“At least it’s only temporary.” Lucy tried to cheer her up. “Just think, not long after the cast comes off, we get to go on our cruise!”
True. It wouldn’t be long before the girls set sail on their much-anticipated cruise vacation. Gloria and Margaret had sent in the final payment two weeks ago. Now all they had to do was wait.
The only thing that concerned Gloria was her sister, Liz, who had invited herself and her best friend, Frances, to join Gloria and the girls on the cruise.
Her one small consolation was that at least Liz wouldn’t be in the same suite, although across the hall from Gloria was still too close.
She pushed the thought of Liz aside. It would all work out in the end, just as it had during Gloria’s honeymoon…even though it was on Liz’s lot Gloria had fallen into the hole and broken her leg!
“What do you think happened to Ed Mueller?”
Gloria explained her theory of someone killing Ed in a fit of jealous rage. “Think about it. Officer Joe Nelson and Ed were arguing in front of the Quik Stop the night before his body was found. Sally Keane told me Ed was a player and had hit on her.”
Lucy tilted her head. “Oh my gosh! You think Officer Nelson killed Ed?”
“I’m not ruling anyone out, including Sally or Ed’s wife, Sheryl.” Gloria scraped a small speck off the kitchen table with the tip of her fingernail. “That reminds me. I need to have Andrea send me the pictures of the crime scene.”
“The coffee is ready.” Lucy headed to the counter while Gloria reached for her cell phone to text Andrea.
Andrea quickly replied. “They’re on their way. I hope you’re at home. I was just out on the roads and they’re a sheet of ice.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Gloria texted back.
Lucy set a fresh cup of coffee in front of Gloria and slid a wedge of lemon cake next to it. She cut a large piece for herself and grabbed a fork. “Did she send the pictures?”
Gloria squinted at the phone screen. “Yeah, but I can’t see anything on this small screen.”
Lucy placed a large piece of cake in her mouth. “I’ll go get your laptop,” she mumbled.
Gloria’s children had surprised her with a brand new laptop computer for Christmas, which was much faster than her old one.
Lucy returned with the laptop in hand and placed it between Gloria and her.
“Thanks Lucy. Maybe you should move in until the cast is off so you can help me.” She lifted the lid on the computer and sipped her coffee as she waited for it to warm up.
Gloria sifted through her emails. It seemed like every day she was getting more and more spam and every day she had to unsubscribe to something she had absolutely no use for. “How would you like a pepper prepper for your birthday?”
Lucy scrunched her forehead. “A pepper prepper?”
“Never mind.” Finally, Gloria made it through her inbox and found both Andrea and Margaret’s emails. She clicked on Andrea’s first and then tapped on the picture to enlarge it.
Both women leaned in. “What are we looking for?” Lucy asked.
“I’m not sure,” Gloria confessed.
She moved to Margaret’s email and clicked on the picture to enlarge it. “Those tracks are a clue, but for the life of me, I can’t figure out what it is.”
Gloria cut a piece of lemon cake and popped it in her mouth. “Margaret and I found a chainsaw underneath a bucket in Ed Mueller’s ice shanty.”
Lucy’s eyes widened. “I thought someone stabbed him with an ice pick, not cut him up into little pieces.”
Gloria rolled her eyes. “No, no. The chain saw was for cutting the ice to drop his body in the lake, not cutting him into itty bitty pieces.”
Lucy nodded. “Oh…Gotcha! Go on.”
After Gloria hashed out the clues and then ticked off the limited list of suspects, she hopped over to the warm oven, popped the dinner rolls inside and turned the oven timer on.
Lucy reached for the lemon cake and deftly sliced off a second piece. “Well, it’s probably Sally Keane. Remember we found her nametag in Ed Mueller’s trash.”
Gloria wasn’t convinced it was Sally. Perhaps the killer was trying to set Sally - or even Officer Joe Nelson - up. Perhaps it was Sheryl Mueller. “We need to be one hundred percent certain, which is why we need to set a trap.”
“How we gonna do that?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t gotten that far yet,” Gloria said.
