A Freshly Baked Cozy Mystery Box Set

by Kate Bell

  He stood up and pulled his car keys out of his pocket. “I’ll be in touch, Mrs. McSwain.” He got in the car and slammed the door behind him without so much as a ‘see ya later.’

  I watched him drive off, and it took everything I had to keep from breaking down and crying. What had I gotten myself into? I should have kept my mouth shut. Now he was even more suspicious than ever.

  I turned around and headed back down the trail toward my car. Forget the run. My heart wasn’t in it anymore.

  Chapter Ten

  It was Tuesday before I saw Lucy again. She did that sometimes; disappearing for a few days. She had work. She had her husband. Who could blame her? I had been knee deep in a blog article anyway, so I hardly missed her. Sort of. It had been ten days since Henry’s murder. What was taking them so long to figure out who did it?

  I kept expecting the detective to stop by my house or meet me again on the running trail, but he had made himself scarce. I wondered why he wasn’t asking me more questions and following me around town, trying to find a motive. But, nothing. And that nothing just made me more paranoid. Had he put a tail on me? That was police lingo. I was watching reruns of Hill Street Blues and picking it up. Maybe the police were so good at tailing suspects that they blended in and you never saw them.

  I heard the front door open and Lucy called out. At the sound of her voice, I felt like a blue tick hound about to go out on its first hunt of season. Lucy was here!

  “In here,” I called, restraining myself from jumping into her arms.

  “Are you ready to go?” Lucy asked me, coming to lean over my shoulder and reading what I had just written. We were going to see if we could find out anything from the gardener, Ralph Henderson.

  “Do you mind not reading over my shoulder?” I asked and hit save.

  Grief is a funny thing. Just when you think you have things under control, it pops up again. That was the subject of my blog post. With the anniversary of Thaddeus’s death approaching, it seemed like a natural topic.

  “You’re putting it up on a blog for the whole world to read. What difference does it make?” She took a step back, and I got to my feet and gave her a quick hug.

  “It’s just the idea of having someone reading over my shoulder is all,” I said, trying not to sound grumpy.

  “Do you think writing about grief is making you continue to grieve?” she suddenly asked.

  I looked at her. She may have had a point, but I had been doing this so long, it was part of who I was. “No,” I answered. “I’m fine. I’m doing a good thing.”

  “I wasn’t saying you weren’t. Honestly, Allie, you are one of the most compassionate women I know. I just worry about you sometimes.” She looked away when she said it. She knew she was treading on dangerous water. I needed this blog. I really did. Just like I needed the pies. They were both therapy.

  “Let’s go,” I said. We headed to the front door, and I grabbed my purse on the way out. Sometimes I wondered if I grieved more than I should. At this point, shouldn’t I have been past falling apart at Thaddeus’s memory? When one of my readers asked this question, I always assured them that grief was subjective and couldn’t be rushed. Everyone’s normal was different. But if I had to be honest, I had to admit that now and then, I wondered if what I was going through was normal. If I was normal. I sighed.

  We took my car. We had no idea where Ralph Henderson lived, but it didn’t matter. He was one of only three gardeners in town so we would find him working in someone’s yard or some business’s planters.

  “I’m sorry,” Lucy said without looking in my direction.

  “It’s okay,” I said, pulling into the Java Bean’s drive-thru. The smell of coffee brewing filled the crisp air. I placed our order and pulled up to the window.

  “Oh look, is that him?” Lucy said pointing and peering over her sunglasses.

  I squinted at the figure bending over a planter in front of the dentist office across the street. “I think so,” I said. We got our drinks, and I gunned it out of there. I hit the green light just right and was across the street in a jiffy.

  “Hey, Baretta, slow down some,” Lucy said, gripping the armrest on the passenger side door.

  “Yeah, yeah,” I answered. Everyone’s a critic.

  I pulled into a nearby parking stall and we both got out.

  “Hey, Ralph,” I said, turning on the Southern charm as we approached.

