Game of Tarts

by Wendy Meadows

  “Oh, my goodness, Sophie! I am so sorry!”

  She steals a peek up at my face. “I guess we’re not so different after all.”

  “No, we’re not. I’m sorry I judged you when I first met you.”

  “Everybody does,” she continues. “That was part of Scott’s plan. He designed me to be the lynchpin in his perfect facade. He said it was my job to look as good as the rest of the life he constructed for me, but he really constructed it for himself. He built up this empire to show the world how great he was, and I had to go along with it.”

  “Sophie,” I venture, “did he ever cheat on you? This could be the missing piece of the puzzle that could help us find out who killed him.”

  “He cheated on me all the time. He always had some little floozie on the side. The first couple of times it happened, I confronted him. I got upset and made a big scene. He apologized and said it would never happen again. After a while, though, he didn’t even bother to do that. He said as long as he was paying my credit card bills, he could do whatever he wanted.”

  “Do you know if he had taken up with anyone here in town?” I ask. “It doesn’t seem like he was here long enough for that.”

  She bursts out laughing. “You didn’t know him. He could have picked someone up his very first day in town. I wouldn’t put it past him.”

  “Did he….?” I don’t want to say it. “Would he have hooked up with a married woman?”

  “He would hook up with a lamppost if that’s what he wanted,” she fires back. “A woman being married would never stop him if he set his sights on her.”

  “Did he have any particular type? Did he go for successful business owners like himself? Was he picky at all about who he hooked up with?”

  She looks away. “I’m sure I don’t know half the women he’s slept with. I don’t think he had any kind of standard as long as she was willing.”

  I nod down into my teacup. “All right. I’ll pass that on to Detective Graham.”

  She looks up at me. “You don’t think someone he was sleeping with killed him, do you?”

  “I don’t know exactly. It could have been someone he slept with, or it could have been someone’s husband. I don’t know because we don’t have enough evidence yet. I probably shouldn’t have said anything about it until we knew for sure.”

  “Was your ex-husband a cheater?”

  I have to smile at that. “If he was, I never found out. I was too submissive even to ask myself that question. I never saw any sign that he was, but he didn’t need to be to ruin my life.”

  “I saw plenty of signs. Scott never tried to hide them from me.”

  I gasp in surprise. “Really? What did you see?”

  “I smelled perfume on him more than once. A few weeks ago, I found really dark lipstick on his shirt collar. I mean, it was like purple-black, it was so dark.”

  I frown. Now who in this town wears lipstick that dark?

  “I found a scrap of fabric in my house once,” she goes on. “It was faded black cotton like it came from someone’s t-shirt or something. It had very cracked white paint printed on it, but the fragment was too small. I couldn’t make out the design or anything.”

  “What did you do with the fabric?”

  “I threw it out. I destroyed the evidence, as you say, so I wouldn’t see the reality of my situation staring me in the face. I got rid of it the same way I washed the lipstick out of his shirt.”

  “Did he have a…..?” My cheeks color trying to put my thoughts into words. “Did he have a den somewhere that he took his women? Did he have an apartment or a house or somewhere like that all set up where he could go sleep with them?”

  She shakes her head. “Nothing like that. He would do it anywhere—in the back of the café, in the alley, in his car. He would even do it in our house. That’s why that fabric was there. That’s what I figured, at least.”

  The pieces start falling together in my head. So Scott was doing it in his car with someone with dark lipstick. “Did he ever mention to you that someone was threatening him?”

  “Oh, sure. He was getting those notes all the time. He would find them everywhere—in the mailbox, on his dashboard, taped to the café door—you name it. They were everywhere.”

  “Did they start when you moved to Rockshield,” I ask, “or was he getting them before?”

  “Only since we moved here. No one bothered him before. I even got one. I found it in my grocery delivery. It said something like, ‘Your husband is a liar and a cheat’. Well, I already knew that, so I threw it out with the rest of the evidence and I never told Scott about it. What was the point?”

  “Did he mention the threats to the police?” I ask.

  “I told him he should, but he said it could impact his business if customers saw the police around his establishment. He said he had to walk a tightrope until the business got established.”

  “So what did he do?”

  “He hid the notes,” she replies. “I don’t know where. He said he would put them somewhere safe until the business got on its feet. Then he would take all of them to the police. I guess he never got a chance.”

  “No, he didn’t.” I take a sip of my tea. “I guess we don’t really need to ask who could have a reason to threaten him.”

  “Are you thinking the killer threatened him?”

  “Maybe,” I reply. “Then again, maybe someone else threatened him and the killer found out about it. Maybe they took advantage of it to get rid of Scott and throw the blame on the person who sent the notes.”

  Sophie shakes her head. “Someone would have to be pretty cruel to do something like that.”

  “Someone would have to be pretty cruel to sit next to Scott and pour poison into his coffee, too.”

  Sophie speaks in a tiny voice. I’ve never seen her so uncertain before. “So what are you going to do?”

  “I’ll talk to Detective Graham, but it won’t be tonight. It’s after eleven o’clock and my head is killing me.” I topple sideways onto the couch. Even holding the frozen peas to my head makes my pulse throb in my brain. I close my eyes and cower into the cushions.