Paul pulled in the drive at the same time the timer for the dinner rolls chimed.
Gloria let Lucy pull them from the oven and set them on top of the stove while she grabbed a stick of butter from the refrigerator and made her way to the stove to butter the tops.
Lucy pulled one of the baked potatoes from the microwave and stabbed it with a fork. “Almost done,” she said as she slipped it back inside the microwave and turned it back on. “Can I do anything else?”
Gloria nodded over her shoulder. “You can get the goulash from the fridge, put it in a bowl and warm it in the microwave.
Paul opened the kitchen porch door and a blast of cold winter air burst into the room. Gloria shivered.
“Sorry.” He stomped his feet on the rug and settled into the chair near the door. “The roads are treacherous.” He glanced at Lucy as he removed his boots. “It’s a good thing you don’t have far to drive.”
Lucy’s small ranch was less than two miles from Gloria’s farm and on the same road leading into the small town of Belhaven.
He wiggled his feet out of his wet boots and set them on the overflowing boot tray. “They said the storm isn’t going to let up until after midnight.”
“What about driving to work tomorrow?” Gloria fretted. The thought of Paul driving on the snowy country roads with a layer of ice hidden underneath the snow caused her concern.
“They’ll have it plowed by the time I leave in the morning,” he assured his wife as he made his way over to the stove and snuck a kiss. “How was your day?”
“Same old, same old,” Gloria replied as she turned her face toward him.
Lucy snickered.
Paul nodded knowingly. “Uh-huh. How did Margaret’s hypnosis experiment turn out?”
“Good grief! What a hot mess!” Gloria grinned. “It ended with Margaret clearing Eleanor’s kitchen table so Eleanor could lie down on top of it.”
“Then Eleanor fell asleep,” Lucy added.
“So it was a bust?”
“Not completely. She finally remembered it was Officer Joe Nelson she had seen down at the Mueller cottage the night before Ed’s body was discovered.”
Gloria’s cell phone, which was sitting on the kitchen table, began to chirp. Gloria hopped to the table and peered at the screen. It was Ruth.
“Hello?”
“I’m still at work. You’ll never guess who the cops just put in the back of a patrol car!”
Chapter 17
Gloria had no idea but knew she was about to find out. “Who?”
“Kate Edelson!”
Kate Edelson was Bea McQueen’s daughter. Bea was the town’s resident hairdresser and a huge gossip to boot.
Kate had moved to Belhaven and in with her mother a couple months back. According to Ruth, the young woman was in the midst of a nasty divorce and custody battle with her soon-to-be-ex.
Gloria had caught glimpses of the pretty, petite brown-haired woman around town but had never officially met her nor even had a conversation, although Ruth knew all about her.
Brian Sellers, Andrea’s fiancé, had recently hired her to work part-time at the Quik Stop.
“What happened?”
“Well, Gus’s wife, Mary Beth, was just here. She said she’d been in the Quik Stop picking up a couple things for dinner when there was a sudden ruckus back behind the deli counter so she went over to find out what was going on.”
“Hang on. Got a customer.”
Gloria turned the phone to speaker. “You gotta hear this,” she told Paul and Lucy.<
br />
They silently listened as Ruth talked to someone in the background. “I’m back. She said the two women were screaming at each other. Next thing Mary Beth knows, Sally throws a punch and lands a hard one to the corner of Kate’s jaw and knocks her to the floor.”
“Kate grabbed Sally’s blouse and pulled her down with her. After that, it was an all-out brawl. Mary Beth didn’t know what to do so she called 911 on her cell phone.”
Gloria sucked in a breath.
“We need some popcorn,” Lucy giggled.
“The cops pulled up in front of the store a few minutes ago and I watched them put Kate in the back of the squad car.”
Gloria shook her head. “But why not arrest Sally, too?” It sounded as if Sally had been the one to initiate the physical altercation.
“Because Officer Joe Nelson was the one who showed up.”
“That’s not right,” Lucy said. “They both should’ve been arrested.”
Ruth cut in. “I gotta go. Bea is here.”
