Previous Confections

by Ruth Hartzler

  “Does it matter what we need to record?” Matilda said. “We want a professional quality audio spy device, that’s all. We don’t need a long battery life with it, but it needs to be concealed nicely.”

  “We do have several voice recorders that can fit in a purse or pocket. We also have pens and USB memory sticks. Our pens will actually write. We also have keychain digital voice audio recorders.”

  “No, I’m not keen on memory sticks or pens,” Matilda told him. “I want something more substantial. And what’s more, we need it to feedback to people listening within four hundred yards.”

  Now the man really was surprised. “So you want someone to be able to listen in real time? You don’t simply want a recording?”

  “Yes, exactly,” Matilda said. “We’re looking for a transmitter as well as a recorder. You know, like a police wire.”

  “I see,” he said, nodding slowly as he spoke. “We don’t get much call for that.”

  “Do you have any at all?”

  “Yes, we do. I’ll show you our models.”

  I could see at once that Matilda was not happy with the selection.

  “Is the recording in person or over a phone?” the shop assistant asked.

  “In person,” she said. “We only need to record up to an hour. But as I said, we do want other people to be able to hear it at the time.”

  He handed her a USB stick. “This will give you fifteen hours of recording on a single charge.”

  Matilda looked it over. “Do you have anything more substantial?”

  “Most people want to record phone conversations,” he said, “but this one is voice-activated and it has a lot of battery power. The audio is very clear. It’s larger than the pen or the USB flash drive audio recorder, but you can conceal it in your purse.”

  Matilda took some time deciding, but finally said, “I’ll have that one.”

  I opened my purse, but she said, “No Jane, allow me.”

  “But I feel responsible because Cherri asked for my help,” I said.

  Matilda pulled a face. “Nonsense. Besides, it’s wonderful to have a surveillance device again.”

  I wondered why she said ‘again’, but she was already paying for the device.

  When we got back to the car, Eleanor asked, “What one did you get?”

  Matilda handed it over to her. After a few moments, Eleanor said, “This is not good at all.”

  “What do you expect from one that’s available to the general public?” Matilda said, mystifying me even more. I would love to know what these ladies had been up to in the past.

  “Now hand it back Eleanor, so I can set it up,” Matilda ordered her. “Find Melissa Matheson’s address on the GPS on your phone so you can navigate for Jane.”

  “What did you think I was doing when you were buying the voice recorder?” Eleanor said. “And Jane, Cherri called while you were in there. I saw the Caller ID, so I answered. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “No, I’m glad you did,” I said.

  “Cherri is going to set up an appointment for Matilda to speak with Melissa now.”

  “Excellent.” Matilda looked across at me. “Jane, put these on!” She handed me a prayer kapp and bonnet. “Melissa knows what you look like, so you’ll need to wear these.”

  I tapped myself on my forehead. “But Matilda, I completely forgot! How could I have forgotten? Melissa knows what you look like too. You were at the Botox party with me.”

  “That’s perfectly fine,” she said. “She already thinks that Cherri has engaged my services. I’ll just tell her I was there undercover. If you will recall, we were never introduced as your roommates.”

  “I can’t remember. You have such a good memory, Matilda. Anyway, what if Melissa sees Eleanor in the car?”

  “I wouldn’t worry about that,” Matilda said, “and your disguise is simply a precaution. Your windows are tinted. By the way, when you park out front, don’t do so directly outside the door. Try to park under some sort of cover.”

  Melissa’s house was even bigger than the Weatherspoons’ house. Large and sprawling, it stood behind imposing electronic gates. We had to announce ourselves into the intercom and then the gates opened for us.

  “Gosh, I’m glad they don’t have guard dogs because Mr. Crumbles might be scared if they run up to the car,” Eleanor said.

  When we reached the front of the building. I parked behind a potted spicebush. It would provide minimal cover, but it was better than nothing.

  As Matilda walked over to the door, I clutched my stomach. “I hope this goes well,” I said to Eleanor. I adjusted my prayer kapp and took off my seatbelt in an attempt to make myself comfortable. Eleanor handed me the device, which looked like a small black box. “Put it up there,” she said, pointing to the dash, “so we can both hear. Switch it on now.”