  “What about…. what about me?” Sophie asks. “I can’t go back to that house.”

  “You can stay here,” I tell her, “or you can leave town the way you planned. You don’t have to stick around.”

  She looks around the room without seeing anything in front of her. I can just picture the parade of conflicting emotions warring in her heart right now. She wants to flee, to get away from everything Scott was to her. This whole town is Scott to her now. She can’t be here without thinking and breathing Scott.

  On the other hand, she probably wasn’t planning to split town at nearly midnight with no preparations in place. She would be walking out with the clothes on her back. She probably doesn’t even have a place to stay tonight, and Rockshield doesn’t have any hotels.

  My heart goes out to her. She might have gazillions in the bank, but she’s just as helpless as every other sad character running away from a disastrous relationship. “Stay here, Sophie,” I tell her. “You’re more than welcome. You can go back to Alabama in the morning.”

  She breaks into a smile of relief, and her eyes mist over. Her voice cracks when she tries to speak. “Thanks.”

  I heave myself up to a sitting position. “Come on. I’ll take you to the…..” I collapse back with my head spinning. I clutch my pounding skull and swim in and out of consciousness. “Ooohhh!”

  Zack comes tripping down the stairs at that exact moment. “Okay! You’re going to bed, young lady.”

  Sophie rushes to my side. “Are you okay, Margaret?”

  “She’ll be fine. She just needs to go to sleep.” Zack takes hold of my arm and supports me to the stairs.

  “Sophie’s staying over tonight,” I tell him. “She’ll need to…”

  “I’ll take care of Sophie,” Zack interrupts. “Now stop stalling and march.”

  He pushes me up the stairs
and into my room. He doesn’t let go of me until I slump down on my own bed. He lowers me onto the quilt and tucks me in. “Good night, Mom.”

  I can’t keep my eyes open a second longer. I hear Zack’s voice out in the hall. “This way, Sophie. We have a guest room, but I’m sure it’s not as nice as what you’re used to.”

  She answers from the room down the hall. “It’s wonderful. Thank you, Zack. You and your mother are so very kind.”

  I don’t hear anymore. I fall into a void of blackness where I can’t feel the pain in my head anymore.

  16

  I wake up with a splitting headache the next morning. The first thing I see is David Graham sitting by my bed. The sun squeaks between the curtains that cast my bedroom in shadow.

  David sways back and forth in the rocking chair. I squint at him through my misery. “Hello. Who let you in?”

  He chuckles. “Believe it or not, your nursemaid was very nice about it. He said you would probably want to see me instead of him when you woke up.”

  I rub my tender head. “How long have I been out?”

  “About twelve hours. Zack called me at about seven o’clock this morning and told me what happened last night. He said he didn’t want to wake you up, and he had to open the candy store this morning. Would you believe he actually asked me to come over and keep an eye on you so he could go open the store?”

  I sink onto my pillow with a groan of pain. “I can’t believe it, actually. I didn’t think he would be so….so supportive.”

  “He appears to be coming around to the idea. He also told me about your meeting with Sophie Freeman last night.”

  “Where is Sophie?” I ask. “Is she still here?”

  “She left town at the crack of dawn, but she left you a note thanking you for all you’ve done for her. She thinks the sun rises and sets on you.”

  “Scott was cheating on her with Sabrina Harris,” I tell him. “He was a serial cheat, and he was controlling and abusive. She also says she got one of those notes telling her he was cheating.”

  He nods. “I ran those samples through the crime lab in Peterborough. The cedar chips match the trees behind the bakery. The chocolate also matches the recipe from the Baker’s Dozen.”

  “Sophie says Scott would fool around with his conquests in his car. If he was messing around with….” I stop. I don’t want to be the one to say it.

  “Go on. You don’t have to keep quiet anymore,” he replies. “If he was messing around with Sabrina in his car, that explains why he didn’t notice the chocolate or the dirt and try to clean them up. He was too busy.”

  I throw my arm over my face to stop myself from laughing. “I don’t want to think about it.”

  He laughs, too. “All I can say is that the two of them must have been fully engaged at the time.”

  “What are you going to do?” I ask.

  “I’m going down to the bakery as soon as I get out of here. I’m glad you’re awake. It means whoever assaulted you didn’t cause any major brain damage.” He stands up.

  I heave myself upright. “I’m coming with you.”

  “Oh, no, you’re not. You’re going to stay right there in bed and rest. You’re in no condition to…..”

  I don’t answer. I try to stand up and teeter on my heels before I catch my balance on the bedpost. I double over and lower my head between my knees.

  “This is silly, Margaret,” he tells me. “You sustained a blow to the head. You’re not strong enough to go traipsing off across town.”

  I summon my strength to push myself upright. “I haven’t stopped working on this case since Scott was killed and I’m not about to stop now. If you’re going to confront Alan and Sabrina, I’m coming with you.”

  I put out my hand for my clothes. I have to stop now and then while my head spins. David frowns down at me and shakes his head. “You’re impossible. You do know that, don’t you?”