The line went dead and Gloria set the phone on the edge of the kitchen table. Was Ed having a fling with this woman, too?
He didn’t strike Gloria as the kind of man women would fight over…or kill over. Perhaps there had been an entirely different reason the two women had brawled.
Sally was a constant complainer and Gloria was certain there was no way she could work with Sally for any length of time without wanting to strangle her or grab a roll of duct tape and seal her mouth shut.
The trio settled in around the table Lucy had set and then bowed their heads to pray. “Dear Lord, we thank you for this food. We thank you for all of our blessings and all you have given us. Lord, we pray for those traveling on the slippery roads tonight - for our family and friends and for safety. Last, but not least, we pray for Ed Mueller’s family. Thank you, Father, most of all, for your Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ.”
Gloria was about to say amen when Lucy chimed in. “And that you help us uncover Ed Mueller’s killer. Amen.”
Lucy lifted her head and reached for the goulash bowl sitting next to her plate. She scooped a large spoonful onto her plate and then passed the bowl to Gloria.
Gloria placed one large scoop on the edge of her plate and then handed the bowl to Paul. She placed a baked potato on her plate and cut it with her fork, spreading the potato out on the center of her plate and flattening it with the tines.
The butter she’d used to butter the rolls had softened and she expertly sliced a pat off and smeared it over the hot potato. “I can’t wait to find out what Bea has to say.”
Paul reached for a dinner roll. “I hope Joe Nelson wasn’t playing favorites.”
Gloria broke a piece of her warm roll off, put it in her mouth and chewed thoughtfully. Sally must have a lot of sway over the cop. Was he trying to cover for Sally…or was Sally trying to cover for him? She turned to her husband. “You don’t think…”
Paul began shaking his head. “You know this isn’t my investigation.” He caught the pleading look in his bride’s eyes and caved…slightly. “All right. If I hear anything, I’ll let you know, but I’m not going to start poking around, asking questions.”
Gloria reached over and squeezed his hand. “I knew I could count on you.”
The conversation turned to the raging storm. Gloria glanced out the kitchen window. It was a complete whiteout and she couldn’t even see Mally’s favorite tree near the edge of the driveway. She turned to her friend. “You sure you don’t want to spend the night?”
“I can’t. Jasper is home.”
Gloria had forgotten all about Lucy’s dog, Jasper. There was no way Lucy could leave her home alone all night.
“I can follow you home,” Paul offered.
“I’ll be fine,” Lucy reassured them, “but I’ll probably hit the road as soon as we finish eating.”
Gloria refused to let Lucy help her clean up and instead insisted she head out before the snow drifted on the roads even more.
Lucy slipped her feet inside her boots, then put her coat on and pulled a cap on her head before reaching for her purse and keys.
Paul held the door as Lucy stepped out onto the porch and into the storm, and then disappeared in a swirl of white.
“I hope she makes it home okay.” The snow was blinding. Gloria couldn’t see Lucy or her vehicle. She caught a glimpse of red from the jeep’s taillight, which was quickly swallowed up in the storm.
Gloria stood by the door, cell phone in hand and anxiously stared out at the whirling white snow until Lucy called ten minutes later to let her know she’d arrived home safely.
Paul refused to let Gloria help clean up the dinner dishes. She sat at the kitchen table and watched, feeling helpless as he cleared the table and then washed and dried the dishes.
He had just finished drying the drink glasses and had placed them in the kitchen cupboard when Gloria’s house phone rang. It was Ruth.
“You’ll never guess what Bea told me!”
***
Gloria covered the mouthpiece of the phone. “It’s Ruth,” she whispered to Paul as she hobbled into the dining room to talk.
She eagerly turned her attention to the phone conversation. “What did she say?”
Ruth went on to tell her Sally had complained about Kate, which wasn’t a surprise. First, she’d complained to Brian that she didn’t like Kate, then that Kate was having a hard time catching on and finally that it was taking too long to train her.
Next, she accused Kate of snooping through her personal belongings, which she kept locked in a cabinet in the rear of the store. The last straw had been when Sally accused Kate of stealing her nametag.
