Chocolate Most Deadly (Sky High Pies Cozy Mysteries Book 2)

by Mary Maxwell

  “Uh-huh,” Calvin said slowly. “Tell me more.”

  “I have a hunch,” I told him. “Beginning with the fact that not everyone knows that acetonitrile is metabolized by the body as cyanide.”

  Calvin was quiet while he considered the comment. “But you suspect that one of the three women does know?”

  “Bingo,” I said. “I’d like to take a peek at their high school and college transcripts. Just to see if there’s a chance one or more of them became enlightened on the subject somewhere along the way.”

  “Okay, sure,” Calvin said. “But does studying matter, energy and the subatomic realm necessarily mean they’ll know how deadly acetonitrile can be?”

  I smiled at his casual use of the subatomic realm. Calvin was one of the smartest people that I’d ever met; even when discussing something simple he could sound scholarly.

  “It’s just a hunch,” I said. “If I find out that one of them studied chemistry and learned about the toxic qualities of acetonitrile and other substances, I might try to leverage it into an admonition of guilt.”

  He asked how quickly I needed the information.

  “Well, yesterday would be the best case scenario,” I replied. “But I hate to be a pest.”

  “Give me an hour or so,” he said. “Some school districts have juiced their firewalls in the past few years. I won’t know if their schools have until I get cracking.”

  “I’ll text you the names and birth dates in a sec,” I said. “So you don’t have to worry about writing anything down.”

  After I thanked him again and promised to send a selection of Sky High’s most popular pies by FedEx, Calvin finished the call with a loud sneeze and a garbled apology. While I waited for him to burrow a digital hole through the ether, I arranged two snickerdoodles on a plate, fixed a cup of decaf blackberry mint tea and settled into bed with The Body in the Library.

  “At last,” I said to the empty room. “Peace, quiet and something sweet.”

  When the phone vibrated two hours later, I was facedown in a crumb-covered pillow with the Agatha Christie novel wedged under one hip. There was a new text from Calvin: Check your email. Found the HS transcripts for Hannah Z, Heidi Z and Lois J. Looks like your hunch is correct! I sent a quick reply of thanks, swept the crumbs into the trashcan beside the bed and switched on my laptop.

  The email from Calvin was short and snappy: All three were honor students. All three took HS chemistry (advanced classes). But only one took advanced chem in college. And here’s the kicker—she also wrote an article for an AP journal about Jean-Baptiste Dumas—the French chemist who first prepared acetonitrile in 1847. Her article mentioned the connection between acetonitrile and cyanide. All transcripts attached. Good luck, Kate!

  I quickly opened the attachment, scanned the school transcripts and smiled. My theory was still intact; one of the three women was most likely responsible for delivering the poisoned cupcakes to Tim’s apartment. But the byline on the article about the French chemist and the acetonitrile-cyanide connection was a genuine surprise.

  “Calvin Roth!” I shouted gleefully. “You are the best in the world!”

  CHAPTER 41

  When I pulled up in front of the AltaVista Apartments on Franklin the next afternoon, I spotted the paint-spattered aluminum ladder on the south side of the building, extending from the ground to the windows on the third floor. The painter that Viveca and I saw during our first visit was perched near the top of the ladder. Still dressed in bib overalls, a long-sleeved shirt and boots, the guy looked away when he saw that I was walking toward him.

  “Excuse me,” I called, cupping both hands around my mouth. “Can I talk to you for a second?”

  He ignored my question, so I gently tapped on the ladder.

  “Sir?”

  He stopped painting and glared at me. “I’m on a tight schedule,” he grumbled. “The landlord isn’t paying me to talk. He’s paying me to paint. And he’ll be really unhappy if I don’t get this done today.”

  I apologized for the intrusion and promised that it would only take a moment.

  “If I answer your question,” the guy said, peering at me from above, “will you go away and leave me alone?”

  “Cross my heart,” I said. “I’ll never bother you again, sir.”

  The painter snorted. “Did you just call me ‘sir’?”

