ginger,” Maggie whispered.

  But she felt her own laugh hiss out her nose right after she said it. The harder she tried to contain it, the more it wanted to erupt out of her, and she was forced to make noises like a cat coughing up a hairball as she tried to hold the laughter back.

  Ginger’s shoulders started shaking harder, and Joanne was making panting noises that Maggie knew were her attempts at silent laughter, which only made her own cat-gagging noises worse.

  “I’m going to pee my pants,” Ginger said between shoulder shakes, which only set Maggie and Joanne off again.

  A door banged open in the hall and they all went still.

  “Max!” Hugh bellowed.

  “Yes, sir?” Max called from the front of the shop.

  “There’s something wrong with my computer. Would you look at it?”

  “Yes, sir,” he said. His voice was getting louder as he was walking toward them. “Could you, uh, watch the front while I do that?”

  Hugh let out a sigh. “Sure. It’s just dishing ice cream. It’s not like I’m paying you to do brain surgery out there.”

  Hugh’s footsteps got quiet. Maggie waited for Max to open the door, but he didn’t.

  “What do we do now?” Ginger hissed.

  Maggie could hear Joanne shifting in the back. She bumped Ginger, who knocked into Maggie, who banged into the doo
r with a thud. They all held their breaths, but no one came.

  “What are you doing?” Maggie whispered.

  “Weg crum,” Joanne said.

  “What?” Maggie and Ginger asked together.

  They heard Joanne swallow, and then she said, “Leg cramp.”

  “Are you eating?” Ginger asked. She was trapped with her arms pinned to her sides, and she could just turn her head to get a glance at Joanne behind her.

  “There’s a bag of marshmallows back here,” Joanne said. “I couldn’t resist.”

  The doorknob turned with the sound of metal clicking into metal. Someone was opening the door.

  Chapter 29

  Collectively, they all gasped and froze, as if the person opening the door would find it perfectly normal to see three grown women hiding in the supply cupboard if they weren’t moving.

  Maggie was wondering how good of an impersonation of a can of hot fudge sauce she could do when the door opened and Max’s head appeared.

  “What are you still doing here? Go!” he cried.

  “Max!” Hugh called from in front.

  Maggie sidled by Max with Ginger and Joanne hot on her heels. They were almost at the back door. She reached for the knob, quietly opened it and had just slipped through with Joanne and Ginger behind her when she glanced up and saw Summer Phillips standing right in front of her.

  Summer was holding an enormous banana split. Maggie just had a chance to register her evil grin before the split slammed into her face with an icy punch to the nose and a sticky splat to her temple. In the ice cream sundae wars, Maggie had just been TKO’d.

  Max, however, felt no sympathy for her plight. He gave Ginger and Joanne a shove, which pushed Maggie face-first into the gloating Summer’s front bumper.

  Summer leapt back with a shriek, but it was too late. Her turquoise, formfitting halter top was covered in whipped cream and fudge sauce. While Maggie used her fingers to scrape the banana and pineapple from her eyes, Ginger started bellowing at Summer and Joanne ran around the front of the building to grab a handful of napkins for Maggie.