by Kathi Daley
“I think he went down the hallway,” Cassie said.
I headed down the hallway, where the office, bathroom, and storage room were located. The door to the office was cracked open. I pushed it open all the way to find Cosmo on the desk. When I walked in, he swatted a piece of paper onto the floor. It landed at my feet. I bent over and picked it up.
“This is a list of assignments from Francine to all her cooking helpers for the Thanksgiving dinner,” I said.
Tara had followed me to the office. “She dropped it off an hour ago.”
I frowned. “Francine was at the café yesterday at the time the call was made. Maybe she saw something.”
Willow was behind Tara. “The cats are usually the key,” she said. “You should talk to Francine.”
I set the list back on the desk. “I will.” I turned and headed back to the front of the bookstore.
“With Cody gone tonight, why don’t the two of us grab some dinner?”
I smiled. “That sounds nice. Do you want me to meet you somewhere?”
“I’ll pick you up. Is six okay?”
“Six is great.” I picked up the cat. “I’ll see you then.”
After I left the bookstore, I dropped both Cosmo and Max off at the cabin and went on foot to Francine’s home, which was just down the beach. The peninsula was divided into three estates: one had been handed down through the Hart family for generations, one was presently owned by Francine, who had inherited it from her father, and the third belonged to Mr. Parsons, who also had inherited the land from his ancestors. The lots grew wider as they moved away from the beach, so the distance by water between the estates wasn’t all that far. By car, the distance was greater, with the three properties sharing an access road.
I approached Francine’s home from the rear and knocked on the back door. After a minute a light went on and then a lock released. “Cait,” Francine said. “I wasn’t expecting you today.”
“I wasn’t sure you were home, but I wanted to talk to you, so I took a chance and stopped by.”
“I’m just home to grab a bite to eat and then I’ll be going out. Would you like some soup?”
“Thanks, but I’ve already eaten.”
Francine stepped aside to let me in. “Well then, you can watch me eat while we chat. What’s on your mind?”
I shook the rain from my umbrella, then followed Francine down the short hallway to her kitchen. “I guess you heard Miranda Wells was arrested for Sally Enderling’s murder.”
“Siobhan mentioned it when I stopped by to give her a cooking schedule for the party. You and Cody must be so relieved that his mother is no longer a suspect.”
“Of course, but I do wonder about the timing of the anonymous tip. Apparently, the call was made from the Driftwood Café at around three o’clock yesterday afternoon. I understand you were there with Nora Bradley at the time.”
“We were sharing a piece of the delicious blackberry pie that was one of the Thursday specials while we discussed the garden club Christmas party.”
“There are two extensions to the phone line in the café, one at the hostess station and one in the business office. It seems no manager was in yesterday using the office, and someone took that opportunity to use the phone to call in the tip. The office is just down the back hallway to the bathrooms. I was wondering if you saw anyone going down the hallway while you were there.”
“I wasn’t paying any attention, although I was facing in that direction. I don’t remember seeing anyone heading into the hallway. Well, I do remember seeing Eve going into the hallway. She waited on us and just happened to say she needed to call her boyfriend to let him know she was working a double shift because her softball game had been canceled. There weren’t a lot of customers at that time of day. I don’t recall seeing anyone else.”
“I understand Carla Hudson was there.”
Francine nodded. “Yes. She was meeting with Sally’s attorney.”
“Sally’s attorney?”
“Sally and Carla were partners, it seems. I believe Sally was the majority owner, and I’m not sure what percentage Carla owns, but Carla moved to the island and gave up the chance to open her own bakery to help Sally, so she gave her a share of the business. I think Carla was meeting the attorney to go over her options now that Sally’s gone.”
“Did you notice Carla get up and leave her table at any point?” I asked.
“No. But I was focused on my conversation with Nora and wasn’t paying attention to the other customers.”