  I switched on the device, which thankfully appeared quite uncomplicated, and set it on the dash.

  At first the voices were muffled and then we clearly heard Melissa’s voice. “Hello, don’t I know you from somewhere?”

  “Yes I’m Miss Marple,” Matilda said, once more giving her false name. “I’m the private investigator hired by Cherri Delight. I was at Candace Weatherspoon’s Botox party the other night, working undercover.”

  “Oh.” Melissa sounded surprised. “Did you find out anything?”

  “I’m not at liberty to divulge that, I’m afraid,” Matilda said.

  After a few moments, Melissa spoke again. “Won’t you come in?”

  There was no sound for a few minutes, and then Matilda asked, “Do you know anyone who would have any reason to harm your husband?”

  “I don’t know who could have murdered him,” she said with a sigh. “The police have already asked me this several times.”

  “If you wouldn’t mind going through it again with me,” Matilda said. “The police don’t share information with me, so I have to conduct a separate investigation.”

  Melissa replied at once. “Of course, of course. I do understand.”

  Just then, I jumped as two dog’s paws landed hard on the car window. The owner of the paws was a large and angry Doberman. Bits of saliva flew out of the side of his mouth.

  The next thing I knew, Mr. Crumbles flung himself at the window, making deep meowing sounds. I was rather taken aback, surprised that such sounds could come from the little cat. Apparently, the dog felt the same way. Mr. Crumbles’ meows increased in volume and he swiped at the glass.

  The dog whimpered and ran away, his tail between his legs. Mr. Crumbles stood on the seat with his paws on the glass and meowed several times in succession.

  “Did you hear that?” I heard Melissa’s voice say. “It sounded like a cat.”

  “Shush, she can hear you,” Matilda muttered.

  Eleanor tapped me on the shoulder, drew her finger across her throat, and pointed to the black box on the dash.

  The next thing I heard was Melissa’s voice. “Sorry, did you tell me to be quiet? I know you can hear me. I’m sure I heard a sound like a very angry cat.”

  “No, I didn’t hear a thing. Maybe it was thunder?” Matilda said.

  Eleanor lunged into the front seat, grabbed the black box, and turned it off. “The noises in the car were going through to the recorder,” she said. “Clearly, Matilda did not set it up properly.”

  “What are we going to do now?” I said. “What if Melissa was suspicious?”

  Eleanor stroked Mr. Crumbles. “Did that naughty dog upset you, you poor thing?”

  I saw the Doberman off in the distance cowering under the dubious cover of pink moccasin flowers. “More like Mr. Crumbles upset the poor dog.”

  “Anyway, we don’t need to worry because Matilda recorded it.” She handed me a box.

  As I opened it, I exclaimed, “Donuts!”

  “It’s not exactly a stakeout, but it might get quite boring waiting for Matilda,” Eleanor said. “I grabbed some donuts from the fridge when we went home to collect Mr.
Crumbles.”

  I was already eating one so I couldn’t speak. I nodded and gave her the thumbs up.

  We had eaten the whole box of donuts before Matilda returned. “Drive off quickly,” she said, when she was half-way in the car.

  “Was Melissa suspicious when she heard Mr. Crumbles?” I asked her.

  Matilda shook her head. “No, not at all. She really did think his meowing was thunder. I take it you didn’t hear anything after that?”

  “No we didn’t,” I said.

  Matilda made a clucking sound with her tongue. “Honestly, that wasn’t a very good surveillance device.”

  “Did you ask her about the life insurance policy?” I asked her, edging toward the gates that were opening in front of us.

  “Yes, she said she took it out about ten years ago. Either she did it so long ago so suspicion would be thrown off her and she had planned this murder a long time, or she is innocent. Most people don’t wait that long to murder their husbands.”

  “It could just be that she is quite clever,” Eleanor remarked.

  “Possibly,” Matilda said, “but she did tell me something very interesting.” Before we had a chance to ask her what it was, she pushed on. “The chef has now moved to the top of the list of suspects.”