  He looked up and then went right back to planting orange marigolds. I wondered if the dentist had wanted yellow. If so, he better not complain about it.

  “Uh, Ralph, we’d like to talk to you a second if you don’t mind,” I said, trying again.

  He ignored me, but Lucy was not to be put off.

  “Hey, Ralph, we’re talking to you.”

  He glanced in her direction, then settled a plant into the hole he had dug for it. “I don’t have time for talkin’. I got work to do.”

  “Well, we want to know where you were the night of Henry Hoffer’s murder,” she said, sounding tough. I glanced at her. She had the swagger down pat. I needed to work on that.

  He sniffed and then stabbed the ground with his garden spade. I got a sudden picture of him stabbing a steak knife into Henry’s chest. “I don’t see how that’s any of your business, now is it?”

  If I didn’t know better, I would swear that Ralph had suddenly taken on a New Jersey accent. A New Jersey mobster accent.

  “Now, Ralph, what Lucy means is, we are just trying to help Henry’s widow out as much as possible. The poor thing is fraught with worry as to who could have done such a horrible thing,” I said. “We just wondered if you saw anyone suspicious hanging around. And I noticed your tools in the planter in front of the restaurant.”

  There. That should do the trick. Never mind that we had yet to meet Henry’s wife.

  He slowly turned his head toward me and looked me over. Uh oh. The last thing I wanted to do was make a possible murderer mad at me. I smiled real big, tilted my head and twirled a lock of my red hair. I was harmless.

  “Is that a threat?” he asked.

  “Oh, goodness, no! We’re just trying to help. Honest.” My heart was pounding in my chest, but I just kept smiling.

  He stared at me a minute longer. “I went fishing.”

  “Oh. Oh, I see,” I said.

  “And you had to do that so fast that you left your tools out in the open?” Lucy said, leaning toward him. “I ain’t buying it.”

  “Look, lady, whoever you are, I don’t owe you any explanations. Get out of here! I have work to do!” His neck was turning red, and I decided we would be better off someplace else. Any place else.

  “Well, we’ll just be going,” I said and grabbed Lucy’s arm.

  “Well, I don’t believe it,” Lucy said, hands on hips. “It seems mighty suspicious if you ask me.”

  “Now, Lucy, let’s not go making accusations,” I pleaded.

  Ralph took a couple of steps toward Lucy. This was going to turn out very badly.

  “Now look, Ralph, I apologize for Lucy’s behavior. We really didn’t mean to come here and cause trouble. It’s just that the police are suspicious of town folk, and honestly, I can’t think of one town person that would commit such a horrible crime. Is there anything else you can tell us? Did you see anything that evening when you were there? A suspicious car?” I tried to appeal to his sense of humanity and maybe he would help us out.

  He looked at me. “I told you. I went fishing. I was out on the sea most of the night and slept in the next day until nearly ten. Now get out of here.” He turned back to his work, pulling the spade out of the ground.

  “And you just forgot your tools in the planter?” I asked. I didn’t want to push him, but I didn’t understand why he would leave them behind.

  “I was excited to go fishing,” he said without looking at me.

  We weren’t going to get anything out of him, so I managed to get Lucy back in the car before she got us murdered. I wondered if
poor Henry had made an accusation against Ralph and that was how he ended up with a steak knife in his chest.

  ***

  I wore my plain black dress to the funeral. I hadn’t worn it since Thaddeus’s funeral, and I made a mental note to get rid of it. I could buy something new for any further funeral attendance. God forbid there should be any more for a while.

  Lucy and I sat in the back, watching the mourners file in. Lucy wore a short hot pink skirt with a white top. She stood out like a sore thumb. Lucy was an attention grabber.

  “We need to keep our eye out for anyone suspicious,” she leaned over and whispered to me.

  I nodded. It had now been eleven days since Henry had died and rumor had it a relative coming from Spain had held things up. I had been watching everyone carefully, but there weren’t any strangers that had shown up yet. I had known everyone here for years or had at least known of them. Small towns were like that. If you didn’t know them personally, they were still familiar faces you passed in the grocery store or saw at the movie theater on Saturday nights.