The news about Carla’s partial ownership in the bakery seemed significant, although I wasn’t sure how it fit into the big picture yet. Other than Carla, Francine and Nora were the only female customers when the call was made, and I’d already decided there was no reason to suspect them, which left me struggling to think who could have made the call. Could there have been someone else in the café? Someone who could have made the call and then hidden in the bathroom for a while should someone notice them leaving the hallway? Or maybe it had been Eli and he’d disguised his voice to make it appear the call had been made by a woman?
******
“What’s all this?” I asked that evening after I walked into Antonio’s with Tara.
“Surprise,” shouted Siobhan, Cassie, my mom, Maggie, Willow, Maggie’s best friend Marley, and Aiden’s sort-of girlfriend, Alanna Quinn.
Tara grinned. “When I made the reservation, you were getting married tomorrow and this was going to be your bachelorette party. In the commotion of the past week, I forgot to cancel it. But when you told me Cody was going to be out of town, I figured why not go ahead with the party anyway?”
I felt myself tear up. “That’s so nice of you.” I placed a hand on my heart. “All of you.”
Tara pulled out a chair. “Have a seat and order a drink. A strong one. We all have something we’d like to say before we order our meals.”
To say I was overwhelmed by the toast each person made was putting it mildly, yet somehow I made it through the speeches without crying until my mother started in about the night I was born and Cassie finished things off with a speech about having the best big sister a girl ever had. By the time Tara and I made it back to my cabin, I was a tiny bit tipsy and a bundle of emotions.
I hugged Tara. “Thank you so much. I wasn’t sure I wanted to do something like that, but it turned out to be one of the most memorable nights of my life. Now I just hope the wedding will actually happen so the party will be justified.”
“The wedding will happen. Maybe not tomorrow, but it will happen.”
“I hope so. This week has been really tense for me, and extra-hard on Cody. I’d like next week not to be equally difficult.”
“You aren’t sure Miranda’s the one who killed Sally, and after speaking to you this afternoon, I understand why you have your doubts. But Mrs. West is on her way home, so even if you can prove Miranda is innocent, neither Cody nor his mother will have another week like the last one.”
I hoped Tara was right, but somehow I suspected she wasn’t.
Chapter 10
Monday, November 19
It had been three days since my bachelorette party and Cody and I were no closer to setting a date for our wedding. Father Bartholomew had called to let me know that the damage in the church rafters was worse than was first realized, so it wouldn’t be reopening until mid-December. Cody’s mother and cousin were safely tucked away in Florida, which was a good thing because the lab results had revealed that the blood on the rolling pin found in Miranda’s store wasn’t Sally’s. Additionally, Carla had assured the sheriff that the rolling pin used to try to pin Sally’s murder on Miranda was a cheap one that could be found in any dollar store and most assuredly wouldn’t have been found in Sally’s bakery.
I wasn’t sure where the sheriff stood in terms of suspects, but Finn had shared that Mrs. West was still on the list of suspects, although they didn’t have near enough on her to arrest her or to request her return to the island. Cody had counse
led her to stay far away from Madrona Island until after the murder was solved.
Cody was at Mr. Parsons’s this morning, clearing out the ballroom for the tables and chairs he’d rented and would be delivered tomorrow. I sat at my kitchen counter sipping a cup of coffee, trying to figure out how things stood with the Scooby murder investigation. It was almost Thanksgiving and I had a wedding to try to resuscitate. I doubted anyone would blame me if I walked away from the whole thing. Of course, Cosmo was still with me, so I supposed the universe still wanted me to be involved. I knew I’d have a tough time enjoying my new life as Cody’s wife with an unsolved murder hanging over my head.
I took out a pen and pad of paper and started a list. The first thing I needed to do was to try to assess who was still a suspect and who’d been cleared.
The first name I wrote down was Miranda Wells. Sure, she had already been arrested, and that had turned out to be based on false evidence. What I wondered now was whether the fact that she’d been framed definitively meant she was innocent. All we really knew was that the rolling pin used to frame her was a phony. Did that mean the anonymous tip was phony as well? Did it mean the person who made the call was the killer? If that was so, all we needed to do was to identify that person. But if the call was made by someone other than the killer, was it reasonable to assume Miranda could still be the killer?