  “I don’t know your name. And I like to be polite.”

  “It’s Theo,” he said, shifting the brush and paint can into one hand. “But most people call me Bones.”

  As I chuckled in response, he made his way down the ladder. After he stepped off and put the paint can on the ground, I explained that I was trying to confirm if someone had visited the building recently.

  “I know it’s kind of weird,” I said, digging for my phone. “But we keep missing one another.” I decided to embellish my story a bit to make it seem more believable. “And she’s changed her number about ten million times.”

  Bones smirked. “That sounds like something my ex-wife did when we were getting divorced,” he mumbled. “You from a lawyer’s office?”

  “No,” I said, shaking my head. “I don’t work for an attorney. I’m just trying to find out if a particular woman stopped by here. Since it seems you’ve been working on the building for the past few days, I thought there’s a slim chance that you might’ve seen her.”

  He pulled a crumpled blue bandana from his pocket and swept it across his brow. “One of the residents?”

  “She doesn’t live here, but she knows people that do.” I searched on my phone for the group photo that included Heidi Zimmer, Lois Jordan and Anton Hall. When I found it, I used my thumb and forefinger to make it as big as possible. “The woman on the far right,” I said, holding the phone up. “Have you seen her lately?”

  Bones tilted forward, pursed his lips and looked at Lois. “Never saw her before in my life,” he said.

  “Okay, well—”

  “But that one.” He pointed at Heidi. “That’s the chick with the green hair. She comes by all the time.”

  “Really?”

  He nodded. “And I mean that,” he added. “All. The. Time.” He sneered and muttered a few impolite remarks. “I don’t know why she doesn’t just move back in, you know? She’d save herself a ton on gas money.”

  From the way he was looking at the paintbrush in his hand, I could tell he was ready to get back up on the ladder.

  “I really appreciate your help with this,” I said.

  He accepted the thankfulness with a silent shrug.

  “Do you know if she was here on the day that the guy was poisoned?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “She was here. I worked that whole weekend.”

  “And how was she dressed?”

  “I don’t know,” Bones said with a shrug. “It was, like, a coat that reminded me of a quilt or something. She wears it a lot when she visits.”

  “A quilt?”

  “Yeah, with all these scraps of different fabric and stuff,” he answered. “And she was wearing this floppy hat with a feather on it.”

  I waited until he finished. Then I asked if he’d actually seen the woman’s face that day.

  He bit the inside of his cheek, considering the question. “Not really,” he said finally. “I was up there.” He gestured toward the ladder. “And, like I said, she hurried inside with her head down the whole way.”

  “Was she carrying anything?”

  “Like a purse?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Or a suitcase, cardboard box or other large package.”

  He thought for a moment, looking down at his boots and kicking idly at a bare spot in the lawn. “Just a six-pack of soda,” he said. “And a white box. Like the kind they put cookies in at a bakery.”

  I felt a surge of anticipation. “Cookies?”

  The toe of his boot sent a small plume of dust into the air. “I don’t know what was in it,” he said. “Cookies. Donuts. Sweet rolls. Maybe something like th
at. To be honest, I never really pay all that much attention to her. She’s always running her mouth, talking about a bunch of stuff that I couldn’t give two shakes about.” He frowned and dug at the ground again with his boot. “Although, now that I’m thinking about it, that was one thing that was different that day.”

  “What’s that?”

  “She didn’t say a peep,” he told me. “And she kept her head down, staring at the ground the whole time. Almost like she didn’t want me to see her or something. I noticed the coat and hat that she always wears. And strands of the green hair. But she never said a word.”

  I smiled at the remark. “Thank you, Bones. That’s very helpful.”

  He frowned, creasing his forehead with dozens of deep wrinkles. “Yeah? How so?”

  “It’s complicated,” I said. “And I know you’re on a deadline, so I should let you get back to work.”

  The frown vanished. “Yeah, I probably should. This is my fourth week here. I’m already behind on another project that I haven’t even started yet.”