  Henry’s widow sat in the first row, dabbing her eyes with a hanky. She was older than I had expected, but it could have been the fact that her hair was a solid gray. I wondered where she and Henry had met. Charles had said she was from Chicago. Maybe she had argued with her husband and in a fit of rage, killed him? She didn’t seem the type. I don’t know how I knew it, but I did. And as soon as I had that thought, I thought maybe that was exactly the type that would kill someone. I sighed. I was going to drive myself crazy over this thing.

  I looked up as an older couple went to the widow, greeted her, and sat down beside her. I didn’t know them, so I guessed they were the relatives from Spain.

  “I like that dress,” Lucy said, admiring the black dress with red flowers that the woman next to Henry’s widow wore.

  “It is very pretty,” I agreed.

  Charles and Ralph were both in attendance. Charles sat behind the grieving widow, a little close to the family pew if you ask me. I would have only expected family in the first several rows and very close friends after that. But this wasn’t the South, so maybe Charles didn’t know protocol.

  Ralph sat in what looked to be the exact middle of the room. I decided that by itself was suspicious.

  I tried to listen to the sermon, but in my mind, I kept seeing poor dead Henry with a knife sticking out of him. I wondered what it was like to breathe your last breath. What were your last thoughts? Did you think about your loved ones? Your regrets? I shook myself. That kind of thinking would drive a person mad. The first year after Thaddeus’s death, I had imagined his last moments, over and over. I thought I would end up in a mental hospital.

  At the close of the service, we got up and filed past the open casket. I cringed and followed Lucy. I had no desire to look at him, and I wished his wife would have gone for a closed casket. Closed casket was always best.

  I stared at Lucy’s back as we slowly filed by, determined not to look. But at the last second, I did look and for a moment, Henry opened his eyes and beckoned to me with his hand. I slapped a hand over my mouth to keep from screaming. When I blinked, his eyes were closed, and he looked like he was taking a nap.

  At the cemetery, I introduced myself to Henry’s widow. She pasted on a smile, but her eyes were far away. I knew the look. I also knew the thoughts going through her mind. Losing a loved one was heartbreaking. She was genuinely grieving, and I knew she was not the killer. I gave her one of my business cards with my blog address on it and told her to call me if she needed someone to talk to.

  Henry wanted me to find his killer. I was sure of that.

  Chapter Eleven

  “So we got nothin’,” Lucy said, cutting a piece of raisin apple pie.

  The spicy scent of the pie filled the kitchen. “Pretty much,” I said, pouring two big glasses of milk.

  She handed me a plate with a piece of pie on it and cut one for herself. “Back to the drawing board.”

  I didn’t know whether to feel hopeful or disheartened since I hadn’t heard anything from the detective. Maybe he had another suspect, and I was off the hook. Or maybe he was planning his strategy to put me in a nice pair of orange coveralls. I sighed.

  “Cheer up, buttercup. We’ll figure this out,” Lucy said, taking a bite of pie. “Mmm, this is really good. New recipe?”

  “Not really. I just made a few small changes. I used brown sugar instead of white and doubled the nutmeg,” I answered. I loved experimenting with recipes. And I loved nutmeg. Adding extra nutmeg was always a win.

  “It’s wonderful,” she said around the pie in her mouth.

  “Maybe I should call Detective Blanchard? Maybe he’s moved on from suspecting me and he’ll tell me so and I can just forget the whole thing,” I said. Talk about wishful thinking.

  “No, if you’re still a suspect, then you’ll look like you’re desperate and trying to get information,” Lucy said. “No use drawing attention to yourself.”

  “You’re right. Every time I hear a car drive down the street, I think it’s the police coming to arrest me,” I said and sighed, laying down my fork. “It’s ridiculous. I didn’t do anything.”

  “Plenty of innocent people go to jail. It’s wise to try to find the killer. Plus, it could be kind of fun,” she said and giggled.

