by Kate Bell
“Hey, Cynthia, I’m thinking about bringing two of each dessert I make. Does that sound right to you?” I asked.
“Yeah. We can adjust the amounts once we see how many we sell. Weekends are busier, so you’ll probably sell more then. Tuesdays are slower. It’ll probably take a while to figure it out,” she said. “I think it’s a great idea though.”
“I do too,” I said. “I can hardly wait.”
“You could always sell whole pies and cakes that people can take home,” Alec said, studying the directions.
“That’s a great idea!” I said, brightening. “I knew I was keeping you around for a reason.”
Cynthia laughed. “I’m going to leave you two alone so you can finish this job.”
“Okay,” I told her. “Alec, you’re such a smart cookie.”
“I know,” he said, giving me a big smile.
***
“Hey, Yancey,” I said as Alec held the front door to the police station open for me and I stepped inside.
“Hi, Allie, Alec. How are you two doing this morning?” he asked. Yancey was sitting at a desk covered in paperwork, and rummaging through it.
“Great,” Alec answered. “Is Sam around?” Alec had already brought the wedding rings and keys we found at the site of where we found Iris’s body down to the police station.
“Ayup, he’s in his office. You can head on back,” he said, pointing to the hallway.
“Thanks,” I said. “I need to bring you some cookies, Yancey.”
“That’d be much appreciated, Allie,” he said as we passed his desk.
I didn’t much care for the chief of police, Sam Bailey, but that was mostly because Alec didn’t like him. I had gotten a little more information out of him as to the cause of the friction, but it wasn’t much. It seemed Sam just resented having Alec foisted on him when he had been a detective. The feeling was mutual on Alec’s part.
Alec knocked on Sam’s closed door.
“Yeah?” he called.
“It’s Alec Blanchard,” he said, and he gave me a look.
I almost giggled. Sam knew who he was without him giving his last name.
“Come in,” he called.
Alec opened the door for me.
“Hi Allie,” Sam said. “I wasn’t expecting you.”
“Just consider me a surprise,” I said, and took a seat in front of his desk without asking.
Alec sat next to me. “Have you found out anything new?” he asked Sam.
“Not really. The only thing we really know is what I’ve told you. That Iris Rose’s neck was broken and she had bruises and contusions on her body. Looks like she got into a fight with the killer,” he said, picking up a file with Iris’s name on it.
“What about Richard Rose and her mother, Hilda Bixby? Do you have anything on them?” I asked. I wondered if he had a different impression than I did. As far as I was concerned, either of them could have done it.
Sam made a face when I asked the question, then straightened it up. “Not really. George spoke to both of them, and they seem to check out,” he said.
“What about the rings and the keys we found out where her body was?” Alec asked.
“That was kind of odd. She had a wedding ring on her finger when she was found. We gave it to Richard, and he took it without a word. Then we showed him the rings you found, and he lit up like a Christmas tree. Said that was Iris’s wedding set,” he said, sitting back in his chair. “He confirmed the keys were his wife’s.”
“Wait, she had two wedding rings?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Richard said she was always losing the engagement ring and when we gave him the plain band, he assumed it was hers. When he saw the other rings, he said he remembered she had them soldered together a couple of years ago so she wouldn’t lose one of them. He said he had forgotten about it and just thought the engagement ring was at his house somewhere.”
“So where did the extra ring come from?” I asked, glancing at Alec.
“We do not know.”
“And why would the wedding rings be in the snow near her body and not on her finger?” I asked.
“I do not have an answer for that one, either,” he said.
“Looks like we’ve got more investigating to do,” Alec said. “Did the medical examiner say how he thought she got the bruises and contusions?”
He shook his head. “Like I said, I’m sure the killer must have hit her.”
“I didn’t look at her for long, but did she have any bruises on her face? I don’t remember seeing any and it seems like if the killer had beaten her up, he would have hit her in the face at least once,” I pointed out.
He shook his head. Sam had a very laissez-faire attitude about the whole thing and I didn’t like it.
“What about what was in her hand when we found her? Her hand had frozen closed over it,” Alec asked.
Sam reached into his desk and pulled out a small plastic bag and tossed it on the desk in front of us. “A toy. Her husband had no idea if it had any significance.”
Alec picked up the bag and looked at the small orange fuzzy creature.
“That’s Greggo,” I said, recognizing the character from the Jackie and Me children’s show.
“Greggo?” Alec asked, looking at me.
“He’s a character from the Jackie and Me show. Kids love that show. It’s a little young for second graders, but maybe she had some of the toys in her classroom.”
“What’s the premise of the show?” Alec asked.
“I guess you could say it’s a do good unto others and have confidence in yourself sort of thing. Greggo has confidence issues and he spent most episodes learning it’s okay to make mistakes. There are about five or six regular characters and they each have what you might call a weakness, and they interact with one another trying to resolve problems. The character Jackie was sort of the leader. It was really big when Thad and Jennifer were little.”
Alec looked at the small toy in his hands. “It does sound a little young for second graders,” he said. Then he looked at Sam. “Any other developments?”
“I’ve told you all I know. We’re still searching for answers,” he said.