I mulled this over for quite a while as I sipped yet another cup of coffee. What was that, four cups? I’d better make this my last or I would be bouncing off the walls. I supposed there could be a case made that Miranda, who most definitely had motive and opportunity, could have killed Sally, that someone knew it but didn’t have the proof they needed so foolishly planted fake evidence, thinking that would be enough. And then there was the charge on the cash register tape at three fifty-five. The person who came in and purchased the cookies hadn’t been identified. Was it possible Miranda had rung up the charge to fool people?
Then there was Eli Alderman. Some people seemed to think he was a nice guy who would never hurt a fly, but in my experience, even nice guys could be driven to acts of violence under the right set of circumstances. Sally’s planned actions would threaten Eli’s job, and he’d met Oliver Patton at the time the anonymous call was made. I decided to keep Eli on my list as well.
Next was Devita Colter. Sure, she was a tiny thing, and it was hard to imagine her having either the height or strength to hit Sally hard enough with a rolling pin to kill her, but she didn’t have an alibi and Sally’s bakery had hurt her business, so she really should also be left on the list.
Which brought us to Sally’s husband. If she’d been having an affair, it would seem he had motive. He was supposed to have been in Virginia at the time of the murder, but I didn’t know whether Finn or the sheriff had tracked down any concrete proof of that yet.
I looked up from my list as Siobhan knocked once and walked in through my side door. “Maggie made cinnamon rolls if you’re hungry.”
“Sounds good, but I already ate. I might come by to snag one later if there are any left.”
“What are you working on?” Siobhan sat down across from me.
“A list of suspects in Sally’s murder. I know I should just let it go with everything I have going on, but I can’t seem to do that.”
“I guess I get that.” Siobhan cocked her head to the side. “So, who do you have?”
“The person who made the call to frame Miranda Wells, Miranda Wells, Eli Alderman, Devita Colter, the person who made the bakery purchase at three fifty-five, and Nick Enderling.” I briefly explained why I had each person on the list.
“Maybe we should see if Finn has any additional information since we spoke as a group. We haven’t met since Thursday evening.”
“I’m up to getting together this evening.” The next few days were going to be hectic, but I wanted to put this mystery to bed.
“Let’s meet here. Maggie and Michael don’t seem to mind babysitting Connor.”
“Great. I’ll call Tara to let her know. Cassie is at the bookstore, so she can tell her. Cody should be back as soon as he finishes clearing out the ballroom, so we’ll make something for dinner.”
Siobhan stood up. “I’m going back. Connor is napping, but he should be awake soon. If you want one of the cinnamon rolls, you might want to come get it before they’re all gone.”
I looked at my list again after Siobhan left. Then I looked at Cosmo. “What do you think? Did I miss anyone?”
“Meow.”
I considered the clues the cat had given me so far. There’d only been two: the pages in the newspaper and the visit to Francine. With both of them, as with every clue I received from every cat I’d worked with, there was always a doubt in my mind about whether I was interpreting things correctly.
I wasn’t certain what information Francine had given me that might turn out to be relevant. She’d been at the café when the anonymous tip was called in to the sheriff, but she hadn’t seen anything that pointed me in a particular direction. I’d saved the newspaper the cat had led me to. Had the passage of time allowed me to look at those two pages in a different way?
I considered the ad for the upcoming Christmas Festival and didn’t see how it could mean anything. I noted the article in the series Cody had been writing about the history of land acquisition on the island to current times and found that to be unrelated as well. There was the article about the old church that had burned to the ground at the hands of an arsonist, which reminded me that there had been fires in three of our older buildings recently. I doubted the fires were connected to Sally’s murder, though I did wonder if they were related to one another.