  “Brendan Bowles?” I said with surprise. “Why?”

  “Because he is a highly regarded chef, and Marcus was cost-cutting. He insisted on minimal staff and he wouldn’t let the chef purchase quality ingredients. Marcus was trying to cut corners as much as he could, and Brendan was furious about it.”

  “Why didn’t Brendan just leave?” I asked her.

  “Well, apparently that’s why your ex-husband Ted was called in,” Matilda told me. “Brendan was trying to get out of the contract and Ted was called into advice Marcus. Ted had written the contract in the first place and it was iron clad. There was no way Brendan could get out of it, but he had employed a lawyer to contest it.”

  “Aha! So that’s why Ted came to Pennsylvania.”

  Matilda nodded. “And you know how chefs can be. I’ve watched a lot of chef shows on TV. I’d say Brendan does have a motive.”

  I thought it over. “What about Candace and Rick Weatherspoon? They were the partners in the business. What is their attitude toward the understaffing and the poor quality food?”

  “They were on the chef’s side,” Matilda said, “so it was only Marcus who was holding out and he had the controlling interest in the business.”

  “What is Melissa’s opinion of this?” I said. “She’s a partner in the business too.”

  “She’s already given Brendan the go-ahead to employ more staff and order better quality ingredients.”

  Eleanor snorted from the back seat. “That didn’t take her long. Her husband was only murdered a few days ago.”

  “She said Brendan was pressing her to agree.”

  I shook my head. I slowed down to pass a buggy and realized I was still wearing my Amish bonnet. Whatever would the driver think? I kept my eyes firmly on the road and then removed my bonnet and prayer kapp with one hand. “It sounds a little too convenient to me. She handed Brendan to you on a platter, probably to throw suspicion off herself.”

  Matilda disagreed. “No, Jane, she was entirely reluctant to tell me about the chef. I had to drag it out of her. She certainly didn’t volunteer any information.”

  Once more Eleanor piped up from the back seat. “Did Melissa think Brendan murdered Marcus?”

  “She didn’t say so explicitly. In fact, she didn’t even hint that he might be, and she said she was sure he wouldn’t do such a thing.”

  “But the thing is, it had to be someone who was sitting at the dinner table that night,” I said, “and we are running out of options.”

  Chapter 15

  Matilda, Eleanor, and I were huddled under a large umbrella on a decidedly rainy day. We were standing at the graveside at the funeral of Marcus Matheson. The driving rain came at us in waves, giving a good impression of a mountain mist.

  “We should have brought more umbrellas,” Matilda grumbled as the three of us stood in a huddle.

  “I don’t know why they didn’t have the service in a church and then come out here afterwards,” I said.

  I wiped the rain out of my eyes and peered at the gathering crowd. Most of them I didn’t know, although I spied Candace and Rick Weatherspoon. I also saw the waiter. I pointed him out to Matilda.

  “Oh yes, what’s his name again? Trip Rothery. You know, just because it seemed too obvious that he had the vial in his pocket doesn’t mean he’s not the perpetrator,” Matilda said. “Agatha Christie used that device.”

  I was thoroughly confused. “What device do you mean?” I asked her.

  “You know, the device where the murderer at first appeared to be framed. Agatha Christie used that device in Hickory Dickory Dock. However, most people think Agatha Christie always had the least likely suspect as the murderer, such as in Lord Edgware Dies or Three Little Pigs, but no, that was not always the case.”

  “I think the rain is easing a bit now,” I said in an attempt to change the subject. All Matilda’s talk of Agatha Christie and Miss Marple made my head spin. I usually couldn’t follow her train of thought.

  “So do you think it’s the waiter?” Eleanor asked her.

  “I certainly wouldn’t dismiss him as a suspect,” Matilda said. “Look, here he comes now. You’ll have to speak to him, Jane, because you were present at the fatal dinner.”

  She pushed me forward into the rain, and I staggered into the waiter.

  “I’m terribly sorry,” I said.

  “Don’t I know you?” he said.

  “Yes, I was at the dinner the other night when Marcus Matheson was murdered,” I said.

  “Oh yes.” He seemed lost for words.