Gloria mulled over the new information and spoke her thoughts. “Perhaps Ed and Sally were having a fling and met up at his cottage. When he got home, he remembered Sally had left her nametag at the cottage. Ed, not wanting his wife to find Sally’s nametag, made a special trip to Belhaven to get rid of the evidence and had thrown it in the trash,” she theorized.
Ruth picked up. “Sally showed up at Ed’s cottage after finishing her shift at the store. They got into some sort of argument and in a fit of rage she killed him. When she realized he was dead, she panicked. She dragged his body down to the ice shanty, cut a hole and dropped him in, hoping any evidence on his body would disappear in the icy grave.”
It was a possibility, a strong possibility but what about Officer Joe Nelson? Had Sally confessed her crime to him and he was trying to help her cover it up…or had he stumbled upon Sally and Ed arguing in the store, confronted him on the sidewalk, followed him to his cottage and then killed him?
Last, but not least, was Ed’s wife, Sheryl. Perhaps she had grown suspicious and driven to Belhaven to confront her husband, found Sally’s nametag inside the cottage before Ed had a chance to get rid of it and then killed him in a fit of rage.
“Three suspects, with both motive and opportunity,” Ruth said. “Now to figure out how to flush out the killer. What’s the plan?”
Gloria gazed out at the snow through the dining room window. Small piles of the white stuff filled the corner of the window frame.
Her first thought was to set a trap, to flush out the killer, but then she had another thought. What if they were somehow able to weasel out a confession?
Gloria had once watched as Joyce Jameson, the character on her favorite detective show, had tricked a killer into confessing by bluffing. “I have a couple thoughts but need to sleep on it.”
“Yeah, I need to get home. I can’t even see Dot’s Restaurant across the street,” Ruth said. It was a good thing Ruth’s home was in town and only a couple blocks from the post office.
“Call me in the morning,” Gloria said before she disconnected the line and headed to the kitchen to put the phone up.
On her way to the phone cradle, she passed by the kitchen counter and spied Alice’s “special” spice container sitting on the counter. She picked up the container and held it to the light. It was half-empty!
She carried it to the kitchen doorway and gazed through the dining room into the living room where she could see Paul lounging in his recliner, remote in hand.
Gloria made her way into the living room and held up the container. “Did you try this?”
Paul turned his attention to his wife. “Yeah. I was getting Mally a dog treat and saw it in the back of the pantry. It smelled spicy and I remembered the boys’ chips and salsa the other night and it made me want some.”
Paul loved spicy foods. “Did Alice make it?”
“She sure did,” Gloria said as she closely studied her husband’s face for flickers of flaming passion.
“I dumped a bunch in with some salsa I found in the fridge and then ate it with a couple chips.”
“How…much did you mix in the salsa?” she asked.
“More than I wanted,” he said. “It poured out kinda fast but don’t worry. I ate it all.”
Gloria wasn’t worried. She was terrified. “How are you feeling?”
Paul reached out a hand. “Why don’t you come on over here and find out? Hmm?”
He lowered his lids and crooked his finger.
Gloria’s eyes grew wide. Had Alice somehow managed to create a homegrown version of the stuff they advertised on television? Vergola…viagran…
“Let…let me put this back in the cupboard.” She turned around and slowly shuffled to the kitchen. Surely, it couldn’t be as potent as Alice had warned. Would they be up all night? Paul had to work…she had plans for tomorrow…
Gloria plucked a water glass from the cupboard, filled it with ice and then added tap water. She slowly hobbled into the living room, balancing on one crutch.
Paul turned when he heard his wife and jumped out of his recliner. “Here, let me help.” He took the glass of water and placed it on the end table situated between their recliners. “You’re getting pretty good at balancing on one crutch.”
Gloria nodded as she settled into her recliner. She reached down and pulled the lever, lifting the footrest.
Mally jumped on the footrest and crept onto Gloria’s lap. Ever since she’d come home from her honeymoon, Mally…and Puddles had been careful to avoid Gloria’s broken leg.
Look Into My Ice (Garden Girls Christian Cozy Mystery Series Book 12) Page 10