Then there was the ad for Black Friday deals. The merchants listed were Trinkets and Treasures, Ship Wreck Art and Novelties, Herbalities, Bait and Stitch, Madrona Island Gifts, and Coffee Cat Books.
Under the Community Announcements banner was the paragraph about St. Patrick’s, a reminder that the chamber of commerce wouldn’t be meeting this week, a call for actors for the annual Christmas play, and a mention that the annual Thanksgiving food drive was today. The only other items were ads for Sally’s bakery and Madrona Island Baked Goods.
I’d never followed up with Sue Boatnick about the new actor in the community theater and his possible relationship with Sally. I also hadn’t spoken personally to Devita. I’d known her since I was a little girl and she’d always seemed like a nice woman. I couldn’t imagine her being a killer, but if I wanted to solve this case, and I did, I needed to follow all the leads that presented themselves.
Making a quick decision, I chose to head to Madrona Island Baked Goods to talk to Devita. I bundled up against the damp air and took my car to Harthaven.
“Morning, Devita,” I said to the woman who’d been baking and serving customers since before I was born.
“Been a while since you’ve been in.”
I cringed. I felt bad about that. Devita’s pastries were very good, but Sally’s were better. “I don’t come into Harthaven as often now that we’ve opened the bookstore in Pelican Bay. I’d love a chocolate doughnut today.”
Devita set a doughnut on a napkin, then slid it onto the counter. “Coffee?”
“Sure. Seems like a coffee kind of day.”
I paid Devita but lingered. I wasn’t sure how to bring up the reason I was there. “I guess you heard about Sally.”
Devita nodded. “I did.”
Okay, Cait, you’re going to need to do better than that if you want to get a conversation going. “I heard they arrested Miranda Wells but let her go when they found out the blood on the rolling pin that was found in her store didn’t belong to Sally.”
“Yup. I heard that too.”
I picked up my coffee and took a sip. Coming right out with a direct question seemed sort of rude, but I couldn’t seem to come up with a way to ease into things. “I guess you’ll be getting pretty busy over the holidays now that you’re the only bakery in town.”
Devita s
hrugged. “Except for the past few years, I’ve always been the only bakery on the island.”
I nodded. “Yeah. I guess you were.”
“Is there a question behind all that stalling?”
I couldn’t help but blush. “Not really. It’s just that with Sally being your only competitor and all, I just wondered if…”
Devita lifted a brow. “If I killed her to sell a few more cakes?”
I bowed my head. “No, you wouldn’t do that. I’m just going to sit down and eat my doughnut. It looks really good.”
Devita chuckled but didn’t respond.
Well, that was a total failure. I sighed and took a bite of the doughnut. It was really good. I took another bite, then let out an audible sigh. “This is excellent. Are you doing something different with the chocolate?”
“I didn’t do anything different, but my partner might have.”
“Partner?” I asked.
“I’m getting on in years, so I decided it was time. The best baker I ever met happened to be available, so I jumped at it.”
Suddenly, I knew where I’d tasted this specific flavor of chocolate. “Carla.”
Devita nodded. “The girl knows her way around a kitchen.”
I frowned. “I thought I heard Carla owned part of Sally’s shop.”
“She did. But she didn’t want to run it on her own, so when I offered her a partnership, she took me up on it. Sally’s husband is moving back to Seattle and isn’t interested in trying to reopen the bakeshop, so Carla worked out the details with his attorney and came into business with me. Seems it worked out well for everyone.”
“Except Sally,” I pointed out.
“Well, yeah. There is that.”
Well, that had turned into an interesting conversation, I thought to myself as I walked back to my car. I wasn’t sure if it made Devita more or less a suspect in my mind. This investigation was getting much too complicated for me. I hoped Finn would have something insightful to share when we met that evening.
After I left the bakery, I decided to track down Sue Boatnick. She worked part time for the chamber of commerce as receptionist, so I made a quick right-hand turn and headed in that direction.