“Okay, well, if you find anything else out, let me know,” Alec said.
Alec started to get up when Sam stopped him.
“Have you found out anything on your end?”
“I’ve interviewed Richard Rose, Hilda Bixby, Janice Cross, and a Josh Stine. I believe I left you a voicemail detailing that. Any of the four could be possible murderers, but none of them are very strong suspects. Like you, we’re still working on it.”
Sam nodded his head. “Okay. Well, let me know if you find out anything.”
We said our good byes and headed to the car.
“Alec, I may have forgotten to tell you something,” I said when we got into the car and had closed the doors.
He sighed loudly, and then looked at me. “Why does that not surprise me?”
“Don’t take that tone with me,” I said.
“What didn’t you tell me?” he asked.
“Ask it in a sweet voice,” I said.
He sighed again. “Sugar pie, what did lil’ ole you forget to tell me?” he asked in a falsetto voice with a bad southern accent.
I grinned. “You stink at Southern accents. And what I forgot to tell you is that Lucy and I did some more investigating.”
“And why doesn’t that surprise me, either?” he asked.
“Josh Stine’s mother is an acquaintance of Lucy’s and we dropped in on her at Walmart, which is where she works. It seems Josh lied about his mother being sick. He actually flunked out of college. She said he was the sensitive type and has some social issues.”
“Ah. That doesn’t surprise me much, either. He did seem a little awkward. Did she catch on that you were questioning her about him?” he asked.
I snorted. “Please! Lucy and I are not amateur sleuths. We know what we’re doing. Now, what do you think about t
hose rings? And the fact that she was tightly gripping that toy?”
He shrugged. “It’s still too early to say.”
“Do you think they dusted the rings for prints?” I asked.
“I’m sure they did, but I don’t know that they could find anything on them. There’s not enough surface area for a complete print to be put on them.”
“That’s true,” I agreed. “I think we need to go talk to everyone all over again.”
He started the car. “I don’t know about that.”
“I like having a chauffeur. You could just not buy your own car and keep driving me around.”
“Sure,” he said and drove off.
Chapter Sixteen
“Mom, I need to do my laundry,” Jennifer said. She skated across the hardwood floor in her sock feet and stopped in front of me.
“Okay. What’s stopping you?” I asked, pinning my wet hair up in a bun. I had just gotten out of the shower and had worked in a leave-in oil treatment and I wanted to let it soak in without getting all over my clothes.
“You have clothes in the washer. They stink. They’ve been in there a while, from the smell of it,” she informed me.
I sighed. “I forgot. I have to rewash them,” I said, heading to the laundry room.
“Oh, Mom,” she whined. “I don’t have all day.”
“It’s Saturday, so in fact, you do have all day. I really think it’s time you got a part-time job and contributed to your upkeep at school,” I said.
The scent of mildew emanated from the washer when I lifted the lid. She wasn’t kidding about them stinking. I tried to remember how long it had been since I washed them, and thought it might be more than week. Yikes.
I turned the water to hot and put in extra detergent and set it for a double rinse. I hoped I wouldn’t have to toss any of the clothes, but I thought it likely.
“I know what I can do to earn money,” Jennifer said from six inches behind my left ear.
I screamed. “Jennifer, I didn’t even hear you come in here.”
“Yeah, I’m a ninja. Anyway, why don’t you pay me for cleaning your house and doing your laundry? This place is practically a pigsty and you need help,” she said.
“Excuse me? This place is not a pig sty!” I insisted. “Sure, I forgot the laundry and the dishes need washing, but it’s not a pigsty.”
“And what about the half-inch thick layer of dust on everything?” she asked.
I moved past her and into the kitchen. “That is not a half-inch thick layer of dust. That’s a protective coating. There’s no way the furniture will get scratched as long as it’s there.”
I opened the dishwasher and started taking the clean dishes out. I couldn’t remember when I had last run the dishwasher and I had a sink full of dirty dishes. My cat Dixie rubbed up against my leg.
“Hey, boy,” I said and bent over and scratched his head. Dixie purred appreciatively and rubbed against my leg.
“Mom, I can come once a week and clean and you can pay me. Then you won’t have to worry about it at all. Besides, don’t you have to pass some sort of inspection to be able to cook food for the public? I don’t think you’ll pass,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest.
I stopped, three clean mixing bowls in my hands, and looked at her. “Inspection?”
“Yeah,” she said nodding her head. There was just a touch of sarcasm in her voice. “You need a license or permit or something. The city needs to know you have a clean kitchen that you’re cooking in. Otherwise you’ll poison your customers and Alec will have to investigate you.”
“Oh,” I said and went to the cupboard I kept the mixing bowls in. I opened the door and slid them in. “What happens if they figure out I don’t have one?” I asked.
She sighed loudly. “You are going to get into so much trouble. Probably a fine or something. I don’t know all the details, but really, it should be common knowledge.”
“All right. I’ll pay you to come every week and clean and I’ll look into getting a permit or license or whatever. And we won’t tell anyone that I didn’t know.”
It wasn’t that the house was dirty so much as I had just gotten a little behind on the cleaning. And she was right that I should have known about the license. I had gotten caught up in Iris’s murder and had forgotten that little detail.