  “Lucy, it’s not that fun. I’m not sleeping,” I blurted out. I hadn’t meant to tell her. I wasn’t having nightmares, but I just lay awake at night, staring at the ceiling.

  “Oh, I’m sorry, Allie. Maybe you should get some help?” she said, reaching across the table and putting her hand on the back of mine.

  “No, I’ll get through it. I just need some time. And maybe I need to put in some longer runs. You know, to wear myself out,” I said and picked up my fork and took a bite of my pie. My heart wasn’t in it, but there it was, sitting in front of me.

  “I have an idea,” Lucy said, brightening. “We need more evidence. Right now I’m putting my money on Charles, but maybe we’re overlooking something.”

  “And how are we going to get more evidence?” I asked.

  “Easy. We’ll break into the restaurant and take a look around for ourselves.”

  I stared at her. “Are you crazy? Break into the restaurant? We could go to jail for that!”

  “You could go to jail for a murder you didn’t commit,” she countered.

  She had a point. One that had me more and more worried with each passing day. But I had never lived a life of crime. It seemed wrong to start one so late in life.

  ***

  At midnight we were creeping along the back side of Henry’s Home Cooking Restaurant. At Lucy’s insistence, we had donned all black. My yoga pants were finally coming in handy. We had used some old black Halloween makeup to darken our faces. I mean, we wouldn’t look suspicious if we were pulled over by the police on the way over, right?

  “Check that window,” Lucy whispered.

  I reached up and tried to shove the window open. No go. “What if the place has a burglar alarm?” I whispered, following Lucy around the corner.

  “No chance. Henry was too cheap,” she tossed over her shoulder.

  “Well, how are we going to get in?” The place looked like it was locked up pretty tight.

  She stopped at the back door and looked at me with a grin. The moonlight glinted off her white teeth. “I came prepared,” she said holding up a small canvas bag.

  “What is that?” I asked leaning over to look into it as she opened it.

  “My bag of tricks,” she said, rummaging around inside of it. She pulled out a small silver tool and a thin piece of wire. “I was a Girl Scout. Always be prepared was our motto.”

  “That was the Boy Scouts’ motto,” I pointed out. “Do you have any idea what you’re doing?”

  “Please. Of course, I know what I’m doing,” she said kneeling down on the ground and sticking the wire and the tool into the doorknob. The moon was full and provided a little ligh
t, but it was hard for me to see what she was doing.

  “Do you have a flashlight on your phone?” she asked, looking up at me.

  I pulled my phone out and turned it on. “Someone’s going to see this light.”

  “I’ll hurry,” she said, jiggling the wire in the keyhole.

  “What is that thing?”

  “A bobby pin.”

  “Where did you learn this?” I asked. It didn’t look like she was making any progress and I was really doubting her skills at this point.

  “The internet,” she said, still jiggling.

  “Seriously? Won’t everyone know how to pick locks now?” I asked. “Seems kind of dumb to advertise that kind of thing.”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. Who cares as long as we can get this door open?”

  She was starting to get cranky. It was chilly and my nose was on the verge of running. I kept looking over my shoulder, expecting to see a police car pull up. I hoped she was right about there being no alarm system.

  She worked and worked on the lock and after nearly thirty minutes I was just about to tell her we needed to go, when she cried, “Aha!”

  “Shh!” I said looking around to make sure no one had heard her.

  “After you, madam,” she said, pushing the back door open.

  “Well, it’s about time,” I said and entered the restaurant.

  “Stop your complaining. You couldn’t do any better,” she said following behind me.

  I shined the light from my phone around the room and stopped at the place on the floor where I had last seen Henry’s body. I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. The place smelled of pine cleaner and the floor was spotless.

  “Cleanest place in town,” Lucy said. “I wonder if Henry’s widow is a germaphobe too?”

  I flashed the light on my phone around the room, checking for security cameras. It looked like Lucy was right about Henry being too cheap to buy them. I just hoped there wasn’t a nanny cam inside a head of lettuce somewhere.