  I pull a knitted sweater over my head and bunch my hair into a ponytail behind my head. “Irresistible, you mean.”

  He chuckles. “I would probably have to arrest you for obstruction if you weren’t so annoyingly loveable. If you’re gonna come, you better come. Don’t forget to tie your shoes.”

  I don’t bother to change out of my pajama bottoms. I stick my feet into my sneakers and hobble out of the room. My head hurts a lot more than I’m willing to admit, but there’s no way on God’s green Earth I’m going to sit at home and be left out of this.

  I get into David’s car and he drives into town, even though it’s only a few blocks. He parks in front of the candy store and we walk toward the bakery. He holds out a hand to slow me down. “We’re just here to question them. Understand? Don’t throw the evidence into their faces until we get a clear answer on their relations with the victim. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Yes, Sir.” I salute him in military fashion.

  We face the bakery, but before we get anywhere near the front door, I hear voices again. This sounds nothing like the friendly shouting back and forth that Zack and I heard before. Yells bellow over each other in rapid succession. They don’t even wait for each other to finish speaking before they shout back.

  David hesitates by the door. “What in the world is going on in there?”

  I peek through the windows, half afraid of what I’ll see. Sure enough, Alan and Sabrina stand in front of the counter facing off in an unholy showdown. They blare at each other in a tumult of confused arguments.

  In front of our shocked eyes, Alan snatches a knife off the counter and brandishes it at Sabrina. She raises both hands and backs away, all the time talking as fast as she can to explain herself.

  David eases the door open and sneaks into the bakery in a crouch. His hand migrates to his belt and he eases his sidearm out of its holster. For once in my life, I thank the stars I can hide behind an officer of the law. If I had known we would be interrupting an armed standoff, I would have stayed in bed.

  David creeps forward. I try to stay hidden behind the tables and chairs. Now that I’m in the same room with Alan and Sabrina, I can make out what they’re saying.

  “I gave you everything! Everything!” Alan thunders. “We could have opened another store and maybe made this into a chain. We could have been successful and you had to go and ruin it.”

  Sabrina holds out both hands to her husband. “Put the knife down, Alan. We can talk about this.”

  “What is there to talk about? You destroyed everything we built together, you worthless tramp! I wish I’d never laid eyes on your worthless face!”

  At that moment, David launches himself into a standing position. He locks his arms and aims his gun at Alan. “Hold it right there! Put the knife down and put your hands behind your head.”

  Quick as lightning, Alan lunges for Sabrina. He grabs her by the neck and spins her around. Before anyone can react, he locks one elbow around her chest and holds the knife to her throat. “Stay back! Don’t come near me or I swear to God I’ll kill her.”

  David doesn’t twitch a whisker. “It’s all over, Alan. You’re under arrest for the murder of Scott Freeman. You’re also under arrest for attempted murder and assault. Put the knife down and come quietly. Don’t make this any harder than it has to be.”

  “She’s the one you should be arresting,” he shrieks. “She’s a traitorous slut. She’s the one who got that guy killed. Why don’t you arrest her while you’re at it?”

  Sabrina fights to break his hold, but her voice shakes with terror. “I never killed anybody, you rat! You killed him in cold blood. No way are you pinning this on me!”

  “Shut up!” Alan stares all around him in wild mania. “Stay back or I swear I’ll kill her. Don’t think I won’t do it.”

  “We all know you’ll do it,” David rumbles. “You already killed Scott. What do you have to lose killing your own wife? You’re already going away from life. Why not make it two life sentences instead of one?”

  “Don’t tell him that!” Sabrina screeche
s.

  “You’re darned right I killed him!” Scott roars. “I saw him hit on her with my own two eyes. I saw him come to the back door to sweet talk her right in front of me. That low-down cur didn’t give a hoot who found out what he was doing. He picked her up from the bakery in that fancy car of his, and when I confronted him about it, he laughed. He said if I couldn’t satisfy my wife, he had no choice but to do it for me.”

  “You brainless clod!” Sabrina snarls. “You never appreciated me. I work my tail off to keep this bakery running. What do you do besides sit in your office and crunch the numbers? You would be nothing without me. You don’t even have the decency to thank me when I’m working seventeen hours a day to put money in your pocket. You think I went with him for sex? At least he had the decency to thank me afterward, which is more than I can say for you.”

  I want to get out and talk some sense into these two, but the knife in Scott’s hand and the gun in David’s make me stay out of sight. Talking to people in the peace and quiet of their living rooms is one thing. I don’t want to get mixed up in this kind of craziness.

  David takes one hand off his gun and holds it up so Alan can see his palm. “Listen, man. I don’t know what went on between the two of you, but it doesn’t have to end in bloodshed. Put the knife down.”

  “You pig!” Sabrina digs her fingernails into Alan’s arm and yanks. “He was a decent guy and you killed him. I hope you burn in Hell for what you did.”

  “I killed him, all right.” Alan lets out a demonic cackle. “You should have seen the look on his face when the poison hit. I wanted to catch it on video, but that would leave a trail of evidence.”