  “One more question?” I asked apologetically. “Do you know who owns the building?”

  “Guy called Jake Breen. He bought it a few months ago from the geezer that had it for, like, thirty years.”

  I hadn’t expected the name. But it somehow fit with the curious circumstances that had come to light since Viveca showed up at my door with the news that her brother was the victim of a murder plot. I was thinking about Tim, Delilah and all the rest when Bones started climbing the ladder.

  “Okay, so if he owns the building,” I said, “then he would have keys to all the units, right?”

  He stopped. “I thought you said one more question.”

  I gave him my most innocent smile. “I’m sorry, Bones. I never was very good with math.”

  After snickering darkly, he confirmed my assumption. “Yeah, he’s got keys. Uses ’em whenever he wants to go in and snoop around in the units. The guy’s a total loser.”

  “Has he been here lately?”

  Bones pursed his lips. “Yep, the same day that the chick in the floppy hat came back. She carried beer and that bakery box one day; wasn’t carrying anything a couple days later.”

  “Oh, really?” I said.

  He nodded. “I mean, other than the backpack she’s always got,” he answered. “Like the kind a little girl would carry. It had a cartoon character on it. Cora? Nora? Something like that. I know because my daughter loves the show.”

  “Are you thinking of Dora the Explorer?” I suggested.

  “Yep, that’s the one! Dora, not Cora.”

  I smiled. “Anything else you remember about that day?”

  “Not really,” he said. “Other than the kid’s backpack, it was pretty much a carbon copy of the day she came with the cookies. She hurried up the sidewalk, kept her head down and didn’t say a word.”

  “And when did Breen arrive?”

  “I don’t know,” Bones answered. “Maybe a half hour or so before that. I was getting ready to quit for the day, so I’d gone around the building to rinse my brushes and rollers. As I came back up here, I saw Breen’s car at the curb. Then I saw another guy going in the front door.”

  “Did you get a look at the other man?”

  Bones shook his head. “No, but I know his name now.”

  “Oh, really?”

  “Yeah,” said Bones. “Because I heard about him that night on the ten o’clock news.”

  I connected the dots in a flash. “The dead guy in Delilah Benson’s apartment?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “Did you tell all of this to the police?”

  He frowned. “What do you think?”

  I nodded.

  “That’s right,” Bones said. “As soon as I saw the story on the news, I called 911. They sent a couple of guys over to my place right away.”

  “Was one of them Detective Adam Caldwell?” I asked.

  “Yeah, I think so.” He grinned. “You know him, too?”

  I raised one hand and twined my middle and index fingers together. “We’re just like this,” I said as a smile flickered on my lips. “We go way back.”

  “You’re pulling my leg,” Bones said.

  “Maybe a little,” I agreed. “But I have met the guy. He’s friendly with a couple of people I know up in Crescent Creek.”

  “That where you’re from?”

  I smiled. “Home sweet home,” I said. “I lived in Chicago for a while, but I came back earlier this year to take over my family’s business.”

  “Is that right? What kind of business?”

  “Sky High Pies,” I answered.

  His eyes went wide with delight. “Oh, man! I remember going there when I was a kid. My family drove to Sacramento for summer vacations and we would go through Crescent Creek. My parents always said that if my brother and I could behave in the backseat, we’d stop for a slice of pie on the return trip.”

  “How’d that work out for you?”

  Bones chuckled. “It was perfect,” he said. “Danny and I glared at one another the whole way there and back. No funny stuff, no yelling. But after we stopped in Crescent Creek and got that piece of pie, we made up for it on the rest of the drive into Denver.”

  I smiled at the story. “Okay, you should get back up there and finish what I interrupted,” I said. “Thanks again for taking time to answer my questions.”

  I watched as he climbed the ladder. When he reached the top, he dipped the brush in the paint can and returned to work.

  “You still there?” he asked.

  “Yes, but I’m leaving,” I said, blinking away the whirl of thoughts in my mind. “I appreciate your help.”