She smirked. “That might cost you a little more.”
“I bet it won’t,” I told her. “You’ll keep your mouth closed or you’ll be paying your entire college bill.”
“Yeah, yeah,” she said and poured herself a cup of coffee.
“Hey, Jennifer, do you remember a Josh Stine from school?” I asked, as I unloaded the silverware basket into the drawer.
“Yeah. Nerdy. Kind of weird. He was a year ahead of me in school. Why?”
“Weird how?” I asked.
She shrugged. “I don’t know exactly. He just seemed kind of intense when he talked to you. He was just a weird kid, I guess. Why?”
“I don’t know. He was at Iris Rose’s classroom when Alec and I went there. He had her when he was in second grade. Wait,” I said turning toward her. “How could he be a year ahead of you if he was in Iris’s class? You had her the first year she taught.”
Jennifer stared at me for a second, then jumped up and ran from the kitchen. I followed her into her room where she was sitting on the floor digging through the bottom drawer of her nightstand.
“What are you looking for?” I asked her.
“Um,” she said and kept digging. Finally she pulled out a school pictures envelope. “I have all the classroom pictures in here. I kept the ones that had all the kids in my class in this one envelope.”
She thumbed through the stack and pulled one out. “Here it is. And look, he was in my class in second grade.”
She handed the picture to me and I scanned the faces. He was five faces down from Jennifer, smiling for all he was worth, wearing thick, black-rimmed glasses that were sliding down his nose. His hair was smashed against the side of his head in what was a dead giveaway for a mattress-head hairdo.
“Are you sure he graduated a year before you?” I asked.
She nodded. “Now that I think about it, I think when he was in fifth grade, he skipped to sixth. He was always smart.”
“That’s odd,” I said, sitting down on her bed. “His mother said he flunked out of college. She mentioned that he had some emotional problems and was going to get some therapy, but I would think a really smart kid would still excel in academics.”
“College is hard, Mom. You don’t know. It’s different than when you went,” she insisted.
This was coming from my overly sensitive child. Although not a social misfit by any stretch of the imagination, she had found school harder than her outgoing older brother. “Okay, I get it. I really do.”
“Do you think he killed Mrs. Rose?” she asked me soberly.
“I don’t know. Being odd doesn’t make someone a murderer. Tell me, knowing what you know about him and how he was in school, do you think he would be capable or murder?”
She shook her head without hesitation. “No. I really don’t. Now Billy Green—I would totally suspect him. He hasn’t been around, has he? That kid was creepy weird.”
“I do not know a Billy Green, so no, not that I’m aware of,” I said and got up. I handed her back the picture. “Do you remember Jackie and Me?”
She turned to me. “I haven’t thought of that show in years! I loved that show!” She started humming the theme song. “I wish I could remember the words. I need to look up an episode on YouTube for old times’ sake.”
“Did Mrs. Rose have those characters in her classroom? I thought by the second grade you had outgrown that show,” I said.
She thought about it for a minute. “I don’t really remember. I think I’m getting old.”
“Well, if you’re old, I’m ancient,” I said and stood up and headed back into the kitchen. My laptop was on the kitchen table and I opened it
up.
Jennifer followed me back into the kitchen. “What are you doing?” she asked. “You’ve got dishes to do.”
“I’m looking up requirements to get a license to bake and sell things from my kitchen. And you, my sweet, sweet daughter, have dishes to do. You volunteered, remember?” I said, opening Google.
“I didn’t volunteer. You’re putting words into my mouth,” she protested.
“Get to work, or no money. Now,” I said, giving her the evil eye.
She sighed. “So much for a weekend off. How much are you going to pay me?”
“I’m keeping that a secret for now.” I was inwardly crossing my fingers, hoping the city requirements wouldn’t be too harsh.
“You need to print up business cards, and flyers and get your new blog up. I don’t know why you’re wasting so much time,” she complained, as she finished emptying the dishwasher.
“Yes, I know. I swear, I am going to do it,” I said. “Oh! Good news! I’m going to be known as a cottage food seller.”
“Yay,” Jennifer replied unenthusiastically. “You should bake some rustic bread. I love bread and the restaurant sets a bread basket on the table, no matter what you’re going to order.”
I gasped. “You are so smart. I might ask Cynthia about that.”
“I know,” she said.
I wasn’t sure where she got her smart mouth from. It couldn’t have been from me.
Chapter Seventeen
“I need sugar, butter, flour, cream cheese, and any and everything associated with baking ingredients,” I said, looking over my list. Alec and I were at Shaw’s Market and I was stocking up. I had gone through my kitchen cupboards and tossed out anything that I didn’t absolutely need to make room for more baking supplies.
“It seems to me that you have more than enough baking supplies at your house,” Alec pointed out. I had given him the task of pushing the buggy so my hands would be free to fill said buggy.
“No. You can never have enough baking supplies. You should know this by now,” I reminded him and picked up a ten-pound sack of sugar. I contemplated getting a second one, but I wasn’t sure I’d have room to store it, even with the extra room I had made.