  “Have the police arrested anyone yet?” I said. He shook his head. “Do they have any suspects?”

  “They suspected me for a time.”

  I feigned surprise. “Goodness me! Why would they do that?”

  “Because the murderer slipped a vial of the poison into my jacket pocket somehow.”

  “That’s terrible!” I said.

  He readily agreed. “But the good thing was, my fingerprints weren’t on it. And I wasn’t wearing gloves, so the police knew it wasn’t me. It had to be someone wearing gloves.”

  I was grateful that he was talking about that night, so I added, “The murderer had to be someone sitting at that table. I didn’t notice anyone wearing gloves.”

  “Nor did I,” he said, “and I thought about it a lot. Obviously they must’ve had a tissue or a handkerchief around the vial when they put it in my pocket. What’s more, the murderer couldn’t have drawn the poison from that particular vial.”

  “Why not?” I asked him.

  “Because they would have had to use gloves and we didn’t see anyone wearing gloves.” The rain had changed direction and he adjusted his umbrella. “What I mean is, someone dropped the vial in my pocket to throw the suspicion onto me. They had already used a different vial to murder that poor man, and they would have hidden the evidence afterwards.”

  It took me a moment or two to follow his train of thought. “I see! It wasn’t very clever of them to try to implicate you since no fingerprints where on the vial.”

  He nodded. “That’s what the police said, luckily for me.”

  “I wonder who would want to kill him?” I asked, trying to not sound too keen to hear the answer.

  “He wasn’t well liked.”

  Now I was genuinely surprised. “He wasn’t? Why wasn’t he well liked?

  “He might have been well liked in his personal life, but he certainly wasn’t well liked in the restaurant business. His business was doing badly and that’s why he had all those arguments with the chef.”

  “He argued publicly with Brendan Bowles?”

  Trip nodded. “Brendan is quite a nasty man. He’s always screaming at the staff, even when they
haven’t done anything wrong. If he comes to work in a bad mood, he takes it out on everyone.”

  “I heard that Marcus wouldn’t allow Brendan to hire a full staff or buy top quality food in cost-cutting measures.”

  “That’s right. The two of them were always at odds. I mean, Brendan is a nasty piece of work, but Marcus was cheap. Still, I can’t suppose I could blame him for that when his business was going so badly.”

  “What about Candace and Rick Weatherspoon?”

  He looked puzzled. “What do you mean?”

  “Were their other businesses doing badly too?”

  He shook his head. “No, they were trying to buy the business from Marcus, but he wanted to trade out of his bad financial situation. They were keen to buy his restaurants.”

  With that, he nodded and hurried away.

  “Well done, Jane,” Matilda said as she sloshed through puddles to me. “That was excellent intelligence work.”

  “We need to find out about this Brendan Bowles,” I said. “Still, the police would have all this information. I wish we could just leave it to them to solve.”

  “I know, but you did promise Cherri.”

  I groaned aloud. “Don’t remind me.”

  “There’s that handsome Scottish detective now,” Matilda said with a wink. “Why don’t you go and tell him what you’ve found out about Brendan Bowles and Marcus’s finances.”

  “He probably already knows,” I told her. “After all, he is a detective and we’re just amateur sleuths.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Matilda said. “I would count myself a little better than an amateur sleuth.” With that, she winked at me again.

  I thought it was a good idea to tell Detective McCloud what I had found out, but when I looked around, he had vanished. People were standing around talking, angling their umbrellas against the direction of the rain. A large pavilion tent had been erected near the gravesite. I could see Melissa standing under it being comforted by a group of women. I couldn’t tell who they were from this distance, but I thought one of them was Candace Weatherspoon.

  I thought things through again. Candace did have Botox parties and her husband was friends with the plastic surgeon, Dr. Davidson. What’s more, while the nurse was administering the Botox, anyone would have had the opportunity to procure a few vials of Botox. Melissa and Candace were present at the Botox party, whereas the chef and the waiter weren’t. Still, as the police had dismissed the waiter as a suspect, that only left Brendan. I needed to find out if he had a wife or if he had any connection whatsoever to Botox.