  He laughed again. “And I actually appreciate the break,” he said. “Good luck finding whoever you’re looking for.”

  CHAPTER 42

  As I walked back to my car, I considered heading home. But then I decided to make at least one more stop in Denver to see if I could unravel the last few strands of the situation. I climbed behind the wheel and was getting ready to pull away from the curb when my phone rang. I smiled at the name and swiped the screen.

  “Detective Caldwell?”

  “We picked up Jake Breen this morning,” he said in lieu of a more traditional greeting.

  “On what charge?”

  “I’d like to be juvenile and say it was for complete and utter stupidity,” he answered. “But I’ll be professional; Breen was involved in a minor traffic accident on Josephine Street near the Botanic Gardens.”

  “Another surprising twist,” I said. “I didn’t peg him as a gardening enthusiast.”

  Caldwell scoffed. “I don’t know about that,” he said. “But the guy’s a huge fan of unlicensed firearms.”

  “Does that mean there was something else going on when he had the fender bender?”

  “You got it! He was driving a brand-new TT Roadster that he’d borrowed from a buddy. He told the first responders that he smashed into the back of an old woman’s Cadillac because he wasn’t familiar with the Audi’s brakes.”

  “That could happen,” I said. “Especially if you’re a punk like Jake Breen.”

  “And your BAC qualifies you for the second drunk driving arrest in less than a year,” Caldwell said.

  “Are you kidding me?”

  He answered first with a sinister chuckle. “When the officer smelled booze on Jake’s breath, they decided to take a look in the Audi. Care to guess what they saw peeking out from beneath the driver’s seat?”

  “An unlicensed firearm?”

  “Wow! You’re really good, Kate.”

  I thanked him for the sardonic praise and asked what else he could tell me about Breen’s arrest.

  “Well, he can swear in five languages,” Caldwell said. “And he has a tendency to use the f-bomb after every other word.”

  “I can understand that,” I said. “The poor dunce probably didn’t expect to start the day with a car crash.”

  �
��He wasn’t starting the day,” Caldwell said. “It was a continuation of a vodka binge from the night before.”

  “Sounds reasonable. I guess he’s behind bars now?”

  “For the time being. He’s behind bars and he’s pointing the finger at two sisters and a third woman named—”

  “Lois Jordan,” I interrupted.

  “Wow!” Caldwell said. “You really are good. How do you know about her?”

  “I’m not at liberty to divulge that information,” I said. “Because we met at an AA meeting.”

  “Right,” Caldwell said. “The York Street Club. Breen filled us in on all three of the women. The two sisters are, uh, Heather and…” He stopped and I could hear paper rustling. “Hang on, Kate. I want to check my notes.”

  “It’s Heidi and Hannah,” I told him. “Otherwise known as the Zimmer twins.”

  “Yep. You’re right again. According to good ol’ Jake, one of the three women stole his other unlicensed firearm and used it to shoot Toby Wurlitzer when he went to Delilah’s apartment to collect the ten grand that they’d stashed in her freezer.”

  “Oh, right,” I said. “In the loaf of sourdough bread.”

  “But he hasn’t given up the shooter’s name yet,” Caldwell added. “He’s trying to make some kind of deal.”

  I smiled to myself. “Okay,” I said. “What’s behind Door Number Four?”

  Caldwell didn’t say anything.

  “Detective?”

  “I was trying to figure out what you’re talking about,” he said.

  “Oh, come on. Don’t you remember Monty Hall and Carol Merrill?”

  “You lost me, Kate.”

  “Haven’t you heard of Let’s Make a Deal?”

  He groaned in response. “Anyway,” he said, “The guy’s on ice for the time being. The DA isn’t interested in making a deal until Breen gives us something worthwhile.”

  “Don’t you believe him about the Zimmers and Lois Jordan?”

  “Who knows? We’ve got officers on the way to find all three women. Once we pick ’em up and bring ’em in for questioning, I’ll give you a call.”